It’s official: eight hectares of land on Golf Links Road and Central Avenue are now owned by Costco.
Thunder Bay shoppers can rejoice as this (almost) guarantees the long-anticipated arrival of the superstore.
“It’s been 30 years in the making that Costco’s been trying to get in (the Thunder Bay market),” said Brian Flynn, Manager of Leasing and Acquisitions for Forum Properties, the firm that sold the land to Costco. “It took quite a bit of effort and heavy lifting to put it all together. We worked hand in hand with city real estate, development, engineering, et cetera. And we had good vendors in the landowners that worked with us.”
Flynn says that Costco can now submit their building permit to start construction on the site, and it is working through that process now.
“Together we steered the ship through all the requirements and got to the end result, which is great for the city of Thunder Bay,” Flynn said. “We don’t see there being a better site in this market for Costco. It’s exactly where you’d want to be, easy to access from anywhere in the city, and it’ll be a huge regional draw for the city. It’ll keep dollars being spent in the city limits rather than outside of the city.”
There have been rumblings of a Thunder Bay Costco for at least the last decade, dating back to the Keith Hobbs regime. It’s finally here.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s idea of elimating the federal gas tax is not getting support from the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association.
Rick Dumas is president of NOMA and says the idea may offer short term relief but risks long term consequences for municipalities and Canada.
“Highways 11 and 17 are not just Northern roads—they are a national trade corridor,” says Dumas.
We need to be investing in them as a nation-building priority, not pulling back from the very tools that help us get there.”
The organization says municipalities use federal gas tax revenue to maintain roads, bridges, water systems and transit networks.
It adds that the impacts of eliminating the gas tax would be most acutely felt in northern, rural and remote communities, where distances are vast, and costs are higher.
It says at a time when municipalities are already managing significant instructure deficits, removing the funding would only deepen that strain.
The organization says eliminating the federal gas tax would also undermine any progress made on national infrastructure projects.
The mayor of Bridgewater is reiterating that even with a dangerous man at large, the situation did not meet the criteria for an emergency alert and thanks police for how they handled the situation.
David Mitchell first addressed the issue Monday evening, but in a lengthy post on social media Tuesday afternoon, he went into more detail explaining why the word “dangerous” was used.
“Because of this individual’s past, he is considered dangerous by police for those past crimes but was not considered a danger to the public now,” says Mitchell. “He was wanted for skipping parole (not wanted for other things) and had not committed any offences while here 9for what appears to be a short time).”
Mitchell says police wanted to make sure people didn’t pick him up or approach him and he thanks officers for how they handled things.
It was Monday afternoon when Bridgewater Police issued a statement that they were looking for Latef Tag EL DIN. They had labelled him a “dangerous man”, which had many in town wondering why an alert was not issued.
Mitchell says he understands having the word “dangerous” in there created a lot of community stress but the man was not armed and had been sitting at a hospital for hours.
“When he left the hospital, based on the tracking by the K9 unit, he actively avoided the public while waiting for the preson who dropped him off,”adds Mitchell.
He says he is not trying to dismiss the public but only provide a little more detail.
A Wisconsin man has been fined $28,750 for illegally killing a moose in northwestern Ontario.
The incident took place in September of 2023, when the American hunter spotted a cow moose standing on Nort Road near Pickle Lake.
An investigation showed he fired down the road with a high-powered rifle.
The investigation also showed that Larry Szura did not have a valid cow tag and subsequently travelled over 13 kilometres to his hunting partner, who was not aware Szura was out hunting, and convinced the tag holder to invalidate their tag on the unlawful harvest.
Szura immediately left the area and returned to the United States the next morning.
In addition to the fine, he’s been prohibited from hunting in Ontario for 10 years.
She shares with our newsroom both bells were stolen by the same thieves from the churches that are 1.7 km away from each other.
