Outspoken British Columbia Osoyoos Indian Band Chief Clarence Louie Thompson Chamber of Commerce keynote speaker Oct. 23

The Thompson Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the Winnipeg-based Aboriginal Chamber of Commerce Oct. 23 to bring in British Columbia’s Osoyoos Indian Band highly successful, highly outspoken and at times controversial long-time Chief Clarence Louie as their keynote speaker for this year’s Northern Business Week.

Last year the chamber brought in Ernesto Sirolli, the Italian-born founder of community economic development enterprise facilitation from Sacramento, California as their keynote speaker for the same event. The Thompson Chamber of Commerce tried unsuccessfully in advance to get both Vale and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc. (MKO), a non-profit, political advocacy organization has represented 30 First Nation communities in Northern Manitoba since 1981, to pick up part of the tab for Sirolli’s speech. When the Thompson Chamber of Commerce released its 2013 financial statements to members at its annual general meeting Feb. 19, the numbers showed a shortfall of more than $7,400 when expenses were balanced off against revenues for last year’s Northern Small Business Week. Keith MacDonald, in his treasurer’s report for 2013, wrote, “We acquired a shortfall this year in our budgeting for Northern Business Week, which reflected a deficit in this area. Having the opportunity to have a high profile speaker as Ernesto Sirolli speak in the City of Thompson will be worth its value in the future. The shortfall was covered by retained earnings that the chamber has carefully invested for an opportunity such as this.”

This year, the Thompson Chamber of Commerce has found a co-sponsor from the get-go in the Aboriginal Chamber of Commerce for Louie’s keynote speech at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 244 on Elizabeth Drive. The Aboriginal Chamber of Commerce was created as the result of a Premier’s Economic Advisory Council Summit under former Manitoba NDP premier Gary Doer 10 years ago. Tickets for the 5:30 pm. event are $80 for members and $100 for non-members and are available from the chamber.

Louie has been chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band for most of the last 30 years. The Osoyoos Indian Reserve, in British Columbia’s southern Okanagan Valley, near Oliver, dates back to 1877, takes in 32,000 acres, and is one of the most prosperous First Nations in Canada, with revenues last year of about $26 million and net profits of about $2.5 million. There is next to no unemployment among the Osoyoos Indian Band’ 520 or so members.

Among the businesses owned by the Osoyoos Indian Development Corporation are Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa, the  $100-million  Nk’Mip Resort, wit the accommodations portion co-owned and managed by Calgary-based Bellstar Hotels & Resorts, the 18-hole Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, Canyon Desert Resort, which is under construction and is a partnership between Osoyoos Indian Development Corporation, Bellstar Developments Inc. and GGC Developments, and OIB Holdings Corporation, which controls land leases to more than 20 per cent of the vineyard grape production in British Columbia  – land leased by such wineries as Mission Hill Winery, Vincor International and Burrowing Owl Vineyards.  Osoyoos Indian Development Corporation also owns 51 per cent of Nk’Mip Cellars, rated on the best wineries in Canada. The remaining 49 per cent is owned by Constellation Brands Inc., the world’s leading wine producer.

Louie has a reputation for making highly controversial remarks and not backing down from them. He doesn’t believe cultural accommodation is going make any long-term improvement when it comes to aboriginal offenders: “If I have to go to one more jailhouse sweat lodge, I’m going to puke,” Louie has reportedly said. “It’s not about spiritual wholeness; it’s about the economy. Inmates need to learn carpentry and plumbing and other skills that will help them make a living when they get out.” The very first project the Thompson Economic Diversification Working Group (TEDWG) pitched to the province three years ago  – unsuccessfully  – was for Thompson to be the site of for a new jail, which would be a primarily aboriginal 220-prisoner “restorative justice” facility. Six months after Vale announced on Nov. 17, 2010 its partial decommissioning here, with plans to close the smelter and refinery, but continue mining and milling, TEDWG was created on May 18, 2011. Members represented 10 stakeholder groups, including the City of Thompson, Vale, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), Keewatin Tribal Council (KTC), Manitoba Métis Federation, Northern Association of Community Councils, Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Thompson Unlimited, the Thompson Chamber of Commerce and – belatedly – the Province of Manitoba. USW Local 6166, which represents unionized workers at Vale’s Manitoba Operations, declined an invitation to join TEDWG.

Louie is also known for saying things like, “Be here at 9 o’clock sharp. No Indian time.”

