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Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray and Lethbridge built 50m pools. Red Deer talks about it. Perhaps we should step up to the plate.

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The election is over and the new council is sworn in and now the holding to promises begins. The central Alberta Aquatic Centre wants a new 50m pool to be the top of the list of priorities for the new council, and hold fast to keeping it in the 10 year capital plan.
It has been reported in the local news; “The city’s capital plan has the pool scheduled for construction in 2021, with the design phase of a “multi-use aquatic centre” coming in 2019. The 10-year capital plan has the design budgeted at $9.315 million and the centre budgeted for $79.536 million over 2021 and 2022.”
This budget is based on 2013 dollars and does not include the demolition and preparatory work. This is not the first time or even the second time that this group pleaded with a new council to proceed towards building a 50m pool.
In 2011, city council approved Red Deer Rotary Recreation Park as the location for the facility featuring a 50-metre pool that would finally allow the city to host national competitions.
Council had previously approved $200,000 for a concept and business design at its 2010 budget meeting. Work was completed in 2011.
November 18 2013. News story: “ after 6 years-Central Alberta Aquatic centre supporters hope they are getting closer to swimming in the Olympic-sized pool they have been promoting over the past six years.”
The project goes before Red Deer City Council at the city’s 2014 Capital Budget Meeting on Nov. 26.
“This is the first time it’s actually on the agenda. This is, we think, the best shot we’ve had,” said John Cuthbertson, committee chair of the Central Alberta Aquatic Centre.
In advance of the budget meeting, Central Alberta Aquatic Centre is hosting a public meeting to provide an update on the proposed project on Tuesday, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., at the Black Knight Inn.
Construction is estimated at $90 million but Cuthbertson said it doesn’t have to cost that much.
The plan features 10 50-metre lanes and a hydraulic floor and bulk heads to divide the pool.
“That means you can have three 25-metre pools, or you can have the 10 lanes, or you can have a combination.
November 19 2013-Members of the public filled the room during an information session about the proposed $90 million aquatic centre, which will include an Olympic-sized pool, in Red Deer.
Questions included concerns over parking space, how traffic downtown would be impacted. Staff from the Central Alberta Aquatic Centre committee presented the update at the Black Knight Inn to almost 100 people, noting that “the time is now” for Red Deer to build the 50-metre pool and meet the standards to host provincial and national competitions.
A video showcased the strain on Red Deer facilities and how the city is lacking compared to Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray, two cities that have recently completed new aquatic centres complete with 50-metre pools.
According to Cuthbertson there are sometimes seven people swimming in one 25-metre lane in Red Deer and over 750 people are on waiting lists for swimming lessons every year.
While Red Deer does have four pools, the space for aquatics and the number of lanes available in those pools doesn’t add up when it compares to the city’s consistently growing population, he said.
Red Deer’s current population results in about 5,327 people per swimming lane given the current facilities. There are 2,728 people per lane in Medicine Hat and 2,293 people per lane in Grande Prairie.
With the proposed aquatic centre, that number would be reduced by at least half, said Brian Gallaway, public relations chair of the committee.
The $90 million price tag is also subject to change, said committee members, as it was the original estimate

December 4 2013-
Red Deer’s new City council appears to be a little hesitant to test the waters of a new aquatic centre and so the discussion will continue for another year after council decided to not include the centre in this year’s budget.
For supporters of the facility, this step backwards is not something new in the more than five years this project has been worked on.
“We’ve been on the budget twice and taken off twice and so we’ve had our share of ups and downs,” said Central Alberta Aquatic Centre Committee Chair John Cuthbertson.
There is a solid plan in place following a $200,000 grant from the City to bring something to the table to work from and use the current space where the Recreation Centre pool is located, he said. “We aren’t going to be wasting this (Recreation Centre) by tearing it down or anything else of that nature. This will be part and parcel of the centre itself and we will extend south.”
Cuthbertson said the funding for the centre would be gleaned from the various levels of government including the surrounding counties whose residents would also benefit from this facility.
“Then we’re going to be able to say to the taxpayer, we have you in mind, we’re not going to overburden you. It’s certainly going to cost something but rest assured it’s going to be as low as we can get it.”
There have been some estimates of the cost ranging around $90 million but committee members have said that number includes some extras The design does include 10, 50m lanes for swimming, a dive tank and moveable bulk heads in order to close off areas so groups can hold different events.
“We have a very good start (referring to the design), it’s much more than just a bunch of pictures. I’m sure the architectural firm would be ready to start the actual drawings and that sort of thing as soon as we want to.”
Cuthbertson said even with Red Deer being the third largest city in the province we are lacking when it comes to servicing our residents with aquatic space .
“The other night at our meeting it was mentioned that there are 732 people, I think children, on the waiting list to get into swim lessons. Now that has to say something.”
The other side of the coin is the argument from those opposed to the centre who feel a major facility like this one would not be used enough to make it worth the money spent on it.
“That was so, I’m sure, for the Centrium, certainly for Collicutt,” he said, about the project which he describes as a community effort to be the best we can and this centre would accomplish that.
As an example he pointed to a similar centre in Nanaimo B.C. which was built after citizens voted on a plebiscite to go ahead with the project.
“He said (a town official) we won it by one per cent and he said look at it now. It was full and he said it’s always full. People don’t know what they would do without it. I suspect that’s going to happen here.”
Maybe, but not right away at least.
April 15, 2014. An AD-Hoc Committee was created to determine the need for an Aquatic Centre and a 50 m pool.
July 4 2014 Three years after Rotary Recreation Park was earmarked as a potential site for an estimated $90-million aquatic centre, a committee is bringing forward another proposal to council on Monday.
The Red Deer Multi-Use Aquatic Centre Ad Hoc Committee is recommending a $74.6-million facility with a 54-metre indoor pool ($71.1 million) and a 25-metre outdoor leisure pool ($3.5 million) at the downtown site.

The new ad hoc committee reportedly determined that the site was the best fit, followed by Michener Centre and an undetermined greenfield site (undeveloped), based on the information available and guiding principles. Some committee members suggested a north site near Hazlett Lake as a potential greenfield site. The committee was told at the time there were no new sites available to build on and the city did not own the Michener Pool so that left only one possibility at the time, leaving no other option, at that time.

December 9 2015-Advocate- Pool advocate Jack Cuthbertson is passing the torch in the fight to build an aquatic centre in Red Deer. “Cuthbertson stepped down in frustration recently as board chair of the Central Alberta Aquatics Centre group after eight years.”
“It gets a bit frustrating to deal with a council that won’t do anything,” said Cuthbertson.
Cuthbertson is not convinced the pool will become a reality until the money is on the table. The city has the pool inked in the capital plan for construction starting in 2020 and completion in 2022. Some $93.9 million is allocated in funding over three years.
“How much more will the price go up five years from now?” said Cuthbertson.
When the city decided to build the Collicutt Centre it was in part because it was felt that the city’s population of 55,000 required a 4th pool so amid controversy the Collicutt Centre was built to supply a need and to kick start development in the southeast.
Today with a population of just under 100,000 we still have only 4 pools. Why not build a Collicutt Centre with a 50 m pool to supply a need and kick start development north of 11a.
October 24 2017, Swimmers are still waiting. Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, and Lethbridge has 50m pools. The need is there, opportunities are there. Land is available that would provide exposure and parking that the downtown cannot supply. We do not need to tear down one pool to build another, we have land available, that would be highly visible to Hwy 2 and provide the space for parking for competitions and fill a need for residents. Time to stop talking and act. I think so, don’t you.

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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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