A City of Thunder Bay delegation comprised of Mayor Ken Boshcoff, and John Collin, city manager with the city’s Intergovernmental Affairs team, Councillors Kasey Etreni and Shelby Ch’ng, and led by Coun. Kristen Oliver, the group’s chairperson, lobbied for local funding and action at the 2025 Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s (AMO) Conference this week in Ottawa.
“We did cover a lot of really pressing issues that we have in our community, those being the municipal funding opportunities, homelessness and addictions, the encampment crisis, forensic pathology unit, the marine unit, guns and gangs, funding for the Thunder Bay Expressway, Northwest arterial project and the temporary village,” Oliver said.
“We took turns being the lead person when we had our ministry meetings.”
Oliver addressed the city’s social crisis around homelessness and addiction issues and had a “really interesting” discussion with the government about how Northern Ontario is “a little bit more unique” than the rest of the province, given that it operates through the District Social Services Administration board (DSSAB).
“Thunder Bay’s DSSAB is doing a phenomenal job of getting permanent housing solutions in place, which includes transitional housing, supportive housing and assisting people to get off the streets and ensuring that they’re receiving the care and services that they require,” she said, adding there is a missing gap with people living in tents that the city is trying to solve with the creation of a temporary village.
“We asked the province to look at communities in northern Ontario a little bit differently for funding opportunities that larger centres in southern Ontario can leverage. They have opportunities to address homelessness in a much different way than we do here. I think that we will see some movement on that file.”
Coun. Shelby Ch’ng also spoke with Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones about how many of the people who are living on the streets suffer from mental health issues and addiction.
“This is a group of people that are very challenging to serve and we were hoping that we could inspire some dollars from the Ministry of Health (to help in that regard),” she said.
Oliver also addressed the development of the Northwest arterial. She said the Ministry of Transportation is preparing to release its design tender request for proposal for enhancements to the Thunder Bay Expressway.
“Paramount to making those improvements happen is the creation of the Northwest arterial,” Oliver said.
“It is an incredibly expensive piece of infrastructure. We asked for (funding) assistance on that to ensure that if the expressway is moving forward, and the Northwest arterial is a part of that.”
Coun. Kasey Etreni spoke with Ontario’s Health minister about funding for the district health unit and discussed the development of a forensic pathology unit with Michael Kerzner, solicitor general.
She said not having a unit in Thunder Bay affects families that have to go through that process, causing delays, transporting the deceased to southern Ontario, and tying up the police service who accompany them in transit.
“We’re absorbing that cost for flights, hotels and meals when they go,” she said. “Having the forensic pathology unit here in the hub for servicing Northwestern Ontario.”
She says at present, Thunder Bay has not been able to participate in the guns and gangs funding opportunity stream through the province because it was a three-year stream.
“They will be opening that funding stream up next year, which could be double what it was in the initial intake,” she said.
Etreni noted the provincial government wants Thunder Bay to “step it up” when it comes to policing waterways.
“We’ll be looking at some memorandums of understanding already in place with the OPP and we’re going to be expanding that to include the RCMP,” she said.
Ch’ng also addressed the City’s interest in being a facilitator for possible development of the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital area with First Nations partners.
“There’s a lot of ideas right now in the community of what that space could look like,” Ch’ng said. “We wanted to just make sure that the province knows that we are on board with development and ready to do something with that space.”
She addressed the endangered species issue of black ash trees, of which there are six saplings in the Inova Park development zone that are holding up a $20-million project because they can’t be removed.
