Defence lawyer raises doubts in double murder trial
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The lawyer representing a man accused of participating in a double murder questioned the quality of the evidence presented as he took steps during a closing argument Friday to cast doubt on the Crown prosecution’s case. Acting on behalf of Perry Andrew Charlie, lawyer Jason LeBlond emphasized a lack of direct evidence placing his client at the scene of the crime.
“My submission is that at no point during the trial that you heard, has any witness ever actually pointed to my client and said this person was in the van on the night of the shooting,” LeBlond told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church.
Charlie faces two counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 25, 2017 deaths of David Laurin Franks and Thomas Burt Reed and a count of attempted murder in relation to Bradley William Knight, the sole survivor of what has been described as a targeted shooting.
Co-accused Seaver Tye Miller and Joshua Steven West have each pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and Aaron Ryan Moore to two counts of criminal negligence causing death and await sentencing.
Crown is theorizing that Franks had offended someone in the local drug culture and was lured to a pullout on Foothills Boulevard near North Nechako Road on the pretext of selling some cocaine to a known customer but with the intent that he be killed.
Reed had offered to drive Franks to the spot in his car and Knight was along for the ride, as was Reed’s dog, Molly, who was also killed in the hail of gunfire. Knight, who had been sitting in the back seat, survived the attack by diving for cover and called 911 once the shooters had left the area, the court has heard.
Police apprehended West and Moore within a half-hour of the shooting but Charlie was arrested nearly 1 1/2 days later after RCMP connected him to an address where the getaway vehicle had allegedly stopped prior to the incident.
Although documents found in the home, located in the Caledonia Trailer Park off North Nechako Road, included a lease agreement in Charlie’s name, several other names are linked to the address in an RCMP
computer data base, LeBlond noted.
Even if Charlie was with the others, LeBlond questioned whether he was among the gunmen.
When he was arrested, Charlie was wearing shoes with a tread that generally matched that found in four footprints left in the snow at the scene of the crime, but LeBlond said the position of those prints conflicted with testimony from the getaway vehicle’s driver.
Thomas Lee, who had been hired to drive four “riders” around the city and, unwittingly, to the rendezvous with Franks, testified that he pulled his van up alongside Franks’ car so that they were parallel.
From there, he said he saw Miller and West, firearms in hand, get out via the passenger side and step in front of the van then heard them open fire.
Lee testified he also heard someone get out on the driver’s side via a sliding door and open fire, yet the footprints were found in front of the van where West and Moore had been.
The shots from the third shooter sounded like they came from a small-calibre gun, Lee also testified, yet the locations of the shells found at the scene failed to support his testimony, LeBlond said.
While Crown counsel provided evidence that Lee had driven Charlie to an appointment with a probation officer the month before, LeBlond maintained Lee did not really know who Charlie was, and questioned Lee’s identification of Charlie in a police photo package. At first, Lee pointed to another photo before noting the photo of Charlie, LeBlond noted.
Throughout his testimony, Lee referred to Charlie only by his alleged nickname, “Unique” and only in terms of what he overheard while the others were talking.
“I submit that as to who was in the van, his evidence is scant,” LeBlond said.
“He says the person is ‘Unique’ and he does not described the individual by way of age or ethnicity or weight or hair colour. There are no actual descriptors.
“He doesn’t even say that he remembers what he was wearing at all. He doesn’t see any distinguishing features like tattoos. He just has this name and that’s almost it.”
LeBlond also noted Lee’s friend, Steven Ray, who was sitting in the rear of the van, never made reference to the name when he testified.
Judgment has been reserved to a later date.
Liberal MLAs meet with chamber
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
A set of opposition MLAs was in Prince George for a roundtable meeting with forest companies and those who do business with the forest industry.
The Prince George Chamber of Commerce hosted the meeting, with its board room full to capacity.
The elected officials present included Shirley Bond, John Rustad, Mike Morris, Todd Stone and Tracy Redies, plus mayor
Lyn Hall. It was convened by Chamber CEO Todd Corrigall, who made sure the room was populated as much by bankers and accountants and small-business owners as by those who operate directly with forest products.
“The benefit of the Chamber is understanding how all of our industries tie together,” Corrigall said. “When changes happen to top-tier employers, the residual economic impacts translate to the entire community.”
— see ‘AS THE, page 3
BC North bus service up for bid
Citizen staff
A competitive process to extend the life of the BC Bus North service is up and running.
A request for proposals was issued Friday and will remain open until August 22 through the provincial government’s BCBid portal.
Pacific Western Transportation has been providing the service since June 2018.
According to a summary on the portal, BC Transit is seeking “qualified and experienced public passenger transportation companies” to provide the service which
runs from Prince George to Prince Rupert, Valemount and Fort Nelson and communities in between.
The contract would last until March 31, 2021.
“Many people depend on the bus in northern B.C. This is an important step towards creating and sustaining reliable inter-city bus service in the North,” said provincial Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena in a press release. “We remain committed to safe, reliable and affordable transportation, so people can get to work or school, access the services they need and have the freedom to travel.”
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
MLA Todd Stone speaks at the Prince George Chamber of Commerce roundtable discussion with members of the BC Liberal caucus and Prince George Chamber of Commerce members Friday morning in the chamber office.
Russell boys back on stage together again
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
It used to be a regular occurrence to see all three of Judy Russell’s sons in the cast of a musical theatre production.
The local choreographer-director-producer, and her sets-andeffects husband Bill raised their boys inside theatres and studios and they all took to the stages on which they were brought up.
As adults, though, they have all had their different directions to follow in life, with jobs and marriages and children and other interests to pursue.
But Andrew, Matt and Jon are all converging once again into the cast (and crew) of Beauty & The Beast.
The youngest of the three, Jon, is portraying the title role of The Beast. Although he is heavily involved in the sound, lighting, sets and other backstage elements of recent Judy Russell productions, he hasn’t had a part to play on stage since Spamalot in 2014. “I didn’t even know what part I was going to get, I just went into it wanting to get back on stage again, it had been long enough and I was feeling that pull,” said Jon. “And I get to be a baritone, which is rare. Characters like this tend to be for tenors, so I love that I get this really lovely song and it’s a baritone solo.”
Jon observed that Belle is the only true lead character in the show, despite The Beast being in the title. “In true Disney fashion, there are like six subplots all interwoven, so Matt’s character has as much stage time as I do, really, or close to it,” he said.
Matt, the middle of the three, plays Gaston, the loutish ladies’ man who overzealously fixates on Belle. Matt has been the most consistently active of the three on stage in recent years, playing starring parts like Capt. Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and Ash in Evil Dead: The Musical, but also supporting roles in other productions.
“Gaston is definitely a larger part than the one I had in Legally
Blonde,” Matt said. “There is some meaty music to this role, there’s some comedy to him, but he is essentially a villain and I love that. I’ve never done a villain before, so I’m loving that.” Andrew spotted that all three of them were portraying villains, in a way. The Beast starts out as the chief antagonist of the show before his personality transforms. Gaston is a brute from start to finish. His own character, Monsieur
Dark, “has his personality right in his name, and who doesn’t like to be the bad guy? It’s fun to be a villain. The last time I got to be a villain was in The Producers (in 2012, portraying flamboyant neoNazi Franz Liebkind) and that was so comical. This one is a straightup Disney caricature bad guy.” Andrew was also in 2013’s Evil Dead: The Musical, and the supporting cast of recent stagings of The Nutcracker, but that last time
all three were in the same show was that edition of The Producers seven years ago. “I love working with my brothers. We are very close, always have been, and that has never changed,” said Andrew. “It feels great to all be together and to get back into a show, it really does. I’m only disappointed I couldn’t do it sooner. It’s like getting back on a bike, all the memories coming back and the muscles getting familiar with it again. The passion gets re-ignited. And I never stopped because I didn’t want to do it anymore, I just had other commitments, it was a busy time with employment, adulting, just life has other priorities for awhile even if you don’t want it to.”
In true Russell production fashion, all three (their wives, their friends, the other cast members, etc.) are also involved as much behind the scenes as they are on stage. The times between rehearsals and memorizing lines are spent painting sets, cueing the lights, searching out props, and other practicalities of putting on a theatre show.
“It is true Vaudevillian spirit in action,” said Jon. “We don’t have an establishment we are beholden to, but then again, that means it’s all on us. Someone’s got to do it, and we are those someones. That’s part of the fear and the reward about live theatre.”
These good guys get to be their respective bad guys starting tonight and running to July 27 at the Prince George Playhouse. Tickets to Beauty & The Beast are on sale now at all Central Interior Tickets platforms, or at the door while supplies last.
City’s unemployment rate 4.2 per cent in June
Citizen staff
The city’s unemployment rate stood at 4.2 per cent in June, according to Statistics Canada labour market survey numbers.
That’s up slightly from 4.1 per cent for the same month last year and the number of people holding down jobs was roughly the same –51,800 last month and 51,500 in June 2018.
Likewise, there was little differ-
ence in the number of people seeking jobs – 2,300 last month and 2,200 in June 2018 – and in the total not participating: 18,700 last month and 18,900 in June 2018. Accuracy of the June 2019 unemployment rate is plus or minus 0.7 percentage points and, for the June 2018 figure, 0.6 percentage points, both 68 per cent of the time.
The numbers are based on a three-month rolling average.
Man sentenced for indecent act
Citizen staff
A Prince George man has been sentenced to two years probation for committing an indecent act near UNBC. Frank Levi Stojkovic, 26, was issued the term Thursday during a disposition hearing in provincial court.
The sentence was for one of 10 counts he was facing in relation to a series of alleged incidents near the campus between July 31, 2017 and Sept. 6, 2018. Stays of proceedings were issued on the nine remaining charges. Stojkovic was also ordered to provide a DNA sample.
Western Forest Products rejects mediation
VANCOUVER (CP) — The
union representing as many as 3,000 B.C. forest industry workers on strike at Western Forest Products says now that it’s willing to work with a mediator, the company has rejected the plan.
The strike began July 1 and involves the firm’s timberland operators and contractors and affects all of its operations in B.C.
Western Forest Products said after the strike began that it applied for a mediator in June to help with negotiations, but the union had not agreed to meet. United Steelworkers local president Brian Butler said they are ready to negotiate and mediator Vince Ready has agreed to make himself available. Butler said the company’s refusal to use Ready indicates it’s not serious about reaching an agreement.
Jon and Matt Russell back stage at the Prince George Playhouse. The three Russell boys are back on stage for the first time in a long while.
‘As the changes happen... that is immediately translated to the local economy’
— from page 1
“So restaurants are affected, car sales are affected, professional services firms are affected, but these are industries that generally see the impacts of these changes before anybody else. As the changes happen, and an employee sees less and less income, that is immediately translated to the local economy, because there is less money spent on vehicles, homes, furniture, dinners out. The thought process behind this was, we need to be inclusive of the industries that will be impacted long-term over any changes to our economy as a whole.”
The MLAs heard the stories of the local businesses, to gather information to form a response to government. This was not the first such roundtable held by these MLAs, and more are planned. As opposition critics, they were already of the view that the current government was not doing enough to help communities hurt by the state of today’s forest industry, and expressed concerns that
the downturn the forest sector was going beyond the pre-calculated shortfall in timber due to the mountain pine beetle disaster and the mega-fires in the forest the past few years.
“Contractors, hundreds of contractors, they have no Employment Insurance. So how are we going to help them?,” asked Bond, drawing to the point that forest companies are only one level of the impacted sector. Most people who make their living from the forest are in fact the suppliers of goods and services, most of them self-employed or employed by small independent businesses not the major players like Canfor or West Fraser. Bond also worried out loud about the mental health supports that she feared were not in place in small forest-based communities. When people fear for their jobs, it might not reach the level of medical depression (although it can), but the stress can lead to poor decision-making for small businesses and families.
“This isn’t about which government is
there. It is about the government being there, on the ground, being a catalyst for supporting communities,” Bond said, on behalf of the MLA group.
“Yes, there are big forestry issues out there that we are not going to solve in the next month, or six months, necessarily, but somebody could lose their home during that period of time. There are services on the ground that are simply not being activated.”
The conversation as a whole, said Corrigall, would feed into the larger BC Chamber of Commerce voice that has the ear of the provincial government. It would also leave the room with those who participated who would be better informed about how to address the complex set of forestry circumstances with their clients and customers, their professional associations and head offices.
The MLAs, meanwhile, are heading into their next rounds of caucus meetings where their political responses would be better informed.
Circus coming to town
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
For the third year in a row, American Crown Circus (Circus Osorio) is back in Prince George. This spot on the map is a northern destination the organizers of the big-top show have circled in purple – their theme colour.
“People in this area love the circus, they have helped us grow together as we came into Canada and got embraced by this community,” said Francisco Osorio, one of the members of the proprietor family. The Osorio family has been presenting electrifying circus entertainment for four generations, dating back to their Mexico origins then growth into the United States and now their regular summer tour in Canada.
