Prince George Citizen September 4, 2019 by Prince George Citizen

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French immersion numbers hit record high

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

The number of French immersion students in School District 57 hit a new record, according to the Canadian Parents for French, B.C. and Yukon.

As of the 2018-2019 school year, 1,155 students were registered in the program, an increase of 27 from the previous school year. As well, the proportion of students in French immersion stood at an unprecedented 8.69 per cent of the school district’s total population. Indeed, the growth in the number of French immersion students bucked a trend that had seen an ongoing decline in the total student population before leveling out at 12,915 by 2014-15 and growing marginally each year since then.

The ongoing growth has mirrored a province-wide trend over the last 20 years, Canadian Parents for French executive director Glyn Lewis said in an interview.

He attributed part of the growth to a “historical legacy.” French immersion has been offered in B.C. for 50 years now, he noted, long enough for two or three generations of students to have gone through the program.

“And now they want their children to have those same opportunities that they did,” Lewis said. It has also developed a reputation strong enough to draw the attention of other parents looking for a way to “challenge their kids” and develop a benefit that lasts a lifetime.

Citing Statstics Canada, CPF said Canadians who speak both French and English earn, on average, 10 per cent more, and have a lower unemployment rate, compared to Canadians who only speak one of the two official languages.

“As well, there are cognitive developmental benefits of learning an additional language, such as stronger listening skills,

improved focus and concentration, increased ability to understand complex problems and higher tolerance, insight and understanding of other cultures,” CPF said in a press release.

As of 2018-19, there were 53,995 French immersion students in B.C., an increase of 4,544 since 2013-14, when they represented 9.2 per cent of the total student population. The proportion has more or less leveled off at 9.5 per cent in the past few years.

Within School District 57, the recent rebound in student total population combined with the ongoing growth in French immersion has created a juggling act for school board trustees.

With the schools nearing their capacities, school board chair Tim Bennett said enrollment at the kindergarten level at Ecole Lac des Bois and College Heights Elementary School has been capped while there is still

some room left at Heather Park Elementary School. As for the high school program at Duchess Park Secondary School, Bennett said the trustees and staff are continuing to “monitor very closely as capacity is an issue at all of our high schools but in particular at Duchess Park.”

Last year, the board began consultations on whether Spruceland Traditional School and Edgewood Elementary School should continue to be feeder schools for Duchess Park or transferred to the catchment area for D.P. Todd Secondary. A decision will be made this fall, Bennett said.

Trustees are also continuing to work to draw provincial government funding to expand D.P. Todd by 300 seats by the 2023-24 school year, he said.

As of 2018-19, there were 13,291 students in School District 57 and Bennett expects to see modest growth over that when a count is conducted on Sept. 30.

Provincial court docket

From Prince George provincial court, Aug. 16-23, 2019:

– Cali Ronald Harold Peal-Barton (born 1994) was sentenced to 25 days in jail for two counts of breaching probation. Peal-Barton was in custody for one day prior to sentencing.

– George Lewis Olsen (born 1970) was sentenced to 25 days in jail for assault and willfully obstructing or resisting a peace officer and to 15 days in jail for possessing a dangerous weapon and to one year probation on the counts. Olsen was in custody for one day prior to sentencing.

– Cynthia Mae Hildebrandt (born 1974) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $750 plus a $112.50 victim surcharge for driving while driver’s licence is suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

–Clayton Angus Middlemiss (born 1988) was sentenced to 174 days in jail for knowingly occupying a vehicle in which a firearm is present and to no further days for possessing a firearm without a licence or registration, possessing a controlled substance, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, driving while disqualified, possessing a non-firearm weapon, possessing a firearm contrary to an order, personation with intent to avoid arrest, two counts each of driving while disqualified and breaching probation, prohibited from driving for three years for dangerous driving and issued a 10-year and a lifetime firearms prohibition on the firearms counts. Middlemiss was in custody for 433 days prior to sentencing.

– Virgil Stanley Johnson (born 1985) was sentenced to 55 days in jail and ordered to provide a DNA sample for assault and to 30 days in jail for theft $5,000 or under and breaching probation. Johnson was in custody for 61 days prior to sentencing.

– Quintin James Maxwell (born 1976) was sentenced to 86 days in jail for driving while disqualified under the Criminal Code and driving while prohibited under the Motor Vehicle Act, both committed in Prince George, to 54 days in jail for driving while disqualified under the Criminal Code, committed in Fort St. John, prohibited from driving on both counts, and sentenced to no further time for theft $5,000 or under, committed in Fort St. John.

– Gregory Nixon (born 1950) was issued a one-year $500 recognizance after allegation of causing fear of injury or damage.

– Everett Riley Edward Patrick (born 1977) was sentenced to one year probation for assault and to no further time for mischief $5,000 or under and possession a weapon for a dangerous purpose. Patrick was in custody for 76 days prior to sentencing.

– Jordy Martin Visser-Hayne (born 1996) was sentenced to one day and 13 days respectively for

two counts of breaching probation. Visser-Hayne was in custody for nine days prior to sentencing.

–- Darrin Elmer White (born 1977) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 plus a $150 victim surcharge for driving while prohibited or licence suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

– David Bernard Kerbrat (born 1981) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $500 plus a $75 victim surcharge for driving while prohibited or licence suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

– Kenneth James Moore (born 1965) was sentenced to time served for breaching an undertaking. Moore was in custody for 14 days prior to sentencing.

– Michael Charles Foster (born 1965) was sentenced to an eightmonth conditional sentence order and 18 months probation and ordered to provide a DNA sample for assault with a weapon and causing a disturbance, two counts of assault and three counts of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm. Foster was in custody for 107 days prior to sentencing.

– Justin James Nevers (born n/a) was sentenced to 109 days in jail and two years probation, ordered to provide a DNA sample and issued a 10-year firearms prohibition for sexual assault. Nevers was in custody for 589 days prior to sentencing.

– Lucas Kenneth Richard Turner (born 1987) was sentenced to time served and 18 months probation for theft $5,000 or under, breaching probation and two counts each of mischief $5,000 or under and breaching an undertaking or recognizance. Turner was in custody for 73 days prior to sentencing.

– Andrew Carl Pete (born 1992) was sentenced to 12 days in jail for possessing weapon for dangerous purpose, breaching probation and willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer, to three days in jail for possessing stolen property under $5,000 and to time served for separate counts of breaching probation, breaching an undertaking or recognizance and willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer. Pete was also sentenced to one year probation on the weapon charge and spent 48 days custody prior to sentencing.

– Brenton Angus Kenney (born 1960) was fined $350 for fraud $5,000 or under.

– Jake Toby Patrick (born 1994) was sentenced to time served for theft $5,000 or under, committed in Prince George, and breaching probation, committed in Vanderhoof. Patrick was in custody for 15 days prior to sentencing.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Good intentions

Contractors pave the sidewalk Tuesday along Domano Boulevard in front of College Heights Secondary School in time for the new school year starting today.

Class in session

Undergraduate and graduate students gathered Tuesday for a group picture in the agora at UNBC during orientation prior to

graduate students and 335 graduate students registered. Of those totals 225 are international students.

Watch for students, drivers warned

Citizen staff

Prince George RCMP are reminding drivers to slow down now that schools are back in session.

It means the 30 km/h speed limit for school zones is back in force from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.

Fines for violating the limit start at $196 and rise significantly with the driver’s speed.

Officers will be conducting patrols and targeted enforcement around schools to help ensure the safety of students as they go to and from school.

“It only takes a second to impact a child and their family for a lifetime” said Cpl. Craig Douglass. “Don’t let speed and distracted driving cause a tragedy in our community.”

Drivers are also reminded that they are prohibited from passing a school bus with flashing red alternating lights. Drivers in both directions must stop and wait for the bus driver to load or offload children and disengage the signal lights before proceeding.

The fine for failing to stop for a school bus is $167. Likewise, the fine for failing to obey a school guard or school patrol is also $167 and there are a number of schools in the Prince George area that employ school crossing guards.

Here are some further tips for avoiding trouble.

Students

• Use designated crossing points and follow crossing signals

where available;

• Remove headphones from music players and put down the cell phone when crossing the road;

• When crossing major roads, make sure that all lanes of traffic have stopped before walking across. Often drivers in the middle lanes don’t see pedestrians;

• Make eye contact with the drivers before stepping out onto crosswalks;

• Dress to be seen – daylight hours are decreasing, so wear brighter colours or reflective material whenever possible;

• Walk on the sidewalk, or if unavailable, walk on the side of the road facing the traffic;

• Walk on well-lit routes with less traffic;

• Always be aware of your surroundings.

Mom gets life for killing daughter

The Canadian Press

A British Columbia mother who killed her eightyear-old daughter in a “selfish” and “deliberate” act meant to hurt her ex-husband has been sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for 15 years.

Lisa Batstone planned to kill herself and didn’t want the girl’s father to have custody of their daughter Teagan, so she decided to smother her with a plastic bag on Dec. 10, 2014, Justice Catherine Murray told B.C. Supreme Court.

The mother, then 41, held the bag over the sleeping girl’s mouth and nose for four to five minutes, before sitting near her daughter’s lifeless body, drinking wine and writing notes that blamed her ex-husband Gabe Batstone, the judge said.

“The killing was intentional. It involved choices and decisions. It involved effort. Ms. Batstone’s actions were purposeful and goal-directed. She never wavered from that goal,” Murray told the court on Tuesday in New Westminster.

Trucks moving salmon over Fraser landslide

The Canadian Press

The B.C. government says salmon stuck at a massive landslide on the Fraser River north of Lilooet can now be transported upstream by truck, as crews conducted a successful trial run on Sunday.

The province says rock scalers have also moved two large boulders as part of ongoing efforts to create a natural passage for fish to swim past the slide on their way to spawning grounds.

To date, an estimated 28,780 salmon have passed the slide on their own, while nearly 57,000 have been transported by helicopter. The province says water levels continue to drop, making it easier for fish to move upstream while improving conditions for crews working at the slide.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the B.C. government and local First Nations have been working together since June trying to ensure hundreds of thousands of salmon have a chance to spawn.

Batstone placed multiple notes around her townhouse, with two visible as soon as anyone entered the home: “You broke me,” and “You win, Gabe.”

She then tried to suffocate herself by wrapping two plastic bags around her head and securing them with duct tape, but she couldn’t go through with it, Murray said.

Instead, Batstone sent an email to her daughter’s school saying Teagan had the flu, before texting some people “I’m sorry,” and sending accusatory messages to members of her church whom she felt had “shunned” her recently.

When a concerned church member knocked on her door, Batstone didn’t answer and waited for the woman to leave before loading Teagan’s body into the trunk of her car and driving away, the judge said.

She apparently planned to drop her dog at a sitter and go somewhere to commit suicide, but her car got stuck in a ditch.

Batstone told a nearby resident to call 911 and first responders found her cradling Teagan’s body in the trunk.

Drivers

• Plan ahead, leave earlier to allow yourself extra time through school zones;

• Be alert to children near or around crosswalks and inter sections;

• If a vehicle in a different lane slows or stops in front of you, slow down or stop and ensure that no one is on the crosswalk before proceeding;

• Always yield to pedestrians at intersections or designated crosswalks;

• When dropping off children in a school zone, ensure you do so in a safe place where the children can exit onto a sidewalk and not into traffic. Don’t stop in the travel portion of the roadway and hurry your children out of the vehicle.

Pipeline ruling today

The Canadian Press

The Federal Court of Appeal says it will reveal today whether legal challenges to the Trans Mountain pipeline project can proceed. The federal government has twice approved a plan to twin an existing pipeline from Alberta’s oilpatch to the B.C. coast. Last year, the Federal Court of Appeal tore up the original approval citing insufficient environment review and inadequate consultations with First Nations. The Liberals say they fixed both problems and approved the expansion a second time in June.

Right whale plight looms over fisheries

Olivia BLACKMORE

The Canadian Press

For years, fishermen off the U.S. east coast have faced tight restrictions on fishing gear and vessel speed restrictions to ensure their activities do not harm marine mammals, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

But in Canada, it was only after right whales began turning up dead in large numbers in 2017, many of them tangled in fishing gear and struck by vessels, that authorities brought in emergency measures, and by then it was too late to avoid a record number of deaths.

After another summer of high mortality for right whales in Canadian waters, questions are being asked about whether Canada’s slow response to the crisis could still be taking a toll. And with a deadline approaching for exporting countries to respect new marine mammal protection legislation in the United States, the inaction could end up harming Canadian fisheries.

Sean Brillant, a senior conservation biologist at the Canadian Wildlife Federation, says Canada’s response prior to 2017 – and the 20 right whales found dead in Canadian waters in the past three years – could be a concern for Canadian fisheries. He said the conservation of marine mammals is not only a “feel-good” issue but a political one.

“The conservation of these whales is relevant to the conservation and sustainability of our fisheries,” Brillant said in an interview. “Within the conservation and scientific community, we’d seen this coming for some time.”

Brillant said the United States legislated in 2016 to prevent the entry into the country of seafood that does not meet strict standards around the incidental killing of other species, including whales.

The new legislation added provisions under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, giving countries that export seafood to the United States five years, beginning Jan. 10, 2017, to comply with the new rules.

“Harvesting nations are expected to develop regulatory programs to comply with the requirements to obtain a comparability finding during this time period,” the legislation says.

That means a harvesting country must prove it has adopted regulations about incidental mortality and injury of marine mammals in its commercial fishery comparable “in effectiveness” to the U.S. regulatory program.

It must also provide detailed data such as the number of vessels, gear type, species, fishing area, and death and injury rates of marine mammals. It is then up to the United States to determine if the measures to protect marine mammals are sufficient.

Brillant says the comparability finding is key, but it remains uncertain how it will be evaluated by the U.S. government.

Asked whether the eight North

Atlantic right whales found dead in Canadian waters this summer could affect a decision on Canada’s compliance with the new regulations, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the U.S. government agency that oversees ocean resources and habitat – declined to comment.

John Ewald, NOAA’s director of public affairs, said that Canada is expected to submit a progress report on “efforts to mitigate marine mammal bycatch in their export fisheries” by Sept. 13.

Brillant says there was evidence the endangered marine mammals were heading into the Gulf of St. Lawrence to feed prior to 2017.

A 2018 study entitled “Mass human-caused mortality spurs federal action to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales in Canada,” which Brillant coauthored, says the government’s reaction to the dead whale crisis in 2017 was unprecedented – but it came too late.

Commercial fisheries in Canada are obliged to incorporate marine conservation strategies – including objectives to protect marine mammals like the right whale – in their fisheries management plans, Brillant’s study says.

Despite several studies prior to 2017 by scientists – including some who worked for the DFO –pointing to an increased presence of right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the threat posed by fishing gear, “no mandatory regulations for fisheries had been implemented to mitigate potential

interaction between fishing gear and right whales,” says Brillant’s study.

On the contrary, in 2017, the Canadian snow crab fishery saw a significant increase in quota in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which meant more traps – and more rope – were used.

As the number of dead whales rose that year in Canadian waters, the federal government moved to protect the animals, reducing commercial shipping vessel speeds and closing a snow crab fishery, the study says. But by the time the measures were implemented, the damage was done.

“The pace of this process was commendable, but most of the mortalities and injuries had already occurred by the time the measures were in place,” the study says. When the snow crab fishery in the region was closed, after eight whale carcasses and four live entanglements were discovered over 46 days, fishermen had already caught their annual quota, the study notes.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, one of four government departments responsible for the management of human activities that can harm marine mammals, says it was aware of the increasing presence of right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence before 2017.

