Business
Sweet Capones making sweet dreams come true with special training opportunities for employees

Pictured here is Ciarrea Martin, café manager of Sweet Capone’s Red Deer location. The popular bakery is gearing up to launch training programs to help folks have a better chance of landing employment.
By Mark Weber
Known for their scrumptious cannolis, Sweet Capone’s Italian Bakery and Cannoli Shop is now launching what promises to be life-changing training opportunities.
“I was a paramedic before we started Sweet Capone’s and I absolutely loved my job; I loved helping people,” explained Carina Moran who owns the bakery along with her husband Joel.
They first opened the popular establishment six years ago, having since expanded to Lacombe as well. An injury forced a shift in direction from being a paramedic, and thus the establishment of Sweet Capone’s – which has met with tremendous success.
“I first started selling our family’s cannolis out of our house, but I always felt that the shop needed to stand for something much more – that was always on my heart,” she said. “We’ve always been ‘seeding’ into organizations around us – we’ve been helping local soup kitchens, homeless shelters and women’s shelters by giving donations. It’s a wonderful way to help, but I think the thing we have always had an issue with that it never felt like it was enough,” she said, adding that she has felt how vital it is to support those need help – particularly folks who need a hand in landing employment. “There are people who are constantly looked over – they want to have job skills, and they want others to take a chance on them, but they are often given a pass.”
To date, Carina and Joel have made it a priority to hire those who could use an opportunity to put their gifts and skills to work, but just haven’t been given the chance.
Take Ciarrea, who manages the café in the Red Deer location. A single mom at a young age, she didn’t have managerial experience at first.
“Sweet Capone’s was her very first job. We have believed in her, and we’ve given her opportunity because really – at the end of the day – she did have managerial skills through having to manage a house with two little kids,” noted Carina.
“Now, she’s our manager and we’ve also sent her back to school to take managerial courses. And then one of our delivery drivers is a war veteran – again, he needed someone to take a chance on him.”
Some of Sweet Capone’s bakery workers are immigrants who simply needed an open door to walk through as well. So that has been the approach the couple has consistently taken. But it’s all about to be taken to a new level.
“One of my favourite quotes is from Desmond Tutu – ‘Instead of pulling people out of the water, we need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in in the first place’,” said Carina. “If we give people a chance to develop skills and confidence in themselves; to have someone believe in them and give them an opportunity – I really believe it could help to save them before they got to a place of entering a world where nobody would help them out. They may then start seeking other paths or other things that don’t serve them well.”
To that end, a recent grant to help develop women entrepreneurs is helping Sweet Capone’s to take on a new kind of mission – to be able to provide training to those who need an open door so they can build a better life and a more secure future.
“We are already on the way to making plans about what it would look like to have another location somewhere else, and how can we get that up and running? What organizations are we going to work with to help us with the training competent?”
She also has her eye on those emerging from treatment programs who need someone to offer them a chance when it comes to employment.
Ultimately, Carina points to her Christian faith as being the key inspiration behind delving into this exciting new venture. “I feel like there are so many people in this world who just get passed over, and they just aren’t given a chance.”
She also believes it will take a team to bring this vision ultimately to fruition.
“To see Ciaerra grow and also surprise herself with what she is capable of when all she needed was the opportunity – it’s 100 per cent her – she shows up every day and she just gives it her all,” explained Carina. “Watching her grow in a safe environment has been very, very cool.”
At the end of the day, Carina emphasizes that this initiative is all about others.
“I’m a girl of faith, and God has put this on my heart,” she explained. “I’m just obeying Him – I’m just doing what He told me to do. That’s it. It’s always been on my heart – He has had this on my heart since day one.”
She has also been inspired by her own kids – who launched the Caring Cookie Company a few years back. “They raised money for the homeless shelter, but what it also did for my husband and I is it showed us how easy it is to get caught up as a business owner in the world of profit,” she explained. “The boys brought it back down to what matters. Sometimes, you stop seeing the human side of things, and our kids really showed us that. We really started to think about what we’re doing with our lives – what are we doing with this business?”
