Alberta
As a Polytechnic RDC looking to offer degree programs in arts, science, business administration and education
More higher learning opportunities in central Alberta
Red Deer College is poised to become Alberta’s newest polytechnic, ensuring residents have access to a wide variety of learning options close to home now and in the future.
Becoming a polytechnic enables Red Deer College to better align programming with local student, business and industry needs – including high-quality degrees, apprenticeship education and diploma programs.
Alberta’s government worked in partnership with Red Deer College and student leaders to determine the most flexible and best-fit model for central Alberta, with a goal of ensuring students have access to the education they need and employers in the region have access to the talent they need.
“I am thrilled that Red Deer College will become central Alberta’s polytechnic institution, best positioning it to provide residents with the wide range of educational options they need to build rewarding careers – right in their community. Ensuring all Albertans have access to opportunities to build their skills for in-demand local jobs empowers people to achieve success close to home, helps strengthen and grow communities, as well as attracting investment to the province.”
Red Deer College and the students, faculty and staff on campus play a key role in the community and local economy. The college began operations in 1964, and since then has expanded its offerings to include more than 100 programs across a range of credentials. With strong connections to business, innovation, health care, non-profits and many other organizations, Red Deer College and its students have an important role in the culture and vibrancy of the central Alberta region. The partnerships, work-integrated learning and collaboration already in place will continue to be enhanced through the polytechnic model.
“We are very supportive of the polytechnic designation because this model will allow us to build on our strengths to become an ever more innovative institution that will best serve our students, partners, industry and community members. Becoming a polytechnic achieves all of the goals we have had for many years, and it allows us to consider exciting new possibilities for the future.”
“The breadth of programs and credentials we will offer as a polytechnic institution are exactly what this region needs. By offering students applied and work-integrated learning across all programs – from trades to our own degrees – we will assist graduates to achieve their goals and be highly employable within the ever-changing needs of the labour market. This is the ideal future for our institution.”
“Red Deer is ready for a polytechnic. Students of central Alberta want to learn and live close to their support systems. We need to stop the brain drain and focus on what really matters most – making sure our population is well-educated and remains in this region.”
Red Deer is Alberta’s third largest city and a key social and economic hub for central Alberta. By shifting Red Deer College to a polytechnic and supporting expanded programming to include new degree and apprenticeship opportunities, we are ensuring students have the skills they need to build rewarding careers and employers have the talented workforce they need to grow the economy.
“Red Deer city council, our community and our region remain dedicated to supporting Red Deer College, students and staff who work every day to ensure RDC remains a key competitive post-secondary institution. We need to be a competitive contender in keeping and attracting new population to our city, and one of the most promising means of doing so is through the development of a skilled labour force, offering a broader spectrum of career options locally, and attracting a population who will stay and strengthen our local economy through their future contributions in various sectors.”
These changes also align with the goals of the Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs strategy, and were considered as part of consultations to form the strategy.
An official new name for the institution has not yet been chosen but is expected to be announced in the coming months. Alberta’s government will continue to work with Red Deer College to ensure a successful path to polytechnic status.
Quick facts
- Polytechnic status in Alberta enables institutions to offer apprenticeship education along with degree, diploma and certificate programs.
- Red Deer College is currently approved to offer three degree programs, including the recently approved bachelor of science in biological sciences degree.
- The institution has also put forward four degree program proposals to Advanced Education for program approval review. These include:
- bachelor of arts (psychology)
- bachelor of science (psychology)
- bachelor of business administration
- bachelor of education
- The Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs strategy is a transformational vision and direction for Alberta’s higher education system, which will develop a highly skilled and competitive workforce, strengthen innovation and commercialization of research and forge stronger relationships between employers and post-secondary institutions.
P&H Milling Group has qualified for the Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit program
Alberta’s food processing sector is the second-largest manufacturing industry in the province and the flour milling industry plays an important role within the sector, generating millions in annual economic impact and creating thousands of jobs. As Canada’s population continues to increase, demand for high-quality wheat flour products is expected to rise. With Alberta farmers growing about one-third of Canada’s wheat crops, the province is well-positioned to help meet this demand.
Alberta’s Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit program is supporting this growing sector by helping to attract a new wheat flour milling business to Red Deer County. P&H Milling Group, a division of Parrish & Heimbecker, Limited, is constructing a $241-million facility in the hamlet of Springbrook to mill about 750 metric tonnes of wheat from western Canadian farmers into flour, every single day. The new facility will complement the company’s wheat and durum milling operation in Lethbridge.
“P&H Milling Group’s new flour mill project is proof our Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit program is doing its job to attract large-scale investments in value-added agricultural manufacturing. With incentives like the ag tax credit, we’re providing the right conditions for processors to invest in Alberta, expand their business and help stimulate our economy.”
P&H Milling Group’s project is expected to create about 27 permanent and 200 temporary jobs. Byproducts from the milling process will be sold to the livestock feed industry across Canada to create products for cattle, poultry, swine, bison, goats and fish. The new facility will also have capacity to add two more flour mills as demand for product increases in the future.