Louie attended what is now First Nations University in Regina and later spent two years at the  University of Lethbridge. He ran successfully for chief in 1984 at the age of 23, lost the job in 1989, but was re-elected again in 1991.

Sirolli’s visit here last year as keynote speaker came as local businesses stood at a crossroads as the implementation work coming out of almost 2½ years of TEDWG needed to begin in earnest.

Some members of the chamber have spent a good part of the last  year trying to work out a plan that would see Sirolli return to Thompson from California in a follow-up visit to work on a community economic development enterprise facilitation project.

Vale paid out $2.5 million in cash over the 2½- year period to fund TEDWG, mainly using Toronto-based consultants rePlan, a Canadian firm with decades of experience helping resource-based companies and communities adapt to change, and their subcontractors, such as Heather Buttrum and Jim McGimpsey of Hamilton, Ont.-based On Three Communication, who worked on a “place branding initiative,” which the City of Thompson has yet to roll out. Buttrum is now a principal at Rain Communications Inc.

Place branding refers to how people view a place based on the experience they have had with it and involves using traditional marketing and branding techniques to try to help communities and regions improve their image.

Sirolli developed the concept of enterprise facilitation 29 years ago in Esperance, a small rural coastal community in Western Australia and now head the Sirolli Institute in Sacramento, California. Esperance, an isolated coastal town of 8,500, had 500 people registered as unemployed in 1985, and a recent quota on fishing tuna that shrunk the local fishing industry.

“Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!” Sirolli has famously said many times.

In 1999, Louie received the Aboriginal Business Leader Award from All Nations Trust and Development Corporation. In 2000, the Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO) named Chief Louie the “Economic Developer of the Year.”  Maclean’s Magazine listed Louie as one of the “Top 50 Canadians to Watch” in their January 2003 issue, while was named to the Order of British Columbia, the province’s highest honour for outstanding achievement, in June 2006.

The hauntings of October: Three Thompson unsolved murders: Kerrie Ann Brown, Bernie Carlson and Christopher Ponask

Kerrie Ann Brown, Bernie Carlson and Christopher Ponask as people were as different as could be; different ages, backgrounds and life experiences. But in fate they shared three commonalities: they all lived in Thompson, Manitoba, they were all killed in October and all three of their murders have remained long unsolved.

The most written about case over the years has been the savage Oct. 16, 1986 slaying of 15-year-old Kerrie Ann Brown, Thompson’s oldest unsolved murder case, which many almost 28 years later still believe is surrounded be a conspiracy of silence.

There is every reason to believe someone knows who killed Kerrie Ann Brown. Former R.D. Parker Collegiate educator John Donovan, who retired March 17 from an encore career as Northern regional director of the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba here in Thompson, perhaps summed it up best on Sept. 28, 2011 when he wrote: “I remember how Kerrie’s death shook our school and the community … obviously someone or more know what happened … the conspiracy of silence must end.”

The only suspect ever charged to date in connection with the case still lives in Thompson. His family moved here in 1968. He was 22 when he was charged in 1986 days after the crime with first-degree murder in connection with Brown’s murder in a case that was largely circumstantial. The three lead investigating local RCMP officers in 1986 were constables Pat Cahill, Maggie Gregory and polygraph and forensic examiner John Tost. The Crown attorney was Dale Perezowski.

The accused was freed four months later after being discharged by provincial court Judge Charles Newcombe without being committed to trial after a three-day preliminary hearing ended Feb. 20, 1987. Newcombe ruled there wasn’t admissible evidence upon which a reasonable jury properly instructed could return a verdict of guilty, which is the legal test in Canadian law for committal to trial. Then NDP Manitoba attorney general Roland Penner did not exercise his discretion to issue a rare preferred indictment, which would have sent the case directly to trial.

Brown was slain sometime after attending a party at a residence on Trout Avenue in Westwood on Thursday night Oct. 16, 1986.  Most of those in attendance at the Trout Avenue party were from ages 14 to 17. The party was held on a Thursday night because there was no school the next day for Kerrie and the others at R.D. Parker Collegiate. She had previously attended Juniper and Eastwood elementary schools. Her mom and dad, Ann and Jim Brown, had moved to Thompson like many so Jim could work in the mine at Inco, while Ann worked at Thompson General Hospital as a medical transcriptionist. Ann Brown died some years ago. Kerrie’s brother, Trevor, lives in Winnipeg, and has been active in keeping up the fight for justice for his sister, as is her aunt, Tammy Fenner, and her husband, Kevin, from Maberly, in eastern Ontario, near Ottawa.

