Prince George Citizen April 11, 2019

Search for shooting suspects comes up empty-handed

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

RCMP left with empty hands Wednesday after converging on the 2100 block of Tamarack Street in their a search for two suspects in last week’s targeted shooting.

Both Eric Vern West, 38, and Kenneth Ricardo Munroe, 33, remain at large, police said in a statement issued late Wednesday afternoon.

Backed by an emergency response team, RCMP showed up at a multi-tenant building at about 10 a.m. Over the next four hours,

residents left the building one-by-one and were checked by police. At about 2:15 p.m., RCMP entered the building and carried out a search for the two over the next 1 1/2 hours but without success. In the statement, RCMP thanked those in the neighbourhood for their patience. West and Munroe are wanted in connection with a confrontation that broke out Friday afternoon in an alley adjacent to the 2200 block of Quince Street. An unidentified man was taken to hospital suffering from a not-life-threatening gunshot wound.

West is decribed as First Nations, 38 years old, five-foot-11, 180 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

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.

Two others – Kyle Devro Teegee, 31, and Joseph Karl Larsen, 26 – have been arrested and remain in custody.

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.

Peace region pressures province to halt caribou plans

Alaska Highway News

Political and business leaders from the Peace region were in Victoria on Wednesday calling on the province to stop its caribou recovery plans for the South Peace.

“One of the challenges were faced with right now is that our government, the NDP government, is coming in and imposing on rural British Columbia, a chance that’s going to shut down the entire backcountry, that’s going to devastate communities,” Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier said during a news conference with provincial media.

“We have a chance here where towns like Chetwynd, Tumbler Ridge, Dawson Creek, where people are going to be losing their jobs.” Bernier was joined by his northern counterpart MLA Dan Davies, along with business leaders including Kathleen Connolly and Tim Schram of Corlane Sporting Goods in Dawson Creek.

The group is pressuring the government to scrap two agreements being developed with area First Nations and the federal government to help recover caribou herds around Chetwynd and

Tumbler Ridge.

Included in those agreements are planned restrictions to industrial development in high elevations considered crucial to the survival of the caribou, and looming restrictions to backcountry access.

The agreements were drafted without first studying how the restrictions will impact local economies, and without the involvement of local governments.

It’s put leaders and residents on high alert, with rumours the agreements could lead to up to 500 job losses, mill closures, and shutter recreational activities across wide swaths of the backcountry. More than 30,000 people have signed a petition to stop the ongoing negotiations.

“The petition asks for some very specific things from government,” said Connolly, executive director of the Dawson Creek Chamber of Commerce and team lead for the Concerned Citizens for Caribou Recovery.

“The first thing we asked is that they stop all negotiations on the partnership agreement and Section 11, they didn’t do that. We asked them to do consultations with stakeholders – industry, local

government, anybody who is going to be impacted by backcountry closures potentially – they didn’t do that. We asked them to do a socio-economic impact assessment, they didn’t do that. We asked them to give us science and data to support the closures… and what they were looking at doing in our community, they didn’t do that either.”

Southern mountain caribou in the region have been listed as a threatened wildlife species under the federal Species At Risk Act since 2003. Last year, the federal government declared the species to be under imminent threat of recovery, starting a year-long timeline to put a recovery strategy in place.

B.C. has drafted a partnership agreement with the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations that proposes a series of moratoriums on resource development, and continuing support for a maternal penning program as well as an ongoing wolf cull. It’s also drafted an agreement under Section 11 of the federal Species At Risk Act with Ottawa that outlines “broad recovery actions” and gives the province access to federal funding to support those efforts.

— see CARIBOU, page 3

West has also been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon dangerous and Teegee has also been charged with obstructing a peace officer.

Anyone with information on where West and Munroe 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.

B.C. safety act faces human rights challenge

Jeremy HAINSWORTH Glacier Media

B.C.’s solicitor general is confident his Community Safety Act amendments are legally sound despite civil libertarians’ assertions proposed changes violate basic Canadian constitutional legal rights.

Both the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association say Minister of Solicitor General and Public Safety Mike Farnworth’s additions to the 2013 law violate rights such as the presumption of innocence when charged with a crime and due process in the court system.

The groups said the changes violate the Constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms section on right to life, liberty and security of the person.

“They can think whatever they like,” Farnworth said as he defended the changes, saying similar acts have been passed in other provinces and that local governments support the proposals.

Farnworth said B.C.’s amended law is similar to those in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Yukon.

However, only the Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick laws go as far as apparently presuming people to be guilty based on past convictions.

— see ‘WE HAVE, page 3

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

The RCMP emergency response team (ERT) clear a house on Tamarack Street on Wednesday.

Bike thefts narrowly foiled

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

Two brazen attempts to steal bikes from public places were stymied on Tuesday.

The first occurred in the morning when Prince George RCMP were called at 8:15 a.m. to a convenience store near the corner of 15th Avenue and Central Street.

The owners located the bike near the corner of Winnipeg Street and 20th Avenue a short time later but the suspected thief, a male youth, fled the scene and was not found.

The bike had been left unlocked for a few minutes when it was stolen.

“This shows how quickly a bike thief can disappear from the scene of the crime, even when the crime is reported right away,” said Cpl. Craig Douglass.

“Within a few short minutes the thief, and the bike, can be halfway across town. The message here is that owners need to take steps to prevent their bikes from being stolen, even at a public place during daylight hours.”

At about 1 p.m., a witness called the RCMP to report that a man cut the cable lock off a bike and rode it away from a spot in the 300 block of Victoria Street.

Aided by an accurate description, police said they found the suspect on the bike heading towards Second Avenue and Dominion Street. When RCMP in an unmarked vehicle activated the emergency lights, he attempted to flee but was cornered in a nearby parking lot.

The bike was returned to the owner and a 54-year-old man was taken into custody and later released on a promise to appear in court at a later date. Police

said he used an old pair of pliers to cut the cable in just a few seconds.

“The Prince George RCMP already have had 28 bicycles reported stolen so far in 2019,” Douglass said. “Some were locked, some were not. Some were in sheds, some were taken from living rooms during a break and enter.

“No matter where you store your bike, it should always be locked with a high quality bike lock.”

As well, RCMP said the serial number is not provided in about two-thirds of bike theft reports.

Owners are encouraged to register their bikes on the 529 Garage app. It is free to use and keeps track of all of bike’s essential information including make, model and serial number.

For more information, go to www. project529.com.

Alzheimers walk to honour Johnson

Citizen staff

This year’s Walk for Alzheimers will be in honour of Granville Johnson.

Since his diagnosis in 2016, Johnson, a popular local musician and artist, has thrown open a window into his experience through his music.

“What I’m trying to do is to feel good, even though I’m having to let go of more and more of myself,” Johnson said. “I call it allowing yourself to be happy-sad. In order to maximize your quality of life, you have to be positive, but within that you have the deep sadness of impending death.”

The event is set for May 5 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at YMCA of Northern BC. For a limited time, people who fundraise in support of this event can make twice the difference. For every gift made online to the Walk in B.C. before April 14, a donor has pledged to match donations up to a total of $100,000. To register, go to walkforalzheimers.ca

Police

on lookout for alleged prohibited driver

Citizen

staff

Prince George RCMP are asking for the public’s help in finding a man wanted for allegedly driving while prohibited.

Keith Christopher Lundy, 40, is described as Caucasian, five-footeight, 181 pounds with blonde hair, blue eyes and various tattoos including a skull with wings on both sides of his neck.

Lundy, who is known to the police and the courts, is considered violent and should not be approached, RCMP warned. Instead, call 911 immediately.

Anyone with information on where he may be is asked to call the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800222-8477 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.

City’s alternate approval processes to start next week

Citizen staff

The starting date for the alternate approval processes for the 11 projects for which the city is seeking consent to pass borrowing bylaws will start on April 18.

From that date, voters will have until May 30 to submit elector response forms expressing their objections to the projects.

If at least 10 per cent of the electorate, estimated at 5,546 responses, submit forms for a specific project, council will be forced to either scrap the related borrowing bylaw or take it to a full-blown referendum in which approval from 50 per cent plus one of those who vote will be required to advance

the bylaw to final reading.

The city has created a web page, www.princegeorge.ca/AAP, to provide residents with information on the process, including key dates and other details.

A link to the page is included on the city homepage at www. princegeorge.ca.

The AAP web page will be updated on April 18 to include information on how to obtain elector response forms, together with detailed instructions regarding how to properly complete the forms. The forms will also be available at The Citizen’s offices at 201-1777 Third Avenue at the corner of Third Avenue and Winnipeg Street.

Caribou population down to roughly 230

— from page 1

The public has been given just a month to provide comment, and the agreements are expected to be signed this summer.

Thousands turned out to public town halls last week in the Peace to express their frustration about the consultation process.

Many believe the agreements are already a done deal, and will likely see little to no changes between the draft and the finalized versions.

While the agreements will drastically reshape resource development in the region, pro-

vincial officials have warned the federal government could issue an emergency order that would effectively shut down all industrial activity without those agreements in place.

There are roughly 230 caribou remaining in the region, down from between 800 to 1,000 in the 1990s.

A wolf cull and maternity penning program have led to increased birth rates, plummeting death rates, and rising herd populations, according to government scientists.

— See related letter on page 4

B.C. to require all cars, trucks sold be zero emission by 2040

The Canadian Press VICTORIA — All light-duty cars and trucks sold in British Columbia would have to be zero-emission by 2040 under legislation tabled Wednesday. Energy Minister Michelle Mungall says the Zero Emission Vehicles Act aims to fight climate change by phasing out gas powered vehicles. She says the legislation would set target dates of 10 per cent zero-emission sales by 2025, 30 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040. The legislation would apply to new vehicles for sale or lease. Mungall says zero emission vehicles are part of the government’s $902 million CleanBC program to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 based on 2007 pollution levels.

She says the CleanBC plan includes incentives for zeroemission vehicle purchases up to $5,000 on a new battery electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and up to $6,000 for a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle.

“British Columbians are eager to make the switch to zero-emission vehicles,” said Mungall in the legislature.

“We have the highest per capita adoption of zero emission vehicles in Canada, with over 17,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road, averaging four per cent of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2018.”

The greens are in great shape at Pine Valley Golf Centre. They

‘We have every confidence in it’

— from page 1

But when a Nova Scotia couple was evicted under a community safety order in that province’s legislation, the courts upheld the order. The court found that the property was habitually used for the possession, use, consumption, sale, transfer or exchange of illicit drugs. It said previous convictions were not needed to corroborate that fact. The court said that police observations of known drug dealers, confessions of drug use and multiple anonymous complaints established a problem property.

“The impugned activity need not be daily, continual or permanent,” the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruled in 2012. “Occasional activity implying ongoing conduct would suffice.”

Farnworth said B.C.’s bill has passed a legal review.

“We have every confidence in it,” Farnworth said, adding people in communities around B.C. are tired of nuisance properties and drug houses.

Farnworth said last week that Bill 13 will help crack down on such properties.

The law would allow people to make confidential complaints to a dedicated government unit, Farnworth said last week as he announced the 2013 law would be revamped and enforced.

The original act was passed in 2013 after being presented by then-minister of Justice Shirley Bond. While it allowed confidential complaints, the legislation did not specify use of previous convictions or that officials need not testify to those offences as the current bill does.

Liberal attorney general critic Michael Lee, a lawyer, said the 2013 law tried to balance legal rights and community concerns.

“This government has had a tendency to step all over those rights,” Lee said, pointing to the looming ICBC minor injuries claims cap as another example.

Lee said the Liberals would be addressing concerns about the community safety bill when it gets to committee stage.

Targets of complaints would have evidence of their past criminal convictions presented to courts as evidence of current wrongdoing.

The civil liberties associations say the law strips British Columbians of the constitutional right to face an accuser, pits landlords against tenants and will put the poor and mentally ill onto the streets during a housing crisis.

The bill provides for so-called certificates to be presented to courts. They would include previous criminal convictions of people at problem sites that are subject of anonymous reports.

The ministry said prior convictions are relevant because “they are proof that specified activities have been occurring at or in close proximity to the property. Previous criminal convictions may also show how the community is being adversely impacted.”

The ministry also said including people’s past convictions reduce court administrative burdens, meaning investigating officers needn’t testify, and that less evidence would “have to be gathered and submitted to the court to prove that specified activities are occurring that are adversely impacting the community when there is a lengthy criminal history associated with the property.”

The ministry said the lower standard of proof required under the bill would allow a court to accept that alleged offenses are occurring given similar offense

had happened in the past.

Victoria lawyer Michael Mulligan, a member of Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, said Farnworth should be discussing “whether it’s wise, fair, or reasonable, to permit people to be evicted from their home based on anonymous reports, or things they may have done in the distant past.”

“There is some significant risk that this legislation will be used by landlords as a mechanism to evict tenants, without needing to go through the residential tenancy process, so that they can raise rents, Mulligan said.

“It would be entirely possible to design legation that would meet the reasonable objective of ensuring communities aren’t inappropriately disrupted by unlawful activity without resorting to anonymous reports, or decision making based on past, rather than present, behavior,” Mulligan said.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association executive director and former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant said April 8 the bill poses “significant constitutional risk.”

It targets people struggling with poverty and with mental health and addiction issues, Bryant said.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby, former executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and PIVOT Legal Society, which advocates for the poor, has championed the rights of the underprivileged in the past.

“Minister Eby is not available for an interview,” his staff said, directing Glacier Media back to Farnworth’s office.

Farnworth stressed the tools in the act will target criminals operating in neighbours and will be in addition to the existing justice regime, not an alternative to it.

LUNDY

Change or perish, higher education

Failing to adapt to a changing retail market has littered the path to takeover or bankruptcy for one-time dominant retail brands such as Sears and Eaton’s.

Business analysts caution that Sears failed to adapt to a changing marketplace and subsequently lost customers and market share to Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, Best Buy, Costco, Winners and, more recently and significantly, Amazon.

According to retail consultant Doug Stephens, author of The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism, accepting the reality of a post-digital world is critical to retail survival.

“For a long time, Canadian retailers just sort of shrugged their shoulders about e-commerce. They didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Now all of the sudden, along comes Amazon and the tables have turned,” Stephens said. “I think they’ve recognized that e-commerce is the future and that someone else is capitalizing on that future, and it’s not them.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company recently spent $60 million on an automated logistics system to rival Amazon’s best-in-class facilities.

So what does all this have to do with public education – universities and colleges in particular?

The answer is complicated but well-

documented: the market for post-secondary education is evolving as rapidly as anything in the retail world has within the past few years and is just as threatened by a changing environment. Post-secondary students are no longer just “students.” They are now customers, consumers who are able to choose from a variety of “buying experiences.”

Like shoppers, who have become accustomed to switching between online and instore options, students, no longer restricted by the monopoly on qualifications once controlled by traditional post-secondary institutions, want it all and want it now.

Among other things, that means that universities and colleges, in order to survive and stay in business over the next 10 to 20 years, have some innovative business planning to do.

To some academic ears, the notion that a university or college is a business is heresy, flying in the face of the nobility of acquiring knowledge.

