Top, newlyweds Chris and Amanda Holmes acknowledge the cheering crowd after getting married at centre ice at CN Centre on Saturday during the first intermission of the Prince George Cougars Vegas Night game. Above, during the game, goaltender Taylor Gauthier made a stop with Cougars defenceman Jack Sander and Kamloops Blazers forward Josh Pillar crashing the net. Gauthier was the difference all night as the Cougars won 3-1, despite being outshot 38-16. Gauthier was named the WHL goaltender of the week for his efforts.
‘Forest industry is in chaos’
Doug Donaldson will continue to be the provincial New Democrats' point man on dealing with B.C.'s struggling forest sector.
As part of a minor cabinet shuffle last week, Premier John Horgan opted to keep the MLA for Stikine as his Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, and Rural Development.
John Rustad, the Opposition B.C. Liberals' critic for the portfolio, expressed disappointment.
"Quite frankly, I was very surprised," said Rustad, the MLA for Nechako Lakes. "The forest industry is in chaos around the province."
Specifically, Rustad said that Donaldson has failed to help reduce costs for loggers and lumber producers and to find a way to resolve the long-running United Steelworkers' strike against Western Forest Products on Vancouver Island.
"It is a really sad situation for forestry in the province and you've got a minister who's done nothing to solve these issues and I'm disappointed that there wasn't a thought that they should be looking to change out that portfolio."
Continued on page 3.
He said loggers are facing unnecessary delays in securing permits and noted that Structurlam Mass Timber Corp., the Penticton-based maker of engineered wood products that has become something of an NDP poster child for what it sees as the future of B.C.'s forest sector, has opened a plant in Arkansas.
"The reality is really very simple," Rustad said. "You've got the large players and even small players in the province of British Columbia that are looking to invest anywhere but B.C.," Rustad said. "They're investing in Alberta, they're investing in Saskatchewan, they're investing in the United States."
— See DONALDSON on page 3
Citizen photos by James Doyle
Citizen staff
Property owners exploring options
Citizen staff
The owners of a downtown property once home to a notorious trouble spot are mulling their options as a wrecking crew has moved in to tear down a derelict motel on the site.
With the help of heavy equipment, the Willow Inn at 1656 Victoria St. was being demolished last week.
Veronica Espenhain and Chris Rickards bought the property in August, roughly six weeks after city council ordered the previous owner to level the building. The deadline for the work was the end of July, but with the sale in the offing, the city held off on imposing the order.
Espenhain said they have not yet decided on what they will do with the property but in an interview, she mentioned a professional building and a seniors’ residence as possibilities.
If they go ahead with a professional building, Espenhain said she and Rickards would likely move their respective businesses to the address.
Espenhain owns Vanishings Laser Esthetics a few blocks to the west in the strip mall at 1611 15th Ave. and Rickards owns Concept Dental Centre at the corner of Victoria and Second.
“If it was a two-storey building, then we would be looking at having other tenants in there that are medical related,” Espenhain said, noting that it’s across the street from the Victoria Medical Building. In answer to a “desperate need in Prince George,” Espenhain said seniors housing is also being considered. Even a combination of medical services at street level and seniors housing above has been looked at, Espenhain said.
“There are so many options, but whatever we decide to do, whatever direction
DonalDSon DefenDS foreStry recorD
— Continued from page 1
Rustad said Donaldson should appoint a committee made up of stakeholders from industry and give it 30 days to come up with ways to improve the sector's competitiveness. "To identify the policy changes and the cost structures that have been layered on and then unwind some of those things," he said.
In response, Donaldson indicated he will continue on the course the NDP has been taking to "fix the Liberal mess and the Liberal inaction on the file."
He said his ministry has pursued a twostep approach that saw staff visit 36 Interior communities and receive more than 90 submissions and has been followed by the formation of timber supply area coalitions made up of stakeholders from industry, workers, Indigenous groups and local politicians. One is up and running in the Kootenays and another for Mackenzie is expected to hold its first meeting by the end of this month.
On Rustad's call to reduce costs, Donaldson said he's sure it's an issue the coalitions will look at.
Financial analysts have said Canadian production cutbacks and a consumerdriven recovery in housing starts in the United States could mean better times for lumber and panel products this year.
Donaldson said he keeps an eye on lumber prices and noted they have been
hovering around $400 for the last half year or so compared to below $300 per thousand board feet during the worst of the downturn. Not only is the price up but has been steadily at that level, Donaldson said, giving producers the kind of stability they need to plan ahead.
"We had a real yo-yo of going up over $600 and then down under $300 and that makes it hard to plan economic harvesting operations," he said.
Donaldson reiterated the NDP's mantra of getting more value out of the logs that come out of the bush and dismissed the Liberals' complaints about the way stumpage is being calculated. The Liberals have been calling for more-frequent adjustments to the stumpage rate but the NDP have countered that could invoke further retaliation by the U.S. under the Softwood Lumber Agreement.
"The system as we know it was introduced by the B.C. Liberals and we had no complaints about lag time on stumpage when it was keeping stumpage lower than it should have been. Now we get complaints that it's not responsive enough when the tables are turned," Donaldson said.
"But having said that, stumpage in the Interior has fallen about 16 per cent from the July high of $25.88 per cubic metre. That's a reflection of the lumber price adjustment that happens quarterly."
we decide to go, it will only improve Prince George and it will be something that the city, I’m sure, will be very, very happy with,” Espenhain said. If all works out, Espenhain and Rickards hope to see shovels in the ground in 12 to 18 months. In the interim, they want to convert the site into a park-like setting.
“Rather than just having page-wire fence around it, try and beautify it a little bit between now and the time any kind of development starts,” Espenhain. Also previously known as the Ranch Motel and the Homeland Inn, city council pulled the business licence for the spot in 2014 in answer to concerns raised by the Prince George RCMP about drug dealing and other criminal activity.
The owner, Phillip Danyluk, was given one year to bring the site back into compliance but failed to take any steps and the property has remained vacant.
A fire broke out in October 2018 and caused significant damage to the 20-unit motel.
A notice was subsequently issued to have the site cleaned up but no action was taken.
Interestingly, on the day council issued the order, the owner emailed city staff asking for more time to deal with it.
“Our biggest thing is to propose to the city something that’s really going to benefit Prince George,” Espenhain said. “
With the help of heavy equipment, a crew was busy tearing down the old Willow Inn at 1611 Victoria St. last week.
CounCil holds off on Climate Change job
Ted Clarke Citizen staff
City council decided at its Jan. 20 public meeting to hold off on creating a position for a climate change and energy coordinator to work within its newly-formed environmental services department.
The position had been proposed as a budget enhancement for 2020, which would have added $100,407 in salary and benefits to the city payroll. It would have bumped the 2.15 per cent tax hike already approved by council to 2.25 per cent.
The proposed cost of the position did not include a BC Hydro grant for energy management the city is eligible to receive, which could reduce what the city pays by as much as $50,000 over each of the next two years.
Coun. Cori Ramsay said the city would not continue to receive a grant beyond the next two years and decided it’s in the best interest of taxpayers to wait another year before committing to the position. Depending on the findings of the city’s
Select Committee for a Safe Clean and Inclusive Downtown, Ramsay said the tax rate increase the city will face in 2020 could jump another 1.89 per cent.
“We will have to fully fund this position eventually,” Ramsay said. “There’s a significant portion of the tax levy we haven’t really discussed and I think we have to be more prudent than we want to be this year, especially given the downtown social issues.
“Environmental issues and climate control are very important but I just think, given our position with downtown social issues, that’s my priority and that’s what I want to focus on. We are forming a new department this year and I want to see how that works and how it interacts with our customers and our other departments before we start adding more positions.”
Council voted unanimously to create a new environmental services division within the infrastructure and public works department to consolidate the existing environmental positions into a single division.
The net labour cost increase of bringing all environmental staff together in one division will be $8,245.
Coun. Garth Frizzell spoke in favour of adding the position, saying other municipalities recognize the need for a climate change specialist who understands the increasing regulations on carbon emissions cities are required to follow and can explain to city staff how to develop environmental strategies to implement those commitments.
“We get increasing incentives for meeting some of the more difficult-to-achieve environmental regulations and I know that burden’s getting heavier,” said Frizzell. “On top of it, being a relatively small number compared to how much we receive in return, we’re also seeing there’s lots of granting opportunities. We talked about one tonight that was for $50,000 a year for two years but I know other communities have been putting their climate change coordinators in place and are receiving grants and assistance as well. There are other agencies that could help fund that going forward.”
Frizzell, who was first elected to council in 2008, has long been a proponent of initiatives to reduce the city’s carbon footprint and has seen the city takes steps to reduce fine particulate emissions through its downtown district energy project, which was funded by federal grants and began operating in June 2012.
Through a system of tunnels dug under city streets, the project provides heat generated at Lakeland Mills by burning wood waste to heat downtown buildings.
Similar bioenergy projects are in place at UNBC and Canfor Pulp.
“We’re actually a very green city,” said Frizzell. “We’re one of the first five to meet the regulations on greenhouse gas emissions in this province, if not Canada. So we can really benefit from some of the advanced work that administration has been doing for more than a decade.”
Mayor Lyn Hall also supported the climate change staff position and agreed with Frizzell that it will come up for discussion again.
CoCaine Courier gets three years
Mark NIELSEN
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A Kamloops man who was rounded up as part of an investigation into an alleged Prince George drug trafficker was sentenced Jan. 20 to three years in prison.
