‘Thunder Bay’ series from Ryan McMahon looks at systemic racism, police in the city

The Anishinaabe writer uses his docuseries, "Thunder Bay," to examine a movement that supports the reallocation of funds from police departments to community and social services.

Podcaster Ryan McMahon is not interested in leading the conversation around defunding and abolishing the police.

However, he is aware those calls have been increasingly taking place in Black, Indigenous and racialized communities across North America since the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Instead, the Anishinaabe writer uses his latest docuseries, “Thunder Bay,” to examine the North American movement that supports the reallocation of funds from police departments to community and social services by putting the embattled city under the microscope.

“Thunder Bay” is a four-part investigative series that aims to shed light on the history of racism in the city and how police inaction may have played a role in the deaths of Indigenous people over the years.

The series is billed as a deep look at the country’s complicated relationship with colonialism, examining the consequences of the broken system in which some can thrive but many others struggle to survive.

“Colonization is a hell of a drug. And, it has failed specific groups of people over and over again,” McMahon said in a recent phone interview from Toronto.

“What is crystal clear through four episodes of ‘Thunder Bay’ is that these particular (institutions) — the police service, the city and the public safety systems inside the city of Thunder Bay — simply aren’t working.”

The series is produced and developed by McMahon and Entertainment One in association with Bell Media for Crave.McMahon also wrote and co-directed the series.