Opinion

OPINION: Some Councillors made passionate pleas for raises. Did they make their case? You tell me.

Published

7 years ago

7 minute read

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and should not be interpreted as reflecting the editorial policy of Todayville, Inc.

The city of Red Deer just went through a sad episode in municipal politics. March 2017 the federal government announced the end of a subsidy for politicians, for January 1 2019. Til now politicians did not have to pay taxes on 1/3 of their earnings. Which could add up over time.
Rather than discuss it in advance, determine a proper way to deal with the end of a subsidy or determine a proper compensation package for the mayor and city councillors, they waited til the 11th hour, after they have been elected or re-elected, as in the majority of cases.
One councillor talked about working 10 hours a day everyday of the year, so he deserves a raise to $68,618.16 /yr. giving him an earning of $18.80 /hr for his 10 hours a day everyday. Kind of unbelievable that our councillors work 10 hours a day, everyday, with no days off, no holidays, etc.
Another councillor, said we should be grateful to have such great people on council, so grateful that we should give them raises to cover the end of their tax subsidy. Why this council brought us such events as the CFR and the Winter Games but he failed to mention other issues that became famous under his watch.
Red Deer never recovered from the last recession and is experiencing a continued downturn, while neighbouring communities continue to grow following the provincial growth rate of 4% annually.
Remember these stories:
Alberta on track to have worst air quality in Canada
Red Deer has worst pollution in province, while 4 other regions close to exceeding national standards

Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips says the province is on track to have the worst air quality in Canada, and vows the government will put measures in place to reduce emissions from industry and vehicles.
“The time to act is long overdue,” Phillips said.
“We have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the health of Albertans.”
Phillips made the remarks after seeing the results of the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards report, which show the Red Deer region has exceeded national standards. Four other regions — Lower Athabasca, Upper Athabasca, North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan — are close to exceeding national standards.
Phillips said there is no immediate health risk for people living in central Alberta.
“These results are concerning,” Phillips said in a news release. “We can’t keep going down the same path and expecting a different result. Our government has a responsibility to protect the health of Albertans by ensuring air pollution from all sources is addressed.”
The province will initiate an “action plan” to deal with poor air quality in the Red Deer area, a move she said is required under the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards.

Red Deer has one of the highest crime rate in the country
According to the local newspaper, The Red Deer Advocate, our fine city has some serious crime issues, compared to other major cities in Alberta. Following are sections of the story:
“Red Deer’s Crime Severity Index (CSI) is higher than Alberta’s other four major cities, recently released Statistics Canada information reveals.”
“The Crime Severity Index measures the volume and severity of crimes reported to police and is standardized, using the number 100 as the base, for the year 2006. It is calculated using all Criminal Code violations including offences like stolen vehicles, traffic and drug violations, and federal statutes”
“According to Statistics Canada, the overall CSI for 2015 for Red Deer is 182 (numbers have been rounded off).”
“This compares with Edmonton at 112, Lethbridge at 109, and Calgary and Medicine Hat both at 77. Alberta’s CSI is 102 and Canada overall is 70.”
“When looking specifically at violent crime, Statistics Canada shows that index for Red Deer up by almost 24 per cent (146 in 2015 from 118 in 2014). It had actually declined each year from 2012 to 2014, before increasing. There were no homicides in 2014. There were two in 2015.”

Red Deer’s population peaked in 2015 and declined in 2016

City council will be talking about growth and managing it. Let us look at the growth during the last mandate 2013-2017. The last census was done in 2016 and showed a decrease since 2015. (99,832 from 100,807) The decision was made to cancel the 2017 census since there was no sign of growth and you needed growth to justify the cost of the census.
Population of Red Deer in 2016 was 99,832 a increase of 2,723 or 2.8%over 97,109 in 2013. Not that great on the face of things, but looking deeper and you realize some neighbourhoods did not even fare that well.
For example;
Kentwood 2016=4,267 2013=4,280
Glendale 2016=4,288 2013=4,393
Normandeau 2016=3,530 2013=3,565
Pines 2016=1,718 2013=1,823
Highland Green 2016=3,920 2013=3,979
Oriole Park 2016=5,244 2013=5,308
Riverside Meadows 2016=3,686 2013=3,665
Fairview 2016=710 2013=770
Johnstone Park 2016=3,865 2013=3760
Total 2016=31,228 2013=31,543
Percentage of population 2016=31.3% 2013= 32.5%
Red Deer City Population 2016=99,832 2013=97,109

In case you did not know these are the neighbourhoods north of the river. So while the city grew for 3 of 4 years in the end it still grew over 4 years ago. The city shrank in total from 100,807 in 2015 to 99,832 in 2016. These neighbourhoods, except for Johnstone Park which grew by 105 and Riverside Meadows which grew by 21, shrank in size over the four years.

