Convictions have been handed down to the two Moose Jaw men charged in a spring home invasion that nearly turned deadly. 

21-year old Preston William Munshaw and 18-year old Jerrett Faber-Peciak are off to a federal penitentiary after a provincial court judge convicted the pair of aggravated assault and breaking and entering related to an incident on a south hill home April 18. 

The case was originally labeled a "targeted attack", and Munshaw was originally charged with attempted murder based on the victim having his throat slit with a knife. However, Crown Prosecutor Rob Parker says they brought the lesser charge after interviewing both suspects and the victim, a 54-year old Moose Jaw man. 

"The indication was they (Munshaw and Faber-Peciak) were going to perform a robbery on someone they believed to be a drug dealer," Parker explained. "Mr. Munshaw struck the victim once on the side of the head with a bat. (Then) Munshaw had an opened, folding bladed knife in his hand...he said he grabbed the victim by his shoulders and (threw) him to the ground, and that the cutting of the neck wasn't an intentional act.  The victim confirmed that in his statement to the police an in interviews with myself..so it fit the definition of aggravated assault and not attempted murder."

The Crown asked for a 4-5 year sentence for Munshaw and the judge gave him 4 years, less 9 and a half months time served.  

In the case of Faber-Peciak, the Crown request was for three-and-a-half to 4 years, with the judge giving him 3 years in jail, less the 9 and a half months time served. 

Last weekend a tweet was sent out by the Moose Jaw City police service that offended some members of the community.

The police service is passing the incident along to the Public Complaints Commission for further review.

"Part of the reason of that, of course is that we have processes that we do need to follow and there were certainly members of the public who had showed displeasure and complained," said police chief Rick Bourassa.  

Bourassa added "we'll follow the right processes and let that investigation run its course and then I'll make decisions based on the outcome of that."

Bourassa says they are following careful protocols and since the public believes an officer of the law has behaved inappropriately, for now the officer is no longer allowed to send out communications on behalf of the Moose Jaw city police.

"Public trust and public confidence in our agency and in our institution is absolutely critical when we do something or say something that is not consistent with our values of treating people with dignity and respect," Bourassa said. "We hold ourselves accountable and we are held accountable by people outside the police service and that's the way it should be."

Moving forward Bourassa says he would like to keep the light and friendly relationship going between the police and the community. 

This tweet last Friday sparked controversy

New job numbers for the province show another record month. October saw 580,000 people working in Saskatchewan according to Statistics Canada.

Month-over-month, employment was up 0.2 per cent from September to October 2015 while the unemployment rate was 5.6%, the second lowest among the provinces

Nationally, the unemployment rate was 7 per cent.

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Grand opening celebrations for Moose Jaw's new regional hospital were held Friday morning. 

The new Dr. F.H. Wigmore regional hospital is named for the late Dr. Wigmore, who practiced medicine in Moose Jaw as a general surgeon and Chief of Surgery from 1939-1983. 

He passed away in 1999, but his family has ensured his legacy will live on.

Dr. Wigmore's five children (Barrie Wigmore, Barbara K. Latham, Majorie E Lenz, Constance L. Wigmore, and Dr. C. Fred Wigmore) were all on hand at Friday's event, along with several dignitaries including Health Minister Dustin Duncan, Moose Jaw North MLA Warren Michelson, Moose Jaw Wakamow MLA Greg Lawrence, Moose Jaw Mayor Deb Higgins, Assiniboia mayor Bob Himbeault, and several members of the Five Hills Health Region including CEO Cheryl Craig. 

The Wigmore family contributed $2.5 million dollars to the new facility, which opened its doors October 19. 

F.H.'s son, Moose Jaw Dr. Fred Wigmore, says it's a proud day for their family, acknowledging the role his father played in health care in the Five Hills Health region.

"Dad built two of the wings in the old hospital, so I know he'd be proud of this one now. When the opportunity came to have him honoured, it was great to have it accepted."

