How many must die in Thunder Bay?
THUNDER BAY— Sometimes, no matter how much progress is made, it seems little has changed.
And sometimes, the fight for justice and the right to be treated as worthy human beings seems endless.
Less than two months after the lifeless body of a 19-yearold First Nations man was found at Lakehead University, I went to Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School on Remembrance Day for a ceremony in honour of lives lost dating back almost two decades.
The most recent casualty apparently died by suicide after being escorted out of a Thunder Bay hospital by security guards, leaving everyone gathered in the high school gymnasium with one question on their minds: What will it finally take to make change happen? The ceremony on Monday brought together the families and friends of Jethro Anderson and Paul Panacheese. They were two of seven First Nations high school students who lost their lives in Thunder Bay between 2000 to 2011 while trying to get a high school education, and whose deaths eventually sparked a joint inquest.
Jethro’s body was found in the Kaministiquia River on Nov. 11, 2000. Six years later to the day, Paul died under circumstances that were never fully explained.
Jethro’s death is now being re-investigated on the orders of Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director, along with those of eight others, due to deficiencies in the original investigations by a police force that it found to be systemically racist against Indigenous people.
Their deaths speak to the shattering effects of colonialism and how every day remains a battle for equity and basic human rights.
In 2006, Paul collapsed in the Thunder Bay home that his mother, Maryanne, had rented as a place for them to live while he attended high school. He was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead. The cause of death was never determined.
Monday marked the first time in 13 years that Maryanne had been in Thunder Bay on a Nov. 11. She sat in the front row, surrounded by her family, as Dennis Franklin Cromarty teacher Greg Chomut Hallelujah played the song “Hallelujah” on guitar.
Stella Anderson, Jethro’s mother, waited 19 years to say goodbye to her son, and she did so on stage through song — singing beautifully along with her sister.
The mothers remain tied together forever through the loss of their children. They also share the burden of having their children treated as “less than worthy,” with inadequate police investigations or a lack of caring from public institutions and officials.
Every year, students from communities all over northern Ontario’s Treaty #9 and Treaty #5 territories come to Thunder Bay because there are no high schools where they are from. If these children want to get a high school education — the right of every other child in this country — they must leave their homes at the age of 14 or 15 and move to the city. They are usually put up in boarding houses, where strangers are paid to take care of them.
For years, the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council has been making plans to build a new school, but those plans seem to have stalled. Yes, Matawa Education and Care Centre received federal funds and recently opened a state-ofthe-art school, but Dennis Franklin Cromarty must now be the focus of attention. The aging school needs to be replaced with a new facility that includes a residence for its students. Everyone in the Thunder Bay community should forget the barriers, role up their sleeves and get it done.
Our children deserve a school — and a place to live while they are attending it — where they can be safe and supported.
They also deserve access to compassionate and culturally appropriate health care no matter where they live, be it in fly-in communities or in cities like Thunder Bay.
Time and time again, institutions in Thunder Bay fail our people when they try to access basic services available to every other person in Canada, like a high school education or a hospital emergency department.
It’s long past time to stop treating our children as “less than,” and to give them every opportunity and hope that every other child in Canada receives.