Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Municipal services are critical for our quality of life. However, the decisions facing local governments are heavily shaped by provincial policy. The province doesn’t just distribute grants to municipalities to help fund vital infrastructure, but they also set the rules and terms by which municipalities themselves can generate revenue. Over the past few years, many traditional sources of municipal revenue have been “squeezed” by the province - with big impacts on local services, jobs, and infrastructure. When we think about provincial policy, municipal policy rarely comes top-of-mind. The speaker will argue why it should be, and discuss what part you can play in advocating for your municipality. This presentation will draw on material published in the Parkland Institute’s recent report, An Unfair Deal? The Impact of Provincial Cuts on Alberta Municipalities. Speaker: Jacqueline Peterson Jacqueline Peterson received her PhD from the University of Toronto (Political Science) in 2020. An expert in municipal fina

For many elderly folks, a call from a friend or an acquaintance once or twice a week can make a big difference in how they feel. Knowing that someone cares and is there to share stories and laugh with is comforting and meaningful in so many ways. The Volunteer Lethbridge Keep in Touch program connects people in our community with each other through a weekly telephone support system linking seniors to a friendly person with whom to chat and access resource information they may need.   Arguable, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major increase in loneliness and mental health issues, especially among seniors, and therefore more demand for programs such as Keep in Touch. The speaker will describe how the Keep in Touch program was developed by Volunteer Lethbridge. After successfully piloting the program in Lethbridge with funding from the COVID-19 Mental Health and Addiction Community Fund, the program is now gaining partners in other Alberta cities and rural communities.   Speaker: Connie-Marie Riedlhuber   Con

Today, a community's prosperity is linked to its ability to attract, retain, develop and mobilize talent. The future prosperity of Alberta is undoubtedly centered on people. The risk of young people leaving our province is real and extraordinarily complex. What drives young adults to “purchase” a city?  What are young Canadians’ perceptions of Alberta? What does Alberta need to do to once again make Alberta a magnet for young adults? In this discussion, Dr. David Finch of Mount Royal University's CityXLab will review insights from a year-long study that examined the drivers of talent mobility in Alberta and across Canada.   Speaker: Dr. David J Finch                  Dr. David J. Finch holds a PhD in management and is an active educator, scholar and practitioner. He currently holds several academic appointments including as a Professor at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business, a Visiting Fellow at the Henley Business School at the University of Reading (UK), and the Gordon S. Lang School of Busi

Five retired provincial Fish and Wildlife biologists provided a submission to the Coal Policy Committee earlier this year (Insights on Coal Development from Five Retired Fish and Wildlife Biologists). The submission was grounded in our experience as provincial biologists and in ecological arguments. It was based on our collective experience, observations, monitoring and research on open-pit coal mining in the Eastern Slopes over nearly a 50-year timespan as well as relevant research references on the ecological effects of coal mining on the aquatic environment, fish and wildlife populations and native plant communities. The presentation is a summary of our conclusions. The submission touches on the processes involved in mine development, on a synoptic review of mine operations in the Eastern Slopes and on mine mitigation, compensation and reclamation. The most profound conclusion is the Eastern Slopes of Alberta’s Rockies are not a frontier of unrealized possibilities—instead, they are a busy landscape where

Alberta has 170,000 plus inactive and abandoned oil wells and over 3000 orphan wells that have been abandoned by failed companies. It all adds up to a liability in excess of $30 billion against a total security deposit of less than $250 million. There is also a growing tax liability. In a survey, the Rural Municipalities Association of Alberta (RMA) found $245 million in unpaid property taxes owed by oil and gas companies in February 2021, a 200 percent increase from 2019. Lease arrears to land owners, are also in the millions. The speaker will argue that an average of 750 kilowatts solar energy can be installed on abandoned oil well sites by converting those without further impact on the farmland, thus creating a long-term source of revenue in the form of taxation to municipalities and lease payments to land owners. He will detail the possibilities of such installations and further contend that local renewable energy production can minimize the need for, expensive to construct, high-voltage transmission line

