Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Ross Kilgour and George Kuhl will provide an overview of the City of Lethbridge’s heritage program. Why should we protect Lethbridge’s heritage? How does the City’s heritage program work today? And how will the upcoming new Heritage Management Plan change things?

Speaker: Ross Kilgour and George Kuhl

George Kuhl is a graduate of the University of Lethbridge with professional roots in urban and regional planning. As a planner with the Oldman River Regional Planning Commission, George worked on City of Lethbridge projects and an array of rural and small-town projects for over 21 years providing him with invaluable community development experience. He became Senior Development Officer for the City of Lethbridge in 1997 and led the Planning Department for nearly 7 years before becoming the Downtown Revitalization Manager.

In 2004, George was advisor to City Council’s Downtown Revitalization Steering Committee (DRSC); his role evolved to becoming the Heart of Our City Master Plan Project Manager. George continues to be an advisor to the Heart of Our City Committee as well as several City project steering committees. He brings his passion for those he has visited in Europe and North America to this presentation.

Ross Kilgour earned his first-class honours degree in Urban & Regional Planning from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was awarded the Royal Town Planning Institute Award for the Top Final Year Graduate. He then worked in London, England, first as a planner for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea before moving to the private sector as a planning consultant with Firstplan Ltd. After immigrating to Canada in 2013, Ross joined the City of Lethbridge where he is now a Senior Community Planner, focusing primarily on the redevelopment of Lethbridge’s older neighbourhoods and the City’s heritage program. Ross’ specific passions in urbanism include sustainability, equity, planning/zoning reform, and enabling active transportation and walkable neighbourhoods. His research has been published in Planning Practice and Research journal.

For nearly 60 years, L’Arche has transformed the lives of people with and without intellectual disabilities around the world. Beginning in France in 1964, at a time when countless people with disabilities in the Western Hemisphere still languished in institutions, separated from their families and cast off from society, L’Arche founders dared to proclaim that people with developmental disabilities had essential gifts to contribute to society. Since then, across Canada and around the world, L’Arche has been creating communities of friendship and belonging, inviting people both with and without intellectual disabilities to live, work, learn, and grow together in homes, day programs and social enterprises. L’Arche demonstrates that when persons with intellectual disabilities take their place at the table, they contribute to a more just, compassionate, and vibrant world for all. L’Arche Lethbridge is a member of L’Arche International and is comprised of three homes in the city.

Our speaker will outline how the mission of L’Arche is embodied in our local L’Arche community and name some of the joys and the struggles people with intellectual disabilities continue to face in our present times. In our materialistic and individualistic age, L’Arche offers a radically different way to see people and society.

Speaker:    Marie Moyer

Moderator:  Bob Campbell

Marie Moyer has been engaged with the L’Arche Lethbridge community since 2001. She currently serves as the Assistants Coordinator, welcoming young adults from close to home and around the world to live, work, learn and grow as Assistants in our L’Arche homes. Marie has strong family roots in Lethbridge and has gained a global perspective from time spent abroad in Tanzania, Central America and Chad. She holds Bachelor’s Degrees in Theology and Anthropology and has spent her adult life finding ways to make a living off the beaten path.

Our official K-12 school curriculum embodies the state’s answer to the question: What must children learn so they can function appropriately as adults in our society? Answering this question is always complicated because it is an expression of what we, as a society, value. The past decade, however, has seen public and professional discussion around curriculum reform descend into ideologically-driven, partisan conflict in Alberta. This talk will address what makes curriculum development complex and how and why the process has become so contentious in the past decade. Finally, it will suggest how we might move forward to ensure that Alberta students get the high-quality curriculum they deserve.

 

Speaker:    Amy von Heyking

Moderator:  Beverly Muendel-Atherstone

 

Amy von Heyking is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge. Her PhD in Educational Policy Studies focused on the history of Alberta school curriculum, particularly citizenship education. She is the author of Creating Citizens: History and Identity in Alberta Schools (2006). She has published books and articles on the history of Canadian schooling, curriculum studies, and history teaching and learning. She served on the Minister of Education’s Curriculum Advisory Panel in 2019-20

The speaker will discuss the importance of having this conversation now, while sharing some of her own experience.  She will identify some of the statistics (reported cases, non-reported cases, hospitalizations, deaths, affected children) and what research shows would be a huge step to stop domestic violence before it starts – looking at Mental Health and resilience, stable and positive parenting. The speaker will review what warning signs indicate a possible abusive relationship; why someone being victimized by domestic violence finds it difficult or impossible to leave, and what you can do to be part of the solution

