Local News

Castle-Like Museum Needs Repair

The board of the Hillcrest Museum in Souris is attempting to fundraise $100,000 from community members to restore several features of the historic fortress-looking heritage building.

A host of repairs for the 2027 season are focused on remaining windows that have not yet been repaired, with work including building new window sashes, replacing rotting sills and removing improperly installed storm windows, board president Debora Kain told the Sun in a recent interview. The board aims to fundraise the total before the end of next year.

“I think it’s important to keep up,” Kain said. “There is a lot of people’s time and effort caught up in keeping this going since 1967.”

The heritage home, formerly owned by Fred and Maud Sowden, was purchased that year by a group of Souris citizens to establish the museum. It still operates as a museum and attracts roughly 3,000 visitors per year.

The building was built in 1910 and features massive brick facades and crenellated towers, resembling a castle on a hillside overlooking the Souris river beside the swinging bridge.

WestJet To Make New Hangar Home Near Winnipeg Airport

WestJet will become the first tenant in a new development near the Winnipeg Richardson International Airport.

The Calgary-based airline plans to open a 73,110-square-foot aircraft maintenance hangar in West Lands, a sprawling site meant to boost business near the airport.

The hangar is expected to open at the end of 2028.

“Winnipeg is a very important market and city for WestJet,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech, WestJet’s chief executive officer. “We always had one missing piece of the puzzle, which is that we don’t have a hangar in Winnipeg.”

The hangar will allow WestJet to store its planes in the Manitoba capital and perform maintenance on site.

“That makes it easier for us to grow our network here,” von Hoensbroech said.

Calling WestJet Winnipeg’s “home carrier,” he noted the airline flies to 35 destinations from the city and employs more than 500 people.

National News

75% of Parks Canada Employees In N.B Told Their Jobs Could Be At Risk

The possibility of job losses for some Parks Canada staff could hit New Brunswick especially hard, with three-quarters of department employees in the province at risk.

In the coming months, Parks Canada will be undergoing a “workplace adjustment,” spokesperson Meaghan Bradley said in an email.

Parks Canada has sent 2,917 letters to employees across the country, notifying them their positions are “impacted by workforce adjustment,” Bradley.

In New Brunswick, 167 of Parks Canada’s 221 employees received letters.

“Receiving a letter does not necessarily mean an employee will lose their job,” Bradley said. “As the organization identifies areas of activities being stopped or reduced, some positions will remain as they are, some will change, and some will be eliminated.”

“Over the coming weeks, decisions will be made on all positions being assessed.”

She said the workforce in New Brunswick includes full-time, seasonal, casual and student employees.

Farm Stays Offer Ontario Farmers A New Revenue Stream

Farming operations looking to diversify their income are exploring ‘overnight farm stay’ potential for generating additional revenue.

Recent Airbnb figures show Canadian farm-stay hosts earned nearly $15 million in 2025, with Ontario and British Columbia accounting for almost 70 per cent of Canadian farm stay listings and earnings combined.

The platform connects travellers with individual hosts rather than hotels or bed-and-breakfasts and hosts with booking and guest-management tools for a share of the booking fee.

Rick and Cheryl Smith have experienced the financial and educational benefits of hosting guests at Butler Vineyard Estate in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where they grow VQA grapes for local wineries. The couple believe agritourism, through platforms such as Airbnb, is vital to agricultural sustainability and helping keep family-owned farmland viable amid pressure from larger agricultural operations.

International News

Canadian Snowbirds Miss Out On Florida’s Biggest Tax Cuts. But There’s A Sliver Lining

Florida voters approved major property tax cuts in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. While most Canadian snowbirds won’t qualify for the biggest savings, a smaller change could help them keep a lid on rising home ownership costs in the Sunshine State.

The state’s Amendment 3 passed with 62 per cent of the vote, narrowly exceeding the 60-per-cent threshold for approval.

Under the new rules, homesteaders – homeowners who use their Florida property as their primary residence – will be able to exempt up to US$150,000 of their home’s assessed value from non-school property taxes in 2027, rising to US$250,000 in 2028.

Most Canadian snowbirds who own property in the state won’t qualify for those exemptions. However, starting in 2027, the maximum annual increase in the assessed value of properties that aren’t primary residences will fall from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, which could slow future property tax increases for Canadian owners.

In 2023, Canada’s then-consul-general in Miami, Sylvia Cesaratto, estimated that Canadians owned $60-billion worth of residential real estate in Florida and contributed more than $600-million annually in property taxes.