Hyde Park kindergarten student dies

The Lakehead Public School Board has confirmed the death of a four year old student who was injured in a horse and carriage accident at Fort William Historical Park. Dead is Willow Scott-Hannam. Director of Education Cathy Siemieniuk says her heart goes out to the family. Siemieniuk says they will have grief counsellors on site to talk to family members, staff and classmates of the deceased.  The Coroner's Office, Ministry of Labour, Lakehead Public School Board and the Fort are all conducting internal investigations.
It was only last week that four year old Willow took part in a Habitat for Humanity ground breaking ceremony for its new homes on Mary Street.  She was photographed placing her foot in the recently poured cement.  The organization has posted a photo of Willow.

Ministry of Labour Probes child death

The Ministry of Labour is now involved in the tragic death at Fort William Historical Park. Spokesperson Bruce Skeaff says it is considered a workplace probe because they investigate all serious injuries or deaths at a workplace whether its a worker or non worker. Skeaff says they'll be looking at the death from a health and safety point of view

Fort GM says staff saddened by tragedy

The General Manager of Fort William Historical Park is speaking out about Monday's tragedy. Sergio Buonocore says the entire staff is saddened by the turn of events that led to the death of a 4 year old school student in the farm area. Buonocore says the Fort is conducting it's own investigation into the incident. He says all public programming on the farm has been suspended until the probe is completed. Buonocore says the Fort was closed today out of respect but will reopen on Wednesday

OPP officer faces charges

An OPP officer in Northwestern Ontario is charged with Uttering Threats. A police investigation was started after an incident that occurred in Terrace Bay on Sunday. As a result they say that 40 year old Constable Gregory Stutton was charged. As well they say that 6 long guns and two hand guns were seized from his home resulting in two firearms charges. Police say Sutton is an 8 year veteran of the Schreiber OPP detachment and was off duty at the time of the incident. He has been suspended from active duties. He appears in court in Thunder Bay July 5th.

May was warm and dry

Environment Canada is saying that summer came early to Thunder Bay and the rest of the province. In it's weather review for May it says that warm temperatures were the norm in the northwest. It was also a dry month. In Thunder Bay we had about 38 millimetres of rain in May which is 28 millimetres less than normal making it the driest May since 1997.

Tree fire causes power problems

Thunder Bay Hydro customers on the city's south side have their power back. It follows an outage at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon according the Hydro spokesperson Eileen Dias. She says the problem was resolved about 45 minutes later. She says about 38 hundred customers located in the downtown south core from the Thunder Centre shopping plaza to Arthur Street were affected at it's peak. The outage was caused by a tree on a power line that caught fire

Thunder Bay "Age Friendly"

Thunder Bay is now officially "age friendly". City Council granted the status to the local committee at Monday night's meeting. Spokesperson Mary Lou Kelley says Thunder Bay's population is aging rapidly. A report on seniors issues include community safety and affordable housing. The local committee hopes to get the World Health Organization to deem the City "age friendly".

Curb side pick up for food drive

You can donate canned goods just by leaving them at the end of your driveway. It's part of the Postal Food Drive and Kraft Hunger Challenge. This Saturday, postal workers will pick up bags of non- perishable food items. There's also drop off locations on Saturday with postal trucks stationed at Qualtiy Market Stores, the Lakehead Labour Centre and the Balmoral Postal Sorting Station. Flyers will be distributed to those areas of the City that are eligable for curbside pick up. Kraft Canada will also be matching money donations made today until June 11th. Food collected through the drive will go towards Northwestern Ontario food banks.