Sewer pipe burst
City workers check out the spot near the John Hart Bridge on
direction while repairs were carried out into the night.
“We believe that the cause of the
of rest of the main, which
Consultant looking at cultural hub, arts strategy downtown
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The City of Prince George and the Community Arts Council have joined forces on a search for ways to enhance the presence of the arts in the city’s downtown.
The two are about to hire a consultant to work on a pair of projects – a 10-year downtown arts strategy and a feasibility study for turning the CAC’s future home into a cultural hub.
It amounts to a happy convergence in CAC executive director Sean Farrell’s opinion.
“It was like, low and behold, these two projects are starting around the same time,” Farrell said Wednesday. “It would make sense for government and business, or us, to be efficient and lean and work together so that we’re avoiding overlap... so we decided to kind of collaborate.
“We’re not merging these two projects,” he added. “We’re working together really closely on them and we’re going to be working with the same consultancy team on both projects.”
Arts carries an under-appreciated but significant economic wallop to the tune of $7 billion a year in B.C., according to Farrell.
“It’s not an off-the-side-of-your-desk recreational thing some people play in,” he said. “It’s actually a big industry.”
Converting that activity into an economic benefit to the city is the focus of the strategy.
“So looking at how we can do cultural place-making downtown, create spaces for artists to work, to engage, consume, purchase art, possibly a new performing space downtown or a concert hall – these are all the questions that we’re going to look at through our feasibility study and through the downtown arts strategy.”
In April 2018, it was announced that the CAC will be moving into the old BMO building at the corner of Third and Quebec
What isn’t on the table is a $50 million or $70 million performing arts multiplex.
—
Sean Farrell
once an expansion has been completed. The Farmers’ Market, which moved in that same month, is to remain at the location.
Farrell said a capital investment analysis has been completed and the feasibility study will look at how to finance the project as well as the engineering and procurement.
“All the technical details, so we have a plan to move forward,” he said.
The arrangement was unveiled during Monday night’s city council meeting. At the same meeting, council also voted in favour of establishing a grant and reserve fund for a performing arts centre. In all, $83,900 will go into the reserve, with $7,000 coming from the recently-dissolved Prince George Regional Performing Arts Centre Society and $76,900 coming from a one-time contribution Initiatives Prince George, also no longer operating, had made to the cause.
The money is be used for work towards the creation of a performing arts centre, but Farrell said any such facility will be on a much smaller scale than had been envisioned in previous years.
“What isn’t on the table is a $50 million or $70 million performing arts multiplex, which is what the performing arts centre was sort of prescribed as years ago,” he said. “What we need to focus on, with our new facility and a downtown arts strategy is market development. Let’s creating a marketplace, an economy for local arts and culture.”
The plan is to have a consultant hired by the middle of next month and to have the work completed in about a year.
Speakers selected for TEDxUNBC
Citizen staff
A variety of entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, and a performing artist will take to the stage when TEDxUNBC is held this fall at UNBC.
Set for Oct. 5 at Canfor Theatre, it will feature 10 speakers
“We have a wonderful slate of speakers, a mix that complements the entire university from faculty and alumni to students and community members,” Walker said. Select the speakers for this year’s edition wasn’t easy, he added.
“On Oct. 5, the audience will experience an interdisciplinary journey through inspirational ideas about science, education, the arts and more.”
Tickets for the event are now on sale for $100 each through www.unbc.ca/tedxunbc
Here’s a look at the lineup:
• Daryl Hatton is the founder and CEO FundRazr, an innovative, award-winning global enterprise crowdfunding platform.
• James Steidle operates Steidle Woodworking where he focuses on using local woods, particularly aspen, and mills up the lumber himself. He spends his free time advocating for aspen and broadleaf forests as part of Stop the Spray BC.
• Brittany Doncaster is a mental health and addictions clinician who emphasizes education, accountability and empathy in her practice. An evolutionary psychology perspective informs her position on favourite topics such as stress, boundaries, and technology.
• Ronny Priefer is a professor of medicinal chemistry at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston. He has had more than 50 students working with him, publishing 44 scientific articles and six patents as a principal investigator.
TEDxUNBC marks his return to UNBC
and his hometown.
• Ed sdi /Judy Thompson is a member of the Tahltan Nation and for the last three decades, she has been learning the T t n language, which has included learning the culture, knowledge, wisdom, and ways of knowing her people. She is currently an associate professor in indigenous education at the University of Victoria an adjunct professor at UNBC.
• Reeanna Bradley is a Seattle-based diversity and inclusion consultant working with software engineers across multiple industries. Her talk explores the incredible powers of data to reinforce social inequity or liberate us from bias. She invites deliberate co-creation of artificial intelligence by outlining interventions for computer people, policy works, and the rest of us.
• Shelby Richardson is a choreographer, curator and designer in Prince George. Her current research focuses on the ways in which dance, and other art forms, can be integrated into local communities to help prompt social exchange and dialogue.
• Guido Wimmers is an associate professor and chair of the master of engineering program in integrated wood design at UNBC. In 2018, he was pivotal for the construction of the Wood Innovation Research Laboratory, a certified Passive House in a harsh climate, which became the most airtight building in North America.
• Lisa Dickson is an associate professor of Renaissance literature in the English department at UNBC. As a 3M National Teaching Fellow, she dedicates a lot of her time to thinking about teaching and learning, and to supporting others who are doing the same.
• Ann Duong is a UNBC alumni with a bachelor honours degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. She joined the Northern Analytical Laboratory Service 2018 where she is part of a team of people who care about making the planet better.
Colourful experiment
Police scaling back manhunt in Manitoba
Kelly Geraldine MALONE
The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG — An exhaustive search through Manitoba’s immense and unforgiving north has yielded no sign of two British Columbia murder suspects, so police say they are scaling back their manhunt in the area.
“I think we’ve done everything we can and pulled out all the stops,” RCMP assistant commissioner Jane MacLatchy told a news conference in Winnipeg on Wednesday.
“It’s just a very tough place to find somebody who doesn’t want to be found.”
Over the past week, officers have searched more than 11,000 square kilometres of wilderness using the best technology available, she said, and there has been no sign of fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19.
Police also canvassed more than 500 homes in the Gillam area, searched abandoned buildings, rail lines and hydro corridors. They have used all-terrain vehicles, drones, helicopters and planes to cover the landscape of muskeg, dense forest, lakes and rivers.
MacLatchy emphasized that the search is not over, but resources will be scaled down over the next week. Military aircraft that were helping with the search have pulled out but are available if needed again, she said.
Schmegelsky and McLeod are charged with second-degree murder in the death of University of British Columbia professor Leonard Dyck, whose body was found earlier this month in northern B.C.
Police also consider the men suspects in the shooting of Australian Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, who were found dead on the Alaska
Highway near Liard Hot Springs, B.C.
Schmegelsky and McLeod were initially thought to be missing persons but were later named as suspects in the killings. After a few sightings across the Prairies, a burned-out vehicle the pair had been travelling in was located near Gillam.
Search efforts moved southwest to York Landing earlier this week after there was a tip the suspects were spotted rummaging through a garbage dump there. But the sighting could not be substantiated and officers returned to Gillam and the nearby Fox Lake Cree Nation.
MacLatchy said investigators are open to other possibilities, including that the suspects are dead or somehow got a ride out of the area and are somewhere else.
John McDonald, Gillam’s deputy mayor, said the longer there are no sightings, the more locals think the suspects have met their fate in the wilderness.
“Without familiarity with the bush around here, I don’t think anybody is giving them much of a chance of survival.”
People in the town are still encouraged to lock their doors and report anything suspicious, McDonald added.
“Until it’s determined one way or another what happened to these guys, this is going to be the new normal.”
Meanwhile, provincial police in Ontario said they were investigating after someone reported seeing two men who looked similar to McLeod and Schmegelsky in the northeastern community of Kapuskasing.
OPP Const. Michelle Coulombe said a suspicious vehicle was reported driving through a construction zone Wednesday morning. Officers hadn’t been able to track it down as of Wednesday afternoon.
RCMP HANDOUT PHOTO
RCMP search an area near Gillam, Man. in this photo posted via social media on Tuesday.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Ryan Cargo, 7, watches the change of colours on paper that is dipped in water – a chromatography experiment– during the Active Minds Academy of Science at UNBC on Tuesday morning.
Frame job
the Parkhouse condominum development continues in downtown Prince George. The project includes a new parkade and is being built beside city hall at the end of George Street.
Explaining the basic principles of principle residences
he rich get richer.
TIf I had a $10 million portfolio and earned only four per cent, it would still generate $400,000 per year, a very generous income.
But big assets mean big taxes and here’s the conundrum: the frugality that helped launch your success early on can work against you in the latter years.
That healthy suspicion of pencilnecked desk jockeys like me is not so good when the stakes are high.
I said to my daughter: “I have a job for you, and it pays $1,000 an hour.”
Her eyes lit up, then darkened as the unlikelihood settled on her. But it was true in every material respect.
If she would invest two or three hours in to sitting down and accounting for some tax and payroll problems she was having, the payback would be all of that and more. But her mental barrier was apparently bigger than $1,000 an hour. Multiply that by a gazillion for the typically well-established 60-year-old investor.
Start with your home – often the single largest purchase we make, or one of them, and an asset that can appreciate significantly over time.
Maybe we own more than one. On the sale of any of them, there can be a large tax bill on the gain. The principal residence exemption, one of Canada’s most treasured tax breaks can be applied, when the stakes are high but it’s complicated.
What qualifies as a principal residence? It seems intuitive enough, but for those with significant assets, it isn’t.
A principal residence could include your house, apartment, condominium, cottage, mobile home, trailer, houseboat or shares in a cooperative building or a really nice tree fort.
The land under that home is generally considered part of your principal residence, provided that it is less than half a hectare (1.24 acres).
Land in excess of half a hectare is generally not considered part of your
principal residence unless it’s necessary for the use and enjoyment of your housing unit.
There are a few instances of this, including, for example, residential lots where local municipal zoning bylaws require that minimum residential lot sizes.
For a property to be your principal residence, you must own the property either solely or jointly with one or more individuals.
Another requirement is that you or your spouse, former spouse or child must have “ordinarily inhabited” the residence during some part of the year.
Whether a property is considered ordinarily inhabited depends on a few variables.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has stated that this test may be met even where the owner lives in the property for a short period of time. For example, if you own a seasonal property, such as a cottage, it may be considered to be ordinarily inhabited if you stay in the property during a short vacation.
Property you purchase that’s mainly used for earning income is generally not considered to be ordinarily inhabited by you in the year, even if you stay in the property for some period of time.
However, it is possible for you to earn incidental income (e.g. rental income) from a property and still claim it as your principal residence.
Lastly, for a property to be your principal residence, you have to designate it as your principal residence for a particular tax year.
You or your family unit may designate only one property as your principal residence per year after 1981. If, in the year, two individuals become spouses, each person can designate a separate
principal residence for that year. Prior to 1982, each member of the family unit could designate a separate property as their principal residence.
To clarify, the following are some examples of situations in which a property may qualify as a principal residence:
• If an elderly surviving parent moves into a retirement residence and their home is subsequently occupied by one of their children, that home will continue to be the principal residence of the parent.
• Where a former spouse lives in the home you own but do not occupy, that property can still qualify as your principal residence.
• A portion of your home can be rented or used as a home-based business without impairing your ability to designate the entire property as your principal residence provided the main use of the property is for residential purposes. In addition, there must be no structural change to, and no depreciation expense, known as capital cost allowance (CCA), claimed on the portion of the home that’s rented or used as a home-based business. If your home has been structurally altered for the purpose of earning income or if CCA has been claimed, that portion of the home won’t qualify as part of the principal residence.
• A property that’s located outside of Canada can be designated as your principal residence if it meets the previously discussed criteria and you, the owner of the property, were a resident of Canada for tax purposes for each year you propose to designate the property as your principal residence.
More on this in the coming weeks.
Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member – Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See Mark’s website at: http:// dir.rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan.
Victoria police chief says dispatch calls on priority basis
Dirk MEISSNER The Canadian Press
Victoria’s chief constable says budget restraints and staff shortages are forcing his department to prioritize how, when and if it will respond to calls for help from the public.
Del Manak said Wednesday the Victoria Police Department plans to transform its service priorities after Victoria and Esquimalt councils couldn’t be convinced to increase the police budget.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps saluted the chief’s comments, saying cost pressures are a reality across Canada and the department’s efforts to reform its delivery of services could become a model for other police forces.
“If you talk to any police chief in this country they would say we don’t have enough staff and we don’t have enough resources,” she said. “That is a fact of policing in Canada in the 21st Century, without a doubt. I think the importance
of this report is what kinds of outcomes do we want police agencies to achieve.”
The Victoria and Esquimalt police board released a report Wednesday outlining plans by the police department to transform its delivery of services and deployment of resources to meet the statutory duties of protecting life and property and enforcing the law in the two communities.
Manak said major crimes like homicides, assaults and robberies will still receive top priority attention but patrols of local parks, responses to neighbourhood issues and answering after hours animal control complaints could face delays.
“There’s no doubt there are going to be significant changes in our response capacity and in the ability for us to actually focus and respond to the calls we actually ought to respond to,” the chief said at a news conference.
Manak said one of his officers told him some non-emergency calls by citizens
Fishing is off the hook with technology
Citizen staff
To track fish populations the Takla First Nation is looking to new technology and people to help with the effort.
The Takla Fish Tracker app will soon be available on Apple and Android devices, which will enable anglers to count their catches and send data to the fisheries program for storage and analysis.
“Takla Nation’s territory is full of beautiful rivers, lakes, and streams which are home to a wide variety of fish species,” Keith West, fisheries program coordinator at Takla Nation, said.
“We want to make sure that these fish are here for generations to come, for everyone to enjoy, and so are asking anglers to help track their catches.”
Takla Nation is ramping up its fisheries program by using drones, sonar, and counting what’s caught to monitor fish numbers in their territory and are now reaching out to the general public for their input as well for details on what they catch at what location, if it’s a salmon, trout or burbot, its sex, weight and length, if it was a catch and release and a few other details.
“Our program is about understanding and valuing fish populations,” Trevor McConkey, environmental operations manager at Takla Nation, said.
“By knowing where these fish live, we can better protect their habitat and focus restoration efforts on bringing compromised stream reaches back into use. The app provides a real opportunity to capture and store information on existing and baseline conditions, which is key for responsible resource development.”
Those who like to fish without their smartphones can instead fill out a postcard available at bait shops and fishing lodges within the territory.
“We’re really excited about this initiative,” Michael Schneider of Driftwood Valley Guide Outfitters, said.
“We greatly respect Takla Nation’s knowledge of the land and commitment to conservation and my clients and myself are eager to contribute to the collection of data to keep our fish populations healthy.”
Takla Nation is embracing the conservation and stewardship of their territory’s fish population.
“Knowledge of fish populations and harvest will help inform fish management,” Scott Ellis, executive director of the Guide Outfitters Association of BC, said.
