Prince George Citizen September 5, 2019

Callen Larmand, 9, was one of the students outside Westwood Elementary School, handing out Think of me

The school’s Grade 3 and 4 students created the cards last year for this year’s first day of school.

Dead Surrey man had links to local crime scene

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

One of the two Surrey men who went missing and were later found dead near Ashcroft late last month has a crime-related connection to Prince George.

In 2005, a then 23-year-old

Richard Allan Scurr was arrested and subsequently sentenced to seven months in jail and two years probation for trafficking in cocaine and related offences.

At the time, RCMP alleged he was a key member of The Crew, a gang affiliated with the Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels.

One of the conditions of his probation was that he stay out of Prince George city limits.

On March 11, 2005, Prince George RCMP followed Scurr as he drove a leased vehicle to a dead-end road off North Nechako Road, where he met a second vehicle, the Citizen reported at the time.

Police found six plastic bags hidden under a cup holder in the vehicle Scurr was driving. Each contained 40 grams of crack cocaine.

The street value was estimated

at $25,000, court heard.

In addition, police found $1,135 in cash.

Scurr was eventually released, but on Sept. 15, 2005 he was charged with a breach of bail conditions when he was found in possession of marijuana.

He was again charged with breach of bail conditions Sept. 16, 2005 when he was discovered to be out at 11:30, after a 10 p.m. curfew.

On Sept. 17, 2005 he was once more in violation of the curfew when he took a trip to Quesnel after hours.

Subsequently he was found in possession of a cellphone prohibited under bail conditions as well as a small amount of marijuana, court was told during sentencing on Dec. 5, 2005.

Co-accused Bernard Schneider was sentenced on May 23, 2007 to one year in jail and one year probation.

During the sentencing hearing for Schneider, the court heard that police saw a white bag that turned out to contain 143 grams of crack cocaine with a street value in a range of $14,000 to $19,000 passed from Schneider’s

vehicle to the vehicle of the coaccused.

On Aug. 20, the bodies of Scurr and Ryan Provencher were found near Aschcroft.

Mounties said major crime investigators were called in because police believe the deaths “involve criminality.”

Police say they were called to a rural area north of Spences Bridge and the BC Coroners Service has confirmed their identities.

The two were last seen July 17 in Metro Vancouver.

At that time, police said the 38-year-old Provencher and 37-year-old Scurr planned to travel to the southern Interior and preliminary information indicated the men reached their destination, 35 kilometres northeast of Lytton, along the Thompson River.

Provencher’s white 2019 Jeep Cherokee was found on July 21, parked in a wooded area near Logan Lake.

An air and ground search of a wooded area around Logan Lake was conducted after the Jeep was recovered.

– with files from Paul Strickland and The Canadian Press

Pulp mill shutdown extended

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

A scheduled week-long shutdown for maintenance at PG Pulp and Paper will be followed by a two-week closure in response to weak prices for its product, a Canfor Pulp spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. Employees were notified on Tuesday, Michelle Ward said in an email. The maintenance turnaround is to run from Sept. 14 to 22 but the mill will not resume operating until at least Oct. 7.

Ward attributed the move to weak demand and low prices for unbleached kraft pulp and kraft paper.

“We regret the impact the extended downtime will have on our employees, their families and the local communities,” Ward added. The number of employees af-

fected was not provided. According to Canfor Pulp’s second quarter report, issued July 25, the price of northern bleached softwood kraft shipped to China fell by 18 per cent over the quarter while that shipped to the United States dropped eight per cent.

In response, the company invoked phased curtailments at its Intercontinental and Northwood pulp mills in Prince George. In an online video presentation, posted Aug. 26, consultant Brian McClay and Associates said China has been the “engine driving demand growth” while demand in Europe has been terrible and weak in North America. But China is “no longer propping everything up as their economy struggles amidst a massive trade war with the U.S. and high debt levels.”

Provincial court docket

From Prince George provincial court, August 26-29, 2019:

– Crystal Jessica Dowe (born 1992) was sentenced to time served for willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer, committed in Prince George, and breaching probation, committed in Chilliwack. Dowe was in custody for four days prior to sentencing.

– Christopher Dane Josefsson (born 1984) 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.

– Syryph Sycoraijan Tea Campbell (born 1991) was sentenced to no further days in jail for willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer and breaching probation. Campbell was in custody for one day following her arrest.

– Larry William Baraniuk (born 1958) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $500 plus a $75 victim surcharge for driving while driver’s licence suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

– Catheriine Bernadette Erickson (born 1976) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 for driving while impaired under the Criminal Code and sentenced to time served for failing to appear in court. Erickson spent one day in custody following her arrest.

– Winnie Oranda French (born 1968) was issued a oneyear $1,000 recognizance after

allegation of causing fear of injury or damage, committed in Chetwynd.

– Dawn Georgette Gunanoot (born 1975) was sentenced to time served for breaching an undertaking or recognizance, committed in Hazelton. Gunanoot was in custody for six days prior to sentencing.

– Jayden Rapheal Robert John (born 2001) was sentenced to time served for breaching an undertaking or recognizance. John was in custody for six days prior to sentencing.

– Stephen Daniel Johnstone (born 1978) was sentenced to one year probation with a suspended sentence for mischief $5,000 or under and to time served for two counts of breaching probation. Johnstone was in custody for five days following his arrest.

– Chayse Aeryn Riley Johnson (born 1996) was sentenced to 251 days in jail and three years probation, issued a 10-year sexual offender prohibition order and a three-year firearms prohibition for sexual interference of person under 16 and to 14 days in jail for breaching an undertaking or recognizance.

– Jordan Neil Shaw (born 1994) was sentenced to one year probation for theft $5,000 or under, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and disguising his face with intent to commit a crime. Shaw was in custody for 192 days prior to sentencing.

Trio named Citizens of Year

Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca

For years members of the Prince George community have been trying to get volunteer extraordinaire Noreen Rustad to let her name stand among those named Citizen of the Year.

She politely declined until she came up against Darrell Hubbell, the chair of the Community Foundation Citizens of the Year committee.

“You can’t say no to Darrell,” Rustad laughed, who always thought because she volunteered for the Community Foundation that she shouldn’t agree to be a person they honoured for her many contributions to Prince George.

Hubbell thought otherwise and made his pitch that Rustad needed to agree for the good of the foundation of which she is a founding member. When Rustad realized she could promote the Community Foundation and raise awareness around it, she graciously acquiesced.

“I am very honoured to be named one of this year’s Citizens of the Year,” Rustad said.

She’s in good company. Standing beside her during the announcement held Wednesday at the Coast Inn of the North was Albert Koehler, former city councilor, community volunteer and the person who championed to get the engineering program at UNBC.

“It takes a team to make things happen, I was the champion behind getting the engineering program here but it took so many people getting behind it to make it happen,” Koehler said.

Chuck Chin, known as Prince

Krause to receive volunteer medal

Citizen staff

Retired Prince George social worker Murry Krause will be among 44 British Columbians who will receive the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers on Thursday.

Governor General Julie Payette and Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin will present the medals during a ceremony at Government House.

Krause has been engaged in community and social justice work for more than 40 years.

He was executive director of the Central Interior Native Health Society for 22 years and remains a longtime city councillor through which he currently chairs the Indigenous Relations Committee of the Union of BC Municipalities.

The Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers recognizes the exceptional volunteer achievements of Canadians from across the country in a wide range of fields.

As an official Canadian honour, the Medal for Volunteers incorporates and replaces the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award, created in 1995 by then-governor general Roméo LeBlanc. The medal builds on the legacy and spirit of the Caring Canadian Award by honouring the dedication and commitment of volunteers.

Fraser slide a threat to smaller fish

The Canadian Press

Officials are uncertain whether limited success in getting some salmon species past a rock slide in British Columbia’s Fraser River will work with smaller fish expected to arrive in the coming days.

Michael Crowe, with the Department Fisheries and Oceans, says an estimated 1.5 million pink salmon will pass through the remote area but they’re weaker swimmers than chinook and sockeye, and coho and steelhead will show up soon afterwards.

He says engineering work to blast rock obstructing the passage of five species of salmon is challenging. Crews have managed to transport nearly 60,000 salmon by helicopter since the slide was discovered in June.

George’s community photographer, was also named one of the Citizens of the Year. Chin donates his time and talent to capture thousands of moments in the community during special occasions and public events, along with nature shots that showcase the beauty surrounding Prince George. He shares his photos through social media for all to see.

“It’s important to give back and to give of your time – it’s something you have so give your time,”

Chin said, who was honoured to be recognized for his volunteerism.

The Citizens of the Year Gala will be held Friday, Oct. 11 at the Coast Inn of the North to celebrate the three volunteers.

Each individual gave of their time, skills and knowledge to make Prince George a better place to work and play, said Alain LeFebvre, president of the Community Foundation.

“If you look at the past Citizens

of the Year they are a stellar group and representative of what this community is all about from a volunteer perspective,” Mayor Lyn Hall said.

“Simply put these three are ‘goto’ people in our community and whenever people think about having to do something you automatically pick up the phone and call one of these folks that are standing beside me today.”

The Prince George Community Foundation, founded in 1995,

is a volunteer-driven, non-profit organization. It is a member of the Community Foundations of Canada and facilitates philanthropy by partnering with donors to build permanent endowment funds to support community projects. Grants are given to non-profit organizations that wish to enhance the quality of life to residents of Prince George. For more information about the gala and the Community Foundation visit www.pgcf.ca

New Hart school on schedule

Citizen staff

Construction of the new Kelly Road Secondary School remains on schedule for completion by next September, School District 57 said Wednesday.

The new school, which carries a $44.3-million price tag, will hold 900 students and will replace the original Kelly Road Secondary School, which was built in the early 1960s.

It will also house the latest in technology and design, according to the school district.

“This is the first time that it’s all being

brought together all at once,” said Barry Bepple, School District No. 57’s energy and sustainable conservation coordinator.

“We do all of this technology at individual locations throughout our district but this is the first opportunity we’ve had to build it and bring it all together as a collection of all the things we’ve been learning about.

“People will liken it to Duchess Park, which was completed in 2010, but it’s different,” Bepple added. “It’s designed differently, the spaces within it are designed differently. There are a lot of feature enhancements to each of the spaces.”

Fires strike duplexes

Citizen staff

A second duplex in the Heritage neighbourhood has been the victim of a fire in as many days.

At about 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Prince George Fire Rescue crews from three halls were called to the 200 block of McIntyre Crescent after one of the homes’ occupants heard the smoke alarm, exited the building and called 911.

Firefighters found smoke coming from one side of the two-storey building. The fire was quickly extinguished but not before about $75,000 damage was done, PGFR said.

There were no injuries.

“This fire appears to have started in the lower level bedroom, the cause is undetermined and under investigation,” assistant chief John Law said.

The event occurred the day after a fire wreaked about $100,000 worth of damage to a duplex in the 4300 block of First Avenue.

Called to the scene shortly before 1 p.m., Prince George Fire Rescue firefighters found smoke and flames coming from a back corner of the older, single-storey building but were able to quickly extinguish the flames.

Two people were at home in the unit next to the one where the fire originated and were evacuated safely.

No obvious sign of how the fire started was found and the investigation of that fire has been handed over to Prince George RCMP.

“We will be looking for any evidence that can determine the cause of the fire and whether someone was criminally responsible,” Cpl. Craig Douglass said.

The new building sits behind the original one at 4540 Handlen Road, which will be torn down once it is no longer in use.

That will begin during the fall of 2020 with removal of hazardous material from inside the school.

The full demolition could be finished by as early as spring 2021.

After that, some grading work around the new school will be done, followed by the installation of roadways, bus lanes and parking lots.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

The 2019 Citizen of the Year inductees are, left to right, Chuck Chin, Noreen Rustad and Albert Koehler.

NDP, Greens battle for change voters

The Canadian Press

When 14 former NDP candidates and officials in New Brunswick defected to the Greens on Tuesday, they acted out a switch the Green party hopes more leftleaning voters will make in the upcoming election campaign.

At stake, according to some observers, is the mantle of the left-of-centre, environmentalist alternative to the Liberals, and potentially the balance of power after the October vote.

The competition has been exacerbated by a slide for the NDP in the polls from a peak near the high teens for much of 2017 and 2018, to around 13 per cent today, recent polls suggest. Green support, meanwhile, surged from around 6 per cent at the beginning of the year to about 11 per cent in recent weeks – with strong regional support in Atlantic Canada, B.C. and Quebec.

The NDP had fewer than 200 candidates nominated across the country as of Tuesday. In New Brunswick on the day all those former loyalists walked, the number was zero. The Greens are nearing the 300-mark for candidates nationwide.

On this foundation a narrative has grown that the traditional party of progressivism has already lost a battle with the Liberals and Conservatives to be considered a “main party,” according to Karl Belanger, a former national director of the NDP.

“The problem going into this election is that nobody thinks the NDP is actually contending for power,” Belanger said.

“They are thrown in the same league as the Green party.”

Perhaps the biggest sign of the strength of that idea was NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s recent announcement he would not support a Conservative minority government because of leader Andrew Scheer’s position on same-sex marriage. Singh’s promise was also a sign he might be willing to throw his support behind a Liberal minority instead.

