Council of Canadians, Red Deer and Area Chapter

07/03/2026

STATEMENT: Canada was built by workers with the promise of a fair shot at a good life, decent wages, real pensions, with rights that working people fought hard to win. This Canada Day, that promise is under threat, and we won't pretend otherwise.

Smith unilaterally put a separatism referendum on the ballot. She can unilaterally take it off. Albertans don’t want it. Labour doesn’t want it. Business doesn’t want it. It is divisive and destabilizing. Working families are already struggling - the last thing we need is more instability.

Separatism is a direct threat to jobs, wages, and pensions. Albertans' standard of living already isn't good enough, and separatism makes it worse. It's not just about leaving Canada; it's a con aimed at making Alberta the 51st state. That’s a real threat to the wellbeing of workers.

Albertans are proud to be Canadian. Proud of Medicare. Proud of our public schools. Proud of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, our democracy, and the idea that we all do better when we look out for one another. Canada is one of the safest, freest, and most welcoming countries in the world. That's not something to walk away from - it's something worth fighting for.

We're saying no to separatism, and no to the status quo. We can build a country that delivers on its promise - decent wages, real pensions, strong public services, and a fair shot for every worker. But only by coming together, not by dividing.

So, this Canada Day, let's say it plainly: don't let this be our last Canada Day, Alberta.

🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦

07/03/2026

In a healthcare emergency, wait times can be a matter of life or death. A recent visit to the emergency room highlighted the degree to which the Alberta government's policies - meant to fix health care - have only served to exacerbate the crises in the system.

07/03/2026

Alberta is steamrolling ahead with healthcare privatization, creating one system for the rich, and another for the rest of us, in flagrant violation of the principles of the Canada Health Act. The federal government must step up to protect public healthcare before it's too late, write Andrew Longhurst and Dr. Paul Parks.

Read more

06/25/2026

Opportunity to have your say.

Share your thoughts on the potential for a new dam and reservoir on the Red Deer River.
With work underway on the Ardley Reservoir scoping and feasibility study, Albertans can review some of the study’s initial findings and share their thoughts on this potential project.

In-person engagement session:
• Tuesday, July 14 at 6 – 8 p.m. Holiday Inn & Suites Red Deer South, Red Deer County

Facilitated webinar:
• Thursday, July 16
• 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Feedback from Albertans, Indigenous organizations, municipalities, industry and other stakeholders will inform the government’s decision to move forward to the detailed engineering and regulatory approvals stage.

Online engagement is open until July 30: https://www.alberta.ca/ardley-reservoir-study-engagement

06/25/2026

It was long overdue, and began with a promise: It might start small, covering just a few common drugs, and expand until Canadians without benefits were no longer struggling to afford medication prescribed by doctors under our universal health care system. Less than two years later, however, the prog...

06/25/2026

Her name is Joni Mitchell.
She was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alberta, in 1943. Her family moved to Saskatchewan when she was a child. She grew up in North Battleford and Saskatoon.
She had polio at age 9. She spent months in a hospital. She learned to walk again. She never fully recovered the use of her left hand.
This is important because she would become one of the greatest guitarists of her generation — using non-standard tunings that she invented partly to accommodate her weakened hand.
She left Saskatoon as a young woman. She studied at the Alberta College of Art. She started performing in Toronto coffeehouses in the early 1960s.
In 1965, she moved to the United States.
She became one of the defining voices of the 1960s and 1970s folk and rock movements.
She wrote "Both Sides Now."
She wrote "Big Yellow Taxi."
She wrote "The Circle Game."
She wrote "A Case of You."
She wrote "Free Man in Paris."
She wrote "River."
She wrote "Woodstock" — about the famous music festival she did not attend, but watched on television while writing one of the most-covered songs of the 20th century.
Her 1971 album "Blue" is widely considered one of the greatest albums in the history of popular music. Rolling Stone has ranked it as one of the top three albums ever recorded by anyone.
She was known for refusing to play the music industry game. She was known for refusing interviews. She was known for refusing to compromise her artistic vision. She was known for being difficult, brilliant, and irreplaceable.
She painted. She did her own album covers. She gave interviews to Rolling Stone that became famous for her sharp intelligence and her unwillingness to be patronized.
In 2015, she had a brain aneurysm. She nearly died. She lost the ability to play guitar. She lost the ability to speak for a long time.
She recovered.
In 2022, she performed publicly for the first time since the aneurysm at the Newport Folk Festival. She sat in a chair. She sang for over an hour. The audience wept.
In 2023, she received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize — the most prestigious lifetime achievement award in American songwriting.
She accepted it.
She gave a short, quiet speech.
She thanked Saskatchewan.
She thanked Canada.
She thanked the country that had given her, as a child, the prairie skies and the long winters and the music of her grandmother's piano in a small house in North Battleford.
She is 82 years old.
She still lives in California.
She has not lived in Canada for 60 years.
But every Canadian who follows music knows that the voice that wrote "Both Sides Now" came from a small girl in Saskatchewan who survived polio in a Saskatoon hospital.
Every Canadian who listens to "Big Yellow Taxi" hears the prairie sky in her voice.
Every Canadian who has loved someone and lost them has, at some point, listened to "River" and known that the woman singing it was from the same country.
Joni Mitchell is, by every reasonable measure, one of the most important songwriters in the English language in the second half of the 20th century.
She is also Canadian.
She has been honoured with the Order of Canada. She has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has been named a Companion of the Order of Canada — the highest level.
She represents Canada to the world without ever needing to live here.
A girl from Fort Macleod. A young polio survivor in Saskatoon. A voice that crossed an ocean of cultural influence and became one of the defining sounds of an entire generation.
The country that grew her.
The country that watched her leave.
The country that has, every day for 60 years, been listening to her sing about ourselves back to us.
Joni Mitchell.
A Canadian.
The whole world knows her name.
We should make sure we never forget that she came from here. 🍁
Share if Joni Mitchell deserves to be remembered. 👇

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

Today, First Nations along the Central Coast of British Columbia, Parks Canada and Government of British Columbia, announced Mia-yaltwa Ha'lidzogm hoon (Realm of the Salmon, Home of the Salmon).

This important step reflects the leadership and generational stewardship of Wuikinuxv, Nuxalk, Kitasoo Xai'xais, Heiltsuk, Gitxaała and Gitga'at Nations, alongside Canada and British Columbia.

These waters support salmon, herring, eulachon, kelp forests, deep-sea coral and sponge reefs, whales, and the coastal communities and cultures connected to them. Protecting ocean habitats like these helps keep the ocean abundant and supports healthy fisheries and strong coastal livelihoods — today and for children and grandchildren along the coast.

Learn more: https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2026/05/backgrounder-mia-yaltwa-halidzogm-hoon-a-collaborative-approach-to-marine-protection-announced-for-the-central-coast-of-british-columbia.html