City council to consider new snow, ice policy
Citizen staff
City council will consider a revamped strategy for controlling snow and ice on Prince George roads on Monday night when a policy based on the suggestions put forward by now-retired manager Frank Blues will be up for approval.
The measures include a rejigging of which roads are given priority and clarity on what are considered arterial roads. It also sets out timelines for applying anti-icing material, namely liquid salt, as well as rock salt and winter crush and sand.
In March, Blues was asked to carry out a review following heavy criticism of the city’s performance when heavy snowfall struck the city this past December and January.
Also on the agenda:
• Council will be asked to waive $20,900 worth of fees and charges related to a home-building project being pursued by the Foundations of Hope Community Builders Society.
• Staff is recommending council deny first and second reading to an application for a multiplefamily housing development at 2150 Queensway. The 0.22-hectare site is currently zoned for parks and recreation and is adjacent to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park and Hudson’s Bay Slough and wetland nature park and trails.
If council does give initial approval, staff is
recommending it be withheld from the public hearing stage until a geotechnical report, riparian assessment, servicing brief and traffic impact analysis have been completed.
• A hearing will be held for an application to increase by 800 the number of patrons covered by the liquor primary licence at Treasure Cove Casino.
If approved, it would raise the number to 2,016 and comes on the heels of a 1,152-square-metre addition to the casino’s show lounge.
• A hearing will be held for a proposal to rezone 1224 Houston Lane from minor institutional to transitional commercial to allow office use for a business that focuses on the education and placement of healthcare professionals.
• An updated cemetery bylaw and an acrossthe-board three-per-cent increase to fees and charges for the services provided will be up for three readings. The bylaw includes new interment options at Memorial Park Cemetery.
• A new sanitary sewer bylaw will be up for three readings. Changes include clear standards for selecting, sizing and installing grease interceptors at restaurants and oil and water separators at car washes and for disposal of sewage by septic haulers.
• A proposal from Telus for a 60-metre wireless communications tower at 9808 Kelly Road South will be up for approval.
Ottawa ordered to pay for mistreatment of First Nations children
The Canadian Press
A Friday ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal about Canada’s treatment of Indigenous children demands a full investigation of the federal Indigenous-affairs department, says childwelfare advocate Cindy Blackstock.
The tribunal ruled the federal government had been “wilful and reckless” in discriminating against First Nations children living on reserves by chronically and knowingly underfunding child-welfare services.
It ordered the federal government to pay $40,000 for every First Nations child who was inappropriately taken away from his or her parents after 2006. The same amount is to be paid to each of their parents. Children who were abused in foster care and those who had basic services, like medical care, denied to them are also each entitled to $40,000. That’s the maximum the tribunal can award.
The Assembly of First Nations estimates about 54,000 children and their parents could be eligible for the money, meaning the total bill will likely exceed $2 billion.
The tribunal has given the AFN, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the federal government until December to come up with a plan for determining who is eligible for the compensation and how it will be paid. Blackstock, the executive director of the caring society and a member of the Gitxsan First Nation who was born in Burns Lake, said the tribunal’s findings make clear Canada didn’t learn from its apologies and compensation awarded for residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.
She said if they had learned, this case wouldn’t have been necessary.
“I want the whole department to be independently evaluated and all of the inequalities facing First Nations children to be costed out by the parliamentary budget officer,” she said.
The compensation follows the tribunal’s 2016 finding of discrimination, saying Ottawa refused for years to provide the same amount of funding for child-welfare services on reserves as provincial governments provided for kids living off-reserve. The money available for kids was the same on and off reserve only when they were in foster care.
The result: a mass removal of children from their families. Fewer than 10 per cent of the children in Canada are Indigenous but more than half the children in care are.
In its 93-page order, the tribunal panel said the maximum compensation award is reserved for the worst cases of discrimination.
“No amount of compensation can ever recover what you have lost, the scars that are left on your souls or the suffering that you have gone through as a result of racism, colonial practices and discrimination,” the panel wrote.
When Blackstock, the holder of an honourary doctorate from UNBC, first brought the case in 2007, Indigenous Affairs was a single department. In 2017 the Liberals divided it into two: the departments of Crown-Indigenous Relations and of Indigenous Services. She said it was a good day for kids but “also a wake-up call for Canadians.”
“Treating kids fairly should not require a court order,” she said.
Since its ruling in 2016, the tribunal has said 10 times that Ottawa failed to comply with orders to fix the funding discrepancies. In 2018, the Liberals finally committed to funding prevention services at the needed levels. Blackstock said while that has mostly happened, Ottawa refused to fund supports for those services, such as for buildings to house programs.
Kevin Deagle, spokesman for Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O’Regan, said Friday the government is reviewing the tribunal’s compensation order. He said it touches on “important and complex issues” the Liberals take seriously.
Smooth operator
Crews from Tyco Concrete poured and finished the new concrete frontage Friday morning for the Cenotaph as part of the Seventh Avenue upgrades at City Hall.
Overdose response team results promising
The Canadian Press
A pilot project involving Vancouver firefighters and health care staff launched to stop the cycle of repeated overdoses is showing what officials say are “hopeful early results.”
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, city
fire Capt. Jonathan Gormick and Vancouver Coastal Health Chief Medical Health Officer
Dr. Patricia Daly announced the results of an overdose team pilot project aimed helping those who have had a recent overdose.
Daly says the overdose outreach team delivers services outside traditional health care sites to support people who can be
hard to reach. Overdose patients have been contacted in the days after they’ve been revived, and Vancouver Coastal Health figures show during a recent one-week period, 21 of the 22 patients contacted consented to an introduction to the outreach team.
Team member Chris Dickinson says it can be overwhelming to navigate the health
care system for someone who has an opioid use disorder, and they may be unaware of the help they can receive.
Stewart says one of the key recommendations from the emergency overdose task force launched after he became mayor was to find ways to break the cycle of repeated overdoses.
Canada fighting China’s canola ban
The Canadian Press
Canada has requested a formal meeting with China at the World Trade Organization to resolve a Chinese ban on Canadian canola shipments.
International Trade Minister Jim Carr announced Friday that Canada is seeking a bilateral consultation at the WTO because the two sides have been unable to resolve the issue.
China’s decision to ban canola shipments is part of disintegrating relations with Canada following the RCMP’s December arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant.
Nine days later, China imprisoned two Canadian men, ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor, on suspicion of spying in what is widely viewed as retaliation for Meng’s arrest.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier this week that China uses arbitrary detentions as a tool to achieve its international and domestic political goals.
That comment sparked the ire of a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry on Friday, who reiterated Beijing’s position that Meng’s arrest had no basis in law and Canada was acting as an American pawn.
Carr said in a statement that Canada’s action at the WTO is part of its commitment to “rules-based international trade” on behalf of Canadian farmers who have been
hit by the canola ban.
“Canada has continued to engage with China at various levels with a view to resolving the issue. In order to make progress, Canada is seeking bilateral consultations at the WTO, which is the usual next step when direct engagement does not lead to resolution,” Carr said.
China blocked imports of Canadian canola seeds, alleging inspectors found pests in some shipments. The federal government says it has tried unsuccessfully to send a delegation of Canadian experts to China to examine the evidence.
The government has supplied an additional $150 million in insurance to canola farmers.
“We stand by our robust food inspection system and will continue to keep farmers, producers and other stakeholders informed of our progress,” said Carr.
Saskatchewan’s Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison said Friday the federal move was months overdue.
“We’d been calling for the national government to initiate the WTO challenge from virtually Day 1 of the Chinese decision to exclude canola into their market,” said Harrison.
“If they had initiated it in April, when I think was when we first asked them to do that, that would have been six months further along in this process than we are right now.”
Jobless rate up but more working
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
The city’s unemployment rate stood at 4.9 per cent in August, according to Statistics Canada labour market survey numbers issued on Friday.
Year-over-year, that’s a half-percentagepoint rise, but it may not be time to sound the alarm bells just yet as more people were actually working than at the same point last year.
As of last month, there were an estimated 50,800 people holding down jobs, a 300-person increase over August 2018. The rise in the unemployment rate appears due to more people seeking work – to the tune of 2,600, compared to 2,300 a year ago.
College of New Caledonia economics instructor Al Idiens said the figures amounted to a picture of a healthy local economy and
IN BRIEF
Local athletes set for 55+ Games
Arna Kristian, 85, along with 21 other local track and field athletes and about 170 others from North Central Zone 9 will be participating in 30 different events at the 55+ B.C. Games in Kelowna from Sept. 10 to 14.
There are more than 4,000 participants at the games this year.
The Citizen’s Christine Hinzmann will be at the games, looking to add more hardware to her collection.
At last year’s 55+ Games in Kimberley-Cranbook, she won gold in discus and shot put in the women’s 55-59 age category, as well as silver in the javelin and hammer throw.
— Citizen staff
PGSO moves free concert indoors
The PGSO is changing the location of their annual free concert for the community, Pops in the Park, on Sunday afternoon. It will be relocated from the bandshell at Lleidli T’enneh Memorial Park to St. Michael’s Church, 1505 Fifth Ave.
The show starts at 1 p.m. Everyone is welcome to attend this event.
— Citizen staff
noted the unemployment rate is among the lowest of the 33 cities of comparable size included in the survey.
Only Nanaimo and Rouyn-Noranda/Vald’Or had lower rates.
Only to the extent that other cities are not enjoying the same outcomes have the figures come as a surprise, Idiens added.
While the numbers appear to fly in the face of the looming trouble in the forest industry, Idiens said that sector is becoming less of a factor for Prince George, in part because sawmills have become so productive and need fewer and fewer workers to run in the first place.
Both Idiens and the city’s economic development officer, Keenan Hopson, attributed much of the buoyancy to the abundance of construction locally.
As of the end of July, 252 building per-
mits have been taken out for $117.3 million worth of work so far this year.
That’s down from $133.8 million reached by the same point last year, which finished at a record-setting pace, but is still well up from $73.7 million as of halfway through 2017.
As well, Hopson said the downturn in the forest sector is more regional than local.
“We’ve been hit a little bit, but we’re by far a more diverse economy,” Hopson said, adding that some of the downturn in forestry has been offset somewhat by a rise in oil and gas as loggers are being hired to clear routes for pipelines.
“I get a good sense that people are impressed with the economy and are still optimistic about it locally,” Hopson said. “All this negativity that you hear in the news, it doesn’t seem to (be present locally). They’re
still building houses and commercial buildings and I just don’t see it on the ground.”
The month-over-month picture does not look as good, as the unemployment rate in July was 4.3 per cent and an estimated 51,700 people were working while 2,300 were seeking work. But Statistics Canada “strongly advises” against using only monthly comparisons due to seasonal factors. The figures are based on a three-month rolling average and do not separate parttime from full-time employment. The city’s unemployment rate for August is accurate to within plus or minus 0.8 percentage points, while that for July and August 2018 are plus or minus 0.7 per cent, all 68 per cent of the time.
The full report is posted with this story at www.princegeorgecitizen.com
Demolition derby
The old Days Inn is quickly becoming a huge pile of debris as crews continue to demolish the
Fraser slide poses engineering challenge
Humboldt
seeks new image in wake of deadly crash
The Canadian Press
The Saskatchewan city of Humboldt is looking to revamp its image as a way of helping people move past the Broncos bus crash.
Spokeswoman Penny Lee says Humboldt became known to many as “the grieving city” after the April 6, 2018 collision.
Sixteen people died and thirteen were injured when the driver of a semi-truck missed a stop sign at a rural intersection and drove into the path of the junior hockey team’s bus.
“Possibly everybody’s felt that, OK, Humboldt is just about the Broncos,” Lee said Friday.
“We’re so much more than that.”
Residents are being asked to fill out a survey that will be used to help the city craft a new look. It may include a new logo and tag line.
“We’ve actually heard businesses, local businesses, say that their suppliers are afraid to come to Humboldt because, ‘Oh no. They’re still grieving,”’ Lee said. “We want to get that message out that... it’s OK. We’re moving on and we want everybody else to move on, but not forget.”
The Canadian Press
Experts say crews working to create a passage for migrating salmon following a rock slide on the Fraser River in British Columbia are dealing with some of the most difficult engineering challenges since a similar incident in the province over a century ago.
Corino Salomi, the environmental lead on the project involving provincial, federal and First Nations officials, says a slide in the Hell’s Gate area of the river during construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1914 posed similar problems to the one discovered in June near Big Bar.
He says engineers have reached out to the United States Army Corps of Engineers for advice and the army confirmed the team is “doing the right thing” in dealing with a slide that is much larger than others.
