Westerner Park’s Urban Farm Festival A Big Success!

On Sunday, August 20, our first Urban Farm Festival was held at Westerner Park. The goal of the Festival, presented by Peavey Mart, was to educate and encourage people to bring aspects of farm living into their urban homes. This was achieved through a trade show style set-up featuring exhibitors, compromised of local producers selling homemade or home-grown products. Admission was free for anyone wanting to attend, thanks to the generous support of our sponsors.

There were also free workshops for attendees to participate in, led by local people with experience in the subject matter. Workshops offered included: Urban Chickens, Hobby Bee Keeping, Canning, and Gardening Basics (sponsored by Peavey Mart) and Is Your Home Healthy? (sponsored by Health Canada). The Festival, which fell in line with Alberta Open Farm Days, also offered a petting zoo for children and adults to experience animals up close.

“Opening our doors and allowing people to experience aspects of the farm life that they can bring into their own homes was a way that Westerner Park could share their agriculture roots with the community,” says Christina Sturgeon, Agriculture Event Sales & Production Coordinator, Westerner Park. “We want people to know where their food is coming from and understand the benefits of growing your own or supporting local vendors by buying their natural, homemade and home-grown products.”

In order to better understand how growing one’s own garden can be easy and sustainable, Westerner Park employees, with the help of Steel Pony Farms, planted our own Urban Farm near the racetrack on Westerner Park property in May. These small gardens were grown inside cedar boxes called wicking beds, which collect rainwater and feed the plants from the bottom up as they require hydration. This limits the frequency that the beds need to be watered by hand, and could eliminate it altogether depending on the amount of rainfall the area receives. The planting of the Urban Farm was supported by Red Deer County.

Westerner Park also collected donations from TJ’s Market Garden to donate back to our community through the Mustard Seed and Red Deer Food Bank. A total of 230lbs of produce was donated.

Sunday evening, 60 people gathered in the Holiday Inn Chalet for the “Taste of Home” Long Table Dinner, prepared by Chef Emmanuel of the Boulevard Restaurant & Lounge. The meal consisted of mostly locally sourced organic ingredients, including donations from local producers Rock Ridge Dairy, James Ramsey, Flying Cross Ranch, and the Little Ice Cream & Soda Shoppe. A highlight of the evening was watching Chef demonstrate how to make his honey berry flambe topped with vanilla bean ice cream.

Hosted by Trevor Stoyko from CRUZ 100.7, the event was well received by those in attendance with many looking forward to next year’s event.

With the first Urban Farm Festival and Long Table Dinner being a success, our staff at Westerner Park are already planning how to make next year’s festivities bigger. “We want to grow the agricultural community within Red Deer and Red Deer County’s urban setting and have people be more aware of where they are getting their food and other products. That is our ultimate goal,” says Sturgeon.

For a full list of sponsors, or information about other events happening at Westerner Park, please visit westernerpark.ca.

Related Topics:Red Deer Westerner Park Westerner Park Urban Farm Festival

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Business

Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces

Published on November 21, 2024

Todayville

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.

Authors:

Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill

National

Liberals, NDP admit closed-door meetings took place in attempt to delay Canada’s next election

Published on November 12, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Pushing back the date would preserve the pensions of some of the MPs who could be voted out of office in October 2025.

Aides to the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that MPs from the Liberal and New Democratic Party (NDP) did indeed hold closed-door “briefings” to rewrite Canada’s elections laws so that they could push back the date of the next election.

The closed-door talks between the NDP and Liberals confirmed the aides included a revision that would guarantee some of its 28 MPs, including three of Trudeau’s cabinet members, would get a pension.

Allen Sutherland, who serves as the assistant cabinet secretary, testified before the House of Commons affairs committee that the changes to the Elections Act were discussed in the meetings.

“We attended a meeting where the substance of that proposal was discussed,” he said, adding that his “understanding is the briefing was primarily oral.”

According to Sutherland, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, it was only NDP and Liberal MPs who attended the secret meetings regarding changes to Canada’s Elections Act via Bill C-65, An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act before the bill was introduced in March.

As reported by LifeSiteNews before, the Liberals were hoping to delay the 2025 federal election by a few days in what many see as a stunt to secure pensions for MPs who are projected to lose their seats. Approximately 80 MPs would qualify for pensions should they sit as MPs until at least October 27, 2025, which is the newly proposed election date. The election date is currently set for October 20, 2025.

Sutherland noted when asked by Conservative MP Luc Berthold that he recalled little from the meetings, but he did confirm he attended “two meetings of that kind.”

“Didn’t you find it unusual that a discussion about amending the Elections Act included only two political parties and excluded the others?” Berthold asked.

Sutherland responded, “It’s important to understand what my role was in those meetings which was simply to provide background information.”

“My role was to provide information,” replied Sutherland, who added he could not provide the exact dates of the meetings.

MPs must serve at least six years to qualify for a pension that pays $77,900 a year. Should an election be called today, many MPs would fall short of reaching the six years, hence Bill C-65 was introduced by the Liberals and NDP.

The Liberals have claimed that pushing back the next election date is not over pensions but due to “trying to observe religious holidays,” as noted by Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen.

“Conservatives voted against this bill,” Berthold said, as they are “confident of winning re-election. We don’t need this change.”

Trudeau’s popularity is at a all-time low, but he has refused to step down as PM, call an early election, or even step aside as Liberal Party leader.

As for the amendments to elections laws, they come after months of polling in favour of the Conservative Party under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre.

A recent poll found that 70 percent of Canadians believe the country is “broken” as Trudeau focuses on less critical issues. Similarly, in January, most Canadians reported that they are worse off financially since Trudeau took office.

Additionally, a January poll showed that 46 percent of Canadians expressed a desire for the federal election to take place sooner rather than the latest mandated date in the fall of 2025.