Green Leader Elizabeth May, by contrast, has left the door ajar for co-operation with the Conserva-

tives - though on Monday she said she would not support any party, based on their current climatechange plans.

Belanger’s advice on the Greens: ignore them.

“You have to focus on the main prize,” which is presenting a viable alternative to the Liberals, he said. Better to hit the party defending 177 seats than the small party trying to add to its two-member caucus. Plus, the Greens have an aura of non-partisanship, Belanger said.

“It’s pretty hard to go on the offensive against apple pie.”

In an interview, NDP house leader Peter Julian focused his critiques on the “lobbyist parties” – the Liberals and Conservatives –and said of the Greens: “It’s really

good another party is also talking about how to address the climate crisis.”

Julian did say he thinks the Greens were hurt by May’s seeming openness to working with a Conservative minority. But he repeatedly brought the message back to the NDP’s own platform, which he said is the only one that responds to what he described as the twin crises of our time: the environment and economic inequality.

The Greens raised a bit more money than the NDP in the most recent quarter, according to filings with Elections Canada, bringing in nearly $1.44 million compared to the NDP’s haul of just over $1.43 million. But according to an analysis of

currently available Elections Canada financial returns conducted by The Canadian Press, there are just a handful of donors (representing about $20,000) who contributed to the NDP in 2017 but who have not done so in 2019 so far, and have instead given to the Greens.

Also, “there is no simple, direct correlation between the NDP vote and the Green vote,” according to Belanger.

One study from June suggested the Greens were drawing support in equal proportion from people who voted for the NDP or Liberals in 2015, and a slightly higher percentage of people who didn’t vote that year said they were now supporting the Greens.

Still, any votes coming from the NDP could have profound effects.

Particularly on Vancouver Island, where six of seven seats are held by the NDP, but recent polls have suggested the Greens could make gains in October. Another high-profile competition between the NDP and Greens has been for candidates. Several former NDP politicians have run or are already sitting for the Greens: Pierre Nantel, Jean Rousseau and Dennis Drainville in Quebec, and Paul Manly in B.C. And then there’s the mass defection in New Brunswick.

Julian downplayed the importance of these indicators as signals of how his party will fare in the coming election.

He argued those factors looked similar before its 2011 breakthrough.

Philpott stands by abortion pledge

Jane Philpott is standing by the commitment she made as a Liberal candidate to support access to abortion despite her personal beliefs.

The former cabinet minister, now running for re-election as an Independent in her suburban Toronto riding after being kicked out of the Liberal caucus in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin affair, said there are some issues that might cause her to vote differently from her former party should she return to Ottawa after the Oct. 21 vote.

But abortion, which she described as a right that is both protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and upheld by the courts, is not one of the issues where she plans to change her approach.

“The commitment that I made as a Liberal not to oppose access to abortion is something that I will maintain a commitment to,” Philpott said in an interview.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requires all Liberal MPs to vote with his government on matters of reproductive health, and wouldbe candidates for his party are asked during the nomination process whether that will be a problem.

Philpott, a Mennonite and a family doctor, said her religious belief has no bearing on what she would do as an MP.

“I have personally never been in the circumstance where I have had to make a decision like that,” said Philpott.

“If I were, my sense would be that unless there were extraordinary extenuating circumstances, that it would not be the

right choice for me personally to make for myself,” she said, “but that has nothing to do with my obligations as a member of Parliament to uphold the broad rights that are well-documented for Canadians writ large.”

The former health minister also accused the Liberals of being intentionally divisive last month by circulating a 2005 speech by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer stating his opposition to same-sex marriage, especially since many Liberal MPs, including some still in the caucus, once held those views.

“I think it’s what makes Canadians so cynical about politicians,” she said.

“We should be talking about what good things we are going to do to improve the lives of Canadians, rather than finding ways to amp up divisions amongst Canadians,” she said.

Philpott also criticized the Liberals for suggesting Scheer would restrict access to abortion as prime minister.

“For Liberals in particular to politicize an issue that has to do with the choice that women make about their reproductive rights, I think is highly opportunistic and shows a focus on political expediency rather than truly respecting something that is such a serious and important personal matter for Canadians,” she said.

In Markham-Stouffville, Philpott is up against Helena Jaczek (herself a doctor and a former Ontario health minister) for the Liberals, Theodore Antony for the Conservatives and Roy Long for the Green party.

The NDP have yet to nominate their candidate in the riding.

CP PHOTO Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May speaks in Toronto during a fireside chat about the climate on Tuesday.

The Canadian Press

CP PHOTO Former Liberal cabinet minister Jane Philpott is pictured outside her campaign office, in Stouffville, Ont., in August.

Opioid use seven times higher in Canada than Sweden

The Canadian Press

Patients in Canada and the United States filled opioid prescriptions after minor surgery at a rate that was seven times higher than those in Sweden, reveals a new study that suggests the addictive pain drugs could be used more judiciously in North America. Researchers examined prescriptions filled by individuals in the first week after undergoing one of four low-risk operations in the three countries. Just 11 per cent of patients in Sweden filled an opioid prescription, compared with 79 per cent in Canada and 76 per cent in the U.S.

Among those who filled an opioid prescription, the amount of opioid dispensed was significantly higher in the U.S. compared with Canada and Sweden, adds the study published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open.

“I think there’s a lot of data, including this study, that suggests that patients are getting more opioids than they need for even just

minor surgical procedures,” said Dr. Karim Ladha, a clinician-scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital and co-author of the study. “The concern is really that we’re contributing to a supply of opioids in the community.”

Further, the study raises the question of whether opioids are necessary for pain management after surgery, Ladha said. Researchers didn’t have information about the post-operative pain experiences of patients in this study, but it appears many in Sweden were “getting by” without opioids after the same procedures, he said.

“Do we actually need them? While this study can’t answer this question, it’s driving what we’re going to do in the future, which is a randomized controlled trial to really test this hypothesis,” he said, adding he was in the process of applying for a grant for further research.

The study sample consisted of about 129,000 patients in the U.S., 85,000 in Canada and 9,800 in Sweden, between the

ages of 18 and 64 who underwent gallbladder removal, appendix removal, meniscus repair or breast lump removal.

The cohort in Sweden was smaller because of the population size in the Scandinavian country and because data was only available there between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2014, explained Ladha.

Data in the U.S. covered the period of Jan. 1, 2013 through Dec. 31, 2015, while in Canada data covered July 1, 2013 through March 31, 2016. The Canadian data were obtained from three databases in Ontario.

The number of opioid prescriptions filled were consistent across all four surgical procedures, with very similar percentages of patients filling prescriptions in the U.S. and Canada, and much lower percentages in Sweden, the study says.

There were significant differences in the type of opioid prescription filled. Codeine and tramodol were often prescribed in Canada and Sweden, but rarely used in the U.S., while the use of combination opioid

formulations was much higher in the North American countries.

The findings likely point to differences across the countries in doctors’ approaches to opioid prescribing, public attitudes about the role of opioids in treating pain and drug marketing and regulation that may encourage or constrain opioid prescribing, the study says.

Excessive post-operative opioid prescribing has been associated with increased risks of drug diversion, new long-term opioid use and the development of opioid use disorder, the study notes. Nearly 4,500 people died of opioid-related causes in Canada last year.

“A large proportion of patients who are opioid-naive, their first prescription often comes at the time of surgery,” Ladha said. “It’s hard to quantify how much of what’s going on in society in terms of the opioid epidemic can be attributable to this particular period. But we do know that surgery represents one of the most common reasons why someone is first exposed to opioids.”

Colours combine to form a creative illusion

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Democritus of Abdera said “there appears to be heat, there appears to be cold, there appears to be color. In reality, all there is are atoms and the void.”

Amazingly enough, this is pretty much the picture modern science has of the world. There are only atoms surrounded by space or the void. The concepts of heat and cold are feelings we have.

And as Jean Dubuffet put it in 1973, “there is no such thing as colour, only coloured materials.” Atoms and molecules are not coloured objects.

The colour around us is a matter of perception. It is a consequence of the way light receptors in our visual system respond to the world. Things are only coloured because we perceive them to be. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but so is colour, shape, form, pretty much every aspect of everything we see.

Artists play with this perception. And over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about oil paints

as a way of discussing the science in art and the art of science. We have been discussing pigments and dyes along with the compounds used to makes some of them.

All of our paintings are twodimensional representations of a three-dimensional world. They trick our senses into seeing light and shadow, background and foreground... into seeing the world through the eyes of the artist. But at the very heart of it all, inside the chemical compounds, there is no colour.

The technical explanation for what we see is derived from quantum mechanics. Photons of light interact with matter through electronic transitions. Ground state electrons can absorb the energy of a photon elevating the electron to an excited state. Alternatively, excited state electrons can emit

a photon dropping the electron to a ground state (or some lower energy excited state).

Absorption and emission define the subtractive and additive nature of colour in paintings and light. Pigments and dye absorb some wavelengths while reflecting others.

For example, a blue pigment appears blue because the molecules and atoms within the compound absorb yellow light. The blue we see is the light left over after the absorption. Painting with all of the pigments blended together results in the absorption of all the light and ultimately yields a black colour.

In contrast, light is generated by emission and coloured light, such as used in theatre lighting, adds up to white light or the whole spectrum. The blue, in this case, is the portion of the visible spectrum corresponding to the blue light with the other colours blocked out. Sunlight contains all of the wavelengths from indigo to red and many wavelengths beyond but it is the rainbow which we see in the sky which represents the visible components of the electro-

Blood cancer survival rates rising fastest

The Canadian Press

There was a time David Mitchell didn’t believe he would survive until his 50th birthday. But he reached that milestone earlier this year, thanks to a life-saving stem cell transplant to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“They basically said, ‘Yup, there is zero sign of cancer anywhere,”’ the Ottawa resident recalls of a checkup that followed previous failed rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. “It was astounding.”

Today, the Canadian Cancer Society says Mitchell can count himself among the growing number of people who are surviving blood cancer due to precision medicine

Fussy eating makes teen blind

The Washington Post

An extreme case of “fussy eating” caused blindness in a British teenager, according to a new report published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

When Denize Atan, the study’s lead author, met the 17-year-old boy at Bristol Eye Hospital, his eyesight had been deteriorating for two years. But what shocked her most was “how long the patient’s eating behaviour had persisted,” Atan wrote in an email. “By the time I first met him, he had followed the same diet for [approximately seven] years.”

The teen, who has not been named, told doctors that since elementary school, “he had a daily portion of fries from the local fish and chip shop and snacked on Pringles (Kellogg), white bread, processed ham slices, and sausage,” the study said.

The risks of poor nutrition are often associated with obesity, poor cardiovascular health and cancer, but Atan’s study warns that it can also have disastrous, and sometimes irreversible, effects on the nervous system, including vision. By 15, the boy’s hearing began failing, and then the vision complications arrived. Doctors could not determine what was causing either symptom. Additional testing uncovered that his vitamin B12 deficiency had not waned. He had also developed a reduced bone mineral density level, and had high levels of zinc and low levels of copper, selenium and vitamin D.

– treatments based on a person’s genes or other unique features of the cancer the person has.

New statistics released Wednesday suggest the survival rate for blood cancers is outpacing the survival rate of any other cancer.

The overall survival rates have improved to 63 per cent – up eight percentage points since the early 1990s.

But the most gains have been among common blood cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma and leukemia. The survival rate for these cancers increased 16 to 19 percentage points.

magnetic spectrum.

This is, perhaps, not the way most artists would think of their paintings – a subtle blending of the absorption properties of chemical compounds but it speaks to the essential role of chemistry and physics in art and of how atoms interact with each other.

And why it is so hard to paint light. There is more to this whole picture.

Over the past weeks, we have made the distinction between pigments and dyes. In general, pigments are considered to be colour-fast or not susceptible to photochemical degradation. They are generally made of metal ions such as cobalt, chromium, or copper. In each case, the metal ion has electrons which can move from one energy level in the ion to another.

But they stay within the atom.

The size of the jump the electron takes is influenced by the atoms surrounding the metal ion. Various shades of blue and green can be obtained from copper complexes, for example. But no bonds are disrupted during the process.

Dyes tend to be organic molecules where colour is obtained by transitions within bonds. That is, within the cloud of electrons holding two atoms together. The colour obtained is influenced by the atoms involved in the bond. But it is also more susceptible to bleaching as these electronic transitions can break up the molecule by destroying the bond. Of course, while the materials in a painting give rise to absorptions, colour is a matter of perception. We have three different colour receptors or cones in our retina corresponding, roughly, to cyan, magenta, and green along with the rods which discern the gray scale. It is the combination of these receptors in our eyes and the processing in our brains which we perceive as colour. The processing part actually explains why different people can see the same colour in a slightly different way. There may not be colour. There may only be atoms and the void. But the world of art takes advantage of our perceptions and quantum mechanics to give us something more.

Universities should rein in air travel

Arecent article on air travel in the journal Science has caused some turbulence in the academic community.

In it, Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, calculated that she had travelled nearly 200,000 kilometres in 2017, mostly to attend conferences. That’s the equivalent of 10 Montréal to Beijing round trips, or five times around the world.

That tally prompted her to question the environmental impact of her professional activities, and reduce the distance she travelled by plane by 75 per cent the following year.

Although her case is extreme, Cobb is no exception. University researchers are often required to travel to conferences, meetings, committees or to conduct research. A survey we conducted among Université de Montréal professors determined that they travel an average of 33,000 kilometres per year in the course of their professional activities, mostly by air.

Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students also travel as part of their research and to present their results, at a rate of 13,600 kilometres and 5,900 kilometres per person, respectively.

All these kilometres travelled for science leave their mark. Transport contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, which are largely responsible for the current climate change. Air transport alone contributes nearly two per cent of global annual emissions of carbon dioxide and emits many other pollutants that are harmful to both health and the environment. It is also one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 in the world.

Aviation emissions, for example, increased by more than 75 per cent between

1990 and 2012, and they continue to grow at a frenetic pace. At the individual level, the average Canadian emits, through their consumption of goods and services, about 13 tonnes of CO2 per year.

However, emissions resulting from the air transport of Université de Montréal professors alone averages 11 tonnes of CO2 annually per person.

To stay within the Canadian average, researchers would therefore have to reduce emissions in other areas of their lives, including food, energy consumption and daily transportation, to virtually zero – a mission that is almost impossible.

If we compile the CO2 generated by all research-related travel for the Université de Montréal – that’s researchers, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students — they are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of all the university’s CO2 emissions. That’s a calculation that takes into account energy consumption on campus, daily staff and student travel and the production of food sold on campus, among other emissions.

However, the case of Université de Montréal is not unique.

Other universities, such as McGill University or the University of British Columbia, have done this exercise. The results vary, but one constant remains: research-related travel is frequent and responsible for the emission of a significant amount of CO2.

Researchers have several reasons for travelling, but the main reason is related to the presentation of research results: 67 per cent of the trips made by Université de Montréal respondents were to conferences or seminars, while 18 per cent were for research purposes, the rest were for meetings, committees or other gatherings. These activities are valued by universities and granting agencies, which promote the

international reach of research. However, this internationalization is not limited to researchers. Universities are increasingly seeking to recruit foreign students and promote international exchanges among their own students, which also has a significant environmental impact.

The question remains: are all these trips scientifically profitable? The debate was launched earlier this year by researchers at the University of British Columbia, who assessed the scientific productivity of researchers based on the frequency of their air travel.

The reasoning is simple: the more researchers travel, the more they expand their networks. The more they disseminate their research, the more successful they are.

The results are surprising: the number of trips made would have very little influence on the productivity of researchers. One hypothesis that could explain these results is that researchers who travel a lot would have less time to do their research and write articles for scientific journals.

Another finding: 10 per cent of the reported trips would have been easy to avoid, since they were trips of less than 24 hours that could have been replaced by videoconference or whose distance did not justify air travel.

Some researchers, such as Kim Cobb, have opted for a clear commitment to reduce their travel. Several, in particular, climate experts, are signatories to the No Fly Climate Sci initiative, where they commit to travel less by air, among other things by limiting their attendance at international conferences.

Some institutions have also taken the lead. For example, the University of California at Los Angeles requires a contribution from all researchers travelling by air to offset CO2 emissions from their travel.

Others, such as the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in England, have established clear rules to promote remote encounters, use another mode of transport where possible and combine different professional activities within the same trip.

At the Université de Montréal, for the time being, there is no policy in place to reduce the environmental impacts of academic travel. Although several researchers interviewed wanted to reduced their emissions, they raised to issues: the difficulty of paying for carbon offsets from their research funds, due to the rules of the granting agencies, which often do not allow this type of expense; and the lack of accessibility to videoconferencing systems.

Finally, it must be asked whether all researchers have the same responsibility or ability to reduce their emissions, which raises questions of equity.

For example, researchers from New Zealand or Australia have difficulty finding alternative means of transportation to international destinations.

This is also the case for researchers from developing countries who benefit from presenting their results at European or North American conferences. Travel is also essential for researchers at the beginning of their careers who need to expand their network of contacts to secure permanent employment or for those whose research requires a presence in the field.

In short, the environmental impacts of academic travel are known. So are the solutions. It is now up to institutions to determine how to adapt their realities to these impacts and to researchers to adopt measures put in place.

— Julie Talbot is a professor and Julien Arsenault is a doctoral candidate at the Université de Montréal. This article first appeared in The Conversation.

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Will anti-Trumpers go away quietly?

Every now and then, an editorial or column appears in this distinguished newspaper that raises my ire.

Of course, my opponents will sneer “welcome to the club, old boy!”

But since the new year, I would argue that my space has become slightly more sober, if still not a perfect model of judiciousness. And while I’ve acted in good faith, writers both far and near from the left have continued to pearl clutch and fearmonger in ever more hysterical, pathetic or illogical ways. The case in point is “Will Trump go away quietly?,” a guest column that appeared here Aug. 29. Though the question is a badly phrased bit of clickbait as well as easily answered, the real story is that Shira Lurie has a rather poor grasp of history for such an educated woman.

“Trump has already questioned his loss of... the popular vote with baseless accusations of voter fraud.” Actually, these accusations were anything but baseless, given the long history of calumny in places like Chicago, where dead people often vote and the cold hard fact that in California, state

laws are purposely written to obfuscate who is or is not a citizen.

Trump cited these realities that may have affected the final tally by as much as a million ballots for president.

Lurie’s comparisons between 1800 and a possible stalemate in 2020 are unhelpful.

The deadlock in the electoral college was between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr, not their opponent John Adams.

Until 1800, presidential contestants did not have running mates, second place becoming president of the Senate.

Because the electors cast the same amount of votes for Burr and Jefferson, Congress took 36 ballots to finally pick the president.

Governors readying arms to ensure a decision before March 4th has no bearing on the present.

It was a reaction to a defective technicality remedied in 1804 by the 12th Amendment.

A proper example would have been the election of 1824, in which Andrew Jackson was defeated by John Quincy Adams through a contingent election, despite Jackson having carried a plurality of the popular and electoral vote.

Jackson was furious and he took out his vengeance upon the incumbent and the establishment next cycle by creating today’s Democratic Party.

I must applaud Lurie’s claim that Trump has fostered the conditions of 1860 for its audacity but it shows a serious lack of appreciation for American history, despite her doctorate.

The slavery question was unanswered from America’s founding and a series of weak, single-term presidents since Jackson created a crisis.

In 1860, the newly formed Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, took power and the Civil War ensued.

More importantly for our purposes is the fact that Lincoln lost the popular vote and, like the secessionists of 1860, it is Trump’s opponents in liberal states and cities ignoring federal law, particularly on

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immigration.

The difficulties Trump faces as president are a result of mismanagement by both parties, dividing the nation and destabilizing the world.

The Donald courts controversy but he has shown his critics will never concede him a victory of any kind, beginning with his election win in 2016.

Supposedly “nuanced” op-eds inked by liberal intellectuals like Shira Lurie bring a false sense of historical inevitability to those who wish for Trump’s defeat.

If anything, the examples she cited –which I had to correct, better explain and expand – actually support the president’s accusations of manipulation and his claims of being a revolutionary force in American politics.

Ultimately, whispering or shouting “orange man bad” is terrible journalism, if not outright fake news.

Without seriously addressing the pathologies affecting many of the president’s biggest supporters, such as wage stagnation, declining life-expectancy and constant cultural attacks, the best thing anti-Trumpers can do is to go away quietly and await his landslide victory in 2020.

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Anchor goes to prison for news show

The Associated Press

Lester Holt laughed when his colleagues proposed that he spend a couple of nights locked up in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for an NBC News report on criminal justice reform.

“At first, I was like, ‘it’s dangerous,”’ Holt said. “This is one of the most notorious prisons of the world, and you want to lock me up? What about safety?”

It also had the whiff of a stunt that could overshadow serious intentions. Instead, the sobering trip frames Friday’s Dateline NBC report about 1990s-era “tough on crime” legislation and what it has meant for society today. The show is repeated Sunday night on MSNBC, along with a Holt-moderated town hall meeting from inside another wellknown prison, New York’s Sing Sing. Holt gained access to the sprawling Louisiana prison known as “Angola” because the desire to confront these issues coincided with Gov. John Bel Edwards’ attempts to lower the population inside his state’s facilities. As Holt rode a prison bus to the 72-square kilometre former plantation that houses some 5,500 inmates, he reflected on how many people took the same ride knowing they might never return. For two nights, he slept in a cell in Angola’s death row, alongside prisoners who were locked inside except for an hour a day of recreation in the prison yard. The man in the cell next to him hadn’t been outside in four years.

“The only time I did feel perfectly safe was inside my cell with the door locked,” Holt said.

School library dumps Harry Potter books

The Washington Post

Before the new school year began, the Rev. Dan Reehil turned to several exorcists for advice.

Reehil, a pastor at St. Edward Catholic School in Nashville, Tennessee, was worried about the heretical lessons that students could learn from the Harry Potter books, he wrote in a Wednesday email to faculty members that was obtained by WTVF. At the advice of the exorcists he consulted, who shared his concerns, he purged the series from the school’s library.

“These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception,” he said. “The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”

It’s hardly the first time that the novels have been kicked off school campuses. Yet the furor over allegations of Satanism and devil worship has died down in recent years, and the choice to remove Harry Potter books from the St. Edward’s library appears to have garnered little support from the school community. Parents who aired their concerns in an anonymous letter suggested that the decision raised larger questions about the priest’s “fringe” views and his ability to “critically assess and discern fact from fiction,” and complained that the decision had been made unilaterally without input from parents.

In an emailed response to parents, Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, explained that the school’s library had moved over the summer, and books that weren’t checked out often or weren’t deemed age-appropriate for students at the prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade school were purged. The school’s pastor, “out of an abundance of caution,” decided that the Harry Potter series, which “has received attention over its presentation of magic and witchcraft,” should also be removed, she wrote. Located on the south side of Nashville for over 60 years, St. Edward is “guided by faith and committed to educational excellence,” according to the school’s mission statement. Attendance at Christian doctrine classes and twice-weekly Mass is mandatory, and the school says that the purpose of its library is to “encourage students to embrace and model the gospel of Jesus Christ by providing materials that support the values and mission of the Catholic Church.”

According to Reehil’s email to faculty members, the books not meet that standard. “The books use nefarious means to attain the goals of the characters, including the ‘good’ characters,” he wrote, arguing that an act cannot be considered moral under Catholic theology if it is accomplished through questionable methods. The books, he claimed, “promote a Machiavellian approach to achieving the ends they desire with whatever means are necessary.”

He felt far less safe riding in an openair vehicle, back-to-back with convicted murderers, to a work assignment picking carrots. For a black journalist, it was hard to escape the symbolism of working in a field with mostly black inmates, as white corrections officers on horseback watched them.

The number of older people he saw in prison was particularly striking to Holt. The show follows two longtime inmates as they find whether or not they will be paroled. He also spoke with a terminally ill prisoner who

died before NBC’s special could be aired. “Intellectually I understood that there would be guys who are old,” he said. “But when you see guys in their 70s and 80s, it kind of raises the idea of why are they still here? Obviously, they committed a horrible crime when they were younger. Is prison supposed to be a punishment? Rehabilitation? Making us safer? In Louisiana, they decided it wasn’t making them safer.”

He spoke to a 21-year-old prisoner who faced spending the rest of his life in prison.

“It taught me a lot about our abilities as human beings to adapt,” Holt said, “because you look at it and think there’s no way I could do that without going crazy. But people figure it out. Prison is its own society and people figure out their own role.” Holt said he’s had a special interest in criminal justice issues since witnessing an execution in Illinois in 1995. He teamed with veteran producer Dan Slepian, who has made a specialty of investigating cases of people falsely convicted of committing a crime. At Sunday’s town hall from Ossining, New York, featured guests include singer John Legend and former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A man recently released from Sing Sing returned there for the town hall to talk to current inmates about life on the outside.

“What I hope people do is take some time to watch and learn about this,” Slepian said. “Before people are so quick to say, ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key,’ learn about the effect it is having on you - not them.” It was important to cover the issue from many different angles and deliver perspectives that viewers may not have considered, said Rashida Jones, senior vice-president for specials at NBC News.

Holt said he had no intention of pushing a certain point of view.

“All we advocate is the truth,” he said. “When you do these stories, it’s not necessarily with the intent of getting someone out of prison. You’re there to provoke conversations and thought, to allow people to see things as they are and make decisions from there.

AP PHOTO

Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News and host of Dateline NBC spent a couple of nights locked up in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison earlier this year for a Dateline NBC episode about criminal justice reform. The episode airs Friday.

How gender bias appears in job ads

Amy STILLMAN and Jeff GREEN

Bloomberg

Few multinational companies would publicly advertise some U.S.-based jobs to women and others to men. In Mexico, though, some have listed gender preference right alongside qualifications like “education” and “experience.”

Discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal in both countries, but in Mexico, it remains a regularand open-practice. According to a Bloomberg analysis of more than 10,300 job ads posted during one week in August on the popular Mexican job site OCCMundial, more than 800 specified male or female applicants.

Most were for local firms, but not all. Staffing giants Kelly Services, Adecco and Manpower designated some of their Mexicobased postings for men or for women. Home Depot Inc. was recruiting male sales associates. VF Outdoor Services sought a woman with “excellent presentation” and “emotional intelligence” for an executive assistant role. Several local car dealerships did the same, along with Hyundai Glovis, a logistics subsidiary of the Korean car company.

