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More Details Revealed About Red Deer’s New Justice Centre

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By Sheldon Spackman

More details have been revealed regarding Red Deer’s new Justice Centre that was announced in the Provincial Budget earlier this month. The new facility which is now in the planning and design phase, will feature 12 courtrooms, up from the current 7 and will have the ability to expand to 16 in the future. It will also have space for dispute resolution services which it currently doesn’t have.

$97 million has been allocated for the new centre over the next four years so far, with the next step to secure land and begin design work. Barring unforseen problems, the old downtown RCMP detachment will be the site of the new Justice Centre. It’s a location that was set aside years ago for exactly this reason. Kathleen Ganley, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General say they hope to have shovels in the ground by the end of 2018.

Officials say a new and larger Justice Centre for Red Deer will also have enhanced security measures to separate prisoner, public and judicial/staff circulation. Other services will include:

  • civil, criminal, traffic, family and youth courts
  • justice-related supports, including Crown and barrister assistance, as well as services from external groups, such as probation workers, Indigenous court workers, Legal Aid representatives, counselling staff and Elizabeth Fry/John Howard employees
  • resolution services, such as civil and family mediation, arbitration and other alternatives to court.

As for the desperate need for expansion at the Red Deer Regional Hospital, Notley told reporters that two decades of inadequate funding to address that need from previous governments has led to the current situation, adding, “We’re not able to fix that deficit in two years but we are working with Alberta Health Services to look at the priorities that exist in the Central Region.” She points out that “Just as in the rest of the province, we know there’s more to be done and we’ll continue to work with AHS and ask them to work with local advocates and community leaders to identify the next priorities as we move forward.”

Premier Notley also took some time on Thursday to tour the newly expanded runway at the Red Deer Regional Airport. It was finished late last year and was a critical component in Red Deer securing the 2019 Canada Winter Games. The 2,000 foot runway extension is now able to accommodate larger aircraft so athletes from all over Canada can fly directly into Red Deer for the games. Notley’s tour of the new expansion was given by Airport CEO Graham Ingham. An official grand opening for the new extension will take place May 12th.

Ingham says the runway extension will be a key economic driver for both the City and County of Red Deer. However, he adds, they are now in discussions to expand the Terminal so they can process more passengers at the Airport. He says they currently do 42,00 movements a year but would like to see that number increase dramatically in the future, perhaps by landing another low-cost carrier in Red Deer.

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Health

Radio-Canada journalist defends report exposing ‘gender clinics’ for ‘transitioning’ children

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Radio-Canada journalist Pasquale Turbide revealed that concerns from parents were what originally sparked her investigative report on the gender ‘transitioning’ of children in Quebec.

Radio-Canada journalist is defending her investigative report that exposed a “gender” clinic in Quebec for prescribing potentially sterilizing hormones to an actress posing as a young teen in less than ten minutes. 

In a March 3 interview on Tout le Monde en Parle, Radio-Canada journalist Pasquale Turbide  revealed that concerns from parents were what originally sparked her investigative report on the gender “transitioning” of children, and that she stands by her work despite backlash.   

“Parents began writing to us last summer, when there was a bit of a controversy about names, pronouns, all-gender bathrooms, etc,” said Turbide in French.  

“But the letters we were getting were not about those issues, they were talking about medical transitions,” she explained.   

According to Turbide, the parents who contacted Radio-Canada revealed that their children, who believed they were “transgender,” were being offered sterilizing “puberty blockers” in the name of care.

“We started to look into it, and we easily found fifteen to twenty people who were all telling us more or less the same story,” said Turbide. “They were often very open-minded parents, open to homosexuality, open to all sorts of things but were panicking at the speed of the transgender healthcare system.”  

The documentary, published by Radio-Canada, the French arm of the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), delved into the dangers of giving children “puberty blockers” as well as the regrets of detransitioners, the term for people who have undergone irreversible surgeries in an attempt to “change” their gender but now regret it.   

The report also followed an actress posing as a 14-year-old patient at a private “gender clinic” in Quebec where she was prescribed testosterone and advised on life-altering mutilating surgeries during a consultation that lasted a meagre nine minutes.  

During her interview, Turbide exposed the dangers of taking puberty blockers, especially considering many of the side effects are still unknown.   

“Girls take testosterone, boys take estrogen and that’s semi-irreversible,” Turbide added. “Some things don’t come back even if they stop. One’s voice will stay changed most of the time. The face of their shape is another thing that’s affected. You can become infertile if you are a girl. It’s not yet clear how far it can go.”  

