Year in Review: October 2017

1. Faculty at Confederation College walked off the job, seeking job security and tenure for part-time staff. Talks broke apart in mid-October and teachers hit the picket line on Oct. 16. They would remain off the job for more than a month before a deal was reached. The province, at the time, said meeting union demands would add $250 million to the books. 

2. Pauline Cutfeet pleaded guilty in court to manslaughter in the 2016 death of Perry Bois at a south-side hotel. Cutfeet was sentenced to six years in prison. She had originally been charged with second-degree murder and was given 28 months credit for time served while awaiting trial. 

3. Eric Lindstrom, who in 2012 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder, was arrested early in the month in conjunction with a kidnapping case. He was found guilty in 2012 in the death of 36-year-old Richard Ouimet. He was arrested by plainclothes officers near Victoriaville Mall. Police say the alleged kidnapping was related to the drug trade. 

4. Nishnawbe Aski Nation leaders applauded the Sixties Scoop settlement announced by the federal government, which will see $750 million paid out to survivors of the Scoop, which saw thousands of Indigenous children ripped from their families and place in non-Indigenous households between 1964 and 1985. 

5. Employees at Thunder Bay’s Sear’s location learned the company was seeking court approval to liquidate its assets and close all of its Canadian locations, including the Intercity Shopping Centre anchor store. 

6. A gruesome find was made at an animal dump site off Highway 527. A passerby shot pictures of a skinned moose carcass that had been left to rot. The bodies of a headless coyote and a raccoon were also found at the site, which a Ministry of Transportation contractor uses to dump roadkill. Ministry of Natural Resources conservation officers are investigating. 

7. Police rescued an unresponsive woman from the McIntyre River near Fort William Road after discovering two people in the water. After a police officer jumped in the water the victim, located about 25 feet from the shore, began resisting, but she allowed police to help her to safety. 

8. An inquest began into the death of Cody Thompson-Hardy, who died in hospital while an inmate Thunder Bay District Jail in 2011. The 18-year-old Rocky Bay First Nation was involved in drug use at the jail, according to testimony given by his former cell mate. 

9. A 19-year-old woman was seriously injured during a fall from an apartment window in the area of River and North Algoma streets. Police were already on scene dealing with a domestic situation at the residence. The province’s special investigations unit took over the case.  

10. Local music fans, including Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, mourned the death of iconic Tragically Hip front man Gord Downie, who died of brain cancer at 53. Downie spent his last few months championing Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples.