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The Ghomeshi Effect stops in Red Deer, Friday Nov. 9th

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The Ghomeshi Effect explores sexual violence and the legal system in an increasingly divided world

Award-winning documentary dance-theatre performance stops in Red Deer

Red Deer, Alberta (October 23, 2018) – With sexual violence dominating the news cycle and social media feeds, Ottawa’s award-winning documentary dance-theatre performance The Ghomeshi Effect offers a nuanced exploration of how the legal system handles sexual assault cases in Canada.

Following a limited run at the University of Ottawa’s LabO Theatre from October 23 to 27, the play will tour universities and communities in Ontario and Alberta, including London, Sudbury, North Bay, Cochrane and Area, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Edmonton and Fort McMurray. All performances are followed by a talkback with expert panellists from each community. Dates and venues listed below.

The Ghomeshi Effect will be presented in Red Deer by the Central Alberta Sexual Assault Support Centre (CASASC) on Friday, November 9 at the Red Deer Memorial Centre. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are per person.

In the aftermath of #MeToo and #TimesUp, The Ghomeshi Effect shares real-life stories of survivors alongside interviews with lawyers, academics, and support workers, and offers new perspectives and opportunities for open discussion through words and movement.

“We need to talk about this,” said Jessica Ruano, writer and director of The Ghomeshi Effect. “We need to find new ways of talking about it. We need to have conversations that move beyond provocative news articles and Facebook battles that are eliciting strong reactions, yet further dividing us.”

CASASC Executive Director Patricia Arango says the not-for-profit is thrilled to bring the impactful production to the central Alberta region.

“Through The Ghomeshi Effect, we can have a conversation on the topic of sexual violence and invite people to work together to prevent sexual violence,” said Arango. “We as a society need to recover our freedom and no longer live in fear. It begins first as a conversation, working towards preventing sexual violence in our community.”

About the production:

The Ghomeshi Effect tackles sexual violence in Canada, particularly how it is handled in the legal system, through an edited series of documented interviews, and uses dance to inform and interrogate the language used in the discussion of sexual violence.

Written and directed by Jessica Ruano (2017 Femmy Award Winner) and choreographed by Amelia Griffin, this production features performers Nayeli Abrego, Leah Archambault, Elizabeth Emond-Stevenson, Gabrielle Lalonde, Joy Mwandemange, Emmanuel Simon, and Michael Swatton, as well as the work of lighting designer Benoi?t Brunet-Poirier and sound designer Martin Dawagne.

The Ghomeshi Effect was originally presented as part of The Gladstone’s 2016-17 Season and played at the Shenkman Arts Centre. Since then, members of the team have presented at the LEAF Gala in Toronto, International Women’s Day Ottawa, and Take Back the Night – Lanark County.

The Ghomeshi Effect acknowledges funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, and the Alberta Status of Women.

CASASC is a voluntary, non-profit organization serving the Central Alberta region under the direction of a community-based Board of Directors. CASASC educates, supports and empowers individuals, families and communities regarding all aspects of sexual abuse and sexual assault.

Tickets are $5 and are available through The Black Knight Ticket Centre (in person or online at https://tickets.blackknightinn.ca) or at the Central Alberta Sexual Assault Support Centre (A201, 5212 48 St, Red Deer, AB). High school students receive complimentary entrance with a valid high school id at the door.

 

President Todayville Inc., Honorary Colonel 41 Signal Regiment, Board Member Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award Foundation, Director Canadian Forces Liaison Council (Alberta) musician, photographer, former VP/GM CTV Edmonton.

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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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