Business
City Pleased With New Courthouse But Additional Needs Remain
By Sheldon Spackman
City officials are pleased with the announcement in Thursday’s Provincial Budget that a new courthouse is planned for Red Deer. Of the province’s $9.2 billion dollar budget, $97 million of that will be allocated to Red Deer over the next four years for a new courthouse. Hopefully addressing the increasing demands being placed on the current facility where growing wait times continue for cases to go to trial. The future courthouse is currently planned to be in the location of the old RCMP detachment just south of the downtown library on 49th Street next to Sorensen Station. It’s a building that has cost the City between $40,000 – $80,000 a year for the past five years while waiting for provincial governments to decide on a new courthouse project for Red Deer.
Elsewhere, the province has kept their commitment with both capital and operating Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding streams. They remain fairly consistent with last year, about $400,000 less than 2016, with Red Deer’s allocation being $23.7 million.
City officials say the province also referenced a continued investment in small and medium size enterprises. However, There were no announcements specifically related to funding for social infrastructure, such as affordable housing and other social supports needed in Red Deer and central Alberta. The budget for FCSS though, which increased last year, has remained constant.
In the coming weeks, officials say the City will analyze the impacts of the education requisition for Red Deer and what this means for citizen’s property tax bill. The education requisition will be combined with the approved municipal operating budget when City Council considers the tax rate bylaw in April. Tax notices will then be mailed out in May.
The carbon levy remains an issue for The City because of its impact on the operating budget, but the programs referenced in Thursday’s Budget could help bring some of this money back to Red Deer.
Red Deer's reaction to Provincial Budget from Todayville Red Deer on Vimeo.
Other community priorities not addressed in this budget include:
- Polytechnic University status for RDC
- Red Deer Regional Hospital Expansion
- Local social infrastructure, such as affordable housing and other social supports.
From LifeSiteNews
The Center for Innovative Public Health Research’s website suggests teenage girls make their ‘own decisions’ about sex and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.
For almost a decade, the U.S. government funded a group that actively works to teach kids how to use sex toys and then keep them hidden from their parents to the tune of $22 million.
According to investigative reporter Hannah Grossman at the Manhattan Institute, The Center for Innovative Public Health Research (CIPHR) has been educating minors about sex toys with public funds.
Records show that the millions given to the group since 2016, according to its website, go toward “health education programs” that “promote positive human development.”
However, the actual contents of the programs, as can be seen from comments from CIPHR CEO Michele Ybarra, seem to suggest that its idea of “human” development is skewed toward radical sex education doctrine.
In 2017, CIPHR launched Girl2Girl, which is funded by federal money to promote “sex-ed program just for teen girls who are into girls.” Its website lets users, who are girls between ages 14 and 16, sign up for “daily text messages … about things like sex with girls and boys.”
The actual content of some of the messages is very concerning. Its website notes that some of the texts talk about “lube and sex toys” as well as “the different types of sex and ways to increase pleasure.”
The website actively calls upon teenage girls to make their “own decisions” and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.
Grossman shared a video clip on X of Ybarra explaining how they educate minors about the use of “sex toys” and dealing with their parents if they are found out.
The clip, from a 2022 Brown University webinar, shows Ybarra telling researchers how to prepare “young person(s)” for her research.
She said if they are doing “focus groups,” she will ask them, “Okay, so what happens if somebody comes into the room and sees words like penis and sex toys on your screen — on your computer screen or on your phone? What if it’s your mom?’”
In 2023, CIPHR launched Transcendent Health, which is a sex-education program for minors who are gender confused. This initiative received $1.3 million of federal grant money that expired last month.
Grossman observed that the federal government “should not fund programs that send sexually explicit messages to minors and encourage them to conceal these communications from parents.”
She noted that in order to protect children and “prevent further harm,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services “should immediately cancel CIPHR’s active contract and deny its future grant applications.”
“By doing so, the Trump administration can send a clear message: Taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for perverted ‘research’ projects,” she noted.
