Northern Ontario developments!

[vid]

There was also confusion caused by the TBDHU's rural well water boil water advisory.

[TbayON]

The city has approved the transit master plan in principle at the council meeting this evening. The consultant on the project (Genivar) also said they have a preferred site located for the new central bus terminal, but did not release that location. Probably a smart idea.

The scumbag lawyers finally jumped into the flood situation. Alexander Zaitzeff of Watkins Law is starting up a class action suit against the city. Apparently Mr. Zaitzeff thinks he possesses expert knowledge of waste water treatment facilities and that everything that went wrong last Monday is the city's fault. I expect this behavior of large, multinational corporations, but for a local firm to take advantage of local people — pisses me off and disgusts me. It especially pisses me off when these people are in all too often desperate situations and this — is taking advantage of their misery. This is all about the lawyers putting money in their own pockets, because no matter how much a settlement that is reached in the end (if that worthless — manages to win the case, if even enough people sign up) everyone, including the flood victims will be worse off... except for Zaitzeff and Watkins Law. Suing a municipal government is pretty much suing yourself and your neighbours.

[vid]

They have to make money somehow I guess. A lot of the corporate donations are being done more to promote the companies than to actually help, but at least they're helping in some way.

I'm pretty sure they're all set for water at this point. Most of what they need are child care items, diapers and wipes, formula, juice boxes and lunch treats, etc. There are quite a few young families in the area. To see piles of children's toys sitting on the curb, drenched in sewage water is very depressing. Hopefully this is still on the minds of citizens when it comes time to donate to Toys for Tots.

[TbayON]

Housing starts are looking good in Thunder Bay this year:

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/news/214254/Home-construction-season-in-2012-looking-to-be-a-busy-one
http://netnewsledger.com/2012/06/08/thunder-bay-bucks-national-trend-on-housing-starts-in-may/

Single detached home starts are above last year's rate for this time of the year. The next few months also look to be brisk, given the amount of action at the city's building permit dept. Semi-detached, row housing and multi-unit starts are down to half of last year's level currently. With some larger projects currently in early stages, or about to get underway, this slow start should be boosted in the second half of the year.

A number of new lots and subdivisions opening up in the near future should only help boost housing starts further. There isn't a whole lot of selection on the market currently for new building lots.

Thunder Bay, Oliver-Paipoonge and Conmee Township were all declared disaster areas today. The province pledged $16 million towards recovery efforts, to be shared amongst the 3 jurisdictions for varying uses. The bulk of the money, as one would expect, is being given to Thunder Bay. Business at the airport must be booming, it only took almost 2 weeks for the government to get one of their minions up here to announce the funding.

[vid]

Better late than never.

Glass is going up on the courthouse:



It doesn't look as interesting as it did in the renders. It's just more of the boring green glass.

[TbayON]

The finished product rarely looks the same, or as good as what is presented in renderings, unfortunately. That goes for a lot of projects, and not just in Thunder Bay either. I tend to find the landscaping in renderings to be most incorrect when compared to the finished product. We are often presented a park-like setting in a render, only to have concrete and asphalt with a couple dying shrubs stuck in a 2 foot diameter bowl in reality after a project is completed. I suppose we should forgive the architects, engineers and builders though since there are so often budget constraints, surprise costs and often renderings are completed prior to building materials being sourced. This is especially true is large projects, like the court house.

[TbayON]

The Water Garden Pavilion/Mariner's Hall, Splash Pad and Baggage Building art centre have opened at Marina Park. By the looks of the news report video, it was pretty packed down there. The restauranteur that will be locating at Prince Arthur's Landing may also be named in the coming weeks.

Sleeping Giant Brewing Company has opened on Cobalt Cres. Hopefully it fairs a little better than past attempts in town to operate a local brewery.

The Grenwich Wind Farm in Dorion held its official opening yesterday. I didn't know it, but it is the first wind farm in the province to be built entirely on crown land. I am just impressed they got it finished given all the lawsuits and the general disaster that occurred during the development.

The Interim Long Care Centre in Mini-Queens Park on James St. is closing. The building is supposedly too old to continue to serve its purpose. The residents are going to move moved elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if there are budgetary reasons behind the decision as well. I am guessing those who live there will be moved to the new CEISS Centre eventually.

