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Sunnybrook has been paying property taxes for 56 years. Was it good value?

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It is easy to travel around Red Deer and see examples of idealism meeting practicality and realism.

Unfinished roads going to non-existent bridges. Neighbourhoods like Timberlands, with a firehall and a high school and way too many undeveloped lots.

Capstone is a decades old work in progress that keeps hitting the taxpayers. In the beginning it was simple, move the dilapidated public works building out of downtown and turn the riverfront property into high end river view properties.

A wonderful vision but reality stepped in. The new public works, went with the high-end vision and the costs soared to north of a hundred million dollars and kept going. Re-aligning the roads took another 50 million, upgrading services, burying lines cost more.

After decades and about $200 million dollars we have 23 acres of empty vision. There is still talk of a $20+ million pedestrian bridge just metres away from Taylor Drive bridge. The costs for this unfinished vision is hitting $10 million an acre.

Enough with the eternal yet to be built projects, as more examples like the Dawe Arena twinning, north of 11A , 50m pool, Hazlett Lake, and the list keeps going.

Let us talk about the city’s tendency to build and abandon philosophy. The neighbourhoods that they cannot maintain.

Our Premier keeps talking or ranting about equalization payments, How Alberta has paid more to Ottawa than they have received back.

Our neighbourhoods can say similar sentiments when it comes to city hall. My neighbourhood, Sunnybrook is 55 years old. Our roads and sidewalks are 55 years old. We have been paying property taxes for 55 years. Did we get 55 years of property taxes back in return?

My 55 year old sidewalk got half of one crack repaired this year. The second time in the 20 plus years that I have lived on this street. I have shrubs growing in my sidewalk, I have pulled saplings out of the street in front of my house. My sidewalk has sunk to becoming a pool or an ice rink depending upon the weather.

The city said it cannot afford to maintain the 800 kms of sidewalks it now has. The population is static, population increase of 195 in 5 years, but we built 1299 new homes with sidewalks at the same time. If the crack is not at least 25mm (1”) wide and poses a tripping hazard it will not be repaired.

The city subsidizes the downtown with our taxes. They feel the downtown is a vital attraction for Red Deer. Sunnybrook was once named in MacLeans magazine as the Number 1 neighbourhood in Canada. Did the city capitalize on this national news item? No, it widened 32 Street and 40 Avenue and isolated and abandoned Sunnybrook.

The Bower Mall was built with the understanding that the Molly Banister drive would be extended to give direct access to Sunnybrook, Anders, Morrisroe, Inglewood, Vanier, Mountview, Deer Park etc. The Bower subdivision was built isolated from Molly Banister Drive by this commercial development.

The city wants to abandon that commitment.

Ideally, in another dimension, the Piper Creek would be this bubbling brook enjoyed by abundant wildlife and environmentally conscious Red Deer residents. Reality sets in.

The polluted, weed infested, algae prone creek by Bower Mall after flowing through 2 landfills, dead falls, blow downs, and a cow pasture, is isolated from the trail that comes out of the woods by Molly Banister Drive. The trail continues south in the grasses parallel with Barrett Drive on the west side.

The east side of the creek will have the old barb wired game proof fence that borders it, be replaced by the rear residential fences of 50 new homes, if the road allowance is removed.

Negating the bridge, eliminating the customer traffic, slowing emergency vehicles, forcing thousands of drivers daily to drive 4 extra kilometres in a city that CBC once reported had the poorest air quality in Canada. (September 9, 2015).

The city talks about a Garden of Eden, this wonderful wildlife corridor, where animals can roam except reality plays a hand. Traffic is a wall less barrier. 10,000 cars per day is the tipping point for wildlife. 32 Street is currently at 23,500 cars per day with expectations of 40,000 per day when it is widened to 6 lanes when Molly Bannister is not extended. 19 Street is expected to be widened to 6 lanes and traffic is expected to soar to even higher numbers.

The thing about 19 Street is that it too crosses the creek in this fantasy wild life corridor, on the south side of Molly Banister. There is no bridge, no tunnel, no safe way for animals to cross. There is talk about a pedestrian bridge for residents to cross. There is talk about a traffic circle for cars to have easier access to 19 Street. Where are the city councillors demands to protect the oft-mentioned wildlife corridor?

The proposed bridge for Molly Banister will take up an acre of land and the road will run along the creek similar to Barrett Drive in Bower and Selkirk Boulevard in Sunnybrook then run parallel with the power lines similar to 22 Street. The alternative being proposed is 50 houses along the creek taking up 16 +/- acres then a road to the power lines. Which is honestly better for wildlife?

The north connector encroaches on wildlife way beyond the Molly Banister Ext. yet silence from city councillors.

