Opinion
Red Deer holds the dubious title of having the poorest ambient air quality. The province has some ideas on that.

Our air quality in Red Deer has been very poor for years and I always felt that every level of government left it for the other levels of government to find a cure.
Our provincial government has taken steps since forming government in 2015. Some were expensive yet effective like reducing our dependency on coal. Some steps were eye ball rolling steps like doing more studies.
Our municipal government is taking steps and are talking about taking more steps. Let us hope that it finds the planning department and we can make the appropriate changes that I believe is necessary. For starters do we need all 5 high schools built and planned for, along 30 avenue and no high schools north of the river where 30% of the population resides? Would it mean a lot less commuting for 30% of the students if did not have to commute across the city to go to school and participate in extra-curricular activities? Just asking.
Studies are influenced by interpreters and interpretations, adding to or subtracting from parameters and by time lines. Different elements like SO2 or NOX if added or removed from comparables will affect the interpretations. In any interpretation we still have poor air. Possibly the worst air in Canada on average. Of course downtown Calgary, Toronto, or Edmonton may peak during rush hour traffic but overall we hold the title of worst ambient air quality.
So to recap. Let us go back to a story on CBC News.
Alberta is hoping to relieve Red Deer of a less than prestigious title. The central Alberta city, for years, has had the worst ambient air quality in the province. (CBC NEWS September 2015)
A report in September confirmed what many in the region already believed.
Industrial activity and vehicle emissions had pushed Red Deer’s ozone and fine particulate matter levels above national standards going back to 2009.
The province’s action plan, heavily based on its previously-announced plan to eliminate coal pollution by 2030, was introduced Thursday.
In a statement, Noah Farber of the Asthma Society of Canada said a reduction in coal pollution is a step in the right direction.
“The Alberta government’s commitment to the elimination of coal fired electricity generation is a positive step to improving air quality for all Albertans. This is particularly true for those with asthma and other respiratory diseases, who will now be able to breathe well and live healthy active lives,” Farber said.
The province is giving the Parkland Airshed Management Zone a grant of $250,000 to identify and monitor sources of pollution.
Another $560,000 will help a new air monitoring station in Red Deer provide more detailed identification of pollution sources for the region.
The Alberta Motor Association will continue driver education with an aim of reducing practices like idling, that increase emissions.
Red Deer outlined a series of actions the city was taking to address the issue following the September report, including buying 30 per cent of its energy from green sources and expanded public transit options, among others.
(CBC NEWS)
Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips says the province is on track to have the worst air quality in Canada, and vows the government will put measures in place to reduce emissions from industry and vehicles.
“The time to act is long overdue,” Phillips said.
“We have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the health of Albertans.”
Phillips made the remarks after seeing the results of the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards report, which show the Red Deer region has exceeded national standards. Four other regions — Lower Athabasca, Upper Athabasca, North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan — are close to exceeding national standards.
Phillips said there is no immediate health risk for people living in central Alberta.
“These results are concerning,” Phillips said in a news release. “We can’t keep going down the same path and expecting a different result. Our government has a responsibility to protect the health of Albertans by ensuring air pollution from all sources is addressed.”
The province will initiate an “action plan” to deal with poor air quality in the Red Deer area, a move she said is required under the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards.
The government said a scientific study looking into the cause of the air pollutants is currently underway, and people living in the Red Deer area, industry stakeholders and the provincial energy regulator will be consulted. That plan is expected to be complete by the end of September and will take Red Deer’s geography and air patterns into consideration.
As part of the plan, Phillips said the government will:
Review technology that could be used to reduce emissions.
Review whether polluters in Alberta are meeting national standards.
Look at other ways to reduce emissions, for example, ways to curb vehicle emissions.
The Pembina Institute, non-profit think tank focused on clean energy, was quick to follow up with its own statement about the air quality results, saying the report shows the need for a provincewide pollution reduction strategy.
“This new report adds to the mounting evidence that Alberta needs to reduce air pollution across the province. Measures that will produce more rapid results are also needed in the numerous regional hot spots identified by the report,” said Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta’s regional director at the Pembina Institute.
“The report shows that, unless emissions are cut, most of the province risks exceeding the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter. This places an unacceptable burden on people’s health and on the environment,” he said.
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment has also weighed in on the report, saying it is “dismayed, but not surprised” by the findings.
“This calls into question the pervasive belief that the clear blue skies of Alberta foster clean air, safe from the pollutants better known from smoggier climes,” said Dr. Joe Vipond, an emergency room doctor and member of the association.