Kerrie was to walk home from the Trout Avenue residence that night with a girlfriend but before leaving the friend went back into the party for a few minutes. Kerrie stepped outside apparently to wait. When the friend returned, Kerrie was gone. Several witnesses reported Kerrie was seen getting into a van between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Others believe she took a taxi to Brandon Crescent. Or she may have walked somewhere from the party.

Two days after the party, two women from the riding stable discovered her nude body in a wooded area close to the hydro line between the horse stable and the golf course access roads. Her body was found on Saturday, Oct. 18, 1986, around 2 p.m. Brown had been sexually assaulted and severely beaten, bludgeoned repeatedly about the face and head causing massive injuries. A large, bloodstained stick was found at the scene.

A vehicle got stuck in the mud there and a blue and red air mattress and a black rubber floor mat were used to try and gain traction and extricate the vehicle, RCMP said publicly in 1996. Two eyewitnesses had spotted a white van and an older model mid-60s green sedan-type car at the scene just hours after Brown, who had been wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey jacket earlier in the evening, disappeared from the party. Crime scene DNA samples gathered in 1986 came from at least two different men RCMP said in 1996, adding they have always believed more than person was involved in the killing.

In 2012, the RCMP  began conducting a full review of Kerrie Ann Brown’s murder investigation. They rehired a retired homicide investigator, Sgt. Bert Clarke, who retired in 2009 as the commander-in-charge of the RCMP’s homicide unit in Manitoba, to assist in the review of the investigation, along with a second rehired former homicide investigator.

The two retired homicide investigators did not work on the Brown murder originally, although they were aware of it, but were brought into assist the historical case unit, which is the official RCMP name for Manitoba’s cold case squad, by bringing their expertise to the complex case by taking a fresh look at it.  It’s a daunting task given there more than 2,000 subjects recorded and documented in the file.

Active duty investigators also continue to work on the Brown case. All of the forensic evidence is being reviewed for DNA submission or re-submission and people continue to be polygraph examined in the case. New DNA samples searching for matches have been taken, most voluntarily, some pursuant to court orders, from more than 100 people across Canada in the decades since the crime.
Administrative personnel were assigned to the case to “digitize” the investigation for present and future purposes.

The Brown cold case is the largest unsolved homicide investigation (nearly three dozen banker boxes of investigative file material) that the RCMP have in Manitoba.

The most recent October unsolved murder here occurred six years ago yesterday on Oct. 2, 2008, when Thompson RCMP were dispatched to a report of a deceased male, found near the Thompson Shell station, in the Southwood area of Thompson. A city-owned concrete public footpath connects the 200-block of Juniper Drive to the back of Southwood Shopping Plaza on Thompson Drive South.  The victim was 19-year-old Christopher Clyde Ponask, who would have been 20 in three days.  At time of his killing, Ponask, and his girlfriend, Randi Duke, were expecting their first child. Earlier this year, Manitoba Crime Stoppers issued a notice saying that the Thompson RCMP detachment, RCMP major crimes unit, and Crime Stoppers were still looking for help to “solve this crime” and “seeking the public’s assistance” into what they described as an “ongoing investigation.”

Ponask was born in Thompson on Oct. 5, 1988. He attended Juniper Elementary School. In 2003 he relocated to Edmonton to live with his mother, Elaine, attending Kennadale High School, and and later moved back to Thompson. His dad was the late  Clyde Trottier and one of his grandparents is Julyda Lagimodiere, minister of justice and vice-president of the Manitoba Metis Federation here, who is seeking a city council seat in the Oct. 22 municipal election.

Meanwhile, Oct. 26  marks the seventh anniversary of the 2007 still unsolved murder of 61-year-old Bernie Carlson, a retired Inco miner and avid gun collector and amateur gunsmith, in an early morning break-and-enter into his 140 Yale Ave. home in Eastwood. Carlson, also know affectionately as “Boom-boom” and “Bowanna,” was shot just inside his front door while investigating an intruder after being awakened by a dog barking just before 1 a.m.

Sean Grunewald, then an investigator with Thompson RCMP’s major crime unit, called the taped emergency call from Bernie’s wife, Elva, hiding in the bedroom from the intruder, the most chilling taped emergency call for help he’s ever listened to. He also has described the case as “baffling.”