Realism plays a dirty hand at times, and the city seems to ignore this and you only need to look at future expenses the city incurred in their quests for unrealistic expectations. The million dollar annual payments for years to come for the winter games, the Exhibition Hall at the Westerner where councillors sat on the board, Capstone, Timberlands, North of 11A, Dawe arena, the unfinished bridge, the bus terminal’s green roof, and the list grows.

There are more options than (1)dream the impossible or (2) build and abandon? You could maintain what you have. Follow through on obligations and stop making rash decisions on immediate schemes.

There 300 families backing onto 32 Street that do not deserve to have their quality of life diminished. The same can be said of the families backing onto 19 St.

Thousands of families in neighbourhoods south of 39 St. do not deserve the traffic congestion forced onto their commute.

19 Street is becoming a valued asset to county businesses and Gasoline Alley will be easier to access than downtown. The downtown needs our help in more ways than subsidies.

I believed that the bigger the picture the more obvious the need for Molly Bannister to be extended.  So did we get good value for our property taxes? Will the attacks on our quality of life end? Does equalization even exist? We will see.

Thank you.

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103 Conflicts and Counting Unprecedented Ethics Web of Prime Minister Mark Carney

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The Opposition with Dan Knight  Dan Knight's avatar Dan Knight

Brookfield. The PMO. Eurasia Group. One Green Agenda, Billions in Conflicts.

Well, it finally happened. After months of dodging questions and hiding behind vague platitudes about “climate leadership,” Prime Minister Mark Carney’s official conflict-of-interest screen has been released by the Ethics Commissioner—and what it reveals is nothing short of staggering. Not five entities. Not a dozen. One hundred and three. That’s how many corporate and financial interests Carney has quietly acknowledged are too conflicted for him to touch.

At the center of this web? Brookfield Asset Management, the $1 trillion global investment firm where Carney was Vice-Chair before walking straight into Canada’s top political office. The very same Brookfield that owns energy projects, pipelines, nuclear companies, real estate empires, carbon offset schemes you name it, they’ve got a piece of it. And now, they’ve got a former executive running the country.

We’re told it’s all perfectly legal. We’re told Carney has “recused himself.” But what this disclosure actually shows is something much bigger: a government captured by finance, a prime minister with deep, ongoing entanglements in the very sectors his policies now enrich, and a climate agenda that’s beginning to look a whole lot like a money-printing operation for the global elite.

The deeper one digs into Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ethics disclosure, the clearer the picture becomes: what’s been framed as a climate leadership story is, in reality, a tightly wound web of commercial interest wrapped in green rhetoric. The 103-entity conflict-of-interest screen, ostensibly a shield against impropriety, instead serves as a road map of how thoroughly Canada’s top political office is entangled in the global green finance complex centered around Brookfield Asset Management.

As of Q1 2025, Brookfield reports $125 billion in assets under management (AUM) in its Renewable Power & Transition segment, a figure representing 12.5% of its overall $1 trillion portfolio. This segment alone encompasses most of the entities on Carney’s ethics screen: nearly 60 out of 103, even after accounting for duplicates. These aren’t passive holdings they’re the very projects, technologies, and subsidy-eligible vehicles Carney once oversaw directly as vice-chair of Brookfield and as co-lead of its $15 billion Global Transition Fund.

Brookfield’s renewables portfolio is vast: over 41.8 GW in installed capacity globally across wind, solar, hydro, and storage, with a 200+ GW development pipeline. A significant portion of this is owned or operated through the same SPVs and subsidiaries now appearing on the conflict list. Notable entries include Scout Clean Energy ($1B), Urban Grid ($650M), and Standard Solar ($540M). These acquisitions were all completed while Carney was at Brookfield, and they continue to generate revenue from U.S. and Canadian subsidy frameworks programs now shaped by the very government he leads.

Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P., the sector flagship, holds approximately $95 billion in total assets and generated $315 million in funds from operations in Q1 2025 alone. The firm is planning to add another 8 GW in capacity this year expansion that is, in part, subsidized through the same green transition policies Carney has promoted both in office and as a climate finance advocate.

The line between public and private interest blurs even further when examining the entities categorized under the “energy transition” banner; nuclear, CCS (carbon capture and storage), and so-called e-fuels. Carney’s screen includes Brookfield’s recent $8 billion acquisition of Westinghouse Electric Company, a nuclear power behemoth now positioned to benefit from Canada’s federal nuclear incentives and SMR (small modular reactor) program. Other flagged investments like Entropy and Carbon TerraVault fall directly into carbon credit and offset schemes—markets heavily influenced by federal regulation and incentive design.

Let’s stop pretending. What we’re witnessing here isn’t just conflict of interest, it’s a complete merger of state power and corporate ambition, all dressed up in the language of moral urgency. The Ethics Commissioner’s so-called “screen” for Mark Carney? It’s a joke. A checklist. A bureaucratic fig leaf meant to reassure you that everything’s above board. But it’s not.

