City staff looking at funding possibilities for pickleball project
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
The pickleball is in the city’s court. City council directed staff on Monday night to come up with options to help fund installation of six tournament-level pickleball courts at the Prince George Tennis-Pickleball Club.
The club is seeking as much as $45,000 from the city to go along with $15,000 it is to receive from Northern Development Initiative Trust if a contract to carry out the work is signed by Jan. 21, 2020. The plan is to convert two of the club’s existing tennis courts into pickleball courts. Between 120 and 150 club members play the game, board member Dan Teichroeb told council.
He said the popularity of tennis has waned while interest in pickleball, which is played on a smaller court with paddles and a perforated ball, has grown among seniors.
“It’s a game that’s totally different from tennis,” Teichroeb said. “You don’t have to be able to run at breakneck speed from one side of the court to the other. We usually play four on four, it’s much more of a strategic game than the game of tennis.”
With proper courts, qualified instructors and good marketing, the club’s membership could grow by 10 to 15 per cent a year, Teichroeb also said.
Providing the money out of council’s contingency budget was briefly consid-
ered before councillors learned there is only $50,000 left in that account. From there, the item was referred to staff to come back with suggestions which could include finding the money from another source within the city’s existing coffers or add it to the so-called enhancements council will consider when setting the property tax levy for 2020.
In the meantime, councillors suggested the club could do some additional fundraising to offset the cost, although Coun. Frank Everitt likened the project to work the city typically carries out on its arenas and fields and Coun. Murry Krause suggested the money could be found in the city’s existing recreation budget.
Shooting suspects arrested, two remain at large
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
Prince George RCMP now have in custody two of the four men suspected of participating in Friday’s armed conflict that left one man with a gunshot wound. Still at large are Kenneth Ricardo Munroe and Eric Vern West.
Munroe is described as First Nations, 33 years old, five-foot-10, 161 pounds with black hair, brown eyes and the letters KRM tattooed on his neck. West is described as First Nations, 38 years old, fivefoot-11, 180 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. At about 4:15 p.m., RCMP received multiple reports of gun shots on the 2200 block of Quince Street and, upon arrival, were led to believe the source was an alley. — see ‘THIS, page 3
Hot spots ID’d in wildfire protection plan
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A campaign to thin out the most fire-prone timber in the area is part of a wide-ranging plan to protect Prince George from wildfires.
In the process of developing the strategy, presented to city council on Monday night, 14 sites adding up to nearly 580 acres of Crown land in and around the city were identified as high-priority sites for the work.
The concentrations of coniferous, dead and dying trees and the steepness of the slope were the criteria for choosing the locations, Mike Coulthard of Diamond Head Consulting Ltd. told council.
While scattered about, he said most are north of the Nechako River.
“The idea is to go into the stands and thin them out,” Coulthard said.
“Break up the canopy and try and create breaks between the crowns of the trees so that if a fire does take place it’s not able to get into the top of the trees and sort of roll through the forest.”
So-called crown fires, that spit out embers ahead of the main blaze, were the type seen in Fort McMurray and the Okanagan, he said.
“Those are the real damaging fires that are hard to suppress,” Coulthard said.
“Generally, crews are able to take hold and manage ground fires but if it reaches the top of the trees, those are the problem fires.”
The plan also calls for a large fuel break just north of the Nechako Bench, where there has been an outbreak of Douglas fir beetle. With the exception of a large ravine in the middle, conifer trees would be cleared along a swath at least 100 metres wide and extending to farmland to the north.
A permanent road would put through the middle and a stand of more fire-resistant deciduous trees would be planted in the zone, according to the plan.
Sites treated prior to 2013 will also get attention.
As for privately-owned land, the plan also calls for a FireSmart education campaign to encourage property owners to take steps to protect their homes and prevent the spread of wildfires.
Officials are also in the process of developing an evacuation plan for the city and surrounding communities that should be ready by June.
In all, the plan features 36 recommendations tailored towards securing funding from the provincial government, five of them listed as high priority.
The full plan is posted with this story at www. pgcitizen.ca.
Ferrier Ryan Clarke prepares the hooves of Ben for a new set of shoes at the Exhibition Grounds on Tuesday morning.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
A group plays pickle ball at the Tennis Club courts at Prince George Golf and Curling Club Tuesday morning.
MUNROE WEST
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skate with the Canadian flag during victory ceremony at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea. Virtue and Moir are part of the Rock The Rink show coming to CN Centre on Oct. 12.
Moir, Virtue, Chan returning to P.G.
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue and Patrick Chan are coming back to Prince George to Rock The Rink.
The international skating icons are bringing fellow Canadian ice stars Kaetlyn Osmond and legendary Elvis Stojko back with them, just as they all converged here during their sold-out, coast-to-coast mega Thank You Canada Tour last year.
This time, though, the show will have some global flavours and some added musical spice.
The Canuck hosts will also present Italy’s Olympic medalist and world champion female solo skater Carolina Kostner, plus Italy’s World Champion ice dancers Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (all three making their North American tour debuts). Also along for the skate is Olympic medalist and fourtime U.S. National Champion Jeremy Abbott who is touring in Canada for the first time in seven years. Also in the house, performing live, is
Canadian alt-rock band Birds Of Bellwoods as special musical guests in this unusual entertainment event at CN Centre.
“I’m honoured to be a part of such a unique and innovative production,” said Chan. “Anyone that has followed our careers understands our dedication to creativity and entertainment. We want each and every person to be a part of an experience and not just a ‘show’. What we’re creating hasn’t been done before and I can’t wait to show it to the fans.”
Chan (Olympic gold and bronze medalist, three-time world champion male soloist, an 10-time winner of the Canadian Championship) is a true beacon of success in the artistic sport of figure skating.
Along with him are Virtue and Moir, the ice dance heroes of the 2018 Olympics. They have other Olympic medals, besides, plus they are three-time world champions, eight-time Canadian champions in their discipline, and finished their amateur careers as the most decorated Olympic figure skaters of all time and the most decorated Canadian
ice dance team of all time. They are two of the most recognizable winter athletes in the world.
“The goal for Rock The Rink is to be something that fans of skating and live entertainment will look forward to year after year, knowing that it will always be a can’t-miss night,” said Moir.
“We want to give people a memorable experience and broaden the scope of what can be done in the show skating realm,” said Virtue. “We are ready for fresh and innovative ways to share our passion with audiences across the country... It’s critical that we elevate the production and generate authentic entertainment in new and creative ways. Scott and I have spent our career striving for more, taking risks, and daring ourselves to be better. Our approach to this is no different.”
This new brand of ice show tours Canada and into the U.S. this fall. Prince George gets its date with a new skating sensation on Oct. 12.
Tickets go on sale May 3 at 10 a.m. via the TicketsNorth website or at the CN Centre box office.
Fire damages pellet plant
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff
A fire at Pacific Bioenergy on the weekend did significant damage to some areas of the woodpellet facility.
“We are continuing to investigate the incident and assess the efforts to effect and complete repairs,” Pacific Bioenergy (PacBio) president John Stirling told The Citizen on Tuesday. “No workers were injured. All workers continue to work their regular shifts at the plant.”
The incident was detected by employees at approximately 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. They carried out the company’s emergency response training, and were soon joined by the city’s fire department.
Prince George Fire Rescue dispatched 19 firefighters from four halls. Fire crews reported flame and smoke coming from a 120-foot elevator structure when they arrived at the scene. The winds were strong at the time and embers spread to an adjacent building, an electrical control room, where the most significant damage was done. According to Prince George Fire Rescue assistant chief Fred Wilkinson the estimated loss was valued at about $750,000.
Stirling described the fire’s initial location as “at the top of a bucket elevator which transports wood pellets” and concurred that it was a strong wind that spread the flames to the nearby electrical room. Firefighters, he said, “responded quickly and were able to rapidly extinguish both fires and stayed on scene for several hours to ensure that no additional incidents developed.”
PacBio staff continue to monitor the facility for undetected hotspots, and are checking over the factory’s equipment looking for answers to the cause.
Repairs are also in process so operations at PacBio have been modified to fit the maintenance being done, but regular work was soon underway once the all-clear was signaled.
“We are thankful that none of our employees or firefighters were injured in this incident,” said Stirling.
“We are proud of the way our employees responded using their training and procedures for handling emergency situations. We thank them and appreciate their diligence through the entire incident. We also thank the PG Fire and Rescue Department for its quick response and effective handling of the situation. We will continue our investigation into what caused the fire and, as always, we are committed to learning from this incident, making improvements and sharing our learning with the industry. Our goal is to get our plant safely back into full operation as soon as possible.”
Cat found alive in shipping container from China
Citizen staff
The BC SPCA North Cariboo District Branch is asking members of the public to help with the costs of care for a severely-emaciated stowaway cat who arrived from China.
The six-year-old cat was trapped inside a 40-foot shipping container for over three weeks without access to food or water travelling from Shenzhen, China to the Port of Vancouver and then up to Prince George.
“I knew right away when I heard that this cat had spent weeks in a container that she not only had an amazing story but also that she would require extensive care and rehabilitation to recover from her ordeal,” said SPCA North Cariboo District animal centre services manager Alex Schare.
Staff at a Prince George auto glass distribution company found the cat among the pallets, shredded cardboard and styrofoam inside the container. It’s believed that she survived by drinking condensation that had formed on the walls.
Animal control officers brought the extremely weak animal to the North Cariboo District SPCA.
The SPCA is following strict CFIA quarantine conditions to ensure the animal poses no threat to animals and people in Canada.
The cat was taken to the local veterinary hospital where she weighed in at just 1.5 kilograms, was put on fluids and monitored in isolation from other patients.
“We rushed her to the vet because she was in such poor condition that we knew she would require intensive veterinary care
for an extended period of time to regain her strength,” said Schare.
The cat is being fed small portions of food to ensure that her body adjusts properly and to avoid having her develop refeeding syndrome, which can be lifethreatening.
She has also undergone bloodwork and will receive a rabies vaccine and dental work when she is strong enough.
The cat will remain in quarantine, separated from other animals, until two weeks after her vaccination.
Her cost of care is estimated to be $2,760.
If you can help this timid, sweet cat and other animals in need at the North Cariboo District, please visit spca.bc.ca/medicalemergency or visit the branch at 4011 Lansdowne Road, 250-562-5511.
‘This incident was a targeted attack’
— from page 1
Police were told a confrontation erupted between two groups in an alley west of Quince Street.
“During the altercation, bear spray was deployed, followed by what police now believe to be a single gunshot,” RCMP said.
All those involved fled the scene, but Kyle Devro Teegee, 31, was arrested nearby and Anthony Joseph Karl Larsen, 26, was apprehended on Sunday morning when he was found in a 2100-block Tamarack Street home.
Shortly after Teegee’s arrest,
police also came across a man in a dark-coloured SUV suffering from a single, not life-threatening gunshot wound and was transported to hospital for treatment.
All four have been charged with one count each of extortion with a firearm, attempted kidnapping, assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm.
West has also been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon and Teegee has also been charged with obstructing a peace officer.
“This incident was a targeted attack between persons known to
Booths welcome at Earth Day event
Citizen staff
Organizers of an Earth Day event at Lheidli T’enneh Memo-
are welcoming those interested in setting up informational booths.
They are looking for people who “feel they can add positively to this grassroots event and inform the public of their work and how it relates to the environment.”
The event will be held on April 22 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
each other, and was associated to the drug trade,” an RCMP statement said.
Anyone with information on where Munroe and West may be is asked to contact the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca (English only).
You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers. If you provide information that leads to an arrest, you could be eligible for a cash reward.
and will include a silent auction and raffles to benefit the Prince George Brain Injured Group and membership drives for the CFUR and CFIS radio stations.
Those interested can email pgearthday@gmail.com.
NDIT launches housing incentive programs
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Housing projects will have an easier time getting built in the north, thanks to incentive programs introduced by the Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT).
Three new programs by NDIT will apply new money to the kinds of housing projects thought to be the most needed in the northern region. They are intended to “support local governments in the creation of new, marketbased housing units across northern B.C.,” said NDIT’s director of marketing and communications Holly Plato.
The three new funding streams are called: the Housing Needs Assessment Program, the Community Planning For Housing Program, and the Northern Housing Incentive Program. When local governments around the region have housing developments to consider, these are now in place, designed to be step-bystep processes, to assist them being completed.
“Communities throughout northern B.C. have identified a real need for new housing
developments and through these programs, local governments can seize the opportunity to grow their population and their economy,” said Tom Hoffman, the acting-chair of NDIT’s board of directors. “The board is very pleased to support this type of initiative which supports development and sustainability.”
The Housing Needs Assessment Program provides one-time grant funding to local governments for the development of a comprehensive housing needs assessment that covers the entire community.
The Community Planning For Housing Program provides grants for municipalities and regional districts to assist with the cost of hiring a staff position to support the development of the community’s housing needs over a 12-month period. The host community is required to pay part of the required salaries.
The Northern Housing Incentive Program provides grants to local governments to incentivizing private sector housing developments. Local governments are eligible to receive a grant up to $10,000 per dwelling for proposed multi-unit housing projects (to a maximum of $200,000).
Vancouver man faces money laundering charge in college admissions scandal
Laura KANE The Canadian Press
Vancouver businessman David Sidoo faces an additional charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering for his alleged role in a college admissions scandal in the United States.
In a new indictment from the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on Tuesday, Sidoo is accused of wiring about $100,000 in January 2013 from an account in Canada to an account in California.
The indictment says the money was in the name of college-prep company The Key, and meant to be in exchange for admissions consultant William (Rick) Singer’s facilitation of a SAT cheating scheme for Sidoo’s younger son.
An assistant for Sidoo’s lawyer,
Richard Schonfeld, said the attorney was declining comment on Tuesday.
Sidoo is among 19 parents, including actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Gianulli, who are facing the money-laundering charge in the new indictment.
The new charges come a day after Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffman, 12 other parents and a coach agreed to plead guilty.
The parents in the sweeping case, the largest such scheme ever prosecuted by the Justice Department, are accused of paying Singer to cheat on their children’s college entrance exams and get their children admitted as athletic recruits at elite schools.
A six-year-old cat was trapped inside a 40-foot shipping container for three weeks while the container was shipped from Shenzhen, China, through Vancouver up to Prince George.
rial Park
Metro Vancouver mayors call for annual transit funding
VANCOUVER (CP) — Mayors from across Metro Vancouver gathered at a busy rapid transit station in Vancouver to demand stable, secure transit funding for all municipalities in Canada.
Members of the Mayor’s Council on Regional Transportation are launching the Cure Congestion campaign in advance of the upcoming federal election. Council chairman, New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote, said a large part of the council’s 10-year transportation plan has federal backing for projects across the region, but those funds will expire in a few years.
Cote said the council wants to see a predictable, annual funding formula extended to all urban municipalities in Canada, saying it will ensure certainty for future development. Cote said the time to promote the campaign is now, as political parties hammer out platforms for the Oct. 21 federal election.
Langley Township Mayor Jack Froese, the council’s vice-chairman, said federal, provincial and municipal partnerships have built on “collective momentum” over the last three years, and congestion will worsen if that isn’t maintained.
“We want this positive progress to continue,” Froese told the gathering on Tuesday.
“That’s why the Mayor’s Council is calling for permanent, sustained, federal funding that will enable TransLink to accelerate completion of the 10-year vision and start building new projects to be identified in the Regional Transportation Strategy now being developed,” he said.
New B.C.
Conservative leader looks to roll out platform
VANCOUVER (CP) — A 39-year-old councillor from Fort St. John is the new leader of the B.C. Conservative Party. Trevor Bolin said it has been a rocky road for the party since 2016, when Dan Brooks was ejected as leader. After some bitter infighting, Bolin said the party is going back to grassroots politics and will be rolling out platforms that will benefit British Columbians. He’s already promising the party would scrap the carbon tax and will work with municipalities to better tackle climate change, while opening the province’s door to private insurers and “long overdue” ride-hailing services. The BC Conservative Party ran 10 candidates in the 2017 general elections but won no seats with just 0.53 per cent of the vote.
A BC Conservative Party member hasn’t won a seat in the legislature since 1986, although former Liberal Abbotsford South MLA John van Dongen briefly sat as a Conservative in 2012. Brooks said in 2016 that he was tossed out as leader on a technicality when the party’s board had determined a quorum was not reached during the leadership vote. Bolin say the party took its time to rebuild, and as the new leader, he’ll start by connecting with potential voters across the province.
“Instead of just jumping into B.C. politics, it became about the party, it became about the platforms that we’re going to be rolling out shortly that are going to benefit British Columbians,” he said Monday.
CRA wins appeal against couple
VANCOUVER (CP) — The British Columbia Court of Appeal has set aside a $1.7-million damage award to a Vancouver Island couple who a lower court had said were ruined through the “malicious” actions of the Canada Revenue Agency. Tony and Helen Samaroo were operating a restaurant, night club and motel in Nanaimo in 2008 when they were charged with 21 counts of tax evasion for allegedly skimming $1.7 million from their businesses. They were acquitted of all charges in provincial court in 2010 in what the judge hearing the case agreed amounted to the Crown using “voodoo accounting” to support its case, and the couple then sued for malicious prosecution.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled last year that the Samaroos were the victims of an “egregious” prosecution based on an unfounded theory and suspicion about the alleged tax evasion. But in a decision released Tuesday on behalf of the three-judge panel, Justice David Harris says the trial judge was wrong to base his analysis on the idea that tax evasion can’t be proven without also proving exactly how it was done.
Canola farmers call on feds to fight Chinese trade barriers
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canola farmers whose livelihoods have been targeted by China in its feud with Canada say it’s time for the federal government to be aggressive at the political level in its fight against a growing number of agricultural trade barriers around the world.
Several producers told two parliamentary committees Tuesday that China’s recent rejection of Canadian canola-seed shipments is only the latest trade disruption that’s hurt the country’s agriculture sector.
They reminded MPs in Ottawa about a number of major trade obstacles faced by Canadian agricultural exporters in faraway markets like India, Italy, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.
“Canada can feed the world but not if our government does not act strongly on our behalf, removing non-tariff trade barriers, enforcing existing trade agreements and removing political roadblocks,” Alberta canola farmer Stephen Vandervalk told the House of Commons agriculture committee.
Citing concerns about pests, China has rejected canola-seed imports from Canada and has suspended the licences of two major Canadian exporters.
The moves to cut off the critical Canadian export have been widely viewed as China applying economic pressure on Canada in response to the December
arrest of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver at the behest of the United States.
Any extended canola dispute with China, which imported $2.7 billion worth of canola seed from Canada last year, would deliver a painful economic blow to producers, the supply chain and the wider Canadian economy.
The price of canola has fallen since the dispute started last month. The latewinter timing of the disruption has been particularly difficult because it’s forced many farmers to suddenly rethink the planting decisions vital to their businesses.
On Tuesday, producers made it clear to MPs at the committees that even with the urgency around the China conflict, the pain is not only about canola. Canadian farmers, they said, are staring at other big trade hurdles in world markets.
Several of the witnesses mentioned issues that have affected Canada’s durum wheat exports to Italy, wheat sales to Vietnam, pulse exports to India and feedbarley shipments to Saudi Arabia.
Saskatchewan grain farmer Mehgin Reynolds (who is seeking a Conservative party nomination) told MPs that, for instance, her four-year crop rotation includes lentils, barley, canola and durum wheat - all products that face obstacles on foreign markets.
“The frightening reality is that almost every crop being grown in Canada is currently struggling with one trade barrier or another,” Reynolds said.
The Liberal government has insisted it wants to find a scientific solution to the canola dispute, in keeping with China’s insistence that the problem is tainted seeds.
The Liberals have established a working group that includes officials from Richardson International Ltd. and Viterra Inc. – the two exporters that have had their licences to sell canola revoked by China – and representatives from the governments of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has requested to send a delegation of experts to China to examine the issue. She’s said officials are exploring options to support farmers by expanding existing programs.
Canola producer Mark Kaun told the committee it’s time for the Canadian government to start playing “hardball.”
“There’s a pile of imports that come into this country from China – and maybe some of their ships should sit and wait in the water,” Kaun said. “Canadian canola is contaminated – it’s contaminated with political dirt and bureaucracy.”
