Prince George Citizen September 18, 2019

Province announces $69M for displaced forest workers

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson unveiled a $69-million package Tuesday, aimed at supporting forest workers hit by mill closures and shift reductions in Interior communities.

The centrepiece is $40 million over two years for an earlyretirement bridging program for older forest workers. Rounding out the measures are $15 million for a new short-term employment program, $12 million for skills training and $2 million for a job placement coordination office.

Flanked by Labour Minister Harry Bains and parliamentary secretary Ravni Kahlon, and with a throng of United Steelworkers among the dignitaries looking on, Donaldson made the announcement at a Sinclar Group yard off River Road in Prince George.

He said as many as 3,000 workers could benefit from the measures with the bridging program accounting for 400 in the “first go round.”

“We know about of third of those who’ve been laid off or under indefinite curtailment are probably in the age-eligible category of age 55 or above,” Donaldson said while fielding questions from local media.

Along with those directly impacted by a mill closure, ageeligible workers at other mills whose positions could be filled by a younger worker from an affected mill would also qualify, he noted while making the announcement.

“And that’s an important point because we want continuity of a good, strong, skilled worker base to guide us into the future for future opportunities in the sector,” Donaldson added.

The bridging program is over two years and is contingent on cost-sharing with workers’ respective employers. That raised an alarm bell for B.C. Liberal Opposition Forests Critic John Rustad, who took in the event from Victoria via live streaming.

“If they expect industry to step up to the plate at this time when they’re losing so much money, I think that’s a pretty tough ask,” he said in an interview.

United Steelworkers Local 1-2017 president Brian O’Rourke

welcomed the announcement.

“This, today, will not make everything right but it will soften the blow for a lot of our members in the smaller rural communities,” he said.

In a conversation with Kahlon, O’Rourke called for a jobs commissioner similar to one appointed when the New Democrats previously held power in the 1990s as a way to make sure companies impose curtailments and shut downs for the right reasons.

“I think we need to hold these forest companies to task – the ones that are just, in our opinion, closing down the mills, holding our members as hostage to try to get reductions in stumpage and other things,” he told Kahlon. “These mills are viable operations, there is timber in the areas and they’re still being shut down.”

Donaldson also called on the federal government to add to the funding. While attending a meet-

ing of federal, provincial and territorial forest ministers in August, he delivered a letter to a representative of federal Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi outlining a five-point plan for further collaboration between the two levels of government.

However, with the election now underway, it looks like he will have to wait until sometime after Oct. 21 to get a response from Ottawa. The governing NDP should have acted sooner, Rustad said.

“They should’ve done this months ago,” he said.

Tracy Calogheros, who is running for the Liberals in CaribooPrince George, was the only candidate in the federal election to appear at the event.

Electing a Liberal to the riding will help draw federal money, she suggested.

“I know that there is an opportunity to really advocate on this part of the region but you really need

to do that from a government position, so I’ve done what I can from the outside,” she said. Donaldson dismissed calls to reduce the stumpage companies are charged for the logs they process, saying that would only risk compromising Canada’s appeal of the tariffs on softwood lumber shipped to the United States.

Asked about the B.C. Liberals call to calculate stumpage on a monthly basis rather than annually with adjustments each quarter, Donaldson said that would be counterproductive given the current high price logs are fetching due to a lack of supply.

Rustad suggested otherwise, saying seven of the last 10 B.C. Timber Sale blocks on the coast that were put on the block failed to draw any bids.

“Companies are not bidding up the cost of logs at this point because the cost structure is so high and the demand is so low,”

Gov’t ending ‘birth alert’ baby seizures

Jeremy HAINSWORTH Glacier Media

B.C. will cease so-called birth alerts that have led to the seizures of infants as young as 90 minutes old from parents deemed to be a danger to their children, the minister of children and family development said Monday.

Katrine Conroy said the alerts have been primarily issued for marginalized women and, disproportionately, Indigenous women.

The alerts were addressed in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released earlier this year.

It said hospital social workers are given a list of women who are pregnant and their due dates and as soon as one of these women entered the hospital to give birth, an alert was activated.

“We acknowledge the trauma women experience when they become aware that a birth alert has been issued,” Conroy said.

“We also heard calls to end this practice from Indigenous communities, organizations and the report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.”

The inquiry final report called child apprehensions “a form of violence against the child. It also represents the worst form of violence against the mother. Apprehension disrupts the familial and cultural connections that are present in Indigenous communities, and, as such, it denies the child the safety and security of both.”

The report said birth alerts against Indigenous mothers, including mothers who were in foster or government care themselves, can be the sole basis for the apprehension of their newborn children.

“Birth alerts are racist and discriminatory and are a gross violation of the rights of the child, the mother and the community,” the report said.

The alerts have been used in B.C. Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario and Alberta.

Saskatchewan said in March it was working to decrease usage of the alerts.

Literature on the practice said women would avoid going to hospitals to give birth – fearing loss of the child – and not receiving medical care as a result.

Conroy said changes are being made to work with and support high-risk expectant parents to keep newborns safe and families together through a collaborative, rather than an involuntary, model.

Health care providers and social service workers will no longer share information about expectant parents without consent from those parents and will stop the prac-

Rustad said. He said B.C. is the highest-cost producer in North America and about 60 per cent of the problem is due to high stumpage and 40 per cent to government taxes and red tape.

“Whether it’s the employer health tax, whether it’s the carbon tax, the myriad of policy and reporting changes that have been put in place by this government, the delays and the challenges of trying to get cutting permits and permits through the process – all of that adds into that cost,” Rustad said.

Rustad did applaud the $15 million for a new short-term employment program, noting it will go towards removing fuel load to reduce the chances of wildfires in forests adjacent to communities. “I give them kudos. I think that’s a good program to have set up and in place,” he said. — see ‘WE’LL HAVE, page 3

tice of birth alerts,” Conroy said.

B.C. Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau said in her riding a three-day-old child was taken from a mother without explanation in 2018. The child was, however, ordered returned by a judge.

Furstenau said in a Kamloops case this year, a mother delivered a child by caesarean section only to have the little girl seized by childcare workers 90 minutes later.

“These are examples of deeply damaging actions on the part of government,” Furstenau said.

“We need to recognize that the humanitarian crisis of Indigenous child apprehensions will not be stopped by tinkering around the edges of a very broken, nonevidence based system.”

She questioned why it has taken the government so long to end the practice.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Minister of Forests Doug Donaldson, at podium, and Parliamentary Secretary Ravi Kahlon, Mayor Lyn Hall and Labour Minster Harry Baines make an announcement about helping B.C.’s interior forestry workers affected by mill closures in Prince George on Tuesday.

Soldering on

Lukas Carriere, 10, a Grade 6 student from Blackburn does some soldering at the Makers Experience on Tuesday at Two Rivers Gallery. The art gallery hosted 81 Grade 4-7 students from Hixon Elementary, Blackburn Elementary, Buckhorn Elementary and Giscome Elementary to participate in a full day of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) lessons and activities. Students had a chance to try a sampling from 3D printing, laser cutting, soldering, coding and using a CNC machine.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Dogs shot to death, left in ditch

The BC SPCA is investigating after three dogs were found Monday shot to death and left in a ditch at the corner of Damms and Willow Cale Roads.

The dogs were a black, male French bulldog, a fawn-coloured female pug and a black and tan female miniature pincher.

All three animals appear to have died from gunshot wounds to the head. The SPCA has sent the bodies for forensic pathology to determine more details.

“The dogs appeared to be in good condition and well-cared for, so it is confusing that they would have been killed in such a disturbing manner,” said Dr. Teresa Cook, the BC SPCA’s regional manager of cruelty investigations for northern B.C.

“We urge anyone who many know these dogs, or who has any information about the incident to please call the BC SPCA’s provincial call centre at 1-855622-7722.”

— Citizen staff

Majority of pot users get their stuff under the table, poll says

During the last online Citizen poll we asked “where are you getting your pot?”

A recent report said B.C. is selling less legal cannabis than every province except P.E.I.

With 223 votes, which is 48 per cent, the most popular answer was “local, under the table supplier,” while next with 72 votes and 16 per cent was “government approved vendors.”

With 64 votes and 14 per cent was “grow it myself.”

With 56 votes and 12 per cent of the vote was “friends and family,” and lastly with 45 votes and 10 per cent was “online order delivered by mail.”

Total number of votes was 460. Remember this is not a scientific poll. Next question for the online poll is “should the federal and provincial governments do more to oversee vaping?”

To make your vote count visit www.pgcitizen.ca — Citizen staff

SPCA holding cat food drive

Bring along a can or bag of cat food to the Crossroads Street Festival. The Cariboo and District SPCA will be welcoming the donations when the event is held this Saturday at George Street and Fifth Avenue.

“Head over Handle Axe Throwing reached out to us to offer a donation for our pet food bank and when they heard we were in urgent need of cat food they invited us to have a tent next

to theirs,” spokesperson Alyssa Stauble said.

While they have plenty of dog food in stock, Stauble says they have no cat or kitten food left.

“We support more than 290 cats through this program so any donation of wet or dry cat or kitten food, or cash donations would be so appreciated,” Stauble said. “We want to support families in our community and help make sure their pets don’t go hungry.”

The BC SPCA has also started a pet food bank in conjunction with the Salvation Army.

