00:00:00
Robin Stickley: If you have kids, you may recognize this music. It's the theme to Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time, which has introduced hundreds of millions of players to the basics of resource extraction. But that early interest isn't necessarily leading to the influx of new talent the industry needs.

00:00:28
Clarisse Owen: If you asked me in high school if I would ever consider a career in mining, I would've said, no way.

00:00:36
Robin Stickley: What can the sector do to increase interest? How can it collaborate more effectively with educators? And what will it take to put more young people on the path to a career in mining? I'm Robin Stickley, and this is Why We Mine, presented by Teck. This season, we're exploring some of the biggest challenges facing the mining industry and our society as a whole, with a focus on themes like trust and transparency, sustainability, critical minerals, reconciliation, and much more. In this season finale episode, we're looking forward to the future of the industry and exploring how it can attract and retain the next generation of miners. It's no secret the sector has experienced some recruitment challenges in the past, as well as the trust issues we've explored in previous episodes. There's a lot on the line here, from employment and the economy, to the metals and minerals we urgently need for the green energy transition. 

Let's dig in. According to the Mining Association of Canada, the tight labor market is an increasing challenge for the sector and requires solutions to build a more sustainable, competitive and diverse workforce. What's standing in the way? To find out, I sat down with three young people who are on the cusp of careers in the industry. Taylor Chisholm and Clarissee Owen just graduated from the Geological Engineering program at the University of British Columbia. Ryan Mitchell is in his fourth year. Welcome all of you to Why We Mine.

00:02:14
Clarisse Owen: Thanks, Robin.

00:02:15
Taylor Chisholm: Yeah, super excited to be here.

00:02:17
Ryan Mitchell: Yeah, thanks Robin. It's good to be here.

00:02:19
Robin Stickley: Let's start with your beginnings, if you will. I want to learn a bit more about each one of you and what put you on a path to a career in mining in the first place. Taylor, I'm going to start with you on that one.

00:02:31
Taylor Chisholm: I think when I look at my journey at UBC Engineering and where I've ended up now, I don't think I would've ever had a career in mining when I was in first year. I didn't even know in the first place that I wanted to be a geological engineer. In first year I remember taking an earth science class and that's what put me on the path to want to do geological engineering. And so it was probably my first co-op that really solidified for me that this would be somewhere that I wanted to have my career in.

00:02:55
Robin Stickley: Was that a similar experience for you, Clarisse?

00:02:58
Clarisse Owen: Yeah, definitely a stumbled upon type of situation and being able to get some exposure in second year to case studies with mining projects that geological engineers have had a big hand in was a huge game changer for me and opened my eyes up to what the possibilities are in this industry.

00:03:22
Robin Stickley: And Ryan, for yourself?

00:03:24
Ryan Mitchell: Heading into my first year of university, I never would've ever considered mining. I didn't even really understand what the industry was all about. And it wasn't really until, I'd say summer of my second year that I realized this is a career path that I'm really interested in.

00:03:41
Robin Stickley: I wanted to ask you what were the factors that you weighed in considering a mining career, but I guess that wasn't until you were well into your university that you started really considering mining. What was it that shifted for you at that point or what was it that piqued your interest?

00:03:57
Taylor Chisholm: I think for me it really was a change in perception. I think the mining industry struggles for how a lot of people perceive it to be. I only thought that people who go into mining were people who had studied mining engineering and getting to realize that a lot of people from all these different degrees and industries can actually play a role in it. I was initially hesitant about the fact that it is so traditionally male dominated. I think that was something that scared me to be quite honest. And I think going into my co-op experience, it was really refreshing to see how my interactions with my supervisors and my co-workers went. And that was a really big shift for me that a lot of my previous perceptions might not have been accurate.

00:04:38
Robin Stickley: I know it's probably not indicative of the larger industry, but it's not lost on me that there's two females and one male in this conversation. I think that's actually pretty cool. Clarice, what about you? What was it that piqued your interest about mining or when did that shift happen for you?