Baffling and marked by some bad luck, in many ways from the beginning. Take for instance the ground search for the killers in the woods and trails behind the Carlson home. The police had the worst turn of luck imaginable. The first major snowfall of the season started within 12 hours of the murder, wiping out any scent tracking dogs might have picked up.

Grunewald says if the grass had only stayed dry and greener for a few more days – or even if the snow had come a few days earlier – they may well have had more luck tracking then they did with the season’s first fresh snowfall covering up recent scents just as police dogs were ready to work the trails and woods behind the Carlson residence.

The home invasion, the murder of Carlson and the arrival of siren-blaring, lights-flashing RCMP and paramedics from Thompson Fire and Emergency Services would all happen in a matter of minutes. But in those few minutes, the killers had disappeared, either by foot or in a vehicle.

On Feb. 6, 2012, Manitoba Crime Stoppers released a 1:01 YouTube video re-enactment of the Carlson crime. As of Oct. 3, 2014 at the time of writing, that video had received 742 views. You can watch it here at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A1vb5ufNE8

Carlson and his wife, Elva, were asleep in their bedroom at the back of the bungalow when they were awoken by the sound of the dog barking and their front door being forced open. Bernie Carlson got up to check out what was going on. Moments later he’d be laying dead on the floor from a gunshot wound or wounds. Police won’t say how many times he was shot or the type of firearm used, but say they believe the perpetrators were already armed when they broke into the house and they do not believe Carlson was shot by one of his own weapons as they all appear to have been properly locked and stored in the basement and have been accounted for. The intruders took nothing else either during their brief time inside the house.

Carlson’s gun collection was made up exclusively of long guns – rifles and shotguns, no handguns. While police won’t say exactly how many guns Carlson, an avid hunter, had stored in the house, they described the collection as fairly typical for what might be found in many a hunting enthusiast’s home in Thompson. There was nothing in Carlson’s gun collection that made it particularly remarkable in terms of type of weapons or firepower, police said.

While Bernie Carlson confronted the intruders, Elva made an emergency telephone call that was routed through to the RCMP Operational Communication Centre Telecommunications in Winnipeg. Grunewald, who has listened over and over to the tape, much like a 911-type call highlighted sometimes on reality-based crime television shows, described it as the most harrowing emergency call he has heard as a police officer. The operator who took the call had alerted Thompson RCMP within about 40 seconds of the extreme emergency, resulting in officers being dispatched to the Eastwood neighbourhood with lights and sirens in their highest level life-and-death emergency response mode.

The first officer was on the scene at Yale Avenue within 2:30 to three minutes of the call being made.

The suspects had already fled, maybe on foot and possibly along one of the trails through woods behind the house, but that has never been determined with certainty, police say.

It’s even possible the assailants left the scene of the crime in a vehicle. RCMP set up roadblocks south of the city on Highway 6 and north and west of Thompson on Highway 391. Within the next few hours every RCMP officer on duty in Thompson that early morning, along with some called in, would make their way at some point over to the Carlson residence.

Carlson was born June 19, 1946 at Berens River. According to his obituary, “Bernie, as he was known, or to some Boom-boom and Bowanna, spent most of his younger years in Matheson Island. He attended Cranberry Portage residential school until 1965.”

He met Elva Little and they were married in November 1967 in Wabowden. He was murdered 23 days before what would have been their 40th wedding anniversary.

Carlson worked for Inco for 32 years before retiring in 1998 his obituary recalled. “As an avid hunter he would spend all his summers at Setting Lake campground waiting for the upcoming hunting season. A dedicated family man, who loved his wife, children and grandchildren with every ounce of his being, Bernie truly enjoyed teaching them to fish, hunt, sing and have an appreciation for life. Well known and respected in the North, he called Thompson the city where he worked and lived but Setting Lake and Wabowden his home and life.”

Anyone who has information on any of these unsolved murders can contact Thompson RCMP detachment at (204) 677-6909, or, if you wish to remain anonymous, Manitoba Crime Stoppers at Crime Stoppers, which can be reached toll-free at (800) 222-8477 (TIPS) or to submit a secure tip online go to http://www.manitobacrimestoppers.com and text “TIPMAN” plus your message to CRIMES (274637).