“Canadian and U.S. research groups have been working together to monitor and study right whales in Canada and the U.S. for decades,” Robin Jahn, a DFO communications officer said in an

email. “Monitoring and research in the Gulf of St. Lawrence increased significantly since 2017. Such research has contributed to the understanding of the species, its natural history, its habitat use and patterns of injury and mortality before and since 2017.”

Jahn said planning and implementation under federal legislation protecting species at risk had begun for the right whale before 2017, involving input from Indigenous groups, representatives of the fishing and shipping industries and other experts.

But in 2018 Canada’s auditor general published a report on the protection of marine mammals, looking as far back as January 2012, and concluded the government had not adequately tried to protect the whales .

“Overall, we found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada, and Transport Canada had not fully applied existing policies and tools to proactively manage threats to marine mammals from commercial fishing and marine vessels, such as entanglements, bycatch, depletion of food sources, noise and disturbance, oil spills, and collisions with marine vessels,” the report said.

In April 2018, the Canadian government, with the help of scientists and non-governmental organizations, implemented mandatory regulations – fishery closures in areas with a high number of whales, reduced snow crab quota, shipping lane management

and reduced vessel speed limits. Marine mammal protection in Canada is covered in the Fisheries Act and the Species At Risk Act, introduced in 2003. Patrice McCarron, the executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, says some U.S. restrictions date back to the 1970s, and Canada has lagged behind when it comes to regulating fisheries to protect whales.

“All U.S. fixed gear fisheries from Maine to Florida have gear modifications in place so that if a right whale did encounter the gear, we are increasing the likelihood that the whale will get out of the gear without being seriously injured or killed,” McCarron said. Canada does not have those same regulations, she said.

“We have vessel speed restrictions in place along the entire U.S. coast, either static areas or dynamically if whales are sighted,” McCarron said.

“That plan has been in place for probably 10 years and has had significant positive impact on reducing vessel strikes here in the U.S.” Brillant’s study concludes that if the Canadian government had taken actions in response to the scientific evidence presented to them before 2017, the right whale fatalities that year would have been significantly reduced.

“Conservation action is not always drastic, but prolonged ignorance of evidence makes drastic, crisis management action more likely,” it says.

A North Atlantic right whale feeds on the surface of Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass., in March 2018.

‘Total devastation’ Hurricane creates humanitarian crisis in Bahamas

The Associated Press

Relief officials reported scenes of utter ruin in parts of the Bahamas and rushed to deal with an unfolding humanitarian crisis in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, the most powerful storm on record ever to hit the islands. At least five deaths were reported, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.

The storm’s punishing winds and muddy brown floodwaters destroyed or severely damaged thousands of homes, crippled hospitals and trapped people in attics.

“It’s total devastation. It’s decimated. Apocalyptic. It looks like a bomb went off,” said Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief organization and flew over the Bahamas’ hard-hit Abaco Island. “It’s not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again.”

She said her representative on Abaco told her that “there’s a lot more dead” and that the bodies were being gathered up.

Emergency authorities, meanwhile, struggled to reach victims amid conditions too dangerous even for rescue workers, and urged people to hang on.

“We wanted to go out there, but that’s not a risk we’re capable of taking,” Tammy Mitchell of the Bahamas’ National Emergency Management Agency told ZNS Bahamas radio station. “We don’t want people thinking we’ve forgotten them... We know what your conditions are. We know if you’re stuck in an attic.”

Practically parking over a portion of the Bahamas for a day and a half, Dorian pounded the northern islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama with winds up to 295 kmh and torrential rain before finally moving into open waters Tuesday on a course for Florida. Its winds were down to a stilldangerous 175 kmh.

Over two million people along the coast in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were warned to evacuate. While the

threat of a direct hit on Florida had all but evaporated, Dorian was expected to pass dangerously close to Georgia and South Carolina – and perhaps strike North Carolina – on Thursday or Friday.

“Don’t tough it out. Get out,” said U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency official Carlos Castillo.

In the Bahamas, Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane said more than 13,000 houses, or about 45 per cent of the homes in

Grand Bahama and Abaco, were believed to have been severely damaged or destroyed. U.N. officials said more than 60,000 people on the hard-hit islands will need food, and the Red Cross said some 62,000 will need clean drinking water.

“What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact,” he said.

Lawson Bates, a staffer for Arkansas-based MedicCorps, flew

over Abaco and said: “It looks completely flattened. There’s boats way inland that are flipped over. It’s total devastation.”

The Red Cross authorized a halfmillion dollars for the first wave of disaster relief, Cochrane said. And U.N. humanitarian teams stood ready to go into the stricken areas to help assess the damage and the country’s needs, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The U.S. government also sent a disaster response team.

Abaco and Grand Bahama islands, with a combined population of about 70,000, are known for their marinas, golf courses and allinclusive resorts. To the south, the Bahamas’ most populous island, New Providence, which includes the capital city, Nassau, and has over a quarter-million people, suffered little damage.

The U.S. Coast Guard airlifted at least 21 people injured on Abaco. Rescuers also used jet skis to reach some people as choppy, coffee-coloured floodwaters reached roofs and the tops of palm trees.

“We will confirm what the real situation is on the ground,” Health Minister Duane Sands said.

“We are hoping and praying that the loss of life is limited.” Sands said Dorian rendered the main hospital on Grand Bahama unusable, while the hospital in Marsh Harbor in Abaco was in need of food, water, medicine and surgical supplies. He said crews were trying to airlift five to seven kidney failure patients from Abaco who had not received dialysis since Friday.

Upper atmosphere gridlock stalled Dorian

The Associated Press

Hurricane Dorian is finally moving.

But for a day-and-half it just sat on and pounded Grand Bahama Island because nothing high up in the atmosphere was making it budge.

That meteorological gridlock, which slows or stalls storms, is happening more often in a warming world, studies show.

Before Dorian picked up speed Tuesday morning, the upper atmosphere had been too calm. While this had been horrible for the Bahamas, where the storm’s onslaught had been relentless, meteorologists said it may have helped spare Florida a bit. Usually the upper atmosphere’s winds push and pull Atlantic hurricanes north or west or at least somewhere. They are so powerful that they dictate where these big storms go.

But the steering currents at an altitude of 5.5 kilometres had just ground to a halt. They were not moving, so neither was Dorian.

After reaching record-tying wind speeds on landfall in the Bahamas, the storm stalled. Its eyewall first hit Grand Bahama Island Sunday night, and into Tuesday morning part of the eye still lingered there, meteorologists said. For 28 hours on Monday and Tuesday, the hurricane centre said the storm was either stationary or crawling at 1.6 kmh.

“This is unprecedented,” said Jeff Masters, meteorology director at Weather Underground who used to fly into hurricanes. “We’ve never had a Category 5 stall for so long in the Atlantic hurricane record.”

For all storms, regardless of size, “it’s very odd” but not quite unprecedented, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist Jim Kossin, who has studied the forward movement of hurricanes.

Tropical cyclones around the world are slowing down, he said.

In Dorian’s case, there is an ongoing battle between high pressure systems that push storms and low pressure systems that pull them.

A high pressure system in Bermuda has been acting like a wall, keeping Dorian from heading north. But a low pressure trough moving east from the Midwest has eroded

Ottawa couple still missing

The Canadian Press

An Ottawa couple and their friends remained unaccounted for on Tuesday after being trapped in a northern Bahamas home Sunday when Hurricane Dorian battered the region as a massive Category 5 storm, the couple’s daughter said.

Kristin Dudley last spoke to her parents, Sharyn Laughlin and Denis Dudley, at about 4 p.m. on Sunday as they and two of their friends retreated to the attic of their house on Great Abaco Island in the northern Bahamas.

Dudley, who lives near Montreal, said her father said water had already washed away the main floor of the house, blowing out windows and doors.

A part of the roof had been destroyed, she said.

“They were taking refuge in an attic, waiting out the second part of the storm because most of the house had been destroyed by water,” she said in a phone interview.

