It starts this week! Plenty planned for summer season on the Ross Street Patio

Plans are quickly taking shape for an exciting and entertainment-filled summer season on Red Deer’s Ross Street Patio. Starting this Thursday, April 7, and every Thursday for the rest of the month, the Downtown Business Association is bringing live music to the Ross Street Patio between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., explained Amanda Gould, the DBA’s executive director.

Jeremy Doody and Dom Benzer are slated to hit the stage April 7, followed by Stephen Scott and Guests on April 14. Kayla Williams brings her engaging musical stylings to the Patio on April 21 and Jay Bowcott and Syd Zadravec round
out the month on April 28.

Gould also noted the next few weeks are still considered to be ‘spring’ programming – not quite the official launch of the patio’s summer programming.

But it certainly promises to be an engaging taste of what is just around the corner.

“It will be great to see people, as the weather warms up, come downtown to explore everything that we have to offer, and then to relax at one of the restaurants on the Patio and enjoy the music,” she said.

Another annual favourite, the Downtown Market, kicks off on Wednesday, May 25. An accredited farmers’ market, folks are invited to come down and purchase all their fresh fruits and veggies between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. each Wednesday.

“We are also looking forward to more vendors and visitors this year now that the pandemic restrictions have lifted,” she added. Live music on the Ross Street Patio is also a key feature on Wednesdays as well.

“Wednesdays are a very popular day on the Patio because people come downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to the market, and then head to the Patio to have dinner and watch some live music! So, it’s absolutely jumping on Wednesdays – and we are really looking forward to that coming back.

“And based on how busy it was last year during the pandemic, we expect it to be crazy this year,” she said, adding that the Market runs through to the first week of October.

Gould added that Friday, May 27, is the official kick-off to summer on the Ross Street Patio.

“To celebrate, we have partnered with Sawback Brewing to introduce a limited-edition Ross Street Patio beer which is super exciting,” she explained.

“Free samples will be available at 5 p.m. that day (May 27), and there will also be music and other activities, too. The special beer will be available through the summer and will also be featured at several downtown restaurants.

“It just continues to solidify the Ross Street Patio as an entertainment location.”

Looking into June, performances on the Patio will run Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Meanwhile, the DBA’s mission is to build an engaged downtown community, develop a downtown brand and to enhance the downtown experience.

And that is indeed a year-long mission.

Over this past winter, programing was featured on the Patio, and it proved to be quite the draw as well – weather permitting of course. “We had ice sculptures which people loved – they were an absolute treat. We also offered a lot of free hot chocolate which also really did attract a lot of people.”

Folks were certainly pleased to have outdoor things to do on the milder days, so the awareness about the year-long appeal of the Patio is building.

“I’m really excited about all this activity on the Ross Street Patio because we are making it a proper entertainment location now, and I think that is really becoming solidified more in people’s minds,” Gould explained, adding that she’s very confident more locals will discover over the coming months all that downtown Red Deer really does have to offer.

“Because of the pandemic, people are feeling desperate to get out and enjoy what is being offered. We are also continuing to work on a brand for the downtown. That should be happening later this year, or the beginning of next year,” she said, adding that is a project happening in partnership with the City.

“I think it will help to promote downtown as a destination, too.”

For more information about all things downtown, visit www.downtownreddeer.com.

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Mark Weber

Born and raised in Red Deer, Mark Weber is an award-winning freelance writer who is committed to the community. He worked as a reporter for the Red Deer Express for 18 years including six years as co-editor. During that time, he mainly covered arts and entertainment plus a spectrum of areas from city news and health stories to business profiles and human interest features. Mark also spent a year working for the regional publication Town and Country in northern Alberta, along with stints at the Ponoka News and the Stettler Independent. He’s thrilled to be a Todayville contributor, as it allows him many more opportunities to continue to focus on the city and community he not only has a passion for, but calls home as well.

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It’s proving to be a lively summer on the Ross Street Patio

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Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

Published on April 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.