— Citizen staff

Bucket List Gala for Hospice on Saturday

The great Canadian bucket list is the theme for the Prince George Hospice Society’s annual gala that takes place Saturday at the Civic Centre. Robin Esrock, television host for a National Geographic show called World Travels and best-selling author of The Great Canadian Bucket List: One of a Kind Travel Experiences will be the keynote speaker once again. The gala was created to emphasize that people should live with purpose by creating their own bucket list. “At hospice, we regularly see and hear the conversations of ‘I wish I would have,’ ‘I should have taken the time to,’ ‘I really wanted to but now it’s too late,’” Donna Flood, executive director, for the Prince George Hospice Society, said. “We want to take our experiences and help others in the community live their lives to the fullest by creating a bucket list and accomplishing the items on it.”

As a grand prize for a draw at the gala, the local hospice society will offer the winner $5,000 in cash towards their bucket list wish or fulfill the wish. Tickets are $90 each plus service charges and are available at www.eventbrite.com For more information about the local hospice society visit www. hospiceprincegeorge.ca — Citizen staff

Suspects sought in mall shooting

AIRDRIE, Alta. (CP) — Police say they are going through video footage and talking to scores of witnesses in search of a suspect in what’s believed was a targeted shooting at a large Calgaryarea shopping mall. A man who was shot on Monday night at Cross Iron Mills remains in hospital in serious but non-life-threatening condition. RCMP Insp. Kimberley Pasloske says officers who arrived within minutes after a report about 7 p.m. of shots being fired found the victim. She says a slender man dressed in black and an accomplice fled the scene in a 2019 Black Dodge Ram pickup truck and remain at large. Pasloske says the attack took place in the parking lot just outside the mall’s food court.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Tending the garden

Finalists announced for Business Excellence Awards

Citizen staff

Finalists for the Prince George Chamber of Commerce business excellence awards have been announced.

“The BEA’s represent a yearly opportunity for the Prince George Chamber of Commerce to recognize the tremendous efforts of the entire business community,” said chamber of commerce CEO Todd Corrigall.

“With the tremendous support of our partners and sponsors, we are able to continue delivering this event year over year, consistently improving upon the event and recognizing the widest breadth of business here in Prince George.”

The winners in each of 12 categories will be announced on Oct. 18 during a ceremony at the Prince George Playhouse. Here’s a look at the finalists:

Business of the Year: Birch and Boar Charcuterie and Provisions; Westcana Electric Inc.; Primus Electric Inc.; MNP LLP.

Business Person of the Year: Bikram Sahi, Onyx Stone and Custom Cabinets; Glen Mikkelsen, CN Centre; Selen Alpay, Canadian Tire Prince George; Sonica Kandola, RK Furniture Gallery.

Top Non-Profit or Charity: YMCA of Northern BC; Prince George Hospice Society; Foundry Prince George; United Way.

Top Marketing Campaign: BC Route 16, Tourism Prince George; Pop Media Inc.; Move

Up Prince George, City of Prince George; Cariboo Rocks the North.

Environmental Leadership: Adventures in Self Sufficiency; Col Juicery; Pacific Western Brewing; Prince George Driving for Life Academy. Excellence in Food and Beverage: Trench Brewing and Distilling; Smokey J’s Mmmeats;Farmhouse Catering Company Ltd.; North City Donair.

Excellence in Hospitality: Woodhouse Cottages and Ranch; Courtyard by Marriott Prince George; Pomeroy Inn and Suites; Salmon Val-

ley Campground.

Top Indigenous Owned Business: The Pepper Tree Hair Studio Inc;. Prince George Barber Shop; Zandra Ross Lifestyle; Erin Stagg Fine Art.

Micro Business of the Year: Blissful Bubbles Boutique; 4 Paws Pure; Simply Beautiful Jewelry Design and Clothing; Kay Ross Photography.

Top Workplace Culture: Ave Maria Specialties; The Exploration Place; Pine Centre Mall owned by Morguard; Primus Electric Inc. Remarkable Visitor Experience: Northern FanCon; Cariboo Rocks the North; Woodhouse Cottages and Ranch; CrossRoads Street Festival Series Service Excellence Award: Darling Deviance Wool Shop and Gifts; It’s All About Coffee and Food; Madison Ave Fashions; CBI Health Centre Prince George. Voting for the winners in each category is now open. Chamber members will receive a link to the voting platform via email.

Willow River hall celebrating grand opening

Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff

chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca

It’s been four years in the making and on Sunday the new Willow River Community Hall will celebrate its grand opening, right along side the Eastline Market from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Guests will be able to enjoy the new space while taking in all the sights and sounds the market offers.

Vendors come from Longworth, Sinclair Mills, Penny, and all along the Eastline to sell their wares.

There’s always a concession offering breakfast and lunch while activities like the ribbon cutting and musicians performing live will provide the entertainment to set the tone for the community hall’s official opening.

The new facility will offer a space for several activities geared for groups like the gun club, cribbage enthusiasts, dancers and there’s also enough space for weddings and memorials, Ray Brown, Eastline market manager said.

“We’re going to be able to do it all and our goal in life is to make people happy and now we can do that,” Brown said.

“We’ve been making improvements in our little town. We’ve got the new fire hall and now we’ve built a new community hall. During the celebration we’ll give accolades to those involved in the build. I feel particularly proud of it because I helped right from when the idea started four years ago.”

Brown said the community is close knit and friendly and the community hall will showcase that, helping

together.

‘We’ll have a strong forest industry in the future’ BRINK

— from page 1

“I just hope there isn’t too much bureaucracy put in place around getting that money out and getting that work done,” Rustad added.

Donaldson also said municipalities where a mill has been permanently closed will be eligible for $100,000 and those where a mill is on indefinite closure and where more than one-third of he workforce is in need of permanent or temporary employment will receive $75,000.

“Municipalities responding to a shift reduction will also have access to a pool of funding to provide defined services to workers and families based on identified need,” he added.

In an e-mailed statement, Mackenzie Kerr, the Green Party candidate in Cariboo-Prince George, called Donaldson’s annoucement “much-needed good news.”

She also called for a ban on export of raw resources “so that we can add value to them locally and stop being so affected by low commodity prices,” and a ban on the spraying of glyphosate on stands of spruce, pine and fir, “so that our deciduous trees can regrow to act as both fire and beetle barriers.”

Brink Forest Products Ltd. owner John Brink was among those who attended the announcement. He called the current situation a “perfect storm” of troubles and said it warrants a thorough review of how the industry is managed in B.C.

“Obviously what we’re doing is not working – we have to look at adding more value, making different products for different markets and we have to invest more in training and in skill sets and all of that, and I believe the time is now,” Brink said.

Vanderhoof Mayor Gerry Thiessen welcomed the announcement.

“We’ll have a strong forest industry in the future,” Thiessen said.

“It will be different, it will be smaller, but I think it will be a stronger one but we needed something to get us through the next number of months.”

“It’s a nice little hall for our nice little town,” Brown said.

Gardeners pick out the wilted flowers in Connaught Hill park on Monday morning.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Surrey RCMP pulled over party bus with 40 drunk teens

SURREY (CP) — Underage drinking in chauffeured vehicles has become the next target for RCMP in Surrey after police say officers stopped a bus and found 40 intoxicated teens inside. The RCMP say in a new release that it joined with Surrey bylaw enforcement members to focus enforcement on the so-called party buses. Police say they made their discovery during a traffic stop last month where they found open liquor on the bus and all of those inside were between the ages of 15 and 18. Police say they were acting on a tip that young people were paying a fee and being permitted to drink alcohol on board. Numerous tickets were issued to the driver of the bus for infractions that included operating over the 35-person capacity, having open liquor in the vehicle and not holding a chauffeur’s licence. Sgt. Ian MacLellan says the RCMP is releasing the information to make sure parents know how youth may be accessing alcohol in such situations.

Lindhout kidnapper abandons appeals

OTTAWA (CP) — A Somalian man found guilty in the kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout has abandoned appeals of his sentence and conviction. In a statement today, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada says Ali Omar Ader’s decision means the federal case against him is now complete. Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith sentenced Ader in June 2018 to 15 years in prison. Smith ruled in late 2017 that Ader, a 40-year-old Somalian national, was a “willing participant” in the 2008 hostage-taking of Lindhout, who was working as a freelance journalist near Mogadishu at the time. The judge found much of Ader’s testimony was unbelievable and did not support his claim that he was forced into serving as a negotiator and translator on behalf of a gang which threatened to harm him and his family. Lindhout, raised in Red Deer, Alta., and photographer Nigel Brennan of Australia were snatched by armed men while pursuing a story, the beginning of 15 months in captivity.

B.C. child OK after finding and eating drugs at school

KELOWNA (CP) — An elementary school student in British Columbia has recovered and returned to class after accidentally overdosing on a powerful drug. The Central Okanagan school district says the eightyear-old swallowed the drug after finding it on the floor of his classroom in Kelowna last week. The district says tests of the pinkish, powdery sample obtained by the RCMP indicate it was an illicit form of benzodiazepine, a class of drug commonly prescribed for anxiety, insomnia, muscle spasms and other ailments. Police have not determined how or why the drug was left in the classroom and an investigation continues. Central Okanagan Superintendent of Schools Kevin Kaardal said staff thoroughly cleaned the classroom and it was inspected by the district’s health and safety officials.

Gov’t posts $14B shortfall in 2018-19

Andy BLATCHFORD The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The federal government ran a $14-billion deficit in 2018-19, according to its latest annual financial report, the third year in a row with a shortfall bigger than $10 billion.

The deficit for the fiscal year that ended March 31 was $900 million smaller than the government projected in last spring’s federal budget, however.

Revenues in 2018-19 expanded by $21 billion – or 6.7 per cent –compared to the previous year, said the report released Tuesday.