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

Not running: The big story of Thompson city council and School District of Mystery Lake elections Oct. 22

Elections are very often referendums on the incumbents seeking re-election. Voters are as likely to be voting against something or someone as for anything. But not always. The real  story of the upcoming Oct. 22 municipal election in Thompson is not so much the newcomers seeking office, but the vast number of city councillors and School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) trustees who are not seeking office and will complete their terms at 11:59 a.m.Thursday, Oct. 23, including Mayor Tim Johnston, a two-term mayor and one-term councillor, first elected in 2002, and SDML chair Rob Pellizzaro, a local lawyer, who was first elected in 1998, and is the longest serving trustee on the board.

Thompson had a strong turnout for the last municpal election in 2010, with 41.1 per cent of the names on the eligible voters’ list showing up to vote. That figure equated to 3,638 Thompsonites – 3,536 with valid, accepted ballots, 26 voters who declined their ballots – led by 12 decliners at the Riverside poll – and 76 spoiled ballots. Many voters did not vote for an entire slate of eight council candidates, with the average ballot featuring only 5.8 votes for members of council.

In April 2009, council invoked Section 78 of the Municipal Act to add an eighth councillor as of the October general election, along with the mayor, for a nine-member council, reverting to the size council was until the early 1990s when they dropped a seat.

City councillors are elected at-large in Thompson.

Dating back to 1867 and the British North America Act,  which sets out our basic post-Confederation governance structures, municipalities are creature of the provinces and the most junior level in our three-tier federal, provincial and municipal governance system. Without the consent of the Province of Manitoba, there is nothing the City of Thompson or any other Manitoba municipality can do.

It  was the second-highest voter turnout in Thompson history – the record still belongs to the 1986 general election, where 42.4 per cent of registered voters showed up to re-elect then-mayor Don MacLean to a fourth term, but 2010 did finish just ahead of the 41 per cent turnout from 2006, which had been in second place.

Born and raised in Thompson, Johnston is the son of Dr. Blain Johnston, a former city councillor who was the first regular, full-time doctor in Thompson. He graduated from R.D. Parker Collegiate in 1980. After graduating from the University of Winnipeg with a degree in administrative studies and working in Winnipeg for several years, Johnston returned to Thompson in the late 1980s, when he purchased J.B. Johnston Ventures Ltd. from his parents. A past president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce, in 1999 and 2000, Johnston is the manager of North Central Community Futures Development Corporation, and plans to remain there and continue to live in Thompson, he has said.

Also leaving city council is its longest serving-member, Coun. Stella Locker, a registered nurse as well as real estate broker,  who chaired the city planning commission from 1967  to 1972 and chaired the industrial commission from 1982 to 1984. She was first elected to city council in 1989 and served as deputy mayor. In the last election in 2010, Locker finished on top at nearly every polling station, only finishing outside first place once – coming in third at Wapanohk in Eastwood.

Also stepping away is two-term Coun. Charlene Lafreniere, director of institutional advancement at the University College of the North (UCN) since September 2010, and previously executive director of the Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation (TNRC) and director of justice at Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO).  Lafreniere, who topped the polls in the 2006 council race, was re-elected, but with less support, in 2010.

Coun. Erin Hogan, first elected to city council in a city-wide byelection in December 2009 to replace Coun. Cory Young, was re-elected 10 months later in the October 2010 general municipal election. She is pregnant and expecting twins. During her almost five years as a councillor she served as a Manitoba board member on the  Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) national board of directors and was vice-chair of the standing committee on increasing women’s participation in municipal government. She works as a policy analyst in the aboriginal relations division of Manitoba Hydro.

The three incumbents seeking re-election as councillors are Penny Byer, first elected in 2010 also, Coun. Brad Evenson, a one-term councillor first elected four years ago, and owner of Patent Electric and former managing partner with the Wescan Electrical Company, who also served for four months in 2007 as  president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce, and Coun Judy Kolada, the second-longest serving member of council, first elected in 1994.  She came to Manitoba from the south shore of Nova Scotia in the 1960s, following her graduation from Bridgewater Commercial College. She is a former executive director the YWCA of Thompson and before that retired from the provincial government, where she worked for the Department of Northern Affairs as a local government co-ordinator and the Department of Labour as a labour standards officer.  Byer  retired in April 2013 as Vale’s Manitoba Operations as corporate affairs co-ordinator, who moved to Thompson in 1978 to open up the CBC North Country studio and has a diploma in creative communications and certificates in marketing, public relations and journalism,

Two first-term incumbent councillors, Dennis Fenske and Luke Robinson, are seeking the mayor’s chair, meaning the loser will no longer sit on council.