“This is a political issue plain and simple. Political problems need political solutions,” agreed Vandervalk, who’s also vice-president representing Alberta with the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
“If we must play the game of grain inspections, so be it. But in the meantime Canadian grain farmers are the ones paying the price for the political failings.”
Wilson-Raybould urges restraint after supportive graffiti at constituency office
The Canadian Press
Vancouver police have arrested a 37-year-old man for allegedly using several cans of spray paint to express support for former federal attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.
Officers responded early Monday after slogans such as “let Jody speak,” “Trudeau for treason,” and “make B.C. the best coast again,” were sprayed in huge red or white letters on the windows of Wilson-Raybould’s constituency office. The messages also covered the sidewalk and busy street in front of the office
in her Vancouver Granville riding.
Police say several cans of spray paint have been seized and charges of mischief are being considered.
The slogans were removed from the office windows within hours and a crew using pressure washers worked to clean the graffiti off the sidewalk and street.
Wilson-Raybould posted a message on social media Monday urging supporters to voice their opinions in safe and legal ways.
“While I appreciate people wanting to show their support and enthusiasm as well as express their views, I would en-
courage them to do so without damaging private or public property or putting themselves in harm’s way. Thank you,” Wilson-Raybould wrote on her Twitter account. She and fellow member of Parliament and former cabinet minister Jane Philpott were removed from the Liberal party caucus one week ago. The ousters followed Wilson-Raybould’s resignation from cabinet in February, shortly after she was shuffled out of the justice portfolio. Philpott resigned in early March, just weeks after being named Treasury Board president.
Refugee advocates dismayed over asylum changes
Teresa WRIGHT The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Lawyers and advocates who work directly with refugees say they are dismayed by proposed changes to asylum laws included in the Liberals’ new budget bill, calling them a devastating attack on refugee rights in Canada.
The Trudeau government is proposing to prevent asylum seekers from making refugee claims in Canada if they have made similar claims in certain other countries, including the United States.
Border Security Minister Bill Blair says the measure aims to prevent “asylumshopping.”
“I can tell you we’ve been working very hard over the past several months to significantly reduce the number of people who are crossing our borders irregularly,” Blair told reporters Tuesday. “There’s a right way to come to the country to seek asylum and/ or to seek to immigrate to this country, and we’re trying to encourage people to use the appropriate channels and to disincentivize people from doing it improperly.”
The proposed changes blindsided refugee advocates and lawyers, who say they would strip human-rights protections from vulnerable refugee claimants.
“In terms of the effect on refugees, the effect is really immeasurable, because we’re now giving refugee claimants a degraded process to go through,” said Maureen Silcoff, the chair of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers’ litigation committee. The new provision in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act – which was tucked into 392-page omnibus budget bill tabled Monday evening – introduces a new ground of ineligibility for refugee protection. If an asylum-seeker has previously opened a claim for refugee protection in another country, his or her claim would be ineligible for consideration, alongside people who have already made unsuccessful claims here, been deemed inadmissible because of their criminal records, or been granted refugee protection elsewhere. Under Canada’s “Safe Third Country Agreement” with the U.S., would-be refugees who arrive at official border crossings from the United States and try to claim asylum will be turned back to the U.S. But the agreement doesn’t apply to people already on Canadian soil when they make their claims. This has led to over 40,000 asylumseekers crossing into Canada “irregularly” through unofficial paths along the CanadaU.S. border since early 2017.
Andy BLATCHFORD
CP PHOTO
Canola grower David Reid checks on his storage bins full of last year’s crop of canola seed on his farm near Cremona, Alta., on March 22.
Artificial intelligence reshaping health care
Sheryl UBELACKER
The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Chris Neilson is on his second prosthetic after losing his left arm above the elbow in a nasty work accident about six years ago. Partly myoelectric, the artificial hand and arm is a step up cosmetically and functionally from the first body-controlled device that featured a hook and claw.
But the 33-year-old mining industry worker is looking ahead, helping researchers at the University of Alberta test a new generation of prosthetic – an experimental bionic arm that can “learn” to adapt and anticipate an amputee’s movements, employing the power of artificial intelligence.
It’s just one example of how AI, or more specifically machine learning, is beginning to transform health care, propelling what was once the stuff of science fiction solidly into the realm of reality.
At the Edmonton university’s Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control (BLINC) lab, co-director Patrick Pilarski and his research team are developing an artificial arm using AI/machine learning aimed at trying to blur the lines between the person who “needs assistive technology and the assistive technology itself.”
“They may have lost a limb through injury or illness and the technology itself is in some ways trying to replace that body part,” says Pilarski, Canada research chair in machine intelligence for rehabilitation.
“So when we try to build better bionic limbs, we’re really looking at how do we understand the signals that a human is giving to their technology? How does that technology interpret those signals to actually do the thing they want – to pick up a cup of coffee or grab a pen or hold a hand of a loved one? And then how does that device give information back to the person, so they can better carry on the tasks of daily life?”
Artificial arms, reminiscent of the android Sonny’s appendages
Trudeau
Patrick Pilarski, left, who is the Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation, and research participant Chris Neilson talk through a task for the Bento Arm at the University of Alberta’s BLINC lab in Edmonton on March 14.
in the 2004 film I, Robot, are being combined with the use of machine learning software, which picks up an amputee’s repetitive patterns of movement, then begins incorporating those motions into the way the wearer controls the prosthetic.
With Neilson’s current artificial limb, he operates the hand’s open-close and grip functions by contracting bicep or tricep muscles. Sensors measure electrical changes in the skin, sending signals to trigger movements in the hand. But with the BLINC lab’s prototype, “I could switch between say the elbow, between a wrist flexion or a wrist rotation to the open and closing of the hand to maybe even changing the grips,” says Neilson of Leduc, Alta. “And what this software did was, if you had a pattern (of movement... it picked up on which function you were prioritizing and
then it would skip the rest after a while.”
For now, the AI-enabled artificial limb remains in the testing stage, but the ultimate goal is to produce a refined prosthetic that amputees can wear in their daily lives, says Pilarski, a fellow of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, or Amii.
Calling manual control of an artificial limb a painstaking process, he explains that the idea of an AI-enhanced bionic arm is to remove some of the burden from the wearer by making complex hand movements more automatic.
“It means that if someone is working very hard to give all these right signals to their prosthetic limb, such that it makes all the right motions, if the prosthetic limb can anticipate where they’re reaching or how they want to grab the object, then it can take
violated MPs’ rights, with ‘unilateral’ expulsion, Philpott says
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Former cabinet minister Jane Philpott is asking the Speaker of the House of Commons to rule on whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the rights of MPs when he expelled her and Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus – a move she calls a breach of federal law.
Trudeau’s decision last week to eject Philpott and Wilson-Raybould was “a breach of the Parliament of Canada Act,” the newly independent MP said Tuesday on the Commons floor, because the Liberals failed to hold a legally required caucus vote following the 2015 election that would have established how such expulsions are supposed to work.
A set of amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act, spearheaded by Conservative MP Michael Chong, was passed in 2015 in an effort to make it more difficult for MPs to be removed from caucus – part of an effort to decentralize political power on Parliament Hill and put it back in the hands of rank-and-file legislators.
Those rules require that after a federal election, the MPs of each party hold a vote to determine the rules for caucus expulsions. But in November 2015, after the Liberals formed government, they deferred the matter, and as a result the rules – which would have required 90 Liberal MPs to express support for expelling Philpott and WilsonRaybould – were not formally adopted.
“We were expelled prior to the commencement of the Liberal caucus meeting,” Philpott told the House as she registered her complaint with Regan, a procedure known as a point of privilege.
“The prime minister’s words that night to the Liberal caucus are important to underscore, because expulsion should not be his deci-
sion to take unilaterally. However, the decision had been already made.”
Members of Parliament are not accountable to the leader but rather the leader is accountable to members of Parliament, Philpott said.
“This is a constitutional convention” – one so important that it has been codified in the Parliament of Canada Act, she added.
When later asked about Philpott’s complaint, Trudeau acknowledged that the decision to expel the pair was his alone, but one he made after consulting caucus members: “The will of caucus was very clear, but I made the decision.”
Regan told Philpott he would consider her argument and report back to the House later.
He has already ruled on a related question involving another former Liberal, Toronto-area MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes, who quit the Liberal caucus last month. In that ruling, the Speaker found that “asking the House to deal with the possible expulsion of a member from caucus is not a proper subject for a question of privilege” and it’s not his place to interpret the law, only the rules of the House of Commons.
Philpott said that since she and Wilson-Raybould were kicked out of caucus, and didn’t leave voluntarily, their situation is different.
Wilson-Raybould believes she was moved out of the prestigious justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle as punishment for refusing to intervene to stop the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on bribery charges related to contracts in Libya.
She has testified that she faced relentless pressure last fall from Trudeau, his office, the top public servant and others to override the director of public prosecutions,
who had decided not to invite the Montreal engineering giant to negotiate a remediation agreement, a kind of plea bargain.
Wilson-Raybould quit the cabinet in mid-February and Philpott followed a few weeks later, saying she had lost confidence in the government over its handling of the SNC-Lavalin file. But both MPs remained members of the Liberal caucus until last week.
The revelation that WilsonRaybould had surreptitiously recorded a phone conversation with Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council, to bolster her contention of undue pressure was the last straw for Liberal MPs, who openly called on Trudeau to expel the former ministers. On April 2, Trudeau called the secret recording “unconscionable,” proof that the ex-minister could no longer be trusted.
Despite the best efforts of Liberals, the months-old SNC-Lavalin controversy keeps finding its way back to the headlines.
On Sunday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer revealed that Trudeau’s lawyer had sent him a libel notice, demanding he retract his claims that the prime minister had lied to Canadians and interfered with the SNC prosecution. Scheer made clear he has no such plans.
Trudeau, asked about the legal threat, said Tuesday that with an election coming up, it’s important that politicians be discouraged from twisting the truth and distorting reality.
“You can’t be lying to Canadians,” said Trudeau.
“It’s not something we’re going to put up with.”
patients could take a turn for the worse – and when.
CHART director Dr. Muhammad Mamdani says that about twice a year, the emergency department experiences an upsurge in patients coming through its doors, leaving staff scrambling and creating “ridiculously high” wait times of eight to 16 hours. Mini-surges also occur a couple of times each month that are also “pretty bad.”