But some academics, such as Paul Geatrix, British university administrator and journalist, do not agree and he writes in The Guardian that: “higher education is a slightly unusual kind of business and differs from other businesses in a number of ways,” not the least of which, as Greatrix explains, is that “the purchaser has little knowledge of the product and generally is unable to test it before deciding to buy.”

Where recruitment was always a major

administrative initiative, it is retention beyond first year that has become an important key to business success for post-secondary institutions.

About 14 per cent of first-year postsecondary students drop out, according to the Persistence in Post-Secondary Education in Canada report, which analyzed data from Statistics Canada’s Youth in Transition Survey.

The overall post-secondary dropout rate was about 16 per cent, suggesting that those who are going to drop out do so early on.

The time is past when students will enrol, pay significant fees, assume substantial debt to support travel and accommodation somewhere near a campus for a qualification leading to – what?

At the heart of this is an emerging awareness of the importance of what is now referred to as the management of “student experience.”

That means, as it does in the retail business, ensuring that the product and services being offered meet customer needs and expectations.

Camosun College, for example, incorporates the concept of “applied learning” in many of its programs.

This refers to learning experiences that get learners thinking, collaborating, communicating and ultimately engaging with and contributing to the world around them.

Caribou farce

I attended the Caribou Recovery town hall meeting at the Civic Centre on Tuesday evening and I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. The government panel didn’t appear to be as pleased. I was disappointed nothing new was offered by the government panel on caribou recovery, but the audience had plenty to say about the government plan to shutdown another huge portion of B.C.

There was a couple of peculiar statements from the government panel that went unchallenged, probably because so many people at the meeting wanted to speak to other concerns and there were plenty.

One panel statement was the often repeated idea that caribou are displaced from their habitat by snowmobiles. This old wives tale was been debunked so many times, and proven false by so much data and observations, that I am surprised this new panel is still spouting the same old fairy tale. Some of the most intensely used snowmobile areas in B.C. continue to have caribou in their areas. Wells, Revelstoke and Torpy areas are obvious examples and other snowmobile clubs continue have to close their riding areas when the caribou wander back into the designated snowmobile area. I have to wonder what the real agenda of the panel is? Clearly the panel has no cred-

ibility when they have to resort to untruths and are unaware of the facts.

The other annoying bit of weirdness that was spouted off by the panel was that the Moberly people had managed to increase their local caribou herd at enormous cost, from 16 animals to 81 animals in the space of five years by using maternal penning to raise caribou calves.

I could almost hear the calculators in the room suddenly multiplying 16 x 5 to get only 80 animals. Hey wait a minute! How many of the original 16 caribou were bulls needed to get the cows pregnant? And did every cow have a calf every year? At the 70 per cent survival rate stated for calves, the numbers get even worse. At a constant five bulls, and no adult mortality over 5 years, and every cow reproducing at two years old, the numbers still fall way short of 81 caribou. So where did the rest of the Moberly caribou come from? Why isn’t the government asking questions when the numbers and facts obviously don’t add up?

This government is clearly is on their own mission to close down huge portions of B.C. and nothing is going to stop this government. Not truth, facts, or even arithmetic will derail their mission, and that was the message delivered to the people of northern B.C. The government was only here to dance on the caribou graveyard. Lee Sexsmith, Prince George

Unfair reaction

I am responding to Norman Dale’s reaction and interpretation of my April 9 letter.

I did not mean to insult anyone. My point was when you reach the end of the road it doesn’t matter who you are.

Recently, I watched my mother die in a extended care facility and a year later my sister in hospice.

I am so grateful for these facilities and the people working in them.

In my world, $l.5 million is a lot of money so I thought the money should be used to help all seniors.

I am old but I am not ignorant. Indigenous seniors are not the only seniors that have suffered in the past. Alcohol was the drug of choice and lots of families were destroyed by it including mine. The government in the past used to take your land if they needed it. My father owned a large chunk of land on the corner of 20th and Victoria Street. They needed it for a school. It’s not a school sitting there now and my mother never received any compensation. Norman, you turned my letter into a letter I never intended it to be. I know one thing for sure – I am not as smart or as educated as you. A lot of people are afraid to write letters or give opinions because when they do, they could get a reaction like I did.

Helen Sarrazin

SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

Prince George

These learning experiences take place in a range of contexts, including in the classroom, the workplace and the community. The idea is to enable learners to apply and integrate theoretical knowledge, as well as personal, practical and professional skills. Ideally, the learning activities simulate real-world situations or are situated in a real-world context.

Universities including the University of Victoria now offer expanded opportunities for co-op programs in a variety of fields ranging from biochemistry and microbiology to law and public administration. At Royal Roads University, online learning is a component of the learning model. This model combines team-based online courses with short on-campus residencies. Online and on-campus learning are focused on real-world relevance, which also allows working professionals to maintain their lives while advancing their careers. Charles Darwin probably did not have post-secondary organizational survival in mind when he wrote: “it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change.” However, he might have been describing to future of universities and colleges that have accepted the advice of Alan Deutschman, business writer for Fortune magazine and professor of journalism at the University of Nevada: “change or die.” — Geoff Johnson, Glacier Media

Beautiful B.C.’s gold-plated motto

There once was a time when B.C. was not beautiful. That time was 1964. Ever since then, we have been reminded, whenever we pull up behind the car in front of us, that we live in Beautiful British Columbia. It says so right on the licence plate. At least, we think it does. Sometimes it’s hard to see through all the exhaust.

Licence-plate mottos are in the news because of plans to replace Ontario’s vaguely poetic “Yours to Discover” with the billboardish “Open for Business,” at least on commercial vehicles.

Critics argue the blatant hucksterism of populist Premier Doug Ford’s suggested new slogan would be more appropriate to Crazy Larry’s Discount Used Prosthetics than the registration plates of Canada’s largest province. (“Open to Ridicule,” sniffed Maclean’s magazine.)

That said, provinces change the words on their plates all the time. They’re etched in aluminum, not stone. Ontario last swapped in 1982, dumping “Keep It Beautiful” after someone noticed the smog-belching hell of the 401 and realized it was too late. In Quebec, René Levesque ditched “La Belle Province” in favour of “Je Me Souviens” (literal translation: “It’s not over, squareheads”) in 1978.

“Friendly Manitoba” – a slogan that damns with faint praise, like Miss Congeniality – arrived in 1976. Saskatchewan has been the “Land of Living Skies” since 1998 (though for a laugh, it should try aping the T-shirts: “Easy to draw, hard to spell”). No truth to the rumour that Alberta will switch from “Wild Rose Country” to “WildEyed Country” if Jason (Turn Off the Taps) Kenney wins next week’s election and goes Dr. Strangelove on his fellow Canadians.

Tiny Prince Edward Island changes slogans more often than Alberta changes governments, doing so eight times since 1962, with some of the more eye-catching offerings being “Garden of the Gulf,” “Home of Anne of Green Gables,” “The Place to Be in ’73” (a slogan that actually hung around until 1975), the stately “Birthplace of Confederation” and the somewhat more prosaic “Seat Belts Save,” a message echoed by Ohio’s “Seatbelts Fastened?” and Maryland’s “Drive Carefully.”

American mottos, from New Hampshire’s “Live Free Or Die” to Idaho’s “Famous Potatoes,” have stories of their own: “Georgia … on my mind” was the only plate with lyrics by Ray Charles, while

Mailing address: 201-1777 Third Ave. Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7

Office hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday

General switchboard: 250-562-2441 info@pgcitizen.ca

General news: news@pgcitizen.ca

Sports inquiries: 250-960-2764 sports@pgcitizen.ca Classifieds advertising: 250-562-6666 cls@pgcitizen.ca

the “Sweet Home” on Alabama’s inspired drivers to thrust fists out the window and bray “Skynyrd!” to the embarrassment of their children.

Some plates, such as those in Newfoundland and Labrador (poor Labrador, the tag-along lessfamous brother, like Dennis Hull or Frank Stallone), have no motto at all. New Brunswick’s don’t either, though for a while they read “Be … In This Place/Etre … On Le Peut” which sounded like an invitation to a bilingual ashram. That brings us – finally – back home to B.C. where, as mentioned, the word “Beautiful” was added to our plates in 1965. (It makes you wonder what motorists did before that, whether after gazing up at the awe-inspiring majesty of the Rockies or out over wondrously shaded Markgraf coastal vistas they shook their heads in frustration and thought: “this province is so, so… damn it, if only there were a word to describe all this.”) This means ours is easily the oldest licence plate motto in Canada. The question is: is it time for a change?

Such as “British Columbia: Closed for Business.” Or “British Columbia: Not as beautiful as before but still pretty hot if you don’t look too closely.” Or “Come for the super-cheap gas, stay for the house prices.” Or “Clean water, cleaner drug money.”

And maybe we could have our plates made by prison inmates, as Ontario does, instead of ordering them from a company in Nova Scotia (“Canada’s Ocean Playground”).

No, let’s keep the status quo, keep the slogan as is, as only it fulfils the real purpose of a good motto: to gloat. Traditionally, what Beautiful British Columbia really tries to say to other Canadians, in a humble-bragging kind of way, is: “better looking than your province, and we both know it.” It’s like the Victoria Flower Count, a light-hearted reminder to the rest of the country that at a bleak, frostbitten time of year when they can only pray for the sweet release of an icy death like the one that claimed Jack Nicholson in The Shining, those in God’s Country are lolling about in a Shangri-La where the blossoms arrive before the T4 slips. Eat your heart out, Ford.

Shawn Cornell, director of advertising: 250-960-2757 scornell@pgcitizen.ca Reader sales and services: 250-562-3301 rss@pgcitizen.ca Letters to the editor: letters@pgcitizen.ca

Website: www.pgcitizen.ca

Website feedback: digital@glaciermedia.ca

Member of the National Newsmedia Council A division of Glacier Media

SLIGHTLY SKEWED

JACK KNOX

Former Burns Lake mayor to plead guilty May 6

The Canadian Press

SMITHERS – British Columbia’s Crown prosecution service says the former mayor of Burns Lake intends to plead guilty to charges he faces at a court appearance next month.

The prosecution service did not specify which charges Luke Strimbold plans to enter guilty pleas on, but it says in an emailed statement that his lawyer told a court earlier this week that Strimbold intended to enter guilty pleas at his next appearance on May 6 in Smithers. Strimbold’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.

A special prosecutor approved 29 charges against Strimbold, including sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching, allegedly involving six people who were all under the age of 16 at the time of the alleged offences. When he was elected as the mayor

Overdoses killed 3,286 Canadians in nine months

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – The Public Health Agency of Canada has released new data showing that 3,286 Canadians died after apparent opioid-related overdoses between January and September last year.

The data also indicates that fentanyl and other fentanyl-related substances continue to be a “major driver” of Canada’s opioid crisis, with 73 per cent of accidental apparent opioid-related deaths in the nine-month span involving the potent painkilling drugs.

In comparison, the agency says there were 3,017 apparent opioidrelated deaths in 2016 and 4,034 in 2017. If the rate of deaths in first nine months of 2018 continued for the full year, the total would have been nearly 4,400.

The health agency said Wednesday the opioid crisis continues to affect the entire country but certain regions, including B.C., Alberta and Ontario, have been hit harder than others.

Apparent opioid-related deaths are counted through data provided by the provinces and territories from offices of chief coroners or medical examiners. Opioids can be hard to disentangle from other factors in a death, including different drugs and underlying illnesses, so the numbers take a long time to crunch and come with qualifiers.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public-health officer, said Wednesday that the newly released figures serve as a “stark reminder” of the importance of maintaining efforts to stop the epidemic.

“As we take the pain of these losses and the deeply concerning data to heart we must continue to strengthen our collaborative public-health response,” she said.

The federal government recognizes there is no simple solution, said Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor.

“I’m extremely concerned with the amount of deaths,” she said. “To me, these aren’t just simple numbers. These are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and as a government we have to work collectively with our partners on the ground to make sure that we do all that we can to reverse the tide here.”

of Burns Lake in 2011, Strimbold was the youngest mayor in B.C. history at the age of 21. He was re-elected in 2014, but resigned two years later, saying he wanted to further his education.

Strimbold served as membership chair for the B.C. Liberal Party but resigned in March 2018 both from the executive and as a member of the party. He was originally charged in February 2018 and further charges were added in August.

Strimbold led the community through a deadly sawmill explosion in 2012 that killed two men and injured 19 others. In 2013, he was awarded the Queen’s

Diamond Jubilee Medal for community service. A year later, BCBusiness magazine named Strimbold one of the Top 30 leaders under the age of 30, recognizing his efforts to successfully rebuild the local economy.

Dan McLaughlin, the communications counsel for the prosecution service, said it would not release any further information about the case.

“As the matter remains before the court neither the special prosecutor nor the B.C. prosecution service will be commenting on these developments or releasing any further information regarding a potential resolution at this time,” he said in a reply to an email asking which charges Strimbold intends to plead guilty to.

Dead battery no excuse for distracted driving

The Canadian Press

RICHMOND – A B.C. driver has been found guilty of using a cellphone while behind the wheel, even though its battery was dead.

The decision, delivered Monday by judicial justice Brent Adair in Richmond, says Patrick Grzelak was using his iPhone with earbuds in his ears.

The ruling says Grzelak was alone in his Mercedes on Oct. 12, 2018, heading home after a long day, with the dead iPhone in the centre cubby hole of his dashboard, when he was pulled over in Surrey.

Adair found Grzelak was using the device because it was “in a position in which it may be used,” as defined under the Motor Vehicle Act.

Adair ruled it didn’t matter that the battery was dead or that Grzelak was not using the phone. With the earbuds in, Adair ruled Grzelak was essentially holding the device.

“Since the earbuds were part of the electronic device and since the earbuds were in the defendants ears, it necessarily follows that the defendant was holding the device (or part of the device) in a position in which it could be used, i.e. his ears,” Adair wrote.

Adair pointed to a previous provincial court ruling that reached a similar conclusion in 2015.

Conviction on a charge of using an electronic device while driving carries a $368 fine, plus four penalty points, as well as an Insurance Corporation of B.C. penalty fee of $210.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

At a September 2012 news conference, Luke Strimbold, left, then Mayor of Burns Lake, look on as Steve Zika, right, CEO of Hampton Affliates announces that the Babine sawmill will be rebuilt.

STRIMBOLD

Crews brace for new wildfire season

Lori CULBERT Vancouver Sun

Ester Spye finally moved into her new home in October, 14 months after a relentless 2017 wildfire blew through the Ashcroft Indian Band, forcing residents to flee and devouring nine houses.

Spye and her dog Sweets took refuge in a Cache Creek hotel shortly after the July 2017 inferno destroyed their house, and stayed there until it was rebuilt more than a year later.

She is grateful to be back in her community, along with her cat Socks, who was missing for 52 days after the blaze. And she’s grateful for her new home, which has a tin roof and is covered in siding that she was told is fireproof. But the life-changing experience has left her wary.

“As soon as I see fire, I panic,” she said. “I just really watch for smoke.”

Spye is likely not alone, as she was one of 65,000 evacuees and her home one of 509 buildings burnt by the 2017 wildfires, which scorched 12,000 sq. km of land in B.C. Last year’s forest fires were even more destructive, consuming 13,500 sq. km – although fewer people were evacuated (6,000) and fewer structures lost (158).

These last two summers were the worst wildfire seasons on record and both resulted in a provincial state of emergency being declared. So what should B.C. residents expect this year?

That will depend entirely on the weather this spring and summer: whether it will be cool and rainy or hot with lots of lightning, said University of Alberta professor and wildfire expert Mike Flannigan.

“My guess is it is going to be an active fire season, above normal, but that is a very cautious (guess),” said Flannigan, director of the Edmonton-based Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science. “You’ve had two recordbreaking fire seasons. It’s unusual to get three bad fire seasons in a row, but with the crazy weather and arguably with climate change, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

March was a record-dry month, with Vancouver receiving just a quarter of its average monthly rainfall – and there was even less precipitation in parts of Vancouver Island and the northern Interior, according to the Weather Network.

Fires starting earlier

These premature blazes continue a worrisome trend that started about two decades ago, said Phil Burton, a professor in the ecosystem science and management program at the University of Northern B.C.

“We are having earlier fire seasons. The mere fact that we are having fires reported in March is in itself different from anything we’ve had in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s,” said Burton. “We typically think of the fire season as starting with the university students being out of school, the last week of April or the first few weeks of May.”

While the intensity of this coming fire season will be weather dependent, Burton noted this new era of “greater uncertainty” for wildfire activity makes planning by residents very difficult.

“Keep an eye on the weather when it comes to travel plans and any outdoor activities or work scheduling. The possibility of another fire year, whether it’s an average or severe one, can always

While spring weather will not necessarily foreshadow the extent of forest fires this summer, the unusually dry March has led to an early start to the 2019 wildfire season. More than 16 fires have ignited in the last week, including two near Kamloops that both grew larger than 100 hectares – one quarter the size of Stanley Park – and one near Squamish that reached 50 hectares.

be a joker in the deck that can require people to change their plans,” he warned.

Glenda Wilson was very worried last summer about having to live through another forest fire, after she was forced to flee the Ashcroft Indian Band, along with her aunt Ester Spye, in July 2017.

“Last year, my anxiety was up so high and I’ve never, ever experienced that. My chest was hurting. I went to the doctor’s. I was having nightmares about the fire happening again,” she recalled this week. “By the middle of July (2018), I started calming down and my dreams weren’t getting crazy anymore. It must have been that one-year mark. It was always in the back of my head.”

In 2018, Ashcroft was covered in a smoky haze from fires burning in other areas, but no flames threatened the community. Wilson hopes this summer will be even less eventful. She lives two doors down from Spye, but her home was spared while her aunt’s was razed. When she returned to the community after the 2017 fire was extinguished, the homecoming was bittersweet.

“It was very different. Things changed a lot when we were able to move back home. I don’t know

how to explain it. I don’t want to say ‘like a ghost town.’ You were so used to having so many people here, but half the reserve was gone,” she recalled.

“After the fire a whole bunch of new emotions came flooding through me.”

Wilson believes her house escaped the flames, in part, because her husband cut all the weeds and other growth from their yard before the blaze arrived. This year the couple, who have 12-year-old twin boys, plan to buy their own electric weed trimmer and do a controlled burn on their property of any leaves, sticks and other potential fuel for a fire.

“I hope everything is just going to be OK,” Wilson said of this summer. Many of the most destructive fires in 2017 were near Kamloops and in the Cariboo region, affecting communities such as Williams Lake, 100 Mile House, Princeton, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Clearwater and Quesnel.

In 2018, there were evacuation orders farther north, including west of Prince George and southeast of Terrace. One of the communities hardest hit was northern B.C.’s Telegraph Creek, home to the Tahltan First Nation, where more than 30 buildings were lost to the flames.

Heidi and Travis Hebb and their three kids lost their family home.

“Just that memory of throwing things into a truck as fast as we could, and being doused with fire retardant as we were leaving, with the fire just a couple hundred metres away from us … it was devastating,” said Heidi Hebb last August, when friends created a GoFundMe drive to help the family. “There’s so many people that have lost everything – lost homes and so many memories.”

Fire also damaged part of a ranch belonging to the family of Chief Chad Day, president of the Tahltan Central Government. He said it would take a long time for his community to recover.

“It’s going to take years to rebuild what’s been lost, and it’s going to take decades for the land to be restored to where it was before, because we’ve lost a lot of forests,” Day said last August.

Health concerns

While Hebb and Day’s community struggled with devastating fire damage in 2018, other parts of B.C. were enveloped in thick smoke from these blazes and many hundreds of others across the province last summer.

Flannigan, the University of Alberta professor, estimated that people doing exercise or working outside during the height of the wildfire smoke could have inhaled the equivalent of two packages of cigarettes per day.

“There are over 4,000 chemicals in smoke,” he added. “It’s a chemical soup.” If the smoke returns this summer, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control recommends residents exercise indoors, drink lots of water, drive with the windows rolled up, and consider spending time in places with filtered air, such as libraries, community centres and malls. Portable air cleaners that use HEPA filtration can also be useful if it gets smoky inside houses.

Most of the experts interviewed for this story had varying opinions

on the usefulness of facial masks. Sarah Henderson, a BCCDC senior scientist, said disposable N95 particulate respirator masks, available at most hardware stores, are the best option if they are properly fitted.

“But there are still some concerns. Wearing N95s can make it more difficult to breathe, they do not work well when wet, and they may give a false sense of security that discourages more protective actions, such as spending time indoors and taking it easy outdoors,” Henderson said.

However, experts prefer the N95 style over surgical masks, which “offer limited protection, at best,” Henderson said.

Smoke has been a major concern for two summers in a row and whether it returns this year will depend, in part, on the direction and strength of the winds during any fires, said B.C. Wildfire Service chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek.

Budget doubled

Over the last two summers, the provincial government grossly outspent its wildfire budgets – by 10 times in 2017, when it cost more than $650 million to fight the fires.

This year, the NDP is trying to be better prepared for the unknown by nearly doubling its wildfire budget, boosting it from $64 million in 2018 to $101 million.

“We’ve taken a hard look at additional steps we can take to not only prevent wildfires, but also enhance our response on the ground during wildfire season,” Forests Minister Doug Donaldson said last month.

Each summer the ministry employs about 1,600 firefighters and support crew, and with the new money plans to hire an additional 80 seasonal staff who will be contracted to work for 100 days instead of 80. The new money will also go toward:

• An extra $10 million, bringing the total to $60 million a year, for a program that helps local governments and First Nations increase prescribed burns to remove fuel from the forest floor;

• Increasing the contracts for five water-bomber planes from 100 to 120 days, and adding more helicopters to the ministry’s aerial attack team;

• Adding new technology, such as drones for fire-mapping and iPads for crews to use in the field to reference maps, and the contracting of air operators licensed to use night-vision goggles to help with the early detection of fires;

• Community meetings to be held in areas facing a high risk of fire damage, although the schedule has not yet been finalized.

An additional $13 million over three years has been committed to reforestation and restoration, which can both capture climatedamaging carbon and also reduce wildfire risk.

One of the recommendations stemming from an independent report into the 2017 wildfire season was for the government to build a stronger working relationship with First Nations when it comes to battling blazes.

A First Nations firefighter recruitment strategy has been created, but the ministry could not say this week how many Indigenous workers have been hired or trained so far.

CP FILE PHOTO

Cattle run on a ranch as the Shovel Lake wildfire burns in the distance near Fort St. James last August.

Groundwater rises to the top in women’s bonspiel

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Twelve-year-old Isabelle Groundwater wasn’t nervous, she just went about her business setting the table for her curling team in the final of the Prince George women’s bonspiel.

She knew if she got into trouble putting rocks into places that weren’t part of the team strategy, her mother Simone had enough experience as a skip to bail them out.

It turns out they weren’t the only motherdaughter connection making the ice work for them in the three-day tournament at Prince George Golf and Curling Club.

Laura Ball and her 24-year-old daughter Michelle were playing third and second respectively for the Groundwater team from

Williams Lake and together they created some magic memories for the family archives in Sunday’s 6-3 win in the final over Fallon Burkitt.

“That was really exciting – good shots and consistency,” said Isabelle, who started playing the game in 2015 – a third of her lifetime ago.

“I’m so proud of her, she did excellent,” said Simone.

“It’s always great to have the opportunity to curl with your kids. You don’t get that very often and this is her first bonspiel out of town. She brought her A-game today.”

Laura Ball has two daughters and has curled with them both but that doesn’t happen nearly often enough now that her daughter Jessica has moved to Halifax.

“This is really quite an opportunity to get to do this, and having somebody as young and enthusiastic as Isabelle is pretty excit-

ing,” said Laura.

“She gives us our energy.”

Groundwater scored two in the fourth for a 4-2 lead and stole another in the fifth end. Burkitt got within two in the sixth but Groundwater matched that with one on the seventh and ran their opponents out of rocks in the eighth.

The Williams Lake crew was among 19 women’s teams entered in the bonspiel and they split their winnings evenly four ways.

“I’m going to buy a new broom,” said Isabelle.

They won all four of their games in their path to the trophy.

“This was a battle right to the end,” said Simone Groundwater. “This was a great event Prince George put on, they always have great competitive teams.

In the B final, Wendee Copeland defeated Whitney Christy of Quesnel 8-5, while

Young grapplers

Seven-year-old Emery Kelly, left, puts out his hip, preparing to throw Thomas Ellery, his seven-year-old Prince George Judo clubmate, during their match Saturday morning at the Prince George Open at Duchess Park secondary school. The one-day tournament drew 167 entrants from seven northern B.C. clubs.

Spruce Kings tickets nearly sold out

close. As of Wednesday afternoon less than 90 standing room spots remained unsold for Friday’s opener against the Vernon Vipers and there were less than 200 standing room spaces at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena for Game 2 on Saturday.

The team sold 3,000 tickets on Monday and 900 more on Tuesday and a complete sellout of 2,112 is expected for the first two games. Game 3 and 4 of the best-of-seven series will be played Tuesday and Wednesday in Vernon. If Game 5 is needed that would be played Friday in Prince George, with if necessary games to follow Sunday, April 21 in Vernon and Tuesday, April 23 in Prince George. The ticket office will be open daily from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets are also available online at www. sprucekings.bc.ca. Follow the Buy Online link on the home page. • The Kings opened their annual spring goalie camp Wednesday at

RMCA and 20 goaltenders from B.C., Alberta and California are attending. The top eight from the camp, which includes two days of on-ice and classroom sessions, will be selected to participate in the main spring camp, which starts Friday. The main camp gets underway following the Spruce Kings/Vipers morning skates on Friday. Eighty participants will break off into four teams for three scrimmages Friday and Saturday. The top 40 players will play in the top prospects game Sunday at 2 p.m. See Friday’s Citizen for Spruce Kings-Vipers BCHL championship series preview.

in the C final, Tracey Jones edged Pam Boehmer 9-8. Burkitt, a Prince George native who now lives in Vernon, needed an extra end to defeat Tracy Kostiuk of Grande Prairie in a semifinal right before the final.

No doubt that had a draining effect on Burkitt and her team of third Julia Shaddock, second Susan Dalziel and lead Debbie Dallas.

“I think we made it a little harder than we needed to,” laughed Burkitt.

“It’s always great to play in this. We made some good shots and it was a lot of fun.” Burkitt’s brother Devin skipped the winning team in the 92nd Kelly Cup championship, also played over the weekend at PGGCC.

He hooked up with Dustyn Wozny, Gerry Richard and Doug Dalziel to defeat Michael Dahms 7-3.

Bozak, Blues down Jets in Game 1

Judy OWEN The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG — Tyler Bozak scored with 2:05 left in the third period to give the St. Louis Blues a 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday in Game 1 of their Western Conference opening-round playoff series.

Blues forward Pat Maroon sent a backhand pass from behind the net out to Bozak in the slot, whose quick shot went by Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

“I had a lot of chances tonight so I knew the puck was kind of following me around a bit,” said Bozak. “It’s always fun when that happens so after the few I missed it was definitely nice to get one in there.”

David Perron also had a goal for St. Louis early in the third and Jordan Binnington made 24 saves.

Patrik Laine scored late in the first period and Hellebuyck stopped 24 shots for the Jets, who host Game 2 on Friday.

“I think this was just a hard, fighting, grinding game,” said Hellebuyck. “Everyone was fighting for every inch. They were looking for openings everywhere and they just happened to get (the last) one.”

The netminders played a big role in keeping the game a tight affair, even though Binnington took an early tumble to the ice. Jets centre Mark Scheifele was sent to the penalty box 34 seconds into the first period for interference.

As he was skating to the back of the St. Louis net, he banged into Binnington, who was behind the net and returning to his crease. Blues forward Brayden Schenn shoved Scheifele hard in retaliation, but only drew boos from

fans and not a penalty.

Laine sent a blast from the high slot past Binnington at 13:38.

The Finnish forward only had one goal in his last 19 games of the regular season.

St. Louis outshot the Jets 8-7 in the opening frame, with Laine having two shots.

On the eve of the series, Laine said his confidence wasn’t high and he planned to shoot every puck he could at Binnington to try to make the rookie nervous.

The 20-year-old also said the Jets “have better players in this locker-room than they have” and when they’re on their game “we’re just a better team.”

Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien helped divert a St. Louis goal early in the second period. Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko fired a shot at Hellebuyck and the puck trickled out from under him toward the goal line, but Byfuglien swooped in and slapped it out of the crease.

Winnipeg’s penalty kill worked twice more in the second period. Binnington then came up big on a backhand breakaway shot by Par Lindholm and a quick shot from Andrew Copp.

The Jets got their first power play of the game with 3:09 left in the middle frame. Byfuglien had his team’s two shots with the man advantage. One was stopped and the other hit the post.

Winnipeg had the 11-8 edge in shots in the second period. Laine rang a shot off the post just over one minute into the third, followed by Perron’s point shot through traffic that went by Hellebuyck to tie it up at 4:05. The Winnipeg netminder blocked a Bozak shot late in the period and then couldn’t stop the winner.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

Skip Tracey Jones throws a stone against the Whitney Christy rink on Saturday morning during the 2019 Prince George Ladies Bonspiel at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.

PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

McIlroy driving for his green jacket

The Associated Press

Rory McIlroy feels as prepared as ever for the Masters.

He is spending more time with his nose in a book than with his hands on a putter. The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino is among the best books he has read in the last year. He has been working with Brad Faxon on his putting, but their best sessions take place over a cup of coffee.

His morning routine goes beyond stretching. There is juggling – yes, juggling – meditation and mind training.

“I was watching the Women’s Amateur over the weekend and I saw a few women on the range juggling, so it’s catching on,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “How many balls can I juggle? Just three. I’m a rookie.”

It’s all geared toward becoming a complete person.

And whether it makes him a complete player by capturing the only major he has yet to win, well, that would be a bonus.

McIlroy is in the early stages of this process, and it’s hard to argue with the results, even if results don’t drive him like they once did. He has yet to finish out of the top 10 in his seven tournaments this year, which includes a victory at The Players Championship, the next best thing to a major.