00:04:53
Clarisse Owen: Yeah. I would say really in second year I had a school project on Mount Pauley and I had to do a ton of research on why the tailing storage facility failure occurred. I remember watching a video of the helicopter flyover within a day or two of the breach happening, and I was in such awe and disbelief that something so large could have happened. And it was just so crazy to me that geological engineers were responsible for cleaning it up and making sure that nothing like this was ever going to happen again. I think that stuck out for me most was just how much responsibility we have in this industry and what that means for the people and the communities in the areas that we work in. It was amazing.

00:05:49
Robin Stickley: I definitely want to touch more on that piece of responsibility coming up in our conversation. Ryan, for you, where was the draw? When did you feel like you were being pulled towards mining?

00:06:00
Ryan Mitchell: Yeah. I feel like the big shift for me was in my summer of second year. Before then I didn't really have an idea of what the industry was like and I just assumed that while mining just happened, it was just a company that goes out and mines, but I realized that it was actually a heavily regulated industry and that the amount of effort and technical challenges that engineers encounter is really interesting. These projects that may not look feasible, there's a lot of effort put into making them feasible and just fostering a culture of safety at the mine that makes mining actually quite sustainable long-term.

00:06:34
Robin Stickley: Very cool. When you're picking a field or talking about going into a specific field, sometimes you get a lot of unsolicited advice and sometimes friends and family weigh in on things. Do you remember having conversations with family and friends? Were they reacting in any kind of specific ways to your decisions?

00:06:51
Clarisse Owen: I think it's definitely a mixed bag. I feel like it's just people have different experiences and perspectives about what the industry entails, and I think mining is one where although we're on the change now in terms of being more conscious about the environment and diversity and indigenous communities, I wouldn't say that's always been the case.

00:07:11
Robin Stickley: Did you find yourself, Taylor, doing some educating to people as they were giving you input? Were you trying to reshape or change opinions?

00:07:19
Taylor Chisholm: I think so. A lot of my friends have said with my co-op jobs that they don't know anyone who's done anything like this. They don't know anyone who's actually been on site or just works in the mining industry. And so I think sharing my experiences and things that I've realized along the way and some of the information has even helped change their perspectives too as well and maybe make some connections that they hadn't before.

00:07:40
Robin Stickley: Ryan, what about you? Were there moments where you felt like you were trying to persuade or help people understand the decision that you'd made?

00:07:47
Ryan Mitchell: I would say for me that I'm pretty lucky that my parents are happy that I'm doing something that makes me happy. They're not entirely fond of mining itself, but they understand the need for critical minerals. And I'd say just sharing my experiences with them, they can tell this is a career path that I'm happy following.

00:08:05
Robin Stickley: What about you, Clarisse? Do you feel like you've had to defend the industry to people in your life?

00:08:10
Clarisse Owen: Definitely a lot of education going on. I have a lot of friends and family who really care about the environment and probably had more concern than they wanted to let on when I told them I was going into the mining industry. But I also think that I am someone who cares a lot about the environment. That is one of the reasons why I'm drawn to this industry is because I have this capacity to be a steward of the environment that I work in. I just try to share that with people when I tell them about it.

00:08:55
Robin Stickley: Do you all feel a sense of responsibility now as you go forward into your careers to try to help people have a better understanding, Taylor?

00:09:04
Taylor Chisholm: Definitely. And I think it's really important that things like outreach and fixing mining’s marketing problems really focused on just because we need to have people who are young and who care who are able to go into this industry if we do want to have change. And so I do think I feel a sense of responsibility about it. There were just so many things I didn't understand and didn't realize at the time that that's why I feel so passionate about sharing it and even taking opportunities like this to talk about it.

00:09:32
Robin Stickley: That's awesome. I love that. And Clarice, do you feel any sense of responsibility around the work that you'll do, doing it properly?

00:09:40
Clarisse Owen: Absolutely, yeah. As a young person, you want to change the world. You have these big hopes and dreams and I see this now as one avenue that I can do that in. More and more every day it just becomes so apparent to me how needed these minerals are, how needed mining is in the world. It doesn't help anyone to have this really poor, negative view of mining.