Turbide further pointed out that some Scandinavian countries are seeking to ban the irreversible treatments for children.  

The documentary went viral online the same week leaked internal communications show doctors who offer so-called “gender-affirming care” know that transgender hormones cause serious diseases, including cancer. 

Journalist Michael Shellenberger released the internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which “is considered the leading global authority” on so-called “gender medicine,” despite being an LGBT activist group. 

The “WPATH FILES” include emails and messages from an internal discussion forum by doctors, as well as statements from a video call of WPATH members. The files reveal that the doctors working for WPATH know that so-called “gender-affirming care” can cause severe mental and physical disease and that it is impossible for minors to give “informed consent” to it.  

As LifeSiteNews has previously noted, research does not support the assertions from transgender activists that surgical or pharmaceutical intervention to “affirm” confusion is “necessary medical care” or that it is helpful in preventing the suicides of gender-confused individuals.   

In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including  cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots,  infertility,  and  suicidality.    

There is also  overwhelming evidence that those who undergo “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.   

Indeed, there is proof that the most loving and helpful approach to people who think they are a different sex is not to validate them in their confusion but to show them the truth.   

A new study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed — and that many other side effects manifest as well.    

Additionally, LifeSiteNews compiled a list of medical professions and experts who warn against transgender surgeries, warning of irreversible changes and lifelong side effects.    

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National

Canadian journalists say Trudeau gov’t payouts are hurting mainstream media credibility

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“Canadian media does need to be saved, that is very true,” said Henley. “My message is simple. The government cannot save us. We have to save ourselves.”  

Legacy media journalists in Canada have pointed to government subsidies as one of the key reasons Canadians have lost trust in the industry.

On February 27, mainstream media journalists told the House of Commons heritage committee that ongoing media subsidies from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government have only damaged newsrooms’ credibility in the eyes of Canadians, according to information obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.   

“Legacy and new media lobbying for government money and accepting it does little to enhance confidence in their independence or reliability,” former Conservative MP and 1988 chair of the Commons communications committee John Gormley testified. 

“Does government funding pay for better journalism? Does it restore credibility and trust?” he questioned.  

“I don’t necessarily accept the supposition Canadian media is in trouble because it is underfunded by government,” he responded. “The government has nothing to do with this.” 

Similarly, Tara Henley, a Toronto author and host of the Lean Out podcast on current affairs, argued that the government subsidizes have led to a loss of integrity for mainstream media outlets.  

“Any funding from the government that flows to media at this point would hinder our attempts to rebuild trust,” she said. “There is evidence to suggest subsidies have created an environment in which segments of the public believe media has been bought off.” 

“Without trust we have no audience,” Henley stated. “Without an audience we have no revenue. Without revenue we have no path forward.” 

“Canadian media does need to be saved, that is very true,” said Henley. “My message is simple. The government cannot save us. We have to save ourselves.”  

Mainstream Canadian media had already received massive federal payouts, but they have nearly doubled after Trudeau announced increased subsidies for legacy media outlets ahead of the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years. 

Many have accused the mainstream media of becoming nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the Liberal government as their financial futures are seen as dependent upon continued public funding. 

Recent polling found that only one-third of Canadians consider mainstream media trustworthy and balanced.  

Similarly, a recent study by Canada’s Public Health Agency revealed that less than a third of Canadians displayed “high trust” in the federal government, with “large media organizations” as well as celebrities getting even lower scores. 

Large mainstream media outlets and “journalists” working for them scored a “high trust” rating of only 18%. That was followed by only 12% of people saying they trusted “ordinary people,” with celebrities receiving only an 8% “trust” rating. 

In direct opposition to Trudeau’s stance, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has repeatedly announced that his government would not support state-funded media. 

In April, Poilievre labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) a “biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party and frankly negatively affects all media.”  

“For example, Canadian Press is negatively affected by the fact that you have to report favorably on the CBC if you want to keep your number one, taxpayer-funded client happy,” he said. 

“We need a neutral and free media, not a propaganda arm for the Liberal Party… When I am prime minister, we are going to have a free press where every day Canadians decide what they think rather than having Liberal propaganda jammed down their throats.” 

Poilievre added that if he becomes prime minister he will cut “corporate welfare,” including money to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which currently receives over a billion dollars a year in taxpayer funds.

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