 

Speaker:    Maria Fitzpatrick

Moderator:  Mary Shillington

 

Maria was born and raised in St. John’s, NL.  She attended Memorial University of Newfoundland pursuing a conjoint degree in Education and Physical Education.  She is a mother, grandmother and a great-grandmother. Maria has worked all across Canada as well as in the United States for 45 years. She has been a teacher, recreation supervisor, coach, Parole Officer, Policy Analyst and Regional Executive Vice-President of her union. She was the MLA for Lethbridge East in the from 2015-2019. In addition to volunteering with several community groups, in June she was appointed the Advocacy Program Officer with the National Association of Federal Retirees for southern Alberta.  Maria is well versed on this topic having survived being victimized for 9 years by her first husband.

Alona will recount how she escaped Ukraine two weeks after Russia invaded her country. She fled with her two teenage boys from Dnipro to Kyiv where she had to make several arduous trips by train to Poland to arrange for visas under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET) program which is one of the many special measures the Government of Canada has introduced to support the people of Ukraine. It offers Ukrainians and their family members free, extended temporary status and allows them to work, study, and stay in Canada until it is safe for them to return home. Once authorization was obtained, she and her sons were bused to France where arrangements were made for her family to come and settle in Lethbridge with the help of Lethbridge’s Project Sunflower Aid Society.

Speaker:   Alona Sinchuk       

Moderator: Mark Goettel

Alona was born in Vinnytsia Ukraine and lived in several cities before settling in Dnipro. She has two teenage boys, Stepan, 14, and Arsenii, 12.    She obtained a degree in Business Administration from the West Ukrainian National University in Ternopil and was the Department Director of an Eye Clinic in Dnipro prior to having to leave the country due to the war. She arrived in Lethbridge 3 months ago and is currently employed at Visual Effects - Lethbridge, Partners of FYidoctors

Danielle Smith is the new leader of the United Conservative Party and premier of Alberta. She is a well-known politician and media personality, but who actually is she? How did she become the UCP’s leader? What does she believe? And where are her political beliefs likely to take the province? These are but a few of the questions the talk will attempt to answer.

 

Speaker:   Trevor Harrison

Moderator:   Colleen Quintal

 

Trevor W. Harrison is a professor of sociology at the University of Lethbridge. He is the 2022 recipient of the U of L Speaker Research Award and former director of the Parkland Institute (2011–2021), of which he was also a founding member. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of nine books, numerous journal articles, chapters, and reports, and a frequent contributor to public media, including radio and television.

A recent report by SHENLA highlights that child and family poverty is an important issue in Lethbridge and area. This report was funded by the City of Lethbridge and the Government of Canada and prepared by HelpSeeker in collaboration with SHENLA. While rates of poverty have declined somewhat over the last twenty years, children 0-5 years of age continue to experience higher rates of low income across age groups. This presentation will explore which groups of children are differentially affected by poverty in our community, the impacts of poverty, and why action is needed. Child poverty is associated with a cascade of negative impacts over the life course, and a variety of negative impacts at a community level. 

Recommendations for urgent action are identified. What is the City of Lethbridge’s strategy to address poverty? The speaker will argue that a collective impact approach with broad community participation and municipal support is required to address and end child and family poverty in our community.

Speaker:    Sharon Yanicki PhD (2022)

Moderator:  Bev Muendel-Atherstone

Sharon Yanicki is the spokesperson for the Social Health Equity Network of Lethbridge and Area (SHENLA). SHENLA is an umbrella organization promoting health equity. Sharon is on the leadership team of SHENLA and is committed to collective impact to address child poverty and to promote health equity and social inclusion. Sharon is a retired academic and an adjunct assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Lethbridge, with a PhD in nursing. Sharon’s research has focused on: health equity, social inclusion/exclusion, social justice, child poverty, and adverse childhood experiences. Sharon is a retired nurse with many years of experience in public health.

Like many other communities across the country, the City of Lethbridge is seeing an increase in individuals experiencing homelessness. Without adequate shelters, transitional and permanent supportive housing in the city, an increase in encampments is being identified throughout the city. 