Ravneet Singh Basi, 46, was among four people arrested in June 2016 following a 14-month RCMP investigation of Fabian Fraser Cuthbert, 47, who police suspected of being a mid-level dealer.
During a hearing in B.C. Supreme Court in Prince George, Basi was described as a "trusted intermediary and courier" to Cuthbert in the three months leading up to his arrest.
By that time, police had gathered enough evidence to obtain authority to "wire up" an apartment in Chilliwack that Cuthbert owned with covert audio and video recording devices and to intercept communications between Cuthbert, Basi and co-accused Tijinder Sidhu, 49, of Richmond.
On the day of the arrests, Basi picked up a kilogram of cocaine from Sidhu and delivered it to the apartment.
Shortly after driving away, he was arrested and during a subsequent search, RCMP found a black garbage bag containing $50,540 - the money Cuthbert paid for the cocaine - and another $1,500 in $20 bills on Basi - his share for making the delivery.
It also appeared those involved were aware of the surveillance.
The exchange was made in the apartment's bathroom and away from the recording devices and the cocaine was later found hidden in the dryer, the court was told.
Basi, Sidhu, Cuthbert and Cuthbert's mother, Katherine Pearl Cuthbert, 75, were arrested.
Charges against Katherine Cuthbert were later dropped.
During the hearing, Basi was described as a "people pleaser" who had a hard time saying no and had agreed to do Sidhu a favour.
Up until pleading guilty to two counts of trafficking, he had no criminal record and, until last week, he continued to hold down a job as an auto parts salesman, earning about $3,000 per month.
In agreeing to a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ron Tindale said Basi did not fit the type and found Basi's case "quite perplexing as to how he got involved in this type of endeavour."
But he also said the offences are "extremely serious" and warranted a sentence of two to four years for a first-time offender.
In November, Sidhu was also sentenced to three years in prison and, in the process, described in similar terms.
Cuthbert's case remains before the court.
First Nations to share mine royalties
Citizen staff
Two Indigenous communities in central B.C. will receive shares of provincial mineral tax revenue collected from the planned Blackwater Gold Mine project, south of Vanderhoof.
Under benefit agreements reached with the provincial government, the Lhoosk’uz Dené Nation and Ulkatcho First Nation could reap as much as $217 million over the life of the mine, with revenue shared equally between the two. The project, owned by New Gold Inc.,
will be an open-pit gold and silver mine on 4,400 hectares, about 110 kilometres southwest of Vanderhoof.
New Gold expects the mine to operate for 17 years and total mineral tax revenue over that time is currently estimated at $722 million. In 2019, it was issued federal and provincial environmental assessment certificates but must still go through the mine permitting phase.
When it will enter that process remains unknown, New Gold community relations advisor Val Erickson said in an email to the Citizen.
"Before entering into the mine permitting phase, New Gold will continue to evaluate project sizing and processing options for Blackwater with the objective of unlocking additional value for the project from a financing and strategic perspective," Erickson said.
As it stands, the claim has been expected to yield about 60,000 tonnes of ore per day with a net annual production of 22 million tonnes per year during the 17 years the mine is expected to last. Constructing the mine is to take about two years and cost $129 million.
That phase is expected to create 2,436 person years of direct employment and once operating, it's expected to support 396 full-time jobs per year and contribute $258 million to B.C.'s economy annually. The agreements with the two First Nations also commit to developing a process for engagement on future permitting associated with the mine.
Lhoosk’uz Dené Nation has 243 members and is located 173 kilometres west of Quesnel and the Ulkatcho First Nation has 1,062 members and is located 100 kilometres east of Bella Coola.
EnErgy systEm wEathErs cold snap
The city's downtown renewable energy system passed a test during the winter cold snap earlier this month. Despite the temperature dropping below -40 C, the system heated all of the connected buildings without needing any assistance from back-up heaters that burn natural gas.
As a result, even through an extreme cold spell, the system continued to provide heat exclusively with a local, renewable, and low-carbon fuel.
Through the system, hot water that’s heated with wood chips and shavings burned at Lakeland Mills is distributed through more than three kilometres of underground pipes to nearly a dozen downtown build-
ings, including city hall, the library, Two Rivers Gallery, the Four Seasons Pool, and the RCMP detachment on Victoria Street. It also serves provincial buildings such as the courthouse and the Wood Innovation and Design Centre. In addition, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre is producing 95-per-cent-fewer greenhouse gas emissions than if it was heated with natural gas.
Pinnacle signs deal
Glacier Media
B.C.-based wood pellet manufacturer Pinnacle Renewable Energy has signed a 15-year agreement to ship wood pellets to Japan for thermal power production.
Pinnacle, which has eight wood pellet manufacturing plants in Western Canada and one in the U.S., announced a deal in October, 2019 with Mitsui & Co. in Japan to supply 100,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually.
The pellets, which are made from wood waste, are burned to produce power as an alternative to coal.
More recently, the company announced it had inked a deal with NYK Bulk & Projects Carriers to transport wood pellets to various ports in Japan via a new bulk carrier named New Pinnacle.
“This is a very exciting moment,” former B.C. Jobs, Trade and Technology Minister Bruce Ralston – who was shuffled this week to Energy and Mines – said at a signing ceremony Jan. 16 in Japan.
“Not only will the contract being signed today... provide clean energy fuel for
Japan, but it also signals a strong future for B.C.’s forest products and the role Pinnacle Renewable Energy will play in providing sustainable energy solutions for the world.”
“In addition to developing great relations, great partners and great friends, this agreement signifies the importance of a growing Japanese market for reliable, stable, renewable energies," Pinnacle CEO Rob McCurdy said in a press release.
Under the deal, NYK Bulk will transport wood pellets from B.C. ports to Japan on its new bulk carrier, the New Pinnacle.
The new carrier will begin shipping up to 33,000 tonnes of wood pellets next year, starting in January 2021, making an average of six trips per year.
Pinnacle operates wood pellet manufacturing plants in Quesnel, Williams Lake, Houston, Hixon, Armstrong, Lavington and Burns Lake. The plants make wood pellets from wood waste from B.C. sawmills.
Pinnacle has export terminals in Prince Rupert and Vancouver.
Citizen staff
Lekstrom quits caribou roLe
The Canadian Press
Premier John Horgan says the man he appointed to help in the recovery of threatened caribou in British Columbia's northeast has resigned.
In a statement issued Friday, Horgan thanked former Liberal cabinet minister Blair Lekstrom for his important work on the difficult issue of protecting the animals.
Government figures from 2019 reveal that the Dawson Creek area has six caribou herds, but their numbers have declined from 800 to about 220 over two decades.
Horgan appointed Lekstrom last year
to bridge tensions between local groups, including backcountry enthusiasts and Indigenous nations, over government plans to save threatened herds.
The province implemented an interim moratorium on the recovery program when Lekstrom produced a report calling for more local government involvement.
However, Horgan says the province cannot unilaterally change the program's partnership agreement, which requires the consent of all parties involved in the recovery program. Those parties are the provincial and federal governments and the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations.
Lekstrom told CHNL radio in Kamloops
that the government implemented only one of 14 of his recommendations.
"It's unfortunate it came to this point, but it became very clear recently with a letter the premier had sent to the Peace River Regional District in my area stating they had no intention to change any text within the partnership agreement."
Lekstrom said industry, business and the local government all wanted to be part of the planning process in working towards protecting the caribou.
Chetwynd Mayor Allen Courtoreille said last July that Lekstrom's appointment by Horgan gave the communities an unofficial seat at the negotiating table after their requests had been ignored by the provincial government.
The Peace River Regional District issued a statement Friday and released a letter from Horgan saying the province would allow input from local governments without changing partnership agreements.
"More than two years have elapsed since the federal government ordered the creation of a caribou recovery plan," Horgan's letter says, adding he hadheard directly from federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson in a recent meeting that the caribou matter was urgent.
The regional district said it advised Horgan it would no longer participate in two caribou-related working group meetings.
Cullen named pipeline liaison
Premier John Horgan has appointed former Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen to serve as a liaison between the provincial government and the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs.
Cullen, who represented the coastal riding for the federal NDP from 2004 until he retired from politics in 2019, has been tasked with fact-finding, facilitation and analysis.
It is hoped his efforts will lead to the
peaceful resolution to the Wet'suwet'en blockade of the Coastal GasLink pipeline project southwest of Houston.
"I'm pleased all parties have agreed to the appointment of a liaison," Horgan said in a press release. "Nathan has agreed to act as an intermediary in the hopes of finding a solution to this challenging dispute."
Cullen will work with the Wet'suwet'en Denezeh and Tsakozeh, RCMP, Coastal GasLink, the provincial public service and other parties toward ending the blockade.
houSing Society to take over apartment building
the provincial government is partnering with the Aboriginal Housing Society of Prince George to purchase a six-unit apartment complex. Located at 2541 Oak St., the federal and provincial governments are providing joint funding of about $840,000 to purchase and renovate of the building, made up of two one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units.
"By helping to purchase this building, we are protecting these affordable homes for people in Prince George," said Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson.
The society has assumed ownership and operations.
The current tenants will not be affected and their monthly rents will be carried over at the same rates.
"We are excited to be able to keep these homes on the market," said AHSPG executive director Christos Vardacostas.
