FortSask

The federal government is helping out people who are spending a significant amount of their paycheques on rent. 

They are doing this in the form of a one-time top-up to the Canadian Housing Benefit that will allow eligible applicants to receive a tax-free $500. 

The goal of the top-up is to help relieve low-income renters from the effects of rising costs due to inflation. 

To be eligible for the $500 you must meet all the following requirements: 

After a decade of work tracing DNA back multiple generations, the remains of a Canadian soldier have been identified more than 100 years after he died in France. 

The remains of Cpl. Percy Howarth, a soldier in the First World War, were discovered during a munitions clearing process in Vendin-le-Vieil, France, in 2011, but it would take 10 years of experts digging through his family tree to find a living relative from his maternal line before he could be identified.

Fort Saskatchewan pharmacies are in short supply of children’s medicine as the 250,000 bottles expected to arrive have been delayed.

According to government officials, these bottles of children’s medicine are the first shipment of five million bottles from Turkish manufacturer Atabay.

Luckily, there are still a few places to find children’s medicine. Pharmacies in the Fort Saskatchewan Walmart and Safeway have supplies of Tylenol, but with limited purchases to prevent them from leaving shelves too quickly.

More details have been released on the water main break from Sunday (Jan. 15) night.

After a water main broke on 101 St, the street between 98 Ave and 99 Ave was closed down for repairs. Two schools also had to close after the water was shut off.

Workers fixing the water main found the cause of the break to be a beam break. The beam has since been repaired with clamps.

The rest of the day will be spent making repairs to the road. 

Some Fort Saskatchewan residents will need to purchase their bus passes elsewhere. 

Shoppers Drug Mart has recently stopped selling Fort Sask Transit (FST) tickets and passes.

This comes amidst the City of Fort Saskatchewan's transition into Arc payments for bus fares. Arc is a pay-as-you-go system that uses a refillable card rather than transit passes. 

Federal, Provincial and Territorial Agriculture Ministers met virtually on Friday to discuss key areas of interest for Canada’s agricultural sector.

Ministers gave updates on their progress with the new Sustainable CAP program which is set to come into effect on April 1st.

They also discussed the remaining steps to implementation to ensure a smooth transition from the current program.

Police in India say two men are facing charges in the deaths of a family who froze a year ago while trying to cross from Manitoba into the United States.

Deputy Commissioner Chaitanya Mandlik of the Ahmedabad crime branch in the state of Gujarat says the two men were arrested Sunday and other suspects are also wanted in Canada and the U.S.

He says the two men are accused of acting as immigration agents, supplying the family with paperwork and assisting them in getting to the U.S.

We can expect to see some key numbers coming out tomorrow (Tuesday) on inflation for the month of December in Canada.

J.P. Gervais, the Chief Economist for Farm Credit Canada says the hope is that it will be coming down, and may start to plateau the cycle of higher interest rates.

"We have a big, big, critical data release tomorrow on inflation for the month of December in Canada. The hope is that this will be coming down slightly, because then that's one critical data point that would actually start, perhaps to plateau the cycle of higher interest rates."

Canadian flax acres dropped last year, but yields rebounded nicely in many areas. 

Chuck Penner with LeftField Commodity Research says we saw lower acres despite new crop bids of $24-25 a bushel.

He says that while acreage was down, yields rebounded allowing supplies to recover to where we were before the drought, but certainly not a big supply situation.

Unfortunately, flax exports this year have not been encouraging. 

Canada has three key buyers of flax that take about a third of the crop each, the U-S, China and the E.U.  

We are just over halfway through the first month of 2023, but what does this year really have in store for Fort Saskatchewan? 

It's shaping up to be a year of transition and growth for the community as city council is preparing for a levy of investments, construction projects, and some potential new recreation possibilities. 

Mayor Gale Katchur sat down with FortSaskOnline.com to chat about what residents should expect in 2023. 

Here are some of the highlights...