Fenske, currently serving as deputy mayor, also controls DDAK Developments Inc., a family real estate development and holding company, and is a long time resident of Thompson. His parents, Len and Mary Fenske arrived in 1961 with six children planned to stay a couple of years until farming in Saskatchewan rebounded, he says on his Dennis Fenske for Mayor page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dennis-Fenske-for-Mayor/1558721681016070

A centre, who shoots left, Fenske played three seasons of Junior B hockey in British Columbia for the Victoria Cougars  from 1975 to 1978, and three more seasons between 1983 and 1986 for the University of Saskatchewan of the Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA). He returned to live in Thompson in 1988. Upon his return, he was hired by the City of Thompson as a recreation programmer for the Department of Recreation, Parks and Culture. In 1990, he was promoted to director, and served in that position until 1999. He then transferred to City Hall as the director of community development and human resources. He left the City of Thompson in the fall of 2007 for Vale where he is currently employed as engineering supervisor of support services for central engineering and the project management office.

Fenske is a widower. His wife, Don, died in May 2007 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees’ slugger, first baseman and outfielder who died of ALS in June 1941. Both of their daughters are R.D. Parker Collegiate graduates: Allison is a lawyer and Kate a nurse. Fenske, who was out of town Sept. 19 during the ballot draw by senior election official Dave Turpie to determine position randomly on the ballot (which Fenske won over Robinson) was away to get married, Turpie said. Fenske had been engaged to Germaine Leger, of Thompson, formerly of Winnipeg, since Oct. 12, 2013. Both are half marathon long-distance runners who have competed for several years in June in the Manitoba Marathon in Winnipeg.

Luke Robinson, who was out of the gate early, announcing his mayoral run in May, won the eighth and final seat on council in the Oct. 27, 2010 election in a nail-biter of a race all night long, with challenger Jasper Robinson and Les Ellsworth staying in the mix right until the final poll. He first ran for a council a year earlier , finishing as runner-up to Hogan in the 2009 byelection. An automotive, truck and coach heavy-duty mechanic, Robinson is a Francophone, originally from Kapuskasing, in Northern Ontario. Bilingual, he was educated in French in elementary school and finished high school in English. He moved to Thompson in 1999 with his son, Randy, and has worked at Vale since 2001, where is a mechanical underground worker at Vale. He also as a daughter, Tammy, and two stepchildren, Angela and Ryan Bonner, with his partner of 12 years, Heather Bonner, who is Métis and a community liaison worker at Ma-Mow-We-Tak Friendship Centre. Robinson says his grandson, Drayden, will be multilingual, speaking, English, French and Cree.

Robinson also has a private pilot’s licence, owns an ultralight plane, has a cabin at Turnbull Lake in Leaf Rapids, and served 12 years as a volunteer firefighter, as well as serving as a school board trustee in Northern Ontario. Robinson’s City of Thompson biographical webpage http://www.thompson.ca/index.aspx?page=162 lists him as an “active union steward with USW Local 6166,” but the Thompson Labour Committee, when it met last week decided for the first time in years to endorse none of the candidates   –  incumbents or challengers  –  who  had declared their intentions almost a week before nominations closed, and who are running for mayor, city council or School District of Mystery Lake trustee. Robinson brought greetings from the City of Thompson last Nov. 23 to the USW Local 6166 annual gala banquet and dance for their activists and stewards at the Juniper Centre.

Paul Andersen, long-time producer for Shaw TV in Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas, is talking to Robinson at  9 a.m. today and took to Shaw TV’s Twitter account at https://twitter.com/ShawTVThompson last night to tweet, “If you have any questions to ask him, e-mail at shawcable11@yahoo.ca.”

Over at the School District of Mystery Lake meanwhile, the big news, aside from Pellizzaro not running again after 16 years on the board, is that Ryan Land and Caroline Winship are, as  reported here Sept. 14. If you missed it earlier, you can read the story here at  https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/ryan-land-and-caroline-winship-running-for-sdml-school-board-trustee-seats/

There are 11 candidates running for the seven SDML trustees seats.

