Community
Tale of two cities: Red Deer and Red Deer North 68 years of neglect
Is it a North/South issue? Darn right it is.
January 1 1948, the Village of North Red Deer amalgamated with Red Deer and started paying an extra surtax to connect services and the neglect started.
Red Deer could not keep up with servicing their own growth, let alone tie in the north side, and the conviction that North Red Deer was being treated as poorer second class citizens started to take shape.
Beginning in the 1950s the voters began voting in blocks to ensure at least one vote on council. The feeling of being neglected continued to grow through good times and bad. In the late fifties and early sixties, a few schools were built in Normandeau, Fairview and Oriole Park, but St. Joseph’s was closed and the students shipped across the river to St. Thomas Aquinas in 1960.
By the 1970s the lack of facilities in North Red Deer became so apparent that representatives from the school boards, regional planning, and city administration met and started plans what is now commonly called the Dawe Centre with a public school, separate school, library, ice rink and a pool. The pool was added in 1980 and upgrades happened in 2008.
The last school built in North Red Deer was the Glendale School in 1985, I believe, which makes it 30 years. 35 years for the Dawe Ctr., 50 years for Oriole Park, Fairview and Aspen Heights.
The population has gone as low as 25% but it has gone as high as 40% and I calculate that it averages out to 33.3%. Does North Red Deer receive 33.3% attention? I believe history shows it does not.
I believe that the last school destined to be built in the north was actually built in the south in an area that had so many schools that they had to change boundaries of 5 schools. The third high school on 30 ave is under construction with 2 more on the drawing boards. No high school is planned for North Red Deer in the next 20 years even with the population north of the river, hitting 50,000 by then.
North Red Deer has not seen a new build in schools, ice rink or swimming pools in 30 years. 3 schools are k-8 which I do not believe exists south of the river. I believe there is one elected official out of 9, at city hall who lives north of the river, I think Councillor Wong does.
There was an ad-hoc committee to look at the need for a 50m pool, and the conclusion was yes, then after all the wait ,nothing happened. A study will be conducted on the need for a new ice rink, and we are being told to wait, then like the ad-hoc committee, nothing. We have the stats.
There are 4 aquatic centres on Red Deer, 3 south of the river, 1 north. There are 6 indoor ice rinks, 5 south of the river, and 1 north. They have the data to determine 60% use the Collicutt Centre, so why the wait.
We are often times told that our elected officials represent the whole community but history and facts prove that is not happening. We can spend 10s of millions on visual aspects of downtown structures like the Sorenson Station without blinking an eye, 10s of millions to beautify the Riverlands or 3.7 million painting a bridge but a 1 million dollar annual mortgage payment on a new ice rink in Red Deer North, you would have us believe it would destroy our economy.
Even the head of the Red Deer Taxpayers’ Association thinks we should build the 50m pool. Blackfalds, Penhold, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, are investing in their community facilities to encourage growth but not Red Deer. I was told that in one recent report that more new houses are being built in Blackfalds than in all of Red Deer. Perhaps it might have been the new recreational complex built in Blackfalds away from downtown.
We have an opportunity staring at us, but our elected officials need to have vision, to see it. 3,000 acres north of Hwy 11A is coming up for development, offering us land to develop recreational facilities and for new high schools. Perhaps like in 1971 representatives from school boards, regions, city administration can get together and come up with a plan. Invite Blackfalds and county students to attend the high schools. Make the Aquatic Centre a regional centre with capacity to host provincial and federal events.
Hazlett Lake is up for development. It will be the largest lake in Red Deer, and it could be incorporated into the Aquatic Centre, or a standalone destination. It could be handed over to the privileged few in a gated community but I hope it does what Lethbridge did and make it a popular destination for everyone.
Is this a North vs. South issue? Yes it is but it does not have to be. I ask that the elected officials look through each issue separately but also through a north/south matrix given the historical neglect of North Red Deer.
Look at the facts. Follow the money, now and in past capital budgets. Referring to past capital plans as only placeholders negates the value of current and future capital plans so why bother even having them. A capital plan 5 years old has no value will any capital plan have value after the next election. Capital plans have simply become an avenue or a façade for lack of action.
Perhaps the north should follow in their ancestor’s footsteps and do block voting, and strategically vote for north side representation. Perhaps organize and petition for a ward system for city hall and the school boards?
I would say that we should call it what it is, and not hide behind platitudes and delusions. Be honest with ourselves and most importantly be honest with the residents of North Red Deer. A NORTH/SOUTH issue is what it is. Would you not agree?
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)
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
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
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.
Trudeau admits immigration too much for Canada to ‘absorb’ but keeps target at record high
Trudeau’s new online censorship law – Problems with Bill C-63 / the Online Arms Law
Decarbonization deal opens new chapter in Alberta-Japan relationship
Canadian judge blocks imminent euthanasia death of 27-year-old autistic woman
-
COVID-193 hours agoJapanese study shows disturbing increase in cancer related deaths during the Covid pandemic
-
Jordan Peterson2 days agoJordan Peterson slams CBC for only interviewing pro-LGBT doctors about UK report on child ‘sex changes’
-
Freedom Convoy2 days agoTrudeau’s use of Emergencies Act has cost taxpayers $73 million thus far
-
Alberta2 days agoDanielle Smith warns arsonists who start wildfires in Alberta that they will be held accountable
-
Addictions2 days agoLiberal MP blasts Trudeau-backed ‘safe supply’ drug programs, linking them to ‘chaos’ in cities
-
Frontier Centre for Public Policy2 days agoThe Smallwood solution
-
Agriculture2 days agoBill C-282, now in the Senate, risks holding back other economic sectors and further burdening consumers
-
Bruce Dowbiggin1 day agoWhy Are Canadian Mayors So Far Left And Out Of Touch?