News
Mayor Veer reflects on last weeks Provincial Budget: City and region need health care boost from Province!
Mayor Veer’s response to the release of the 2018 Provincial Budget
Municipal infrastructure funding retained but local health and social infrastructure needs not met in this provincial budget
“This is a small step in the right direction, but our community efforts are not yet finished because capital dollars for the expansion of the Red Deer Regional Hospital are not identified in the five-year plan. The study will likely recommend substantial funding, and we cannot wait five years for detailed planning or construction while we are in an emergency situation.”
In addition to a continued commitment of Municipality Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding, the Province is also investing in affordable housing with a commitment to 400 new units shared across eight communities, including Red Deer. The Province also referenced Red Deer College’s degree granting status although there were no specific dollars allocated.
“The Province indicates The City’s major capital grant, MSI, will remain relatively stable over the next three years. We are pleased to see that the province has committed to having a new funding system in place when MSI expires in 2022, and we look forward to working collaboratively with the Province in this planning process,” said City Manager Craig Curtis.
But there are still some unknowns for Red Deer following yesterday’s announcement.
Although the opioid crisis was mentioned, there is no capital funding identified for a shelter or treatment centre in Red Deer.
As it pertains to policing, the province highlighted increased funding for rural policing, but no additional funds for urban policing, which increases a long-standing inequity within the region. However, the Province’s decision to focus on rural crime will help with the overall crime challenges in the region.
“With our location on the QEII between Calgary and Edmonton, crime reduction and community safety continues to be a priority for Red Deer,” said Mayor Tara Veer. “The Province’s decision to focus on rural crime will help in the sense that crime is fluid between borders, but this funding is inequitable as urban centres such as Red Deer continue to focus on crime reduction,” said Veer.
In addition, the province increased funding for the justice centre from $97 million to $181 million and spread this funding out until 2023.
With yesterday’s provincial budget announcement, the amount of education requisition the City of Red Deer is required to collect on behalf of the Province will increase by 1.15 per cent for 2018.
The impact on property tax notices will be calculated in April when the approved municipal operating budget is combined with the education requisition and tax rates are set by Red Deer City Council.
Earlier this week Mark Zuckerberg rocked the world of information with the news that Facebook, Instagram, and his other Meta properties would no longer use third party fact checking groups to censor information. As the week wraps up, Zuckerberg sits down for an extended conversation with Joe Rogan. For anyone interested in the world of information, this is a must see / listen.
From the Joe Rogan Experience
Mark Zuckerberg is the chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., the company behind Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, Meta Quest, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Orion augmented reality glasses, and other digital platforms, devices, and services.
Daily Caller
‘Embarrassingly Wrong’: Corporate Media’s Talking Heads Confess Their Biggest Blunders Of 2024
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
From MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to businessman and television personality Mark Cuban, a slew of media leaders divulged what they got wrong this past year in a Semafor article published Monday.
Media missteps included NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein underestimating the impact of inflation on politics, Fox News anchor Dana Perino incorrectly predicting Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce would get engaged and CNBC financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin not putting “DOGE and the pairing of Elon [Musk] and Vivek [Ramaswamy]” on his 2024 Bingo card, according to the piece. Despite the variety of answers, one topic — Joe Biden’s lack of mental acuity — seemed to sit at the top of the list for many respondents.
“Like many others, I was completely, utterly, totally, embarrassingly wrong about [President Joe] Biden’s lack of mental competence,” progressive British-American broadcaster Mehdi Hasan told Semafor.
Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential election in July following a disastrous June debate performance in which he appeared to lose his train of thought several times and stated he “beat Medicare.” Prior to the decision to exit the race, the White House made various efforts to mask the effects of his age, with the president wearing sneakers rather than dress shoes and taking shorter steps up Air Force One.
The White House actively denied claims Biden’s mental health was declining, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre characterizing a video of the President wandering away from world leaders at the G7 Summit as a “cheap fake” and claiming it was orchestrated by Republicans. Much of the corporate media supported the White House’s effort, with panelists on MSNBC’s Morning Joe describing a June article from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that detailed the president’s declining mental health as “outrageous,” and CNN’s Bakari Sellers suggesting in July, well after the debate, that there was no reason to believe Biden could not serve for another four years.
Other examples of the media downplaying concerns over Biden’s mental acuity include The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg rushing to the president’s defense after co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said Biden could have a “senior moment” on stage prior to the debate and MSNBC analyst Mike Barnicle describing members of the Democratic Party as cruel in July for trying to oust the president from the 2024 race.
More recently, former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza apologized in a YouTube video posted in December for waiting too long to investigate concerns that Biden’s mental acuity was deteriorating, admitting that as a journalist he should have “pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being.”
American talk show host Brian Lehrer made a similar apology in his response to Semafor: “Many callers to my show said Joe Biden was in no shape to run for re-election. I mostly dismissed it as ageism. Then I watched the debate.”
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