Our look back at the last decade is sponsored by Dresden Meat Packers/Dresden Meat and Deli:
2010
January 6, 2010: The Chatham-Kent Fire Department conducted some ice water rescue training in the Sydenham River in Wallaceburg on Wed. January 6, 2010. Listen to Pat Martin, training officer in Wallaceburg, discuss the exercise.
January 21, 2010: Ontario is supporting the opening of a new manufacturing facility in southwestern Ontario, which will create approximately 64 new jobs in Wallaceburg when the facility opens in summer 2010.
A recognized leader in providing conveyor systems for the mining industry, Precismeca Ltd. is investing nearly $3 million to equip the plant, including a $894,000 loan from Ontario’s Advanced Manufacturing Investment Strategy (AMIS).
February 4, 2010: When Chatham resident Janet Barnes heard that C-K was one of 65 cities nation-wide vying for a spot on the Monopoly Canada board game – she wanted to let more people know about it. With only a few days remaining in the voting process – and Chatham-Kent trying to hold on to the first overall position – Barnes decided to organize a walk on Thursday (Feb. 4) to help generate more awareness of the contest, and to urge more people to get online and vote. Approximately 50 people attended the walk, which started on William Street, and proceeded down King Street and back, through downtown Chatham.
April 23, 2010: Dave Van Kesteren, Member of Parliament for Chatham-Kent–Essex, and Pat Hoy, Member of Provincial Parliament for Chatham-Kent–Essex, together with Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope, and Jim Loyer, Chair of the YMCA of Chatham-Kent, celebrated the groundbreaking for a new YMCA facility in Chatham-Kent.
Total eligible project costs are estimated at $13,275,421. The governments of Canada and Ontario have each committed up to $4,424,638 toward this project. The municipality of Chatham-Kent is providing $2.4 million and the YMCA of Chatham-Kent will contribute the balance of funding.
June, 2010: Chatham-Kent wins the Hasbro Monopoly Canada board game competition. The Chatham-Kent Council Council Chambers were packed, as Hasbro made the announcement via webcast. Watch and listen to Chatham-Kent being announced as the winner and the owner of the Boardwalk spot on the board.
October, 2010: Incumbent Mayor Randy Hope defeats former Wallaceburg Councillor Tom McGregor in the 2010 Municipal Election. Hope received 13,169 votes for 40.87% of the overall vote, while McGregor received 10,956 votes or 34%.
October, 2010: Leon Leclair and Joe Faas were elected to Chatham-Kent Council, representing Ward 4. Jeff Wesley and Sheldon Parsons were elected in Ward 5 – Wallaceburg.
2011
February 6, 2011: Wallaceburg’s Shaun Suisham played in Super Bowl XLV as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Green Packers ended up winning the game, 31-25.
Here is a video of a pep rally held at WDSS leading up to the game:
August 20, 2011: The Kraft Celebration Tour stopped in Wallaceburg. A LIVE taping of TSN’s Sports Centre was held in Crother’s Park in Wallaceburg as part of the celebration.
Here is an interview with TSN anchors Kate Beirness and Darren Dutchyshen and Aaron Hall:
2012
March 2, 2012: Donald Stuart ‘Chip’ Gordon, a proud resident of Wallaceburg, passed away peacefully at the Wallaceburg Hospital surrounded by his family on Friday, March 2, 2012 at the age of 65. Chip was a past chairman and founding member of WAMBO, former Councilor for the Municipality of Chatham Kent and devoted friend to all in the community of Wallaceburg.
March 16, 2012: The body of 25-year-old Brandon Sands was found in the Sydenham River in March of 2012. Sands had went missing on Boxing Day in 2011.
March, 2012: St. Clair College takes over ownership of the Chatham Capitol Theatre.
December 15, 2012: A media conference was held to officially mark the beginning of the renovation process, which would create the new Oaks Retirement Village, formerly known as the Oaks Inn Hotel, Banquet & Convention Centre. The development was set to cost $20-million.
December 20, 2012: Lambton Conveyor announced its expansion into Wallaceburg. The move was set to create 100 jobs.
2013
July 2013: Wallaceburg Councillor Jeff Wesley entered a notice of motion to hold a public meeting before the end of the year to discuss the future of the Lou Stonehouse walking bridge in Wallaceburg. Reports say more than 90 letters and 5,000 signatures were presented to council from concerned citizens in the community after the walking bridge was included on a list for divestment.
September 2013: Chatham-Kent Council approves online voting for the 2014 Municipal Election.
October 2013: Chatham-Kent approved a report recommending the development of a conservation policy and the hiring a professional forester.
November 2013: Facing a $2-million deficit, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance realigned services at its Chatham and Wallaceburg hospitals.
November 2013: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor relocated to Chatham.
2014
February 24, 2014: The Sydenham Current goes LIVE.
June 2014: Incumbent MPP Monte McNaughton won in Lambton-Kent Middlesex. However, overall it was the Liberals who captured a majority win.
August 2014: Baldoon Golf Club closes. Full story, here.
October 2014: Wallaceburg’s Brittany Fish, who is now a lawyer in Ottawa, was on lockdown in her office building after the shootings on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Read Brittany’s account, here.
October 2014: The incumbents in North Kent, Joe Faas and Leon Leclair, re-claimed their seats. In Wallaceburg, it was one incumbent, Jeff Wesley, topping the polls while newcomer Carmen McGregor ousted Sheldon Parsons to claim a spot on council. Overall in Chatham-Kent, it was mayor Randy Hope winning for a third straight term, beating Marjorie Crew.
October 2014: Wallaceburg’s Seth Griffith makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.
November 2014: It was a scary situation when emergency crews were called to downtown Dresden to deal with multiple medical calls for students, while the Remembrance Day service was taking place.
November 2014: Dozens of people attended a public meeting at the UAW Hall in Wallaceburg, hosted by the Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the hired consultants for the Wallaceburg and Area Water Supply System Municipal Class EA, Stantec Consulting Ltd.
After presenting in detail a series of options, which included rehabilitating the current Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant, Stantec’s “preferred alternative” was connecting to the Chatham water supply, which gets its water from Lake Erie.
Another public meeting was set to be held.
2015
August 2015: What started as a concern from a Wallaceburg resident about water flowing at the Jaycee Park turtle, and a subsequent poll question on the Sydenham Current, a new community project was born. Full story, here.
October 2015: Walpole Island First Nation celebrated the installation of a statue of Tecumseh on top of their Veterans’ monument, during a ceremony in October. Full story, here.
October 2015: A Toronto man is hoping to turn his dream of owning and operating a private school into a reality, after purchasing the former D.A. Gordon Public School in Wallaceburg. Full story, here.
October 2015: A Walpole Island youth was a part of history, as he led Justin Trudeau into Rideau Hall to be sworn in as Canada’s new Prime Minister. Theland Kicknosway, 12, was picked to sing and drum a welcome song for the historic event, which led the procession for Trudeau, along with Trudeau’s family and his new cabinet ministers. Full story, here.
December 2015: A rash of vehicle thefts stung the Wallaceburg area from August to November. The multiple incidents left many truck owners in the Wallaceburg community frustrated and the police looking for clues. Two suspects were brought into custody in the case after a high speed chase on November 3. During a press conference held in the former council chambers at the Wallaceburg Municipal Centre on December 22, Chief Gary Conn of the Chatham-Kent Police Service outlined details of the case.
2016
All-year: Stemming from a Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Board of Directors meeting for the St. Joseph’s, Public General and Sydenham District Hospitals in January, CKHA officials stated they were projecting a year-end deficit of $1.8 million.
After this, the floodgates began to open for the local hospital.
Eventually governance activities between the hospital boards were halted, and new plans for the future of the CKHA were put forth, separately by the Sydenham District Hospital board and the Chatham boards. The Medical Advisory Committee for the Alliance put their support behind the plans being made by the Chatham boards, and Dr. Indraneel Ghosh, chief of emergency medicine and the senior medical director of strategy, access and flow, stated many physicians refuse to work at the Sydenham Campus in Wallaceburg because they feel it is “unsafe.”
By June, the Ministry of Health and the LHIN stepped in and ordered an investigation into the CKHA.
By August, the report by Bonnie Adamson was released, which completely bashed the leadership at the CKHA and recommended a supervisor be appointed to the hospital. Shortly afterwards, the Ministry followed the recommendation by Adamson and hired Rob Devitt to take on the supervisory role.
