Entertainment
Terrific Tunes… Tasty Food… It’s Foodstock!!! Saturday at Elks Lodge
Terrific tunes and tasty fare for a great cause – gearing up for Foodstock
By Mark Weber
A partnership between the Red Deer Food Bank and the Central Music Festival Society continues to not only spread the joy of music but also helps meet a critical need in the community.
Foodstock runs Sept. 14th.
There will be plenty of food, festivities and a ‘mini-international’ music festival at the Elks Lodge featuring the exemplary talents of David Essig, Nine Second Ride, Rob Lamonica, Laurelle, and the mesmerizing magic of Kyle Key.
The fun kicks off at 5 p.m. and runs through to 11 p.m.
As the Society’s web site points out, ‘Thousands are expected to pack the parking lot with donations (for the Food Bank) while feasting on the Red Deer Food Bank BBQ Crue’s sizzling fare.”
At 7 p.m. the music starts inside and runs through to around 11 p.m. All profits go to the Red Deer Food Bank.
Tickets are $30 each in advance or $35 at the door. Kids aged 12 and under are admitted free when with a responsible adult.
“Our goal for this event is to raise over $5,000 for the Red Deer Food Bank to help meet the demand for the holiday season,” said Mike Bradford, president of the Central Music Festival Society.
“We like to create a festive atmosphere,” he explained, pointing out that stilt walkers will be onsite to showcase their skills as well.
“They will also be giving lessons to interested kids on shorter stilts.”
After everyone eats and takes in the fun outside, the tunes kick off in the Elks Lodge.
“If you look around, and you are in a position to help somebody out, the very basic need for all of us is food,” he added. “That’s what it’s all about. “So in my mind, it’s just a way of giving back to the community,” he said. Indeed, it’s a service that is always in high demand as well. “There is no shame in needing a helping hand.”
The partnership at the annual Foodstock event also led to the Food Bank setting up at Central Music Festival Society shows through the year as well. The Society also matches Food Bank financial contributions dollar for dollar, said Bradford.
To date, close to $9,000 has been raised. “It’s something that has worked out pretty well for both of us! If we can help out, we are glad to do it.”
Feedback from all sides has always been fantastic, he added.
It’s a rewarding experience for Society volunteers to be a part of and the Food Bank is always very happy for the solid support of course. The musicians are also thrilled to pool their efforts behind such a great community cause as well.
“It’s also about raising the awareness of the Food Bank. Anyone can fall on hard times, and anyone can lend a helping hand.
“We are all human, and we have to get through this life together.”
As for the folks at the Food Bank, they couldn’t be more pleased – or thankful – about this terrific partnership.
“It’s been a tremendous relationship, and it’s been ongoing for a couple of years now,” said Fred Scaife, executive director of the Red Deer Food Bank.
“They invite us to all of their events, too,” he noted, pointing out that Food Bank representatives, as mentioned, are at performances through the year to receive donations from patrons and also make further connections in the community.
“And the shows are always so good!”
But ultimately, Scaife emphasized that it’s partnerships like these that really help to make such a critical difference in the day-to-day operations of the Food Bank.
And with Foodstock, the timing of the event couldn’t be better as food and financial reserves at the Food Bank can be running quite low at that point of the year, said Scaife. “Not only does it give us an opportunity to solicit some donations that we need at that time of year, it also gives us the opportunity to be in front of the public,” he noted.
Scaife also explained that the consistent support of the Central Music Festival Society is what helps with the unpredictable nature of collecting food and funds through the year for the charity.
“It’s such a good, solid relationship. It’s great for us.”
For more info and tickets… www.centralmusicfest.com
Business
Canadians largely ignore them and their funding bleeds their competition dry: How the CBC Spends its Public Funding
If we want to intelligently assess the value CBC delivers to Canadians in exchange for their tax-funded investment, we’ll need to understand two things:
- How CBC spends the money we give them
- What impact their product has on Canadians
The answer to question #2 depends on which Canadians we’re discussing. Your average young family from suburban Toronto is probably only vaguely aware there is a CBC. But Canadian broadcasters? They know all about the corporation, but just wish it would lift its crushing hobnailed boots from their faces.
Stick around and I’ll explain.
For the purposes of this discussion I’m not interested in the possibility that there’s been reckless or negligent corruption or waste, so I won’t address the recent controversy over paying out millions of dollars in executive benefits. Instead, I want to know how the CBC is designed to operate. This will allow us to judge the corporation on its own terms.
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CBC’s Financial Structure
We’ll begin with the basics. According to the CBC’s 2023-24 projections in their most recent corporate plan strategy, the company will receive $1.17 billion from Parliament; $292 million from advertising; and $209 million from subscriber fees, financing, and other income. Company filings note that revenue from both advertising and legacy subscription pools are dropping. Advertising is trending downwards because of ongoing changes in industry ad models, and the decline in subscriptions can be blamed on competition from “cord-cutting” internet services. The Financing and other income category includes revenue from rent and lease-generating use of CBC’s many real estate assets.
The projected combined television, radio, and digital services spending is $1.68 billion. For important context, 2022-23 data from the 2022-2023 annual report break that down to $996 million for English services, and $816 million for French services. 2022-23 also saw $60 million in costs for transmission, distribution, and collection. Corporate management and finance costs came to around $33 million. Overall, the company reported a net loss of $125 million in 2022-23.
The corporation estimates that their English-language digital platforms attract 17.4 million unique visitors each month and that the average visitor engages with content for 28 minutes a month. In terms of market relevance, those are pretty good numbers. But, among Canadian internet users, cbc.ca still ranked only 43rd for total web destinations (which include sites like google.com and amazon.ca). French-language Radio-Canada’s numbers were 5.2 million unique visitors who each hung around for 50 minutes a month.
Monthly engagement with digital English-language news and regional services was 20 minutes. Although we’re given no visitor numbers, the report does admit that “interest in news was lower than expected.”
CBC content production
All that’s not very helpful for understanding what’s actually going on inside CBC. We need to get a feel for how the corporation divides its spending between programming categories and what’s driving the revenue.
The CRTC provides annual financial filings for all Canadian broadcasters, including the CBC. I could describe what’s happening by throwing columns and rows of dollar figures at you. In fact, should you be so disposed, you can view the spreadsheet here. But it turns out that my colorful graph will do a much better job:
As you can see for yourself, CBC spends a large chunk of its money producing news for all three video platforms (CBC and Radio-Canada conventional TV and the cable/VOD platforms they refer to as “discretionary TV”). The two conventional networks also invest significant funds in drama and comedy production.
The chart doesn’t cover CBC radio, so I’ll fill you in. English-language production costs $143 million (roughly the equivalent of the costs of English TV drama/comedy) while the bill for French-language radio production came in at $94 million (more or less equal to discretionary TV news production).
CBC Content Consumption
Who’s watching? The CBC itself reported that viewers of CBC English television represented only 5.1 percent of the total Canadian audience, and only 2.0 percent tuned in to CBC news. By “total Canadian audience”, I mean all Canadians viewing all available TV programming at a given time. So when the CBC tells us that their News Network got a 2.0 percent “share”, they don’t mean that they attracted 2.0 percent of all Canadians. Rather, they got 2.0 percent of whoever happened to be watching any TV network – which could easily come to just a half of one percent of all Canadians. After all, how many people still watch TV?
According to CRTC data, between the 2014–15 and 2022–23 seasons, English language CBC TV weekly viewing hours dropped from 35 million to 16 million. That total would amount to less than six minutes a day per anglophone Canadian. Specifically, news viewing fell by 52 percent, sports by 66 percent, and drama and comedy by 51 percent.
CBC Radio One and CBC Music only managed to attract 14.3 percent of the Canadian market. What does that actually mean? I’ve seen estimates suggesting that between 15 and 25 percent of all Canadians listen to radio during the popular daily commute slots. So at its peak, CBC radio’s share of that audience is possibly no higher than 3.5 percent of all Canadians.
A recent survey found that only 41 percent of Canadians agreed the CBC “is important and should continue doing what it’s doing.” The remaining 59 percent were split between thinking the CBC requires “a lot of changes” and was “no longer useful.” Those numbers remained largely consistent across all age groups.
It seems that while some Canadian’s might support the CBC in principle, for the most part, they’re not actually consuming a lot of content.
CBC Revenue sources
CBC’s primary income is from government funding through parliamentary allocations. Here’s what those look like:
Advertising (or, “time sales” as they refer to it) is another major revenue source. That channel brought in more than $200 million in 2023:
But here’s the thing: the broadcast industry in Canada is currently engaged in a bitter struggle for existence. Every single dollar from that shrinking pool of advertising revenue is desperately needed. And most broadcasters are – perhaps misguidedly – fighting for more government funding. So why should the CBC, with its billion dollar subsidies, be allowed to also compete for limited ad revenue?
Or, to put it differently, what vital and unique services does the CBC provide that might justify their special treatment?
It’s possible that CBC does target rural and underserved audiences missed by the commercial networks. But those are clearly not what’s consuming the vast majority of the corporation’s budget. Perhaps people are watching CBC’s “big tent” drama and comedy productions, but are those measurably better or more important than what’s coming from the private sector? And we’ve already seen how, for all intents and purposes, no one’s watching their TV news or listening to their radio broadcasts.
Perhaps there’s an argument to be made for maintaining or even increasing funding for CBC. But I haven’t yet seen anyone convincingly articulate it.
