News
Fire Advisories, Heat Warnings & Kim Mitchell In Red Deer
3:48 pm – Officials with Westerner Park in Red Deer have announced that Kim Mitchell, the iconic Canadian rocker, will co-headline the second night of Westerner Days alongside Chilliwack on Thursday, July 20th. Mitchell will replace Kenny Shields and Streetheart who recently had to cancel their entire 2017 tour due to illness.
12:19 pm – Some road closures to make note of in Sylvan Lake over the next couple of days. They include a southbound lane closure along 46 Street between 47 Avenue & 49 Avenue on July 7. Also, Lakeshore Drive will be closed to vehicular traffic on Friday, July 7 from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM for a special event, but remains open for pedestrians. Finally, 37 Street will be closed on Saturday, July 8 from 4:00 PM until 10:00 PM for a special event.
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12:08 pm – After years of planning and development, an entrepreneurial Lacombe area family and a Red Deer-raised, award-winning California architect have launched an innovative residential community in Lacombe County. Read More.
12:01 pm – Lacombe County Council has adopted revisions of two of it’s most important documents that will provide guidance on how the County will develop over the next decade. Details Here.
11:51 am – The Abbey Centre Super Kids Triathlon in Blackfalds takes place on Saturday, July 8th! Click Here to register or find out more!
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11:37 am – The Benalto Fair & Stampede continues today through Sunday (July 6 – July 9) It’s the 100th anniversary of the Pro Rodeo! Read More.
11:09 am – A Red Deer couple plan to enjoy their future very much after winning $726,341 on the June 2nd Lotto Max draw. Robert Mansell couldn’t believe his good fortune and says “We’re going to pay off the house and the rest of our bills,” adding “We also want to go on a holiday, and I’ll probably buy a new truck and trailer.” Mansell purchased his winning Lotto Max ticket at Shoppers Drug Mart, located at 7 Clearview Market Way in Red Deer.
10:58 am – 30 year old Cheyenne Ashley Yellowface faces 16 charges in connection with an armed robbery at the Mac’s convenience store on Jewell Street in Red Deer shortly after 9 am on July 6th. Read More.
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9:10 am – From Art Exhibits, to live music and dancing, there’s lots going on in and around Red Deer over the next few days. Click Here to check out the City’s Community Events Calendar!
9:03 am – Tickets are on sale now for Red Deer County’s 2017 Rural Beautification Tour. The tour takes place on Wednesday, July 26th and departs from the Cross Roads Church. There will also be a pickup location in Innisfail. Tickets are only $30 each, with cash, debit, or cheque accepted for payments.
8:53 am – Avoid traffic tie-ups in Red Deer over the next few days by knowing where the road closures and traffic disruptions are. Details Here.
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8:47 AM – Ponoka RCMP are thanking the public for their help in finding 25 year old Ryan Roman who was previously reported missing.
8:40 am – Red Deer RCMP are looking for four or five suspects in a stolen Buick Lucerne after they robbed a man at gunpoint in a convenience store parking Thursday afternoon. Details Here.
8:25 am – The Comfortec Red Deer Duathlon is a premium run-bike-run race event taking place at the Penhold Regional Multiplex and in the beautiful Red Deer County countryside, on the morning of Saturday, July 8th. To register or find out more, click here!
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8:15 am – Get into weekend mode by enjoying some live music on the Alexander Way Parklet in downtown Red Deer today! 11:30 – 1:00 pm. Read More.
8:03 am – Fire Advisories remain in place for many parts of Alberta as conditions dry up under the current heat wave of sorts. Advisories are in place for Lacombe County, Ponoka County, Town of Rimbey, Town of Rocky Mountain House, the Rocky Mountain House Forest Area, Clearwater County, Village of Caroline and the Summer Village of Burnstick Lake. Read More.
7:49 am – Today is day two of Heat Warnings being issued for Red Deer and surrounding areas. We’re expecting a High of 30 this afternoon. Read More.