The government’s revenue ratio, which is total revenues as a percentage of the size of the economy, increased last year by 15 per cent to reach its highest level since before the financial crisis in 2007-08. The growth in the ratio, which was 14.5 per cent in 201718, was mostly due to growth in personal and corporate income tax revenues and other taxes, the report said.

The revenue gain was partially offset by an increase of $14.6 billion – or 4.7 per cent – in program expenses and an increase of $1.4 billion – or 6.3 per cent – in public debt charges. The 2018-19 deficit follows two straight $19-billion shortfalls, and the annual financial numbers haven’t shown a surplus since 2006-07.

Overall, the federal debt increased to $685.5 billion at the end of 2018-19. The debt-to-GDP ratio – a measure of how burdensome the national debt is – fell to 30.9 per cent from 31.3 per cent in 2017-18, the report shows.

The state of federal finances has already been the subject of

political debate during the election campaign as parties argue whether the government should make an effort to balance the federal books – and how quickly.

In the three full fiscal years since the Liberals came to power, the federal government has posted $52 billion worth of shortfalls even though the economy has had a solid run of growth.

The Liberals won the 2015 election on a platform that promised annual deficits of no more than $10 billion and to return to balance by 2019.

After taking office, the Liberals abandoned the pledge and argued

even larger deficit-driven investments were needed to improve Canada’s long-term economic growth. The government shifted its focus instead to reducing the net debt-to-GDP ratio each year.

The Conservatives have long attacked the Liberals for breaking their 2015 deficit pledge and for not providing a timeline to return to balanced budgets. They’ve accused the Liberals of borrowing today on the backs of future generations.

Ahead of next month’s election, the Liberals have laid out projections calling for five more years of deficits of at least $10 billion.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising to pull Canada out of the red in about five years. Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, which promised balanced books in each of the last several election campaigns, no longer has a timetable to balance the books. Instead, it’s focusing on lowering the debt-toGDP each year.

Green Leader Elizabeth May has committed to returning Canada to budgetary balance in five years.

Maxime Bernier’s new People’s Party of Canada is the only political party that’s promised a quick path to balanced books – within two years.

B.C. man killed wife, smothered daughters, court finds

Ron SEYMOUR The Canadian Press

This story contains details that may disturb some readers.

KELOWNA — A man who murdered his wife during an argument about his drinking then took his daughters to church before smothering them was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole.

Jacob Forman pleaded guilty earlier this month to the second-degree murder of his wife Clara Forman on Dec. 17, 2017, and to two charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of seven-year-old Yesenia and eight-year-old Karina.

“He said (during a confession to police), he thought it would be better for them to go home to heaven than to grow up in a world where daddy had killed mommy,” Crown prosecutor Murray Kaay told B.C. Supreme Court during Forman’s sentencing hearing.

Kaay said Forman killed his wife by hitting her with a sledgehammer. The court heard the woman’s last words, after the second of three blows, were “What are you doing?”

After telling the girls to put on their pyjamas and letting them watch Netflix, Forman told his daughters he wanted to “play a game” with them, Kaay said.

First, he took Yesenia to her bedroom and

choked her from behind. “He continued to choke her until her heart stopped,” Kaay said Forman also used a child’s toy, a horse’s head on a stick, to apply pressure to Yesenia’s throat, he said.

After murdering Yesenia, Forman killed Karina the same way, Kaay said.

Forman, who owned a .22 calibre rifle, then spent several hours contemplating suicide, but decided against it, the court heard.

Justice Allan Betton sentenced Forman to consecutive life sentences, 25 years without parole for the deaths of his daughters and 10 years without parole for the murder of his wife.

“This breach of trust of such young children, vulnerable and trusting of their father, was horrific,” Betton told the court.

Including the two years he’s been in custody since his arrest, Forman will not be eligible for parole until 2051, when he is 68 years old.

The court heard Forman went to work as usual the day after the murders and bought cleaning supplies on the way home to try to remove bloodstains from the master bedroom, Kaay said.

When Clara didn’t show up for work on Dec. 19, friends twice called the Forman’s residence. On the first call, Forman said his wife wasn’t feeling well, the court heard. The second time, he said Clara had left him and

taken the children.

One of those friends called police, who went to the home and were denied entry as Forman told them Clara had left him, the court heard.

When police returned to search the home, the court heard they found the bodies in the garage.

Forman had originally pleaded not guilty when his trial began earlier this month. His defence lawyer said after the guilty plea that Forman believed his self-described acute alcoholism would offer him a defence.

In murdering his children, Forman demonstrated the “most egregious breach of trust imaginable,” Kaay told Judge Allan Betton.

“Mr. Forman killed his daughters in their own bedroom, which should be a place of safety.”

Forman’s assertion that he killed his wife in a fit of anger and then murdered his children because he didn’t want them to grow up knowing he was a murderer “can only be described as narcissistic and selfish to a degree which defies comprehension.” Kaay said.

“He killed his children in a callous, cowardly manner.”

Defence lawyer Raymond Dieno had asked the court to impose a sentence of 25 years without chance of parole, the automatic term for a first-degree murder conviction.

Case against father accused in daughters’ deaths circumstantial: defence

Hina ALAM The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — A defence lawyer says the Crown’s theory against a father accused of killing his two young daughters at Christmas in 2017 is circumstantial and his client’s evidence was consistent in denying the allegations.

Kevin McCullough told a B.C. Supreme Court jury Tuesday that the prosecution couldn’t fill in gaps in its case against Andrew Berry including for the time of death for the girls and a motive for the alleged crime. He also disputed an allegation made by the Crown that Berry attempted suicide after killing his daughters.

“When the accused takes the stand and gives you detailed

evidence that he didn’t do it the Crown better prove that he is a liar,” McCullough said in his closing arguments. “The accused was subjected to the most rigorous cross-examination in this trial and his evidence, whether you like it or not, was eternally consistent.” Berry is charged with seconddegree murder in the stabbing deaths of his daughters, four-yearold Aubrey Berry and six-year-old Chloe Berry. Their bodies were found in his home in the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay on Christmas Day in 2017. He was found in the bathtub with stab wounds to his throat and chest. He told the jury earlier in the trial that he was attacked by a man with dark skin and hair,

but the Crown has suggested his wounds were self-inflicted.

“The Crown case here is completely circumstantial,” McCullough said, adding there was “not a scintilla of evidence” to show that Berry stabbed himself.

“If you have a reasonable doubt that Mr. Berry caused his own injuries, then you have a reasonable doubt that he killed the girls because you have a reasonable doubt that someone else stabbed him. That’s why proof beyond a reasonable doubt is so critical.”

In his testimony, Berry said he owed thousands of dollars to a loan shark, whose two henchmen visited his apartment several times before the murders.

McCullough also questioned the

credibility of several Crown witnesses, including a blood-spatter expert who he asserted was “in over her head” on a job she was doing for the first time.

“She struggled because the scene was too much for her,” McCullough said.

He challenged the Crown’s theory the girls were killed in their beds around 8 a.m. Christmas Day. McCullough asked why there was no blood on a suicide note that police found when they went to the apartment that day.

“Yet the Crown would have you believe Mr. Berry killed the children around 8 a.m. and wandered around the house all day, not touching the suicide note he wrote for his sister.”

CP PHOTO

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau makes a campaign stop in St. John’s on Tuesday.

Tax credits or cash? Parties spar over what is best for parental benefits

Stephanie LEVITZ

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Is it better to be paid in credit or with cash?

That’s a question Liberals and Conservatives tusseled over Tuesday in the ongoing federal election competition for the votes of middle-class families.

The Liberals promised an expansion to existing child and parent benefit programs, including a pledge to make maternity and parental benefits tax-free, effectively one-upping their Conservative rivals who’d made a similar pitch last week. For the Liberals, the promise came in the form of a commitment to removing the taxes from the benefits.

“You’ll get every dollar right when you need it, since no taxes will be taken off the EI cheque when new parents receive it,” Trudeau said at an event in St. John’s, N.L.

The Conservatives, who have also claimed to be making the benefits tax-free, are promising a tax credit. So parents would still see their benefits taxed by the government, but they’d get a tax credit in return.

The duelling pitches underscore the differing ideological approaches taken by the parties on how best to woo voters.

Since the campaign began last Wednesday, the Conservatives have focused nearly exclusively on promising a wide array of tax cuts.

By contrast, the Liberals have focused on increased program spending and, in the case of benefits for families, straight cash – both in taking the taxes off the benefits, and via the promise Tuesday to expand the existing Canada Child Benefit to give more money to parents with children under the age of one.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer argued the Liberals were in fact adopting a Tory tone by expanding the CCB.

The CCB sends parents a monthly cheque if their income is below a certain threshold. Under the previous Conservative government, there had been a similar program that saw all families –regardless of income – also receive a monthly payment.

“That is a Conservative principle, knowing that moms and dads make choices for their kids better than bureaucrats in Ottawa,” Scheer said at an event in Winnipeg.

He was there to promote his latest policy idea, a commitment to increase the amount of money the federal government puts into Registered Education Savings Plans. Like several others so far this campaign, it’s an updated version of something the Conservatives promised in 2015.

But behind-the-scenes, Scheer’s team was working furiously to explain why their parental benefit package was better then Trudeau’s. They’d already come under criticism for calling it “tax free,” as the benefits actually remain taxed.

In a background document circulated to reporters, they argued that with a 15 per cent tax credit applied across the board, people would benefit from the program equally, and in some cases see their tax savings be higher than the amount of money that’s currently deducted for taxes on the benefit cheques.

An analysis of their approach by Lindsay Tedds, a professor at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, found that to what extent their tax credit actually benefits families depends on a host of factors, including other sources of income and other available tax credits.

