Health

January is Alzheimer Awareness Month

Every day in Canada more than 350 people develop a form of dementia.

The Alzheimer Society of Thunder Bay is championing, locally, the January initiative that has been around for several years to raise awareness of the prevalence and impact of the disease.

The number of cases are only expected to rise, with a 202% increase forecasted by 2050.

The Thunder Bay Alzheimer Society has a team of seven people. Their primary service is calling First Link, which joins up First Link Navigators with family members and individuals that have been diagnosed and need support.

For more information, or if you would like to reach out for help, please click the button directly below.

Daily Poll

NYE - Resolution?

57% of readers didn’t even make it to NYE! Staying up is getting harder and harder.

Today’s question is:

Charity

Food Donations Decline

Life has never been more expensive in recent memory, and the food banks are feeling it.

The Regional Food Distribution Association (RFDA) is concerned after 2024 saw a decline in annual donations.

Usually by the end of any given year, the RFDA has a surplus for the upcoming year.

Not so for 2024, heading into 2025.

Their draft financials have been produced and are showing a reduction in both monetary and food donations for last year.

Individual food donations (you and me) were down 27% last year, and business donations were down 31% last year.

The RFDA provides service and support for all the meal and food bank programs in Thunder Bay and the region and the drop in donations may mean some of the programs will need to be scaled back or eliminated altogether.

If you’d like to donate, or find out how you can help, click the button below.

Police

Loaded Handgun & Drugs Seized

Late last week Thunder Bay police arrested five people after drugs and a loaded handgun were seized in a search of a residence in the 1,000 block of Donald Street.

Found in the raid were alleged quantities of cocaine, crack cocaine, fentanyl, a loaded handgun, and cash totalling more than $13,000.

Charged are a 39 year-old woman from Thunder Bay, a 19 year-old man from Scarborough, a 21 year-old man from Scarborough, a 17 year-old from Bradford, and a 15 year-old(!!) from Toronto.

They’re charged with:

• Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking (cocaine)

• Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking (fentanyl)

• Possession of Proceeds of Crime over $5,000

• Careless Storage of a Firearm

• Possession of a Loaded Prohibited Firearm

• Unauthorized Possession of a Weapon

• Unauthorized Possession of a Firearm.

The accused appeared in court on Friday, where I am sure they were granted some form of bail and are probably already back on the streets.

Sigh.

Politics

Ontario to Receive Less from the Feds

Every year the Federal Government hands out what it calls Equalization Payments. They are designed to reduce the fiscal disparities among provinces.

Ontario will be seeing a drop this year.

Last year Ontario received $576 million; this year Ontario should be seeing about $546 million.

Overall, the federal government will hand out $26 billion this year in equalization payments, and they are broken out like this:

• $13.5 billion to Quebec (this will upset people I’d imagine…)

• $546 million to Ontario

• $0 to Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia

• $113 million to Newfound Land

• $666 million to PEI

• $3.4 billion to Nova Scotia

• $4.6 billion to Manitoba

• $0 to all the Territories

Immigration

Black Immigrants Can’t Find Skilled Work

Researchers at Wilfred Laurier University, along with the Northern Ontario Black Economic Empowerment Program, have recent released a report (The Black Population in northern Ontario: Socioeconomic Profile and Service Gap Analysis) - man that’s a long sentence, which I just made longer, sorry, but it’s important.

The aim of the study is to make a series of recommendations to address the challenges faced by the Black communities in the north, as it pertains to employment.

More than 5,000 people in northern Ontario describe themselves as Black, according to the 2021 census. That’s a doubling from the decade previous.

Researchers collected data from Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Kenora and North Bay.

44% of respondents arrived from 2017 to 2024.

The majority settled in 2023, which coincides with the implementation of the Rural and northern Immigration Pilot Program.

The program is designed to fill labour gaps through immigration. And the population in question is highly educated: 53% of respondents have at least an undergraduate degree.

However, despite being skilled and having their foreign qualifications recognized, the majority of skilled Black works can’t find work in their fields and have to settle for lower-paying jobs.

It’s an unfair thing to put into place a program to place skilled immigrants in farther away locations with the promise of jobs, only to then not have them get those jobs.

Worth a read below.

Indigenous News

Evacuees Staying Positive

The 160 Kashechewan evacuees are making the best of a bad situation.

They’ve been in Thunder Bay now for a little over two weeks while they wait for their chance to go back home.

As a reminder, this is the unfortunate group of people who have had a boil water advisory for, well, forever, and then to add salt to the wound, had raw sewage spill into their water source up river from their water intake.

The evacuees are being put up at the Superior Inn. While they’re feeling cooped up a bit, everyone is doing their best to make them comfortable.

Over Christmas presents were handed out and Santa came. Elders are being supplied with sewing machines, fabric and beads to stay busy.

Contractors are working on the water treatment plant but they are waiting for parts to be shipped to Canada from overseas.

Hopefully things go according to plan so everyone can get back home to clean, safe, drinking water.

Things to do This Week

Events In and Around the City

Trivia Night
Live trivia
Lakehead Beer Co.
Jan 7 @ 7pm
$ FREE

Name That Tune
Live trivia
Sleeping Giant Brewing Co.
Jan 8 @ 7pm-9pm
$ Free

Weekly Trivia
Live trivia
The Foundry
Jan 8 @ 7:30pm
$ FREE

Applauze Productions Presents: Annie Jr.
Musical
Trinity Hall Theatre
Jan 9-12 @ 7pm
$15-$20

Open Mic / Karaoke Night
Live music
Jan. 9

• Lakehead Beer

• Royal Canadian Legion

• Howl at the Moon

• Norteños Cantina

• Polis Combatants’ Association Brance 1

• The Waterhouse

• The Alley

Jazz & Old Fashioned Fridays ft. Mood Indigo
Live music
Anchor & Ore (Delta)
Jan 10 @ 6pm
$ Free

Karaoke
Live music
Jan 10

• The Social

• The Bar

• The Waterhouse

Malanka 2025
Ukrainian New Year’s Eve
Royal Canadian Slovak Legion
Jan. 11 @ 6pm
$85

CWE Live: Rage in the Cage Tour
Live wrestling
Moose Hall
Jan 11 @ 6pm
$25-$30

Karaoke
Live music
Jan 11

• Westfort Prosvita

• Howl at the Moon

• The Hodder

• Norteños Taqueria

• The Social

• The Bar

Home of the Day

1409 Francis St. W.

(Realtors if you want your home featured - send us an email: [email protected])

3+1 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
1,130 sq ft

$387,500

Nice and sunny Westfort home with finished basement, 2 renovated bathrooms & more!