Their first visit to this city will be forever stamped on their business history and their personal hearts, said Osorio. That was was 2017, the year wildfires in the Cariboo-Chilcotin displaced tens of thousands of regional residents into Prince George. The American Crown Circus opened their tent up for free seats for the wildfire refugees and raised about $4,000 for their financial needs.
This year they are partnering with the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, benefiting sick and injured children no matter where the tour goes in the province.
“Circus is all about family. We are a family of performers on the road and we are also family with our audience,” said Osorio. “It doesn’t matter what language you speak, everyone understands circus. And circus breaks barriers. It has always been that way: cultures, nationalities, whatever kinds of people, new ideas.”
Their cast this year includes performers from Mexico, Belarus, Russia, Argentina, Romania and the U.S.
“We always bring a brand new show. It is not the same as last year,” said Osorio. “We are the international circus under the big-top, and that makes us unique again. Circuses aren’t under the big-top tent like they all used to be. We keep that tradition, and people in Prince George expressed to us that they really like that feature.”
Osorio said the big ticket under the big-top this year is an out-of-this-world laser experience that combines the lights and high energy music of Eduardo the Lazerman, an act from Paris, France that the American Crown Circus brought into their performers’ tent for this tour.
Also coming this year is the catapulting strength and artistry of the Dragmir Troupe, the Belarus Triple Eagles defying the laws of gravity from high above the arena floor, plus zany circus clowns and much more.
General admission is $25 (includes one adult plus two kids aged 10 and under). Additional child tickets are $10 each. Tickets available at the door.
The American Crown Circus (Circo Osorio) comes to Prince George from July 18-21 in front of CN Centre. Showtimes are 5:50 and 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (an extra 3:30 show on Saturday), 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, and 7 p.m. Monday.
Rock slide blocking salmon prompts new fisheries restrictions
Laura KANE The Canadian Press
CLINTON — A major rock slide in British Columbia’s Fraser River has prompted new restrictions to recreational and First Nations fishing of chinook salmon, as officials scramble to prevent long-term devastation of the population.
The slide in a remote area near Big Bar, northwest of Kamloops in the Interior, has created a five-metre waterfall that is blocking all but a small percentage of roughly hundreds of thousands of chinook from migrating upstream to spawn.
The measures announced Friday represent an “unquestionably difficult” decision in terms of the impacts on First Nations communities and on recreational fish harvesters, said Andrew Thomson, a regional director with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
“The potential for permanent loss of these chinook populations represents a greater threat to the livelihoods of all those who depend on salmon for sustenance and economic opportunity as well as for the wildlife that depend on them as a food source,” he said.
Thomson said the department will implement a new maximum size limit of 80 centimetres for chinook retention in areas where chinook fishing was set to open on Monday. He said the measure will help protect larger chinook that are having greater success making it past the rock slide area. The decision will be reassessed at the end
of July, when the vast majority of chinook should have migrated past these areas into the Fraser River, he said.
Owen Bird, executive director of the Sport Fishing Institute of B.C., said he was “bewildered” by the new restrictions, which build upon previously announced conservation measures.
“The whole reason that the measures were put into place in the first place was to ensure that the Fraser River chinook had made it by and were in the river by that time,” he said.
“We were coming up to this date. The fish, indeed, are for the most part in the river... It’s not really a defensible action on scientific grounds.”
Thomson also said the department is also working with First Nations to minimize chinook harvests above the slide site in order to ensure the maximum possible number of chinook that managed to pass through the barrier successfully reach their spawning grounds.
The measures fall short of what some First Nations and conservation groups had called for, but Thomson said the department wanted to take a balanced approach that protected chinook while still allowing recreational harvest to open on Monday.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, said his group fully supports a call from the Fraser Salmon Management Council to immediately stop all recreational and commercial Fraser River salmon fisheries.
But he said he’s pleased with an “unprecedented” level of collaboration between federal, provincial and Indigenous leaders and he expects more mitigation measures will be announced in the future.
“I believe that absolutely everyone realizes the magnitude of this crisis and the ramifications it represents,” he said. “This could virtually wipe out the Fraser River wild salmon run.”
The federal department and the B.C. government have been at the site since late June assessing the impact and trying to find a solution. They’ve installed acoustic monitoring equipment to get a sense of how many salmon are impacted because the muddy, turbulent water makes it difficult to count.
Experts are considering a number of options, including reducing the height of the falls or providing passage for fish through engineering and rock work.
Another option would be moving the fish by truck from below the slide to above it, but the area is remote and has little road access.
Several salmon populations that use the river are already in peril and their numbers would severely decline if they are unable to spawn, said Aaron Hill, executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.
“People and wildlife depend on those salmon all the way from the West Coast to up into the Northern Interior and out to the Rocky Mountains,” he said. “Further depletion of those salmon runs will have a profound impact.”
Vincent Bryan, a Washington-based innovator behind a possible solution known as a “salmon cannon,” said the problem is urgent because the fish will start arriving en masse in August and by the middle of that month there will be a million or more sockeye backed up.
Bryan’s Washington-based company, Whooshh Innovations, has created a flexible, pressurized tube that moves fish over obstructions and he’s been at the rock slide site assessing how the system could work there.
Asked how soon a fix was needed, he replied, “Last week.”
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Prince George Chamber of Commerce held a roundtable discussion between members of the BC Liberal caucus and chamber members on Friday morning in the group’s office.
The Okanagan awaits This valley abounds with food,
Steve MACNAULL Glacier Media
The Okanagan Valley is hot literally and figuratively.
This little slice of paradise in British Columbia’s southern interior has ideal summer weather and incredible attractions.
For instance, cycle the Okanagan Rail Trail along gleaming Kalamalka Lake in the north part of the valley, sip wine in the South Okanagan and forage and cook perfect pasta in Kelowna, midvalley.
Okanagan Rail Trail
After picking up rental bikes at KalaVida Surf Shop, the aha moments come thick and fast while cycling the section of the Okanagan Rail Trail that hugs glintinggreen Kalamalka Lake.
There are jaw-dropping vistas galore along the 23-kilometre glacial body of water.
My wife, Kerry, and I are tempted frequently to stop our peddling and simply stare at the view.
There’s that secluded beach we had completely to ourselves for a picnic lunch.
The Kalamalka section is the northern extension of the trail that now spans 50 kilometres from
the Okanagan Lake waterfront in downtown Kelowna up to Lake Country and into Coldstream’s Kalamalka Lake Beach.
As the name indicates, the multiuse cycling, hiking, running and walking linear trail is fashioned from the decommissioned CN railway.
Tourism Vernon and KalaVida have latched onto the rail trail section running the entire 23-kilometre west shore of Kalamalka Lake as a tourist-and-local juggernaut.
“I don’t think we can overstate it’s importance,” says Ange Chew of TourismVernon.com.
“It’s one of Vernon’s greatest attractions and it’s free. And cycling or hiking the rail trail can be done on its own or combined with the area’s other greatest attractions like the lakes, wineries, food and downtown vibe.”
Oliver wine country four ways
From McIntrye Bluff to the Canada-U.S. border, from the Black Sage Bench to the Golden Mile Bench and everywhere in between, Oliver and Osoyoos are pure South Okanagan wine region eye candy.
wine, lakes and cycling
with a cooking class and eating and drinking at
Wise Earth Farm is one of the places cyclists forage for ingredients.
lometre stretch are terrior-driven fabulous as a result.
Kerry and I recently spent the day criss-crossing the region in the sunshine to experience the diversity.
There was mineraly Cabernet Franc at River Stone Winery; peach-and-honey, sunshine-ina-glass Kerner at Oliver Twist Winery; Trebbiano paired with potato-and-truffle-aioli pizza at Hester Creek Winery’s Terrafina restaurant; and charcuterie and Chardonnay on the deck at Vin Amite Cellars.
You can certainly copy what we did and have an incredible time or use the new tour planning page at OliverOsoyoos.com to design your own romp through wine heaven.
Cycle, forage, eat, drink
Without hesitation, chef Michael Buffett of Start Fresh Kitchen declares his pasta-making classes the most popular. After all, you can’t go wrong making tender noodles from scratch with nona’s recipe and
smothering it in a sauce made of tomatoes, herbs and garlic grown at Start Fresh’s own Wise Earth Farm.
Paired with an uber-fresh green salad, assembled, of course, of lettuces, vegetables and herbs raised at Wise Earth, and a glass of wine from East Kelowna’s Kitsch Winery, it’s the ultimate farm-totable meal.
Start Fresh and Wise Earth have amped up the concept by partnering with Giro Okanagan for the consummate Farm-to-Table by Bike tour of Kelowna.
“The theme may be foraging, but really it’s a fun and educational way to ride a bike and strengthen our ongoing connection with the land,” says Gord Hotchkiss of Giro. When you arrive at Start Fresh with your farm haul, you’ll do some hands-on work in the kitchen, but will be rewarded with that aforementioned farm-to-table meal, family-style, with wine, if you so choose.
The farm and culinary focus, particularly when combined with wine, has become huge for TourismKelowna.com.
Also check out StartFreshKitchen.ca, and GiroOkanagan.com.
And, yes, the wines from the 43 members of the Oliver Osoyoos Winery Association in this 36-ki-
You can combine swimming with jumping off rocks at this beach near the trail head of the Okanagan Rail Trail.
CITIZEN PHOTOS BY NANCY SHIELDS
ABOVE: The tour culminates
Start Fresh Kitchen.
BELOW:
B.C.’s municipal financial disclosure system a patchwork of policies
Graeme WOOD Glacier Media
Municipalities across B.C. are mostly free to set their own requirements for financial disclosures for staff and elected officials, leaving a patchwork of policies.
By law, elected municipal officials in B.C. must file annual financial disclosures, which are available for public inspection.
Only a select number of municipal employees, typically senior managers, must do so as well – but only if required to by the municipality. Employee disclosures are not public but are provided to council members for inspection.
Glacier Media canvassed 14 cities among the largest in B.C. last March and found only two had no disclosure requirements for senior staff: the City of Richmond and City of North Vancouver. On April 1 the latter amended its bylaws to include disclosure requirements.
There is no clear prescription for municipalities, which worries B.C. government watchdog Dermod Travis.
“The idea that you can have disclosure rules that vary from one municipality to another in Metro Vancouver, and you then contrast that with what you might see in Toronto and Montreal, it is absurd. You’re going to have to have a uniform disclosure practice that applies to all cities in British Columbia,” said Travis, director of IntegrityBC, a Victoria-based organization.
Richmond and City of North Vancouver happen to be municipalities where a top official is known to have been involved in outside business, which is legal. Richmond’s CAO, George Duncan, was a director of VROX, a sport simulator company that provided games to the Richmond Olympic Oval, a city subsidiary that owned a 50 per cent share in VROX until 2017. And former City of North Vancouver CAO Kenneth Tollstam was a director of several public companies on Canada’s junior exchanges since 2014. Tollstam, who retired in 2018 after a 37-year career, voluntarily filed financial disclosures, according to the city’s response to a freedom of information request, although details of the disclosure were not provided, due to privacy laws. Municipal employee disclosures are to be sent to council members each year. In Tollstam’s case former mayor Darryl Mussatto stated he never viewed any staff disclosures during his tenure. He said last February he was shocked to learn Tollstam promoted companies and is now subject to a BC Securities Commission investigation for alleged misconduct. Former councillor Rod Clark also said he never saw staff disclosures. North Vancouver now requires its manager, clerk and finance director to file.
The Financial Disclosure Act refers only to a “municipal employee” for disclosure purposes who must be “designated by the council.” To delegate duties, cities are required under the Community Charter to have a bylaw designating some employees as statutory officers – typically the city manager and at least two others, usually the clerk and finance manager.
Some cities are more explicit than others in their disclosure requirements.
Most cities, such as the City of Surrey, have interpreted their statutory officers bylaw to require financial disclosures from those officers. The City of Prince George has only adopted a resolution to designate employees for disclosure purposes whereas the cities of Vancouver, Kelowna, Kamloops and, now, North Vancouver have bylaws that explicitly reference the Financial Disclosure Act.
In September 2018, Vancouver expanded its designated employee financial disclosure bylaw to now include 19 senior managers with “additional roles that entail decisionmaking authority or material influence over matters pertaining to real estate, land use or business licensing.”
Vancouver’s bylaw hadn’t been updated since 1994. Notably, the police chief and head librarian, who are employed by the Vancouver Police Board and the Vancouver Public Library Board respectively, are
not included in the bylaw; nor are acting employees.
Disclosures are to include assets, such as shareholdings, creditors and interests in businesses, organizations and property in the region. They are intended to mitigate or prevent conflicts of interest.
Municipalities are also free to set different standards for public accessibility, retention and destruction of financial disclosures.
Only City of New Westminster, Surrey and Vancouver post their disclosures from elected officials online.