"Having a home is fundamental, and this is a great opportunity for us to work with the Province to make sure these spaces stay affordable and available."
The funding is being provided through the HousingHub, a BC Housing branch that works to increase affordable rental housing and home ownership options for middle-income British Columbians.
SearcherS reScue Snowmobiler
Citizen staff
aQuesnel-area man spent nearly 20 hours in the bush after his truck and then his snowmobile became stranded in the snow.
The bad luck began on Thursday at about 4 p.m. when, according to Quesnel RCMP, his truck was disabled due to deep snow on the 100 Road, about 70 kilometres southwest of the community. He decided to ride his snowmobile to his property but that too became stranded. Fortunately, his spouse had stayed behind at the truck and used the vehicle's VHF radio to call for help.
A man in Likely heard the call early the next morning and alerted the Quesnel RCMP, who in turn called out Quesnel
Search and Rescue.
With the help of a helicopter, searchers found the man. He was brought back to safety by snowmobile and transported to the hospital with symptoms of mild hypothermia and cold exposure.
"When the man’s snowmobile got stuck, he attempted to walk back to his wife and vehicle," said Quesnel RCMP Sgt. Richard Weseen. "Exhaustion set in and the man hunkered down for the night and waited for help.
"It is important that those who utilize the backcountry be prepared and have the equipment for emergencies. The essentials are not simply food and extra clothing in this day and age, but also include technology such as GPS tracking and satellite phones."
Currently, construction on the $6.6 billion, 670-kilometre long pipeline project connecting northeastern B.C. to the LNG Canada natural gas export terminal under construction in Kitimat is being held up by the conflict.
The blockade is located on the Morice West Forest Service Road and Morice River Bridge, about 47 km southwest of Houston.
On Jan. 3, the Wet'suet'en hereditary chiefs and members of the Unist'ot'en camp issued an "eviction notice" to workers at camp 9A and the surrounding area.
Earlier this month, the RCMP established a checkpoint at the 27-km point of the Morice West Forest Service Road to control access to the blockade area, after police found stacks of tires, kindling and fuel were found ready to light along the road and trees were pre-cut so they were ready to fall.
In addition, supporters of the Wet'suwet'en have fallen logs across the road, the Wet'suwet'en chiefs said in a press conference in Smithers earlier this month.
Citizen staff
Citizen staff
Ways to save on paying taxes
Barb and Danny each expected to earn $75,000 in 2020, which would have placed them in the 28.2 per cent tax bracket. But at the company Christmas party a few weeks ago, Barb’s boss drank too much and, in the middle of his turn with the lip-sync microphone, pointed at the visiting CEO and loudly accused him of being a ranking member of the Illuminati, then fainted.
That was bad enough, but he landed on the serving table, catapulting a cheese dip through the air and into same CEO’s hairpiece, which removed his toupee, and exposed an embarrassing tattoo on his head, causing him to spill his drink on his wife, and her to scream and slap him soundly with a sardine.
The whole scene was captured on video and within minutes was trending on social media.
Barb’s (former) boss is now looking for work, but Barb got a huge promotion and now expects to earn $150,000 this year. This paved the way for Danny
IT’S ONLY MONEY
MARK RYAN
to take an unpaid leave of absence to stay home and work on his dream book project. But Barb’s new income will not entirely compensate for Danny’s year off. Her new tax bracket will be 40.7 per cent and, ignoring other write-offs, they will now pay more tax on the same combined income. Because of this sort of thing, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) allows some adjustments, especially for seniors.
Pension income splitting: If your spouse (or common law) has a lower marginal tax rate, consider splitting eligible pension income with them to reduce the overall tax bill. Eligible pension income includes, but is not limited to, life annuity payments from a pension plan
and, when you’re age 65 or over, it also includes withdrawals from your RRIF, LIF, RLIF, LRIF and Prescribed RRIF accounts. Withdrawals from your RRSP are not considered eligible pension income. Generally, you can allocate up to 50 per cent of your eligible pension income to your spouse.
Spousal RRSP contributions: If you expect your retirement income to be higher than that of your spouse, consider making contributions to a spousal RRSP. If you have unused RRSP contribution room and your spouse has not yet reached the year in which they turn 72, you can continue to make spousal RRSP contributions even if you are over 71. Making a spousal contribution will provide you with a deduction on your tax return and help equalize future retirement income.
Pension sharing: If you and your spouse are both age 60 or over and are receiving or are eligible to receive the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), consider sharing your
CPP benefits. If only one of you is eligible for CPP benefits, it may still be possible to share it if both of you are at least age 60. Service Canada will recalculate the pensions paid to you and your spouse if you apply for pension sharing.
Use your spouse’s age for RRIF minimum payments: If you choose to convert your RRSP to a RRIF, you will be paid a yearly minimum amount, calculated (partly) based on your age. If you have a younger spouse, you can use his or her age instead, reducing the amount you pull in to taxable income each year. This doesn’t stop you from taking extra payments if you need them.
- Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are Mark’s views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article.
Indigenous peoples to get break on medical stays
Citizen staff
BC Housing will provide places to stay for people traveling from remote Indigenous communities for medical services in Prince George and Fort St. John, the provincial government said. They will be provided under an agreement with the First Nations Health Authority. Further details will be worked out in
the coming months.
"Many Indigenous communities in remote northern communities aren't located close to health care, and people may have to travel a long way to access health care, including women travelling to give birth," said Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson. Clients will also have access to FNHA's medical transportation program.
Get serious about havinG fun
We were down by 14 points at half time and the team seemed defeated. Our star player was frustrated. Her shots weren’t going in and neither were her teammates’.
As a coach I was unfazed. Having been irritated with the refereeing in the first couple games, I had decided that my fuming wasn’t going to make the situation any better. I could see that the team was tense and this anxiety was creating a very stressful game for the players. I knew we were playing a good team but we still had a chance if only the girls would loosen up, have fun and start playing as a team.
Basketball teams are not much different than organizations. We get ourselves into a tough spot. Perhaps it’s a cash flow issues, people problems, communication or competition challenges, and we seize up. I have been there!
As team leaders we become tense, freak out, jump all over the place and make a lot of noise because we feel we need to wake up our team to the severity of the situation.
What happens next is almost comical. Our staff crawl under their desks with their heads down or head for the door, with colds, sick days or holidays. They get out of our way and hope to come back when the office attitude changes. As leaders we are left thinking we have to do it all ourselves, and so often we do, by putting in the hours trying to figure things out and get through the next few days, weeks or months.
A study of over 700 workers by the University of Warwick in Britain found that happy employees were 12 per cent
BUSINESS COACH
DAVE FULLER
more productive than others. Sad employees by the way, were 10 per cent less productive. This would go a long way to explain why my basketball team wasn’t producing. They weren’t happy. In fact, they were angry at themselves, the refs and each other.
Studies have also shown that we need a certain amount of stress to have productive employees. This stress is often suitable when we place an emphasis on achieving realistic results in a timely manner. In cases like this, employees often respond well and not only feel good about their success but tend to produce the required results. When stress levels, either externally or self-imposed are too high, productivity drops significantly. More often than not, the pressure we put on ourselves to get jobs done, to be successful, make money, or to be perfect, is incredible. We place unrealistic expectations about what we can get done in a given day, week or month. Frequently, we have no concrete plans to achieve our goals and the result is often failure and a significant feeling of disappointment. We start to feel irritated with ourselves and others around us because we aren’t producing. We aren’t having fun and everyone around us can sense it. So what difference can fun make in business and life? While fun can be interpreted differently by each of us, when we
enjoy something, we generally are having fun. Creating a fun culture with the business environment starts with you as the leader. When our employees are enjoying their work, they will get more of it done in shorter periods of time. This is good for business and will be more satisfying for our staff.
It is true that businesses need to make a profit and need cash to ensure their longevity. However, I know of many companies where the culture of the business is focused solely on profits and making money. These businesses often do not retain their employees for long periods of time because, when money is the only reason for existence, the joy of working quickly disappears. Not only do employees burn out but because the
focus is on profits and not the customer, the long-term success of the business is often in question.
As coaches, Wade and I were able to get our team to relax and as they did, the ball started going in the hoop. We chipped away at the score tying the game and eventually winning by three points. Managing people is as much about managing emotions and team dynamics as it is about focusing on the results. Balanced approaches to leadership that ensure happy employees often result in much happier stakeholders.
— Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award-winning professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Not having fun? Email dave@ profityourselfhealthy.com.
OPINION
Horgan scores witH industry
So much has changed in the natural resources sector in the past 20 years.
Globalization and modernization has transformed the business, from the mills, the mines and the oil and gas patch to the boardrooms. Investment and production decisions are made based on global markets, not on local or even national demand. Technology has created so many efficiencies and made the work safer but has put thousands out of work.
our
VieW
The political landscape has also changed dramatically.
Two decades ago, the NDP government in Victoria were widely seen as incompetent managers, scaring away investors and driving forestry and the resource sector into the ground. Today, despite the best efforts of John Rustad and the B.C.
Liberals to depict the NDP government in the same light, it just hasn't stuck, largely because it's not true.
Based on public comments made in industry and business publications, industry decision makers, many of whom are in Prince George this week for the B.C. Natural Resources Forum, have found John Horgan's government to be supportive and accommodating. Horgan kept Site C alive and has stood by LNG development, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline. He hasn't raised industry taxes or created onerous new regulations, environmental or otherwise.