Many questions, ideas, concerns, and comments have been provided over the last several months regarding the solution to encampments and homelessness. Homelessness is a complex social issue, which requires collaboration from stakeholders across the city, the province and the country. Although affordable housing and homelessness supports are the responsibility of the Provincial Government, Lethbridge City Council recently authorized additional funding allocations to provide more services, outreach support and resources to help the vulnerable population in the city. 

The speaker will explain the complexity of this issue, the jurisdiction of housing, what the city is currently doing and what the public can do to be part of the solution.

Speaker:   Mike Fox - Director of Community Services            

Mike Fox is the Director of Community Services for the City of Lethbridge, and has been in his role since March 2021. His portfolio includes Community Social Development, ENMAX Centre, Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, Recreation and Culture, Regulatory Services, Lethbridge Transit, Indigenous Relations and three special Government Bodies – Lethbridge Police Services (governed by the Police Commission), and the Galt Museum & Archives and the Lethbridge Public Library (each governed by their respective Board of Directors). With more than 20 years of leadership in local government, Mike’s dynamic and diverse career has led him to municipalities across the Country before making Lethbridge his home.

Mandy will provide an overview of the Lethbridge Sustainable Living Association and all of their hands-on grassroot initiatives as they relate to local food security, sustainability, community building, and reducing waste. The speaker will offer suggestions for simple ways of engaging our local food supporting initiatives, businesses, and organizations. She will discuss the importance of relationships and how this fundamental caring for one another increases our community ability to feed ourselves better while increasing our resiliency to the changing climate and political world instability. During a time where we are seeing food prices and inflation skyrocketing, we want to know that we have agency in where and how our food comes to us. Mandy will point to many local examples of projects, and groups who are making traction towards a more community secure food system.

 

Speaker:     Mandy Sandbach - Lethbridge Sustainable Living Association and SOULfully SOIL   

        

Mandy Sandbach is an ally, student and Lover of SOIL. Her goal in life is to become the richest, Teeming with LIFE, decomposing, fertility that could be found in a COMPOST pile. Her passion and gifts lay in tending to the relationships and community that will create what is required for the new Human Story. As a Permaculturist, knowledge sharer, mother, partner, small business owner, non-profit advocate, Mandy has shared many skills and experience within her community here in Southern Alberta and abroad. Skill and knowledge sharing is where you will likely find Mandy if she is not with the bees, birds, trees, worms and fungi.

The current social and educational discourse has brought to the forefront the urgent need to address systemic barriers and injustices that have historically excluded voices within academic spaces. The racial and social disparities were further exacerbated by the covid 19 pandemic which has also shown huge gaps within groups, communities, and countries around the world. Educational institutions as an agent of social change have an ethical responsibility to not only acknowledge its role in perpetuating the disparities of historically excluded groups but to be an active participant to call out and address them.

The speaker will identify key foundational and guiding principles for EDI (Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) and Belonging and will make the ethical and business case for EDI. She will address the myths that continue to impact the successful implementation of EDI strategies, and discuss the importance of allyship & advocacy and the role faculty, staff, students, administrators play in championing equitable, safe, and inclusive campuses.

 

Speaker:      Martha Mathurin-Moe: Executive Director- Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Pronouns: She/her

 

Born and raised in Saint Lucia, West Indies, Martha Mathurin-Moe holds a BA degree from the Universidad Central de Las Villas, Cuba; a Master of Education in Educational Psychology from the University of Regina and is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction.  Mathurin-Moe's experience consists of 10 years in Banking and Finance and 8 years in International Education.  Previous roles include Manager of Talent Development at the Public Service Commission, Government of Saskatchewan, Associate Director of Study Abroad & Mobility at UR International at the University of Regina. Mathurin-Moe work in international education has afforded her the possibility to participate in educational forums in Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Mexico, Germany, Italy, and the United States. She is a skilled facilitator and advocate for equitable and inclusive workplaces for all.  Mathurin-Moe is very passionate about teaching and focuses a lot of her research on Cross Cultural Communication, Internationalization of Curriculum as well as reshaping the perceptions of Studying Abroad and the importance of inclusive teaching. Mathurin-Moe believes that learning is organic and constantly changing but being represented in the learning space is just as equally important. Mathurin-Moe’s research focuses on the shifting identities international graduate students assume while transitioning into a new educational setting. This is why she is very keen on developing learning opportunities that create an environment where all students, no matter race, gender/gender expression, neurodiversity or ethnic background feel represented in their learning space. During her free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, and traveling with her partner Jared.