Kenora

The Ontario government is investing over $870,000 to support staff and patients at the Dryden Regional Health Centre with critical upgrades and extra funding to keep costs under control.

Skiiers in Dryden can celebrate a $200,000 funding commitment from the province, which aims to make some major improvements to the hill and chalet for year-round entertainment.

Kenora – Rainy River MPP, Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Minister of Northern Development, Greg Rickford, announced $200,000 in funding to the hill through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation earlier this week, aimed to improve the quality of life for Dryden residents and tourists.

The SIJHL is on its Christmas Break, but the Kenora Thistles are headed to Winnipeg tomorrow to face the Thrashers. It's their last game before a couple of weeks off.

The Thistles are 10-17-2 with 22 points this season, good for tenth in the twelve-team league. They have a 7-point lead on Parkland and a 13-point lead on the Norman Northstars.

Four Dryden residents are facing a few charges for allegedly trafficking cocaine and other drugs in the region after a search warrant was executed last week.

The Dryden OPP says on December 14, members of the OPP and Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service executed the search warrant at a Duke Street residence in Dryden, as officers seized hydromorphone, oxycodone, cocaine, Canadian currency and items associated with drug trafficking.

As a result, 62-year-old Kathleen Tait of Dryden is facing charges of:

Over 450 employees at Dryden’s Domtar mill have new contracts to sign and ratify in the coming months – avoiding a potential strike in the new year.

Unifor says they’ve reached agreements on 3 tentative agreements covering all 450 forestry workers included in Domtar’s Local 105 and Local 324 Unions, which include production, maintenance, office, woodland harvesting, chipping and trucking staff – after talks broke down in November.

Canada's ban on the manufacture and import for sale of some plastic items, including grocery bags and straws, has taken effect.

As of today, companies can no longer produce or bring into Canada plastic checkout bags, cutlery, stir sticks, straws and takeout containers — and in a year, it will also be illegal to sell them.

The manufacturing and import ban will extend to the plastic rings used to package six-packs of canned drinks next June and their sale will be prohibited a year after that.

Northwestern Ontario is seeing an over $600,000 boost in funding from the provincial government this year.

The Ontario government has announced $6.6 million in funding to help renew and rehabilitate important infrastructure across the region, part of a $400 million provincial investment throughout 2023. The funding is being provided through Ontario’s Community Infrastructure Fund.

Police north of Toronto are working to determine the motive in what they've called a "horrendous" shooting at a condo that left five people, plus the suspected gunman, dead.

York Regional Police say Francesco Villi's victims at the high-rise building in Vaughan, Ont., on Sunday night included three members of the building's condo board.

Court documents indicate the 73-year-old had a lengthy history of threatening members of the board and believed they had a conspiracy to "systematically murder" him.

Eleven metres below the surface of the Northwest Passage, deep within the wreck of one of Capt. John Franklin's doomed ships, something caught the eye of diver Ryan Harris.

Harris was in the middle of the 2022 field season on the wreck of HMS Erebus. The team had been hauling dozens of artifacts to the surface -- elaborate table settings, a lieutenant's epaulets still in their case, a lens from someone's eyeglasses. 

But this, sitting within the steward's pantry, was something else.

Evelyn Lorraine Crawford
(Nee McDonald)
April 24, 1928 - December 13, 2022

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother Evelyn on December 13th at the age of 94 years.  She left us knowing that she was loved deeply by her entire family as well as many friends.