Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Agnico Eagle Mines Sustainability Presentation conference call. Please note that all phone lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star then the number two. Thank you. Ms. Anita Soni, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on National Indigenous Peoples Day for this sustainability session hosted by Agnico Eagle and CIBC Capital Markets. The format will be in webcast form with Q&A at the end of a 30- to- 40-minute presentation. Please, if you would like to ask questions, we ask that you dial in, as well as, watching on the webcast, over the phone line for the questions, or email myself, anita.soni, S-O-N-I, @cibc.com, and I will ask the question. Joining us today are the team that spearheads Agnico's sustainability efforts, Sean Boyd, Chairman of Agnico Eagle; Ammar Al-Joundi, CEO and President; Carol Plummer, EVP, Operational Excellence; Dominique Girard, EVP and COO of Nunavut, Quebec and Europe; Natasha Vaz, EVP, COO of Ontario, Australia and Mexico; and Mohammed Ali, VP, Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs.
On Monday, Agnico published its 13th Annual Sustainability Report. The team will now lead us through the key factors which drive Agnico to be a sustainability leader in mining. With that, I will pass it over to Ammar to begin the presentation.
Thank you, Anita, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin today by first acknowledging that we are meeting on Aboriginal land that has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples from the beginning. While some of us are meeting in person and others are participating on a virtual platform, from coast to coast, we acknowledge the ancestral and unceded territory of all the Métis and First Nations people that call this land home. For those of us in Toronto, I would like to acknowledge that the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat people, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13, signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit.
We recognize and deeply appreciate their historic connection to this place. Well, good morning, everyone, and again, thank you, Anita, for introducing. We are delighted to be able to spend some time talking about sustainability at Agnico Eagle. We all acknowledge how very important this subject is, and how timely it is, but this is something that Agnico has had front and center since our origins in 1957, even to the extent, as Anita mentions, our 13th Report on Sustainability this year. Now, what we're going to see as we go through the different speakers is that Agnico Eagle has been and continues to be an industry leader by all and any objective measures of sustainability.
I know what we'll also see is that we have the people who are committed in this field, and importantly, we also have the processes and resources to move forward. We have come a long way over time, but there's a long way to go and we're excited to continue to move forward. There are some forward-looking statements that you'll need to take into account as you consider and go through this presentation. We are delighted to have the opportunity, and I think it really is timely that we're talking about sustainability on National Indigenous Peoples Day. This is a day that's been recognized since or established in 2001.
What I will say is that at Agnico Eagle, we have a lot of First Nations partners. Our relationship with First Nations in all of our experiences has really enriched the way that we think about things. In our experience, our relationships with the First Nations, these are nations and peoples who really do believe in sustainability of the land, sustainability of the environment, but also sustainability of their social structure. Every time we talk with the First Nations about projects, it's always about the future, about the future of the land and about the future of the next generations. Again, for us at Agnico Eagle, I'll repeat myself, it's really helped enrich the way that we look at things.
If we step back and we'll get into some details on what we're doing from the sustainability perspective. There's many ways you can summarize this, but I look at three different things. One is sustainability means, of course, do no harm. That means do no harm to the environment, but it also means do no harm on a social perspective. This is something that I think a lot of people don't emphasize but is exceedingly important. You also have to create benefits to the communities, to the employees, creating jobs, creating infrastructure, and an opportunity to really make a difference over de$es in the communities that we're in. Third, sustainability also means economic viability and economic resilience.
You know, Canada is a country of great natural resources, but a lot of great companies are no longer here. You're looking at Alcan, Falconbridge, Inco, Noranda. Sustainability has to be balanced across the board. We have all of that and that's always been very important to us. Finally, before I introduce the next speaker, to talk about the sustainability really is to talk about what's been important for Agnico for generations. We are a different mining company. We don't go everywhere in the world. We focus on regions where we know there's the geologic potential for multiple mines over multiple decades, and we go to regions where we know we can operate multiple mines for multiple decades.
For us, when we speak multiple decades, we absolutely take sustainability not just as a good to have, not just as a nice thing to introduce, but something that's always been part of who we are and how we need to operate. With that, I will turn it over to Carol Plummer, who's our Executive Vice President of Operational Excellence. What I would say is it's no coincidence that the executive in charge of operational excellence is also the executive who heads up sustainability. Thank you, Carol.
Thank you very much, Ammar. As you said, ESG certainly is a core building block in our strategy. It's central to our strategy, and it's ingrained in the way that we do business. We like to talk about sustainability around four key pillars, engaging with our people and communities and treating them with respect, pursuing innovation to continue to build our company and to resolve technical challenges, identifying and eliminating or mitigating risks throughout our business, and of course, adapting to new realities as the priorities of society around us changes over time. Next slide, please. As you know, we completed the merger with Kirkland Lake Gold earlier this year. ESG was on the table and in the discussions throughout the due diligence of the deal.
We looked at not only where Agnico Eagle experience could perhaps enhance Kirkland Lake Gold ESG standing, but where we could learn from the legacy Kirkland Lake Gold mines and apply practices into the Agnico Eagle fold as well. Overall, we were very confident that the merger would not only strengthen the company on the ESG standard, but also and of course on many, many other factors. We are committed to climate action. In 2021, we did come out with our net zero carbon by 2050 aspiration. We reported Scope 3 emissions for the first time in last year's sustainability report as a partial Scope 3, and we've now enhanced those calculations in a reporting of full Scope 3 this year for the first time.
We continued to enhance our governance structure for climate action, not only at the board level, but right down through the operations. We started working on our climate specific risk and opportunity assessments. We're certainly committed to responsible mining, and we demonstrate this not just through our commitment to investing in our communities and our employees, but also by ensuring that we're building mines of the future, investing in digitization and electrification. Next slide, please. We believe in developing our people purposefully and respectfully, and for us, that starts by listening, engaging, and providing opportunities. We hire locally, we develop our workforce, and we promote from within. For one of the very good examples of this is the Dr. Leanne Baker.
Leanne Baker Scholarship and Development Program, which was launched last year, specifically for women within Agnico Eagle that have good potential to advance as leaders in the future. We currently have six women in the program, going through training. They have coaching available to them, mentors available to them, and so on. We will be adding another six women this fall who will overlap with the first six by a year and then continue on for another year beyond that. It's an overlapping two-year programs to enhance networking as well as development of these women for our company. Next slide, please. We believe in building strong relationships with our communities. We participate in our local economies, not just through local good wages and local procurement, but we're also very active within the communities themselves.
Just in 2021, there was over $10 million in community donations and investments. Next slide, please. We believe in innovating to generate long-term returns. We've always innovated to find solutions to technical challenges. If we did not, we would not be mining at greater than 3 km in depth in high heat. We would not be successfully mining in the Arctic. Now we are applying the same sort of thinking to how we can increase efficiencies and reduce our greenhouse gas footprint across the company. Next slide, please. A key part of our business is to manage risk in order to protect our people and our business.
