Red Deer Chamber of Commerce urging voters to choose a prosperous future

News release from the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce

A Vote for Prosperity is a Vote for a Better Alberta

Over the past few years Alberta has managed to emerge from the COVID 19 Pandemic in a strong position for growth and prosperity. Since 2019 the state of the business environment has improved in part due to the advocacy of the Alberta Chambers Network working together to advocate for strong business policies in Alberta. Some of those advances include lowering the general corporate tax rate turned declining investment in Alberta around, opening our borders to trade and labour mobility, leading efforts to build national trade corridors, and inspired reciprocity of provincial partners with a vision to build a stronger economy together. As well establishing the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation is setting a new standard for collaborative economic development to build healthy communities. And, for the first time in decades, our nonrenewable resource wealth is being prudently saved for the future.

Today, Alberta leads all provinces in wage growth and job creation per capita. But we cannot rest on our laurels. We need to continue to advocate for good business and economic development policies to continue to reach for a brighter future.

It is with this in mind the Red Deer & District Chamber of Commerce is supporting the Alberta Chambers of Commerce in their Vote Prosperity 2023 platform. This platform focuses on a number of policy recommendations with the goal of allowing our businesses to thrive and create the foundation for healthy and vibrant communities across our province.

Vote Prosperity 2023 informs a path forward for the next provincial government to continue expanding opportunities for shared prosperity. This path forward includes, furthering small businesses in Alberta’s corporate tax advantage to help entrepreneurs create jobs. Reducing regulatory burdens limiting trade and competition would improve cost competitiveness for business and affordability for residents, strengthening Alberta’s reputation as a proponent of commerce. Better preparing young Albertans with hands on learning would help them build careers around their talents and Alberta to develop a highly skilled workforce. Improving fiscal stability and value-for-money of local and provincial public services would enable investment attraction and the viability of our communities.

There are for pillars to the Vote Prosperity 2023 platform for business in Alberta:

1. Strengthening business competitiveness – Lead the nation in tax competitiveness and the reduction of regulatory burdens, Reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions while minimizing risks to business competitiveness, Enable competition and free trade for current and emerging sources of electricity. Work with Confederation partners to establish an internationally competitive regulatory environment for all industries.

2. Growing provincial trade – Facilitate collaboration among Indigenous communities and industry on economic development. Develop and expand economic corridors to increase access to domestic and international markets. Accelerate review and approval processes for trade-enabling infrastructure projects. Continue removing interprovincial trade barriers to strengthen local supply chains.

3. Building healthy communities – Deploy health care talent with sustainable resourcing throughout the province. Equip post-secondary institutions to meet employer demands through high-quality labor market information and targeted funding for in-demand occupations. Expand work-integrated and entrepreneurial learning models in K-12 and post-secondary education. Alleviate socio-economic and regulatory barriers to fully participate in the labour market.

4. Improving government accountability – Adhere to the fiscal sustainability framework and pay down debt. Appoint an independent panel of experts to review current and alternative revenue options with the view to deliver stable and predictable budgets. Eliminate or make transparent hidden and duplicative taxes within provincial purview. Align predictable funding for municipalities with performance metrics to improve local business services.

Albertans believe the province’s business community should have a role in developing a vision and providing leadership to move the province forward. Vote Prosperity 2023 provides that leadership. We encourage voters in the coming Alberta election to support candidates committed to our shared prosperity.

Representing over 24,000 businesses in our province, the Alberta Chambers is comprised of over 100 community Chambers throughout the province and the largest and most influential business association in the province. These pillars symbolize the outcome of nearly one hundred community-driven policies proposed by Chambers, with substantial contributions from the Red Deer Chamber. It is our belief these pillars are the foundation to restoring our province’s prosperity and the health and vibrancy of the communities that comprise it.

The Red Deer & District Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Alberta Chambers is advocating this platform to all parties and candidates running for election this spring. For more information and to read the platform in its entirety, visit: https://www.abchamber.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/VP-Designed-Platform-Doc.pdf

Established in 1894 the Red Deer & District Chamber of Commerce is a non-partisan, collaborative business leader representing over 825 member businesses. As one of Red Deer’s oldest and most established membership organizations we are striving to build a vibrant community that fosters an environment where businesses can lead, be innovative, sustainable, and grow.

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Covid Cover-Ups: Excess Deaths, Vaccine Harms, and Coordinated Censorship

Energy / 9 hours ago

Here’s what they don’t tell you about BC’s tanker ban

Daily Caller / 10 hours ago

BREAKING: Globalist Climate Conference Bursts Into Flames

Business

Canada is failing dismally at our climate goals. We’re also ruining our economy.

Published on November 20, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Annika Segelhorst and Elmira Aliakbari

Short-term climate pledges simply chase deadlines, not results

The annual meeting of the United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP, which is dedicated to implementing international action on climate change, is now underway in Brazil. Like other signatories to the Paris Agreement, Canada is required to provide a progress update on our pledge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. After decades of massive government spending and heavy-handed regulations aimed at decarbonizing our economy, we’re far from achieving that goal. It’s time for Canada to move past arbitrary short-term goals and deadlines, and instead focus on more effective ways to support climate objectives.

Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, the federal government has introduced dozens of measures intended to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions, including more than $150 billion in “green economy” spending, the national carbon tax, the arbitrary cap on emissions imposed exclusively on the oil and gas sector, stronger energy efficiency requirements for buildings and automobiles, electric vehicle mandates, and stricter methane regulations for the oil and gas industry.