00:10:11
Robin Stickley: We talked a little bit earlier about the idea that you weren't necessarily getting a sense of opportunities in mining until you were second year, I think some of you said. Are schools doing a good enough job of promoting mining in general? What do you think?

00:10:27
Taylor Chisholm: I think there's recently been a lot more industry push, at least in the university setting where we have a lot of info sessions and a lot of companies are really taking the time to come and share what they're getting up to. But I think when we look at even high schools when we're trying to do outreach there, I feel in a lot of cases it's really easy to show the appeal of computer engineering or AI or robotics in a classroom setting. But I think mining is just so difficult to see the scale, the responsibility and all of the components that are a part of it in a way that's easily transferable to a classroom setting. And so I feel like from those early years, that's maybe why it's not on a lot of people's radar.

00:11:06
Robin Stickley: What about you? Ryan, if you'd known more about mining, maybe even going back to high school, would it have made a difference?

00:11:12
Ryan Mitchell: I think there's definitely a gap in education in high school about mining. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really understand at all what goes on in a mine or the need for a mine or really what a mine was, to be completely honest. The theoretical knowledge in university is nice, but actually being physically present in a mine I think is a game changer really. And I think in high school if I did have more exposure to mining, I wouldn't have been so negative about it going into university. And as my degree shows, my perspective on it definitely changed.

00:11:44
Robin Stickley: Clarisse, we should be talking about this earlier to younger students?

00:11:48
Clarisse Owen: Yeah. If you asked me in high school if I would ever consider a career in mining, I would've said there's no way I would've done that. And I think there's a lot of people who fall into that category. Kids when they're young just want to do what the coolest amazing thing is ever and change the world. And when you're young, people don't frame mining as an opportunity to do that. Now as I move through my degree, I've had so many people who went into other careers of engineering but have said, oh wow, if I had known more about mining, I might've considered that earlier on. Or wow, that's so cool what you do. I had no idea that was really an option for me. There's an opportunity there for sure.

00:12:37
Robin Stickley: Big one. Talk a lot about labor shortage in mining. I think the AI and some of the remote control and some of the cooler tech aspects to me would be a reason for younger people to be excited about mining and want to get into the industry.

00:12:54
Taylor Chisholm: I think there's a perception that mining isn't innovative and I think that isn't the case. In my work experience I saw that they're now building solar farms and also wind turbines on mine sites to help with those energy costs. As well as something that you touched on where you have remote equipment that's being used to maybe go into areas that we wouldn't normally send people into. And that's been really interesting to engage with and interact with and see how the industry is welcoming technology and how that can lead to even more efficient and safer operations too. That's definitely a positive change to get to see and witness.

00:13:28
Robin Stickley: As we start to wrap up here guys, what ultimately does career success look like for you in terms of really accomplishing or experiencing something during your career?

00:13:40
Taylor Chisholm: I think there's so many different ways that you can go about your career in mining and I'm just really excited for the opportunities that lie, whether that be I'm working on a closure project and getting that sense of fulfillment to be able to environmentally and sustainably close a mine. Or if it's even being able to be in the more production side or exploration geology side in the future where it's getting to help narrow down where those resources might be or trying to work on how we can optimize a fleet. I think there's so many opportunities and I'm just really curious to see where my career goes.

00:14:11
Robin Stickley: I love it.

00:14:12
Clarisse Owen: For me, being able to work on a project where I am able to make a mine or mine practices more sustainable, just more environmentally friendly, being able to reduce the footprint for me is a win. I don't know in what facet I will be doing that, but if I can be even a small part of a positive change to the industry, that would be amazing.

00:14:40
Ryan Mitchell: I think success looks like when we're meeting sustainability and safety and joining them together. And what I mean by that is when we're designing a mine, we're trying to make the footprint as small as possible but also as safe as possible. I think for me, when you can optimize the design and you can make something both safe and environmentally beneficial, I think that's considered a success for me.

00:15:06
Robin Stickley: Well let me tell you, the mining industry is in good hands. I am excited listening to the three of you talk about your futures. Taylor and Ryan and Clarice, thank you again so much for your time and for joining us on this episode.

