Alberta
Red Deer’s Joan Donald inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence

Eight exceptional Albertans will be inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2021.
“Our honourees have abundant strengths that have served our province well. These include great perseverance, a selfless commitment to giving back, and a steadfast focus on sharing their unique gifts and abilities in a way that enriches us all. I offer my heartfelt thanks to each of them for their remarkable contributions.”
“All of the recipients show a remarkable talent for innovative creativity in their fields. Whether in business, research, education or community building, their leadership has made all of our lives better, safer and richer. I congratulate this year’s inductees on their many accomplishments, proving brilliant ideas shine brighter when courage and collaboration stand together.”
The Alberta Order of Excellence recognizes Albertans who have made an outstanding provincial, national or international impact. It is the highest honour a citizen can receive as an official part of the Canadian Honours System. The new additions will bring the total membership of the Alberta Order of Excellence to 197.
The Alberta Order of Excellence members being invested in 2021 are:
- Joan Donald of Red Deer has enriched the social and economic health of her community by bringing governance and leadership to boardrooms of organizations that range from business, health and education to social justice, sport and culture.
- Cyril Kay of Edmonton is among the world’s eminent biochemists, unlocking the building blocks of life. His vision to create and lead internationally respected multidisciplinary teams has revolutionized biomedical research.
- Murray McCann of Calgary is an entrepreneur and community leader who reinvests his success into organizations that combat hunger, homelessness, fear and violence. He created programs that honour fallen soldiers and support homeless veterans.
- Barb Olson of Calgary is an internationally recognized researcher, entrepreneur and toxicology expert. Her research with husband Merle in veterinary medicine has led to a better understanding of bacterial infections and treatment in humans and animals.
- Merle Olson of Calgary is an internationally renowned veterinarian and researcher. His entrepreneurism with wife Barb has led to innovative biotech and pharmaceutical companies specializing in veterinary products to address animal welfare issues.
- Greg Powell of Calgary is a pioneering emergency physician, innovator and educator. He has saved countless lives by co-founding and leading the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) and revolutionizing emergency medicine.
- Cor Van Raay of Lethbridge has strengthened both agriculture and agribusiness in Western Canada through his innovation and entrepreneurship. His generosity and community building have enriched the lives of Albertans.
- Lena Heavy Shields-Russell (Ikkináínihki) of the Blood Reserve is an Elder, author, teacher and trailblazing translator. She created Alberta’s Blackfoot curriculum, safeguarding the language and culture to pass on to future generations.
Full biographies and official portraits of new members, and information about the program, are available at alberta.ca/AOE.
Joan Donald
“All through my life I have believed in helping out people in need and giving back to the community. I love to quote Maya Angelou: ‘You shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”
Joan Donald is a Red Deer community leader, volunteer and mentor. She has enriched the social and economic health of her community by bringing governance and leadership to the boardrooms of organizations that range from business, health and education, to social justice, sport and culture.
Joan May Schultz was born on May 29, 1935, in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, and grew up on a farm near Millet as one of 11 children. Living on a farm meant there was always work to do, whether it was hauling water and wood into the house or bringing lunch to the men working in the field. “We came home from school and went right to work on our chores. We learned about being good neighbours. At harvest time, if our family finished first, we were there to help our neighbours,” she says.
Joan attended a one-room country school until Grade 9, when she moved with her parents and younger sister to Edmonton. While attending Garneau High School, she met Jack Donald (AOE 2015), her future husband. The couple married in 1955. After graduation, Joan worked at the Royal Bank of Canada, taking business classes in the evening. She worked hard at the bank, but soon realized she could work just as hard for herself. Partners in life, she and Jack decided to become partners in business, venturing into the service station business in 1957 in Edmonton.
In 1964, Joan and Jack moved to Red Deer to raise their children Kathy and John, reasoning that the smaller city would provide more opportunities for their young family. They marked their move by co-founding a new business, Parkland Oil Products Ltd. They expanded the business from a fledgling single gas station in Red Deer to 38 service station outlets across central Alberta before selling Parkland Oil in 1971.
Five years later, Joan and Jack again ventured into business together, buying a public company, Parkland Industries Ltd., the corporation behind the well-known Fas Gas service stations. “We have been a great team over the years. He’s the business mind and I’m the people person. We complement each other,” she says.
