Opinion
OPINION: When it comes to pools, we can but we will have to hurry to catch up to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and should not be interpreted as reflecting the editorial policy of Todayville, Inc.
There has been a lot of attention given and words written about the proposed aquatic centre with a 50m pool, twinning the Dawe ice rink, developing north of 11a, Hazlett Lake and the time and costs. We should seriously think about doing it as one line item.
The city wants to build the new ice rink and a new pool while at the same time develop about 3,000 acres north of Hwy 11a, including Hazlett Lake.
The city acknowledges that it would be easier and possibly less expensive to build stand alone structures. Land costs would differ.
Let us start with Hazlett Lake.
Remember, Hazlett Lake is a natural lake that covers a surface area of 0.45 km2 (0.17 mi2), has an average depth of 3 meters (10 feet). Hazlett Lake has a total shore line of 4 kilometers (2 miles). It is 108.8 acres in size. Located in the north-west sector of Red Deer. Highly visible to Hwy 11a and the QE2.
Adding in that I have written extensively how Lethbridge’ turned a man made slough into Henderson Lake Park. A premier tourist destination.
Henderson Lake Park is one of Lethbridge’s premier parks featuring a 24 hectare (59.3 acres)man made lake, mature trees and groves, gardens, picnic shelters, playgrounds and over 7 km of trails.
(Red Deer has a natural lake, not man made and it is 108.8 acres compared to 59.3 acres.)
Now I would like to talk about Medicine Hat.
Medicine Hat, population 63,260 has Echo Dale Lake Park.
Echo Dale, the largest of Medicine Hat’s parks, is located a short distance west of Medicine Hat along the South Saskatchewan River. The park has two man-made lakes: one for swimming and one for paddle boating and fishing. Two beach volleyball courts and many picnic spots with fire pits are available. There are also many kilometers of hiking trails through the coulees.
Again another city spending money building man made lakes. Red Deer has a large lake with miles of shoreline laying idle. Medicine Hat’s Echo Dale park is a short distance away, not downtown.
When it comes to 50m pools Lethbridge has the Max Bell Regional Aquatic Centre;
The Max Bell Regional Aquatic Centre opened in 1985 to serve the needs of Southern Alberta resident
Max Bell Pool hosts many of the community’s competitive swim clubs and water sport related clubs in Lethbridge including the LA Swim Club, Masters Swim Club, Lethbridge Synchrobelles, Lethbridge Dive Club, Lethbridge Special Olympics and others
Pool offers: private swim lessons, lifeguard courses & pool rentals for swim groups and birthday parties
Popular venue for special events, swim meets, school group rentals and other community organization requirements
Built at a cost of $5.5 million and named to acknowledge the centre’s major benefactor, the Max Bell Foundation
Facility Features
50-metre training facility featuring several springboards, a 3-metre and 5-metre dive tower and 12.5 x 21 metre hydraulically-operated, movable floor that can be set from zero depth to six feet.
Two electrically driven bulkheads allow up to three major activities to take place at once
Olympic sized Pool has a capacity of 3.5 million litres of water or 760,000 gallons
Adjacent viewing gallery, located on the second level; seats 350
Lethbridge built this Aquatic Centre with a 50m pool and built a man made Henderson Lake. Lethbridge is the 5th fastest growing city in Canada.
Now back to Medicine Hat.
In 2016, Medicine Hat, population 63,260, finished a 30 million dollar upgrade to their Family Leisure Centre.
Preview;
The Family Leisure Center is a place to feel empowered, where one’s social, emotional, mental and physical needs can be met under one roof.
They offer a wide variety of structured and unstructured health and lifestyle opportunities for individuals, families and entire communities to meet, grow, laugh, explore and more. Learn a new skill, make new friends, spend time with the family or find a ‘whole’ new you – the opportunities to play are endless.