“It’s one thing to be so morally bankrupt to rob a church, a churchyard, sacred ground. But it’s something entirely different to take that [bell] into a barn with witnesses and smash it to smithereens,” she expressed.
“I have no idea how low a person can possibly ever be in their life to think that that is acceptable or funny or that they’re ever going to get away with it.”
MacEachern says she heard it was purposely broken down very fast to try to ensure that it was never recovered after her pursuit the other bell last year.
According to her, the thieves made a very good attempt to scrap it in different loads, but she had already contacted all the scrapyards in the area and received a big load of pieces from one metal scrapper, while some other pieces were handed to her directly.
She says it was awful to see the historical bell that was a gift to the church from St. Ninian’s School smashed into so many pieces.
“We did recover about 95% of it. We’ve started reconstruction basically just to see how much is actually still missing and presumably will probably never be seen again,” shared MacEachern.
She says the bell gave a sense of community and safety which is everything the area residents stand for.
The man who managed to fix the bell from Holy Rosary Church is doing some research to figure out the best plan moving forward and the trustees for St. David’s United Church are having a meeting this week to discuss which option or direction they’re going to go in, stated MacEachern.
She says a few people did get paid for sharing information, but the actual reward she posted was not given out.
The Rainy River District Festival of the Performing Arts resumes this week.
The vocal competitions will take place on Wednesday and Thursday at Knox United Church in Fort Frances.
Almost 80 performances are scheduled over the two days before adjudicator Judith Oatway, a vocal instructor from Manitoba.
Choirs will perform in the morning, including a grade 7 and 8 ensemble from St. John’s Ravenscourt School in Winnipeg.
Solo performers will take to the stage in the afternoon.
Drama and Speech Arts competitions in Anishinaabemowin, English and French took place over the last two weeks.
The Anishinaabemowin Speech Arts portion of the festival saw 7 performances, including an adult hand-drumming group, who were adjudicated by Roy Tom, an educator from Big Grassy First Nation.
As the division is non-competitive, no scores were given.
English and French performances last week were before adjudicators Robin Taylor Wright and Kim Anderson.
Wright also held a drama workshop that attracted 10 students from Fort Frances High School.
The festival organizers and the school’s Arts and Culture Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program partnered on the workshop.
A workshop, entitled “Deconstructing the Message”, was put on by Mr. Robin Taylor Wright (red shirt), who served as an adjudicator in this year’s Rainy River District Festival of the Performing Arts. Ten students from Fort Frances High School took part. Photo supplied by Rainy River District Festival of the Performing Arts, April 6, 2026.
Another workshop will take place this Friday from 1:30 pm to 3 pm at Fort Frances High School, led by Oatway.
The free workshop is open to all performers in the festival’s vocal division, as well as cast members of the upcoming high school musical Hadestown and students enrolled in the high skills major program.
Pre-registration is appreciated by emailing rrdist.festival@gmail.com.
Here are the results from the first two weeks of the festival.