He added that he is thrilled with the design of the new facility, and said a federal quality care council rep toured the hospital recently and was impressed.

"She was here as a federal representative in a meeting and one of cohorts said 'you have a beautiful new hospital Dr. Wigmore', and this gal said 'everything new is beautiful - this is intelligent. In my years of touring a thousand hospitals, this is the most intelligent hospital I've seen built in Canada'."

The 100-million dollar facility has been open since October 19.

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Even if we have a family member affected by heart disease or stroke, it appears not many of us give that information to our doctors.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has launched their annual holiday campaign and are touting the help of genetic research in predicting who may be at risk.

They say that half of Canadians are aware of a family member with history of heart disease or stroke, but over a third don't tell their doctors.

Moose Jaw cardiologist Dr. Wadea Tarhuni says the patient bears some responsibility to share that information.

"The patient should discuss that they do have a family history of heart disease or stroke. The physician should ask, but if they don't, the patient needs to mention it."

Dr. Tarhuni says the Heart and Stroke foundation website has an online tool that can help determine if you are at risk.

Tricia Broomfield is the mother of a vibrant 15 year old boy named Jordan Angus-Broomfield, who is hearing impaired and lives with down syndrome.

Jordan was born and raised in Moose Jaw and is currently in grade 9 at Vanier Collegiate. He is currently in the process of acquiring a special hearing device called a bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA) which needs to be surgically implanted.

Jordan recently underwent a trial period with a similar device and was able to hear many sounds he was never able to expirience in the past, says Tricia.

"I spent probably about a week and a half crying when Jordan first got the device. He heard noises he had never heard before like the sounds of birds chirping, ticking of a signal light, air brakes releasing air from a semi."

Tricia added that when he first got the device to try out, he walked into his classroom where his teacher greeted him and Jordan was able to respond, which was a first for him.

"He's definitely a fifteen year old boy he plays basketball, he's involved at school, he likes hanging out with his friends, likes going to Warrior games... everything a fifteen year old boy likes."

Tricia says $4,900 is their goal to be able to buy him his very own BAHA device, and to raise funds theyre having a fundriaser at the Crushed Can on Saturday, November 7 at 5pm-9pm, as well as they set up a go fund me page for Jordan.

Tricia looks forward for Jordan to be able to have his BAHA device in the near future.

"I'm hoping that next week I can walk in to the audiologist and say ok lets order it, and then in a month we should have it."

Tricia says tickets will still be available at the door for Jordan's fundraiser at the Crushed Can in Moose Jaw.

It's the chance to meet and learn about some of the largest religions in the world, as the Zion United Church hosts the World Religions Conference this Sunday at 5 pm.

Munib Waqas Ahmad is a Muslim Clergyman and says the small Muslim community in Moose Jaw is trying to gather a number of other religions for their event.

"The community is trying to set up an dialogue with other religions to provide a platform to bring them together and speak on the similarities that we all share."

Ahmad says he hopes everyone is able to leave enlightened.

"We would like people to come and listen to the speakers and become educated on the different religions. We want them to know that when they hear something about one religion, they can say, 'no, according to their sources, this is wrong'."

The topic of discussion during the event will be, "Is Religion the source of Conflict or Peace?".

A Poverty Reduction Forum was held in Moose Jaw yesterday to look at and discuss poverty levels in the province, and ways to combat the issue.

The event was open to the public, which was an important aspect according to Intersectoral Committee Coordinator, Karen Closs.

"By holding an open forum, we are asking people to share their perspectives whether they have lived experience with poverty or work with someone going through it and to show how it  affects them. We are just looking for ideas from everyone at this point."

Closs adds that they wan to make sure that can prevent people from going into poverty before it happens.

"We're looking at ways to reduce poverty by working upstream. Trying to look in advance, we want to prevent poverty before it happens. We want to know what we can do to keep people out of poverty."

From this event, the group will now look towards bringing together the right government and community organizations to implement these ideas.