For other municipalities, disclosures must be accessed at city halls.
For instance, in Richmond people seeking this kind of information must walk into a suite of offices on the second floor where the clerk provides a binder of the most recent disclosures. To view further back at most cities, a date with archives staff is typically required. Cities also have different policies for requesting copies. Richmond, for example, won’t provide copies whereas Prince George does.
The Freedom of Information and Privacy Act does not address specifically how cities should disclose these forms, according to Jane Zatylny, spokeswoman for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. The Community Charter stipulates records available for public inspection may be copied for any applicable fee.
Retention of elected official disclosures varies from seven years to permanent.
“The retention/destruction standards/parameters for these documents is determined by the individual municipality. This is why there are different standards for different municipalities,” Zatylny said .
Kamloops retains its records for just seven years. Kamloops records manager Scott Redgrove said the Local Government Act no longer contains a retention rule for documents. He said it used to be seven years under the act until the wording was stripped in 2014 by the provincial government, and so Kamloops maintains the old standard. Surrey and City of Abbotsford destroy records after eight years. Vancouver keeps records 10 years past the council member’s last term. Richmond has no records retention bylaw but has elected official disclosures dating back to 1998. Prince George keeps records back to 1974. The cities of Delta, Burnaby and New Westminster maintain their elected official disclosures permanently.
When it comes to all election nominees, who must complete disclosures prior to an election, the law requires cities to retain all nominee disclosures for at least five years. It used to be seven years until changes to the Local Elections Campaign Finance Act in 2014. This means the public may cross reference disclosures for returning candidates dating back only one four-year term instead of two six-year terms, with coinciding changes to electoral terms in 2014. Surrey, Vancouver, Kamloops and Abbotsford are among cities that have destroyed 2008 election records.
The issue of disclosures for elected officials came up in June at a Richmond council meeting when Coun. Kelly Greene suggested the province adopt rules to include direct family members’ assets on disclosures. Mayor Malcolm Brodie called the idea “draconian.”
Greene said she was unaware that Richmond had no disclosure requirements for its senior staff.
Travis points out that Canadian mayors are, as of 2017, classified as politically exposed persons (PEPs) under new Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) rules. This means their family members are subject to scrutiny from financial institutions. Family member requirements should extend to financial disclosures, he suggested.
Brodie said FINTRAC’s extension to family members, particularly members beyond a spouse, such as a sibling, could prevent people from running for office, and lead to privacy violations. He said annual financial disclosures including family members is
“more than excessive” given they ask for assets and property holdings.
“At least with FINTRAC there is an element of a cash deposit,” Brodie said. “I think what my brother owns is none of my business,” added Brodie.
Brodie said he would “have to think about” the fact Richmond has no disclosures for its senior staff.
Brodie said existing rules have proven effective. Conflict of interest disclosures are required under the Community Charter and were twice used last term at Richmond city council when two councillors, and business partners, Derek Dang and Ken Johnston, recused themselves from their two townhouse development applications.
Travis said B.C. needs to catch up with most parts of Canada and the western world – “particularly in light of what were seeing in the Lower Mainland with respect to money laundering.”
Disclosures, he said, should include family members’ assets.
“I certainly don’t think that it is only disclosed to council is adequate,” he said.
“There is going to have to be a happy medium struck between the rights of taxpayers and the rights of the individual to privacy on this matter.”
Travis said all elected official disclosures should be posted online.
Travis has followed closely the B.C. Legislature scandal, in which provincial clerk Craig James resigned May 16 after an independent report found he had misused the treasury for personal purposes. Senior employees at the Legislature are not subject to financial disclosures, according to house documents manager Jennifer Horvath.
Travis said it is also important to have senior provincial government employees – who are typically in charge of procurement – file disclosures to cabinet (executive council). The provincial government’s communications staff has been unable to confirm who, if anyone, must file such disclosures. MLA annual disclosures are offline and are available only upon request at the Legislature.
The City of Victoria did not respond to Glacier Media.
Canadians unclear about Scheer
The most apt description for an adult Canadian is progressive and conservative. We are socially liberal and fiscally not. We want government in our lives to help us be our best, help those in need, but not help itself to our incomes through taxes. Which is a pretty open invitation for Andrew Scheer to step in and govern come October.
If only.
Scheer remains a Conservative leader about whom Canadians know precious little and suspect precious much. They worry he will be a cuddlier, dimpled version of the darkest parts of Stephen Harper. He is opaque enough to leave many things he says open to interpretation, a maddening Rorschach test of a politician who has waited a long, long time as leader to define himself. It may cost him the prime ministership.
If you can be judged by the company you keep, Scheer courts at the very least a hung jury. He has countenanced anti-abortion activism to secure support. He has belatedly been clear on racial supremacy as a cancer,
but he dithered and wavered before pronouncing a pox on its house. His position on climate change is insufficient in 2019 as an applicant for prime minister, much less in 2023, when his first term would conclude. It is not too difficult to pick apart Justin Trudeau’s administration, and to be fair, Scheer has been on the case as its nemesis.
He has found the weak spots and the sweet spots and been both clear-spoken and on point in the Commons.
He pushed the best buttons on the SNCLavalin mess, on the small-business tax fiasco and on the proverbial curse of every government in its treatment of veterans. I have seen him speak three times now and interviewed him thrice, and he gets better and better and better.
But it’s in the definition of what he wants for the country, what our place should be in the wider and wobbly world and what he would do to put our house in proper order and manage it, that leaves so many questions only months out.
We know Trudeau and have questions, we know Jagmeet Singh and have qualms, but at least they have defined images. It’s hard to remember any possible prime
minister so ill-described this proximate to the vote.
If polls are any guide, the election is a toss-up, which suggests splintered government. If you dare to be a fan of a good economy, a Liberal minority would be a walk into Hades. But at this stage, Scheer has heavy lifting ahead to prevent Trudeau, Singh and/or Elizabeth May from an alliance that would be memorable in all the miserable ways.
His recent spate of keynote speeches put fibre on the flab that had characterized his pronouncements. His most recent and crucial crucible for his party was to press reset on the environment platform. He runs a party that, despite the hysteria of its critics, has historically – if a little long ago –equated conservative values with mitigating the human toll on the planet.
His vision involves tech over taxes, a requirement by big polluters to be big investors in cleaner energy. His headache, though, is the grousing emergence of conservative premiers as environmental menaces and his political opportunism in enlisting them as avatars of the brand. Their brands are not uniformly of assistance,
National pharmacare will save money, lives
Iwas recently discharged from the hospital after a heart attack. I needed the blood thinner ticagrelor, in addition to several other essential medications. The first bill at my pharmacy was more than $300.
I earn a good income as an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo but I would have found the cost significant if my employer’s insurance hadn’t covered 80 per cent of the bill. What about my fellow citizens that do not have prescription medication coverage?
Almost one million Canadians cut their household spending on food and heat to pay for medication in 2016, according to research presented in the recent final report of the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare: A Prescription for Canada: Achieving Pharmacare for All. And one in five households reported a family member who was prevented from taking a prescribed medicine due to its cost.
This is why we need a national pharmacare plan.
The research evidence clearly shows that prescription medication coverage is necessary for people to be able to take their prescribed medications. Providing coverage for essential and effective medications would be the “ounce of prevention” that is worth a pound of cure in our cash-strapped Canadian healthcare system.
I conduct research using population-based databases to examine the effects of health
policy on clinical outcomes such as hypertension and statin medication adherence.
We know that evidence-based medications – such as cholesterol medications (like statins) and blood thinners – help patients by preventing clinical events and save the health-care system money at the same time.
Nonetheless, many studies have found that a significant proportion of patients still do not take their medications. For example, one study shows that one out of five patients quit taking their statin a year after their heart attack.
Low adherence rates have also been reported for other cardiovascular medications including blood thinners such as ticagrelor and clopidogrel.
While it is difficult to point at a single factor as the main cause of non-adherence, several health care system-related factors, including prescription medication coverage are among the most important factors.
A graduate student in our research group estimated in her master’s thesis that almost one quarter of non-adherence to medication for hypertension and diabetes – common and devastating clinical conditions in Canada – is associated with lack of pre-
scription medication coverage.
She estimated that providing universal pharmacare to 13 patients would help one Canadian to adhere to hypertension and diabetes medication.
Generalising these findings to all chronic medications, pharmacare is expected to improve Canadians’ health outcomes and create significant savings for the health-care system.
The blood thinner clopidogrel can reduce future clinical events – including death from cardiovascular causes, heart attacks or stroke – by 20 per cent, if patients are treated after a heart attack. Newer medications – such as ticagrelor, the one that I needed – are expected to have even more profound effects.
On the other hand, stopping the blood thinner prematurely was found to be associated with a five- to seven-fold increase in the risk of future events.
The estimated direct cost of a heart attack in Canada is about $15,000, and this is only 60 per cent of the total cost. Most patients who survive a heart attack need to be on aspirin for life and need a second blood thinner for a year or longer. Accordingly, it would be a reasonable cost-saving approach to cover blood thinners – along with all other essential medications –on a national pharmacare plan.
Wasem Alsabbagh is an assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of Waterloo. This article was first published in the Conversation.
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes.
though, and there are two words – no, one word – to describe how: Ford.
The Ontario premier is the anchor under the boat as Scheer wishes to water-ski. As Doug Ford falls and flails, so could he. The desperation move under consideration for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to campaign for Scheer in Ontario is rather like letting the Boston Bruins sell Vancouver Canucks season tickets. Right. Sure. Try it.
The message of conservatism will work well in the suburbs and the countryside, pretty much everywhere but the Atlantic, but Scheer has to place markers and demonstrate growth in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, where he has no MPs. A big-city chasm is no way to govern, even if Harper tried. We have underestimated Scheer every step of the way: as a candidate for MP, as a would-be Speaker of the Commons, certainly as an aspirant for the party helm. We may be doing the same now, but it would help if he’d take his game up to suffocate this skepticism.
— Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, at Glacier Media.
Living with rats involves understanding a city as an ecosystem
Rats! They eat our food, chew through our property and spread all sorts of nasty diseases. And they are gross (right?), with those naked tails and quick, unpredictable movements. Rats invade our homes –our castles! – the one place where we should be safe and in control.
Over the millennia that we have lived with them, rats have proven themselves virtually impossible to expunge. They are so adaptable that they can exploit and infest virtually every corner of our cities. They avoid traps and poisons and reproduce at such a staggering rate that extermination attempts usually end up being a game of whack-a-mole… or, rather, whack-a-rat.
Is it any wonder that many cities seem to be plagued by rats? Or do the cities themselves bear some responsibility for their rat problems? This is what I have been exploring over the past 10 years as a wildlife and public health researcher with the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative and the University of British Columbia.
For the most part, when it comes to dealing with rats, cities have it all wrong. For example, rat-related issues are addressed using a hodgepodge of unrelated policy and programming. At best, municipal leadership is highly fragmented; at worst, it’s absent altogether.
Municipal governments may address rat infestations that occur on public properties or in buildings scheduled for demolition. Local health authorities may address infestations in food establishments or where there is a demonstrated health risk.
For the most part, people are left to fend for themselves.
Another problem is that we know very little about urban rats. There is simply not enough information about them to answer even the most basic questions like: How many rats are there? Where do they live? Why are they there? Is the problem getting worse?
Despite this lack of knowledge, cities are often willing to invest tremendous amounts of time and resources into pest control interventions, such as New York City’s $32 million “war on rats.”
It means that cities have no metric to determine the return on their investments, because without knowing what the rat problem looked like beforehand, there is no way of knowing whether an intervention made the problem any better.
The key to solving this problem may lie in simply changing our perspective. Rather than viewing the city as a place entirely under human control that’s being
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invaded by rats, we need to recognize that the city is an ecosystem and that rats live here too. This does not mean that we should love rats, nor does it mean that we need to leave them alone. Rather, it shifts the focus to managing the ecosystem of which rats are a part, rather than focusing on the rats themselves.
Once we recognize that we are managing a system, it becomes clear that leadership and strategic planning are critical. The very concept of a system is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts; this is the antithesis of the reductionist approach that we’re accustomed to that deals with infestations on a case-by-case basis. Instead, we need to understand the urban ecosystem, just like we would if we were trying to manage polar bear populations in the Arctic or elephant populations on the savanna. This means substantive, longterm investments in collecting data on rat populations and the specific conditions that support them, as well as the impact of any implemented interventions. It also means understanding the interface between rats and humans. For the majority of urban centres, rats pose a relatively minor threat to people. The threats are certainly not in proportion to the amount of negative attention rats receive. This means we need to understand why we find rats so disturbing, and what can be done to reduce that fear.
An ecosystem lens also directs us to look at areas of vulnerability and resilience within the system. When it comes to rats, our homes are the most obvious place of vulnerability, where the relationship between rats and people is least acceptable.
However, private residences are often the areas most ignored by municipal powers.