00:15:20
Taylor Chisholm: Thank you so much for having us.

00:15:22
Clarisse Owen: Yeah, thank you, Robin. This has been super cool.

00:15:25
Ryan Mitchell: Thanks, Robin. It was awesome being here.

00:15:27
Robin Stickley: That was Taylor Chisholm, Clarice Owen and Ryan Mitchell, former and current students of the geological engineering program at UBC. Up next, we sit down with one of the country's top mining educators to get her take on the industry's need for new blood. Stay with us. You're listening to Why We Mine, presented by Tech. I'm your host, Robin Stickley. On this season of the podcast, we're focused on the issues that matter most to the mining industry and the people who depend on it. Everyday Canadians who care about a more sustainable future for themselves and their communities. If you like what you're hearing or you've learned something, please give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform. We'd also really appreciate it if you could leave us a review. Now back to the show. Today we're looking at the next generation of miners and what the industry can do to ensure it has the talent it needs in the decades ahead. My next guest knows firsthand how the path to a mining career isn't always a straight line Dr. Charlotte Gibson is associate head of the Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining at Queen's University in Ontario. Dr. Gibson, welcome to the podcast.

00:16:41
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Thanks, Robin. It's great to be here.

00:16:43
Robin Stickley: We usually like to start off by getting to know our guests, so I'd love to hear about you. Talk to us a little bit, Dr. Gibson, about how you got into mining and education.

00:16:52
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Probably like a lot of people in mining, it wasn't something that I planned from childhood. I didn't at eight years old say, oh, I'm going to be a mining engineer. But in high school I was very strong in maths and sciences and I ended up going into a general first year engineering program here at Queen's. And one of those courses was Earth Systems Engineering, which had a mineralogy component and I realized I was really interested in rocks and in minerals. And then following my undergraduate degree, I was working for a little bit at a mine in Northern Interior BC and I wasn't sure that it was for me. I ended up going back to school and studying architecture at Dalhousie. And through that I realized, hey, the mining industry is actually not so bad and there's a lot of career opportunities in mining. A lot of chance for traveling and moving around the world. Career progression, particularly relative to some other fields, seemed to be quite fast. You could come into a lot of responsibility really quickly and that excited me. I ended up going back to graduate school and doing my PhD and then after working in the industry for a number of years, I ended up back at Queens as a professor. Yeah, it was a bit of a wandering route, but here I am.

00:18:01
Robin Stickley: Right. It seems like that's a thread though for a lot of people who are in mining now. It wasn't perhaps part of their original plan.

00:18:08
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I don't know many kids out there that are sitting at eight years old and saying, oh, I want to be a mining engineer. It's just not one of those careers that's like doctor, lawyer, firefighter. People don't know about it as much.

00:18:22
Robin Stickley: Yeah, absolutely. You're right about that. We've been talking a lot about the energy transition, Dr. Gibson, and of course we do understand this doesn't happen without critical minerals, but that depends on finding and retaining the talent and the people, correct?

00:18:38
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, absolutely. And we know right now that the mining industry is in a bit of a tough spot. We are seeing this looming labor shortage. It's been a major topic of discussion, I think, for the last 10 years, but we've really seen that conversation ramp up over the last maybe four or five years. Started in COVID and now people are raising the alarm bells and saying, hey, we're not going to have the people to push this energy transition through.

00:19:05
Robin Stickley: Is it a problem that goes back decades? Has this been historically difficult for the industry to attract people or is it something you feel is an issue that's more recent?

00:19:17
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Well, the industry is very cyclical.

00:19:19
Robin Stickley: Right.

00:19:20
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: We are in many ways tied to commodity prices, which tend to follow a boom and bust cycle. And we recently looked at graduation numbers at the mining program at Queen's, and what we see is that if you plot the number of graduating students against the global commodity index, you can see that our enrollment, it's like a perfect track, but it lags by a few years. As metal prices and therefore jobs increase and go up and people get excited about the industry because there's money, it's a boom time. We get more interest in the program and we get enrollment coming up and then inevitably, historically those prices go down, there's fewer jobs available, and so enrollment will start to dwindle. And so we've seen this happening throughout history. It's a very clear trend and what I'm hoping now is that with the energy transition and the labor shortages that we're seeing on the horizon just with retirements and general trends in the industry, that we'll hopefully see a sustained growth over the coming decades.

