MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
CONFIDENT GENERATION Millennial women are changing what work looks like B1
Patriots roll over Texans B4
CENTRAL ALBERTA’S DAILY NEWSPAPER
BREAKING NEWS ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM
TUESDAY, DEC. 11, 2012
Life on the street COUNT RESULTS SUGGEST NUMBER OF HOMELESS WOMEN IN CITY HIGHER THAN OTHER JURISDICTIONS BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF Red Deer’s first point-in-time homeless count showed 32 per cent of the city’s homeless were women — higher than other jurisdictions. Nearly one in four homeless women also had children with them at the time of the count. The Red Deer Point in Time Homeless Count 2012 Final Report, released online on Monday, is based on survey results from Oct. 16, when 98 volunteers
canvassed outdoor areas between 7 p.m. and midnight. Surveys were also conducted at shelters, dropin centres and remand centres. “We didn’t have any baseline to go by so it’s all new information. It gives us some good data to work with,” said Roxana Nielsen-Stewart, program coordinator with the city, on Monday. The count is part of EveryOne’s Home: Red Deer’s 5 Year Plan Towards Ending Homelessness. The count’s intent was to provide a snapshot of homelessness in the city. The plan promotes strategies to end homelessness
and create resources for those at risk. Rebekah McDermott, co-ordinator of the city’s EveryOne’s Home Leadership Model, said information gathered from the count will help to better understand the homeless sub-populations and the specific preventions, interventions and supports required. Future counts will be conducted every two years. An information session on the report’s results will be held on Tuesday for city council and service providers.
Please see REPORT on Page A2
HOLIDAY TRAIN
CITY COUNCIL
Council nixes pitch for police review COUN. PAUL HARRIS WANTED CITY TO TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT RCMP BY CRYSTAL RHYNO ADVOCATE STAFF Another lengthy and costly policing review has been avoided. By a vote of 8-1, city council defeated Coun. Paul Harris’ motion to undertake a review of the RCMP. Just over a year ago, council voted to keep the RCMP as opposed to switching to a municipal police force or a hybrid model. Harris wanted to ensure the policing model was as cost-ef- NOISE BYLAW fective and efficient as when DELAYED A2 council made the decision in October 2011. Harris said the RCMP will be asking for more officers in the upcoming operating budget deliberations, and he does not feel comfortable granting the requests without a clear idea of where the money will be used. “Sometimes things are a little political,” said Harris, after the decision. “And we do things for more than one reason. That motion also gave council the opportunity to express some of its frustrations that needed to be aired. I am not one of those people who let an elephant stay in the room that long to get the message out the RCMP to get on to those service levels and we need them soon to let our public know what to expect.” City administration is currently working with the RCMP to develop its service delivery standards. The report is expected to be before council in March. Coun. Cindy Jefferies said it wasn’t too long ago they went through a lengthy review and it is too soon to make any sort of changes. She would rather see the energy and time put into establishing the service level standards. “I’m assuming in the management of that contract we are testing some of those assumptions and we are still monitoring that it is still good value,” said Jefferies. “It’s too soon. And it’s important to send a message to our RCMP that we want them to be our service provider. We made that decision a year ago. We are confident in the service they can provide. We are going to work with them to match our community needs. Working together to meet those community needs should be priority one.” Coun. Lynne Mulder echoed her thoughts, saying council made a $150,000 decision that they need to live with and the community would not support another review. Red Deer City RCMP Supt. Warren Dosko said the concerns were valid and hopefully council’s angst will help move the process ahead quickly. “We will be certainly be working with city administration to fine tune the research we are doing to bring forward some options,” said Dosko.
Please see POLICE on Page A2
PLEASE RECYCLE
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Hundreds of people, young and old, lined the tracks in Lacombe on Monday to see the CP Holiday Train roll into the city. Lit with thousands of LED lights and bringing Christmas cheer as it crosses the country, the CP Rail Holiday Train is helping to collect donations for community food banks as it makes daily stops. The train will be back again in Central Alberta on Wednesday when it makes a stop in Red Deer at the CP yards at 6867 Edgar Industrial Drive. This year Doc Walker is performing on the stage at each stop. Since 1999, the Holiday Train program has raised close to $6.4 million and about 1.8 million kilograms of food for North American food banks. See related video at reddeeradvocate.com.
Ponoka eyes bylaw to limit hours for liquor stores, pawnshops MODELLED ON BYLAW PASSED BY WETASKIWIN BY RANDY FIEDLER ADVOCATE STAFF Ponoka may limit sales hours for liquor stores and pawn shops. Council passed first reading of a bylaw at its Nov. 27 meeting to restrict liquor store sales and hotel liquor off-sales to 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Liquor delivery would end at 10:30 p.m. Pawnshops would be restricted to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., under the proposed bylaw. The bylaw is modelled on one in Wetaskiwin that has been in effect since Jan. 1, 2010. In a memo to council, chief administrative officer Brad Watson and protective services director Ted Dillon say Ponoka has experienced “possible spinoff” from Wetaskiwin’s bylaw in that “patrons are now visiting the neighbouring communities whose business hours match their needs” and “RCMP have expressed a concern that this may be happening in this area.” Unfounded rumours of a new liquor store with hours to 2 a.m. also spurred the bylaw. “Rumour mongers got busy and so this council said let’s be proactive, let’s talk to the public and
WEATHER
INDEX
30% Chance of flurries. High -5.
Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3,C4 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5,A6 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D4 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D5 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C5 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4-B6
FORECAST ON A2
ask: Are there issues?” said Watson. Staff Sgt. Cameron Chisholm of Ponoka RCMP declined to comment until an as-yet scheduled January public meeting. “I’m not requesting this willy nilly. We have information composed of statistics and anecdotal evidence. It’s there for a reason,” Chisholm said. Ponoka Coun. Doug Gill said at meetings with Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission officials in 2010 and 2011, some liquor store owners “said they could close by 10 p.m.” He hopes the bylaw will make Ponoka a more “safe and caring community.” Watson said the January meeting will “bring in not only the RCMP, but others in the community with influence on this: the hospital, Family and Community Support Services, the medical profession.” Jim Hamilton, owner of Hammys Spirits, called the bylaw a mistake, saying council has no place in business affairs. “It’s strictly a philosophical objection. Council has been lambasted over the years for not being probusiness and this is anti-business.”
Please see BYLAW on Page A2
ALBERTA
CANADA
DOCS PLAYED FAVOURITES AT CLINIC
NORTHERN GATEWAY HEARINGS RESUME
A manager of urgent care at a southern Alberta clinic says there were times when doctors would push to have family and favourites moves to the head of the line. A3
Chronic, ship-source discharges of oily effluent pose a larger problem than largescale catastrophic oil spills, lawyers for Nature Canada told the panel weighing the Northern Gateway pipeline. A5