CANADALAND has spent a lot of time in Thunder Bay and the events of the last month have forced us to once again turn our focus back on the city as the police force is said to be "on the brink of collapse."
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts
Hosted by Jesse Brown
CANADALAND has spent a lot of time in Thunder Bay exploring the deep-rooted racism in the city and the stories of Indigenous people who live there, not to mention the stories of the Indigenous people who have died there.
In 2018, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director released the Broken Trust report, concluding that Thunder Bay’s police service was a home for systemic racism. The civilian oversight board and the police force executive leadership was cleared and new people were brought in. But the outcome of the staffing changes and all the reports – at least to this point – is not a success story. The cycle of denial has continued.
This story is reported by Thunder Bay-based journalist and producer on the Thunder Bay series, Jon Thompson.
“There were people who came in here to tell me I'm a dog. But there are lots of other people who are here having a conversation and lots of other people who made it possible for us to continue to have the conversation.”
-Chrystia Freeland
It was three weeks after my honeymoon and it was a little kind of like, "The honeymoon is over, honey. I'm going, into an Ebola outbreak.”
-Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ric Bienstock
I think we need to respect what the families want and not force them to do something for anybody else but their own healing and their own search for justice. -Kisha Supernant, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta
