Alberta
Audit of supervised consumption site in Lethbridge uncovers $1.6 million unaccounted for

From the Province of Alberta
ARCHES audit finds serious financial mismanagement
Senior executive made $342,943 in 2019
The province has released the audit of the ARCHES supervised consumption site in Lethbridge and as a result of its findings, will be ending its grant funding agreement with the organization.
The independent accounting firm Deloitte conducted a grant expenditure audit after the Alberta government learned of possible financial irregularities within the ARCHES organization.
The review substantiated allegations of asset and funding misappropriation, non-compliance with grant agreements, and inappropriate governance and organizational operations. The ARCHES organization was found to have seriously mismanaged taxpayer funds meant for the most vulnerable in our society.
“It is disturbing and extremely disappointing to me that taxpayer funds allocated to this organization in order to serve the most vulnerable in Lethbridge would be used for European conferences, expenses for retreats, entertainment and gift cards. Our government will not stand idly by while millions in taxpayer funds are missing or misappropriated.”
Jason Luan, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions
Below is a summary of the audit’s findings:
$1,617,094 unaccounted for due to missing documentation for expenditures from 2017 to 2018.
$13,000 of interest off ARCHES bank accounts was used to fund parties, staff retreats, entertainment and gift cards.
A senior executive’s compensation totalled $342,943 for calendar year 2019. This includes $70,672 in overtime for fiscal year 2019-20. The grant agreement allows for a salary of $80,000.
The Everyone Comes Together (ECT) program staff salaries and benefits also exceeded the amount allocated by the grant agreement by $16,000.
The number of ARCHES employees is greater than allowed by the grant agreement. ARCHES maintained up to 126 employees. However, the exact number could not be verified.
$4,301 spent on European travel for management to attend a conference in Portugal.
Thousands of dollars in unverifiable travel expenses, including trips charged to company credit cards but not recorded in the ledger.
A senior executive’s family member was hired, earning $9,900. The auditors could not locate a resume or personnel file to verify any qualifications.
$7,557 for management retreats, including meals and mileage where documentation for spending was unclear.
The grant agreement requires the organization to maintain the funding received from Alberta Health within a separate bank account; however, the audit revealed that it was comingled with other funding sources. As a result of ARCHES comingling their accounts, the auditors could not verify thousands of dollars of expenses.
Proper personal conflict of interest declarations were not recorded when related individuals or vendors were hired or utilized.
Vendors were repeatedly secured in secrecy with a lack of transparency and accountability.
No petty cash reconciliations have been completed.
$1,129 was used to buy gift cards for board members for The Keg, iTunes, Boston Pizza, Earls, Gap, Shell, Chapters, Cineplex, Amazon, Starbuck’s, Tim Hortons, MasterCard, and Bath and Bodyworks. The expense was recorded as “Gift cards – Board Members.”
$2,100 was spent on gift cards to The Oil Changer – a business owned by a senior executive’s spouse.
$2,205 was spent on a television with no receipt documentation to support the purchase.
The auditors were unable to complete the grant expenditure review in respect to all allegations received or provide a complete financial value attributable to each allegation, due to the state of ARCHES’ records and the related outstanding documents.
Due to missing funds and unverifiable transactions, as well as allegations, which could not be investigated in the scope of this audit, government will consult with law enforcement to determine whether further investigation is warranted.
To ensure people struggling with addiction can continue to receive services, government has asked Alberta Health Services to set up a temporary mobile overdose prevention site in Lethbridge with the goal of seamlessly transitioning services. Government will also be adding three recovery coaches to the region to assist in expediting individuals into treatment.
Quick facts
ARCHES has received more than $14.4 million in taxpayer dollars over the past two years.
In June, government announced an additional $4 million over four years to expand access to the virtual opioid dependency program to allow Albertans to use telehealth technology to access treatment for opioid use disorder.
Also announced was the opioid agonist therapy gap coverage program to cover the costs of medications to treat opioid use disorder for Albertans waiting to receive coverage through a supplementary health benefit plan.
As part of the $140-million mental health and addiction commitment to create 4,000 spaces, government has announced additional treatment spaces at Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centres, Sunrise Healing Lodge, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, Thorpe Recovery Centre, and the Blood Tribe Bringing the Spirit Home detox centre.
Alberta
Alberta judge sides with LGBT activists, allows ‘gender transitions’ for kids to continue

From LifeSiteNews
‘I think the court was in error,’ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said. ‘There will be irreparable harm to children who get sterilized.’
LGBT activists have won an injunction that prevents the Alberta government from restricting “gender transitions” for children.
On June 27, Alberta King’s Court Justice Allison Kuntz granted a temporary injunction against legislation that prohibited minors under the age of 16 from undergoing irreversible sex-change surgeries or taking puberty blockers.
“The evidence shows that singling out health care for gender diverse youth and making it subject to government control will cause irreparable harm to gender diverse youth by reinforcing the discrimination and prejudice that they are already subjected to,” Kuntz claimed in her judgment.
Kuntz further said that the legislation poses serious Charter issues which need to be worked through in court before the legislation could be enforced. Court dates for the arguments have yet to be set.
READ: Support for traditional family values surges in Alberta
Alberta’s new legislation, which was passed in December, amends the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
The legislation would also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 years of age and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Just days after the legislation was passed, an LGBT activist group called Egale Canada, along with many other LGBT organizations, filed an injunction to block the bill.
In her ruling, Kuntz argued that Alberta’s legislation “will signal that there is something wrong with or suspect about having a gender identity that is different than the sex you were assigned at birth.”
She further claimed that preventing minors from making life-altering decisions could inflict emotional damage.
However, the province of Alberta argued that these damages are speculative and the process of gender-transitioning children is not supported by scientific evidence.
“I think the court was in error,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on her Saturday radio show. “That’s part of the reason why we’re taking it to court. The court had said there will be irreparable harm if the law goes ahead. I feel the reverse. I feel there will be irreparable harm to children who get sterilized at the age of 10 years old – and so we want those kids to have their day in court.”
READ: Canadian doctors claim ‘Charter right’ to mutilate gender-confused children in Alberta
Overwhelming evidence shows that persons who undergo so-called “gender transitioning” procedures are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given such irreversible surgeries. In addition to catering to a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, trans surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, and infertility.
Meanwhile, a recent study on the side effects of “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who have undergone them in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movements in the weeks and months that followed, among many other negative side effects.
Alberta
Why the West’s separatists could be just as big a threat as Quebec’s