In addition to the municipal and Senate candidate elections, two referendum questions were added by the Alberta Government to the 2021 Municipal Elections: (1) Should section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 – Parliament and the government of Canada’s commitment to the principle of making equalization payments – be removed from the constitution? (2) Do you want Alberta to adopt year-round Daylight-Saving Time, which is summer hours, eliminating the need to change our clocks twice a year?  The first question can arguably be considered partisan in nature given the rhetoric around equalization provided by the governing UCP party and it may have enabled an altered focus of people running and voting on local issues. Besides that, what did the vote on equalization actually mean? Similarly, the vote for Senate appointments among the 13 candidates running may have been a futile exercise.    Lethbridge added two extra questions on their ballot (1) Do you support using a ward system to elect City Councilors (other t

Food security and sustainable agriculture are top of mind given the challenges of climate change.  The speaker will talk about a new aquaponics project happening in southern Alberta to tackle food security and climate change. He will discuss the challenges with food security in southern Alberta and why sustainable agriculture is important, and provide an overview of aquaponics and how it is a sustainable growing method. And finally, he will discuss the collaboration of the aquaponics project with schools and community stakeholders, and how it will enhance food security in schools and promote environmental leadership.  Speaker: Michael Lavorato              Michael Lavorato has been passionate about environmental sustainability all his life. He started working in aquaponics over the last five years to promote and enhance sustainable food systems. He has built over 40 aquaponics systems across Alberta in schools, libraries, and continuing care facilities. 

The past two years have been exceptionally challenging for all Alberta Post-Secondary students, and the Student body at the University of Lethbridge has been no exception.  Budget cuts by the Alberta government, with more anticipated, increasing tuition and education costs, housing issues, racism, Covid-19, online learning and transitioning back to on campus learning and employment uncertainty are but a few of the challenges experienced by Students. In addition to these issues, Affordability and Food Scarcity challenges are an ever-present reality for far too many post-secondary Students.  The “Feed or Famine Food Drive” is one of the critical projects the University of Lethbridge Students Union (ULSU) sponsors to meet the nutritional needs of students.   The Speaker will discuss the Feed or Famine Food Drive project and share some insights as to how students are faring, along with other supports the ULSU Student Affairs undertakes to assist students to have a successful academic year.     Speaker:     Amy Me

Sustaining medical services in smaller communities is challenging at the best of times. Doctors have been working without an agreement for almost two years, and the unstable relationship with our government has made it nearly impossible to recruit and retain physicians to rural areas. The gaps in services are widening provincially, and instead of addressing the worsening underlying issues, government and AHS have dismissed the numerous closures as pandemic or vacation related. Dr. Myhr questions whether maintaining services for rural populations is a priority- especially in light of the February 2020 review of AHS that suggested reductions or closures would save the system money. Dr. Myhr will give an overview of the current crisis and why it should matter to everyone. Speaker: Sam Myhr, Rural Medicine President for the Alberta Medical Association           Sam Myhr is a family physician in Pincher Creek, where she and her colleagues are true generalists - a now endangered species in medicine. Together they

The Liberal Party retained power in a close-run 2019 federal election where the Liberals won 157 seats and 33% of the popular vote, enough to form a minority government. The opposition Conservative Party won more votes, but far fewer seats. This was the first time since 1979 that the winner of the most seats wasn’t also the winner of the most votes. The NDP and separatist Bloc Quebecois parties both ended up holding the balance of power. The speaker will unpack the results of the September 20, 2021 federal election and outline some of the main issues including why the Liberals called the election in the middle of this current 4th COVID pandemic wave.  Speaker: Dr. Melanee Thomas                 Melanee Thomas is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of gender-based political inequality in Canada and other post-industrial democracies. She has published research in journals such as Politics & Gender, Electoral Studies,

