Opinion

A PANACEA: is what Red Deer’s Riverlands is not.

Published

8 years ago

5 minute read

Definition of panacea. : a remedy for all ills or difficulties : cure-all.
The Riverlands is often being touted as the cure-all for our city’s ills. It will bring businesses to Red Deer. It will stem the exodus of our residents, reversing the decline in population. It will put Red Deer on the map. It will bring people downtown.
23 acres will save Red Deer from it’s current decline, it may help, but only if seen as a portion of the solution.
Concentrating on one area of Red Deer is detrimental to other areas in Red Deer. Pulling businesses from the north side to downtown will only hurt the north side businesses that cannot move downtown, like Parkland Mall. It punishes the residents who live on the north side because they will have to travel further to do business.
The city will say that the Riverlands will allow residents to live, work and recreate in their neighbourhoods. But that is not important, if you live north of the river.
The North is not some enemy, some disease that needs to be fought or contained. Why not allow one third of our city to live, work and recreate in their neighbourhood? You also determined that there should be an indoor ice rink for every 15,000 people. Apparently that also does not apply, north of the river. They have 1 for every 30,000 residents while the south side has 1 for every 10,000 residents.
The city will not plan for a high school or another swimming pool north of the river even though they expect the population will hit 55,000 residents. What family will plan on moving to the north side if they see that they will have to commute across the city for every necessity of life, like going to high school?
The Riverlands, will be a nice extra, but it is not a nice necessity, and that is where the city is failing. The money that went into re-aligning the traffic, could have paid for a high school for the north side communities. Investing in sports tourism, incorporating areas like Hazlett Lake. Building a competitive aquatic centre might attract more tourism dollars than a 20 million dollar footbridge for Riverlands residents.
The problem is that the city has blinders on when it comes to the downtown. A restaurant owner moved out of downtown, because he felt that he was out of the small group that controlled the decision making for downtown. He moved to the outer suburbia, or enemy territory.
He, like myself may be dismissed as cantankerous old men, ignored by the media and decision makers. But if one was to take all the symptoms, the trends, and events together and try to establish a commonality, then we might agree and find a way to reverse this decline.
Businesses leaving, 975 residents moved out of Red Deer, 777 residents moved out of the north side of the river, increasing unemployment, 10% vacancies, increasing crime, and bad air, will not end because the Riverlands is being developed.
There is no panacea, perhaps it is time to reconsider other options, too. Let us start listening, seriously, to a larger group. Find out why Blackfalds grew by 700 residents while Red Deer shrank by 975? Why is Gasoline Alley becoming a powerhouse while our downtown needs subsidization?
In 1970s, Parkland Mall made Red Deer a shopping destination for Central Alberta, 40% of the population lived north of the river, then we abandoned the north. The last school was built in 1985, the last indoor ice rink and pool was built in the 1980s, now they are neglected still 3 decades later. Only 30% live north of the river, today.
Could this have contributed to the decline of Red Deer? Possibly but no one wants to talk about it. Perhaps it is time we did? Maybe, being nice, ignoring the problems and putting all our eggs in the downtown basket, is not part of the solution but is part of the problem?
Forget the idea of a panacea, and start a real discussion, and the real solutions might see some daylight. Time to take the blinders off. Thank you.

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State of federal finances make NATO spending target very challenging

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armed forces

State of federal finances make NATO spending target very challenging

Published on January 29, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro

Defence Minister Bill Blair recently claimed the federal government could “absolutely” achieve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defence spending target of 2.0 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP—a measure of the size of the economy) by 2027. However, the dismal state of Canada’s finances makes this accelerated timeline very costly to Canadians.

First, some background. In 2014, Canada (along with the other NATO members) formally pledged to increase spending on defence up to a target of 2.0 per cent of GDP by 2024. At the time, Canada spent 1.01 per cent of GDP on defence. A decade has passed and Canada has failed to fulfill that pledge. Indeed, based on the current defence spending plan and the latest GDP projections, Canada’s defence spending is expected to reach just 1.34 per cent of GDP ($41.0 billion) in 2024/25.

Based on the latest spending estimates from NATO, Canada is one of only eight NATO members (out of 31 in total) to spend less than 2.0 per cent of GDP on defence. As the large majority of the alliance has now met the spending target, and President Donald Trump has called for the target to be raised even further to 5 per cent of GDP, Canada will have to dramatically increase defence spending (lest we be at complete odds with our allies).