Also, rats and rat-related issues disproportionately affect impoverished, inner-city neighbourhoods, and residents of these neighbourhoods are particularly vulnerable to the physical and mental health impacts of living with rats. By identifying and focusing on these highly vulnerable scenarios, cities can start to make meaningful changes in how we perceive and deal with rats.
Chelsea Himsworth is the regional director for the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative at the University of British Columbia.
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of
People rarely seek guidance from clergy
Jeff KAROUB
The Associated Press
DETROIT — Timothy Buchanan says he never consults clergy about important decisions, but it’s not for lack of faith: he regularly attends a nondenominational Christian church near his home.
Buchanan, 41, is not alone. A large majority of Americans make important decisions without calling on religious leaders for advice, according to a new survey released Monday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research . The poll finds three-quarters of American adults rarely or never consult a clergy member or religious leader, while only about a quarter do so at least some of the time.
“The church we go to is quite large, and we’re relatively new there,” said Buchanan, who lives with his wife in Bolivia, N.C.
“We really haven’t established a relationship with a minister there. Going to larger churches, it’s nearly impossible now to get a relationship with a clergyman or woman.”
The lack of personal connection with ministers even includes people who identify with a specific religious faith, though those who are most engaged with their faith are more likely to have relationships with clergy.
The poll finds about a third of Americans saying they attend church or other religious services at least twice a month; roughly a quarter never go.
Among religious adults who attend services at least twice a month, about half say they sometimes or often consult with a religious leader. That compares with 16 per cent of religious adults who attend services less often.
And while the poll finds a majority of Americans still identify with a specific faith, about half overall say they want religious leaders to have little influence in their lives.
For his part, Buchanan feels a connection to faith – he grew up in a small church and has an uncle
who is a Baptist minister – but he’s still feeling his way around where he worships. Besides the size, he feels some of his own reticence to reach out to a pastor could be a reflection of the technology-focused times.
“People don’t know how to have personal communications with other folks when you need to ask questions or need to get help,” he said.
“For instance, we’ve got some issues with our health insurance plan, so I spent an hour today Googling... instead of just picking up the phone and calling somebody.”
Tim O’Malley, a theology professor at Notre Dame University, said he suspects that technological self-service is among the factors contributing to infrequent contact with clergy.
“In American life, there has ultimately been a broad rejection of ‘experts’ apart from the person
searching for the answer on his or her own,” O’Malley said in an email.
“Think about the use of Google. You can literally Google anything. Should I have children? What career should I have? When should I make a will? How do I deal with a difficult child?
“In this sense, there has been a democratization of information based on the seeking self,” he added.
“You can find the information more easily through a search engine than finding a member of a clergy.”
There are some topics on which Americans are more likely to reach out to religious leaders, the poll finds. Nearly half say they’re at least moderately likely to consult with a clergy member or religious leader about volunteering or charitable giving. About four in 10 say they’re at least moderately likely to consult about marriage,
divorce or relationships.
Jo King said she rarely consults with clergy members but would be moderately likely to talk to one of them about marriage, divorce or relationship issues. While she doesn’t feel the need to regularly meet one-on-one with priests, she regularly attends services and says religion has always been “very important to me.”
“I used to consult periodically with them... when I was younger, but I rarely consult with anybody. I kind of live my life my way,” said King, 72, a Catholic from Canal Winchester, Ohio.
Experts say the clergy sex abuse crisis confronting the Roman Catholic Church also could be taking a toll on consultations between parishioners and priests. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, about a quarter of U.S. Catholics said the crisis had led them to reduce their attendance at Mass and their donations to the
church. Some bishops have acknowledged that many Catholics are distancing themselves from the church because of the furor.
Polling has shown a steep rise over several decades in the share of Americans identifying as unaffiliated with a religion. Gallup polls in 2018 showed 20 per cent of Americans saying they have no religion, up from two per cent in 1955.
At the same time, more Americans describe religion as unimportant in their lives, and church membership and service attendance have declined. Gallup polling shows about half of Americans said they attended religious services within the past week in the mid-1950s, while just about a third say they did now.
Weekly church attendance among Catholics specifically has been steadily declining, to roughly 40 per cent from 75 per cent in 1955, according to Gallup.
O’Malley, who also serves as director of education for Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, sees “a lack of trust in all sorts of institutions,” including houses of worship.
“Surely the church – the Catholic church in particular – has lost some moral authority in the last 25 years in the United States,” he said.
“But it is joined by schools, newspapers, the media in general, etc.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,137 adults was conducted May 1720 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Vatican lifts French archbishop’s immunity in groping probe
PARIS — The Vatican said recently it has decided to lift the diplomatic immunity of its ambassador to France, who is accused of groping and inappropriate touching by multiple men.
The announcement followed the French Foreign Ministry saying earlier in the day that it “received confirmation from the Holy See of a waiver of immunity” so Archbishop Luigi Ventura could be properly investigated.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into alleged sexual aggression by Ventura.
The Vatican has said its envoy was cooperating, but one of the accusers, Mathieu
de La Souchere, asserted last week that the probe was essentially stalled over the immunity question.
De La Souchere filed a police report in Paris earlier this year accusing Ventura of touching his buttocks repeatedly during a Jan. 17 reception at Paris City Hall.
Speaking to The Associated Press recently, de La Souchere said he was “astonished” by the Vatican’s decision.
“I had been told that the fight was lost in advance and (am) happy because we will be entitled to a trial,” he said.
“Now, a new fight opens: the judicial fight.”
Ventura has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. His whereabouts are unknown, but he attended a meeting at the Vatican last
month of all the Holy See’s apostolic nuncios, or ambassadors.
Ventura did agree to investigators’ request to take part in a “confrontation” with his accusers in May, according to French media reports. All accused him of putting his hands on their buttocks, sometimes repeatedly, or making other inappropriate gestures.
The Vatican invoked immunity for a high-ranking churchman during the recently concluded trial in France that convicted French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of failing to report an admitted pedophile to police.
A Vatican official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, also was accused in the case. Ladaria now heads the Vatican office in charge of handling sex abuse cases.
Kind words, encouragement should be what comes out of your mouth
Gossip grabs our attention. We as humanity, have a powerful drive to know about other people’s personal lives. The celebrity gossip industry is filled with magazines, television programs and social media that adds up to more than a $3 billion industry. We are curious to know what people are up to. I believe for many of us as Christians, we tolerate gossip because we’ve all been guilty of it. It’s not so easy to face up to sin which you have done and have encouraged others to do by listening to their gossip. So we tend to shrug it off. Or we spiritualize it by saying something like this to others, “I felt God was telling me to share this personal, confidential information with you about ‘Pastor so and so’s’ marriage because God really
wants us to pray for them.”
We try to share confidential, possibly damaging information by sounding religious, but really we are being hypocritical.
We need to own up to gossip as a serious sin that can destroy people and hurt relationships. If we want healthy relationships, and gossip I’m telling you is not healthy… we need to admit the trap it is and try to eradicate it from our behaviours.
We gossip for many reasons including; fear, the need to be included and belong, insecurities
and just plain old meanness.
I believe we could avoid behaving in such a destructive manner if we would embrace God’s word that says, “Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.” Ephesians 4:29
Can you imagine what humanity would look like if we only said things that were helpful, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting to others and treated our words as a gift?
The focus would be off our insecurities and cutting others down to make ourselves feel better as we
focused on lifting others up. It’s a world-changing and life-giving concept, to use our words to build others up. I believe that as I turn to God to define who I am and who I’m created to be in Christ, that I’ll be released of the handcuffs of gossip in my life. As I pursue knowing Jesus in a deeper way in my life, I’m reminded daily that I’m created in God’s image to bring light, hope and love to the world, not gossip. I’m praying you will exchange hurtful, foul language today for some good old fashion, home grown Jesus happy talk.
AP FILE PHOTO
A gay pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kan. in April.
The Associated Press
VENTURA
Acosta resigning amid new scrutiny of Epstein deal
Darlene SUPERVILLE, Jill COLVIN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Labour
Secretary Alexander Acosta said Friday he is resigning following renewed scrutiny of his handling of a 2008 secret plea deal with wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.
U.S. President Donald Trump, with Acosta at his side, made the announcement as he left the White House for a trip to Wisconsin and Ohio. The president said “I hate to see this happen” and that he did not ask Acosta to leave the Cabinet. But conservatives unhappy with steps Acosta has taken at the department had been pushing for his ouster.
Trump, who publicly faults the news media nearly every day, said Acosta put the blame for his departure there, too.
The president tweeted from aboard Air Force One that Acosta “informed me this morning that he felt the constant drumbeat of press about a prosecution which took place under his watch more than 12 years ago was bad for the Administration, which he so strongly believes in, and he graciously tendered his resignation.”
Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami when he oversaw a 2008 non-prosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges but plead guilty to state charges and serve 13 months in jail. Similar charges filed against Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York this week had put Acosta’s handling of the 2008 agreement with the now-jailed financier back in the spotlight.
Acosta said his resignation would be effective in seven days. He said he didn’t think it was right for his handling of Epstein’s case to overshadow the president’s agenda and his work as secretary of labour.
“My point here today is we have an amazing economy, and the focus needs to be on the economy,” Acosta said.
Top Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates had
demanded that Acosta resign. But Acosta had defended his actions, insisting at a news conference Wednesday that he got the toughest deal on Epstein that he could get at the time.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the secretary should never have been appointed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate.
“Thank God he’s gone,” she said A federal judge said Acosta violated federal law by not notifying Epstein’s victims of the plea arrangement. The Justice Department has been investigating.
“We should never allow an official who has been held to break the law by a federal court, to hold an office in the president’s Cabinet.
His resignation today is hopefully only the first step in holding those accountable,” said Spencer Kuvin, a Florida lawyer who represents several Epstein victims.
Acosta had also frustrated some conservatives who had been pushing for his ouster long before the
Epstein uproar. Among their objections were Acosta’s decisions to proceed with several employment discrimination lawsuits and to allow certain Obama administration holdovers to keep their jobs.
Trump had initially defended Acosta but said he’d look “very closely” at his handling of the 2008 agreement. The deal had come under scrutiny earlier this year following reporting by The Miami Herald. Epstein, 66, reached the deal to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life. He instead pleaded guilty to Florida state charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and registered as a sex offender.
Acosta had attempted to clear his name, and held a news conference – encouraged by Trump – to defend his actions. In a 50-plusminute lawyerly rebuttal, Acosta argued his office had secured the best deal it could at the time and
had worked in the best interests of Epstein’s victims.
“We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail,” he said.
“We believe that we proceeded appropriately.”
Pressed on whether he had any regrets, Acosta repeatedly said circumstances had changed since then. He did not answer a question about whether he would resign if the Justice Department were to find misconduct on his part.
“We now have 12 years of knowledge and hindsight and we live in a very different world,” he said.
“Today’s world treats victims very, very differently.”
After federal attorneys in New York announced the new charges against Epstein this week, Acosta tweeted that he was pleased by their decision.
“The crimes committed by Epstein are horrific,” Acosta tweeted.
“With the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that Epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender and put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator.”
“Now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the NY prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice.”
Acosta took office as the nation’s 27th labour secretary in early 2017, leading a sprawling agency that enforces more than 180 federal laws covering about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. The department also plays a role in combatting human trafficking.
Trump said Acosta would be replaced by Pat Pizzella, now the department’s deputy secretary.
Before he was named a U.S. attorney, Acosta was an assistant attorney general for the civil rights division in President George W. Bush’s first term. Before joining the Trump administration, Acosta was dean of the Florida International University law school.
AP Legal Affairs Writer Curt Anderson in Miami, AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
Search continues for Quebec businessman, son after helicopter goes missing
Sidhartha BANERJEE
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — A prominent Quebec businessman known for his exploits in the greenhouse tomato industry and his teenage son remained missing Friday after the helicopter they were travelling in failed to return from a fishing trip.
Stephane Roy is founder and president of Sagami Inc., which sells greenhouse tomatoes and strawberries under the Sagami and Savoura brands.
His company said in a statement its officials are doing everything they can to ensure Roy and his son are found safe and sound.
Quebec provincial police said relatives reported them missing on Thursday morning and that the pair were last seen preparing to leave the cabin at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Parent district of La Tuque, Que., more than 400 kilometres north of Montreal.
On Friday, Canadian Forces
planes and helicopters continued to search a vast area, examining possible routes the missing helicopter may have taken between Lac De La Bidiere and Ste-Sophie, the Laurentians community about 90 minutes away where Roy lives.
A Hercules plane and three Griffon helicopters were being used in the search alongside civilian search and rescue organizations, Capt. Trevor Reid said from Trenton, Ont.
Search teams had been scrambled Thursday, but were hampered by heavy thunderstorms.
“We’re searching an area that’s approximately 20,000 square kilometres,” Reid said. “The terrain is challenging – it’s heavily forested, rocky, with several lakes in the area as well.”