Dudley said her 70-year-old parents seemed to be handling the situation well, but she’s unsure whether the two Ottawa-area couples had time to gather supplies and her father’s diabetes medication.

“They sounded good, they were prepared to go through the second part of the storm,” she said. “I don’t think they knew the extent of what was happening.”

As for the home that the family has owned for 20 years, she says it has been damaged beyond repair.

“You’d have to take it down and rebuild,” she said. “Saltwater destroys everything.”

With phone lines down across the island and road access still blocked, Dudley said she has no choice but to be patient as she waits for news.

She’s been calling officials and aid organizations to offer the GPS location of her parents’ whereabouts and co-ordinating on Facebook with locals on the ground.

Dudley said the hundreds of messages of support she’s received from the public each day have helped her keep going as she struggles to maintain a semblance of normalcy for the sake of her two children.

“It’s nice to see that people are praying for their safe return,” she said.

She said her family has started a GoFundMe page to help with disaster relief in the Treasure Cay and Abaco islands area that her family considers a second home.

that high and is trying to pull Dorian north. Those two weather systems “are fighting it out and neither is winning,” Masters said Monday.

There’s just no flow pushing it anywhere. Think of it like a tiny paper boat or a pebble in a stagnant pond, which just doesn’t move, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

Finally, Tuesday morning the low pressure trough eroded enough of the high pressure system to allow Dorian to start moving northwest. It was forecast to move more northward after that and eventually pick up speed.

What happened to Dorian “is consistent

with the kind of changes that we might expect with global warming,” NOAA’s Kossin said Tuesday. He said this storm has not been studied in the precise ways that climate scientists need to say global warming was a factor.

But Kossin’s 2018 study in the journal Nature found tropical cyclones around the globe had slowed down 10 per cent from 1949 to 2016. And he was able to examine U.S. storms back to 1900 and found a 17 pert cent slowdown since then.

“I find it very compelling that we’re observing that much of a slowdown over a long period of time,” Kossin said.

It all starts in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe because of emissions of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The jet stream, which moves global weather along, slows down when there’s less of a temperature and air pressure difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes, Kossin said.

This theory linking Arctic changes to the slowing jet stream is not completely embraced by mainstream climate scientists, but there has been a growing acceptance of it in scientific literature.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey got stuck when the upper atmosphere’s steering currents collapsed, drenching and flooding Houston, but that wasn’t as powerful a storm as Dorian, Klotzbach said.

Usually hurricanes that don’t move eventually kill themselves because they churn up colder water from deep below the ocean’s surface and are deprived of the warm water that fuels storms, Masters said.

“It’s got to keep moving,” he said.

AP PHOTO

Julia Aylen wades through waist-deep water carrying her pet dog as she is rescued from her flooded home Tuesday in Freeport, Bahamas.

AP PHOTO

Volunteers walk in the wind and rain Tuesday on a flooded road as they head to rescue families near the Causarina bridge in Freeport.

More northern fires pose global threat

These days, smoke-filled summer skies and dusky red sunsets are a common occurrence across Canada and the United States. Much of that smoke is coming from large northern wildfires.

We have been working on the consequences of increasing boreal wildfires since 2004, when a huge swath (2.6 million hectares) of boreal forest burned in Alaska and the Yukon. It seemed, at the time, like an unusually large fire year. Since then, we have seen record breaking fire activity occur repeatedly across northern North America.

Increasing fire activity in the boreal forest is consistent with projected responses to climate change. This means that individual forests are likely to burn more frequently then they have in the past hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Our research on forest responses to large fires shows that an increasing frequency of fire leads to a cascading set of changes that may substantially alter the boreal forest as we know it.

Boreal forests have acted as carbon sinks – they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in biological materials – for millennia. But our recent study of the 2014 fires in the Northwest Territories shows that some parts of the boreal forest are becoming sources of atmospheric car-

bon, potentially contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Recent estimates suggest that boreal forests store more carbon than is currently in the atmosphere, with most of that carbon found in soils. These pools of old soil carbon are contained in deeper soil layers and tend to stay wet. Historically, this has kept them safe from burning.

However, our work in the Northwest Territories shows that when young forests (less than 60 years old) burn, this old carbon –stored in previous fire cycles – is closer to the surface, making it about five times more likely to burn. Increasing fire frequency thus makes boreal forests more likely to release stored legacy carbon back to the atmosphere.

Frequent burning also affects tree regeneration after fire, changing the tree species that dominate the forest canopy and potentially shifting some forest stands to tundra or open woodlands. Our work on forest recovery after the large fire years of 200405 in Alaska and Yukon shows that black spruce, the most abundant tree in North America’s boreal forest, quickly loses its home court advantage when fires become too frequent.

Black spruce is the quintessential slowgrowing northern tree. It doesn’t produce its first seed crop until it is about 25 years old and it needs 50-80 years to reach full

reproductive maturity.

Normally these spruce trees regenerate well after fire. They have the ability to “bank” seeds for the future by sealing them in cones. These cones open with fire and disperse many hundreds of seeds onto the landscape.

However, when black spruce forests burn at an early age, a safe bank of cones has not yet developed and the absence of seeds reduces spruce regeneration success. In the far North, repeat fires in black spruce forests can cause a shift from forest to tundra. In warmer parts of the boreal forest, spruce forests are replaced with deciduous trees like birch and aspen.

When legacy carbon burns and black spruce regeneration fails, one of the boreal forest’s most important ecosystem services, the long-term storage of atmospheric carbon, is jeopardized.

In addition to storing carbon, the boreal forest provides critical habitat for wildlife species such as caribou that feed on lichens in mature conifer stands.

Large herds of barren ground caribou that overwinter in the boreal forest have been a traditional food source for northern peoples for millenia.

Increases in fire that disrupt conifer forests and their lichen understory will likely have negative impacts on caribou populations and the people that depend on them.

Bad drivers

I have a couple of questions for the drivers of PG. How hard is it to merge with traffic? Do you know the meaning of a turning lane and what it’s used for? Do you know what the lever on the left hand of your steering wheel is used for?

I have lost count at how many times drivers in this town will stop on a merge lane. First off, it is dangerous and an accident waiting to happen especially if you stop right on the corner entering the merge lane. Merging is simple and complicated all at the same time. The person merging must have a safe opportunity to join traffic flow and the drivers coming up to the merge lane should be courteous but that rarely happens. Please don’t stop on the merge lanes and drivers, let others merge. It’s better and safer for everyone involved.

Turning lanes are all over this city yet people can’t seem to understand the simple symbols painted on the pavement or placed on a sign at the turning lane. It’s very simple pictography but apparently it is way beyond the understanding of many drivers in this city. Then there is the turning lane that allows drivers to turn left in the middle of the road between the two yellow lines. It’s very easy to use. You pull in between the yellow lines with the prominent white symbol painted on the ground indicating this is a turning lane and you make your turn. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Well it apparently is rocket science to many people and very complicated to understand. That lever on the left hand of your steering wheel lifts up or down and is a turn indicator that lets drivers behind you and those coming towards you know that

you are turning by way of a flashing amber light at the front and rear of your vehicle. It’s a simple concept really. Yet again for many it is something that is beyond their area of knowledge. If you don’t use your turn signal, you’re an accident waiting to happen.

Lastly, on ICBC’s website you can take a free multiple choice road test to see how knowledgeable you are about road use, driving ability and common sense. I encourage you to take it but I suspect many won’t because they think they are good drivers.

Dean Soiland, Prince

George

Burning the truth

We’re told by the media that fires are burning at a record rate in the Amazon forest, that the number of fires in 2019 is up by 80 per cent, “without precedent in the past 20,000 years.”

Ready, set, panic.

But how much of the hysteria is factually based? Basically none.

The Amazon has wetter years and dryer years. This year is dry for them (the opposite of what we experienced here where this was a wet year while the last two years were dry with lots of fires).

