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Run or Hike for more than your health at the Run/Hike for Hospice on June 5, 2022

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With less than one month to go, registration and planning for the 15th Annual Run/Hike for Hospice, presented by RSM Canada, is in fully swing! Choose to hike, walk, or stroll the 1km or 4km within the beautiful Kerry Wood Nature Centre Sanctuary or run 5km along the city’s scenic riverside trails.

“Run/Hike for Hospice is an opportunity to celebrate the journey of life for a loved one or just get outside and spend time with family and friends. The event also raises funds in support of end of life care in Central Alberta,” shared Jerri Taylor, Executive Director of the Red Deer Hospice. “It is a key fundraiser for us, our goal for Run/Hike for Hospice this year is to raise $35,000 in donations and pledges and we are happy to report we are half way there!”

Registration for teams and individuals is open at www.reddeerhospice.com and is just $25 per individual. At the event (and included with your registration) you can expect live music, a burger and plenty of other snacks as well as a t-shirt (while supplies last). Virtual options are available for those who just aren’t ready to be back in a crowd.

IN-PERSON Participants can join us at the outdoor event which will take place at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre Sunday June 5th, 2022. Choose to Hike 1km or 4km within the beautiful Kerry Wood Nature Centre Sanctuary or Run 5km along the city’s scenic riverside trails.
Registration           9:00am
Race Start              10:00am

VIRTUAL Participants are encouraged to complete a Run or Hike in their own time & pace at any destination of their choice while raising funds for Red Deer Hospice.

RACE PACKAGE PICK UP, PLEDGE DROP OFF
Stop by the RSM parking lot (546 Laura Avenue, Red Deer County) just down from the Gasoline Alley Farmer’s Market to pick up your Run Hike for Hospice Race Package or drop off any offline pledges you’ve been collecting!

Friday June 3rd       4:00pm – 7:00pm
Saturday June 4th    10:00am -1:00pm 

Register
Register online by purchasing your tickets.  Registration fee is $25.
Free for kids ages 12 and under (registration is still required to get a shirt).
For those registering after May 1st, we will have a limited quantity of shirts available on a first come, first served basis.

Fundraise
Help support Red Deer Hospice by collecting pledges & fundraising on our behalf. CanadaHelps.ca makes it easy for you and your team to collect donations virtually.  You can even customize your fundraising page and share about your personal connection to Red Deer Hospice.  Prizes will be awarded for top fundraisers!
​Don’t want to fundraise yourself? Donate to one of our Hikers or Runners that is already registered!
Connect
What else can you do to celebrate the life of a loved one & raise awareness around end of life care in Central Alberta?:
  • Print off one of our pre-made window hangers to help let your neighbors know you are supporting Red Deer Hospice.
  • Have someone you are Running or Hiking in honor of? Feel free to send us a picture along with their name to [email protected] and we will share it with everyone in our public “In Honor Of Album” (found on our Website & Facebook Event).
  • Make a connection with us on social media by tagging @RedDeerHospice on FB or @rdhospice on Instagram & using the #hikeforhospicerd2022 or #runforhospicerd2022


​For more information, contact our Event Coordinator at 403-309-4344 ext 109 or by email.

Picture
*For those registering after May 1st, we will have a limited quantity of shirts available on a first come, first served basis.

 

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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