Opinion

Ponoka’s Muliplex is a go,adding to Penhold, Blackfalds, and Lacombe to bolster recreation in Central Alberta. Where’s Red Deer?

Published

8 years ago

5 minute read

Ponoka Multiplex is going ahead. Ponoka, population 7,229, is going to spend $16.6 million or $2,296 per person on a recreational multiplex, to service residents and attract growth. Great news.
Penhold Multiplex was a huge success in both regards. Penhold, population 3,277 spent $23 million or $7,018 per person and the town grew and they needed more land.
Blackfalds spent $15.2 million on the Abbey Centre and are looking to spend another $12 million on a second covered ice rink, for a total of $27.2 million. Blackfalds population 9328, will be spending $2,916 per resident on recreation.
Sylvan Lake has the new Nexsource Centre multiplex. Sylvan Lake, population 14,816 spent $33.5 million or $2,264 per person on a recreational complex.
Lacombe is spending $13,668,141 upgrading their sports complex. Lacombe population 13,057 means $1,047 per person for upgrading.
This means that 47,700 people are putting out $102 million for recreation complexes. These are growing communities looking to attract more growth. This growth has been partially from Red Deer residents migrating away from Red Deer. Red Deer’s population shrank between 2015-2016. Their own polls shows they shrank by a 1,000 residents but the federal census puts it only 400 residents less. The area north of the river shrank by 777 residents alone. There are still about 30,000 residents living north of the river.
They have only one recreational complex, over 30 years old. If the city was to step up to the plate and treat the residents on par with the smaller communities they would need to spend $64 million on recreational facilities north of the river.
If the city as a whole wanted to be equal to these smaller communities then they would have to spend $214 million dollars on recreational facilities. To compare with Penhold, the city would have to spend $700 million but Blackfalds is one of the fastest growing communities in Canada. To match their per capita spending the city of Red Deer would have to commit $292 million on recreational facilities.
Lethbridge, the third fastest growing city in Alberta and nearest in size to Red Deer recently committed $109 million for phase 2 of their recreation centre. Again to attract young families, a necessity for growth. Remember Lethbridge once turned a man-made slough into a lake and created Henderson Lake Park around it. It may be why they are the 5th fastest growing city in Canada behind Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary.
Red Deer was once a hub for Central Alberta, now it cannot keep pace with Penhold, Blackfalds, Ponoka, Lacombe, Sylvan Lake, as they grow and seek out new possibilities.
The last big project in Red Deer was the Collicutt Center in Red Deer’s south east, that was 15 years ago and the city grew, that area developed, and noone is saying now that the Collicutt Centre was a bad idea.
We are opening up land in the northwest corner, thousands of acres, room for 25,000 residents and Red Deer’s largest lake, Hazlett Lake. 55,000 residents north of the river, the same population as when they decided to build a 4th recreational centre now known as the Collicutt Centre.
Red Deer needs to build a 50m pool, and the north side needs new recreational facilities, and our Collicutt Centre was such a huge success in spurring growth, why not build a Northside Collicutt Centre with a 50m pool and ice rink on Hazlett Lake?
Red Deer could be a sports hub, a tourist hub and an economic hub, once again. The proof is t5here, we just need the courage. If we do not have it now maybe we can find it before the municipal election this coming October. We just need to ask. I am asking but I am getting the run around, which could be why everyone else is growing and we are shrinking. What do you think? Let me know. Thank you.

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Federal government’s latest media bailout another bad idea

Alberta / 34 mins ago

Alberta mother accuses health agency of trying to vaccinate son against her wishes

Brownstone Institute / 2 hours ago

First Amendment Blues

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Federal government’s latest media bailout another bad idea

Published on November 22, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

If the value of local radio stations, as measured by how much revenue they generate, is higher than the costs of running those stations, no subsidies are needed to keep them going. Conversely, if the costs are higher than the benefits, it doesn’t make sense to keep those radio stations on the air.

The governmentalization of the news media in Canada continues apace. According to a recent announcement by the Trudeau government, the “CRTC determined that a new temporary fund for commercial radio stations in smaller markets should be created.” Now, radio stations outside of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa-Gatineau will be eligible for taxpayer subsidies.

Clearly a bad idea. Firstly, there’s no obvious market failure the government will solve. If the value of local radio stations, as measured by how much revenue they generate, is higher than the costs of running those stations, no subsidies are needed to keep them going. Conversely, if the costs are higher than the benefits, it doesn’t make sense to keep those radio stations on the air.

The government said the new funding is “temporary” but as economists Milton and Rose Friedman famously observed, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Taxpayers may can reasonably expect that subsidies to local radio news stations will become an ongoing expense instead of a onetime hit to their wallets.

Indeed, the Trudeau government has a history of making temporary or “short-term” costs permanent. Before coming to power in 2015, the Liberals proposed “a modest short-term deficit” of less than $10 billion annually for three years; instead this fiscal year the Trudeau government is running its 10th consecutive budget deficit with the cumulative total of more than $600 billion.

Secondly, the governmentalization of media will likely corrupt it. Here again an observation from Milton Friedman: “Any institution will tend to express its own values and its own ideas… A socialist institution will teach socialist values, not the principles of private enterprise.” Friedman was talking about the public education system, but the observation applies equally to other sectors that the government increasingly exercises control over.