Recent estimates show that achieving the federal government’s target will impose significant costs on Canadians, including 164,000 job losses and a reduction in economic output of 6.2 per cent by 2030 (compared to a scenario where we don’t have these measures in place). For Canadian workers, this means losing $6,700 (each, on average) annually by 2030.

Yet even with all these costly measures, Canada will only achieve 57 per cent of its goal for emissions reductions. Several studies have already confirmed that Canada, despite massive green spending and heavy-handed regulations to decarbonize the economy over the past decade, remains off track to meet its 2030 emission reduction target.

And even if Canada somehow met its costly and stringent emission reduction target, the impact on the Earth’s climate would be minimal. Canada accounts for less than 2 per cent of global emissions, and that share is projected to fall as developing countries consume increasing quantities of energy to support rising living standards. In 2025, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), emerging and developing economies are driving 80 per cent of the growth in global energy demand. Further, IEA projects that fossil fuels will remain foundational to the global energy mix for decades, especially in developing economies. This means that even if Canada were to aggressively pursue short-term emission reductions and all the economic costs it would imposes on Canadians, the overall climate results would be negligible.

Rather than focusing on arbitrary deadline-contingent pledges to reduce Canadian emissions, we should shift our focus to think about how we can lower global GHG emissions. A recent study showed that doubling Canada’s production of liquefied natural gas and exporting to Asia to displace an equivalent amount of coal could lower global GHG emissions by about 1.7 per cent or about 630 million tonnes of GHG emissions. For reference, that’s the equivalent to nearly 90 per cent of Canada’s annual GHG emissions. This type of approach reflects Canada’s existing strength as an energy producer and would address the fastest-growing sources of emissions, namely developing countries.

As the 2030 deadline grows closer, even top climate advocates are starting to emphasize a more pragmatic approach to climate action. In a recent memo, Bill Gates warned that unfounded climate pessimism “is causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it’s diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.” Even within the federal ministry of Environment and Climate Change, the tone is shifting. Despite the 2030 emissions goal having been a hallmark of Canadian climate policy in recent years, in a recent interview, Minister Julie Dabrusin declined to affirm that the 2030 targets remain feasible.

Instead of scrambling to satisfy short-term national emissions limits, governments in Canada should prioritize strategies that will reduce global emissions where they’re growing the fastest.

Annika Segelhorst

Junior Economist

Elmira Aliakbari

Director, Natural Resource Studies, Fraser Institute

Artificial Intelligence

Lawsuit Claims Google Secretly Used Gemini AI to Scan Private Gmail and Chat Data

Published on November 19, 2025

Todayville

By Ken Macon

Whether the claims are true or not, privacy in Google’s universe has long been less a right than a nostalgic illusion.

When Google flipped a digital switch in October 2025, few users noticed anything unusual.

Gmail loaded as usual, Chat messages zipped across screens, and Meet calls continued without interruption.

Yet, according to a new class action lawsuit, something significant had changed beneath the surface.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

Plaintiffs claim that Google silently activated its artificial intelligence system, Gemini, across its communication platforms, turning private conversations into raw material for machine analysis.

The lawsuit, filed by Thomas Thele and Melo Porter, describes a scenario that reads like a breach of trust.

It accuses Google of enabling Gemini to “access and exploit the entire recorded history of its users’ private communications, including literally every email and attachment sent and received.”

The filing argues that the company’s conduct “violates its users’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”

Until early October, Gemini’s data processing was supposedly available only to those who opted in.

Then, the plaintiffs claim, Google “turned it on for everyone by default,” allowing the system to mine the contents of emails, attachments, and conversations across Gmail, Chat, and Meet.

The complaint points to a particular line in Google’s settings, “When you turn this setting on, you agree,” as misleading, since the feature “had already been switched on.”

This, according to the filing, represents a deliberate misdirection designed to create the illusion of consent where none existed.

There is a certain irony woven through the outrage. For all the noise about privacy, most users long ago accepted the quiet trade that powers Google’s empire.

They search, share, and store their digital lives inside Google’s ecosystem, knowing the company thrives on data.

The lawsuit may sound shocking, but for many, it simply exposes what has been implicit all along: if you live in Google’s world, privacy has already been priced into the convenience.

Thele warns that Gemini’s access could expose “financial information and records, employment information and records, religious affiliations and activities, political affiliations and activities, medical care and records, the identities of his family, friends, and other contacts, social habits and activities, eating habits, shopping habits, exercise habits, [and] the extent to which he is involved in the activities of his children.”

In other words, the system’s reach, if the allegations prove true, could extend into nearly every aspect of a user’s personal life.

The plaintiffs argue that Gemini’s analytical capabilities allow Google to “cross-reference and conduct unlimited analysis toward unmerited, improper, and monetizable insights” about users’ private relationships and behaviors.

The complaint brands the company’s actions as “deceptive and unethical,” claiming Google “surreptitiously turned on this AI tracking ‘feature’ without informing or obtaining the consent of Plaintiffs and Class Members.” Such conduct, it says, is “highly offensive” and “defies social norms.”

The case invokes a formidable set of statutes, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, the Stored Communications Act, and California’s constitutional right to privacy.

Google is yet to comment on the filing.