FortSask

On Monday, Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced $13 million for the Youth Employment and Skills Program, to help support approximately 1200 jobs for youth in the ag sector. 

She says the program helps to eliminate barriers to employment by providing meaningful work opportunities for youth wanting to pursue a career in agriculture.

The Youth Employment and Skills Program offers support for 50 per cent of wages to a maximum of $14,000 to agriculture employers hiring youth. 

The province has filed charges against Douglas Alf Larson and Bravo #1 Aerial Application Ltd. for not following Alberta pesticide regulations and environmental legislation. 

The two are alleged to have applied a pesticide on August 30, 2021 in a way that did not follow the directions on the pesticide label and without a valid registration.

Both Larson and the company are facing nine charges:

- seven charges for contravening the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act

- one charge for contravening the Pesticide (Ministerial) Regulation

Some members of Parliament want to see Google in the hot seat over the tech company's move to temporarily block news access to some of its Canadian users.

The House of Commons heritage committee is meeting today and members are expected to discuss whether to summon leadership from Google to testify. 

Last week Google confirmed to The Canadian Press that it was limiting news access on its search engine to less than four per cent of its Canadian users. 

The City of Fort Saskatchewan is looking at a few different options with Harbour Pool. 

An assessment of the pool, led by ACI Architecture, was recently done to determine the current state of the facility. 

"This assessment was done as part of a bigger indoor recreation infrastructure service level review that council approved in May," said Brad Babiak, the director of recreation and culture with the city. "The first part of that work was to actually look at the Harbour Pool in terms of a couple of things." 

Saskatchewan and Alberta are urging the Pest Management Regulatory Agency to reconsider its decision to restrict the use of lambda-cyhalothrin (products like Silencer and Matador) in controlling grasshoppers and flea beetles.

Grasshoppers are expected to be a significant concern for the 2023 growing season.

The PMRA changes mean lambda-cyhalothrin can no longer be used for any crop that may end up as livestock feed and as a result, its manufacturers have pulled their products from Western Canada.

If you happened to miss the northern lights on Sunday (Feb. 26) night, there's still a chance to see them this week.

Tam Andersen, the owner of Prairie Gardens & Adventure Farm, took some spectacular images of the aurora borealis.

Andersen said that she had gotten a notification from the University of Alberta's aurora watch program.

"I did get my notification that there was a high likelihood of northern lights last night," Andersen said. "I made a point of stepping outdoors around 10:30 in the evening, and they were truly amazing."

Alberta has become the seventh province to sign an agreement in principle with Ottawa on health-care funding.

The federal government said in a news release Monday that more than $24 billion is to be invested in Alberta's health-care system over the next 10 years.

It was a sombre day last Friday (Feb. 24), as it marked one year since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Hosting Ukrainians in Fort Saskatchewan (HUFS) held a vigil at Pioneer House to honour all Ukrainians for their bravery.

The vigil featured speeches from Mayor Gale Katchur, MP Garnett Genuis, and even former premier Ed Stelmach. 

"Many of the organizations like HUFS took it upon themselves before governments organized," said Stelmach. 

A Fort Saskatchewan boy has sacrificed his long locks to help support kids with cancer. 

10-year-old Oliver Dahlseide, a fourth-grade student at Saint John XXIII Catholic School, has been raising money for the Kids Cancer Care foundation for the last few weeks. 

Oliver's first idea was to sell cookies at school in a campaign he called 'Cookies For Cancer'. 

"He spoke to managers at both Safeway and Co-op to get cookies donated, and then presented them at the school's parent council meeting," said Shannon Dahlseide, Oliver's mother. 

CN says overall grain shipment performance for the start of 2023 has been strong.

David Przednowek, CN's Assistant Vice-President of Grain says so far in February, they set record shipments for individual grain weeks of 667,000 tonnes in week 27,  589,000 tonnes for week 28 and over 630,000 tonnes moved for week 29.