As a result, he seems to have earned a grudging respect from industry leaders, who were all terribly nervous in the spring of 2017, when Horgan forged a political alliance with Andrew Weaver's Greens to form government. Turns out the dog does wag the tail, at least in this government coalition. Horgan agreed to Weaver's demand to
the electoral reform referendum in 2018 but otherwise has governed with blatant disregard for what the Greens want, especially on the natural resource development file.
For Horgan, the referendum was a winwin scenario. If electoral reform would have passed, the B.C. Liberals would have been exiled into opposition for a generation, if not permanently. It failed but Weaver was the one who wore it. Horgan also couldn't lose on the legal battle over the TransMountain pipeline. If the province had won its appeal to control what flowed through the expanded pipeline, he would have said he was standing up for B.C., no different than Christy Clark did with her five conditions when she was premier. With the court going against him, Horgan can say he did everything he could legally to halt the project and repeat how he will do everything in his political power to hold the federal government (the owner of the
pipeline) accountable during construction and operation, all while taking full credit for B.C.'s bustling economy and low unemployment heading into next spring's provincial election.
As for the terrible downturn in forestry, particularly last year, Horgan gets to spread the blame on 15 years of Liberal mismanagement, global market forces, forest fires and don't forget 15 years of Liberal management.
So much has changed in the past two decades but it's the same as it ever was when it comes to the transactional world politics and business, where results are always more important than ideology. In this case, resource sector leaders and an NDP government have found it smart to work together on common goals, ignore the rest and stay in their own respective lanes.
The Liberals can cry foul all they like while Horgan smiles and eats their lunch.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Is tolerance the new oppressIon?
FTHINKING ALOUD
TRUDY KLASSEN
or 30 or more years, there has been an increasing focus on tolerance. The movement came out of a valid quest for our society to be less judgmental and to allow for more personal expression of freedom. It wasn’t that personal rights were something new; we had an extraordinary amount of freedom compared with most of the world’s population. However, many would argue that it was the shiny new Charter of Rights and Freedoms which has brought about our current form of “oppression,” which is “forced tolerance.”
So, at which point is tolerance oppressive? I am no expert in the law, but my understanding is when tolerance of difference was defined and certain behaviours were made a “right” or “duty,” then the law forces us to do something against our will and it becomes oppressive.
Most of our laws prevent, or at least punish, us, if we chose to commit the unlawful behaviour. However, our much-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms has had the unforeseen, or unintended, effect of making tolerance of difference into rights to be or do, which is oppressive, because it forces someone to do something.
I present two thoughts, not comprehensive, but I hope they prompt some discussion:
Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, has many proponents, which I can tolerate. However, what happens when government funding is used as a stick to force long-standing community-based groups like Rotary Hospice House to embrace the use of MAID in their facilities?
Just a few days ago, the Delta Hospice House was ordered to provide MAID or risk losing government funding. In this case, toleration of the right to MAID is no longer enough. Now, the service must be provided. “Toleration” for someone to choose MAID has become a duty to 'do” something, in this case, provide MAID. I don’t think that is what anyone wanted when they expressed support for MAID.
We can all agree that bullying is bad. So, in an effort to reduce bullying, everyone is “forced” to come to school wearing a pink T-shirt. Teenagers are smart at calling out hypocritical things, and a few brave souls show up not wearing the pink shirt. Those that don’t wear the pink shirt are... guess what? Bullied!
Pink Shirt Day has been widely promoted as a day to bring attention to the harmful effects of bullying. We can all agree that bullying is bad. So, in an effort to reduce bullying, everyone is “forced” to come to school wearing a pink Tshirt. Teenagers are smart at calling out hypocritical things, and a few brave souls show up not wearing the pink shirt.
Those that don’t wear the pink shirt are... guess what? Bullied!
The irony astounds.
Why not encourage students to wear their favourite clothing on anti-bullying day?
That would require a real-life exercise in showing tolerance and likely produce more positive results than everyone wearing the “one approved colour tshirt.”
There are many other instances where tolerance, once it morphs into a “right” causes more problems than it was meant to solve. Frequently, we hear of parents of special needs children struggling with a school system that declares itself fully inclusive but never really is.
The transgender movement has met a limit in its own toleration in its response to those who wish de-transition, and in the problem of women’s sexual assault shelters resisting male to female transitioned staff or guests.
As we work on solving these issues around “rights” and “tolerance,” it is a good idea to remember that most of us are happy with lots of laws enshrining all kinds of rights, as long as we agree with them.
We need to be mindful that it will not always be so. Governments change. Laws change.
Moderation is toleration’s best friend, because it keeps oppression at bay.
PRINCE
Want to change my mind? don’t punch me in the head
Jack knox Victoria Times Colonist
Just for a second, put aside your feelings — for or against — about the natural gas pipeline opposed by Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in northern B.C.
Ask yourself instead: What if it were pro-pipeline yellow-vest protesters from Alberta who blocked access to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Monday morning? Would you be more sympathetic/ enraged then?
Or would you in either case just roll your eyes about the hubris of those who thought they were helping, not hindering, their cause — whatever it was — by treating ordinary people as though their lives didn’t matter.
For here’s what those who truly care about those causes know: You can’t change people’s minds by punching them in the head.
We know this because we are from Vancouver Island, the protest capital of Canada.
Vietnam in the ’60s, Amchitka in the ’70s, Solidarity in the ’80s, Clayoquot in the ’90s.
After the B.C. Liberals were elected in 2001, the legislature lawn handled more foot traffic than B.C. Ferries, with
protesters queued up like the sausagesample line at Costco.
In one three-week stretch in 2002 the lawn saw 3,500 angry teachers (“You can tell who the primary-grade teachers are,” observed the late Barb McLintock. “Their signs are done with glitter paint.”), followed by hundreds of social workers, followed by 2,000 students, followed by Camp Campbell, where a little band of activists pitched a dozen tents, built a sod hut and dug a latrine behind the statue of Queen Victoria.
All of which is a long way of saying that here in the most contrarian-rich corner of Canada, we have a pretty firm handle on what kind of protest fosters change, and what amounts to nothing more than the kind of counter-productive selfindulgence that alienates people to the point that they want to shoot a whooping crane to death, purely out of spite.
With that in mind, here are 10 Tips for Effective Protest:
• Personal sacrifice earns respect. A quarter century ago, the War in the Woods succeeded because 850 people travelled to Clayoquot Sound to get arrested and take the consequences. In the 1930s Gandhi turned the hunger strike into a political weapon. That Tiananmen Square demonstrator
blocked a row of tanks, not a line of schmucks trying to make the 7 a.m. to Tsawwassen.
• Disrupting the lives of others has the opposite effect. No matter how selfrighteous and woke you feel, you are not more special than other people and don’t have the right to hurt them. Your protest does not prove that you care more than they do. Nor does it trump their trip to B.C. Children’s Hospital.
• Fun is not your enemy. Just ask Mr. Floatie, whose loopy cheerfulness was key to reviving the capital region’s sewage-treatment debate. On the other end of the scale: the Montgomery Burns-level gloom merchants who ruined the enjoyment of kids when the Olympic torch came through Victoria in 2009 (we never did find out who threw the marbles under the police horses’ hooves) and who picketed Victoria’s Santa Claus parade in 2011.
• Aboriginal people aren’t cannon fodder to be sacrificed in your ideological war. If you only support the ones whose agenda matches your own, then Indigenous rights are not your priority (corporations and governments should abide by this, too).
• Distance yourself from the crackpots.
The urgency to address climate change is diminished, the crisis marginalized, when it becomes synonymous with the lunatic fringe.
• Shouting down opponents makes you sound like an intolerant kook yelling “Lock her up!” at a Trump rally. When Justin Trudeau held a town hall in Nanaimo in 2018 he was heckled so relentlessly that he won the sympathy of a crowd that had arrived ready to rip him over the Trans Mountain pipeline.
• Keep your clothes on. Most people look less like they were made in God’s image than in God’s Grade 8 shop class. Taking your pants off won’t change anyone’s mind about coalmining.
• Bodily fluids are not toys. Don’t spit at people. Don’t pour urine on a city worker while up a tree, as happened in Centennial Square during the Occupy protest in 2011. Don’t smear excrement on yourself, as yet another treedweller did during the Walbran Valley protest of 1991.
• If you must sing, sing on key.
• When you go out of your way to alienate the people whose support you need, it’s hard to believe you’re serious about your cause.
Coffee's ChemiCal brew
FRELATIVITY
TODD WHITCOMBE
or most people, the day begins with the odor of 2-furylmethanethiol, guaiacol, 3-mercapto3-methylbutylformate and numerous other chemical compounds which make up the aroma of a good, rich cup of coffee. Whether home-brewed or storebought, a cup of coffee is a ritual which makes getting up in the morning bearable.
Coffee is predominantly water, approximately 98.75 per cent, with the remaining 1.25 per cent being extracted plant material. (Of course, this is presuming the absence of sugar and milk which lower the water content very slightly.)
Hot water is a superb solvent for the extractable oils and acids found in a coffee bean.
Over 2,000 chemical compounds are extracted from the roasted bean in the process of making a cup of coffee but a cup of coffee is still predominantly water. As caffeine is a diuretic, for new coffee drinkers, they quickly excrete the excess water. For seasoned coffee connoisseurs, a new water balance in the body is established.