Thursday, St.Michael School grade eight students along with Coronach School grade seven and eight classes got the educational experience of exploring and sitting in on the governmental process at the Saskatchewan Legislative building.

A Day in the Legislative Assembly is a day that is offered twice a year by the Provincial Capital Commission. The intention of the program is to educate Saskatchewan's youth in the history of the province as well as giving the students an inside look of all the work our government achieves on a daily basis.

Donna Wells, teacher of the Grade eight class from St.Michael School spoke highly of the day.

"The students got to see the democratic process in action and it was pretty cool," said Wells. "We got to see question period, and after question period they actually got to go down and sit in their seats." St.Michael grade eight students sitting in member's seats durring a panel discussion

The students were first introduced in the house, observed question period and were able to explore the Chamber where they had the privilege to each take a members seat where they enjoyed a panel discussion.

Wells adds "they got to see a lot of the behind the scenes type activity, even the electronics and the TVs behind it, we got to see a lot of things that I don't think a lot of other people don't get the opportunity to see."

Students were able to meet many members of Saskatchewan's government such as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Dan D'Autermont, Parks, Culture and Sport and the Minister responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission Mark Docherty.

Alex Marak St.Michael School student said "it's like not taking your goverment for granted, because of how much they do for you." She also added seeing the process opened her eyes to the law making process.

Karigan Diggins another fortunate student for St.Michael School has many memories from her field trip.  "I really liked learning about how they designed the building and how they figured out how to do everything. How they made the one room look like a crown but making the edges rounded."

Diggins also added "It's an experience you won't forget."

Some scary moments Saturday afternoon in Moose Jaw, as our Police Service was needed to help stop a speeding vehicle from Medicine Hat, Alberta. Police attempted to keep the vehicle from entering Moose Jaw but were unsuccessful.

The suspect drove the vehicle the wrong way eastbound on Highway 1, then jumped the ditch, and drove southbound in the wrong lane on Main St N, going as fast as 160 km/h.

The vehicle was later spotted disabled near the CPR tracks, which was when the RCMP's canine attempted to track the suspect, but were unsuccessful.

The suspect is described as approximately 30 years old, white male, long blonde hair, wearing a green military style jacket, grey pants and a back pack. He is possibly wearing a high-visibility vest.

If you have any information please contact Moose Jaw Police or Crime Stoppers.

The new Wigmore hospital is officially open - now what?

A four year journey for the Five Hills Health Region (FHHR) was officially completed with the grand opening of the Dr. F.H. Wigmore regional hospital in Moose Jaw this past Friday morning.

The project dominated the priority list of Five Hills Health Region CEO Cheryl Craig for years, and she says now that the region has a new hospital, the health of the entire region is job number one.

"The big challenge is making sure that we continue to look at all of our services throughout our region," said Craig after Friday's celebration was complete. "We (need) to look at how it is that we support and enhance our community services, looking at how we can look at our rural services and approach it in a more sustainable way.  Our rural municipalities are working closely with us, and we can't do it without them."

The Five Hills Health Region spans an area from Lake Diefenbaker down to the U.S. border, and serves approximately 54-thousand people with 14 health care facilities.

Craig became FHHR CEO in 2009, just two years before plans for the new regional hospital were announced. She admits that the new hospital has dominated her priority list, but that hasn't prevented the FHHR team from accomplishing the day-to-day priorities of providing quality care.

"My entire team takes seriously the operations throughout our region and the care of our patients," said Craig, adding "I wouldn't be telling the truth, though, if I didn't say the time and effort for the new hospital did rely on, and cause, a different level of involvement."

The hospital had barely been open a week when the availability of staff parking spaces became an issue, with FHHR committing very quickly to building a second staff parking lot.  Craig says it's important to have ongoing dialogue with staff about the facility.

"We certainly have heard from staff some of the areas we need to work on to improve but what I can tell you is that we are fully committed and invested to making those improvements....some have been made already. It's one thing to design a facility, it's another to come and work in it."