Roy was described as an experienced pilot with numerous flight hours aboard the craft in question, a Robinson R44 helicopter.
“It was his own helicopter, an aircraft in excellent condition,
Mr. Roy is someone who is very structured, who takes care of his equipment,” said Andre Michaud, a friend of Roy’s and president of Agro Quebec.
Four people – Roy and son in the helicopter and two others in a seaplane – travelled to the chalet for a few days. The plane returned as scheduled but the helicopter did not.
A Facebook page was created Friday specifically geared towards gathering information about Roy and his son, as many would be heading to the region this weekend.
Michaud said it has been a difficult time for the company, but hailed the mobilization of local teams that were leaving no stone unturned to find the pair.
“All we have is a trajectory,” Michaud said. “But it’s Point A to Point B, so with about 20 aircraft in the air, we think we’ll be able to at least find some clues.”
Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Helene Nepton said police
have set up a command post and are ready to move once the craft is found. The Canadian Forces say there’s no time frame for how long such an operation can last.
“We take these searches hour by hour, we don’t look too far to the future or speculate on what might happen,” Reid said.
“Our focus is the operation at hand.”
Michaud described Roy as a North American model in the industry. The privately held company operates eight production facilities in Quebec and is committed to sustainable agriculture.
The entrepreneur was described as the “undisputed king of greenhouse tomato production in Quebec” in a 2015 feature in the Montreal Gazette newspaper.
“He is an entrepreneur in its purest form,” Michaud said of Roy.
“An entrepreneur who is focused on sustainable development, the environment, and organic growing.”
high. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 39.78 points to 16,488.12 after hitting an intraday high of 16,525.70. Shopify Inc. drove technologies lower, while utilities, consumer staples and financials also fell.
Energy was marginally lower as the August crude contract was up one cent at US$60.21 per barrel and the August natural gas contract was up 3.7 cents at US$2.45 per mmBTU. Consumer discretionary, industrials, materials and real estate ended the day higher. Shares of several miners climbed, including Yamana Gold Inc. and Barrick Gold Corp, as the price of gold rose. The August gold contract was up US$5.50 at US$1,412.20 an ounce and the September copper contract was up 0.7 of cent at US$2.69 a pound.
The Canadian dollar traded for an average of 76.70 cents US, the highest level since October and compared with an average of 76.51 cents US on Thursday. American markets set record highs Friday as the prospect of interest rate cuts solidified with the comments from the governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago that the central bank’s focus is to pre-empt deflation.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 243.95 points at 27,332.03, a record close and slightly lower than the intraday peak of 27,333.79. The S&P 500 index was up 13.86 points at 3,013.77, a tad lower than the high set earlier in the day, while the Nasdaq composite was up 48.10 points at 8,244.14.
ACOSTA
Sports
Golf remains Petersen’s passion
Cougar alumni forward one of the faves in today’s hospital charity tournament
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
As the only scratch golfer among the 24 Prince George Cougar alumni players whose services were being auctioned off for charity Friday at CN Centre, Chris Petersen was a steal of a deal among the high rollers in attendance.
Petersen’s prowess on the course two years ago at Prince George Golf and Curling Club helped raise the fortunes of the winning foursome at the Cougars Alumni Hospital Charity Golf Tournament and the 43-year-old’s reputation as a heavy hitter with pinpoint accuracy remains intact.
His popularity as a potential difference-maker in today’s tournament drew a high bid of $500 at the eighth-annual Cougars Alumni Association/Sprit of the North Healthcare Foundation event, which is raising money for cardiac care equipment at University Hospital of Northern B.C.
As good as he was as a six-footthree, 220-pound power forward, the native of Rocky Mountain House, Alta., admits he became better at golf than he ever was at hockey. Petersen’s love for golf started the year after he left the Cougars in 1997 to play minor pro in balmy climes of California for the Bakersfield Fog of the West Coast Hockey League.
“We’d practice in the morning from nine till 10 and hit the golf course by 10:30 to play a round and I just fell in love with it,” said Petersen.
“It was fun to play down in Bakersfield. We had a real good team and just the setup there where we had a membership and played golf all the time and that kind of spurred me on to something else.
“I was just falling in love with the whole golf thing and at that point obviously you’re thinking your going to be a professional golfer but it ended up being a golf pro thing. I still see it with guys who play hockey all year long, when spring comes along, they’ll train in the morning and then go
play golf, it goes hand in hand.”
Petersen was hired for three summers in the clubhouse at PGGCC while he was with the Cougars. After he retired from hockey he attended a three-year golf management program at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton and worked 14 years as a clubhouse pro at two Edmonton courses, Derrick Golf and Winter Club and RedTail Landing. Now based in Sherwood Park, he’s spent the past 12 years as an environmental consultant in the oil and gas industry.
Golfing is one of the most popular activities for hockey players in the off-season and Petersen says that passion for tee shots and putting is starting grow in his 13-yearold son Caden. Petersen married a Prince George girl, Cindy (nee Halovich) and they also have a 10-year-old daughter, Gemma.
One of the original Cougars when the team moved north from
Victoria in 1994, Petersen played two years in Prince George, after two seasons in Victoria before the franchise shifted.
Like any of the Cougars who played in the old Coliseum that first season and then moved to the brand-new Prince George Multiplex the following season, Petersen has fond memories of playing for the fans in a hockey-mad city that showed its love for the Cats by packing the building. In those days it wasn’t unusual to have 4,000 people watching the teams warm up for games, a far cry from the moribund atmosphere he left behind in Victoria.
“It was different in Victoria because there wasn’t much support, it was a destination for older people who didn’t necessarily follow hockey and we didn’t have that great a team and we moved up to Prince George and then it was a heyday,” said Petersen.
“It was awesome.”
Today’s tournament reunited Petersen with his Cougar teammates – defenceman Eric Brewer and forwards Ronald Petrovicky, Shawn Gendron and Rob Voltera. They picked up where they left off when they last donned Cougar uniforms in 1996, the year the team advanced to the third round of the WHL playoffs for the first time.
Petersen still occasionally sees Rob Butz, the original Prince George captain, who lives in Sherwood Park, and Quinn Hancock, now a resident of Calgary.
Petersen played a practice round Friday at PGGCC and he said the usual suspects, Brewer, Dan Hamhuis and Andrew Luciuk, who won the tournament last year, will be solid bets to be the frontrunners today.
The tournament drew 24 former Cougar players, including Hamhuis, now entering the second year of his two-year contract with
Nashville Predators. The 36-yearold defenceman, who spends his off-season in Smithers, is one of four active NHL’ers who played junior hockey for the Cats. Winger Brett Connolly, now with the Florida Panthers, Winnipeg Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien and Boston Bruins d-man Zdeno Chara did not make the alumni trip. This weekend’s golfing reunion of former Cats also includes goalie Kyle Stanton (2000-03), winger Brett Parker (2002-05), centre Dan Lapointe (2003-05), centre Eric Hunter (2002-07) and defenceman Cody Carlson (201012). All three players from last year’s graduating class – forwards Josh Curtis and Mike MacLean and defenceman Joel Lakusta are back for their first alumni golf experience.
Cougars business vice-president Andy Beesley dedicated the tournament festivities to Gary ‘The Commish’ Samis, who died of a heart attack in May. Samis was the founding organizer of the tournament and the team plans to carry it on in his memory.
A Vancouver Canucks jersey with Samis’s name on the back attracted a bid of $16,000. Former Cougar head coach Ed Dempsey drew a bid of $7,500, Hamhuis sold for $5,000 and Brewer’s rights went for $4,250.
Posey hits grand slam in 10th, Giants beat Brewers 10-7
MILWAUKEE — The San Francisco Giants went into the All-Star break playing solid baseball. Buster Posey made sure they kept up their winning ways in their first game back.
Posey hit a grand slam in the top of the 10th inning to lift the Giants to a 10-7 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night.
It was the Giants’ seventh victory in the last eight games and sixth in the last seven on the road.
“We were able to carry over the way we were swinging the bat before the All-Star break,” Posey said.
Joe Panik singled, Mike Yastrzemski walked and Brandon Belt singled to load the bases for Posey who hit the first pitch from Matt Albers (4-3) to deep left-centre. It was Posey’s fifth career grand slam and first this season.
“Great way to start the second half,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.
“It was good to see Buster give us a cushion.” Keston Hiura, who had three hits, got his eighth homer of the season off Mark Melancon in the bottom of the 10th for the final margin.
Christian Yelich tripled off All-Star Will Smith (2-0) to start the bottom of the ninth and scored on Mike Moustakas’ ground out to tie the game at 6. It was Smith’s first blown save of the season, but he picked up the win thanks to Posey’s fourth homer this season. Trying to preserve a 5-4 lead, All-Star Josh Hader coughed up Tyler Austin’s third
AP PHOTO BY MORRY GASH
San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey hits a grand slam during the 10th inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday in Milwaukee.
career pinch-hit home run in the top of the eighth and then Brandon Crawford’s first home run off a left hander this season with two outs in the ninth.
“Hitting two homers off Hader is hard to do,” Posey said.
Hader knew exactly what went wrong.
“I just made two mistakes right over the middle of the plate,” he said.
“The only correcting is just not leaving the
ball over the middle. That’s where I get in trouble.”
Hader has surrendered home runs in two of his last three appearances. He’s allowed nine home runs which matches his total from 2018.
Rookie right-hander Shaun Anderson faced the Brewers for the first time and baffled them with four-seam fastballs, sliders and curveballs. He struck out a season-
high eight, including NL MVP Yelich three times, but tired in the sixth.
A walk and a double by Moustakas ended Anderson’s 11th career start. Reyes Moronta came on and gave up Ryan Braun’s two-run double off the glove of third baseman Evan Longoria. Braun advanced on a wild pitch and scored on Thames’ single to put the Brewers up 5-4.
Austin Slater’s third home run of the season, a two-run shot in the fifth off Milwaukee starter Chase Anderson, evened it up for the Giants after the Brewers scratched out the game’s first two runs.
Longoria’s two-run blast in the sixth off Corbin Burnes hit the left-field foul pole and gave the Giants a 4-2 lead.
Trainer’s room
Giants: Manager Bruce Bochy said Madison Bumgarner was good to go for his Saturday start. The left-hander was knocked out of the game against St. Louis in his previous outing. Jose Martinez lined a wicked shot off Bumgarner’s pitching elbow in the second inning last Saturday. X-rays were negative, but he had an elbow contusion.
Brewers: LHP Gio Gonzalez (left arm fatigue) allowed two runs and four hits in two innings in his first rehab start on Thursday with Class-A Carolina.
Giants slams
Posey’s first grand slam since June 24, 2015, against San Diego was the fourth grand slam by a Giant this season and the first since Austin Slater’s on July 6th against St. Louis. It was the first by a Giant in extrainnings since Hector Sanchez’s in the 11th on April 23, 2014 at Colorado.
CITIZEN STAFF PHOTO
Prince George Cougars alumni golfers involved in today’s Spirit of the North Healthcare hospital charity tournament got together for a photo in the Cougars’ dressing room at CN Centre before Friday’s auction dinner. Front row from left are Raymond Grewal, Josh Connolly, Eric Hunter, Cody Carlson, Jari Erricson, Tyler Brough, Shawn Gendron, Brogan O’Brien and Josh Curtis. Back row, Brett Parker, Nick Drazenovic, Evan Fuller, Ronald Petrovicky, Chase Witala, Chris Petersen, Dan Lapointe, Andrew Luciuk, Rob Voltera, Mike MacLean, Stew Malgunas, Eric Brewer, Dan Hamhuis and Kyle Stanton. Missing from photo: Ty Edmonds.
PETERSEN
Joe TOTORAITIS The Associated Press
Eskimos hand Lions ‘embarrassing’ 33-6 loss
Gemma KARSTENS-SMITH
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — Coach DeVone Claybrooks says his B.C. Lions can’t continue to allow their biggest asset to languish.
The Lions suffered an ugly 33-6 drubbing at the hands of the Edmonton Eskimos on Thursday, in part because the seemingly absent offensive line could not protect quarterback Mike Reilly.
The former Eskimos star – who signed a $2.9-million, four-year deal with the Lions as a free agent in February – was sacked five times in the first half.
“The bottom line is we’ve got to protect the quarterback, no matter what it costs,” Claybrooks said after the loss.
“We didn’t bring in this Ferrari and then keep it in the garage and let it get dinged up by hail chips. We want to protect it like we’re supposed to.”
Reilly threw for 157 yards and one interception on Thursday. He completed 17-of-26 attempts.
Sergio Castillo put up the Lions’ (1-4) only points of the night with a pair of successful field goals, including a 52-yard kick in the first quarter.
The game was embarrassing, Reilly said.
“We got our asses kicked in all phases. It’s definitely not the style of football we want to play and it’s not something that anyone in this (locker) room can be proud of,” he said.
