Opinion
Red Deer died a little last year. Where is the plan? Can we talk about it?
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.
$3.97 BILLION Cut From Veterans Affairs. Cannabis Benefits Slashed. Hypocrisy in Full Bloom.
They’re quietly dismantling the only lifeline veterans have left. The federal government just carved $3.97 billion out of Veterans Affairs Canada’s budget.
That’s not trimming fat, that’s cutting into the bone and burning the body.
And as if that weren’t disgusting enough, they’re also slashing medical cannabis reimbursements for veterans from $8.50 down to $6.00 per gram.
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The same medicine that’s keeping thousands of veterans alive through PTSD, chronic pain, and TBI recovery gutted by bureaucrats who’ve never had to bury a friend who lost the battle at home.
I testified in Canada’s first veteran suicide study and I warned them. I sat in front of Parliament and told them this would happen. I told them this LAST WEEK. I told them veterans were being failed by their own government ignored, delayed, and dismissed until they broke.
The study exposed it the chronic failure of the liberal veteran system. Suicide rates among veterans were higher than the national average. VAC systems were drowning in paperwork and apathy. Those who found stability through medical cannabis were finally regaining their lives.
So what did this government do with that data?
They buried it then cut the funding anyway.
This isn’t mismanagement. It’s betrayal with a signature and a smile while they wear a poppy and pretend to smile for photo ops. Jill McKnight and Mark Carney need to be held accountable for this. Canadians will DIE. Make no mistake.
This week, cannabis providers like MyMedi.ca confirmed what Ottawa buried in bureaucratic language:
“The Federal Government released its potential new budget, which includes a proposed policy change reducing the Veterans Affairs Canada reimbursement rate for medical cannabis from $8.50 per gram to $6.00 per gram.”
That’s a 30% cut to a life-saving medicine. It forces veterans to downgrade their treatment or pay out of pocket, the empty pockets that is. Standing in food bank lines and now having to find medicine on the black market to be able to function.
To justify it, the Liberals cited “declining market prices.” Let’s get one thing straight, recreational weed is not medical cannabis.
Medical cannabis is pharmaceutical-grade regulated for purity, potency, and consistency. It’s prescribed by doctors, not dealers. It’s the difference between numbing your pain and healing from it. Cutting that is like telling a diabetic to use cheaper insulin or less of it because the government found a “better price.”
It’s criminal, make no mistake.
Every November, the liberal government stands at podiums wrapped in poppies, preaching about “honouring our heroes.”
Then, when the cameras turn off, they quietly gut the budget that keeps those heroes alive.
They say they’re increasing “overall government spending” by $141 billion over the next five years. Yet they’re carving out $4 billion from the very department that’s supposed to prevent veteran suicide.
They can find billions for consultants, media subsidies, and overseas virtue projects but not to keep veterans from killing themselves. That’s not just hypocrisy. That’s moral rot and our government needs to be dismantled, held accountable and re built.
This is what corruption looks like, it’s just in polite Canadian form. There doesn’t need to be a bribe to call it corruption. Corruption is when a government pretends to care while quietly dismantling the systems that hold lives together.
Corruption is cutting medical support for veterans, then gaslighting the public with talk of “efficiency.” Corruption is using Remembrance Day for photo ops while veterans wait years for their disability claims.
Every one of these decisions sends a message – You were useful once. Now you’re expensive.
Every dollar cut equals blood on their hands and it will be your fault.
I will tell anyone who wants to join: don’t.
They will leave you to die, and step over your body to hand an immigrant your benefits the ones you fought your whole career for. This isn’t abstract. This isn’t about numbers on a spreadsheet. Every cut means, longer delays for mental health treatment. More vets turning to opioids or alcohol.
More suicides that could have been prevented. More suicides, MORE SUICIDES, MORE SUICIDES!!!
And when those suicides happen, the same politicians will stand at the next memorial and talk about “honour” while wearing crocodile tears.
Fucking liars.
Veterans aren’t asking for charity. We’re demanding the promises that were made.
If this government truly cared, they’d fund what works, not gut it. What they just did says everything. They’d protect cannabis access, streamline claims, fund the psychedelic assisted life saving therapy and actually listen to the data from the studies they commissioned.
Instead, they’re too busy protecting their image.
This isn’t about politics anymore. It’s about integrity. A country that forgets its warriors doesn’t deserve to be called free.
We fought for this land, bled for it, and came home to a system that’s now turning its back on us. No more quiet compliance. No more polite outrage.
Somewhere in this country a country that used to look and act like Canada a veteran won’t make it to morning.
A family will lose their loved one. Children will grow up without a parent. And the void they leave will never, ever be filled.
It won’t be because they were weak. Not because they didn’t try every minute of every day just to keep breathing.
It’ll be because a country that sent them to war and keeps sending kids to wars built on lies refused to bring them all the way home.
Canadians veterans are officially being left to die.
And the liberals are holding the knife.
KELSI SHEREN
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Censorship Industrial Complex
School Cannot Force Students To Use Preferred Pronouns, US Federal Court Rules
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
“Our system forbids public schools from becoming ‘enclaves of totalitarianism.’”
A federal appeals court in Ohio ruled Thursday that students cannot be forced to use preferred pronouns in school.
Defending Education (DE) filed the suit against Olentangy Local School District (OLSD) in 2023, arguing the district’s anti-harassment policy that requires students to use the “preferred pronouns” of others violates students’ First Amendment rights by “compelling students to affirm beliefs about sex and gender that are contrary to their own deeply held beliefs.” Although a lower court attempted to shoot down the challenge, the appeals court ruled in a 10-7 decision that the school cannot “wield their authority to compel speech or demand silence from citizens who disagree with the regulators’ politically controversial preferred new form of grammar.”
Because the school considers transgender students to be a protected class, students who violated the anti-harassment policy by referring to such students by their biological sex risked punishments such as suspension and expulsion, according to DE.
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“American history and tradition uphold the majority’s decision to strike down the school’s pronoun policy,” the court wrote in its opinion. “Over hundreds of years, grammar has developed in America without governmental interference. Consistent with our historical tradition and our cherished First Amendment, the pronoun debate must be won through individual persuasion, not government coercion. Our system forbids public schools from becoming ‘enclaves of totalitarianism.’”
OLSD did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
“We are deeply gratified by the Sixth Circuit’s intensive analysis not only of our case but the state of student First Amendment rights in the modern era,” Nicole Neily, founder and president of DE, said in a statement. “The court’s decision – and its many concurrences – articulate the importance of free speech, the limits and perils of public schools claiming to act in loco parentis, and the critical role of persuasion – rather than coercion – in America’s public square.”
“Despite its ham-fisted attempt to moot the case, Olentangy School District was sternly reminded by the 6th circuit en banc court that it cannot force students to express a viewpoint on gender identity with which they disagree, nor extend its reach beyond the schoolhouse threshold into matters better suited to an exercise of parental authority,” Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at DE, said in a statement. “A resounding victory for student speech and parental rights was long overdue for families in the school district and we are thrilled the court’s ruling will benefit others seeking to vindicate their rights in the classroom and beyond.”
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