However, he says the scale of the slide that is believed to have occurred last fall requires difficult technical work in a remote location where crews must use ropes to rappel more than 100 metres down to the water’s edge.
Salomi says crews have moved and blasted rocks and created channels for fish to pass through but water levels are expected to drop and it’s too early to determine the overall impact on salmon stocks.
He says the Fraser River is being squeezed through a relatively narrow corridor of about 75 metres but efforts involving fed-
eral, provincial and First Nations partners have allowed about 100,000 salmon to pass through naturally so far.
“Some portion of 1.5 million (pink salmon) may arrive to the slide but we don’t know what that number will be and will continue to monitor that,” he says of the smaller species.
“We did have concerns that although the rock manipulation allowed sockeye and chinook to pass it wasn’t certain that pinks would be able to pass. So, two days ago we applied tags and we are now seeing those tagged fish moving through.”
Salomi says about 50 per cent of the tagged pinks made it through on their own.
The management team working at the Big Bar landslide says 60,000 sockeye, chinook and pink salmon have been transported by helicopter.
Principal engineer Barry Chilibeck, an expert on fish passage and hydrology, says the Fraser River is a significant migratory route for five species of salmon, including coho and steelhead, which are expected to arrive soon.
“In terms of a river and fish passage and importance to Canadians and communities, there’s nothing bigger than the Fraser,” he says. Smaller, weaker pink salmon are expected to be transferred by helicopter and trucks if they are unable to swim past the slide on their own.
CITIZEN
building to make way for a new swimming pool.
CP PHOTO
Premier John Horgan, second from left, helps Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials and B.C. Wildfire Service firefighters pull in a fishing net to catch salmon, to be transported up the Fraser River past a massive rock slide on the river near Big Bar, west of Clinton, on July 24.
Dad makes deal with RCMP to watch part of son’s video
The Canadian Press
The father of a man suspected of killing three people in northern British Columbia has watched part of a video that has been described as his son’s “last will and testament.”
Alan Schmegelsky’s lawyer, Sarah Leamon, says she and her client reached an agreement with the RCMP and were able to watch a 30-second clip of the video on Thursday.
Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, were found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the wilderness of northern Manitoba after a national manhunt for the pair.
Leamon says a non-disclosure agreement prevents her from speaking about what the video shows, but RCMP have said it depicts what Bryer Schmegelsky wanted to be done with his body after he died.
She says Alan Schmegelsky became “extremely emotional” and “very upset” while watching the clip and it has been a very difficult time for him.
Leamon says it’s unfortunate that he had to take the step of getting a lawyer in order to see a video that should have been shown to him in the first place.
“That part of it is regretful, but I am pleased to see that the RCMP was willing to negotiate out this agreement, which in my view properly protects the integrity of the ongoing investigation while also acknowledging my client’s parental rights as a father,” she said.
In the email exchange between Leamon and the RCMP obtained by The Canadian Press last month, an officer writes that information about Bryer’s wishes was passed on to his mother, who is next of kin.
“At this time, we will not be providing access to the video for Alan,” the officer wrote in the email. The message doesn’t say why, but Leamon said the RCMP told her it’s because the investigation is ongoing.
Alan Schmegelsky declined comment on Thursday due to the non-disclosure agreement he signed with the RCMP, saying only, “There are no easy days.”
The RCMP declined comment, saying it
would not be discussing its private communications with family.
The father is estranged from his son’s mother.
Leamon says she believes the mother watched the same 30-second clip.
The lawyer adds that she doesn’t know the length of the full video and her client
Ron SEYMOUR
Kelowna Daily Courier
was not allowed to have a copy of the clip or record it because the RCMP is maintaining exclusive conduct of it.
and
are suspected of
in northern B.C. in July.
A man wept as he pleaded guilty Thursday to killing his wife and two young daughters days before Christmas in 2017.
Jacob Forman entered guilty pleas in B.C. Supreme Court to one count of second-degree murder in the death of his wife Clara Forman and two charges of first-degree murder for the deaths of seven-year-old Karina and eight-year-old Yesenia. Their bodies were found in the family’s home in Kelowna on Dec. 19, 2017.
Crown attorney Murray Kay said he would seek consecutive sentences, while defence lawyer Raymond Dieno said he would ask the court for concurrent sentences.
Outside court, Dieno said Forman killed his family as he was going through an extreme case of alcohol withdrawal.
He said Forman was a functioning alcoholic and had stopped drinking at the time he killed his wife and daughters.
Given his alcoholism, Forman originally believed he had a defence to offer to the murder
charges, Dieno said.
“He was of the view that he had a mental state defence,” Dieno said.
The lawyer said an expert report retained by the defence prompted Forman’s guilty pleas.
“The report from the expert was such that (Forman) thought he should plead guilty,” Dieno said.
The Crown and the defence will enter an agreed statement of facts along with sentencing recommendations on Sept. 16 before Justice Allan Betton delivers a sentence.
When Forman’s trial began on Tuesday, he was asked how he pleaded and he replied: “I am responsible, but I’m not guilty of what the Crown is saying.”
The trial also heard Forman confessed to police on Dec. 27, 2017, and made confession-like statements to his brother and his pastor and in letters to family friends.
A conviction of first-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence without chance of parole for 25 years.
A second-degree murder conviction also carries a life sentence, but with parole eligibility set by the court at between 10 and 25 years.
Schmegelsky
McLeod
killing a young tourist couple – American Chynna Deese and Australian Lucas Fowler – and botany lecturer Leonard Dyck
CP PHOTO
Alan Schmegelsky, father of Bryer Schmegelsky, is shown in Mill Bay on July 24.
Martimes bracing for Dorian
The Canadian Press
Hurricane Dorian is expected to make landfall in Atlantic Canada Saturday with winds of 100 kilometres per hour, driving rain and pounding coastal surf – conditions that had emergency officials warning Friday of the potential for significant damage across the region.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre said Friday that a hurricane warning was in effect for central and eastern Nova Scotia, and a hurricane watch was is in effect for southwestern Newfoundland.
Tropical storm watches were also in effect for western Nova Scotia, southeastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, the Magdalen Islands and northwestern Newfoundland.
“We expect it to make landfall as a hurricane and then we expect it to move towards Newfoundland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then become a post tropical storm at that particular stage,” said Bob Robichaud, the centre’s warning preparedness meteorologist.
“But it will be a hurricanestrength post tropical storm, meaning we still have hurricane force winds associated with that storm.”
Robichaud said initial high winds would be felt in southwestern Nova Scotia earlier Saturday with the centre of the storm expected to land near or just east of Halifax by Saturday evening.
“What we should expect are things like uprooted trees, broken trees – that may result in extended power outages,” Robichaud said.
Most regions were forecast to experience tropical storm force winds of 90 to 110 kilometres per hour.
Near and to the south of the forecast track, winds were expected to reach hurricane force of 120 kilometres per hour or more.
Fishermen along Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Coast expressed worries about Dorian’s potential strength as boats were moved to sheltered areas and tied together tightly.
“There’s a huge amount of activity around the dock,” said Evan d’Entremont, the 60-year-old owner of Evans Fresh Seafoods in West Pubnico, on Nova Scotia’s southwestern coast, home to one of Canada’s busiest areas of commercial fishing.
“Hopefully, we won’t have too many tidal surges,” d’Entremont said. “That’s the killer down here.”
Most vessels in the area had returned to the wharfs by Friday afternoon.
Fishermen tied them up together in long rows with secure lines and thick bumpers.
“There’s not too much you can do,” said Jamey Mood, 38, a fisherman who lives in West Pubnico.
“You have to make sure your bow and stern lines are doubled and tripled up and make sure your extra bumpers are out so that you don’t beat the other boats all to pieces... Some boats are tied five in a row.”
Like most Nova Scotians, Mood was also busy buying propane for the barbecue, gasoline for the car and laying in a three-day store of water and non-perishable food.
Meanwhile, Max Kenney, the harbourmaster of the Cape Sable Island Harbour Authority, said he is concerned aging port infrastructure on the eastern side of the island will be ripped apart.
He estimated 90 per cent of the island’s 250 fishing vessels had been moved from the eastern side, which faces the Atlantic Ocean, to seek shelter on the western side.
“On the eastern side of our island the wharfs are 50 to 60 years old and they have been repaired rather than replaced, while our
boats for lobster fishing have gotten larger and longer,” said Kenney. “The wharfs just won’t stand it. I’ve always said, ‘We’re one big storm from a disaster,’ especially on that side of the island with the conditions of the wharf.”
The forecast was calling for severe winds and torrential rain, with a major impacts for southeastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, western Newfoundland and Quebec’s Lower North Shore.
The highest rainfall amounts – 50 to 100 millimetres – were expected over western Nova Scotia, western Prince Edward Island, extreme eastern and southern New Brunswick and the Magdalen Island.
In Fredericton, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs announced the cancellation of the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers that had been scheduled to begin Sunday in the port city of Saint John.
“As with past emergency situations we are asking all New Bruns-
wickers to be prepared and to heed the advice of safety officials,” Higgs said. “We should pick up extra water and non-perishable food items. Make sure you have fresh batteries for your flashlights and radios and make sure your cars are full of fuel.”
Greg MacCallum, the director of New Brunswick’s Emergency Measures Organization, warned against localized and flash flooding, especially in the province’s southeast.
“That is a real possibility and it needs to be anticipated and thought about because it can be devastating,” he said.
Large waves were expected for the Atlantic coasts of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and for eastern portions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while a storm surge, combined with large waves and pounding surf, could potentially cause flooding in parts of Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Newfoundland, and the Magdalen Islands.
With rough seas forecast, the Commander of Maritime Forces
Atlantic said a group of NATO warships visiting Halifax were pulled out of port Friday afternoon, while a spokesman with the Halifax Port Authority said four cruise ships had cancelled a Saturday visit to the port. Maritime Atlantic also cancelled its Saturday ferry crossings between Cape Breton and Newfoundland.
In Nova Scotia, the RCMP issued a public safety appeal, warning of hazardous conditions, decreased visibility and conditions for hydroplaning on roads and highways.
“The RCMP encourages the public to maintain a safe viewing distance along beaches and shorelines, well away from the water’s edge and stay completely off rocks, breakwaters, and piers where waves are breaking,” the Mounties said in a news release.
As of late Friday afternoon, Dorian was positioned off North Carolina and was moving northeast at 32 kilometres an hour with maximum sustained winds of 148 kilometres an hour.
Union, federal gov’t seek deal before election
The Canadian Press
The country’s biggest publicsector union says it’s prepared to stay at the bargaining table with the federal government to reach a new contract for more than 70,000 of its members as the clock ticks toward a general election.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents about 140,000 federal employees, returned to negotiations Sept. 1 after it said the Trudeau government gave indications that it was prepared to do better than the
terms already agreed to with other civil service unions.
PSAC was the lone holdout earlier this year when it rejected Ottawa’s offer of wage increases and compensation for the stress caused to public servants by the Phoenix pay-system debacle.
Several other unions reached tentative agreements that included a cumulative, one-time extra week off over four years for federal employees who were left struggling with the pay system, which has overpaid, underpaid, and in some cases not paid employees at
all since its launch in 2016.
Signatories included the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the Association of Canadian Financial Officers and the Canadian Association of Professional Employees.
Wage provisions added up to minimum increases of two per cent each year in 2018 and 2019, and 1.5 per cent in 2020 and 2021, plus adjustments to wage grids that could increase wages by another one per cent.
PSAC spokesman Riccardo Filippone would not say Friday
Helping veterans hindered by red tape, case workers say
The Canadian Press
Case managers assisting Canada’s most severely disabled veterans say they are forced to spend more time filling out paperwork than helping former service members.
The complaint is in an internal review by Veterans Affairs Canada, which found most case managers spend more than half of each working day filling out required forms and reports – with one in three spending 70 per cent of their time on such tasks.
The findings follow long-standing concerns and anger about a shortage of case workers, whose jobs include guiding injured veterans to the services and benefits they need to transition back to civilian life after leaving the military. The importance of case managers was confirmed by the internal review, as most veterans were found to have seen significant improvements in their physical and mental health when they had case managers. Veterans Affairs employs about 400 case workers, who help roughly 13,000 veterans each year.
Yet the “administrative-related burden” and “complicated or unnecessary business practices” placed on case managers was seen as a significant obstacle to helping
veterans, including an onerous amount of paperwork that ties up much of their time.
In fact, the review found that case managers at Veterans Affairs were far more likely to complain that the quality of their work was suffering because of unnecessary paperwork and red tape than people with similar jobs at Correctional Services Canada and the Department of National Defence.
