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Jon Wieler For City Council, Why?

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Hey everyone,

I am announcing that I am running for Red Deer City Council and I want to hear from you! Over the last 4 years I have made a huge effort to demonstrate community leadership by speaking out on important issues. I have been writing a blog and making YouTube videos about the issues that concern my fellow citizens and I am grateful for all of your support!

I am especially grateful to have been challenged along the way to check my assumptions and learn new ways of thinking about solutions. I have come to realize that solutions aren’t found in rigid ideology but that we are well served by an open minded, collaborative approach. That is what I will bring to the table when I am elected. I have a proven track record of mindfully engaging people both on social media and in the community.

I grew up in Red Deer. I graduated from Hunting Hills and went to RDC. I have worked in the oil and gas industry for over a decade. Now, I am an Enform safety instructor. My wife Krystal and I own and operate Bullseye Safety Training. I am a family man and Red Deer is the community where I am raising my kids and I want them to be happy, healthy, safe and to have opportunity. Our city is a really good place to raise a family and I am proud to live here. I want to give back to our community by serving on council and working to ensure that our city continues to be a vibrant and prosperous place to live.

As a family man who made a career in the oil and gas industry, I understand the struggles that many have faced during the economic downturn. That’s why it is very important that we focus on getting the best value for our tax dollars while maintaining our high standard of public services. I am happy when I see our city investing in things that will improve our quality of life and make Red Deer a place where people love to live and want to stay. We can do this by continuing to strategically save money for future amenities and by maintaining fiscally responsible tax rates. When I’m a city councillor I will insist on maximizing efficiencies in the system so that we can pass those savings onto the citizens of Red Deer.

Crime is also a serious concern in our community. I’ve spoken with many people and heard stories about businesses being broken into, vehicles being stolen and drug needles laying on the streets; there’s a lot that we need to clean up in this city. With that said, some of the best minds have come together over the last few years to figure out what we can do and there are some very feasible, evidence based solutions being put forward. When I’m a councillor I will be committed to making Red Deer safer by implementing these solutions and putting action behind our words.

The environment is also a concern that I share with many Red Deerians. Climate change adaptation needs to be the foundation of all of our plans going forward. We will be well served to consistently consider this question: “How will this move us towards our environmental goals?”. As our city grows we will be using more water from our river, we will be using more energy and we will looking for new ways to manage waste. We have an amazing opportunity to make Red Deer truly environmentally sustainable. When I am councillor I will be committed to implementing solutions that will protect and restore our environment.

The first question people ask is why am I running. To put it briefly, I am committed to getting the best value for our tax dollars, to putting crime prevention strategies into action and to making Red Deer truly environmentally sustainable. But, who is against those things? I’m sure every candidate will also say the same. I am committed to rising above the rhetoric and that’s why I need your help.

What do you suggest we do to make our city run more efficiently so we can get the best value for our tax dollars?

What do you suggest we do to prevent crime and make our community safer?

What do you suggest we do to make our city more environmentally sustainable?

Let’s go for coffee!

Please feel free to email me ([email protected]) or contact me on social media; just search for Wieler4RD on most platforms or use the hashtag #CoffeeWithWieler.

Cheers,

I have lived in Red Deer since I was a child. This is the community that I choose to raise my family in and where I choose to operate my business. I am grateful for all of the opportunities I have had in this city and I will give back to the community through service, passion and conversation. I am curious. I am personal. I am BOLD.

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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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