How the Liberals plan would benefit families is also nuanced.

The Liberals did not explain Tuesday how they will struc-

ture the program, which would required overhauling tax laws. But if the benefits are tax-free, it may mean they won’t be considered income at all, much like the current Canada Child Benefit.

So at tax time, they wouldn’t be counted towards a person’s overall tax burden, said Jennifer Robson, a professor at Carleton University.

“You end up with a ripple effect – not only are you saving the taxes on EI, but then the effective tax rate on all your other income also drops,” Robson said.

In turn, the Liberal promise could benefit those with higher incomes more than those in lower brackets, in terms of tax savings.

What unites the two promises however is that neither party has explained how they’re going to pay for them.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also faced questions Tuesday about how his party will achieve its goals as he promised to build 500,000 new affordable homes across the country in 10 years, if elected.

“We would make different choices, we would spend more and do it immediately,” he said at an event in Ottawa.

How little choice Canadians seem to have when it comes to how personal information gets shared was the subject of the day for the Greens.

Leader Elizabeth May promised she would bring in improved privacy laws and require companies to respect the “right to be forgotten” – a principle that people should be able to control whether information from their pasts remains online.

The Greens also want to regulate Facebook, Twitter and other social-media platforms to ensure that only people with verifiable identities can use the platforms to publish.

“This is at a crisis stage,” May said at an event in Waterloo, Ont., the heart of the province’s tech sector.

“(Companies) are mining for profit our private information and it’s time we put it to a stop.”

People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier has taken his campaign to New Brunswick for the middle part of the week.

— with files from Jordan Press

Students who died in Vancouver Island bus crash remembered for love of learning

The Canadian Press

VICTORIA — Two first-year biology students at the University of Victoria are being remembered for their love of learning and nature.

Emma Machado of Winnipeg and John Geerdes from Iowa have been identified as the two 18-yearolds who died Friday when a charter bus carrying them and 43 other university students veered off a remote dirt road southwest of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

The students and two teaching assistants were on their way to the Bamfield Marine Science Centre for a field trip.

Robin Hicks, acting dean of the Faculty of Science, said in a statement that Machado and Geerdes showed a love of marine biology and a passion for the natural world.

At Machado’s former high school in Winnipeg, she was remembered as an active volunteer and a caring person.

A spokeswoman for the private all-girls Balmoral Hall School said younger girls looked up to Machado.

“She was adored by our younger students who she volunteered with, whenever she could,” said Jennifer Pawluk.

Machado was active in many student groups and worked in after-school care for younger kids.

“She just had a way about her that she would light up any room that she walked into. She was a

RCMP commissioner says FBI probe led to arrest of intelligence director

Jim BRONSKILL

The Canadian Press OTTAWA — An RCMP employee charged with trying to disclose secret information was discovered after a joint probe with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation pointed to a mole in the force, top Mountie Brenda Lucki said Tuesday.

The RCMP commissioner, addressing the arrest of Cameron Jay Ortis in person for the first time, also said there is a lot of conjecture, speculation and false information swirling about the case.

Lucki told a news conference that investigators came across documents during the probe with the FBI that led the Mounties to believe there could be some kind of “internal corruption.”

A sensitive-investigations team looked for months into possible leaks before the arrest last week of the 47-year-old Ortis, who faces charges under the Security of Information Act as well as two Criminal Code provisions for allegedly trying to disclose classified material to a foreign entity or terrorist group.

Lucki would not comment on a possible motive, what foreign entity is involved, or what information Ortis had access to in his role as director general of the RCMP’s national intelligence co-ordination centre.

The RCMP commissioner didn’t directly address media reports that Ortis’s arrest stemmed from the dismantling of a Canadian firm, Phantom Secure, that sold phones allowing uncrackable communication.

The FBI and international partners, including the RCMP, said in March 2018 that organized crime and drug-trafficking groups were dealt a blow by the takedown of the encrypted-communication service.

They said Phantom Secure bought smartphones, removed all of the typical functions – calling, texting, internet, and GPS –and installed an encrypted email

system, so the phones could communicate only with each other.

If a customer was arrested, Phantom Secure destroyed the data on his or her phone, which is obstruction of justice under U.S. law, police said. Lucki cautioned that the “information in the public domain is speculative, unhelpful and may be harmful to our investigation and judicial process. We also need to be mindful of the privacy of the accused and his right to fair trial.”

The force is still trying to assess and deal with the damage that might have resulted from the Ortis case, she said.

“Until we know what we’re dealing with specifically, our risk assessment is fluid and the measure of severity of such an event is fluid as well.”

Joe Crook, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, said the Americans have been “in touch with Canadian authorities about the situation and have offered our full support.”

Lucki played down any suggestion the RCMP’s partners might lose trust in the force over the case.

“There is always that possibility, but I am confident that measures that we have in place will mitigate those such risks.” The arrest should not be seen as a reflection on the work of the RCMP as a whole, she added. Ortis began his career with the Mounties in 2007 after earning a doctorate in political science. Prior to his role with the intelligence co-ordination centre, he held positions in operations research and the national-security criminal investigations directorate.

Lucki said the arrest will not dissuade the RCMP from pursuing plans to hire more civilians as part of a modernization effort.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Every employee in the RCMP is value-added to our organization and a valued employee, so, no, not at all.”

Ortis is slated to make his second court appearance on Friday.

lovely, lovely person,” Pawluk said.

University spokeswoman Denise Helm said one student injured in the crash remained in hospital Tuesday. Helm could not provide further details. She said students from the campus have been making the trip to the Bamfield centre every fall for at least 18 years. Machado and Geerdes were just weeks into their academic studies, Hicks said.

CP FILE PHOTO

Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer speaks at a child care facility in Toronto on Aug. 20.

TRUDEAU

Passing the hot potato

Week one in federal election promises:

• Jagmeet Singh vowed to cap cellphone and Internet charges.

• Justin Trudeau announced breaks for first-time homeowners.

• Andrew Scheer dangled tax credits for transit users.

• Elizabeth May wants to cancel student debt over $10,000.

If somebody promises free avocado toast, it will be official: the politicians have discovered millennials. This, of course, will be disconcerting to older voters, who have long been used to elections being all about them, just as God – an elderly man like themselves – ordained.

But no, no, no, it seems what political parties actually do is aim their promises at the biggest blocs of voters, which has traditionally meant: a) baby boomers and; b) their parents, but today means the millennials who, by some calculations, now form the single largest cohort of Canadians (They’re

typically described as being born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s.)

That’s why candidates who used to spend a disproportionate amount of time rattling on about things like health care, pensions, youth crime, their favourite episode of Murder She Wrote and why Chrysler never should have stopped making the slant six, now focus instead on housing affordability, the cost of child care, the brunch lineups at Jam, awkward Spice Girls references and whatever else they think might be of interest to people who weren’t yet born when John Lennon died.

Sometimes the promises amount to little more than bribing Canadians with their own money, which ticks off the seriousminded among us.

Such people get offended that the parties try to seduce us by waving shiny trinkets in front of our faces, distracting us instead of tackling what matters most – like the question of whether Felicity Huffman will get the Martha Stewart Suite in prison, or the awesomeness of this week’s story about a New Zealander who, knowing he was about to be fired, went into his boss’s office

accompanied by an “emotional support clown” who at first made balloon animals and then, when it got to the part where the guy actually got canned, mimed crying. Wait, no, what I meant to say is that what serious-minded voters really want candidates to focus on is climate change.

In fact, if you ask Canadians to identify the biggest issues in this election, it’s pretty much a long drop from: a) the fear that we have just 10 years to come to grips with the end of the Earth as we know it; to b) cellphone fees. It’s not as though there’s a big wedge issue like Brexit in between. The problem is that if you go on social media you’ll find a lot more certainty about how to deal with phone fees than climate change. It’s easier for voters to wrap their heads around.

Maybe what vote-hungry candidates should zero in on is the demographic shift itself as millennials finally overtake baby boomers – a changing of the guard whose implications should make both cohorts squirm in discomfort.

This spring, Max Fawcett wrote a piece for The Walrus in which he noted that while

Speculation tax forced us to leave

My wife and I purchased a Victoria vacation condo 14 years ago upon retirement. Because we only use it two to three months each year it is suddenly subject to the new speculation and vacancy tax and we must now leave. We have enjoyed our time in Victoria immensely.

The Empress, Royal B.C. Museum, Butchart Gardens, harbour activity, water taxis, Langham Court Theatre productions, many restaurants and wonderful neighbours.

We are being forced to leave because B.C. Finance Minister Carole James has decreed that we are foreign “speculators” who don’t deserve to be here. It feels like she has withdrawn the Canadian welcome invitation extended to us 14 years ago. She has justified this pivot by making various statements such as, “it is fair for people to pay a little bit more for the services they benefit from.”

As a U.S. citizen, the real-estate tax on our condo will rise from $3,000 a year to $15,000 a year due to the speculation tax. A little bit more?! (A British Columbian’s net tax for using our condo just as we do would only increase by $1,000.)

James has also said “we wanted to get rid of speculators” and some people are treating B.C. housing like the stock market. Really? Would that she had actually targeted “speculators.” Many commentators have pointed out the fallacy of her claim. Unfortu-

nately, the punitive and discriminatory tax scheme that she authored seems designed to flush out long-term owners and users like us, rather than actual shortterm “speculators.” Interestingly, a B.C. speculator can avoid this tax entirely by focusing on the most affordable properties, i.e. those worth $400,000 or less. I guess speculation isn’t bad after all if a British Columbian does it and only ties up the most affordable housing in town.

