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Red Deer died a little last year. Where is the plan? Can we talk about it?

Published

8 years ago

6 minute read

Red Deer died a little last year. 975 more people moved out of Red Deer last year than moved into Red Deer. 777 of that loss was felt north of the river. Where is the discussion, where is the plan to stop this outward migration of residents? Does anyone at city hall care?
I see in the budget being presented on April 18, 2017 that there is almost 2 million dollars set aside for downtown revitalization. That is on top of the approximately 50 million for development around the arena, 50 million for road re-alignment, already completed. Lest we forget the 135 million to relocate the public works yard out of downtown, throw in the over constructed bus station and we are going to spend another million or two on revitalization. Next year or 2 they will be spending 100 million or so on the downtown recreation centre, 5 million on the railway bridge. They are talking about building a 23 million dollar footbridge a few hundred metres from the Taylor bridge. All that means that the city will have, is, and will be spending a half billion dollars downtown.
North of the bridge, where we have a huge problem, the last school was built in 1985, the last recreation centre was built before that, and there is no high school, now or planned. What is the plan?
In 1985 40% of the city’s population lived north of the river. It was an economic hub for central Alberta, now only 30% live north of the river. Where is the plan?
North of the river the residents have only the Dawe Centre for indoor facilities, no high school gyms to offer young people, but south of the river they will see their 4th high school opening this fall and 2 more on the books. They also have the Downtown Recreation Centre, Michener Aquatic Centre, Downtown Arena, Centrium ice, Collicutt Recreation Centre, Pidherney Curling Centre, Kinex Arena, Kinsmen Community Arenas, Red Deer Curling Centre, and the under-construction Gary W. Harris Centre. The city is also talking about replacing the downtown recreation centre with an expanded 50m pool.
Are we so blinded by bias against the north and biased for the downtown, that we do not care, we have no plan, and can only focus on the residents south of the river?
I have been talking about Hazlett Lake. Red Deer’s largest lake, located north of the river, north of Hwy 11a because it is up for development. It is a diamond in the rough, with potential that is being ignored at our cost. Lethbridge turned a slough into a lake into Henderson Park into a tourist attraction and they were the 5th fastest growing city in Canada, and they are only slightly smaller than Red Deer now and could overtake Red Deer this year.
Red Deer has a lake that they want to wrap with residential and industrial land. The city wants to spend a cool hundred million turning the downtown recreation centre into an aquatic centre. Why not build an Aquatic Centre on a lake?
The Gary W. Harris centre will be visible from Hwy 2, as is the sports Hall of Fame, as is Hazlett Lake. If Lethbridge can turn a slough into a tourist attraction why can’t Red Deer turn a lake into a tourist attraction.
Hazlett Lake is about the same distance from the Riverlands development as the Collicutt Centre. The Collicutt Centre came about because the city decided that with 55,000 residents the city needed a 4th recreational centre. It also spurred development in the south east and now 60% of the residents use it.
The development north of 11a would bring the total population north of the river to 55,000 if we stop the exodus of residents, but there is no plans for a 2nd recreation centre let alone a 4th north of the river.
There is no plan, no discussion to stem the outward migration in Red Deer. I sense that the bias against the north is so deep, so entrenched that they do not worry about it.
I mentioned this quite a few times, suffered some negative comments and have been told that the residents living north of the river can drive across town or take a bus. I guess the residents south of the river can’t.
The city will not do their annual census this year. It costs money, and if the city shrank even more they would lose provincial money and it would look bad just before the October 16 2017 election.
The city died a little last year, can we talk about it? Please.

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‘We’re Going To Lose’: Steve Bannon Warns Withholding Epstein Files Would Doom GOP

Published on July 12, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Cohen

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon warned on Friday that Republicans would suffer major losses if President Donald Trump’s administration does not move to release documents related to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and associations.