Joan served as Parkland’s Assistant Corporate Secretary from 1977 until her retirement in 2001, working in public and investor relations, annual meetings, all board planning, and serving on the board of directors for 28 years. By the time she retired, the company, now called Parkland Fuel Corp., had its own refinery and 454 retail service stations in Western and Northern Canada. She continues to serve as Vice- President of Parkland Properties Ltd., their personal investment and real estate company in Red Deer. Joan also served a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the Alberta Energy Company Ltd. (now EnCanada Corp./Ovintiv Inc.).
Many of Joan’s greatest contributions have been outside the corporate world. She began volunteering as soon as the family moved to Red Deer and has continued to do so for more than 50 years. She has repeatedly galvanized the community and volunteer teams, leading a multitude of community fundraising campaigns, while encouraging others to join her in giving their time and financial support.
In the early 1970s, she began organizing horse shows for Westerner Park, a role she enjoyed for the next two decades. Her interest in horses led to more volunteer work with the Quarter Horse Association of Alberta and the Waskasoo Handicapped Riding Association. Joan went on to serve four years on the board of directors – which governs Westerner Park, Red Deer’s events centre – and eight years on the executive team, including two as president. She has worked tirelessly with the board to introduce sound governance processes and, also as a shareholder for over 40 years, she has participated in or chaired many of the organization’s major committees. In 2007, Joan and Jack donated a substantial gift to assist in building a new Westerner administration building.
Joan was instrumental in starting the Festival of Trees in Red Deer in 1994. Under her guidance, the festival grew from a relatively small fundraiser to become the premiere community charitable event in the city, raising funds for the Red Deer Regional Hospital Foundation. Each year, she and the volunteers focused on growing the festival by adding new events and activities. Joan’s continued involvement, at leadership levels and now as a major donor, together with her unfailing enthusiasm, have been key reasons for the Festival of Trees’ success.
As long-time volunteers, Joan and Jack are both proud to support Red Deer College, now Red Deer Polytechnic. Joan has served on the Board of Governors and as honorary chair of the highly successful capital campaigns. Joan and Jack have also been major personal donors to Red Deer Polytechnic for many years, as have their companies.
In 2007, they generously supported the college’s expansion plan, a gesture that resulted in the college’s business faculty being named the Donald School of Business. This honoured more than their philanthropy and support of lifelong learning. It gives tribute to the entrepreneurialism and keen business sense it took to grow a single gas station into what has become Canada’s largest independent fuel marketer and distributor.
Another of their more sizable gifts to the college was for the Donald Health & Wellness Centre, which is dedicated to teaching and learning in the fields of health and wellness. They also contributed a significant gift for the new Library Information Common. Combined with previous leadership investments, they are the college’s largest philanthropic donors.
“We have continued to invest in Red Deer Polytechnic, because we believe in empowering local learners to give them the opportunities they need to be successful in their careers and lives. Our communities are strengthened tremendously with the high-quality individuals who are bettering themselves in their time on campus, and beyond,” says Joan.
She has volunteered on many other non-profit boards and fundraising campaigns, including her tireless work on the Board of Directors of STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service) and on two STARS capital campaigns, the second to acquire two new higher-capacity helicopters.
Over the years, Joan and Jack have donated substantial gifts and time to a number of non-profit community groups, including Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre, Red Deer Hospice Society, United Way Central Alberta, and JA (Junior Achievement) Southern Alberta. She consistently “puts her money where her mouth is,” supporting the same organizations she has asked others to support.
While many people may write a cheque for a good cause, Joan realizes that fewer will become campaign leaders. That’s where she feels her legacy is. She has an enduring track record of starting organizations on the right foot with strong principles, plans and practices, then staying on to cultivate future leaders. She has mentored many community members, guiding fellow volunteers on how to best put together a fundraising team, how to lay out their goals and plans very clearly, and share what is expected of their team members to reach those goals.
Joan also invested in young people to cultivate future leaders for Alberta and Canada, developing a unique program with the Red Deer School Board. At Lindsay Thurber High School, she supported the Minerva Club for girls in Grade 9, where they examined careers in math, sciences and non-traditional areas.