While the number of Amazon fires in 2019 is indeed 80 per cent higher than in 2018 (when it was wet there) it’s just seven per cent higher than the average over the last 10 years and only about half what they were fifteen years ago.

And while fires in Brazil have increased, there is no evidence that Amazon forest fires have.

The pictures of raging infernos tweeted around the world by Hollywood A-listers and politicians are stock footage, some as old as 30 years ago, from places as far away as Montana, India, and Sweden. Amazon forest fires just don’t behave spectacularly enough to provide the photo ops needed to

promote the concern.

Most of the Amazon fires are of the burning dry scrub and trees that had been previously cut down for agriculture, and even at that, such deforestation has dropped by almost 70 per cent since 2004.

But it’s the lungs of the earth, producing 20 per cent of the earth’s oxygen, so doesn’t our very survival depend on the Amazon?

No, that’s another myth.

Yabinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford and an expert in tropical forests, program leader of ecosystems research of the Environmental Change Institute, senior research fellow of the Institute of the Environment, UCLA, etc. says the idea is absurd, the net oxygen contribution of the Amazon ecosystem is zero.

Senior environmental scientist Daniel Nepstad, a lead author of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, president and founder of the Earth Innovation Institute, who has worked in the Amazon for over 30 years said the claim that the Amazon produces 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen “is bullshit, there’s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration so it’s a wash.”

So why all the hysteria now when there was no concern 15 years ago when there was twice as much burning? Why all the outrage and blame directed against Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro but not the leaders of neighbouring nations like Bolivia where fires are also burning? Why was there no concern and no outrage and blame directed against former Brazilian President Lula and Environment Secretary Marina Silva when Brazil had twice as much burning? Why wasn’t governor Jerry Brown condemned when

And once shifts from black spruce forests to aspen or tundra occur, these forests are slow to return to historic conditions, as the ingredients necessary to regenerate the original forests are now missing: legacy carbon seedbeds and a source of black spruce seed. The impacts caused by a changing fire frequency can happen fast – loss of legacy carbon and shifts in tree species are triggered by single fire events – and will likely dwarf other impacts of climate change on boreal forests, like drought stress or stimulation of plant growth with a warmer, carbon-rich atmosphere.

Changes to boreal forests and their ecosystem services will impact the lifestyles and livelihoods of local people, as well as influence the future climate trajectory of our planet. As climate change intensifies and fire frequency continues to increase, we are likely to see a greater area of boreal forests shifting from carbon sinks to carbon sources and large declines in old growth conifers by the end of the 21st century.

— Jill Johnstone is an adjunct professor of biology at the University of Saskatchewan, Carissa Brown is an associate professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Xanthe Walker is a postdoctoral research scientist at Northern Arizona University. This article first appeared in The Conversation.

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fires raged through California? Or Justin Trudeau when B.C. burned for the past two summers?

Because it’s not about the fires, it’s not about the Amazon, it’s not about the environment. It’s really about politics. Lula and Silva were of the socialist Workers Party.

Bolsonaro is a conservative.

The outrage is because he had the temerity to win the election and then govern like a conservative. It’s because he has ended the practice of catering to the environmentalists and basically told the IPCC where to shove its accords. For that he must be condemned and punished in any way possible. Art Betke, Prince George

More political gas

It has recently come to my attention that the provincial government is supporting the lame proposal to electrify the natural gas system with the idea of somehow reducing the emissions into the atmosphere.

Maybe I am missing something here, but aren’t we burning all of the gas anyway?

Regardless of how we deliver the gas, it will all be burned by someone. LNG, domestic or industry, it is all the same and we are all breathing the same air the world over. It does not matter if you live in Tibet or Prince George or Timbuktu, we all breathe the same air.

Given that, why are we proposing pumping gas with electricity when the gas turbines are already in place?

Does anyone really think that by switching to electricity we will burn less gas? The gas pushed further down the line will get burned by someone anyway.

The net balance of this proposal is less than zero. Not only are we going to burn more gas as production increases, but we are also going to burn electricity to move it

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somewhere else for someone else to burn.

The electricity that they are proposing to use will come from the new dam on the Peace, which is the bank account for the future use of British Columbians. Should we be squandering it now with the idea of selling more gas?

Incidentally, all that gas that is being burned carries with it liquid plastic and it is all going into the atmosphere. Has anyone proposed a way to mitigate all that plastic, millions of tons of it, going into the atmosphere?

That is another story.

Robert Clayton, Prince George

Inhuman policy

While watching cable news, I learned that families – mostly migrant ones, but not all – were sent notices from the U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services to take their sick family members and get out of the country. They had 33 days before they would otherwise be deported. There was no avenue of appeal. A program providing permission for migrants and visitors with visas for medical treatment was ended without warning, and even backdated to Aug. 7 to deny coverage to the most recent applicants who had reason to believe that they could receive medical help.

Many of the sick are children and are in hospital, receiving life-giving care that they cannot receive in their home countries. Without that care, most will die. What will happen? As families struggle to cope with such monstrous policy imposed upon them, their ailing children will begin to die. Some will be suffering greatly. Will some family members, out of compassion, seek to end that suffering? And at what spiritual cost? Valerie Breathet Prince George

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Take a literary pub tour of London

Russell CONTRERAS The Associated Press

A bartender asks Gavin Smith whether he fancies a citrus pale ale or Kolsch-style lager at the Newman Arms – a London pub dating back to 1730.

The 47-year-old Liphook, England, resident makes his choice, then walks to a spot where writer George Orwell reportedly drank his favourite ales.

Orwell based the Proles pub in his dystopian novel, 1984, after the Newman Arms. He also featured it again in his novel, Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

Sitting at the Orwell table, Smith closes his eyes and attempts to absorb any energy left behind by his favourite scribe.

“I want to take in all that I can,” Smith said.

As soon as Smith finishes his drink, he rejoins a playful and IPA-fueled tour unlocking similar stories linked to London locales where renowned novelists and poets drank and debated literature.

The London Literary Pub Crawl , a popular tour that takes tourists to the favourite hangouts of legendary writers, allows literature fans to stand at the site where A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess and his wife watched a gang destroy the Duke of York pub and stroll the streets as Virginia Woolf while she battled her demons.

Participants will hear stories how poet Dylan Thomas proposed to his wife at one pub and T.S. Elliot threw back some drinks in another.

They also have a chance to drink where a depressed Karl Marx grabbed a beer while in exile before getting started in his masterpiece in capitalism criticism, Das Kapital.

Workers of the world... have a pint.

Organized by English writers and actors, the three-hour tour takes attendees through London’s Fitzrovia district and ends in Westminster’s Soho area, which includes stops by the offices of Sir Paul McCartney and the recording company of Amy Winehouse.

Sometimes actors dressed as Woolf or Charles Dickens lead attendees.

Other times, participants get lucky and get escorted by Nick Hennegan – a gifted and funny writer who has crafted modern Shakespeare adaptations.

His most recent one reinterprets Romeo and Juliet using hip hop and families of dueling football (soccer) clubs.

The writers launched the tour in 2012 to take advantage of the London Olympics, but the group failed to get it started in time.

Still, Hennegan said once the organizers got the Literary Pub Crawl going, they immediately saw sold-out tours.

“We don’t use a touring company or anything like that,” said Hennegan, who also hosts a London literary podcast . “We’re just writers and actors with other day jobs.”

Using a tablet and his memory, Hennegan recently ushered a group that included Smith, myself and a dozen of others starting at The Wheatsheaf, a traditional pub once patronized by Orwell, Burgess and Thomas. He started with an overview of the popular pubs while tourists listened and drank a Mediterranean beer called Estrella Damm or a Hop House 13, a double-hopped lager made with Irish barley.