Catherine Herridge
How X And Joe Rogan Broke The Back of 60 Minutes
TOP LINE: | |||||||||||||||
Super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices and embrace transparency. The post election TV ratings abyss is driven both by technology and by the public’s loss of trust in Mainstream media. | |||||||||||||||
DEEP DIVE: | |||||||||||||||
To buy MSNBC or not to buy? | |||||||||||||||
This week’s headline that Comcast will spin off its cable channels underscores the tectonic shift in the media marketplace and how technology is providing the exit ramp for competing platforms. | |||||||||||||||
When my job as a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News was terminated in February, I took a few months to educate myself about the marketplace because so much had changed since I left Fox in 2019. What I found was genuinely surprising, a little frightening and, oddly, re-assuring for the strength of our democracy. | |||||||||||||||
You can’t argue with the data. It is compelling. On Election Day, according to @Xdata, the platform boasted record usage of 942 million posts worldwide and 2.2 million hours of watch or listen time over approximately 160k live events. The X data crushed engagement numbers for the mainstream media (MSM.) | |||||||||||||||
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By example, a Tucker Carlson interview on X has 35 million engagements. The CBS Evening News has 4.5 million viewers. If I had to choose, I’d take 30 million engagements on X because it represents explosive growth. | |||||||||||||||
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The new super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices, and embrace transparency which can strengthen democracy. This is nothing short of an industrial revolution driven both by technology and by loss of trust in corporate media. | |||||||||||||||
In 2023, Human Rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama wrote about the upheaval and resulting, “elite panic.” | |||||||||||||||
“Elite panic is this recurring phenomenon throughout the history of free speech, where whenever the public sphere is expanded, either through new communications technology, or to segments of the population that were previously marginalized, the traditional gatekeepers, the elites who control access to information, tend to fret about the dangers of allowing the unwashed mob — who are too fickle, too unsophisticated, too unlearned — unmediated access to information. They need information to be filtered through the responsible gatekeepers and it may be even more dangerous to allow them to speak without adult supervision. That’s a phenomenon that we see again and again. And we’re seeing it play out now on social media. … [Elite panic is] one contributing factor to the free speech recession.” | |||||||||||||||
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If you asked me four years ago, if a presidential candidate could skip a 60 Minutes interview, I would have been skeptical. Four years later, candidate Trump bypassed the legacy news magazine and instead, sat down with Joe Rogan. As of this writing, the marathon sit-down viewership reached 51 million views. | |||||||||||||||
There is no doubt Rogan is a skilled interviewer who can draw out his subjects and deliver huge audiences. Compared to heavily edited network TV reports, the raw, unedited format reveals much about the subject. In politics, the podcast is perfectly suited for the “beer question” which measures a candidate’s authenticity and likability. | |||||||||||||||
The progressive Harris campaign took a more traditional media approach and came up short. Neither celebrity endorsements which feel less relevant nor a 60 Minutes interview seemed to move the needle. The combined audience of the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview and its views on YouTube landed at about 10 million, far less than what Rogan and X delivered. | |||||||||||||||
The legacy of the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview is not her responses but the lingering controversy over the CBS’ interview edit. And that is where the public’s loss of trust in the media comes in. I believe this is another driver of the audience exodus. | |||||||||||||||
CBS aired two different answers from the Vice President to the same question from correspondent Bill Whitaker about the Israeli Prime Minister apparently ignoring the Biden Administration. | |||||||||||||||
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Since, a credible complaint has been filed at the FCC alleging “news distortion” at the network with a reasonable demand that the full, unedited Kamala Harris transcript be released. CBS News has said “it fairly presented the interview to inform the viewing audience and not to mislead it.” | |||||||||||||||
In the October newsletter, I explained that releasing the full, unedited transcript would resolve these questions. There is ample precedent. | |||||||||||||||
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As a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News, I interviewed President Trump at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I advocated for and CBS News published the full, unedited transcript. | |||||||||||||||
The CBS News Trump interview was not a special case. The full, unedited transcript from Attorney General Bill Barr’s 2019 interview with CBS chief legal affairs correspondent Jan Crawford was also shared by the network. And more recently, 60 Minutes released the full unedited transcript of its interview with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. | |||||||||||||||
If the current trend continues, in the 2028 election cycle, the broadcast networks will firmly take a back seat to podcasts, town halls, and investigative journalism on X. For independent journalists and small digital newsrooms, the challenge is developing revenue streams that are viable. | |||||||||||||||
In February, I was not comforted by the analogy that losing my corporate reporting job was like getting pushed off the Titanic when there were still seats in the lifeboats. In retrospect, I wonder if it may turn out to be more accurate than I initially thought. | |||||||||||||||
After turning down job offers for which I remain grateful, I began building the Catherine Herridge Reports brand on X and in the newsletter marketplace. These platforms are the new media beachheads. Content is King. | |||||||||||||||
I’ll have more to say about the future of journalism and why journalism is called a profession for a reason. Look for exclusive new content on media accountability in the coming days! | |||||||||||||||
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and supporting independent investigative journalism! |
Business
Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill
Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.
In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.
This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.
However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.
Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.
Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.
Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.
Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.
Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.
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