Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to get you started on this Monday morning.
Medical professionals tour Crosses for Change site, pledge their advocacy
After hammering in five more white crosses earlier on Sunday, Denise Sandul now counts 214 memorials set up at the corner of Paris and Brady streets in downtown Sudbury. There are more to come, she said, noting she recently received a request for a cross from the family of someone who died by overdose on Oct. 21. “There hasn’t been much change in regards to the number of people we’re losing,” she said of the steady stream of people dying by overdose these past several months. “This is a generation of people who are loved and missed.” Sandul started the Crosses for Change memorial site for people who died by overdose last year after sitting in the depths of grief over the death of her son, Myles Keaney, for seven weeks. Keaney died at the age of 22 as the result of an accidental drug overdose downtown on Sept. 8, 2020. What started out as the installation of a lone cross and a social media callout for others to sign up for crosses to help draw attention to the opioid epidemic has grown exponentially. On Sunday, Sandul met with local media alongside Ontario Medical Association president Adam Kassam and CEO Allan O’Dette and Sudbury and District Medical Association president Dr. Rayudu Koka to further this advocacy.
Sudbury geriatrician Dr. Janet McElhaney dies in hospice
Accomplished Sudbury geriatrician Dr. Janet McElhaney died at a British Columbia hospice on Thursday after being diagnosed with cancer three years ago. Health Sciences North CEO Dominic Giroux announced McElhaney’s death in a touching tribute to his colleague posted to Facebook earlier today. “Despite her diagnosis a few years ago, Janet continued her work and research,” Giroux wrote. “She continued to provide care to patients, kneeling at their bedside to be eye to eye to explain what was happening in terms they would understand. She continued to publish and secure grants. She continued to develop creative ideas to make health services more seniors friendly. She continued to give media interviews to counter COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.”
Collège Boréal unveils large dreamcatcher created by artist, educator Will Morin
Looming over the medicine wheel garden at the Collège Boréal was an 11-foot mixed media art piece, created by Ojibway artist and educator, Will Morin, over a total of 150 hours. On Oct. 20, Morin unveiled an art piece that he said symbolizes the unity of all people at Collège Boréal. Morin said that 50 per cent of the art installation is made of recycled material. He used hardwood flooring that was refurbished and utilized as the main canvas for his art. The piece itself is a diamond shaped wooden canvas with clearly defined quadrants that illustrate a compass. Morin explained the importance of the four cardinal directions (east, south, west and north) in his piece. “I used drywall screws, which are star bits you would require. And the word ‘star’ in the Ojibway language is what we use to identify the directions. So stars are used to qualify the east, south and west as well as the north. And that the dreamcatcher is also, in many ways, not just a craft. It’s actually a star chart,” Morin told Sudbury.com. At the centre of the diamond shaped canvas is a circle with blue and green colours almost reminiscent of the Earth. Golden lines draped over the Earth in a pattern that symbolized a dreamcatcher.
Northern Tour For Health raises $100,000 for Health Sciences North
The inaugural Northern Tour for Health raised $100,000 for Health Sciences North. The event found 77 participants take to their streets and trails with their bicycles throughout northeastern Ontario to raise funds for Health Sciences North causes close to them. “Coming together and hosting an event of this magnitude was a challenge for us, but it’s definitely clear that we’re stronger together,” said Anthony Keating, president and chief development officer of foundations and volunteer groups at Health Sciences North. “Giving participants the ability to choose which HSN cause best suits them gave us an incredible opportunity to learn more about what our community is passionate about and we can’t wait to put that knowledge to good use in our fundraising moving forward.” Many participants formed teams to raise funds together, the most successful of which being the Pedal Pushers, which raised $12,798. This team was made up of eight Health Sciences North staff members and they rode more than 160 kilometres over the course of a week.
West wonders why Ontario’s temporary road test centre scheme ignores Northern Ontario
Sudbury MPP Jamie West wants to know why Ontario’s plan to use temporary road test centres — set up to deal with a backlog in driving tests — ignores Northern Ontario. “Doug Ford and his Conservative government once again left Northerners stranded in a drive test backlog,” said West. “Leaving out Northerners from taking their driving tests means they can’t go to work, it means lost wages, lost appointments, and lost opportunities.” West said none of the nine temporary road test centres are located in the North. “Will the premier commit to opening additional temporary road test centres in Northern Ontario – including one in my riding of Sudbury so Northerners can get on the road and on with their lives?” West said in a recent news release. As of the end of July, West said Ontario’s data show a backlog of more than 700,000 driving tests, which the temporary testing centres the Minister of Transportation has been announcing since August are set up to deal with. West told the legislature that people in Sudbury are having to wait a year to get their driving test, he said in a news release. “Rick is a constituent of mine. His daughter relies on driving to get to university and to work. However, Rick told me she can’t make an appointment for her G-test until Dec. 31, 2022,” said West. “The North is where we use highways to get to work, not subways because we have none. Wait times for drive tests are especially devastating in Northern Ontario.”
Laurentian students team up to celebrate the grand opening of the UN Recovery Garden and Restoration Trail
The Students' General Association, the Association Étudiant Français and the Indigenous Students Circle at Laurentian University teamed up to host an Oct. 21 event celebrating the grand opening of the United Nations (UN) Recovery Garden and Restoration Trail. The event highlighted Sudbury’s history with the regreening project and Laurentian’s program of activities participating in the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. To give a bit of background, before government-enforced pollution mitigation measures were introduced in the 1970s, Sudbury was best known for its bare, blackened rocks, scarred by nearly a century of mining. Since then, thanks to the hard efforts of the regreening process, biodiversity is returning to Sudbury. The student-led event was to celebrate the launch of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration as well as the opening of a new hiking trail and garden in Laurentian's Founders Square. “Today’s event was a really moving event,” said John Gunn, director of the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, who has been running the aquatic restoration work at Laurentian University for about 30 years. “The students have a great passion and have raised money on their own for events like this. And they're willing to invest in the cost of garden supplies and tree planting and I thought that gave me great hope that the students themselves were so passionate about this.”
Expect a cloudy day with precipitation
The Environment Canada weather forecast calls for cloudy conditions today with a 30 per cent chance of showers or drizzle in the morning and early afternoon. Expect a high of 6 C and a low of 1 C at night. It'll be mainly cloudy at night with a 30 per cent chance of showers late in the afternoon and overnight.