To improve participation rates, Takla will be holding a draw four times a year for fishing gear. Everyone who uses the app or submits a postcard will be eligible. The first prize to be drawn in October is an Abu Garcia rod and reel set.
Naturalists club exploring nature with new app
Citizen staff
The Prince George Naturalists Club is hosting a special field trip on Saturday to learn about using an app called iNaturalist where participants can record their observations, share their discoveries with like-minded people and then discuss findings.
The information gathered through the app will be shared to a common scientific data base like Global Biodiversity Information Facility that is accessible to scientists so they can use the information submitted.
To participate in the field trip to a nearby provincial park, meet at Spruceland under the Save-On sign at 10:30 a.m. Bring a smartphone or camera, notepad and pen and anything else required for a trip to the woods like water and a snack. Wear suitable clothing for the weather.
already go unanswered for days and the chief added that situation is not likely to improve under the changes.
He said the department is considering adjusting current patrol units, appointing special constables, who don’t carry guns, to respond to lower priority calls and eliminating police liaison officers at local schools.
“I’m unable to meet the need of our communities in the model we currently have, so the fiscal realities and the staffing shortages have basically forced us to look internally at how we’re going to be able to carry on and sustain credible, effective responsive policing in the 21st Century,” he said.
The department’s full complement of officers is 249, but due to injuries and job-related leaves only 208 officers are currently on regular duty, Manak said.
Helps, who is co-chairwoman of the police board, said Victoria needs a new approach to providing police services.
The trip will be completed by no later than 4 p.m. There is space for 15 people and open to members and non-members of the local naturalists club. For more information email Dave at planmap@ pgonline.com.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Framing of
No timeline for opening landslide bottleneck on Fraser River
The Canadian Press
LILLOOET — Officials say they’re working as quickly as possible but can’t determine if they’re on track to create a natural passage at the site of a Fraser River landslide that would allow salmon to reach their spawning grounds.
The slide discovered last month created a five-metre waterfall in a narrow and remote portion of the river near Big Bar north of Lillooet, B.C.
Al Magnan, environmental lead for the team working to help the fish pass, said during a teleconference Wednesday that conditions change every day so crews aren’t working on a timeline.
Millions of fish are expected to reach the site in the coming weeks and Magnan said 40,000 of primarily chinook and sockeye have already been recorded two kilometres downstream from the barrier.
Crews have transported 1,400 salmon by helicopter but few have been recorded passing the site on their own, he said.
If more fish don’t begin making it past the slide site, officials said a fish ladder to help salmon move up the waterfall is ready for installation on the weekend or early next week.
While there appears to be a bottleneck of fish building downstream, Magnan said that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a mass die-off.
“From a migration point of view, it’s never linear. There are natural delays in migration and natural barriers that take time,” he said.
Analysis of the slide shows it
likely occurred in October or November.
A number of salmon species migrate up the river to spawning grounds, including chinook, sockeye, pink and coho.
Work on the swift-moving river in the remote area is challenging and crews continue rock scaling to make it safer. On Monday, they worked to clear roughly 300 logs that had accumulated in a back eddy immediately downstream of the waterfall to make way for a fish wheel.
The wheel being assembled on site is one of many strategies biologists are pursuing to capture and move the salmon.
A Seattle-based company that pitched a cannon-like technology to move the fish said it’s concerned the assessment process is taking too long to prevent the crisis facing salmon populations.
Vincent Bryan, CEO of Whooshh Innovations, said the company’s “fish passage portal” could move up to 50,000 fish per day beyond the barrier through pressurized tubes.
But Bryan said a third party hired by the Department of Fisheries and Ocean to assess the safety of the technology told Whooshh it would take three months to complete.
“I actually think that the emergency nature of this does not lend itself very well to that process, it’s too cumbersome and slow,” Bryan said.
The technology would see fish swim in on their own and in the span of a second be scanned via computer, sorted for size, then transported using misted air for
a “frictionless glide” of about 20 seconds to the end of the tube 500 feet away.
Versions of the technology have been used on a smaller scale to move fish beyond dams and in one case, sort and remove hatchery fish from wild populations in Washington state. The company has held contracts with several American tribes and the Washington Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Bryan said.
While Whooshh was prepared to jump into action, Bryan said it already had to release the barge company it had contracted for the project because the pace was too slow.
“Our options keep getting limited by the fact that no decisions have been made,” Bryan said. Magnan said during the teleconference that no options have been taken off the table.
“In terms of the Whooshh system, it’s excellent technology, it’s been proven in many applications and there’s significant benefit to Whooshh in the number of fish that can be moved quickly and with very little stress,” Magnan said.
However the site is “incredibly challenging” from a technical and safety perspective, with dangerous, chaotic and changing river flows, highly unstable rock slopes and steep and narrow access roads with switchbacks preventing large trucks, Magnan said.
“Overall it’s an extremely challenging site, which makes deploying some of these technologies extremely challenging and that’s why we’re reviewing every one. Safety is key to any decision.”
Grade 12 transcript issue ‘resolved,’
won’t
affect school admissions, minister says
The Canadian Press
VICTORIA — British Colum-
bia’s Education Minister Rob Fleming says an issue affecting transcripts for Grade 12 students who wrote provincial exams in June has now been resolved.
In a statement Wednesday, Fleming says ministry staff worked around the clock to identify and fix the issue after errors were discovered on student transcripts.
The investigation found mistakes were made through human error when data was being manually transferred between systems.
Grade 12 students intending to enter Canadian universities in the fall are often accepted at their chosen institution based on marks that only reflect their first two terms of Grade 12 work.
But students are accepted on the provision their final marks don’t drop significantly, and with the deadline for final transcripts looming, some students feared the potentially incorrect results from provincial exams could jeopardize their plans.
Fleming says system checks and manual spot checks of results have now confirmed their accuracy and the updated grades will be communicated directly to post-secondary institutions.
“I am confident that students and families can now know their grades are correct,” Fleming says in the statement.
“I know this has caused anxiety for students and their families, and I want to assure them that this will not have an impact on admission to colleges and universities.”
After discovering the issue, the ministry contacted all post-
secondary institutions in Canada and some institutions in the United States to ensure that no student application for the fall would be affected, Fleming says.
In a message posted Monday via the ministry’s online transcript service, students were advised of the problem and assured that ministry staff were working to identify and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
The transcript page was taken off-line and attempts to access it produced a message saying it is unavailable due to maintenance.
Advisories sent to students and parents of several Metro Vancouver secondary schools confirmed the problem relates to the English 12 exam and the exam written by B.C.’s French immersion students.
B.C. ombudsperson Jay Chalke expressed concern about the false transcripts, saying in a news release that students and parents should be proactively informed about what they could do if they believed they were adversely affected.
Election debates to be more accessible
Christian PAAS-LANG
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canadian political junkies will be able to access this fall’s federal election debates with unprecedented ease thanks in large part to strong media partnerships, the commission responsible for organizing the events said Wednesday as it lifted the veil on plans for the televised campaign confrontations.
Both events will be held in the Ottawa area and are tentatively scheduled for Oct. 7 in English and Oct. 10 in French, said
Michel Cormier, the executive director of the Leaders’ Debates Commission.
The production group includes broadcasters CBC News/RadioCanada, Global, and CTV; newspapers Toronto Star, Le Devoir and the magazine L’Actualite; and digital outlets La Presse, HuffPost Canada and HuffPost Quebec.
Perhaps the biggest change over debates in the past is that the events will be free to stream and distribute for anyone, meaning any Canadian can set up an event or gathering in order to watch the show, he added.
B.C. Conservation Service defends three arrests as officers shoot problem bears
Beth LEIGHTON
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service said four bears were euthanized following two separate incidents, one of which involved the arrest of three people over allegations they tried to obstruct the work of their officers.
Insp. Murray Smith said two men and a woman in the Metro Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam were taken into custody and charged Tuesday with obstructing a conservation officer for allegedly stepping between the officers and a mother black bear with two cubs.
Officers were trying to direct the severely habituated, garbageraiding bears up a tree so they could be tranquilized and euthanized, but the alleged interference put officers and the public at risk, Smith said during a conference call with reporters.
He described a separate, equally challenging bear encounter faced by conservation officers on the same day 200 kilometres away on a remote section of B.C.’s Sunshine Coast north of Powell River.
A 45-year-old Quadra Island man had been attacked by a three- to five-year-old grizzly on Monday, but despite injuries to his legs and torso the man had
managed to slash the bear with a knife, scaring it off.
“The Conservation Officer Service attended to the location Tuesday morning and located a grizzly bear which had begun to stalk the officers from the rear while they were searching for the bear in the forest,” said Smith.
The healthy, male bear was euthanized and Smith said officers discovered it had a significant neck wound, confirming it was the animal injured the day earlier during the unprovoked attack on the Quadra Island man.
A necropsy was being conducted but results were not available Wednesday.
The injured man was being
treated in hospital for his injuries and was expected to make a full recovery, Smith said, adding the service was still trying to determine what had prompted the attack.
He said the grizzly was killed because it was threatening the conservation officers, while the sow and seven-month-old cubs were euthanized because they were no longer fearful of humans and were habituated to human garbage.
“They should be fairly healthy, quite robust bears, about 50 pounds,” Smith said, describing the cubs.
“Apparently, these bears were half that weight, undersized and
appeared undernourished.”
The Conservation Officer Service was also within its right to seek the arrest of the three residents who allegedly interfered and seize their cellphones, Smith told reporters.
“Under provincial legislation, the Wildlife Act of British Columbia, as well as the Criminal Code of Canada, there is authority there to seize evidence associated with the commission of a crime and in this case, this is an investigation associated to a criminal offence.”
The phones would be returned once investigators determined if any evidence of obstruction exists, said Smith.
CP PHOTO
A salmon leaps out of a vessel being used to transport the fish up the Fraser River past a massive rock slide on the river near Big Bar, west of Clinton, on Wednesday.
In this Nov. 13, 1981, photo provided by NASA, thenU.S. President Ronald Reagan is briefed by Johnson Space Center director Christopher C. Kraft Jr.
Recording of Reagan’s racist rant ‘shocking’
Morgan KRAKOW, Tim ELFRINK
The Washington Post
It was October 1971, and the United Nations had just voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China.
Then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan was infuriated that delegations from Africa did not align themselves with the U.S. position – that the UN should recognize Taiwan as an independent state – and wanted to get then-U.S. President Richard Nixon on the phone. He was apparently disgusted after watching delegates from Tanzania celebrate the UN decision to support Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.
“To see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan said.
Nixon replied with a big laugh.
“Well and then they – the tail wags the dog, doesn’t it? The tail wags the dog.” Nixon said.
The conversation between Reagan and Nixon was published in The Atlantic.
Tim Naftali, a history professor at NYU and the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, worked to get the tape released and wrote the subsequent article for The Atlantic.
The National Archives withheld the racist comments in the recording’s first release in 2000, which Naftali says was apparently in protection of Reagan’s privacy. But after Reagan’s death in 2004, and amid continued review process by the National Archives, Naftali was successful in getting the full conversation released.
“It was worse than I expected,” Naftali said, referring to the audio on the tape. “It was the combination of the slur by Reagan and then Nixon’s repeating it, not once but twice in later conversations. This was not just revealing about what Ronald Reagan thought about Africans in 1971, and arguably later, it was also a reminder of how Nixon could hold racist views but not think of himself as a racist.”
After the call with Reagan, Nixon phoned Secretary of State William Rogers and then employed the same language Reagan used as he described the frustrations over the UN decision.
“As you can imagine, there’s strong feeling that we just shouldn’t, as (Reagan) said, he saw these, as he said, he saw these – these, uh, these cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on,” Nixon said in the recorded phone call.
In a second conversation with Rogers on the same day, Nixon spoke about Reagan’s disgust once again. He was recorded saying Reagan “practically got sick at his stomach,” and that the California governor said “this bunch of people who don’t even wear shoes
yet, to be kicking the United States in the teeth,” characterizing Reagan’s feelings about what had happened, according to Naftali.
But Nixon had also been unhappy about what transpired at the UN that October. Even before his phone call with Reagan, he had already requested cancellations of future meetings with African leaders whose votes had differed from that of the United States, according to Naftali.
At the time, Nixon’s State Department said British and French dealings were to blame for the decision to cancel the meetings.
“Don’t even submit to me the problem that it’s difficult to turn it off since we have already accepted it,” Nixon was recorded telling then-deputy national security adviser Alexander M. Haig. “Just turn it off, on the ground that I will be out of town.”
Reagan biographers and historians are still wrestling reconciling the newly revealed audio with the president’s personal record. As Naftali noted in The Atlantic, Nixon’s racist views have been well documented, but Reagan’s personal diaries are free of any similar rhetoric. Some of Reagan’s most divisive policies – like embracing the apartheid government of South Africa and inventing the trope of the “welfare queen” – may take on a different light now.
“I leave it to Reagan scholars to take this and then connect it to comments about welfare queens and what this may or may not say about Reagan’s general view of race,” Naftali said.
One such scholar described the new audio as “shocking.”
“I’m kind of taken aback. This is stunning,” said Bob Spitz, author of Reagan: An American Journey. Spitz gained access to Reagan’s personal archives for the work and said he found no hint that the president would hold the kinds of views he conveyed to Nixon.
“In all of my very careful research into his private papers, I never found an instance where I felt that Reagan was racist,” he said.
“Generally when someone says, ‘I don’t have a racist bone in my body,’ I’m instantly skeptical, but in this case after all my work I found myself kind of nodding my head. So this is shocking.”
Naftali said he hopes his research encourages others to plum the voluminous records available on all presidents. The Reagan audio should also spark new conversations about presidential views on race, he said, and how it impacts real world policy.
“Understanding how our presidents think about race is not a matter of character assassination, it’s about understanding what drives their decision making,” he said.
“It’s not partisan gamesmanship, it’s about how these people with the power we gave them as result of an election have used it. If their minds are poisoned by prejudice, we need to know.”
Hobbs & Shaw a fun, but uneven ride
Jake COYLE The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Add an “e” and Hobbs & Shaw might have been a time-travelling thriller about playwright George Bernard Shaw and 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
Tantalizing as such a pairing may have been to the makers of Fast & Furious, they have instead opted to, in the franchise’s first spinoff, combine two of the series’ supporting standouts, Dwayne Johnson’s U.S. government agent Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s former British agent Deckard Shaw, for another ballet of Buicks and bullets.
Probably a wise choice.
It’s difficult to imagine the writer of Pygmalion careening down the side of a skyscraper in hot pursuit of Idris Elba.
And when it comes to high-octane action spectacles, few are better suited to the task than The Rock and Statham, who both make up with brawn and charisma what they lack in hair.
In the Fast & Furious franchise, which now numbers eight films and more than $5 billion in box office, they’ve found a comfortable home – aside any headaches for Johnson caused by co-star Vin Diesel.
That friction between Johnson and Diesel was reportedly part of the benefit of this pit stop, without the whole gang, in between continuing Fast & Furious adventures.
But those off-camera tiffs are also perfect for the speedy but soapy Fast & Furious world, where family squabbles and questions of loyalty play out in between death-defying automotive stunts.
If Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw has a hard road to travel, it’s because the franchise has consistently ratcheted up its stunt game.
One of the real pleasures of the last decade’s blockbuster parade has been to watch the Fast & Furious movies morph from a more simple L.A. street-racing tale into an increasingly absurd and over-thetop action extravaganza of muscle cars and muscle, where hot rods don’t just go fast but occasionally leap between buildings and parachute from the sky. Hobbs & Shaw seeks to answer that age-old question: What do you do for your next act after you’ve blown up a submarine with a Dodge?
Hobbs & Shaw has some nifty moves (in one scene, a Chevy flies a helicopter like a kite), but it’s slightly disappointing in terms of sheer ridiculousness. It earns
some points for a centerpiece showdown, seemingly designed for Chornobyl fans, set among reactors at a Russian nuclear power plant. But at this point, we expect –no, demand – to see Lamborghinis on the moon. Instead, the entertainment of Hobbs & Shaw, directed by stunt co-ordinatorturned-director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde), rests more with its cast, including its two leads. But just as significant are two major new additions: Elba’s villain, a cyborg mercenary named Brixton, and Shaw’s sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), an MI6 agent whose theft of a super virus from Brixton sets the globetrotting plot in motion. Hobbs and Shaw are called in to the save the world, a job they are both eager for. (Hobbs says, seriously, that he had been “tracking some dark web chatter” on the virus.) But it’s a partnership they loath. If Hobbs & Shaw lacks in memorable stunt work, it tries to make it up with bickering and put-downs between the two, a shtick that vacillates between funny and tiresome. But it’s the kind of stuff Johnson excels at.
They also have reinforcements. Elba’s character, who boasts digital eyes and a self-driving motorcycle, takes the franchise in a more sci-fi direction that doesn’t fit the street-level nature of Fast & Furious. But Elba is never not an imposing presence; the movie straightens up whenever he’s in it.
With such titans as Elba and Johnson in the movie, it’s a wonder how smoothly and completely Kirby stakes her claim, too. In a movie full of the expected, she’s the happy surprise and a breath of fresh air. In the miles between The Crown and Hobbs & Shaw, Kirby has swiftly proven herself capable of an extraordinary range.
The chemistry between the four, along with welcome comic cameos from Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart, fuel Hobbs & Shaw more than its mostly familiar action scenes and plot turns. It’s a herky-jerky ride, with genial company.
Usually, it’s pleasingly aware of its own silliness. But there are blind spots.
The third act shifts to an old-school fight in Samoa and speeches about having “heart” that build on a man vs. machine dynamic set up by Elba’s part-robot character.
But if ever there was a movie franchise that believes, with operatic fervour, in well-oiled machines, it’s Fast & Furious.
— Two and a half stars out of four
Punt the plastic bags
Bravo to Prince George city council for its plans to work towards phasing out the use of plastic shopping bags.
Except for the convenience for shoppers and retailers, there is little reason to use them and plenty of easy alternatives.
For those of us old enough to remember, paper bags worked just fine and were just as sturdy as today’s thin plastic bags.
Many households have already switched to reusable bags, which are stronger than regular paper or plastic bags and can be used in numerous ways, not just for shopping but for lugging around everything from library books and baby supplies to work uniforms and gym clothes and shoes.
Yes, grocery shopping can be easily accomplished without bags, as anyone with a Costco card knows well.
Costco offers no bags of any kind to its customers (and only offers boxes when they are available) but seems to have no trouble attracting shoppers. Just like consumers learned to not smoke in stores, they’ll learn to bring reusable bags with them if they want to more easily carry away their purchases.
Some people won’t like it, of course. Why?
Because they will be slightly inconvenienced, which seems to be an increasingly unforgivable crime in modern society.
The true cost of plastic bags is something that consumers have been protected from
for far too long. The cost to transport tons of plastic bags every year to landfills. The cost of landfills filling up far too early with unnecessary plastic bags. The environmental costs of plastic bags, from the energy to make them and ship them to stores to the damage done when they don’t make it to landfills or recycling depots but instead end up in forests and waterways, damaging sensitive habitats and harming or killing the wildlife in those habitats.
All for the convenience of a plastic bag to carry a few items out of a store.
Getting rid of plastic bags shouldn’t be seen as a swipe against plastics in general. The modern world could not exist without the versatility of plastics. They are rightly used everywhere, from
YOUR LETTERS
Missile solution
The recent landslide on the Fraser River near Big Bar is causing issues with salmon getting up the river to their spawning grounds. Being such a remote location and difficult terrain, the options are limited.
The current solutions being tried are transporting salmon using helicopters or using a “fish cannon” to shoot the fish over the newly formed five-metre waterfall.
As a pilot, I have a thought. We have a military with pilots who love to fly.
Why not have one of these fine pilots use one or two of their laser guided missiles strapped to their birds take care of the newly created waterfall?
Yes, some salmon are going to be lost in the explosion(s), but we are going to lose salmon no matter what process we use. Not sure what the cost of a missile or two would be but compared with the time and cost of personnel, equipment and especially helicopters does not come cheap!
Personally, I would pay to be a
spectator to help cover costs.
Issue solved.
Neil Van Caeseele Prince George
Beauty teamwork
In a recent letter, Les and Carol Waldie complimented Judy Russell’s production of Beauty & The Beast.
We’re really glad they enjoyed the show. We also feel fortunate that the community supports and appreciates our efforts to the extent that they do. These shows are created by a mix of amateur and professional artists. Mostly for the love of doing it, but wherever possible the production tries to remunerate those that make their living at it.
The musicians in our orchestras are all professionals and primarily support themselves and their families playing music. We have always contracted the musicians and paid them accordingly.
In their letter, the Waldies made a reference to the Prince George Symphony Orchestra as being involved with the show. I simply wish to set the record straight. The PGSO was not
in any way involved with the production of Beauty & The Beast. It’s true that some of the beauty orchestra are members of the PGSO and that Maestro Hall is the PGSO music director/ conductor, but their involvement in the show was not through the auspices of the PGSO.
Members of the orchestra are free to take work as freelancers, as are most artists. The quality of the sound of the orchestra and the singers has always been a big priority for us. We have made great investments in equipment and people to achieve the best quality possible. So, yes the musicians were fabulous, but you have to know they were well supported technically.
We have been producing large scale musicals such as this for many years. Each year we contract various artists and technical professionals to work on the shows. We are so incredibly fortunate that many of them live here. Thanks again to Les and Carol for their support of our show and their support of others in Prince George.
Bill Russell Prince George
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. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING
technology and science to medicine and construction. In many cases, using plastics is a better environmental choice over the long term than using metal, wood or biodegradable products. Single-use consumer plastic bags, however, have little use except for temporary convenience. Local governments bear the greatest costs when it comes to disposal and pollution from these bags so it is proper for Prince George city council to push for their elimination.
It’s a simple thing to do with so many positive benefits. Area residents and society at large will be better off when plastic shopping bags are relics from a less enlightened past.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Vancouver’s sports teams in trouble
If a local media outlet is a business with a community’s soul, a local sports franchise is a business with a community’s mood.
The joys and sorrows attached to their accomplishments serve as thermometers and barometers, a vast swath of a city’s talking points, and even an economic index for bars, restaurants, sporting goods sales – for that matter, for inspiring sport participation.
Which is why 2019 is the Summer Horribilis in Vancouver. The B.C. Lions, Vancouver Whitecaps and Vancouver Canadians have established distressing new lows for their franchises and, in the case of the Lions and Whitecaps, established new challenges to their business models.
To be fair, it is far less of an issue for the Canadians, the entry-level professional single-A baseball franchise that is the envy of the minor leagues. The team’s terrible start gets a do-over mid-season because of the peculiar league rules that provide a fresh set of standings for the season’s second half. Finish first in the second half and they’re in the playoffs, and in the last three weeks the team has shown signs of life. Let’s not worry.
The fans are still happy because the vibe at the Scotiabank Field at Nat Bailey Stadium is the town’s best. Families come for the sushi, mascot races, the dancing field crew, the cozy confines and, sure, baseball.
With that good news out of the way, though, there are truly troubling signs for Canadian football and global football in this city, and for different reasons.
The Lions’ inherent difficulties are principally demographic – an elderly fan base insufficiently rejuvenating – but its effort to regenerate is impeded by an unexpected faltering on the field.
The team’s bold off-season move to sign quarterback Mike Reilly, arguably the league’s best and highest-paid player, was expected to pay quick dividends.
But the changeover in the team and its coaching staff has yielded only one win in seven starts, and there are only so many times you can play the Toronto Argonauts.
The crowd Saturday was middling for its annual Family Day – an announced 20,950 was generous to the pock-marked stadium of actual attendance – and the game itself was dreadful for the home side. Its week off had better involve a reboot or the season will be lost by the halfway mark.
At least the Lions are trying this season to bring, as they say, bums back to the seats.
The Whitecaps are in a whole other state of siege and are at risk of severing a large part of the fan base they so smartly developed in recent times.
The team is winless since May and at the bottom of the standings.
Last week it lost to a non-Major League Soccer franchise from Calgary in the playoffs for Canadian
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championships – itself a consolation prize in soccer, something that Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto clubs ought to win by dialing it in. The loss was the equivalent of the Lions losing to a college team, and only increased the call for big changes.
Trouble is, it’s the big changes that appear to have stripped the team of any success. The Whitecaps sold their budding star, Alphonso Davies, to Bayern Munich, for $22 million, traded their two highest-paid players, their disgruntled captain and some significant supporting players to take the team down to the studs – only with no studs remaining. The funds ought to have in turn secured a couple of marquee players to propel the team, but new coach Marc Dos Santos has done nothing of the sort. Instead he and the front office have built a team without anything approaching a fan attraction, somehow positing that the coach’s force majeure would create an exciting and competitive squad. It worked a little at first, but as other teams have developed mid-season chemistry, the Whitecaps have developed mid-season chaos.
Any business knows it makes sense to level with customers about what can and cannot be delivered, but the Whitecaps have been guilty of claiming they’d be spending funds to grow the team, not saving funds to harvest the fan base. A conservative investment strategy will not win a championship, and this is not a city that will endure a loser when there were reasons to expect it would be a winner.
Worse, the team defied the textbook when abuse allegations surfaced earlier this year involving a coach of its women’s team a decade ago, saying nothing for weeks then finally expressing regret and empathy – but not apologizing – as it launched an independent review of its workplace practices. For a business attempting to reach out across gender and age lines, this was a self-inflicted wound of consequence.
That both the Whitecaps and Lions play in a vacuous white elephant of a building is of little help in their attempts to create a lively atmosphere. They need a smaller outdoor facility of intimacy, not an indoor facility of grandiosity. The curtained upper bowl is a metaphor for cloaked underperformance by teams that can’t punch through a self-imposed ceiling.
It’s hard to believe that hopes for the local sports fan appear to reside in the Vancouver Canucks, a team that hasn’t been in the postseason since Stephen Harper was prime minister.
Shawn Cornell, director of advertising: 250-960-2757 scornell@pgcitizen.ca
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TO THE POINT
KIRK LAPOINTE
Time in a bottle
Time is something we take for granted. We notice its passing both in absolute terms and in duration.
That is, we know today is the day after yesterday and the day before tomorrow.
We can assign days of the week, days in a month, months in a year, and years from some arbitrary starting point.
It establishes for us an absolute context although not immutable.
Duration is measured in moments, in seconds, in minutes, or sometimes forever.
Duration is the stuff of our daily lives as we consider how long it will take to drive to the store and how long a lecture is going to be. Our lives are measured in duration with the average human having some 2.5 billion seconds to spend.
Philosophers, historians, scientists, poets and priests have all considered time and its implications.
From the ancient Greeks, Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, to modern philosophers such as Daniel Dennett, time has remained an elusive concept.
In the last few decades, psychologists have identified the time circuits within our brains which allow us to understand day-night
RELATIVITY
TODD WHITCOMBE
cycles and to measure duration.
The complex relationships of different components in the brain and the neurological pathways connecting them result in our sensation and understanding of time.
But we are still left with the question of why time is?
Perhaps the simplest explanation was offered by physicist John Wheeler who said “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.”
Time happens regardless of whether there is someone to observe it or not.
It is not a human invention but fundamental to the universe.
Hence, we can say time began with the Big Bang even if no one was there to watch it. (Of course, how could they be?)
From a physical perspective, time can be observed in any number of ways from the frequency with which atomic nuclei spin to the excitation of electrons.
It can be observed in the frequency of vibrations with the electromagnetic spectrum.
It shows up in the time it takes
atoms to make or break a molecule; chemical reactions take time.
It can be measured using the radioactive decay of the elements.
This is how Clair Patterson became the first scientist to accurately age the solar system.
He was able to look at the relative amount of uranium and lead within crystals of zircon.
As lead is the decay product from uranium and the different isotopes of lead arise from the different isotopes of uranium with different half-lives through different decay paths, the age of a particular crystal can be determined with reasonable accuracy.
The result for meteors is 4.55 billion years give or take a few million years.
And the implication from this is the solar system coalesced around that time.
The difficulty with actually measuring the age of Earth itself is the surface of the planet is constantly evolving.
Plate tectonics means surface rocks are constantly being formed at ridges and destroyed in subduction zones.
That said, some exposed rock faces in Greenland and other locations date back to about 3.8 billion years ago.
We know this age with reasonable accuracy.
Einstein and other physicists have shown time is not a constant but dependent upon velocity. As an object approaches the speed of light, it stops entirely.
But while physical phenomena provide a measurement of time, they still don’t explain why time is in the first place.
We do know it is not the “absolute, true, and mathematical time, which of itself, and its own nature, flows equitably without relation to anything external” as proposed by Isaac Newton.
Einstein and other physicists have shown time is not a constant but dependent upon velocity.
As an object approaches the speed of light, time slows down.
At the speed of light, it stops entirely.
Put another way, at the speed of light everything does happen at once.
Modern physics recognizes time as simply one more dimension –spacetime is a four-dimensional construct.
Some modern theories, such as string theory, postulate there are even more dimensions to each point in the universe with some of the dimensions wrapped up into themselves.
However, even with multiple dimensions, an explanation for why time occurs is still missing.
The best explanation so far is the entropy of the universe.
The universe, as it expands, is progressing towards a more disordered state.
This disorder is measured by the entropy of the system.
And all processes tend to maximize entropy overall.
As the progression towards a disordered state is irreversible, this provides an arrow to the direction of events within the universe and manifests as time.
This does mean time has a direction and is fundamental.
Of course, if time is progressing but runs at different speeds depending upon velocity then how does it relate to the overall entropy of the universe?
Time is something we take for granted every day.
But it is complicated and maybe one day we will fully understand it.
Of course, only time will tell.
The Canadian Press
Shoppers at Sobeys Inc. grocery stores will soon need to bring their own totes or lug their purchases home in paper bags as the chain moves to phase out plastic bags by February 2020.
Canadians go through hundreds of millions of single-use plastic bags at grocery stores each year, and the chains – most of which charge a nominal fee for plastic bags – are facing pressure from increasingly eco-conscious consumers to do more to eliminate their plastic-centric packaging.
