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Red Deer’s Hazlett Lake is “Opportunity Lost”?

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A lot of words have been written about our state of affairs in Red Deer. The fall-out from a depressed economy, being in a bust portion of a boom-bust cycle. Our declining population. Talk of diversifying our economy away from our continued reliance on the energy sector. Words are not actions, and it is worrisome. Is it fear or lack of vision that impedes us from following up on the words?
No matter how we dress it up, Red Deer is shrinking. Blame the economy, the stars or any number of reasons but it could have been different. Lethbridge is slightly bit smaller in population and area than Red Deer but Lethbridge is growing in this same economy. Lethbridge invested and is today investing in areas appealing to young families including recreational facilities. Lethbridge has a history of investing in facilities to encourage growth, education and tourism. They turned a man made slough into Henderson Lake Park and has never looked back.
Red Deer has a greater opportunity in having a real natural lake. Will Red Deer build a park? NO, they will likely plan on houses, and apartment buildings that may never get built, unless we go into a boom portion of the boom-bust cycle. This is the simplistic, easiest and safest plan with a low return on investment. It ignores the high-profile location and possibilities of the lake, but it has less risk. A wall will be built to hide the lake from Hwy 2’s traffic.
Remember, Hazlett Lake is a natural lake that covers a surface area of 0.45 km2 (0.17 mi2), has an average depth of 3 meters (10 feet). Hazlett Lake has a total shore line of 4 kilometers (2 miles). It is 108.8 acres in size. Located in the north-west sector of Red Deer.
Currently on the NADG.com website we will see a residential community around Hazlett Lake. Encompassing about 12 percent of the land north of 11A currently up for development. Phase I of probably 10 phases, will be home to 5,000 residents with the nearest high school on the other side of city on the east end. A K-8 school site to be located north-east of Hazlett Lake currently planned for a later phase.
On nadg.com:
“Hazlett Lake is a 350-acre master planned residential community located in North Red Deer at the intersection of Alberta’s busiest Highway -QE2 and Highway 11A. The community will consist of over 2000 new residential units and will be Phase 1 of Red Deer’s North of 11A Major Area Structural Plan. Additionally, this development will be the first new housing project in North Red Deer in 10 years”
So, please, the next time you drive north on Hwy 2, as you pass the Hwy 11A turnoff, look out the passenger window and check out Hazlett Lake.
That lake is part of the City of Red Deer, and is a portion of a Major Area Structure Plan north of Hwy 11A previously mentioned. So as you drive by, think of what you would like to see done with your lake.
One scenario that could compliment the lake and address the desire for a regional aquatic centre and a 50-metre pool is turning the proposed community centre on the northeast corner of the lake into a Collicutt Centre type of complex.
What is more natural than having an aquatic centre on the lake? You could have your 50-metre pool inside, a lake for scuba diving, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boating, swimming, under-water photography, fishing, sun tanning, races, to name but a few.
The winter could see skating, hockey, to complement the indoor ice rink, as well as ice-fishing and ice sculptures and sleigh rides, again, to name but a few. This would all be visible to the traffic on Hwy 2.
This Major Area Structure Plan takes in much more than a lake. It takes in about 3,000 acres of land for residential, commercial and industrial development. The potential for residential growth if maintained at 17.7 units per hectare and 2.33 residents per unit could see 20,000 new residents if the area split equally between residential, commercial and industrial users.
Collicutt Centre is the top used community venue in Red Deer. It is used by almost 60 per cent of the population. It is in the southeast corner of Red Deer and was a major impetus in the development of the southeast corner of Red Deer. Blackfalds used their new Abbey Centre as an impetus for very strong residential developments that have recently outshone Red Deer’s residential developments.
Would a regional aquatic centre built on Hazlett Lake kick-start development in Red Deer’s north at a time of a slowdown in the energy sector? Would a Hazlett Lake regional aquatic centre, visible from Hwy 2, create a tourism trade that would bolster Red Deer’s hospitality industry? Would a Hazlett Lake regional aquatic centre enhance our position as a sports destination? Would a Hazlett Lake regional aquatic centre ensure that everyone would have an opportunity to enjoy the lake? I hope so.
Then another option would be to close it off to the public, develop around it, build a private boathouse for the home owners holding passes, and build expensive homes to hide the lake from the citizens and allow developers to make huge profits.
It is up to the citizens to let the city know what they would like to see, but time is running out.
I think the Hazlett Lake is worth preserving, and I hope that when my grandchildren drive north on Hwy 2 just past the Hwy 11A turnoff, that they will be able to look out the passenger side window and see Hazlett Lake.
Perhaps they will be able to tan on a beach, watch a naturescape in action, paddle a canoe, swim, skate, maybe have a bonfire on a beach and roast a marshmallow. We do need to act now, before the plans get too entrenched in the least desired direction.
Please contact the city before it is too late.

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Addictions

Why can’t we just say no?

