The critically acclaimed podcast and TV documentary Thunder Bay, hosted by Ryan McMahon, is back with a two-part series entitled Post Mortem. These episodes focus on the role of coroners in investigating suspicious deaths in Thunder Bay and across the province.
The episodes feature Caitlyn Kasper, one of the lawyers at ALS. Caitlyn’s perspective was sought because she represents three of the families where a reinvestigation took place into the death of their loved ones.
A little context is necessary here. In 2015 and 2016, Christa Big Canoe and Jonathan Rudin at ALS represented six of the seven families from remote First Nations whose children died while attending high school in Thunder Bay between 2000 and 2011. Five of the seven youths drowned, all in suspicious circumstances, between the months of November and February. The Seven Youth Inquest was one of the largest and longest in the province’s history.
Following the inquest, ALS produced a series of report cards to monitor the progress of various parties in addressing the coroner’s jury’s thoughtful 145 recommendations. You can find the report cards at https://www.aboriginallegal.ca/first-nations-youth-inquest.html.
In December 2018, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) issued a report entitled Broken Trust: Indigenous People and the Thunder Bay Police Service (https://oiprd.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/OIPRD-BrokenTrust-Final-Accessible-E.pdf) The report looked at the work of the Thunder Bay Police on 39 sudden death investigations of Indigenous people. The report found that racism among members of the force contributed to negligent investigations and that nine of the deaths be reinvestigated. Three of those deaths were our clients from the Seven Youth Inquest, which is why Caitlyn’s perspective is so central to the podcast.
You can listen to it here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jonathan Rudin
Special Projects Director