So emergency department managers approached the centre to see if a program could be developed to predict patient volume in advance, so more nurses could be brought on shift or the physician schedule rejigged.
Mamdani says CHART staff looked at three years of historical data to identify ED usage patterns, then added in environmental data: Would it snow tomorrow night? Were the NBA’s Raptors playing? Was there a marathon in the city’s core?
away some of that overhead for the person. The person can have a much more natural, intuitive and, in some cases, much more efficient interaction with their device because the device is filling in the gaps for them.”
Across the country, efficiency is also partly at the heart of more than a dozen AI-driven projects being developed at St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto, which serves a large inner-city population as well as being one of Ontario’s designated regional trauma centres. Its Centre for Healthcare Analytics Research and Training (CHART) was created to design and implement innovative programs using AI/machine learning to streamline certain hospital systems and to improve care, from decreasing emergency department wait times to predicting which
All the data was fed in to create an algorithm – a set of rules telling a computer how to perform a task – using a combination of methods that included machine learning, he says. “And we found that we could predict with well over 90 per cent accuracy our patient volumes ... in six-hour intervals, three days in advance.
“So for example, if today’s Monday, we can tell you that on Wednesday from noon to 6 p.m., we’ll have 82 patients showing up to our emergency department. We’ll be able to tell you that about 10 of them will have mentalhealth issues, 12 will be fairly high-intensity cases (heart attack, trauma) and the rest of them will be probably low- to moderateintensity.”
The beauty of the program is that it’s all automated, with pertinent data grabbed each night and the forecasted ED volume sent out within seconds to department managers.
The technology behind the program may seem complex, but the goal is simple, says Mamdani. “We’re hoping this will actually save lives.”
Goodale not concerned over Senate amendments to gun bill
Jim BRONSKILL
The Canadian Press OTTAWA — Federal ministers played down notions Tuesday that Senate committee amendments to the Liberals’ gun bill would hobble the legislation.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale suggested the government’s intentions for Bill C-71 will be reflected in the final version of the legislation, despite efforts by Conservative senators to cut provisions they say penalize law-abiding gun owners.
The government bill introduced last year would expand the scope of background checks on those who want to acquire guns.
Instead of just the five years immediately preceding a licence application, personal history questions would cover the applicant’s entire lifetime.
The bill would also force gun retailers to keep records of firearms inventory and sales, and require the purchaser of a non-restricted rifle or shotgun to present a firearms licence, while the seller would have to ensure its validity.
The legislation has been criticized by gun-control advocates as too weak, while some firearms owners have called the bill an attempt to revive the ill-fated long-gun registry.
A Senate committee adopted changes Monday that would remove the requirement for lifetime background checks, drop proposed restrictions on transporting restricted or prohibited firearms, and retain political oversight of firearm classification decisions.
“While this legislation remains weak and needlessly penalizes some lawful firearms owners, Conservative senators believe that these amendments provide some measure of improvement,” said Tory Sen. Don Plett.
“Conservatives believe in focusing gun-control efforts on combating the criminal use of firearms, targeting cross-border firearms smuggling and on measures that will genuinely enhance public safety without gratuitously targeting lawful firearms owners.”
Independent Sen. Andre Pratte said the committee’s changes considerably weakened the bill. “I hope that the full Senate will defeat these amendments,” he tweeted. “Public safety depends on it.”
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale echoed the sentiment Tuesday.
“What has just happened is obviously not helpful but the process is not done yet, and I look forward to a more positive outcome at the end.”
CP PHOTO
Red tape hard at work
Bureaucrats at all levels of government love to complain about how their good intentions are either ignored or misinterpreted and that they are just trying to use their knowledge and experience for what’s good for the communities and people they serve. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the good intentions of civil servants is an immaculate one-way six-lane highway to not only eternal damnation but endless obstacles for those whose good intentions are to grow the economy, create jobs and pay taxes.
Those bureaucratic good intentions were on full display Monday night at Prince George city council, with staff recommending Grasshopper Retail Inc. only receive a three-year temporary use permit to open a private legal marijuana store on George Street. The idea is that if mayor and council are unhappy with the impact of the store on downtown, they can yank Grasshopper’s business licence and shut the store down. Spot the scheme cooked up by career civil servants that have never owned and/ or operated their own business with no idea about financing. A small business
person with a bright idea makes a case to a financial institution for a commercial loan, stating a well-considered operation plan. If Grasshopper isn’t backed by private investors and needs financing, that temporary use permit is a red tape noose. Why would a commercial lender invest in any business that can be shut down by local government after three years for no reason?
Instead of considering the positive impacts of job creation and increased tax revenue, the bureaucrats coughed about fuzzy unpleasantries from opening a legal pot shop on George Street.
That’s not open for business, unless it’s for the right kind of retailers offering the right kind of products to the right kind of customers, as decided by the earnest gatekeepers. Entrepreneurs deserve the confidence and support of local government, not sanctimonious tut-tutting from anxious paper pushers. Grasshopper and other entrepreneurs like them are the ones with the skin in the game. The only skin in the game for bureaucrats is a justification for their salary. If entrepreneurs have completed their paperwork thoroughly and accurately, if they have met all legal and financial requirements, if they have a plan in place to be good neighbours and mitigate any issues
as they arise, then their proposals should be brought to city council for approval, minus the sermonizing based on little to no evidence.
City council shouldn’t tolerate any staffinduced impediments on private investment. The political masters, not the hired hands, decide on behalf of the people what’s best for the community.
Furthermore, city council should also let residents decide whether those entrepreneurs will be successful or not. If customers don’t support a retail business, that store will close. Residents will vote with their feet and their dollars. In other words, city council should have granted business licences to both downtown pot shop applications Monday night and dumped the temporary use permit. Even after approval, those entrepreneurs would still have substantial financial and administrative hurdles to overcome around operating a successful business and selling cannabis under the supervision of a provincial agency. So why can’t local government worry about something else and stay out of the way?
While there were compelling reasons brought forward why the Third Avenue cannabis store application shouldn’t be allowed, city council was wrong to refuse. As
Senate a non-entity for most residents
One of the prevalent obsessions of centre-right political parties in Canada has been figuring out a way to modify the Senate. The Reform Party of Canada, the Canadian Alliance and the merged Conservative Party of Canada spent more than two decades discussing ways in which the country’s upper house could be more representative.
When Stephen Harper took over as prime minister in 2006, there were no monumental changes to the status quo and senators continued to be selected by the prime minister himself. Some believed at the time that, due to the wobbly nature of Harper’s minority government, the time was not right for a revolution. When the Conservatives earned a majority mandate in 2011, the situation stayed the same.
In 2015, Justin Trudeau became prime minister. His main policies related to the upper house were to remove the partisan label from senators who had been appointed as Liberals by his predecessors and to establish an Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments. In any event, the decision on who to name to the upper house remains in Trudeau’s hands.
When Research Co. recently asked British Columbians about the Senate, two answers were particularly distressing. Only 11 per cent of British Columbians knew that the province has six members in the Senate and a slightly higher proportion (13 per cent) was able to name at least
BY THE NUMBERS
MARIO CANSECO
one sitting member of the Red Chamber who currently represents British Columbia.
Let us suppose that British Columbians had their choice on what to do with the upper house. If a referendum were held as a first past the post ballot, the most favoured choice would be democratic reform. More than a third of British Columbians (36 per cent) say they would reform the Senate to allow Canadians to elect their senators.
Abolishing the Senate of Canada altogether is a distant second for residents (17 per cent), but the proportion climbs to 24 per cent among residents aged 55 and over. The “Trudeau way” –having a selection committee that would appoint non-partisan senators – holds an even lower level of support (14 per cent).
The least favoured option, endorsed by eight per cent of British Columbians, is the one we “technically” have now: the prime minister appointing senators. One in four British Columbians (25 per cent) is undecided on what to do with the upper house, including 31 per cent of women and 31 per cent of residents aged 18 to 34.
Later this year, a vacancy in the Senate is expected following the mandatory retirement of British Columbia Conservative Sen. Richard Neufeld, who was appointed by Harper a decade
ago. Neufeld will step down in mid-November, after this year’s federal election.
Alberta – where the battle for an equal, elected and effective Senate reached its peak in the 1980s – is the only Canadian province that has held non-binding popular ballots to select nominees to the Senate. In the last Alberta election to the Senate, held in April 2012, the two top vote getters were Doug Black and Scott Tannas. Harper appointed both to the Red Chamber less than a year later.
British Columbians see what has transpired next door and like it. Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) would like to play a role in picking senators with a system similar to the one that has been used in Alberta.
The Senate remains a mystery for most British Columbians. The level of disengagement from British Columbians when it comes to the Red Chamber is astonishingly high. Negligible proportions of residents know how many seats the province has in the upper house or are able to name at least one appointed senator.
Most British Columbians would relish the opportunity to select senators, even if their ballots are cast in a non-binding process. We are nowhere near the level of discussions about the future of the Red Chamber that we had before the Charlottetown Accord referendum in 1992, but the survey’s results delineate a population that continues to perceive Canada’s Senate as aloof and unapproachable. Having the opportunity to elect its members could change that.
SHAWN
CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING
Coun. Terri McConnachie, the lone council dissenter, rightly pointed out, there are plenty of safeguards in place to prevent the young clients of the nearby Intersect Youth and Family Services from even entering the store, never mind buying anything. As for Intersect executive director Shannon Croy’s argument that the nearby store could harm their young clients already facing significant mental health and/or substance abuse challenges, she needs to reverse the lens. The parents and children needing Intersect’s help arrive there with a tragic amount of challenges and burdens that present a far more clear and present danger to their well-being than the wares of said nearby store. If this city council truly wants to supports its economic development team’s open for business message, staff need to be directed to focus more on assisting entrepreneurs and less on their judgmental good intentions. Unless there is an obvious danger to the health and safety of local residents (based on reality, not just some nail-biting anxiety about the kids), city council should approve these and other entrepreneurial applications enthusiastically, instead of draping them in red tape.
