Community
YMCA coming to Red Deer… to operate Northside Community Centre
From the City of Red Deer
Council to review budget for Northside Community Centre
At Monday’s regular City Council meeting, Council will review the operating budget for the Northside Community Centre. The City has entered into an Operating Agreement with the YMCA of Northern Alberta that will see the YMCA lease and operate the facility when it opens in July 2019.
“The YMCA approached us earlier this year about establishing a presence in the community,” said Shelley Gagnon, Recreation, Parks and Culture Manager. “As a result, we explored an operating model that would see them operate the Northside Community Centre.”
Over the past two years, the design for the Northside Community Centre has been refined and the facility will include multi-purpose space that can act as both gymnasium and special event gathering areas, culture programming space, flexible office/meeting rooms, fitness studio, and kitchen teaching space, interactive technology and play space, and a youth drop in area.
As construction nears completion and the building set to open, Council will consider the annual operating budget for the facility: $848,685.
“With the Operating Agreement with the YMCA in place and construction well underway, the budget is the final piece of the puzzle,” said Gagnon. “We’re looking forward to getting theNorthside Community Centre open in July to serve the residents of North Red Deer and thebroader community.”
More information regarding the agreement with the YMCA, including in-person media availability with The City of Red Deer and YMCA representatives, will be available at the October 29 Council meeting, or see the FAQ.
FAQ
The City of Red Deer has entered into an agreement with the YMCA of Northern Alberta that will see the YMCA operate the Northside Community Centre.
- Who is the YMCA of Northern YMCA?With over 2,000 volunteers and staff working together across Northern Alberta who believe in helping children and families reach their full potential, the YMCA of Northern Alberta is a charity dedicated to strengthening the foundations of community.
For over 111 years they have cared for kids, shaped leaders for tomorrow and helped generations of people come together to find support, get healthier and make friends for life. Their mission is to create life-enhancing opportunities for the growth and development of all people in spirit, mind and body.
As one of 47 Member Association across Canada, the YMCA of Northern Alberta currently provides programs and services in Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Wood Buffalo.
- What type or programs and services will be offered at the Northside Community Centre?Programming will be determined by the YMCA, but the Northside Community Centre features multi- purpose space that can act as both gymnasium and special event gathering areas, culture programming space, flexible office/meeting rooms, fitness studio, and kitchen teaching space, interactive technology and play space, and a youth drop in area.
The YMCA will operate the facility seven days a week, including holidays. The programs and services that will be offered assume that:
- ? The Centre will be a gathering place for community
- ? The facility will host a mix of local residents, residents from other areas of the city and user groups
- ? The schedule will be responsive to needs and evolve over time
- ? The Centre will serve individuals, families, agencies and rental groups
- ? Programming will serve the unique needs of the surrounding communities
- ? In order to offer a broad range of programming options without diminishing attendance at other City facilities, programming will be complementary especially with the GH Dawe Community Centre given its close proximity
- ? Programming will serve and be welcoming to every person – all ages, backgrounds, and circumstance.
- Why was the YMCA selected to operate the Northside Community Centre?The Northside Community Centre was originally envisioned to be a City-operated facility, but the YMCA approached The City in the spring and expressed interest in establishing a presence in the community through the possible operation of the Northside Community Centre. Over the summer, Administration explored this operating model, which led to the negotiation of the agreement.
The City of Red Deer and the YMCA of Northern Alberta are strongly aligned through their focus on healthy, vibrant, inclusive communities where children, adults and families can thrive. The YMCA works with children, youth, adult and families at all ages and stages of their lives, to help them develop and achieve their potential. As a result, they increase their overall health and wellness, develop leadership abilities, and increase their motivation and resilience. Their participation in the YMCA contributes to an increased sense of connection and belonging to each other, to their YMCA community and ultimately to their local and global community.
- How will this benefit the community?In addition to the strong alignment between the YMCA and The City of Red Deer when it comes tobuilding healthy, vibrant, inclusive communities for children, adults and families, the YMCA’sproposed services and programs for the Northside Community Centre directly align with the Recreation Parks and Culture department mandate. They also meet six of the 10 Social Policy Framework Community Goals.
As a well-known and established organization, the YMCA also brings extensive experience in housing, poverty prevention and reduction, employment services, and child care, that has the potential to extend beyond the Northside Community Centre.
Further, the YMCA’s service delivery model is built on a foundation of fostering social change. With intentional program design to address community needs and risks, the YMCA is able to respond with a broad spectrum of opportunities to deliver social outcomes.
- When will the Northside Community Centre open?Construction is underway and we expect the facility to open by July 1.
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.
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