The finance minister says that she wants to “turn empty houses into good housing for people” and owners should rent out their homes.

We used our fully furnished condo several times each year, so it was certainly not “empty” or “vacant.” We cannot offer long-term rentals because our visits are often scheduled at the last minute and can occur at any time throughout the year. Additionally, with all of our personal items on site, James is effectively ordering us to take in a renter as a roommate.

And what would James say to British Columbians who own vacation condos in, say, Phoenix or Honolulu if those jurisdictions retaliate and single out B.C. owners for their own discriminatory speculation tax?

After all, many cities have a housing and homeless problem

these days. Politicians do have a habit of conscripting outsiders who can’t vote to pay for local problems. Anyone who has rented a car at an airport has experienced this first hand when they review the multiple tax addons listed in the final bill.

James also said, “there are individuals who couldn’t even dream of having one home never mind an additional home they leave vacant.” I guess no one deserves a vacation home now, unless they turn it into a rental business. And there’s that word “vacant” again. We purchased our condo to use, and use it we did. We did not leave it abandoned and empty like a stock certificate in a safe deposit box.

Yes, I understand that many people will have little sympathy for owners of a vacation home like ourselves. We feel very fortunate to have had a Victoria condo for 14 years. But no more. We sold it to a Victoria gentleman who is downsizing. He will not have to pay an additional $12,000 a year in taxes, even if he uses it part time like we did.

His previous large home won’t add to the available affordable home inventory in Victoria either, so in our case James’s stated objective is not met. She has accomplished her actual objective of erecting an “outsiders not welcome” sign, as evidenced by our departure. Goodbye Victoria, it seems we hardly knew ye.

— John Dudycha is a retired person with a home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who formerly had a part-time home in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood.

we had almost seven taxpaying adults for every senior in 1972, that ratio will drop to just over three within the next decade. That’s a lot of extra weight on the shoulders of the remaining taxpayers, who must pay not only for the boomers’ health-care and old-age benefits, but also the cost of providing them with grief counselling as they realize that they are no longer at the centre of the universe.

I mean, my generation fought no wars, endured no Depression, made no particularly onerous sacrifices, yet somehow –through a combination of raw numbers and good timing – inherited all the good jobs, relatively cheap houses and political power. Less-dominant generations were consigned to the periphery, where we fed them an unending diet of classic rock, MASH reruns and old Monty Python and Saturday Night Live routines. And now, as the current election campaign shows, the power – and the burden – is shifting to the millennials. To them with failing hands we pass the torch, though they would probably prefer a fire extinguisher. — Jack Knox, Victoria Times Colonist

Manitoba outcome a federal preview?

Some elections in Canada are all about change. In Quebec, only diehard fans and misguided academics expected the Liberal party to somehow stay in power after the 2019 provincial ballot. A similar scenario was observed in British Columbia in 2001, in Manitoba in 2016, in Alberta in 2015 and 2019 and at the federal level in 2015.

The recent Manitoba election may offer a glimpse of how the situation could unfold at the federal level. The incumbent head of government – Premier Brian Pallister of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba – entered the final stages of the campaign with an approval rating of 40 per cent. The day before most Manitobans cast their ballots, seven in 10 residents of the province (70 per cent) told Research Co. that they did not see him as the best person for the top political job.

These numbers may have been interpreted as weak. However, Manitoba’s official Opposition leader – Wab Kinew of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba – did not get enough traction to present himself as a “premier in waiting.” Only a third of Manitobans approved of his performance, and he was able to gain ground on Pallister on only one issue: housing, homelessness and poverty.

On health care, the most important issue for an astonishing 48 per cent of the public when the Manitoba campaign was underway, voters preferred Pallister to Kinew. When all the votes were tallied, the Progressive Conservatives retained their majority status.

The Research Co. exit poll shows that Progressive Conservative voters in the province looked at two issues as their main motivators: “ideas and policies” (25 per cent) and “the party’s leader” (also 25 per cent). The numbers are eerily similar for New Democrats: “ideas and policies” (28 per cent) and “the party’s leader” (25 per cent).

One motivator that usually ranks higher with voters of lower-tier parties is “disgust with other contending candidates.” One in four voters who supported the provincial Liberals (25 per cent) and Greens (24 per cent) felt this way, but the proportion was also high among Progressive Conservatives (21 per cent) and New Democrats (19 per cent).

Manitoba was polarized. But, in spite of ample mentions of closed emergency rooms in Winnipeg, criticism toward the premier for his trips to Costa Rica and dismay at calling the ballot early, the public was not offended enough to seek change. In essence, a premier who was not universally liked was still seen as a better choice than an untested Opposition leader. What just transpired in Mani-

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toba offers a road map for the federal Liberals. Prime Minister and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau could campaign not on the likability and “sunny ways” that led to his first majority mandate in 2015, but as a candidate who has more experience than his main rivals. Trudeau might hope for a fate similar to the one his father experienced in 1972, when the Liberals dropped seven percentage points and 46 seats from 1968’s “Trudeaumania.” It was not a fantastic outcome, but it let the party bounce back in 1974 after almost two years of a minority scenario. Conservative Party of Canada Leader Andrew Scheer will need to connect in a more meaningful way beyond the base, precisely the feat that eluded Kinew in Manitoba, if he wants to have a shot at forming the government. During the summer, the outcry over the SNC-Lavalin affair did not propel the Tories to the sizable lead many expected. Canadians who are leaning to the Liberals at this stage will need something deeper to give the Conservatives a second look.

Under Stephen Harper, the Conservatives were able to add a few more seats to their tally from 2006 to 2008, and then again from 2008 to their majority mandate in 2011. A minority for the Liberals would not necessarily mean the end of Scheer’s tenure, even if other heavyweights, perhaps current and former provincial premiers, raise their hand.

For the federal New Democrats and Greens, Manitoba also provides lessons. The provincial Liberals – like the federal NDP, the third party when the campaign began –were successful at establishing an emotional connection with their leader (33 per cent of Liberal voters said their main motivator was Dougald Lamont). Unfortunately, this did not translate into more than three seats when the night was over. Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s approval rating among Canadians aged 18 to 34 stood at an impressive 46 per cent in July. Turning that likability into seats is a different matter.

Green Party of Manitoba Leader James Beddome had decent numbers at the start of the campaign, but running in the same riding as Kinew was inherently difficult. Federal Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May will not face the same problem, but sustaining the level of support for her party from start to finish, particularly when Canadian voters start to think about a government and not a riding, will be challenging.

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MARIO CANSECO

Laughter medicine

Comedians hired to boost spirits of dementia patients

Cathy FREE The Washington Post

About a year after Dani Klein

Modisett moved her mother from Manhattan to an Alzheimer’s care center near her Los Angeles home in 2016, she noticed that her mom, then 84, was sad and withdrawn.

Muriel Klein, once the life of the party (even with her memory loss), was no longer talkative or interested in food. She kept her head down and slept a lot.

“I was really upset, thinking, ‘What have I done? Why did I take her from everything she loved in Manhattan?’” Modisett said.

During a dental exam one afternoon, Modisett, an author and former stand-up comedian, tearfully told her dentist about her mother, saying she wished she could hire a comedian for her.

“Why don’t you?” her dentist replied.

Modisett went home and made a few calls, and soon she had hired a stand-up comedian to visit her mom eight hours a week.

The first day, the comedian told Klein: “Some days, I don’t want to talk either, Muriel. When someone gets in my face, I think, ‘(expletive), do I look like I want to talk?’”

Klein repeated the expletive – a Yiddish word – laughing. Then she repeated it again. She lit up.

“After that visit, my mom became more engaged and started eating and laughing again,” said Modisett, who has taught comedy classes at the University of California at Los Angeles. “She felt that she was being seen.”

In early 2017, realizing that other seniors with memory loss could also benefit from some slapstick and one-liners, Modisett launched Laughter on Call, an organization that pairs comedians with people who have dementia and Alzheimer’s. The group also puts on laughter workshops and live comedy shows at care centres.

Families and care facilities work out a fee in advance with the comedians for their services –generally between $25 and $50 an hour for one-on-one visits – said Modisett, 56.

“Comedians can use the work, and people with memory loss can use the laughter,” she said.

With studies showing that laughter can improve health, ease stress and contribute to longevity, Modisett’s idea is starting to catch on.

Laughter on Call’s two dozen comedians mostly work in California, but some of the comedians also have clients in other states. Modisett said she has gotten inquiries from memory care centers across the country.

In Los Angeles, comedian Marty Ross, 79, took up comedy 15 years ago after nearly five decades in retail.

“Bringing laughter to seniors, es-

pecially seniors with Alzheimer’s, is so heartwarming,” said Ross, who lives in Santa Clarita, California. “The realization that many of these people don’t have regular visits from family makes (it) even more special.”

Modisett’s mother now receives twice-weekly visits from Michael Piper-Younie, 40, a stand-up comedian from Los Angeles who said he has developed more empathy and patience since joining Laughter on Call.

“Spending time with Muriel genuinely makes me feel better about my own day-to-day,” he said.

“When she sees me, the excitement in her face is palpable. She beams a huge smile and reaches out her hand to mine.”

For two hours, Piper-Younie tells funny stories and makes silly faces, he said, and sometimes, he and Klein will listen to music or dance. During their time together, she never lets go of his hand.

“We’ve developed a special bond that is beneficial for both of us,” he said. “I feel honoured to be doing this beautiful work and to be Muriel’s companion. When I get her to a full belly laugh, it really makes my heart sing.”

Modisett said she knew it was time to move her mother to California when a friend from New York called in 2016 and said that Klein’s memory loss had worsened.

Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in

2011, Klein argued with waiters and had difficulty filling out a bank deposit slip, Modisett said.

“As time went on, I knew in my heart it wasn’t right to leave her in Manhattan,” she said.

The various caregivers and helpers were costing $15,000 to $17,000 a month, she said, and the level of help still wasn’t enough.

Now 87, Klein seems more at peace with herself, said Modisett. She smiles when she wakes up at her care centre.

Care centre employees who have hired Laughter on Call comedians to put on group shows say they’ve noticed changes in memory-loss residents who watch the routines.

“It helps them with their health – not just the mind, but the mind, body and soul,” said Juliana Rocha, director of resident engagement and a music therapist for a Silverado Alzheimer’s care centre in Los Angeles.

Every Friday, after two or three comedians get residents involved in interactive storytelling, the seniors seem less anxious and more focused, Rocha said.

“They’re smiling, they’re engaging,” she said. “That kind of connection helps to build brain cells and helps to slow the progression of dementia.”

Although many memory-care patients can’t communicate the way they used to, the person that families and friends knew and

loved is still in there, Modisett added.

“Through laughter, we can start a conversation and draw those personalities out,” she said. “Comedians in particular have the charisma, courage and fearlessness to engage someone who might be feeling confused, isolated or lonely.”

She recalled a recent afternoon when a team of her comedians put on a “Titanic Remembrance Day”

show for several dozen people with dementia.

“All of the residents were made shipmates, and the band started leading them in singing Amazing Grace,” Modisett said. “I looked around and saw that everyone in the room was smiling and laughing, and I knew that I was witnessing something remarkable.”

For that hour, she said, “there was no anxiety, stress or sadness. Only happiness.”

JENETA ST. CLAIR/ DANI KLEIN MODISETT

Above, Muriel Klein and comedian Michael Piper-Younie in July. Right, Dani Klein Modisett with her mother, Muriel Klein, in Los Angeles in April 2017.

How white supremacists recruit boys online

Caitlin GIBSON

The Washington Post

At first, it wasn’t obvious that anything was amiss. Kids are naturally curious about the complicated world around them, so Joanna Schroeder wasn’t surprised when her 11- and 14-year-old boys started asking questions about timely topics such as cultural appropriation and transgender rights.

But she sensed something off about the way they framed their questions, she says – tinged with a bias that didn’t reflect their family’s progressive values. She heard one of her sons use the word “triggered” in a sarcastic, mocking tone. And there was the time Schroeder watched as her son scrolled through the “Explore” screen on his Instagram account and she caught a glimpse of a meme depicting Adolf Hitler. Schroeder, a writer and editor in Southern California, started paying closer attention, talking to her boys about what they’d encountered online. Then, after they were in bed one night last month, she opened Twitter and began to type.

“Do you have white teenage sons?” she wrote. “Listen up.”

In a series of tweets, Schroeder described the onslaught of racist, sexist and homophobic memes that had inundated her kids’ social media accounts unbidden, and the way those memes – packaged as irreverent, “edgy” humour – can indoctrinate children into the world of alt-right extremism and white supremacy.

She didn’t know whether anyone would pay attention to her warning. But by the time she awoke the next morning, her thread had gone viral; as of Sept. 16, it had been retweeted more than 81,000 times and liked more than 180,000 times. Over the following days, Schroeder’s inbox filled with messages from other parents who were deeply concerned about what their own kids were seeing and sharing online.

“It just exploded, it hit a nerve,” she says of her message. “I realized, OK, there are other people who are also seeing this.”

Over recent years, white supremacist and alt-right groups have steadily emerged from the shadows – marching with torches through the streets Charlottesville, Virginia; clashing with counterprotesters in Portland, Oregon; papering school campuses with racist fliers.

In June, the Anti-Defamation League reported that white supremacist recruitment efforts on U.S. college campuses had increased for the third straight year, with more than 313 cases of white supremacist propaganda recorded between September 2018 and May 2019.

This marked a seven per cent increase over the previous academic year, which saw 292 incidents of extremist propaganda, according to the ADL.

As extremist groups have grown increasingly visible in the physical world, their influence over malleable young minds in the digital realm has become a particularly

urgent concern for parents. A barrage of recent reports have revealed how online platforms popular with kids (YouTube, iFunny, Instagram, Reddit, multiplayer video games, among others) are used as tools for extremists looking to recruit.

Parents wanted to know: What was happening to their kids? Why was it happening, and how could it be stopped?

For extremist groups, the goal is hardly a secret; the founder and editor of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer has openly declared that the site targets children as young as 11.

“This is a specific strategy of white nationalists and alt-right groups,” says Lindsay Schubiner, program director at the Western States Center, a nonprofit organization focused on social, economic, racial and environmental justice. Schubiner co-authored a tool kit published by the center this year that offers guidance to school officials and parents who are facing white nationalist threats in their communities.

“White nationalist and alt-right groups use jokes and memes as a way to normalize bigotry while still maintaining plausible deniability,” Schubiner says, “and it works very well as a recruitment strategy for young people.”

Schroeder saw this firsthand when she sat down with her kids to look at their Instagram accounts together.

“I saw the memes that came across my kids’ timelines, and once I started clicking on those and seeking this material out, then it became clear what was really happening,” she says. With each tap of a finger, the memes grew

darker: sexist and racist jokes (for instance, a looping video clip of a white boy demonstrating how to “get away with saying the nword,” or memes referring to teen girls as “thots,” an acronym for “that ho over there”) led to more racist and dehumanizing propaganda, such as infographics falsely asserting that black people are inherently violent.

“The more I clicked, the more I started to see memes about white supremacy,” Schroeder says, “and that’s what was really scary.”

That pattern of escalation is familiar to Christian Picciolini, an author and former neo-Nazi who left the movement in 1996 and now runs the Free Radicals Project, which supports others who want to leave extremist movements.

“Youth have always been critical to the growth of extremist movements, since the beginning of time. Young people are idealistic, they’re driven, they are motivated, and they’re not afraid to be vocal. So if you can fool them into a certain narrative that seems to speak to them, then that’s the growth of your movement,” he says. “And I’ve never seen an extremist movement grow as fast as I have in the last 10 years.”

Most of the people who contact Picciolini looking for help – anywhere from 10 to 30 per week, he says – are “bystanders,” people who are scared that someone they know or love is a white supremacist. And most of those bystanders are parents of teens and young adults.

He’s noticed that he hears from them most often after a highprofile act of violence, such as the 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in

Wisconsin that left six people dead (“before that was the last time I had a day off,” he says). Or the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Or the massacre of 22 shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, just last month.

“Those moments sometimes push parents to reach out,” he says, “to say, ‘Okay, I can’t ignore this anymore.’ “ For kids between ages 11 and 15 especially, this sense of inclusion is an incredibly powerful lure, says Gil Noam, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital whose research focuses on child and adolescent development.

“In this stage, the issue is not so much ‘Who am I?’ but rather, ‘Where do I belong?’ “ he says. “ ‘Who includes me?’ Who treats me well?’ “

Extremist recruiters understand, Noam says, that a child at this age is more likely to respond to the pull of community and a sense of purpose, even if they don’t readily identify with a group’s core message. For parents who struggle to understand how extremist indoctrination can happen to “good” kids, he says, it’s helpful to keep this developmental vulnerability in mind.

And this isn’t unique to young white boys in America in 2019: “Even with the Hitler Youth,” Noam says, referring to recruitment within the youth wing of the Nazi Party in Germany, “what they really understood was the power of belonging.”

Alice LoCicero, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Society for Terrorism Research, saw similar patterns of behavior

when she studied the recruitment of child soldiers by the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

“About age 13, kids have a big developmental shift, cognitively,” she says. “There’s a sense of idealism and altruism, and wanting to make a difference in the world. It’s an age where a sense of justice becomes really important, and that can be misconstrued and manipulated: justice according to whom?”

Volunteering in the community, engaging with a new hobby, joining a mission-driven club or campaign - these might be ways to redirect a young person, LoCicero says.

“One of the things that research has shown is that these kids who get recruited, they describe the need to have an impact,” she says. “All kids need positive mentoring, and if we fail on that, then there are people out there who are only too happy to mentor them into violence.”

In her Twitter thread, Schroeder offered advice for other parents, urging them to talk about these issues with kids in a way that avoids shame or defensiveness - emotions that might drive children away from their parents, and toward extremist influences online. She described how she sat down with her kids so they could look through Instagram together and talk about what they saw: “It’s such a good tool for parents, because there’s no blame there,” she says. “It gives you a peek into what your kids are seeing online and what the people they follow are sharing, but it doesn’t come from a place of, ‘Oh, you did this thing wrong.’ “ No teenager wants to feel like they’re being manipulated, Schroeder says. So she talked to her boys about the power of propaganda.

“What I said that connected with them really well was, ‘These people are trying to pull the wool over your eyes - they’re trying to trick you,’ “ she says. “I told them, ‘They’re trying to get you to believe something that, if you think about it, you really don’t believe.’ “ Noam, the Harvard psychologist, agrees that this sort of approachan open conversation, where the child feels valued and taken seriously - is the best way for parents to navigate this delicate territory. “Engaging in a dialogue in a way that is not lecturing, and that doesn’t make the parent’s anxiety the main focus, that’s the way to go,” he says. And don’t immediately envision a catastrophic outcome, Noam adds: it’s possible to turn these patterns around if the underlying need is understood and met.

“I don’t know any kid who says: ‘I can’t wait to grow up and become a Nazi. I can’t wait to grow up and hate somebody else,’ “ Picciolini says. “These are manifestations of despair. It’s a last-ditch thing. We have to understand our children and what engages them at the youngest age possible, so that they have access to opportunities that will get them involved in something positive.”