But that green jacket is a powerful pull on the mind, and McIlroy has reason to believe he can fit comfortably into one.

He famously lost a four-shot lead with an 80 in the final round in 2011 but, even at age 21, showed enough resolve and enormous talent to win the U.S. Open in the very next major. He played in the final group on Saturday in 2016 with Jordan Spieth until falling back with a 77. He played in the final group Sunday last year with Patrick Reed, three shots behind, and fell out of the mix before reaching the back nine.

“I know I’ve played well enough and I’ve shot enough good scores around here over the years that if I can put my best effort forward, I’m going to have a good chance to do well here,” McIlroy said. “But

it’s definitely different. My mind set is a little different in terms of ... I’m still practicing. I’m still getting better. I’m not getting ahead of myself, not thinking about the tee shot on Thursday or thinking about what is to come this week.

“I would dearly love to win this tournament one day,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen this week, that’s totally fine, I’ll come back next year and have another crack at it.

But I’m happy with where everything is – body, mind, game.”

No one was particularly happy with Mother Nature on Tuesday, as storms arrived that shut the course down for about three hours in the morning and pounded an already soft Augusta National with rain before giving way to patches of sunshine in the afternoon. Wednesday is a short day of practice because of the Par 3 Tour-

nament.

The curtain raises Thursday with a host of players capable of getting in McIlroy’s way of joining golf’s most elite club. Only five other players have captured the career Grand Slam – Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

This is McIlroy’s fifth crack at the Masters with a Grand Slam at stake. In the modern era of the Grand Slam that dates to 1960, no one went more than three years between the third and final leg.

Phil Mickelson is in a similar situation, if not worse. He lacks only the U.S. Open – he has a record six silver medals – and is 0 for 4 since the Grand Slam has come into view. He also believes McIlroy’s game is at a high level.

“That’s always a challenge when you put so much emphasis on

playing a particular event, but it’s also the chance to bring out your best,” Mickelson said. “And he’s had such a phenomenal start to the year, he’s been playing such great golf consistently week in and week out, I think contending will be a given. He’ll be in contention. You just need those little breaks ... that push you over the winner’s circle and that’s probably all that he’s waiting for this week.

“You can’t force it. It just has to happen.”

The books McIlroy has been reading are recommendations from successful businesspeople.

Along with Mandino’s book, he liked Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy, and he’s just now starting on the biography of Steve Jobs.

In an interview at the Match Play, he was asked if he was

Canadian rides wild week to Augusta

The Associated Press

As the man in the green jacket recounted the incredulous events of the past week, Corey Conners cocked his head to one side and smiled ever so slightly.

Almost as if he couldn’t believe it, either.

A little over a week ago, Conners snatched the last spot in the Valero Texas Open by the skin of his teeth. Then he won the tournament with 10 birdies in the final round, claiming the last opening at the Masters. So here he is at Augusta National. Ready to compete for a green jacket.

“A special week, a crazy week,” Conners said. “Things are good.”

Certainly, the 27-year-old Canadian wasn’t thinking about the Masters on his way to San Antonio, where his first – and, really, only priority – was the chance to earn a much-needed paycheque. Because he was outside the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings, he had to earn his way into the Texas Open during Monday qualifying.

Up to 100 players go at it for 18 holes during Monday qualifying, with the top four finishers getting into the actual tournament. Conners went to the final hole needing a 20-foot birdie putt just to get into a six-man playoff for the last of those spots. He made

the putt, and then poured in another birdie on the first of the extra holes to vanquish the other five contenders.

Dramatic stuff indeed.

But Conners takes issue with those who make him out to be some sort of Rocky, the hopeless underdog who makes for a good story early in the week but is quickly shoved

aside as soon as the Rory McIlroys and the Tiger Woodses take to the course.

He tied for third at the Sony Open in Honolulu, shooting back-to-back 64s on the weekend, and finished second last fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship, four strokes behind winner Cameron Champ. Conners is not even a Masters rookie. He

spending more time on his golf or on his attitude.

“Life,” he said. “I hit balls once last week. That was it. So much of this game is mental. It’s taken me a while to get to this point, but the proof is there of what I’ve been doing, the way I’ve been playing, how I’ve been approaching the game.”

So what happens if he’s right in the mix Sunday afternoon, facing the most dynamic back nine in golf, the coveted green jacket there for the taking? What if that Sunday afternoon includes Woods, who eliminated McIlroy at the Match Play in a finish so irritating that McIlroy left without speaking to the media?

“I haven’t thought about it,’ McIlroy said. ”I guess there’s a lot of bridges to cross until we get to that point.”

qualified for the event as an amateur in 2015, though he was not ready for such a stiff test. He opened with an 80 and missed the cut. Conners feels much better equipped this time around.

“Everyone was calling me the Monday qualifier, but I don’t feel like a Monday qualifier,” he said. “I’ve played well in a bunch of tour events this year.”

A little more time to prepare would’ve been nice, but that’s a minor complaint. Valero flew him to Augusta on a corporate jet, his clothing supplier sent along some new duds and his manager took care of housing and other arrangements that had to be made on short notice. Conners did have to do a bit of shopping after arriving in Augusta, “so I could get a couple T-shirts and a pair of pants to go to dinner in.” He has got good memories from his last Masters appearance.

After that rough start, he bounced back to shoot a 3-under 69 in the second round.

“I’ve been playing rounds over in my head,” Conners said. “Although the course has changed slightly, a lot of the shots are going to be pretty similar to what I faced in 2015... I think the course suits my game really well, so I’m really, really excited to get going.”

AP PHOTO

Rory McIlroy walks to the sixth green during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Wednesday in Augusta, Ga.

AP PHOTO

Corey Conners celebrates after sinking a putt on the 18th hole to win the Texas Open golf tournament Sunday in San Antonio.

Blue Jackets rally to upset Lightning

Mark DIDTLER The Associated Press TAMPA, Fla. — The Columbus Blue Jack-

ets rebounded from a dismal start to stun the team that had the NHL’s best regularseason record.

Seth Jones scored the go-ahead goal on the power play to cap Columbus’ three-goal third period, and the Blue Jackets rallied to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 in Game 1 of the teams’ first-round Eastern Conference playoff series Wednesday night.

“We can’t get comfortable,” Jones said. “Nothing is going to get easier. It’s only going to get harder.”

Jones made it 4-3 from the slot with 5:55 to play as the Blues Jackets erased a 3-0 deficit after the Lightning scored three times in the opening period.

With Columbus trailing 3-1 in the third, David Savard deked around Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman and scored 7:56 into the period to make it a one-goal game. Josh Anderson picked up a short-handed goal that tied it at 3 at 11:54.

The Blue Jackets became the 27th NHL team to overcome at least a three-goal deficit to win a playoff game in regulation.

Nick Foligno had the other goal for Columbus, and Sergei Bobrovsky ended up with 26 saves after struggling in the first period.

The Lightning, who matched the 199596 Detroit Red Wings for the most wins in a regular season with 62, got first-period goals from Alex Killorn, Anthony Cirelli and Yanni Gourde. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 22 shots.

“Our mentality was, we wanted to outscore them tonight instead of build a lead and then shut then down,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Our mentality has to be when we get in these situations is shut teams down, not to add to the lead.”

Tampa Bay scored 325 goals in 2018-19, the most by any team in 23 years. Hedman returned after missing the final four regular-season game with an upperbody injury. The Norris Trophy winner took a helmet to the face during a collision with Washington’s Carl Hagelin on March 30. Killorn stole the puck from Jones at the blue line during a power play for Columbus and put a backhander past Bobrovsky to open the scoring 4:12 into the game. Tampa Bay was tied for third in short-handed goals during the regular season with 12.

After Cirelli had a rebound goal at 11:01, Gourde’s waist-high deflection of Mikhail Sergachev’s shot made it 3-0 with 2:10 left in the first.

“We’re just losing too many battles,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said of his first-intermission message. “Just the grind of the game. We have to be able to grind with them.”

Foligno cut the deficit to 3-1 at 9:15 of the second on a breakaway goal after Tampa Bay’s Ryan McDonagh made an errant pass

in the offensive zone.

Alexandre Texier, Columbus’ 19-year-old rookie who played in the Blue Jackets’ final two regular-season games, skated in alone on Vasilevskiy but missed the net on a shot with 4 minutes to go in the first.

Bobrovsky stopped four shots over the final 40 seconds of the second, including a nifty glove save on Steven Stamkos.

“We don’t have a chance if he doesn’t play the way he played through the second and the third,” Tortorella said of Bobrovsky.

Bailey lifts Islanders past Penguins

Vin A. CHERWOO The Associated Press UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Josh Bailey scored on a rebound at 4:39 of overtime and the New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 on Wednesday night in the opener of their Eastern Conference firstround playoff series.

Jordan Eberle had a goal and an assist, and Brock Nelson and Nick Leddy also scored for New York, which was opening a post-season series at home for the first time in 31 years. Robin Lehner stopped 41 shots.

Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin each had a goal and an assist, and Justin Schultz also scored for the Penguins. Matt Murray

finished with 29 saves.

On the winning goal, Mathew Barzal brought the puck into the offensive zone on a 2-on-1 break, faked in front to draw Murray out and sent a backhand shot that bounced off the left post, but Bailey was there to knock it in.

Game 2 is Friday night back at the Nassau Coliseum.

Tom Kuhnhackl, who had a goal in the opening minute of the game waved off for offside, nearly won it for the Islanders 1:12 into the extra period as he crashed into Murray and the puck crossed the goal line but not before the net came loose.

The no-goal was confirmed after a review.

The Islanders led three times in regulation with the Penguins managing to tie it each time.

Leddy gave the Islanders a 3-2 lead with 7:25 left in the third as he sent a long shot from left point at the blue line that knuckled past Murray.

With Murray pulled for an extra skater, Schultz fired a one-timer from the left circle past Lehner inside the left post with 1:29 left as the Penguins tied the score for the third time.

Bailey had a chance at the winner for the Islanders in the closing seconds of the third, but his shot hit the right post. It was the second time in the period a New York player hit a goal post as Matt Martin did it

Nikita Kucherov, who had an NHL-best 128 points in the regular season, was held without a point but had an in-close chance turned aside by Bobrovsky and hit the crossbar during the opening minute of the second during a power play.

“I don’t know if it’s a wake-up call, but we know it’s a tough league to win in and we want to be better when we’re up 3-0,” Hedman said.

The Lightning will host Game 2 on Friday night.

in the opening minute. Malkin tied it 2-2 on a power play with 6:19 left in the middle period as his shot from the inside edge of the right circle deflected off Islander defenceman Adam Pelech’s stick and up past Lehner. The raucous crowd that was chanting “Let’s Go Islanders!” from before the teams came out for pregame warmups, roared when the Islanders stepped on the ice and booed loudly when the Penguins followed. They got loud again in the minutes before the teams emerged from their dressing rooms for the start of the game.

Pittsburgh outshot New York 17-12 in the first period, but the Islanders led 2-1 after 20 minutes.

AP PHOTO

Columbus Blue Jackets center Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh compete for the puck during Game 1 of an NHL Eastern Conference first-round hockey playoff series on Wednesday in Tampa, Fla.

Reiner looks back on When Harry Met Sally

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s classic relationship comedy When Harry Met Sally... is turning 30 this summer, and what better way to celebrate than with a splashy screening to kick off the 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival?

Reiner and stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan will join forces at the event Thursday evening in the heart of Hollywood as ticket-holders prepare for four days of classic film fun, with screenings, panels and parties.

Although many things have changed in Hollywood since When Harry Met Sally... came out in 1989, and Ephron and Carrie Fisher are among those involved who have died, it is incredible how its lines and truths have stood the test of time.

The Associated Press caught up with Reiner to talk about the film and the simple secret to making a good romantic comedy.

Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Some of your beloved films have already turned 30 (This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Stand by Me), so this isn’t a new landmark for you, but does it make you reflect at all?

REINER: It makes me old. That’s all it makes me.

AP: Is it surreal that it’s opening up the TCM Classic Film Festival?

REINER: It’s really cool. You make a film and you don’t know if it’s going to stand the test of time or people are going to still like it. Whenever you’ve done something that people still enjoy it’s a pretty cool thing.

AP: Why do you think this one still resonates?

REINER: All I can ever do is I look into myself and try to figure out, “How do I think as a man?” There are certain universal things that men experience and the fact that I was working with Nora Ephron, she brought the female perspective to the mix, and we made it a part of the creative process to say what actually happens between men and women. You know, it’s not about

the cute meet or putting some obstacles between the lovers so that they get together, but what actually happens with men and women. That was really the motivation for me. Because I was married for 10 years and had been single for 10 years and I was making a mess of my dating life. I kept saying, how does this work? How do a man and woman get together? I started thinking about that and I talked to Nora and she liked the idea and we started working on it. I think people see some basic truths about men and women when they watch that movie.

AP: I think you just described why so many romantic comedies don’t work.

REINER: To me the best ones are the ones that are extensions of the filmmakers.

AP: It is interesting that none of your films have been remade. I’m sure people have tried.

REINER: They’ve asked me on this one, they say “why don’t you make a sequel? Where’re Harry and Sally now?’ They’ve asked me that about Spinal Tap, about Princess Bride and things. But to me it’s like, I did that already. My mind is in a different place now so whatever I’m thinking about now I try to express.

AP: When Harry Met Sally... helped kick off a whole rom-com renaissance. Why do you think the form went out of style for a bit?

REINER: I don’t know why. To me the dance that happens between men and women is forever. That is the mating dance. That’s what we do. The studios are making a certain kind of film and basically they’re big event, franchise type pictures with lots of CGI and action and all that stuff. And they’re not really focused on human dramas or romantic comedies or courtroom dramas. The only people who were making these kinds of things would be independent filmmakers and it’s very tough to make an honest film about what happens. You could do it now. Right now if you were a young filmmaker and you wanted to make a romantic film, comedy, whatever, there’s a lot of gender fluidity and sexual fluidity and all of those elements would be part of it, it would seem to me, to somebody interested in wanting to do it. But you can’t get them made at studios. They don’t make those kinds of films. The only comedy, sort of romantic, they’re R-rated. They don’t make just relationship movies.

AP: Are you and Billy and Meg going to get together to catch up around the event?

REINER: We’re going to be at the screening. And Billy called me and was saying they’re going to give him the hands and feet at Grauman’s (now TCL) Chinese Theater the next day and he asked me to come and speak. My dad and I had that done a while ago and Billy came. So that’ll be nice.

AP FILE PHOTO

Writer-director Rob Reiner poses for a portrait in New York in 2016.

Brain waves Next-generation Reveen set for Vanier Hall show

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Another Reveen is getting standing ovations and wowing international audiences with amazing feats of the eye and mind.

For younger generations, Tyrone Reveen is the one and only mentalist they have ever known, but for older generations, part of the amazement is knowing Tyrone is not the original Reveen who defied the known laws of the mental universe.

The late legend Peter Reveen came first and pioneered the hypnosis and illusionist professions.

These are rare and difficult genres, no matter whom your father was, so two Reveens in a row is genuinely exciting.

It is hard enough for the daughter of a musician or the son of an athlete to learn the chops of a famous parent, but when yours is literally called an impossiblist, that almost begs for avoidance.

Tyrone Reveen did veer away from his Hall Of Famer father’s footsteps, for many years.

He became an innovator of another kind.

As an entrepreneur, Tyrone built special effects and designed stages for many of the world’s best known touring acts (ZZ Top, Usher, The Grey Cup, Madonna, Paul McCartney, etc.). The confetti/streamer cannon was his patent, among many other machines and processes that give audiences visual sizzle.

There was still, though, a magnetism towards the small dot in the middle of it all, the spotlight where the ringmaster stands in this circus life.

Tyrone grew up holding the hand of the man who attained superstar status in the realm of live performance “magic” and it was always blended with the absolutely real and fascinating realm of the human super-conscious. Even after Peter’s passing, the gentle guidance of that hand led Tyrone to that hot white dot.

“I got over the pressure part of it,” Tyrone told The Citizen. “When I was training to do the show, that’s the one thing I wasn’t sure of. I wasn’t used to being in the centre of the spotlight. I was

always on the periphery assisting the grand master himself.”

The technique Tyrone used to become not “a” Reveen but “the” Reveen was, in his own words, to over-think the weight of public attention.

He overemphasized, in his own mind, an imagined audience’s pressure. It allowed him to overwhelm the actual realities, which weren’t that scary by comparison.

He kept thinking back to a show he saw his father do in their native Australia when Tyrone was a small child, but old enough to realize that in a theatre full of thousands of people, they weren’t looking at each other or someone else, they were all looking at his dad, so dad must be someone extraordinary.

“I knew it was coming. I just conditioned myself to overcome it,” Tyrone said. “Because nervous tension is the unseen enemy of the human mind. And super-conscious conditioning is perhaps the greatest tool we have to help bring

Gambler shatters Jeopardy! record

The Washington Post

The 34-year-old from Naperville, Ill., says he hasn’t studied anything extensively, except for the lyrics to every Led Zeppelin song and an exhaustive list of alltime home run leaders in Major League Baseball. He plays a lot of bridge with competitors twice his age, and he gambles on sports in Las Vegas for a living.

But when he’s not doing that, you might catch him at the library.

Back in the corner where the children’s books are shelved, you’ll find James Holzhauer – Tuesday’s Jeopardy! champion who annihilated the show’s single-day winnings record by more than $30,000. Holzhauer brought home $110,914 after reaching into his mathematics background to correctly answer “What is quantum leap?” in Final Jeopardy, marking his fourth consecutive victory on the show. He shattered the previous single-game winnings record of $77,000, set by Roger Craig in 2010. And with a total of $244,365 in regular-play winnings from the four episodes, his success has led the Jeopardy! diehards to wonder whether he’s the show’s “next great champion.”

His secret? Those informational children’s books. “They are chock-full of infographics, pictures and all kinds of stuff to keep the reader engaged,” he told The Washington Post via email. “I couldn’t make it through a chapter of an actual Dickens novel without falling asleep.”

Holzhauer took Jeopardy! by storm over the past week, missing only four out of 133 questions as he cruised to smashing victories, ESPN reported. He knew his ballpark cuisine, his country music, his 18th century science and Hollywood history. He even knew that “Sadie Lou” was a nickname for Sarah Lawrence College, because he and his wife had studied the etymology of the name “Sadie” while picking out baby names. From his first appearance last Thursday, it was clear Holzhauer would wager big. “James Holzhauer is from Las Vegas,” host Alex Trebek said, introducing him. “He is a professional sports gambler. What does that mean, exactly?”

“Oh, I’ll bet on anything,” Holzhauer told him. But on Jeopardy!, his bets weren’t always strategic. They were personal. For every big wager, the amount of money Holzhauer bet coincided with a date: his wedding anniversary, the birthdays for his dad, nephew and daughter. He won exactly $110,914 on purpose on Tuesday, planning it all along. His daughter was born on 11/09/14.

He had been preparing for his run at Jeopardy! for a long time. A really long time. Holzhauer said he had dreamed of being on the show since he was a kid, back when the Chicago Cubs and Jeopardy! were about the only two things his family watched on school nights. “More importantly,” he said, “I promised my dear granny that I would appear on Jeopardy! one day, and I never take promises lightly.”

foreigners with special abilities). Tyrone said, “the United States government made a deal with him, if he taught the doctors throughout the medical universities how to apply the science of applied suggestion, for people in the medical field who had to deal with patients who were hypoallergenic to (anesthetic) drugs. He’s the first person I know of who was drafted into the United States for the benefit of the medical industry.”

Tyrone continues his father’s push to develop the medical benefits of applied suggestion, but he also has a modern application Peter never had to contend with. Tyrone grew up in the first generation of mass advertising and corporate applied suggestion through media.

“We are just bombarded by consistent negative conditioning and it has an effect on our mind,” said Tyrone, describing our world as an assault on our esteem to convince consumers to buy bits and pieces of artificial happiness. It hurts our body image, our sexual fulfillment, our abilities to self actualize, our sustainability as people. Even the all-too-common fear of public speaking comes from this.

forward our own true talents.”

This is the foundation of his mission in life. Just as it was for his father, the stage show is the way to show the public what the superconscious mind is capable of.

Tyrone calls people up on stage out of the audience, recognizable friends and neighbours from each town on the tour, and uses his skills to enable them to entertain. He makes it fun, but keeps it clean and maintains the personal dignity of the volunteers who take over the act.

“The mind works so fast, it will protect you,” he said. “It’s like a watchdog, making sure nothing comes out of your mouth that your persona hasn’t protected. Your mind will not abandon you. In a super-conscious state you can never do anything that’s against your deep-rooted moral convictions. You cannot be made to do anything you have convictions against.”

Hypnosis is not, as melodramatic movies and old comic books

tend to imply, a pathway into mental slavery. It is, though, a pathway to much more powerful uses than society has embraced so far.

This is as true for Tyrone as it was for Peter, who instilled in his son the history and the wider applications of this artful science.

“He started reading (in his teens) about the works of Anton Mesmer, Dr. John Elliotson, Dr. James Braid, all these surgeons who were able to make their patients feel no pain as they went through invasive surgeries, amputations, with no anesthetic drugs, and dad couldn’t get enough of this phenomenon known as hypnosis.”

The Reveen stage show was a byproduct serving the ultimate purpose of demonstrating hypnosis as a therapeutic aid.

Tyrone explained that when Peter was allowed to come to North America as a newcomer from Australia, it was on an H-1 visa (at the time, an American allowance for

“We were born without an instruction manual,” said Tyrone. “You have to instruct the mind to overcome your fears and instruct it in what you want to achieve. It is repetition of suggestion.”

If the TV and the magazine you’re looking at won’t tell you how capable and worthy you really are, you can do that yourself, he explained.

The folks who get up on his stage as volunteers are put into hypnosis, but it’s not a Reveen spell. It is a demonstration of what we are capable of even when we’re alone with our thoughts.

“When the conscious mind is relaxed, this state is a very positive condition,” he said. “I’m not making these people talented, I don’t manufacture it, I just help bring it forward. When we go through life, most people block their own talents and potential. People, for the most part, make assumptions based on negative fears.”

The fear melts in the heat of Reveen’s spotlight on the Vanier Hall stage on Saturday night at 7:30.

Tickets are on sale now at the TicketsNorth website.

Reveen brings a mind-bending performance to Vanier Hall on Saturday.

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.

LAMOTHE

Normand Michel

With great sorrow, the Lamothe family announces the sudden and tragic passing of Norm on April 6, 2019 at the age of 42 years.

Norm was born April 21, 1976 in Mackenzie, BC to Norm Sr. and Jutta Lamothe. Raised in Edmonton, AB, Norm spent many happy summers at the family cabin on Lake Bednesti, outside Prince George. From a young age, Norm embraced life outdoors, swimming and boating in the summers and skiing and skating in the winters. Norm and his brother, Chris, spent many hours playing lacrosse and hockey. As a young man, Norm moved to Jasper, AB, working in the ski shop at Marmot Basin. He later worked for Parks Canada in Jasper and spent time in the backcountry building and repairing trails. Norm enjoyed long road trips on his motorcycle in the company of good friends. In Jasper, Norm found a community of likeminded adventurers with whom he formed deep, lasting friendships, none more so than the love he found with Melissa Warren. Melissa and Norm enjoyed many wonderful travels together; a notable trip involved camping and surfing down the Oregon and California coast. They married in Prince George on June 29, 2013.

In 2013, Norm received his arborist certification and established Bednesti Tree Services in Prince George. In a few short years, he and his company developed a reputation for outstanding workmanship and service to the community. Norm’s gregarious nature, kind heart, warm voice, and friendly smile endeared him to all who knew him. He was a beloved son, brother, nephew, father, husband, cousin, uncle, and friend. As successful as he was in his work, Norm found no greater joy than his role as a husband to Melissa and a father to Olivia and Christopher. He thrilled at sharing his passion for the outdoors with his children, teaching them to ski and taking them skating during the winter. Norm also enjoyed time with his family in Mexico, where he would take Olivia and Chris snorkeling and play with them on the beach; every trip to Mexico, Norm would shave his beard so he could do one of his favorite water activities: scuba diving with sharks. He was immensely proud of the family he and Melissa created; he loved sharing laughter and hugs with all of them. Left behind with many wonderful memories are his wife, Melissa; his children, Olivia and Christopher; his mother, Jutta; and many, many other family and friends. He was preceded in death by his brother Chris, and father, Norm Sr. A memorial service will be held at the Prince George Civic Centre on Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 3:00pm, 808 Canada Games Way. The family asks that in lieu of

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.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Established Franchise Photography Business Serving Northern B.C for over 35 years

Gross Revenues of $150.000 plus annually from seasonal work Lots of opportunity to expand the business.

Transition support available to the right buyer

Serious Enquiries Only Office 250-596-9199 Cell 250-981-1472

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Established Franchise Tax Preparation BusinessMackenzieservicing and McLeod Lake area for over 30 years.

Gross Revenues of $85,000 to $90,000 Annually and Potential to expand revenues in a growing economy. Transition support available for the right buyer. Serious Inquires Only Office (250)997-9003 Home (250)997-5538 Cell (250)990-0152

Adult & Youth Newspaper Carriers Needed in the Following areas:

• Hart Area

• Driftwood Rd, Dawson Rd, Seton Cres,

• Austin Rd.

• • Lakewood

• Pilot, Limestone, Mica, Nelson, Selwyn, Valley, Urquhart, Quartz, Azure, Elkhorn Pl & Cres, Ochakwin, Bowren, Chingee Ave, Dome Ave, Cascade Ave, Delta Pl, Jackpine, Quentin Ave.

• • Lower College Heights

• O’Grady Rd and Park, Brock, Selkirk, Oxford, Simon Fraser,Trent, Fairmont, Guelph, Gladstone,Hartford, Harvard, Imperial, Kingsley, Jean De Brebeuf Cres, Loyola, Latrobe, LeicesterPl, Princeton Cres, Prince Edward Cres, Newcastle, Melbourne, Loedel, Marine Pl, Hough Pl, Guerrier Pl, Sarah Pl, Lancaster, Lemoyne,

• • Upper College Heights

• St Barbara, St Bernadette, Southridge, St Anne Ave, Bernard, St Clare St, St Gerald Pl, Creekside, Stillwater.

• • KGV Area

• Wainwright St, Burden St, Irwin, Harper, 1st, 2nd, Douglas, Hammond,Nechako Dr, Carney, Douglas, Melville, Tofield, Alward, Ewert St, Freeman St, Gillett St, Laurier Cres

Central

Pineview

Domano

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Wednesday. Quotations in Canadian funds.

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) – Canada’s main stock index resumed its upward trajectory, setting a 2019 trading high, following tame U.S. inflation data and increased crude oil prices.

After falling Tuesday on lower economic growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund, the TSX rose as data showed that underlying inflation remained in check even though consumer prices increased by the most in 14 months in March.

“We’re definitely seeing a relief rally on the equity front and a lot of that is on the heels of that softer inflation report this morning out of the U.S. which has essentially reinforced the cautious approach from central banks,” says Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager for Fiera Capital. The inflation data supports the Federal Reserve’s decision to pause interest rate hikes.

“Essentially what we’re seeing in the data as of late is that the economic results have been strong enough to defy those fears of a pronounced slowdown but not strong enough to force central banks to reconsider their patient and cautious approach and this is obviously a very constructive backdrop for equity markets in general,” she said in an interview.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 59.84 points to 16,396.29 after setting a 2019 high of 16,409.77 earlier.

The index was helped by a broadbased rally, with all of its 11 major sectors rising except materials, which fell on lower copper prices. Energy was the best performer, gaining 1.7 per cent followed by health care. Crescent Point Energy Corp. led the key energy sector, rising 6.57 per cent, with Cenovus Energy Inc. and Encana Corp. up 4.78 per cent and 4.10 per cent respectively.

The sector’s performance was helped by crude oil prices rising to a new five-month high on a report that U.S. crude stockpiles rose last week to their highest level since November 2017 while gasoline inventories fell beyond expectations.

In addition, OPEC is adhering to production cuts while supply is being disrupted by sanctions on Venezuela and Iran.

The May crude contract was up 63 cents at US$64.61 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was up 0.1 of a cent at US$2.70 per mmBTU.

The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.04 cents US compared with an average of 75.10 cents US on Tuesday.

The June gold contract was up US$5.60 at US$1,313.90 an ounce and the May copper contract was down 0.85 of a cent at US$2.93 a pound.

May pleads EU for Brexit delay

The Associated Press

BRUSSELS – European Union leaders were deciding Wednesday whether to save Britain from a precipitous and potentially calamitous Brexit, or to give the foot-dragging departing nation a shove over the edge.

Prime Minister Theresa May pleaded with the 27 other EU leaders at an emergency summit to delay Britain’s exit, due on Friday, until June 30 while the U.K. sorts out the mess that Brexit has become.

Some were sympathetic, but French President Emmanuel Macron struck a warning note.

“Nothing is decided,” Macron said, insisting on “clarity” from May about what Britain wants.

“What’s indispensable is that nothing should compromise the European project in the months to come,” he said.

At a pre-dinner meeting in Brussels, May made the case for the delay. She believes that a

June 30 deadline is enough time for Britain’s Parliament to ratify a Brexit deal and pass the legislation needed for a smooth Brexit.

But British lawmakers have rejected her divorce deal three times, and attempts to forge a compromise with her political opponents have yet to bear fruit.

May spoke to the 27 EU leaders for just over an hour, before they met for dinner without her to decide Britain’s fate. In contrast to some testy recent summits, there were signs of warmth and even humour. May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were filmed laughing over a tablet bearing an image showing the two of them speaking to their respective Parliaments on Wednesday wearing similar blue jackets.

Many leaders said they were inclined to grant a Brexit delay, though they suggested a longer delay would likely be needed, given the depth of Britain’s political disarray.

Luxembourg Prime Minister

Xavier Bettel said he hoped for “an intelligent extension.”

“If it’s a longer extension there is no lunch for free, so we need to know why,” he said. May signalled she would accept a longer extension, as long as it contained a get-out-early cause should Britain end its Brexit impasse.