“This new facility not only strengthens our position in the Canadian milling industry, but also boostsAlberta’s baking industry by supplying high-quality flour to a diverse range of customers. We are proud to contribute to the local economy and support the agricultural community by sourcing 230,000 metric tonnes of locally grown wheat each year.”
To be considered for the tax credit program, corporations must invest at least $10 million in a project to build or expand a value-added agri-processing facility in Alberta. The program offers a 12 per cent non-refundable tax credit based on eligible capital expenditures. Through this program, Alberta’s government has granted P&H Milling Group conditional approval for a tax credit estimated at $27.3 million.
“We are grateful P&H Milling Group chose to build here in Red Deer County. This partnership willbolster our local economy and showcase our prime centralized location in Alberta, an advantage that facilitates efficient operations and distribution.”
Quick facts
- In 2023, Alberta’s food processing sector generated $24.3 billion in sales, making it the province’s second-largest manufacturing industry, behind petroleum and coal.
- That same year, just over three million metric tonnes of milled wheat and more than 2.3 million metric tonnes of wheat flour was manufactured in Canada.
- Alberta’s milled wheat and meslin flour exports increased from $8.6 million in 2019 to $19.8 million in 2023, a 130.2 per cent increase.
- Demand for flour products rose in Alberta from 2019 to 2022, with retail sales increasing by 24 per cent during that period.
- Alberta’s flour milling industry generated about $840.7 million in economic impact and created more than 2,200 jobs on average between 2018 and 2021.
- Alberta farmers produced 9.3 million metric tonnes of wheat in 2023, representing 29.2 per cent of total Canadian production.
Related information
The British Columbia Centre on Substance Abuse. (Photo credit: Alexandra Keeler)
News release from Break The Needle
By Canadian Affairs Editorial Board
Data released this week brought the welcome news that opioid-related deaths in Alberta have decreased substantially since last year. Opioid-related deaths have also decreased in B.C., although not as dramatically as in Alberta.
While the results are encouraging, more work needs to be done. And both provinces, which have taken very different approaches to the drug crisis, need to understand how their drug policies contribute to these results.
Fortunately, B.C. and Alberta both have research centres devoted to answering this very question. But we are disheartened to see that B.C.’s centre, the British Columbia Centre on Substance Abuse, accepts funding from pharmaceutical and drug companies.
As Canadian Affairs reported this week, the B.C. centre’s funding page lists pharmaceutical company Indivior, pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart and cannabis companies Tilray and Canopy Growth as “past and current funders of activities at BCCSU — including work related to research, community engagement, and clinical training and education.”
This funding structure raises major red flags. Pharmaceutical and drug companies benefit from continued drug use and addiction. And in a context where B.C. has favoured harm-reduction policies such as safe consumption sites and safe supply, the risk of conflicts is especially high.
Indivior is the producer and manufacturer of Suboxone, a drug commonly prescribed to treat opioid-use disorder. Canada’s drug crisis has driven a surge in demand for prescription opioids to treat opioid-use order, with the number of Canadians receiving Suboxone and similar drugs up 44 per cent in 2020 from 2015, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
Indivior is also the subject of at least two class-action lawsuits claiming the company failed to disclose adverse health effects associated with using Suboxone.
In 2021, Shoppers Drug Mart made a $2-million gift to the University of British Columbia to establish a pharmacy fellowship and support the education of pharmacist-focused addiction treatment at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. A conflict of interest exists here as well, with pharmacies benefiting financially from continued demand for drugs.
Consider, for example, if B.C.’s centre produced research showing pharmaceutical interventions were not effective or less effective than other policy measures. Would researchers feel pressure to not publish those results or pursue further lines of inquiry? Similarly, would Indivior or Shoppers Drug Mart continue to provide funding if the centre published research in this vein?
These are not the kinds of questions researchers should have to consider when pursuing research in the public interest.
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In response to questions about whether accepting drug industry funding could compromise the objectivity of their research, the British Columbia Centre on Substance Abuse referred Canadian Affairs to their website’s funding page. This page states their research is supported by peer-reviewed grants and independent ethical reviews to ensure objectivity.
We would argue such steps are not sufficient, not least because conflicts of interest are a problem whether they are real or perceived. Even if researchers at the centre are not influenced by who is funding their work, the public could reasonably perceive the objectivity of their research to be compromised.
It is for this reason that ethics laws generally require officeholders to avoid both actual conflicts of interest as well as the appearance of conflicts.
It is also why the government of Alberta, in launching their new addictions research centre, the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence (CoRE), has taken steps to safeguard the integrity of its work. The government has imposed legislative safeguards to ensure CoRE cannot receive external funding that could be seen to compromise its research, a spokesperson for the centre told Canadian Affairs.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the work done by the B.C. centre, CoRE and other centres like it. It is imperative that governments of all levels and stripes have quality, trusted research to inform decision-making about how best to respond to this tragic crisis.
The B.C. government and British Columbia Centre on Substance Abuse ought to implement their own safeguards to address these conflicts of interest immediately.
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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