In this Jan. 9, 2017, photo, Christian Picciolini, founder of the Free Radicals Project, a program dedicated to helping people leave white power groups including neo-Nazi organizations and the Ku Klux Klan, poses for a photo outside his Chicago home.

The Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips: https://bit.ly/2RsjvA0

World box lacrosse championship beckons Paciejewski

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

For the third time in his career, Cole Paciejewski is going to be wearing Scottish flag on his lacrosse jersey.

He’s the only Prince George player entered in the world indoor lacrosse championship, a 20-team tournament which starts Thursday in Langley. Paciejewski will play for Scotland, the country where his father was born.

Unlike the previous two international field lacrosse tournaments the 26-year-old forest firefighter will be more in his element, playing box lacrosse in an indoor arena.

He says he won’t mind not having to chase down opponents on a field that’s 110 yards long and 60 yards wide.

By comparison, the 200-foot X 85-foot lacrosse floor in Langley

will be like operating in a phone booth.

“It might be a little harder for some to get used to but I’ve been box since I was four years old and I have a good understanding of how to play there, that’s where I’m at my best,” said Paciejewski.

Paciejewski, the MVP in the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association in 2017, played all his minor lacrosse in his hometown, then went on a four-year scholarship to play U.S. college field lacrosse for NCAA Division 1 Pfeiffer University in North Carolina from 2011-2015.

Always a prolific scorer, Paciejewski was limited to only four or five regular season games with the RPR Mechanical/JR Construction Bandits. But the quiet fire season locally meant he was available for the PGSLA playoffs and in just three games he had four goals and four assists before the Bandits were eliminated in the semifinal

round by the eventual-champion Westwood Sports Pub Devils. Paciejewski hasn’t played a game since August but he keeps himself extremely fit and has been throwing the ball around at the Northern Sport Centre with one of his teammates to get ready for the tournament.

“Over the last month I’ve been able to get lots of practice in, I had my lacrosse stick in my hand every day,” he said.

Scotland was scheduled to scrimmage Tuesday against Australia and the team will have a few days to practice before their first game Thursday morning at 10:30 against Slovakia. Scotland plays Germany on Saturday, Mexico on Sunday and finishes off roundrobin play Monday, Sept. 23 against Czech Republic. He knows some of his 17 teammates from the previous two tournaments.

“There’s a few familiar faces but it’s definitely a more European roster than we’ve had in the past,” he said.

“If we win our pool we could see (tournament favourites Canada or the U.S.) in the playoff round. It’s a bit of dogfight to match up with them but if we do well in the round-robin we should have a opportunity to play them.”

Court denies Humphries’ request for injunction to join U.S. team

Donna SPENCER The Canadian Press

CALGARY — Bobsled’s governing body in Canada still wants Kaillie Humphries to race for her country despite their acrimonious relationship that has spilled into court.

A Calgary judge has denied Humphries’ request for an injunction forcing Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton to release her so she can compete for the United States.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist wants to participate in the U.S. push trials in Lake Placid, N.Y., on Wednesday, but needs her release to do so.

Tuesday’s legal decision is the latest chapter in a dispute involving one of Canada’s most prominent sports stars and the organization that has overseen her career for 15 years. Humphries and brakewoman Heather Moyse won Olympic gold in 2010 and 2014, making them the first to repeat as Olympic champions in women’s bobsled.

Humphries also won Olympic bronze in 2018 with Phylicia George.

“Kaillie is obviously a world and Olympic champion. We want Kaillie in our program,” BCS high-performance director Chris Le Bihan said Tuesday at the Calgary courthouse following the judge’s ruling.

“Kaillie is obviously going to be a threat in the next Olympics and there’s nothing more that we like to see other than Canadians standing on the podium.”

Justice Cheryl Anderson ruled court was not the right vehicle to make decisions on the standoff when national and international sport bodies have established processes and procedures to do so.

“There are specialized sports tribunals with comprehensive sets of rules, regulations and dispute resolution mechanisms that have specialized knowledge of the policy considerations at play and the consequences of any decision to release or not, and whether it is reasonable or

not,” she said.

Humphries contended that since her athlete agreement with the Canadian bobsleigh organization expired in June, she’s no longer subject to the group’s regulations. But Anderson said asking BCS to release her contradicts that assertion.

Humphries first asked BCS to release her Aug. 3. The 34-year-old Calgarian will continue her bid to sever her relationship with the organization and compete for the U.S., according to her lawyer.

“There are options available to us. We’re considering them now,” Jeff Rath stated. “We’re obviously not giving up the fight and we’re continuing to move forward.”

USA Bobsled has said the organization would welcome Humphries to its team once she gets her release from Bobsleigh Canada.

“As far as I know she’s still invited to Lake Placid tomorrow,” said Rath, adding that Humphries is planning to attend.

“The issue is whether she’s going to be able

to train there or not or whether she’s just there as an observer until we straighten out this mess Bobsleigh Canada has intentionally created.”

Humphries married American bobsledder Travis Armbruster last weekend, which would allow her to represent the U.S. in competition if she was released by Canada.

The first public indicator of a rift between Humphries and BCS surfaced a year ago. Humphries said she would not compete during the 2018-19 season after filing a harassment complaint against a coach with BCS in August 2018.

BCS hired an independent third-party investigator to review Humphries’ complaint. A report was submitted to the Canadian organization just last week.

“The report found there was not sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations,” BCS lawyer Arif Chowdhury said Tuesday following the judge’s decision.

Humphries also filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against BCS last week.

In her statement of claim, she accused head coach Todd Hays of mentally and verbally abusing her during the 2017-18 sliding season. Hays didn’t directly address her allegations in a statement provided Tuesday by BCS.

“This entire situation is very unfortunate for everyone involved, and for our sport in Canada,” Hays said in the release.

“There are no winners when your sport is in the public eye like this.

“My focus right now is on the season ahead. Our athletes and coaches are committed to continuing to build on the positive team culture in our national program in an effort to ensure we are fully prepared to achieve excellence on the world stage.”

Humphries contends BCS was in violation of its own discrimination and harassment policies and that she was punished by BCS for filing the harassment complaint.

— see ‘BOBSLEIGH CANADA, page 10

Last summer in Netanya, Israel Paciejewski helped Scotland to a 11th-place finish at the 47-team Federation Internationale Lacrosse (FIL) world field lacrosse championship.

In 2016 he used his British passport to qualify for Scotland’s team at the European field lacrosse championship in Budapest, Hungary.

That team finished with a 4-4 record.

Paciejewski has played a few times at Langley Events Centre. That’s where he earned a spot on the provincial midget team back when he was a teenager. He also had a pro tryout there in 2016 with the National Lacrosse League’s Vancouver Stealth. His parents, Richard and Maureen, are going to the tournament and he has large extended family living in the Lower Mainland who will help form the Team Scotland cheering section.

Citizen staff

The stage is set for the Prince George Soccer Association men’s division playoff championships. Sunday’s semifinals left just four teams standing and they will meet Saturday at North Cariboo Field for the trophies in Division 1 and the 45-plus Division.

In Division 1 semifinals, Subway defeated The Black Clover 4-1, while

Cole Paciejewski scores against a Yorkshire club team at the Nick Kehoe Invitational tournament in May in Manchester, England.

HUMPHRIES

Take down

Players from the Williams Lake Rustlers (red/black) haul down a

Rugby Club’s home opener tournament.

Biggio hits big for Blue Jays

Todd KARPOVICH The Associated Press

BALTIMORE — Rookie Cavan Biggio hit for the cycle, and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-5 on Tuesday night.

Biggio homered in the third inning, singled in the sixth, doubled in the eighth and tripled in the ninth. He drove in four runs and scored three times. Biggio and his father, Craig, a Hall of Famer with the Houston Astros, are the second father-son duo in major league history to hit for the cycle, joining Daryle and Gary Ward.

Cavan Biggo is the first player to hit for the cycle for Toronto since Jeff Fry against the Texas Rangers on Aug. 17, 2001. It was also the first time an opponent hit for the cycle in the 27-year history of Camden Yards.

Trey Mancini and Jonathan Villar homered for last-place Baltimore, which lost for the third time in four games. Mancini finished with four RBIs. He hit his 34th homer in the first, and snapped a tie with a run-scoring single off Justin Shafer in the seventh.

The Blue Jays tied the game again when Biggio doubled, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the eighth.

Justin Smoak put Toronto ahead when he led off the ninth with a towering shot off Mychal Givens (2-6). It was Smoak’s 21st homer and first since Aug. 27.

Biggio tacked on two more runs with a triple to centre before an error by shortstop Villar allowed the eighth run to score.

Derek Law (1-2) picked up the win by throwing a scoreless eighth inning.

The Orioles took a 2-0 lead on Mancini’s

two-run drive off Ryan Tepera. The Blue Jays responded with Randal Grichuk’s solo drive in the second off Chandler Shepherd, who was making his first major league start. Grichuk has 10 home runs in 26 career games against Baltimore. Villar hit his 22nd home run off Ken Giles in the ninth.

REED

Former Baltimore Ravens safety and NFL Hall of Famer Ed Reed threw out a ceremonial first pitch – a strike down the middle. Reed also handled grounders at shortstop during Orioles batting practice.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Blue Jays: RHP Jordan Romano (elbow) is expected to throw Wednesday and could pitch this weekend if there are no setbacks, according to manager Charlie Montoyo.

... RHP Tim Mayza will need Tommy John surgery. He finished the season 1-3 with a 4.91 ERA.