A conceptual drawing of what they new transit terminal may look like was released by Genivar and the city:


It sounds like the construction of the Hampton Inn at the airport won't begin until fall. I talked to someone with knowledge of the construction industry in Thunder Bay, and they seemed to think the ground breaking will occur after the summer season. A variety of issues surrounding the actual site of the proposed building is the cause. There is also still no action at the Marriott site across from Superstore. I am wondering now if there was some back room deal reached between the hotel developer and Loblaws that put a sudden end to the OMB hearing Loblaws requested that has slowed the project up. Maybe some changes were made to satisfy Superstore that require some alterations to the plans for the Marriott, thus requiring the architects and engineers to go back to the drawing board to make some changes.

The new TD Banking centre at the Harbour Expressway and Memorial Ave. is in trouble already, and it hasn't even opened. The building leaks like a sieve and the south elevator shaft is way out of plumb. Both the masonary contractor and the general contractor have gone AWOL on TD. Its also interesting to note that both those contractors came from down south, did the job as quickly as they could, and got out of town even faster. Hmmm... interesting... need I say more?

There is some action behind Superstore and the Nissan dealership on Gorham St. Several large piles of fill have been put there, and there are several pieces of equipment working. I am pretty sure its just a parking lot for Nissan, as they used the land for the purpose before, but time will tell for sure.

[vid]

Didn't get around to posting these photos taken over two weeks ago:

[Chadillaccc]

Wow I didn't realize how big of a skyline changer the new courts building would be! How exciting!

Thanks for the pics Vid! Any chance I could ask you to get a really sick hi-def skyline shot once the court tower is done? Would love to finally have a real skyline shot for Tbay!

[vid]

That is a real skyline shot!

[TbayON]

Those are great court house pictures Vid! How/where did you get the first one from with the water in front?

A couple things in the news:

Brook McIlroy has turned their temporary office for the waterfront into a permanent location for the company. With the potential for the events centre to be located nearby the new Prince Arthur's Landing and in anticipation of other things starting to happen in the north core and Red River Rd corridor as a result, they want to remain in the area to be ready to take advantage of any opportunities that come up.

I also read that the Art Gallery, which has publicly announced its considering a move to the waterfront, is considering the former Pool 6 lands as their location. I don't know if that was made public, and I don't remember anyone posting it here, so there you have it. The plan is on hold at the moment due to the ongoing environmental assessment due to the sunken vessels at the site.

City Council decided on Monday to move ahead with the landscaping/urban design study that were presented this past fall. The study was completed and presented to the city by Brook McIlroy. The city has decided to begin long term planning for the May St, Arthur St, Red River Rd and Simpson St corridors. No physical work is scheduled at this time.

[vid]

The first one was taken from the Island Drive Bridge. The second was taken from the vacant property at the bend in Island Drive, before the bridge to Mission Island.

[TbayON]

Six Northern Ontario First Nations are in the process of issuing eviction notices to all mining companies with camps and projects in the Ring of Fire areas that fall within their traditional territories:
http://netnewsledger.com/2012/06/22/firs...tion-notices-mining-companies-ring-fire/

The First Nations are tired of waiting for government to government talks between Canada, Ontario and themselves. They have been making this demand for years now, and have finally had enough of their calls falling largely on deaf ears.

I'm personally surprised it took this long for things to come to this point up there. I believe the First Nations actually have a lot of support outside the Aboriginal population in Thunder Bay and Northern Ontario as a whole. The governments of Canada and Ontario are fools if they didn't see this coming. I'm not sure what is going to happen now. I'm guessing the governments will cave under pressure prior to 30 days from now.

[vid]

The governments won't cave. They're used to economic malaise in this region and they will simply allow it to continue to exist. They would rather take a hit in revenue and continue to let a large part of the country exist in a state of poverty than to do anything positive about aboriginal land claims.

This development would have had huge benefits for Ontario as a whole and the government barely gave half a —. They're not going to "waste their time" on it. They simply don't care, and they never have.

[TbayON]

I should have been more specific. Nothing will come from the federal government, they might as well not even exist in the whole ROF equation, other than by easing the EA rules recently.