Completely accessible, the facility sit on 57 acres and boasts the following amenities:
Kinsmen Aquatic Park, complete with:
50 meter multi-purpose wave pool, lazy river, tot pool, hot tub, variable depth pool
Two spring boards and high dive platform
Steam room; and
“Rip-n-Rattler” water slide
Cenovus Arena – 100′ x 200′ Olympic size ice rink
17,000 square foot Fitness Center, complete with 200 meter indoor running/walking track
Indoor Fieldhouse containing twin multi-sport indoor boarded fields
Multi-purpose/dividable gymnasium capable of accommodating 2 basketball, 4 volleyball or 10 badminton/pickleball courts
Flexible program rooms, team change rooms, meeting rooms, offices, customer service areas, and administration space
A central food services space which is currently licensed to Booster Juice
Outside, you will find:
The Methanex Bowl, a premier (lighted) synthetic turf field for football/soccer/rugby
Three regulation size soccer pitches
Four high quality ball diamonds
A BMX Track
A rubber floor accessible ‘Viking’ playground
Accessible outdoor fitness equipment
The Familiy Leisure Centre is home to the following clubs. Please click on the sites below for more information:
Alberta Marlin Aquatic Club (AMAC & Master’s Swim Club) Masters
Water Polo Information: [email protected] (e-mail)
Medicine Hat Skating Club [email protected]
Medicine Hat Speed Skating Club www.mhssc.ca
Panthers Track Club www.medicinehattrackclub.ca
Sledge Hockey and Wheelchair Basketball.
Commitment to Inclusion
The Family Leisure Centre is accessible to all members of our community, including those with disabilities.
The Lobby, Arena, Gymnasium, Change Rooms, Steam Room and Pool Viewing Area all have level entries.
The Wave Pool and Lazy River can be accessed from a ramped entrance off the pool deck while a portable seated lift provides access to the 50m Pool and Hot Tub.
The Fieldhouse change rooms have level entry while a decline ramp takes you down to field level.
The Fitness Area and Track are just a short elevator ride up to the second level, where you will find specialized equipment that can be adapted to varying levels of ability.
Red Deer has been until recently the 3rd largest city in Alberta, but from procrastination and I may suggest fear they have fallen behind in offering recreational facilities. While other smaller communities are building Aquatic Centres and building man made lakes, we are sitting idle and let vital assets remain unused and under utilized. Should we not join the crowd?
Red Deer should be the destination to go to in Central Alberta. But that would take guts and cash. Do we have what it takes?
I believe so. Just saying.
From the Fraser Institute
Nearly half of young Canadians surveyed in a 2022 study said they believed humanity is doomed because of climate change, while more than three-quarters said they were frightened. No wonder. They have grown up bombarded both by footage of natural disasters, not just in Canada but around the world, and by activists’ claims that climate change is making the planet unliveable. But that’s just wrong.
The ubiquity of phone cameras and our ability to instantly communicate mean — the “CNN effect” — that the media can show more weather disasters now than ever before. But that doesn’t mean the disasters are deadlier or costlier.
As we saw in the first article in this series, deaths from climate-related disasters have dropped precipitously. On average in the 1870s five million people a year died from such disasters. A century ago, about half a million people a year did. In the past decade, however, the death toll worldwide was fewer than 10,000 people a year. As global population has more than quintupled, disaster deaths have declined 500-fold. And this dramatic decline is true for all major disaster categories, including floods, flash floods, cold waves and wind disasters, and for rich and poor countries alike. But you never hear about that during disaster reporting.
Floods are the most costly and frequent Canadian disasters. But the common claim that flood costs are rising dramatically ignores the obvious fact that when a flood plain has many more houses on it than decades ago and the houses are worth much more then the same flood will cause a lot more damage. We need to keep these changes in mind and measure costs in proportion to GDP. Even the UN says that’s how to measure whether cities and towns are safer.
Though peer-reviewed analysis for Canada is lacking there is plenty to draw on elsewhere. As so often, the U.S. has the most comprehensive data. It shows that while flood costs have increased in absolute terms, that’s only because more people and property are in harm’s way. In the country’s worst year for flooding, 1913, damage exceeded two per cent of GDP, though the yearly average in that era was 0.5 per cent. Today it’s less than 0.05 per cent of GDP — just a tenth what it was a century ago.
We know adaptation makes disasters much less threatening over time. Consider sea level rise, which threatens to flood coastal zones around the world. A much-cited study shows that at the turn of this century an average of 3.4 million people a year experienced coastal flooding, with $11 billion in annual damages. At the same time, around $13 billion or 0.05 per cent of global GDP was spent on coastal defences.