Sobeys said it is making the move to phase out plastic bags as a response to calls from customers and employees to use less plastic.
The retailer also committed to launch programs to reduce plastic in other areas of the stores.
“We really felt that the amount of avoidable plastic in grocery stores is shocking,” said Vittoria Varalli, the company’s vice-president of sustainability. The change will eliminate 225 million bags used annually at Sobeys 255 stores.
The company, which is owned by Stellarton, N.S.-based Empire Co. Ltd, will phase out plastic bags and introduce paper bags at its other banners soon after.
Sobeys also operates Safeway, Thrifty Foods, IGA, Foodland, Freshco and Farm Boy. It boasts more than 1,500 stores across all its chains.
“The ultimate goal,” said Varalli, is to eliminate plastic bags from the produce aisle as well.
It plans to introduce a line of reusable mesh alternatives made from recycled bottles in August.
Food companies have been on a mission to reduce plastic from their operations recently as consumers push for more sustainable practices.
Some are taking initiatives to change ahead of the federal government’s announced ban on
single-use plastics by 2021, which would force them to find non-plastic alternatives.
Last year, restaurants responded to pressure to eliminate plastic straws after a video showing someone removing a straw stuck up a turtle’s nose went viral.
Starbucks, A&W and other chains made promises to remove the item from their eateries, and some have already done so.
But the trend toward sustainability didn’t stop at straws.
Many fast-food giants started experimenting with other green packaging. In June, McDonald’s Canada announced it would test wooden cutlery and other recycling-friendly containers at two restaurants.
“I think they’re trying to respond to popular concern,” said Vito Buonsante, plastics program manager at the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, of grocers’ efforts to reduce plastic waste by targeting plastic bags.
In coastal regions, plastic bags create a major environmental problem, he said, where they persist for a long time and harm wildlife.
Despite the fact that Canadians use about 2.86 billion plastic bags a year, Buonsante sees them as “low-hanging fruit” that people easily can do without.
Grocery stores are slowly starting to get on board with the push to eliminate single-use plastics.
Metro Inc. announced earlier this year it would start allowing consumers to use reusable containers to store fresh products, such as those from the deli and pastry counters, at its Quebec stores.
In May, the company committed to cut its use of single-use plastic bags in half by the end of its 2023 financial year. It also said it wants to reduce the amount of produce bags used by 10 per cent by the end of its 2020 financial year.
Loblaw Companies Ltd., meanwhile, started charging five cents per plastic bag about a decade ago and reduced the number of plastic
The Associated Press
bags used in its stores by nearly 12 billion, wrote spokesperson Catherine Thomas in an email.
It has donated $10 million to the World Wildlife Fund with some of the proceeds as of the end of 2018. Thomas declined to provide the total amount the company has made by charging for plastic bags.
Meanwhile, customers seeking greener grocery pastures have given rise to niche no-waste markets across Canada.
“Change is kind of happening,” said Buonsante, but – for the most part – these initiatives are limited in effectiveness.
A five-cent bag fee is not a strong deterrent, he said, and companies should create incentives to help shoppers shift their habits.
Governments around the world have started to crack down on single-use plastics to force companies into change.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in June that his government is starting the regulatory work to ban toxic single-use plastics because the garbage infiltrating the world’s waterways is out of hand.
Nothing is going to be banned overnight, with the process to implement a federal ban or limitations on a product under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act usually taking two to four years.
The goal is to make decisions on everything on the list by 2021.
Trudeau said Canada’s plan will “closely mirror” that of Europe.
In March, the European Parliament agreed that by 2021 the European Union will ban almost a dozen single-use products including plastic plates, cutlery, cups, straws, plastic sticks in cotton swabs, balloon sticks and stir sticks, and Styrofoam cups and take-out food containers.
Oxo-degradeable plastics including plastic grocery bags, which break down into tiny pieces with exposure to air but never fully disappear, are also to be banned.
The U.S. government said Wednesday it will create a way for Americans to legally import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada, reversing years of refusals by health authorities amid an outcry over high prices for lifesustaining medications.
The move is a step toward fulfilling a 2016 campaign promise by U.S. President Donald Trump, and it weakens an import ban that has been a symbol of the political clout of the pharmaceutical industry. It’s unclear how soon consumers will see benefits, as the plan has to go through time-consuming regulatory approval and could face court challenges from drugmakers. It comes as the industry is facing a crescendo of consumer complaints over prices, as well as legislation from both parties in Congress to rein in costs, along with a sheaf of proposals from the Democratic presidential contenders. Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump is feeling pressure to deliv-
er on years of harsh rhetoric about the pharmaceutical industry.
Making the announcement Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the administration’s decision recognizes that prescription drug manufacturing and distribution is now international.
“The landscape and the opportunities for safe linkage between drug supply chains has changed,” Azar said. “That is part of why, for the first time in HHS’s history, we are open to importation. We want to see proposals from states, distributors, and pharmacies that can help accomplish our shared goal of safe prescription drugs at lower prices.”
Stephen Ubl, president of the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America called the plan “far too dangerous” for American patients. “There is no way to guarantee the safety of drugs that come into the country from outside the United States’ gold-standard supply chain,” Ubl said in a
lower Wednesday as investors expressed disappointment that further cuts aren’t guaranteed. The U.S. central bank cut its rate by 0.25 per cent and chairman Jerome Powell referred to it as a “a mid-cycle adjustment” which suggests that it won’t necessarily make further cuts. Markets have risen on hope that a weakened economy and a trade war with China would prompt the Fed to make several rate cuts through the end of 2020.
“I think this disappointment is short-lived because I really believe that if the market anticipated two or three rate cuts this year I think they were fooling themselves,” says Allen Small, senior investment adviser at HollisWealth.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 59.49 points at 16,406.56 after hitting an intraday low of 16,282.12.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 333.75 points at 26,864.27 for its largest daily drop since May. The S&P 500 index was down 32.80 points at 2,980.38, while the Nasdaq composite was down 98.19 points at 8,175.42. Eight of the 11 major sectors of the TSX were lower, led by materials. It dropped 2.6 per cent as shares of several metals producers fell on lower prices, including First Majestic Silver Corp. Kinross Gold Corp. and Barrick Gold Corp.
The December gold contract was down $4.00 at US$1,437.80 an ounce and the September copper contract was down 1.25 cents at US$2.67 a pound.
Energy gained 1.2 per cent as Encana Corp. shares rose 4.9 per cent after the Calgarybased company swung to a US$446-million profit in the second quarter and said it remains on track to meet its production and capital investment plan for 2019 while reducing costs more than previously projected. The September crude contract was up 53 cents at US$58.58 per barrel as U.S. crude inventories fell by 8.5 million barrels for the week and the September natural gas contract was up 9.6 cents to US$2.23 per mmBTU. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.06 cents US, compared with Tuesday’s average of 75.94 cents US. While stock markets ended the day lower, they were up for a second-consecutive month in July.
Sports
Park against the Quesnel Blue Jays. The Knights won 16-12 and went on to take the series two games to one.
Peewee Knights clinch regional title
Citizen staff
It took them three games to decide it, but the PG Floor Fashions peewee Knights are provincial-bound.
The Knights knocked off the Quesnel Blue Jays 13-3 in five innings in the third and deciding game of the B.C. Minor Baseball Association regional championship Sunday at Gyro Park.
The bat of Karson Husarski proved especially deadly. He cranked out two hits in two plate appearances and both sailed over the fence for three-run home runs. Aidan Heggelund and Gunner Beetlestone each went 2-for-2 at the plate to drive in runs,
while pitcher Josh Tamblyn held the Blue Jays at bay, allowing just one hit and two walks in 5 1/3 innings.
Quesnel opened Saturday morning with a 12-2 win in Game 1. The Knights left the loaded in three innings.
In Game 2 later that night, the Knights took a 6-1 lead after one inning on the way to a 16-12 victory. Heggelund’s three-run shot in the second inning and an RBI from Beetlestone kept the Knights’ lead intact when the Jays went on to score four in the bottom half of that inning.
In the fifth inning, Quesnel pulled to within 14-11 when Blake Riley clubbed a three-run dinger.
Mitchal Heggelund limited the damage and went six innings on the mound for the Knights and Brody Wood came in to finish in the seventh.
Coached by Derek Wood, Ryan Henry, Tony Beetlestone and Mike Mackay, the Knights will travel to Mission for the single-
A peewee provincial tournament, Aug. 8-11.
• Six other Prince George Youth Baseball teams are involved in B.C. Minor provincial tournaments, including the Jepson Petroleum Knights, who are hosting the 12-team bantam double-A championship this week at Nechako Field (see other story). Five of those Prince George teams begin their provincial tournaments this week, including:
• Northern Baseball mosquito single-A Knights (coached by Brandon Hunter), starts today in Kamloops;
• S2 Mechanical mosquito triple-A Knights (coached by Kimber Callander), starts today in Nanaimo;
• Peterbilt peewee triple-A Knights (coached by Justin McLean), starts today in Victoria;
• PG Surg Med midget double Knights (coached by Murray Lukinchuk), starts today in Kelowna.
• The LTN Contracting bantam single-A Knights (coached by Brad Feniuk) will start their provincial tournament in Mission on Aug. 7.
Knights’ day dawning taking aim at bantam double-A title
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
For one long year, the bitter taste has lingered in Brenden Gaboury and the rest of his teammates who left the field in Richmond gutted after the Vancouver Expos came from behind and beat them for the B.C. Baseball bantam double-A championship.
That narrow defeat took away a trip to San Diego and a chance to play in the Babe Ruth regional tournament.
Today at Nechako Field (3 p.m. start), Gaboury and the Prince George Jepson Petroleum Knights have a chance to dictate authority and get their revenge when they meet the Expos in their opening game at the 12-team provincial tournament.
“I want to absolutely kill that team, I don’t want that game to even be close,” said Gaboury.
“A lot of us played on this team last year and we never want to feel that feeling again, it was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt in baseball. They will never shut up about that, being a Vancouver team, so we have never forgotten about and never will, so we better beat them.
“Everybody wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again. We have a solid squad this year, more position (players), more pitchers. We have lots of pitching, which is nice, because last year we ran out of pitching over and over again.”
The Knights love the fact, as provincial hosts, all the other teams have to make the trek north to Prince George. This week’s tournament will be the first games of their careers as rep team players within city limits for the Knights, whose closest double-A opponent is in Kamloops, a six-hour drive away. They know there’s pressure to succeed as the home team over the next five days and nerves will be tested but the trade-off is they get to sleep in their own beds and eat home-cooked meals. It’s a oncein-lifetime opportunity and they know it.
“It’s awesome to play in front of my family and friends and I’m excited for that but once I step between those lines I have to block out everybody who’s there and it’s go-time,” said Knights infielder/
pitcher James Yandeau. “This is the first time we’ve ever played at home and it’s going to be pretty darn fun.”
The usual powerhouses – TriCity Thunder, Surrey Canadians, Ladner Red Sox and Cowichan Valley Mustangs – are the most likely to spoil the Knights’ longawaited homecoming.
The Knights have about 20 games under the belts this year while most of the teams they’ll face this weekend have played closer to 50. Funded for the second year by the Prince George Youth Baseball Association, they started with indoor workouts in January at the Northern Sport Centre and the results have shown. The Knights won the Valley of Champions tournament in Kelowna, finished second at the River City Classic in Kamloops and just missed qualifying for the playoff round at the Kamloops International tournament.
“We don’t get to play 50 games
but we’re a pretty tight-knit group for only playing that much together,” said the 14-year-old Yandeau.
Second-year bantam Noah Lank is the Knights’ ace and he’s backed on the mound by Caleb Poitras, James Yandeau, Preston Weightman, Parker McBurnie, Lucas Kelly and Isaak Lank. Weightman plays shortstop when he’s not pitching and has been steady with his stick, hitting fifth in the order behind leadoff hitter Chase Martin, Poitras, Logan Dreher, McBurnie and Gaboury.
Riley Zummack, Lucas Langevin and Tyson Ramsay round out the 13-player Knights roster.
The Knights had one last workout Wednesday afternoon and ended it with batting practice thrown by coaches Fillion and Sawchuk. Sawchuk, a southpaw who pitched three years at the University of Missouri Baptist and played in the College World Series, warmed up his arm and had
the boys whiffing at his fastballs until backup catcher Zummack caught up to one and smashed a line drive into the outfield to end the session.
“If they can hit us, they can hit anybody,” quipped Sawchuk.
Two weeks ago, Gaboury was in Anaheim, Calif., playing for Team B.C. at the US Premier Baseball Firecracker Classic tournament – the only double-A player on a team picked from the triple-A and Premier League ranks. Gaboury, 14, played in four of the six games and hit .400 in 13 at-bats. B.C. went 4-0 in the round robin then lost in the semifinals to a California team.
“There was lots of high-level pitching and the hitting calibre was definitely better than what I’m used to,” Gaboury said. “It was a lot of fun.” Gaboury is one of the Knights’ most consistent hitters and defensively he’s been a rock behind the plate – a confidence shot for the
Knights’ pitching staff.
“He’s so trustworthy, having him back there, you spike a curve ball and you know he’s going to get in front of it,” said Yandeau. “He’s a great hitter, he’s our three-hole hitter.”
Struggles on offence have hurt the Knights’ bottom line at times. Yandeau figures they’ve got the bugs worked out.
“We’ve always had great defence, we’re tied down and don’t make a lot of errors at all,” said Yandeau.
“We start the game and get high and then we drop our bats a bit, but that’s changed the last two tournaments. We stayed on our bats the whole time.
“We’re looking pretty good. We’re very strong. With the way we play together and the way our coaches coach us, we have a great chance of winning this year. Our coaches (Sawchuk, Fillion and Doug Clark) are our mentors on the field and off and I like all three of them a lot.”
Based on what he’s seen in the three tournaments, Fillion says there’s no reason to doubt the Knights will make it to the semifinals on Monday and go on to contend in the championship game later that day at 4:30 p.m.
“We’re got a lot of talent and lot of skill, we’ve got some bats that can swing it and some good arms,” said Fillion. “The thing I worry about most for us is consistency and if we stay in that groove we have a really good squad that can do some damage. We’re scrappy at the plate, we don’t strike out a lot and we get the ball in play. We have a lot of good pitchers and defensively, when we’re on, we’re one of the best teams in the province. Hopefully that all comes together this week and they play some clean baseball.”
Other games today on the two diamonds at Nechako Field include Layritz-North Langley (9 a.m.), Surrey-Tri-City (9:15 a.m.), Burnaby-Ladner (noon), Cloverdale-North Shore (12:15 p.m.) and Cowichan Valley-Vancouver Vipers (3:15 p.m.). Opening ceremonies are at 6 p.m., followed by the home run derby at 7 p.m. Each of the 12 teams will enter one player in the home run derby, with Gaboury representing the Knights.
Aidan Heggelund of the PG Floor Fashions Knights swats a three-run home run during Game 2 B.C. Minor Baseball Association regional playoff action Saturday night at Gyro
Prince George Knight practice for bantam provincials at Nechako Park on Wednesday afternoon.