There will be some kind of action on the provinces part. They do see dollar signs with this development, dollars they desperately need and want to take from the north spend on the south. That is the lesser reason, the bigger being McGuinty and his minions are definitely in bed with Cliffs. Cliffs is going to tell Ontario they had better find a way to put these natives down (I don't mean like a dog, but silence them or force them into agreement with the project) and get them out of their way, so they can get on with mining. Ontario will then scramble at Cliffs orders, and try something to quell the protest. Whether its successful or not is another story, they could very well just make things worse.

And those are basically the only thing the Ontario gov't gives a — about. They don't care about making the north more prosperous. They don't care if the stuff is pulled out of the ground and shipped out raw, as long as they get their royalties and tax money. They don't care if First Nations standard of living improves or if Aboriginal people gain meaningful employment that they can feed and house their family properly with. And on and on it goes.

All this stuff the Ontario government doesn't give a — about is the main focus of First Nations and what they want out of development. I think Cheif Sonny Gagnon of Aroland said it best: "If Cliffs leaves, the sun will still rise tomorrow and we will still have all the ore" or something along those lines. As much as the governments' handling of this is irritating, Sonny's point should remind us we have a lot less to lose than anyone else in the end.

[vid]

Originally Posted by TbayON

I should have been more specific. Nothing will come from the federal government, they might as well not even exist in the whole ROF equation, other than by easing the EA rules recently.

This is unfortunate, as enforcing Aboriginal Treaty rights is a responsibility of that level of government.

Originally Posted by TbayON

There will be some kind of action on the provinces part. They do see dollar signs with this development, dollars they desperately need and want to take from the north spend on the south. That is the lesser reason, the bigger being McGuinty and his minions are definitely in bed with Cliffs. Cliffs is going to tell Ontario they had better find a way to put these natives down (I don't mean like a dog, but silence them or force them into agreement with the project) and get them out of their way, so they can get on with mining. Ontario will then scramble at Cliffs orders, and try something to quell the protest. Whether its successful or not is another story, they could very well just make things worse.

Do what to quell the protest? Most of the demands of First Nations can really only be met by changes with Federal law. Queen's Park would have to lobby the Federal government, and I don't see that being very successful if it even happens at all. We could very well see a repeat of the Platinex/KI fiasco.

[TbayON]

You bring to mind another problem with this whole situation. The feds have jurisdictions over some areas (fisheries for example) while the province has jurisdiction over other areas (natural resources for example). Introduce differing priorities between the two levels of government, different ruling parties and different interests, and it becomes impossible to make things happen because if you are a First Nation, there isn't a one stop shop to get this fixed.

The supreme court has set a precedent that provinces are also responsible for maintaining a fiduciary relationship and enforcing treaty rights with First Nations the same as if they were the federal government. That is why I believe Ontario has a role to play and can influence this situation. I find it funny that people out there complain about Aboriginal rights and the duty to consult, yet the white man (I'm not Aboriginal by the way) played a very important role in the drawing up and signing of treaties.

Unfortunately, it seems the government and bureaucrats did not learn a hard enough lesson from the Platinex/KI dispute. This was proven quite obviously to be true after the government had to pay God's Lake Resources out to the tune of $3.5 million just months ago after they got into it with KI.

Where this one is going to go, who knows. The situation really is unprecedented. You have several First Nations, supported by several NWO municipalities, really calling government and industry out. Public (non-Aboriginal) support in NWO seems to be swinging the First Nation's way very quickly, something we typically haven't seen. First Nations and municipalities in NWO have historically not worked together well at all. This is all changing now, and its a very good thing if you are NWO, and its probably going to give governments in Toronto and Ottawa nightmares. I say that quite seriously. Divide and conquer has been the government's game for decades in NWO. The government would not know what to do should a united front form, something which seems to be playing itself out right now. I suggested this strategy to Raymond Ferris (Matawa ROF Coordinator) at a meeting as a means to deal with a deaf government, and get results. I suppose its being implemented now, just have to see if it works.

[tjernobyl]

Aerial view of the courthouse yesterday afternoon:

[vid]

Any other aerial photos or is that the only one you took?

The building is massive compared to downtown. I'm pretty sure that just the section with the courtrooms is larger in volume than the entire Royal Eddie.

[toaster]

New Starbucks at Laurentian U.

Also, please keep your thoughts & prayers with those families in Elliot Lake. Such a tragedy.