We've got strong sustainability governance in place from the board all the way down through the operations. We believe, as I said earlier, in minimizing operational, financial, and reputational risks across the company, and of course, we believe in meeting our commitments. Just in 2021, we completed an integrated $it at six of seven operating mines within the Agnico Eagle legacy group. The seventh will go through their integrated audit this year. What that integrated audit covers is our own internal risk management system towards Sustainable Mining, the Responsible Gold Mining Principles, and also the Voluntary Principles. As the legacy Kirkland Lake Gold sites are tracking well to implement as well Towards Sustainable Mining, our Responsible Gold Mining Principles and so on, we will complete integrated $its for those sites as well once they are ready to do so. Next slide.
Just to mention, those are all externally managed audits. Next slide, please. We manage risk not only protect the environment but also our communities. In 2021, there was a new water stewardship protocol for Towards Sustainable Mining. We aligned our corporate standard and our practices to that protocol. We've seen a reduction in 20% in fresh water usage over the last three years, and we are, of course, committed to ensuring that our tailings are not only designed according to the Canadian Dam Association standards, but are also managed using best practices and following the Towards Sustainable Mining tailings protocol. Next slide, please. I think with this, I will actually pass off to Mohammed Ali, our Vice President of Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs, to talk to us a little bit about climate.
Thank you, Carol, and good morning, everybody. As Carol had mentioned that, during the merger, ESG was highlighted as one of the key areas that both companies bring to the table and what we can learn from each other. Within ESG, climate was one of those areas that we saw some leadership areas where both companies can bring leadership. Amongst the greenhouse gas, both companies in their legacy form were amongst the lowest emitters already. Together, as a combined company, as the new Agnico, we see ourselves producing 3.2 million oz and still being one of the lower emitters in absolute as well as intensity on the image there on the right. We haven't stopped there, and we're continuing to track to meet that commitment for the Net Zero by 2050.
As you've probably seen among the peers, we also have a very detailed accounting of our greenhouse gases from both parts of the company, and this also is a testament to how both companies took greenhouse gas very seriously. In very short order, we were able to get our accounting lined up and integrated. The graph in the middle shows that we know where our sources are. Primarily, you'll see that the big bulk of our Greenhouse gases are from the remote operations of Nunavut, followed by our Detour site, which is diesel, primarily because of the diesel use. Then lastly, some electricity-related components due to Australian grid. Knowing those areas, if we move on to our next slide, to meet that commitment, we obviously need a...
Knowing that we're starting from a low base, we actually have to have a very strong governance program. We didn't spend much time to get our governance structure in place to make sure both organizations are aligned. All the way from the board level down to our site regional climate action teams, we have specific committees and groups that are dedicated to making sure that what we say, we're gonna do what we say and say what we do. On the right, you'll see some of the highlights of the various emission reduction programs that we have started or have already started or are in place to start. These are in response to the areas that I mentioned earlier that we know where our greenhouse gas, where they're coming from.
These are the programs we have, and I don't mean to go into all the detail, but you can see it's got proven technology that we know we can get forward for primarily on renewable energy and energy optimization. With that, I'll hand it over to Dominique to go over some of our sites.
Thank you, Mohammed. In the next section, Natasha a nd I is gonna cover our respective regions. I will start with Quebec, which is a cornerstone region where our digitalization and automation strategy is ongoing right now. LaRonde was the first mine in the world to implement a LTE network underground. Today, based on the suppliers, we're one of the most advanced underground mining using technology. As an example, last year in 2021, 2%-3% of the tons muck and hauled to the surface at SZ5 have been done remotely driverless. I'm gonna talk in each region about the technology.
Mainly, the reason why it's connected to that is it's not only, let's say, more productive in reducing our costs, it's also more safe for the employees when we expose them less to the underground environment. As well as, being more efficient means also better on the cost or, let's say, generating less ton of CO2 per oz. Maybe a fact about the remote equipment operation. Last time I was at site, I've asked the team, "Okay, who's the best drivers, let's say, remotely? Is it the young people? Is it the old miner with experience?" They told me the best man on the job is a woman. In fact, while the picture was there, the pictures on the slide nine, we see that girl named Marie-Eve.
I don't know if it's because the women are better to do multitask work, but she's the best to drive. I think they're driving three to five equipment at the same time. We could see also Quebec, a very strong performances in term of ton of CO2 per oz, 0.09. This is the lowest region that we have because of the underground mine and also developing technology. In Quebec, the hydropower is clean, and it's also a place where we really push to turn everything we can on the electricity. In that sense, we already have many equipment, service equipment, we're running on electricity and now we're getting into the most, I would say, complicated one, the biggest, the equipment on production.
I just received a text that we're gonna have our first scoop. It's gonna be largest scoop in the world on battery equip that we're gonna start to test at LaRonde. I know we're also gonna test that one in Australia. I think there is six in the world right now. We're getting into that era. I mean, the biggest equipment. Natasha is looking at me because they have many at Macassa. We're heading into that era which brings a new talent to the table and also more clean energy. Other example is Goldex rail courier where we have a 3 km m ail courier every day bringing 7,000-8,000 ton per day on electricity instead of using truck.
This is a decision we took many years ago, and we're successfully in that. Our mine of the future that we're looking right now at the Odyssey mine, which is gonna be the biggest mine underground in Canada, is gonna be as much as we can electric as the equipment gets available. Maybe to close on the Quebec regions, in 2023, we're gonna have our three sites the best practices in terms of tailings disposal. Where Goldex is putting the tailings to do a regeneration or rehabilitation of an old site that was problematic. This is working with the government of Canada. In Canadian Malartic, we're gonna start to do in-pit deposition where the tailings is gonna be back to the pit and the hole that we did in to mine.
At LaRonde, we invest $ 150 million into a dry stack project where we're gonna start to do dry stack deposition. Thanks to Michel, I know he's on the line, if you have question about tailings. Michel, since many years, have pushed us to, let's say, design and implement the best practices. On that, I will turn it to Natasha.
Okay. Thanks, Dominique, and good morning everyone. Now we'll take a look at our Ontario region and specifically our Macassa and Detour Lake mines. I won't go into a lot of detail on the key metrics. You'll find them in the 2021 sustainability report, but also you will see them on the slide here. But I do want to bring our ESG story to life with the examples of a few key initiatives, that's making a difference to our operational results, to our metrics, to and most importantly, to our people and our valued partners. These are the initiatives that you see at the bottom of the screen here. The first point, as Dominique mentioned, digitization and and electrification are important areas of focus, not just for Quebec, but also the entire Ontario region as well.