However, meeting the NATO 2.0 per cent target by 2027/28 would require billions more in annual federal spending (see the following figure).Over the next three years, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), the federal government will increase defence spending from a projected $41.0 billion in 2024/25 to $53.5 billion in 2027/28—with the majority of this increase occurring in the first year. This means, based on the current plan, Canada’s defence spending would only reach 1.55 per cent of GDP by 2027/28.

To reach 2.0 per cent of GDP in 2027/28, the government would need to spend $68.8 billion on defence during that fiscal year. Assuming the initial jump remains the same, this implies the government would need to increase annual defence spending by $16.5 billion from 2025/26 to 2027/28—$15.3 billion more than currently planned.

The federal government plans to run four consecutive budget deficits from 2024/25 to 2027/28 that add up to $151.9 billion in expected borrowing. In other words, the government already plans to spend more than it collects in revenues. Assuming the government adopts the spending plan shown in the above figure, reaching the NATO target by 2027/28 would require an additional $22.7 billion in borrowing.

Increasing the amount borrowed will impose substantial costs on Canadians. In the near-term it results in higher debt interest payments. Government must pay interest on its debt—same as a family with a mortgage—and rising interest costs leave less money available for programs and services. For perspective, largely due to past borrowing under the Trudeau government, federal debt interest payments are expected to equal all Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues (and then some) in 2024/25. Longer-term, an increase in borrowed money will also burden future generations of taxpayers who will likely face higher taxes to pay for today’s spending.

Clearly, borrowing money to fund higher defence spending will only worsen the state of federal finances, meaning Canada is in a lose-lose situation when it comes to meeting the NATO 2.0 per cent target—risk the consequences of further disappointing our allies or take on billions more in debt.

Instead, Ottawa should identify and cut wasteful spending and use those savings for national defence. Simply put, smaller and smarter government spending could help get Canada out of this lose-lose situation.

Business

Trump’s executive orders represent massive threat to Canadian competitiveness

Published on January 29, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Donald Trump had a busy first day back on the job. From his desk in the Oval Office, President Trump signed a suite of executive orders including on energy and regulation, with major implications for Canada. He’s clearly rejected the primacy of a regulatory state (in favour of the legislative state), put a lock on the growth of U.S. regulation, and launched regulatory and cost controls. Essentially this means the U.S. will systemically deregulate while Canada is regulating its economy ever more heavily and broadly, making our economy even less competitive with the U.S.

Trump has also put paid to the fallacy of the great electric vehicle (EV) transition by pulling the plug on the U.S. EV mandate and federal consumer subsidies for EVs. Of course, now that the U.S. will not mandate EVs in large numbers, the massive investments Canada has made in EV and battery technology and manufacturing—on the expectation of selling EV parts and vehicles in the U.S. market—will likely see little return.

Trump’s withdrawal (for a second time) from the Paris climate agreement also puts U.S. policy further at odds with Canada. While Canada will spend huge amounts of money to attempt to comply with its climate commitments under the agreement, and hurt its energy and natural resource sectors in the process, the U.S. will not. In fact, the Trump administration will likely undo many of the things that have been done in the name of implementing the Paris agreement.

Trump‘s declaration of an energy emergency and his call for a massive increase in energy production by is also a direct threat to Canada’s energy economy. As we have seen in the past, the Americans can move very quickly to increase the supply of oil and natural gas when they put their mind to it and when regulations don’t stand in the way. A U.S. energy surge could lead to a flood of oil and gas production pretty quickly, leading the U.S. to need less and less Canadian oil and gas (as Trump has flamboyantly proclaimed).

Trump also wants to expedite energy project reviews and approvals, the exact opposite to the Trudeau government’s approach, which has frustrated the building of new pipelines and other projects. This will facilitate the U.S. ability to increase energy and natural resource production at a pace Canada cannot hope to match.

Simply put, setting aside Trump’s threatened tariffs, his day-one executive orders pose a serious threat to Canada’s energy and natural resource sectors, which remain a vital source of prosperity and revenue, and merit an immediate response from our federal government.

In an ideal world, Canada would harmonize its policy approach to the U.S. on energy and natural resources, which has, in fact, been a historical norm. But unfortunately for Canadians, the Trudeau government will likely reject Trump’s policy reforms and continue its pro-administrative state, anti-energy, anti-resource economic philosophy. And given Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent actions to prorogue Parliament, President Trump’s executive-order barrage won’t face a meaningful Canadian response for months, letting the U.S. steal a massive march on energy, natural resource and regulatory policy reforms over a Canada sitting on its hands.