“Just getting physically man handled, all 12 guys on the field, offence, defence, special teams. It can’t get worse than that. So it has to get better.”
Reilly was also hauled down seven times when the Eskimos beat the Lions 39-23 last month.
The defensive line is just doing its job by bringing the quarterback down, said Edmonton’s Kwaku
Boateng.
“I think our defence is programmed to attack the offence period,” the defensive lineman said.
“It doesn’t really matter who is holding the ball, who is carrying the ball, who is running with the ball. We have a whole bunch of dogs across the board. Our one and only goal is to get after who ever has the ball.”
The Esks (3-1) also registered 45 defensive tackles on Thursday.
Coach Jason Maas said his defence is a physical group that just
gets after people.
“That’s been our moniker all year. They are tenacious, all of them,” he said.
“Our secondary is doing their job too, so it’s making the quarterback hold it a bit. When he’s doing that and our guys are efforting the way they are, good things happen.”
Edmonton’s defence simply doesn’t quit, said Claybrooks.
“Obviously we saw that in the first game, that they’re relentless up front and they get after the quarterback,” he said.
“And we’ve got to play more solid in there and we’ve just got to hold it together.”
The Eskimos offence also saw success on Thursday, with quarterback Trevor Harris throwing for 276 yards, and completing 22-of-28 attempts, including two touchdown passes.
He also darted across the goal line to score a TD himself.
Edmonton’s Sean Whyte made all four of his field-goal attempts, with the longest sailing 47-yards through the uprights.
Harris briefly left the game with less than a minute to play in the first half after taking a low hit from B.C.’s Odell Willis.
The defensive lineman was called for roughing the passer on the play, but the Lions challenged the penalty and the call was overturned on review.
Harris didn’t initially look like he’d return for the third quarter, Maas said.
“He gutted it out in the second half. He put another knee brace on and gutted through,” the coach said.
“When one of your team leaders is willing to do that, put his body on the line, it says a lot of things. For him tonight that was tremendous.” Despite Thursday’s result, Claybrooks said he continues to believe that the Lions have what it takes to compete for the Grey Cup this season.
“All championship teams are going to face adversity. It’s how you respond and reload and answer,” the coach said.
“Now we’ve got to decide on if we’re going to get ourselves up off the mat, dust off and reload of if we’re going to feel sorry for ourselves and have a pity party.”
The Lions will visit Saskatchewan next Saturday for the first game in a home-and-home series with the Roughriders.
The Eskimos will battle the Alouettes in Montreal the same night.
Notes: Edmonton’s Harris has not thrown a single interception so far this season... DaVaris Daniels’ touchdown was his first as an Eskimo.
The former Calgary Stampeder signed with Edmonton as a free agent during the off-season, but missed the team’s first three games of the year with an injury... B.C. receiver Bryan Burnham has caught passes in each of his last 69 games.
Federer tops Nadal in Wimbledon semifinals
Howard FENDRICH The Associated Press
WIMBLEDON, England — Roger Federer waited 11 years to get another shot at Rafael Nadal on Centre Court. This one was a semifinal, not a final. It was settled in four sets, not five.
Felt like just as much of a classic contest, though, one that anyone present is not likely to forget.
That, of course, includes Federer, who managed to pull away and beat long-time rival Nadal 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 Friday by finally coming through on his fifth match point.
“I’m exhausted,” Federer said.
“It was tough at the end.”
Federer closed in on a ninth championship at the All England Club and 21st Grand Slam trophy in all. In Sunday’s final, Federer will go up against Novak Djokovic, who is the defending champion and seeded No. 1. Djokovic overcame Roberto Bautista Agut 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 earlier Friday to reach his sixth Wimbledon final.
As entertaining as that match was – including a 45-stroke point won by Djokovic –it was merely a tasty appetizer ahead of the day’s delectable main course.
Not only was this the 40th installment of Federer vs. Nadal, but it also was their first meeting at Wimbledon since the 2008 final. Nadal won that one 9-7 in the fifth set that ended after 9 p.m., as any trace of daylight disappeared, in what some consider the greatest tennis match in the sport’s lengthy annals.
How excited, then, were the spectators for the rematch, more than a decade in the
making? When Federer and Nadal strode out into the sunshine at 4:30 p.m., they were welcomed by a standing ovation before ever swinging a racket.
Quickly, that greeting was justified. These are, of course, two of the greats of all-time –maybe the two greatest – and they lived up
to that status for stretches.
One key, for Federer, was that his rebuilt backhand, hit strong and flat more frequently than it used to be, held steady against Nadal’s bullwhip of a lefty forehand. Another was that he was able to withstand Nadal’s serve, which has improved a ton
over the years. Federer amassed 10 break points, and though he succeeded on just two, that was enough, with the last, vital conversion making it 2-1 in the fourth set. And then there was this: Federer won 25 of the 33 points when he went to the net. There was something of an “Anything you can do, I can do, too” vibe to the proceedings. Federer would kick up chalk with an ace to a corner, and Nadal would do the same in the next game.
When Nadal jumped out to a 3-2 lead in the first-set tiebreaker, Federer used sublime returning to reel off five points in a row to claim it.
Who else but Federer could strike a serve so well that Nadal’s framed response would end up caught by someone seated in the Royal Box, as happened early in the second set? Who else but Nadal could attack Federer’s generally unassailable forehand in such a manner as to draw one so out of character and off the mark that it landed in the third row, as happened later in that set?
No one ever has managed to reduce Federer to mid-match mediocrity quite the way Nadal can on occasion, part of why the Spaniard entered Friday with a 24-15 overall lead head-to-head, including 10-3 at Grand Slam tournaments.
This was the second major in a row where they’ve faced off: Nadal won their windy French Open semifinal last month en route to his 12th championship on the red clay there. But Wimbledon is Federer’s dominion. He’s won 101 matches at the place – more than any other man at any other Slam, even Nadal at Roland Garros – and eight trophies.
CP PHOTO BY DARRYL DYCK
B.C. Lions’ T.J. Lee (6) prevents Edmonton Eskimos’ Kenny Stafford, back right, from making the reception as B.C.’s Anthony Thompson (23) defends during CFL football action in Vancouver on Thursday.
AP PHOTO BY ADRIAN DENNIS
Roger Federer returns to Rafael Nadal in a men’s singles semifinal match on day eleven of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London on Friday.
Canada’s Wickens will lead warmup lap of Toronto Indy
Lori EWING The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Almost a year after a horrific crash left Robert Wickens a paraplegic, it took just a few seconds earlier this week for the Canadian to feel the exhilarating rush of a steering wheel in his hands.
The 30-year-old from Guelph, Ont., will lead the warm-up lap for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto in an Acura NSX that’s been modified with hand controls. His fiancee Karli Woods will be in the passenger seat. It’s sure to be an emotional moment.
“I was able to get a couple of practice laps in (Thursday) and it put a huge smile on my face ... Racing is my dream, it’s my passion, it’s all I want to do,” Wickens said.
It was his first time behind the wheel since his Aug. 19 crash.
“The most liberating part was as soon as I got into the car, got strapped in, I pushed the ring throttle for the first time and the car started creeping away. And I just went full throttle to see what it could do,” said Wickens, with a wide smile.
“The car’s so good, that was that moment where I thought ‘Yeah, I missed that.’
“It was one of those moments where I stayed full throttle for a while and then I just coasted so I could take it all in and experience it all.”
Wickens was having one of the most dominant rookie seasons in IndyCar history, reeling off seven top-five finishes including a thrilling third place in Toronto at this time last year before he crashed at Pocono Raceway in one of the most catastrophic accidents in the sport.
Speeding along at close to 184 miles per hour, Wickens was trying to pass Ryan Hunter-Reay when the two cars slightly touched. Hunter-Reay’s car careened into the wall. Wickens’ car soared over HunterReay’s and into the fence, spinning around
like top as it exploded into pieces, leaving just the tub that came to rest on the track.
Wickens, who uses a wheelchair, suffered a thoracic spinal fracture, spinal cord injury, neck fracture, tibia and fibula fractures to both legs, fractures in both hands, fractured right forearm, fractured elbow, four fractured ribs and a pulmonary contusion.
Wickens has shared his long and arduous recovery on social media. He believes it’s helped keep him from spiralling into depression. There was funny footage of racing wheelchairs in his rehabilitation centre with teammate and close friend James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, Ont.
“It’s incredible what he’s gone through and how he’s recovered and shared his story with the world has really inspired so many
people,” Hinchcliffe said this week.
“He really is an inspiration every day, you wake up and talk to him and all the things that he’s gone through, how he’s dealt with it, his mindset has been incredible.”
There was touching footage of the first time Wickens stood. He surprised Woods with his latest accomplishment, reaching out to grab her shoulders for balance.
Wickens, who remembers little of the crash, has said he’d love to dance at their wedding in September.
“I can confidently say I’ll be able to stand there – and jokingly have said it wouldn’t be much different than if I wasn’t injured in the first place,” he laughed.
“Hopefully we can sway a little bit, she might have to take the lead, and I’ll just
drag behind her.” He has lofty aspirations for his auto racing career. He won’t settle for simply leading the warm-up laps for long.
“The target after the wedding is to hopefully have a trial-basis steering set up so I can get on the Honda Indy car simulator and get to work,” Wickens said. Can a car with hand controls be adapted for Indy car racing?
Mike Long, the CEO of Arrow Electronics, believes it can. He pointed to Sam Schmidt, a former IndyCar Series competitor whose crash in 2000 left him a quadriplegic. Arrow Electronics created a 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray for Schmidt that is controlled with head and mouth movement and voice commands.
“We’re showing off this technology because this technology could be used by anybody in the world with Robby’s problem to get back on the road with a car,” Long said.
“So that’s really what drives us.”
Wickens, who isn’t even a year into what he said will be a long recovery, continues to see physical improvement.
“Haven’t woken up one day and had this miraculous gain,” he said.
But there are small gains.
“Sometimes you don’t really notice but something will be moving, and you’ll be thinking ‘When did that start moving?”’ he said.
“Luckily I haven’t hit that plateau yet, hopefully I never will.”
Wickens is sure to hear a roaring ovation from the crowd at Toronto’s Exhibition Place for Sunday’s race.
How many laps will he be allowed to drive? However many, it is surely won’t be enough.
“I’m trying to figure out what that penalty will be if I just kept going.”
Tour de France: Groenewegen sprints to victory in Stage 7
Samuel PETREQUIN The Associated Press
CHALON-SUR-SAONE, France — Less than a week ago in Brussels, Dylan Groenewegen sat dejected in the middle of a road, his body language oozing disappointment as he was attended by the Tour de France doctor.
One of the fastest sprinters in the world with one of the most powerful teams, the Dutch sprinter was expected to win the opening stage and seize the yellow jersey. Instead, he was caught in a crash and forced to watch his lead out man at Jumbo-Visma, Mike Teunissen, claim all the honours.
To add to his torment, Teunissen and Groenewegen are roomates on the Tour, meaning he had to spend the night with the yellow jersey in his room.
Banged up and demoralized, Groenewegen took a few days to recover, well beaten in the sprints that followed. He finally put his poor Tour start to bed with the tightest of wins in the longest stage on Friday.
“It was not the start I wanted,” Groenewegen candidly said after pointing a finger in celebration as he crossed the line.
“Over the last days, I focused on today. My team did a really good job. The tactics was to go full gas, and I took the win.”
Groenewegen edged Australian rival Caleb Ewan and former world champion Peter Sagan of Slovakia to claim his fourth career stage win of the Tour.
After a final technical hairpin bend, the 230-kilometre stage featured a 1.6-kilometre path to the finish that gave pure sprinters a perfect opportunity to shine. Italian
sprinter Elia Viviani was led out by his teammates but lacked speed and dropped out of contention.
It was then a tight battle between Groenewegen and Ewan, with the former averaging 74.1 kph to win by just a few centimetres.
Before that intense finale, riders used Stage 7 to recover from the brutal ride on Thursday, and it made for painfully boring viewing.