“What is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify the withdrawal agreement,” May said as she arrived in Brussels.

She added that she was hopeful it could be as soon as May 22 – a key date since that would avoid Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament.

Months have passed since May and the EU struck a deal laying out the terms of Britain’s departure and the outline of future relations. All that was needed was ratification by the British and European Parliaments.

But U.K. lawmakers rejected itthree times. As Britain’s departure

Trump signs executive orders to accelerate pipeline projects

The Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO – U.S. President Donald

Trump’s support for shifting more power to states took a back seat Wednesday to his affinity for oil and gas production as he aimed to make it harder for states to block pipelines and other energy projects due to environmental concerns.

At the urging of business groups, Trump was to sign two executive orders designed to speed up oil and gas pipeline projects. The action comes after officials in Washington state and New York used the permitting process to stop new energy projects in recent years.

His administration insisted that it was not trying to take power away from the states but, rather, trying to make sure that state actions follow the intent of the Clean Water Act.

Less than a week ago, nearly a dozen business groups told EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler that the environmental review and permitting process for energy projects “has become a target for environmental activists and states that oppose the production and use of fossil fuels.”

The groups said in an April 5 letter that individual states shouldn’t be able to use

provisions of the Clean Water Act “to dictate national policy, thereby harming other states and the national interest and damaging co-operative federalism.”

Washington state blocked the building of a coal terminal in 2017, saying there were too many major harmful impacts including air pollution, rail safety and vehicle traffic. New York regulators stopped a natural gas pipeline, saying it failed to meet standards to protect streams, wetlands and other water resources. Under a section of the law, companies must get certification from the state before moving ahead with an energy project. One of Trump’s planned executive orders calls for the EPA to consult with states, tribes and others before issuing new guidance and rules for states on how to comply with the law.

Environmental groups described Trump’s order as an effort to short-circuit a state’s ability to review complicated projects, putting at risk a state’s ability to protect drinking water supplies and wildlife.

“The Trump administration’s proposal would trample on state authority to protect waters within their own borders,” said Jim Murphy, senior counsel for the National Wildlife Federation.

date of March 29 approached with no resolution in sight, the EU gave Britain until Friday to approve a withdrawal plan, change course and seek a further delay to Brexit, or crash out of the EU with no deal to cushion the shock. If no extension materializes Wednesday, Britain will leave the bloc Friday with no deal, unless it cancels Brexit independently.

Economists and business leaders warn that a no-deal Brexit would lead to huge disruptions in trade and travel, with tariffs and customs checks causing gridlock at British ports and possible shortages of goods.

A disorderly Brexit would hurt EU nations, as well as Britain, and all want to avoid it.

“I don’t anticipate that the U.K. will leave this Friday,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. “I’m very confident that there will be an extension agreed today. What’s still open is how long that extension will be and what the conditions will be.”

AP PHOTO

European Council President Donald Tusk, left, speaks with British Prime Minister Theresa May, centre, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, second left, prior to a dinner during an EU summit in Brussels on Wednesday.

Black hole sun

Seeing is believing as first-ever picture of elusive object released

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Humanity got its first glimpse Wednesday of the cosmic place of no return: a black hole.

And it’s as hot, as violent and as beautiful as science fiction imagined.

In a breakthrough that thrilled the world of astrophysics and stirred talk of a Nobel Prize, scientists released the first image ever made of a black hole, revealing a fiery doughnut-shaped object in a galaxy 53 million light-years from Earth.

“Science fiction has become science fact,” University of Waterloo theoretical physicist Avery Broderick, one of the leaders of the research team of about 200 scientists from 20 countries, declared as the colourized orange-and-black picture was unveiled.

The image, assembled from data gathered by eight radio telescopes around the world, shows light and gas swirling around the lip of a supermassive black hole, a monster of the universe whose existence was theorized by Einstein more than a century ago but confirmed only indirectly over the decades. Supermassive black holes are situated at the centre of most galaxies, including ours, and are so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. Light gets bent and twisted around by gravity in a bizarre funhouse effect as it gets sucked into the abyss along with superheated gas and dust.

The new image confirmed yet another piece of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein even predicted the object’s neatly symmetrical shape.

“We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole,” announced Sheperd Doeleman of Harvard, leader of the project.

Jessica Dempsey, another co-discoverer and deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawaii, said the fiery circle reminded her of the flaming Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Three years ago, scientists using an extraordinarily sensitive observing system heard the sound of two much smaller black holes merging to create a gravitational wave, as Einstein predicted. The new image, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and announced around the world, adds light to that sound.

Outside scientists suggested the achievement could be worthy of a Nobel, just like the gravitational wave discovery.

“I think it looks very convincing,” said Andrea Ghez, director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, who wasn’t part of the discovery team.

The picture was made with equipment that detects wavelengths invisible to the human eye, so astronomers added colour to convey the ferocious heat of the gas and dust, glowing at a temperature of perhaps millions of degrees. But if a person were to somehow get close to this black hole, it might not look quite like that, astronomers said.

The black hole is about six billion times the mass of our sun and is in a galaxy called

M87. Its “event horizon” – the precipice, or point of no return where light and matter get sucked inexorably into the hole – is as big as our entire solar system. Black holes are the “most extreme environment in the known universe,” Broderick said, a violent, churning place of “gravity run amok.” Unlike smaller black holes, which come from collapsed stars, supermassive black holes are mysterious in origin.

Despite decades of study, there are a few holdouts who deny black holes exist, and this work shows that they do, said Boston University astronomer professor Alan Marscher, a co-discoverer.

The project cost $50 million to $60 million, with $28 million of that coming from the National Science Foundation. The same team has gathered even more data on a black hole in the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy, but scientists said the object is so jumpy they don’t have a good picture yet.

Myth says a black hole would rip a person apart, but scientists said that because of the particular forces exerted by an object as big

as the one in M87, someone could fall into it and not be torn to pieces. But the person would never be heard from or seen again.

Black holes are “like the walls of a prison. Once you cross it, you will never be able to get out and you will never be able to communicate,” said astronomer Avi Loeb, who is director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard but was not involved in the discovery.

This past week, Environment and Climate Change Canada released Canada’s Changing Climate Report 2019. The report is 444 pages long, tackling the issue of climate change from the basics all the way through to the implications for the various regions of Canada. The headline news is both past and future warming in Canada is, on average, about double the magnitude than the global average. Further, northern Canada is warming at more than double the global rate. This might sound a little confusing. After all, isn’t Canada part of the globe? How can one region warm faster than another? The simple answer is it isn’t just Canada. All of the extreme northern and southern latitudes are warming faster due to the convection within the atmosphere and the overall distribution of heat across the surface of the planet. One way to think of this, albeit simplistically, is the tropics are already hot and are not going to get much hotter while the Arctic

RELATIVITY

TODD WHITCOMBE

and Antarctic are cold and will warm up considerably. It is like boiling water – once it is at a boil, the temperature stays the same but if you drop an ice cube into the water, its temperature will rapidly increase.

Since 1948, Canada’s average annual land temperature has increased by approximately 1.7 C. The territories have seen an increase of 2.3 C over the same period with the greatest relative warming happening during the winter months.

Northern British Columbia is another region which has been disproportionately hit. When averaged out, our winter temperatures are significantly warmer than in the 1950s.

It is not just the land-based temperatures which are increasing. The oceans surrounding Canada have warmed significantly. On

When scientists initially put all that data into the first picture, what they saw looked so much like what they expected they didn’t believe it at first.

“We’ve been hunting this for a long time,” Dempsey said. “We’ve been getting closer and closer with better technology.”

The telescope data was gathered two years ago, over four days when the weather had to be just right all around the world. Completing the image was an enormous undertaking, involving an international team of scientists, supercomputers and hundreds of terabytes of data.

Climate report a wakeup call for Canada

the Pacific coast, the ocean is both measurably more acidic as carbon dioxide dissolves into sea water and less oxygenated. The solubility of oxygen decreases with increasing water temperature and decreased oxygen means a lower capacity to sustain aquatic life. The result is a net stress on the fish stocks on the west coast which when tied to our policies on fishing will likely lead to a permanent state of collapse over the next 20 years. The temperature of the northeast Pacific is projected to rise by roughly 2 C in winter and 3 C in the summer by 2065. And while wave heights off the coast have decreased over the past three decades, sea level rise could exceed 50 cm at Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii. Precipitation is projected to increase for most of Canada, but not necessarily in the summer months. This might sound like a benefit but it will impact the growing season and lead to hotter, drier summers. The propensity for forest fires will likely increase and in northern B.C. we are likely to see summers similar to the past couple for the next two decades.

Ironically, the availability of freshwater will also change with an increased risk of water shortages during the summer months. Warmer winters will lead to earlier snowmelts resulting in higher winter streamflows and smaller ice packs. Further glacial ice loss will essentially deplete the “bank account” of stored water. The net result will be more flooding in the spring and lower flow rates during the summer.

While this will likely not have a significant impact on our ability to obtain freshwater in Prince George, other communities in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island will be increasingly in danger of water shortages requiring restrictions on use.

The temperature of the surface flow, particularly in the summer, will also impact the capacity of local streams, rivers and lakes to sustain aquatic populations. Many of the species we think of as native to the north may not be able to withstand the changes in acidity, oxygenation and temperature which will occur in local waterways as the overall flow of water through the system changes.

On top of all this, a warmer climate will lead to an increase in both the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. Instead of getting a steady supply of precipitation, we will see more bursts leading to flooding. Periods of drought will exacerbate the overall effects as the dry landscape does not retain water. While there should be minimal impact in the north, the southern interior will see significantly more flash flooding.

The very first sentence in the executive summary for the report says “Canada’s climate has warmed and will warm further in the future, driven by human influence.” As a percentage of the world’s global carbon dioxide emissions Canada is a very small player, but global emissions will have a disproportionate effect on our climate. Perhaps this is only fair as we represent only 0.5 per cent of the world’s population but produce a disproportionate two per centof the world’s emissions. The report is a wake-up call telling us what climate change will mean for all Canadians in the years and decades ahead.

Woman who lived to 99 years old had most organs on wrong side of her body

The Associated Press SALEM, Ore. – Rose Marie Bentley was an avid swimmer, raised five kids, helped her husband run a feed store, and lived to the ripe age of 99. It was only after she died that medical students discovered that all her internal organs – except for her heart –were in the wrong place. The discovery of the rare condition was astounding – especially because Bentley had lived so long. People with the condition known as situs inversus with levocardia often have life-threatening cardiac ailments and other abnormalities, according to Oregon Health & Science University.

A class at the university was examining the heart of a cadaver last year when they noticed the blood vessels were different. When they opened the abdominal cavity, they saw that all the other organs were on the wrong side. The unusual blood vessels helped the heart compensate. Bentley’s family had not known about the condition, which OHSU says occurs only once in every 22,000 births.

CP/AP PHOTOS

Ontario scientist Avery Broderick is shown in a handout photo provided by the University of Waterloo. An international team of researchers that includes Broderick has unveiled the first captured image of a black hole, right.

NEWCOMER SHOWCASING HIS TALENT

The voices of creation speak to Darin Corbiere. Starting today, we get to see what they told him.

The recent arrival to Lheidli T’enneh territory came with a well established arts career back in his original home of Ontario. The Anishinaabe First Nation painter and tinker moved to Prince George about a year and a half ago and almost instantly became an active member of the local fine arts community. Seeing Things In A Different Light: Changing Perspectives is his Prince George debut exhibition.

“What can I say? I am feeling fortunate, blessed, excited to be here in Prince George,” said Corbiere, who came because his wife was accepted into a master’s degree program at UNBC and he followed after she had been here awhile doing her studies.

He arrived “with no employment, no prospects, just showed up blind,” he said. He grabbed the first job he came across, as a labourer at Nechako Bottle Depot. He is, however, a teacher by profession and also a former officer with the Sudbury Police Service. His skill-set was soon discovered and put to use by the Activator Society (an organization that supports men as they transition from incarceration to balanced community living) and the Urban Aboriginal Justice Society (a not-for-profit agency that works to reduce the number of Aboriginal people in conflict with the law).

A slap of realization hit Corbiere when new Ontario premier Doug Ford enacted a sweeping staff reduction. When he checked his service record, Corbiere knew he would have lost his job in that wave of layoffs. He was instead in Prince George following what he feels is a higher calling and it has come out in his art.

“When I came here I started looking for arts organizations right away, I found Studio 2880 right away, I met Lisa Redpath and Sean Farrell (managers with the Community Arts Council, operators of the Studio 2880 arts complex), I got the privilege of meeting the artists involved in starting the Northern Indigenous Artists’ Collective, and Lisa has really been my guide into everything that’s

happened for me since then. My gratitude is so high. And I’ve flourished here. I’ve painted 40 or 50 pieces since I arrived in Prince George. Things have really taken off for me in the past year.”

Space was one of the benefits of the new contacts he made here. In his duties with the Activator Society, he got to spend large amounts of time at their Aghelh Nebun wilderness camp. He had access to large cre-

ation spaces in the buildings there. He made large creations.

The biggest stands more than six feet tall. It is comprised of smaller pieces of wood on which he has painted partial images that, when arranged the right way, forms a single image. He took it as an official entry in the Grand Rapids Art Prize competition in Michigan and it now forms the focal point of his exhibition.

The act of building one broader piece of art from several smaller pieces of art is a theme in his work. Apart from a few exceptions, all of it is paint (everything from felt pens to alcohol ink) on wood.

The most common recurring element is the image of a feather, sometimes overt and sometimes subtle, on a long, thin strip of wood. He calls each one a feather when alone, and a wing when assembled into a number together.

“I heard a voice, and it asked me to create 1,000 of these feathers,” he said, now somewhere between 100 and 200 in the past few years.

Another voice, a female in water, described to him how he should paint her on a pair of unfinished planks that now dominates Corbiere’s office and will be another feature piece in the exhibition.

“She told me the story of what to do to bring her out in the paint. I could see her in the water, and I thought she was just swimming, but then my wife told me she was down at the bottom, I hadn’t seen that in the painting but she did, and then I realized she was actually moving to the surface. Whatever had been holding her down, she let go of, she is resurfacing.”

Another recurring element of Corbiere’s work is making a whole creation. He wraps the entire physical structure in the image, so to see more of the swimming figure, or more of the feathers, turn the wood over.

Darin Corbiere is Seeing Things In A Different Light and you can, too, when he unveils the Changing Perspectives exhibition today from 5-7 p.m. at the feature gallery at Studio 2880. A free reception and artist’s talk are included. The show will be available to view until May 9.

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Darin Corbiere with one of his art pieces titled Woman in the Water that will be part of his art show at Studio 2880.

FRANK PEEBLES 97/16 staff

FOREVER YOUNG CHORUS TAKES

THE STAGE SATURDAY

The Forever Young Chorus at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre, under the direction of Janice Taylor is proud to present their annual spring concert. This year’s theme, Folk Songs Your Heart Remembers will feature folk songs both old and new from North America as well as from across the pond.