While chemical names often frighten or intimidate people, most chemical compounds are not bad for you. Indeed, everything you eat and drink
is made up of a myriad of chemical compounds.
Some are even quite beneficial.
For example, coffee contains 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid which has been demonstrated to protect neurons from free radical oxidation in the lab. This would certainly suggest coffee has anti-oxidant potential.
It is estimated the world drinks two billion cups of coffee per day.
The Netherlands tops the list with a per capita consumption of 2.4 cups per day compared to Canada at 1.01 and the U.S. at 0.93.
Of course, per capita consumption is based on the total population and not just coffee drinkers.
However, for most countries, about half of all adults indulge in the drink. In North America, this gives an average of about 2.6 cups per day for consumers. And it is big business - a $12 billion per year industry.
In essence, coffee is a combination of oils, salts, acids, and other compounds which give rise to the distinctive and complex flavour.
Extracting these compounds from the roasted coffee bean is the art of the barista. Generating a consistent taste can be complicated.
However, a recent paper published in the journal Matter provides insights into “Systematically Improving Espresso: Insights from Mathematical Modeling and Experiment”.
The authors argue the grind and water pressure used in making the drink are critical to producing high quality and consistent results.
Coffee is predominantly water, approximately 98.75 per cent, with the remaining 1.25 per cent being extracted plant material. Over 2,000 chemical compoiunds are extracted from the roasted bean in the process of making a cup of coffee but a cup of coffee is still predominantly water.
They suggest new brewing protocols can both produce a better cup and reduce the amount of coffee required in making an espresso.
However, they recognize their results might seem counterintuitive.
Any extraction process requires contact between the material being extracted and the solvent doing the extraction. In the case of coffee, this is the roasted bean and hot water. And intuitively, the larger the surface area of the ground up bean grains, the more effective the extraction process. Hence, the tendency towards a very fine grind in making espresso.
If homogeneous flow occurred, the relationship between surface area and total extraction would hold.
However, the results of mathematical modeling demonstrate this is not the case inside an espresso machine. In experimental measurements, peak extraction is achieved with a medium grind while lower, more inconsistent extraction is achieved with both fine and coarse grinds.
The results suggest inhomogeneous flow for the fine grinds with clumping
and permeability affect the quality of the cup. Using a local coffee shop as an experimental site, the authors were able to show a coarser grind, a lower pressure, and a shorter extraction time produced both a better and a more consistent cup of espresso.
Further, they were able to reduce the mass of coffee beans required from 20 grams to just 15 grams. While this might not seem to be a huge difference, in their test environment the reduction in coffee bean consumption resulted in a savings of $3,620 dollars.
The total cost of the coffee in an espresso is 10 cents, so a 25 per cent reduction in coffee mass would be a savings of 2.5 cents per cup.
In the United States, 124 million cups of espresso are consumed daily resulting in a savings of $3.1 million dollars per day or roughly $1.1 billion per year. Further, a reduction in the coffee mass consumed per cup would result in a decrease in the demand for coffee growing which would reduce pressure on farmland. An economic and environmental argument could be made for brewing better espresso.
In addition to the above suggested extraction regime, one of the authors, Christopher Hendon, suggests using hard water as the calcium and magnesium help caffeine adhere better improving the taste and quality of the drink, keeping coffee beans in the refrigerator as this prevents off-gassing and choosing your grinder carefully to get the right setting. All in the name of the perfect cup of joe.
A good B.C. job for a prince in self-exile
Good Lord, could the Canadian Taxpayers Federation be any more uncouth?
Harry and Meghan - the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who have relinquished their royal duties to escape the U.K. in favour of a quieter life in Canada raising little Archie – deserve a proper Canadian welcome, not a stiff backhand. Welcome to Canada, the federation's press release read Monday, but you'd better not be costing us anything as taxpayers.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won't say how much Canada is paying to provide security to the worldfamous couple, who spent the Christmas season in Canada and are now apparently sequestered in a mansion near Victoria.
The whole thing is ridiculous.
Their security costs would be a decimal point, following by a lot of zeros before eventually getting to a one, of the annual federal budget.
Chump change against the marketing value of an heir to the throne and his lovely wife walking away from the royal life to raise their son in the cozy comfort of Canada.
Most Canadians take a kindler, gentler but firm tone to Harry and Meghan moving to Canada.
"So what do you do?" is the real question, asked of any newcomer regardless of their station in life.
Harry, of course, is a decorated military man who served two tours in Afghanistan. Meghan is a actress with some solid credits to her name.
"Yes, of course, but what do you do NOW?"
CITIZEN PROMO
R0011788702
2.00x125.0-4C PG16 / PG000031
A fair question easily answered. While the Canadians who identify themselves as taxpayers fret about "their HARD-EARNED TAX DOLLARS!" (they often write and speak in all-caps and exclamation points), most other Canadians recognize Harry and Meghan's obvious future income potential.
The appearance fees and public speaking engagements could feather their nest for years to come and we haven't even mentioned book deals and celebrity endorsements.
Yet if they would like to remain in Victoria, there is one existing and essential job Harry is particularly qualified for in the public service. Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier John Horgan would score some serious political points if Harry were named the Lieutenant Governor of B.C.
It pays decent (about $125,000 a year) and it comes with a residence (Government House in Victoria). There are some political and ceremonial duties with the position but it's not particularly onerous work being the Queen's viceroy in Victoria.
All kidding aside, this would be a relatively smooth and simple thing to do.
There is a long history in Canada of having British-born folks with titles being appointed as either lieutenant governors in various provinces or as the governor general of Canada.
In 1952, Vincent Massey became the first Canadian to serve as governor general.
Lieutenant (pronounced "left-tenant" –this isn't some U.S. cop show!) governors are selected by the premier of the day
and appointed by the governor general while governors general are chosen by the prime minister of the day and appointed by the reigning monarch, which has been Queen Elizabeth since John Diefenbaker was in power (and Massey was the GG).
Janet Austin has been lieutenant governor for less than two years but she serves "at her Majesty's pleasure," as the royal parlance states, meaning that the governor general and the Queen could install Harry (or anybody else they chose) in Government House at any time of their choosing. Furthermore, there's no official time limit on the length of the appointment (although it's usually about five years).
Of all the jobs fitting for a member of the royal family in a self-imposed exile in Canada, serving as B.C.'s lieutenant governor fits nicely, both for the royals in general, Harry and Meghan in particular, and for B.C. and Canada, too.
Having the queen's grandson, the future king's son and the brother of the king after that, serving as lieutenant governor would add a special significance to the post, serving as a reminder that the queen (or the king) is Canada's head of state, not the prime minister.
Lastly, modern lieutenant governors and governors general often use their station to promote various social causes, which would certainly appeal to both Harry and Meghan.
Just imagine the good that could come out of Harry championing veterans, for example.
It's not often that everyone wins but this could be one of those scenarios.
SPORTS
Athletes in Action
Citizen Photos by James Doyle
Right, the Northern Capitals took on the Okanagan Hockey Academy on Saturday evening in Kin 1 for the second game of a weekend tripleheader between the two teams. Bottom right, Adrienne Bender eyes up the target down range on Saturday at Otway Nordic Centre while competing in the Sr. Girls 7.5 km Individual race of the Biathlon B.C. Cup #2. Bottom middle, Carley Gurney of the Kelly Road Roadrunners looks to make a play with the ball against the North Peace Grizzlies during the Kelly Road Sr. Girls Invitational basketball tournament. Bottom left, UNBC Timberwolves guard Tyrell Laing drives to the net against the Brandon Bobcats on Friday night at Northern Sport Centre in Canada West men’s basketball action. Below, UNBC Timberwolves guard Lucy Guan drives to the net against Brandon Bobcats defender Josie Grift on Friday evening at Northern Sport Centre in Canada West women’s basketball action.
Dandeneau returning for legacy event
Ted Clarke Citizen staff
Katy Dandeneau, the face of the UNBC Timberwolves women's basketball program during some of their most successful seasons in the Canadian college ranks, is coming back to Prince George.
Dandeneau will be the keynote speaker at the Timberwolves Legacy Breakfast on March 11 at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel.
From 2007-2013, Dandeneau was the heart and soul of the Timberwolves and when injuries crept into her game, her love of the sport led her on a new path to the national wheelchair basketball team.
“She has an incredible passion for the game, and an unwavering desire to compete, in the face of the adversity she has overcome," said UNBC athletics and recreation director Loralyn Murdoch.
"This is a story I can’t wait to hear, and I believe everyone in attendance will truly enjoy.”
Dandeneau suffered a knee injury in January 2010 which forced her to miss the following season.
She returned to the T-wolves in 2011 and wrapped up her collegiate playing days in 2012-13, the year the T-wolves joined the university Canada West Conference.
In her career, Dandeneau led the Twolves to two provincial championships (2008 and 2012), was selected twice as a BCCAA all-star, and also made the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association all-star team.
In 2015, she tried wheelchair basketball and her career took off again, eventually leading to spot on the national team in 2017.
A prolific scorer, rebounder and playmaker, she was at the top of virtually
every category on her team while leading Canada to gold at the 2019 ParaPan American Games.
She's the first Canadian team member to ever record a triple-double and she has qualified with the team to compete in the Paralympics Games in Tokyo this summer.
“During her time at UNBC, Kady was known as the ultimate competitor, but she was also recognized for her com-
munity involvement and commitment to making a name for the Timberwolves and UNBC,” said Murdoch.