Devitt got to work right away, and within days the CKHA president and CEO Colin Patey was no longer with the organization, and interim CEO Ken Deane was hired. The following month, Sarah Padfield, the chief operating officer at the CKHA, joined Patey as a former CKHA employee.
The search for a permanent CEO began, and Devitt began working on a new vision for the CKHA.
In December, Dr. Pervez Faruqi was named as Chief of Staff for CKHA and Lori Marshall was named President and CEO of the CKHA.
Marshall is due to start her job in March.
January 2016: A former Dresden resident led the charge in a historic surgery performed in Toronto, the first of its kind in Canada. Dr. Steven McCabe led a multi-disciplinary team to the successful completion of the country’s first transplant of the upper limb. During the procedure, which lasted approximately 14 hours, a team of 18 surgeons attached the forearm and hand matched from a donor to a patient who had been evaluated as a suitable candidate. “It is basically a symphony orchestra of people coming and going,” Dr. McCabe said. “We have the anesthesia specialists who are there, all the operating room nurses and the operating room team. So all in all, we have many times more than that number. We have to have a process of six months of preparation. Everything is detailed. Who is going to come and go when. What pieces of equipment are needed and when, so they are coming and going in and out of the operating room. X-Ray machines, operating machines etc.” McCabe came back to his hometown to speak at the Rotary Club banquet back in April.
March 2016: A story that packed the Sydenham Current headlines in 2015 came to a close in 2016. An eight person evaluation committee, tasked with analyzing each option for the future of Wallaceburg’s drinking water, elected to stay with the status quo. And the Chatham-Kent PUC also changed their course announcing their “preferred solution” is to rehabilitate the Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant. Wallaceburg’s water source will now remain in the Syne River, after the Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commision put the stamp of approval on a staff recommendation to keep the status quo. The consultants hired to do an environmental assessment of the future of Wallaceburg’s water, had originally stated their preferred alternative was for Wallaceburg to connect to the Chatham water supply.
June 2016: With the contract set to expire with Medavie EMS this year, a merger between Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and the Fire Department was explored in Chatham-Kent. Ken Stuebing, fire paramedic chief in C-K, created a proposed plan to amalgamate the two services. However, this sparked a petition by local paramedics in Chatham-Kent, who became vocal about their displeasure about joining forces with the firefighters. Eventually, despite a recommendation by Stuebing to combine forces, council voted it down and awarded Medavie with a new five-year contract.
June 2016: The Pittsburgh Steelers announced on June 24 that they released Wallaceburg Shaun Suisham, after he failed a physical. “Unfortunately Shaun incurred a setback in his recovery from knee surgery that won’t allow him to compete in a timely manner,” said Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert. “Shaun has played a significant role in our success during his time in Pittsburgh. He has been the consummate professional on the field and in our community. We wish he and his family all the best in the future.” Suisham joined the Steelers in 2010 and converted 124-of-141 field goal attempts and each of his 173 extra point attempts through the 2014 season. He spent the 2015 season on the team’s reserve/injured list after suffering an injury during the Hall of Fame game at the start of the pre-season in 2015. While the word “retirement” was never mentioned, the words in Suisham’s classy statement following his release, hint towards his professional career being over.
2017
January 2017: The journey of a transgender woman from Wallaceburg. Full story, here.
May 2017: ‘Two-site’ commitment by the CKHA, new services for SDH. Full story, here.
June 2017: There were plenty of reasons to smile on Wednesday afternoon on Walpole Island. While the community gathered to celebrate National Aboriginal Day and the Summer Solstice, the Toronto Blue Jays visited the First Nation reserve to officially open their refurbished baseball diamonds on Austin Road. Full story, here.
August 2017: A grand opening opening and ribbon cutting ceremony was held at Colwell park in Wallaceburg on Saturday, August 19, the home of the brand new Wallaceburg Splash Pad. Full story, here.
September 2017: Westbrook’s Flower Shoppe is holding a special fundraiser this week in support of two young Wallaceburg girls. On Friday, September 1, the downtown business will be donating all proceeds of their “Sunflower Friday Special” to the families of Olivia Formosa and Preslie Hensel. Over $10,000 was raised. Full story, here.