The data examined by Bloomberg showed that, overall, ads targeted men for more senior or managerial positions. Women were recruited for secretarial and customer service roles. Job ads seeking men also offered higher salaries than openings for the same position but a preference for women.

Those companies say the ads Bloomberg found aren’t consistent with their policies or practice and have been fixed. Nonetheless, they illustrate the challenge of connecting company rhetoric with on-the-ground operations around the world. In August, Home Depot joined nearly 200 companies in signing a letter from the Business Roundtable that promised to foster “dignity and inclusion” in their operations. On its website, VF Corporation touts its “Global Women’s Advisory Council” and its promise to achieve gender parity in its senior leadership by 2030.

“This was an oversight for several job postings by stores in Mexico,” a Home Depot spokesperson said in an email. “The job postings have been corrected and this has been addressed with the stores that posted them. Home Depot does not discriminate in hiring practice and is always looking for the best talent for the specific position.” Hyundai Glovis said the job ads reflected an error made by a new employee. “The part about gender was deleted immediately, the HR staff will be trained in company policy and law, and HR hiring processes will be strengthened,” the company said in a statement. “Hyundai GLOVIS Mexico does not discriminate on gender-related acts when hiring employees.”

“Unfortunately, a small percentage of job postings in Mexico that

Companies are looking for the best candidates to fill vacant positions but still show a bias towards men when posting for the job.

did not reflect our commitment to diversity and inclusion were brought to our attention and we have taken immediate action to correct these,” a spokesman for Manpower said in an email. “We continue to review job posts on an ongoing basis to ensure they reflect our position on diversity and our commitment to equal employment opportunities.”

Kelly Services said its recruiters in Mexico are trained and informed on compliant and ethical employment practices in the regions where they operate, and that the company “now will place postings to recruit individuals who are most qualified for the job duties at hand, without regard to immutable personal attributes.”

Addeco said that in Mexico, it has policies to prevent any mention of gender in a job posting “unless there is a legitimate reason,” and that it was looking into the job ads flagged by Bloomberg.VF Corp., parent of VF Outdoor Services,

along with brands like Vans, The North Face and JanSport, didn’t return several emails and phone calls seeking comment.”Global companies should make sure that any standards they say they’re holding themselves to are observed the world over,” said John Paul Rollert, a behavioural science professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and “in-house ethicist” at the Chicago Booth Review. “If they’re not, people will find out and they’ll be held to account.”

OCCMundial is owned by SEEK Ltd., a $4.8 billion tech company based in Melbourne, Australia, that owns and operates job sites around the world. Sergio Porragas Moreno, OCCMundial’s Chief Operating Officer, said the site’s terms and conditions forbid discrimination in job postings, and the site retains the right to remove any post deemed “illegal or abusive” following a formal investigation.

“It’s a form of gender discrimination that’s unfortunately very common in the country,” said Gonzalo Sanchez de Tagle, a constitutional lawyer and author of the new book, “The Political Constitution of Mexico City.” “It’s 100 per cent illegal, but a lot of labor rights violations go unnoticed or unreported.”

Using data captured by a Quaretaro, Mexico, firm, Bloomberg analyzed 10,334 job ads in Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Nuevo Leon, Jalisco and Guanajuato-the country’s main economic hubsover about a week in August. The data captured openings in some of the country’s biggest and fastest growing industries: logistics, sales, administration, engineering and manufacturing.

More than 800 postings specified a gender preference, more often for men than for women.

Administrative jobs, mostly for receptionists, secretaries and assistants, accounted for almost half of all the openings seeking women. Sales jobs, including customer service representatives and cashiers, represented 38 per cent.

By contrast, nearly one-third of the listings seeking men were for drivers, forklift operators, storekeepers or other logistics positions. Another 28 per cent were for manufacturing jobs, including supervisors, technicians and inspectors.

Sales accounted for just 12 per cent of the openings seeking men, but unlike the sales positions seeking women, they were more likely to be for management jobs or other, more senior titles.

Among open engineering jobs, 82 per cent were gender neutral. But 15 per cent specified a preference for male applicants; just three per cent targeted women.

“There’s growing awareness over these issues, but there’s still a lot of discrimination in the work culture in Mexico,” said Alexandra Haas, president of Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination, or Conapred.

More than 40 countries still allow gender discrimination in hiring. Another 50 place at least some restrictions on women’s work, according to the World Bank.

Where discrimination is illegal across the board-in Mexico, the U.S. and elsewhere-it’s still common, just more subtle, Haas said. In several languages, including Spanish, job titles can be specifically masculine or feminine-recep-

cionista, for example, or as Deloitte specified in a March ad, asistente ejecutiva. (Deloitte didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

Employers in Mexico can request a photo with a job application, another way to screen for gender, race or simply appearance. In most industries, there’s a deep imbalance, with fields dominated by men or by women; so-called women’s work also pays a lot less, said Rita Ramalho, researcher for a World Bank study on women’s rights across 187 countries. This dynamic reinforces the gender pay gap, she said. “It’s not only that less women are actually working, but when they do work, they are more likely to earn less than men.”

The ads on OCCMundial reflected a stark pay gap. Coordinator jobs that specifically asked for men listed salaries that were on average 26 per cent higher than what was offered in the ads asking for women.

For managers and manager assistants, male-specific jobs offered 11 per cent more than those that were specific to women.

The gender pay gap and discrimination in hiring have become hot-button issues among the global economic elite in recent years, in part because the full economic enfranchisement of women is good for overall productivity. Closing the global gender pay gap would add $32 trillion to global GDP, according to the most recent estimate from the World Economic Forum.

Investors, employees and customers have been pressuring companies to address gender biases and promote diversity. The #MeToo movement forced executives to rethink their own behavior. BlackRock Inc., State Street Global Investors and other large funds are demanding diversity at the board level, and many pension funds are pushing for more disclosure and diversity among top executives.

Even in countries where discrimination is legal or even tolerated, U.S. companies are ethically responsible for following their own best practices on gender equality, said Kabrina Chang, business ethics and law professor at Boston University. The job ads in Mexico are “an example of using an outdated, unsubstantiated stereotype to deny women equal opportunity,” she said. “No matter where that happens, it’s not good for women.”

Birds of a feather

Construction

Retooled Kings eager to defend title

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

The retooling of the Prince George Spruce Kings for the 201920 season began long before they celebrated their first Fred Page Cup win as champions of the B.C. Hockey League this past spring.

Months before they beat the Brooks Bandits for the Doyle Cup Pacific regional title and came up one win short of claiming the national junior A hockey championship after a one-goal loss to the Bandits in the final in Brooks, Spruce Kings general manager Mike Hawes was fielding calls from U.S. college hockey coaches. They had NCAA-bound players wanting to come to Prince George to play in the BCHL for the Spruce Kings. Hawes was more than willing to accommodate them, knowing he had 15 spots open for next season’s roster.

The cupboards were then restocked with the likes of defenceman Brendan Hill (Lake Superior State), Nolan Barrett (Merrimack) and forwards Ryan McAllister (Western Michigan), Andrew Seaman (Union College), Thomas Richter (Union) and Henry Wagner (Yale).

Hawes’s phone continued to ring in the summer and before long he’d found his starting goalie when Jett Alexander asked for and received a trade from his North York, Ont., team to Prince George. Major problem solved.

Add to the mix a returning core that includes Nick Bochen and Jason Chu on the back end and forwards Nolan Welsh, Corey Cunningham, Nick Poisson, Chong Min Lee, Craig MacDonald and Fin Williams and all of sudden the Spruce Kings under first-year head coach Alex Evin appear to have a crew capable of taking a run at the BCHL title for a third straight season.

The BCHL has become a factory for producing NCAA college talent and the best teams find ways to turn over their rosters annually and find comparable replacements. But there’s no quick way to replace the best blueline brigade to hit the BCHL in years now that Vegas Golden Knights third-rounder Layton Ahac, Dylan Anhorn, Max Coyle, Jay Keranen and Liam Watson-Brawn have all moved on to college hockey. Also lost to the college ranks are goalie Logan Neaton, drafted in the fifth round by the Winnipeg Jets, as well as forwards Ben Brar, Dustin Manz, Patrick Cozzi and Ben Poisson, their top four scorers last season.

The Kings were league finalists for the first time in 2017-18 and have been penthouse suite occupants for two years now but it would be far-fetched to think they can duplicate the magic that made last season the best in the franchise’s 23-year history.

But there’s still plenty for Kings’ fans to get excited about, starting with the raising of their first two championship banners to the rafters at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena Friday night when they open the season against the Surrey Eagles, the first of 58 games they will play between now and the end of February.

“We’re certainly proud of what we did last year and what we’ve done the last several seasons, and obviously it culminated in a league championship and a Doyle Cup last year,” said Mike Hawes, entering his 10th season as Spruce Kings general manager. “As a group and organization we’re turning the page as an organization and hopefully we’ll do our best this season to follow it up with another championship run. We’ve got a good group of retuning guys with that championship pedigree and they learned a ton from last season.

“We’re very happy at this point with the pieces we’ve been able to add in the off-season through recruiting and acquisitions and I’m very encouraged and excited for the season. The success we’ve had as an organization has certainly allowed the recruiting to be a little bit easier. We still work extremely hard to identify players and to make sure our network is large

throughout North America. It certainly is at a point now where I think we’ll have continued success moving forward because of the players that do want to come here now.”

Looking ahead to the new season Friday, here’s how the newlook Spruce Kings are shaping up:

Goaltending

The 20-year-old Alexander is a born leader and his puck-stopping credentials are impeccable. His 10 shutouts with the North York Rangers set an Ontario Junior Hockey League record and he was the obvious choice as the league’s top goalie award. He’s showing all the signs he’ll be one of the best at his trade this year in the BCHL and will attract a multitude of NCAA scholarship offers. At six-foot-five, 195 pounds, he’ll get the bulk of the work while grooming 18-yearold Jack McGovern of Waterdown, Ont., for the starting job next season.

“Jett’s leadership abilities are amazing, he’s a very calm composed guy, especially with a new d-corps with a lot of new faces, it’s important to have that stability and hopefully he can give us that,” said Evin.

Defence

Michigan State recruit Bochen is the only defenceman who played significant minutes for the team last season. Chu came through in the playoffs as an adequate injury replacement and that experience is priceless. Newcomer Sol Seibel

was the captain of the Salmon Arm Silverbacks last season and you can never have too many leaders. The other new faces are Barrett, Hill, Colton Cameron, Cole Leal and Nelson native Amran Bhabra, yet another Burnaby Winter Club alumni.

“Our D was the key last year and I’ll be surprised if we have a D-corps like that in our league in the next 10 years even – the group was that strong and it was certainly something special,” said Hawes. “But it takes more than just a good D-corps to have a championship-type team and we had all the components that you needed.”

Defence was the key to the Kings’ dominant 16-1 playoff run to the BCHL title.

“We’re going to play the same way,” said Hawes. “Everyone has to play Spruce Kings hockey and pay attention to details and there’s a lot of coaching going on right now, just like there was last year at this time with Adam and Alex. Now it’s Alex and Jessie (Leung), trying to get the players playing the way we know they need to play to have success.”

Forwards

Their speed, skill and experience makes this a position of strength. Welsh will wear the ‘C’ as team captain this season with Lee and Poisson as assistants. They all have gamebreaking abilities, as does homebrew winger Cunningham. Brett Pfoh, whose father Rob played for the Spruce Kings in their Peace-Cariboo Hockey

League days in the 80s, showed his soft hands in the preseason with three goals in two games. Thomas Richter has NHL bloodlines as the son of legendary New York Ranger goalie Mike Richter and another winger to watch is Mack Stewart, whose dad Michael had his number retired by his Austrian elite league team. Williams could be a rookie-of-the-year candidate after proving he could score in the playoffs as a 15-year-old. Preston Brodziak, 20, came over in a deal from Cowichan Valley for his third BCHL season. Henry Wagner, a native of St. Louis, Mo., and Seaman, who grew up in Winetka, Ill., could have what it tales to replace Americans Manz and Cozzi. Carter Cochrane and Jake McLean will also push for playing time.

The 32-year-old Evin will need time to figure out how to fully utilize his strengths as a coach, after two years as the associate coach with Adam Maglio, who has jumped to the WHL with the Spokane Chiefs. Evin played five seasons in the league as a goalie and has six seasons behind him as a BCHL coach. He also played four seasons at Colgate University and he’s proven his talent for utilizing his college contacts to recruit top prospects.

Evin won’t stray too far from the systems Maglio put in place the past two seasons, preaching the defence-first mentality that’s worked so well for the Kings.

“So far I really like our energy and our focus with this group,” said Evin.

“We’ve got a lot of new guys and it will take time for the team to come together and fully embrace our identity but so far it’s been a positive start.

“We just need to be competitive every night and I think we will be, especially our returning players. They play with such a high-compete level and hopefully our new players will follow that. Last season will be a tough one to beat, but our goal is to be right in there this year and I’m confident with the team game if the buy-in is there with our group we should be right where we need to be at the end of the year.”

