Okotoks

The Canadian Cattle Association hosted the third 2024 triannual trilateral meeting with industry leaders from the United States and Mexico last week to discuss some of the common challenges and opportunities facing the cattle sector.

Trade issues and relations were top among the topics being discussed with the upcoming review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC) set for 2026.

The group also discussing the impact of lab grown proteins as well as international engagement on antimicrobial resistance.

Farmers are looking for some decent weather now with harvest activities underway across the Prairies.

Over the last few weeks, some areas have seen severe storm activity and hail damage. 

The Canadian Crop Hail Association says from July 29th to August 11th over 1600 claims of crop damage were reported in the prairies with more than 75 per cent of those claims coming from farms in Alberta.

Alberta

About five dozen local kids will be going back to school in style thanks to an Okotoks salon.

A few months ago, Rose Gold Hair Co. reached out to the Okotoks Food Bank, offering free haircuts to young food bank clients for the back-to-school season.

The food bank worked with their clients to get kids signed up for the big day, which took palce on Wednesday, August 21.

The salon's owner, Brooke Arsenian, says Rose Gold's hairdressers donated a full day to the cause.

Recently, questions have been posed to Okotoks town council about dog parks in town.

Questions around the expansion or creation of new off-leash parks in town were addressed in the July 15 town council meeting, and Councillor Rachel Swendseid recently took to Facebook to answer some of the more commonly asked questions they hear about dog parks.

The Okotoks Dawgs 15U Black squad was in Laval, Quebec over the weekend and finished second at the 2024 Ray Carter Cup, falling just short in a 2-0 ball game against British Columbia in the finals.

The Dawgs started the tournament with two wins on Thursday (August 22). In the first game, they were able to get past the Saskatchewan 15U team with a 4-2 victory and followed it up with an 8-7 victory over the New Brunswick 15U squad. 

The Town of Diamond Valley recently conducted an audit of their residential curbside waste programs.

The audit was conducted from June 18th to 20th, 2024, and the audit report indicated that there needs to be some work done to make the town's waste programs more efficient. 

During the garbage portion of the audit, the waste bins of 108 homes were examined, which included checks to see if the bins were set out.

The homes being audited were in the Country Meadows, McLeod Crescent, Willow Ridge Close, Emerald Way, 2 Avenue, Royalite Way, and Dingman Close.

China on Tuesday accused Canada of protectionism after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government imposed a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, matching U.S. duties on Chinese-made EVs.

Liberals are having some "robust" conversations about the state of their party and its slump in popularity with voters but those talks cannot happen in public, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Monday.

"The reality is we have to have these conversations behind closed doors," Miller said at the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax.

Canada is moving to match the United States with new tariffs on electric vehicles made in China in a bid to keep the cars from getting a significant foothold in the North American market.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined the plan at the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax on Monday, promising to increase import taxes on Chinese-made EVs to 106.1 per cent on Oct. 1, up from 6.1 per cent.

Tariffs on Chinese-made steel and aluminum products will go to 25 per cent on Oct. 15, with a final list of which products will be affected expected Oct. 1.

Nanton RCMP have reported that a missing mother and daughter have been located.

They had requested help from the public in locating the pair on August 26th, saying they were last seen in Nanton on the morning of the 22nd.

On the evening of August 29th, the RCMP confirmed both were found safe, and thanked the public for their assistance.