From there, he took the group to the Samuel Smith Brewery-owned Fitzroy Tavern and eventually to The French House, a watering hole where French General Charles de Gaulle gave a passionate speech to exiles while Nazi Germany occupied France. True, sometimes the tour attracts some who just want to get plastered, Hennegan admitted. “But that not what this is about,” he said. “To fully enjoy it, you have to listen to the stories. Then grab a pint.”

Similar literary pub crawls are operated out of New York City, Dublin and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Other locations with a deep literary past

have none.

For example, the American Southwestern state of New Mexico in the United States is blanketed with breweries and historical sites linked to important works of literature like Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima or John Nichols’ The Milagro Beanfield War. But there are currently no companies that give tours in any of the state’s major cities and towns around works of literature.

For now, almost all the writers discussed in the London tour are white (although a Jimi Hendrix-connected site is visited). That will likely change in the future while the demographics of England continue to change as black writers like Diana Evans, Johny Pitts and Zadie Smith transform the canon of British literature.

The last pub visited on The London Literary Pub Crawl was Norman’s Coach and Horses – a 20th-century drinking den for journalists and later, the Beatles. The festive environment inside with singing and drinking reminded me of tales my uncle Ernest Eguia and grandfather, Carlos Contreras, described when they spoke of visiting London as U.S. Army soldiers before they went into Germany during the Second World War.

Ernest would write about visiting the pubs, drinking and eating fish and chips. He was forced to drop out of a high school during the Great Depression but loved to read. I sat inside wondering if he knew some of the pubs he visited were connected to famous writers.

“I went to see Sweet and Low-Down with Benny Goodman. It was a swell show,” a 19-year-old Carlos wrote his mother,

referring to the 1944 film. “It brought back memories of that good old U.S.A. swing music.”

I mentioned to someone in the pub that my uncle and grandfather visited a pub like this ahead of fighting in Germany.

And, as if the piano player overheard, she began playing We’ll Meet Again the 1939 British song made famous by singer Vera Lynn.

“Your grandfather would have known this song,” Fiona Wallace, of Birmingham, England, tells me. She’s right. Our family would have known the 1942 version performed by Peggy Lee and Goodman.

I imagine a flushed Ernest and Carlos

singing the lyrics, “But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day,” in a pub of strangers. I know both were scared and far from home.

Hennegan hands me a pint.

“Cheers,” he says.

In that Soho pub, I, too, stood far from home. But as a descendant of Ernest and Carlos, I now make my living with words, and today, words for me are also my home. Here, amid the happiness of a World War II-era song, a writer I have yet to discover once found a home in one of these dark corners. We’ll meet soon.

I close my eyes and attempt to absorb all that I could.

AP PHOTO

Writer and tour guide Nick Hennegan leads a group of tourists through London’s Fitzrovia area to explore pubs connected to famous writers.

Breakaway

Cariboo Cougars forward Alex Ochitwa goes one-on-one with the Everett Jr. Silvertips U-18 goaltender on Saturday afternoon at the Elksentre during an exhibition match-up between the two teams.

Young set for Arizona fall ball

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Jared Young is living his dream of playing professional baseball as the only pro who has a Prince George address, but he’s not satisfied. Not even close.

After hitting .300 last season as the Chicago Cubs minor league player of the year, the 24-yearold first baseman/outfielder has had his struggles at the plate in 2019 playing double-A ball in the Southern League with the Tennessee Smokies.

He’s seeing tougher pitching than he came up against last season with the South Bend Cubs (single-A) and Myrtle Beach Pelicans (single-A advanced) but he’s not making any excuses for his drop in production to a .240 batting average as an everyday player for the Smokies.

“It’s not at all where I wanted to be,” said Young. “I thought it would be the same as last year. It’s not exactly what I wanted to happen.”

What he did want was getting picked as one of six Cubs prospects to play in the Arizona Fall League. Young will join the Mesa Solar Sox, a team of select players from

the Cubs, Oakland A’s, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels, to begin a 30-game schedule on Sept. 18. Only 180 players get to play in the AFL

“I wasn’t really surprised and I’m excited,” he said. “It’s a great honour to go to the fall league and I’m really excited I have more baseball to play. It’s what we do for a living and it’s going to be great.

“The coaches there will be different, from different organiza-

tions, and it’ll be a lot of fun. It’s a league that prepares you for the majors and if you perform there, it’s definitely a good look. A lot can change.”

Through 121 games, Young was batting .240 with 107 hits with 21 doubles, a triple and five home runs. He’s walked 33 times, has 58 RBI and a .300 on-base percentage.

Hitting third in the order, Young went 3-for-4 with a walk and drove in one run in a 10-3 win Saturday at Hank Aaron Stadium over the Mobile BayBears. Young’s two-out single in the ninth inning gave the Smokies the lead and they pounded five more runs in that inning.

While his batting average has dropped, Young’s defensive stats have been stellar – a .997 fielding percentage through 82 games at first base and a .994 percentage in 42 games as an outfielder. Now with three pro seasons behind him, Young has a better idea what’s expected of him and how to prepare himself for the daily grind of playing baseball as his full-time job. The season started with spring training in February in Arizona. He’s sat out a few games but with batting practice daily he’s on been on the field virtually every day

for the past seven months. That’s helped teach him the mental side of the game.

“You’ve got to be smart and you’ve got to be able to handle adversity,” he said. “It is a long season and the Southern League is hot (and humid) but I think I’m getting more and more used to it.

“It’s a long day but we have a lot of fun, I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t. It’s a privilege.”

The Smokies finished out of the playoffs but it was still memorable season for Young, who has made some lifelong friends on the team.

“It was a blast, we had a really cool team this year,” he said.

“There’s a lot you can take from how (his teammates) act and how they play. We didn’t play as well as we wanted to but it was still a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.”

The double-A league is sometimes a stopping-off point for major leaguers on rehab assignments coming off injuries and Young saw that for himself when Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist joined the Smokies for one game after a three-month break to deal with his divorce. The 38-year-old Zobrist doubled and walked twice in an 8-2 win over the Jackson Generals Aug. 23, which snapped a six-game losing streak for the

Smokies.

“He was only there for one game and you could tell by the way he played and the energy and just how he carried himself, it was really cool,” said Young.

Sharing the field with players of Zobrist’s calibre is another reminder how close Young is getting to the major leagues and the million-dollar salaries that come with it.

Double-A ball players are paid a pauper’s salary and in the Southern League they travel by bus to play opponents in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. They’re on the road for 70 nights in hotel rooms and spend 70 nights in their apartments in Knoxville.

When asked how closely life in the Southern League resembles that of the teams depicted in the fictional 1988 comedy movie, Bull Durham, Young said: “Strangely close.

“There’s definitely a few things in that movie where you’re like, wow, it happened then and it happens now.”

Young was due to board a flight from Knoxville Tuesday and plans to spend four days in Prince George before he heads to Arizona.

NFL rookie hopes to honour brother after forgiving his killer

Cindy BOREN The Washington Post

The idea, which came from the pain a family suffered when one of its members was shot to death, came from Atlanta Falcons Coach Dan Quinn.

When jersey number 30 became available Monday with the waiver of Ricky Ortiz, Quinn suggested that it go to rookie running back Qadree Ollison, now No. 32, as a way to honour his brother, who had worn the number as a youngster and died after being shot at a Niagara Falls, New York, gas station.

Lerowne Harris, Ollison’s older brother, died Oct. 14, 2017, after being shot three times, a crime for which Denzel Lewis of Niagara Falls pleaded guilty to firstdegree manslaughter in May 2018. He was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison three months later for what the judge said was “an assassination more than a murder.” Police reports and accounts of the crime showed that Harris, who was 14 years older than Qadree, fled across the parking lot after being shot, then was placed in a car

and driven to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where he died. A youth-league star, Harris had dropped out of high school before his junior year; Qadree used football as a way out of housing projects in Niagara Falls.

“I grew up in a rough neighbourhood, like any type of projects where drugs, and gangs, and violence are evident,” Qadree said (via ESPN). “Really, just to be blunt, my brother got caught up in that lifestyle.”