It really boils down to taking a step of faith.
“You have to step out with that intention first of all – and the rest will follow.”
As mentioned, Ciarrea started with Sweet Capone’s nearly four years ago. “Essentially, I had never had a job before coming here,” she explained. “I really wanted to work, so I was looking for a job everywhere.”
Ciarrea explained to Carina how much she loved the bakery and told her how much she would like to work at Sweet Capone’s.
It wasn’t long before she got a call about a position that had opened.
“It was a couple of shifts a week, and I said yes! Anything – just to be at the store,” she recalled.
Over time, she learned the day-to-day routines at the bakery and has never looked back.
Like Carina, her Christian faith inspires her in virtually everything she does. And her sense of gratitude is unmistakable. “They were just very willing, (and welcomed) us with open arms,” Ciarrea added, reflecting on those early days.
“Every time I have had any type of struggle, complication or an area that I’ve needed work in, they’ve always taken me under their wing.”
“There are things that I need to work on as well, and Carina isn’t afraid to tell me that,” she said. “It’s incredible for me because I love to grow and learn. It’s been incredible to work alongside them both, and to see how they do things. They are an amazing team!”
She’s thrilled with the news about the expanded training programs. With aspirations of one day owning her own eatery, Ciarrea is indeed grateful for the experience and the wisdom that the Morans have poured into her life. And ultimately, she certainly agrees that it’s also about giving someone an opportunity. It’s often at that point that their true potential has the chance to flourish.
“It’s about having that understanding that maybe just looking at a piece of paper isn’t a complete description or definition of a person,” she explained. “I also know that from the beginning, we have stood for helping to raise people up – whether it be in their personal lives or work lives.”
Automotive
Federal government should swiftly axe foolish EV mandate

From the Fraser Institute
Two recent events exemplify the fundamental irrationality that is Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) policy.
First, the Carney government re-committed to Justin Trudeau’s EV transition mandate that by 2035 all (that’s 100 per cent) of new car sales in Canada consist of “zero emission vehicles” including battery EVs, plug-in hybrid EVs and fuel-cell powered vehicles (which are virtually non-existent in today’s market). This policy has been a foolish idea since inception. The mass of car-buyers in Canada showed little desire to buy them in 2022, when the government announced the plan, and they still don’t want them.
Second, President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill has slashed taxpayer subsidies for buying new and used EVs, ended federal support for EV charging stations, and limited the ability of states to use fuel standards to force EVs onto the sales lot. Of course, Canada should not craft policy to simply match U.S. policy, but in light of policy changes south of the border Canadian policymakers would be wise to give their own EV policies a rethink.
And in this case, a rethink—that is, scrapping Ottawa’s mandate—would only benefit most Canadians. Indeed, most Canadians disapprove of the mandate; most do not want to buy EVs; most can’t afford to buy EVs (which are more expensive than traditional internal combustion vehicles and more expensive to insure and repair); and if they do manage to swing the cost of an EV, most will likely find it difficult to find public charging stations.
Also, consider this. Globally, the mining sector likely lacks the ability to keep up with the supply of metals needed to produce EVs and satisfy government mandates like we have in Canada, potentially further driving up production costs and ultimately sticker prices.
Finally, if you’re worried about losing the climate and environmental benefits of an EV transition, you should, well, not worry that much. The benefits of vehicle electrification for climate/environmental risk reduction have been oversold. In some circumstances EVs can help reduce GHG emissions—in others, they can make them worse. It depends on the fuel used to generate electricity used to charge them. And EVs have environmental negatives of their own—their fancy tires cause a lot of fine particulate pollution, one of the more harmful types of air pollution that can affect our health. And when they burst into flames (which they do with disturbing regularity) they spew toxic metals and plastics into the air with abandon.