Joan has received numerous awards over the years, including Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, Red Deer Citizen of the Year in 2004, Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, and the Senate Canada 150 Medal in 2017. She and Jack have received the G.H. Dawe Memorial Award for philanthropic contributions to Red Deer Polytechnic for dedicated service to education in 2000, and the Philanthropic Family–Generosity of Spirit Award from the Calgary Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2005. In 2008, the Red Deer and District Community Foundation presented Joan with a Women of Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2015, she received the Festival of Trees Friends Award for her lifetime of significant contributions. In 2011, Joan was made a Member of the Order of Canada for her lifetime of distinguished community service.
Joan continues to actively volunteer and will continue to, as long as she sees a need. She and Jack have five married grandchildren and nine great grandchildren, with whom they spend as much time as they can when they’re not wintering at their home in San Diego, California.
Alberta
Upgrades at Port of Churchill spark ambitions for nation-building Arctic exports

In August 2024, a shipment of zinc concentrate departed from the Port of Churchill — marking the port’s first export of critical minerals in over two decades. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
‘Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy’
When flooding in northern Manitoba washed out the rail line connecting the Town of Churchill to the rest of the country in May 2017, it cast serious questions about the future of the community of 900 people on the shores of Hudson Bay.
Eight years later, the provincial and federal governments have invested in Churchill as a crucial nation-building corridor opportunity to get resources from the Prairies to markets in Europe, Africa and South America.
Direct links to ocean and rail

Aerial view of the Hudson Bay Railway that connects to the Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group
The Port of Churchill is unique in North America.
Built in the 1920s for summer shipments of grain, it’s the continent’s only deepwater seaport with direct access to the Arctic Ocean and a direct link to the continental rail network, through the Hudson Bay Railway.
The port has four berths and is capable of handling large vessels. Having spent the past seven years upgrading both the rail line and the port, its owners are ready to expand shipping.
“After investing a lot to improve infrastructure that was neglected for decades, we see the possibilities and opportunities for commodities to come through Churchill whether that is critical minerals, grain, potash or energy,” said Chris Avery, CEO of the Arctic Gateway Group (AGG), a partnership of 29 First Nations and 12 remote northern Manitoba communities that owns the port and rail line.
“We are pleased to be in the conversation for these nation-building projects.”
In May, Canada’s Western premiers called for the Prime Minister’s full support for the development of an economic corridor connecting ports on the northwest coast and Hudson’s Bay, ultimately reaching Grays Bay, Nunavut.
Investments in Port of Churchill upgrades
AGG, which purchased the rail line and port from an American company in 2017, is not alone in the bullish view of Churchill’s future.
In February, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced an investment of $36.4 million over two years in infrastructure projects at the port aimed at growing international trade.
“Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy,” Kinew said in a release.
“These new investments will build up Manitoba’s economic strength and open our province to new trading opportunities.”
In March, the federal government committed $175 million over five years to the project including $125 million to support the rail line and $50 million to develop the port.
“It’s important to point out that investing in Churchill was something that both the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed on during the federal election campaign,” said Avery, a British Columbian who worked in the airline industry for more than two decades before joining AGG.
Reduced travel time
The federal financial support helped AGG upgrade the rail line, repairing the 20 different locations where it was washed out by flooding in 2017.
Improvements included laying more than 1,600 rail cars worth of ballast rock for stabilization and drainage, installing almost 120,000 new railway ties and undertaking major bridge crossing rehabilitations and switch upgrades.
The result has seen travel time by rail reduced by three hours — or about 10 per cent — between The Pas and Churchill.
AGG also built a dedicated storage facility for critical minerals and other commodities at the port, the first new building in several decades.
Those improvements led to a milestone in August 2024, when a shipment of zinc concentrate was shipped from the port to Belgium. It was the first critical minerals shipment from Churchill in more than two decades.
The zinc concentrate was mined at Snow Lake, Manitoba, loaded on rail cars at The Pas and moved to Churchill. It’s a scenario Avery hopes to see repeated with other commodities from the Prairies.
Addressing Arctic challenges
The emergence of new technologies has helped AGG work around the challenges of melting permafrost under the rail line and ice in Hudson Bay, he said.
Real-time ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR data from sensors attached to locomotives can identify potential problems, while regular drone flights scan the track, artificial intelligence mines the data for issues, and GPS provides exact locations for maintenance.
The group has worked with permafrost researchers from the University of Calgary, Université Laval and Royal Military College to better manage the challenge. “Some of these technologies, such as artificial intelligence and LiDAR, weren’t readily available five years ago, let alone two decades,” Avery said.