One of the key problems identified by case managers was a report required for each of the veterans they help, every 90 days. While the report is supposed to help case managers identify their patients’ needs, most described it as a huge waste of time.
“Case managers reported that they should be spending significantly less time documenting than what it occurring,” the report says, adding the required report was considered “too subjective and... not valuable for case managers to be spending their time on it.”
Veterans Affairs spokesman Josh Buekert said in an email Friday that the department recently eliminated the need for case managers to fill out the report every 90 days and is working on other initiatives to ease “some of the administrative burden without impacting veterans.”
exactly what convinced his union to return to the bargaining table.
But it had earlier placed two conditions on resuming bargaining. First, it wanted an indication that the government was prepared to talk about a better wage deal than the other unions had accepted. The other was that the government would have to be prepared to talk about Phoenix compensation that involved more than just time off.
“(Treasury Board) very recently communicated that those two contextual demands would be
something they could head back to the table to consider,” Filippone said.
The current talks affect about 71,000 program and administrative employees, but it is widely expected that similar contract conditions would apply to other categories of government workers should a deal be struck. It was not clear Friday whether bargaining would continue through the weekend, although Filippone acknowledged an election call coming any day added an element of pressure to the talks.
CP PHOTO
Workers haul boats from the water at the Dartmouth Yacht Club in Dartmouth, N.S. on Friday as they prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian. The major storm is expected to hit Nova Scotia today.
Questions for West Coast Olefins
Editor’s note: The following letter was sent to The Citizen from the Too Close 2 Home group. Ken James of West Coast Olefins has been invited to take share his response with Citizen readers in this space.
Dear Mr. Ken James,
As you may be aware, we have created a Facebook-based community group called Too Close 2 Home for Prince George citizens to talk about the proposed plastic plant site. Our page is a public forum for conversation on topics related to the West Coast Olefins proposed facility in Prince George.
As we understand it, West Coast Olefin’s proposal is for an ethylene extraction petrochemical plant with potential for up to three additional plastic plants at 10012 Willow Cale Road, within the Prince George airshed.
Our membership is diverse and includes community leaders, scientists, medical doctors, engineers and experts in public consultation and participatory planning. We are all eager to obtain and carefully consider information about the proposal from West Coast Olefins.
Using social media, we have invited the public to share questions and concerns about your proposed facility. We have been both compiling and exploring questions, research papers and related studies shared by our members since mid-August.
As a service to our members, we have committed to engaging with you directly, to endeavour yo find answers to their collective questions. These are questions that members feel must be addressed in order for them to be properly consulted about the plant and its associated impacts, and to carefully consider what is being proposed.
As it currently stands, many members are concerned about the lack of information being shared by West Coast Olefins, in addition to any concerns that they have about the plant and the proposed site.
Please find the list of compiled questions below. We respectfully request that you provide a detailed response to these questions by Sept. 18. We plan to hold a public forum shortly after that date and would like to be able to share information from your company, to address member concerns and questions.
If you are unable to respond by Sept. 18, we will share this with our members as well.
Susanne Weber, Zoe Meletis, Marie Hay Prince George Questions for West Coast Olefins Ltd. Submitted by Too Close 2 Home:
Refining/manufacturing
1. Which main chemicals will be used in the proposed refining/manufacturing process?
2. How will these chemicals be transported to the site?
3. What type of onsite storage facilities will be used and what safeguards are associated with such storage facilities?
4. What precautions will be in place to protect the chemicals and processes associated with the plant from contaminating the land, rivers, and groundwater?
5. How will solid/liquid waste products be handled? What percentage of these is
expected to stay in the local area?
6. Will the plant’s tailing ponds be completely covered over, and will this prevent associated toxic fugitive air emissions?
7. How high will the plant’s flare stacks be, and how much of the time will flaring take place? Which times of day and week will flaring be conducted (times; frequency)? How long are the sessions expected to last?
8. When flaring does take place with either planned or unplanned shut downs of the plants, how much of an additional air emission load is to be anticipated during such times?
9. What is the anticipated production capacity of the ethane extraction plant, and which products and markets will it most closely be affiliated with? Is the plant’s maximum capacity one mega tonne?
10. West Coast Olefins Ltd. has publicly suggested that up to three plastic plants can be accommodated on the 300-acre site to utilize the ethylene produced by the ethane plant. What are the expected emissions into the PG airshed in terms of expected increases in truck, rail and car traffic with all the proposed facilities at the proposed site location in Willow Cale, through all phases including construction through to ongoing operation? What impacts are you anticipating with increased road and rail traffic, and what measures will you take to mitigate those potential impacts?
11. If the main product is plastic pellets and the majority of those will be shipped to Asia, how many rail cars are going to be needed to transport the pellets to Asia through Prince Rupert? Will this put an additional strain on rail, rail companies, and/ or communities with rail lines? If so, how will the company work to mitigate associated negative impacts?
12. How much extra rail line is going to have to be built by CN in order to connect with and serve your site?
13. As the current CN rail capacity to Prince Rupert is already at maximum capacity, will CN be building more railways to Prince Rupert to accommodate the extra rail car traffic?
14. Will this increase in rail traffic bring westerly passenger rail traffic t to a halt? Can you provide evidence to reassure community members that rail capacity can be augmented without increased conflict or risk?
15. It is our understanding that the Port of Prince Rupert is also currently operating at maximum capacity. Is the port capable and prepared to accommodate and service all the extra tanker traffic, unloading, storage, and loading of one mega tonne of ethylene product?
16. How will you mitigate fugitive plastic pellet and dust losses around Prince Rupert and the harbour area, bearing in mind the welfare of the marine animals that live there?
Process
1. Will this proposed plant be built with flexible process production lines? What considerations have been given to planning upgrades to more environmentally sustain-
able production methods and process?
2. Where exactly will the raw supply for the ethylene production come from and how is it going to be transported to the new facility? Many residents have expressed concerns that your facility will require another pipeline to be built to supply it with the raw materials. Due to the recent pipeline explosion last fall near Shelley, BC and subsequent voluntary (and mandatory) reduction in use of natural gas throughout the province, most British Columbians are now aware that the Enbridge pipeline is still only permitted to run at 85 per cent of its capacity and is responsible to supplying much of the central and southern interior’s natural gas for both commercial and residential customers. How do you plan to address these concerns?
Air & Water Quality
1. Please provide quantitative estimates of expected VOCs, especially Benzene,1,2Butadiene, and formaldehyde, as well as the tonnage per annum of fine particle emissions during all phases of the proposed development and its ongoing operation.
2. Do you have wind maps to suggest where the emissions from this facility will travel- how far, how frequently, and how long can we expect to experience emissions in each area of the city? What degree of accuracy is associated with these maps? Which areas will be most affected and how will you mitigate these effects?
3. Please provide planned procedures and technologies that will be used to address the VOC emissions mentioned.
4. Please include the estimated carbon emissions from transporting product and wastes to and from the site, storage, delivery, etc.
5. How many millions of plastic pellets and how much plastic dust will be lost into the environment per annum, both as inevitable and accidental fugitive plastic losses during all phases of production, storage, transport and delivery. What efforts will be taken to reduce such losses?
6. How will you mitigate emissions, spills, or chemical explosions at your facility? What risks exist for adjacent facilities, Haggith Creek, and the Fraser River should a spill, explosion, or fire occur at your facility? What strategies will you have in place to ensure further contamination does not occur following a fire? What is your response strategy to minimize impacts while ensuring worker safety?
7. How will you protect the salmon and sturgeon living in the Fraser River, from both accidental and inevitable plastics losses into the river?
8. What emissions standards are currently in place for the newest facilities in the world, and exactly how do you plan to meet or exceed these?
9. How do these contemporary plant emission standards (see previous question) compare to what you intend to build in the bowl of Prince George on Willow Cale Road? How does the proposed plant for Prince George compare with the Joffre plant in Red Deer (that you have publicly referenced)?
SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR
10. Would the chief operating officers of this company want this facility in their backyard? In their children’s airshed?
Site Selection
1. Why have you chosen this site for your proposed facility? How did this site win out over alternative sites?
2. What meteorological data did you use in determining the best site for your petrochemical plant?
3. How did proximity to residential neighbourhoods and schools, as well as the ALR designation for the land upon which the site is proposed, factor into your site selection?
4. How does this kind of project fit in with the global need to reduce the proliferation of plastics?
5. Both Sarnia, Ontario and the Louisiana Gulf Coast which have big petrochemical ethane cracking plants are referred to as “Cancer Alleys”. What convincing evidence can you offer that in 10-15 years Prince George will not also be referred to as “Cancer Alley “?
Human Health
1. How do you plan to respond to well documented long-term human health impacts and concerns associated with similar existing facilities elsewhere in the world?
2. Can you provide evidence that your proposed facility will not cause long-term negative human health, environmental, and air quality impacts both on site and in the greater community?
3. How will you protect workers in your facility from exposure to toxic heavy metals like lead and mercury, arsenic and cadmium? How will you seek to prevent worker nanoparticle dust ingestion/integration, exposure to toxic chemicals and gas emissions?
4. How do you plan to monitor levels of exposure for your workers regarding inhalation of nanoparticles, chemicals, and gas emissions? If exposure, acute, and/or long term health impacts are reported, how will you work to address these in terms of reducing harm to workers and improving the health and safety of the plant?
5. The City of Prince George is a signatory to the Blue Dot campaign (09-14-2015). As a Blue Dot community, our City Council has committed to protecting residents’ rights to a clean environment. This includes the right to breathe healthy air. What data can you supply residents to assure them that the proposed plant will not compromise this?
Environmental Assessment & Community Engagement
1. Do you have deadline dates for the Provincial Environmental Assessment Process and can you share those with our group?
2. Will the proposed plant be subject to regulation under the Oil and Gas Activities Act as amended by Bill 23- 2015 ?
3. Please provide dates, times, and locations for the next public information session/s you will be offering in our community.
YOUR LETTERS
Tutoring tutorial
Further to the discussion about tutoring at CNC (Sean Ollech letter, Aug. 21 & Faculty Association of CNC letter, Aug. 27), I’m confused why CNC hires instructors to teach in the university transfer program who do not hold master’s degrees yet at the same time they hold professional tutors to a higher standard.
Currently, I teach English at CNC, but I oversaw the writing tutoring at UNBC for approximately four years. While I hold a master’s degree, the tutors I hired and trained were peer tutors, that is upper division undergraduate students as well as graduate students. While this tutoring model worked quite well at UNBC, I acknowledge that for CNC it might be difficult to recruit peer tutors.
However, I agree with Ollech that professional tutors do not require a master’s degree. An undergraduate degree, along with proper training, is sufficient. Students pay a great deal of money for tuition and fees – international students in particular – and they deserve all of the support services that are supposed to be included, including tutoring.
Tutors can make the difference between student success or failure. Brenda Koller Prince George
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
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NHL selects women to ref prospects games
The NHL for the first time has selected four female officials to work on the ice at several prospect tournaments being held this weekend.
Katie Guay and Kelly Cooke have been selected as referees, while Kirsten Walsh and Kendall Hanley will work as linesmen, the league announced Friday. The four were selected out of group of 96 officials, including 11 women, who participated in the league’s annual officials exposure combine in Buffalo, New York, last month.
This will mark the first time women have officiated at the pretraining camp prospects tournament level, and marks the next step in the league’s bid to have women officiate at the NHL level. Without providing a timeline,
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman previously said he envisions a woman officiating at the league level.
Guay is the most experienced of the four, having refereed women’s games at the Winter Olympics last year. She has been assigned to work the Anaheim Ducks-hosted tournament in Irvine, California. Cooke, who this past year officiated at the women’s world hockey championships, has been assigned to work the Predators tournament in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hanley, who has spent 11 seasons officiating at the NCAA Division III level, will work the Detroit Red Wings’ tournament in Traverse City, Michigan. Walsh just completed her collegiate playing career at Robert Morris, and will work at the Sabres tournament in Buffalo.
two
selected
and
Grieving dad’s warning to working parents goes viral
The Washington Post
In a wrenching essay, a Portland, Oregon, tech executive shared how the death of his eight-year-old son forced him to rethink how he has oriented his life around work. He urged other parents to do the same.
In a LinkedIn post that’s since gone viral, J.R. Storment detailed how his days had been dominated by work since he co-founded the Portland cloud management startup Cloudability in 2011, the same month his twin boys were born.
And he wrote about the regret he felt over things he wished he’d done differently with his son Wiley, who died unexpectedly in his sleep last month from complications with epilepsy.
