Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) has announced the launch of two new Facebook pages – one for its Meadowbank mine near Baker Lake and the other for its new Meliadine project on the land near Rankin Inlet.
Photo courtesy Agnico Eagle
The pages are directed at AEM’s Nunavut employees, Kivalliq communities and key Nunavut partners and suppliers.
The pages can be followed on Facebook at AEMMeliadine and AEMMeadowbankComplex.
AEM corporate director of communications and public affairs Dale Coffin said AEM has gone to two separate pages due to its growth, with Meliadine coming on-stream shortly and pushing the company’s ranks to more than 2,000 employees in Nunavut.
Coffin said the two large operations are not close together, with Meadowbank on the land near Baker Lake and Meliadine near Rankin Inlet.
He said up until now, AEM had been using a corporate Facebook page to address some of the regular-and-proactive issues it’s dealing with in Nunavut to make sure the communities know about them.
“We felt that the time has come now, with the two operations, that we needed to have stand-alone communication tools for each operation,” said Coffin.
“It allows, for instance, Meadowbank to be able to communicate regularly with Baker Lake, because of its closeness, as well as the other communities, but primarily Baker Lake.
“In the case of Meliadine, we have Arviat, Chesterfield Inlet and Rankin Inlet communicating there, sharing stories about our employees, and posting proactive communications about what’s going on the communities that we’re involved with.
“Or, in the case of the summer caribou migration, we need to be able to communicate quickly and frequently about what’s going on with road closures and the status of the road out to the site during the migration period.”
Coffin said the two new pages really do create an opportunity for AEM to be more proactive with its partners and suppliers in the communities, as well as the Government of Nunavut.
He said ongoing employment opportunities at both Meadowbank and Meliadine are open to the people of every Kivalliq community and, in fact, there are more opportunities than there are people able to fill them.
As of June 2018, the number of Inuit from the Kivalliq working directly and indirectly for AEM was 740. AEM will be updating its employment reports in early 2019.
“We’ll be able to post jobs directly that are for people in all the communities to apply for, as well as, obviously, the training programs, work readiness, employment information sessions, labour pool information, etc.,” said Coffin.
Coffin said from AEM’s experience, Facebook has shown itself to be an effective communication tool.
He said through Facebook, AEM is able to reach a broad audience very quickly and be able to have actual dialogue with them – people ask questions about various programs or why they aren’t getting certain information and AEM is able to respond and react very quickly to their requests.
“We find Facebook extremely effective. The communities are so far apart from one other and when it comes to the means of communication – sometimes we’re just not able to provide the sought-after information over the computer because of bandwidth – we’re able to communicate very effectively through Facebook.
“I know all of our employees at Meadowbank and Meliadine – when they’re not working, they’re using their Facebook to communicate with their families and friends.”