News
Mayor Veer outlines the 6 themes of her election platform

From Tara Veer…
Platform 2017
Our community has made significant progress in many areas over the past four years, but we still but we still have serious challenges to address and emerging new opportunities to pursue together. If you choose to renew my mandate to serve you on October 16th, I will continue to work with our community, Council and City staff to effectively strengthen our city in the following themes throughout the term:
Theme #1: Citizen & Community Safety
Red Deerians have identified crime and public safety as their priority concern, so it is imperative that additional strategies are undertaken to ensure crime prevention and enforcement efforts are effective to respond to the safety challenges Red Deer is faced with. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Ensure that local community policing priorities are established and enforced through the RCMP’s annual policing plan.
Strengthen the integration between municipal enforcement units and the RCMP to ensure common objectives, efficiency, and quality of service in all delegation of duties.
Prioritize reduction of organized crime, persons crime and property crime in the policing plan.
Identify consistent service standards for non-emergency calls to police.
Reduce the case load per officer and improve officers to population ratio by supporting the addition of new officers.
Reinforce enforcement allocations to foot patrols downtown and in the parks system.
Support the safety continuum from crime prevention through to emergency enforcement.
Increase citizen reporting to help inform crime analysis, intelligence-led policing and patrols.
Establish a strong local and regional regulatory response to the Federal Government’s legalization of marijuana.
Advocate for additional Crown Prosecutors to prevent criminal charges from being “stayed” because of capacity issues at the Red Deer Courthouse.
Hold the Provincial Government accountable for drug needle debris causing general community safety risks.
Theme #2: Fiscal Responsibility & Stronger Economy
Alberta’s recession has affected everyone in our community, and sound financial decision-making of City Council is essential to protect the stability of our local economy. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Protect the affordability of living and/or doing business in Red Deer through responsible capital and operating budgets.
Preserve recently established financial strategies such as: the reduced debt ceiling, the capital savings plan, and competitive industrial and commercial tax ratios.
Ensure budget transparency through citizen input and by adopting operating budgets aligned to service standards.
Resolve the current price elasticity challenge to improve citizen access to City services such as recreation and transit.
Ensure City policy is business friendly and enhances our regional & provincial economic competitiveness.
Pending provincial legislative amendments, use new municipal tools to incentivize business attraction in areas of the City needing revitalization.
Position Red Deer for economic development & diversification by actively pursuing grants from other orders of Government, supporting the revitalization of existing community assets, and leveraging upcoming major events to maximize economic spin-off.
Solidify work underway with community partners to establish a strategic means of securing tourism and economic development opportunities for Red Deer.
Theme #3: Citizen-Focused Government & Service Improvements
The City’s daily purpose is to build quality of life for all Red Deerians. Citizen-focused local government & continuous improvement of City services for Red Deerians are strong priorities for Tara. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Pursue the next phases of core public service improvements in areas such as (but not limited to): snow and ice control, transit route efficiency, and transportation integration and efficiency.
Proactively communicate to increase accessibility and transparency of local government.
Purposefully engage with citizens to ensure public feedback informs Council decision-making.
Modernize government services to make interactions with City government easier for citizens.
Support strong maintenance of existing City assets as an ongoing priority.
Build upon Council and City staff commitment to find operational efficiencies, innovations and savings that improve service to Red Deerians.
Theme #4: Protect Our Natural & Built Environment
Red Deerians are proud of the fact that we are a city in a park and that we accept responsibility for environmental stewardship. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Support environmental modernizations and efficiencies throughout City operations.
Elevate Red Deer’s capacity to respond to extreme weather events by resolving the storm water infrastructure deficit.
Identify key areas for environmental protection before development conflicts occur.
Support the extension of the park system through trail development and winter clearing.
Emphasize food and water security in general and for citizen emergency preparedness for extreme weather events.
Theme #5: Build Community Life
The City’s primary mandate is to provide foundational services to our fellow Red Deerians, but the Mayor is also expected to build partnerships with and for our community in general. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Build on our City’s prime geographic position by actively promoting Red Deer to fulfill our potential for business start ups, retention & expansion as well as trade & meeting, culture & heritage, and nature, sports & adventure tourism.
Work with indigenous community to implement municipal aspects of Truth and Reconciliation.
Work with community partners and the Provincial Government to mitigate the emerging risk to Red Deer’s net affordable housing stock and integrate related support services.
Theme #6: Advocate Our Community Needs
As Alberta’s 3rd largest City and region, Red Deer has critical infrastructure imperatives our community needs the Provincial Government to address. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to secure:
Expansion for Red Deer Regional Hospital
Polytechnic University status for Red Deer College
Addictions Treatment and Emergency Shelter capacity
Re-purposing of vacated Michener lands and the former Valley Park Manor
Protection of regional ambulance dispatch service and Advanced Life Support ground ambulance service.
International
UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female