The Trump administration has thus far, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), exposed billions in government waste and fraud. Many such uses of taxpayer dollars are currently under review by the administration, including pro-abortion and pro-censorship activity through USAID, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda” through the National Science Foundation, and billions to left-wing “green energy” nonprofits through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Business
Canadian Police Raid Sophisticated Vancouver Fentanyl Labs, But Insist Millions of Pills Not Destined for U.S.
Sam Cooper
Mounties say labs outfitted with high-grade chemistry equipment and a trained chemist reveal transnational crime groups are advancing in technical sophistication and drug production capacity
Amid a growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, Canada—targeted alongside Mexico and China for special tariffs related to Chinese fentanyl supply chains—has dismantled a sophisticated network of fentanyl labs across British Columbia and arrested an academic lab chemist, the RCMP said Thursday.
At a press conference in Vancouver, senior investigators stood behind seized lab equipment and fentanyl supplies, telling reporters the operation had prevented millions of potentially lethal pills from reaching the streets.
“This interdiction has prevented several million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from being produced and distributed across Canada,” said Cpl. Arash Seyed. But the presence of commercial-grade laboratory equipment at each of the sites—paired with the arrest of a suspect believed to have formal training in chemistry—signals an evolution in the capabilities of organized crime networks, with “progressively enhanced scientific and technical expertise among transnational organized crime groups involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs,” Seyed added.
This investigation is ongoing, while the seized drugs, precursor chemicals, and other evidence continue to be processed, police said.
Recent Canadian data confirms the country has become an exporter of fentanyl, and experts identify British Columbia as the epicenter of clandestine labs supplied by Chinese precursors and linked to Mexican cartel distributors upstream.
In a statement that appears politically responsive to the evolving Trump trade threats, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said, “There continues to be no evidence, in this case and others, that these labs are producing fentanyl for exportation into the United States.”
In late March, during coordinated raids across the suburban municipalities of Pitt Meadows, Mission, Aldergrove, Langley, and Richmond, investigators took down three clandestine fentanyl production sites.
The labs were described by the RCMP as “equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities.” Photos released by authorities show stainless steel reaction vessels, industrial filters, and what appear to be commercial-scale tablet presses and drying trays—pointing to mass production capabilities.
The takedown comes as Canada finds itself in the crosshairs of intensifying geopolitical tension.
Fentanyl remains the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Canada, with toxic supply chains increasingly linked to hybrid transnational networks involving Chinese chemical brokers and domestic Canadian producers.
RCMP said the sprawling B.C. lab probe was launched in the summer of 2023, with teams initiating an investigation into the importation of unregulated chemicals and commercial laboratory equipment that could be used for synthesizing illicit drugs including fentanyl, MDMA, and GHB.
The Bureau is a reader-supported publication.
To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Invite your friends and earn rewards
First Good Battlefield News From Trump’s Global War on Fentanyl
Liberals Replace Candidate Embroiled in Election Interference Scandal with Board Member of School Flagged in Canada’s Election Interference Inquiry
FBI imposed Hunter Biden laptop ‘gag order’ after employee accidentally confirmed authenticity: report
Mortgage Mayhem: How Rising Interest Rates Are Squeezing Alberta Homeowners
-
Also Interesting2 days ago
Mortgage Mayhem: How Rising Interest Rates Are Squeezing Alberta Homeowners
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoConservative Party urges investigation into Carney plan to spend $1 billion on heat pumps
-
Also Interesting2 days agoExploring Wildrobin Technological Advancements in Live Dealer Games
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoCommunist China helped boost Mark Carney’s image on social media, election watchdog reports
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoFifty Shades of Mark Carney
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoCorporate Media Isn’t Reporting on Foreign Interference—It’s Covering for It
-
Business1 day agoStocks soar after Trump suspends tariffs
-
Justice2 days agoCanadian government sued for forcing women to share spaces with ‘transgender’ male prisoners