—
Editor-in-chief
Neil Godbout
Story sources should be clear
First, I want to applaud The Citizen’s efforts to cover our local news, sports and human interest stories. I know that the advertising dollars needed to provide that coverage are becoming harder to get as various forms of electronic media siphon revenues from newspapers. I would miss not keeping abreast of local happenings through your paper. It follows that the revenues are just not there for the paper to fill all the holes between the ads with locally written material. But we are Canadians, not Americans, and your decision to use an American news service to fill those holes is offensive. All of your papers have many of these news service stories but last Thursday’s was the corker that got me writing this letter. Pages and pages of it. Canada is an interesting place with much for us to know more about. Your role should be to fill in the details on those short, snappy 10 second burps we get on TV news.
We have Canadian sports, arts and business celebrities to learn about, political issues and the gamut of Canadian news that is being pushed aside for your American coverage. These indepth articles are available from Canadian news services. Is the Washington Post’s news service that much less costly than a Canadian news service that you feel obliged to use them? Or are you buying into the concept that there is no real difference between our two countries so why not move closer to integration?
Neil Godbout has written several insightful editorials on the challenges facing news journalists and journalism. These concerns are real but by buying a U.S. news service rather than Canadian you have become part of the problem. You should be doing your part to support Canadian journalists. If the U.S. is going to insist on making it more difficult for our products to find their way into their market, why can’t you find a way to use Canadian journalists rather than American?
You promote your newspaper as “Your Community Newspaper since 1916.” You do a good job on the local scene but our community is more than Prince George and the northern interior. We are part of the B.C. community and we are part of the Canadian community. We are not part of the U.S. community. You are also camouflaging your source. In the past, newspapers had a byline on news stories indicating their source. “Canadian
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Press Toronto” or “Washington Post Tampa” were clearly shown at the beginning of the article. You have chosen to eliminate that clarity from those articles not written locally and you either have no byline or “Citizen News Service” Both are deceitful and self-serving. Perhaps if newspapers do not voluntarily show their sources our legislators will need to insist that “news” that is from a foreign country, written by a foreign journalist about foreign social, cultural, economic or political issues should be required to be clearly identified as such. We now demand that everything we purchase from bananas to bongos to bathrobes identify its country of origin. Why not journalism, too?
The shirt I am wearing tells me where it is made so why cannot the news I read tell me where it was written?
To be fair our TV and radio (with the notable exception of CBC Radio) are doing the same and should be just as accountable. But I think of newspapers, perhaps erroneously, as setting the standard for journalism. I get far too much American content on TV so am switching that off more and more. Must I now shut off my “Community Newspaper” as well? I shouldn’t be required to read down to the fourth or fifth paragraph in a story before realizing it is some canned article with no real connection to our city, province or country.
John Warner Prince George
Editor’s Note: Thanks for your letter. In answer to a couple of your questions, Canadian Press charges
The Citizen $5,000 per month to use their stories and photos, in comparison to less than $500 per month for the Washington Post news service. Canadian Press is going through its own challenges, reducing its Canadian content and increasingly relying on Associated Press content from the United States. The Washington Post offers excellent, insightful journalism on interesting issues, much of it written for a global audience. They also carry J.J. McCullough’s columns, a Vancouver-based writer who comments on Canadian affairs. My definition of community newspaper has always been what people in the community are interested in, meaning it’s a mix of local, provincial, national AND international news. My apologies if you have found “Citizen news service” to be self-serving and deceitful. We have nothing to hide at The Citizen so we’ll identify all sources of wire news going forward, in both The Citizen and 97/16. - NG
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Storms leave Quebecers in the dark
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL – More than 200,000 customers remained without power in Quebec Tuesday afternoon, and the province’s public security minister said most should prepare for a second night in the dark.
Genevieve Guilbault told reporters Tuesday in Quebec City that winds and snow were creating problems for the 425 HydroQuebec crews dispatched to hard hit regions.
“There are heavy winds, and the weather isn’t amenable for this kind of work, so the vast majority should get power back early Wednesday,” Guilbault said.
Hydro-Quebec said that without an improvement in the weather, blackouts could last even longer for some customers. “The current weather is making restoration efforts difficult,” the utility said in a statement on its website. “As a result, the most severely affected areas might only see their service restored Thursday.”
Hydro-Quebec reported about 213,000 customers were without
A man walks by a fallen tree following freezing rain and strong winds in Laval, Que., Tuesday.
power as of 4 p.m. EDT Tuesday, largely centred in the Laval, Lanaudiere and Laurentians regions. High winds and freezing rain rolled into the area north of Montreal on Monday, leaving ice accumulation on trees and knock-
ing down power lines.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault called on people to exercise caution and get in touch with their towns if they need a place to stay. “There are many families in Quebec who risk spending a second
night without electricity, so I’m asking everyone to be prudent,” Legault said.
Hydro-Quebec said one the most affected regions was Laval, a densely populated suburb just north of Montreal, where a little
Feds helping grocery chain buy fridges
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA – Conservative environment critic Ed Fast slammed the federal government Tuesday for giving $12 million to help grocery chain Loblaws make their refrigerators and freezers more energyefficient.
Fast said Loblaw made $3 billion in profit last year and yet the government is giving the company millions to buy fridges.
“This money came from hard-working Canadians, seniors and low-income families who struggle to make ends meet,” Fast roared in question period. “You tell me, how many Canadians can walk into the Prime Minister’s Office and ask them to pay for a new fridge? How many? Why is it always the wealthy and well-connected who get handouts from the Liberals?”
(According to Loblaw’s annual report for 2018, it had $800 million in net earnings after covering interest payments, taxes and other charges.)
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced the $12-million award at
a Loblaws Superstore in her Ottawa riding Monday.
The money will cover one-quarter of the costs of retrofitting the refrigeration systems in 370 of the company’s supermarkets over the next three years. Loblaw is to invest $36 million in the project.
McKenna defended the funds Tuesday saying the greenhouse-gas emissions reduced through the project will cut Loblaw’s overall emissions by nearly a fourth and be the equivalent of taking 50,000 cars off the road.
“This was an open tender, open to any company or organization across the country to get bang for the buck because, guess what,” McKenna said in response to Fast. “Canadians want to reduce their emissions.”
The Loblaw funds come from the “champions stream” of the government’s Low Carbon Economy Fund. Provincial and territorial governments, municipalities, Indigenous communities and organizations, businesses and non-profits were invited to apply for a share of the $450-million program, to fund up to 25 per cent of an eligible project. The
winners would were to be those with projects that cut the most emissions.
This fund is not paid for out of revenues from the carbon tax, rather the money is coming from other government sources.
There are 54 projects approved, and 16 have been publicly announced. Loblaw’s is the third-biggest to date. Titanium Corp., which developed technology to extract valuable minerals from oilsands waste, received a $40-million grant last month to help with its work remediating oil-sands tailings.
Canadian Natural Resources, an Alberta oil-and-gas producer, got $22.3 million in March to help buy a new steam turbine to power its facilities in the Athabasca oilsands.
Other announcements include $1.3 million to $5.9 million for the cities of Regina, Waterloo and Calgary to expand their landfill gas-capture systems, $1.5 million for the University of Saskatchewan to upgrade its heating, cooling and ventilation system, and $3.5 million for Enwave Energy Corp., in Prince Edward Island, expand its use of
more than a third of customers remained without power one day after the storm.
Officials said Tuesday that police were patrolling the city as phone service was down in some neighbourhoods. Sylvain Gariepy, operations chief for the Laval fire department, said firefighters went door-to-door to check on seniors and those most vulnerable.
Laval Mayor Marc Demers urged families and neighbours to look out for one another. “If you have members of your family – parents, brothers, sisters – who are in a zone that’s lacking electricity, check in on their situation to make sure we’re not forgetting someone in distress,” Demers said. Gariepy warned people of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning from barbecues and generators. Four adults and five children were taken to hospital in three separate cases after using barbecues indoors or having generators too close to their homes. Firefighters reported high levels of carbon monoxide in the homes in each case, but no major injuries were reported.
waste to produce heat.
The Conservatives were having none of McKenna’s explanations Tuesday.
Calgary MP Michelle Rempel posted a video to her YouTube page Monday in which she chats with a Manitoba grocery-store owner who is not happy a major grocery chain is getting $12 million.
Amanda Stevenson, who owns Stevenson’s Foods in Lundar, Man., told Rempel her own store had a dairy cooler break this week and while the new one she will get is more efficient she isn’t getting any money from Ottawa to help pay for it. Stevenson said she doesn’t actually want help but she doesn’t think corporations should get handouts either.
A spokeswoman for McKenna said small businesses could apply to a separate $50-million fund for help to cut their emissions.
She said an announcement is also coming soon on the carbon-tax rebate program for small and medium-sized businesses to help offset carbon-tax costs businesses can’t pass on to consumers by raising their prices.
Ottawa lifting booze barriers
OTTAWA – The federal government has introduced legislation it says will remove a final federal barrier to the easier flow of beer, wine and spirits across provincial and territorial boundaries.
Now, it says, it’s up to the provinces and territories to enact changes of their own that would allow for direct-to-consumer sales of alcohol across Canada.
Internal Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc says the legislation, once passed, will remove the federal requirement that alcohol moving from one province to another go through a provincial liquor authority.
The issue has rankled consumers for decades and was forced into the spotlight a year ago when a New Brunswick man lost a five-year court battle to buy cheap beer in neighbouring Quebec.
The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled last April that provincial and territorial governments have the authority to restrict imports of goods from other jurisdictions and that Canadians do not have a constitutional
right to buy and freely transport alcohol across provincial and territorial borders.
LeBlanc said Tuesday that Canadians have been frustrated by provincial and territorial trade restrictions for too long.
He has proposed changes to the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act that would aid lower levels of government in lifting those restrictions on the sale of Canadian beer, wine and spirits between provinces and territories. The changes are in the bill implementing the federal budget.
“The proposed legislative amendments would remove the only remaining federal barrier to trade in alcohol, and the onus will be on provincial and territorial governments to change their own regulations, paving the way for direct-to-consumer alcohol sales from across Canada,” LeBlanc said in a statement.
“Removing barriers to trade between provinces and territories fosters economic growth, reduces the regulatory burden on our small and medium-sized businesses, and creates good, middle-class jobs across the country.”
Andrea Stairs, who manages eBay in Canada and Latin America, welcomed the federal
move but said “the hard work now turns to provincial governments.”