The Forever Young Chorus, originally known as the Rainbow Singers, was formed in 1992 when a group of eight ladies, with Elaine Clark as the accompanist and Janice Taylor as the director, started rehearsing at the Elder Citizens Recreations Centre and from there the group went out into the community to entertain other seniors.

Since that time, the choir has grown to more than 40 voices including 14 men.

Janice Taylor is still the director, Alexis Maikapar is the assistant director and the highly talented Vic Steblin is the accompanist.

The Forever Young Chorus is a totally volunteer seniors’ choir and the group regularly presents a weekend of concerts each spring, a special concert during the Christmas holiday season and as well the group takes their show to shut-in seniors at many of the senior residences in Prince George.

New members are welcome to join in the months of September and January.

The Forever Young Chorus director Janice Taylor said, “This springs concert will feature the voices of our talented men in a couple of fun numbers as well as solos, trios and our entire chorus to showcase all of our talented singers. The featured guest performers for this show are the P.G. Ukes.

The P. G. Ukes are a lively group of Ukulele playing seniors sure to be a fun addition to our program.”

The members of the Forever Young Chorus and the P.G. Ukes are all seniors, volunteers and members of the Elder Citizens Recreation Association. Most of these men and women have no prior professional music experience, some have performed at an amateur level and some have no experience whatsoever. There is joy in singing and anyone can do it. In fact, when they first join, the entertaining on stage takes many of these seniors out of their comfort zone.

It is not long until you can hear comments like, “It’s great to experience something outside of what we usually think of as aging and the songs cause us to learn new things.”

Janice summed it all up and said, “Going out into our community to make people smile and our public performance is what it is all about. Many members have said that they have always loved singing and they just sang for fun, but with the choir, they get the chance to be taught to sing even better.

“I know we are all older but we don’t feel old inside. It is wonderful watching them sing because you can see in their faces and bodies how life affirming it is. We have a lovely choir family. Over the years the choir has lost members through sickness and

sadly some have passed on but we always remember to honor them.”

The Forever Young Chorus strives to present a positive image of aging through their music and they are living proof that age is no barrier to making great music. Lino and I are both members of the Forever Young Chorus. We love what we sing and we intend to joyfully pass our time instead of passing before our time. May you stay Forever Young.

• The Forever Young Chorus at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre, under the direction of Janice Taylor is proud to present Folk Songs Your Heart Remembers this Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and again on Sunday at 2 p.m. Admission is $10 - tickets are now on sale at the ECRA office and will also be available at the door. The address is 1692 Tenth Ave. (between Vancouver and Winnipeg Street).

ECRA is a registered non-profit organization. Everyone is welcome to attend and members in particular are urged to attend one of the three shows because all proceeds go toward centre operations.

• ECRA will be holding its annual giant garage sale on Saturday, May 18, under the direction of the ECRA line dancers. The garage sale includes a book, craft and bake sale. Donations to the garage sale are now being gratefully accepted with proceeds going to centre operations. Please no large appliances, computer equipment or furniture. If you have any questions please contact Lisa at 250-561- 9381.

• April birthdays that I know about: Donna Bosnich, Joan Lemky, Lorna Dittmar, Don Vaale, Peter Da’Silva, Ralph

Schemenauer, Bruce Hawkenson, Patrick Stapleton, Fern Roberts, Judith Elmquist, Lois Boone, Ken Stahl, Lillie (Khin Sein) Sein, Laurie Rustad, Barb Endean, Patsy Patterson, Joan Millns, Gertrude Lansing, Diane Duperron, Lothar Hirt, Charlie Burkitt, Joyce Burkitt, Shirley Green, Terry Carter, Marion Watt, Shirley Gratton, Hilliard Clare, Daphne Truefitt, Pearl Blood, Allen Soltis, Sharon Hurd, Alexis Maikapar, Stan Cook, Joyce Grantham, Avril Barr, Sandy Maikapar, Alice Friend, Sharon Talkington, Leona Nyberg, Betty Bekkering, Lynne Boomer, Lorna Cundy, Diane McDonald, Nola Stairs, Evette Bouchard, John Norman, Rosel Vogt, Virginia Parsons, James Barks, Rosemary Burns, Bill Chappel, Roderick Herd, Harold Hewlett, George Kivi, Ellen Laughery, Grace Spears, Maxine Valpy, Edwina Watt, Ken Yarocki, Art Carter, Cyndie Stephens, Ron Morgan, Iris Owen, Dianne Wanless, Darlene Wainwright, Jim Menard and last but not least Dorothy Wood just turned 90.

• April Anniversaries: 66 years for Joe and Sophie Chartrand, 61 years for August and Loretta Thibault, 58 years for Mike and Evie Padalec, 56 years for Greg and Alice Friend, 56 years for Joyce and Jim Sweeny, 56 years for Kenneth and Hedwig Toombs, 54 years for Hans and Roberta Johansen, 54 years for Cyril and Irene Fortin, 53 years for Derek and Ester Swanson, 52 years for Cornelius (Corny) and Christa Hughes, 52 years for Kevin and Pearl Blood, 52 years for Lorne and Irene Carbert, 51 years for Pat and Terry Brown, 65 years for Agner and Alice Olesen and three years for Mike and Helen Green.

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten

The men of the Forever Young Chorus join director Janice Taylor in inviting the community to their spring concert.

TO HOST WORKSHOP

It’s never too soon or too late to make changes that will maintain your brain health.

Similarly, it’s always the right time to learn how to make the Prince George community dementia-friendly.

Those two objectives come together in the city April 27. That’s when the nonprofit Alzheimer Society of B.C. runs its Dementia Friends and Healthy Brains workshop for area residents.

“You’ll learn about brain health, dementia, and how to play a role in making our community dementia friendly,” said

Sandra Meehan, one of the Society’s support and education coordinators.

Actively engaging in protecting and maintaining your brain is an essential part of healthy aging, she said. The workshop offers strategies and tips for improving the health of the mind, body and spirit. “You can set goals to improve your brain health,” she said.

The workshop also gives participants an introduction to dementia, one of B.C.’s most pressing health issues.

“We’ll help people recognize when someone may be living with the disease,” Meehan said. The session includes helpful strategies and tips for communicating with people who are living with dementia, and information on where to get more help.

“We’ll explore how you can help people living with dementia feel included and supported,” she said.

The session runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Prince George Public Library’s Keith Gordon Room, 888 Canada Games Way. Lunch is provided. Pre-registration is required by contacting 1-866-564-7533 or info.princegeorge@alzheimerbc.org.

If you are a caregiver or person living with dementia looking for information or assistance, call the First Link Dementia Helpline at 1-800-936-6033.

Quebec has introduced a bill to prohibit many public employees from wearing religious symbols while at work. The government is asking people to check their religion at the door and join them in creating a secularist state.

For most people of faith, their faith shapes their moral code, their worldview and it informs their attitude to public service and what makes them unique individuals. In our multicultural country, our shared values may hide behind different colours of skin and styles of clothing, but they are there. We just have to look past appearances.

I have an auntie who works at her local school as a librarian. Her headscarf identifies her as a conservative Mennonite to all around her. It doesn’t show her ability, or inability, to serve her community. It shows her as a distinct part of her community. She is very aware that her behavior will reflect on her religious community, so there is a sense of pride, and the opportunity to showcase that not all Mennonites are ignorant, contrary to the stereotypical view among the local public. So, it has been a good thing for everyone, Mennonite and non-Mennonite alike, to broaden their respective horizons, and everyone has learned much about “the other.” A richness would be lost if this right to look distinctive would be taken away, and she dressed just like every other school employee.

Former French President Nicholas

Sarkozy has argued that faces are a part of our identity and too important to full participation in society to be hidden behind a full face-hiding veil or burka. If this is the concern the Quebec government is trying to address, they need to take their legislation to the chopping block and make it say that, rather than so much more.

The fact that this legislation is wideranging tells me that there is more to it. It appears they wish government agents to appear merely as government agents and not as a member of any other identifiable group. This is ignorant and overbearing. It seems as if government needs defending or support as its own entity, rather than as an agent acting on behalf of the people. We don’t need an all-powerful, personified, (bland) state in order to have good government; for that we need shared values and a common trust in our forms of government.

If cultural or societal unity is the goal, surely people can rally around something higher than clothing in order to be unified. At the very least, bland clothing is a poor societal value to rally around.

WINTER ENDS IN THE LOST AND FOUND

It’s spring (sort of)!

And with the changing of weather comes many, many jobs for the modern northern family including putting snow pants away and matching mittens together and finding a bin big enough to fit the various winter items until next season.

It is a super fun job.

Really fun.

I may have to do the winter clothes

Marie Kondo style, throwing everything in a big pile in the living room and sorting through it. Except for the “finding joy” bit because no winter item will bring anyone joy at the end of the season.

Children have an uncanny ability to not recognize their own articles of clothing when they have fallen out of their hands and on to the floor. Toques, mitts, gloves, scarfs, snow pants, bicycle helmets, water bottles, pants, shoes, and boots, clog up the school lost and found bins to overflowing. I try to go through the lost and found at my kids school every month or so, collecting their miscellaneous items and find things that I did not realize they had “borrowed.” (I’m talking to you, daughter. I found my missing scarf at your school – twice).

If this laissez-faire attitude about their clothes were consistent, then the lost and founds would be filled with McDonald’s toys, Pokemon cards, Bey Blades and other favourite toys.

But there are no toys in the lost and found.

It must come down to value – they value silly, little toys and I value not having to buy new gloves. People need to go through lost and founds more often as you can find a number of treasures that no one will touch. I am fairly certain that there are enough water bottles at schools, dance studios, gymnastic clubs, and martial art dojos to quench the thirst of all Prince George.

As it is, I think that after an appropriate amount of time, people should feel free to dig through the lost and founds in the search for something useful – or something you used to own. Then when your kids “misplace” something, you can be content in the knowledge that the things they’ve lost have gone to a good home.

That’s what I hope, anyway.

In the meantime, I will be sorting through mittens and toques to see what may work next year and deciding what to do with the eleven single mitts that are leftover.

FINDING JOY IN LABOUR TAKES WORK

Arecent study shows that 47 per cent of Canadians are unhappy in their jobs. Many cite lack of pay as the reason for their feelings, but it is not the only factor. Many find the work environment difficult, or that the work lacks meaning.

Of course, leaving a job is not necessarily a good thing. It can take a significant amount of time to make a positive impact, no matter what one is doing. It also takes a great deal of introspection and self-awareness to be able to determine where one fits in the world of work.

Unless the work is completely unethical, we can make almost any job meaningful. It is ultimately up to us. The key is to have a mission in life, to know our purpose. For example, when I worked summers as a pool cleaner during my university years, I found the job much more enjoyable when I knew I was offering the best service possible. The work became testament to the person I am, and I was able to demonstrate that to both my customers and my employer.

LESSONS IN LEARNING

GERRY CHIDIAC

calls us to our purpose. This moves us from simply “doing a job” to living out our vocation or our mission in life.

“The most remarkable broadway experience ever!”

Psychiatrist and witness to the horrors of Nazi work camps, Viktor Frankl, tells us, “we do not invent our mission; we detect it.” In other words, there is something deep within us that

A statement attributed to Mohandas Gandhi tells us to, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Pondering this statement, we need to first ask ourselves what kind of world we want to see. The answer to this question reveals our own inner values. Do we believe, for example, that peace, respect, love, joy and integrity are important? If so, the only way to make them more prevalent is to practice them in our own lives.

how one can best leave a legacy, taking into account who we are as individuals. This goes beyond our talents, it is a question of finding what fills one’s soul.

I have always been good at math, for example, but as an extrovert I would have found working in an accountant’s office torturous. I enjoyed being a pool cleaner, but I knew it would not fulfill my soul’s purpose.

The challenge then becomes to decide how one can best leave a legacy, taking into account who we are as individuals. This goes beyond our talents, it is a question of finding what fills one’s soul.

Gerry Chidiac

From there, we can ask ourselves how we can leave a legacy which reflects our values.

The challenge then becomes to decide

Through a number of part-time jobs, I realized how much I enjoyed working with young people. I’ve always believed in equal opportunity, and looking back, I can see why I was drawn to public education. Being a teacher in a very heterogeneous high school clearly resonates with my desire to celebrate and draw out the giftedness in each person, regardless of their socio-economic background. Writing a newspaper column simply allows me to expand this reach beyond the confines of age and physical structure. Perhaps the solution to our

unhappiness at work is to define our purpose. According to the British Columbia Curriculum, a significant piece of career education today is to provide students the opportunity to experience their careers journeys in personally meaningful and goal oriented ways. It is thus important for students to explore their personalities, their interests, their learning styles, and to put together a mission statement which reflects what resonates for them. Of course, our experience in high school does not define us for a lifetime. It is valuable for all of us to not just go through the motions of life and work, but to reflect on what we believe is important in life and the kind of people we wish to be. We never stop growing; our situations never stop changing. We are each our own greatest investment, and when our work reflects the people that we are, we find dignity and joy in our labour.

Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place.

For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com

Build your position in the market place, maximize your marketing message, create a marketing plan and apply the right strategies on a tight budget. Apr 5 & 12/19 | 8:30-4:30 | $329

To register call 250 561 5801 or go online cnc.bc.ca/ce

ISLAND MOUNTAIN ARTS UNVEILS PROGRAM SCHEDULE

The arts-based community of Wells has unveiled its annual programming schedule, as designed by Island Mountain Arts. IMA is a full-spectrum cultural organization that runs yearround courses, classes, concerts and confabulations all pertaining to the arts array.

Located about 90 minutes southeast of Prince George on the doorstep of Barkerville, IMA’s pinnacle event is the ArtsWells Festival which is scheduled for Aug. 2-5.

Apart from that, though, is a busy calendar of other activities. Their 43rd annual program guide was released to the public last week.

The item coming quickest on their official roster of events is the Self-Directed Five-Day Residency from Apr. 18-22.

“Spend five days delving into your creative practice in the wintery wonderland of Wells during the Easter-Long weekend,” said IMA organizers.

On Apr. 27, come see the Wells-Barkerville Elementary School Exhibition & Live Auction.

On May 3, there is an exhibition reception and artist’s talk with Danielle Savage and Alexandra Goodall. Their joint art show is up until June 9.

On June 5, legendary Prince George roots-country troubadour Gary Fjellgaard will perform a live concert at the Sunset Theatre.

Coming after that is a two-day watercolour workshop with Simone Buck starting June 15, then the popular Toni Onley Artists’ Project from July 6-14 that has, in the past, “had a tremendous impact on the artistic development of those who have taken part in it. Participating artists spend nine days in Wells working in the IMA studios under the mentorship of senior artists.”

On July 6 and 7, respectively, artists Diana Thorneycroft and Peter von Tiesenhausen will give solo talks.

Canadian literature star George Elliott Clarke will be in Wells from July 18-21 for a writing workshop focused on poetry.

The same weekend there will also be a introduction workshop to the gouache form of painting, as led by Kate Scoones.

Northern artist Sarah Zimmerman opens her exhibition with a talk and reception on July 19. On July 30, there is a slate of

songwriting workshops featuring leaders like Doug Cox, Dan

Bern, Linda McRae, Al Simmons, Randy Woods and Tomáš Kubínek, plus a session centred on music creators aged 6-18 led by Corwin Fox, Kia Kadiri, Shawn Stephenson and Maiya Robbie.