By the end of this century, more people will be in harm’s way, and climate change could raise sea levels by as much as a metre. If we don’t improve coastal defences, vast areas will be routinely inundated, flooding 187 million people and causing $55 trillion in annual damages, more than five per cent of global GDP in 2100. This finding does routinely make headlines.
But it ignores adaptation, which research shows will cost much less. On average, countries will avoid flood damage by spending just 0.005 per cent of GDP. Even with higher sea levels, far fewer people will be flooded — by 2100 just 15,000 people a year. Even the combined cost of adaptation and damage will be just 0.008 per cent of GDP.
Enormously ambitious emissions-reduction policies costing hundreds of trillions of dollars could cut the number of people flooded at century’s end from that 15,000 number down to about 10,000 per year. But notice the difference: Adaptation reduces the number currently being flooded by almost 3.4 million and avoids another 184 million people being flooded annually by 2100. At best, climate policy can save just 0.005 million.
We often hear that the “world is on fire” because of climate change. New Liberal leader Mark Carney repeated that in his acceptance speech Sunday. And it’s true that in 2023 more of Canada’s surface area burned than in any year since 1970, with climate change probably partly to blame. Even so, two points need to be kept in mind.
First, most studies projecting an increase in wildfires ignore adaptation. In fact, humans don’t like fire and make great efforts to reduce it, which is why since 1900 humanity has seen less burned area, not more. The data from last century involve historical reconstruction but since 1997, NASA satellites have tracked all significant fires. The record shows a dramatic fall in global burned area. Last year it was the second lowest, and in 2022 the lowest ever. And studies find that with adaptation the area burned will keep falling, even without climate action.
Second, reducing emissions is a terribly inefficient way to help. Studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that even drastic cuts in emissions would reduce the burned area only slightly this century. Simpler, cheaper, faster policies like better forest management, prescribed fires and cleaning out undergrowth can help much more.
The flood of disaster porn is terrifying our kids and skewing our perception, and that can only lead to bad climate policy.
Bjørn Lomborg
MxM News
Quick Hit:
President Trump announced Tuesday an additional 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, raising the total levy to 50%, in retaliation for Ontario’s decision to charge Americans in three border states 25% more for electricity.
Key Details:
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Trump declared Ontario’s electricity surcharge on New York, Michigan, and Minnesota as an “abusive threat,” vowing to declare a National Emergency to counteract its impact.
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The president threatened to impose a steep tariff on Canadian automobile imports by April 2nd if other longstanding trade disputes aren’t resolved, warning that it could “permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.”
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Trump also called out Canada’s minimal contributions to military security, arguing that the U.S. subsidizes the country’s defense by more than $200 billion a year, saying, “This cannot continue.”
Diving Deeper:
President Trump took direct aim at Canada on Tuesday, unveiling an aggressive tariff hike on steel and aluminum imports from America’s northern neighbor. The move raises the current duty by an additional 25%, bringing the total to 50%, and follows Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s controversial decision to slap a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to U.S. border states.
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, blasted Ontario’s move as an “abusive threat” to American energy consumers and promised swift action. “I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area,” Trump wrote, saying this would enable the U.S. to “quickly do what has to be done” to counteract Canada’s pricing.
But the trade battle didn’t stop there. Trump also called on Canada to eliminate tariffs of up to 390% on American dairy exports, a policy the president previously fought against during his first term. If Canada fails to act, Trump warned he would ramp up the pressure by imposing new tariffs on Canadian car exports, a move he said would effectively cripple the country’s auto industry.
“If other egregious, long-time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S., which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada,” Trump warned.
In addition to the latest tariffs, Trump took a broader swipe at Canada’s role in global security, reiterating a long-held grievance that the U.S. shoulders an unfair burden for its northern ally’s defense. “Canada pays very little for National Security, relying on the United States for military protection,” Trump wrote. “We are subsidizing Canada to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. WHY??? This cannot continue.”
Trump then again floated annexing Canada into the United States to eliminate trade barriers and lower Canadian taxes. “The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty-First State,” he wrote, claiming this would bring economic relief and greater security. “And your brilliant anthem, ‘O Canada,’ will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!”
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