Leung brings two seasons of experience as a BCHL assistant with the Trail Smoke Eaters to fill Evin’s associate role. Nick Drazenovic will be teaching hockey skills as director of player development, a job he held the past two seasons with the Prince George Cougars. There’s a new athletic therapist/ trainer with David Rowe taking over from Rick Brown.

CITIZEN

The JRJ

Orioles are the 2019 Prince George Senior Men’s Baseball League champions after defeating the Queensway Auto World Mariners by a score of 2-1 in eight innings to repeat as league champs.

Prince George Spruce Kings forward Nolan Welsh uses his arm to defend against the check from Salmon Arm Silverbacks forward Hudson Schandor during a game last October at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. Welsh will serve as the team captain for the Kings this season.

Catchers feeling the heat at the plate

Matthew GUTIERREZ

The Washington Post Midway through describing the growing risks of playing catcher, the Cincinnati Reds’ Tucker Barnhart glanced at a TV monitor showing a game between the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians. Twice in one minute, Barnhart saw a backswing smack Boston catcher Christian Vázquez’s face mask.

“That’s wild, the timing of that, as I’m talking about this,” said Barnhart, a Gold Glove winner in 2017. “I’ve been fortunate to not go through anything crazy. Headaches here and there, nothing bad. ... Mask-wise, I go with comfort. It’s probably not the smartest decision.”

In this age of velocity and launch angle, catchers around the major leagues are being forced to change the way they think about the position, the gear they wear and how they receive the baseball. Always risky, the position has in the past few years proved to be more dangerous, much of it linked to an increase in pitch speed.

With pitchers throwing harder than ever, there are more foul tips because hitters have less time to connect with the baseball. In turn, catchers are inching closer to the plate to reduce the likelihood a foul tip hits them. Doing so leaves them increasingly vulnerable to backswings.

Both foul tips and backswings have effects that can linger. A recent study found that while onfield collisions are rare – perhaps a result of the adoption of a 2014 rule designed to prevent collisions at home plate – hit by pitch and injury by foul tip were the most common causes for concussions in the majors.

But much of what’s happening to catchers – headaches, bleeding, bruises – doesn’t get reported. Many times, they stay in the game after a blow to the face mask, as Vázquez did. They pride themselves on durability and toughness. They want to stay on the field.

At what cost?

“It’s bigger than baseball. It’s your life that you’re messing with,” Colorado Rockies catcher Tony Wolters said. “Sometimes you get hit hard and you’re like, ‘Whoa.’ Safety has to be a priority for a catcher. It’s your livelihood. It’s how you’re going to be living for the rest of your life.”

Vani Sabesan, an orthopedic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, and her team sought to answer a riddle: while runners almost always slide at home plate, why are there still so many catcher injuries?

But Sabesan found there was little catcher injury information

available.

“We can do better at protecting our players and tracking injuries,” Sabesan said.

Atlanta Braves catching instructor Sal Fasano believes in more protocols, sensitivity and awareness to the rigors of catching. He said it’s on coaches and trainers to put catchers on the injured list. Reading a catcher’s injury report, seeing a catcher get dinged - the former MLB journeyman catcher finds it unsettling.

“You’re holding your heart,” Fasano said. “If they say, ‘I’m a little foggy,’ we tell them to talk to the trainer right away. We have to be more sensitive with it; players have to be honest with it.”

With data sparse, one of Sabesan’s fellow researchers, Kiran Chatha, said it remains to be seen what long-term impact increased foul tips and backswings could have. While what’s widely accepted about football – that countless players suffer from early dementia, depression, confusion, suicidal tendencies and other conditions – there’s no evidence of catchers having the same issues. The velocity era has only recently begun, and we simply don’t yet know the effects on a large scale.

But it’s especially concerning that many foul tips to the head don’t get reported, Chatha said. It

also is, she said, “really surprising how many catchers have suffered concussions, which have longterm effects including [chronic traumatic encephalopathy],” she said.

For now, Sabesan said, more research on face masks may reduce concussions.

“What would be nice: more protective catcher gear,” she said. “That’s what we had hoped to instigate with this, including at the youth levels.”

Better protection is also the focus for many big league catchers, who acknowledge that no mask is concussion-proof. What they seek are masks that maintain visibility without sacrificing comfort and safety.

Two-piece helmets, used by two-thirds of MLB catchers, don’t cover all parts of the head. And although they’ve developed their own routines for better self-care, many catchers believe there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to safety.

“It’s all luck,” the Nationals’ Kurt Suzuki said. “Hopefully, you don’t get hit.”

Fellow Nationals backstop Yan Gomes ducks his head to avoid getting hit on a backswing. But that’s no guarantee.

“I haven’t solved the riddle of getting hit,” he said.

After suffering a concussion in

2017, Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann, a seven-time all-star and a six-time Silver Slugger then with the Houston Astros, texted a friend, “This is enough, I don’t want to do this again.” He needed a new, better helmet, an answer many catchers believe could solve some of the issues they face behind the plate. Suzuki has felt impact to most parts of his body, including his head – forehead, sides, top, nose and chin. Before games, he checks which hitters have long backswings. There’s more of them, so he squats farther away from the plate to give himself enough room.

A few years ago, when a blow to the mask hit him hard – “It rung me pretty good,” he said – he also needed to make a change.

He received a text from Atlanta Braves catcher Tyler Flowers, who was part of a new company called Force3 Pro Gear. The idea of Force3’s mask with “S3 Shock Suspension,” belongs to Jason Klein, a former minor league umpire. Flowers shipped Suzuki a Force3 mask, and Klein said more than 30 MLB catchers now wear the Force3 Defender mask, which uses a spring-cushioned, shockabsorption system that reduces the force of an impact. Maybe, they say, a mask like that could lessen the risks behind the dish.

Wolters, the Rockies catcher, has suffered several concussions. Nearly every month, he tells the clubhouse manager to give him a new set of face masks. Wearing new helmets makes him feel safer. He also improves neck strength, and he sits lower or gets on one knee to decrease the number of foul tips that hit his mask. As he receives the baseball, he remembers to breathe out. That eases tension when he does get hit. Klein and Flowers say a hit to the jaw is “like getting your teeth knocked out.” The chin may be the worst: Flowers has been hit in the jaw so hard that he couldn’t eat meat for a week. They are both among catchers who reach their gloves out as far as possible. It’s one of several adjustments catchers are making. The idea is to catch or deflect the ball before it reaches the mask.

The New York Yankees’ Kyle Higashioka replaces his mask once per month, or whenever the bars bend. He said he gets hit hard by a foul tip once per game. But even with changing out his mask frequently, he said there’s no way to tell the damage already done. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a concussion,” Higashioka said. “Not that I know of.” Then he knocked on the wooden locker behind him.

Elliott cashes in with Cowboys but numbers suggest he’s not worth it

Neil GREENBERG The Washington Post

The Dallas Cowboys blinked, awarding disgruntled running back Ezekiel Elliott a six-year, $90 million extension on Wednesday, bringing his total contract value to $103 million over eight years, with $50 million guaranteed. The contract extension makes Elliott the league’s top-paid running back, pushing Todd Gurley’s $14.375 million per year out of the No. 1 spot. On the surface, paying Elliott, a two-time Pro Bowler who led the NFL in touches (381) and rushing yards (1,434) in 2018 (and in rushing yards in 2016), makes sense. But a deeper look suggests that this will be a waste of precious cap dollars. Let’s start at the macro level and acknowledge that the NFL has transformed into a passing league. In 2002, the first year the league expanded to 32 franchises, teams averaged 27.5 rushing attempts per game. That figure peaked in 2003 at 28.3 rushes per game but has been on a steady decline ever since, with teams averaging 25.9 rushes per game in 2018, the lowest in pro football history.

Team spending on running backs has seen a similar decline. According to Spotrac, the average cap hit for a running back in 2013, the first year data is available, was $6.2 million, accounting for almost five per cent of all available cap dollars. In 2019, the cap hit for a running back dropped to $5.7 million, just three per cent of available cap dollars. Spending on quarterbacks, meanwhile, rose from an average of $9.8 million (less than eight per cent of cap) in 2013 to $16.9 million (8.4 per cent) in 2019.

Why is positional spending at running back on the decline? Because rushing is not nearly as important to winning games in the NFL as passing. According to data researcher Ed Feng, 85 per cent of playoff teams from 1998 through 2017 had a positive pass efficiency, while only 58 per cent

of playoff teams during that same period had a positive team rush efficiency. As football analyst Chase Stewart wrote, “teams can move the chains and drain the clock with the short passing game,” devaluing the running game even more. And as Jeremy Arkes, an associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School, wrote, the conventional wisdom “that controlling the running game is the key to winning in the NFL may be a misguided belief,” and NFL teams “have greater success by focusing on the passing games, both offensively and defensively.”

Football Outsiders ranked Elliott as the ninth most-valuable back of 2018 per Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement and 18th per Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. That means eight rushers had more total value than Elliott last season, and 17 produced more value per play. On red-zone carries in 2018, Elliott produced a first down or touchdown slightly more than

a third of the time (10 first downs and five touchdowns on 39 carries). That ranked him just 28th out of 47 qualified running backs, per data from TruMedia. The league average was closer to 50 per cent.

Other metrics agree. The game charters at Pro Football Focus ranked Elliott 14th among 23 running backs that played at least half of their team’s rushing snaps last year, and that takes into account the 77 catches for 567 yards and three touchdowns he produced out of the backfield. According to TruMedia, Dallas scored 2.2 points more than expected per 100 snaps in 2016 after accounting for the down, distance and field position of each of Elliott’s carries. That dropped to 1.1 fewer points than expected per 100 snaps in 2017, and dropped again in 2018 to 5.5 fewer points than expected per 100 snaps. The drop was even more stark on red-zone carries: 30.3 points more than expected per 100 attempts in 2016, 22.2 in 2017 and 3.9 in 2018.

AP PHOTO

Baltimore Orioles catcher Pedro Severino reacts after being hit on the face mask by a foul ball during the first inning of the team’s game against the Texas Rangers in June. Severino left the game shortly afterward.

Digital sector firms face competition scrutiny

The Canadian Press

Canada’s competition watchdog wants information on what companies in the digital economy may be doing to harm competition as part of a ramp up in scrutiny on the practices of digital behemoths.

“Since certain digital markets tend towards a `winner takes all’ outcome, firms in these markets have a strong incentive to adopt strategies that increase the likelihood the market tips in their favour, and stays that way,” said the Competition Bureau in a paper explaining the public consultation Wednesday.

Businesses and other interested parties “likely to have valuable information on competition” in core digital markets can share it confidentially, the Competition Bureau said in a statement, adding companies doing business in these markets, industry associations and venture capital firms may be well positioned to do so.

The bureau is looking for information on strategies firms may use to hinder competition in some core digital markets, like online search, social media, display advertising and online marketplaces.

The move comes as it examines concerns that these markets have become increasingly concentrated, hurting consumers and businesses,

it said in the paper.

If this is the case, the bureau wants to know if it is because digital markets may favour a single victorious firm over a number of smaller successes.

This process is called tipping and tends to happen when the company benefits from having a widely used product, like a social media platform that an individual’s friends and family also frequent.

It also depends on economies of scale, as well as access to large amounts of data.

The other possible explanation, the bureau said, could be because current market leaders did not outperform their competitors, but succeeded by stifling competition.

Anti-competitive strategies would likely be geared at protecting a core market or capturing adjacent markets.

Such strategies could include refusing to deal with competitors, prohibiting suppliers from providing rivals with better prices or terms, or buying out rivals.

“If not addressed in a timely fashion, such strategies - which effectively prevent competition on the merits - are likely to make it that much more difficult for new firms to successfully compete in the market,” the bureau, which acknowledges the two explanations may be complementary, said.

The bureau will keep information provided to it confidential and should be submitted by November 30 via an online form on its website or to an email address.

The information could be used to inform potential investigations or help it develop guidance for companies participating in the digital economy.

The news comes on the heels of a July report from the bureau’s Australian counterpart, which made several recommendations after examining the impact of online search engines, social media and digital content aggregators on competition in the media and advertising services markets.

Meanwhile the European Commission also announced that same month that it had opened a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon.

It is looking “to assess whether Amazon’s use of sensitive data from independent retailers who sell on its marketplace is in breach of EU competition rules.”

Also in July, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.”

Students need more entrepreneurial education

First day of school and I already have a headache.

In my fourth year of university, I went with another student to query our business strategy professor about our assignment, which was a bit confusing. As we discussed the project, my friend seemed to settle in on the gist of it, but I was still kerfuffled. Where was my list of things to check off?

My fill-in-the-blanks work booklet to make me feel like I was getting it done?

When we were wrapping up the chat, the professor – noting my opaque, mouth-breathing stare, lobbed a brutal insult my way: “It’s okay… some of us are academics, and some of us are… welders.”

I was more angry than insulted. This professor was regularly consulted by business news TV hosts and had a thriving side business of his own designing marketing surveys for businesses and political parties, but his day job required him to communicate with lesser humans – which seemed to pain him, and at that moment, pained me.

Years later, I had a very successful client who never did the post-secondary thing at all but instead went to work for his dad as a welder while still in his teens. He loves to say: “I’m just a welder.”

True enough but a very successful businessman, who, at a whim, could buy an entire wing of the old school just because he was in the

IT’S ONLY MONEY

MARK RYAN

mood that day.

