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Election 2017 is 100 hours old and neighbourhoods and schools have been raised.

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The Election of 2017 is now 100 hrs old and the issues are developing.
Out of left field we hear that the public high schools in Red Deer are getting tight. We just opened a new Catholic high school in Red Deer, south of the river. They are hoping to build the next public high school beside it, unless the next school board decides to build it elsewhere.
Two points come up. Red Deer lost 975 residents or 390 families last year according to the 2016 municipal census accepted by city council April of this year. 777 of those residents or 311 families who left Red Deer were living north of the river. Simultaneously, 700 people or 280 families moved to Blackfalds. Guess where the next high school is expected to be built beginning in 2018? Blackfalds is looking at sites, now.
Red deer lost 1% of their population last year and the population north of the river declined 8 times faster than the south side while at the same time, Blackfalds enjoys being one of the fastest growing community in Canada. What do you think will happen when Blackfalds gets their first high school while Red Deer concentrates building all their schools and facilities south of the river?
The last school built north of the river was in 1985 and the only recreational facilities, Dawe, was built in the 1970s.
Red Deer south of the river declined last year also, while Penhold grew. Red Deer lost 198 residents or 39 families south of the river last year. We added 375 new homes but declined in population.
We have plenty of new neighbourhoods, Evergreen, Timberlands, Clearview Ridge, Garden Heights, Southbrook, and expanded new subdivisions like Vanier and they all offer new homes, and we announced Capstone at Riverlands last month.
Empty and expensive streets, transit, power, installation and maintenance borne by the citizens but we still declined in population. The new neighbourhoods may have increased but 25 neighbourhoods decreased. Let us look where the population left their neighbourhoods in the last 4 years;

Waskasoo—————————2016=474—-2013=486
Woodlea—————————–2016=553—-2013=606
Downtown————————–2016=3,197–2013=3283
Parkvale—————————–2016=795—-2013=813
Westpark—————————-2016=5430—2013=5514
South Hill West——————–2016=1582—2013=1712
South Hill East———————2016=1302—2013=1410
Bower——————————–2016=1953—2013=1991
Sunnybrook————————-2016=1411—2013=1430
Grandview————————–2016=950—-2013=1023
Clearview—————————2016=2547—2013=2754
Rosedale—————————–2016=3386—2013=3482
Morrisroe—————————2016=1274—-2013=1279
Morrisroe Ext.———————2016=1643—2013=1782
Anders Park————————2016=2967—2013=3101
Anders South, Aspen Ridge—–2016=3884—2013=3911
Deerpark—————————-2016=3986—-2013=4072
Inglewood—————————2016=4334—2013=4481
Kentwood ————————– 2016=4,267—2013=4,280
Glendale ————————— 2016=4,288—2013=4,393
Normandeau———————— 2016=3,530—2013=3,565
Pines ——————————- 2016=1,718— 2013=1,823
Highland Green ——————- 2016=3,920 —2013=3,979
Oriole Park————————- 2016=5,244 — 2013=5,308
Fairview————————— 2016=710 —– 2013=770
The city as a whole grew 2.8% in 4 years but it was up to 3.8% before last year’s 1% decline.
Building new neighbourhoods did not help, building schools and facilities south of the river slowed the south side decline but ignored the north side.
Candidates; A real issue, hurting real people, any suggestions?
Let us know. Thanks. It would be appreciated.

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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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