Red Deer City Councillors urged to focus on economic development

Editorial submitted by former candidate for City Council, Chad Krahn

Where is the focus?

“What gets measured, gets managed.”

As the father of management theory once said, the challenge is focus – where your time and attention go is where results will happen.

When it comes to Red Deer City Council, there has been little focus – and as a consequence even less results – on economic development.

In the last year a lot of focus has gone into social issues, like the location of the homeless shelter, and fair enough, we need a location for the shelter. But when virtually no attention has been paid to the economic health of the city, it’s no wonder that the lack of progress on this file speaks for itself.

In the last year and a half, there have only been two large private sector announcements. The first was the gondola across the Red Deer River, which has since been put on hold, and the second was the downtown casino’s move into the newly minted Red Deer Resort and Casino (formerly the Cambridge Hotel).

That certainly doesn’t speak to a vibrant, growing sector.

The Red Deer Economic Development Strategy was written in 2013 – making it over a decade old. Remember 2013? It was when CFL light bulbs were all the rage. So much has changed in the last ten years, and in the case of Red Deer, not for the better.

Since the Economic Development Strategy was written, the number of businesses in Red Deer has steadily declined from 4,040 in 2013 to 3,534 in 2022. While the number of businesses isn’t a perfect indicator of economic development, it is actually the metric chosen by Council as part of their strategic plan. Clearly, there is some work to do.

There are some things that Council can do and can prioritize right away to improve this situation.

The City tracks building permits, and those too have declined significantly in the last decade. In 2013, the City issued 2,068 building permits and that number has declined every year, so much so that, in 2022, only 903 building permits were issued. The City must work on modernizing the entire permitting system if they want to bolster this number – and make Red Deer more economically attractive.

There must be a guaranteed turnaround time on permits. Council must embrace automation to streamline the process where they can. If the City likes to use the number of permits as a benchmark for development, they can’t continue to be stuck in the status quo when it comes to getting them approved.

Taxes remain a sticking point and, while still competitive in comparison to other municipalities, Red Deerian’s taxes have gone up in the last decade. Even before this year’s new City budget and new tax rate come into effect, the commercial tax rate for Red Deer in 2022 was 14.8% – up from 12.23% in 2013.

Council has an opportunity to create new committees around its priorities. Currently, the City has committees for housing and homelessness, the library, public art, Gaetz Lake, and municipal planning, among others. Why not take the opportunity to create a new committee for Red Tape Reduction? Surely there are old bylaws on the books that could be revamped. Unfortunately, in government, it is always easier to add new laws rather than to take away old, defunct rules, but that’s no reason not to do it!

A committee on economic development is also needed, to begin the work of a new Economic Development Strategy. This committee would work to bring all the partners and economic drivers of the city and region together, and to find a way to present a clear vision of what this city has to offer in terms of economic opportunity. The economic advantages to those of us who live here are plain as day, but the message doesn’t seem to be resonating with those outside. Council needs to identify these advantages and work to convey them to potential investors, entrepreneurs, and would-be residents.

The City brands itself as an entrepreneurial one, and with a little more focus we could be the business testing grounds for Alberta. The city’s size and central location makes this an ideal site. Our city could be the launch pad for businesses for the whole country. Imagine how many more made-in-Red Deer success stories we could have.

We can be so much more – all we need is a little focus.

Chad Krahn is a former candidate for Red Deer City Council.

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Affordable housing out of reach everywhere in Canada

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Economy

Affordable housing out of reach everywhere in Canada

Published on December 8, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Steven Globerman, Joel Emes and Austin Thompson

According to our new study, in 2023 (the latest year of comparable data), typical homes on the market were unaffordable for families earning the local median income in every major Canadian city

The dream of homeownership is alive, but not well. Nearly nine in ten young Canadians (aged 18-29) aspire to own a home—but share a similar worry about the current state of housing in Canada.

Of course, those worries are justified. According to our new study, in 2023 (the latest year of comparable data), typical homes on the market were unaffordable for families earning the local median income in every major Canadian city. It’s not just Vancouver and Toronto—housing affordability has eroded nationwide.

