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Cheryl Bernard excited to speak at 16th Annual Kings & Queens Scholarship Breakfast

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5 minute read

From RDC Athletics

Will inspire audience with message about the power of choice

While Cheryl Bernard has spent less time on the ice since retiring from competitive curling, she still remains involved in sports and communities across the nation.  As the President & CEO of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, curling broadcaster on TSN and volunteer, she still finds time to take on keynote speaking roles at numerous events throughout the year. The successful Canadian curler and compelling leader is looking forward to sharing her message about creating one’s path in life with College student-athletes and central Albertans who attend RDC’s 16thAnnual Kings & Queens Scholarship Breakfast on April 9.

Through her inspirational presentation You Hold The Pen, the decorated curler and entrepreneur will motivate audience members to take control of their destiny through planning with intent, and choosing who they want to become.

Life is all about learning and making the choice to write our own story,” says Bernard. “We are bombarded by outside noise and the opinions of others. We need to ignore that noise as often as possible, hold onto the pen, and write the life story we want.

Everyone experiences highs and lows in their daily lives, but the power lies in the response to those situations. “Life is full of more failures than successes, but it’s the individuals that choose to learn from their losses who excel in life,” says Bernard. “That is the exciting thing. The response is within their control, and it is their choice.

Bernard, who was born in Grande Prairie, moved to Calgary at a young age and created the life she envisioned. She founded and owned an insurance agency in Calgary, and grew it to be a multi-million dollar company. Along with her business accomplishments, Bernard has achieved provincial, national and international curling success. Her impressive resume on the ice includes earning silver at the Olympics in 2010, silver at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and four Alberta provincial championships. Fittingly, Bernard remains strongly connected to sports and the business community.

My life has almost come full circle. From sport as a kid, to starting my own business at the age of 23, to pursuing my Olympic dreams, I have closed that circle by coming back to the corporate world as the CEO of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame,” she says. “The parallels between business and sport are amazing and the lessons learned are valuable in either world. My goal is to support athletes and let them see that both worlds are possible.”

Bernard will help support and inspire RDC student-athletes at the Scholarship Breakfast, which raises funds for the College’s Athletics Leadership Fund, supporting the sustainability of the RDC Athletics Scholarship program.  “I am looking forward to meeting the scholarship recipients who are committed to competing at the highest level in their sport, while pursuing an education,” she says. “It’s their commitment to both school and sport that impress me the most.

For more information about the event and Cheryl Bernard, please visit: rdc.ab.ca/breakfast. Please note, the day and time have changed.

16th Annual RDC Kings & Queens Scholarship Breakfast

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

5:30 p.m. doors open | 6:00 p.m. dinner | 7:00 p.m. program begins |

Pidherney Curling Centre | 4725 43 Street, Red Deer, AB

Guests will enjoy dinner in the Pidherney Curling Centre Hall, hosted by the Kings and Queens, prior to Cheryl Bernard’s keynote presentation. In keeping with the tradition of the RDC Kings & Queens Athletics Scholarship Breakfast, an elegant breakfast will be served for dinner. During the evening, the Corporate Innovation Award will be presented to a business that has supported RDC student- athletes. Red Deer College Student-Athlete Leadership Awards will also be handed out.

A limited number of tickets are still available for $100, and can be purchased at rdc.ab.ca/tickets.

 

30 In The Bank Campaign

As a new additional fundraiser for RDC’s Athletic Leadership Fund, individuals are encouraged to follow RDC on social media (twitter | facebook | instagram) on Friday, March 29 to help raise $30,000 for RDC student-athlete scholarships. Individuals can text “30inthebank” to 45678 to donate $5, $10 or $20 and help reach this goal. Follow and share the hashtag #30INTHEBANK to spread the word.

Community

SPARC Red Deer – Caring Adult Nominations open now!

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Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!

Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!

To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)

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Addictions

‘Harm Reduction’ is killing B.C.’s addicts. There’s got to be a better way

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Susan Martinuk 

B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy

Since 2016, more than 40,000 Canadians have died from opioid drug overdoses — almost as many as died during the Second World War.
Governments, health care professionals and addiction experts all acknowledge that widespread use of opioids has created a public health crisis in Canada. Yet they agree on virtually nothing else about this crisis, including its causes, possible remedies and whether addicts should be regarded as passive victims or accountable moral agents.

Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.

In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.

B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.

But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.

Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.

According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”

In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.

Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.

This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.

The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”

The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.

Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.

Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.

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