“It is incredibly special to welcome her back for a morning that no one will soon forget.”
Tickets for the Legacy Breakfast are $90 for an individuals or $720 for a table of eight.
The event is fundraiser for the Timberwolves Alumni Association.
Photo finish holds back o'dine
One-eighth of a second. That’s all that separated Meryeta O’Dine from a berth in the semifinals Sunday at the World Cup snowboardcross event at Big White near Kelowna.
With her family and friends from Prince George in the crowd at the base of the hill holding up “Go Eta” signs, the 22-year-old held on to the second-place spot she needed in her quarterfinal heat until the last jump before the finish, when Sina Siegenthaler caught her and made a late surge to take over the lead from her Italian teammate Sofia Belingheri. O’Dine finished a split-second behind Belingheri in third place.
It was a bitter end for O’Dine, racing in a World Cup event for the first time on Canadian soil. She placed 10th both days.
The individual race Sunday replaced a scheduled team event which was changed due to cancellation of a World Cup stop in Feldberg, Germany, due to a lack of snow.
Fog and poor visibility made for difficult race conditions both days.
Evan Bichon of Prince George placed 38th Saturday and 44th on Sunday, while Colby Graham of Prince George was 47th Saturday and 49th on Sunday.
The Canadian team will remain at Big White for NorAm races Thursday and Friday.
Citizen staff
Museum raising fees
Citizen staff
Fees are going up at The Exploration Place Museum + Science Centre, starting on Feb. 3.
The increase will see the cost of a family admission to the museum rise from $25 to $32,and a family membership will increase from $95 to $125, according to a press release. Increases to the Fort George Explorers After School Care Program and Early Explorers Preschool will not come into effect until September but the museum's summer day camps will
LEGO t E am s EE ks bi G win
Ateam of students from Southridge Elementary School are headed to the first LEGO League Western Canadian Championships in Victoria on Feb. 16.
The 18 Grade 6 and Grade 7 students from the school's LEGO robotics club will be demonstrating their LEGO skills by building, programing and competing with autonomous robots made from the plastic building bricks, a press release issued by School Distict 57 said.
"We need to build a robot that can complete challenges, and there's also a huge research component," Southridge teacher Dominic O'Driscoll said. "They are given a theme every year and students need to investigate some sort of real-life engineering problem (and develop ideas) on how to solve it."
This year's theme is "City Shaper." The league provides the materials and challenges in advance, and during the competition the teams from across Western Canada will compete against each other to accumulate points based on their level of success.
"This is really fun," Grade 7 student Mason Meise said.
“I've learned how to come and build different things. I would say (the challenges) are pretty difficult.”
In addition to the 12 students competing on the robotics challenge, six students are taking part in the research competition. The two topics students are looking at environmentally-sustainable commercial construction and the issue of homelessness and drug addiction in Prince George.
"We're trying to design a super-sustainable building, just a blueprint, and then any company or business can take it and they can modify it to however fits their needs," Grade 6 student Shayne Petch said. “We're trying to think of ways to make it sustainable that fits our climate, being that it's often very cold in the winter.”
see a fee increase this summer.
“No one ever likes to raise prices, that's why there hasn't been an increase like this since 2014 here at The Exploration Place,” CEO Tracy Calogheros said in a press release. "In order to ensure our staff are paid a living wage, one that reflects their expertise and commitment, we simply have no choice but to raise our fees and charges to reflect the current realities. We certainly hope that our visitors and members will understand and will continue to support us."
Calogheros said the increases are a re-
sponse to rising minimum wages in B.C. The provincial minimum wage increased to $13.85 per hour on June 1, 2019 and will increase again to $14.60 on June 1 this year and to $15.20 on June 1, 2021.
"When we examined the impacts the wage increases would have on our bottom line, we also realized that by raising our hiring rate to $15.20 we have existing staff who are being paid at about that same rate; hardly something that was going to be great for team morale," Calogheros' statement added. "We have gone through a re-organization, eliminated
some positions where it was possible to find efficiencies and are implementing the wage increases in 2020."
As a charity, the museum and science centre must raise more than $2,700 per day, in addition to the government funding The Exploration Place receives.
"The new fee structure will support the valuable experiences and opportunities we offer to our members, visitors, community and region through new and existing science and heritage programming, travelling exhibits and collections management," the statement said.
Gin blossom Generosity
From left, Marnie Hamagami of Theatre Northwest, Haylee Seiter, Bryan Burleigh, Yingxin Hong, and Tim Bennett of Big Brothers Big Sisters pose for a photo on Friday morning at Theatre Northwest. Burleigh is holding a $500 cheque that will be going to B.C. Burn Fund on behalf of Seiter, who won first place in the People’s Choice Competition of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northern B.C. and Theatre Northwest’s Gin Blossom fundraiser.
Research explores power of storytelling
Citizen staff
A new research partnership between the Nak’azdli Whut’en First Nation and UNBC is facilitating intergenerational story-telling and helping to preserve the stories for years to come.
UNBC assistant professor of nursing Dr. Shannon Freeman and Nak’azdli Health Director Jenny Martin co-led the program to bring elders and children in Grades 6 and 7 together to share stories and learn from each other. The elders shared their stories with the students passing down knowledge from one generation to another. The children recorded the stories, then added imagery and sounds to create digital versions of the stories that can be shared with commu-
nity members for generations to come.
“It’s a win for the children because they loved learning technology and they enjoyed the stories and it’s a win for the elders because they loved coming out and they could see the children were enthusiastic. The elders felt valued,” Freeman said. “It’s also a win for the school because the project aligned with the curriculum. The project enables children to be users of technology rather than being recipients of something taught with technology.”
Their research is published in the Canadian Journal on Aging, titled Use of a Digital Storytelling Workshop to Foster Development of Intergenerational Relationships and Preserve Culture with
the Nak’azdli First Nation: Findings from the Nak’azdli Lha’hutit’en Project.
The genesis of the project came from a desire to create meaningful opportunities for elders to engage in different ways with the community.
Health director assistant Carrie Nash was instrumental in helping to run the program by promoting it to elders in the community and helping those without access to transportation to get to the school. The feedback she received from the elders was overwhelmingly positive.
“The children were asking lots of questions all the time,” Nash says. “The elders really enjoyed that and they really enjoyed having that communications with the young ones.”
Citizen Photo by James Doyle
Citizen staff
northern lights
Citizen Photo by James Doyle
Snotty Nose Rez Kids perform to a sold-out crowd on Saturday night at the Ramada Prince George during Coldsnap Music Festival’s Hip-Hop Happenin’ concert.
Student S S how career plan S
Ted Clarke Citizen staff
Ben Kinee’s dream job when after he graduates high school is to be an undersea welder.
He’s well-equipped for the job. He has no fear of working in confined spaces and he’s already quite adept at using a welding rod to bond metal into useable objects - like the two pieces of intricate art he brought to Duchess Park gym last week for his Capstone project display.
One of them is a banjo player made out of steel bolt, sitting on a stump plucking the strings while under the shade of a metal tree. The other is a cowboy with hat in hand hanging on for dear life on the back of bucking steer, all made out of horseshoe nails.
“My plan is to go to college to get my Red Seal (certification) and I’m thinking about doing something with deep-sea welding,” said Kinee. “I’m not claustrophobic and I’m good with tight spaces, that’s something I can do.”
Kinee’s mom owns a septic service company and at early age he showed an interest in helping out in the truck repair shop. He’s got one project on the go to rebuild the rear end of a Kenworth truck. He started experimenting with the welder at the shop a few years ago and found he had a knack for it. Kinee attended a career day last year to the College of New Caledonia and surprised the instructor when he welded together a three-inch six-sided dice, complete with the holes on each side.
“It was kind of funny, they were trying to teach me to weld and I’m like, ‘Just give me the welder already, I’ll do it,” said Kinee. “Welding is so satisfying. Once I stop welding and go home for the day I just want to go back to work.”
Kinee will start working on his welding and fabrication practicum at CNC in February as soon as he gets back from a trip to Mexico and will be working as an apprentice in the summer. He’s also considering applying for the military to further his career ambition.
“My dream job is to be under the water deep-sea welding for $2,000 a day and then go sit on the beach for the rest of the day and fly home a week later, that’s one life I would not mind,” he said.
The Capstone Celebration project is a new requirement for all Grade 12 students in the province. Similar to a science fair, it encourages students to bring their interests, community connections and career learning ambitions to life through visual displays.
Emily Mann’s Capstone display included a couple of open bags of candy imported from England which she shared with visitors to her spot in the gym. A member of the Duchess Park debate club, Mann is an aspiring lawyer who eventually hopes to apply for dual citizenship and move to Wales, where she has family
ties.
Mann wants to continue her education at UBC to complete an undergraduate degree in history and political science before she tackles law school. She earns top marks in her subjects and is on the Principal’s List. She’s also fluent in French, having been through the French immersion program since kindergarten. As part of the leadership program at Duchess Park she plans to put her language skills to work next month.
“We’re actually trying to organize a carnival day here to bring out the French culture of the school,” said Mann.
Owen MacDonald has always been athletic as a basketball player, cross country and track and field runner and speed skater. He’ll need to be in tip-top shape to realize his career ambition to become a firefighter. MacDonald spent two months as a volunteer with Prince George Fire Rescue work experience program, working alongside the fire crews on afternoons, evenings and weekends and that was all took to convince him he wanted that as his full-time job.