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Crime
Actor’s Death Raises Alarm about Off-Label Anesthetic
From Heartland Daily News
By Kevin Stone
A federal court has indicted and charged five individuals for contributing to the death of actor Matthew Perry by providing him with the anesthetic ketamine.
On October 28, 2023, Perry was found floating face-down in his hot tub. An autopsy later revealed his death had been caused by “acute effects of ketamine.” Perry, a star of the television show Friends, had long struggled with addiction.
Charged in the 18-count indictment are Perry’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa; two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez; and two other individuals, Erik Fleming and Jasveen Sangha. Sangha was known as the “Ketamine Queen” who is accused of running a North Hollywood “stash house.”
Multiple Players Charged
Documents filed by prosecutors claim Perry’s assistant and an acquaintance worked with the two doctors and the drug dealer to provide tens of thousands of dollars worth of ketamine to fuel Perry’s addiction. Fleming coordinated the sale with Sangha, prosecutors say.
Iwamasa provided at least 27 ketamine injections to Perry in the five days leading up to his death, according to the prosecution. Chavez admitted selling ketamine to Plasencia for redistribution to Perry by falsifying information to a distributor and then using a prescription written in the name of a former patient.
When Plasencia texted another doctor about how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, he wrote, “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” and “Let’s find out,” prosecutors say. The trial date for Chavez and Plasencia is set for March 4, 2025.
Binge-Use Temptation
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that can produce hallucinogenic effects. Ketamine is also used as a pain reliever and for the relief of treatment-resistant depression.
Some people use ketamine as a recreational drug for its ability to induce hallucinations. The effects of ketamine are short-lived, and users may rapidly develop tolerance to the drug, leading some to binge-use it.
Celebrity Power, Vulnerability
Ketamine is widely accepted as safe and effective for use as an anesthetic in a clinical setting. Off-label uses of the drug that may lead to abuse have led to rising concerns.
A recent New York Times article questioned the drug’s safety for off-label use in the wake of Perry’s death. Although ketamine ordinarily carries no more risk than other anesthetics, pain relievers, and antidepressants.
Celebrities can use their fame and wealth to circumvent effective safeguards against over-prescription and abuse, says Devon Herrick, a health economist.
“Physicians have significant leeway to prescribe FDA-approved medications off-label,” said Herrick. “Some off-label therapies later become mainstream, while others fall out of favor. What makes Matthew Perry’s situation unique was his celebrity status. Similar to the experience of Michael Jackson, Perry was able to enlist the help of physicians willing to provide him with a risky drug therapy not appropriately monitored.
“It’s unlikely a noncelebrity patient would be able to find a doctor willing to administer an anesthetic in their home,” said Herrick. “The lure of both money and bragging rights to say they’re a celebrity doctor likely culminated in Perry’s demise.”
Off-Label Benefits
Ketamine was developed as an anesthetic agent and was found to help treat some mental health conditions through off-label use, which is a common procedure, says Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who defends off-label use of the drug.
“Roughly 20 percent of all drugs prescribed in the U.S. are for off-label uses,” said Singer. “The [Food and Drug Administration, FDA] has always deferred to clinicians and clinical researchers on how to use drugs off-label. Once the FDA approves a drug for a particular indication, it permits clinicians to use it for any other indication where clinicians and clinical researchers believe the drug can be helpful.”
This real-world experience brings important knowledge, says Singer.
“As clinical research and clinical experience continue, such off-label drug use can lead to subsequent therapeutic advances,” said Singer. “However, clinical researchers often discover over time that specific off-label uses do not work. Over time, we should learn a lot more about what conditions ketamine works best for and what are the optimal ways to use it for those conditions.”
The system is working, says Singer.
“There is no reason why the FDA should add to the already cumbersome regulatory regime by requiring further approvals for off-label uses,” said Singer. “The FDA should leave the off-label uses of drugs to clinical researchers, clinicians, and the civil tort system.”
Black Market Problem
Adding new legal barriers to ketamine prescription would probably drive those wishing to abuse the drug into the black market, where its use would be wholly unmonitored and more dangerous drugs are also readily available, says Singer.
“People are already getting ketamine in the black market, along with other psychedelics such as MDMA, psilocybin, DMT, and magic mushrooms,” said Singer. “If the FDA further restricted online sales [of ketamine], it would only intensify profits in the black market and drive people to the black market, where the purity and strength of these drugs are less certain.
“We already have seen reports of black market MDMA—“ecstasy” or “Molly”—being laced with fentanyl,” said Singer. “Further restricting online sales of ketamine—or limiting its off-label use by licensed clinicians—will only make it more dangerous for people who continue to use ketamine. But it will not prevent them from using it.”
Kevin Stone ([email protected]) writes from Arlington, Texas.
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