Automotive

Electric cars just another poor climate policy

Published on April 1, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

The electric car is widely seen as a symbol of a simple, clean solution to climate change. In reality, it’s inefficient, reliant on massive subsidies, and leaves behind a trail of pollution and death that is seldom acknowledged.

We are constantly reminded by climate activists and politicians that electric cars are cleaner, cheaper, and better. Canada and many other countries have promised to prohibit the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a decade. But if electric cars are really so good, why would we need to ban the alternatives?

And why has Canada needed to subsidize each electric car with a minimum $5,000 from the federal government and more from provincial governments to get them bought? Many people are not sold on the idea of an electric car because they worry about having to plan out where and when to recharge. They don’t want to wait for an uncomfortable amount of time while recharging; they don’t want to pay significantly more for the electric car and then see its used-car value decline much faster. For people not privileged to own their own house, recharging is a real challenge. Surveys show that only 15 per cent of Canadians and 11 per cent of Americans want to buy an electric car.

The main environmental selling point of an electric car is that it doesn’t pollute. It is true that its engine doesn’t produce any CO₂ while driving, but it still emits carbon in other ways. Manufacturing the car generates emissions—especially producing the battery which requires a large amount of energy, mostly achieved with coal in China. So even when an electric car is being recharged with clean power in BC, over its lifetime it will emit about one-third of an equivalent gasoline car. When recharged in Alberta, it will emit almost three-quarters.

In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars. Across the world, on average, the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car using the global average mix of power sources over its lifetime will emit nearly half as much CO₂ as a gasoline-driven car, saving about 22 tonnes of CO₂.

But using an electric car to cut emissions is incredibly ineffective. On America’s longest-established carbon trading system, you could buy 22 tonnes of carbon emission cuts for about $660 (US$460). Yet, Ottawa is subsidizing every electric car to the tune of $5,000 or nearly ten times as much, which increases even more if provincial subsidies are included. And since about half of those electrical vehicles would have been bought anyway, it is likely that Canada has spent nearly twenty-times too much cutting CO₂ with electric cars than it could have. To put it differently, Canada could have cut twenty-times more CO₂ for the same amount of money.

Moreover, all these estimates assume that electric cars are driven as far as gasoline cars. They are not. In the US, nine-in-ten households with an electric car actually have one, two or more non-electric cars, with most including an SUV, truck or minivan. Moreover, the electric car is usually driven less than half as much as the other vehicles, which means the CO₂ emission reduction is much smaller. Subsidized electric cars are typically a ‘second’ car for rich people to show off their environmental credentials.

Electric cars are also 320–440 kilograms heavier than equivalent gasoline cars because of their enormous batteries. This means they will wear down roads faster, and cost societies more. They will also cause more air pollution by shredding more particulates from tire and road wear along with their brakes. Now, gasoline cars also pollute through combustion, but electric cars in total pollute more, both from tire and road wear and from forcing more power stations online, often the most polluting ones. The latest meta-study shows that overall electric cars are worse on particulate air pollution. Another study found that in two-thirds of US states, electric cars cause more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars.

These heavy electric cars are also more dangerous when involved in accidents, because heavy cars more often kill the other party. A study in Nature shows that in total, heavier electric cars will cause so many more deaths that the toll could outweigh the total climate benefits from reduced CO₂ emissions.

Many pundits suggest electric car sales will dominate gasoline cars within a few decades, but the reality is starkly different. A 2023-estimate from the Biden Administration shows that even in 2050, more than two-thirds of all cars globally will still be powered by gas or diesel.

CanvasJS.com

Source: US Energy Information Administration, reference scenario, October 2023
Fossil fuel cars, vast majority is gasoline, also some diesel, all light duty vehicles, the remaining % is mostly LPG.

Electric vehicles will only take over when innovation has made them better and cheaper for real. For now, electric cars run not mostly on electricity but on bad policy and subsidies, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, blocking consumers from choosing the cars they want, and achieving virtually nothing for climate change.