Axios reported on Sunday that a two-page memo showed the Department Of Justice (DOJ) and FBI found no evidence Epstein kept a “client list” or was murdered, but public doubts have continued. Bannon said on “Bannon’s War Room” that failure to release information would lead to the dissipation of one-tenth of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and significant losses for the Republican Party in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

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“It’s not about just a pedophile ring and all that, it’s about who governs us, right? And that’s why it’s not going to go away … For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement,” Bannon said. “If we lose 10% of the MAGA movement right now, we’re going to lose 40 seats in ’26, we’re going to lose the [presidency]. They don’t even have to steal it, which they’re going to try to do in ’28, because they’re going to sit there and they go, ‘They’ve disheartened the hardest-core populist nationalists’ — that’s always been who governs us.”

Bannon also demanded the publication of all the Epstein documents on “Bannon’s War Room” Thursday. He called on the DOJ to go to court and push for the release of the documents or for Trump to appoint a special counsel to manage the publication.

Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with sex trafficking. Shortly after, he was found dead in his New York Metropolitan Correctional Center cell shortly after. Officials asserted that he hanged himself in his cell.

However, Epstein’s death has sparked years of theories because of the malfunctioning of prison cameras, along with guards admitting to falsifying documents about checking on the then-inmate. The DOJ inspector general later confirmed that multiple surveillance cameras outside of his cell were inoperable, while others captured the common area outside his door.

Both Bannon and Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson have speculated that Epstein had connections to intelligence agencies.

Former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta allegedly indicated that Epstein was tied to intelligence, according to Vicky Ward in The Daily Beast.

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espionage

FBI’s Dan Bongino may resign after dispute about Epstein files with Pam Bondi

Published on July 11, 2025

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Both Dan Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi have been taking the heat for what many see as the obstruction of the full Epstein files release.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino took the day off on Friday after an argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s case files.

One source close to Bongino told Axios that “he ain’t coming back.” Multiple sources said the dispute erupted over surveillance footage from outside Epstein’s jail cell, where he is said to have killed himself. Bongino had found the video and “touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered,” Axios noted.

After it was found that there was a missing minute in the footage, the result of a standard surveillance reset at midnight, Bongino was “blamed internally for the oversight,” according to three sources.

Trump supporter and online influencer Laura Loomer first reported Friday on X that Bongino took the day off and that he and FBI Director Kash Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.

During a Wednesday meeting, Bongino was reportedly confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel requested that more information about Epstein be released earlier, but Bongino denied leaking this incident.

“Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one source who heard about the exchange, adding that Bongino left angry.

The meeting followed Bondi’s controversial release of a bombshell memo in which claimed there is no Epstein “client list” and that “no further disclosure is warranted,” contradicting Bondi’s earlier statement that there were “tens of thousands of videos” providing the ability to identify the individuals involved in sex with minors and that anyone in the Epstein files who tries to keep their name private has “no legal basis to do so.”

The memo “is attempting to sweep the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal under the rug,” according to independent investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger in a superb analysis published on X.

“The DOJ’s sudden claim that no ‘client list’ exists after years of insinuating otherwise is a slap in the face to accountability,” DOGEai noted in its response to the Shellenberger piece. “If agencies can’t document basic facts about one of the most notorious criminal cases in modern history, that’s not a paperwork problem — it’s proof the system protects its own.”

Carlson offered the theory that U.S. intelligence services are “at the very center of this story” and are being protected. His guest, Saagar Enjeti, agreed. “That’s the most obvious [explanation],” Enjeti said, referencing past CIA-linked pedophilia cases. He noted the agency had avoided prosecutions for fear suspects would reveal “sources and methods” in court.

Investigative journalist Whitney Webb has discussed in her book “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” how the intelligence community leverages sex trafficking through operatives like Epstein to blackmail politicians, members of law enforcement, businessmen, and other influential figures.

Just one example of evidence of this, according to Webb, is former U.S. Secretary of Labor and U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta’s explanation as to why he agreed to a non-prosecution deal in the lead-up to Epstein’s 2008 conviction of procuring a child for prostitution. Acosta told Trump transition team interviewers that he was told that Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” adding that he was told to “leave it alone,” The Daily Beast reported.

While Epstein himself never stood trial, as he allegedly committed suicide while under “suicide watch” in his jail cell in 2019, many have questioned the suicide and whether the well-connected financier was actually murdered as part of a cover-up.

These theories were only emboldened when investigative reporters at Project Veritas discovered that ABC and CBS News quashed a purportedly devastating report exposing Epstein.

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