Storment said that he is struggling to redefine his relationship to work – and urged other parents not to make the same mistakes that haunt him.
“A lot of the things you are likely spending your time on you’ll regret once you no longer have the time,” Storment wrote. Parents frequently schedule one-on-one meetings with coworkers, but do they schedule them with their kids? “If there’s any lesson to take
away from this, it’s to remind others (and myself) not to miss out on the things that matter.”
The post struck a chord with working parents who are trying to juggle kids and jobs in an age when technology dictates that work begins the moment you pick up your phone in the morning, and stops only when you force yourself to put it down.
“Though the story about this tragic event comes an incredibly important reminder about priorities – one that the term #worklifebalance can’t even begin to describe,” tweeted Jullie Strippoli, an assistant branch manager with Charles Schwab.
“I strongly recommend that every working parent read J.R.’s post.”
In a 2018 Ciphr study of 1,400 working parents, more than half said they felt judged by colleagues or bosses for trying to balance their home and work lives. And both parents and non parents are increasingly struggling with the threat of burnout, which comes at a significant cost: The Harvard Business Review estimated that between $125 billion and $190 billion in healthcare spending each year is tied to the physical and psychological tolls of burnout.
On the morning Storment would learn his son had died, he rose early for back-to-back meetings and left without saying goodbye, completing two work calls before arriving at the office.
When the call came from his wife, Storment was in a meeting regarding paid time off with employees in his Portland office.
He had just told them he hadn’t taken more than a contiguous week off in eight years.
Storment hasn’t worked since Wiley died, and he said he’s struggling with how to return “in a way that won’t leave me again with the regrets I have now.”
“To be honest, I’ve considered not going back,” Storment wrote. “But I believe in the words of Kahlil Gibran who said, ‘Work is love made visible.’ To me, that line is a testament to how much we gain, grow and offer through the work we do. But that work needs to have a balance that I have rarely lived.”
Wiley was already planning for future business ventures, Storment wrote, including a smoothie stand, a virtual reality headset operation and a “spaceship building company.”
Serial hugging and other issues
Karla L. MILLER Special To The Washington Post
From the reader with an overly huggy co-worker: We had a serious conversation, and she received that quite well.
Everything has been fine since.
She seems able to contain the spontaneous hugging, and she’s a wonderful addition to the team. While it wasn’t really bothersome to any of us, my concern was that we weren’t serving her well if we didn’t say that in the professional world, it’s not OK, and could damage her reputation as a highly competent professional.
Readers may remember the 14-year-old seeking advice on how to get a job to help support the family, including two unemployed adult siblings and divorced parents living under the same roof. Here’s an update, two years later:
I’m now a rising junior in high school.
My siblings still haven’t gotten jobs, but they have gotten pretty close.
We’re still struggling financially, but we’re a lot more stable now ever since my siblings and I moved with my mother out of my father’s house.
I would apply for jobs as a 16-year-old, but my mom suggests that I enjoy my childhood while I can.
I have a bit of great news.
For over a year I’ve been part of a team developing a modification in a video game. I’m the texture artist. Although I don’t get paid, it’s certainly a great learning experience.
Writing and drawing are really fun for me, and I want my future to be about them. I got into this when I was browsing the online community forums of one of my favourite games and volunteered to help a developer who needed design
help for a game modification. I met other community members and became friends with other artists on the project.
Eventually we left because the developer was making sexist and racist jokes and treating the female artists worse than the males. Now I am working with other community members on our own game modification, and we hope to earn royalties for it.
When someone you’re working for disrespects you, then they’re not worth it. Start your own project or look for someone who will show you the respect you need.
So you have a side gig doing what you love, and you already have a good sense of what you will and won’t accept from an employer. All I can add is, don’t be shy about asking to be paid for your next gig – your time and skills are valuable. But you seem to have things well in hand. Keep us posted!
He would sometimes invite his brother and parents to join in his planning, but made it clear he would take the lead.
That made reading the words, “Occupation: Never Worked” on his son’s death certificate one of the most painful moments, Storment wrote. In the post, Storment described a happy memory that’s taken on a darker tinge now: dancing with Wiley at the Oregon County Fair years earlier, while the band performed “Enjoy yourself (It’s later than you think).”
“You work and work for years and years, you’re always on the go/You never take a minute off, too busy makin’ dough,” the lyrics read, in the lead up to the titular advice, which Storment and his wife are begging other parents to heed.
“We wish a lot of things were different, but mostly we wish we’d had more time. If you are a parent and have any capacity to spend more time with your kids, do,” Jessica Brandes, Wiley’s mother and Storment’s wife, wrote in her own LinkedIn Post. “It is priceless and should not be squandered. Take your vacation days and sabbaticals and go be with them. You will not regret the emails you forgot to send.”
The Associated Press
Above, referee Katie Guay watches a Boston College line change in February during a Beanpot Tournament NCAA college hockey game against Harvard in Boston. Top left, Guay, right, and Kirsten Walsh, left, participate in the NHL’s annual officials exposure combine in Buffalo last month. Guay and Walsh were among four females selected by the NHL to be the first women to work as on-ice officials at several prospect tournaments taking place across the U.S. this weekend. The other
women
were Kelly Cooke
Kendall Hanley.
Welcome to the capital of kindness
Andrea Sachs
The Washington Post
Dianne Flynn pressed play on the stereo and released the voice of country singer Alan Jackson into her home in Newfoundland. Her husband, Derm Flynn, listened to the words intently, his face and thoughts drawn inward. I sat across from Derm on the leather couch where, 18 years ago, an American had slept after his plane was diverted to eastern Canada following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In all, 38 commercial planes and four military aircraft were forced to land at Gander International Airport. More than 6,500 passengers descended on several small towns in central Newfoundland. Appleton was one of them. Gander was another.
“Everybody was doing what they could,” said Derm. Appleton’s 680 residents cared for about 90 passengers for up to five days. “The plane people needed food and a place to eat and sleep. They needed some assurance, compassion, love and counseling. They needed someone to give them a warm hug.”
Current events are causing me to sleep less and curse more. No romcom movie or carb-heavy meal or puppy yoga session can dispel the sense of dread I feel as I watch the pillars of tolerance and decency wobble and threaten to fall. I have tried to find a release close to home, but none of my usual therapies are sticking. I needed a more powerful pill to lift my spirits and remind me that good people and selfless deeds still exist. So I decided to fly north of the border and due east for some mending. If 9/11 history served correctly, Newfoundland could restore me.
In the 847-page Dictionary of Newfoundland English, you can find one phrase for inclement weather (“not fit fer a dog”) and nearly a dozen terms of endearment, including “m’darling,” “ducky” and “trout.” In Canada’s easternmost province, affection trumps storminess.
I learned a sampling of these sayings from a display in the lobby of the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, which is staging Come From Away through Dec. 1. (The title refers to anyone who is not from Newfoundland and Labrador.) While studying the vocabulary list, I met Susan Rollinson, an audience member whose vernacular rolled off her Newfoundland tongue.
“Newfoundland is a great place to be from,” she said. “We’re all about giving. We take care of people. We’re also curious. ‘Oh, you’re from away?’ Away is a big place.”
After the 100-minute performance, I sought out Susan. She wasn’t hard to find. I spotted her a few rows back, frozen in place, her cheeks glistening with tears.
“I’m so proud,” she said. “That’s my people. The actors gave dignity to what we stand for: humanity and kindness.”
I landed in the provincial capital of St. John’s on a cold, gray and foggy summer’s day. However, I didn’t stand still long enough to feel the chill. I rushed over to the Rooms, a cultural centre, to catch a free musical performance held during the summer months. Mark Hiscock, who performs traditional songs from Ireland and the province, was on a break, so we scanned the exhibits on cod fishing and musical instruments.
“Do you play?” Larry Dohey, the museum’s director of programming and public engagement, called out to me. He removed an ugly stick from its peg and stomped its kid-size boot, causing the metal bottle caps to clink and the head’s ropy dreadlocks to sway. I took the stick from his hands and pounded the floor, sounding like a petulant child with a piggy bank.
Larry grew up in a small southeastern town in Newfoundland that has more seabirds than people. In his youth, he would dress up for the Mummers Festival, a Christmas tradition, and visit neighbours’ homes wrapped in what he hoped was a cloak of anonymity. However, his costume wasn’t fooling anyone. Friends im-
mediately knew who was beneath the get-up, identifying Larry by his footwear.
“We only had two pairs of shoes,” he said of his humble upbringing, “one for school and one for all the other times.”
On 9/11, Canada accepted more than 200 planes forced to reroute when the U.S. government closed its airspace. Halifax, Nova Scotia, accepted the most aircraft, with 47, followed by Gander and Vancouver. More than 20 planes landed in St. John’s. I asked Larry if the museum had an exhibit documenting the unprecedented event. “We wouldn’t want to steal Gander’s thunder,” he said. But he was more than happy to share his own experiences.
He told us about a Connecticut family with a baby who were returning from Belgium. The mother was afraid to board a plane, so they traveled home by car and ferry. After the concert, Larry handed me a printout of a letter from the couple.
“Never have we felt so surrounded by warmth and good will as we did during those days following 9/11 in St. John’s,” they wrote.
“Actually we feel a little guilty because we had such a good time enjoying the people and learning about the heritage and culture of Newfoundland.”
The museum was closing, and Larry likely had some programming and public engaging to do before heading home.
Instead, he spent several minutes sketching out an itinerary for us: Signal Hill, Cape Spear and Petty Harbour, fish and chips at Duke of Duckworth, live music at O’Reilly’s.
St. John’s is compact and the road signs are in British English, not Newfoundland English. On the drive to the Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic Site, I spotted a large white shape offshore.
Closing in on the object, I experienced a swell of emotion, from dread (Is that Styrofoam?) to elation (No, it’s an iceberg!). I parked and followed a cliffside trail, leaning in as much as possible without tumbling into the Atlantic.
In the nearby fishing village, I could even buy a bag of ice chipped from a berg, which seemed like a humiliating finale for a floe that had likely faced whales, cargo ships and sunshine on its journey from Greenland. I could only hope that the St. John’s berg didn’t succumb to a similar fate and spend its final moments on Earth chilling in someone’s orange juice glass.
Before 9/11, Gander was primarily known for its airport and
strategic location on the east coast of Canada. During the Second World War, more than 20,000 Allied fighter planes and bombers took off from Gander’s airport, destined for battles across the Atlantic. In 1942, the Canadian military gained control of the airfield but returned it to civilian hands after armistice.
By the 1950s, Gander was operating one of the busiest international airports in the world, though few passengers ventured beyond the terminal.
The airport was basically a pump-and-go station for flights needing fuel for the ocean crossing.
Locals would hitchhike up to the airport to buy ice cream and search for famous faces waiting to reboard, such as Elvis Presley; Frank Sinatra, who unsuccessfully tried to cut the food line; and Johnny Cash, who drunkenly fell off his bar stool at the Big Dipper Bar.
The advent of long-haul jets put an end to Gander’s golden aviation age, though a few planes, mainly from communist countries, continued to arrive.
Often times, the aircraft left with empty seats, when defectors claimed political asylum on Canadian soil.
The Concorde also used the airport to test its supersonic technology. As a thank you, the company treated the airport staff to lunch in England; they sat down for their meal a half-hour before their departure time in Gander, a feat accomplished by time zone.
Gander, whose main economies are aviation, government and health care, was just doing its small-town thing when terrorists attacked its southern neighbour.
After all the passengers departed on Sept. 16, residents returned to
their routines; even the bus strike that had been suspended resumed.
Last year, the Flynns started offering Meet the Flynns on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during the warmer months. The official season begins in July, but they received requests for June and adjusted their calendar accordingly. They’re thoughtful in that way.
Derm greeted us with a big bear hug. Dianne followed, adding a kiss on the cheek.
I don’t normally exchange affections with strangers, but Newfoundland was slowly turning me into a hugger. I returned their embrace.
After the thousands of passengers deplaned in 2001, Derm and Dianne each invited three guests to stay over, surprising each other.
“We weren’t talking to each other because we were too busy,” said Derm.
The passengers included an Israeli couple on their honeymoon,
a New York sports reporter and a New Yorker who later became a billionaire.
The Flynns also shared a startling piece of information: The government had apparently directed the planes to less populated areas in case the aircraft blew up. Officials wanted to minimize the number of casualties. “We were disposable,” Dianne said with a tinge of sadness. I have visited some of the most monumental sites on the planet, including the pyramids in Egypt, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia.
I have ridden a reindeer in Mongolia, drunk beer with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia and chatted up the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. All of these experiences have wowed me.