Ollison, a fifth-round pick by the Falcons out of Pittsburgh, and his father, Wayne, differed over Lewis’ punishment, with Qadree writing an emotional note to the judge explaining why he could not hate Lewis, with whom he had attended middle school.

“For some reason, you thought it was right to go and gun down my brother that morning of Oct. 14. You had that choice. My brother, at gunpoint, didn’t have a choice to live. It wasn’t up to him. He lost the two greatest things God gives us as people: He lost his ability to choose, and he lost his life,” Qadree wrote. “Now here I am, and I have this choice to hate you or not. I choose

not to. I don’t hate you, Denzel. I hate what you did, most certainly. But I still think your life is just as precious as the next person’s. No life means more than another’s. None of us are perfect.”

His father may have felt differently, but he was proud of Qadree.

“It just shows that he’s a special guy,” Wayne said of his son, ESPN reported. “I’m telling you as a father, I didn’t have that forgiveness in my heart. Qadree understood that and said, ‘Well, Dad, one day you will get there.’ It takes a special person to lose their older brother, their idol, and still be able to put your head down and move forward.”

Qadree will do so with a number that honours his brother and unites his family.

“They’ve got to call and ask the league, but [Quinn] said it shouldn’t be a problem,” Ollison told ESPN, saying that the request could take five to seven days.

“A number is a number, but this means a little bit more to me. It’s going to be really nice to have that. It’s going to be exciting for everybody, just wearing that number and what it represents to me and my family.”

YOUNG

AP PHOTO Atlanta Falcons running back Qadree Ollison (32) during an NFL preseason football game Aug. 29.

Big match tonight for Andreescu

Stephanie MYLES

The Canadian Press

Bianca Andreescu’s coach sees similarities between the 19-yearold Canadian and former Belgian star Kim Clijsters, and he’s not the only one.

And since Clijsters won 41 titles, including four Grand Slams, made four other major finals and was ranked No. 1 in both singles and doubles, that’s a comparison Andreescu can be proud of.

“It makes me smile, and it made Bianca smile, too, when I mentioned to her maybe three years ago – long before I started working with her – that there were enormous similarities between her game and Clijsters’ game,” her coach Sylvain Bruneau said Tuesday.

Andreescu will face Clijsters’ countrywoman Elise Mertens in the U.S. Open women’s singles quarterfinals today at 4 p.m. PT. Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski also will be in action, in the women’s doubles quarterfinals.

Lindsay Davenport played Clijsters 17 times during her career. The former No. 1, now an analyst for Tennis Channel in the U.S., also sees the parallels.

“I think Bianca uses a bit more variety than Clijsters, but I see it a lot in how she moves to her forehand,” Davenport said. “Kim was an expert at being able to move on a diagonal. It could have been a few feet; it could have been inches – however much she needed to take the ball early. If she saw she had time, she would move into the court.”

If there were rumblings about Andreescu’s prospects coming into the U.S. Open after she came back from a long injury layoff and won her hometown Rogers Cup last month, the volume is turning up.

“Considering she had won two

major tournaments on hard courts this year, you’d expect there would be some buzz about what she might do here,” Bruneau said.

“Now, she’s won four matches, and playing good tennis. But this is new territory for her. She has very little experience in Grand Slams, never mind in the second week of Grand Slams.”

As the women’s field was being whittled down to eight, some notable casualties littered the side of

the U.S. Open highway. Defending champion Naomi Osaka, Wimbledon champion and world No. 4 Simona Halep and 2017 champion Sloane Stephens are among those in Andreescu’s half of the draw who didn’t make the final eight. Left in her half are Mertens along with No. 13 seed Belinda Bencic and No. 23 Donna Vekic, who also will meet Wednesday. Can Andreescu win the U.S. Open, something nearly unthink-

able in January when she was outside the top 150?

“Yes, although you never know how a player will react when they get out there. But she’s never shown any signs of blinking and wondering, ‘What am I doing here?”’ Davenport said. “It’s a tough ask if she has to play Serena (Williams) here, who would be going for her seventh (U.S. Open). But it doesn’t seem like Andreescu ever comes into any match with a

lot of fear,” she added. Davenport also hailed the Canadian’s competitiveness. “I’m super impressed with her. I don’t think there are many teenagers who have that kind of variety. And a lot of times, when players do have that much variety, they don’t know how to put it together at such a young age. And she’s a street fighter. Many of the teenagers, they kind of crumble at times. That doesn’t happen with her.

Connolly confident Cup hero will get another shot

The Canadian Press

Brett Connolly says he owes the Stanley Cup ring on his finger to Devante SmithPelly.

Some 15 months after that magical playoff run, Connolly simply hopes his former teammate gets another chance.

Smith-Pelly scored in Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 2018 final to help the Washington Capitals secure their first championship, only to follow that up with a terrible season where he was eventually placed on waivers and banished to the minors.

With training camps right around the corner, the 27-year-old free agent remains unsigned and looking for work, but Connolly is convinced his friend will get another NHL shot.

“It was tough,” Connolly said of SmithPelly’s road since hoisting the Cup on the Vegas strip. “It’s a tough business. Someone’s going to give him something.

“Whoever does end up signing him, they’re going to get the best Devante SmithPelly that Washington got a couple years back.”

Smith-Pelly, who declined a couple of media requests at last week’s BioSteel camp in Toronto, registered seven goals in 24 playoff games with the Capitals two seasons ago. Playing a fourth-line role, he scored twice in the first round and twice in the Eastern Conference final, including an insurance goal in Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Lightning with the Capitals’ backs against the wall.

The bruising winger then found the back of the net in Washington’s 3-1 victory in Game 3 of title series versus the Vegas Golden Knights and bagged another Game4’s 6-2 blowout win.

Then with his team trailing 3-2 midway through the third period of Game 5, SmithPelly pressured Knights defenceman Luca Sbisa on the forecheck before skillfully coralling Brooks Orpik’s point shot and sliding home the tying goal.

Lars Eller scored the game-winner just two minutes 31 seconds later, with Connolly drawing an assist.

“He’s probably the reason why I have a ring... there’s no question, with that goal he scored in Game 5, and all the goals he scored all the way through,” said Connolly, who signed with the Florida Panthers this summer after three seasons in Washington.

“That’s something that’ll never be taken away from him.” What the six-foot, 223-pound Toronto native wound up losing, however, was NHL employment. Smith-Pelly re-signed with the Capitals for one year at US$1 million last June – Washington inked a $650,000 deal for the same term in July 2017 after he was bought out by the New Jersey Devils – but struggled with just four goals and eight points in 54 games before getting placed on waivers. Unclaimed by the NHL’s other 30 teams, he had six goals and 14 points in 20 AHL games, and was recalled by the Capitals in the playoffs, but didn’t register a point in three appearances as Washington bowed out in the first round.

A second-round pick by Anaheim in 2010, Smith-Pelly has 44 goals and 101 points in 395 regular-season games with the Capitals, Devils, Ducks and Montreal Canadiens.

Smith-Pelly, who’s also posted 16 points (13 goals, three assists) in 51 playoff contests, spent the summer training with BioSteel founder Matt Nichol alongside a number of NHL players as usual – only this time without a contract.

“He had an extremely short off-season (after winning the Cup),” Nichol said. “We’ve had 10 guys in 10 years win the Cup at our gym, which is cool, but it’s a struggle. Even if you have the best intentions, you come back home and you have all sorts of family and friends demanding your time.

“Last summer was a learning process. This summer he was very dialled in.”

Tom Wilson, another of Smith-Pelly’s former Washington teammates, said his workout partner hasn’t let the uncertainty faze him.

“He’s the same guy,” said Wilson. “He’s in a situation where you’ve got to put your head down and hope for an opportunity.

“We had an amazing time together in Washington. We won together, so we’ll always have that bond. I hope the best for him.”