Aspiring homeowners face two distinct challenges—saving enough for a downpayment and keeping up with mortgage payments. Both have become harder in recent years.

For example, in 2014, across 36 of Canada’s largest cities, a 20 per cent downpayment for a typical home—detached house, townhouse, condo—cost the equivalent of 14.1 months (on average) of after-tax income for families earning the median income. By 2023, that figure had grown to 22.0 months—a 56 per cent increase. During the same period for those same families, a mortgage payment for a typical home increased (as a share of after-tax incomes) from 29.9 per cent to 56.6 per cent.

No major city has been spared. Between 2014 and 2023, the price of a typical home rose faster than the growth of median after-tax family income in 32 out of 36 of Canada’s largest cities. And in all 36 cities, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home grew (again, as a share of median after-tax family income), reflecting rising house prices and higher mortgage rates.

While the housing affordability crisis is national in scope, the challenge differs between cities.

In 2023, a median-income-earning family in Fredericton, the most affordable large city for homeownership in Canada, had save the equivalent of 10.6 months of after-tax income ($56,240) for a 20 per cent downpayment on a typical home—and the monthly mortgage payment ($1,445) required 27.2 per cent of that family’s after-tax income. Meanwhile, a median-income-earning family in Vancouver, Canada’s least affordable city, had to spend the equivalent of 43.7 months of after-tax income ($235,520) for a 20 per cent downpayment on a typical home with a monthly mortgage ($6,052) that required 112.3 per cent of its after-tax income—a financial impossibility unless the family could rely on support from family or friends.

The financial barriers to homeownership are clearly greater in Vancouver. But, crucially, neither city is truly “affordable.” In Fredericton and Vancouver, as in every other major Canadian city, buying a typical home with the median income produces a debt burden beyond what’s advisable. Recent house price declines in cities such as Vancouver and Toronto have provided some relief, but homeownership remains far beyond the reach of many families—and a sharp slowdown in homebuilding threatens to limit further gains in affordability.

For families priced out of homeownership, renting doesn’t offer much relief, as rent affordability has also declined in nearly every city. In 2014, rental rates for the median-priced rental unit required 19.8 per cent of median after-tax family income, on average across major cities. By 2023, that figure had risen to 23.5 per cent. And in the least affordable cities for renters, Toronto and Vancouver, a median-priced rental required more than 30 per cent of median after-tax family income. That’s a heavy burden for Canada’s renters who typically earn less than homeowners. It’s also an added financial barrier to homeownership— many Canadian families rent for years before buying their first home, and higher rents make it harder to save for a downpayment.

In light of these realities, Canadians should ask—why have house prices and rental rates outpaced income growth?

Poor public policy has played a key role. Local regulations, lengthy municipal approval processes, and costly taxes and fees all combine to hinder housing development. And the federal government allowed a historic surge in immigration that greatly outpaced new home construction. It’s simple supply and demand—when more people chase a limited (and restricted) supply of homes, prices rise. Meanwhile, after-tax incomes aren’t keeping pace, as government policies that discourage investment and economic growth also discourage wage growth.

Canadians still want to own homes, but a decade of deteriorating affordability has made that a distant prospect for many families. Reversing the trend will require accelerated homebuilding, better-paced immigration and policies that grow wages while limiting tax bills for Canadians—changes governments routinely promise but rarely deliver.

Steven Globerman

Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser Institute

Joel Emes

Senior Economist, Fraser Institute

Austin Thompson

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute

Business

The EU Insists Its X Fine Isn’t About Censorship. Here’s Why It Is.

Published on December 8, 2025

Todayville

By Christina Maas

Europe calls it transparency, but it looks a lot like teaching the internet who’s allowed to speak.

When the European Commission fined X €120 million on December 5, officials could not have been clearer. This, they said, was not about censorship. It was just about “transparency.”

They repeat it so often you start to wonder why.

The fine marks the first major enforcement of the Digital Services Act, Europe’s new censorship-driven internet rulebook.