Do kids grow up today envisioning who they will work for some day, or how many they might employ? RBC Economics provides the data points in a recent report, which I draw from today.

If the idea of a young entrepreneur conjures up a university student launching his or her start-up from a dorm room, think again.

Canadians in that cohort are focused on coursework and managing high student debt loads.

Youth entrepreneurship in Canada has held relatively steady for three decades, even as some business conditions (low interest rates, the rise of the intangibles economy) would appear to make starting a business easier than ever.

The labor force participation rate measures an economy’s active labor force against the working age population. It answers the question of the potential workforce at a given time – meaning the number of people who are either employed or are actively looking for work. Typically the participation rate goes down when economic prospects are down. People tend use the lull in business conditions to obtain retraining. Those in training programs are re-

moved statistically from the labour market data, and the participation rate goes down.

One of the markers of a favourable business climate is low interest rates. It arguably follows that a low interest rate environment might result in more business start-ups. But in Canada, instead of taking advantage of these low interest rates to invest in their business dreams, young people are investing in education.

Young Canadians are staying in school longer and shouldering more debt, impeding their ability to start businesses. In 2016-2017, 497,000 students acquired $2.6 billion in loans.

Canada’s young entrepreneurs are a very small cohort, with only 1.7 per cent of business owners in the under-30 crowd. It’s possible that part of the reason for this is that it just never occurred to them that they could be an employer-ofthe-year rather than an employeeof-the-month.

Is school just a dream-crushing machine? Not necessarily.

Perhaps counterintuitively, even after amassing student debt, young entrepreneurs are still more likely to have post-secondary education than the average Canadian. But many of them feel that obtaining loans is an impediment. About 40 per cent of entrepreneurs under 30 say obtaining financing was an obstacle to business growth. What entrepreneur doesn’t? It’s in their nature to dream big and leverage their ideas for growth.

This is a good thing. As a result of the inherent risks of lending to a start-up, roughly 80 per cent rely on gifts/donations. Access to family resources is a common partial solution not unique to Canada or to our age and time. Our youth learn much more about class conflict than they do about creating jobs. Even my aforementioned instructor, perhaps one of the more businessminded professors on campus, apparently thought calling me a construction worker was an effective slur – fodder for the masses of unrefined duffs. After 10-20 years in school, being trained by people who probably never once considered running their own businesses, less than two per cent of business owners in Canada today are in the youngish category.

In light of the powerful jobcreation tool small businesses are (and virtually everyone agrees with this), it’s odd that we don’t teach more entrepreneurial skills to young people, or give them much cause to dream about them.

— Mark Ryan is an Investment Advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are Mark’s 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

losses on positive geopolitical events in Hong Kong and London and some growth signs in China’s services sector. Markets first got a lift from Hong Kong announcing plans to withdraw an extradition bill that sparked protests. It was followed by politicians in the British House of Commons defying Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to withdraw from the European Union on Oct. 31 by voting to seek an extension of the Brexit deadline in a bid to seek a less chaotic exit from EU. The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 49.61 points to 16,448.84, more than reversing Tuesday’s loss of 42.84 points. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 237.45 points at 26,355.47. The S&P 500 index was up 31.51 points at 2,937.78, while the Nasdaq composite was up 102.72 points or 1.3 per cent at 7,976.88.

The Canadian dollar traded for an average of 75.40 cents US compared with an average of 74.95 cents US on Tuesday after the Bank of Canada kept its overnight interest rate unchanged at 1.75 per cent. The central bank failed to deliver on market expectations that it would provide some thoughts or commentary about potential rate cuts in October or later.

BRENDA GAIL SMALL

Born December 4, 1953

Died April 13, 2019

We think about you all the time. We love you and miss you.

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Adult & Youth Newspaper Carriers Needed in the Following areas:

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4

Thrifty boutique marks second anniversary

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

SUPERWALK SHINES LIGHT ON PARKINSON’S

It’s been nine years since Gary Gurnsey was diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease. He doesn’t have the classic symptoms so there have been more questions than answers around the condition.

The annual Parkinson’s SuperWalk takes place Saturday at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park to raise funds and awareness for the more than 13,000 British Columbians who have the disease.

Not much has improved for Gurnsey over the years, said wife Betty, except as a result of choices he’s made over the last year.

“Gary put himself on a Keto diet and lost about 35 pounds and then his mobility increased,” Betty said, speaking on behalf of her husband because, as is typical of Parkinson’s patients, his voice has deteriorated significantly. “So where he had difficulty with walking he can now go the length of the house with his walker.”

Betty said when Gary does attempt to speak nowadays, his words tend to run together.

Communication Assistance for Youth and Adults (CAYA BC) has provided a text to voice tablet where Gary can type his thoughts and the device will say the words.

Betty said she and Gary rely on the Parkinson’s support group and the workshops they host.

“We attended the speech and swallow workshop they put on and that was really, really beneficial because they say you can regain the strength of your vocal chords because if you don’t use them it’s like everything else they get weaker and weaker,” Betty said. “So when Gary does his vocal exercises he can talk but it’s a struggle. It really takes a lot of perseverance on his part to work at this all the time.”

When Betty and Gary attend the support group meetings, a lot of good information is shared.

“People are always sharing tips which have proven very beneficial and people are always encouraging each other to look into different things and we’ve formed some really good friendships,” Betty said.

The text to voice tablet was one of the items mentioned during the support group meetings. Other information included the income tax benefits for those who are senior citizens with disabilities and since every dollar counts, sharing this and other information is important.

The group meets at 2 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month at Spruce Capital Senior’s Recreation Centre, 3701 Rainbow Dr.

The support group also has a meeting for caregivers who meet once a month for coffee to talk about their challenges.

There’s a walking group and now there is talk about starting a dance group to help

keep people moving because research shows an active body can stave off the degeneration for which the disease is known. Parkinson’s disease is the second most common chronic neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s. Movement is normally controlled by dopamine, a chemical that carries signals between the nerves in the brain. When cells that normally produce dopamine die, Parkinson’s symptoms appear, such as tremors, slowness and stiffness, impaired balance, rigidity of muscles, fatigue, soft speech, stooped posture, and problems with handwriting. Medication can treat some symptoms but there is no cure.

Gary has what is termed Parkinsonisms and he has been diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, which is fairly rare and exhibits similar symptoms of Parkinson’s.

The ultimate goal is for Gary to stay at home and not go into a care home. To offer a change of scenery, he attends the Rainbow Day Care Centre four days a week.

“So HandyDART comes and picks him up and the day centre there is absolutely incredible,” Betty said. “The people there are so good and you can’t say enough good things about the HandyDART drivers.”

It’s important for the couple to have support from family and friends.

Betty and Gary have 14 grandchildren ranging in age from three to 17 from their three sons and a daughter and life is busy as they come and go from their grandparents’ home.

“It’s a busy, busy household and I really enjoy that,” Betty said. “I like having the kids over.”

Gary and Betty have always been active members of the community and their church.

Gary is a founding member of the Nechako Rotary Club and has been honoured for his participation by being named a lifetime member. Gary enthusiastically volunteered for Operation Red Nose, which offers safe rides home for people and their vehicles during the holiday season and Shelter Boxes, that were sent to far off lands after disaster struck.

Gary is also a founding director of Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operations Society (HEROS) in northern B.C. and is an active member of his church, the Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church.

This year’s SuperWalk fundraising goal is $300,000. Funds raised in the province during the SuperWalk will go to providing valuable support services and education offered by Parkinson Society British Columbia as well as supporting research to find a cure.

For more information about Parkinson’s disease and the SuperWalk visit www. parkinsons.bc.ca

CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff

Making car insurance better for B.C.

To get the car insurance system back on track and better for B.C., we’re making changes to it.

One of the bigges t improvement s we can make is changing the way premiums are set. So, on September 1s t, we moved to an insurance model that ’ s more driver-based. This means each driver’s ex perience and crash histor y plays a bigger role in determining premiums Plus, crashes now follow the driver, not the vehicle, and all drivers are more accountable for their driving decisions.

Wh at this mea ns fo r yo u

Under the new model, we ex pect that around 55% of drivers with full coverage will pay less for insurance than they do today. This will depend on a few key factors:

Your experience

The more driving ex perience you have, the bigger your discount. Inexperienced drivers will continue to receive discounted premiums, but these have been reduced to bet ter re ec t the risk they represent on the road.

Your crash history

The more at-fault crashes a driver has, the more they’ll pay for car insurance This is in line with feedback we got from B.C. drivers on how premiums should be set. It won’t impac t how much money ICBC receives, it ’ll help rebalance the system so that it works for ever yone

Who else drives your car

With the new model, ever y driver’s ex perience and crash histor y plays a bigger role in determining premiums. That ’ s why we ’ re asking you to list the people who drive your car. This should include

people you live with, your employees and anyone else, like friends or relatives, who use your car more than 12 days in a year

How to list dr iver s on yo ur policy

When you visit your Autoplan broker to renew or buy insurance, please bring the driver’s licence number and date of birth of each driver you want to list on your policy To list out- of-province drivers you’ll also need the jurisdiction of their licence (for example, Alber ta) and their full name

New discounts

The new insurance model also includes two new discount s: 10% of f for vehicles driven less than 5,00 0 km per year, and 10% of f for vehicles with autonomous emergenc y braking (AEB).

How to check if these apply to yo u

If your car is driven less than 5,000 km in a year, please bring a current photo of the odometer reading to your Autoplan broker. You can also check your ownership manual, or call your dealership, to see if your car has factor y-installed autonomous emergenc y braking.

Find out more

To learn more about these changes and what they mean for you, visit icbc.com/change Once you get your renewal reminder, you can also access our online estimation tool to pre-list drivers and get a bet ter idea of what your premium might be before visiting your broker

STAYING ACTIVE KEY TO LIFE FOR LONGTIME RESIDENT

RSENIORS’ SCENE

KATHY NADALIN

uth (Sodergren) Orydzuk was born in 1939 on a homestead in the area of St. Edouard in northern Alberta. In fact, it was her father who delivered her, the second of his four girls.

The family moved to Prince George in 1944 and she began Grade 1 in Central Fort George. It was her teacher, Mrs. Irene Moss, who started Ruth on her love of learning.

Ruth was in Grade 3 when they moved to the Chief Lake Road area where her and her siblings attended the Chief Lake school, a one-room log building for Grades 1-8.

Because of the distances involved in their farming community at Pilot Mountain, her father and other neighbours successfully lobbied for the establishment of a local school. Ruth and all the children from Grades 1-8 chose to name the new school the Pilot Mountain school.

Ruth said, “I loved growing up in that area. Summer was barefoot time and playing in the bush making tree forts and just having fun. We saw the occasional bear but we weren’t afraid, it was all a natural part of life. We didn’t have many material things, but we didn’t seem to need or want them – we were happy children.

“I finished Grades 9-12 at Prince George Senior Secondary in Prince George and that meant living in the dormitory. At first, it was a culture shock right down to the clothing and having a house mother who made sure everyone behaved. We didn’t just sleep there, we had to help keep it clean and help with some of the food preparation just like at home. The boys were on one side of the dormitory and the girls were all on the other side. The mandate was that never the twain shall meet.

“I did not make friends easily, but as time went by, I made lifelong friends, many of whom are in my life today.”

The first dormitories in B.C. were being established in the mid-1940s under the leadership of Harold Moffat, Harold Stafford and Ray Williston and intended for out-of-town families. They were old vacated army buildings that had been moved to the area of Edmonton Street and Seventh Avenue. They were considered both successful and affordable.

After high school, Ruth met and married Stephen Orydzuk. Stephen was born in 1929 in a farming community in

Alberta. He worked as a carpenter and together they built their home on the Hart Highway, a home that was always filled with music from singing and accompanied by a piano, accordion and guitars.

Sadly, Stephen passed away in 2013. They had four daughters: Jeanette (Rob Haines) Orydzuk, Carol (Edwin) Gramlich, Linda (George) McDonnell and Stephanie (Floyde) Spencer. They have four adult grandchildren: Charles (Sarah) Spencer, Catherine, Samuel and Caleb Spencer. They also have two step-granddaughters and five step-great grandchildren.

Ruth was a stay-at-home mom until 1960 and then went to work for the Prince George Citizen for a couple of years in the circulation department. The office at the time located at 353 Quebec St. and still used linotypes (hot lead) to produce the paper.

Ruth said, “Jobs were plentiful at the time so I worked until I had another baby and then had to quit, because at that time, there was no maternity leave.

“I was actually hired by the Citizen three times over the years, the last time

being when I was 42 years old. At that time, the paper was being produced digitally as it is today. I worked in different positions at the paper and retired at 62 as the classified supervisor.

“I enjoyed my working career at the Citizen – it was fast-paced, something different every day, and I worked with some wonderful people.”

Ruth has always been willing to give back to her community. When her girls were growing up, she volunteered with everything that they were involved in from being a Girl Guide leader to 10 years with the Jackrabbit Cross-Country Ski Program.

She volunteered with the Canada Winter Games and the Para Nordic Skiing Championship games. She is a board member and a regular volunteer at the Mission Thrift Store on Third Avenue.