Detour Lake Mine recently became the first mining operation in Canada to be fully connected over 5G wireless private network. Not only does the new network provide an extra layer of connectivity for our employees, it also enables us to drive mining innovation and technology into the future of expanding our tele-remote drilling capabilities. It also gets us a little closer to the potential of operating autonomous haul trucks at the site. More importantly, having a 5G network available across Detour Lake Mine's remote operations will help create a safer work environment for all employees and our contractors as well.
Going beyond our operations at Detour, we are in the process of building a new public 5G LTE network along the highway, Highway 652, that runs from Cochrane to our Detour Lake mine, so it spans across 185 km. Adding this reliable connectivity will just make travel safer for everyone using the highway, and it'll also provide peace of mind for community members who live there, who have camps there, and who enjoy the outdoors along the highway corridor. Electric vehicles are also an important piece of our GHG reduction plans with Detour. Recently, they added electric buses to its fleet on site for transportation of our employees.
We're currently evaluating the potential of implementing a trolley assist system for the haul trucks, for parts of the open pit and the dumps. Speaking of battery electric vehicles, you probably already know this, but our Macassa mine was an early adopter of battery electric vehicles and was among the first mines globally to introduce them to the underground environment starting in 2012. Having started this early, we are now beginning to see batteries lose their effective charge and come offline. However, these batteries, they aren't fully depleted when they come to the end of their useful life on these material handling units such as trucks and LHDs.
These batteries are typically replaced after they lose around 20% of their capacity, which means that they still hold 80% capacity that can be used for stationary storage applications, and they also have the potential to be refurbished. At Macassa, it's taken a bit of time, but the team now has built the expertise of building up the capacity to test and to rebuild batteries entirely from recycled components, including the battery case and the batteries themselves from haul trucks and from LHD units. Aside from that, the team also continues to look for innovative secondary life applications for our batteries, such as energy storage systems. Then finally, just a final Ontario example that we are quite proud to have brought to life is the Dig Deep mental health program at Detour Lake.
Dig Deep is an employee-driven, management-supported outreach program geared towards having a better understanding of and combating mental illness and addiction in the mining industry. Also it helps us in removing the stigma both at work and outside of work to help our employees and their families. The Dig Deep program was created by Dylan Loiselle. He's one of our haul truck operators at Detour Lake Mine, and the team is built mainly of volunteers from various departments across the operation. We currently have about 40 volunteers, and approximately 60% of the Dig Deep team have been trained in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. We're truly proud of the program, and we're truly proud of the team there. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dominique to provide an update on Nunavut.
Thank you, Natasha. Nunavut, we have two mines in operation and one exploration project. Right now, this is the most remote region where we operate. We had the privilege to be welcome since the beginning in 2008 when we started at Baker Lake, our first mine. Since that time, always work close with the elders, with the hunters and trappers, with the KIA, which is the regional Inuit Association, and the government, to really develop better economic, socio-economic environment that provide at the end a better life quality. How do we do that? We currently have 300 Agnico employees, and it's getting 400-450, including contractors that work for us.
We also have 70% of our procurement, which is done on local business. It's $ 604 million per year that we spent to Nunavut business. We're really proud of it, and we continue that way. The vision is one day to have the mine run and managed by 100% Inuit. That's gonna take time, but with all the program that we have, we're gonna get there at some point. One of the example, let's say, on the training side that we're achieving right now, we have underground miner which are trained by an Inuit trainer, and then when their training is completed, they could work and be supervised by an Inuit too.
We're closing the loop with that, and with time, we're gonna continue to develop a General Supervisor, Superintendent, and one day a General Manager. On the energy side, and it is a challenging area because there's no connection, there's no road, there's no grid. We're working to support Inuit association-driven project to bring a power line with a fiber line also from north of Manitoba to our site. We are an anchor to that project because we're the biggest consumer. We're very supportive of that, and that could be a game changer for our greenhouse gas emission.
We are doing best practice at site with the energy reduction or energy recovery from the genset, installing composter stuff like that, but still to make a difference, we need to change the source of energy. Another project that is also going positively forward, let's say we're still in the study, but it's to have a wind turbine at our Hope Bay project. The intent is to have the turbine owned and operate by Inuit, and we're gonna buy the power from them. We're still working on that one.
I will not go into detail into the technology, but everything that we are implementing at LaRonde right now underground, this is going to be implemented at Meliadine, where we're pushing to Fleet Management System underground. This is under development. Into the open pit, we have already a well-developed Fleet Management System. Just to close, it has been difficult during the pandemic, where we had to send back Inuit home to protect the community, to protect our people.
Even though during that time, we've developed and worked with them to support, as an example, when they were working for the community to bring four different type of project that we've agreed with them, we were paying them at 100% when they were working into the community. On that, I will turn it back to Natasha for Australia, I think.
Yes. Yes. Thanks, Dom. Turning to our operations in Australia, our team there have been very actively focused on the ESG agenda. The team at Fosterville is a partner of choice for their local communities and strongly support those in need in their local areas. In fact, as you can see, in 2021, the team provided just over $3 million in sponsorships and donations for a range of community-based programs, including the Gobbé Wellness Center, which is a post-cancer care facility, the Bendigo Winter Night Shelter and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. On the technical side, as Dom already mentioned, at Fosterville mine, we're also trialing one of the first four, maybe six, I'm not sure, Sandvik battery electric loaders operating in the world.
This trial is just the first step towards assessing the potential of having a fully battery electric loader fleet on site. Then we have the ventilation on-demand project. During the second half of 2021, the team completed the first phase of this project, and this utilizes intelligent software connected to things like secondary ventilation fans and airflow regulators and air quality stations to remotely monitor and control and automate airflow underground to deliver safer and more productive and low cost ventilation at reduced CO2 emissions. In terms of rehabilitation projects, one important rehabilitation project last year was to complete the backfill and revegetate the historic Sharkey's Pit. Here, the backfilling was completed at the end of 2020, and revegetation took place in 2021.
It was pretty successful, so in late 2022, the site will be looking to repeat this exercise on another legacy pit called the Sharkey's Pit. Another noteworthy remediation project that is well underway and began last year is in the Northwest Territories. This is to deal with some legacy issues caused by some previous mining companies, where we placed 13 million tons of historic, potentially acid-forming material back into an old pit and then covered it with non-acid forming waste and then also water cover. The intent is for it to be self-sustaining in the future. Then also throughout 2021, Fosterville removed a number of scrap tires from site to be repurposed or recycled into useful commodities.
The rubber is basically converted into rubber products, such as rubber matting and some other recycled rubber also ends up in roads where it's, when it's added to the asphalt mixture. That's just a small glimpse of Australia, what's happening in Australia right now. Dominique will now provide an update on Finland.
