Foul play in Thunder Bay
New documentary investigates deaths of Indigenous people in Thunder Bay, Ontario – ‘the homicide and hate crime capital of Canada.’
“I think it’s just people being stupid,” one man says. “They’re drinking or whatever. Horse-playing. They end up falling in.”
“I think there is a possibility that it was foul play,” a woman says. “I also think it could be just, you know, a result of being drunk by the riverbank.”
Those quotes are from two anonymous residents of Thunder Bay, speculating as to why nine Indigenous teens were found dead in the riverways of their city over the past 20 years. The truth is that no one knows; the teen deaths were never properly investigated.
Why not? Because, for decades, systemic racism has permeated Thunder Bay’s police force, as two Ontario police watchdogs concluded in 2018. Their reports recommended replacing the entire police board and reinvestigating multiple Indigenous youth deaths. Since then, two Chiefs of Police have resigned under allegations of misconduct and a third watchdog report recommended new investigations for 41 other unexplained Indigenous deaths.
With all of that as his backdrop, Anishinaabe activist Ryan McMahon carried out his own investigation for a new documentary series on CTV’s Crave platform; he solicited the quotes that began this article. McMahon delves deep into the “corruption, cover-ups and conspiracies” that have haunted Thunder Bay, which topped the list of Canada’s most dangerous cities four times in the last eight years.
His conclusion? The deaths were not accidents.
Seeking justice
Throughout the docuseries, which features interviews with journalists, human rights lawyers, a veteran homicide detective, Indigenous chiefs, family members of the victims and Indigenous youth, two things become clear: the lives of Indigenous teens are at risk. And no one seems to care, because their lives are “worth less than other teenagers” – less as measured by how much the government spends on their education, health care and other services; and less as measured by the UN’s Human Development Index, where Canadians rank sixth and First Nations in Canada rank 63rd.
“You can actually measure how much less we care about Native kids when they’re alive,” McMahon says in Thunder Bay. “It’s not surprising that we also care less about them when they’re dead.”
“I can’t look away; I won’t look away,” McMahon adds. “I’m not letting this go until there are answers. The loved ones of those who died here deserve justice.”
But there’s good news, too. On May 15, 2023, Darcy Fleury was sworn in as Thunder Bay’s newest Police Chief (its third in five years), which many people see as a hopeful sign. Fleury, an outsider to Thunder Bay, is of Métis ancestry. He’s a veteran RCMP officer and district commander with years of experience working with diverse Northern populations.
“I am aware of some internal situations with the organization, and internal investigations are ongoing,” Fleury told CBC last month. “There has been some concern with the public as far as the reputation of the police service and how they operate. So I think one of the big pieces there is to rebuild that trust.”
Courage and empathy
The “central motif of the biblical drama,” theologian Philip G. Zieglar explains, “is the story of God’s love, mercifully rampant against the ‘hostile powers’ that bind and oppress humanity” (Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology). Looking at current events in Thunder Bay through that lens, the docuseries shows how Indigenous people are treated as sub-human, unworthy of care and justice. McMahon discusses many theories, including the shocking possibility of a serial killer or a group of racist vigilantes hunting vulnerable Indigenous youth. Something “far darker is going on here than we realized,” he says – a darkness and apathy now being unveiled and confronted with truth and courage.
In 2016, a provincial inquest was launched by Ontario’s chief coroner into the deaths of Thunder Bay’s “Seven Fallen Feathers” – seven Indigenous youth who died in Thunder Bay between 2000 and 2011. Though they were, McMahon states, “written off by law enforcement as accidental or simply undetermined,” those seven lost lives brought national attention to the crisis.
This paiting was made by Kyle Morrisseau (1992-2009) as part of the School of Woodland Art series. Tragically, Kyle died in 2009 while attending school in Thunder Bay; he is one of the Seven Fallen Feathers.
Out of his great grief, Kyle’s father Christian Morrisseau (1969-2022) created a painting depicting the Seven Fallen Feathers to honour the lives that were lost.
Thunder Bay lawyer Chantelle Bryson, part of the Seven Youth Inquest and featured in McMahon’s docuseries, has filed four human-rights complaints against the police force.
I (Josh) had the privilege to sit down with Bryson for an off-the-record conversation. She’s a woman of extraordinary courage, who – in the face of mounting pressure – has been fighting to bring justice to Indigenous people in Thunder Bay.
Our discussion gave me a deeper look into the ominous history of our city dating back to the 1970s, and how even then Indigenous people were found dead on the river edges, stories that have survived through grieving Indigenous mothers.
Many believe Indigenous people in Thunder Bay are at fault for their “inability to integrate into civilization,” but the facts of history reveal the generational trauma inflicted upon Indigenous cultures in Canada. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anti-Nazi dissident and theologian, acted out an apocalyptic call to resist ‘empire’ and speak the truth about Christ’s love for the dehumanized and reviled. Rooted in patristic theology and its focus on Christ’s humanity, he believed that the inherent law of God’s love for the children of the earth supersedes toxic ideological sentiments and racialized scapegoating.
“Nothing that we despise in other [people] is inherently absent from ourselves,” Bonhoeffer said. “We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in light of what they suffer” (‘After Ten Years’: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times).
There came a point in my conversation with Bryson where it all felt too heavy and I wondered if justice, real justice, would ever happen here.
“Watching Crave Thunder Bay has been difficult,” Chantelle Bryson posted on Twitter in March. “When I recall steps taken by Thunder Bay Police Services to preclude Darryl Kakekayash from giving evidence at Inquest, I am still traumatized. . . . They threatened to ruin me.”
Kakekayash was assaulted by three white men, thrown into a river and left for dead in 2008. He survived, but no one believed his story at the time.
“Anyone who watches this doc now knows his story, the truth of what happened to him, that it could have happened to others, and the impacts even when you survive,” Bryson said.
As I sat back and thought about this article and what the docuseries has brought to light, I realized one thing: these acts of resistance and truth-telling are the harbingers of justice. History will judge and God’s eternal justice is guaranteed. “History’s immanent justice rewards and punishes the deed only,” said Bonhoeffer, “but the eternal justice of God tries and judges the hearts” (‘After Ten Years’).
New Chief of Police Darcy Fleury promised to review police policies and procedures “to make sure if there are guidelines that could lead to systemic racism, we get rid of it,” he told local news.
Is justice and change finally on the way in Thunder Bay?
No Crave TV?
Try the podcast.
The docuseries on Crave is based on Ryan McMahon’s ground-breaking podcast, also called Thunder Bay, now in its second season. Future episodes will include responses to the TV series.
NOT JUST AN ONTARIO PROBLEM
McMahon says his show “could have just as easily been about Red Deer, or North Battleford, or Prince George, or Winnipeg” (podcast episode 5).
Don’t miss Josh Valley’s previous article on this topic, A River of Tears.