Phillips blamed the previous Tory government for contributing to the rising pollution levels, saying the PCs resisted meaningful action on climate change.
Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards are national standards for particulate matter and ozone exposure.
I received this e-mail this past week from the Director of Air Policy for the Government of Alberta. The Premier did not toss my concerns into the wastebasket but forwarded it to someone who can actually answer some questions. Spoiler alert, there will be some eye-ball rolling.
My name is Hamid Namsechi and I am the director of Air Policy for the Government of Alberta. Premier Notley forwarded a copy of your letter regarding your concerns about air quality and the need for action to reduce air pollution in Red Deer.
The Government of Alberta takes the health of Albertans very seriously. There are many agencies both inside and outside government that look after protecting the quality of our environment. For example, while the Departments of Health and Environment and Parks are responsible for human and environmental health policies and outcomes, agencies such as Alberta Energy Regulator, Clean Air Strategic Alliance, Alberta’s ten airshed organizations, Alberta municipalities, etc. all work collaboratively to ensure the quality of air in Alberta meets all provincial and national standards.
As for action on emissions, you will be happy to know that significant progress has been made since the 2011-2013 Red Deer air quality assessment report was released in September 2015. For starters, part of taking action on reducing fine particulate matter in Red Deer is improving the state of knowledge. Until 2014, Red Deer Riverside was the only monitoring station in the Red Deer area. The Red Deer Lancaster monitoring station was added as a second air quality monitoring station in late 2014. This station will help us to understand if fine particulate matter concentrations vary in different parts of the City of Red Deer.
In April 2016, the Government announced funding for two significant studies to take place in Red Deer. One study involved air quality modelling to determine the relative impact of various sectors on the air quality in Central Alberta. The other is a long-term monitoring study which has commenced sampling and will continue to sample fine particulate matter at three locations in and around the City of Red Deer. These studies will provide valuable information regarding likely sources of emissions that are contributing to the issue of high fine particulate matter concentrations in the City of Red Deer.
Direct action has been taken to reduce emissions from the coal-fired electricity generation at the Battle River site – the biggest source of air pollution in the Red Deer region. As you are aware, coal plants produce a number of air pollutants when they burn coal to make steam to generate electricity. During combustion in air, the sulphur dioxide (SO2), various nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury (Hg), primary particulate matter (PM) and a number of other emissions such as heavy metals are produced as by-products. The operating permit of the Battle River units has now been revised and recent records show that emissions are down by over eighty percent from pre-2015 levels.
Similarly, all industrial approvals for other facilities in the Red Deer region are currently being systematically looked at for opportunities to reduce emissions. After Minister Phillips news conference in 2015, industrial approvals staff in both Alberta Environment and Parks as well as the Alberta Energy Regulator have stepped up the stringency of the emissions standards for facilities operating in stressed airsheds.
As for reducing the volume of non-industrial emissions, there has also been a lot of progress since 2015. Alberta Government has been working with the Clean Air Strategic Alliance, federal Government, Alberta municipalities, agricultural sector, industry and environmental non-governmental organizations to develop strategies to reduce the cumulative impacts of emissions from the many small sources (such as transportation).
The good news in all of these from the ambient air quality perspective is that Red Deer’s latest fine particulate matter readings have substantially improved since the Minister’s news conference. Our preliminary assessment of the 2016 annual average for PM2.5 at Riverside Station shows a forty six percent reduction compared to the historical high levels, which puts the current air quality in Red Deer in the yellow range.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with the Government of Alberta.
Sincerely,
Hamid Namsechi, P.Eng.
Air Policy Director
Policy & Planning Division
Environment and Parks
So we have seen some improvements, will it be enough? Is it just another interpretation?
Opinion
Canadians Must Turn Out in Historic Numbers—Following Taiwan’s Example to Defeat PRC Election Interference

Beijing deploys organized crime to sway Taiwan’s elections — and likely uses similar tactics in Canada, Taiwanese official warns
As Canadians head to the polls on Monday, The Bureau is reposting this report, originally filed from Taiwan, in the public interest.
The 2025 federal election has already been confirmed—through official Canadian intelligence disclosures and our reporting—to have been injured by aggressive foreign interference operations emanating from Beijing. These operations include highly coordinated cyberattacks against Conservative candidate Joe Tay, as well as the potential of in-person intimidation during canvassing efforts in Greater Toronto, according to The Bureau’s source awareness.
The scale and impact of Beijing’s interference in Canada’s 2025 election remains under investigation and is not yet fully understood. However, The Bureau believes it is critical to underscore that as voters face disinformation, manipulation, and suppression attempts, and certain candidates evidently receive support from Xi Jinping’s United Front, the best response is robust democratic participation.