In Finland, we have one mine, Kittilä mine. It is, let's say, more specifically, it is really an excellent place also to develop technology where there's good partnership with working with university as well as supplier, where Sandvik and Epiroc have they are building equipment there and have a center of excellence. We are often using the Kittilä mine as a test place to develop future technology. We are already one of the most advanced in the drilling remotely at Kittilä. On the GHG emission, lots of effort have been done to recycle the heat from the oxygen plant and for the process plant to heat the mine instead of using diesel. This is a very nice move that have been done.
On supporting the local businesses, we've been nominated in 2021, the partner of the year from Visit Levi for the support that we give to the local business during the pandemic. Many close relationship with our neighbor with the community in Finland, and transitioning also more and more with technology with less greenhouse gas. One of them also is we're gonna complete the shaft sinking this year. It's gonna be in commissioning later this year, early next year, where instead of using truck to bring the ore from the underground to the surface, that's gonna be done through a shaft using electricity. That's going to be a positive move.
Maybe the last point, that's gonna be as another site, but that's gonna be the first mine underground in integrating the 5G system. This is ongoing, and that's gonna enhance all our capabilities to continue to push in our automation and digitalization. On that, I will pass it back to Natasha.
Thanks, Dominique. Finally we'll take a look at our Mexican operations, specifically on the tailings management. As part of our commitment to minimize risks associated with managing tails, mine waste and water, Pinos Altos uses part of their filtered and detoxified tails as raw material to produce a high resistant paste to backfill cavities in the underground mine. The mine deposits the rest of its filtered tails in a depleted open pit that has been safely converted into a tailings management facility. These approaches allow the mine to improve underground safety while minimizing its physical and environmental footprint. On integrating biodiversity conservation into the closure activities. Both of our operations in Mexico have established plant nurseries to collect and grow native tree species to revegetate the mining site through progressive closure activities and also at closure.
In addition to reforestation, this contributes to soil conservation as well because the soil in that region tends to degrade because of the heavy rainfalls in that region. It also helps contribute to the production of the biodiversity in the area as well. Pinos Altos has also made the sustainable integration of bees a key element of our restoration and conservation activities, which form part of our mine closure plans. This helps preserve natural habitat for these important pollinators and also creates opportunities for agri-food initiatives and sustainable economic development in the regions by teaching beekeeping to our community members. Finally, on the building strong community relations and support, similar to our other operations globally, our operations in Mexico continue to be a partner of choice within our region.
We are committed to fostering a positive and collaborative relationships with the local communities, and we're committed to building respectful, productive, mutually beneficial relationships with them. One small example is that Agnico is continuing to provide environmental education for our local schools. We introduced a program in order to educate children from local communities on the environment, on Agnico Eagle's environmental practices and have them participate in activities to learn about the value of the forest and the importance of protecting it. With that, I'll close off on the regional updates, and I'll turn the call back over to Carol.
Thank you very much, Natasha and Dom, for the regional updates. As you can see, ESG is not just a corporate initiative here at Agnico Eagle. It's very much ingrained into how we do business at all of our operations and sites, and that's part of how we do build a high value business, not just for now, but for decades to come. With that, I think I'll stop and pass back over to, I think, Anita, if we're managing questions at this point.
Sure. Thank you, Carol. Do you wanna try the phone lines first to see if there's anyone that's asked a question?
Phone lines?
Nobody has.
No? Okay. I'll begin and please, if you'd like to ask a question, again, you can email myself, anita.soni@cibc.com, and I will ask the question. Secondly, if you'd like to ask a question yourself, you can do it over the phone lines, and we can take your call. Firstly, could you talk about the alignment between Kirkland and Agnico in terms of ESG reporting, and how you guys address that? What processes did you have to go through to, when you're basically combining the two companies and trying to show the performance of each company, what, where were you different and what was already aligned?
Sure. Agnico Eagle, we've been reporting into the GRI since about 2009, and we started reporting into SASB as well in 2020. I think it was the first year we put into SASB. The majority of our reporting is aligned with our commitments. Our commitment to Towards Sustainable Mining, our commitment to the RGMPs, our commitment to the Voluntary Principles, our commitment also to the Cyanide Code and so on. One of the things that we liked when we were looking at the ESG side of the potential merger was that Kirkland Lake Gold had joined the World Gold Council, and they had joined the Mining Association of Canada.
They were already tracking and responding to the same protocols, the same items as we are for each of those various commitments. Certainly there's minor differences in the way things are measured, and I think you'll see in the report, there are places where we're reporting slightly different definitions of things. Where that is the case, that is highlighted so that people can understand the difference. Vast majority, I would say, we're very well aligned on how things are calculated and how things are put together.
I think our team did a pretty fantastic job managing to pull together data from both Kirkland Lake Gold's legacy sites and Agnico Eagle gold sites and put it all into a cohesive story within a few months of having the merger completed.
Thanks, Carol. I'm gonna actually pause there and pass it back to the operator so that she can pull for questions and give you instructions on how to ask questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question over the phone, please slowly press star followed by one on your touchtone keypad. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Your first question will be from Giorgia Anton at CIBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for the presentation this morning. As you think about existing operations and future expansion opportunities, how do you factor ESG into capital allocation decisions, whether it's your ROIC or IRR analysis? I know you talked a little bit about the acquisition of Kirkland, but what for you are key deal breakers, and how do you adjust your required rate of return for ESG matters? Maybe specifically, we can talk about Odyssey or some of the other projects that you have in the queue. Thank you.
Yeah. I'd say in general, ESG, doing things properly with our communities, doing things properly with the environment is just part of doing good mining, responsible mining. We don't factor our return on investment for like we don't do our calculations and then factor it in. It's built into our costs. We know how much we're going to be investing in the communities. We know how much it's gonna cost to build our tailings facilities. We know how much it's gonna cost to manage our water. And these are all included in the detailed calculations as we build the case for actually going ahead with an individual project. Maybe on the climate action side of things, it is maybe a little bit less clear at the moment.
To the degree that we know which projects we'll put into place at each individual place, it can be factored in directly. But we're still very early on our path towards Net Zero . You know, over time, there are likely to be additional projects that will have to come into play in order to continue to decrease our greenhouse gas footprint. I would expect that as we build new mines going into the future, each mine we will be targeting to be more efficient than the existing mines. We'll be targeting to use the technologies that are being tested and proven at our mines in order to have progressively smaller footprints over time.
You know, we'll have to figure out what those costs are and how they apply to the mines as we're doing the design phase.
Great. Thank you. I do have one more question. Australia's a new region for the Agnico team and, obviously, performing well on some of the key ESG metrics. Are there any best practices that you've learned from Fosterville or perhaps some of the other Kirkland assets on water consumption or so forth that you are looking to apply to some of the Agnico operations?
