CKPR - Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 06:00 p.m. (ET) - Segment #1

by canadians for canadians. Annie bergeron-oliver, ctv news, gatineau. >> Merella: some interesting stuff. That's our newscast for this thursday. Thanks for sharing your time with us and be sure to join todd van der hayden later tonight. For ongoing coverage of canada's top stories, tune in to ctv news channel. I'm merella fernandez. Your local ctv news begins right now. ( ) >>Accidents can happen at anytime. >>And you don't know who to call. >>At Diamond & Diamond we are on call 24/7. >>And we will work around your schedule. >>We will meet with you and provide a free consultation. >>You have nothing to lose. >>Call Canada's larest personal injury law firm today.

Rock94 brings you Rock Logger Beer. Find Rock Logger at Sleeping Giant Brewing Company. 50 cents from every can goes to local charities. Drink responsibly... and Rock Logger on, dude! A recommended design standard for a proposed indoor turf facility. Good evening and thank you for joining us. The recommendation will be presented to thunder bay city council on monday evening after years of back and forth, the final report is in with a mandatory bid cap of forty two point seven million dollars. Josh marano has been following the story. >> Josh, what are next steps if this moves forward? Well, ryan, if city council approves the next plan, staff will prepare a design build request for the facility. The proposal highlights that mandatory bid cap with the hope of showing city officials that the build can be done for less money, which in turn means the project finally gets approved. In the proposal, administration laid out three options for councillors regarding the price. Option one is estimated that over forty one million option two closer to forty eight while option three which staff are recommending sits at over forty two point seven. That's the energy efficiency model cutting back on certain unnecessary components on the built president of soccer nw michael vanesa ali says the purpose of the new report is to show city councillors that in fact the facility can be built cheaper but feels it is heading in the right direction. >> I am feeling very positive about it in saying that we've been very, very close to this before and it hasn't got across the finish line so it is just part of the process and it is a step in the right direction but it's still just a step when this goes to the developers and they get to come back with their own designs of what the facility will layout like what it will look like on the exterior and they come back with that final dollar then we'll know one is really to add some of those discretionary items include an emergency generator, additional parking and relocating the baseball diamond which can be addressed later and would cost around a million dollars. Mckeller ward councillor brian hamilton says the project would be welcomed by many in the community. >> The site has been selected finally and the scope of the project has the parameters had been set by city council so what we're looking at is very much in line with I think the the expectations of the community as well as city council. This is a legacy project and ultimately it's it's here and I anticipate it's going to get past five point five million of the capped bids forty two point seven million price tag will be allocated for preparing the site which is located next to the community auditorium. Josh maranhao, tv news. >> It's been six years since the lakehead psychiatric hospital shut its doors and officials with infrastructure ontario still aren't ready to put the property up for sale. Questions about the future of the were heightened last week after a fire broke out inside a massive building apparently caused by trespassers. City council members say they want an update from the province. Jonathan wilson reports. Thunderbolt fire crews were called to a blaze inside the former lakehead psychiatric hospital on may 13th. >> Witnesses reported smoke coming from the building and firefighters were able to quickly extinguish a small fire that was presumed to be started by trespassers. There was minimal damage to the ceiling and some content damage inside the building which have been closed since twenty eighteen. The lp is located in andrew foulds ward and he's been looking for answers for years about the province's plans for the property the province made the decision to close it and you know, as a result it's it's actually just stood there and not really been functional and you know, recently we've seen, you know, some not so great things happen there, some nefarious things and you know, there was I believe a fire there a couple of weeks ago and certainly, you know, I as I drove by there fairly regularly ,you know, it is becoming a bit derelict. >> A spokesperson for infrastructure ontario issued a statement this week saying the property is not currently for sale. We've been undertaking various due diligence activities towards identifying potential future uses for the site. Infrastructure minister kinga surma and her staff have toured the 500000 square foot building city officials. I spoke to her about it at the roma conference in january but there are still no clear plan for the building. One person who was recently allowed access inside found graffiti in some of the rooms and paint peeling off the walls has been declared surplus, which means it would first have to be offered to other levels of government school boards or agencies before it's put up for sale. Mackenzie ashcroft says he wants the province to demolish it so the majority of the property can be redeveloped for the benefit of the city. We're on the province to do something with it as soon as possible and almost every month