Also stepping down after one term are 75-year-old trustee Sya Gregovski  and Alexander Ashton, who had taught at University College of the North (UCN) and is the younger brother of two-term Churchill NDP MP Niki Ashton and the son of Thompson NDP MLA and minister of infrastructure and transportation Steve Ashton and Hari Dimitrakopoulou-Ashton, an economist and university lecturer in economics, management, and women’s studies, who is also a former SDML school board trustee. Alexander Ashton plans to live abroad this coming year.

Running again is veteran trustee Guido Oliveira, who works at Vale and was the top vote-getter in the Oct. 27, 2010 election; one-term trustee Vince Nowlin, who also works at Vale; Leslie Tucker,  manager of Northern Region Training and Employment Services here for Jobs and the Economy Manitoba; and Janet Brady, who was elected in a byelection Nov. 17, 2011 to replace Valerie Wilson, who resigned and moved to Winnipeg, as a School District of Mystery Lake trustee. Brady easily swept by Julyda Lagimodiere in a 458 to 230 vote cakewalk.

Brady, 60, a Montreal native, is a product of Quebec’s Roman Catholic school system in the 1960s and early 1970s, and a senior instructor at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Social Work in the Northern Bachelor of Social Work program here.

A former social worker with Awasis from 1987 to 1990, Brady returned to Thompson in 2002 to teach at the University of Manitoba.

Brady has a master’s degree in social work from Carleton University in Ottawa.

In 1999, she sought the NDP nomination for the riding of Arthur-Virden for the September general election, but lost out to fellow dipper Perry Kalynuk.

She did secure the NDP nomination, however, in the riding of Turtle Mountain where she finished second, losing to Progressive Conservative incumbent Merv Tweed, now president of OmniTRAX Canada, the Bayline railway.

Other newcomers in the SDML trustee race include Don MacDonald, Liz Lychuk, Sandra Fitzpatrick, Doug Krokosz and Clint Saulteaux.  Lychuk is the manager of child and adolescent mental health programs and mental health promotion here at the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA),.

Among the 18 city council hopefuls for eight council seats are two former mayoral candidates, Ron Matechuk, who lost to Johnston by only 208 votes, in 2010, and Colleen Smook, owner of McCreedy Campground, who lagged well behind in early balloting last time out and finished third in the mayor’s race with a total vote count of 681. Also running are Christa Herkert, after school program director at the Boys & Girls Club of Thompson, who is also a member of the Thompson Lion’s Club, Communities in Bloom and Operation Red Nose; Blake Ellis, who began his studies last week at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Social Work, where he is working towards a bachelor’s degree, but is undoubtedly better known for his previous employment roles as housing co-ordinator for the Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Program (TNRC)  Our Home Kikinaw program; spokesperson for the former Burntwood Regional Health Authority (BRHA); and as a long-time reporter and later editor with the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News, primarily when the Wright family owned it, but also for six months in 2007 after GVIC Communications Corp. of Vancouver’s Glacier Media Group bought it as part of their Prairie Newspaper Group. Ellis, who has lived here for 17 years and is from the farm country of southwestern Ontario originally, has two children and has also been involved in  Thompson Youth Bowling Council, Thompson Tumblers, Hope North Flag Football and Thompson Junior Soccer.

Also running are Julyda Lagimodiere, minister of justice and vice-president of the Manitoba Metis Federation here, who ran against Brady in the school board byelection in 2011, and also worked previously as the learners assistance centre co-ordinator at University College of the North’s Thompson campus from 1987 to 2012; Paullette Simkins, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Thompson and the Thompson Homeless Shelter; Erika McCarthy, owner of McCarthy Mobile Technology, who recently returned to Thompson after a 10-year hiatus living elsewhere and for a time contemplated running for mayor right out of the gate; Malanie Bercier Cutler; Dave Erickson, a plumber who owns Thompson Plumbing & Heating on Centennial Drive East; Rob Chuckrey; Audrey Dufour, originally from Dolbeau-Mistassini  in the Lac-Saint-Jean region of northern Quebec, who has worked as a substitute teacher for the SDML since 2012; Dennis Foley, a service writer at McKay GM but  best known these days as a mud bog impessario with the  Northern Manitoba Off Road Association , Kathy Valentino; Lydia Blais co-ordinator for Boys & Girls Club of Thompson’s inter-agency Youth At Risk North (YARN), and Duncan Wong, of Baffin Crescent, owner of Wong’s Asian Bistro in Southwood Plaza.