00:20:21
Robin Stickley: When and how are students being exposed to the industry as a potential career path? What I'm really asking is it happening early enough in your opinion?

00:20:33
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Short answer is no. I don't think it's happening early enough. I don't think we do enough to educate students at the elementary and high school level around raw materials and resource extraction and how critical it is in their everyday lives and how it facilitates the way that they live. Most students, at least in our program, are first introduced to mining when they come into that first year general engineering program just as I was. It's after that exposure and some understanding of how it all works that they actually begin to choose it, but they're just not getting that exposure earlier on.

00:21:06
Robin Stickley: Yeah. They don't know enough about it to know to choose that. It feels like mining and the ideas around mining, some of it hasn't kept up with the reality of what's really going on in terms of the technology, remote control operators and lasers being used and AI being used. The fact that mining really is high-tech, I would think is an opportunity to appeal to the next generation of miners.

00:21:30
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, absolutely. People think of mining, they think of somebody with dirt on their face in a hard hat and a pickax, and that is simply not the reality for 99% of the people working in the industry across the world. And there is implementation of so many cool pieces of technology. We are using drones underground to inspect areas that have just been blasted out. We have robotics being implemented. The mining industry, particularly on the processing side actually, was one of the first industries to implement data historians and advanced control systems. But we need the skilled people who have both that understanding of the mining industry and also those AI skills or robotics skills to bring their expertise over and work with mining experts to develop new technologies as well. I think the mining industry is far more high-tech than people think it is, and there's just so much opportunity for those who maybe haven't even thought of the mining industry but are intact to leverage their skills and make some serious improvements.

00:22:43
Robin Stickley: I think you're uniquely positioned to talk about women in the industry. Is it harder to attract women to mining?

00:22:49
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: I was actually just looking back at the enrollment of women in our program over the last five years and what we've seen is a steady increase, which is so encouraging. Historically, before about 2020, we saw about 20% women enrolled in our program and that has steadily climbed and we're at about 34% women. I don't think it's any harder to attract women to study mining than it is any other engineering discipline. I think that our numbers are in line with other engineering disciplines. I do think it is very hard to retain women in the mining industry. That is an ongoing challenge.

00:23:28
Robin Stickley: It is encouraging that many mining companies are very keen in terms of finding new ways to recruit and retain women in the workplace. I do feel hopeful when I listen to you talk about it.

00:23:38
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, yeah.

00:23:40
Robin Stickley: Trust has been one of the big themes of this season of Why We Mine, and I wanted to ask you about concerns from parents who may not believe perhaps that mining is a great career choice, because I get the feeling that sometimes it's not the student that's feeling apprehensive about mining as their potential career, but maybe it's the people that are funding the education, right?

00:24:00
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah. And I think that's one of the trickiest things in terms of recruitment. Even if we can change right now how do we educate students in elementary school and high school and expose them to the mining industry in a way that's more accurate or reflective of what the industry is today, what we can't do is go back and erase a lifetime of what their parents know the mining industry to be. The fact is that the mining industry does have a legacy issue. There have been things that have happened in the past and things that occurred before we made major reforms to regulation and monitoring and enforcement of those regulations, and that's a challenge. To be honest with you, Robin, I don't have a simple answer for that. That's a tough thing to overcome. I do think that that conversation around the energy transition, that's making a big difference. And because of this, we are seeing enrollment in our programs actually increasing. I think coming into second year mining at Queen's, we have between 50 and 60 students and that is certainly a high in the last decade or so, which is fantastic. Yeah, I don't have an answer.

00:25:11
Robin Stickley: But it's interesting to listen to you talk about the fact that, again, we come back to critical minerals being part of the push and the energy transition being part of the push that's helping to shift perceptions here.