It was sold as a consumer protection measure, designed to make online platforms safer and more accountable, and included a whole list of censorship requirements, fining platforms that don’t comply.

The first target is Elon Musk’s X, and the list of alleged violations look less like user safety concerns and more like a blueprint for controlling who gets heard, who gets trusted, and who gets to talk back.

The Commission charged X with three violations: the paid blue checkmark system, the lack of advertising data, and restricted data access for researchers.

None of these touches direct content censorship. But all of them shape visibility, credibility, and surveillance, just in more polite language.

Musk’s decision to turn blue checks into a subscription feature ended the old system where establishment figures, journalists, politicians, and legacy celebrities got verification.

The EU called Musk’s decision “deceptive design.” The old version, apparently, was honesty itself. Before, a blue badge meant you were important. After, it meant you paid. Brussels prefers the former, where approved institutions get algorithmic priority, and the rest of the population stays in the queue.

The new system threatened that hierarchy. Now, anyone could buy verification, diluting the aura of authority once reserved for anointed voices.

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However, that’s not the full story. Under the old Twitter system, verification was sold as a public service, but in reality it worked more like a back-room favor and a status purchase.

The main application process was shut down in 2010, so unless you were already famous, the only way to get a blue check was to spend enough money on advertising or to be important enough to trigger impersonation problems.

Ad Age reported that advertisers who spent at least fifteen thousand dollars over three months could get verified, and Twitter sales reps told clients the same thing. That meant verification was effectively a perk reserved for major media brands, public figures, and anyone willing to pay. It was a symbol of influence rationed through informal criteria and private deals, creating a hierarchy shaped by cronyism rather than transparency.

Under the new X rules, everyone is on a level playing field.

Government officials and agencies now sport gray badges, symbols of credibility that can’t be purchased. These are the state’s chosen voices, publicly marked as incorruptible. To the EU, that should be a safeguard.

The second and third violations show how “transparency” doubles as a surveillance mechanism. X was fined for limiting access to advertising data and for restricting researchers from scraping platform content. Regulators called that obstruction. Musk called it refusing to feed the censorship machine.

The EU’s preferred researchers aren’t neutral archivists. Many have been documented coordinating with governments, NGOs, and “fact-checking” networks that flagged political content for takedown during previous election cycles.

They call it “fighting disinformation.” Critics call it outsourcing censorship pressure to academics.

Under the DSA, these same groups now have the legal right to demand data from platforms like X to study “systemic risks,” a phrase broad enough to include whatever speech bureaucrats find undesirable this month.

The result is a permanent state of observation where every algorithmic change, viral post, or trending topic becomes a potential regulatory case.

The advertising issue completes the loop. Brussels says it wants ad libraries to be fully searchable so users can see who’s paying for what. It gives regulators and activists a live feed of messaging, ready for pressure campaigns.

The DSA doesn’t delete ads; it just makes it easier for someone else to demand they be deleted.

That’s how this form of censorship works: not through bans, but through endless exposure to scrutiny until platforms remove the risk voluntarily.

The Commission insists, again and again, that the fine has “nothing to do with content.”

That may be true on a direct level, but the rules shape content all the same. When governments decide who counts as authentic, who qualifies as a researcher, and how visibility gets distributed, speech control doesn’t need to be explicit. It’s baked into the system.

Brussels calls it user protection. Musk calls it punishment for disobedience. This particular DSA fine isn’t about what you can say, it’s about who’s allowed to be heard saying it.

TikTok escaped similar scrutiny by promising to comply. X didn’t, and that’s the difference. The EU prefers companies that surrender before the hearing. When they don’t, “transparency” becomes the pretext for a financial hammer.

The €120 million fine is small by tech standards, but symbolically it’s huge.

It tells every platform that “noncompliance” means questioning the structure of speech the EU has already defined as safe.

In the official language of Brussels, this is a regulation. But it’s managed discourse, control through design, moderation through paperwork, censorship through transparency.

And the louder they insist it isn’t, the clearer it becomes that it is.

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