Because here’s the truth: Carney is policing himself. He’s supposed to recuse himself from decisions that benefit the 103 entities he’s tied to many of which he helped create or oversee as Vice-Chair of Brookfield Asset Management. But who decides if he’s in conflict? He does. Or more accurately, the PMO does. The same PMO now drafting Dominion Barton-style focus groups to figure out how best to sell you the green grift. There’s no third-party oversight, no transparency on what’s actually in his so-called blind trust, and no disclosure of the carried interest he may still be entitled to from Brookfield’s billions in funds.

Meanwhile, the policy levers of government are being pulled in exactly the direction Brookfield bet on. Wind, solar, carbon capture, nuclear, every so-called “transition” sector that Brookfield spent years buying into is now flush with green subsidies, ESG guarantees, and taxpayer-backed investment shields. This isn’t the free market at work, it’s a strategic payoff, engineered by someone who’s now running one of the most powerful G7 economies.

And again, none of it is illegal. That’s the most damning part. Because legality isn’t the standard here. The standard is integrity, and that’s nowhere to be found. The scale of this overlap isn’t just large. It’s systemic. It’s built into the very foundation of the Carney government’s climate policy. The same man who structured these funds is now the man signing off on the policies that make them profitable.

Diana Fox Carney’s Quiet Role in the Climate Cash Machine

And just when you thought the web of influence stopped at the Prime Minister himself, along comes Diana Fox Carney, economist, climate consultant, and spouse of the most well-connected man in Canadian politics. While Mark Carney’s direct financial entanglements with Brookfield Asset Management are now public record, his wife’s career trajectory paints an equally troubling picture of how the same elite networks driving Canada’s green spending are profiting in parallel, behind the curtain.

Diana Fox Carney currently holds a senior advisory role at Eurasia Group, the New York-based geopolitical risk consultancy that’s become a quiet powerhouse in shaping global ESG narratives. It’s also the same firm where Gerald Butts—Trudeau’s longtime fixer and architect of the federal climate playbook—now serves as vice chair. Add in former journalist Evan Solomon and even Conservative stalwart John Baird, and you’ve got a bipartisan consultancy stacked with Canadian political operators. Convenient? Maybe. Coordinated? You decide.

And what has this firm staffed with Liberal-era insiders received in return? Millions in untendered government contracts, including a $446,210 deal from Natural Resources Canada in 2024 for vaguely defined “geopolitical research.” That’s nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer money handed out without competition, to a firm employing the sitting Prime Minister’s wife—and his former colleagues. Just coincidence, right?

But Eurasia Group is only the start. Diana’s reach extends far beyond advisory calls. She’s connected to:

  • BeyondNetZero, a climate equity fund backed by U.S. private capital giant General Atlantic.
  • Helios CLEAR, investing in African climate “resilience.”
  • ClientEarth U.S. and the Shell Foundation, both pushing aggressive environmental litigation and policy influence.
  • Canada 2020, a Trudeau-aligned think tank that’s pocketed over $1 million in federal grants.

Throw in indirect ties to Gates Foundation funding, Save the Children, and research networks influencing African agriculture, and you’re looking at a network of transnational climate consultants with deep, ongoing influence over the exact climate policies the federal government is now implementing under her husband’s leadership.

Now, legally, Diana is in the clear. She’s not a public office holder. But that’s the point. The rules weren’t designed for this new class of political operator—the dual-career globalist power couple, where one side signs the climate cheques while the other cashes them. No formal disclosure is required. No recusals. No transparency. Yet the influence is there. The access is there. The money is flowing.

Opposition Reaction: Pierre Poilievre Slams Carney’s Hidden Conflicts, Demands Real Transparency

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wasted no time responding to the bombshell ethics screen showing Prime Minister Mark Carney is recusing himself from dealings with over 100 companies, many tied to his former employer, Brookfield Asset Management. In a pair of direct and widely shared posts, Poilievre accused Carney of concealing critical financial entanglements from voters during the 2025 election, and warned that the Liberal leader is now either positioned to profit from federal decisions or paralyzed from making them.

“Mark Carney must explain why he kept these conflicts secret from voters until after the election,” Poilievre wrote. “Now he will be in a position to profit from big decisions or will be forced to sit out those decisions altogether. Either way, Canadians will pay the price.”

In a second post earlier that morning, Poilievre challenged the credibility of Carney’s so-called blind trust, urging the Prime Minister to liquidate his holdings entirely and hand the cash to a trustee who can invest it without Carney’s knowledge or influence:

“Otherwise, he will always know how political decisions can affect his personal wealth.”

These statements mark the strongest opposition rebuke yet of the Carney government’s financial entanglements. Poilievre’s message echoes growing public criticism that the ethics screen is little more than window dressing, lacking third-party oversight, and that it fails to address indirect benefit through carried interest, deferred compensation, or spousal affiliations.