“All the guys there were such great role models, just top-notch guys, and they actually showed me what a day in the life of a firefighter is actually like,” said MacDonald. “I was right there in the truck. I loved it.”
His Capstone display showed pictures of MacDonald in his firefighting gear and highlighted some of his achievements in
sports. The former captain of the Condors junior A basketball team was the MVP of Duchess Park’s winning team at the zone cross country championships in Dawson Creek.
MacDonald is enrolled in the B.C. Forest Service’s junior initial attack forest firefighting program and was getting ready for a four-hour fitness test Monday at the P.G. Dome that will have him lugging 60-pound weights on his back running up and down ramps. He says he’ll pick up a trade at CNC before he heads to the College of the Rockies in Kimberley for the five-month fire academy program.
Right next to MacDonald, Sofya Toyata’s violin was the centerpiece of her display. She’s not sure of her career path just yet, so for her Capstone she focused on her passion for music as a violinist and in the choir with the Tapestry Singers.
“I’ve been playing violin since Grade 4,” Toyata said. “I enjoy classical and I enjoy playing in symphonies, as a hobby. I don’t think that would be my actual career. I have no idea about my careeranything but medical. I’m fine with blood but I don’t like the pressure of trying to keep people alive.”
Aspiring registered nurse Sydney Garrison is totally OK with that. She’s grown up trying to emulate her mom, a licenced practical nurse. That means four years of school – two years at college and two of university/practicum work at the hospital.
“She loves her job and helping people and that’s why I want to do it. I just want to help people too,” said Garrison. “It’s hard but you’re kind of saving people’s lives. I really want to do that.”
Keagan Fraser no longer competes as a freestyle skier but he sure loves teaching it. Although his competitive career was cut short by knee injuries that hasn’t hindered his ability to teach other athletes he sees at Hart Highlands Ski Hill and Troll Mountain near Quesnel the ins and outs of aerials, moguls and slopestyle. He also coaches mountain bikers at Otway Nordic Centre.
While he was receiving treatment for his injuries, watching physiotherapists work their magic to heal his sports-related wounds, Fraser hit upon the idea of getting into medical science for his own career.
So he sent his straight-A report card to UNBC and was accepted in the biomedical program for next fall. After the first year, he expects to branch out into UNBC’s new physiotherapy program which has its first intake of students in September.
“We’re really short of physiotherapists in the north and that’s where I want to stay,” said Fraser. “Grades are obviously really important. I was not always the strongest student in school, so I think because of that it really instilled a good work ethic. I like to work hard and I think that will help in university.”
Citizen photo by James Doyle
Rebecca Nore shows off her Capstone project last week during Duchess Park's Grad 2020 Gallery Walk.
employees celebrate Norther N ’s history
Ted Clarke Citizen staff
For 43 years, Peter Mueller has been doing his job selling store items at Northern Hardware and Furniture. In just a few weeks, he will be unemployed.
In December, store president Kelly Green announced The Northern was going out of business due to a struggling regional economy, competition from bigbox stores and online shopping, and a reluctance of people to shop downtown. Liquidation of the store’s stock began at the start of the new year and the doors will close permanently sometime in February.
By this time next month, that downtown Prince George retail cornerstone on Third Avenue will be nothing but an empty building. But for Mueller, memories of customers he’s served for more than four decades are permanently stored.
“Downtown has been slower over the years with other centres opening up west of town at Westgate, and they all took pieces of the pie from downtown,” said Mueller.
“Retail is a challenge for everyone. A lot of people shop online now. I remember Ted Moffat telling me 20 or 25 years ago, “Peter, there’s a change coming and they call it E-commerce and people will start shopping online through their computer.’ Now I see what he’s referring to.
“My boss, Kelly, has been thinking about it for a year or two. Her goal was for the store to reach 100 years and that was in March 2019 and from there it will be a new chapter in everyone’s lives.”
Fueled by the motto “if we don’t have it, you don’t need it,” Northern Hardware built a well-deserved reputation for stocking goods not available elsewhere in the city, whether it was an odd-sized bolt, a pickling crock or parts for a leather horse harness. Seasonal items were never far out of reach. Back in the days before the big-box stores arrived, where else could a customer go to find a garden rake in the dead of winter?
“Northern Hardware is very unique in that way, we belong to the Home Hardware group for buying power, which has 1,200 stores, and not only that, we buy from other vendors across the country,” said Mueller. “We were very unique in buying giftware, the ladies always looked after that and did a beautiful job during Christmas with a great housewares department we’ve had.
“When they heard we were closing, a lot of customers came in and they were very sad. A lot of them came in almost in tears. A lot of the oldtimers are lost, ‘Where am I going to get my stuff?’” Mueller remembers customers who
brought kitchen sinks complete with the drain assembly and plopped them on the store counter while he found the replacement parts needed to fix it. He knows his way around a toolkit and has been called upon a few times in his career to repair the furnace at the store and troubleshoot the computer system. It was also Mueller’s job to keep Champion, the mechanical horse ride, in fine working condition.
“I’d get called if he was broken or stuck to get him going again,” said Mueller.
“All the young kids loved Champ. He was here for 70 years.”
The Northern began the year with 32 employees, half the staff that was there when Mueller started working as a 20-year-old on Oct. 5, 1976. They still take pride in the fact that no matter what time of day, there’s enough of them in the store so customers never have to wait long for someone to help them find an item or figure out how to fix something. That emphasis on staff quantity gave customers a shopping experience quality now virtually extinct in the retail world. It stoked a reputation the store has maintained right to the end.
“The Northern’s always been known for service, we would have a lot of staff on the floor and that brought in people who loved the service - it’s what made us different from all the other stores,”
he said. “What I really enjoy is meeting different people, helping them sort it out. Each person has a different story and to hear their stories from over the years is very interesting. It’s always a treat for me to get to listen to them. The customers are like our family.”
Mueller, the 63-year-old hardware manager, started in the bike shop and worked in sporting goods for about 15 years. After a stint in automotives, he’s been a familiar face behind the hardware counter for the past 25 years. Mueller’s sense of loyalty to the store means he’s never considered finding another job, until now.
“The staff is a big one, we have great staff and half of them are longterm staff,” he said. “The Northern has treated me well for 43 years. I love the people and I have patience. You have to be that way or else you’d be long gone. When someone comes in for a plumbing project and you put it together for them and they’re amazed how well we did it and they walk away happy, that’s satisfaction for me.”
Mueller had wanted to work full time at the Northern for another two years, then switch to part-time work in the store. He says he’ll take a month or two off when the store closes and apply to work at one of the other hardware stores in the city.
Among The Northern’s other holdings are the Appliance Centre of First Avenue, which closed last summer, and Amco Wholesale, an industrial distributor of products for forestry, mining and construction. The wholesale store, operated by Harold Moffat’s grandson Glen Blair, is also shutting down this month.
Dennis Busby, 56, who managed the Appliance Centre for the two decades of its existence was first hired by the store 30 years ago to work in the furniture department. He had to take a crash course in getting to know everything there was to know about the high-end Stressless brand of couches and recliners, tables and chairs they stocked, and his education continued when he switched to appliances. He saw countless examples of customer loyalty being handed down to younger generations within the same families.
“That’s why, when it was announced we were closing down, there was such an outpouring of the city of Prince George,” said Busby. “It was wall-to-wall people in here for three weeks, not just to shop for bargains but to say thank you and share their stories, their memories. It was very emotional for them and the staff.
“That’s what we were about, customer service, and people are going to miss that.”
Citizen photo by James doyle
Longtime employees Peter Mueller, right, and Dennis Busby are proud of their years of service at Northern Hardware.
REMEMBRANCES
SERVICES
Gary Witt September 23, 1939January 16, 2020
Gary Witt passed away peacefully on January 16, 2020 in Prince George Rotary Hospice House. He is survived by his loving wife of 49 years, Marianne, children Michelle (Dave), Colin (Stephanie), Ingrid, grandchildren Amanda, Cole, Jessica and Cameron and numerous siblings, nephews and nieces.
Born in Poland but of German descent, Gary came to Canada with his family in 1949, settling in Vernon, BC. He is the second oldest of 7 siblings. He began his carpentry apprenticeship at age 16, working throughout the province for Dezell Construction, Stolberg Mill Construction and NC Contractors, building sawmills and all manner of commercial buildings. In September of 1977 Gary moved his young family to Prince George, where he eventually started his own commercial construction company, Witt Construction Ltd. He was an honest and skilled contractor with a strong work ethic and well respected within the construction community. His buildings still stand in Prince George and throughout the province as testament to his long career.
Gary was a fixture at all local ski hills (Purden, Tabor and Powder King) where he shared his love of downhill skiing with friends and family by teaching many people how to ski or improve their technique. He was proud to have been a member of the Canadian Ski Instructor’s Alliance for over 50 years. Gary had an equal love for water skiing and barefooting, taking advantage of all the beautiful lakes around PG to indulge in his passion and introducing many friends to the joys of these sports. “Grandpa Witt” was especially thrilled that all 4 of his grandchildren enjoyed both water and snow skiing, often teasing them they had to do both to stay in the family. You couldn’t miss his matching truck and boat around town. Gary was also a long-time member of the Prince George Tennis Club and enjoyed cycling and canoeing.