Yeah. I'd say we're still pretty early on our learning curve, so we've only just managed to start getting people out to the different sites. You know, we tend to learn at multiple levels in the company. Of course, COVID-19 restricted the number of people that actually went over for due diligence and restricted travel even in the months, you know, up until quite recently. So I would say, you know, I had the opportunity to go over with Natasha and the team. We saw that their practices are top-notch. We can see how certainly there are learnings that we can do there, and we've.
What we've done is, coming back from that trip, to put various people at our different sites where we think they could take advantage of something that's going on in Australia in touch with each other and similarly putting in touch our friends from Australia and also from Macassa and Detour with various people inside Agnico Eagle so we can all just learn from each other and work on our continuous improvement path.
Thank you. That's it for me.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. Your next question will be from Mohammed Sadibek at CIBC.
Thank you very much. My question would be around the COVID-19 pandemic and how that, this may have affected your priorities around your workforce communities in the areas of health, safety, and wellness. Could you maybe give us a little bit more color on that? Thank you.
Yes. We've adjusted since the beginning through the pandemic always to protect our people, our community. I would say right now, maybe I could talk specifically about Nunavut. This is where we had the biggest change through all that time. We are at the stage where we're still testing people getting into the plane to the site. For example, at site, there's no more mask. There's no more. We keep the hygiene, we keep everything, but because of the employees were too tired of having mask, this is where we are, and we're controlling the spreading. So far, I think the mask since mid-May, we don't have that anymore. We had a bit more spreading, but this have been contained.
Also, now we don't fly everybody back south if they've been in contact. We keep them at site. If they have symptoms, we isolate them at site, and after the five days, they go back to work. Things have evolved into that direction, and now we could really see the atmosphere at site more positive. People were getting tired, I would say COVID tired. The other region in our side, in Abitibi, it is again, no more mask, but we're doing a close follow-up. If someone feel they have symptoms, go back home and we take care of that way.
Yeah, similar to Dom.
Thank you.
Okay. Sorry.
To Natasha.
Sorry. Just similar to Dominique, I'll echo some of the comments. In terms of COVID, we still have some protocols in place, like, you know, meeting with masks on. Overall, it's been good. The sites have been managing the situation very well with the changing protocols. There was a rise in cases early in the year, but so far everything has been good. Absenteeism has been. We haven't seen very much of it and so it hasn't really impacted us too much going into the year. If anything, we've just gotten better at virtual meetings as well. Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe if I can just add, certainly the pandemic and the changes that it caused sort of around the world really was an opportunity for us to put our best foot forward with our communities. In some of our communities, we were capable of being even more active than we'd ever been. For example, in Mexico, where we actually hired additional doctors to be able to help out in the communities which really didn't have access to the medical services, stepping up to the plate in Mexico as well for providing access to PPE, disinfecting fluids, and basically anything they needed based on what the needs of the community were.
In the North, it wasn't quite the same thing because we were isolated from the communities in order to protect the people. It was still an opportunity to step up and help out, providing gift baskets into the communities that were having food stress. Really, this wasn't being driven by head office. This was being driven by the sites, by understanding what the needs of the community were and stepping in where they were capable to step in. I think one of my favorite examples is when there was an outbreak in Rankin Inlet, which was really one of the first outbreaks that had happened in Nunavut.
It was sort of Thursday, Friday, that this outbreak happened, and we were talking about it on Monday saying, "Geez, what can we do?" Saw the email come, Pascal, saying basically, "Oh, by the way, we sent our loader operators out to go and open up the roads so that people in Rankin Inlet could actually go out to their hunting and fishing camps, and be able to isolate better." You know, the sites really stepped up and did what they could to help in the communities.
As much as being isolated from our communities has strained relationships to a degree 'cause we just don't know each other quite as well as we used to, it's also strengthened relationships because we have been able to help out where people needed help.
Thank you for that. I did notice, I mean, of my coverage universe, I'd say that Agnico was one of the companies that was hardest hit by the COVID impact, particularly because of your Nunavut operations, but also one of the companies that did the most in terms of supporting their workers and making sure that everybody was healthy and safe over the long term. I do have a question that has also been asked via email. One that I was gonna ask myself but a little bit later, but let's jump to this one a little bit earlier. The government of Canada has a lot of ambitious carbon reduction goals. Are you working with the government to help reduce the carbon footprint of your operations?
I guess what I'm asking is, I want to extend it to other regions as well and other governments. Can you go through your operations and talk about any kind of initiatives that you know that you might be able to take advantage of, as you go through, you know, Canada, Ontario, Quebec, Finland, Mexico, and where do you see government support?
Yeah. If I can give you an example. We're looking at the trolley assist at Detour. We've completed the scoping study, and we're into a pre-feas study right now. There's a large number of funds that are available to us from the federal and provincial government that we're applying for at the moment. One of them is the SIF, and one of them is the Low Carbon Tax Fund, I think.
The Low Carbon Tax Fund, yeah.
Right. There's two of them that we're looking at. Roughly, say, I'm just throwing out numbers here, but if the initial CapEx for a trolley assist program with the electrical infrastructure, et cetera, to the site would be somewhere in the order of, say, $100 million, the fund could potentially fill the gap of up to 25% of that.
Okay.
We're looking at different initiatives, whether it's battery electric gear on site, whether it's Macassa or at Detour. There's some funding available there. It's an application process, and it takes a couple months, but it's something that we're actively looking at.
Thanks. Dominique?
Yeah. I think the one where they have the most impact and we're literally working close with government is in Nunavut. As for the wind turbine, we're looking for funding for that, so the application are already ongoing. The one with the power line that I just explained, it is in the 2021 Federal Budget already. They're financing for the study, but that's gonna be over $1 billion project to be built. Right now all the communities are running with diesel and genset. But with, again, with us, as we're gonna be a big consumer, that project could happen. We're working with them to support and to develop that project. That's one of the good example. I would say Quebec, it's mainly like Ontario.
We're looking to tap into applications for battery and best practices in terms of energy efficiency programs.
Sorry, Natasha, what was the SIF project you mentioned?
Strategic Innovation Fund.
Okay.
The other one is the Decarbonization Incentive Program. DIF and SIF.
Okay.
Yeah. Of course, in Quebec as well.
Yeah.
Of course, in Quebec as well, Hydro-Québec puts a certain amount of money back in every year to energy projects that can be applied for, and you can get rebates off that. You know, we've been talking about this a lot recently. You know, Canadian infrastructure, some of it is aging. There's questions about whether Canadian infrastructure actually has the capacity to provide electricity were we to magically electrify 100% of industry across the country, right? There's, you know, significant thought that needs to go in from our governments to how are they going to, you know, reinforce, build, provide infrastructure with access to green sources of electricity across our country to enable the path to net carbon zero.
