COVID-19
Red Deer Public Schools keeping Educational Assistants on for an extra month

From Red Deer Public Schools
Red Deer Public lays off support staff on June 1
Saturday’s announcement that the provincial government was reducing funds to school divisions across the province will result in the layoff of educational assistants effective June 1. There will be no more assignments for substitute teachers. Contracted services by our bussing contractor are suspended for the remainder of the school year.
Funding from the province to Red Deer Public Schools has been reduced by $1.45 million. In total, the government is expected to reduce funding to Alberta school jurisdictions by a total of $128 million, which will be directed to support the province’s COVID-19 pandemic response.
“When classes were cancelled two weeks ago, the focus of all our staff shifted to continuity of learning and supporting our 11,000 students having to learn from home,” said Board Chair Nicole Buchanan.
“Red Deer Public understands that our province and nation are significantly impacted by the many challenges we are facing in 2020. We are keenly aware of the significant challenges that students, the families we serve and our community are facing,” said Buchanan.
With online learning for 11,000 students off to a successful start last week the division wanted to ensure all students were actively engaged in learning. “We received really great feedback after a week of learning from home. When we established our plans for continuity of learning, our educational assistants and support staff played an important role in the delivery,” said Superintendent Stu Henry. “Our top priority is to continue to provide great teaching and learning to our students while they are home.”
Given the funding reduction, the District looked at all aspects of its budget to maximize student learning. “We wanted to support continuity of learning as much as possible. Through overall cost savings through reduced operations within our schools and the division, we are now able to defer the layoffs to educational assistants until June 1 rather than May 1 as originally planned,” said Henry. “This will allow us to use educational assistants to maintain our plans to support learning from home, particularly in these early stages. We can also provide targeted support to students with special needs, including those PUF students in pre kindergarten.”
While the initial announcement identified where reductions should take place, decisions have been left to school boards to determine where the reductions are best made. “We are still meeting our funding reductions announced by the government. Yes, these funding reductions are tough, but by respecting the local autonomy of school boards to make the best decisions, the government knows that we are in a far better place to make decisions that maximize student learning and have the least impact on students as well as staff,” said Chair Buchanan.
Today the District informed staff of the following layoffs:
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258 Educational Assistants – effective June 1
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Substitute Teachers – no more assignments effective March 31
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Contracted services by our bussing contractor are suspended for the remainder of the school year
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At this point, we are not anticipating nor planning further reductions to staffing.
“We are incredibly proud of how staff in all of our schools have responded to these challenging times, said Chair Buchanan. “‘We’re in this together’ is the rallying cry for this pandemic crisis. Our support staff have played an important role throughout the school year and had really stepped up as we’ve responded to this unprecedented pandemic. While they still face layoffs June 1, fortunately we have been able to minimize the impact of this funding reduction to students and staff. Yes, we will get through this together!”
6 more cases of COVID in Central Alberta, 57 in total – (April 1 update)
COVID-19
Maxime Bernier slams Freedom Convoy leaders’ guilty verdict, calls Canada’s justice system ‘corrupt’

From LifeSiteNews
The leader of the People’s Party of Canada says Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were victims of a ‘political witch hunt.’
The leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) ripped Thursday’s federal court ruling that found Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber guilty of mischief, saying the court siding with the government amounted to a “political witch hunt.”
“It is disheartening to learn that two of the heroes of the Freedom Convoy, @LichTamara and @ChrisBarber1975, have been found guilty of mischief in the longest and one of the costliest trials in Canadian history,” Maxime Bernier wrote Thursday on X.
“This clearly was a political witch hunt.”
Bernier added that in his view the reality is that Canada’s justice system is “corrupt.”
“Trudeau and his ministers who illegally invoked the Emergencies Act and violated basic rights will go unpunished,” he noted.
“Our justice system is corrupt to the bones.”
On Thursday, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the mischief trial, delivered her verdict, finding both Lich and Barber guilty of mischief.
Perkins-McVey seemed to agree with the Crown’s case that Lich and Barber’s influence on the Freedom Convoy constituted public mischief but did dismiss the Crown’s Carter Application accusing Lich and Barber of conspiracy outright.
Lich and Barber both faced six charges each, those being charges of mischief, obstruction, intimidation, and counseling others to commit mischief and intimidation. After the court reconvened Thursday afternoon, Lich was acquitted of four of her six charges, with the fifth charge, counseling to commit mischief, being stayed by the judge.
As for Barber, the court found him guilty of mischief as a principal offender and as an aider and abettor. It also found him guilty on the charge of violating a court order.
As for sentencing, the court will reconvene on April 16 at 1:30 p.m. EST, at which time it will say when a date and time for sentencing will be held.
Lich and Barber both face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.
The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September 2024, more than a year after it began. It was only originally scheduled to last 16 days.
Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.
Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.
2025 Federal Election
Mark Carney refuses to clarify 2022 remarks accusing the Freedom Convoy of ‘sedition’

From LifeSiteNews
Mark Carney described the Freedom Convoy as an act of ‘sedition’ and advocated for the government to use its power to crush the non-violent protest movement.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney refused to elaborate on comments he made in 2022 referring to the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protest as an act of “sedition” and advocating for the government to put an end to the movement.
“Well, look, I haven’t been a politician,” Carney said when a reporter in Windsor, Ontario, where a Freedom Convoy-linked border blockade took place in 2022, asked, “What do you say to Canadians who lost trust in the Liberal government back then and do not have trust in you now?”
“I became a politician a little more than two months ago, two and a half months ago,” he said. “I came in because I thought this country needed big change. We needed big change in the economy.”
Carney’s lack of an answer seems to be in stark contrast to the strong opinion he voiced in a February 7, 2022, column published in the Globe & Mail at the time of the convoy titled, “It’s Time To End The Sedition In Ottawa.”
In that piece, Carney wrote that the Freedom Convoy was a movement of “sedition,” adding, “That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”
Carney went on to claim in the piece that if “left unchecked” by government authorities, the Freedom Convoy would “achieve” its “goal of undermining our democracy.”
Carney even targeted “[a]nyone sending money to the Convoy,” accusing them of “funding sedition.”
Internal emails from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) eventually showed that his definition of sedition were not in conformity with the definition under Canada’s Criminal Code, which explicitly lists the “use of force” as a necessary aspect of sedition.
“The key bit is ‘use of force,’” one RCMP officer noted in the emails. “I’m all about a resolution to this and a forceful one with us victorious but, from the facts on the ground, I don’t know we’re there except in a small number of cases.”
Another officer replied with, “Agreed,” adding that “It would be a stretch to say the trucks barricading the streets and the air horns blaring at whatever decibels for however many days constitute the ‘use of force.’”
The reality is that the Freedom Convoy was a peaceful event of public protest against COVID mandates, and not one protestor was charged with sedition. However, the Liberal government, then under Justin Trudeau, did take an approach similar to the one advocated for by Carney, invoking the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters. Since then, a federal judge has ruled that such action was “not justified.”
Despite this, the two most prominent leaders of the Freedom Convoy, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, still face a possible 10-year prison sentence for their role in the non-violent assembly. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.
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