or so someone comes with another proposal to my office of mixed housing recreation and those kinds of things and of course we would always keep ,you know, the trail system in the lake as is. But there's no doubt that it's a huge property that could house many the lands with the house many thousands of people city council put a community land use designation on the northern portion of the property in order to protect green spaces and natural heritage features the spokesperson from infrastructure ontario declined to provide any timelines for the disposition of the building and property. >> Jonathan wilson tv news a high ranking thunderbird police officer will face three separate criminal trials starting early next year. Staff sergeant michael dimity was arrested in december. His trial dates were scheduled a day at the thunder bay courthouse. He was charged by ohp with breach of trust, obstruction of justice and two counts of assault. The charges stem from a multi year probe into allegations of misconduct within the city police force. Separate trials for the two assault charges will be held in february and april. Third trial for the breach of trust and obstruction charges will begin late next may. The cases will be heard by three separate out of town judges. That opi probe also resulted in charges against former police lawyer holly walburn and former police chief sylvie horth. Trial dates haven't been scheduled in those cases mercury contamination near dryden and grassy narrows is still being made worse by run runoff from the dryden mill. That's according to new research released today. It shows industrial waste water from the mill is increasing the rate at existing mercury contaminates fish and impacts human health. >> Lynne noonan has the details . High levels of methylmercury found in fish have taken a severe toll on the health of people in grassy narrows first nation since the 60s and 70s when mercury was dumped into the english wabigon river system by the pulp and paper mill in dryden. New research shows that the effluent from the mill today is still exacerbating the issue. >> The chemistry of water that's being discharged from the mill and dryden today is amplifying the mercury problem above what we would expect to be if that discharge were not occurring. >> Grassy narrows chief rudy turtle wants to see the mill take immediate action to address the problem. >> I hope that they would support clean up and also that they would look at making sure that they are having safer practise or just shut it down period. The mill's new owners, dryden fibre canada said. They care deeply but won't comment until they've had time to review the report, according to brand perun, it's well known that sulphates and organic matter are needed to convert mercury to the methylmercury that accumulates in the food chain both are naturally occurring in the river. But his study not only found sulphate levels 30 to 100 times higher downstream from the mill but also found high levels of organic matter that compound the problem even more than they expected. >> So about 10 times more sulphate resulted in about two times more ethylmercury and so that's you know, that's a significant amount because if you reduce the amount of methylmercury in the environment by half then ultimately you would reduce the amount of ethylmercury in fish by half. >> Turtle says he's disappointed but not surprised by the results and holds both ottawa and queen's park responsible for the ones that put the regulations on and and they're the ones that look after the practises so they should have done a better job. And again, it's disappointing to see this happening in this age. >> A spokesperson for ontario's ministry of environment conservation said the report is being reviewed by technical experts and a meeting is planned with branfman and indigenous communities next week. Meanwhile, branwen says this doesn't have to be bad news as it would be much faster and easier to stop adding the sulphates and organic matter to the river. >> Then it will be to remove the mercury every yeah every moment that we continue to these compounds to the river that we are still producing more methylmercury that's entering the food chain. >> The federal ministry of environment did not respond to our requests for comments before this story went to air. >> Leigh noonan tv news, a health technology company specialising in medication delivery software, has completed its first successful drone test flight. >> Critical medication was delivered to a patient located 30 kilometres away in a remote area in about half an hour. Officials say this might just be the future of pharmaceutical delivery. Jaidyn belic reports. >> Script runner is the company response bill for this canadian first. The firm partnered with oak medical, its pharmacy to

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