Humboldt

The Saskatchewan NDP says despite the Premier’s nonchalant attitude towards the trade war with the U.S., the province’s exports are beginning to take a hit.

The Opposition’s release says last week, “Moe suggested a strategy of pandering to Trump rather than keeping our ‘elbows up’ as other Canadian Premiers are doing.”

Now, Statistics Canada data indicates that there has been a 9.4 per cent reduction in Saskatchewan exports to the U.S. over the first five months of 2025, dropping from $2,388,894 in January to $1,776,630 in May.

Saskatchewan’s Healthy Beaches report is indicating that swimming is not advised at four of the province’s waterbodies.

Sunnyside Beach near Prince Albert National Park has an advisory for E. coli, as does Rowan’s Ravine Provincial Park Main Beach Area, as well as Buffalo Pound Provincial Park Beach.

There is also a cautionary notice for algae blooms present at Kipabiskau Beach near Tisdale.

The rest of the province’s beaches remain safe

The Canadian Nurses Association says it hopes the new "united Team Canada" approach at the Council of the Federation will lead to harmonization of nurses' licences across the country.

The association was among a number of health-care advocacy groups at the recent annual meeting of Canada's premiers.

While health care tends to take centre stage when the premiers meet, this year's gathering with Prime Minister Mark Carney was dominated by discussion of U.S. President Donald Trump's global trade war.

Most Canadians believe the country is making good progress on reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, a new poll from Leger suggests.

"The extent to which people feel progress on reconciliation is being made or not has an important bearing on how they feel about the country," said Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies, which commissioned the poll.

The survey of 1,580 respondents was conducted between June 20 and 22. A margin of error cannot be associated to the survey because online polls are not considered to be truly random samples.

With the proliferation of AI technology and the use of farms, a new meaning is coming to the phrase “smart farming”. Technology is becoming more and more part of the work for producers, with many of the latest innovations on display at farm shows, such as Ag In Motion last week. While there aren’t any autonomous operations in place that he knows of, Weyburn-area farmer Dale Paslawski knows that the embracing of more technology in the field is inevitable. 

This summer has been a busy construction season in east central Saskatchewan. The ongoing Highway 5 project from Saskatoon continues, as does work on Highway 2 north of Highway 16.  With all of the construction that is happening, the province’s Minister of Highways, David Marit, is reminding drivers to slow down, exercise caution, and obey all the signage in work zones.  

A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the federal public service could shed almost 60,000 jobs over the next four years as Ottawa looks to cut costs.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne sent letters to multiple ministers asking them to identify cuts to program spending at their departments of 15 per cent by 2028-29.

The report, written by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior economist David Macdonald, says the federal public service could lose up to 57,000 employees by 2028.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says Canada's new Arctic ambassador will play a key role in preserving sovereignty in the region as the military closely watches the movements of a Chinese icebreaker.

Iqaluit resident Virginia Mearns will be Canada's senior Arctic official on the world stage, following a career with local Inuit governments.

"Canada's Arctic ambassador is going to advance Canada's polar interests in multilateral forums," Anand told The Canadian Press in an interview from Inuvik, N.W.T.

The U.S. has imposed general tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles and copper tariffs will begin in early August

In order to provide some relief from the threat of 35 per cent tariffs, Bangladesh has decided to sign a memorandum of understanding on wheat trade with the U.S. The country has agreed to purchase 700,000 tonnes of U.S. wheat annually for the next five years. Photo: file

Tariffs, trade top of mind at recent Agriculture in Motion show

While there’s more to be done, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe says he’s hopeful trade relations with China can be mended.

“I’ll give credit to prime minister Carney for the engagement that he has undertaken,” Moe said in an interview at the recent Ag in Motion farm show near Saskatoon.