If you came over for a visit, you’d hear the sound of shuffling cards and you wouldn’t leave without hearing several jokes from Gary. When he wasn’t out enjoying his sports or fixing things around the house, he was relaxing in front of the TV watching sports, westerns and having a good nap. At Gary’s request there will be no funeral or formal celebration of life. We ask instead that you remember him by taking a ski run, telling a joke or two, having a game of crib or dice or cheering for the Canucks. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends, but his legacy lives on in our hearts and memories. Thank you, Gary, for being the best husband, Dad, Grandfather and friend. We know you are in a place where the water is always flat and the powder is always fresh. We would like to thank the staff and doctors at the Cancer Centre and hospice house for all their fabulous care and compassion. Donations in Gary’s name may be made to the Prince George Rotary Hospice House.
FICHTNER, Eugene - went to be with the Lord on January 23, 2020 in his 90th year at the Prince George Hospice. He was born in Penny, BC and lived in Prince George his entire life. He was a true Prince George pioneer. He was predeceased by his first wife, Ruth of 49 years, sister, Trudy and brothers: Herb and Bert. He is survived by his wife, Hilda, son, Blaine (Barbara), 3 grandchildren: Victoria, Stephen and Lydia, stepdaughter Elaine (Phil) Hoffarth and their family, sister, Tobie (Henry), brothers: Reinhold (Eileen) and Larry (Jan), as well as numerous nieces, nephews, extended family, and many good friends.
Funeral service will be held on Thursday, January 30th at 2:00pm at Fort George Baptist Church. Private Family Interment prior to the service at the Prince George Cemetery.
Marjorie Lorna Smith (Byfield)
August 28, 1939 - January 19, 2020
Marjorie went to be with her Lord on January 19, 2020, at the age of 80, surrounded by her family. She is survived by her children, Craig (Marie), Kelly (Julie), Kevin (Janet), Maureen and 10 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. Marjorie worked as nurse most of her life and compassionately cared for others and that care for others continued into her private life. She loved people and was always ready to make a new friend or encourage someone. Our family would like to thank the doctors and all the staff at the Simon Fraser Lodge for their kindness and compassion in caring for Marjorie. A celebration of Marjorie’s life will be held at Westside Family Fellowship, 3791 Highway 16 West, on Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 1pm. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to: Intouch Ministries Kenya (Orphanage Project).
It is with heavy hearts we announce that Laura passed away on January 19, 2020 after a courageous battle with COPD. Laura is predeceased by her husband Robert, her parents Walter and Violet Sande ,brothers Alan and David,sister Dorene Robinson and grandson Sidney Miller. Left to mourn her passing and celebrate her life are her sons Mervin and Greg, sisters Rose Gaal and Elaine Sande, daughter-inlaw Erin and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. Laura will be especially missed by her best friend Dawna Vyse whose friendship and support over the years is appreciated beyond words. Thank you to all the doctors and nurses at University Hospital and to all her home support workers for their exceptional care over the years. Laura and Bob together again. No service by request.
Roger Chartrand December 31, 1936January 26, 2020
It is with very heavy hearts that we announce that our dad, Roger, has passed away. There really was no man stronger, who accepted the terrible cards he was dealt, with such stoicism and absolutely no complaints. The last few years were definitely a battle, and, as he did throughout his life, he held his head high, kept his sense of humor and fought with a fierce determination. He has now joined his one love, Barbara, who he was married to for 50 years. although he will be missed by many, none as much as his children: Kevin (Maggie) and Kim (Mike).
No service upon his request, but there will be a gathering for friends and family at 1:30pm, Friday, January 31 at the PG Super 8 (Old Esther’s Inn), 1151 Commercial Cres.
Miller, Laura Marie March 23, 1940 - January 19, 2020
BARRIE SELKIRK
Hiring - General Manager
MILLS WANTS YOU!
Your local provider of Business Supplies since 1959
Do you have exceptional Sales, Leadership, and Management skills?
We need a leader to inspire our People and our Growth!
The Perfect candidate can:
• Build Relationships internally and externally
• Evaluate efficiencies within the business
• Lead and direct operations
• Help maintain corporate standards and culture
• Adjust and advise on changes in local markets
Contact Careers@mills.ca Emma Miller Tansley, Human Resources
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
long term employment opportunities, supported by training, competitive pay and benefits. Applications are accepted through our website: http://www.interfor.com/careers ELECTIONS CANADA
R0021788339
4.00x94.0-BW GM19 / 296072
of subsidized housing options for those most in need across the province.
Building Manager
BC Housing—one of BC’s Top Employers for 2019—is the provincial Crown agency that develops, manages and administers a wide range of subsidized housing options for those most in need across the province.
Prince George, BC
Building Manager
Prince George, BC
Residing on-site and handling tenant relations as well as building operations and systems management matters, you will maintain common and public areas, inspect and clean vacant units, and respond to enquiries, complaints and emergencies.
Residing on-site and handling tenant relations as well as building operations and systems management matters, you will maintain common and public areas, inspect and clean vacant units, and respond to enquiries, complaints and emergencies.
Building Manager
Prince George, BC
This regular, full-time position will appeal to a well-organized Grade 12 graduate, preferably with one year’s experience as a Building Manager or equivalent, who can work weekends. You have intermediate MS Office skills, a valid Class 5 driver’s licence, a satisfactory driving record, and access to a reliable vehicle, as you will be required to travel between sites.
This regular, full-time position will appeal to a well-organized Grade 12 graduate, preferably with one year’s experience as a Building Manager or equivalent, who can work weekends. You have intermediate MS Office skills, a valid Class 5 driver’s licence, a satisfactory driving record, and access to a reliable vehicle, as you will be required to travel between sites.
Share in the enthusiasm and rewards of being part of an organization that is challenging, encourages new ideas and supports personal growth.
Share in the enthusiasm and rewards of being part of an organization that is challenging, encourages new ideas and supports personal growth.
Residing on-site and handling tenant relations as well as building operations and systems management matters, you will maintain common and public areas, inspect and clean vacant units, and respond to enquiries, complaints and emergencies.
Managing afederalelection as areturning officer is as rewarding as it is challenging.The skills you bring to this paid position(withavariable workschedule) helpmake electionday possible in yourcommunity Your hardwork to uphold thedemocraticprocess will give Canadian electors theopportunity to shape thefutureofour country
The successful applicant will be subject to a satisfactory criminal record check. For more information on our opportunities and how to apply, please visit: www.bchousing.org/careers
The successful applicant will be subject to a satisfactory criminal record check. For more information on our opportunities and how to apply, please visit:
This regular, full-time position will appeal to a well-organized Grade 12 graduate, preferably with one year’s experience as a Building Manager or equivalent, who can work weekends. You have intermediate MS Office skills, a valid Class 5 driver’s licence, a satisfactory driving record, and access to a reliable vehicle, as you will be required to travel between sites.
Share in the enthusiasm and rewards of being part of an organization that is challenging,
BC Housing—one of BC’s Top Employers for 2019—is the provincial Crown agency that develops, manages and administers a wide range
Porcupine
ASSMAN’S FUNERAL CHAPEL
2x70.0
R0011786763
DISPOSITION OF UNCLAIMED CREMATED REMAINS
Pursuant to Section 8 of the British Columbia Cremation, Interment, and Funeral Services Act Regulations, the following unclaimed cremated remains will be interred on February 13th, 2020, at Lakeview Memorial Gardens, (A division of Service Corporation International (Canada) ULC) 2850 Dry Valley Rd, Kelowna, British Columbia, V1V 2K1.
Unclaimed cremated remains for the following deceased individuals are in the care of Assman’s Funeral Chapel 1908 Queensway St, Prince George, British Columbia, V2L M21/ If you are the executor or legal representative of a deceased individual listed below in this notification, please call 250-564-4431 to arrange final disposition or to claim the cremated remains.
WILLIAMS, Robert February 18th, 2017 WILSON, Deklin July 9th, 2015
Fraserview Crematorium, 3355 Memorial Park Lane, Prince George, BC, V2L 4V7
AIELLO, Virginia
BOUDREAU, Robert
DAVIDSON, Kevin
DUKE, Thelma
GAIRDNER, Clarence
HRUSHKA, Destin
LETOURNEAU, Femand
SA V ADRA, Catherine
April 19th, 2018 May 24th, 1999
December 24th, 1983 February 18th, 1981
January 26th, 1983
August 15th, 2002
December 27th, 1982
February 6th, 2015
First Memorial Funeral Services Lakewood Chapel.
1055 Ospika Blvd S, Prince George, BC, V2M 3R7
CODERRE, Jean-Yves August 26th, 2014
DONNELLY, Clarence August 4th, 2015
R0011786763
To: Edward Grant, formerly of 304 751 S Tabor Blvd, Prince George BC V2M5V1 (herein described as the “rental unit”).
Take notice that the landlord of the rental unit, Sheanne Properties], intends to dispose of the personal property abandoned by you consisting of [furniture, household items,personal items] (herein described as the “property”) at the rental unit 30 days after the publication date of this notice, unless:
• You take possession of the property,
• You establish a right to the possession of the property, or
• You make an application to the Supreme Court to establish such a right.
After the expiration of the 30 day period, the property will be disposed of with no further notice to you.
Landlord: Sheanne Properties Ltd., 2939 St Anne Ave., Prince George, BC, V2N 4Y5, 250 563-7505