6-4. Robert Lindstedt, Sweden and Jelena Ostapenko, Latvia, def. Matwe Middelkoop, Netherlands and Zhaoxuan Yang, China, 7-5, 6-2. Juniors Men Singles - Semifinals Shintaro
12. Andre Greipel, Germany, Arkea Samsic, same time 13. Andrea Pasqualon, Italy, Wanty-Gobert, same time 14. Mads Wurtz Schmidt, Denver, Katusha-Alpecin, same time 15. Maximiliano Richeze, Argentina, DeceuninckQuickStep, same time 16. Rick Zabel, Germany, Katusha-Alpecin, same time 17. Ivan Garcia, Spain, Bahrain-Merida, same time 18. Niccolò Bonifazio, Italy, Total Direct Energie, same time 19. Jan Tratnik, Slovenia, Bahrain-Merida, same time 20. Oliver Naesen, Belgium, AG2R La Mondiale, same time Also 27. Michael Woods, Ottawa, EF Education First, same time. 55. Hugo Houle, Ste-Perpetue, Que., Astana Pro Team, same time. 73. Ben King, United States, Dimension Data, same time 108. Joey Rosskopf, United States, CCC, 1:19. 158. Tejay van Garderen, United States, EF Education First, 3:13. 161. Chad Haga, United States, Sunweb, 3:13. Overall Standings (After seven stages) 1. Giulio Ciccone, Italy, Trek-Segafredo, 29:17:39. 2. Julian Alaphilippe, France, Deceuninck-QuickStep, 0:06 behind. 3. Dylan Teuns, Belgium, Bahrain-Merida, 0:32. 4. George Bennett, New Zealand, Team Jumbo-Visma, 0:47. 5. Geraint Thomas, Britain, Team Ineos, 0:49. 6. Egan Bernal, Colombia, Team Ineos, 0:53. 7. Thibaut Pinot, France, Groupama-FDJ, 0:58. 8. Steven Kruijswijk, Netherlands, Team Jumbo-Visma, 1:04. 9. Michael Woods, Ottawa, EF Education First, 1:13. 10. Rigoberto Uran, Colombia, EF Education First, 1:15. 11. Jakob Fuglsang, Denmark, Astana Pro Team, 1:19. 12. Emanuel Buchmann, Germany, Bora-Hansgrohe, 1:22. 13. Enric Mas, Spain, Deceuninck-QuickStep, 1:23. 14. Adam Yates, Britain, Mitchelton-Scott, 1:24. 15. Xandro Meurisse, Belgium, Wanty-Gobert, 1:39. 16. Nairo Quintana, Colombia, Movistar Team, 1:41. 17. Mikel Landa, Spain, Movistar Team, 1:43. 18. Daniel Martin, Ireland, UAE Team Emirates, 1:46. 19. David Gaudu, France, Groupama-FDJ, 1:52. 20. Vincenzo Nibali, Italy, Bahrain-Merida, 1:56. Also 36. Tejay van Garderen, United States, EF Education First, 10:26. 72. Joey Rosskopf, United States, CCC, 25:33. 100.
“A long slow day on the saddle,” defending champion Geraint Thomas said.
“Everything was starting to ache by the end, your wrists and your feet and stuff.”
There was no significant movement in the overall standings.
Tour rookie Giulio Ciccone kept the yellow jersey with a six-second lead over Julian Alaphilippe.
Among the favourites, Thomas remained the best placed rider, just 49 seconds off the pace.
Ottawa’s Michael Woods remained in ninth place overall after finishing 27th in Friday’s stage. Hugo Houle of of Sainte-Perpetue, Que., moved up five spots to 108th overall after finishing 55th in Stage 7.
Squeezed between the crossing of the Vosges and Massif Central mountains, the stage took the peloton from Belfort to Chalon-sur-Saone in central-east France.
After a day of hardship in the Vosges that culminated with the brutal ascent to the Planches des Belles Filles, the peloton rode at a pedestrian pace and nobody moved in the outskirts of Belfort when breakaway specialists Yoann Offredo and Stephane Rossetto made a move. Offredo and Rossetto could not make the most of the peloton’s apathy. They were reined in about 12 kilometres from the finish.
On the Tour’s longest day, some riders were caught napping. American Tejay Van Garderen and Teunissen both hit the tarmac soon after the start, close to a road divider.
Van Garderen was attended by three of his teammates and eventually got back on his bike, his face bloodied and his jersey ripped. Nicolas Roche soldiered on, too, after he fell onto his machine on a long section of flat road.
Van Garderen was to have X-rays. His team will decide on Saturday whether he’s fit to continue.
“His main complaint right now is the thumb,” team doctor Kevin Sprouse said.
“He’s got some bruising and swelling and just a lot of pain gripping, He may need a stich or two in the chin.”
AP PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHE ENA
Netherlands’ Dylan Groenewegen celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 230 kilometers (142,9 miles) with start in Belfort and finish in Chalon sur Saone, France on Friday.
CP PHOTO BY ANDREW LAHODYNSKYJ
Canadian racing drivers James Hinchcliffe and Robert Wickens share a laugh at the Honda Indy in Toronto, on Thursday.
Book explores how men’s actions shape female desire
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo Avid Reader Press. 320 pp. $27
When she first had the idea for a book on desire, Lisa Taddeo writes, she assumed she would be drawn to stories of male desire. That turned out not to be the case, although she begins Three Women by recounting a story about a man who pursued her mother, masturbating to her beauty from a distance. While it may seem counterintuitive to open a book about women’s desire with the story of an anonymous man’s lust, Taddeo methodically circles back to the ways in which men’s actions fuel, fulfill and warp female desire.
Over the course of eight years, Taddeo not only interviewed the titular three women but also immersed herself in their lives. It is far from an exhaustive look at desire, as its focus is distinctly cisgender and heterosexual, firmly invested in the dichotomy of male/ female. Rather, it is an interrogation of the desires of these particular women. The book is narrative in tone, and Taddeo is stellar at embodying the women, taking on the voice of each in turn. It produces a feeling that the reader is sitting down over coffee to listen to the deeply personal and frequently painful stories of Maggie, Lina and Sloane.
The women are white, American, the first two Midwestern, Catholic and middle class, while Sloane is a product of East Coast, upper-class, Protestant privilege. Out of these similarities and differences arise recurrent themes that propel the book forward.
Outwardly, Lina is living a life of perfect domesticity: husband, home, children. Within, she is a woman starved of affection, married to a man who has avoided kissing her for over a decade. The reader cannot be surprised when Lina’s desperation leads to an affair with her high school sweetheart.
Maggie is a young woman whose adolescence has been marred by a series of older men whom she initially perceived as her protectors but who ultimately took advantage of her. The last, her high school English teacher, is put on trial for the sexual contact she alleges took place her senior year.
Sloane is sophisticated and enviably slender, the passion of her marriage centered on the regular inclusion of third parties in the marital bed. She is the lone woman who seems at first not merely content but invigorated by her desire and her sex life. Sloane is also the only one who identifies any same-sex attraction, though the word “bisexual” appears nowhere in the book. Instead, her relationships with women are couched in decidedly masculine and heterosexual terms: Sloane has “had” women. With the disparate threads of these stories, Taddeo weaves complex connections between her subjects’ desires. The female body is a common element, as weight gain and weight loss play out as tragedies and triumphs. Lina’s giddy weight loss emboldens her pursuit of a lover. Facing her former teacher in court, Maggie fears the jury will see her weight gain as proof she couldn’t have been desired by this older and respected man. Sloane, whose mother put her on a diet as a preteen, using calorie restriction and amphetamines to keep puberty and her budding sexuality at bay, continues to control her body first through bulimia and then through deprivation. Lina and Maggie’s stories overlap in the well of danger that is girlhood. The victim of a gang rape in high school, Lina, like Maggie, feels tainted by what happened to her. While Lina’s rape was only whispered about in her small town, Maggie’s exploitation plays out on the nightly news. Taddeo’s reporting is at its most powerful when it demands we face Maggie’s trauma and the cruel way American society criminalizes and pathologizes a young girl’s sexuality. Neither the media nor the court is nuanced enough to accept that Maggie was old enough to have her own sexual desires but too young and vulnerable to act on them.
Maggie’s lament that a man can “ruin” a girl and go on to be Teacher of the Year echoes the truth that women bear the consequences of not just their own desire but men’s desire, too. When Sloane’s affair with a co-worker is discovered, she readily accepts the anger of the man’s wife, as though he and Sloane’s husband, active participant and engineer of the affair, respectively, have no responsibility. At Lina’s support group, the other women condemn her for seducing another woman’s husband. Maggie, too, is cast as a teenage seductress, responsible for the crimes against her.
In the epilogue, Taddeo considers her mother’s end-of-life advice: “Don’t let them see you happy.”
Other women, her mother means, and Taddeo doesn’t shy from uncovering the deeply misogynistic messages that pervade our society: Women’s desire is dangerous, and other women will steal our happiness if they can. These are messages meant to keep women powerless and set us against one another. Although this is a book about women’s desire, readers will not find in its pages an answer to the question of “what women really want.” Rather, it is a heartbreaking litany of the disappointments and betrayals that shape female longing.
Greenwood is the author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. Her next novel, The Reckless Oath We Made, is forthcoming in August.
Bryn GREENWOOD Special To The Washington Post
AVID
This image shows the cover of Three Women, a book by Lisa Taddeo.
Deep River bucks literary trends
Mark ATHITAKIS Special To The Washington Post Deep River by Karl
Marlantes
Atlantic Monthly Press. 736 pp. $28
A decade ago, American fiction writers had finally begun to reckon with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, packing their observations into taut, gemlike and ironic short stories and novels. Karl Marlantes didn’t get cc’d on that itinerary for post-9/11 fiction. Instead, in 2010 he delivered Matterhorn, a heaving 600-page epic about the Vietnam War that was largely about the plodding, crushing effort of a company of Marines to reclaim control of a mountaintop base. The shelf of Vietnam War fiction was stuffed full, but Marlantes, a Vietnam vet, was confident it could hold one more title. Readers proved him right: Published first by the tiny press El León Literary Arts before Atlantic Monthly Press took it on, Matterhorn became a surprise best-seller. Plainly, we craved a big war novel, even (especially) one that wasn’t about the wars we were in. And Marlantes seemed happy to indulge us, making no obvious effort to connect his story to current events beyond a sustained war-is-hell vibe.
There’s something similarly, stubbornly offbeat about Marlantes’ second novel, Deep River, which is an engrossing and commanding historical epic about one immigrant family’s shifting fortunes. And though its story is a century old, this time it speaks more directly to America’s current predicament. The three siblings, who flee Russia-occupied Finland for the United States, are archetypal figures, signifying America’s obsessions with God, money and politics. Ilmari, a pioneer in a land where “timber was wealth that grew every day,” mainly hungers to build a thriving church in his newfound promised land. Following him is his brother, Matti, an unadulterated capitalist who’s set on launching his own logging outfit. Last and most important is their sister, Aino, who since reading The Communist Manifesto at 13 has matured into a socialist activist. Her chief skill is as a midwife, which becomes an increasingly unsubtle metaphor – much of the novel turns on Aino trying to deliver better working conditions for the loggers. What brings together the siblings and many of their fellow immigrants is the Finnish concept of “sisu,” which encompasses moxie, grit and perseverance. All of that comes in handy on a job that pays poorly and can kill you instantly. Matti’s first glimpse of his new home gets his sisu up: “Those logs could roll and crush; those cables could break and fly, taking off arms, legs and heads. Ilmari, however, hadn’t talked about the excitement. Matti wanted to run down into the ravine. He could think of nothing he’d rather do, right now, than be a logger.” Aino, though, is more concerned about those rolling logs and snapped cables, and she’s soon a leading force in the Industrial Workers of the World’s efforts to unionize the loggers. A card-carrying Wobbly was a dangerous thing to be – beatings, bombings and trumped-up accusations of violence were common. Deep River earns its scope in part because it reveals the frustratingly incremental effort to improve conditions – every demand, from straw for bedding to eight-hour workdays, becomes a pitched battle. Powerful company owners stand in Aino’s way, as does the U.S. government: The 1917 Espionage Act targeted Wobblies like Aino who were, as an owner puts it, “red as a fire bucket.”
But the chief weapon brandished against the likes of Aino is rhetoric. “America dangles the distant prize that anyone can get rich like Rockefeller,” explains the Swedish-born labour leader Joe Hill, who strikes up a friendship with Aino.
“All you need to do is work harder and save more. If you don’t get rich, it’s your fault.”
Call it meme culture, circa 1910. Marlantes hasn’t written an allegorical polemic about contemporary business – his primary concerns are the romantic fortunes of the siblings and the shifting fates of the workers. But he’s alert to the resonances between the past and present, from law enforcement stifling dissent in the name of “national security” to populist mobs shouting it down with lies and violence. Americans were “twitchy as chipmunks,” Aino observes, and Marlantes knows we’re twitchy still.
Deep River is a feat of lavish storytelling; Marlantes ably balances details about the logging industry and the black markets its cheapskate owners help foster, from brothels to bootlegging. But, as in Matterhorn, Marlantes’ big-picture storytelling can come at the expense of its line-by-line prose. Lyricism is not his strong suit: “Life was hard. Some people had it harder than others.”
His prose can be cutesy and cliched: “The saloon was crowded and lively. The few women were there to work and not play.” And his dialogue can be groaningly sentimental: “If we’re ever apart, know I’ll be looking at the same moon.”
But in this regard, Deep River isn’t a descendant of Kesey so much as Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, which was distinguished as much by its homely prose as its moral righteousness. That novel famously helped to improve meat-safety conditions, but it’s also something of a literary relic, an unabashedly activist novel that asked readers to think more broadly about politics. Like The Jungle, Deep River could use some better sentences. But we could also use more spirited novels like Deep River.
