Education
Celebrating BMO’s community investment in RDC
From Red Deer College
BMO Financial Group’s support honoured at unveiling event
Red Deer, January 21, 2019 – At an event in the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre/Centre des Jeux du Canada Gary W. Harris this morning, Red Deer College proudly unveiled the BMO Financial Group Wellness Studio.
In recognition of their $300,000 contribution toward RDC’s Shaping Our Future campaign, the loft-like space above the south end of Builders’ Hall in RDC’s newest facility has been named for the next five years.
This stunning space is a vital component of the Collicutt Performance Fitness Zone, and is used for fitness classes, yoga and meditation. The BMO Financial Group Wellness Studio’s floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the NOVA Chemicals Waskasoo Creek Nature Walk on the south end, and Builders’ Hall to the north. This bright, quiet space contributes to the building’s holistic approach toward wellness by providing an indoor fitness space that connects users to the natural landscape beyond its walls, supporting an individual’s spiritual, environmental and physical wellness.
BMO Financial Group is a committed community partner, and has supported RDC as a proud donor and sponsor in the past and with other initiatives. Their most recent contribution to Red Deer College and the Shaping Our Future campaign is an investment in the health and wellness of RDC students as well as the community members who use the College’s newest facility.
For Red Deer College, this community investment reinforces the support of industry and local businesses for the role that RDC plays in the region.
“We’re grateful, and proud to acknowledge, the strong support that BMO Financial Group has provided to Red Deer College, to support our students and community today and in the future,” says Joel Ward, RDC President & CEO. “We have a shared vision for our region, as community leaders who recognize that we have the power to shape the future of our region, our province and our communities by investing in the total wellness of our citizens.”
The Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre, which is perhaps the most recognizable result of the Shaping Our Future campaign, is only one component of the work RDC has been able to accomplish with the support of community partners like BMO Financial Group.
The College has increased its footprint by nearly a third, with new infrastructure projects including an Alternative Energy Lab and New Residence. RDC has also developed new programs and enhanced existing programs that prepare graduates for success within new and emerging careers that support central Alberta businesses in a diverse and changing economy. All of this will ensure RDC can best continue to serve our learners and communities as we become a comprehensive regional teaching university.
About RDC: For 55 years, RDC has been proudly serving its learners and communities. The College continues to grow programs, facilities and opportunities as it transitions to become a comprehensive regional teaching university during the next three to five years. This year, RDC will add seven new programs to more than 100 established programs (including full degrees, certificates, diplomas and skilled trades programs). RDC educates 7,500 full-and part-time credit students and more than 38,000 youth and adult learners in the School of Continuing Education each year. The College is expanding its teaching, learning, athletic and living spaces with the additions of the state-of-the-art Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre/Centre des Jeux du Canada Gary W. Harris, Alternative Energy Lab and construction of a new Residence which all enhance RDC’s Alternative Energy Initiative. Main campus is strategically situated on 290 acres of Alberta’s natural landscape along Queen Elizabeth II Highway. RDC is also proud to serve its Donald School of Business students housed at a downtown campus, located in the Millennium Centre, in addition to housing teaching and learning space at the Welikoklad Event Centre.
Better data, better outcomes for Alberta students |
To help schools address classroom complexity, Alberta’s government will begin collecting annual data on class size and composition.
Over the past three years, Alberta has welcomed more than 80,000 new students. With this unprecedented growth, classroom complexity and class sizes are among the biggest issues facing schools and teachers across the province.
To meet this challenge head on, Alberta’s government will work with school boards to gather yearly data on class sizes and composition. This information will be used to better understand staffing, student needs and classroom complexity. School boards will be required to submit data on Alberta classrooms by Nov. 24, and by January, this data will be made publicly available and will then be released annually.
Data collected on classroom complexity will help the province understand and address issues in schools, including class sizes, and support strategic investments in classrooms. Over the next three years, school boards will be provided with funding to hire 3,000 teachers and 1,500 new education assistants to support students with complex needs.
“We are ready to work with school boards and teachers to address classroom complexity and class sizes. We have heard them loud and clear and we are taking bold action to address these issues.”
