Latest news with #RedDeer
CTV News
3 days ago
- CTV News
Red Deer man accused of exposing, touching himself in public
A Red Deer man is accused of exposing himself to children at a local park. Multiple people called Mounties about a naked man 'touching himself in a sexual manner, in view of nearby children' in a green space near Bower Mall on Thursday around 2:50 p.m. Randy Saal, 65, was charged with exposure of genital organs to a person under 16.
CBC
3 days ago
- General
- CBC
Highway 2 expansion through Red Deer wetland prompts conservation concerns
The provincial government is expanding Alberta's busiest highway, but some are worried wetlands near Red Deer will be lost to make way for the widened route. The Highway 2 corridor will be expanded through three phases of construction that will see sections of the route expanded and realigned near the central Alberta city. In preliminary design documents, ministry planners tout the project as a way to provide a smoother, safer ride through the Red Deer region and ease congestion on a highway that serves millions of drivers each year. But as the highway shifts and expands, wetlands and forested areas in Red Deer's Maskepetoon Park will be lost to development — raising concern from conservationists and the City of Red Deer. According to preliminary designs, the highway will cut through the northwest edge of the park, a 30 hectare parcel of land within the Waskasoo Park system along the city's western boundary, just north of the Red Deer River. Todd Nivens, executive director of Waskasoo Environmental Education Society, said the project could cause unforeseen harm to a fragile habitat within Maskepetoon Park, which is rich in biodiversity. A 2007 master plan developed for the City of Red Deer described Maskepetoon Park as an "ecologically significant and valuable area containing many unique natural features." 'Extremely reactive' The wetland, which includes a tamarack fen surrounded by mixed wood forest, serves as an important buffer between the highway to the west, the Red Deer River to the east and south, Nivens said. "The reality is that wetlands are extremely dynamic environments and they are extremely reactive to changes in their inputs," he said. ''We need to really think about what the impacts are going to be. How do we offset that by providing habitat, with the expectation that this space may not survive this process." The province has promised to offset the loss of the wetlands through the creation of a new habitat. According to planning documents, a gravel pit from construction would be converted into a new natural area, with ponds and wetlands, when the highway expansion is finished. An open house in Red Deer on Tuesday was dominated with questions about the wetland. Greg Sikora, Red Deer's parks and public works manager, was there and said residents are concerned about the loss of a beloved habitat. The designs remain preliminary but city is working with the province to minimize the damage and determine how Red Deer can be compensated for the harms the highway is likely to cause to one of the city's cherished parks, he said. Sikora said design features like sound barriers or retaining walls have been considered to provide more protection to the park but such strategies will have a limited effect. "They're open to taking those courses measures," he said. "But putting a road right through a portion of the park, or through a section of it, that's pretty black and white," he said. The city is considering what it will take to compensate Red Deerians for the loss. No replacement will be perfect but city administration is mulling over what exactly they will be asking for in ongoing negotiations, he said. "It is a very sensitive area, but we also understand that we need to work collaboratively," Sikora said. "It is a coveted park by all Red Deerians and people who visit the city." A replacement wetland Sikora said the province has taken the city's concerns seriously and he understands that the safety upgrades must be done within the confines of map crowded by rail lines, parks, waterways and existing infrastructure. "They're trying to thread a highway through there," he said. "I'm very much a strong advocate for the park system, but I also understand the the challenge they're faced with." In a statement to CBC News Thursday, Devin Dreeshen, Alberta's transportation minister, said only areas of the park that were created through the original construction of the highway in the 1960s will be impacted. The design team is working closely with the city to study and minimize the potential impacts, Dreeshen said. Work to convert the gravel pit, an area upstream of the highway known as known as Burnt Lake, has been ongoing for several years, Dreeshen said. "It is approximately twice the size of Maskepetoon Park and contains several large ponds with a total area more than three times the size of the manmade ponds being impacted," Dreeshen said. "Once the construction project is complete, the remaining portion of the gravel pit will be reclaimed, completing the conversion to a natural area." Construction in three phases The project will proceed in three phases. The first phase, expected to begin in late 2025 and take about a year to complete, will see the existing Highway 2 overpass over the CN railway line, north of Red Deer, replaced. A pair of new, three-lane bridges will be constructed, expanding the stretch of highway to a total of six lanes. During the second phase, the highway between the Highway 11 interchange and the Highway 11A interchange, will be widened from four lanes to six. Once that work is complete, construction will move further south to a section of the highway that flanks the Red Deer River, and move in on Maskepetoon Park. Two Red Deer River bridges will be replaced by two, wider structures to the east of the existing bridges. The highway will be realigned with the new bridges, between the 32nd Street and 67th Street interchanges and widened to a total of eight lanes. The widened highway may also cut across the edge of Heritage Park and impact operations at the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. The province said the new design will feature gentler curves and slopes for a safer drive through the Red Deer river valley. Only the first phase has been funded to date, with no clear start dates for construction on the rest of the project. Murray Cunningham, chair of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, said construction will likely cause some challenges for their operation, but they are awaiting more details from the province. He was among hundreds of people who attended the open house with provincial planners on Tuesday. "I work in construction and I know that it's always a headache but it's important that the province looks at improvements," Cunningham said. "It's a busy, important road to Red Deer.
