First Nations leaders step up calls for external oversight of troubled Thunder Bay, Ont., police service
CBC
A growing number of First Nations leaders are seeking external oversight of the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) as the northwestern Ontario force is in turmoil and pressure mounts on its leadership and oversight board.
Community and regional leaders haven't settled on one clear action or direction that should be taken to deal with the troubled police force. But the consensus among those who spoke to CBC News is they don't trust the force to serve Indigenous people.
"The Anishinabek Nation is appalled at how policing is handled in Thunder Bay," Melvin Hardy, the Northern Superior Region deputy grand chief for the Anishinabek Nation, which advocates for 39 First Nations in the province, including those within the Robinson-Superior Treaty.
Indigenous] people who visit and live in the city "deserve to feel safe," said Hardy. "They will not be if they feel unfairly targeted or systemically ignored when a crime is committed against them."
Hardy told CBC News he's calling for the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) to provide external oversight of Thunder Bay policing services pending further conversation and action.
Two weeks ago, Sol Mamakwa, the provincial NDP critic for Indigenous and treaty relations and MPP for Kiiwetinoong in northern Ontario, demanded OPP oversight of the TBPS. As well, Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum has called for the Thunder Bay police service to be disbanded.
WATCH | Sol Mamakwa speaks in the Ontario Legislature:
Their demands came in the wake of a confidential report for Ontario's attorney general.
The final report by a blended investigative team that spent years looking through TBPS sudden death investigations was leaked to some news organizations, including CBC News, and recommended the reinvestigations of more sudden deaths of Indigenous people.
Other leaders and organizations, including the chief of the First Nation located directly beside Thunder Bay and the Assembly of First Nations, say they too want to see more Indigenous and external oversight of city police.
The report details serious concerns with the investigations of 14 Indigenous people who died suddenly in the city between 2006 and 2019, and calls for reinvestigation of those cases.
Two other cases, with similar investigative concerns, should go for a coroner review or inquest, and another 25 unresolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) in Thunder Bay should be reviewed, the investigators urged.
That adds up to at least 41 cases, and there could be more.
The report, which has been with the attorney general since March 2, begins with the disclaimer: "Due to finite timelines and resources allocated to the process outlined in this report, cases provided here are not an exhaustive list," adding there may be other sudden death cases that "warrant further investigation." It ends with the recommendation for an external audit of all death investigations in the police department's record management system.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.
A congregation in Carman, Man., is coming to grips with the loss of their Anglican Lutheran church, a fixture in the community that was ravaged by a fire on Thursday.
Kayla DeMong fought tears as she described the dire conditions on the front lines, pleading for more help from the province as staff at the harm reduction site she leads try to keep up with the recent spike in overdoses.
A B.C. woman who has been detained by U.S. immigration officials for 11 days, after trying to enter the country, will be released on Friday, according to her father.
Toronto is doubling the number of automated speed cameras on city streets.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling and unable to implement the government's plan to break up the health authority, became "infatuated" with her internal investigation into private surgical contracts and made "incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety" before she was fired in January.