So I ask the incumbents to offer measures to stem the outward migration and encourage growth. Anyone? Perhaps build a north side Collicutt Centre? A high school?
The facts are there on reddeer.ca for anyone to study.
Did they make their case. Are they the saviours of Red Deer or not?

Follow Author

Largest fraud in US history? Independent Journalist visits numerous daycare centres with no children, revealing massive scam

Business / 2 hours ago

“Magnitude cannot be overstated”: Minnesota aid scam may reach $9 billion

Automotive / 14 hours ago

Canada’s EV gamble is starting to backfire

Business

“Magnitude cannot be overstated”: Minnesota aid scam may reach $9 billion

Published on December 27, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

Federal prosecutors say Minnesota’s exploding social-services fraud scandal may now rival nearly the entire economy of Somalia, with as much as $9 billion allegedly stolen from taxpayer-funded programs in what authorities describe as industrial-scale abuse that unfolded largely under the watch of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. The staggering new estimate is almost nine times higher than the roughly $1 billion figure previously suspected and amounts to about half of the $18 billion in federal funds routed through Minnesota-run social-services programs since 2018, according to prosecutors. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said Thursday, stressing that investigators are still uncovering massive schemes. “This is not a handful of bad actors. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud. Every day we look under a rock and find another $50 million fraud operation.”

Authorities say the alleged theft went far beyond routine overbilling. Dozens of defendants — the vast majority tied to Minnesota’s Somali community — are accused of creating sham businesses and nonprofits that claimed to provide housing assistance, food aid, or health-care services that never existed, then billing state programs backed by federal dollars. Thompson said the opportunity became so lucrative it attracted what he called “fraud tourism,” with out-of-state operators traveling to Minnesota to cash in. Charges announced Thursday against six more people bring the total number of defendants to 92.

BREAKING: First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson revealed that 14 state Medicaid programs have cost Minnesota $18 billion since 2018, including more than $3.5 billion in 2024 alone.

Thompson stated, "Now, I'm sure everyone is wondering how much of this $18 billion was… pic.twitter.com/hCNDBuCTYH

— FOX 9 (@FOX9) December 18, 2025

Among the newly charged are Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown, 53, who prosecutors say traveled from Philadelphia to Minnesota after spotting what they believed was easy money in the state’s housing assistance system. The pair allegedly embedded themselves in shelters and affordable-housing networks to pose as legitimate providers, then recruited relatives and associates to fabricate client notes. Prosecutors say they submitted about $3.5 million in false claims to the state’s Housing Stability Services Program for roughly 230 supposed clients.

Other cases show how deeply the alleged fraud penetrated Minnesota’s health-care programs. Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, is accused of setting up a bogus autism therapy nonprofit that paid parents to enroll children regardless of diagnosis, then billed the state for services never delivered, netting roughly $6 million. Another defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, allegedly participated in a separate autism scheme that generated $14 million in fraudulent reimbursements, while also pocketing nearly $500,000 through the notorious Feeding Our Future food-aid scandal. “Roughly two dozen Feeding Our Future defendants were getting money from autism clinics,” Thompson said. “That’s how we learned about the autism fraud.”

The broader scandal began to unravel in 2022 when Feeding Our Future collapsed under federal investigation, but prosecutors say only in recent months has the true scope of the alleged theft come into focus. Investigators allege large sums were wired overseas or spent on luxury vehicles and other high-end purchases. The revelations have fueled political fallout in Minnesota and prompted renewed federal scrutiny of immigration-linked fraud as well as criticism of state oversight failures. Walz, who is seeking re-election in 2026 after serving as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, defended his administration Thursday, saying, “We will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.” Prosecutors, however, made clear the investigation is far from finished — and warned the final tally could climb even higher.