'Cause it's all fine and well to experiment with electric scoops and electric trucks and trolley assists and everything else, but if Ontario Hydro knocks on the door and says, "By the way, that's great, but you have to shut down between 2:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M. because we've got a peak," it's not gonna drive change over the long term.
Is that different in any way as you move across, you know, to Australia or to Finland or Mexico?
The Australian grid, as you saw on our graph for GHG gas emissions, the grid in Australia is not particularly clean. We're very fortunate here in Canada to have access to hydroelectricity at all of our mines in Ontario and in Quebec. Finland also sources electricity from a number of sources, not all of which are green. That's all factored into the proportion of greenhouse gas that we calculate for our sites. I think that around the world, it's people are realizing, right? But there's investments that have to be made, and those investments aren't gonna come from industry alone. We're end users, we're not creators of power.
Except in Nunavut, of course, we had to create it, but we would like to be an end user in Nunavut as well.
Thank you. I still don't see. Actually, I do have one over the email from our Shaz, our ESG specialist, Shaz Narwat. Are there any learnings from what Cale was doing and Kirkland Lake and any room for improvement? Is there a target, a lost time accident rate in the future?
Well, I would say both companies. Let's keep it simple the way we operate. There's three steps before taking any action. The first one, is it safe for employees? If it's not safe, we don't do it. Is it safe for the environment and the community? If it's not, we don't do it. If the first two steps are positive, we operate. I think it's a mindset, and I could see when I did the due diligence, the site at Macassa and Detour. I wasn't in Australia. The mindset and the way to operate is the same. Now we need to adjust our program, our process. We're gonna take the best of each and using...
I don't have a detailed example about those processes yet, but this is what we're gonna do.
Earlier, I'd mentioned how we're connecting people on multiple levels, and one of the very first groups that we actually connected together were the health and safety groups. We started a Towards Zero Accidents initiative a couple of years ago now. One of the things that was created within that was we call them virtual site visits, where we can get everybody from management if they want to attend, health and safety personnel all attend. We do a rotation sort of once a quarter or so, where each site presents on best practices or something really interesting that they've done in the past quarter or so on health and safety. I've got to say it's very well attended.
We can have upwards of 60 people in for a presentation from Australia at 7:00 P.M. We've got 60 people around the table, including people from Finland that are dialing in because they wanna hear what's going on. We've got our Australian colleagues that'll dial in basically in the middle of the night to hear about what's going on in Nunavut or in Mexico or at any of our other sites. Those connections are in place and those learnings are happening as we go.
Thanks. I'm gonna switch just to asking back to you a little bit more of the technical. I mean, you know, we've heard a little bit at Macassa about the challenges with the batteries. Can you talk, I guess, more broadly about as you start the electrification and automated haulage and all these different energy initiatives, you know, where are you finding the most challenges?
A good start, I think we need to go at the good pace in that because and I had a question once, why in Quebec, you're not turning and everything electrical or battery equipment, you're gonna save on ventilation, et cetera. But to be honest, the technology doesn't exist yet. We're still developing the technology. So I think we need to manage the risk. You don't do too big move to put at risk the operation and also the safety. So I think it's just to do trial. The example with the scoop at LaRonde is one of them. We pick one division where we know the team is gonna be there to work with the supplier to develop the technology.
If it works and the costs and everything fit, we're gonna just do more of that. I think we need to take a step approach on that.
Yeah, I agree. I think a step-by-step approach is key. We, you know, for each case that we do in terms of implementation, any kind of technology, we run the technical and operational and safety benefits of each. We need to also ensure that we take a step back and monitor the ongoing deployment of any type of technology, whether it's trolley assist or autonomous haulage, within our operations or across the industry as well, right? Taking a step-by-step approach is key. That's why LaRonde is, you know, getting just one battery loader and Fosterville is just taking on one for now.
We say one thing is different, we're more open. We don't just look to the cost because to be honest, that electrical scoop is 2x-3 x the cost of a diesel one. We're kind of, okay, we need to try to help the suppliers to develop the technology, but at some point, yeah, in the past, it maybe would have been, "No, we don't touch. It's too expensive," but we need to do our part on that.
I should say there's two sides to that. We need to do our part in helping to develop it, but we also need to provide the experience to our people at site, so it's more acceptable to them, okay? In a past life, I was a mine superintendent having to deal with a prototype equipment in my production chain. Every time it was down, it hurt our production. I fully understand how, you know, it, you know, a mine superintendent, a mine manager, a chief engineer are gonna be very resistant to having a fleet of prototype equipment.
To the degree that we can, we can experiment with these things, we can prove the technology, we can work out the bugs, and we can get that level of comfort. That's when we're able to put things into a feasibility study as a fleet of equipment for the future, because the bugs will have been worked out by the people that have to live with it day in and day out.
Thank you for that answer. I'm gonna shift to we spent a lot of time on E, and obviously that's, you know, that's coming into focus now lately with some of the issues with the ESG metrics and ESG score providers. I'm gonna switch a little bit to the social and focus on some of that. I did notice that, you know, your female component for managers remains relatively stable, and employees at about 20% and 15% respectively. What are you doing? I mean, it's a good number relative to you know, mining companies. It's, I think it's a little bit above average. But obviously not in line with the broad number of females that are out there.
What are you doing to help increase those numbers and try to get more females into mining and up the ranks as well?
Yeah. In terms of this, first of all, I'll say is that not everybody wants to work in mining, right? I think it's a great industry, and I think there's space in our industry for a very wide variety of skill sets, right? People, when they go into university and are studying to be teachers, or they're studying law, or they're studying chemistry, or they're studying mathematics or engineering, all of those fields of expertise are things that we actually need in the mining industry, right? It's not just a matter of trying to pull in more engineers and more geologists. Really, we need to be pulling in more people in general into the industry.
Part of that is making sure that people understand that there is a place for them in the industry. Another important part is making sure that the women that do come in are supported and have a chance to advance their careers, right? This is part of the reason why we put in place the Dr. Leanne Baker Scholarship and Development Program, is particularly to try to advance these ladies that are within our ranks already and provide them with the opportunities to continue. In the last two years, we've been very careful in our succession planning, which reaches quite far down.
We do succession planning, you know, right down through the lower ranks of the technical groups and right up, obviously through management, to make sure that we're pushing for people to put women onto the list instead of just going with the people that they would normally go with, really asking the question, "Okay, wait a minute. In this group, there's no women on here, so who is maybe a little bit further out but needs to be developed that could come into this list?" We're starting to see more names on the succession planning. It's a slow process. I think it'll take some time. We continue to work towards that.
I think frankly, having good examples like, you know, Natasha heading up our operations, is a role model that the people look to.