The Wigmore hospital, a $100 million dollar facility, made headlines throughout its construction.  It's the first hospital in Canada to be built, start to finish, with Lean management principles.  The Lean methodology came under fire from the opposition provincial NDP party and the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses at various times during construction.  Craig defends the system, and says patient care is the true priority of Lean.

"The more we all understood the (Lean) methodology, the more we understood and could appreciate that this was the right way to advance the build.  When people think about Lean they think about the bottom line.  That's really not what this is about.  It's about honouring our patients and using all of the methodologies to inform us as to how we should honour our patients and our staff, so that they can care for our patients in the right way."

As for Craig's impression of the facility three weeks into its operation?  "Amazing."

If you're going to be out driving on the highways this hour, you may want to slow down a bit.

Along with the fog we've seen this morning, the Saskatchewan Highway Hotline says that we can expect to see winter conditions on highways north, south and east of Moose Jaw.

The fog is expected to be gone early this afternoon.

Three years after the work began, a section of the historic Moose Jaw Cemetery has a new look just in time for Remembrance Day.

Parks and Recreation Director Jody Hauta says the work replaced monuments and pays tribute to the veterans who were laid to rest in the cemetery.

"Some of the (graves) were in a bit of dilapidated state from the age of the monuments themselves, and some of the graves were unmarked," said Hauta. "So they've proceeded to mark some of those graves."

Hauta explains the $40,000 project wasn't initiated by the city.

"We were approached by three different groups, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Veterans Affairs Canada and The Last Post Fund. They have a project where they go across Canada and refurbish veterans' sections in old cemeteries. We fortunate enough..to do a complete refurbishment. It's called the 'Veterans Field of Honour' section of the Moose Jaw Cemetery. There are about 90 graves in the section."

The city's role was supervising the work and then completing the landscaping around the monuments.

"It was a very good project for us, and I think for anybody who hasn't visited the cemetery it's a nice chance to see some of the veterans who served from our area."

It made headlines last week, and Moose Jaw's mayor was impressed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was sworn in to his new post, as was his new cabinet, which was 50 per cent female.

Higgins, who is Moose Jaw's first female mayor, watched the ceremony and was impressed.

"And when you see the visual, it was a little more tricking. (Justin Trudeau) had talked about gender equity, but it was also representative of First Nations and new Canadians."

Higgins, who served as a provincial cabinet minister under Lorne Calvert's NDP government, says it's important that government reflect the population, which is roughly half female.

"When you look at the numbers over the years, both in Canada and the United States, we hover around 20-27% of women representatives in elected rurals, which isn't specific to cabinets, but generally looking at elected representatives."

Higgins was both Minister of Labour and Minister of Learning for the provincial NDP.

Ahead of the Paris Climate Summit this week, US President Barack Obama announced on Friday his administration would not give the go-ahead on the controversial and highly publicized Keystone XL pipeline project.

Reaction from Canadian politicians are fairly similar, with both Justin Trudeau and Premier Brad Wall calling the decision "disappointing", with local MP David Anderson reaching a similar conclusion.

Anderson shared his thoughts on the Keystone XL rejection.

"We think it's another good opportunity to do trade with our neighbors to the south and its unfortunate the Obama administration rejected the science of its own administration of bureaucrats and made a decision against the Keystone pipeline."

President Obama made the decision ahead of the Paris Climate Summit this week in France, many including Obama saying the project would "undercut global leadership" the United States now demonstrates on the issue. Anderson says the project would have had a direct impact for the southwest region of the province.

It was important to our riding, it was to run across our riding. There was over 2,000 jobs waiting and it is unfortunate that has been rejected. I think you'll see that oil going south anyway and the railways are extremely busy. We believe pipelines are a better option than shipping all of it by rail but certainly oil will be moving and apart of our economy in the future."

Keystone would have transported approximately 800,000 barrels a day from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. The pipeline was estimated to be 1,179 miles in distance.

Saskatchewan motorists can now celebrate the sacrifices and services of Canada's military with specialized license plates.