CBC
4 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
The Alberta Next panel makes stop in Edmonton
The Alberta Next panel held its first town hall Tuesday evening in Red Deer. On Wednesday, the panel was in Edmonton to hear about what residents want out of the government. Emma Zhao was there.
CTV News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Red Deer anticipates tourism boost after The Amazing Race Canada debut
The Canyon Coaster at the Canyon Ski Resort was one of the challenges on Season 11 of The Amazing Race Canada. (Supplied) Red Deer is hoping to see a tourism boost following the Season 11 premiere of The Amazing Race Canada, which featured the central Alberta city for the first time. Racers in the travel competition show started at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium before the first clue led them south to Red Deer. Teams had to guess the seconds it took to race down the Canyon Coaster at the Canyon Ski Resort and successfully complete a line dance at The Silver Buckle country bar. 'We're pretty new in the industry, so it was a good way for us to get our name out,' The Silver Buckle owner Mark Linton told CTV News Edmonton last week. 'I'm certainly hoping it's going to pick things up for us and bring even more of the community out because we try to do our best to do things for the community around here.' Red Deer featured on The Amazing Race Canada Racers on Season 11 of The Amazing Race Canada had to perform a line dance challenge at The Silver Buckle in Red Deer. (Supplied) Tourism Red Deer first began talks with show producers last December and began working closely with the production team in April during the show's filming. 'It was pretty surreal watching the episode live on CTV, knowing that we were part of that and part of those conversations, and that we got to showcase our community,' Jesse Smith with Tourism Red Deer said on Monday. Smith added there was a good turnout for the viewing party in Red Deer for the first episode, with a lot of Tourism Red Deer feeling proud of the work that they put into promoting the third largest city in the province. 'Proud to be from Red Deer and (the) region, and really excited about .. being put on the map in the Canadian context, which is what we're trying to do,' he added. 'This is kind of like a feather in the cap that says we're definitely on the right track.' Smith said about 16-million people drive past Red Deer each year on Highway 2. They're hoping to capitalize on that traffic after being featured on the show. 'Instead of people taking a quick drive from Edmonton to Calgary, we want them to book a weekend and come and check all the different things that exist in Red Deer.' Red Deer featured on The Amazing Race Canada Red Deer and Alberta were featured on the season premiere of Season 11 of The Amazing Race Canada last week. (Supplied) The last clue of the first episode sent racers to the final pit stop at Fort Normandeau, where they were greeted by Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston. 'For Red Deer to become part of that first episode, (it was a) tremendous sense of excitement (and) a lot of pride … that we could be on the big screen on such a great show,' Johnston said in an interview on Wednesday. He added that patriotism is at an 'all-time high' and hopes there will be a 'wave effect' in added tourism following the airing of The Amazing Race Canada. 'Canadians have decided that you don't need to go across the border to discover something new, unique, (and) historic,' Johnston said. 'All those things in our country … will see an uptick in tourism and that will certainly apply to Alberta and … Red Deer.' First team eliminated from The Amazing Race Canada, Season 11 Michele Peter and Aditi Deonarine were the first team eliminated from Season 11 of The Amazing Race Canada. (Supplied) Contestants Michele Peter and Aditi Deonarine, cousins from the greater Toronto area, were the first team to be eliminated this season. 'It was crazy in Red Deer. I had to bust out the next hat,' Peter told CTV News Edmonton after last week's episode aired, mentioning the difficulty of the line dancing challenge in Red Deer. 'Alberta was such a beautiful province and just driving around from hour to hour, from challenge to challenge, from Calgary and Edmonton and Red Deer, it was really serene and peaceful,' Deonarine added. 'It was really a wonderful experience for us. Definitely going to go back again and again.' Three teams with ties to Alberta are racing this season, including Blair Gladue – better known as Superfan Magoo to local Oilers fans – and his wife Skylene. The Amazing Race Canada airs Tuesday nights on CTV at 9 p.m. local time. With files from CTV News Edmonton's Sasha Pietramala and Destiny Meilleur
CBC
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
At the Alberta Next town hall, Danielle Smith finds a friendly anti-Ottawa crowd
There's a routine backdrop at most of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's news conferences: a row of provincial and Canadian flags, or at least one of each. Even when she's doing TV interviews from home on the weekend, the pair of flags are behind her — a red-and-white and a deep blue. Her staff kept the Maple Leaf emblems at home for their road trip Tuesday to Red Deer, for the first Alberta Next panel on federal affairs. Positioned behind Smith and her 15 fellow panellists were six flags, all ultramarine with the Alberta coat of arms. This likely suited many in the crowd just fine. The roughly 450 attendees were heavily of the Alberta-first persuasion — not predominantly separatist, but certainly keen to withdraw the province from major Canadian institutions and Ottawa influence. If that preference wasn't clear from speaker after speaker making those points, the premier got clarity on the meeting hall's bent. She requested a series of straw polls on an Alberta-only pension, police