Cochrane

Mayor Jeff Genung shakes his head over the province's decision to stick by its guns to require municipal election ballots to be hand-counted.

A survey of Alberta's mid-sized cities indicates it will cost an average of $108,000 more to conduct the 2025 fall election, says Genung, who is chair of the Alberta Mid-Sized Cities Mayors' Caucus. In Cochrane, it's estimated to increase costs by $40,000.

The federal government is expected to boost the minimum hourly wage that must be paid to temporary foreign workers in the high-wage stream as a way to encourage employers to hire more Canadian staff.

British Columbia's redrawn political landscape won't be settled for about a week, with manual recounts triggered in two key ridings after a nail-biting provincial election that has yet to produce a clear winner.

Elections BC said Sunday the recounts will take place from Oct. 26 to 28 in Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre, where NDP candidates lead B.C. Conservatives by fewer than 100 votes.

Alberta MP and Conservative Agriculture Critic John Barlow has been receiving a number of emails from Canadians who are concerned about Private Members' Bill C-293, which now sits before the Senate.

He says while the primary objective of the bill is pandemic prevention and preparedness, it contains content and language that will adversely affect Canadian farmers and ranchers.

Alleged members of an Indian gang and its leader have been sending shivers down the spines of members of the South Asian diaspora in Canada for years, says a city councillor in Richmond, B.C.

Kash Heed said the Bishnoi gang, led by Lawrence Bishnoi, gained notoriety and instilled fear among Indian Canadians well before the RCMP accused the syndicate this week of orchestrating violent crimes on Canadian soil.

There was no clear winner in Saturday's British Columbia election, but the leader of the B.C. Conservatives says the province's political landscape has "changed forever," after his party pushed the incumbent New Democrats to the brink.

Neither party won enough seats to claim a majority, and vote counting was set to continue Sunday, with Premier David Eby's NDP in striking range of a minority government if he gets the co-operation of the Greens, who won two seats.

Potential recounts mean it could be next week before the winner is decided.

Cochrane firefighters joined other first responders in searching the Bow River and surrounding banks for missing people on Oct. 19.

About 75 volunteer searchers from across the region worked together throughout the day to search the Bow River area from Stoney Trail in the north to Carseland in the south.

While no human remains were found during the search, officials of the CPS Missing Persons Team say they are steadfast in their commitment to locating every single missing person.

You may want to head to the office a bit earlier on Monday morning as the season's first significant snowfall is expected. 

Environment and Climate Change Canada has issued a Special Weather statement for parts of southern Alberta including Cochrane. 

"Snow will begin Monday morning in the Calgary area and along the Highway 2 corridor, and move east through the day, " the national weather service stated.

"A brief period of rain is possible Monday morning before precipitation changes over to snow."

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The Cochrane Cobras football team is fired up to host the RVS championship game after completely dominating the Bert Church Chargers in a 41-0 win under the Friday Night Lights, Oct. 18.

The Cobras took a commanding 34-0 lead into the second half and added a final touchdown with a four-play drive from deep in their end.

The executive team from the Assembly of First Nations will meet in the coming days to discuss how to proceed with new negotiations for a child welfare reform deal after chiefs voted against the government's proposed $47.8 billion agreement at a meeting in Calgary Thursday.

AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, who had helped negotiate the deal and pushed for it to be approved, was blunt in her assessment of the outcome in her closing remarks to the special chiefs assembly Friday.