Ontario’s Regional Chief, Isadore Day, is pressing Ontario’s transport minister to improve safety on highways that run through First Nations. The call follows the deaths of two Bruce Mines residents whose vehicle was hit by a transport trailer going through the Garden River First Nation last Friday. Day says what’s needed, especially in Garden River, are school zone and speed limit signs.
Day says the province built a bypass around Garden River so vehicles wouldn’t have to speed through the community. But he says people are still dying as a result of vehicles driving on Highway 17B. Over the past three decades, at least 35 residents of the reserve have been killed as the result of motor vehicle collisions.