Boxla bronze
The guys and girls who make up the Prince George Posse sport their medals after finishing third in the B.C. provincial midget B provincial championship Sunday in Langley. The Posse defeated Port Moody 6-3 in the bronze medal game. Prince George lost in the semifinal round 7-2 to the Burnaby Lakers, who went on to beat Port Coquitlam 5-3 for the championship. The Posse, coached by Doug Schonewille and Bill Barwise, opened with consecutive losses to Oceanside, 7-5, and Port Moody, 3-1, then beat Langley 11-9 and Saanich 12-3 to advance to the playoff round. Posse goalie Spencer Rogers won a provincial MVP award and Brett Barwise was chosen for a fair play award.
Spruce Kings land jumbo Jett
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
In May, the Prince George Spruce Kings used a bus to get to the national junior A hockey championship.
Next time around they could be using a Jett.
The Kings announced earlier this week they’ve acquired the rights to 19-year-old goalie Jett Alexander in a trade from the North York Rangers for future considerations.
The six-foot-five, 214-pound Alexander, a native of Bloomfield, Ont., capped a spectacular season with the Rangers in 2018-19. He won the Canadian Junior Hockey League’s top goaltender award, was voted the most valuable player in the Ontario Junior Hockey League and was a CJHL MVP finalist.
Alexander’s 1.67 goals-against average and .945 save percentage led the OJHL and he set a new league record with 10 shutouts while winning 30 of the 43 games he started, finishing with a 3011-1 record in his second junior A season. He also played in 16 playoff games before the Rangers were eliminated by Wellington in a seven-game OJHL semifinal playoff series.
Alexander won the Telus Cup midget national championship playing for North York in 2016.
“To be honest, Jett had played
out his time in the Ontario Junior Hockey League and he and his coaches with the North York Rangers realized it was time to move on to our league,” said Spruce Kings
general manager Mike Hawes.
“He gave them a list of a few teams in our league he was willing to go to if they could make a trade happen and fortunately we
were one of those teams. Jett’s an intelligent young man who had done his homework and knew that we’ve had a lot of success not only moving a lot of our players along (to college hockey) but especially our goaltenders.”
Alexander has the inside track to be the Kings’ starter in net, replacing Logan Neaton. Neaton, drafted in the fifth round, 144th overall in June by the Winnipeg Jets, is heading to the NCAA next season at the University of MassachusettsLowell. Neaton came to the Kings last season from Anchorage of the NAHL, replacing Evan DeBrouwer, who moved on to Arizona State.
In Prince George, Alexander will be playing for head coach Alex Evin, a former NCAA goalie at Colgate University. Evin was promoted to head coach after two years as an assistant to Adam Maglio, hired two weeks ago as an assistant with the WHL Spokane Chiefs.
“The last two years we’ve had arguably the two best goaltenders in the league in their year (with the team),” said Hawes.
“The list (of NCAA goalies the Kings have produced) is long, from Jesse Jenks to Kirk Thompson to Alex Murray.
“Part of the homework Jett would have done would be checking up on Alex and the fact he’s the head coach probably didn’t hurt. He knows Alex is going to be a great resource for him.”
Canadians swimmers earn Olympic berth
The Canadian Press LIMA, Peru — Jacqueline Simoneau and Claudia Holzner developed a pre-swim routine to calm their nerves when they joined forces as an artistic swimming tandem. It involves a declaration of trust and a reference to a Disney character. And it seems to be working. Simoneau, of Chambly, Que., and Calgary’s Holzner combined to defend Canada’s artistic swimming duet title Wednesday at the Pan American Games and earned Canada a spot at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the process. The Canadian tandem finished first with a total score of 180.0343 points. Mexico was second with 174.3661 points, and the United States third with 170.6698 points.
“It was such a special moment,” Holzner said. “Before we swam our coach (Gabor Szauder) was like, ‘Jackie, go for a second Olympics,’ and ‘Claudia, become an Olympian.”’ Simoneau and Holzner returned to the pool later Wednesday as part of Canada’s nine-swimmer squad in team competition, with another Olympic berth on the line, and took the top of the podium for the second time with 179.6731 points. Mexico took second (175.1243) and the U.S. followed (170.8114). Simoneau and Holzner, who were both members of Canada’s gold-medal winning team entry at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto, started swimming together as a duet in 2017. Simoneau said she and Holzner came up with a unique pre-swim routine the moment their partnership was formed.
“We hold each other’s hands and we look each other in the eye and we say, ‘I trust you.’ And then there’s a secret word that we say right before we go.
“We came up with this the moment we started swimming together. It’s a ridiculous word, but for us it just means having a calm confidence. It’s Perry. Perry the platypus. It’s a TV character on the Disney show Phineas and Ferb.” Canada swept synchronized swimming events at the Toronto Games, with Simoneau and Karine Thomas earning duet gold to go with the team victory. Simoneau and Thomas went on to place seventh at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The sport was renamed from synchronized swimming to artistic swimming in 2017. Later Wednesday, gymnast Ellie Black of Halifax added to her record Pan Am medal haul with a silver medal in the women’s beam event, her fifth medal this year.
PICTOU GAZETTE PHOTO
North York Rangers Jett Alexander, left, gets consoled by Wellington Dukes goalie Andrew Rinaldi after the Dukes beat the Rangers in Game 7 of the OJHL semifinal round. The Prince George Spruce Kings have acquired the 19-year-old Alexander’s rights in a trade from North York for future considerations.
Julia Patera Halliday Nov 18, 1914 to July 26, 2019
She brought joy and friendship to everyone she met. Saying goodbye is her daughter Lorna (Peter) Verheul, her grandsons John (Michelle), David, as well as her greatgrandsons Xavier, Alexander and Rowan. Thank you to Dr. Khan for his care of Mom.
A special thank you to the staff and residents at Jubilee Lodge for their love and friendship over the past 14 months.
Gordon Alexander Dean, Oct. 4, 1951 - July 27, 2019.
Gord passed away after a brief illness in Port Coquitlam. He is survived by his sister, Cathy, Nephew, Niece, Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Predeceased by his parents John and Doris Dean. He was born in Trail, BC. Moved to Prince George in his teens and worked as a Bricklayer for several years before moving south to Hope. He was always a kind person who would give you the shirt off his back. In the words of Bob Dylan (his favorite), “ When you’re sad and when you’re lonely, and you haven’t got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end And all that you’ve held sacred, falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end. “
Gabrielle Gloria (LeBlanc) Hamelin
Born in Waterville Maine, USA March 21, 1923 On the morning of July 26, 2019 the gates of Heaven opened for Gabrielle Hamelin, 96 years old, of Prince George, B.C. She was predeceased by loving husband Joseph in 2009; parents Michel and Maria; three sisters and one brother. She leaves behind siblings, Gerard Leblanc, Yvonne (Louis Desrosier), Lucien Leblanc, and Mathias LeBlanc (Lorrie) and sister-in-law Betty (Norman Perry). Also left to cherish Mom’s memory are Her four daughters Irene (John Krause ), Cecile (Morrie Archibald), Annette (Robert Davey), and Denise (Perry Gill); Ten Grandchildren and Thirteen Great Grandchildren; and many more relatives and friends. Visitation to be held on Saturday August 3, 2019 @ 1-1:45 p.m with Mass to follow immediately @ 2:00 p.m. at St. Mary’s Catholic Church at 1088 Gillette Street, Prince George, B.C. Arrangements entrusted to Grace Memorial Funeral Home and Crematorium Ltd. (Vanderhoof, B.C.) 96 years wasn’t enough time Mom. We will miss you, till we meet again, rest in peace. In lieu of flowers donation can be made to charity of your choice.
MAY YOU DANCE WITH DAD FOREVER MOM
Dimitrios (Jimmy)
Vardacostas
Prince George 02/19/1935 - 07/26/2019
Jimmy passed away peacefully among family at Simon Fraser Lodge on July 26, 2019. Jimmy was born in Avlonari, Greece on February 19, 1935 to Vasilis and Chrisavyi (Gounaris) Vardacostas. Jimmy is survived by his wife Kathy, children Bill, Christos (Michelle) and Vivian, brother Jean, grandchildren Emma, Ekaterina, Mia, and Ashan. Jimmy is predeceased by his sister Stavroula. The family would like to acknowledge and thank all the staff at Simon Fraser Lodge, for the excellent care given over the past year and a half. Service will be held at the Greek Orthodox Church (5th and Tabor) at 10:30 am on Saturday August 3rd Followed by a celebration of life gathering at the Bon Voyage (4366 Highway 16 West). In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Greek Orthodox Church
It is with deepest sadness that we announce the death of our beautiful soul, Sheila Marian Ponsford. A loving wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Sheila is survived by her loving husband, Len Fraser, and her beautiful children: Jasmine Tunnicliffe (Bryan), Vanessa Reeves, Yvonne Reeves (Max LaPierre), Zale Reeves (Meg Grant) and grandchildren: Claire, Paul, Todd and Elliott.
Sheila is predeceased by her sister, Marjorie, her parents Hilda and Raymond.
There will be a public viewing from 7 to 8pm, July 31st, at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. The celebration of Sheila’s life will be held at St Michael and All Angels, 1505 5th Ave, Prince George, at 2:00pm August 1st, 2019 with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers please donate to Literacy Prince George.
Sadly, Helen Bachinski, the matriarch of the Bachinski family, passed away on July 25th 2019 at the age of 97.
Her loving family was by her side at Simon Fraser Lodge when she said goodbye. Helen is predeceased by her husband Stan Bachinski, her loving son Harold and several other family members. She is survived by daughters; Elsie, Lorraine (Terry), Iris (Harold), Debbie (Richard), daughter in law Sharon, sons Alan and Stanley as well as many grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren family and friends. Special thanks to the staff, management and YMCA at Simon Fraser Lodge for their outstanding care and support. Also a special thanks to the band “By Request” for brightening Helen’s Thursdays with their music. A Memorial service for Helen will be held on Thursday August 1st, 2019 at 11:00am at Assman’s Funeral Chapel with interment to follow at Prince George Memorial Park Cemetery.
James Bryan Adams 1944 — 2019
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Bryan on the morning of July 25th. Bryan was born in Nipawin, Sask in1944 and resided in Prince George from 1947 until his passing. He was a quiet and gentle man with a tremendous sense of humor and a joke for everyone he met. Bryan loved music, but his greatest love was of family and his cabin at Cluculz Lake, sitting by the campfire. Bryan was a long-term member of the Loyal Order of the Moose, holding many positions and an expert pancake flipper at the Pancake breakfasts. He was also a member of Knox United Church. Bryan is survived by his two sisters, Ann Hoyer (Harvey) and Joan Crowe (George), two nephews, two nieces and their families all of Prince George. Also, his former wife, Lee of White Rock and her family who have remained close. Bryan leaves behind many close and dear friends. We will always be grateful to Darrel Williams and Tove Kemp for their dedication to Bryan. A thank you to all the residents at Midtowne Apts for all their kindness and friendship to Bryan. A special thanks to all Bryan’s doctors, nurses and home care staff. There will be no funeral as per Bryan’s request.
God looked down on your body, so tired from hanging on from a life that was overwhelming you and wanted back his son. So, he took away the air you breathe and gave you what was best A place to be at peace. A final place to rest. Rest in Peace, Bryan.
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Adult & Youth Newspaper Carriers Needed in the Following areas:
• Hart Area • Driftwood Rd, Dawson Rd, Seton Cres, • Austin Rd.
College Heights: Needed for Sept 1, 2019
O’Grady Rd and Park, Brock, Selkirk, • Oxford, Cowart, Simon Fraser, Trent, Domano, Guelph, St Lawrence, Hartford, Harvard, Imperial, Jean De Brefeuf Cres, Loyola, Latrobe, Leicester Pl, Malaspina, Princeton, Newcastle, Prince Edward, Melbourne, Guerrier, Loedel, Sarah, Lancaster, Lemoyne, Leyden,St Anne, St Bernadette Pl, Southridge, Bernard Rd, St Clare, Creekside, Stillwater, Avison, Davis, Capella, Speca, Starlane, Bona Dea, Charella, Davis, Polaris, Starlane, Vega.
• • Needed for Aug 1, 2019
• • Moncton, Queens, Peidmont, Rochester, Renison, McMaster, Osgood, Marionopolis.
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• Lyon, Moffat, Ogilvie, Patterson, Kelly, Hammond, Ruggles, Nicholson
Full Time and Temporary Routes Available. Contact for Details 250-562-3301 or rss@pgcitizen.ca
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Obituaries
Obituaries
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019
It’s been 25 years since she started working for the Citizen as a weekly newspaper delivery person and she’s the only one still who’s continued going strong for so long.
Donna Wagar has only missed two days of work during those 25 years and when the going gets tough because of icy streets, snowstorms or a deluge of rain she just thinks of her commitment first.
“I just think of all my disappointed customers and that gets me going out the door,” Donna said of her motivation to be a good newspaper carrier.
Donna gets help from her mother, Wilma, who drives her all over the city so delivery of more than 600 copies of the 97/16 newspaper is accomplished.
It all started after Donna graduated from Prince George secondary school and was looking for career choices. Donna took the two-year Target program, which had been offered at the College of New Caledonia. The program provided an opportunity for those with special needs to go to different employers for a trial period to see what they would like to do for a living. Through the assessment provided during the program, Donna learned some things about herself.
“We learned that Donna is very methodical but she’s slow,” Wilma said, as only a 79-year-old mother can about her daughter.
“We found out that she just would not be capable of working in an atmosphere where certain duties were to be performed within time limits. I never wanted her to get the idea that because she had a disability and the government gives her a disability cheque every month that she can sit back and collect it. So I wanted her to find something to do that she could feel good about and accom plish something.”
That’s when Wilma gave Marilyn Li-
chacz, district manager for carriers, a call at P.G. This Week to ask if there were any newspaper carrier positions open that would be suitable for Donna.
“Marilyn was kind enough to give Donna the opportunity and she’s never looked back,” Wilma said.
Marilyn remembers Donna’s first day vividly.
“Donna made her mother drive all the way back to the plant because she was short newspapers and she was determined to get the job done right,” she said. “I joke with her mother Wilma that we need to clone Donna because she’s such a good carrier.”
In the 25 years Donna has worked as a carrier there’ s been no complaints.
“Well, except for that one guy who thought I stole his bear traps from his driveway,” Donna said and shrugged.
“What would I do with bear traps? I love animals!”
And she proves it every day she’s out delivering the paper to her customers.
“I’ve made friends with a lot of puppies on the routes,” Donna said with a smile.
“I carry a bag of dog treats in the back of the car with me.”
“I swear the only reason she does routes is so she can have all these dogs to play with,” Wilma laughed.
Every dog gets a treat - but only after asking the owner’s permission - and every cat gets a cuddle if they’re willing.
Donna has dogs that will come out and meet her down the block as they see her make her way along the street but they only get a treat when they are back in their own yard.