Only Newfoundland, which has neither world-renowned landmarks nor wondrous natural attractions, has moved me.
WASHINGTON POST PHOTOS
Above, Luke Mercer plays the accordion at O’Reilly’s in St. John’s. Right, downtown St. John’s is compact and easy to walk around. Bottom right, waves crash at Bay Bulls, south of St. John’s.
She the North
When
The Canadian Press
Bianca
Members of the RomanianCanadian community proudly charting Bianca Andreescu’s meteoric rise to sports stardom say the tennis phenom has earned her place among the greats, regardless of how Saturday’s historic match turns out.
Fans will watch with bated breath when the 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., plays Serena Williams in the U.S. Open women’s singles final. If she wins, she’ll become the first Canadian to win the title.
“For the Romanian community in Canada, she’s become a dazzling star. Not only in tennis, but among the community itself,” said Cristina Onose, 33, of Toronto.
She said the community is adding Andreescu’s name to the list of Romanian sports superstars, which already includes Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect 10 at the Olympics, and tennis great Simona Ha-
Andreescu steps on the court today, Canada will rally behind her
lep. Andreescu’s “Canadian-ness” adds something more to the pride, she said.
“She lives here, she was born here, she grew up here, and I think that adds another level of admiration,” Onose said. “I think she’s stolen many hearts among the Romanian-Canadian community. We’re all really proud of her.”
Onose, who will take in Saturday’s game at a Tennis Canada viewing party in Toronto, said Andreescu has only been on her radar for a year or so. But even in that short time, she said, watching her rise has been thrilling.
Last month, Andreescu took home the Rogers Cup in Toronto after Williams retired due to injury.
At the end of 2018, Andreescu was ranked 178th in the world.
Ahead of Saturday’s match, she was 14th – and win or lose, she’ll break into the top 10 by tournament’s end.
Watching Andreescu play is nothing new for Bogdan Stanescu,
who is president of the Ontario Romanian Canadian Association and an avid tennis player. He said he’s had the chance to watch her practice on several occasions over the years.
“It’s amazing to see the progress of this young lady,” he said, hailing her dedication and hard work. He said it’s exciting to now watch her play at viewing parties, surrounded by dozens of others. His organization helped plan a viewing party at a Toronto pub on Thursday night where a crowd of like-minded fans cheered Andreescu on together.
“We’re very proud of her and the achievement she has done for Canada and for the Romanian community,” he said.
Stanescu said he believes Andreescu’s success will usher in a new era of Romanian-Canadian tennis greats.
“The Romanian tennis players in Canada and Ontario, we’ll see quite a few of them in the near future,” he said.
But pride in Andreescu extends well beyond the relatively small Romanian-Canadian community – roughly 240,000 people identified as having Romanian heritage in the last census. The athlete’s success prompted the hashtag “#SheTheNorth, a play on the Toronto Raptors’ #We the North” slogan that was everywhere during the team’s championship run earlier this year.
Hazel McCallion, the former longtime mayor of Andreescu’s hometown of Mississauga, Ont., said she thinks Andreescu is “super!”
“The city has sponsored tennis programs in Mississauga for years to give the young people an opportunity to excel in tennis, and finally we’ve found a winner,” the 98-year-old McCallion said.
The city’s current mayor has also been excited about the teen’s success.
“Our city has been cheering her on from the very, very beginning, and we’ve been watching her star
rise over the past few years,” Bonnie Crombie said in an interview.
“We’re now beyond excited that she’s made it all the way to the U.S. Open.” Crombie noted that she had the opportunity to meet Andreescu after the Rogers Cup, and was impressed by how deftly she balanced her compassion with her competitive streak.
“I was so proud of the integrity she showed and the sportsmanship she displayed,” she said. Crombie said her schedule is packed on Saturday, but she’s trying to rearrange things so that she can end the day at a sports bar to take in the game. Her efforts to stream the game in the city’s Celebration Square were unfruitful, she said, because someone had already booked the venue.
“I want to encourage everyone to watch from home or from their favourite sports bar tomorrow, and cheer loudly so that hopefully she can hear us all the way in New York,” she said.
Bianca’s opponent? The greatest of all time
Getting to Grand Slam finals has not been the hard part for Serena Williams since returning to tennis after having a baby.
It’s what comes next that’s been the problem.
Despite repeated injuries, despite a lack of proper preparation, Williams keeps putting herself in position to earn a 24th major championship, which would equal Margaret Court for the most in tennis history. Williams gets her latest chance at the U.S. Open on Saturday, when she will face 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu of Canada for the trophy. This will be Williams’ fourth final in the past six majors. But she is 0-3 in those others, losing against Angelique Kerber at Wimbledon in July 2018, to Naomi Osaka at Flushing Meadows in September 2018 and to Simona Halep this July.
“There’s so many different emotions in finals,” Williams said after her 6-3, 6-1 semifinal victory over No. 5 Elina Svitolina. “It just brings out so many highs and lows, nerves and expectations. It’s a lot.”
The difference this time, according to Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, is that she should feel better about her game now. Unlike for those past three finals, she is healthy, she is in good shape, she has been able to put in the right amount of work.
And therefore, he explained, it’ll be easier for her to deal with the emotions and pressure in this final than in those others.
“If you feel weak or not as strong as you wish you would, it’s more difficult to beat the pressure. When you don’t move well, you can’t be as confident as you should be
because if your ‘A’ game doesn’t work, you don’t have any other option. And for me, that’s what happened,” he said Friday. “It’s a totally different situation now because now she can move. If she needs to play the rally, she can play the rally... So there is no panic if she misses a bit more than usual. No problem.”
It might help that she got a look, if a brief one, at Andreescu just last month in the final of a tuneup event in Toronto, in front of the youngster’s home fans. Williams was trailing 3-1 when she retired from the match, citing back spasms. That might have helped Andreescu, too, of course. Andreescu has been a revelation this season, going 33-4, including 7-0 against top10 opponents, and hasn’t lost a completed match since March 1. She was sidelined by injuries for part of that time, particularly to her right shoulder.
She has a varied style, an in-your-face attitude – her coach, Sylvain Bruneau, called her a “street fighter” – and an ability to come through in the clutch, going 13-3 in three-setters this year.
Just one year ago, Andreescu was losing in qualifying in New York. Now she is the first woman since Williams’ older sister, Venus, in 1997 to get all the way to the final in her U.S. Open main-draw debut. This is only the fourth major tournament of her career.
“I remember always telling my team I would have always wanted to play her right before she retires,” said Andreescu, who was born the year after Williams won her first Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows at age 17. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
AP PHOTO
Canada’s Bianca Andreescu reacts after defeating Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, during the semifinals of the U.S. Open tennis championships Thursday in New York.
The Associated Press
AP PHOTO
Serena Williams returns a shot during the semifinals of the U.S. Open in New York.
Swinging for the fences
With homers flying at record pace, baseball careens toward an October unlike any other
Dave SHEININ
The Washington Post
Sometime around the middle of the coming week, baseball’s all-time, leaguewide home run record – the 6,105 hit in 2017 –will topple, leaving another 20 days or so of regular-season games in which to push it into previously unfathomable territory. The record won’t be merely exceeded, but obliterated, with current projections surpassing 6,800 homers. As recently as 1997, baseball had never seen a season with as many as 5,000.
In the past 10 days, the singleseason team records in both leagues were taken down, with the Minnesota Twins (before the end of August) zooming past the 2018 New York Yankees’ record of 267 – putting themselves on pace to become the first team in history to exceed 300 – and the Los Angeles Dodgers topping the National League mark of 249, set by the 2000 Houston Astros.
“I’ve seen, collectively, more balls hit [out of the park], and as far as I’ve seen them, this year more than any year,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who hit 23 homers in 832 big league games spread across 10 seasons, said this past week. “More times than not, I don’t think a ball has a chance to go out, and it ends up being a homer.”
(Two fun facts to put into context the 2019 Twins’ outrageous home run total: 1) By the end of the season, they will almost certainly surpass the number of homers the franchise hit in 2014 and 2015 combined: 284. And 2) In the strike-shortened 1981 season, the Twins hit just 47 homers; in 2019, they have beaten that total in every full month of the season.)
“When these homers start flying - and they’ve been flying since the very beginning [of the season] - they’ve been pretty special,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters on the night the record fell. “I know I haven’t seen many runs like this. And it just hasn’t stopped.”
The unprecedented surge in home runs has been by far the dominant story line of the 2019 regular season, not only warping the record books - it’s a wonder
no one is going to threaten Barry Bonds’s all-time individual record of 73 in 2001 – but altering the nature of the game. If you’re sick of seeing home runs and tired of hearing about them, imagine what it’s like being a pitcher these days.
Baseball appears to recognize it has a crisis on its hands, with Commissioner Rob Manfred in July acknowledging changes in the ball’s composition and convening a panel of scientists and analysts to “get better control” over variations in the ball and “manage in advance how the ball is going to perform.” There is every reason to believe the 2020 season will be played with a less aerodynamic, “deader” baseball, which might restore some equilibrium.
But such changes to the baseball are unlikely to arrive before the
2019 postseason, which means before we can stem the tide of homers we still have to get through an October that could be unlike any other we’ve seen before.
The 2019 playoffs, for starters, will feature the top four homerun-hitting teams of all time, measured by homers as a percentage of overall plate appearances, and could include seven of the top 13:
1. 2019 Twins, 4.94 per cent
2. 2019 Yankees, 4.85 per cent
3. 2019 Dodgers, 4.52 per cent
4. 2019 Astros, 4.26 per cent
10. 2019 Cubs, 4.11 per cent
11. 2019 Athletics, 4.09 per cent
13. 2019 Braves, 3.99 per cent
(All figures through Thursday.)
While it’s obviously true that the quality of pitching across the board should be better in October than it has been during the regular
season – the home run totals won’t be padded, for example, by a Baltimore Orioles staff that has already given up the most in history (271 through Thursday) and is on pace to surrender 314 – that’s no guarantee that sanity will be restored.
In July, when the homer-happy Twins and Yankees, both leading their divisions at the time, met for three games at Target Field, they combined for 20 homers and 57 runs. (Should the Astros finish with the AL’s best record, a Twins-Yankees rematch, featuring the two most prolific offenses in history, would come in the best-offive Division Series.)
The cooler temperatures of fall, at least theoretically, could also reduce the number of home runs – although that didn’t exactly help in March, when the Dodgers alone
smashed eight of the 48 homers hit across the majors on Opening Day, or April, which ended with the sport already on a record pace. At one time, Game 5 of the 2017 World Series – the Astros’ epic, 13-12, 10-inning victory over the Dodgers, which featured seven home runs, four of them coming in the seventh inning or later – was seen as some sort of grotesque aberration. Now, it looks more like a precursor. Next month, when you hear an announcer say during a blowout that “no lead is safe,” it won’t merely be a ploy to keep your eyeballs on the screen. This October, particularly when you take into account the volatile bullpen situations of even some of the top contenders in the sport, it will be completely true.
Nike’s Kaepernick stand a marketing win
Sarah HALZACK Bloomberg
A year ago this week, Nike inserted itself into a smoldering cultural and political controversy: it unveiled an advertising campaign celebrating Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL player who had protested police treatment of African Americans by kneeling during the national anthem. Almost immediately, there were social media rumblings about a Nike boycott and chatter about whether the ad was a mistake. U.S. President Donald Trump said at the time that the athletic apparel giant sent “a terrible message” with the ad, prompting speculation about the potential for a shopper backlash. Now the impassioned rhetoric and outraged hashtags are all but forgotten. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that the ad campaign – or the uproar that followed –hasn’t hurt Nike at all.
Nike remains an extremely popular brand. In UBS’s latest annual survey of U.S. consumers about athletic brands, Nike received the highest “net promoter score,” a common industry metric meant to capture how likely shoppers are to recommend a brand to a friend. UBS’s survey also found that shoppers’ perceptions of Nike have largely improved or remained unchanged since last year’s survey, which was conducted prior to the Kaepernick controversy. Another investment bank research report
shows enthusiasm for Nike footwear. A Stifel report from August analyzed feedback from more than 100 sneaker retailers about what was in demand during the crucial back-to-school shopping season. Nike was the most popular style in 81 per cent of those store checks, up from 67 per cent during the back-to-school rush last year.