Ruth is a part of the singing programs at her church and she is a member of the Gospel Singers and the Forever Young Chorus at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre. She enjoys singing with the groups, plays the ukulele and she is a bit of an artist on the side.

She loves to travel both locally and internationally. Because her Christian faith is a big part of her life, she recently took a memorable trip to Israel.

Ruth said, “When I was in Israel, I was so totally conscious of where I was and the history of the land that I was standing on. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable about biblical and past and current history that has led to the ongoing religious and political issues of today’s Israel. I had many personal moments that are truly hard to describe. It was indeed a trip of a lifetime.”

Ruth ended by saying, “I recently turned 80 and my girls secretly pulled together a perfect party for me in Cranbrook. All my family attended including the grandchildren. We did many fun activities at nearby Norbury Lake including an excursion, biking and a hike to the bluff.

“I am so thankful for my family. They all have good work ethics, which I’m pretty sure they got from their dad, and are successful independent people. That includes my grandchildren. I love them all.”

THRIFTY FRIENDS BOUTIQUE CELEBRATES TWO YEARS OF SUCCESS

CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff

It’s the second anniversary of the Thrifty Friends Boutique and there will be a celebration at the store at 2930 Fifth Ave., on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The thrift store is run by the local nonprofit group called Project Friendship Society, which was founded by Bob Harkins and Rev. Lance Morgan in 1989 for the purpose of building a strong community that is inclusive and welcoming to all.

During the celebration, there will be musical entertainment, face painting and Mr. Mike’s will hold a fundraising barbecue.

The society is all volunteer based and same goes for those who work in the boutique. Nobody takes a wage. Volunteers at the Thrifty Friends Boutique range in age from 11 to 90 years old.

The youngest volunteer can be found at the front of the store on many freezing mornings shoveling snow before he heads off to school. That’s dedication. Volunteers include new immigrants who wish to become immersed in Canadian culture, high school students who need their 30 hours of volunteer service required to graduate, seniors and other community-minded people.

The store has lots of clothing, collectibles and household items, there’s a selection of books that are on offer by donation. The boutique has a few new additions to its stock including jewelry, handmade items, and super hero aprons.

All funds raised at the store go towards local children’s camps including those for children who are hard of hearing, have arthritis or diabetes.

There is also a Ukrainian orphanage that is supported by sending them clothing and easy reader books.

“We also support local women and men’s shelters,” said Margaret Jackson, a retiree who started volunteering to give back to the community. She found out all elementary schools in the district have resource rooms where children have access to a change of clothing when they get wet or muddy and the store donates to those in need that way, too.

The boutique is looking to expand into some community programming that can build a strong connection within the area.

Unveiled during the second anniversary celebration will be a community crafts corner where those interested in making usable pieces by upcycling items are more than welcome to explore their artistic side.

“There will be artists at the celebration, including a gentleman who will help with beading and there will be a lady doing spool knitting,” Jackson said.

To continue the effort to bring the community together, Jackson applied for an Enhance PG grant from the city to give the side wall of the building that houses the store a creative boost. Once the grant was in place, she put a call out to artists who would like to be part of the project. As part of the mandate of inclusivity, all interested artists were invited to submit an application to collaborate on the mural project.

Ivan Paquettte,a local artist and aboriginal cultural worker, is the project coordinator who helped organize the painters, facilitated putting a concept in place and now the art is going on the wall. Ricky Cross, Taralynn Weaver, Katelynn Steeves, Dennis Gladu, Nick Ulan and Ryan Sanderson are the artists who are taking on the project.

“We’re new to each other and when we got together it all just clicked,” Cross said. “We’re about the neighbourhood, right? We want to represent the neighbourhood and what we’ll do is show unity so as we are doing our work we’ll keep that in our minds and hearts.”

“And we’re all about bringing back the light,” he added. “We want people to come around and feel the togetherness and that’s what we’re about and it’s going to shine through our art.”

The painting will be a cohesive set of subjects that blend together to offer a representation of what makes Prince George unique.

Everyone is welcome to attend the anniversary celebration at Thrifty Friends Boutique on Saturday where they can see the finished mural. Visit Thrifty Friends Boutique on Facebook for more information.

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Taralynn Weaver, Ivan Paquette, Ricky Cross and Margaret Jackson are getting ready for the celebration of the second anniversary of the Thrifty Friends Boutique, 2930 Fifth Ave., on Saturday.

HOW TO OFFER MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

This is a very difficult task requiring a lot of patience and grace. The first thing I recommend is that you plan to take care of yourself.

Too often in caring for a loved one, regardless of the health issue, we just resolve to dig deep and tough our way through it. I can tell you from experience that this is a poor plan. I looked after my mom for 16 years when she had Alzheimer’s disease and that is the mistake I made. I did not plan to care for me, only her. When she passed in 2011, I crashed. A few months later, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia – a stress-related condition. So I cannot emphasize this enough – look after yourself first. Put yourself on your schedule for times to relax, fill up and de-stress. Exercise and creative pursuits are especially helpful. Exercise because it allows you to work off some frustration and the damaging neurochemicals associated with stress. Creative pursuits because they require you to use the creative side of your brain, letting the thinking side rest and restore. Creative tasks also provide you with immediate positive results.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a creative soul, look for something that appeals to you – writing, painting, photography, dance, music, cartooning, woodworking, gardening – the possibilities are endless.

You should plan to have personal time at least weekly and more often if possible. Also plan to have an annual

OPEN FOR DISCUSSION

CHRISTINE RICKARDS

vacation as you usually would. This is not selfish. It is necessary. In order to be at a place where you can effectively support someone else, you must take care of your own needs first.

The second thing I suggest is to learn as much as you can about the disorder affecting your loved one. Understand how it presents itself in your person; what makes symptoms worse and what helps. Your goal is not to be a therapist to them, but to be a companion through the process.

Someone who accepts them unconditionally, loves them through the challenges and will not blame them for their disease. The more you know about the relevant condition, the more you will be able to separate the person from the disease. This really does create a valuable mind shift.

I recently supported my daughter through several years of postpartum depression and anxiety. Understanding the condition really allowed me to be angry about the condition but not angry with her. And anger is legitimate. I was and still am angry that the same postpartum depression that I experienced 30 years ago still does not receive adequate

MORE ATV DRIVERS HEAD TO ALASKA SALMON SPAWNING AREA

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KODIAK, Alaska - All-terrain vehicle drivers are increasingly heading to a critical Alaska salmon spawning area and face the threat of being fined, wildlife officials said.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has warned residents and visitors who have been illegally driving motorized vehicles without permits in Anton Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island south of Anchorage, Kodiak Daily Mirror reported Wednesday.

Permits were not granted for legal crossings in Anton Larsen Bay, a critical salmon spawning habitat, but were for 20 other stream crossings in Kodiak, officials said.

Outside of the listed locations, it is illegal to drive motorized vehicles recreationally and violators will be issued tickets, habitat biologist Will Frost said. Multiple salmon species spawn during high tide in the creeks. During low tide, the waters recede to reveal an expanse of mudflats used by ATV drivers, experts said.

“After salmon spawn in summer, the eggs are in the stream beds, and if people are running up and down those streams, they’re killing the eggs,” Frost said. This activity may prevent a viable salmon run in that stream in the future, he said. The vehicles also damage shrubs and

response from the medical community today.

Thirdly, I recommend you put this issue in the light. Talk about it openly, share with close friends. Don’t isolate or shame yourself or your loved one. Isolating – keeping everything to do with the mental illness hidden from family and friends – introduces unnecessary and unwarranted shame. There is nothing you or your loved one have done to bring this on. There is nothing you have done to deserve it. You are not responsible. Your loved one is not responsible.

Every day people face things that they didn’t ask for: illness, accidents, deaths. Mental illness is another one of those things that no one wants, deserves or earns.

Certainly there are things that we can all do to promote our own mental health, to protect against certain conditions. But there are also many diagnoses – in both mental and physical health – for which there are few preventative measures.

Finally, seek out a support system. It may be informal, comprised mainly of understanding friends, or more formal, such as a support group. When I lived in a larger centre and worked for a major national mental health agency, we had one woman on staff whose job it was to support the families of adults with a mental diagnosis. If there is not a support system in your community, consider being involved in starting one. Talk to your person’s mental health support

team about what already exists or how they could support the development of a support system.

In northern B.C. we are fortunate to have some excellent resources such as the local branch of Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) where you can access a support worker who can offer assistance to families supporting a person with a mental health diagnosis. They also offer critically important education programs such as: Mental Health First Aid, both a basic program and one for adults who interact with youth; SafeTalk and ASIST, programs which address recognizing and responding to someone who exhibits signs of contemplating suicide.

At Foundry Prince George, you will be able to access support groups for both adults and youth who have lost someone to suicide.

There are also online resources, such as keltymentalhealth.ca, an excellent website for resources for all ages with podcasts and peer support to help with mental health wellness, and familysmart.ca, where you can access a parent in residence who has lived experience in supporting a loved one with a mental health diagnosis and can offer support and help in navigating the mental health system.

A significant risk in supporting a family member with a mental health condition is caregiver burnout. So I hope you will access the resources you need for yourself as a critical preventive strategy.

grass on the river or creek banks that help prevent erosion during rainstorms, officials said.

Motorized vehicle use around salmon spawning areas without a permit is a misdemeanour and “is prohibited throughout the state of Alaska unless it’s at a designated crossing or at a crossing with an authorized stream permit that has been granted by the Fish and Game habitat office,” wildlife trooper Josh Boyle said.

RESTRICTION LEADS TO CRAVINGS

Restriction is a common trait of weight loss diets. While the restriction of carbohydrates, calories and portion sizes can lead to nutrient deficiencies, a weakened immune system and altered metabolism, intentional deprivation of certain foods can also have an effect on eating behaviours.

A study recently published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics looked into the effect that restricting added sugars can have on behaviour. Added sugars can come in the form of sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup added to foods in processing, including sugar-sweetened beverages, store-bought baked goods, candy and sweetened cereal. The study included obese and normal weight men and women who routinely consumed over 10 per cent of their calories from added sugar. (The World Health Organization recommends no more that 10 per cent

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

KELSEY LECKOVIC

of an individual’s diet be comprised of added sugars.) The study found that restricting the participants’ intake of added sugar increased their desire to seek out those foods and increased how hard they were prepared to work to gain access to foods high in added sugars.

In other words, the participants were told to consume less added sugar, they did so but then craved foods with added sugar even more.

Although this is only one study, it’s the first to assess whether an imposed restriction on a certain food (foods high in added sugars) to promote a healthy diet, increases an individual’s drive to seek out that food. If you’ve tried to restrict

your intake of any food or nutrient, the results of this study may sound familiar to you. Have you told yourself you can’t have bread? Or dessert? Or fast food? Then it’s all you can think about!

Abruptly restricting your intake of certain foods may not be the most effective way of producing a change in habit. Also, if the change you’re making is not something that can be sustained for the rest of your life, you may want to consider a less aggressive approach.

Changes in eating behaviours and habits take time and consideration beyond simply cutting out “problematic” foods. Evidence supports the recommendations of eating meals with others, learning to enjoy your food, cooking more often and being mindful of eating habits. Being aware of when you’re hungry and full, is a useful, intuitive skill that can be developed over time.

These recommendations may seem vague but that vagueness allows for less

• Call us at: 250-562-2441 or 250-562-3301

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restriction and a sense of freedom in deciding what specific approach is right for you. Goals don’t need to be huge, allor-nothing standards.

For example, if you want to start eating less meat, start with one meatless meal a week. Once that becomes doable, make it two meals a week. If “eating less meat” is what you want to do, but you normally eat meat every day, going on a vegan diet may be a struggle. Taking baby steps towards a healthy diet and lifestyle is an approach that not only promotes healthy diets for the long term, but also allows you to feel less restricted and controlled by food.

For more information on setting dietrelated goals, go to www.unlockfood.ca and search “goals.”

— Kelsey Leckovic is a registered dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.

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AROUND TOWN

Foodie Fridays

Tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 808 Canada Games Way, is the last Foodie Friday of the year for hungry residents and visitors to come downtown. Tantalize your tastebuds at a variety of licensed sidewalk and food truck vendors and listen to live music throughout the lunch hour. For more information call 250-614-7880.

Friday Night Mics

Every Friday at 7 p.m. Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave., in Cafe Voltaire, hosts an open mic night for all musicians local or just passing through. The weekly event features great music, audience engagement, tasty beverages and treats while intermission finds people browsing through book shelves filled with contributions from local authors as well as best sellers. For more information visit www.booksandcompany. ca.

Prince George Spruce Kings

Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. the Spruce Kings start their season at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, 888 Dominion Street. Support this successful local team. For more information visit www.sprucekings. bc.ca.

Parkinson SuperWalk

Saturday at noon at the Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park band shell off 17th Ave., join the Parkinson Society British Columbia’s largest fundraising event of the year, Parkinson SuperWalk. Register today to support those in the community who are affected by the disease. Contact: 604-6623240 | mdouglasezzat@parkinson.bc.ca

Family Gaming Afternoon

Every Saturday until Dec. 7 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Nechako Branch, Prince George Public Library, 6547 Hart Highway, bring the family to monthly gaming afternoons at Nechako Branch and play a variety of tabletop board games and video games. Contact: 250-563-9251 | ask@pgpl.ca.