2018
January 2018: The causeway leading up to the Bluewater Ferry dock and the Canada Border Services Agency office, was destroyed by ice back on January 11.
March 2018: Dresden’s Ken Houston, who played nine seasons in the National Hockey League, died peacefully at home on Saturday, March 10, with his family by his side after a battle with cancer.
He was 64.
It did not take long for the community of Dresden to step up to honour their fallen hero.
Fast forward to September, Chatham-Kent Council voted unanimously in favour of re-naming Dresden’s arena to the Ken Houston Memorial Agricultural Centre.
April 2018: After unveiling their redevelopment plans for Wallaceburg’s hospital back in November of 2017, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance began moving those plans forward in 2018.
The plans got a kick-start in April, as it was announced that the Sydenham Campus in Wallaceburg was getting a $7.3-million boost from the province.
The CKHA received approval for the Replacement Power Plant Project from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to replace essential infrastructure at the Wallaceburg site with a total project cost estimated at $8 million dollars.
Hospital officials say the province’s grant of up to $7.3 million funding will go towards the construction of a new power plant to replace aging equipment with new boilers, generators and electrical distribution equipment.
The balance of the project cost will be funded through hospital funds allocated for investment in this project.
“CKHA is one team, two sites,” stated Greg Aarssen, Board Chair for CKHA.
“Today’s announcement reiterates the new mission for the organization and the importance of the Wallaceburg site to serve rural Kent. We are pleased with the funding announcement and look forward to the future of this site and the patients we will serve.”
April 2018: A homicide investigation was launched in Wallaceburg. Details, here.
July 2018: The Otter Creek Farm project, planned for north of Wallaceburg, was cancelled in July by the new provincial government.
The project was on the list of 758 renewable energy contracts cancelled across Ontario.
August 2018: Whyte’s Foods Inc., a leading manufacturer of marinated food products, announced on August 23 an investment of $18-million to increase its production capacity in Ontario and in Quebec.
Of this, more than $16.5-million will be invested by Whyte’s to expand its current manufacturing facilities to include a new location in Wallaceburg, Ontario.
Company officials say they have purchased a building consisting of 150,000 square feet, which is located at 6800 Baseline Road in Wallaceburg.
This building will be transformed into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, dedicated to the production of marinated food products for the Food Service and Retail sectors of the food industry, company officials said in a media release.
“This endeavor is currently under way, with the grand opening date anticipated in the fall of 2019.”
Company officials say Whyte’s Foods expects to create nearly 100 new jobs in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.
October 2018: First-time mayoral candidate Darrin Canniff defeated five other candidates to claim the mayor’s position in the October 22 municipal election.
Canniff finished with 19,316 votes.
North Kent saw incumbent Joe Faas returned to office. He was joined by Jamie McGrail.
Incumbent Carmen McGregor was returned to Wallaceburg with first-time candidate Aaron Hall securing the second seat.
2019
June 2019: On Friday afternoon, June 7, over 100 people from Wallaceburg and the surrounding area gathered together to support one of their own.
Volunteers created and donated a bench, in honour of Hayden Foulon.
As part of a list of all of her dreams, Hayden wished to have something named after herself, and Wallaceburg made this happen.
Engraved on the bench is the saying: “Never, Ever, Ever Give Up.”
Full story, here.
After a courageous battle with leukemia, Hayden passed away in October.
She was seven-years-old.
June 2019: The Wallaceburg Lakers Junior ‘C’ Hockey Team made some big announcements during an open meeting on Thursday night, June 6, at the Wallaceburg Legion. Before a crowd of 20-plus people, team officials announced they’ll be changing the name of the squad to the Wallaceburg Thunderhawks. Full story, here.
August 2019: Canadian rockers Tom Cochrane with Red Rider and Trooper performed LIVE in Wallaceburg on the Civic Holiday weekend at the inaugural Otter Creek Jam Fest. Full story, here. https://sydenhamcurrent.ca/2019/08/07/sights-sounds-from-otter-creek-jam-fest/
October 2019: It was a big year for Lianne Rood. She first won the Conservative Party nomination in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex back in March. She followed it up with a decisive election victory in October to become theriding next MP.
November 2019: A brand new Indigenous child care centre is set to be built at the location of the former Sam’s Hotel on Dufferin Avenue in Wallaceburg. Full story, here.