By Mark Milke
It is a mistake to dismiss the movement as too small
In light of the poor showing by separatist candidates in recent Alberta byelections, pundits and politicians will be tempted to again dismiss threats of western separatism as over-hyped, and too tiny to be taken seriously, just as they did before and after the April 28 federal election.
Much of the initial skepticism came after former Leader of the Opposition Preston Manning authored a column arguing that some in central Canada never see western populism coming. He cited separatist sympathies as the newest example.
In response, (non-central Canadian!) Jamie Sarkonak argued that, based upon Alberta’s landlocked reality and poll numbers (37 per cent Alberta support for the “idea” of separation with 25 per cent when asked if a referendum were held “today”), western separation was a “fantasy” that “shouldn’t be taken seriously.” The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne, noting similar polling, opined that “Mr. Manning does not offer much evidence for his thesis that ‘support for Western secession is growing.’”
Prime Minister Mark Carney labelled Manning’s column “dramatic.” Toronto Star columnist David Olive was condescending. Alberta is “giving me a headache,” he wrote. He argued the federal government’s financing of “a $34.2-billion expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline (TMX)” as a reason Albertans should be grateful. If not, wrote Olive, perhaps it was time for Albertans to “wave goodbye” to Canada.
As a non-separatist, born-and-bred British Columbian, who has also spent a considerable part of his life in Alberta, I can offer this advice: Downplaying western frustrations — and the poll numbers — is a mistake.
One reason is because support for western separation in at least two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, is nearing where separatist sentiment was in Quebec in the 1970s.
In our new study comparing recent poll numbers from four firms (Angus Reid Institute, Innovative Research Group, Leger, and Mainstreet Research), the range of support in recent months for separation from Canada in some fashion is as follows, from low to high: Manitoba (6 per cent to 12 per cent); B.C. (nine per cent to 20 per cent); Saskatchewan (20 per cent to 33 per cent) and Alberta (18 per cent to 36.5 per cent). Quebec support for separation was in a narrow band between 27 per cent and 30 per cent.
What such polling shows is that, at least at the high end, support for separating from Canada is now higher in Saskatchewan and Alberta than in Quebec.
Another, even more revealing comparison is how western separatist sentiment now is nearing actual Quebec votes for separatism or separatist parties back five decades ago. The separatist Parti Québécois won the 1976 Quebec election with just over 41 per cent of the vote. In the 1980 Quebec referendum on separation, “only” 40 per cent voted for sovereignty association with Canada (a form of separation, loosely defined). Those percentages were eclipsed by 1995, when separation/sovereignty association side came much closer to winning with 49.4 per cent of the vote.
Given that current western support for separation clocks in at as much as 33 per cent in Saskatchewan and 36.5 per cent in Alberta, it begs this question: What if the high-end polling numbers for western separatism are a floor and not a ceiling for potential separatist sentiment?
One reason why western support for separation may yet spike is because of the Quebec separatist dynamic itself and its impact on attitudes in other parts of Canada. It is instructive to recall in 1992 that British Columbians opposed a package of constitutional amendments, the Charlottetown Accord, in a referendum, in greater proportion (68.3 per cent) than did Albertans (60.2 per cent) or Quebecers (56.7 per cent).
Much of B.C.’s opposition (much like in other provinces) was driven by proposals for special status for Quebec. It’s exactly why I voted against that accord.
Today, with Prime Minister Carney promising a virtual veto to any province over pipelines — and with Quebec politicians already saying “non” — separatist support on the Prairies may become further inflamed. And I can almost guarantee that any whiff of new favours for Quebec will likely drive anti-Ottawa and perhaps pro-separatist sentiment in British Columbia.
There is one other difference between historic Quebec separatist sentiment and what exists now in a province like Alberta: Alberta is wealthy and a “have” province while Quebec is relatively poor and a have-not. Some Albertans will be tempted to vote for separation because they feel the province could leave and be even more prosperous; Quebec separatist voters have to ask who would pay their bills.
This dynamic again became obvious, pre-election, when I talked with one Alberta CEO who said that five years ago, separatist talk was all fringe. In contrast, he recounted how at a recent dinner with 20 CEOs, 18 were now willing to vote for separation. They were more than frustrated with how the federal government had been chasing away energy investment and killing projects since 2015, and had long memories that dated back to the National Energy Program.
(For the record, they view the federal purchase of TMX as a defensive move in response to its original owner, Kinder Morgan, who was about to kill the project because of federal and B.C. opposition. They also remember all the other pipelines opposed/killed by the Justin Trudeau government.)
Should Canadians outside the West dismiss western separatist sentiment? You could do that. But it’s akin to the famous Clint Eastwood question: Do you feel lucky?
Mark Milke is president and founder of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and co-author, along with Ven Venkatachalam, of Separatist Sentiment: Polling comparisons in the West and Quebec.
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