New Gold began a partnership with Canadian Olympian and World Champion Brianne Jenner in 2022, which brought her to both our New Afton and Rainy River operations to deliver keynote speeches on leadership and teamwork. While a connection between high performance sport and mining may not be apparent at first glance, Brianne effectively tied the challenges and opportunities she and her teammates faced while preparing for the 2022 Beijing Olympics with the struggles and successes New Gold and the mining industry have experienced over the years. Brianne spent several days at each operation meeting with employees, members of the leadership team, and touring various site facilities to gain a deeper understanding of the company and culture.
In 2023, we continued our partnership by welcoming Brianne back to both sites and including community visits. During her visit at New Afton Mine in Kamloops, Jenner visited youth attending the Sk’elep School of Excellence within the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Community to talk about her professional career in hockey, share her personal experiences with adversity, and how those challenges helped her to become both the person and athlete she is today. Students had the opportunity to ask Brianne questions, have their photo taken with her, and hold her Olympic Gold medal, with one teacher saying that her talk was motivating and inspirational for students and staff.
We also hosted women’s workshops at each site led by Brianne to commemorate the International Day of Women in Mining that further explored barriers to gender equity and inclusion in the workplace. These discussions are built on the feedback collected as part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Survey conducted company-wide in 2021. The feedback collected through the workshops will be integrated into New Gold’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion objectives as we work to foster an even more inclusive and equitable workplace.