It’s no wonder, then, that Nike’s North
America sales growth has been solid since the Kaepernick ad. In fact, this division looked much healthier in the fiscal year ended May 31 than it did the year before. And what about investors? They have stuck by the company, too. Shares are up nearly eight per cent since the last trading day before the Kaepernick ad was revealed. Nike’s shares generally have moved with
the broader S&P 500 Index in the past year – suggesting that when they did retreat, it was more a reflection of larger market or economic concerns. Finally, it’s worth noting that in the week after the debut of the ad, none of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg downgraded the stock. Today, the company has more buy ratings than it did a year ago. Nike’s experience shows that it is plenty possible for a corporation to take a stand on a politically sensitive issue and not get burned – so long as the foray is well-executed and feels authentic to its longstanding image.
It’s a lesson worth keeping in mind this week as Walmart undertakes new efforts to curtail sales of ammunition following a mass shooting at one of its big-box stores. Of course, these are not perfect parallels. It’s difficult to measure, but it is possible that Nike remained unscathed in part because it took a stand that was broadly popular with people who already like Nike. Given Walmart’s deep roots in rural America, it may find its new gun policies are not easily embraced by some of its core customers. Still, both retail giants are beloved by millions and enjoy decades of accumulated goodwill and shopper trust. In Walmart’s case, it is often the most conveniently located and best-priced store in town. Walmart can count on those attributes to overcome any qualms among shoppers about its politics.
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Joc Pederson hits a solo home run against the Colorado Rockies during the first inning on Wednesday.
AP FILE PHOTO
People walk by a Nike advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick in New York in September 2018.
A window to the world
A sick child couldn’t leave his house, so everyone came to him
Cathy FREE
Special To The Washington Post
First, Quinn Waters’ two uncles showed up at the front window to have a water balloon fight and help cheer up the three-year-old who lives in Weymouth, Mass.
Two days later, a family friend arrived with his guitar to sing to Quinn from the front lawn, followed by a couple of police officers who roared up on their motorcycles and sounded their sirens and airhorns.
Then things got big.
Police and fire departments from Weymouth and nearby Quincy came by with lights flashing to visit the child whose only contact with the outside world this summer has been through the front window of his home.
Quinn is recovering from treatment for a cancerous brain stem tumour and has a severely compromised immune system.
He has become a household name in his hometown as hundreds of strangers have stopped by since June to turn his front lawn into a stage of sorts.
While he and his parents, Jarlath and Tara Waters, watch at the window, people from miles around have stopped by to sing, dance, read stories, play instruments, perform card tricks, even walk on their hands – all to boost Quinn’s spirits until he is healthy enough to leave the house.
Most recently, a group of cyclists decided to take a detour to Weymouth.
About 160 km into a 550-km bicycle trip to honor fallen police and firefighters, members of the Southern New England Brotherhood Ride came on Aug. 24 to visit Quinn.
They said seeing Quinn’s smile, and also the bright faces of Quinn’s parents, made the detour worth it on the ride, which was rigourous and emotional.
“It really lifted the spirits of our entire team,” said Andy Weigel, president of the group who lives in Rochester, Mass.
The rest of the ride is somber, he said, as they meet with families of the fallen.
The bikers rode with a parade escort down Quinn’s street to surprise him with a police balance bike to ride once he’s able.
“Wow, thanks! Now I’ve got a bike just like you guys!” Quinn exclaimed from his window, according to Weigel.
Then Quinn offered some gifts of his own: “Mighty Quinn” bracelets for the entire team.
It was a day that was meaningful for Tara Waters, 42, who is a police officer in Quincy, Mass.
“These guys literally went the extra mile,” she said. “It touches us daily that so many strangers have gone out of their way to make the day a little brighter for Quinn.”
Tara and Jarlath Waters learned
in February that their son’s life was in jeopardy when he was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a fast-growing tumor on his brain stem.
When Quinn’s six-year-old sister, Maggie, commented that her brother couldn’t walk correctly and kept falling, Tara Waters realized that other symptoms she’d recently noticed (quietness, occasional vomiting and a lisp) could be the sign of something serious.
“I took him to the pediatrician the day after his birthday and he told me to drive Quinn straight to Children’s Hospital in Boston,” she said.
An MRI revealed that her son had a lime-size tumor just above his brain stem. After surgery, several rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, Tara and Jarlath Waters took doctor’s orders and brought their son home to live in isolation until Octoberwhen doctors hope that another MRI will reveal that his immune system is healthy again.
The Waterses knew that staying indoors would be a challenge
for an active boy who had been looking forward to his first year of preschool.
They each arranged to take several months off work to care for Quinn and keep him occupied.
“He’s a feisty, rambunctious three-year-old – full of energy,” said Jarlath Waters, 42, who works as a union carpenter. “He’s also a fighter, and we knew he wouldn’t let this get him down. But what we didn’t expect was such a huge outpouring of support.”
“It’s heartwarming to realize how many good people are out there,” he said.
Tara Waters’s two brothers were the first to visit the front window when they heard that Quinn en-
joyed sitting there to watch trucks drive past his house.
“They came over to say hello, and it wasn’t long before they were followed by a friend of ours who came by with his guitar to sing a song he’d reworded as The Mighty Quinn Song,” she said.
“Then the police department and fire department came by with their flashing lights, and from there, it just took off.”
Thus far, she said, Quinn has seen a carnival, Irish dancing, dog tricks and a variety of parades – all from his seat at the front window.
A couple of weeks ago, more than 200 trucks that were part of a nearby truck rally rode by the window for Quinn.
Teens seem to be taking longer to grow up One reason? A closer bond with their parents
Elizabeth HEUBECK
Special To The Washington Post
My 17-year-old son routinely walks to Chipotle, about a mile away. He cuts lawns in the neighbourhood, eliminating a commute to his summer job. When he goes out socially, he rides with friends or takes Uber. He was registered for driver’s education last summer, but had a scheduling conflict with a baseball tournament.
The tournament won out.
My son is by no means the only teenager who remains firmly rooted in the passenger seat. In 1983, almost half of the nation’s 16-year-olds carried a valid driver’s license. By 2014, less than a quarter did, according to a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Experts say driving is not the only adult activity that today’s teens are approaching with greater ambivalence than their counterparts in previous generations.
“The whole developmental trajectory has slowed,” says Jeanne Twenge, author of iGen. This trend, which cuts across demographics, represents a “cultural shift,” notes Twenge. It is also part of a trickle-down effect, as researchers report that 20-somethings are taking on adult responsibilities later, too.
There is even a name for the phenomenon marked by slowed maturation: emerging adulthood. Developed by Jeffrey Arnett, a research professor of psychology at Clark University, the term refers to the phase of life between adolescence and young adulthood, with a focus on ages 18 through 25. “Thirty is the new 20,” says Arnett, who notes that many people are staying in
school longer, marrying later and having their first child later.
He points to his own children, 19-year-old twins, as prime examples of this slower trajectory. He says they did not rush to drive, they rarely drink alcohol and they have had minimal dating experience.
“My own teen years were pretty wild in comparison,” Arnett says.
Whereas many parents recall rebelling against their own parents and plotting ways to distance themselves – including getting their driver’s license and moving out of the house – that desperate teenage desire for independence seems to have waned.
Vered DeLeeuw, a recipe blogger from San Francisco and parent of 19- and 17-year-old daughters, sees it in her own children. “They enjoy our company. They don’t have a burning desire to leave us and disconnect from us,” says DeLeeuw, whose children did get their driver’s licenses as soon as they were legally able.
Baltimore-based parent Nancy Williams reports a similar experience with her 21and 24-year-old children. Pondering her own children’s paths to maturation – both are in college but have fallen behind the traditional four-year trajectory – Williams says she has thought a lot about why kids are not launching the way she and her peers did. “For some, they don’t see the point or derive any satisfaction from doing ‘adult’ things like driving, paying bills and being independent,” she says.
Emily Denbow Morrison, a high school English teacher in Maine and mother of two teens and a tween, says her 16-year-old daughter Addie does not have a driver’s license or even a learner’s permit. Nor is she interested in visiting colleges or getting a
part-time job.
“She’s not ready yet,” Morrison says. “She likes being a kid, and to her, when you’re driving, working and walking around a campus where you’ll be separated from your family for four years, you’ve left the kid theme park.”
Many experts suggest teens are gravitating toward the “virtual” freedom they find through their smartphones. But experts also point to a less tangible reason for the waning interest in activities emblematic of independence: an evolving parent-child dynamic.
Perhaps this reluctance to grow up contributes somewhat to teens’ well-documented drop in adult activities – including having sex, dating, drinking alcohol, working for pay, going places without parents and driving. Twenge led a broad analysis of more than 8 million U.S. adolescents between 13 and 19 years of age from 1976 to 2016 to learn whether and when they engaged in these adult activities. The research revealed a decline in engagement across all activities.
Some examples stood out. In the early 2010s, 12th-graders got together with friends less often than eighth-graders of the 1990s. In 2015, 41 per cent of high school students were having sex compared with 54 per cent in 1991. Alcohol use declined among all adolescent age groups over time. And, as findings from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study showed, so too did driving rates.
While parents may be relieved to see the slowdown in certain risky adult-like behaviors among teens, such as alcohol use and sex, they may be more perplexed by the delay in activities emblematic of maturity,
Then an electrician’s union appeared with its rigs, and later, a state trooper dropped by with his police dog.
“It definitely boosts Quinn’s spirits,” Jarlath Waters said. Many of the visitors, most of whom had never met Quinn, leave the lawn inspired themselves.
“Quinn is special to us,” said Weigel, the biker, who now wears his “Mighty Quinn” bracelet.
“We know that our stop meant a lot to him and we were really happy to do it.”
Jarlath Waters said he marvels daily at how people have rallied to brighten their son’s summer.
“We opened the window,” he said, “and the world showed up.”
including driving. But some experts place the blame squarely on moms and dads.
Psychotherapist Amy Morin, author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, says many parents fail to give their teenage children the message that they are capable and competent, thereby enhancing selfdoubt and preventing teens from tackling adult responsibilities with confidence.
“Parents don’t let them fail a project or forget their sports equipment. They’ve acted more like their kids’ personal concierge than their parents,” Morin says. For these parents, she adds, it may be easier to continue driving their kids around than to hand over the keys.
Some see the cellphone as another disabling crutch. “When the party is on Snapchat, you don’t need a driver’s license,” says Twenge. Today, 95 per cent of teens have access to a smartphone, and 45 per cent report being online ‘almost constantly’, according to data from the Pew Research Center. They crave peer interaction just as former generations did. But instead of connecting with their friends in cars, many choose to do so virtually.
Arnett acknowledges young people’s lukewarm interest in taking on adult responsibilities and activities, but defends the slowdown. “They [parents] are measuring young adults’ progress against that of people 30, 40 and 50 years ago,” he says. “They do take on commitments. They just do it later.”
Arnett sees no reason to complain about his own teenage children’s decisions to drive, drink, and date later and less often than he did. “I’m grateful that they give their parents a lot less cause for nights lying awake than I gave mine,” he says.
WASHINGTON POST/ KRISTI WEIGEL PHOTOS
Above, members of the Southern New England Brotherhood Ride stopped on their annual bike trip to visit three-year-old Quinn Waters in Massachusetts on Aug. 24. Right, Kevin Ruchard, left, and Jeff Morse, members of the Southern New England Brotherhood Ride, receive “Mighty Quinn” bracelets during their stop.
Ron CHARLES The Washington Post
In Cervantes’ classic novel, a student tells Don Quixote, “The greater the fame of the writer, the more closely his books are scrutinized.”
That’s a painful process for Quichotte, an alternately cerebral and goofy novel that has just been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. An homage to the wide-ranging wit and vision of Cervantes’ early 17thcentury tale, Quichotte attempts to bring a similarly wry eye to the culture and politics of the early 21st century. So long as you can hum The Impossible Dream, you’ll catch the broad parallels between these two stories. Cervantes immortalized an old Spanish nobleman who goes mad from reading chivalric romances; Salman Rushdie presents a worn-out pharmaceutical salesman from India who goes mad from watching TV.
An inability to distinguish truth from fiction is not usually a handicap for a drug company rep, but as the novel begins, Rushdie’s quixotic hero is forced into retirement. No matter. He nurses one great passion: he’s insanely obsessed with an Oprah-like talk-show star named Salma R. “He had eschewed all thoughts of love for what seemed like an eternity,” Rushdie writes, “until Miss Salma R reawakened feelings and desires in his breast which he had thought he had suppressed or even destroyed.” Freed from the encumbrances of his job, he adopts the name Quichotte, starts mailing Salma R beautifully handwritten love letters and begins driving across America in his old gunmetal gray Chevy Cruze to find her.
Adventures ensue ad absurdum.