The Support Our Troops plates is part of a bigger program to offer financial support to Canadian Forces Morale and Welfar Services.

Provincial Military Liason Yogi Huyghebaert says all the money raised will stay in Saskatchewan.

"I talked to the Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services and they sent me a letter and they assured me 100% of the money would be in Saskatchewan to support Saskatchewan military families."

Motorists can order the plates for $55, with $30 from each plate supporting the military program. Huyghebaert says the plates do a small part in acknowledging military personnel for their service.

"We are grateful for the service of these brave men and women, and want to acknowledge the sacrifices they make for our freedom."

We'll spend a loonie, a toonie, maybe more, maybe less.  Whatever you can spare will get you a poppy in advance of Remembrance Day, knowing that the money we donate will go to a good cause.

But, do you know how many "good causes" are supported by the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #59 in Moose Jaw?

"All of the money stays here," says Warrant Officer Christine Simpson, who is chair of their Poppy fund. "If there's a family in need, a veteran in need or the family of a deceased veteran...if they're in financial need of something, a wheelchair (or) a walker then the poppy fund puts the money out. Things happen, like if your furnace goes out and (you) don't have the money to pay for it, we pay the furnace company to install that new furnace."

Simpson says the money is also used to upgrade local facilities that are frequented by veterans.

"We donate money to the Cosmo centre and other senior citizen centres (because) we have veterans there. The Cosmo centre has been renovating their kitchen, so we've donated part of the money they require to finish their renovations. It assists veterans, but it also assists members of the Moose Jaw community."

Poppies will remain on sale through Remembrance Day.  The annual public Remembrance Day ceremony will be held at Mosaic Place Wednesday morning.  You're asked to be seated no later than 10:40.

As promised, the Saskatchewan government passed legislation to allow for private MRI clinics in the province.

"What this bill is trying to accomplish is balance what people already have the opportunity to do, which is go out of province to pay for an MRI," said Minister of Health Dustin Duncan. "They (patients) go to Calgary, to Minot, or to the Mayo clinic in Rochester (Minnesota), so this would keep those dollars home."

A doctor's referral will still be needed for an MRI, even at a private clinic. Duncan also touted another condition of the legislation aimed to reduce MRI wait times, saying that for every private MRI scan, the clinic "would have to provide a scan from the public wait list".

The province estimates that there are between 4,000 and 5,000 people currently waiting for an MRI.

An MRI machine will also be coming to Moose Jaw's new Dr. F.H. Wigmore regional hospital in 2016.

A few flurries have fallen in the Moose Jaw area Tuesday morning, as we are on the edge of a system that dropped a fair bit of snow to the west. 

Southwest Saskatchewan was blanketed with snow overnight, with the Cypress Hills area getting upwards of 15 centimetres, while the Swift Current area received slightly less.

Saskatchewan Highways road report says there is snow and slush build up on the Trans Canada once you get west of Mortlach, and the TransCanada highway between Moose Jaw and Regina is "wet and subject to freezing".

Loose and swirling snow and icy conditions are also reported on Highway 11 between Bethune and Davidson.
 
You can find the latest highway conditions under the News heading at www.discovermoosejaw.com.

Caution is advised when traveling Tuesday.

Highway 11 south of Chamberlain was the site of a pair of semi-trailer units that jackknifed Tuesday morning - no further details are available yet.

That isn't the only stretch of road that's tough to travel. The Trans Canada west of Mortlach is also slick because of the moisture and cool temperatures.

"The highways aren't slushy at all...they're ice covered," said Sherry Blaschuk, who called us from just east of Chaplin at about 8:15 Tuesday morning.  She says she was only able to safely travel at 70 km/hr.

Moose Jaw received trace amounts of snow and, as a result, local roads are wet, subject to freezing.

A significant amount of snow fell in the southwest area of Saskatchewan overnight, with Cypress Hills and Swift Current receiving a few centimetres each.

For the latest highway conditions, click here.