Just looking at your social license. I mean, that's something that you know I think mining gets a bit of a bad rap in that you know you always end up on the bad end of it with the environmental metrics. The social license is something that a lot of mining companies had to develop over many years. I think we used to you know I mean we called it social license right 20 years ago and now it's the S in ESG. Can you talk about some of the initiatives in you know say Mexico or some of the more underserved areas in terms of you know schools and housing and some of those kinds of things? Maybe also the taxation right?
I think that's one aspect that, you know, people don't, you know, maybe make the connection that when a company is paying 30% and 40% and their fair share in the country, that also flows back to community benefits.
Yeah.
versus a company that may be paying only 5% tax.
Yeah.
in a specific country.
I think one thing that's important in all of our communities is paying good wages to people, right, and focusing on hiring locally. One of the things that we're very proud of in Mexico is that our Mexican operations are operated by and managed by people from Mexico. The majority of the people that work at the mines are relatively local, like within the region, not necessarily the town next door, but they're within the region. You know, the good paying jobs are not going to a bunch of expats that are spending their money back in the States and Canada. They're going to people that actually live and work and are raising families in Mexico. When we started to build Pinos Altos, we were building it in a small community.
You know, there wasn't a lot of wealth in that community. Over the years, what we've seen is as we've got sometimes multiple people living in a household that all work for the mine site, houses have been built. You know, you see vehicles changing. You see children now able to go off to university. Luis Felipe was telling me not that long ago, that now we've got employees that are purchasing second homes in Chihuahua, so that their children can go to university in Chihuahua and live in a house that they've invested in during the time that they're off. This is something that I don't think would necessarily have been thought of, you know, 15 years ago before the mines started to come into the area.
Specific to the towns around Pinos Altos and La India, the first thing is to listen to what the towns actually need, right? The last thing they need is somebody to come in in a paternalistic manner and say, "You need X, and that's what we're gonna invest in." That's not at all the way we did things. We went in with Felipe and his team, engaged with the communities on a regular basis. They talk about what their priorities are, what their needs are, and offer help where they're able to offer help. The schools in the town near Pinos Altos, at one point in time a few years ago, they needed to expand the school, and what the mine did was they said, "We'll provide you with materials. We'll provide you with supervision and training.
Let's build it together." It was actually the people of the town that built the new school rooms for the school, so it's not Agnico Eagle school that was given. It's the town school that they built. I think that makes a huge amount of difference in terms of, in terms of local pride, in terms of, you know, local capacity to then go off and build other things in the future to continue to expand on their own economy.
I guess I also wanted to ask a little bit on your carbon emissions target. Just switching back a little bit to that. You had mentioned that you were achieving Net Zero by 2050, but I didn't see anything for 2030. Could you talk about, you know, how you're developing intermediate targets and what the strategy is to get to that and to start reporting on that?
Yeah, sure. As I said earlier, we're still early on our path towards net zero carbon. I think most people are pretty early on that path. What we did in this past year to start to build the foundation on which we can make targets is to put in place energy efficiency climate action teams at all of our sites to start gathering the information on what's actually possible to do at their sites, what's more realistic, what's less realistic, what are different things gonna cost to put them together.
We've now got a menu of items that we can look at and say, "What will it cost us to get to X% reduction?" We're at the point now of consolidating that information so that we can bring it to management, so that we can start to have discussions around this. We intend to put out a specific climate report in Q4, which hopefully we will have settled on interim targets in that report. What I'd say is that our consultant actually said we've taken the hard road instead of the easy road on this, okay? A lot of companies have basically pulled a number out of the air and said, "-30 by 2030," okay? Or whatever it is.
What we said right from the very beginning is, if we are gonna succeed at Net Zero by 2050, all of our people need to be on board for that. If they're gonna be on board for that, we need them to feel like a part of the story. If we just come out and say, "Minus 30 by 30," without them actually seeing a path to get to the minus 30 by 30, we've got the possibility they're just gonna throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh, corporate." Okay? That's not what we wanted to do. What we wanted to do was we wanted to harness the very good ideas, the energy, the inspiration of the people at the sites, because that's where the carbon footprint is gonna get smaller. Not here in head office. It's at the sites.
We wanted them to be able to see how the target that we put into place fits into a plan that they can contribute to and they can drive towards succeeding at. That's where we are. We're consolidating now. We haven't presented it up to management yet. This is a next step, and this is part of why we didn't include more detail on climate in this particular report, but we'll put it into a report in the fall.
The other thing, and I'm gonna repeat something that Carol said. Very simply, if you're trying to go off of what generates a large part of carbon emissions in industry is the energy requirement. At a very high level, you can switch from fossil fuels to electricity, conceptually. The hard part is where do you get that electricity? How is it generated, and how is it distributed? That is a big issue. A lot of companies can talk about going to net zero, but they're making the assumption they have access to electricity, and they're making the assumption, in some cases, that electricity is clean.
I think we, not just the mining industry, not just industry in Canada, but globally, if we're serious about this, which we are, we have to address not just what individual industries can do to shift off of fossil fuels, but the bigger question for, frankly, all of society, if you're shifting from fossil-based energy to electric-based energy, that electric-based energy has to be clean. Again, it's not complicated. That's a big question, and that's a question that I think we would do all of ourselves a favor by starting to look at that question as a society rather than individual companies, because it's not an individual company question.
Yeah, there are a lot of questions that people need to be asking themselves right now with ESG. I mean, I think I look at sort of just as a side comment, but gold and its role in society and some of the options and alternatives that people have been using, such as Bitcoin and the issues that have been created with Bitcoin recently as the governments are trying to impose sanctions. I'll leave it at that for that one. I did want to move to asking about labor. I got a question over the email.
As you think about, you know, Agnico and, you know, its track record with the workforce, and I haven't seen a lot of, you know, labor unrest or strikes or anything like that. Even in countries where it has been traditionally a little bit more difficult, how do you think about the KL operations as, you know, you integrate them into the Agnico fold? Specifically to labor and how you deal with your labor relations in Australia and Ontario and Quebec.
Yes. Maybe I'll just start 'cause you're asking Natasha to,
Talk about, yeah. I know we turn to her, but.
Yeah.
It's an Agnico question.
Yes, Natasha is Agnico Eagle, and she's leading Agnico Eagle for us. At the same time, it's a bit of a difficult question to say, how do you put that lens over the Kirkland Lake?
Yeah.
Maybe I'll just take a shot at it. When we visited Australia, it was my first time to go and visit the sites. We engaged with the employees, we engaged with management, we engaged with community members, and we engaged with some First Nation members as well while we were out there. I've gotta say that at the end of it, when we were doing our wrap-up meeting, and we were asked to comment on what our impressions were of the visit, my comment was, "I don't have to come over here and tell you what Agnico Eagle culture is, 'cause it's already here. It's already Fosterville culture. You're treating your people with respect. You're treating your communities with respect.