Open House at the Conservatory

Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Prince George Conservatory of Music, 3555 Fifth Ave., come and explore the Conservatory, meet the teachers and try an instrument. Registration is ongoing. All ages welcome. Contact: 250-564-7467 | pgconserva-

tory@gmail.com.

Party In The Park

Sunday from 12:15 to 3 p.m. at Westwood Church, 2658 Ospika Blvd., everyone is welcome to attend this fun-filled community event to kick things off with a yummy barbecue followed by activities for all ages, including cricket (instruction provided by the PG Cricket Club), junior wacky obstacle course inflatable, giant slip and slide (bring your suit and towel), mini air show by PG Aeromodelers, giant games like Connect 4, Kerplunk, Dutch Blitz, Jenga, explore a working fire truck with PG Fire Rescue, line dance with Dance PG and children are invited to get their face painted. Event is weather dependent, any changes will be listed here or on www.westwoodchurch.bc.ca. Contact: 2505623711 | office@westwoodchurch. bc.ca

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: 250-563-6637 | orderbooks@ shaw.ca

Wordplay Open Stage Night

Third Thursday of every month Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave., hosts Wordplay Open Stage Night in Cafe Voltaire from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. This event is geared for poets and storytellers, aspiring, published or professional. Bring original work, take the stage and share with a creative reading.

Tapestry Singers

Sept. 12, 19 and 26 at 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. for junior choir and Sept. 12 and 19 at 6 to 8 p.m. for senior choir all students in the community are invited to attend Everybody Welcome rehearsals at Trinity Downtown, 1448 Fifth Ave., where students in Grades 4 to 7 and Grades 7 to 12 can see if the choirs are the right fit for them. For information visit http://tapestrysingersd57. weebly.com/ or email carolynduerksen@ hotmail.com.

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 P.G. shows are always a sell-out.

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AROUND TOWN

Continued from page 7

Get tickets at the TicketsNorth website/ box office.

Chris Gaskin Comedy Tour Special

Oct. 5 from 7 to 10 p.m. at Artspace, above Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave., hometown boy Chris Gaskin will be taping his first ever comedy special. Hailed by Brielle Magazine as the Baby-Faced Assassin, Gaskin is known for commanding audiences’ attention with his innocent looks and sharp tongue, which has led to him being described as, brutally honest and hysterical. Tickets on sale at eventbrite.com

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.

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 everevolving 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.

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. 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 worldclass 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.

THE QUESTION THAT OPENS DOORS

Wince, then ask: “can you give me some latitude?”

This is the question you ask immediately after hearing the price of anything. It is a sheer negotiation tactic taught to me at a business class I once attended with several other fellow Kinko’s Copy photocopy salespeople in Vancouver, somewhere in the 1990s.

How does one respond to such a question? What you are really asking is “can you open your mind and meet me at some level? Are you able to engage, adapt, act quickly, respond, commune, agree and somehow do business with me? Can we find our sweet spot?”

Many folks are open; some are very closed.

And anyway, what did I have to lose?

I was a 30-something single girl struggling to survive on loonie pizza slices because of my exorbitant rent above the Taverna Corfu on Broadway that ate up the majority of my paycheque. The image of my cat, Sydney,

LATITUDE

LINDA REMPEL

straining his neck towards the daily scent of souvlaki rising in the late afternoons is forever etched in my memory.

I was known as the girl upstairs to the Greek owners, who kindly took pity on me with vegetarian moussaka whenever I was sick. It was a safe spot in the big city that I was very grateful for, that had somewhat of a community feel, even if they never knew my name.

I tested the latitude question anywhere and everywhere from the Oak Centre Mall to the McDonalds on Cambie to street vendors. Sometimes I used a high voice, other times a serious tone. Regardless, most often it worked when the words were swathed

in humour and the audience somehow already knew the secret code of negotiation. It became a daily practice as I grew bolder, almost like sport. And there is nothing sweeter than a good bargain when you’re broke.

But I was getting tired. It was clear my ambition and persistence were not enough to gain much ground in the unforgiving cityscape in any meaningful way. And it was getting more and more difficult to think with the increasing volume of that biological clock ticking in my ear.

One day, out of utter desperation, exhaustion and despair, I looked up and prayed for some latitude to alleviate my poverty and lack of direction in life.

The idea of returning to Alberta was completely out of the question, so I started to ask: Is there anywhere in BC that is more affordable? Is there a place where a girl could get to know folks and build a life, and maybe even open a business or own property? Does such a place even exist? Please

But I was getting tired. It was clear my ambition and persistence were not enough to gain much ground in the unforgiving cityscape in any meaningful way.

give me some latitude! Like a miracle, the answer came in short order with a four-month job offer at 53.91242° N, otherwise known as the great city of Prince George. That was over 20 years ago.

So, my thought is to share with you my gold nugget negotiation question: Can you give me some latitude? The answer could change your life.

VAPING IS TODAY’S CIGARETTE SMOKING

In 1973, the band Brownsville Station released the song Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room. At the time, nearly half of Canadian adults and teens smoked. Reports had been coming out for a number of years about how dangerous tobacco use is, but smoking was still seen as the “cool” thing to do.

Over the next several decades, the medical evidence became quite clear. Two thirds of smokers would die due to their use of tobacco. Legislation changed and we were not allowed to smoke in buses, on planes, in restaurants, at work or at any public place. Smoking lost its “cool” appeal, and by 2017 less than 15 per cent of the overall population smoked and less than eight per cent of Canadian teens used tobacco regularly.

There was no more “smokin’ in the boys’ room” because smoking was strictly forbidden on school property for everyone.

Life expectancies in many countries were increasing and it seemed like humanity had turned a new page in health consciousness.

Then came vaping.

Over the last several years. this has become commonplace among teens and young adults. Today, roughly 23 per cent of high school age Canadians vape

LESSONS IN LEARNING

GERRY CHIDIAC

and this has become a serious issue in our educational system. Where it was relatively easy to catch students smoking tobacco in school due to the smell and type of smoke, vaping products merely cause a bit of vapor which dissipates quickly. Students vape in washrooms and they are very hard to catch. Alarm systems are available and are being considered, but it needs to be determined as to whether their use would be in violation of students’ civil liberties.

How did we get into this mess and what can we do about it?

Vaping products came onto the market relatively recently and advertisers tell us they help people quit smoking cigarettes. They are also presented as less harmful and legally they fill a niche in the market where there is a lack of legislation. They are generally sleek and easy to conceal and the cost of these products has been dropping dramatically.

They are also sold everywhere. If teens are unable to buy them in stores due to

age restrictions, they can often buy them online.

In addition, the nicotine liquid used in vaping products is available in many fun flavours, from mango to bubblegum. They appeal to young people, who are largely unaware of the ease of addiction or of any other health dangers. In fact, I have heard students say, “Vaping isn’t bad for you like cigarettes.”

To be honest, I have found it difficult to counter this argument because there is little hard evidence as to the risks of vaping. According to Health Canada, “the long-term consequences of vaping are unknown.”

Perhaps the greatest concern is that vaping may alter teen brain development. If we do not act quickly, we could potentially have a whole new generation of adults addicted to nicotine.

So what can we do? The good news is that we have been down this road before. Hard medical facts, advertising restrictions and effective legislation greatly reduced the percentage of people who smoked. We were also able to create a change in public perception; cigarettes went from being “cool” to being “nasty.”

We can do the same with regard to vaping but we need to remember that corporations which have invested in vaping

They appeal to young people, who are largely unaware of the ease of addiction or of any other health dangers. In fact, I have heard students say, “Vaping isn’t bad for you like cigarettes.”

products are taking every opportunity available to create lifelong customers and they are very good at marketing.

The future is clearly in our hands. Parents, educators, medical professionals and legislators need to get together with effective counter programs in order to assure that “vapin’ in the boys’ room” also becomes a thing of the past.

— 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.

NEW CN CENTRE BOARDS, GLASS SAFER FOR PLAYERS

the standard set by the National Hockey League and adopted by the WHL as an eventual league mandate.

The crunch of hockey players colliding into the boards of a rink is sudden and sometimes violent.

If that irresistible force runs into an immovable object, the chances of injury increases.

With that in mind, the new rinkboards the city has installed at CN Centre have been built to allow the best possible shock absorption and the Prince George Cougars think that’s given them a safer place to play their home games.

After 24 years, the steel boards originally installed in the building formerly known as the Prince George Multiplex when it opened in 1995 no longer met

After initially asking the Cougars to pay half the cost of the $578,000 upgrade, city council agreed to pay the entire cost out of its reserve fund once it became clear the new acrylic boards and glass benefit all user groups and will be easier for city staff to take down and reinstall to allow for concerts or trade shows.

“From the Cougars point of view the Number 1 priority is player safety and we know the old system was quite dangerous,” said Andy Beesley, the Cougars vice-president, business. “It was like hitting a brick wall, just not acceptable for the way players play these days, with (the risk of) concussions, not

to mention shoulder injuries and other injuries.

“The other side of it, from an arena point of view, the boards were worn out and there were some problems with the boards that don’t involve hockey.”

The Cougars specifically requested and were granted the most flexible glass, which Beesley says will add to the entertainment value of watching hockey games there.

“It’s a lot more fun for the fans,” he said. “When you throw a giant check into the boards with two heavy bodies, this glass will be rocking and rolling and making all kinds of noise. It’s really fun to see and kind of reassuring to know the players aren’t getting hurt by it.”

Not only do the boards and glass

provide more flexibility but the ridge that runs along the top of the boards is made of spongy material which will lessen player impacts. The glass is softer and marks slightly easier than what was used before, requiring more maintenance to keep it clean, but the acrylic material is safer for spectators.

“What we’ve heard about it is if a piece breaks it doesn’t shatter all over people, and it’s super-quick to replace,” said Beesley.

The stark white boards in training camp have yet to be covered with advertising decals, harkening back to the way hockey rinks used to look, but that’s only temporary.

“Our arena boards and our ice logs are completely sold out, in fact we have a waiting list for both,” said Beesley

TED CLARKE 97/16 staff

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten CREATIVITY CAMP — Sophia Lee and Esther Lee work on drawings at Two Rivers Gallery Creativity Camp on Aug. 27. Children in the camp learned about sculpting.

achieve it by following these two steps:

Break the goal into smaller goals. Avoid the obstacles that can stop your progress toward a goal.

idea that we broke into smaller goals. We have also listed some of the things that might stop you from reaching a goal. Use these to complete the Magnificent Maze or write in your own goals and obstacles. OBSTACLES

STEPS TO REACH

Ask a friend or family member to give you nouns, verbs, plural nouns or adjectives to ll in the blanks in this

A new ice cream shop opened in town last week. My family hopped in our _______ to go check it out.

ario and Maya are selling their toys at a

While there are lots of obstacles, there is also more than one way to reach your goal! Fill in the steps and the obstacles on the maze to complete a path to your goal.

sale to raise money for their local

department.

Someone dripped lemonade on the sales slips. Can you fill in the missing numbers?

Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page?

The shop had been decorated with ________ __________ for its grand opening. And they were handing out coupons for a free scoop of __________, too.

We began to _________ into the shop and saw a large assortment of ____________ ___________ behind the counter.

My dad ordered a sundae topped with __________ and ___________. Mom got a cup of ____________. And I ordered a double scoop of ___________________ on a ____________ cone.

The shop owner gave us each a ____________ card. For every 10 ____________ we buy, we’ll get a __________ ___________ for free!

I can’t wait to bring my grandpa to the shop. They serve ________ _________, and that’s his favorite.

Write an advertisement to sell your favorite book. Be careful not to spoil the ending of the book!

Setting up a lemonade stand is

FINISH ONE THING, 10 MORE TO DO

So after a year of wasting time and avoiding writing at every opportunity, I am pleased to report that I have completed my thesis. I say this not to brag (untrue) but let people know that a person can, if motivated, actually finish something. Even if life is throwing up road blocks at every opportunity, if you do a little bit, every once in a while, projects can be finished. When discovering that I was nearly finished my thesis, my daughter asked me if that means we can have fun again. Feeling guilty, I said that we would. I have played many games of Trouble and Frisbee and we have spent a lot of time snuggling on the couch.

I am glad that it is finished but I am sad at the same time. Like post-holiday depression, there is relief that you are home but sad that you aren’t still gone.

I do believe that it is important to let you kids know that their parents have other interests besides them but there is a balance to maintain. I did (and still do) most of my work between the hours

HOME AGAIN MEGAN

KUKLIS

of 8 and 10 p.m. and try to squeeze in a few hours on the weekend. It was hard but manageable for a short amount of time.

I am glad that it is finished but I am sad at the same time. Like post-holiday depression, there is relief that you are home but sad that you aren’t still gone. I am giving myself a little pep talk because now that the big project is done, the thousand other things that I have been ignoring are now clamouring for attention. My to-do list is around forty pages long and I am under no illusion that I will get everything but I am hopeful that I can squeeze one or two projects in before school starts.

I am hopeful but not counting on it. At the very least, I am hopeful that I can get the back-to-school supplies organized and the laundry picked up off the floor.

Small victories.

In the meantime, I send my hearty encouragement to those who are trying to get things done in the time confetti that is modern day parenting.

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