On the open water, AGG is working with researchers from the University of Manitoba to study sea ice and the change in sea lanes.
“Icebreakers would be a game-changer for our shipping operations and would allow year-round shipping in the short-term,” he said.
“Without icebreakers, the shipping season is currently about four and a half months of the year, from April to early November, but that is going to continue to increase in the coming decades.”
Interest from potential shippers, including energy producers, has grown since last year’s election in the United States, Avery said.
“We’re going to continue to work closely with all levels of government to get Canada’s products to markets around the world. That’s building our nation. That’s why we are excited for the future.”
Alberta
OPEC+ is playing a dangerous game with oil

This article supplied by Troy Media.
OPEC+ is cranking up oil supply into a weak market. It’s tried this strategy before, and it backfired
OPEC+ is once again charging headfirst into a market share war—a strategy that has repeatedly ended in disaster. Despite weak global demand, falling prices and rising output from non-OPEC countries, the cartel has chosen to flood the market. History shows this tactic rarely ends well for
OPEC+ or oil producers worldwide, including Canada.
OPEC+, a group of major oil-exporting countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, works together to manage global oil supply and influence prices. Its decisions have far-reaching consequences for the global energy market—including for Canadian oil producers.
Last Saturday, eight leading members of OPEC+ announced, after a virtual meeting, that they would increase production by 548,000 barrels per day starting in August. That is significantly more than the group’s recent additions of 411,000 bpd, and it puts them on track to fully unwind their
previous 2.2 million bpd in cuts a full year ahead of schedule.
It is a bold move, but it comes at a questionable time.
There is little geopolitical premium built into current oil prices, and the global market is already oversupplied. Brent crude futures are down more than six per cent so far this year. Analysts estimate inventories have been climbing by a million barrels per day in 2025 due in part to cooling demand in China and rising output from countries outside OPEC.
S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts a supply surplus of 1.25 million barrels per day in the second half of the year. Brent crude stood at about US$68 per barrel on Friday, but S&P says it could fall to between US$50 and $60 later this year and into 2026. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, is also at risk of dropping below US$50 per barrel.
Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, with most of its output coming from Alberta’s oil sands. Though Canadian producers have higher costs than some OPEC+ members, their innovation and access to U.S. markets have made them increasingly competitive.
While the seasonal demand boost might justify a modest increase, OPEC+, especially Saudi Arabia, appears primarily motivated by market share concerns. With U.S. shale and countries like Canada, Kazakhstan and Guyana gaining ground, the cartel is falling back on its old tactic of flooding the market to squeeze out competitors.
Some observers, including Stanley Reed in The New York Times, have suggested that the move may be designed to please U.S. President Donald Trump, who “has made courting Saudi Arabia and regional allies like the United Arab Emirates a priority of his foreign policy.” But even geopolitical gamesmanship has not shielded OPEC+ from the consequences before—and likely will not this time either.
Back in 2014, fed up with the U.S. shale boom, OPEC opened the taps. The goal was to drive prices low enough to force out higher-cost producers. Instead, oil plunged into the US$30 range. According to the World Bank, the 70 per cent drop during that period was one of the three biggest oil crashes since the Second World War and the most prolonged since the supply-driven collapse of 1986. Saudi Arabia’s respected oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, lost his job in the aftermath.
Then, in April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic loomed, OPEC and Russia launched a production war that sent oil prices into freefall, briefly into negative territory. Trump had to broker a ceasefire to rescue the U.S. shale industry, forcing Riyadh and Moscow to pull back. Both sides suffered significant economic damage.
For Canada, especially Alberta, the current fallout could be severe. The province is home to most of the country’s oil sands production. Cheaper global crude undercuts Canadian prices, squeezes royalty revenues, chills investment and puts jobs at risk across Canada. And this comes as governments are already grappling with fiscal pressures.
The oil market does not reward short-term thinking. If OPEC+ continues down this road, history suggests the outcome will be painful for them and the rest of us.
Toronto-based Rashid Husain Syed is a highly regarded analyst specializing in energy and politics, particularly in the Middle East. In addition to his contributions to local and international newspapers, Rashid frequently lends his expertise as a speaker at global conferences. Organizations such as the Department of Energy in Washington and the International Energy Agency in Paris have sought his insights on global energy matters.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country
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