FortSask

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau making some key announcements recently.

Yesterday, she announced that the fourth payment under the Dairy Direct Payment Program (DDPP) is now available for dairy producers.

Dairy farmers will receive compensation payments based on their milk quota. 

For example, the owner of an 80 head dairy farm will receive $38,000 in direct payment compensation. 

The compensation for this fourth round of payments will total $468 million.

Police north of Toronto are working to determine the motive in what they've called a "horrendous" shooting at a condo that left five people, plus the suspected gunman, dead.

York Regional Police say Francesco Villi's victims at the high-rise building in Vaughan, Ont., on Sunday night included three members of the building's condo board.

Court documents indicate the 73-year-old had a lengthy history of threatening members of the board and believed they had a conspiracy to "systematically murder" him.

There have been reports that a school bus has been involved in a collision near Bruderheim. 

Alberta 511 first reported the collision just after 5 p.m. on Monday (Dec. 19) night on Highway 15 near Range Road 205. 

At this moment, no injuries have been reported. 

There are delays in the area. 

More to come...

Eleven metres below the surface of the Northwest Passage, deep within the wreck of one of Capt. John Franklin's doomed ships, something caught the eye of diver Ryan Harris.

Harris was in the middle of the 2022 field season on the wreck of HMS Erebus. The team had been hauling dozens of artifacts to the surface -- elaborate table settings, a lieutenant's epaulets still in their case, a lens from someone's eyeglasses. 

But this, sitting within the steward's pantry, was something else.

Snow and bitterly cold temperatures are in the forecast across most of the prairies this week. 

With the drop in temperatures, livestock producers will be busy putting out more feed. 

Livestock and Feed Extension Specialist Adriane Good says it's important to bump up rations.

A discussion document and survey on a Sustainable Agriculture Strategy are now available online and open for comment.

The federal government says the overall goal for the Sustainable Agriculture Strategy is to support the livelihood of farmers, while growing a sustainable sector.

The Strategy will focus on five key areas - soil health, climate adaptation and resilience, water, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity. 

The Indigenous Society of Fort Saskatchewan has had a busy year. 

After being formed in the summer, the group has been trying to get their name out in the community, from hosting ribbon skirt classes to handing out free bannock at last month's Light Up! ceremony. 

"It's going good, we're moving along quickly," said Colleen Dollfusz, one of the co-founders of the society. "There is a lot of community support through the City of Fort Saskatchewan itself helping us out doing a few activities around town."

Nine people have been arrested after a massive joint operation with local and provincial police enforcement. 

Strathcona County RCMP worked together with the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team's (ALERT) Human Trafficking Counter Exploitation unit to target people who are seeking sexual services in exchange for some type of payment. 

The operation resulted in nine people being arrested. Each individual faces a single charge of obtaining sexual services for consideration and has been released with documents asking them to attend a provincial court in February. 

Producers taking part in the Foraging into the Future Conference were reminded about the importance of feed testing. 

The nutrient content of feed will vary from year to year, field to field, species, climate conditions, fertilization, stage of maturity
when it was cut and processed, as well as storage management.

In order to balance rations for livestock it's key to know exactly what you're working with.

Livestock and Feed Extension Specialist Adriane Good says this is where a feed test can help.

Students at SouthPointe School in Fort Saskatchewan helped the local food bank restock one of their key items on Monday (Dec. 19) morning. 

Since the end of November, students have come together to construct a massive toilet paper tree that consisted of over 1000 rolls. 

Manny Peterson, 10, is one of the grade five students that helped get donations together. 

"We planned to build a toilet paper tree to represent everybody in the community [and that they] should be healthy, stay warm, and have a roof above their head," said Peterson.