While Carney has claimed he is in full compliance with federal ethics laws, the fact that the disclosures were released only after the election is fueling outrage—not just among Conservatives but from broader accountability watchdogs. With over 100 entities flagged, many of them tied to green energy, infrastructure, and climate finance—the same sectors receiving billions in federal spending—the Conservative leader has positioned himself as the voice of those demanding a full forensic audit of the Prime Minister’s interests.

The message from the opposition is clear: if this were a Conservative leader, the media would be calling it a scandal. But because it’s Carney—the global banker, the climate envoy, the Liberal savior—the establishment is looking the other way. Poilievre’s Conservatives aren’t. And they’re turning this into a defining issue of integrity and accountability in Canadian politics.

Let’s Call This What It Is

This isn’t subtle. This isn’t nuanced. This is what a grift looks like—on paper, in public, in black and white. Over one hundred conflicts of interest tied directly to Mark Carney. Entire portfolios of foreign and domestic holdings, billions in green investments, shell companies in Bermuda—and that’s before we even get to his wife’s global consultancy work, advising firms that quietly gobble up federal contracts without a single public tender.

And here’s the thing: we weren’t told any of this during the election. There was no press conference, no headline, no public vetting of the sprawling web of corporate and climate interests now tied to the highest office in the country. Why? Because it would have compromised the Liberal grip on power. Because the last thing this party wanted Canadians to know was that their new leader wasn’t just a banker—but a banker with a boardroom’s worth of financial strings still attached.

Now imagine—just for a moment—if it had been Pierre Poilievre. Or Andrew Scheer. Or any Conservative leader with over a hundred screened entities, global finance ties, offshore SPVs, and a spouse employed by a company collecting millions in government money. The press would be in a frenzy. The CBC would be running specials. They’d be calling him compromised, unfit, a foreign agent.

But because it’s their guy—because it’s the Liberal elite’s banker-in-chief—we’re told it’s fine. It’s all above board. Move along, nothing to see here.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

This is not leadership. This is ideological grifting at the highest level. The Liberal Party, once the party of national unity and democratic accountability, has become a hollowed-out machine for elite interests. They’re not liberals. They’re grifters—grifting for green subsidies, globalist contracts, and personal access to power. They have no principle left. Just consultants, contracts, and a taxpayer-funded narrative to keep the game going.

Enough. Canadians didn’t vote for this. They weren’t told the truth. And now the entire climate agenda, the whole “just transition,” looks more like a get-rich scheme for the political class than any serious public mission.

It’s time for an election. Time to clear house. Time to drain this toxic, green-glossed swamp once and for all.

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Blackouts Coming If America Continues With Biden-Era Green Frenzy, Trump Admin Warns

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

The Department of Energy (DOE) released a new report Monday warning of impending blackouts if the United States continues to shutter power plants without adequately replacing retiring capacity.

DOE warned in its Monday report that blackouts could increase by 100% by 2030 if the U.S. continues to retire power plants without sufficient replacements, and that the electricity grid is not prepared to meet the demand of power-hungry data centers in the years to come without more reliable generation coming online quickly. The report specifically highlighted wind and solar, two resources pushed by Biden, as responsible for eroding grid stability and advised that dispatchable generation from sources like coal, oil, gas and nuclear are necessary to meet the anticipated U.S. power demand.

“This report affirms what we already know: The United States cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued, forcing the closure of baseload power sources like coal and natural gas,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright said. “In the coming years, America’s reindustrialization and the AI race will require a significantly larger supply of around-the-clock, reliable, and uninterrupted power. President Trump’s administration is committed to advancing a strategy of energy addition, and supporting all forms of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure. If we are going to keep the lights on, win the AI race, and keep electricity prices from skyrocketing, the United States must unleash American energy.”

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All regional grid systems across the U.S. are expected to lose reliability in the coming years without the addition of more reliable power, according to the DOE’s report. The U.S. will need an additional 100 gigawatts of new peak hour supply by 2030, with data centers projected to require as much as half of this electricity, the report estimates; for reference, one gigawatt is enough to power up to one million homes.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day back in the Oval Office and signed an executive order on April 8 ordering DOE to review and identify at-risk regions of the electrical grid, which the report released Monday does. In contrast, former President Joe Biden cracked down on conventional power sources like coal with stringent regulations while unleashing a gusher of subsidies for green energy developments.

Electricity demand is projected to hit a record high in the next several years, surging 25% by 2030, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data and a recent ICF International report. Demand was essentially static for the last several years, and skyrocketing U.S. power demand presents an “urgent need” for electricity resources, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a major grid watchdog.

Wright has also issued several emergency orders to major grid operators since April. New Orleans experienced blackouts just two days after Wright issued an emergency order on May 23 to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the regional grid operator covering the New Orleans area.

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