HANDOUT PHOTO BY ATLANTIC MONTHLY
This image is the cover of the book Deep River by Karl Marlantes.
At Home
Dressing windows in style
Helen CAREFOOT
The Washington Post
Curtains, shades and blinds serve both a practical and decorative purpose in a home. But these decor staples can be deceptively difficult to navigate. Who among us hasn’t had questions about how to hang or choose a window treatment?
We asked experts for advice so even novices can start decorating with confidence.
First, know the terminology. Draperies, curtains, shades, blinds: These are all window treatments.
“Drapery typically means fulllength,” said Adam Skalman, vice president of sales for the Shade Store, while curtains typically refer to something that’s shorter in length and made of more sheer material. Shades, typically consisting of fabric and brackets, are a relatively affordable option for spaces where light and privacy are a concern. Blinds, with horizontal or vertical slats, come in materials such as wood and metal, and they work well in rooms in which you want to control the brightness level.
The heading of a window treatment refers to how the curtain looks on top of the rod. Finials – pieces that can be attached to the ends of rods – provide decorative flourish and help rings stay in place, says Erika Hollinshead Ward, an Atlanta-based interior designer and owner of Erika Ward Interiors.
As with any design project, start by thinking about what you want to accomplish.
How much light and privacy do you want?
Hollinshead Ward says that to block out light, lined treatments in heavier fabrics are a good option and can even provide some extra insulation (these are also called “blackout curtains”).
Lighter fabrics, such as linen or cotton blends, work well as sheers, which provide some privacy but won’t block out light. They’re great for spaces where natural light is in short supply.
“Someone might be able to see your silhouette, but you won’t lose any of the light,” she says. In rooms where you’d like more
flexibility and ease in controlling light levels, Hollinshead Wood and Skalman both suggest using a shade, then layering a curtain or drape on a rod in front of it. If you want to use only curtains and want the benefits of both sheers and blackout panels, you could hang a double rod, although Hollinshead Ward says this is costlier and can look dated.
Top-down-bottom-up shades, which can open from the top or bottom, can accomplish this as well, but are usually more expensive than standard shades. For large windows that give off a lot of light, Skalman likes vertical blinds. Cellular shades also filter light and work well in rooms that need extra insulation, he says. If you’re after total darkness, Hollinshead Ward recommends hanging treatments to fully cover the window’s trim.
What other architectural features must be considered?
When deciding which treatment to use, think about the other furniture and fixtures in the space. “If you have a radiator under a window, you may not do a drapery; you may do a Roman blind,” Erika Hollinshead Ward says, because it extends to the just bottom of the window instead of the floor. Is there a bookcase right next to the window that will be obscured by curtains, or a chair in front of it that would make longer drapes look strange?
What’s your budget?
Custom drapes are typically the most expensive option. Skalman says often there are other options that will meet your needs with less hassle and cost.
“If someone is new to the game and is looking for something clean and modern, that’s sort of the little black dress of window treatments, is probably a roller shade.” he says. Generally, shades will be cheap-
er than drapes; at the Shade Store (where all window treatments are custom), roller shades and wood blinds start around $200 per window; drapery with hardware starts around $800.
Home Depot offers roller shades in several materials, from around $20 each, that can be cut to fit your window, and stores such as Ikea and Target carry readyto-hang sets from around $25.
For spaces where you want the functionality of a shade but a softer material, Skalman suggests Roman shades, which fold as you raise them.
Before you hang anything, measure around your window.
Hollinshead Ward recommends measuring where the rod will be hung, the window top to bottom, and the length and width of the window’s trim, if it has any.
Know the position of any obstructions, such as vents, light switches or wall art. Some
companies, including the Shade Store and Calico Corners, offer an in-home measuring service. You can’t measure too much. “I would measure three or four times,” Skalman says. In general, longer curtains give off a more finished, refined look, while treatments that are too short look dated and messy. Hollinshead Ward advises buying treatments with extra fabric in case more length is needed, then hemming them to fit. She prefers treatments to end between a halfinch and a quarter-inch above the floor and suggests hanging them no more than seven to 10 inches above the window frame. But don’t hang them right above the window. Skalman suggests going a little wider and higher than the window.
To hem curtains, lay them flat and fold the fabric back on itself.
Hollinshead Wood suggests sewing or using hemming tape (available at many big-box retailers) to create a four- or six-inch hem for the most polished finish.
“If you have more than 120 inches in height, then I would do a taller hem so the hem would be in proportion to the length of the drape,” she says. If you need to make the panels significantly shorter, she suggests trimming the fabric before hemming to avoid the amateurish look of a seam in the middle of your panel. Many tailors and seamstresses will hem curtains, too. Don’t feel pressured to dress all the windows in a room with matching window treatments. Full-length drapery could look right at home over a pair of stately French doors, but it might not be right for another window in the same space. If you are mixing treatments, Skalman says, “there should be some consistency, whether it’s in colour or fabric.”
The same goes for hardware: Skalman tries to match metal finishes already in the room. Experts agree that not much is needed in terms of maintenance for your window treatments. Hollinshead Ward suggests gently vacuuming curtains and blinds (let them all the way out first) with an attachment about once a month, or when they get dusty.
Hello, yellow: home decor’s upbeat hue should be used right
Associated Press
Kim COOK The
If ever a colour were to be associated with an emotion (OK, blue, we see you), it’s got to be yellow. Upbeat and welcoming, it’s a hue that’s easy to love. But it can be tricky to use when decorating.
Bold yellows are eye-catching, but colour experts advise caution. Unless you’re prepared to live with bright yellow’s peppy assertiveness, softer, creamier versions might be more prudent choices.
Will Taylor, founder of the colour blog Bright.Bazaar and an interior design expert at Marshalls, loves yellow in all its iterations. “To me, it’s happiness personified,” he says. “As soon as I see it, I feel joy.”
Better Homes & Gardens Style Director Jessica Thomas calls yellow “sunshine in a can.” And Dee Schlotter, senior colour marketing manager for PPG Paints , says yellow is often seen as the signature hue for “happy.” “Bright, energizing yellows are known to enhance the mind and help creativity flow,” she says.
“We saw ‘Gen Z yellow’ bubble to the surface last year, with colours like Crushed Pineapple reflecting the optimism and boldness of that generation.” Schlotter says yellow was a close runnerup for PPG’s 2019 Color of the Year.
Night Watch, a moody green-gray, ultimately took the title, but Golden Field – a dramatic mustard yellow – was a strong second.
A tip when you’re in the paint store:
“We recommend first looking at the bottom colour on the paint swatch to find the root of the yellow,” Schlotter says.
“For example, if the bottom colour is green, the yellow at the top of the card will have subtle hints of green infused into it.”
Go two or three shades lighter than you think you want if you’re painting a room. And “warmer yellows tend to work better on walls,” Schlotter says.
“Brighter variations are perfect on a front door, as an accent wall in a bedroom, or in a dining room to provide a rich, striking look.”
Taylor’s got some favourite yellow paints, including Dayroom Yellow from Farrow & Ball, Bicycle Yellow from Behr, and Hawthorn Yellow from Benjamin Moore.
“Yellow’s the queen of accent colours,” he says.
“It goes with neutrals to blacks and blues. Think of adding pops of yellow across art, pillows, throws and flowers. It will instantly add visual interest, giving the eye a place to land, and it prevents a room from feeling flat.”
Lemon motifs and prints are a fresh, fun way to bring the colour home.
“Lemon print wallpaper in a bathroom or closet is a cheerful way to add yellow,”
Taylor says.
“Every time you step in it will make you smile.”
Check out Spoonflower, Etsy and Walls Need Love for lemon-y wallpapers that range in style from realistic to retro.
Marshalls has some festive, lemon-printed
melamine serveware that would add zest to summer parties. For more dressed-up get-togethers, Williams-Sonoma has porcelain plates decorated with Meyer lemons and framed with a vintage-look botanical border.
Ballard Designs offers Sunbrella fabric by the yard with a pretty lemon-and-leaf print that would be great on patio pillows or cushions; there are faux lemon branches here as well, to tuck in a vase or basket.
Kitchenaid’s buttercup yellow mixer is a softer version of the hue, while Chantal’s sunny yellow Anniversary tea kettle is a waker-upper.
If you’d really like to commit, consider a piece of yellow furniture, or even an appliance.
All Modern has well-priced upholstered seating, with clean-lined silhouettes that let the colour take centre stage. West Elm’s got a set of velvet curtains and a distressed rug in a hue called wasabi that has a golden tone.
Bertazzoni and SMEG stock equipment like stoves, fridges and range hoods in fresh yellows.
Ready for more? Scandinavian manufacturer Vola has marked its 50th anniversary by releasing Arne Jacobsen’s original 1968 designed bath faucet in a rainbow of colours, and a kicky yellow is one of them.
Or put the wild on the walls, with glass subway, mosaic or free-form ceramic tiles from Modwalls.
Even the names are as fun as this colour: daffodil; sunflower; limoncello.
WASHINGTON POST PHOTO BY WOODIE WILLIAMS
When choosing a window treatment, consider how the colour complements other furnishings in the room.
AP PHOTO BY SMEG USA
This photo provided by SMEG USA shows one of their yellow fridges.
Da Costa March 15, 1930 July 9, 2019
It is with much sadness that we announce the passing of Maria Da Costa after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and a rapid fight with Cancer. Maria was predeceased by her husband Jose, in 1994, and is survived by her children, Suzie (Norman Garfield), George (Tamila), Alvero (Lolly), her grandchildren Alysha (Matt Seed), Jordy, Megan, Ryan, Aaron, and great grandchild Zaylee. Maria was born in Sobral, Portugal, and immigrated to Canada in 1963. She was proud of her Portuguese ancestry but was always thankful to be a Canadian citizen. She lived in Fort Fraser, Fraser Lake, briefly in Hazelton, Terrace, and finally Prince George, where she could be with her daughter. Maria loved family gatherings, her green garden, puzzles, and of course her coffee (and jokingly her 49 sugars). All who knew her well remember she disliked leaves in the Fall as she swept them away with her broom, incidentally snow was a quick second after leaves. Her kindness and great sense of humor will be sorely missed by her family and friends.
The family wishes to express their gratitude to Dr. Javed, Dr. Moran, Sue Pancheck and the wonderful Care Aides at Northern Health, the nurses on the third floor SN. D. Pod at the UHNBC, and of course the exceptional care and dignity she received at the Prince George Hospice Society, prior to her passing. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Prince George Hospice Society in memory of Maria, www.hospiceprincegeorge.ca
A Catholic Mass will be held Friday July 19, 2019 at the Sacred Heart Parish in Terrace, B.C. at 11:00 am. Interment to follow at the Terrace Municipal Cemetery. Refreshments and snacks following the service in the JP Centre at the church.
Madeline Rose Hope Kozoris September 15, 2001July 8, 2019
It is with extreme sadness we announce the tragic death of Madeline on the morning of July the 8th, 2019. She was returning home from the Vernon dog show with her boyfriend Zack and Rough Collie Trinity when there was a single car accident with Zack surviving. Madeline lived an incredibly full life. She attended Van Bien Elementary, EBUS Academy, and graduated from PGSS in June 2019. She successfully completed the CNC CTC Professional Cook 1 & 2 in June as well. She has been a top junior dog handler since the age of ten. She learned how to groom dogs in her mother’s grooming shop and was a handler of nearly every dog breed imaginable at dog shows across the province. She danced at Enchainement Dance Academy and Excalibur Theatre Arts since the age of 3 in ballet, jazz, hip hop, modern, contemporary, and self choreography, but her passion was tap. She performed and trained at numerous dance festivals across BC and Alberta. In her free time, she enjoyed the Army Cadets, playing the guitar, and striving for her driver’s license. She loved the outdoors and exploring the world, including a life changing trip with her Grammie, visiting her world sailing Aunt Janet’s family in Martinique. She was predeceased by grandma Debbie, grandpa Larry, and honourary grandpa Al. She is survived by her mother Tammy, father Jeffrey (Melissa), sister Olivia, brother Phoenix, great grandmother Joan, grandfather Kem, grammie Diane, soulmate Zack, aunt Dawn (Tony, Kylee, Haylee), aunt Janet (Darryl, Ella, Iris), honourary grandmas Rose and Louise, best friends Demmy & Renee, dog show parents Tanya & Gerald, and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and hundreds of friends from school, dance, cadets, dog breeders and handlers, and Moxie’s Restaurant where she cooked. She spread joy and happiness to all she encountered and made friends wherever she roamed. In nearly 18 years, Madeline lived more than most people in their entire lives and she has left us far too early. Madeline will be missed and remembered for the rest of our days. A memorial will be held at the Columbus Hall in College Heights on Monday, July 15, 2019 from 4pm to 8pm. Donations can be made at the memorial for future Dance Festival and junior dog handling bursaries.
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