Lethbridge’s 2021 Municipal Elections has the potential to be very interesting.  For sure, the City will have a new Mayor and several fresh faces on Council.  Many issues are up for debate and there are questions on the ballot: Is there a need for a third Bridge and should Lethbridge adopt a ward system?  Additionally, the Province is asking Albertans for their opinion on equalization and daylight-saving time.  The speaker will give an overview of these and other pressing issues such as homelessness and the overdose crisis.  She will also supply information on what it takes to be a public servant and as well, provide a brief comparison between Bill 29: Local Authorities Election Amendment Act 2020, Bill 45: Local Authorities election Amendment Act 2020 (no. 2) and the previous Bill 23: An Act to Renew Local Democracy in Alberta from 2018.  What impact might these changes have on the current and future municipal elections?    Speaker: Maria Fitzpatrick                  Maria was born and raised in St. John’s,

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a historic public health crisis that has had drastic and long-lasting effects on global health and the economy. This has also been the first pandemic where updates have been provided on a nearly instantaneous basis to both biomedical researchers, healthcare workers and the public. Over 20 plus months, research from across the globe has allowed us to understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in details normally taking years to decades. However, many questions remain. Namely, how did this happen? When will it end? How do we navigate this new frontier between these points? The Speaker will provide some background context to describe our current state of knowledge of the virus, the illness and the vaccines and interventions being implemented to get the pandemic under control. Speaker: Dr. Jason Kindrachuk PhD            Dr. Kindrachuk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Canada, and holds

Alberta Health Services (AHS) (the Alberta Government) are demanding across-the-board pay cuts of 3 percent, plus additional monetary cuts that would raise the cost of the rollbacks to an average 5 percent in their negotiations with United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) members who have already endured six years of zero percent increases. All this arguably amounts to a relatively large reduction in nurses pay under the guise that Alberta nurses are being paid more than their provincial counter-parts.   The government claims it respects the sacrifice and dedication of Alberta’s nurses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which is continuing. Under these circumstances, with pay cuts and major rollbacks still on the table, this appears to compound the disrespect shown by AHS during these negotiations. The speaker will clarify where negotiations are at between AHS and UNA. She will also dig deeper into the current healthcare staffing crisis, challenges of COVID, and the UCP privatization agenda attacking health care in A

Educators know all curricula need timely revision and many are concerned about the most recent draft K-6 curriculum proposed by the government of Alberta. The wheels began turning over a decade ago for a comprehensive K-12 curriculum review and rewrite, beginning with the “Inspiring Education” framework of 2009 under PC Premier Stelmach and Education Minister Hancock, followed by a 2013 Ministerial Order under PC Premier Redford and Education Minister Johnson. Prior to these directives, curriculum in Alberta was updated for individual subject areas at various times. The comprehensive K-12 approach came to fruition in 2016 under NDP Premier Notley and Education Minister Eggen with a planned 6-year curriculum writing project involving hundreds of educators meeting in expert working groups.  A K-4 draft curriculum was completed and presented in draft form for piloting in 2018 but was cancelled following the Provincial election by the UCP, and was replaced by a 12-member advisory committee charged with developing

At least 150,000 Indigenous youths were forced into Indian Residential Schools (IRS) between the 1870s and 1990s. They were run by Canadian/Provincial governments and religious authorities. The aim was to strip the young of their language/culture and force them to adopt to the colonizer's way of life. In other words, cultural genocide, but with the recent discovery of 215 indigenous children at a Kamloops IRS in unmarked graves, with many more to be found all over Canada, it can be argued that it’s more than cultural genocide.   Out of the 139 IRS in Canada, 26 were in Alberta. Among those, six were in Southern Alberta. It is known that thousands of Indigenous children died needlessly while attending IRS. The speakers will describe their experiences with IRS and relate to how the generational trauma have affected large portions of Indigenous Peoples and their communities. Healing remedies and the importance of teaching all kids about the horror of IRS in K-6 and beyond, will also be discussed.     Speakers: D