A media outlet that receives significant government funding is less likely to apply healthy skepticism to politicians’ claims of the supposed widespread benefits of their large spending initiatives and disbursements of taxpayer money. The media outlet’s internal culture will naturally lean more heavily towards government control than free enterprise.

Moreover, conflict of interest becomes a serious issue. To the extent that a media outlet gets its revenue from government instead of advertisers and listeners, its customer is the government—and the natural inclination is always to produce content that will appeal to the customer. Radio stations receiving significant government funding will have a harder time covering government in an unbiased way.

Finally, as a general rule, government support for an industry tends to discourage innovation, and radio and other media are no exception. When new companies and new business models enter a sector, the government should not through subsidies try to keep the incumbents afloat.

“The media, like any other business, continually evolves,” noted Lydia Miljan, professor of political science at the University of Windsor and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a recent essay. “As each innovation enters the market, it displaces audiences for the legacy players. But does that innovation mean we should prop up services that fewer people consume? No. We allow other industries to adapt to new market conditions. Sometimes that means certain industries and companies close. But they are replaced with something else.”

To summarize—there are three major problems with the Trudeau government’s new fund for radio stations. First, it will impose costs on taxpayers that, despite the government’s label, may not be “temporary” and the compensating benefits will be lower than the costs. Second, increased government funding will damage the ability of those radio stations to cover the government with neutrality and healthy skepticism. And third, the new fund will discourage innovation and improvement in the media sector as a whole.

Author:

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute

Brownstone Institute

First Amendment Blues

Published on November 22, 2024

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

By Philip Davies

You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU.

I’m envious. The US has something the UK doesn’t have, namely a First Amendment. Yes I know there are those who wish the US didn’t have it either, including, I understand, John Kerry and that woman who still thinks she beat Trump the first time around. Kerry kind of wishes that the First Amendment wasn’t quite so obstructive to his plans. But from where I stand, you should be thankful for it.

Not only does the UK not have a First Amendment, it doesn’t have a constitution either, and that makes for worrying times right now. Free speech has little currency with Gen Z and the way it looks, even less with the new UK Labour government. Even Elon Musk, who takes a surprising interest in our little country, has recently declared the UK a police state.

It’s not surprising. Take for instance the case of Alison Pearson, who had the police knocking on her door this Remembrance Sunday. They had come to warn her they were investigating a tweet she had posted a whole year ago which someone had complained about. They were investigating whether it constituted a Non-Crime Hate Incident or NCHI. Yes, you heard me right, a ‘non-crime’ hate incident and no, this is not something out of Orwell, it’s straight out of the College of Policing’s playbook.

If you haven’t heard of them, you can thank your First Amendment. In the UK you can get a police record for something you posted on X that someone else didn’t like and you haven’t even committed a crime. NCHIs are a way they have of getting around the law in the same way John Kerry would like to get around the First Amendment, except it’s real where I live.

Alison Pearson is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, but that doesn’t mean she can write what she likes. When she asked the police what the tweet was which was objected to, she was told they couldn’t tell her that. When she asked who the complainant was, they said they couldn’t tell her that either. They added, that she shouldn’t call them a complainant, they were officially the victim. That’s what due process is like when you don’t have a First Amendment or a constitution. Victims of NCHI in the UK are decided without a trial or a defense. They asked, very politely, if Pearson would like to come voluntarily to the police station for a friendly interview. If she didn’t want to come voluntarily, they would put her on a wanted list and she would eventually be arrested. Nice choice.

It’s true that there has been a public ruckus over this particular case, but the police are unapologetic and have doubled down. Stung into action by unwanted publicity, they are now saying they have raised the matter from an NCHI to an actual crime investigation. Which means they think she can be arrested and put in prison for expressing her opinion on X. And of course they are right. In the UK that’s where we are right now. Pearson tried to point out the irony of two police officers turning up on her door to complain about her free speech on Remembrance Day of all days, when we recall the thousands who died to keep this a free country, but irony is lost on those who have no memory of what totalitarianism means.

The way things are looking I would say things can only get worse. The new Labour government has made it clear that it wants to beef up the reporting of NCHIs and make them an effective tool for clamping down on hurtful speech. You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU. Germany in particular is keen to remove all misinformation from the internet, I understand.

Whenever I see the word ‘misinformation’ these days I automatically translate it in my head to what it really means, which is ‘dissent.’ Western countries, former champions of free speech, the bedrock of liberty and individual choice, en masse it seems, now want to outlaw dissent. What is coordinating this attack on free expression, I don’t know, but it’s real and it’s upon us. We are slowly being intellectually suffocated into not expressing any opinion that others might find objectionable or that might contradict what the government said. If you had told me that would happen in my lifetime, I would have called you a liar.

I live in the UK, the home of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, and the mother of parliamentary democracy. I was proud that we produced men like John Milton, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Paine, that we understood the importance of the Areopagitica, the Rights of Man, and incorporated On Liberty into our social thinking. But those days seem long gone when police knock on your door to arrest you for an X post.

So I’m glad someone somewhere has a First Amendment even if we don’t. It may be your last defense in that republic of yours, if you can keep it.

Author

Philip Davies

Philip Davies is Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University, UK. He gained a PhD in Quantum Mechanics at the University of London and has been an academic for over 30 years teaching Masters students how to think for themselves. He is now retired and has the luxury of thinking for himself. He fills in his spare time with a small YouTube channel where he interviews amazing academics and indulges in writing books and articles.