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Susan Martinuk

Drug use and violence have become common place in hospitals. Drug-addicted patients openly smoke meth and fentanyl, and inject heroin. Dealers traffic illicit drugs.  Nurses are harassed, forced to work amidst the toxic fumes from drugs and can’t confiscate weapons. In short, according to one nurse, “We’ve absolutely lost control.”

“Defining deviancy down” is a cultural philosophy that emerged in the United States during the 1990s.

It refers to society’s tendency to adjust its standards of deviancy “down,” so that behaviours which were once unacceptable become acceptable.  Over time, this newly- acceptable behaviour can even become society’s norm.

Of course, the converse must also be true — society looks down on those who label social behaviours “wrong,” deeming them moralistic, judgemental or simply out of touch with the realities of modern life.

Thirty years later, this philosophy is entrenched in British Columbia politics and policies. The province has become a society that cannot say “no” to harmful or wrong behaviours related to drug use. It doesn’t matter if you view drug use as a medical issue, a law-and-order issue, or both – we have lost the ability to simply say “no” to harmful or wrong behaviour.

That much has become abundantly clear over the past two weeks as evidence mounts that BC’s experiment with decriminalization and safe supply of hard drugs is only making things worse.

recently-leaked memo from BC’s Northern Health Authority shows the deleterious impact these measures have had on BC’s hospitals.

The memo instructs staff at the region’s hospitals to tolerate and not intervene with illegal drug use by patients.  Apparently, staff should not be taking away any drugs or personal items like a knife or other weapons under four inches long.  Staff cannot restrict visitors even if they are openly bringing illicit drugs into the hospital and conducting their drug transactions in the hallways.

The public was quite rightly outraged at the news and BC’s Health Minister Adrian Dix quickly attempted to contain the mess by saying that the memo was outdated and poorly worded.

But his facile excuses were quickly exposed by publication of the very clearly worded memo and by nurses from across the province who came forward to tell their stories of what is really happening in our hospitals.

The President of the BC Nurses Union, Adriane Gear, said the issue was “widespread” and “of significant magnitude.” She commented that the problems in hospitals spiked once the province decriminalized drugs. In a telling quote, she said, “Before there would be behaviours that just wouldn’t be tolerated, whereas now, because of decriminalization, it is being tolerated.”

Other nurses said the problem wasn’t limited to the Northern Health Authority. They came forward (both anonymously and openly) to say that drug use and violence have become common place in hospitals. Drug-addicted patients openly smoke meth and fentanyl, and inject heroin. Dealers traffic illicit drugs.  Nurses are harassed, forced to work amidst the toxic fumes from drugs and can’t confiscate weapons. In short, according to one nurse, “We’ve absolutely lost control.”

People think that drug policies have no impact on those outside of drug circles – but what about those who have to share a room with a drug-smoking patient?

No wonder healthcare workers are demoralized and leaving in droves. Maybe it isn’t just related to the chaos of Covid.

The shibboleth of decriminalization faced further damage when Fiona Wilson, the deputy chief of Vancouver’s Police Department, testified before a federal Parliamentary committee to say that the policy has been a failure. There have been more negative impacts than positive, and no decreases in overdose deaths or the overdose rate. (If such data emerged from any other healthcare experiment, it would immediately be shut down).

Wison also confirmed that safe supply drugs are being re-directed to illegal markets and now account for 50% of safe supply drugs that are seized. Her words echoed those of BC’s nurses when she told the committee that the police, “have absolutely no authority to address the problem of drug use.”

Once Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix stopped denying that drug use was occurring in hospitals, they continued their laissez-faire approach to illegal drugs with a plan to create “safe consumption sites” at hospitals. When that lacked public appeal, Mr. Dix said the province would establish a task force to study the issue.

What exactly needs to be studied?

The NDP government appears to be uninformed, at best, and dishonest, at worst. It has backed itself into a corner and is now taking frantic and even ludicrous steps to legitimize its experimental policy of decriminalization. The realities that show it is not working and is creating harm towards others and toward institutions that should be a haven for healing.

How quickly we have become a society that lacks the moral will – and the moral credibility – to just to say “no.”

Susan Martinuk is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis.

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Brownstone Institute

The Teams Are Set for World War III

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From the Brownstone Institute

BY Toby RogersTOBY ROGERS

I’ve seen some crazy things over the last few years but this is off-the-charts insane.

Last week, Michael E. Mann spoke at the EcoHeath Alliance: Green Planet One Health Benefit 2024. Just to recap who each of these players are:

  • Michael E. Mann is the creator of the “hockey stick graph” that has driven the global warming debate for the last 25 years.
  • EcoHealth Alliance is the CIA cutout led by Peter Daszak that launders money from the NIH to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create gain-of-function viruses (including SARS-CoV-2 which killed over 7 million people).
  • “One Health” is the pretext the World Health Organization (WHO) is using to drive the Pandemic Treaty that will vastly expand the powers of the WHO and create economic incentives for every nation on earth to develop new gain-of-function viruses.