“Interprovincial trade of alcohol is an opportunity to unlock economic prosperity by enabling Canada’s (small and medium-sized businesses) to trade more freely,” she said in a statement.
Shortly after last year’s Supreme Court ruling, the New Brunswick government indicated changes could be coming to the province’s liquor laws. But the province’s treasury-board president Roger Melanson, who is also the minister responsible for trade policy, also noted that regulation of the alcohol trade in New Brunswick brings tens of millions of dollars into provincial coffers annually – money that is redistributed to services including health care, education and infrastructure.
The country’s premiers last summer announced an agreement in principle to lift limits on how much alcohol residents can buy for personal consumption and transport across boundaries.
Alberta and Manitoba have eliminated cross-border alcohol sales limits entirely.
Scotiabank ‘downturn ready:’ CEO
The Canadian Press
TORONTO – The Bank of Nova Scotia’s chief executive officer Brian Porter pushed back at renewed bets against Canada’s banking sector and the risk posed by the housing market, saying that the lender has “a lot of buffer” in the event of a significant downturn.
During its annual meeting of shareholders in Toronto on Tuesday, Porter said the bank stress tests its $205 billion-mortgage portfolio on a regular basis against some “very harsh metrics” such as a 600-basis point increase in interest rates and a huge jump in unemployment.
“We believe there’s a lot of buffer in there for any significant downturn... There are always going to be those who take an opposing view, and we’ll prove them wrong in the long term.”
His comments come after a Veritas analyst recently urged investors to reduce exposure to the Canadian banks ahead of an “acceleration of credit losses.” As well, the U.S. portfolio manager featured in the film The Big Short, Steve Eisman, recently reiterated his bet against the country’s biggest lenders, pointing to the real estate sector and noting that Canada hasn’t had a credit cycle in roughly three decades.
Last week, as other Canadian banks also held shareholder meet-
Brian Porter, president and CEO of Scotiabank, addresses the company’s annual meeting in Calgary in April 2016.
ings, their chief executives made comments similar to Porter’s, noting that while economic growth is expected to be muted, credit quality remains good.
Bank of Montreal CEO Darryl White said the risk of a recession in the year ahead was “relatively low.” Toronto Dominion Bank CEO Bharat Masrani and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CEO Victor Dodig both said that
Canada and the lenders themselves were well-positioned to navigate any bumpy road ahead.
Porter on Tuesday during the meeting said its mortgage portfolio, which is the largest asset class on Scotiabank’s balance sheet, is 42 per cent insured and the loanto-value ratio on the remainder is approximately 54 per cent, providing a large “buffer.”
He later told reporters that
while it is not predicting a recession, the Toronto-based bank is “downturn ready” in a number of ways and the lender is “comfortable” with its capital and liquidity levels, as well as the quality of its assets.
“U.S. hedge funds from time to time have appeared in this country over the last ten years, with the same hypothesis of shorting Canadian banks,” he said.
Energy bill receives harsh welcome
The Canadian Press
CALGARY – A proposed federal bill that aims to change the way Ottawa assesses major energy projects was given a rough ride in Calgary on Tuesday.
Representatives of Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies took turns demanding major changes to Bill C-69 before a Senate committee on a cross-Canada series of hearings that started in Vancouver on Monday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people rallied outside the downtown hotel where the hearing was taking place, chanting “Kill that Bill” and waving signs – a scene that is becoming typical whenever federal politicians come to Calgary.
“Bill C-69 as currently written is unworkable,” Steve Laut, executive vice-chairman of oilsands producer Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., told the senators. “However, with common sense amendments, we can make this bill workable and create a large number of well-paying jobs for Canadians, unleash Canadian ingenuity, support investment in a low-carbon energy mix and make Canada a world leader on climate change.”
The testimony senators have been gathering will likely result in amendment recommenda-
tions by May 9 when the energy committee is scheduled to give its report to the Senate, said chairwoman Rosa Galvez in an interview.
She added she thinks it’s possible for the bill to be sent back to the House of Commons by June, giving enough time to be passed into law before it shuts down ahead of the expected October federal election.
Bill C-69 would repeal the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and retire the National Energy Board, leaving the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and the Canadian Energy Regulator as authorities responsible for assessments of the environmental, health, social and economic impacts of designated projects.
Spokespeople for large oilsands producers Canadian Natural, Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Cenovus Energy told the hearing they support the intent of the bill to improve the regulatory process but only if sweeping amendments proposed by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers are adopted. They also expressed concern about what projects will be on the designated list, noting that crucial information has not yet been released by the federal government.
CAPP’s changes would prevent public policy debates from being part of project assessments, would restrict application interveners to those directly affected by the project or with expertise, would require firm timelines and would limit government ministers’ discretionary powers.
“I think it’s crucial (the amendments) get adopted. Canada can’t sustain the damage that the bill in its current form would cast on our economy,” said CAPP CEO Tim McMillan, speaking on the rally sidelines outside the hotel. “I think the fact so many people would show up on a Tuesday morning speaks to the importance.”
Also testifying Tuesday morning was Chief Roy Fox of the Blood Tribe of southern Alberta, who said oil and gas development has taken place on his reserve since the 1950s with no environmental problems.
“I understand that the regulatory approval process as it stands in Canada is flawed, but Bill C-69, as it is written, just makes that process worse,” he testified. “It is poorly worded and vague and, as a result, the oil and gas industry is already moving their investment out of the country. But we, the Indigenous peoples, cannot move our territories.”
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” — Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 70.84 points to 16,336.45, a day after rising to within one percentage point of an all-time high. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 190.44 points at 26,150.58. The S&P 500 index was down 17.57 points at 2,878.20, while the Nasdaq composite was down 44.61 points at 7,909.28.
North American markets were pressured by news that the IMF has lowered its world growth assumption to 3.3 per cent in 2019, down from an earlier forecast of 3.5 per cent growth.
IMF economists downgraded their outlook for U.S. growth to 2.3 per cent from 2.9 per cent in 2018 and lowered Canada’s outlook to 1.5 per cent from its prior guidance of 1.9 per cent.
A further escalation of trade tensions and a no-deal Brexit withdrawal of Britain from the European Union could further weaken growth, the IMF warned.
“The potential remains for sharp deterioration in market sentiment, which would imply portfolio reallocations away from risk assets, wider spreads over safe haven securities, and generally tighter financial conditions, especially for vulnerable economies,” said the report.
Trade uncertainty grew after U.S. President Donald Trump warned he will impose tariffs on US$11.2 billion worth of EU goods.
“The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!” he tweeted. The comments flow from The World Trade Organization ruling last year the European Union provided illegal subsidies to plane manufacturer Airbus.
The gloomier outlook helped metals. The June gold contract was up US$6.40 at US$1,308.30 an ounce and the May copper contract was up 0.2 of a cent at US$2.93 a pound.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.10 cents US compared with an average of 75.05 cents US on Monday.
The May crude contract was down 42 cents at US$63.98 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was down 0.9 of a cent at US$2.70 per mmBTU. Oil was off a little but it’s up more than 40 per cent since trading last year at US$45, said Dominique Barker, portfolio manager at CIBC Asset Management.
“What is astounding to everyone in the market is the price of oil continues to grind higher but oil stocks are up modestly,” she said.
The Canadian Press
The Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips: https://bit.ly/2RsjvA0
Judo globetrotters gearing up for nationals
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Over the past year, Tami Goto has put her judo skills to the test in Argentina, Portugal and Germany and she’s been invited to compete for Canada at the under-18/cadet world championships in Kazakhstan.
Her passport bears the stamps of the places the 17-year-old Prince George Judo Club member has visited in her judo travels and she’s also been busy winning medals within her own borders - gold at the Quebec Open, silver at the Ontario Open and silver at the Canada Cup.
But until she met Yuki Yokosawa, nowhere in her judo travels had Goto ever grappled with an Olympic medalist. Yokosawa fought for Japan at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and came home with silver in the -52 kilogram weight class. Now 38, having retired from competitive judo in 2008, she immigrated to Canada eight years ago and now coaches the Steveston Judo Club.
She was invited as a guest coach to this past weekend’s Prince George Judo Open to put on a few clinics for the kids in Judo BC’s petit samurai group and she demonstrated her skills on Goto.
“When we go to Vancouver she’s there and she helps all the time,” said Goto, the alternate for Team B.C. at the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer. “It feels good when you throw her, almost, it’s like, ‘I almost threw an Olympian.’
Goto did not place in the medals in either of her European competitions, losing two German opponents in each of the singleknockout tournaments, but gained valuable experience in the training camps which followed.
“It was nervewracking, there was about 32 in my category and here you only get like six or seven and I didn’t do so well,” said Goto.
“I got my revenge in the training camps when I got to fight all of them.”
In the one-day Prince George Open Saturday in the gym at Duchess Park secondary school Goto had three -48kg matches against Brooke Corbett of the Hart Judo Academy.
Friends off the mat, their matches were tame by comparison to what each is capable when the stakes are high like they will be when the two provincial development team members compete next month at the Canadian championships in Edmonton. Goto took the first match, Corbett won the
second and claimed the rubber match when Goto tapped out of her opponent’s armbar.
“Tami always wins,” said Corbett.
“I like fighting her, it’s fun,” added Goto.
“We got some nice throws on each other.”
Goto, a Grade 11 student at College Heights secondary school, has been practicing judo since she was six, following the lead of her father, a native of Japan who competed in the sport in his home country.
Corbett, 17, who will graduate this spring from Kelly Road secondary school, is in her sixth year of judo. She won bronze at the Canada Cup in Montreal last summer and just returned from an under-21 tournament
in Japan, the birthplace of judo.
“That was so cool,” said Corbett.
“It was a big training camp and they have dojos in their high schools and they’re so good.”
Both enjoy the travel and the competitive aspect of judo and what it does for their physical fitness and self-defence confidence.
They persistence training on the mats translates into disciplined work habits in school. Despite missing more than 30 school days traveling to tournaments they are both on the principal’s list – for the right reasons.
“Judo pushes me to work my hardest and
Jays ruin home opener for Red Sox
Kyle HIGHTOWER
The Associated Press
BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox blanketed Fenway Park with pieces of the city’s championship past to welcome the newest members of their World Series title club.
It wasn’t enough to ward off another setback for a team yet to resemble the one that hoisted the trophy last year.
