INNISFAIL – The acting superintendent of schools for the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools is satisfied the inclusion of a universal change room in the modernized Innisfail Aquatic Centre will create a safer recreational facility for young students and adults.
“Yes, I am,” said Ryan Ledene, the Catholic schools’ acting superintendent for the region during an interview with the Albertan.
Ledene added he has not yet seen the facility but has looked at project plans and drawings on the Town of Innisfail’s website at involve.innisfail.ca.
“I will say that when you're trying to supervise students and you are limited by gender specific areas that you can go into as a supervisor, this type of a scenario allows a male or female teacher to be right there in the change area making sure there's nothing inappropriate,” said Ledene.
He noted from personal experience that many lifeguards are female and can’t enter male-only change rooms but under the new model they will now be able to go in the universal change room as all private stalls are fully enclosed for users maximum privacy and protection.
“I find that this particular structure might be better in that regard and making sure nobody's going into a change room two at a time, or into those individual stalls,” said Ledene. “I think the supervision can be better in that type of a scenario, personally.”
On July 28 at the Town of Innisfail council’s regular meeting, Meghan Jenkins, director of community services, said she reached out to superintendents from both Chinook's Edge School Division and Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.
Council was told Jenkins had a “good conversation” with Ledene, saying, “(Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools) don't have any sort of philosophical or policy objections” with the design of the modernized aquatic centre.
“I think (Jenkins) reflected honesty the discussion that we had,” said Ledene, adding he believes the discourse around universal change rooms is not a gender issue. “This is a functionality question about how they're going to arrange the walkers and access and interaction outside of those change stalls.
“What I wanted Meghan to assure me was that there's individualized stalls for changing,” he added. “Anybody who’s going to be revealing themselves and taking clothes off, it's going to be done in the privacy of a self-contained stall.”
Jenkins added on July 28 the municipality had not yet received a response from Chinook’s Edge.
On July 31, the Albertan reached out to Chinook’s Edge for a comment but Laurette Woodward, the school division’s communications coordinator, said Chinook’s Edge was going to “decline at this time.”
Public education
During the council meeting on July 28 Jenkins reminded council that with the facility now closed for nine months of construction the contractors have finished with hazardous materials abatement and are beginning demolition inside the building.
She said the municipality has also scheduled the first aquatic centre information open house for Tuesday, Aug. 19, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Innisfail Library/Learning Centre.
Jenkins said the public is also invited to come to the Fall Registration Night on Sept. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m.at the Innisfail Twin Arena where the municipality will have a display booth set up to give citizens the opportunity to speak to town staff and project officials about the modernization project.
There will also be a second public information open house in the week of Sept. 15. As of last week, the exact date and time was not yet set.
“The (information) events are intended to be a come-and-go format with information displays related to all components of the project,” Jenkins told council, acknowledging the format is similar to the one used last fall for the Deep Sky open house. “Town staff will be joined by Chandos Construction and Group2 Architecture officials at the August 19 session. For registration night It'll likely just be town staff available for that.”
Jenkins told council the Involve Innisfail website is continually updated as public questions are forwarded or more detailed information becomes available.
Funding push
The $14.9 million modernization construction project, which began on July 7, will be funded through a combination of the town’s Facility Reserve (now at $2.8 million), a provincial Local Government Fiscal Framework grant, and a line of credit, followed by a debenture.
The municipality is currently waiting for approval, which could take another year, from a federal Green and Inclusive Community Building (GICB) grant application, which could bring in close to $6 million to offset the project’s total cost.
Jenkins told council last week that administration is working on another major grant through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) called the Green Municipal Fund - Community Building Retrofit Initiative.
“This grant is to support the retrofit of community buildings, looking at upgrades to reduce energy consumption with a specific requirement that greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 30 per cent over a baseline,” Jenkins told the Albertan, adding funding from the program is a combination loan and grant up to 80 per cent of eligible project costs up to a maximum of $10 million.
However, there are challenges for Alberta municipalities to secure the grant.
“The challenge with reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta is that even if you convert certain systems to electric the Alberta electricity grid is still largely dependent on natural gas, so there's carbon implications to that,” said Jenkins, noting in other provinces grids are less carbon intensive as they utilize more hydroelectric power.
“That conversion to make things electric results in far greater greenhouse gas emission savings then for us here in Alberta,” said Jenkins. “And for something like an aquatic centre that's very energy intensive.
“It does make it a bit of a challenge to achieve that 30 per cent greenhouse gas emissions,” she added. “What it means is that to achieve that 30 per cent greenhouse gas emission savings compared to the baseline, we will have to look at integrating some renewable energy, likely in the form of solar panels.”
But it has already been determined by project contractors the existing roof of the aquatic centre building cannot support solar panels.
Jenkins agreed and said it would have to be done through a ground-mounted system.
“We're currently looking at what those options would be, and what the costs of those would look like,” said Jenkins, noting the town’s grant application has been made. “We need to provide more information and determine the feasibility of going further down this path.”
During council’s July 28 discussion mayor Jean Barclay wondered if FCM was aware of the challenges facing Alberta municipalities in achieving the necessary greenhouse gas emission reductions to successfully access the Green Municipal Fund.
The mayor suggested it would be worthwhile going forward to drafting a letter to grant facilitators outlining the challenges Alberta’s municipalities face in meeting the grant requirements.
“Like you said we wouldn’t be the only one in Alberta,” said Barclay. “It’s just an awareness.”
