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Paralyzed pup is going to have a very merry Christmas after all

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4 minute read

From The Central Alberta Humane Society

You may have seen these pictures of Angel when she came into Central Alberta Humane Society a few weeks ago. She came to us from the Town of Sylvan Lake Bylaw, found outside an apartment building. Angel was paralyzed on her hind end and was extremely emaciated and malnourished… just look at those sad eyes. We didn’t know the outcome for this poor girl, and you, our amazing supporters & donors graciously flooded Angel with kind words and donations. We are so very thankful to everyone who took a special interest in this sweet girl’s journey.

After consulting veterinarians & specialists, we learned Angel was born paralyzed & it wasn’t a result of an injury, a bit of positive news. We were told a doggy wheelchair would be the best option for her. Angel stayed in our offices and received so much love and care from our staff & volunteers, while we continued to monitor her to make sure she was eating, drinking, and putting on weight. She was, and we were thrilled to see her demeanor change from sad & nervous to a happy, fun-loving, pup! Enter feel good adoption story…

We are so grateful that Lisa happened to come across our plea for Angel on social media. She herself has a paralyzed & deaf dog named Pooter, who happily lives his life in a wheel chair. Lisa told us that something about Angel connected to her, and we felt the same with her. After she told us more about herself, her husband Jeff & their fur-babies, we knew they would be the perfect family for Angel. Incredibly, Lisa gave up her job many years ago to care for Pooter full time. There was no way he could be left alone everyday, and selflessly they both have given up so much to care for their special needs animals, but they get so much love in return too.

Yesterday we were shown that Christmas miracles do happen and these incredible adopters have proven it. Jeff and Lisa drove almost 3 hours with their paralyzed dog Pooter to meet our sweet Angel for the first time. Pooter is as incredible as his people and boy did he show Angel how a set of wheels can work!

We were excited to send Angel off into her sunset with an amazing experienced family and a new life that will include a wheelchair and round the clock care. We have never met a family more committed to their animals, Angel is in great hands. Lisa & Jeff will be creating a special Facebook page just for Angel, so that you can follow her progress and share in her new journey if you wish. We will share it on our Facebook page once it is up.
Once again we want to thank you all for your donations, your kind words and your inspiring support for this beautiful little dog. Our staff had many happy tears saying bye to Angel. We will truly miss her playful nuzzles, her little barks and her loving snuggles. She stole many hearts during her short stay with us but we know that she will now have a chance to live her very best life. A Christmas miracle indeed!

 

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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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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