Alberta’s government is establishing a Class Size and Complexity Task Force to begin work immediately on identifying solutions to the challenges facing Alberta classrooms. Alongside new annual data collection, the task force will ensure every student gets the attention and support they need to succeed. Details about the task force will be shared in the coming weeks.
“This data will provide essential insight into classroom realities, guiding evidence-based decisions and advocating for sustainable funding to address complexity, ensuring every student and educator in Alberta has the support to thrive.”
Quick facts
To inform decisions on addressing classroom complexity, data will be collected on total numbers of:
- all staff, per school, including roles
- substitute teachers
- district staff, listed by job title
- students, per classroom, per school
- severe, mild/moderate, and gifted/talented students, per classroom, per school
- English as an additional language (EAL) students, per classroom, per school
- refugee students, per classroom, per school
- First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, per classroom, per school
- Individualized Program Plans, per classroom, per school
- students waitlisted for assessment, per classroom, per school
- incidents of aggression and violence
- $55 million was provided in Budget 2025 to address classroom complexity.
- 8.6 billion is being invested to build and renovate more than 130 schools across the province.
- Budget 2025 is investing $1.6 billion in learning support funding to help meet students’ specialized learning needs.
- Budget 2025 is investing $1.1 billion to hire more than 4,000 teachers and educational staff.
Alberta
How one major media torqued its coverage – in the take no prisoners words of a former Alberta premier
(Editor’s note: I was going to write on the media’s handling of the Alberta government’s decision to order striking teachers back to work and invoke Section 33 of the Charter in doing so. But former Alberta premier Jason Kenney provided such a fulsome dissection of an absence of balance and its consequences in terms of public trust on X that I asked him if The Rewrite could publish it. He said yes and here it is – Peter Menzies.)
By Jason Kenney
This
”story” is an object lesson for why trust in legacy media has plummeted, and alt right media audiences have grown.
Here CTV “digital news producer” @AngeMAmato (she/her) writes a story about “experts” calling the use of Sec. 33 “a threat to democracy.”
Who are the experts?
A left wing academic, and a left wing activist. The latter, Howard Sapers, is a former Liberal MLA (which the article does not mention) for a party that is so marginal, it has not elected an MLA in over a decade.
For good measure CTV goes on to quote two left wing union bosses, who of course are predictably outraged.
A more accurate headline would be “Four people on the left angry about use of Notwithstanding Clause.” Which is the opposite of news. It’s the ultimate “Dog Bites Man” non-story.
Did the CTV producer make any effort to post a balanced story by asking for comment from academics / lawyers / think tanks who support use of Sec. 33? Did she call the @CDNConstFound or the @MLInstitute’s Judicial Power Project? Did she attempt to reach any of these four scholars, who just published their views in a @nationalpost op-ed last week?
Did she have an editor who asked why her story lacked any attempt at balance?
And did anyone at CTV pause for a moment to ponder how tendentious it is to accuse a democratically elected legislature of acting “undemocratically” by invoking a power whose entire purpose is to ensure democratic accountability?
She provides some historical context about prior use of Sec. 33. Why does that context not include the fact that most democratically elected provincial governments (including Alberta under Premier Lougheed, and Saskatchewan under NDP Premier Blakeney) agreed to adopt the Charter *only if* it included the Notwithstanding Clause to allow democratically elected Legislatures to ensure a democratic check and balance against the abuse of undemocratic, unaccountable judicial power?
Why does she not mention that for the first 33 years of the Charter era, the Canadian Courts ruled that there was no constitutionally protected right to strike?
Why doesn’t she quote an expert pointing out that Allan Blakeney defended the Saskatchewan Legislature’s 1986 use of Sec. 33 to end a strike as “a legitimate use of the Clause?” Or refer to Peter Lougheed’s 1987 commitment to use Sec. 33 if the courts invented a right to strike?
Many thoughtful criticisms can be levelled against Section 33. Being undemocratic is not one of them.
So why do we see so much agitprop like this masquerading as news from so many legacy media outlets?
IMO, there are two possible answers:
1) They are blind to their own biases; and / or
2) People like @AngeMAmato believe that they have a moral imperative to be “progressive journalists” which trumps the boringly old fashioned professional imperative to be objective and balanced.
Whatever the reason, “journalists” like this have no one to blame but themselves for growing distrust of legacy media, and the consequent emergence of non traditional media platforms.
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