“I remember one dog, Saul, who didn’t like carriers of any kind,” Donna said. “Until I came along and I won her over with treats.”
“The dogs just love her,” Wilma said. “You know it’s funny, they know the sound of the car as we come down the street and they wait for her.”
Wilma said Donna will refer to her customers by their pet’s name like “that’s Rebel’s dad” or “that’s Tuffy’s mom.”
“She doesn’t know the customers names, she knows the pets,” Wilma smiled.
Donna has named some of the other animals herself, like Miss Shadow Cat for a black cat and Miss Poodle because the cat’s fur had been trimmed to look like a poodle.
Most every year Donna writes a newsletter to her customers in December, talking about what she’s been up to throughout the year. The one year she didn’t send out a letter, people told her they missed it. They wanted to know what she’d been up to. So she doesn’t dare miss another letter filled with news of her life.
“The customers absolutely love her,” Wilma said. “There’s one lady that gives her a $5 tip every month.”
Some give her tips on special occasions like Easter or Christmas and others give her candy on Halloween.
“Donna always tells me she doesn’t do it for the tips,” Wilma said.
“I do it to do the job right,” Donna said.
Donna said she’s going to keep her job for as long as she can and hopefully that will be for a very long time.
Christine HINZMANN,
YOUNGS ROLLED WITH LIFE’S PUNCHES
LSENIORS’ SCENE
KATHY NADALIN
ucy (Campbell-Saliba) Young was born in the southern European island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea in 1941. Her family, along with her aunt and uncle left the island on a Greek freightliner when she was 10 years old. They docked in New York 10 days later and took a train to London, Ont.
Lucy finished high school and took a business course at the college. She said, “I worked for one year at Pumps & Softeners in shipping and receiving until I got itchy feet and I wanted to travel.
“Two of my girlfriends and I left London and one month later we ended up in Vancouver. It was a great trip. Whenever it looked like we were low on gas we stopped at farms along the way and looked for work for gas money. We were honest about only wanting to work for gas money as we worked our way across Canada. We picked fruit and vegetables and did some odd jobs. They usually sent us on our way with food to last us a few days. Times have changed and we just would not be able to do that kind of traveling these days. We had fun and met some nice people and in turn we worked hard for them to earn our keep.
“I met and married my first husband (deceased) in Vancouver. We got married, moved to Surrey and had four girls; Danielle, Cindy, Monica and Catherine.
“I worked as a nurse’s aide in a private long-term care facility. I needed a better paying job to cover all the bills, so I got a job with Canada Post as a part-time letter carrier by day and part time waitress by night.
“In 1972, I remarried and got a job working as a first aid attendant for B.C. Ferries until they became a Crown corporation and slashed 400 positions.
“We moved to Prince George in 1974. My husband worked for the city and I first worked as a nurse’s aide in a longterm care facility and then at the hospital in the central supply department when once again I became widowed with two teenagers left at home.
“I took some computer courses and upgraded my office skills.
“In 1980, I remarried again. We moved to Whitehorse where my husband John worked as a long-haul trucker and I found work at the hospital for two years as a dicta typist in medical records.
“John got sick and we moved to Stewart where he found work driving mine workers to and from the mine site in Hyder, Alaska.
“In 1984, we moved back to Prince George where John died of lung cancer.
“I worked for the Department of Public Works in the maintenance department from 1984 -1989. Next, I worked for a catering company, as the cook’s helper out at the Mount Milligan mining camp. It was my job to do all the prep work.
“I happened to meet Larry Young at a dance at the Legion in 1989. I thought he was okay but there was nothing serious about it in my mind. My children were now adults and living on their own
and I was enjoying my new life being free to do anything I wanted to do on my own.
“I was surprised when Larry showed up at the Mount Milligan camp site over the Easter holidays in 1990. He came out there to talk me into quitting the job and moving to Prince George. We got married in 1997.”
Lucy explained, “In 1994, we took a vacation and went to Malta. Larry wanted to see where I came from. He was surprised to see that the island people were still doing all the road work and the cutting of marble by hand.
“I delivered newspaper bundles for the Citizen for two years, worked in the fast food industry and went to school and took some computer courses. I worked for Joe Vasallo at EK Williams Accounting as their receptionist for nearly two years until the business folded. After that, I worked as a live out nanny for 18 years and I retired at the age of 69.
“I have been a member of the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre since 2008; I volunteer with the stroke survivor group each Wednesday and help out with bingo the first Friday of every month.”
Larry served on the board of directors at ECRA for four years in building maintenance and he served on the board at the Legion as their sport director for
four years.
Larry was born in Burns Lake in 1949 and raised in foster care all of his life. He said, “My parents gave me up at the age of one. I went to school in Telkwa and then bussed to Smithers when I started Grade 6.
Larry was born in Burns Lake in 1949 and raised in foster care all of his life. He said, “My parents gave me up at the age of one. I went to school in Telkwa and then bussed to Smithers when I started Grade 6.
“I ran away when I was in Grade 8, lied about my age and went to work out in the bush with only 50 cents in my pocket. I never went back into town for two years. When I did go to town I got into trouble with the police and they shipped me to the Queen Charlotte Islands. They offered me a two-year job in surveying at MacMillan Bloedel or the choice of going to jail. I took the job and had to agree to stay there and work
for two years. I agreed. I didn’t really care because I just wanted to work. I have worked hard all my life and it hasn’t killed me yet. In the meantime, I decided to straighten up my life – and I did.
“I was 19 years old when I left the Queen Charlotte Islands and headed back to Telkwa to go to my brother’s wedding. He never got married because I got him drunk and took him back with me to the island. He straightened up too and three months later we went back to Telkwa, he got married and now he is finally retired.
“I started at the Canfor pulp mill in 1974 and retired in 2008 after 34 years with the company. I started out by sweeping the floors and worked my way up to working in the digester.
“I had two children; Terry who lives in Prince George and Jennifer who lives in Norway. I am now on my fourth wife and I am happy.
“Over the past 25 years I have discovered that I have four siblings and I am glad about that.
“I believe in a drop of good whiskey now and then, absolutely no dope and no cigarettes along with a good woman.
“I pulled myself out of a dark place and I started out with nothing. I worked hard for everything I have and I never took a handout.”
Lucy and Larry Young have faced many challenges but have always worked hard to make themselves better.
PROGRAM ENCOURAGES SUMMERTIME READING
lose some of their literary skills, Dhanjal explained.
Engaging all ages in summer reading programs is one of the many achievements of the Prince George Public Library.
The theme for this year’s programs, which include one for children, teens and adults, is Imagine the Possibilities.
Starting off the program last Tuesday morning from 10:15 to 11:15 with almost 50 children between the ages of five to nine in attendance at the main branch of the library, Noelle Pepin of Nusdeh Yoh, School District 57’s Aboriginal Choice Program School was the special guest. Pepin shared ways to use Indigenous beading to teach binary coding concepts. The children participated in a simplified version of this – finding binary code for each letter of their name and then stringing the appropriate beads to spell their names, Amy Dhanjal, communications coordinator for the library, said.
This week those in this age group got to experiment with fluids by making slime, creating floating dry erase pictures and other water-themed activities.
It is especially important for schoolaged children to continue reading throughout the summer because research has shown there is such a thing as the summer slide, that sees children who don’t read during the summer to
The program is also held at the Nechako branch on Wednesdays from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m.
“Programs like this encourage kids to keep reading daily over the summer,” Dhanjal said. “These programs are free for everyone and encourage children from different neighbourhoods to enjoy these activities together.”
Children are encouraged to pick up a booklet where they can track their progress. The goal is to read a book a day and if they do that they will earn a stamp for each day and at the end of the program they get a ballot that goes into a draw to win a bicycle.
There’s a program for Tens to Teens offering self-led weekly summer challenges, including reading prompts and questions that sees participants get a chance to win weekly prizes that include $10 gift certificates as well as three grand prize packages up for grabs at the end of the program.
Some of the challenges include reading prompts, repurposing an old book into a piece of art, drawing a map of a neighbourhood, town or country from a book they’ve read, other challenges ask youth to get out of their house by asking them to share an interesting historical fact about Prince George, or create a poem about their favourite hang-out spot. For each challenge they complete they get a ballot to enter a draw for prizes.
The Adult Summer Challenge, also self-led, sees people pick up a booklet that includes reading prompts like read a book of poetry by a Canadian author and encourages activities in the community like visiting the Central B.C. Railway and Forestry Museum or The Exploration Place or photo opportunities like inviting participants to go get a picture with Mr. P.G. For every activity an adult does they
get a ballot to enter a draw for prizes like $150 gift certificates to Books & Co., The London, and gift packages of food and drink that include gift certificates to The Birch and Boar, Cross Roads and Nancy O’s.
“All the prizes are thanks to the Friends of the Library Society, so we’re really lucky to be able to offer that this year,” Dhanjal said. “We couldn’t do it without their support.”
All programs end in the middle of August.
For more information visit www.pgpl.ca.
insights on how each option would impact their lives and professions.
Should we or shouldn’t we? That is the question that was answered a record 223,273 times by people who offered their opinion through an online survey about whether B.C. should keep ticking on daylight saving time.
“It’s clear that the people of B.C. welcomed the opportunity to provide input on this important issue,” Premier John Horgan said.
“Daylight saving time is a practice that impacts everyone and I’m pleased so many people took the time to share their views about the best direction for our province moving forward.”
The daylight saving time survey took place from June 24 to July 19.
In addition to survey responses, the province received 13 formal submissions from individuals, organizations and industry experts that offered additional
A summary report of daylight saving time will be issued in the coming weeks. The results will be considered along with decisions on time observance made by neighbouring states to help determine the best course of action for B.C.
Quick Facts:
• Surveys completed by region (top five):
• Lower Mainland: 98,549
• Vancouver Island and South Coast/ Sunshine Coast: 62,386
• Thompson-Okanagan: 33,583
• Kootenays: 12,209
• Cariboo: 7,326
• Surveys completed by age group:
• Over 75 years: 4.1%
• 65-75 years: 16.7%
• 40-64 years: 48.8%
• 18-39 years: 29.6%
• Under 18: 0.3%
• No response: 0.5%
97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Roscou Blackall, 7, and his brother Lance Blackall, 4, are signed up for Imagine the Possibilities, the Prince George Public Library summer reading program .
CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff
LONGTIME EXCHANGE PROGRAM WRAPPING UP
CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff
Prince George is saying sayonara to a group of 36 Grade 11 students from Japan who have spent two and a half weeks here during their Cultural Homestay International adventure to Canada.
Prince George has been involved with the program since 1992 and this is its final year of operation.
Each student had their own host family for the duration of their stay so they could be immersed in Canadian culture. The teens went to conversational English classes from 9 a.m. to noon each week day and then it was time for educational and cultural experiences like exploring Indigenous and French Canadian ways of life as well as have some fun educational activities like going to the mall where teachers challenged the students to ask questions about items and learn about Canadian money when making purchases. Students also got the chance to play soccer, wheelchair basketball at UNBC and bowling, while a day trip to Purden Lake and a two-day bus trip to Jasper to visit the Columbia ice fields, river raft and shop was on the agenda. During their Jasper trip, students were happy to see a bear, deer and elk along the way.
The teenagers are from Takamatsu, a port city on Japan’s Shikoku Island, with a population of about 300,000. Takamatsukita high school educates about 1,000 students.
“I don’t want to go home,” Oui Mizutugi, one of the students, said about her trip. Mizutugi has great command of the English language and has taken private English
97/16
Airi Shimizu, left, and Kokoro Sangawa are two of 26 Grade 11 students from Takamatsu-kita high school in Japan in Prince George for cultural home stay visit. The students have been here for 2 1/2 weeeks, hosted by families learning English and experiencing Canadian culture.
lessons since she was two years old. The vice principal of the school, Michihiro Kawada, was the chaperone for the students and said that typically in the summer in his home city it gets so hot it’s not safe to stay outdoors for very long so it’s an air-
TWO RIVERS GALLERY TRAVELING ART EXHIBIT ON THE MOVE
Two Rivers Gallery offers Mackenzie, Valemount and McBride a traveling exhibition each year through their regional outreach program.
This year, the art exhibit features work from Indigenous B.C. artists Kristy Auger, Keith Kerrigan, Lynette La Fontaine and Angelique Merasty Levac in an exhibition called Trajectories.
The exhibit showcases the artistic practices of each artist.
Auger uses beading and woodcut prints on paper to express herself and emphasizes her Plains Cree heritage in her pieces, while Kerrigan creates jewelry inspired by Haida design.
LaFontaine uses beading as a way to
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highlight her Metis heritage while Levac, of the Cree nation, is a birchbark biting artist who would like to share her art form with future generations.
The exhibition is at Valemount and Area Museum from today to Sept. 1 with the opening taking place this afternoon from 4 to 6 p.m.
The exhibit starts at Notable Expressions at the Mackenzie Community Arts Centre from Sept. 12 to Oct. 13, with opening on Sept. 12 from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
In McBride at the Valley Museum and Archives the exhibit takes place from Oct. 24 to Nov. 24, with opening taking place Oct. 29 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
For more information visit tworiversgallery.ca.
• Find us at: 505 Fourth Avenue, Prince George, B.C.
conditioned lifestyle at this time of year for them. It was nice to get to experience the great outdoors in Canada, he said.
Lorraine Grant has been with the program since 1994 as teacher coordinator and said it’s her pleasure to teach the
Japanese students.
Grant said to see their faces when the students glimpsed the ice fields and experienced the Rocky Mountains makes the trip an unforgettable experience. Teachers Julie Gaunt and Vicky Nudds are also part of the program.
“It’s Lorraine, Julie and Vicky who take care of the hundreds - maybe thousandsof details that happen in a two-and-a-half week program to arrange all the host families weeks in advance, and then arrange the itinerary and activities scheduled for the students while they’re here and to keep everything moving seamlessly,” Micki Lalonde, director of student services for Cultural Homestay International, said.
Over the years there have been about 1,000 students and more than 60 teachers from Japan who have visited Prince George and some of the families have been hosting for a decade or more.
“The relationship between Takamatsu and Prince George is very strong and I attribute that to the fact the families in Prince George are so caring and open to share their lives and their homes with the students and really embrace this cultural experience in a way that isn’t always common in bigger cities and even though Prince George isn’t a big city their relationships are huge and it’s been very successful,” Lalonde said. “This is the last year the program is coming to Prince George because some of the teachers are retiring after many years so we’re going to move the program to Salem, Oregon next year where we think we’ve found people that will replicate the caring experience we’ve had in Prince George.”
photo by Brent Braaten
SOAPBOX DERBY RETURNS SATURDAY
It’s been 46 years since Prince George has heard the rumble of soapbox derby cars speeding down a hill but the wait is finally over.
Maychild Media has partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters to present the Prince George Soapbox Car Derby on Saturday on Victoria Street.
There are already 21 racers registered and there are prizes for speed and creativity to be won.
Sue Pokiak of Maychild Media reached out to the Big Brothers Big Sisters nonprofit, that was able to get a My Prince George grant for $2,000 offered by the city to help offset costs. Proceeds from the event will go toward mentoring programs.