Quichotte is “a student of the arts of wishing,” and early on his trip he imagines a longed-for son into uncertain existence. “My silly little Sancho,” he cries, “my son, my sidekick, my squire! Hutch to my Starsky, Spock to my Kirk, Scully to my Mulder, BJ to my Hawkeye, Robin to my Batman! Peele to my Key, Stimpy to my Ren, Niles to my Frazier, Arya to my Hound! Peggy to my Don, Jesse to my Walter, Tubbs to my Crockett, I love you!”
“Cut it out, ‘Dad,’” the imaginary young man replies. “What’s in all this for me?”
Readers will soon be asking themselves the same question. That long list of TV partners is an indication of the novel’s chronic lack of restraint. Rushdie’s style once unfurled with hypnotic elegance, but here it’s become a firehose of brainy gags and literary allusions – tremendously clever but frequently tedious.
The animus of this chaotic novel would seem to be Rushdie’s abiding horror at the political ascension of a dissembling reality TV star. Donald Trump’s name doesn’t appear in these pages, but he’s clearly the “wholly imaginary chief executive who was obsessed by cable news, who pandered to a white supremacist base.”
Trump is the subterranean crisis of Quichotte, the bloated embodiment of America’s conflation of fact and fantasy.
As Quichotte and his real/not-real son, Sancho, drive toward New York, they offer a picaresque vision of a nation intoxicated on apocalyptic dread. Across the United States, they’re confronted by violent and racist yahoos. “You got a bad foreign look to you,” one typically ignorant woman seethes.
Unfortunately, Quichotte is such a brittle pinwheel of parody that its sharp edges never cut very deep. Much of the novel is a satire of TV stars and by extension the easily manipulated country that adores them. Meanwhile, racism, the opioid crisis, Brexit, gun control, immigration, assisted suicide, corporate fraud, the existence of God, sexual abuse, cyber terrorism –these issues rumble by just as fast as that old Chevy Cruze can drive.
I barely have the heart to tell you that this modernday take on Don Quixote is merely a story within another story. Early on, Rushdie reveals that we’re reading a manuscript being written by a middling spy novelist who wants to write “a book radically unlike any other he had ever attempted... picaresque and crazy and dangerous.” Naturally, there are parallels between Quichotte’s quest and the spy novelist’s travails, including his own lost son and his own descent into fantasy. “Perhaps,” Rushdie writes in his loudest stage whisper, “this bizarre story was a metamorphosed version of his own.”
Even as its various subplots shamble on, the novel keeps reminding us about the rising conflation of reality and fiction. Several of these characters fret about who really made them, which makes the book feel like a three-week road trip with Pirandello nattering on in the back seat with a bag of Cheetos. “The boundary between art and life became blurred and permeable,” Rushdie writes. All this is in service to the deadeningly commonplace observation that “there’s no true anymore that anyone can agree on.”
It would be easier to step over these thematic bricks thrown in our path if the novel’s characters offered any emotional substance, but by design they’re just constructs in this literary game. And so we die-hard fans of Salman Rushdie keep turning the pages, hoping for a reward commensurate to the journey. Dream on.
HANDOUT PHOTO
Quichotte is Salman Rushdie’s newest novel. Rushdie goes cerebral, goofy
Atwood back in Gilead
Almost 35 years after The Handmaid’s Tale shocked the world, Margaret Atwood has finally given birth to The Testaments.
Blessed be the fruit!
Fans of Atwood’s dystopian classic will remember that Offred, the narrator of The Handmaid’s Tale, concluded her secret testimony by acknowledging, “Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing.”
Now we know.
The Testaments opens in Gilead about 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale, but it’s an entirely different novel in form and tone. Inevitably, the details are less shocking – at least in part because the horrors of Gilead’s male-centered theocracy are already so well known.
When Offred first told her “sad and mutilated story,” we were hearing about the hangings, the Unbabies and the Sons of Jacob for the first time. But by now, Gilead’s breeding Ceremony is a creepy cultural touchstone.
Atwood responds to the challenge of that familiarity by giving us the narrator we least expect: Aunt Lydia. It’s a brilliant strategic move that turns the world of Gilead inside out. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia is the orthodox teacher whose platitudes and instructions cycle through Offred’s mind. But in The Testaments, Aunt Lydia speaks directly to us in all her conflicted complexity. She has become the supreme matriarch of this masculine cult.
“I control the women’s side of their enterprise with an iron fist in a leather glove in a woolen mitten,” she says. “And I keep things orderly: like a harem eunuch.”
As a living legend, the very model of moral perfection and feminine wisdom, she enjoys a special position of extraordinary power – and she knows just how precarious that is.
“Only dead people are allowed to have statues,” she begins, “but I have been given one while still alive. Already I am petrified.”
That little pun is typical of Aunt Lydia’s wry wit, which endows The Testaments with far more humour than The Handmaid’s Tale or its exceedingly grim TV adaptation. This Aunt Lydia is publicly devout but privately defiant, outwardly pious but inwardly sardonic. Her arch irony, even flippancy, provides a markedly different interpretation than Ann Dowd’s terrifying portrayal.
Writing in a journal at night in a library forbidden to all but a chosen few, Aunt Lydia reveals the story of her previous life, her traumatizing transition to the Republic of Gilead and her crafty political intrigue. She’s Sun Tzu and Machiavelli with a cup of cinnamon tea. Through a combination of good luck and her own ruthless instincts, she has survived and thrived to become the spider at the centre of a vast web of “shameful information” to trap female competitors and intimidate her male superiors.
“Some days I see myself as the Recording Angel, collecting together all the sins of Gilead,” she says. “On other days I shrug off this high moral tone. Am I not, au fond, merely a dealer in sordid gossip?” That’s the genius of Atwood’s creation. Aunt Lydia is a mercurial assassin: a pious leader, a ruthless administrator, a deliciously acerbic confessor. “Whoever said consistency is a virtue?” she asks.
But Aunt Lydia is not the only narrator of The Testaments. Interlaced among her journal entries are the testimonies of two young women: one raised in Gilead, the other in Canada. Their mysterious identities fuel much of the story’s suspense – and electrify the novel with an extra dose of melodrama. Together, this trio of voices allows Atwood to include broader details about how other countries respond to the Republic of Gilead. Freed from the intense but narrow constraints of Offred’s point of view in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments sketches out protest movements abroad, an underground railroad to ferry women north, the internecine conflicts rotting out the center of Gilead, and the Republic’s efforts to manipulate its image on the world stage.
The Testaments is not nearly the devastating satire of political and theological misogyny that The Handmaid’s Tale is. In this new novel, Atwood is far more focused on creating a brisk thriller than she is on exploring the perversity of systemic repression.
Although the story of Gilead has long been called to the service of this or that contemporary cause, it remains entirely Atwood’s possession. In the new introduction to The Handmaid’s Tale, she even pushes back again on the question of whether it’s a feminist novel: “If you mean an ideological tract in which all women are angels and/or so victimized they are incapable of moral choice, no.” That strikes me as a straw-man argument – nobody defines great feminist fiction that way – but the fact that Atwood keeps challenging such categories is all part of her extraordinary effort to resist the chains we place on each other. Gilead will never be the same. Praise be.
Ron CHARLES The Washington Post
HANDOUT IMAGE
The cover to The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale.
MONEY IN BRIEF
Currencies
These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Friday. Quotations in Canadian funds.
‘Getting Sherlocked’
How Apple uses its App Store to copy the best ideas
Reed ALBERGOTTI
The Washington Post
Clue, a popular app women use to track their periods, has risen to near the top of Apple’s Health and Fitness category. It could be downhill from here.
Apple plans this month to incorporate some of Clue’s core functionality such as fertility and period prediction into its own Health app that comes preinstalled in every iPhone and is free, unlike Clue, which earns money by selling subscriptions and services in its free app. Apple’s past incorporation of functionality included in other third-party apps has often led to their demise.
Clue’s new threat shows how Apple plays a dual role in the app economy: provider of access to independent apps and giant competitor to them.
The markets today
Canada’s main stock index was weighed down Friday by weakening gold prices but the loonie climbed to its highest level in more than a month following a strong jobs report.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.91 cents US, the highest level since July 30, and compared with an average of 75.60 cents US on Thursday, after Statistics Canada reported the economy added 81,100 jobs last month.
The dollar has gained nearly one cent since the Bank of Canada on Wednesday kept its overnight interest rate steady at 1.75 per cent. That was reinforced by the jobs report that exceeded expectations.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 39.48 points at 16,535.33 on a broad-based decline led by materials as gold fell further from its six-year high. The sector decreased 2.3 per cent as shares in miners including Barrick Gold Corp. and Kinross Gold Corp. closed lower.
The December gold contract was down US$10 at US$1,515.50 an ounce and the December copper contract was down 0.8 of a cent at US$2.63 a pound. Energy was one of seven major sectors on the TSX to lose ground. It decreased despite the price of crude oil rising on hope that a trade deal between the U.S. and China will salvage global demand.
The October crude contract was up 22 cents at US$56.52 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up 6.1 cents at US$2.50 per mmBTU. Health care, financials, consumer staples and telecommunications closed higher.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 69.31 points at 26,797.46. The S&P 500 index was up 2.71 points at 2,978.71, while the Nasdaq composite was down 13.76 points at 8,103.07.
The Dow and S&P 500 rose on expectations that weaker U.S. jobs numbers would reinforce the move for lower interest rates, added Headland. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell gave no hint about the central bank’s rate plans but said in a speech in Zurich that it would “use our tools to support the economy, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.” Powell added that he doesn’t foresee a recession.
“The most likely outlook is still moderate growth, a strong labour market and inflation continuing to move back up.”
“It’s a love-hate relationship, of course. You don’t want to annoy the milkman when you only have one milkman,” said Ida Tin, Clue’s CEO, who coined the term “fem tech.” Though Tin believes her Berlin-based company can coexist with Apple, she said it highlights the “skewed power distribution” in the tech industry.
Developers have come to accept that, without warning, Apple can make their work obsolete by announcing a new app or feature that uses or incorporates their ideas. Some apps have simply buckled under the pressure, in some cases shutting down. They generally don’t sue Apple because of the difficulty and expense in fighting the tech giant-and the consequences they might face from being dependent on the platform.
The imbalance of power between Apple and the apps on its platform could turn into a rare chink in the company’s armour as regulators and lawmakers put the dominance of big technology companies under an antitrust microscope.
When Apple made a flashlight part of its operating system in 2013, it rendered instantly redundant a myriad apps that offered that functionality. Everything from the iPhone’s included Measure app to its built-in animated emoji were originally apps in the App Store.
In this year’s September software updates, in addition to the period tracker, Apple has added the ability to use an iPad as a second computer screen, a feature initially offered by a popular app called Duet Display. Its iPhone and iPad keyboards will include the ability to type by swiping, mimicking apps like Switftkey and others.
The misfortune of having an idea copied by Apple even has an industry term. “Getting Sherlocked” harks back to the time
Apple’s desktop search tool called “Sherlock” borrowed many of the features of a third-party companion tool called “Watson,” which no longer exists.
Imitation is common in the tech industry. “We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said.
But what makes Apple’s practice different is its access to a trove of data that nobody else has. The App Store, where the original apps were offered and competed for downloads, collects a vast amount of information on which kinds of apps are successful – even monitoring how much time users spend in them.
That data is shared widely among leaders at the tech giant and could be used to make strategic decisions on product development, said Phillip Shoemaker, who served as Apple’s director of App Store review from 2009 to 2016.
“I think Apple gets a lot of inspiration from apps that are on the App Store,” he said.
“Healthy competition, in every category, constantly drives everyone who makes apps, including Apple, to improve,” Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said in a statement.
“We wouldn’t have it any other way, because that’s how our users get the best experiences possible.” He added that the App Store has more than 2 million apps, showing “that a great idea can come from anywhere and touch people’s lives everywhere.”
The titans of technology aren’t just powerful because they’re big
Hudson’s Bay closing last two Zellers stores
The Canadian Press
The last two remaining Zellers locations will close early next year, says Hudson’s Bay Co.
“Through the normal course of business we continually evaluate store performance and other factors, and may determine it necessary to close a store,” spokeswoman Tiffany Bourre wrote in an emailed statement. The retailer expects to close the Toronto and Ottawa locations in January 2020.
Eligible employees will receive employment separation packages and the company will explore transfer opportunities where it is feasible, she said.
Waterloo County, Ont.-born Walter Philip Zeller started the company in 1928 with four stores in Ontario. But an American firm bought him out and subsequently went bankrupt during the Great Depression. Zeller purchased back the Canadian properties, which had grown to 14 locations by then.
He reopened a dozen of the stores in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick as Zellers in 1932.
HBC became the sole owner of Zellers in 1978.