Susan Smith (L) and Marion Calder, directors of ‘For Women Scotland’ cheer as they leave the Supreme Court on April 16, 2025, in London, England after winning their appeal in defense of biological reality
From LifeSiteNews
By Michael Haynes, Snr. Vatican Correspondent
The ruling, in which the court rejected transgender legal status, comes as a victory for campaigners who have urged the recognition of biological reality and common sense in the law.
The U.K. Supreme Court has issued a ruling stating that “woman” in law refers to a biological female, and that transgender “women” are not female in the eyes of the law.
In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled today that legally transgender “women” are not women, since a woman is legally defined by “biological sex.”
Published April 16, the Supreme Court’s 88-page verdict was handed down on the case of Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v. The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). The ruling marks the end of a battle of many years between the Scottish government and women’s right campaigners who sought to oppose the government’s promotion of transgender ideology.
In 2018, the Scottish government issued a decision to allow the definition of “woman” to include men who assume their gender to be female, opening the door to allowing so-called “transgender” individuals to identify as women.
This guidance was challenged by women’s rights campaigners, arguing that a woman should be defined in line with biological sex, and in 2022 the Scottish government was forced to change its definition after the court found that such a move was outside the government’s “legislative competence.”
Given this, the government issued new guidance which sought to cover both aspects: saying that biological women are women, but also that men with a “gender recognition certificate” (GRC) are also considered women. A GRC is given to people who identify as the opposite sex and who have had medical or surgical interventions in an attempt to “reassign” their gender.
Women Scotland Ltd appealed this new guidance. At first it was rejected by inner courts, but upon their taking the matter to the Supreme Court in March last year, the nation’s highest judicial body took up the case.
Today, with the ruling issued against transgender ideology, women’s campaigners are welcoming the news as a win for women’s safety.
“A thing of beauty,” praised Lois McLatchie Miller from the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group.
“They looked at the whole argument, not just who goes in what bathroom and trans women. This is going to change organizations, employers, service providers,” Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, told the Telegraph. “Everyone is going to have to pay attention to this, this is from the highest court in the land. It’s saying sex in the Equality Act is biological sex. Self ID is dead.”
“Victory,” commented Charlie Bently-Astor, a prominent campaigner for biological reality against the transgender movement, after she nearly underwent surgical transition herself at a younger age.
“After 15 years of insanity, the U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that men who say they are ‘trans women’ are not women,” wrote leader of the Christian political movement David Kurten.
Leader of the Conservative Party – the opposition to the current Labour government – Kemi Badenoch welcomed the court’s ruling, writing that “saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either.”
Others lamented the fact that the debate even was taking place, let alone having gone to the Supreme Court.
“What a parody we live in,” commented Reform Party candidate Joseph Robertson.
Rupert Lowe MP – who has risen to new prominence in recent weeks for his outspoken condemnation of the immigration and rape gang crisis – wrote, “Absolute madness that we’re even debating what a woman is – it’s a biological fact. No amount of woke howling will ever change that.”
However, the Supreme Court did not wish to get pulled into siding with certain arguments, with Lord Hodge of the tribunal stating that “we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.”
The debate has taken center stage in the U.K. in recent years, not least for the role played by the current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer himself has become notorious throughout the nation for his contradictions and inability to answer the question of what a woman is, having flip-flopped on saying that a woman can have a penis, due to his support for the transgender movement.
At the time of going to press, neither Starmer nor his deputy Angela Rayner issued a statement about the Supreme Court ruling. There has been no statement issued from the Scottish government either, nor from the office of the first minister.
Transgender activists have expectedly condemned the ruling as “a disgusting attack on trans rights.” One leading transgender campaigner individual told Sky News, “I am gutted to see the judgement from the Supreme Court which ends 20 years of understanding that transgender people with a GRC are able to be, for all intents and purposes, legally recognized as our true genders.”
International
Tulsi Gabbard tells Trump she has ‘evidence’ voting machines are ‘vulnerable to hackers’

From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced during a Cabinet meeting last week at the White House that voting machines across the U.S. are not secure.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time, and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast,” she said about a half hour into the meeting.
Gabbard’s remarks confirm what millions of Americans have long suspected about elections across the U.S.
President Donald Trump himself has maintained skepticism of current voting methods and has called for paper ballots to prevent cheating.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was one of only a few voices to publicly argue that voting machines, like those run by Dominion and Smartmatic which were used during the 2020 presidential election, were compromised. GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene took to X to praise the businessman after Gabbard made her remarks.
“Mike Lindell along with MANY others vindicated!!” she exclaimed on X. “Another conspiracy theory being proven right! Guess what Democrats already knew this and publicly talked about it in 2019! And then lied and lied and lied!!!”
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Congress has also taken steps to ensure election integrity by voting on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (also known as the SAVE Act) last week. Dubbed “controversial” by the media and left-wing groups, the common sense bill would require persons to show proof of citizenship before voting. The House approved the measure 220-208 with four Democrats in support. The bill now heads to the Senate where it will face an uphill battle for the required 60 votes. Republicans currently have a 53 seat majority.
Gabbard told Trump at the meeting that the evidence she found “further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.”
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