In October 2020, the Federal Government announced its 2021-2022 Immigration Level Plan. The government is hoping to bring a targeted 1.2 million immigrants into the country to help the Canadian economy recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and drive future growth.   Canada is often referred to as a land of immigrants because of the millions of newcomers who have settled there since the first colonies were built by the English and the French on Indigenous territories. However, despite this history of immigration, many immigrants encounter discrimination and social exclusion upon their arrival.   Much of the discrimination and difficulty encountered originate in common myths and beliefs held by those already living in Canada. In this presentation we will visit the new Immigration Level Plan introduced by the Federal government to shed light on the different immigration categories and discuss the reasons for this increase to immigration targets. Along the way we will try to bust common myths about newcomers to Cana

While painkilling medicine has been around for a very long time, Fentanyl is a powerful addictive opioid painkiller, the use of which has caused an increasing public health threat in Canada and elsewhere. Fentanyl was initially approved in 1960 and used for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, especially cancer pain. However, recent years have seen a growing use of fentanyl and its analogs that are widely synthesized in laboratories and adulterated with illicit supplies of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit pills, contributing to addiction and the exponential growth in the number of drug-related overdose deaths.   The southern Alberta community of Kainai First Nation has been hit very hard by the Fentanyl overdose crises and since 2014 in particular, hundreds in the community have died tragically. The speaker will describe the early circumstances of the crises and as well, more recent measures taken to mitigate the loss, which includes a harm reduction strategy, since conventional abstinen

Public participation is widely considered to be an essential component of any legitimate exercise of state power over resource development and environmental decision-making. A clear illustration of what can happen when public participation is excluded from the decision-making process is the public uproar concerning the abrupt rescission by the Alberta government of the 1976 Coal Policy in May 2020.  The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is Alberta's regulator of energy development throughout the full lifecycle of an oil, gas, or coal project - from initial application to final closure and reclamation. The AER is responsible for assessing and monitoring the environmental impacts of these energy projects, and the AER implements a compliance program to enforce the applicable legal rules. This session will be a critical examination of the opportunities provided by the AER for the public to participate in its decision-making processes. While the discussion will canvass the topic broadly in relation to various compo

After Jason Kenney became Premier of Alberta on April 30, 2019, he followed through on his campaign promise and set in motion the “energy war room” or the Canadian Energy Centre CEC) as it was named when launched in Dec 2019. The purpose of the $30 million per year CEC was to fight back campaigns against Alberta’s Oil Sands etc. that, according to some sources, were funded by foreign interest money supporting several Environmental Non-government Organizations (ENGOs) Tar Sands Campaign.   Steve Allan was commissioned in July 2019 at the cost of $2.5 million to lead a provincial/public inquiry into "foreign-funded special interests" and their campaigns to stop oil sands development. Later, and when it became clear that the July 2, 2020 final report deadline would be missed, Alberta's energy minister added $1 million to the inquiry's budget and pushed back the deadline for Allan's final report, first to Oct 30, then to Jan 30 and finally to May 31, 2021.   As Alberta poured more time and resources into this inq

Over the past two years, tenths of millions of public education dollars have been cut from Lethbridge’s two post-secondary institutions budgets, resulting initially in hundreds of directly lost jobs and as well, hefty increases in tuition for students. Arguably, there are also many indirect economic and knowledge losses to consider in the longer term. The speaker will make clear that the myriad of issues related to these severe government cuts (more are promised in 2022) are not only about short-term economics, but also connected to the importance of great quality and affordable post-secondary education that will keep Lethbridge an attractive community for individuals, families and businesses to be located. Speaker: Cyndi Vos, CEO of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce Cyndi Vos is a double alumnus of the University of Lethbridge. She holds a Bachelor of Music, Master of Education, Post Graduate Certification in Executive Coaching and has completed Leadership Certification through the Napoleon Hill Foundation