So, to sum up in point form. Prime Minister Carney’s government has re-upped its commitment to the Trudeau-era 2035 EV mandate even while Canadians have shown for years that most don’t want to buy them. EVs don’t provide meaningful environmental benefits. They represent the worst of public policy (picking winning or losing technologies in mass markets). They are unjust (tax-robbing people who can’t afford them to subsidize those who can). And taxpayer-funded “investments” in EVs and EV-battery technology will likely be wasted in light of the diminishing U.S. market for Canadian EV tech.
If ever there was a policy so justifiably axed on its failed merits, it’s Ottawa’s EV mandate. Hopefully, the pragmatists we’ve heard much about since Carney’s election victory will acknowledge EV reality.
Business
Prime minister can make good on campaign promise by reforming Canada Health Act

From the Fraser Institute
While running for the job of leading the country, Prime Minister Carney promised to defend the Canada Health Act (CHA) and build a health-care system Canadians can be proud of. Unfortunately, to have any hope of accomplishing the latter promise, he must break the former and reform the CHA.
As long as Ottawa upholds and maintains the CHA in its current form, Canadians will not have a timely, accessible and high-quality universal health-care system they can be proud of.
Consider for a moment the remarkably poor state of health care in Canada today. According to international comparisons of universal health-care systems, Canadians endure some of the lowest access to physicians, medical technologies and hospital beds in the developed world, and wait in queues for health care that routinely rank among the longest in the developed world. This is all happening despite Canadians paying for one of the developed world’s most expensive universal-access health-care systems.
None of this is new. Canada’s poor ranking in the availability of services—despite high spending—reaches back at least two decades. And wait times for health care have nearly tripled since the early 1990s. Back then, in 1993, Canadians could expect to wait 9.3 weeks for medical treatment after GP referral compared to 30 weeks in 2024.
But fortunately, we can find the solutions to our health-care woes in other countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia, which all provide more timely access to quality universal care. Every one of these countries requires patient cost-sharing for physician and hospital services, and allows private competition in the delivery of universally accessible services with money following patients to hospitals and surgical clinics. And all these countries allow private purchases of health care, as this reduces the burden on the publicly-funded system and creates a valuable pressure valve for it.
And this brings us back to the CHA, which contains the federal government’s requirements for provincial policymaking. To receive their full federal cash transfers for health care from Ottawa (totalling nearly $55 billion in 2025/26) provinces must abide by CHA rules and regulations.
And therein lies the rub—the CHA expressly disallows requiring patients to share the cost of treatment while the CHA’s often vaguely defined terms and conditions have been used by federal governments to discourage a larger role for the private sector in the delivery of health-care services.
Clearly, it’s time for Ottawa’s approach to reflect a more contemporary understanding of how to structure a truly world-class universal health-care system.
Prime Minister Carney can begin by learning from the federal government’s own welfare reforms in the 1990s, which reduced federal transfers and allowed provinces more flexibility with policymaking. The resulting period of provincial policy innovation reduced welfare dependency and government spending on social assistance (i.e. savings for taxpayers). When Ottawa stepped back and allowed the provinces to vary policy to their unique circumstances, Canadians got improved outcomes for fewer dollars.
We need that same approach for health care today, and it begins with the federal government reforming the CHA to expressly allow provinces the ability to explore alternate policy approaches, while maintaining the foundational principles of universality.
Next, the Carney government should either hold cash transfers for health care constant (in nominal terms), reduce them or eliminate them entirely with a concordant reduction in federal taxes. By reducing (or eliminating) the pool of cash tied to the strings of the CHA, provinces would have greater freedom to pursue reform policies they consider to be in the best interests of their residents without federal intervention.
After more than four decades of effectively mandating failing health policy, it’s high time to remove ambiguity and minimize uncertainty—and the potential for politically motivated interpretations—in the CHA. If Prime Minister Carney wants Canadians to finally have a world-class health-care system then can be proud of, he should allow the provinces to choose their own set of universal health-care policies. The first step is to fix, rather than defend, the 40-year-old legislation holding the provinces back.
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