Our groundbreaking 2023 report from Taiwan demonstrates that even under greater and more sustained foreign assault—including sophisticated polling manipulation, corrupt media influence, and the use of organized crime to distort public opinion—Taiwanese citizens have consistently defended their democracy by turning out to vote in record numbers.
Buttressing The Bureau’s findings, the Brookings Institution confirmed: “Taiwanese saw the results of this in 2024: China’s interference became more dangerous as it evolved to be more subtle and untraceable. The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda campaign in Taiwan may have undergone a paradigm shift, as it evolved from a centralized and top-down approach to a more decentralized one.” This United Front work included tactics in which “individuals or groups in Taiwan may receive Chinese funding for election campaigns or to produce fake election polls.”
The Bureau encourages all Canadians, regardless of political preference or predictions from polls and odds-makers, to exercise their democratic right to vote. As Taiwan’s example shows, a free society depends not only on recognizing threats, but on the collective will of its citizens to confront them—at the ballot box.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Beijing has interfered in Taiwan’s elections by using organized crime networks to influence votes for certain candidates and is likely using the same methods in Canada, a senior Taiwanese official said Tuesday.
Responding to questions from journalists in Taiwan, Jyh-horng Jan, deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, said that Beijing uses “collaborators” including illegal gambling bosses and Taiwanese businessmen to interfere in Taiwan’s elections.
The Bureau asked Jan if he could describe Taiwanese knowledge of Beijing’s election interference methods, in comparison to examples of China’s recent interference in Canadian federal elections through the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front, which has allegedly clandestinely funded Beijing’s favoured candidates, according to Canadian intelligence investigations.
“We’ve been facing China’s United Front for over half a century in Taiwan and I think China’s tactics have been changing all the time,” Jan said. “Since we are in the lead up to a presidential election next January, we know that they have already started the United Front campaign against us.”
The Council is the Taiwanese government arm mandated to deal with all matters related to Beijing, and works with intelligence and police agencies in order to assess and counteract the Chinese Communist Party’s subversion campaigns.
Jan said the Council has already gathered intelligence indicating China is running influence campaigns against certain candidates in Taiwan’s upcoming January 2024 presidential election.
The front-runner in that contest, Taiwanese vice-president William Lai, is viewed by Beijing as a “separatist” and strong opponent of the Chinese Communist Party’s plans to pressure Taiwan into subordination.
Without naming Lai or any other candidates as Beijing’s alleged targets, Jan said the Council has learned wealthy businessmen will be used as fronts for Beijing to criticize candidates the Chinese Communist Party disfavours.
“We recently found out that China don’t like some of our current presidential candidates. So they’re going to use our business associations who are investing in China to make public statements against certain candidates,” Jan said. “By doing this, they want to shape this image that Taiwanese people are expressing opposition to a certain candidate. Whereas it is actually their voice.”
Jan also told a gathering of international journalists of an alleged method of Chinese election interference that focuses on underground gambling networks.
He described a complex scheme in which Beijing funded and used organized crime gambling rings to influence votes for certain candidates in Taiwan.
“I will share an example that has been happening in Taiwan and probably elsewhere, including Canada,” Jan said. “This is a very classic tactic of China’s election interference.”
According to Jan, the scheme involves underground betting on election candidates, and how the gambling odds can influence actual results at the ballot boxes.
“In the lead up to elections there will always be illegal election operations in Taiwan, so China tends to take advantage of such operations and they will work with the operators from these election gambling rings,” Jan said.
“Beijing will work with such election gambling operators telling them if you can get more people to wager on this specific candidate they will get a very high cash pay off,” Jan said. “And when the operators spread the word [in the betting community] the voters will flock to support this specific candidate.”
Chinese agents also inject funds into these underground betting operations that influence voting results, Jan said.
The Bureau asked Jan to clarify, whether he was alleging that Beijing is systematically using organized crime to influence votes for certain candidates.
“Because this is illegal activity, of course our law enforcement will crack down on such activity and the police were also [able to] issue a fine in this regard,” Jan said. “So this information, regarding illegal election; this is something that is out there, so I can afford confirm that.”
In response to a follow-up question from The Bureau, regarding a ProPublica investigative report that alleged Beijing used Fujian transnational crime suspects in its secret police stations, in Italy, Jan confirmed that his Council recognizes Beijing’s use of transnational crime networks for various objectives.
“So the criminal organization that you were talking about; this criminal organization exists wherever there are overseas Chinese, and one of their responsibilities is to control the activity of overseas Chinese,” Jan said.
