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George and Katherine Goruk celebrate 70 years together

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Let’s all take a moment and celebrate this amazing achievement – 70 years of marriage.  Congratulations to George and Katherine (nee Shupenia) Goruk.

George Goruk (now known as Geedo by his family) was born on the family homestead North of Bellis Alberta on May 21, 1929.  He is the third son of a family of eight born to William and Jennie Goruk who were among the earliest settlers in the Bellis area northeast of Edmonton. He grew up on the family farm and attended the North Bellis High School.

He first met Katherine (Kay) Shupenia (now known as Baba) in Edwand in 1945. Katherine was born in Spedden Alberta on February 8, 1932 and was the second eldest of a family of six born to Humphrey and May Shupenia. Their first meeting occurred when Kay and her siblings where chasing cows on horseback near Edwand and George and his buddies had hid in the ditch and scared the heck out Kay’s horse(s). Later George would take Kay and other friends to dances in Smoky Lake in his 1938 Ford. As Kay said, she fell in love with his jalopy and the two were married in Bellis on August 8, 1948. Their wedding reception was held in the loft of a newly constructed barn on the Goruk Family farm. They had to be married before the hay and farm animals moved into the barn which still stands today. They spent their first year of marriage on the original William Goruk homestead site and soon after their first son Dennis was born on August 19, 1949 they moved to their first farm located one mile North of Edwand Alberta which had been purchased from his father-in-law with the help of his father.

They farmed for one year then moved to Edmonton where George started his career in the oil industry as a roughneck on service rigs during the early development of the Leduc oilfield. During this time their second Darrell was born on October 16, 1952 and third son Bernie on October 16, 1955. George worked his way up a field superintendent with Kenyons Well Servicing and in the summer of 1959, the family moved to Red Deer Alberta. In 1962 George acquired the assets of Chupp Well Servicing and started Target Well Servicing Ltd. In 1972 they purchased a 360 farm along the Medicine River seven miles South and six miles West of Sylvan Lake. George continued to run Target Well Servicing while he and Kay also ran a cow calf operation at their new family farm. Target was sold to Thomson Industries in 1973 and George continued on as a Vice President of Thomson and President of Target Well Servicing which he expanded by starting up service rig companies in Wyoming and Texas as well as the first Canadian Service Rigs in Australia. He continued to grow the Thomson Well Services division by adding Nitrogas Well Services in Calgary, L&M Oilfield Rentals in Edmonton and Arrow Supply in Corpus Christie Texas. All during this time when he was travelling the world and building these new companies, Kay took book keeping courses and continued to “hold down the fort” and look after the farm which she reminds him of every now and then.

In 1978 Thomson was acquired by ATCO Ltd and George became the President of ATCO Oilfield Services and continued to oversee Target (renamed ATCO Well Servicing) and the other Thomson companies he established. Initially ATCO continued to grow the service rig business and over time divested the Well Service division companies and exited the well servicing and drilling business.

George officially retired in 1994 but continued to raise registered Quarter Horses and Polled Hereford cattle at his farm(s) near Sylvan Lake which is now a hay and grain operation with barley, wheat and canola that he continues to farm with his sons. On the other hand Kay has not retired and continues to look after George and their house and her huge garden……which she reminds him of every now and then.

Today George and Kay’s family has grown to number 27 including their three sons, 19 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

President Todayville Inc., Honorary Colonel 41 Signal Regiment, Board Member Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award Foundation, Director Canadian Forces Liaison Council (Alberta) musician, photographer, former VP/GM CTV Edmonton.

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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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