So a leader in the global warming movement spoke at an event to raise money for the organization that just murdered 7 million people and the campaign that intends to launch new pandemics in perpetuity to enrich the biowarfare industrial complex.

And then just for good measure, Peter Hotez reposted all of this information on Twitter, I imagine in solidarity with all of the exciting genociding going on.

Mann’s appearance at this event is emblematic of a disturbing shift that has been years in the making. Serious and thoughtful people in the environmental movement tried to address industrial and military pollution for decades. Now their cause has been co-opted by Big Tech and other corporate actors with malevolent intentions — and the rest of the environmental movement has gone along with this, apparently without objection. So we are witnessing a convergence between the global warming movement, the biowarfare industrial complex, and the WHO pandemic treaty grifters.

I wish it wasn’t true but here we are.

Before I go any further I need to make one thing clear: the notion that pandemics are driven by global warming is complete and total bullsh*t. The evidence is overwhelming that pandemics are created by the biowarfare industrial complex including the 13,000 psychopaths who work at over 400 US bioweapons labs (as described in great detail in The Wuhan Cover-Up).

Unfortunately “global warming” has become a cover for the proliferation of the biowarfare industrial economy.

Mann’s appearance at an event to raise money for people who are clearly guilty of genocide (and planning more carnage) made me realize that this really is World War III. They are straight-up telling us who they are and what they intend to do.

The different sides in this war are not nation-states. Instead, Team Tyranny is a bunch of different business interests pushing what has become a giant multi-trillion dollar grift. And Team Freedom is ordinary people throughout the world just trying to return to the classical economic and political liberalism that drove human progress from 1776 until 2020.

Here’s how I see the battle lines being drawn:


TEAM TYRANNY

Their base: Elites, billionaires, the ruling class, the biowarfare industrial complex, intelligence agencies, and bougie technocrats.

Institutions they control: WEF, WHO, UN, BMGF, World Bank, IMF, most universities, the mainstream media, and liberal governments throughout the developed world.

Economic philosophy: The billionaires should control all wealth on earth. The peasants should only be allowed to exist to serve the billionaires, grow food, and fix the machines when necessary. Robots and Artificial Intelligence will soon be able to replace most of the peasants.

Political philosophy: Centralized control of everything. Elites know best. The 90% should shut up, pay their taxes, take their vaccines, develop chronic disease, and die. High tech global totalitarianism is the best form of government. Billionaires are God.

Philosophy of medicine: Allopathic. Cut, poison, burn, kill. Corporations create all knowledge. Bodies are machines. Transhumanism is ideal. The billionaires will soon live forever in the digital cloud.

Their currency: For now, inflationary Federal Reserve policies. Soon, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that will put the peasants in their place once and for all.

Policy vehicles to advance their agenda: One Health; WHO Pandemic Treaty; social credit scores; climate scores; vaccine mandates/passports; lockdowns and quarantine camps; elimination of small farms and livestock; corporate control of all food, land, water, transportation, and the weather; corporate control of social movements; and 15-minute cities for the peasants.

Military strategy: Gain-of-function viruses, propaganda, and vaccines.


TEAM FREEDOM

Our base: The medical freedom movement, Constitutionalists, small “l” libertarians, independent farmers, natural meat and milk producers, pirate parties, natural healers, homeopaths, chiropractors, integrative and functional medicine doctors, and osteopaths.

Aligned institutions: CHD, ICAN, Brownstone Institute, NVIC, SFHF, the RFK, Jr. campaign, the Republican party at the county level…

Economic philosophy: Small “c” capitalism. Competition. Entrepreneurship.

Political philosophy: Classical liberalism. The people, using their own ingenuity, will generally figure out the best way to do things. Decentralize everything including the internet. If the elites would just leave us alone the world would be a much more peaceful, creative, and prosperous place. Human freedom leads to human flourishing.

Philosophy of medicine: Nature is infinite in its wisdom. Listen to the body. Systems have the ability to heal and regenerate.

Our currency: Cash, gold, crypto, and barter. (I don’t love crypto but lots of smart people in our movement do.)

Policy ideas: Exit the WHO. Boycott WEF companies. Repeal the Bayh-Dole Act, NCVIA Act, Patriot Act, and PREP Act. Add medical freedom to the Constitution. Prosecute the Faucistas at Nuremberg 2.0. Overhaul the NIH, FDA, CDC, EPA, USDA, FCC, DoD, and intelligence agencies. Make all publicly-funded scientific data available to the public. Ban insider trading by Congress. Support and protect organic food, farms, and farmers’ markets. Break up monopolies. Cut the size of the federal government in half (or more).

Our preferred tools to create change: Ideas, love for humanity, logic and reason, common sense, art and music, and popular uprising.

What would you add, subtract, or change in each of these lists?

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

  • Toby Rogers

    Toby Rogers has a Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Sydney in Australia and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focus is on regulatory capture and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Rogers does grassroots political organizing with medical freedom groups across the country working to stop the epidemic of chronic illness in children. He writes about the political economy of public health on Substack.

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