Automotive

Canada’s EV gamble is starting to backfire

Published on December 26, 2025

Dan McTeague

Things have only gone from bad to worse for the global Electric Vehicle industry. And that’s a problem for Canada, because successive Liberal governments have done everything in their power to hitch our cart to that horse.

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration rolled back more Biden-era regulations that effectively served as a back-door EV mandate in the United States. These rules mandated that all passenger cars be able to travel at least 65.1 miles (and for light trucks, 45.2 miles) per gallon of gasoline or diesel, by the year 2031. Since no Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle could realistically conform to those standards, that would have essentially boxed them out of the market.

Trump’s rolling them back was a fulfillment of his campaign promise to end the Biden Administration’s stealth EV mandates. But it was also a simple recognition of the reality that EVs can’t compete on their own merits.

For proof of that, look no further than our second bit of bad news for EVs: Ford Motor Company has just announced a massive $19.5 billion write-down, almost entirely linked to its aggressive push into EVs. They’ve lost $13 billion on EVs in the past two years alone.

The company invested tens of billions on these go-carts, and lost their shirt when it turned out the market for them was miniscule.

Ford’s EV division president Andrew Frick explained, “Ford is following the customer. We are looking at the market as it is today, not just as everyone predicted it to be five years ago.”

Of course, five years ago, the market was assuming that government subsidies-plus-mandates would create a market for EVs at scale, which hasn’t happened.

As to what this portends for the market, the Wall Street Journal argued, “The company’s pivot from all-electric vehicles is a fresh sign that America’s roadways – after a push to remake them – will continue to look in the near future much like they do today, with a large number of gas-powered cars and trucks and growing use of hybrids.”

And that’s not just true in the U.S. Across the Atlantic, reports suggest the European Union is preparing to delay their own EV mandates to 2040. And the U.K.’s Labour government is considering postponing their own 2030 ICE vehicle ban to align with any EU change in policy.

It’s looking like fewer people around the world will be forced by their governments to buy EVs. Which means that fewer people will be buying EVs.

Now, that is a headache for Canada. Our leaders, at both the federal and provincial levels, have bet big on the success of EVs, investing billions in taxpayer dollars in the hopes of making Canada a major player in the global EV supply chain.

To bolster those investments, Ottawa introduced its Electric Vehicle mandate, requiring 100 per cent of new light-duty vehicle sales to be electric by 2035. This, despite the fact that EVs remain significantly more expensive than gas-and-diesel driven vehicles, they’re poorly suited to Canada’s vast distances and cold climate, and our charging infrastructure is wholly inadequate for a total transition to EVs.

But even if these things weren’t true, there still aren’t enough of us to make the government’s investment make sense. Their entire strategy depends on exporting to foreign markets that are rapidly cooling on EVs.

Collapsing demand south of the border – where the vast majority of the autos we build are sent – means that Canadian EVs will be left without buyers. And postponed (perhaps eventually canceled) mandates in Europe mean that we will be left without a fallback market.

Canadian industry voices are growing louder in their concern. Meanwhile, plants are already idling, scaling back production, or even closing, leaving workers out in the cold.

As GM Canada’s president, Kristian Aquilina, said when announcing her company’s cancellation of the BrightDrop Electric delivery van, “Quite simply, we just have not seen demand for these vehicles climb to the levels that we initially anticipated…. It’s simply a demand and a market-driven response.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney, while sharing much of the same environmental outlook as his predecessor, has already been compelled by economic realities to make a small adjustment – delaying the enforcement of the 2026 EV sales quotas by one year.

But a one-year pause doesn’t solve the problem. It kicks the can down the road.

Mr. Carney must now make a choice. He can double down on this troubled policy, continuing to throw good money after bad, endangering a lot of jobs in our automotive sector, while making transportation more expensive and less reliable for Canadians. Or he can change course: scrap the mandates, end the subsidies, and start putting people and prosperity ahead of ideology.

Here’s hoping he chooses the latter.

The writing is on the wall. Around the world, the forced transition to EVs is crashing into economic reality. If Canada doesn’t wake up soon, we’ll be left holding the bag.