Alberta
Alberta Budget 2024 – Communities, Resource Development, Natural disasters, and Policing,
Budget 2024: Investing in safe, welcoming communities
Budget 2024 is a responsible plan that keeps Alberta communities safe and secure.
Budget 2024 protects the environment and safeguards communities and the economy from challenges like wildfires, floods and drought.
“We have a responsible plan that will help protect Albertans and their communities from situations like natural disasters. Ensuring Alberta can continue on its path of growth and prosperity was at top of mind developing Budget 2024.”
Budget 2024 highlights – responsible resource management
Last summer’s wildfires, floods and drought conditions affected many parts of Alberta. Budget 2024 protects Albertans and their communities through major investments in wildfire prevention and firefighting services, flood and drought mitigation projects. This includes:
- $251 million in capital funding over three years for flood and drought mitigation projects to protect Albertans, properties and businesses.
- $539 million in capital funding over three years for municipal and regional water and wastewater projects, including the Water for Life strategy.
- $151 million in additional operating dollars over the next three years to improve Alberta’s wildfire response readiness, enhance night operations, support volunteer and community wildfire response programs, provide additional airtanker support and provide additional resources to fight wildfires.
- $55 million in capital funding over three years to upgrade or purchase new wildfire fighting equipment and facilities.
- $19 million to create a modern, 21st century water strategy to increase water availability through water storage projects, conservation, data systems and stronger water policies.
- $418 million in capital funding over three years for infrastructure projects to manage water, including:
- $262 million for irrigation projects to support farmers and agriculture producers.
- $147 million for water infrastructure projects to ensure necessary irrigation water supply throughout the province.
- $10 million for feasibility studies to explore options for water storage in the Waterton, Belly and St. Mary basins, and Ardley.
“We are preparing for the 2024 wildfire season by investing in prevention, response and mitigation programming. These investments will directly equip Alberta’s wildland firefighters with the tools they need to help keep Albertans and their communities safe.”
“We are making critical investments to protect, conserve and maximize water in Alberta. These measures will help keep communities safe during emergencies while keeping families in their homes and businesses open during droughts and floods.”
“As we face what may be another tough year for Alberta’s agriculture industry, Budget 2024 is looking to the future to see where new water projects are possible while ensuring our existing infrastructure continues to be well-maintained to provide water security for Albertans.”
Budget 2024 highlights – community safety
Albertans deserve to feel safe in their communities, whether they are at their homes, studying at school or commuting to work. Budget 2024 helps promote a safe environment so Albertans feel secure, welcomed and valued through:
- $49 million in capital funding over three years to better support first responders and sheriffs by providing them with the equipment and facilities they need to protect Albertans.
- $10 million in 2024-25 to support 100 police officers deployed to high-crime areas in Calgary and Edmonton through the Safe Streets Action Plan.
- $8 million in community-based grants to continue addressing crime prevention, community safety and hate crimes.
- $85 million in operating expense to the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence program, an increase of $5 million from the 2023-24 budget, to support victims and women at risk of assault.
Alberta’s government is also working closely with municipalities, Indigenous leaders and first responders so vulnerable people have access to shelter and housing, health care and recovery-oriented services.
“Albertans have a right to feel safe working and living in their communities, and this budget makes sure we can put the right resources in place to ensure public safety across this province. Additional investments to improve public safety – including supports for police and investments to strengthen Alberta’s response during a disaster – will help meet urgent needs while we lay the groundwork to deliver other public safety priorities over the next three years.”
Budget 2024 is a responsible plan to strengthen health care and education, build safe and supportive communities, manage the province’s resources wisely and promote job creation to continue to build Alberta’s competitive advantage.
Alberta
Alberta introduces bill banning sex reassignment surgery on minors
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.
“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.
“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.
The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”
Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.
With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.
About the proposed law, Smith said that her government believes it is “vitally important to preserve the time” kids have as a “youth.” She added that she believes this is so kids can “gain sufficient amount of knowledge, experience, and perspective so that you can fully understand who you are, who you want to be and what opportunities you may want to have as an adult before making permanent life-altering decisions related to your body.”
While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”
This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.
Alberta
Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest
From LifeSiteNews
Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.
An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.
On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.
“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.
Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.
“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”
After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.
Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.
He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.
In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”
However, defence lawyer Sarah Miller pointed out that that Pawlowski’s sermon was protected under freedom of speech, an argument that Krinke quickly dismissed.
“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.
Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.
Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.
The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.
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