Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your Tuesday morning.
Video: Sudbury celebrates Canada’s 157th birthday
Canada Day festivities took place across Greater Sudbury July 1, with the largest being at Science North, at Bell Park and in the Sudbury Arena.The events at the Sudbury Arena, put on each year by the Sudbury Multicultural and Folk Arts Association, started with a parade from Memorial Park to the arena, followed by opening ceremonies attended by local dignitaries, and then the deliciousness of the annual multicultural food festival. “Happy Canada Day,” said multicultural association president Bela Ravi. “Happy Birthday Canada. Thank you all for joining us to celebrate the 157th birthday of the best country in the world. We are all so blessed to be calling this wonderful country home. This marks the 62nd year that the Sudbury Multicultural and Folk Arts Association has hosted this event.” During the event, the multicultural association presented plaques for outstanding citizenship to two deserving individuals - one to Anishnaabe elder Jeannette McQuabbie, and the other to retired public servant and local volunteer Lionel Courtemanche.
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Laurentian doesn’t want to ‘create expectation’ city will fund pool
In the latest of its regular updates on the status of the long-closed Jeno Tihanyi Olympic Gold Pool, Laurentian University said it’s important that it doesn’t create expectations regarding the City of Greater Sudbury’s involvement in the project. “Laurentian has been participating with the City of Greater Sudbury Aquatic Service and Facility Review,” said the June 28 update. “This review will look at the needs for aquatic infrastructure that is needed to serve the community in the future. This process will explore how the Jeno Tihanyi Pool contributes to the overall aquatic delivery system. “That said, it is important that we do not create an expectation that the City of Greater Sudbury would help fund this facility. Securing the funds to support the repairs and operations of the pool will require many partners and we have to explore all options.” The written statement said since the university’s last update on the pool and the approval of its annual budget “we confirmed that the university is not in a position to contribute operational funds to the project. “Therefore, the university is exploring multiple funding opportunities to secure the funds to support the extensive repairs and the future financial viability of the pool.”
Photos: Festival celebrates Sudbury's rich Ukrainian culture
Ukrainian traditions, music, dance and cuisine were on display at Villa Maria Campground on Richard Lake Saturday, June 29 during the Ukrainian Festival. Organizer Katherine Hucal, who’s also the director of the Mary's School of Ukrainian Dance (Nasha Rodyna), said last year there was a smaller event, and that was a huge success, so they decided to put together a full festival for 2024. Besides the St. Mary’s dancers, several Ukrainian dance troupes from Toronto and Hamilton took part. Unfortunately the dancers had to take a break Saturday afternoon after the skies opened up, leaving the festival-goers scuttling for cover from the pouring rain. “The weather is doing what it's doing, and we're just embracing being blessed by the rain, hoping that it stops soon so we can continue on with the show,” said the soaked-to-the-skin Hucal.
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Effort to ban nickel sales to Israel has pacifist intentions
Condemning the State of Israel’s sustained bombardment of Gaza, local man David Starbuck helped launch a federal petition to ban the sale of Canadian nickel to Israel. Nickel, he clarified in conversation with Sudbury.com, is used in armaments. Through the local mining of nickel, there’s no telling how much the Greater Sudbury area has inadvertently aided in Israel’s “unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza,” as United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese put it earlier this year in finding reasonable grounds to determine Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. As of mid-day Friday, the petition, organized by the No Nickel For Genocide part of the Palestine Solidarity Sudbury group, had received 1,420 signatures. It has been sponsored by Timmins-James Bay NDP MP Charlie Angus and will be closed on Oct. 10, after which it will be tabled in the House of Commons.
92.7 ROCK goes back to its roots with ‘Q92’ rebranding
Billed as “moving more rock than Inco,” Sudbury’s rock music radio station has been renamed Q92 from its former 92.7 ROCK. The official change took place outside the radio station’s Lasalle Boulevard offices at noon on June 28, with a pre-recorded message announcing the changeover followed by on-air comments from announcer and content director Mellaney “Mell” Dahl. “We have returned to our rock roots and we will hereto forthwith be known by our original name, Sudbury’s Rock Station, Q92,” she said from a mobile radio studio set up on their parking lot. Addressing a group of supporters, she beckoned, “Let’s hear it for the Q everyone!” The newly renamed radio station’s inaugural song was the hard-rocking “Rock and Roll,” from Led Zeppelin’s self-titled 1971 album best known as “Led Zeppelin IV” or “ZoSo.” This, Dahl said, is “the rock song that started it all.”
Crave doc series ‘Thunder Bay’ a big winner at NOMFA 2024
The four-part Crave documentary series “Thunder Bay,” exploring racism and the murder of Indigenous people in the City of Thunder Bay, was one of the big winners at the Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards (NOMFA) June 29. “Thunder Bay” won for both Outstanding Television or Video on Demand Series and for Outstanding Director (Ryan McMahon and Leslie Lucas). “When you're lucky enough to have the platform, lucky enough to tell these stories to large audiences, you owe it to those people to put them on screen and to share their stories,” said McMahon, speaking at the awards ceremony, held at Place des Arts in Sudbury. “Many of the people's stories that we shared were people that weren't believed the first time they told their stories, people that are easy to ignore, or people that have been ignored. So to all of those that were brave enough to share their stories with us so that we can share those stories with you, this is for them.
Several school boards projecting deficits in 'very difficult budget year'
Several school boards across Ontario are submitting deficit budgets to the province in what one representative says has been "a very difficult budget year." "We have a funding issue in school boards in Ontario. What's happening this year is that more and more boards are finding it difficult to get to balance," said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA), which represents English public boards and public school authorities that account for more than half the student population in Ontario. "Almost every board in this province that I know of is saying it's been a very difficult budget year," she said. School boards are required to submit their 2024-25 budgets to the province by the end of June. According to the Education Act, these budgets are supposed to be balanced. But there are circumstances under which boards can run deficits, such as if the deficit is less than 1 per cent of the operating budget and can be covered by a surplus. If a projected deficit goes beyond 1 per cent though, approval is required from the minister. Several boards have announced in recent weeks that they have approved their budgets, with some reporting deficits and others saying they were able to achieve a balanced budget by cutting costs.
