Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your day on this Tuesday morning.
Nine days and still no new information on missing councillor
Now missing for nine days, the search for Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini continues in Sudbury. There is no word on his fate. As reported on Friday, Greater Sudbury Police along with North Shore Search and Rescue began conducting an active grid search in remote areas along Old Highway 17 and in the McCharles Lake Road and Panache Lake Road areas. Today, GSPS spokesperson, Kaitlyn Dunn, told Sudbury.com the searches generated no new information. “Based on the results of the OPP helicopter search the ground search through our search and rescue team and the North Shore Search and rescue no new information came to light in the search for Michael Vagnini,” she said.
Sunday’s temperature matched a record set in 1991
The unusually warm and less-than-snowy winter we’ve been having is now in the record books. Sunday’s high temperature of 6.0 C matched the previous record for Feb. 4 set for Greater Sudbury back in 1991. According to Environment Canada, the temperature also got up to 6.0 C Feb. 4, 1991. The low temperature record for Greater Sudbury for Feb. 4 is -32.8 C, which was set back in 1970, giving you an idea of the temperatures we could be seeing this time of year. The average high temperature for Feb. 4 in Greater Sudbury is -7.6 C.
Let’s eat! Need a recommendation? Flaneuseeats has you covered
Perhaps you are one of the more than 4,000 people who follow the Sudbury food vlog Flaneuseeats on Instagram. The video and picture features have focused on Sudbury area eateries since July 2019, starting with pictures of the quinoa sunflower bowl from Tucos Taco Lounge. Imani Bawa-Baas is the name and voice behind these reviews. She arrived on the Sudbury food scene in 2018 from Ottawa. “I started with the best of the best in Ottawa,” Bawa-Baas said. “There are many food bloggers and vloggers who helped me learn the craft and then I came north.” While she has always been a foodie, Bawa-Baas’ background is actually in social sciences with minors in women’s studies and human resources.
Video: Hundreds pack the Onaping Falls Winter Carnival
There was a little something for everyone at the Onaping Falls Winter Carnival, held Feb. 2-4 in Levack, Onaping and Dowling. Winter carnivals have been around in the Levack/Onaping and Dowling areas for more than 55 years, but seven years ago, the communities at the western edge of Greater Sudbury decided to come together for a joint, three-community winter extravaganza. The carnival kicked off on the evening of Feb. 2 with the first annual Onaping Falls Winter Carnival Miss Snowflake Pageant at the Dowling Leisure Centre. Unfortunately, Sudbury.com wasn’t able to get the results of the carnival by press time, but we hope to bring those to you soon. On Saturday, events really got going at the Dowling Leisure Centre. There were carnival games and activities both inside and outside the centre, with plenty of food and treats to go around. The always popular vintage snowmobile show drew a good crowd. The day ended with a community bonfire.
NDP leader says ‘lives will be lost’ without consumption site
Provincial NDP leader Marit Stiles told Sudbury media Feb. 1 she is concerned the provincial government is threatening the future of supervised consumption sites. “I think lives will be lost,” she said. Stiles took to the microphone with Sudbury MPP Jamie West and Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas at a press conference scheduled in the wake of revelations that the Ford government rejected a Francophone university proposal last year, despite a 2022 report that showed the Université de Sudbury had the organizational capacity to offer such programming. While at the podium, both Stiles and West spoke of the need for a supervised consumption site in Sudbury, and in Timmins. Stiles began by saying, “this government, unfortunately, hasn't stepped up when the people really need it. And we've seen this across the province.”
Bonnie Lysyk: Please, just answer the questions!
Editor’s Note: In her first column for the Trillium, Ontario's former auditor general urges more transparency in government decision-making, especially when it involves the private sector. When The Trillium asked me to write a column, I gave it a great deal of thought before agreeing to undertake the responsibility. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that as the former auditor general of Ontario, my in-depth understanding of the inner workings of government, its multitude of different programs, and how government decisions were being made would enable me to provide The Trillium's readers with food-for-thought commentary. In this first column, I want to reflect on how absolutely critical it is that government decisions be based on reliable, objective and comprehensive information. Over my 10 years as Ontario’s independent legislative auditor, it was apparent that governments were too often making decisions without ensuring the underlying information supports them. The recent Greenbelt scenario comes to mind as one example, and I suspect that most Ontarians would agree that the decision to open specific sections of the Greenbelt to a few selected land developers falls into this category.