Chris Sale let a Toronto runner steal home, Mookie Betts fanned with two on for the final out and the Red Sox stumbled again, losing to the Blue Jays 7-5 Tuesday in their home opener. After getting their World Series rings that had 185 diamonds, rubies and sapphires during a ceremony that included the Super Bowl champ New England Patriots, the Red Sox fell to 3-9. A return to Fenway failed to shake the doldrums that plagued Boston during a seasonopening, 11-game trip to Seattle, Oakland and Arizona. The Red Sox dropped to last place in the AL East.
Red Sox sparkplug Dustin Pedroia went 1 for 4 in his first major league game since May. He played only three times last year while slowed by a knee injury. The game also made history: it was the first big league matchup of managers born in Puerto Rico, with Toronto’s Charlie Montoyo topping Boston’s Alex Cora. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. stole home and had an RBI single as Toronto ended a fourgame losing streak. Freddy Galvis drove in two runs to back Matt Shoemaker (3-0), who allowed two earned runs in 5 2/3 innings. Sale (0-3) never seemed comfortable and surrendered five runs and seven hits before being pulled after four innings. His velocity has been down this season – his fastball averaged 91.8 mph in this outing – and he has a 9.00 ERA after three starts. “I’m struggling and I don’t know if I’ve really pitched like this in my life,” Sale said. “It’s a tough spot to be in. But I’ve
got guys up here fighting and I’ve got to keep fighting. There’s no giving up. If something’s not working you gotta go to something else. When that’s not working you got to go something else.”
Sale’s day hit a low point in the fourth, after Danny Jansen scored on a passed ball. Gurriel kept extending his lead off third as Sale went into a full windup, then broke for the plate. Gurriel easily scored when Sale’s pitch was wide and went to the backstop, making it 5-2. Mitch Moreland and Betts each had home runs for the Red Sox , who got within 6-5 on a two-out RBI double by Xander Bogaerts in the eighth.
The Red Sox put their first two batters on base in the ninth against Ken Giles. But pinch-hitter Blake Swihart and Andrew Benintendi flied out and, with most of the crowd standing on a chilly afternoon and chanting for Betts, the AL MVP struck out.
“Now we got our rings and now we got to get back to playing good baseball,” Cora said.
be my best and be more open to new people and trying new things,” said Corbett. “It’s a good way to let out some energy and anger, if you’ve had a bad day.”
“You make so many friends in judo,” Goto added.
Goto was envious of Corbett’s trip to Japan and hopes to one day compete in the country where her parents grew up and where her extended family resides.
The Prince George Open drew 167 entrants from seven northern B.C. clubs, including the three local clubs – Prince George Judo Club, Hart Judo Academy and Northern Capital Judo Club.
Flames face stacked field in NHL Western Conference
Larry LAGE The Canadian Press
The Calgary Flames are the new players in the Western Conference playoffs, a field stacked with Stanley Cup-contending teams such as the San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators, Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights. It doesn’t appear to be safe to count any of the eight teams out.
Predators general manager David Poile knows the NHL as well as anyone on the planet, with three-plus decades of experience leading teams. And he would not wager a dollar on this postseason.
“I can’t see betting on anybody in these playoffs,” Poile said. “I think it’s going to be that close and there could be all sorts of upsets.”
The Pacific Division champion Flames certainly hope that’s not the case.
Calgary earned top seeding in the West with 107 points after not making the playoffs last year and earning a bid just twice in a nine-year stretch.
The Flames’ total trailed just the 117 they had when they won the Stanley Cup in 1989. It will be tough for the current team to duplicate that deep run.
Calgary is expected to get past Colorado, the second wild-card team in the West, but the winner of the San Jose-Vegas series may be favoured to beat the Flames in the conference semifinals. San Jose and Vegas have the most intriguing series in the conference’s opening round and perhaps in the entire league. The talented teams met in the second round last year with the expansion Golden Knights moving on before losing to Washington in the Stanley Cup Final. On the other half of the bracket, the Central Division champion Nashville Predators face the wild-card Dallas Stars with the winner advancing to face Winnipeg or St. Louis.
Here’s a closer look at each of the first-round series in the Western Conference: Flames vs. Avalanche
(Game 1 at Calgary on Thursday)
Calgary has one of the NHL’s top scorers, diminutive dynamo Johnny Gaudreau, and one of the best defencemen, Norris Trophy candidate Mark Giordano. Bill Peters, in his first year as an NHL coach, made all the right moves behind the bench to help the Flames win a division title for the first time since 2006. The coach of the year candidate will have some tough decisions to make in net because he doesn’t have a clear-cut No. 1 goaltender. — see JETS HAVE, page 10
CITIZEN
Tami Goto of the Prince George Judo Club, left, and Brooke Corbutt of the Hart Judo Academy, right, flank Yuki Yokosawa, a silver medalist in judo at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, during a break in the action at the Prince George Open judo tournament Saturday at Duchess Park Secondary School.
Toronto Blue Jay Teoscar Hernandez slides past Boston Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez on a single by Randal Grichuk during Boston’s home opener on Tuesday.
Devils win NHL draft lottery
Joshua CLIPPERTON The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Devils general manager
Ray Shero has made it clear his team needs to accumulate more talent.
The luck of the draw helped New Jersey take a huge step in that direction Tuesday.
The Devils will pick first at June’s NHL draft after the lottery balls fell in their favour – bumping the franchise up to the top spot from No. 3.
Shero wouldn’t tip his hand after the order was revealed, but presumptive No. 1 pick Jack Hughes was already on everyone’s mind.
“I’ve seen Jack play a long time,” Shero said of the 17-year-old U.S. National Development Team centre. “We recognize Jack’s a great young player.
“It’s just an exciting night.”
The New York Rangers will choose second at the draft – the team’s first top-2 selection since 1966 when they grabbed future Hall of Fame defenceman Brad Park – after moving up from sixth.
The night’s other big winner was the Chicago Blackhawks, who went from No. 12 to No. 3 despite having just a 2.5 per cent chance of securing the top selection.
Speaking with reporters before the lottery order was announced, the five-foot-10, 168-pound Hughes outlined his skill set.
“My biggest things are my inner drive, my competitiveness,” he said. “I want to score every shift and make a play happen.
“I like to say I play like Patrick Kane a little bit, but I feel I’m more of a Mat Barzal in how I carve through the neutral zone, lug the puck, and find my teammates.”
Tuesday marked the second time in three years the Devils, who had an 11.5 per cent chance of getting the top pick, have won the lottery after moving from fifth to first in 2017 before selection centre Nico Hischier.
New Jersey also has three second-round picks and two thirds at the upcoming draft in Vancouver as the club looks to rebound from a disappointing campaign.
“Getting Nico was a big step,” Shero said.
“And doing this again, you have to be lucky, you have to have not a great year, obviously.
“We want to fix that.”
The night’s big losers were the Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings.
The Avalanche, who open the playoffs Wednesday against the Calgary Flames, had the best odds of landing the first pick at 18.5 per cent after acquiring the selection from the Ottawa Senators in the trade for Matt Duchene in November 2017, but instead fell down to the No. 4 slot.
Colorado also dropped from first to fourth three years ago before selecting defenceman Cale Maker.
Ottawa, which finished 31st in the overall standings this season, could have sent the team’s first pick at last June’s draft to the Avalanche, but kept the selection and took winger Brady Tkachuk at No. 4.
Los Angeles, meanwhile, had the secondbest odds of winning the 2019 lottery at 13.5 per cent, but will pick fifth.
The Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers were the only Canadian teams involved in the lottery. Edmonton, which came in with the seventhbest odds, will pick eighth, while Vancouver slipped from ninth to 10th.
Montreal remained unchanged and will select 15th.
The 15 teams that failed to qualify for the 2019 playoffs – or the franchises that acquired the first-round picks of non-playoff clubs – participated in the lottery.
Hughes holds the USNDT record with 197 points (63 goals and 134 assists) over
his two seasons after putting up an 86 in 41 games in 2018-19.
Asked if he’s always wanted to an NHL star, he responded with a smile: “I didn’t really dream of being a grinder.”
Hughes, who was born in Orlando, Fla., but grew up in Mississauga, Ont., skates with Devils winger Taylor Hall in the summer.
Hall has had some incredible luck with the lottery balls in his career. Of the nine drafts since he entered the league as the No. 1 pick by the Edmonton Oilers in 2010, his team has picked first five times.
“Very excited to welcome our future #1 overall pick to Jersey!” Hall tweeted.
“Great start to the summer for the Devils.”
Jets have one of the best rosters in the league
— from page 9
David Rittich, a 26-year-old in his first full season, started 42 games, and 37-year-old Mike Smith began the other 40 games on the ice.
The Avalanche are led offensively by Nathan MacKinnon, who had 99 points this season as did Gaudreau, and Mikko Rantanen, who had a career-high 87 points. Tyson Barrie ranked among the highestscoring NHL defencemen this season with 59 points.
Semyon Varlamov, a 30-year-old goalie, has not helped a team advance in the playoffs since he did it a decade ago with Washington.
Sharks vs. Golden Knights
(Game 1 at San Jose on Wednesday) Buckle up.
The Sharks went all in last summer in the hopes of winning their first Stanley Cup, trading for Erik Karlsson even though he is
playing on the last year of his contract.
The two-time Norris Trophy-winning defenceman has played only one game (April 6) since February, but vows to be ready for the playoffs. San Jose’s Brent Burns had a career-high 83 points, leading all defencemen to put him in line to possibly win his second Norris Trophy. Joe Pavelski had a team-high 38 goals, making him one of four players on the potent team to score 30 or more.
Like San Jose, the Golden Knights made major moves to try to win it all after coming just short last year against the Capitals. They acquired Mark Stone at the trade deadline from Ottawa after adding Paul Stastny and Max Pacioretty in the offseason to add even more offence to their explosive team.
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury lost his last two games, giving up four goals each time, and struggled at times this season, but the three-time Stanley Cup champion clearly knows how to win this time of year.
GAME Carolina at Washington, 7:30 p.m. SATURDAY, APR. 13 Carolina at Washington, 3 p.m.
APR. 15 Washington at Carolina, 7 p.m.