00:25:21
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, it's a really great thing and it's a refreshing thing. When I was studying mining in the 2000s and then into the 2010s, there wasn't a whole lot of advancement, still wearing this image from the 1960s, seventies, eighties, and it felt very stagnant. And I would say that since coming back and joining Queen's, I've seen this huge change and it's amazing. It's almost like this rebrand opportunity for the mining industry and again, it's just a chance for us to better reflect what we're doing and what we have been doing for the last couple of decades and update our image in people's minds, which is great.

00:25:57
Robin Stickley: That is a great thing to hear. It seems like it comes down to communication, talking about this, getting word out, having students understand options at an earlier stage. And also the idea that jobs in the mining industry, they're not all at the mine site, right? There's a lot more to it than that. I'm not sure if that's fully understood either.

00:26:17
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I've personally held a number of different roles across the mining industry and only one of those has been actually sitting and working at a mine site. We have a number of different support industries and organizations on the actual engineering side, which is effectively a desk job with obvious opportunities to travel to site and oversee construction projects or expansion projects, but ones that are largely based in major urban centers. This is something that I think a lot of people don't see or understand that they're not necessarily going to be living in a remote camp in the Arctic for a long period of time. We also have a number of communities across the country that are maybe a little bit more remote. Places like Sudbury, places like Trail BC or Williams Lake BC that are actually wonderful places to live. And I think as housing prices increase in some of these major urban centers, I'm hopeful that maybe young people will find it more attractive even to live in some more remote environments. There's just so many different facets to what a career in mining could look like. We need to erase this image that you're going to be in a hard hat all day every day because that simply isn't the case.

00:27:29
Robin Stickley: I hope that we're doing some of that just in talking about it. I get a very optimistic and enthusiastic feel from you in talking to you. Is that the feeling that you get from your students as well right now that there's this energy and this good feeling about going into mining?

00:27:44
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: I think the students are very happy. It's a great job market for students right now, and I can't stress that enough. I've never had an experience where I have second year students coming to me asking for advice on which summer job option they should choose because they have three offers.

00:27:59
Robin Stickley: Wow.

00:28:00
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: That's an amazing position to be in. And how great is it to start your career effectively when you're 18 or 19 years old you get your first internship placement. I sometimes have students who by the time they graduate, they have almost as much industry experience as I have. That's an amazing thing, right? How great is it to be so prepared for a career and to have that opportunity for exposure to different types of roles that they could potentially pursue once they graduate?

00:28:30
Robin Stickley: Dr. Gibson, those students at Queen's are lucky to have you. I have just really enjoyed so much our conversation today and everything that you brought to it. Thank you so much for being with us.

00:28:40
Dr. Charlotte Gibson: Yeah, thank you, Robin. It was great chatting with you.

00:28:42
Robin Stickley: That was Dr. Charlotte Gibson, associate head of the Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining at Queen's University. Wow. Can't believe we're already at the end of season two. I've learned so much from these conversations that I've had over the past six episodes. And if like me, you're concerned about where we're going, and what I mean by that is the royal we, the country, the planet, all of us, here's my advice to you. Find a group of smart, conscientious, passionate young people. Listen to them for a while, knowing that the next generation of miners, folks like Clarice, Taylor and Ryan think of themselves as stewards of the land is inspiring and so is hearing their determination to forge relationships with indigenous communities and to address the trust gap, to listen, to find responsible, safe, sustainable ways to mine and to know that equally passionate thoughtful educators like Charlotte Gibson are helping to shepherd these young people on their journeys. Well, that's also really reassuring. These future miners are optimists. They see the critical minerals race as a worthy, important challenge. And they understand that their role is to be part of a global solution. I'm confident they'll bring deeper meaning and understanding to the conversation about why we mine. For now, let me say thank you for starting that conversation here with us. 

I'm Robin Stickley, and this is Why We Mine, brought to you by Teck. Thanks so much for listening to our season two, and thanks also to our talented production team. Our senior producer is Reaon Ford. Luke Batiot is our sound engineer, and our project lead is Maria St. Aubin. Additional support provided by JAR Audio. Until next time.