Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your day on this Friday morning.
City confirms speed cameras to cease operations today
Greater Sudbury’s automated speed enforcement cameras will no longer be active as of Friday. City communications staff cleared up this point in correspondence with Sudbury.com this week, which clarifies that the city’s six cameras will remain active until the bitter end. The province has mandated that municipal speed enforcement cameras cease operations by Friday. “We are still working through the details with our partners on the wind down of the (automated speed enforcement) program to determine what supports will need to be in place over the coming months as offences continue to work their way through the Provincial Offences court system,” a city spokesperson said. The city has projected gross revenues of approximately $2.4 million for 2025, and net revenues will not be known until the program winds down and all outstanding offenses have worked their way through the system.
‘Exotic’ Copper Cliff the setting for southern author’s new murder mystery
Although she’s from London, Ont., Trina Brooks considers herself a “half-northerner,” as all of her family is from Northern Ontario, and she spent many summers here as a kid. Those summers in Lively, Naughton, Mattawa and Creighton Mine, a former mining community in the Walden area that’s now a ghost town, left an impression on her. So when it came time to find a story idea for her first novel, Brooks inevitably went back to her childhood vacations in Northern Ontario. Her first book, a murder mystery called “The Barren Hills of Creighton,” was published November 2023, evoking the place where her mother grew up. And she’s just come out with the second in her Northern Mystery Series, entitled “A Killing in Copper Cliff.”
Ombudsman flooded with long-term care complaints from the North
More than half of the Ontario residents who contacted the Patient Ombudsman's office were patients or residents of long-term care homes who had concerns about their personal health experiences. Along with that, Northern Ontario residents were among the largest group especially with concerns about long-term care homes. Those are two of the key findings in the recently released annual report of the Patient Ombudsman, titled “Listening, Learning, Leading Change”. The report was issued Thursday and looks back on the fiscal year of April 1, 2024 to March 21, 2025, during which time 4,886 new complaints were logged with the ombudsman, compared to the previous year when the complaints numbered 4,429. The role of the Patient Ombudsman is to help resolve complaints people have with respect to their experiences with Ontario hospitals, long-term care homes, home care and community surgical and diagnostic centres, the About page on the ombudsman’s website states.
Two injured in Nov. 11 fire at Energy Court encampment
Two people were sent to hospital with injuries after a fire at the homeless encampment at Energy Court on Nov. 11. Greater Sudbury Fire Services Deputy Chief Jesse Oshell said he’s not sure of the extent of the individuals’ injuries. He said the incident occurred in the early morning on Tuesday, and involved the use of a propane heater that caused a tent to catch on fire, destroying the structure. There have been other injuries and even deaths at encampments in Greater Sudbury over the last few years involving incidents where structures have caught fire. Oshell said the fire department is always working with social services to educate people living in the encampment about “the appropriate use of heating fuel, fired appliances and following manufacturers’ recommendations.”
City tax levy down to 5.2% after police budget reduction
The City of Greater Sudbury’s tentative 2026 tax levy increase now sits at approximately 5.2 per cent, which is a half-percentage drop from its initial 5.7 per cent. That said, the municipal budget remains very much a fluid thing, with city council slated to debate both the 2026 and 2027 budgets during a series of meetings beginning Dec. 2. The half-percentage drop comes as a result of Friday’s emergency meeting of the Greater Sudbury Police Service board, at which members unanimously voted to bring the budget down by more than $2 million, mainly a result of cancelling planned reserve fund contributions toward new police headquarters, which there’s no proposed timeline to build. Initially approved at a 12.66-per-cent hike, the Greater Sudbury Police Service’s 2026 budget increase now stands at 10.21 per cent. This updated budget was presented to city council during Wednesday night’s finance and administration committee meeting of city council.
New local Conservation Authority includes North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins and the Soo
The proposed boundaries for the regional consolidation of Ontario’s conservation authorities have been released, and they are sure to spark controversy. The North Bay Mattawa Conservation Authority has been replaced by the Northeastern Ontario Regional Conservation Authority and has been split into three different sections. It's so vast, it includes Sudbury, Timmins, and Sault Ste. Marie. The new organization is the result of the Province combining the present 36 conservation authorities into just with a goal of streamlining services and improving watershed management. "It brings together the conservation authorities in the northeast, maintaining coordination across four large watershed areas and shared northern infrastructure and ecosystems. Its work focuses on maintaining healthy waterways, protecting natural habitats, and promoting sustainable land and water use across major watershed areas that span parts of Northern Lake Huron, the Abitibi, Missinaibi, Mattagami, Wanipitai, French, and Upper Ottawa River systems," says the document.