In 2011, the company reached a $1.8-billion deal to sell the leases of 189 Zellers stores to Target and closed the remainder – save for three locations – by March 2013. Of the three locations, Montreal and Surrey closed in 2014. That same year, the Ottawa location re-opened, leaving it and Toronto store as the sole remaining Zellers stores.
or profitable. They are also the omniscient rulers of their platforms, able to use information on smaller competitors to their own advantage and expand their reach through greater functionality.
When companies sell their products on Amazon, for instance, the online retail giant can see before anyone else if a new category is successful.
Similarly, Apple benefits greatly from the inventiveness of millions of app developers, first when their apps spur customers to keep using iPhones – and again if Apple takes their most successful ideas and copies them. And when apps collect payments, Apple takes a 15 to 30 percent cut.
Technology platforms like Apple and Amazon can use the information to “identify potential nascent threats and then acquire that threat and then find a way to disadvantage it,” said Maurice Stucke, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and author of several books on antitrust policy.
Once Apple duplicates the idea behind an app, the in-house version often benefits from functionality that outside developers are prohibited from using.
Apple Music, for instance, is the only streaming service that is entitled to take full advantage of Siri. Apple says it plans to change that policy in its new operating system, iOS 13.
Apple’s walkie talkie app, which launched after independent apps had proved the appeal of the concept, is the only one that can operate on Apple Watch.
For developers of mobile apps, it’s hard to avoid Apple. Apple is responsible for 71 per cent of all U.S. revenue generated by mobile apps, according to Sensor Tower, a market research firm. To ignore Apple (the only alternative is Google-owned Android) is tantamount to failure.
But when it comes to copying apps, Apple’s biggest advantage over the years has been its ability to offer many of them at no additional charge, the cost included in the price of the phone itself. That is even more critical to Apple now as sales of the iPhone, its most lucrative product, have slowed. To prove its usefulness to consumers, Apple is offering them more and more services.
Apple itself makes more than 40 apps, a number that has steadily increased over the years as the company has pushed into new areas. Many come pre-installed on the iPhone.
In a climate of unprecedented scrutiny of the power of big technology companies, some wonder whether Apple’s creation of apps imitating ones that already exist on its platform, aided by market data it collects from them, could be harming competition and hurting innovation.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren zeroed in on the App Store earlier this year. “Either they run the platform or they play in the store. They don’t get to do both at the same time,” she told The Verge.
The Justice Department is reviewing Apple and other tech giants for possible antitrust violations.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an announcement of new products at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose in 2018.
Hindus fear going back to Kashmir
The Associated Press
Dr. L.N. Dhar vividly remembers the cold morning in Kashmir nearly 30 years ago.
He left behind his plush bungalow and a prestigious job at a government hospital, becoming a refugee on the run almost overnight, with nothing but a small bag hurriedly stuffed with whatever clothes and cash he could grab.
He was heeding warnings blared over loudspeakers outside mosques in the Muslim-majority region and on graffiti on walls and windows across the main city of Srinagar.
Kashmiri Hindus got three options: convert to Islam, leave or be killed, Dhar said.
“For a peace-loving citizen, for an educated class of people, our option was that we left that place,” he said near his home in New Delhi.
“That was the only option. We had no other choice.”
Now, Dhar and thousands of other Kashmiris Hindus native to the South Asian region could get an opportunity to return to their homeland after India’s Hindu nationalist-led government suddenly stripped political autonomy from its part of Kashmir, tightening its grip in the restive region. But many are wary.
Kashmir’s special status dates to 1947, when India and Pakistan won independence from British rule.
Each claimed the region, and they have fought two of their three wars over it, with each now controlling part of it.
The decision to end the status was widely celebrated by Kashmiri Hindus across India – in sharp contrast to the barricaded streets of Srinagar and sporadic but shortlived protests against the government’s move.
India imposed a security and communications lockdown before the Aug. 5 decision to avoid an uprising in its only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir.
Mobile phone services have yet to be restored, leaving Kashmir almost isolated from the rest of the world.
A curfew is in place and Kashmiri leaders have been detained.
In 1990, Dhar and his family were among more than 60,000 families that fled the alpine forested Himalayan valley, leaving behind homes, land and other property that many would never retrieve.
It was the beginning of one of the bloodiest decades in Kashmir’s tormented history, with violence that killed tens of thousands, including Hindu and Muslim civilians, armed rebels and Indian security forces.
Separatist political groups calling for an independent Kashmir had built weapons caches and were gaining popular support.
In response to attacks by armed rebels, the Indian government in September 1990 extended a law that gave its armed forces authority to arrest or kill in Kashmir with no or little warning to try to maintain order.
What ensued was near-unabated violence that has turned Kashmir into a battleground.
Vijay Kaul, 72, reminisces about life in the picturesque valley, before the violence began.
“One of the best things about the people of Kashmir was that there was a sense of unity among them, no matter what religion they belonged to,” said Kaul, a Kashmiri Hindu whose family had lived in a 170-year-old palatial home near Srinagar for centuries.
While an insurgency against Indian rule strengthened in the
late 1980s and early 1990s, with attacks on government forces and ultimately Kashmiri Hindus, Kaul stayed put with his family.
At first, he didn’t heed warnings from separatists because of his belief in “Kashmiriyat” – which means an eternal state of peace, harmony and living to help each other.
It wasn’t until an explosive went off near a compound wall of his residence that they decided to leave.
He and his wife, Varuna, packed whatever they could and set off with their two young children for
the city of Jammu – the state’s Hindu-majority pocket.
“That was the most terrifying night of my life,” Varuna Kaul said.
“It was only after we crossed over to Jammu that I felt relieved.”
Anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus have fled since 1990, according to the Indian government.
But Kashmiri Hindu organizations say that is a drastic underestimate.
Panun Kashmir, a New Delhibased organization that demands a separate state for Kashmiri
Hindus, estimates the number of displaced Hindus at 700,000.
Kashmiri Hindu families moved to migrant camps that were later converted into housing complexes in Jammu and New Delhi.
Many have pending court cases accusing people in Kashmir of encroaching or seizing their properties there.
But even if they win those cases, many Kashmiri Hindus believe it is not safe to return.
Many view revoking Kashmir’s special status as a step in the right direction for justice, but they demand more be done.
Chrungoo, president of Kashmiri
an organization of Kashmiri
in New
said they “will not return to the same environment they had left.”
“If we go back, we will go with conditions that uphold our honour and dignity,” he said.
Others, like Vijay Kaul, urge the government to show restraint and resolve the issue peacefully.
“There needs to be a strong stress on brotherhood and living in peace. Everyone has the right to live, to speak and to dissent. There is no religion higher than humanity,” Kaul said.
Sumeer
Samiti,
Hindus
Delhi,
AP PHOTOS
Above, Kashmiri Hindu woman Arun Ditti walks inside her residence at the Muthi migrant camp in Jammu, India.
Below, Kashmiri Hindu man Sham Lal performs evening prayers at the Muthi migrant camp.
How to use decorative pillows
The Washington Post
A benefit (and hazard) of my job as a design writer is spending chunks of time with decorating experts in beautiful homes. I always learn something from pros who have a refined eye for detail.
Pillows can so easily be changed up for a new look, whether seasonally or just to add some new colors and textures to a room. Walk into any furniture store, and you’ll see aisles of pillows for about $20 that are organized by colour and size. Are some better than others?
I decided to dig into this subject with a few designers. Although they usually go with custom pillow designs for clients, they still had plenty of advice about off-the-rack pillow purveyors.
Vintage fabrics
Virginia Tupker says she’s always on the lookout for vintage textiles to make into pillows to mix into the assortments she selects to add texture and pattern to a room. You can look for such fabrics on your travels or on eBay.
“To cover a chair or a sofa is a big fabric commitment. But for a pillow, an antique or vintage textile can be a splash of colour, and you can change it out for the seasons,” the Connecticut-based designer says. “It adds so much personality and feels eclectic and lived-in and everything doesn’t just feel brand new. It adds a lot of soul.” Turkish-corner pillows are a favourite shape for interior designers, she says. She says this technique tucks in the corners so they appear rounded. “It’s an Old World technique coming back,” she says. “This shape feels extremely chic and makes you think of Bunny Mellon and her home in Antigua. It’s very popular with my younger clients now.”
Consistency
Designer Barry Dixon says there are a lot of reasons pillows should be made of the same fabric on both sides. “I tell clients that if a pillow has a print on one side with a plain backing, it’s like combing the front of your hair and forgetting about the back,” Dixon says. “You’re not finished.” He says you can always see the back of a pillow from a corner or looking over a sofa, and if the back of it’s just white or plain canvas, “your eye will go to it and notice.”
WASHINGTON POST PHOTOS
Top, designer Virginia Tupker suggests lining a sofa with pillows in different fabrics to reflect your own style. These include some cotton designs by Les Indiennes. Above, to make pillows look plump and inviting, Kelly Proxmire usually stuffs hers with a form that’s two inches bigger than the pillow cover. Right, Barry Dixon advises clients to buy two-sided pillows with the same fabric on both sides.
If both sides are the same, you’ll get twice the wear out of the pillow. “One side doesn’t have to take all the abuse,” Dixon says. “Every time I fluff a sofa, I turn over the cushions and the pillows as well – because it immediately looks plump and fresh. It’s as important as turning a mattress.”
Plumpness
Kelley Proxmire loves picking out pillow fabric. Sometimes it’s the first thing she selects for a space, and she doesn’t hesitate to use the most expensive fabric in the room on the pillows. It will
help them stand out and have the most impact, she says. To make them look fuller and plumper, Proxmire says, she stuffs a form two inches bigger than the pillow size into the cover. (She would use a 24-inch form for a 22inch cover.) “It makes them look nice and full,” says Proxmire. She also recommends hidden zippers for a more polished look.
Pick a larger size
If you have a keen eye, you can find some great-looking pillows in big-box stores but don’t buy the smallest pillow on the shelf, designer Erin Paige Pitts says.
“The problem for me with many pre-made pillows is they are too small. I prefer larger pillows –22 inches square or 24 inches
square,” says Pitts. “Don’t buy 18-inch or 20-inch pillows. They look cheap.”
To keep the filling full and lofty, she suggests a 90/10 or 80/20 mix of feather and down.
“I still do the karate chop on my pillows,” she says. “But I don’t like them totally pointy on the ends. Shake them to loosen them up a bit so the points aren’t as sharp.”
Jura KONCIUS
LAPOINTE Delia Elizabeth
It is with heavy hearts that the family announces the passing of Delia Lapointe on September 3, 2019 at the age of 89 years. Delia will be lovingly remembered by her children, Maurice (Monika), Marie-Claire Charbonneau (John), Marie-Rose Kostyniuk (Al) and Guy (Inge); as well as grandchildren, great and great-great grandchildren; siblings; nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. She was predeceased by her husband, Armand; sons, Raymond and Denis; three infants and 4 siblings.
A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, September 9, 2019 at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 12810 - 111 Avenue, Edmonton, AB with interment to follow at Holy Cross Cemetery. To send condolences, please visit www.connelly-mckinley.com
Connelly-McKinley Downtown Chapel (780) 422-2222
“Bill”
William Cooper
Bill Cooper, 83, of Clifton, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, passed away peacefully on August 25, 2019, at Hospice House in Prince George, BC, in the loving arms of his wife Frances and daughters Marion and Liz. Bill was predeceased by his parents Allan and Effie, and sisters Marie and Nellie.
A hard-working man his entire life, Bill loved hunting, trapping, fishing, and spending time in the bush and on the water.
He is greatly missed by his wife, Frances, children: Bonnie, Michele, Bill & Dale, John & Brenda, Liz & Mark and Marion & Alfredo, grandchildren: James & Jennifer, Shane, Matthew, Ayla, Brendon, Bethlynn & Renee, Cailan, Emily and Stephanie, and great-grandchildren. Also his sisters: Shirley, Yvonne and Joan, nieces and nephews, many cousins and friends, and his Aunt Freda whom he thought of often.
We would like to thank everyone who helped over the past couple of years. Friends and neighbours, first responders, staff at Prince George Hospital especially Dr. Sola, Karrie and the Home Support Team, and most especially to the staff and volunteers at Prince George Hospice House who took such amazing care of dad in his final hours. Special thanks to Jennifer and the staff at Assman’s Funeral Home and Fraserview Crematorium for their compassion and care.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to: PG Hospice House, 1506 Ferry Avenue, Prince George, BC, V2L 5H2.
“Oh come, angel band, come and around me stand. Oh bear me away on your snow white wings, to my immortal home.”
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