Orioles: DH Mark Trumbo was scratched because of neck and back tightness but was available off the bench. ... INF Renato Nunez was hit by a pitch in his left hand Monday in Detroit and was not in the lineup. “He’s day to day,” manager Brandon Hyde said.

UP NEXT

Blue Jays: RHP Clay Buchholz (1-5, 5.63 ERA) is 1-3 with a 4.47 ERA since returning from a shoulder injury Aug. 25. He is 11-7 with a 3.76 ERA over 23 games (20 starts) against the Orioles, but is facing them for the first time since 2016.

Orioles: RHP Dylan Bundy (6-14, 4.99 ERA) was pushed back a day and will make his team-leading 29th start. Bundy is 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA in two starts against Toronto this season.

‘Bobsleigh Canada has been making it clear she’s not welcome to come back’

— from page 9

Humphries says she wasn’t invited to camps. She believed she was going to be given substandard equipment and that teammates were actively discouraged from working with her if she returned to the team.

The allegations have not been proven in court. BCS has yet to file a statement of defence.

Le Bihan denied his organization retaliated against Humphries and says he has confidence in Hays, who has coached the national team since 2017.

“We’ve done significant due diligence and researching as we hired him,” Le Bihan said. “Our athletes in our current pool have clearly been outspoken that he’s the one they want in the program.”

Justin Kripps, who piloted Canada to Olympic gold in two-man bobsled last year, denied there is a culture of abuse on the national bobsled team.

“All I can say really is that our team culture is really good,” Kripps said Saturday.

“We compete and train in a positive, safe environment. That’s my opinion and that’s the opinion of most of the World Cup athletes that I’ve talked to.”

Le Bihan says BCS is reluctant to release Humphries because she is a medal threat and also because of the time and money invested in her over a decade and a half.

“This sport in particular takes a very long time to take the skills to be able to do this, driving a sled down the track,” he said.

“Kaillie is excellent at this. Not everyone can achieve the skill set Kaillie has. Of course we want that to be in our program.” Humphries has received roughly $270,000 over her 15 years on the national team from Sport Canada under the Athlete Assistance Program, which is money high-performance athletes get to cover living expenses.

BCS also gets Sport Canada funding from Own The Podium to cover the competitive costs of its national teams. Humphries can take her case to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC), which is a tribunal funded by the federal government with jurisdiction over amateur sport disputes. She said in her statement of claim that in order to compete for the Americans in 2019-20, she needs a release letter from BCS and an acceptance letter from USA Bobsled by Sept. 30.

Whether Humphries and BCS can heal their relationship enough for her to ever race for Canada again remains to be seen.

“Bobsleigh Canada has been making it clear she’s not welcome to come back. They’ve been treating her abysmally since her harassment claim was filed,” Rath stated.

“It’s a pretty shocking story when you look at how this clearly national treasure of a Canadian athlete has been so grossly mistreated by a Canadian amateur sporting organization.”

— With files from The Associated Press.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

OTTAWA (CP) — These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Tuesday. Quotations in Canadian funds. Australia dollar 0.9087 Brazil real 0.3238 China renminbi 0.1869 Euro 1.4655 Hong Kong dollar 0.1695 India rupee 0.01852 Indonesia rupiah 0.000094

Saudi oil output to return to pre-attack levels in weeks, minister says

Taylor TELFORD, Thomas HEATH

The Washington Post

Saudi Arabia has restored half of the crude production that was lost to devastating attacks on its oil industry, and the kingdom said output will be fully restored by the end of this month.

The details came during a news conference Tuesday afternoon in Jiddah by Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

Saudi Aramco’s critical Abqaiq processing plant has restored 2 million barrels a day that was lost due to the wave of drone and missile attacks on the Saudi oil fields, bin Salman said. The energy minister said production will reach 11 million barrels per day by the end of September.

“The oil market has gone from pricing in the worst-case scenario, in terms of lost Saudi oil supplies, to one of the best case scenarios, considering the scope and scale of the attack,” said analyst John Kilduff of Again Capital.

500 index finished on the day positive at 3,005, a slight gain of 0.26 percent. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.40 per cent at 8,186.

line Carnival Corp. Crude prices abruptly fell nearly six per cent Tuesday prior to the news conference on reports that indicated Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing oil supplier, would recover from the attack sooner than expected.

Weekend drone strikes took out an oil processing plant and nearby oil field operated by state-owned Aramco, forcing the company to cut its output in half. That took 5.7 million barrels of crude out of daily circulation, or nearly six per cent of worldwide consumption. Analysts said a quick resolution was crucial to ensuring against disruptions in the supply chain and a corresponding jump in fuel prices.

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index set record highs Tuesday while U.S. markets were relatively flat ahead of an interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 83.44 points to 16,834.75. That’s a record closing level after earlier reaching a record intraday peak of 16,855.45.

The gains were driven by a broad-based rally led by the materials sector as shares of Barrick Gold Corp. and Kinross Gold Corp. each gained more than five per cent.

The December gold contract was up US$1.90 at US$1,513.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was down 1.35 cents at US$2.63 a pound. Energy was one of three sectors to fall as stocks retreated from Monday’s surge in crude oil prices caused by an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. Encana Corp. shares lost 6.5 per cent, followed by Crescent Point Energy Corp. at 3.5 per cent. The October crude contract was down US$3.56 at US$59.34 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down 1.3 cents at US$2.67 per mmBTU.

Despite the decrease, oil prices were still at the highest level in two months.

“The longer term issue is will there be a risk premium embedded in the price going forward, at least for some period of time just because of the attacks that happened in the Middle East,” said Anish Chopra, managing director with Portfolio Management Corp.

The health care sector was also weaker as CannTrust Holdings Inc. lost 14.6 per cent after announcing that it received a notice of licence suspension from Health Canada, which has been investigating the cannabis company for allegedly cultivating pot in unlicensed rooms.

The Canadian dollar traded for an average of 75.43 cents US compared with an average of 75.48 cents US on Monday.

The kingdom will be producing back at the quota set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and its oil partner Russia, by the end of the month. It will restore its full capacity of 12 million barrels per day by the end of the October, the energy minister said.

Stock markets bounced back a bit from their Monday declines as investors await an expected interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve today.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up a bit on Tuesday, one day after it fell on concerns that a protracted loss of Saudi oil production could harm the global economy. The Dow closed at 27,109, up 32 points from where it started the day. The Standard & Poor’s

Real estate, utilities and consumer staples, all safe havens for stock investors concerned about volatility, were the best performers in the S&P stock market sectors. Energy was the worst performing sector. Shares of international oil companies – known as the supermajors – were mixed. BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron closed lower Tuesday. France’s Total SA and Netherlands-headquartered Royal Dutch Shell showed small advances. Companies that service and supply the supermajors also declined; Halliburton and Schlumberger Limited saw shares drop on the news of Aramco’s quick recovery. Shares in transportation companies that rely heavily on fuel gained on the lower oil prices. American, Delta and United Airlines all were up, as was cruise

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the world’s second-largest oil producer would resume normal production within two to three weeks. The report, citing top Saudi sources who’ve been briefed on the matter, said Aramco already had restored nearly 70 per cent of its lost oil production.

Aramco churned out 9.85 million barrels per day in August, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The kingdom has the capacity to pump as much as 12 million barrels per day, making it the only nation in the world with that kind of elasticity.

Brent crude oil, petroleum’s international benchmark, was trading near $64 a barrel, down seven per cent, as of Tuesday. Brent had spiked nearly 20 per cent, to $72 per barrel, in the wake of the attacks. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was selling for $59 on the futures market, down six per cent from Monday’s close.

The price swings illustrate the fragility of the world’s oil delivery system.

Court allows appeal on pipeline certificate

The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — The British Columbia government has been ordered by the province’s highest court to reconsider its environmental assessment certificate allowing the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

In challenges by the Squamish Nation and the City of Vancouver, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled the province’s approval of the certificate was based on the original report from the National Energy Board, which was later quashed by the Federal Court of Appeal.

After the National Energy Board reviewed the project for a second time, the federal government approved the pipeline expansion again.

The Appeal Court says in its decision released today that in light of changes to the original report of the energy board when it reconsidered the project, provincial approval also needs to be reconsidered.

B.C.’s former Liberal government

approved the expansion with 37 conditions, while relying on an agreement with the energy board that would stand for a provincial environmental assessment.

The three-judge panel said in its unanimous decision that through no fault of the provincial government, what is now Canada’s environmental assessment of the pipeline was not the same assessment used when B.C. approved its certificate.

The court dismissed other claims by the city and the Squamish Nation including that the province failed to sufficiently consult with Indigenous groups.

The Federal Court of Appeal agreed earlier this month to hear arguments from First Nations that argue they were improperly consulted before the federal government approved the pipeline expansion for the second time.

The City of Vancouver says in a statement that it’s pleased with the court’s decision. One of the reasons the city pursued the case was the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision that overturning

Ottawa’s approval of the project, which led the energy board to reconsider the project and issue a new report.

“The City remains of the view that the Trans Mountain Pipeline project would have significant environmental impacts, including the unacceptable risk of oil spills and increased greenhouse gas emission related to the project at a time when the world needs to reduce emissions,” it says.

Environment Minister George Heyman was not immediately available for comment. Representatives from Trans Mountain and the Squamish Nation could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project would triple the capacity of an existing pipeline from Alberta’s oilpatch to a terminal in Burnaby, B.C.

The federal government bought the existing pipeline and the unfinished expansion work for $4.5 billion last year, promising to get it past the political opposition that had scared off Kinder Morgan Canada from proceeding.

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