English Drama & Speech Arts Division Results – Tuesday, March 31
CLASS D308 English Drama, Choral Speaking, Grade 3 FIRST: Robert Moore School Gr 3 (Ms. A. Norris) (Honours)
CLASS D809 English Drama, Skit, Grade 8 FIRST: Cornerstone Christian School Gr 6-8 (Ms. Y. Veldhuisen) (Honours)
CLASS PSA9067 English Drama, Solo Spoken Poetry, Classical, Grades 10-12 FIRST: Alexis Latter (Honours)
CLASS PSA9134 English Drama, Solo Reading, Canadian Prose, Grades 10-12 FIRST: Alexis Latter (Honours)
CLASS D1117 English Drama, Quick Study, Grades 11 and 12 FIRST: Alexis Latter (Honours)
CLASS D1106 English Drama, Sight Reading, Grades 11 and 12 FIRST: Alexis Latter (First Class Honours)
CLASS D308 English Drama, Choral Speaking, Grade 3 FIRST: Olivia Sivonen and Marlena Johnson
CLASS D401 English Drama, Serious Solo Poetry, Grade 4 FIRST: Rebecca Margison
CLASS D302 English Drama, Humorous Solo Poetry, Grade 3 FIRST: Nash McMahon
CLASS D202 English Drama, Humorous Solo Poetry, Grade 2 FIRST: Mackenzie Christian (Honours)
CLASS D402 English Drama, Humorous Solo Poetry, Grade 4 FIRST: Bristol Christian (Honours) SECOND: Rebecca Margison
CLASS D916 English Drama, Shakespearean Soliloquy or Monologue, Grades 9 and 10 FIRST: James Gagne
CLASS PSA9093 English Drama, Dramatic Monologue, Own Choice, Grades 10-12 FIRST: Alexis Latter (Honours)
French Drama & Speech Arts Division Results – Thursday, April 2
CLASS F108 French Choral Speaking, Own Choice, Grades 1 and 2 FIRST: St. Mary School Grade 1 FI (A. Coyle) (First Class Honours) SECOND: St. Mary School Grade 1/2 FI (M. Brady) (Honours)
CLASS F308B French Choral Speaking, Own Choice, Grades 3 and 4 FIRST (Tie): Lex Norman, Collins Armstrong, et Signy Green (M. Brady) (First Class Honours) and Brielle Stus et Ember Van Troyen (M. Brady) (First Class Honours) SECOND: Noah Whalen, Porter Coyle, et Cohen Gushulak (M. Brady) (Honours)
CLASS F508B French Choral Speaking, Own Choice, Grades 5 and 6 FIRST: Rosina Woodgate, Elena Bottomley et London Lees (M. Gowdar) (First Class Honours) SECOND (Tie): Aria Brady et Naomi Gerber (M. Gowdar) (Honours) and Tilly Sexton et Alexis Reather (M. Gowdar) (Honours)
CLASS F511 French Reader’s Theatre, Grades 5 and 6, FIRST: Carys Simpson et Anneliese De Gagné (M. Gowdar) (First Class Honours)
CLASS F704 French Solo Prose Reading, Own Choice, Grades 7 and 8 FIRST: Teagan Sether (M. Wright)
CLASS F708 French Choral Speaking, Own Choice, Grades 7 and 8 FIRST: Sisily Morelli et Firdaus Toure (First Class Honours) SECOND: Aria St. Onge et Chase Bruyere (M. Wright)
CLASS PSA 9053 Solo Spoken Poetry, Multilingual, Own Choice, Grades 7-9 FIRST: Teagan Sether (M. Wright) (Honours)
An investigation by the Serious Incident Response Team found no reasonable grounds to charge an RCMP officer with a crime.
The investigation arose from an incident where the officer discharged a firearm while responding to a call in Moncton last fall.
It resulted in the death of a suspect.
Police were responding to a report of a robbery at a bank in Moncton on Sept. 27.
Following the robbery, the suspect fled on foot toward a residential area.
According to the SIRT report, the man tried to steal an occupied vehicle at gunpoint, but was unsuccessful and shot at another vehicle.
He continued on foot and broke into a home, pointing his gun at the occupant.
The occupant escaped unharmed.
RCMP officers found the man in the house and ordered him to co-operate.
It appeared the man was complying, but he ran back into the house and fired two shots toward an officer.
The man remained in the house for more than an hour, calling 911 several times, before setting the house and a vehicle on fire and fleeing out the back door.
Multiple officers told the man to stop at that point, but he refused, pointing his gun at officers.
He tried to break in to another home but was unsuccessful.
The SIRT report said the man was “looking for something in his pants and threatened to kill officers.”
The suspect turned around, arms raised, and pointed a gun at officers.
One officer fired three rounds from a carbine rifle, killing the suspect.
SiRT is responsible for investigating all matters that involve death, serious injury, sexual assault and intimate partner violence or other matters of a public interest that may have arisen from the actions of any police officer in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