force and other proposals. About three-quarters or more of the audience raised their hands in support on each question. The opponents were sparse in this central Alberta expo hall, next to where Red Deer's Westerner Days midway was set up to begin the next day. Consider one attendee's hard line on equalization and transfers to less affluent provinces: "If my brother needs help, he can come with a business plan and ask for it. And Alberta should treat the other provinces the same." That was the first speaker, but to say he set the tone would be inaccurate. Smith's team chose to frame each topic by running the videos released last month on the Alberta Next website. They preceded the user surveys and suggested big economic benefits from quitting the Canadian Pension Plan and that to gain more of a handle on immigration, Alberta "withhold provincial social programs to any non-citizen or non-permanent resident who does not have an Alberta-approved immigration status" — a move that even the video acknowledged could provoke legal challenges. The six videos and a longer introductory recording in which Smith declares Alberta has an "Ottawa problem" altogether took up more than 30 minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour event. But that still left ample time for dozens of attendees to line up at the microphones and chime in with their agreement, arguments or questions for the panel. There was even time for a self-identified communist to address the crowd — twice — and draw some of the crowd's loudest boos when he recommended nationalizing oil companies and installing workers as owners. There were scattered boos, too, for pro-independence speakers, but far more cheers for demands for a separatist referendum, be it to actually leave or as political leverage for Alberta. "If they do not know that we are serious and we can leave at any point in time, we will not ever get a pipeline to the Atlantic Ocean," someone from the Stettler area said. (Premier's staff urged journalists to stay at the media table and not wade into the crowd to speak with attendees, along with a restriction on news cameras and photography.) Smith, as chair, frequently responded to audience questions. A few panellists did as well, notably retired judge Bruce McDonald, economist Trevor Tombe and energy executive Michael Binnion, a vocal advocate for more Alberta autonomy. Other panellists had little to offer, including Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz and Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge. They're both outspoken critics of federal energy and climate policies, but had little to offer on matters like equalization and an Alberta provincial police force; when the moderator prompted him, Legge said broadly his group liked the drive to "send a resounding message to Ottawa." Bruce McAllister, the premier's aide who moderated the town hall, invited the panel's two doctors and a disability services provider to speak on immigration, because each had immigrated themselves. On that issue, attendees roundly criticized the recent rise in immigration numbers and tied them to housing and employment issues, as the provincial video did as well. Nobody brought up its suggestion the government deny social services to certain immigrants, and Smith didn't ask for a straw poll on it. Nor did she ask for a show of hands on an Alberta tax collection agency like Quebec has, given how many speakers said it made no sense if the province couldn't collect federal taxes too (which Quebec doesn't). But when the talk came to constitutional reform, Smith was very intrigued by speakers' calls to reopen the Constitution with fellow premiers to rebalance influence toward Alberta and the West — she even suggested proposing a constitutional convention when premiers meet next week for their annual retreat. Alberta's premier then asked aloud for others to jog her memory about what went awry with the Charlottetown Accord in the early 1990s. (In brief: it wooed western provinces with Senate reform but repelled them with "distinct society" status for Quebec; both regions' populace opposed the constitutional rewrite in a 1992 referendum.) By the event's end, Smith's eagerness to reopen Canada's foundation document seemed to wane. "We know that once you open that up, you could end up having provinces stuff a bunch of things in there that we would have to compromise too much in order to agree to," Smith said at the event's conclusion. But she said she was struck by the room's strong support for Alberta quitting the RCMP and CPP, as Smith seeks potential referendum questions to put to the public next year, potentially alongside an activist-initiated vote on separation. According to repeated polls, clear majorities of Albertans have opposed the same ideas that the Alberta Next town halls have embraced. An attendee from Lacombe said that the government's videos were skewing things further away from what average Albertans believe. "These members cannot consider the findings of these meetings and the surveys as a true reflection of public opinion," he said. The similarly intentioned Fair Deal Panel that then-premier Jason Kenney launched in 2019 also found that its town halls and surveys were dominated by people who wanted to erect institutional walls to defend against Ottawa. But the Fair Deal team's final report also conducted public opinion research that found that outside the self-selected town hall and survey visitors, fewer Albertans felt the province was treated "very unfairly" or wanted to set up Alberta-only pension or police agencies. It may be that the worlds within and beyond the Alberta Next meetings have even more contrasting world views. But there are nine more town halls to go, including Wednesday's in Sherwood Park, so Smith and her co-panellists are in for much more exposure to the town-hall mindset before they reckon what to do with this feedback.