Connolly said although Smith-Pelly had a down year, there are likely other factors at play when it comes to why he and a few other established NHLers remain on the open market – mainly that a number of potential suitors don’t know how much money will be left over once the long list talented restricted free agents finally sign.

But whatever general manager does take the plunge, Connolly doubts Smith-Pelly will disappoint.

“He knows this is a big training camp and a big year,” he said. “He’s a confident person and believes in himself. He’s just being patient. There’s a team that’s going to get a really good player at a really good price.”

CP FILE PHOTOS

Left, Devante Smith-Pelly in 2018. Right, Team Canada forwards Devante Smith-Pelly, left, and Brett Connolly, right, mingle after their annual team photograph as Canada announced the 2011 world juniors roster in Calgary.

AP PHOTO

Bianca Andreescu of Canada plays against Taylor Townsend of the United States during their fourth round match Monday.

Consumer confidence down, poll finds

Bloomberg

Canadian consumer sentiment recorded its biggest monthly setback this year in August, amid growing concerns about the global economic outlook, polling suggests.

The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index – a composite indicator derived from phone surveys of households – ended the month at 56.4, down from 58.6 at the end of July.

The drop reflects waning optimism about Canada’s economy, and effectively reverses the pick up in sentiment earlier this summer.

It marks the first drop in the index of more than two points since November 2018.

The deterioration coincides with the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war that is fueling concerns about a sharp global slowdown, with many Canadians increasingly worried they’ll soon feel a bigger impact.

The share of respondents who believe Canada’s economy will strengthen over the next six months dropped to just under 13 per cent at the end of August, from about 18 per cent a month earlier, according to polling by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg.

That’s approaching record low levels of optimism.

The share who see the economy weakening increased five points to 29 per cent.

Every week, Nanos Research asks 250 Canadians for their views on personal finances, job security, the outlook for the economy and where real estate prices are headed. Bloomberg publishes four-week rolling averages of the 1,000 telephone responses. The good news for now is that the drop in confidence is largely confined to expectations for growth, and haven’t yet hit pocketbooks.

Perceptions of job security and personal finances were little changed last month at about historical averages. Expectations for real estate prices fell in August from the 2019high levels a month earlier, but remain at above-average levels.

Consumer confidence can be a good barometer of an economy’s overall health.

The sluggish readings may

amplify concern the country is headed for a second-half slowdown, after a robust first-half performance that saw growth at a robust 2.1 per cent annualized pace. The broad confidence index fell below year-earlier levels for the first time in three months in August. Ontario recorded the biggest decline in sentiment.

China ban hurting meat processors

Bloomberg

Canadian meat processors rather than ranchers are bearing the brunt of China’s twomonth-old ban on animal protein from the country. Before China suspended Canadian shipments after forged certificates were found on a pork cargo, companies like Maple Leaf Foods Inc. were enjoying a windfall from surging Chinese demand and prices.

China was trying to fill a protein gap left by African swine fever at a time U.S. suppliers were caught up in a trade war between Washington and Beijing, and Canada was a preferred market.

The boom wasn’t being felt to the same ex-

tent by producers given Canadian pork prices are tied to the U.S. hog market.

“But now the shoe’s on the other foot,” Kevin Grier, a livestock market analyst in Guelph, Ontario, said by telephone. “Now our producers are tied to the U.S. and they’re better off than they would be if they were priced with the packers.”

Maple Leaf didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

There are still markets for Canadian pork.

China has increased purchases from other countries, and Canada has started back-filling demand. While they can still sell the meat, processors aren’t receiving a premium on those sales.

For Canadian beef, China is a small market

at 7.7 per cent of exports. With China out of the picture, the industry has been able to easily reroute to other countries.

There is still no clarity on when the halt will be lifted, although the Canadian government has expressed optimism it will be able to restore exports before an investigation into the forged certificates is complete.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency “has provided detailed information to Chinese officials on the measures we have taken to address their concerns,” Marie-Claude Bibeau, minister for agriculture and agri-food, said in an emailed statement.

“We are waiting for a response from Customs China before resuming export certificates for pork and beef destined for China.”

Air Canada challenges Onex’s WestJet takeover

The Canadian Press

Air Canada is challenging WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s $3.5-billion acquisition by Onex Corp., arguing in a filing to the country’s transportation regulator the deal breaches federal rules that limit foreign ownership of carriers.

In May, Toronto-based Onex made its long-coveted leap into aviation with an agreement to pay $31 per share for WestJet, which would operate as a private company.

Air Canada said in a letter to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) that co-investors in Kestrel Bidco Inc. – the Onex subsidiary that is buying WestJet – may come from outside the country, amounting to a “serious risk” – though some experts view the filing as a

delay tactic as the country’s biggest airline grapples with its own regulatory gauntlet in a deal to acquire travel company Transat A.T. Inc.

Federal legislation limits foreign ownership of a Canadian airline to 49 per cent, with a maximum of 25 per cent for any one foreign investor. Onex, which managed $23.2 billion of invested capital as of Dec. 31, is a private equity firm whose funds include cash from foreign investors.

The “opaque nature” and “flexibility” of the takeover’s private equity structure introduces a “significant risk” that non-Canadian co-investors could have de facto control of WestJet, Air Canada lawyer David Perez said in the Aug. 15 filing, obtained by The Canadian Press.

Though co-investors can hold only a minority stake, “Onex lacks necessary internal controls to ensure that WestJet remains Canadian,” the letter states, citing the possibility of shareholder veto rights, unanimous consent requirements and corporate dependence on foreign financing – all of which “can skew control.”

Currently, Onex chief executive Gerry Schwartz holds all of the outstanding multiple voting shares (MVS), which entitle the holder to elect 60 per cent of Onex’s board.

If he steps down, however, those shares will immediately lose most of their rights, the letter says.

“The potential for the MVS extinguishment is real given Mr. Schwartz’s current career stage.

At 77 years old and having served as CEO since 1983, his

eventual retirement should not be considered a remote eventuality,” Perez writes.

Onex said in an email it is “pleased the deal has received approval” from federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau and the Competition Bureau.

“The arrangement is still subject to the receipt of the Canadian Transportation Agency’s review of ownership structure,” noted WestJet spokeswoman Lauren Stewart.

WestJet shareholders approved the proposed acquisition in July, with 92.5 per cent voting in favour.

The same month, an Alberta court approved the deal, which Onex and WestJet expect to complete following further regulatory green lights later this year.

U.S.

more than US$110 billion worth of Chinese imports on Sunday, while China put duties on U.S. crude oil. The intensified trade war between the world’s two largest economies is looking more and more like a prolonged situation with U.S. President Donald Trump even suggesting talks could drag into his second term.

In addition, U.S. factory activity shrank in August for the first time since August 2016 while Canadian manufacturing activity slowed in August as new work received by firms slumped to the lowest level in nearly four years, pressured by trade tensions.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 42.84 points at 16,399.23 as the heavyweight energy, consumer, financial and industrial sectors weighed on the market. The rising price of gold helped Canada’s main stock index to outperform U.S. markets.

The December gold contract was up US$26.50 at US$1,555.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was down 2.35 cents at US$2.53 a pound.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 285.26 points, or 1.1 per cent, at 26,118.02. The S&P 500 index was down 20.19 points at 2,906.27 while the Nasdaq composite was down 88.72 points at 7,874.16. On the TSX, consumer discretionary fell 1.5 per cent with Martinrea International Inc. down 2.8 per cent and Linamar Corp. off 2.7 per cent.

BLOOMBERG PHOTO

A pedestrian carries a Nordstrom shopping bag while walking on Robson Street in Vancouver.

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Prince George Citizen September 4, 2019

Other pests pose problem for B.C. forests

French immersion numbers hit record high

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Watch for students, drivers warned

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Mom gets life for killing daughter

The Canadian Press

Trucks moving salmon over Fraser landslide

Pipeline ruling today

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‘Total devastation’ Hurricane creates humanitarian crisis in Bahamas

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