You're operating according to good practices, and that's exactly how we want things to be operated. I don't know if you wanna talk specifically around sort of the how, you know, labor management relations and so on, but in general, we very much see that it fits well with Agnico Eagle culture.
Thank you, Carol. I wasn't sure how to say this. Fit, yeah, pat myself on the back. Anyway. Yeah, exactly. When we took a look at this from a due diligence perspective, very similar culture, very similar values, very similar ways of approaching our communities, our people. At Fosterville, basically we have an employment agreement that we have reached at the end of last year. There was a few meetings held over the course of a few months and with our employees, and we have come to an agreement that rolls over for three years, and we continue that process as we go.
In terms of our community and working with people, like I mentioned before, and I think Carol mentioned as well, there are constant discussions with our employees, with our workforce in terms of any safety concerns, any environmental concerns, any community concerns. We have town hall sessions, as well, and it's a very open discussion, very fluid discussion, and very engaging with all our people.
I have two more questions. The first one is environmental and social. It relates to water. Flipping it around, KL has a very good track record on water recycling and water consumption usage. Water obviously is a very important resource for everyone globally and very important to the environment. I was wondering if you think that you can get Agnico's more legacy assets or higher consumption users down to some of the good targets that KL has?
Yeah, maybe I'll just make a general comment.
Yeah
to start, and I'll toss over to Mohammed Ali. The water is quite different from region to region, right? In Australia, for example, as in Mexico, there's not a lot of water, so it needs to be treated in a certain way. At other sites, in Nunavut, for example, there's an excess of water.
Yeah.
Right? You know, it's a bit of a different viewpoint on how you manage water and how you recycle and how you use water. I'll just toss over to Mohammed maybe to add.
I was gonna touch on that as well. It unlike climate and some of the other things, water has a very regional aspect, and water-stressed regions versus water surplus regions manage water differently. To your point about the recycling rates, et cetera, I think they're more or less very similar. In true essence of actually managing water actually is part of a water cycle, and we want our operations to be part of that cycle. If the water comes in where we use or withdraw, we wanna be able to use and release back to the environment so it continues that water cycle. In water-stressed regions, you just don't have the ability to draw, so then you have to actually recycle it more.
Sometimes those numbers can be very misleading when you look at it generally, but in a water-stressed region, we have less to draw from, so you try to use as much as you can versus water surplus areas, you try to draw, use, and release.
Yeah, that's, no, that's good context for those of us just looking at these numbers and comparing bars on a chart and not really thinking about the implications there. That's a good context. The last question I think to close it out, and I don't see anything else on this phone line or on my email, is I'm gonna close it out with Indigenous relations on Indigenous Peoples Day today here. Could you just talk about some of your successes and some of the challenges? You have a pretty good track record in terms of partnering with your Indigenous partners across your operations.
Maybe for those of us who are just not as familiar with the efforts at KL with Kirkland, the Kirkland legacy assets, and I know that Kirkland also has a very good track record, but just to familiarize ourselves with those assets, could you talk about some of the initiatives that you guys are working on there?
Sure. When it comes to our Indigenous and Indigenous peoples, I think we follow the principles of truth, respect, and transparency, which is both organizations follow. Each individual Indigenous community is a different community, and we would like to treat them as the way they identify themselves and how they wanna be treated. We have engagement processes in place where the communities themselves have developed how we'd like to be engaged. Some of the successes we have, particularly Detour because of the area we're located in Northern Ontario, the Indigenous communities are getting more exposed to mining, and they're understanding some of the operations, so they're involved. We have them come to site. They're involved in environmental update meetings, implementation committee meetings, executive meetings.
Overall, we would like to be able to operate these mines in such a way that they're involved, and then they also then become a partner in a way that to the future, as Ammar was saying, we'd like to have these operations in such a way we can get more Indigenous employment, et cetera, inside our communities. We've updated some of our agreements in place as well for the long term for Detour as well, so that's been a major success. Another success is we probably have one of the highest Indigenous employment at the Detour site for the average within Ontario. We're also learning from a lot of things that are happening in Nunavut that we're now translating over to Detour and to Australia, which is a new emerging area under traditional ownership there.
We're taking those learnings, and because we have such a track record, our Indigenous communities also expect that kind of record to be maintained. I'm not sure if there's anything else that anybody wanna add, but that's in a nutshell.
Can I add something, Anita?
Sure.
I think it's something that I learned today. This morning I was made aware of a TV Ontario program, which was on recently, which was talking about towns that have recovered and have sort of had a lot of ups and downs over their history. In that program, they were talking to a reporter in Northern Ontario, and it was about the town of Cobalt. Our history started in the town of Cobalt since 1957, so that covers the whole extent of our history as a public company. The reporter actually mentioned Agnico.
If you want an example of a company that actually has the right approach as a partner to people to institutions within the community to the well-being of the community and the fact that the company does not walk away Agnico is the example. We have not produced an ounce of silver there since 1988 and we're still there and we're still active. If you're a shareholder of Agnico you can take some comfort in that we take the responsibility that we have to the community and the community is our employees because they live in the community and it's a big part of the mission statement. It's not us saying it it's somebody else saying it sort of unprompted on this show.
I know Ammar saw it, I saw it, Michel Julien, who's on the call, forwarded to us. That sort of is a reaffirmation of the approach, the mindset, and it's not something that we've started to do, as Carol said, under an ESG umbrella. We don't even look at ESG. We just look at components of making sure we generate above average returns over a long period of time, and our employees, our 16,000 employees, you know, get up, get to work every day, you know, looking to make a contribution to the communities, while also looking to make a difference in the workplace. That's what it's really all about.
I'm smiling because that was my first introduction to Agnico as well as an engineer at Golder, and I did the closure there in 1999, stayed at your camp up there. Yeah, I'm very aware of Agnico's commitment to making sure they exit safely and continue to monitor. With that, I'm gonna close out, but I'm gonna pass it back to Ammar if he wants to make any closing remarks.
Well, thank you, Anita, and thank you to our listeners and our team for the job. I think it's perfect that we're doing this discussion on sustainability. For us, sustainability is a core part of the business. Again, I'll repeat, this is not something that we've decided to focus on in the last 10 or 15 years. This is something that really is about who we are. Sustainability, and I'm glad, Anita, you shifted a little from the environment to the social, because I think sometimes, frankly, the social in this industry doesn't get enough attention. We are very proud of what we do. This is core of who we are, and we appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about it. Thank you.
Well, thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you, Ammar, and the entire team for answering our questions and giving a great presentation. If anyone has any follow-up questions and was not able to get through on email or through the line, send it to your salesperson or to myself, anita.soni@cibc.com, and we'll be happy to make sure your question gets answered. With that, thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.