Beaver Brae Evacuated due to a small fire

A fire drill at Beaver Brae Secondary School proved to be the real deal.

Staff and students were evacuated this morning due to a small blaze at the high school this morning.

The Keewatin-Patricia District School Board says the fire was quickly extinguished  and damage is said to be minimal.

Classes have been cancelled for the rest of the day to allow the smoke to be fully ventilated from the school.

The public school board says it has sent a number of buses to the school to take students home.

The Board says all other school bus transportation will operate as usual this afternoon.

Census Forms Being Distributed this Week

Local residents should begin receiving their census forms this week.

Statistics Canada has begun the census process and has enumerators going door to door in the Kenora area.

Gary Dillion is the regional co-ordinator for Stats Can and says its important for all households to fill out the census form.

While every household is required to fill out the 10 question mandatory short form census, only one in three households will be given a long form survey.

Good Turn-Out for the Federal Election

It may have been the fourth federal election in seven years, but that didn't stop local residents from coming out in pretty good numbers.

With 154 out of 155 polls reporting, the voter turn-out for yesterday's federal election was just over 60 percent.

That means almost 25 thousand people came out to cast their ballots.

Incumbant Conservative M.P. Greg Rickford held onto the riding, increasing his margin of victory, by over two thousand votes.

Rickford re-elected easily in the Kenora Riding

Its wasn't a landslide, but it was a convincing win for the Conservatives in the Kenora Riding.

Incumbant M.P. Greg Rickford easily held onto the riding with a 45 hundred vote margin of victory over Tania Cameron of the NDP.

Rickford says while he's pleased there will be a Conservative majority government in the House of Commons, he won't speculate on what his role might be.

Roger Valley slipped to third place in the polls yesterday and says the party is going to have to take a close hard look at the results not only in this riding but nationally as well.

The other two candidates finished well back, with the Green Party Candidate, Mike Schwindt garnering just 2.6 percent of the vote, while Independant candidate collected just 146 of the almost 25 thousand votes cast.

Ministry of Labor Investigates Fatality in Stratton

The Ministry of Labour is looking into the death of a man at a garage in Stratton what OPP describe as a workplace accident.

Emergency personnel were called to Stratton Service Thursday afternoon where they found 42-year-old Shawn McDonald inside unresponsive.

He was later pronounced dead at the scene.

A post-mortem exam was conducted on Friday at Lake of the Woods District Hospital.

Canfield back as Vice-President of NOMA

No major announcements for Kenora at the annual Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association Conference in Thunder Bay.

The convention wrapped up on Saturday and Kenora mayor Dave Canfield was acclaimed again as vice-president of NOMA.

Canfield also hosted a forum on the forest industry and says they did get some clarification on what's  going on with the Forest Tenure Act.

Canfield adds that both the resolutions submitted by the City of Kenora, one dealing with funding for roads and bridges and the other dealing with the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway from Kenora to the Manitoba Border, were unanimously approved by the delegates.

Training Funding Announced by the Province

83 sites in Northern Ontario will be offering literacy training thanks to the Provincial Government.

Minister of Training and Colleges John Milloy says they'll be offering basic skills training.

Two million dollars will go towards local programs.

Milloy made the announcement at the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association Conference.