“It’s shaping up to be a really fun time,”
Jane Gauthier of Big Brothers Big Sisters said.
Most of the participants are about 12 years old with some adults participating as well. There will be time trials and racing heats organized by age.
The partnership sees Maychild in charge of permits, insurance and the logistics of the event, while Big Brothers Big Sisters took on lining up volunteers and organizing the barbecue, which will be set up with children’s activities like a bouncy castle and face painting and there will be a cupcake vendor on site at Diefenbaker Park at the bottom of the hill. That’s where spectators can watch the action from the comfort of their own chairs.
The idea started from basic need, said Pokiak.
“I’m a single mom of six kids and there’s not a lot for low income families to do with their kids around town,” she said.
“We were watching the little rascals one
night where they were racing their derby cars on the streets and I thought that would be perfect for my kids to do. It would get them away from the TV, get us together building derby cars and raising community spirit together so I just thought it would be a great event to boost people’s morale.”
Pokiak thought somebody should be hosting this event and then looked inward.
“I thought ‘they should do it’ and then I realized there’s no ‘they’ - I am ‘they’ and then I thought I’ll do it, sure why not?” Pokiak explained.
When she started to look into what it was going to take she realized she needed help creating a city event for the first time.
“I asked Big Brothers Big Sisters and they got onboard and it’s been taking off,” Pokiak said. “It’s a lot bigger that I ever imagined it could be. I just wanted cars to race down a hill but a lot of people seemed to have embraced the idea and it’s an historical thing in Prince George.”
She did the research to discover a soapbox car derby was held each year from 1950 to 1973.
“The more I got into it the more people have reached out to me and told me about their experiences as a child racing derby cars,” she said. “I even had one man take me over to the green belt by the hospital where the overpass is and you can still see the remnants of the old track that used to be there. It’s fascinating to me.”
The event starts at 10 a.m., barbecue at 11 and the races start at noon. The event will continue until 3 p.m. It’s free for spectators and Big Brothers Big Sisters will host the barbecue as part of the fundraising effort.
SO MUCH STRESS FOR TODAY’S PARENTS
July has swung and out of my life like a barrel of deranged monkeys.
The summer has brought with it its normal assortment of holidays, camping, day camps and unrelenting dashing about the province. It shouldn’t feel this busy but it does.
The main difference between this summer and previous summers for our family is that this is the first summer that we have had to arrange out of the house child care. What that means, for me, is that bagged lunches and rushing out in the morning do not cease. A weeklong holiday on the island was not, like most good holidays, very restful. Instead, we needed a holiday from our holiday and we came home to a heat wave and a bunch of deadlines.
The word overwhelmed comes up a lot in my life. For me, it is a feeling of isolation and inadequacy and the incredibly, real feeling that I cannot get everything I need to do, done. It happens. This is modern parenting: anxiety, stress and a to-do list that is implausible.
How do I cope when I am feeling more down than usual?
I try to exercise to make sure that I am getting positive endorphins, I nap when I am trying to write my thesis because writing makes me tired, I try to laugh and play with my kids as much as I can in the few hours of the day that we have together.
I also maintain my anti-depressant medication. Now being on medication is generally not something that is admitted in polite conversation but the fact of the matter is that most of the people that I know either are, or have been on, anti-depressants of some variety in their lifetime.
I am on a low-dose, slow-release serotonin booster that I have been on for a few years. I started taking medication because I was going through a rough patch mentally and I found that I was coming home exhausted at the end of the day and couldn’t seem to get off the couch.
A few weeks after I started taking the medication and after some excellent therapy, I started to notice a difference. I was not cured – meds do not cure, they treat depression. What the medication allowed me to do was to start getting off the couch. Not every day, but some of them. I could come home after work, eat dinner, play with the kids and do a load of laundry. Eventually, things began to feel more normal and I started moving more and pulled out of the worst of the funk I was in. Some days, are good, some days are bad and it is unrealistic to think that everything will be sunshine and rainbows every day. I am sharing my story to let other people know that they are not the only ones who do not have everything together all of the time.
I have a lot of balls in the air right now and I am not a very good juggler. Luckily, there are a lot of really great people in my life to help carry some of the balls. For all of the other people out there who are having a hard time climbing out of the rut or trying to hold all your balls in the air, hang in there. You are not alone.
97/16 photo
Nahum Pokiak, 13, Nevaeh Pokiak, 10, and Kyle Shutterworth, 11, with their soapbox debertby cars they will be racing Saturday.
YARN CRAWL ON THE MOVE
CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff
With precocious names like Hippy Strings, Darling Deviance and Wooly Ewe, knitters and other fibre artists are invited to go on a Yarn Crawl to discover these unique stores located throughout the region.
There are a dozen stores in all, including three in Prince George, that are inviting adventurous knitters to come check them out and get special discounts for their efforts.
Playing with String is the group organizing the self-led event that lasts all summer and sees stores from as far away as Prince Rupert, the Northwest Territories, Fort McMurray, and 100 Mile House participating.
Jen Boots, Bonne Leiphart and Darlene Wainwright are members of Playing with String who are organizing the event.
The group started three years ago after a small group of knitters traveled to some outlying yarn stores one morning and returned to Prince George for a nice pub lunch.
“And said that was so much fun, why don’t we do that all the time?” Leiphart said.
And so the Great Northwest Yarn Crawl began and culminates with the FibreFest which will be held on Sept. 22 at the Se-
97/16 photo by Brent Braaten
Jen Boots, left, Bonne Leiphart, centre, and Darlene Wainwright knit over the lunch hour at Zoe’s on Fourth Avenue. The local Playing With String group, who are fibre artists, is organizing their third Yarn Crawl and FibreFest.
nior Citizens Activity Centre, 425 Brunswick St.
Fibre arts enthusiasts are invited to get a passport from Playing with String and present it at each of the stores they visit for a chance to enter draws at the FibreFest.
Boots is an avid knitter who began at her grandmother’s knee, then took it up again with her mother-in-law and creates sweat-
PENDULUM SWINGS CAN BE DANGEROUS
Do you remember the thrill of being pushed on the swing by someone tall?
Up, up, up, then released, and then down we went as the swing swung crazily to the right and left.
Fun, but a bit dangerous. The swing would then settle into mostly straight back and forth, but soon we would beg for more.
Cultural change and pendulum swings are not quite as harmless and most of us don’t beg for more, even when they are for the greater good. Usually, change comes because of a long period of pent-up dissatisfaction or injustice, but the crazy swinging that occurs in cultural pendulum swings is not always predictable, or even anticipated, by those advocating for change.
Take the following two examples: 16 women offering intimate waxing to women being taken to the BC Human Rights Council for refusing to perform a Brazilian wax on a trans woman with male genitals and trans athletes competing and winning various competitions in women’s sports.
The issue in the waxing case are the conflicting rights of two individuals. Whose right will supersede the other’s? Do women have the right to decide what type of personal grooming work they do and on which sex?
My guess is most people would believe that because of the nature of their work, weighing the rights and feelings of both sides, women should have a right of refusal to work on male genitals.
A closer look at the case reveals immigrant women being targeted because they are seen as backward. We can all agree that moving to Canada requires the immigrant to adopt some new cultural practices, but who decides the extent of this?
I suppose that a case could be made that making this decision is exactly what thetribunal is doing by hearing the case, but couldn’t they have decided that without subjecting
THINKING ALOUD TRUDY KLASSEN
these women to a costly trial? These women were not carrying placards or spewing hate to trans people. They were attempting to earn a living in their own homes, and upon learning that they would be working on male genitals, which they had no experience with, declined.
Then the other day, another trans athlete won another international sporting contest after only a brief time in the field. I don’t think that this situation has the same ramifications as the first, simply by virtue of the limited number of trans athletes choosing to be weightlifters, or wrestlers, or boxers, or volleyball players, or runners… but maybe it does?
Years ago, women had to fight for their own sports events and categories, in recognition of their different physiology. I don’t personally have a problem being outperformed (because at eleven years-old, my kids, boys and girls, could beat me at arm-wrestling.) For the women competing in these sports, however, it means a great deal, because suddenly the level playing field that their mothers and grandmothers fought for, is at risk. How far should society go to accommodate these conflicting “rights?” With the rights pendulum swinging crazily swinging side-to side, these are the questions our legislators need to address. However, how can we possibly have a discussion about this when any opposing viewpoint is attacked as evil, transphobic, narrow-minded, disgusting or backward?
Or do we just need to get used to being called names?
ers and other items of clothing for family and friends.
Leiphart is a knitter who creates scarves and shawls using unique stitches, colours and textures, who dabbles in crochet but only if she has to, she said.
“I started off at 11 or 12 when my mom tried to teach me but she’s left handed and I am right handed and it was a disaster,”
Leiphart recalled with a smile. “So I took up crocheting and that was really fun but I kept looking at the beautiful knitting patterns and so about 15 years ago I found myself a right-handed knitting mentor who was just fantastic and got me going.”
Leiphart said Wainwright, who used to own a yarn store in Prince George, is a knitter, weaver, spinner, crocheter, and yarn dyer.
“We refer to Darlene as our yarn goddess,” Leiphart laughed, talking about her friend’s contribution to the group’s dynamic.
Bringing about the yarn crawl started by comparing big city centres hosting yarn crawls to a dozen stores that would only take a weekend.
“We know there are a lot of other beautiful stores out there so we went further afield, contacted the stores to ask if they’d be interested in something like that,” Leiphart said.
Emphasis was put on Canadian yarns and artists to showcase the rich culture that is in the region, she added.
“There’s so much talent here and so many people who create wonderful things and unfortunately because we’re all so wide spread it’s hard to showcase that,” Leiphart said. “We thought we could do that with the yarn crawl.”
For more information and to get a passport visit www.playing-with-string.com.
&
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LOVE OF COUNTRY MORE THAN PATRIOTISM
Jewish-American songwriter Bob Dylan tells us, “Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.”
We put democracy in peril when we equate questioning government policy with being unpatriotic or even racist. This is why the current situation in the United States is so puzzling. They actually established the international standard for good government and were emulated for hundreds of years as the model democratic state. They also proudly gave shelter to those fleeing oppression and seeking opportunity.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and academic freedom are core principles in the functioning of a democracy. Without them, we cannot have effective government and the risk of despotism becomes very real.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and academic freedom are core principles in the functioning of a democracy. Without them, we cannot have effective government and the risk of despotism becomes very real.
Yet today those who embrace these ide-
LESSONS IN LEARNING
GERRY CHIDIAC
als are seen as anti-American and those in desperate need of protection are told that there is no room for them.
It was quite haunting to watch a scene where the American president spoke disparagingly of Ilhan Omar, the Congressional representative from Minnesota who fled Somalia as a child and is living proof that the American dream is still possible. Not only did the president describe her using words like “antiSemitic” and “vicious,” the crowd joined in with his criticism by chanting “Send her back!”
Anti-Semitism is very real and it is not a word that should be used for political gain. Historically, it is difficult to think of a more destructive thought. It is a cruel and illogical concept that has caused centuries of suffering.
Israel is not a religion, a race or an ethnic group, it is a state, just like Canada and the United States, and it is fallible. Just like any democracy, it needs to be held accountable by its electorate and, like any member of the United Nations, it needs to be held accountable to international human rights law.
Omar has spoken in favour of rights of Palestinians and has questioned the policies of the State of Israel. This does
not mean she is inherently anti-Semitic. Indeed her intentions are seen as sincere by many progressive Jews, who publicly declare, “I stand with Ilhan.”
Even the pro-Israeli media watchdog HonestReporting.com states that criticism of the State of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic. However, I found their arguments as to what is and what is not anti-Semitic rather vague.
This vagueness is terrifying to me as an educator. In my Social Justice 12 course, students research topics of their own choosing. Would I have to tell a person interested in examining human rights in Israel that this is off limits because it could be seen as anti-Semitic? Could I even be putting my career at risk by allowing discussion on this topic in my classroom?
Independent Jewish Voices Canada states in its mandate that “no one should have to choose between embracing Judaism or Jewishness and supporting Palestinian rights.”
Fortunately, Israel is a democracy. Many of the strongest voices for Palestinian rights come from within Israel and from the Jewish diaspora.
Independent Jewish Voices Canada states in its mandate that “no one should have to choose between embracing Judaism or Jewishness and supporting Palestinian rights.”
With over 200 000 supporters in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace follows the long standing Jewish tradition of working together for human rights and supports an American foreign policy based on these ideals. They clearly state that they oppose anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry. They are also the organizers of the “I stand with Ilhan” campaign.
Those of us who live in countries governed by legitimate democracies, whether we are in Canada, the United States, Israel, or beyond, are among the most privileged citizens in the world. We cannot take these rights for granted. When we oppose government policies, it is not because we hate our countries, any groups or individuals. It is because we are grateful to those who sacrificed for the freedoms we now enjoy and we accept responsibility for improving the lives of our neighbours and our descendants.
There is no more profound expression of love for country and for humanity than to actively work to make life better for everyone.
— Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com
INVESTOR SPENDS
A Canadian investor has purchased a pair of running shoes dating back to Nike’s origins for a record-breaking US$437,500 - or roughly C$577,000 - at public auction.
transaction on July 17.
Other highlights from the collection include a limited-edition Adidas sneaker created by rapper Pharrell Williams in collaboration with Chanel, the ultra-rare Air Jordan 11 honouring Yankees short stop Derek Jeter and Nike’s tribute to the self-lacing shoes worn by Marty McFly in “Back to the Future Part II.”
Miles Nadal won the 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat “Moon Shoes” in a Sotheby’s online sale on Tuesday, rounding out his haul of 100 pairs of rare footwear from the auction house.
Designed by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, the handmade sneakers feature the signature waffle soles that helped launched the multi-billion dollar athletic brand.
Of the 12 pairs created for runners at the 1972 Olympic trials, Nadal snagged the only “Moon Shoes” known to exist in unworn condition, according to Sotheby’s.
The auction house said the sale was more than four times higher than the previous record-holder for footwear - a signed pair of Converse sneakers that Michael Jordan wore in the 1984 Olympic basketball final, which fetched about US$190,400 in 2017.
Nadal, who founded Toronto-based investment firm Peerage Capital, also scooped up the other 99 lots in Sotheby’s first-ever sneaker sale for US$850,000, or more than C$1.1 million, in a private
The auction of 100 sought-after sneakers from streetwear marketplace Stadium Goods marked a departure for Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest brokers of fine art.
Nadal initially offered to buy the entire collection, but the auction house and seller decided to put the crown jewel up for public auction.
“I am thrilled to acquire the iconic Nike ‘Moon Shoes,’ one of the rarest pairs of sneakers ever produced, and a true historical artifact in sports history and pop culture,” Nadal said in a statement.
“I think sneaker culture and collecting is on the verge of a breakout moment, and I hope Sotheby’s and Stadium Goods will continue to lead the way in this exciting new future.”
Nadal plans to showcase the shoes in his Dare to Dream Automobile Museum in Toronto, which is also home to his extensive collection of classic cars.
