National News

Ashley Perepelkin says she was born and raised a city girl, never thinking she'd sell fresh beef from cattle she raised on her own Alberta farm with the help of artificial intelligence.

"I met a boy, and this boy happened to be a farmer," she says.

Perepelkin, who spent most of her life in Red Deer, Alta., says she and her now-husband Andrew met in 2010, got married and began farming grain together.

When she decided to get cattle, it was a steep learning curve. 

"A lot of things were learned, unfortunately, through trial and error," she says.

A look at news events in February 2023:

4 – The U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast on orders from President Joe Biden. U.S. defence officials had been tracking it for about a week as it travelled over sensitive military sites across North America. They say the large balloon went into Canadian airspace in the Northwest Territories before crossing back into U.S. territory over northern Idaho. China still said it was a weather research "airship'' that had been blown off course and denied any claims of spying.

A look at news events in January 2023:

4 – Canada marked the first National Ribbon Skirt Day, after a bill to recognize the event every Jan. 4 passed in Parliament late last year. It was inspired by a 10-year-old girl who wore a ribbon skirt to her rural Saskatchewan school in December 2020. Isabella Kulak wore the colourful garment as part of a formal day, but her family said at the time that a staff member told her the outfit wasn't formal enough. The school division later apologized. 

A federal inquiry into foreign interference has asked to delay its first report by about two months in order to allow sufficient time for a public process and hearings on the issues.

Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said in a press release Friday the requested postponement until May 3 is aimed at giving "meaning and purpose" to preliminary hearings, and to allow more time to maximize transparency.

Ensuring classified information is put into a form that can be released to the public is a long and complicated process, she added.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is reporting another death from a salmonella outbreak involving cantaloupes, bringing the total to seven. 

The agency says there have been 164 lab-confirmed cases of salmonella in eight provinces linked to Malichita and Rudy brand cantaloupes so far.   

Quebec has been hardest hit with 111 of those cases. There have also been illnesses in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Qapik Attagutsiak was already a young woman in 1940, a mother at ease on the land and a skilled midwife, when she heard about a conflict occurring among many people in faraway lands. 

Qapik, who preferred using that name in the Inuit tradition, was hunting walrus with her family near Foxe Basin when the local Catholic priest told her about battles being fought by men jumping from planes.

"Inuit are afraid to kill other people," Qapik told a Parks Canada interviewer in 2018.

Canada has been so slow to carry out recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that an Indigenous-led think tank says it has decided to stop publishing an annual report tracking its progress.

"At first, the project invoked hope and determination. If only the Canadian public knew about their government's lack of action, we believed, perhaps things would change," said the annual report from the Yellowhead Institute, a research and education centre based at Toronto Metropolitan University.

The end of the road is coming for gas-powered vehicles in Canada.

New regulations being published this week by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will effectively end the sale of new passenger vehicles powered only by gasoline or diesel in 2035.

Guilbeault said the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard will encourage automakers to make more battery-powered cars and trucks available in Canada.

Canada’s population grew by more than 430,000 during the third quarter, marking the fastest pace of population growth in any quarter since 1957.

Statistics Canada released its Oct. 1 population estimates on Tuesday, putting the number at more than 40.5 million.

The agency says the population growth over the first nine months of 2023 has already surpassed the total growth in any other full year, including the record set in 2022.

Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate was unchanged in November, holding steady at 3.1 per cent.

The consumer price index report today shows progress on easing inflation stalled as higher prices for recreation and clothing put upward pressure on headline inflation.

Meanwhile, the pace of grocery price increases continued to slow for a fifth consecutive month.

Grocery prices were up 4.7 per cent from a year ago, marking a slowdown from 5.4 per cent in October.