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Golf as big help in charity? Not so much this year.

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Of all the economic areas devastated around the world by COVID-19, it’s probably fair to place the combination of charity and golf near the top of some lists.

Year after year, thousands of scramble tournaments are incredibly valuable: they’re a sports-lover’s way to raise funds for virtually every worthwhile cause under the sun. Lining up from June until late summer and beyond, service clubs, large and small companies, political groups, religious organizations line up to do their bit. Often, it’s more than a little bit.

Telephone calls and emails go out early and often. Committees scour the region to find inducements most likely to encourage participants to play at a nearby course for a reasonable price – with the understanding that some gifts will be granted and a lot of steaks will be eaten. But the big winners will be parts of the public that, it seems, always need and deserve more help than the existing welfare system can provide.

Celebrities are certain to get a lengthy list of playing opportunities. Having Edmonton Oilers or Edmonton Eskimos set for a tee time is one way to attract additional players and therefore additional funds. Former defensive back Larry Highbaugh once said he he had enough invitations to play in a separate tournament each week all summer. Entertainment personalities have special value, as well.

One tournament, conducted so far for nearly 20 years by the Cosmopolitan Clubs of St. Albert, Edmonton and Sturgeon Valley, is far from the largest or most significant of these events, but for 15 years club members were kind enough to label it The John Short Classic.

My thoroughly enjoyable contribution on the second Tuesday of June for 15 consecutive years was to greet players and needle volunteers. The tournament could be called a classic only on condition that I did not touch a golf club with serious intent. Fact is, I love golf far too much to desecrate it by playing as badly as I do. Good friend Rod Randolph, a key part of the Cosmopolitan commitment for more years than I was, once told me of a sure-fire way to get early attention at a coming speech: “show them your golf swing.”

Hockey Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne and former Oiler great Dave Semenko played in that tournament. Rob Brown, once a high-scoring linemate of Mario Lemieux, found ways to contribute on several Tuesdays – most of which were soggy and cold and windy, perfect opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and benefit others.

It is a daunting task to estimate how many of these charitable tournaments take place on the Edmonton region’s 50-or-so golf clubs each summer. Or how many will finally take shape this year. But personal knowledge of The Ranch, Stony Plain and Cougar Creek provides assurance that when conditions change, local professionals will be ready with open dates for these valuable events.

Early word is that area courses are in great shape. Randolph applied the adjective when describing his 84 after 18 holes on Wednesday at Mill Woods in a Men’s League game. “Not bad,” he said. “A pair of 42s when I’ve been collecting rust for seven months; I can deal with that.” Like a lot of golf addicts, he can deal with almost anything – except another shutdown.

“We’re doing our best to be prepared for anything”

 

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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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