Brooklyn, a movie by John Crowley, was on my watch list for a very long time. I’ve heard so many good comments about that, but I always hesitated to watch it.
Maybe it was because of its story. A young girl who immigrated from Ireland to America in the 1950s. That didn’t seem just a normal story to me as it could have reflected my own life. So I delayed watching that as much as possible. But when I finally watched it, I couldn’t be more thrilled. Brooklyn is like a mirror. Perhaps it isn’t just me, but any immigrant can see a reflection of her/his life in this movie.
Brooklyn has three main part. Eilis, the girl in the movie, is a shy and nice person who leaves her own country and her family to live a better life.
This first part of the movie seems so dark and sad, as it was for me in real life. At some point, when she is packing her stuff, her sister mentions that she has barely anything to take with her. That could be true, but how you can pack everything you
own in a suitcase? Your suitcase can be empty and light, but any immigrant has a heavy heart.
On her way over the ocean, she is so lucky to meet another lady on the way, who helps her to overcome her motion sickness and pass the entry port without any problem.
At her early days in the colourful Brooklyn, she feels lost. Although she has a job and goes to school, she feels homesick. The joy of having a new life is ruined by the pain of leaving everything and everyone she has loved.
But there is no pain which can’t be healed by time and that’s where the second part starts. As time goes by, Eilis learns how to deal with her sadness, she gains her
self-confidence back and starts to live her better life.
The key to her happiness is a young man she meets and begins to fall in love with him. But life always offers the most difficult things at our happiest moments. Eilis hears about her sister’s death and she loses herself again. I can feel her pain and sadness. For any immigrant, every day starts with the fear of hearing bad news from the home.
She is looking for a way to comfort herself and she wants to go back, to her mother and her home. But where is home now? She is confused and under pressure. She wants to go back to Ireland because that’s her home country. At the same time, she assures her lover that she will come back, because home is here now, with him in Brooklyn.
Again, any immigrant can easily understand this confusion. As an immigrant, you don’t have a home. The home is in your suitcase and it moves with you.
Back in Ireland, the third and last part
begins. Unlike the first part, now we see colours here too. Eilis is not shy anymore, she meets up with new people, goes to her friend’s wedding, she even gets a job. It feels she starts to think about staying here. But she needs a reminder that why she left her hometown in the first place. In a conversation with a strange lady, she confesses that she forgot how it feels to live there. It didn’t feel good and it doesn’t feel good anymore, no matter how much colour or happiness you add to it. Her life is somewhere else with some other people. On her way back, we see some repetitive scenes. The same ship and now she is the one who helps another girl. Life repeats itself at different moments. It is our responsibility to repaint those moments in a way that we like.
If you are not an immigrant, I still encourage you to watch this movie. It’s not just about immigration, it’s about finding our way through the gray world and light it up.
Chronic neck, back and shoulder pain have forced Terry McLaughlin to take narcotics in order to function but the 64-year-old says he’s loathe to become dependent on opioids.
And so the northern Ontario man says he diligently logs his pain level on a mobile app that can also record sleep habits and activity level.
He says it keeps him from increasing his dosage, and helps him understand what triggers his symptoms and why.
“The more I communicate with the app the better it is for me because I can always go back and see, ‘OK, this has helped me. How do I make it better? If (my pain level) is a seven today, let’s try to make it a six tomorrow,”’ says McLaughlin, adding that sleep quality as well as temperature and humidity can affect whether he has a good day or a bad one.
“You know what you did wrong and you correct it because you don’t want to have to take that pill early.”
McLaughlin lives in Val Gagne, Ont., about an hour east of Timmins and 20 minutes south of Iroquois Falls, where his doctor is based.
He’s among 250 patients taking part in a clinical trial testing whether the app can help manage chronic pain, with 84 of those patients drawn from the Iroquois Falls Family Health Team.
Although the project is still gathering data, principal investigator Dr. Atul Prabhu is bullish on early anecdotal evidence the app appears to help some patients control their pain, better communicate their suffering to their doctor, and open up to the idea of tapering medications.
He notes that most patients otherwise recount pain episodes from memory or scattered notes, and that may be further distorted by other factors such as discomfort or exhaustion from their commute if they live far from the doctor’s office.
Too often, these accounts only provide a snapshot of how the patient feels during their checkup, says Prabhu, a co-lead of the program, which uses the third-party app known as Manage My Pain that anyone can download.
“We have no idea about how the patients are feeling at home, how are the patients’ trajectory on a day-to-day basis,” says Prabhu,
deputy anesthetist-in-chief at Toronto Western Hospital.
“If they woke up at 2 o’clock in the morning in pain, they could punch that into the app and it would record so when they came to speak to one of my colleagues, they could say, ‘Here’s the proof, I was actually having pain and I’m better in the morning and I’m worse at night.”’
Most of the study’s participants are patients at Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto General Hospital and the Centenary Pain Clinic based out of the Rouge Valley Hyperbaric Medical Centre in Scarborough.
But researchers say the study is unique for including area residents of the far-flung Iroquois Falls, since such rural communities are rarely able to test new technologies or influence their development.
McLaughlin’s doctor says the app appears to be especially successful in the remote community of 4,500, where 2,000 patient visits in 2017 were related to chronic pain.
“When I first arrived in this town I had never seen so many people with chronic pain and high-dose opiates compared to the patients that I had seen in Vancouver,” says Dr. Auri Bruno-Petrina, who worked in family medicine for about seven years in Vancouver before joining the Iroquois Falls team in 2011.
“We don’t have the doctor retention to offer a continuity of care and see what are the other issues. Doctors come here and go within a year, so then other doctors keep prescribing what’s already on without fully assessing.”
She says at least 60 of her patients have joined the trial, which began in January 2018, and estimates that half have scaled back their pain medications. The patients range in age from 40s to 80s, with most in their 60s, she says.
“Several patients of mine are tapering off opiates because they are realizing the pain medication is not helping them. There are other things in their lives that are triggering pain,” she says, listing problems that mostly involve chronic back pain, but also myofascial pain and arthritic pain.
“Then I look at what part is affected - is it real pain or is it depression or is it more anxiety or sleep disturbance? Then I start to treat the other things first without even touching the pain medication because I know that’s not the problem. And they agree because
they can see the data - they entered the data, not me.”
Patient entries are automatically available for her to review, and Bruno-Petrina can generate charts for quick analysis before seeing the patient in person. And because the data is accessible through a portal, other specialists the patient may be referred to can view their medical history without them having to
rehash it all.
Prabhu says the trial wraps Jan. 8, 2020, with analysis and results expected to begin rolling out later that year.
In the meantime, Bruno-Petrina is buoyed by noticeable changes in her patients’ ability to better understand their own symptoms, and the stronger bonds she’s forged with them.
AROUND TOWN
Walking Tours
Tuesdays and Thursdays until Aug. 22 from 11 a.m. to noon take a free interesting trip through the city’s core. Meet in the main lobby of the Bob Harkins Branch for a guided tour of Prince George’s fascinating historic sites. Done in partnership with The Heritage Commission and The Exploration Place.
Summer camp
Every Wednesday until Aug. 21 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Studio 2880, 2880 15th Ave., Art Monkey summer kids art classes are geared for children ages six to 11. Cost is $45 Call 250-563-2880 or register online at www.studio2880.com.
Storytime
Every Thursday at the Prince George Public Library in the Knowledge Garden children can gather for a good yarn and a song or two. Storytime runs for 30 minutes at 10:15 a.m., free of charge. It is aimed at kids up to five or six years old. It is the companion to the indoor storytime at the downtown library every Tuesday at the same time.
NEED EXTRA CASH?
Foodie Fridays
Every Friday until Sept. 6 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Canada Games Plaza, 808 Canada Games Way, hungry residents and visitors are invited to come downtown for Foodie Fridays. Tantalize your tastebuds at a variety of licensed sidewalk and food truck vendors and listen to live music through the lunch hour. For more information call 250-614-7880.
Composting 101
Saturday, Aug. 10, from 2 to 3 p.m. there is a workshop to learn to compost, which is the ultimate in recycling. Learn to take items meant for the garbage - banana peels, apple cores, fall leaves, weeds, and animal bedding - and turn it into something that will literally transform a garden. While there are some rules to follow when learning how to compost, rest assured that they’re pretty basic, and that, in the end, no matter how many “mistakes” you make, compost just happens. Contact: 250-561-7327 | recycling@reaps.org
Homestead Days
Sunday and Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Huble Homestead Historic Site, 15000 Mitchell Rd., Huble homestead presents its premier pioneer event that’s so chock full of old-fashioned activities that it needs two days. Enjoy heritage demonstrations such as ice cream and butter making, take part in games and races for different age groups, and cheer on the brave souls willing to participate in the eating contests. Summer staff will be ready to talk to
visitors about their heritage projects, and there’s a special treasure hunt ready for those wanting to learn more about our 30 year celebration of the park. Huble Homestead Historic Site is a 30 minute drive north of town. Take Highway 97 north, turn at Mitchell Road to continue another six kilometres down a well-maintained dirt road. The site is dog-friendly and there’s a concession and a General Store.Contact: 250-564-7033 | programs@hublehomestead.ca
PG Soapbox Car Derby
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Victoria Hill there will be a soapbox car derby that hasn’t been seen in Prince George since 1973. There’s a barbecue and children’s activities at Diefenbaker Park at the bottom of Victoria Hill that starts at 11 a.m., racing starts at noon. It’s free to watch - bring chairs. Entry to participate is $55 per car. Prizes for fastest and most creative are up for grabs. Maychild Media is partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters with proceeds going towards their mentoring programs. Contact: 250-301-3231 | maychildmedia@ gmail.com
Free Yoga in the Park
Every Sunday until Aug. 25 from 10 to 11 a.m. join Chinook Yoga at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park bandshell all summer long for free Yoga in the Park. Bring a mat or do yoga in the grass. Bring a water bottle and grab a friend or two, all ages welcome. Contact: 250-564-9642 | www.chinookyoga.com
on page 15
97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Si Transken, centre, leads an art journal class at Art Monkeys, the Community Arts Council summer art classes at Studio 2880. Art journal is a way for children to express their emotions and feelings through art. The one day class gets them on their journey with their art journals.
Living in Space: International Space Station Living in Space: International Space Station
In 1984, the United States invited countries around the world to build an international space station. Now, with the participation of 18 countries, it has truly become a global cooperation project.
The flags below represent the 18 countries participating in the International Space Station project. Unscramble the letters to discover the name of each country.
When completed in 2010, the ISS was longer than an American football field, has a living and working space the size of a 747 jumbo-jet, and is able to house up to seven astronauts.
How does it get electricity? Hold this sentence up to a mirror:
panels collect solar power!
The space station ______ humans to live and _________ for long periods in a “weightless” _____________. The space station provides an opportunity to study a world without gravity— and better understand gravity’s _______ on plants, animals, and humans.
Lessons from past space travel show that living with little or no gravity ___________ bones and muscles. The space station allows scientists to understand these effects and find ______________ for long-term space travel.
Space Milestones
In which year did each of these events happen? Do the math to find out!
Astronaut Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.
(21 X 3) + 6
U.S. sends four monkeys into the stratosphere.
(25 X 2) + 1
U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik 1 satellite into space.
(25 X 2) + 7
John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the earth.
(15 X 4) + 2
The ISS was built, section by section, in space. Why not build it on earth and then take it to space? The completed station weighs a million pounds on Earth—too difficult and costly to attempt to take into space in one flight.
ISS IS BUILT IN MODULES, OR SEGMENTS
Astronaut Ad
These words oated away in zero gravity! Find where each one belongs.
Write a Help Wanted Ad to find people who want to be astronauts on the ISS. Use the Help Wanted ads in the print or e-edition of your newspaper as examples. Standards
Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page?
Want to blast into orbit? Walk on the moon? Snag a personal photo of a shooting star? Well your time is coming! And when it does, you're going to need this book. Grounded in the history of space travel and the planned future of space tourism, this guide book will start you daydreaming about space vacations!
To discover the name of this book, find the letter on the outer ring, then replace it with the letter below it on the inner ring.
This page was fun! I wonder what books the library might have about space?
… wondering about and exploring our world and beyond.
Pretend you are exploring a country you have never visited. Where would you go? Write a journal entry.
© 2019 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 35, No. 34
SOLAR PANELS
RADIATORS
CREW QUARTERS
Use the Kid Scoop Secret Decoder Ring to discover the name of this book by Susan E. Goodman, illustrated by Michael Slack, which is available at the library.
AROUND TOWN
Continued from page 12
Scrabble Sundays
Every Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at Books & Co., 1685 third Ave. in Cafe Voltaire there is scrabble Sunday every weekend. Bring friends, family, or yourself and your scrabble board.
Contact: 2505636637 | orderbooks@ shaw.ca
Red Green
Sept. 26
He’s colourful in name and deed. Red Green is the bumbling but pleasantly practical TV fix-it man, the clown prince of duct tape, the sage of the man-shed. This Canadian comedy icon is coming to Vanier Hall on his Red Green-This Could Be It Tour. His PG shows are always a sell-out. Get tickets at the TicketsNorth website/box office.
Patrick, Scott & Tessa
Oct. 12
During last year’s sold out Thank You Canada tour, it was clear to figure skating superstars, Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir and Patrick Chan, that they were far from done creating and developing a new style of skating entertainment. They and some special guest performers come back to CN Centre to show the Prince George fans what they’ve come up with next.
Rock The Rink is the first edition of an annual tour that focuses on being more than a figure skating show. Combining the highest level of on-ice superstar talent with an ever-evolving touring production, Rock The Rink will produce the highest value of entertainment in the figure skating realm. This year – along with upgrades to lighting, video and interactive technology – live music will be introduced to the show, with featured special musical guest, Birds of Bellwoods.
Burton, Live
Oct. 18
Canada’s piano man, the Guess Who’s epic vocalist, the only artist inducted into the nation’s music Hall of Fame for both his band and his solo career, the incomparable Burton Cummings is coming to PG. He was the power voice propelling American Woman, These Eyes, No Time, Clap For The Wolfman and many other hits of the groundbreaking band The Guess Who, but then when he went solo he continued the multi-platinum success with I Will Sing A Rhapsody, Stand Tall, My Own Way To Rock, Fine State Of Affairs, You Saved My Soul, Break It To Them Gently, and more besides. Cummings will be solo at the piano at Vanier Hall. Tickets are on sale now through all TicketsNorth platforms.
World Curling
March 14 start
Don’t let the date fool you. The event may be in 2020 but the plans are underway now and the tickets are on sale for this Prince George groundbreaker. P.G. goes global as the host of the World Women’s Curling Championships starting. Get your tickets now, and spread the word to friends and family everywhere that this is the time to come spend some Prince George time, and get a close, personal view of the world-class action the rest of the winter sports community will only get to see on TV. Oh yeah, and there’s also the great social side of curling – there’ll be no bigger party in Canada. Contact Tickets North for tickets and info.
Let us know about your coming events by emailing us at events@pgcitizen.ca