THURSDAY, APR. 18 Washington at Carolina, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, APR. 20 x-Carolina at Washington, TBA MONDAY, APR. 22 x-Washington at Carolina, TBA
WEDNESDAY, APR. 24 x-Carolina at Washington, TBA N.Y. Islanders (2) vs. Pittsburgh (3)
WEDNESDAY’S GAME Pittsburgh at N.Y. Islanders (Uniondale), 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY’S GAME Pittsburgh at N.Y. Islanders (Uniondale), 7:30 p.m.
SUNDAY, APR. 14 N.Y. Islanders at Pittsburgh, 12 p.m.
TUESDAY, APR. 16 N.Y. Islanders at Pittsburgh, 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY, APR. 18 x-Pittsburgh at N.Y. Islanders (Uniondale), TBA SATURDAY, APR. 20 x-N.Y. Islanders at Pittsburgh, TBA MONDAY, APR. 22 x-Pittsburgh at N.Y. Islanders (Uniondale), TBA WESTERN CONFERENCE
CENTRAL DIVISION Nashville (1) vs. Dallas (WC1) WEDNESDAY’S GAME Dallas at Nashville, 9:30 p.m. SATURDAY, APR. 13 Dallas at Nashville, 6 p.m. MONDAY, APR. 15
Predators vs. Stars
(Game 1 at Nashville on Wednesday)
Reigning Vezina Trophy winner Pekka Rinne gives Nashville a great chance to win any game, or series. The Predators also have plenty of help up front, with players such as centre Ryan Johansen scoring a team-high 64 points, and a deep blue line that includes Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis and P.K. Subban.
The Stars are back in the playoffs with coach Jim Montgomery after missing out the previous two years with Ken Hitchcock and Lindy Ruff behind the bench. They have a trio of top-flight scorers – Tyler Seguin, Alexander Radulov and Jamie Benn – and Vezina Trophy candidate Ben Bishop in net.
Jets vs. Blues
(Game 1 at Winnipeg on Wednesday)
Winnipeg moved on in the post-season last year for the first time since moving from
Atlanta in 2011 before being eliminated by Vegas in the conference finals. The Jets have drafted and developed so well they have one of the best rosters in the league, led by power forwards Blake Wheeler, who had 91 points for the second straight year, and Mark Scheifele, who had a career-high 84 points this season. Goalie Connor Hellebuyck was not as sharp this season as he was last year and that might be a concern against a hot team.
The Blues, who won eight of their last 10 games, are the first team in two-plus decades to rally for a spot in the playoffs after being last in the league after at least 20 games were played. The franchise fired coach Mike Yeo early in the season with a 7-9-3 record and gave Craig Berube another chance to lead a team after he won 75 games in two years with the Philadelphia Flyers, and he made the most of it. Berube’s players seemed to respond, with 28-yearold centre Ryan O’Reilly having a careerhigh 76 points.
Teammates congratulate New Jersey Devils goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood after a game against the Florida Panthers on Saturday in Sunrise, Fla. The New Jersey Devils will have the No. 1 pick at this year’s NHL draft.
Meet the teenager taking over
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – You might have heard the story by now: That Marsai Martin pitched Little, a modern spin on Big, to Universal Pictures at age 10.
It’s true, she did, but that precocious move was preceded by another, more impressive act of rebellion and a pivotal moment in putting her on the path to becoming the youngest executive producer ever.
She fired her agents after the first year of black-ish.
The ABC show, in which she plays the Johnson’s whip-smart daughter, Diane, was on its first hiatus and Martin and her family wanted to know what opportunities there were.
“They were like, ‘You should just stick to black-ish, just chill, take a break,”’ Martin said.
Besides, the agents explained, there weren’t any roles for a young black girl out there.
But the Martins persisted and suggested creating something themselves.
“They kind of just laughed at us. They didn’t see the vision. But I think they didn’t see it because they saw what I looked like: a little black girl that no one would want to see,” Martin said. “So, we fired them.”
Four years later, it’s almost ancient history for the now 14-year-old sitting in the conference room of Genuis Productions, the company she founded, as she prepares for Little to hit theatres Friday.
The office space is a projection of Martin herself, with accent walls in her favourite colour blue, her and her baby sister’s preferred snacks in the break area (Goldfish crackers, rice crispy treats, etc) and a PS4 in the lobby (as well as her NAACP Image Awards).
Her own office is well on its way to having the Alice in Wonderlandfeel she wants with “grand plants” and colourful throw pillows.
There’s also a very teen-appropriate Polaroid wall, and a perfect view of the Universal sign out the window.
“It’s a creative spot for me and a place where I can express how I feel and just get my mind in a cool place where I can just come up with anything I want,” Martin said. “I’m very grateful and doing it with my family is even better.”
After the break with the agents, black-ish creator Kenya Barris helped nudge Martin in the right direction, securing a meeting with his friend, producer Will Packer, who’s been behind such highprofile hits as Girls Trip and Night School, to hear her idea.
“I didn’t expect much, because, you know, I hear a lot of pitches and most of them aren’t great. I said ‘Listen, I’m sure she’s sweet. I’ll do it as a courtesy,”’ Packer said. “And she comes in and she’s got this fully thought out, really coherent, cohesive narrative, with characters and themes. I was like, ‘She’s how old again?”’
Her story would be about bullying and female empowerment.
“We wanted it to be as authentic as possible... even though it’s a fantasy, body-swap film,” Martin laughed.
She stars as the young Jordan Sanders, a science-obsessed teen who is bullied so much in high school that she grows up to be an insufferable bully herself, as the head of a major tech company.
The adult version of Jordan is played by Regina Hall, who Martin had worked with on black-ish.
Rounding out the cast is Insecure’s Issa Rae (“a creator like me”), as Jordan’s undervalued assistant.
Martin loved the whole development process and is glad that it took a few years for filming to start, allowing her to mature a little bit into who she is today.
And then, this past February, something even bigger came along: Martin got a first-look deal with Universal, too.
“It was so exciting, but to be honest, I didn’t even know what it meant at the beginning,” Martin said. “I was like, ‘Oh cool! What is that? Like, OK, this seems very professional. Am I in it now? Like is this some Jordan Peele-type stuff?”’
When she realized that it meant the studio gets first dibs on anything she creates, she was thrilled.
“I was like, ‘Oh, OK! So I can create whatever I want?’ I thought that was so cool because this mind has a lot of things,” she said. “I can keep creating things that people don’t get to see often.”
She knows it’s unusual to be wielding this much creative
power in Hollywood at this young age, but she also enjoys catching people off guard.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, snap, THIS girl, created this film?’ And it’s kind of shocking,” she laughed.
Her life is pretty crazy right now promoting Little and developing new films and television projects.
She’s home-schooled with a tutor, which she prefers, and she doesn’t have any regrets about missing out on the high school experience.
“I used to be the shy kid who would barely raise her hand or speak her mind,” she said.
Even now she suffers her own share of self-consciousness.
“That’s something that I have to work on: self-confidence and loving myself,” she said. “Your girl gets a lot of anxiety. It’s OK. It’s a learning process. I feel like a lot of kids my age get it, whether they’re in the industry or not.”
When she does have a moment to unwind, she plays “gruesome” video games like Mortal Combat, gets facials, massages, cooks and sometimes watches YouTube.
But even then her wheels are spinning about possible collaborations with her favourite YouTubers.
Down the line, she wants to direct and write and, basically, do all the things. Packer, for one, is convinced she will.
“She’s got a long, strong career ahead of her. And if she chooses to continue in movies and television, you better watch out because she’s going to make a serious mark,” Packer said. “But she’ll make a mark wherever she ends up.”
New law targets ticket scalpers
The Canadian Press VICTORIA – B.C.’s government has introduced legislation that seeks to offer more protections for people who buy live-event tickets online or at the box office.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth says the Ticket Sales Act will prevent mass-buying software that is able to purchase large amounts of tickets for live events, then resell them at inflated prices.
Farnworth says the proposed changes will also regulate how tickets to live cultural, recreational and sporting events are
bought and sold in B.C. He says the law would require clear disclosure of ticket prices, refund guarantees by secondary sellers and declarations by those sellers that they are not the original ticket provider.
The New Democrat government said in its throne speech in February that people in B.C. are frustrated companies can buy large numbers of tickets and sell them at inflated prices.
The government launched a public consultation last year about the current ticket buying and selling process, which received 6,500 responses.
Come From Away hauling in awards
LOS ANGELES (CP) – The accolades keep rolling in for the Newfoundland theatre smash Come From Away, this time with the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle naming it best production and best musical score. The critics handed the 9/11 musical four awards in total, including best ensemble performance and best musical direction. The feel-good tale is set in the tiny town of Gander, N.L., where residents opened their homes to stranded airline passengers following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
AP PHOTO Marsai Martin poses in her office, Genius Productions, in Los Angeles on March 29.
Di Benedetto Elvira
September 22, 1926 April 5th, 2019
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Elvira Di Benedetto. She passed peacefully with her husband Luigi, and children Carmela (Pasquale), Paul, Frank, and niece Silvana by her side.
Predeceased in May of 2012 by her son Peter Di Benedetto of Limerick Ireland. Elvira will be greatly missed by her husband, children, and her beloved grandchildren, Ida (Peter), Carla (Damian) (Ireland), Oran (Amy) and Meta of Limerick, Ireland (daughter-inlaw). Great grandchildren, Cameron, Dylan, Flynn & Rian, Louis & Layla of Limerick Ireland, and Mikaela and Nicolas of Maple Ridge, BC.
Elvira was one of the early pioneers of immigrant families to settle in Prince George in 1952, originally living in the Cottonwood Island Community, like many new Canadians of that generation. In 1964 the family moved to the Spruceland subdivision and is where she lived until her passing.
Elviraπs passion was her family and friends. She was a bundle of energy, and always had time to somehow manage everything that was going on. From tending to her beloved garden and green house, baking, canning and looking after the house. Family dinners were always a great delight at Christmas, Easter, family gatherings and just simple old fashioned Italian cooking at any time. As Matriarch of the family, she will be greatly missed by everyone.
Special Thanks to Dr. Khan and the nursing team at UNBC PG Regional Hospital for their care. Prayers will be said on Friday April 12th, 2019 at 7:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. Funeral Mass will be held at St Mary’s Catholic Church, on Saturday April 13th, 2019, at 11:00am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
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