Cochrane

Explore Cochrane and the Cochrane Chamber of Commerce are teaming up for a two-part event that’s all about supporting local businesses this holiday season. 

Starting November 23rd, 30 Cochrane businesses will compete in a decorating contest, transforming their storefronts into festive winter wonderlands.

Cochranites can vote for their favourite display by scanning QR codes at participating businesses or by following Explore Cochrane and the Cochrane Chamber on social media for the voting link. 

Six Cochrane area residents are among the 19 service leaders in the Banff-Airdrie constituency to be presented the King Charles III Coronation Medal by local MP Blake Richards.

Cochranites Alex Baum, Monica Bautista, David Hisey, Dan Kroffat, and Brian Winter were awarded the medals at a ceremony yesterday at the Cochrane Legion Hall.

Tracey Carson accepted a post-humous medal for her husband Kelly Carson.

The recipients truly personify the quality of selfless service to others that King Charles III wishes to recognize, states Richards in a news release.

President-elect Donald Trump's promise to slap an across-the-board tariff of at least 10 per cent on all imports including from Canada is unlikely to apply to Canadian oil, energy experts are predicting.

The threat of the tariff is causing a lot of concern north of the border, where the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said such a tariff could take a $30-billion bite out of the Canadian economy.

A proposed class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government says Indigenous people removed from their communities and placed in group homes beginning in the 1950s suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse that "was commonplace, condoned and, arguably, encouraged."

The Federal Court lawsuit filed this month in Vancouver says Indigenous children across the country were forcibly removed from their homes and taken "to live with strangers — sometimes hundreds of kilometres from their families and Indigenous communities."

Former Cochrane Lions Rodeo Queen Breanna Correia will be wearing a new crown in 2025.

Last night, she was named the 2025 Stampede Princess following a close competition between seven contestants.

Breanna became well known in the Cochrane area while serving as Lions Rodeo Queen for nearly three years. In that time, she made hundreds of appearances to represent the Lions and serve as an unofficial ambassador for Cochrane in her travels. She has continued to mentor the queens that have followed and regularly makes appearances in Cochrane.

Canada's Public Health Agency has confirmed that a British Columbia teenager hospitalized last Friday is the country's first ever human case of domestically acquired avian flu.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that testing at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirms the teen did contract the H5N1 avian flu, the same strain related to viruses found in B.C. flocks in an ongoing outbreak at poultry farms.

In February, country artist Paul Brandt spoke about an awakening to the depth of human trafficking in Alberta.

Today in Cochrane, not far from his home, the sad reality that human trafficking can exists anywhere was reinforced.

Brandt, founder of ##NotInMyCity and co-chair of the Alberta Centre to End Trafficking in Persons, participated in the RCMP press conference on the arrest of 47-year-old Darren Routhier on five charges related to human and sex trafficking.

Whether he knew it or not, today was Cairo's day to shine at the Cochrane RCMP detachment for sniffing out 68 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of up to $6.8 million.

"These drugs are no longer available for organized crime to bring to our communities to hurt Albertans," said Sgt. Darrin Turnbull of the Alberta RCMP Traffic Unit, pointing to the 4' x 8' table filled with the controlled substance, calling it an extremely significant drug seizure.

Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) is currently hosting its annual 2024 district meetings across Manitoba. They began in Arborg on Tuesday, November 12, and will wrap up in Swan River on Thursday, December 19.  

Jill Verwey, President of KAP says organizing and hosting the meetings is a requirement and part of their grassroots policy. 

A Cochrane man faces five charges related to human/sex trafficking that occurred between 2004 and 2007.

A nine-month investigation by the RCMP lead to the arrest of 47-year-old Darren Routhier on Nov. 7 on charges of human trafficking, receiving financial benefits from the trafficking of a person, sexual assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement and extortion.

He has been released on conditions to have no contact with the victims of the investigation and is scheduled to next appear at the Alberta Court of Justice in Cochrane on Nov. 26.