(The Bureau reported from Taiwan with international media at the invitation of and with support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has no input on The Bureau’s coverage.)
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C2C Journal
“Freedom of Expression Should Win Every Time”: In Conversation with Freedom Convoy Trial Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon

Lawrence Greenspon Defends the Fundamental Freedoms of All Canadians
By Lynne Cohen
“Law is an imperfect profession,” famed American lawyer Alan Dershowitz – defender of such notorious clients as Claus Von Bülow, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein and O.J. Simpson – once wrote. “There is no perfect justice…But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.”
Like Dershowitz, Lawrence Greenspon has spent a career fighting injustice in all its forms. Over the past 45 years Greenspon has become one of Canada’s best-known criminal lawyers through his defence of a long list of clients at risk of being crushed by Canada’s legal system – from terrorists to political pariahs to, most recently, Tamara Lich, the petite grandmother who became the public face of the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest.
In taking on these cases, Greenspon is not only giving his clients the best defence possible, he’s also defending the very legitimacy of Canada’s legal system.
Lich faced six charges and up to 10 years in jail for her role organizing the peaceful Ottawa protest. Earlier this month she was found guilty on a single charge of mischief. The Crown says it intends to seek a two-year sentence for that one charge.
In an interview, Greenspon said he decides on cases based on whether he believes in the cause central to the case: “What’s at stake. And can I make a difference?” What attracted him to Lich’s case were key aspects of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that Greenspon felt needed defending. “Canadians have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly,” he said. “These are fundamental freedoms, and they’re supposed to be protected for all of us.”
At issue was the impact the protest had on some downtown Ottawa residents and whether that conflicted with Lich’s right to free speech and peaceful protest. “We were prepared to admit right off the bat that there were individuals who lived in downtown Ottawa who experienced some interference with their enjoyment of their property,” Greenspon noted.
“But when you put freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly on a scale against interference with somebody’s enjoyment of property, there’s no contest. Freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression – these should win every time.”
Such a spirited defence of Canadians’ Charter rights is characteristic of the entire body of Greenspon’s legal work. Although his clients aren’t always as endearing as Lich.
Prior to being in the spotlight for the Lich trial, most Canadians probably remember Greenspon from the 2008 trial of Mohamed Momin Khawaja, the first person charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The evidence against Khawaja was substantial and convincing. He was even planning a suicide mission against Israel. Greenspon is a Jew. It was not an issue.
“The fundamental point is that everybody’s entitled to a defence,” Greenspon said. What really mattered was the constitutionality of the new terror law, which Greenspon argued impinged on the free speech rights of Canadians.
In 2018 Greenspon represented Joshua Boyle, who faced over a dozen criminal charges stemming from accusations made by his wife Caitlin Coleman after they returned from being held captive in Afghanistan. Greenspon’s meticulous cross-examination of Coleman led Judge Peter Doody of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to conclude, “I do not believe her, just as I do not believe Mr. Boyle.” All charges against Boyle were dismissed.
He also defended Senator Mike Duffy, who in 2014 found himself charged in connection with an expense account scandal. “Duffy’s presumption of innocence had been completely annihilated. I had no problem representing Mike. In fact, I feel proud to have represented Mike,” he said.
Throughout his legal career, Greenspon has fought tirelessly for the constitutional rights of all his clients, regardless of public sympathy or apparent guilt. While such a stance can make him unpopular, such work offers a crucial bulwark against the state’s misuse of its authority in pursuing particular individuals, as well as the gradual erosion of the liberties promised to all Canadians by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Every Canadian has a stake in ensuring the court system is held to account at all times, regardless of the apparent evidence, current political mood or public support.
Without the work of lawyers such as Greenspon, Charter rights can soon deteriorate into empty platitudes – as the federal government’s shocking treatment of the peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters revealed. That included the unjustified imposition of the Emergencies Act, the freezing of donors’ bank accounts, the mass arrest of supporters and the marked reluctance to grant bail to those charged.
As Greenspon pointed out numerous times during the trial, the conciliatory and always respectful Lich represents the very ideals of peaceful protest in Canada. And for the sole charge on which she was convicted, she still faces two years in a federal penitentiary.
In the case of Khawaja, Greenspon was asked by an Ottawa synagogue to explain why he, as a Jew, was defending an Islamist terrorist. “I told the synagogue members, somebody has to stand up for the person who finds themselves set against the entire machinery of the state. In this case it happens to be Khawaja. But what if the next guy is named Dreyfus?”
Lynne Cohen is a writer at C2C Journal, where the longer original version of this story first appeared.
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