Thunder Bay: the pain, the opportunity, and the newspaper.

• Author: Atkins, Michael

Eight months ago, the Globe and Mail newspaper opened a bureau in Thunder Bay.

They did so because, in December, 2018, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a civilian oversight agency, concluded that the Thunder Bay Police Service was tainted by racist attitudes towards Indigenous people. The report was called "Broken Trust." A few days later, Senator Murray Sinclair, the former head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, submitted a report that accused the Thunder Bay Police Services Board of willful blindness to racism. There have been unsettling examples of racism beyond the occurrence of nine sudden-death investigations by Thunder Bay police, which have been described as problematic. One of the most graphic was the throwing of a trailer hitch from a passing pickup truck at two Indigenous women walking along a residential street. One died six weeks later.

The decision by the newspaper to focus on Thunder Bay was no doubt difficult. There are bloody few new subscriptions to be found for the Globe and Mail in Thunder Bay. No doubt they have lost more than they have gained in the last six months. The print copy, for years, arrived in the city a day late, hardly worth bothering about in the digital age. The demand for Thunder Bay news from the newspaper's national readership is non-existent and, like the Toronto Star and Postmedia, the Globe is losing money--lots of it. Just last spring they had to downsize their staff yet again.

The decision to go to Thunder Bay took guts. They felt the release of the OIPRD report was a fulcrum moment, not just for the city and the province but for the country. Thunder Bay is not alone. It is a frontline in our national struggle to come to terms with the violence and racism of our colonial history.

The journalism has been extraordinary.

They have covered local council meetings and have written about the significance of the closure of the lames Street bridge between Westfort and Fort William First Nation. They joined young Indigenous students and teachers from Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School (run by the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council) on a midwinter 920-kilometre trip to Muskrat Dam. They have covered the machinations and resignations of the Thunder Bay Police Services Board. They have covered the world of three fabulous Thunder Bay Indigenous women they called warriors Sandi Boucher, Ivory Tuesday, and Georjann Morriseau--and they have visited Coney Island Westfort...