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ast month’s 2026 CIM CONNECT in Vancouver was a strong success. More than 7,500 attendees and 1,650 delegates participated in the plenary sessions, technical presentations and trade show, which featured a record-breaking 895 expo booths. If you attended, I encourage you to complete the survey that was sent to you. Hearing your perspective is an opportunity to help us learn and improve. I was happy to observe that CIM CONNECT gave busy professionals the chance to meet on topics beyond the formal program. For example, OEMs met with customers to discuss challenges that can be addressed collaboratively.
This year, CIM hosted the inaugural industry round table at CONNECT to identify key opportunities where CIM can support its industry partners. Angelina Mehta moderated the session, which included senior leaders from major mining companies across Canada.
Industry representatives highlighted safe work performance, workforce challenges and innovation needs as immediate priorities and identified cost management and standards and regulations as secondary priorities. Encouragingly, several initiatives are already under way to support collaboration on all of these topics.
On safety, CIM’s Health and Safety Society has been developing a Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention Database that will capture data on incidents to allow companies across Canada to learn from fatalities and apply critical controls to prevent similar events at their own sites. The initiative aims to track incidents, unite fragmented provincial reporting and to use anonymized data to share critical lessons with companies that sign on to share data on the database.
On workforce development, the CIM executive committee has approved a short-term Education Strategy Working Group to create a strategy for recruitment, education, retention and ongoing professional development across the industry. In addition, the Environmental and Social Responsibility Society of CIM continues to promote strong collaboration on workplace diversity.
On innovation, the Innovation and Technology Society, led by Laura Mottola, was established in 2025 with initial funding from Council to support collaboration in this area. As expected, its first year has focused on defining priorities and recruiting members. The new society’s goal is to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing, bridging the gap between technology developers and industry practitioners and to position Canada as a global leader in mining technology.
On cost management, all societies and branches share learning to improve operating processes and systems, adopt new technologies and identify innovations that increase efficiency and reduce costs. It may also be time to include supply chain lessons in these discussions, given the geopolitical pressures affecting conventional business practices.
On standards and guidelines, CIM already plays an important role in guiding technical reporting across a range of both project and operational activities and commodities, and we will need to continue collaborating with organizations such as the Mining Association of Canada, ICMM and the World Gold Council to ensure that guidelines and best practices are harmonized internationally.
In summary, we heard clearly what industry sees as its priorities, and we will continue to assess how best CIM can support them. These conversations are already helping to strengthen collaboration across CIM and turn shared priorities into meaningful action.
