A recent investigation by The Northern Miner has uncovered serious allegations of safety negligence at Victoria Gold‘s (TSXV: VGCX) Eagle mine in Yukon, following a major landslide that halted production on June 24. Current and former employees, speaking anonymously to the publication, have described a work environment where safety concerns were routinely sidelined in favor of maintaining production levels.
The incident, which involved a heap leach spill and landslide, has had severe financial consequences for Victoria Gold. The company’s share price fell by over 85% in late June, reducing its market capitalization to C$54.1 million while facing C$232.5 million in debt payments without current cash flow.
According to The Northern Miner’s sources, Victoria Gold allegedly engaged in practices to avoid filing Workers’ Compensation Board claims. Injured workers were reportedly kept on payroll and assigned remote tasks to circumvent proper injury reporting procedures, a tactic aimed at keeping insurance rates low and limiting compensation costs.
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The June landslide was not an isolated event. The Yukon government confirmed that a smaller landslide occurred at Eagle in January. Employees claim that production continued after this earlier incident, contrary to regulations requiring a safety stand-down.
Further compounding these issues, workers allege widespread drug and alcohol use at the supposedly dry camp. The Northern Miner reports that former employees described lax enforcement of substance abuse policies, with drug testing only occurring in specific circumstances involving machinery accidents.
“Unless they were caught and tested, it was basically open range,” a former safety worker told the publication. “A cocaine-addicted man came to me and said, ‘This is Disneyland for an addict like me.’ We just turned a blind eye to it because nobody wanted to dig into the deeper problem of how to control it.”
As of this writing, Victoria Gold has not publicly responded to these allegations.
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