After that comes the creative onslaught of the ArtsWells Festival (more than 100 performances on 10 stages, plus 20 workshops, a 1-minute play festival, and inexplicably energizing other built-in things to see and do).

Aug. 19 is when the International Harp & Cello School opens, with a special instructors’ concert scheduled to be included.

The Wells Annual Community Ceilidh & Potluck takes place on Aug. 22 with all its Celtic-Breton stomp and style.

The summer closes out with an art exhibition opening and artist’s talk with Quesnel’s own painting star James Savage. For full descriptions of these events, and the portals to book attendance and buy tickets, go to the Island Mountain Arts website.

97/16 file photo

Juno award winner and member of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame Gary Fjellgaard will

STUDENT EATING HABITS CHANGED WHEN

ROBOTS INVADED CAMPUS

In the first days after a fleet of 25 delivery robots descended on George Mason University’s campus in January, school officials could only speculate about the machines’ long-term impact.

The Igloo cooler-sized robots from the Bay Area start-up Starship Technologies - which were designed to deliver food on demand across campus - appeared to elicit curious glances and numerous photos, but not much else.

It was clear, officials said at the time, that more time and more data would be necessary to understand whether the robots would actually change the campus culture or become a forgettable novelty.

Today, some of that data emerged for the first time. In the two months since the robots arrived at the Fairfax, Va.based school, an extra 1,500 breakfast orders have been delivered autonomously, according to Starship Technologies and Sodexo, a company that manages food services for GMU on contract and works closely with the robots.

“Research has shown that up to 88 per cent of college students skip breakfast, primarily because of lack of time, but that number is starting to turn around when delivery robots arrive on campus,” Starship Technologies said in a statement released Monday.

“This follows a similar pattern seen at corporate campuses where delivery ro-

bots were added,” the statement added, referring to an uptick in breakfast orders.

The robots make food deliveries all over the 800-acre campus, school officials say. Though they’re frequently seen making the 15-minute trip from campus restaurants to a handful of nearby dorms, the robots make deliveries to buildings across campus, where students meet them when they’re en route to class or studying.

Students took advantage of the service from the beginning.

During the first day of deliveries at GMU, the machines were flooded by so many dinner orders that school officials had to pull the plug, shutting off orders so that robots weren’t operating late into the night, far behind schedule. Each robot is opened using a delivery code and can carry up to 20 pounds – the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods, Starship Technologies said.

The company didn’t reveal whether dinner orders returned to normal levels after their early spike or offer any theories about why the machines were being used so heavily in the morning hours beyond “convenience.” But perhaps the answer is not much of a mystery.

Sodexo officials have noted that college students are prolific users of food delivery apps and they place a high value on convenience and having access to multiple options when they dine. During the morning hours, restaurant experts

say, there is generally more emphasis on speed than any other part of the day. Combine college students love of food delivery with chaotic morning routines and, perhaps, you have a perfect recipe for robots.

“During the week, people generally want quicker,” Bruce Dean, CEO of 100unit Black Bear Diner, told Restaurant Business, referring to people placing a premium on speed during breakfast. “They get to work, they have an hour at lunch. But on weekends people will wait to get in and sit at the table and that’s great for us.”

Starship Technologies says GMU is the first campus in the country to incorporate robots into its student dining plan.

With a growing number of students using delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash, the robots – which travel 7 kmh and make deliveries in 15 minutes or less – are part of an ambitious plan to keep some of that business on campus.

The hope, company officials said in January, was to replicate the fleet elsewhere.

“We’re trying to say, ‘Why can’t we do it and capture part of those sales also?’”

Mark Kraner, executive director of campus retail operations, said. “It will benefit

the students and the businesses paying rent here on campus.”

How does the delivery system work? The robot’s $1.99 delivery fee – which students can pay through their meal plan – goes to Starship Technologies, and GMU receives a percentage of the food sales. School officials say more sales means more money for the university.

The robots also provide campus officials with valuable data showing what time students are eating, where that food is coming from and how meal plans are being used. Though that information won’t be monetized by the school, school official say, it could lead to changes in how the university serves students over time.

Starship Technologies has since added a new fleet of more than 30 robots at Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) Flagstaff campus.

“We’ve been very pleased with how quickly Starship has been embraced on college campuses,” Ryan Tuohy, SVP, Business Development, Starship Technologies said. “These campuses are hubs of innovation and activity, with both students and faculty needing convenient and flexible services.”

97/16 news service photo via Starship Technologies Georgia Mason University in Fairfax, Va., received a fleet of 25 delivery robots that can haul up to 20 pounds each as they roll across campus at 10 miles per hour, according to Starship Technologies.

SMALL CLAIMS COURT CHANGES AFFECTING

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT CASES

Many vehicle accident injury claims up to $50,000 will now be taken to the online Civil Resolution Tribunal B.C. PROVINCIAL COURT

Changes to the way many disputes arising from motor vehicle accidents are resolved by B.C. courts took effect April 1. The B.C. Supreme Court still deals with vehicle accident claims larger than $50,000, but many claims for up to $50,000 related to injuries caused by vehicle accidents must now be taken to the online Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT).

The Provincial Court of B.C. continues to deal with civil law disputes involving vehicle accidents in certain circumstances. This column outlines what the provincial court may still deal with under the new laws.

The CRT website describes their new accident claims jurisdiction as: “… making decisions on the following matters relating to motor vehicle accidents, where there is disagreement between the customer and the insurance company:

• The entitlement to receive accident benefits;

• The classification of an injury as a minor injury; and

¶ Liability and quantum decisions for motor vehicle injury claims up to $50,000.”

Generally, the Provincial Court of British Columbia’s Small Claims Court may deal with claims related to motor vehicle accidents in these circumstances:

1. Accidents occurring before April 1, 2019

The provincial court continues to hear any cases involving accidents that occurred before April 1, 2019 where the claim is for $5,001 to $35,000.

2. When CRT refuses to resolve the claim

The provincial court may hear accident claims for up to $35,000 that are within the CRT’s jurisdiction if the CRT decides not to give an initiating notice, declines jurisdiction or refuses to resolve the claim.

3. When the provincial court orders an exemption

As in CRT small claims matters, parties may apply to have personal injury accident claims for up to $35,000 exempted from the CRT in certain circumstances set out in section 16.2 of the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act.

4. Enforcement of a CRT order or decision

A negotiated consent order or final decision of the CRT for up to $35,000 may be filed with the provincial court for enforcement. Once a CRT order is filed with the provincial court, it has the same force and effect as a provincial court judgment, and may be enforced using the same procedures.

5. Stay or dismissal of provincial court proceedings

Sections 16.1 and 16.3 of the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act set out circumstances in which a provincial court judge must stay or dismiss certain matters in a proceeding that are within the CRT’s jurisdiction.

6. Certain provisions of the Insurance (Vehicle) Act

The provincial court also continues to have jurisdiction in claims under these sections of the Insurance (Vehicle) Act:

- section 18 (2) (financial responsibility in other provinces);

- section 42.1 (offence);

- section 68 (relief from forfeiture);

- section 77 (2), (8) and (9) (rights of insurer);

- section 78 (payment of insurance money into court); and

- section 79 (defence if more than one contract).

These changes to the law involve several B.C. statutes and regulations. If you have suffered an injury in a motor vehicle accident, you may wish to consult a lawyer about your options.

This column provides general information only and should not be used as legal advice.

SHOULD HEIGHT MATTER IN FINDING A PARTNER?

LISA BONOS 97/16 staff

I was thousands of kilometres from home, in a country where I knew only a handful of local phrases, but the concern in his Tinder message was universal.

“Disclaimer,” my match wrote. “I’m 1,80 m should you be considering shoe choice.” “I have no idea what that is in feet!” I responded. “But I’m wearing flats anyway.” It turns out that 1.8 metres translates to five feet and 11 inches. Why was a man who’s nearly six feet tall worried that his date might tower over him? At five-footfour, I’m around average height for a North American woman; the average North American man is five-foot-nine.

In Portugal, where I was Tinder-swiping on vacation, the average man is slightly shorter (five-foot-seven to the average woman’s fiive-foot-three). Even if I were taller and choosing to wear heels, would that ruin our evening? Would he feel emasculated, and would I feel it was my responsibility to avoid such a plight?

I should hope not. I had plenty of concerns about meeting a stranger from the internet - mostly tied to my personal safety. Being taller than my date (naturally or due to footwear) wasn’t one of them. Besides, Lisbon’s uneven cobblestone streets were hard enough to navigate in flats! I could not fathom heels.

My match’s “disclaimer” made me laugh. Height is a thing in online dating - a

thing many people care about and some lie about. Some women put their height requirements for a guy in their profile. And sometimes, bizarrely, a person’s height is the only thing in their bio, as if that’s all you need to know about them. As other outdated gender norms in heterosexual relationships are toppling, why do so many daters still want the man to be taller than the woman?

I’ve dated men who are shorter than me, those who are my height and those who are taller - and a man’s stature has never been the reason a match didn’t work. I do care, however, when someone lies because they think it might make a better first impression. It always has the opposite effect.

When Tinder announced that the popular dating app was developing a “height verification tool,” my first reaction was: Hallelujah! Finally people would stop lying about their height.

“Say goodbye to height fishing,” the news release said, coining a term for the height deception that’s common on dating apps. Turned out Tinder’s announcement was just an April Fools’ joke. Still, there’s a grain of truth in it. Do daters really deserve a medal for telling the truth? Is the bar really this low? In short: Yes.

Yes, in most heterosexual couples, the man is taller than the woman - but that’s partly because, on average, men are taller than women. And there are certainly exceptions. Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban,

for starters. Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas. Pharrell and Helen Lasichanh. You probably know a couple in your own life to add to this list.

Height is associated with masculinity, attractiveness, higher status - and with one’s ability to provide for and protect their family. Daters might not be consciously thinking about this as they’re swiping left and right. An informal 2014 survey of students at the University of North Texas asked single, heterosexual students to explain why they preferred dating someone above or below a certain height. It found that they “were not always able to articulate a clear reason they possess their given height preference, but they somehow understood what was expected of them from the larger society.”

But height can affect whom they choose to date. A 2005 study, which looked at a major online dating site’s 23,000 users in Boston and San Diego during a three-anda-half-month period, found that men who were six-foot-three to six-foot-four received 60 per cent more first-contact emails than those who were five-foot-seven to five-footeight. Meanwhile, tall women received fewer initial emails than women who were shorter or of average height. (Of course, it’s unclear whether this pattern is unique to the users of this website or these two cities.)

When I think about daters’ preference for the man to be taller, I’m reminded of all the other ways in which relationships

are changing that we still haven’t quite adjusted to. We expect a man not just to be taller than his partner, but to make more money than her, too - even though, in 40 per cent of households with children, women are the sole or primary breadwinners. We have dating apps that require women to make the first move (Bumble, one of Tinder’s top competitors), but we still expect the man to Pop the Big Question and drive a heterosexual relationship forward. Intermarriage is rising steadily - in 2015, 17 per cent of U.S. newlyweds had a spouse of a difference race or ethnicity - but racial discrimination is still disturbingly common on dating apps.

Dating apps encourage singles to make quick judgments based on scant information in a profile - information that can be wrong or out-of-date. The real verification happens in person, where people can be physically small with large personalities or tall and exceedingly dull.

As my Tinder date and I walked through the Lisbon streets, we talked about the pros and cons of being single while most of your friends are in relationships and the many ways we’ve seen good things end. By the time we said goodbye, I was surprised by how much fun we’d had. He wanted to see me again, but I wasn’t sure. There was another distance I was thinking aboutone not measured in feet but thousands of kilometres.

CANADIANS OPEN TO OPEN RELATIONSHIPS, STUDY FINDS

A new study from the University of B.C. suggests that a “sizable number of Canadians” would like to be in an open relationship. (Apparently it’s not just the neighbour who lets you know that he and his wife are, well, open, whenever he bumps into you in the elevator.)

Sex Research, defines open relationships as those in which couples agree to share “sexual, emotional and romantic interactions with more than one partner.” That includes polyamory (multiple romantic relationships) and swinging (multiple sexual relationships without romantic involvement.)

Although only four per cent of Canadian adults surveyed report being in an open relationship, more than one-in-10 (12 per cent) report open relationships as the ideal. Men, predictably, were more likely to identify open relationships as their preferred type of relationship.

“Of that 12 per cent, men came in at 18 per cent (saying they’d like an open relationship) and women at six (per cent), so that looks like it could lead to a lot of tricky relationship conversations,” said Nichol Fairbrother, assistant professor in the UBC department of psychiatry, who led the Ipsos Reid study.

The data is consistent with that from the U.S., said Fairbrother.

“There’s a ton of research showing men are more receptive to casual sex and more interested in lower commitment and less intensive relationships,” said Fairbrother. “It would be interesting to explore why.”

The study, published in the Journal of

“One of the interesting questions to come out of our study is that only 2.4 per cent of people are in an open relationship, but more would like to be,” said Fairbrother. “It does make one wonder what are the impediments from getting into the relationships that they would like to be in.”

Potential answers are fears of even bringing up the topic, said Fairbrother. “For some people even the suggestion of wanting an open relationship could be intense, and trigger a lot of emotion.”

Fairbrother believes the data has potentially important clinical uses. If a couple is in conflict over the idea, just knowing the numbers could help reassure couples.

“What might help… is the normalizing of having attraction to people outside of the relationship and not have that be seen as catastrophic,” he said. “This kind of data can be of service to professionals who want to help their clients have these conversations.”

SPORTS CHANGE IN DIFFERENT WAYS

FRED BOWEN

97/16 news service

I’ve been watching a lot of college basketball lately and I’ve noticed that some of the teams are going back to shorter shorts. Not as short as players wore in the 1980s, but clearly above the knee.

That reminded me that just as sports fashions change, so do the games themselves. Some aspects of sports have disappeared.

In baseball, you don’t see many 20game winners.

Years ago, the mark of a great starting pitcher was to win 20 games during the season. In 1971, 14 pitchers won 20 or more games, and in 1973, 13 pitchers won 20 or more. Last season, only two pitchers won 20 games.

In 2017, not a single major league pitcher won 20 games.

Why are 20-game winners disappearing?

Managers use more relief pitchers and so the starting pitchers often leave the game before the winning team is decided.

In basketball, centres are disappearing.

Oh, I know teams usually have some tall player they call a centre.

But very few teams have someone like Shaquille O’Neal or Kareem AbdulJabbar.

Those guys stayed close to the basket and scored from inside the paint. Now even seven-footers are shooting threepointers... if they want to get playing time.

Football?

You hardly ever see an offensive lineman in the National Football League who weighs less than 300 pounds. Linemen on big-time college teams are huge, too. For example, all the offensive linemen on the Washington Redskins roster are listed at 300 pounds or more.

It wasn’t always like that. In the 1980s, the Redskins had a famous group of offensive linemen called “the Hogs.” Only one of the Hogs - tackle Joe Jacoby - was listed at more than 300 pounds. The

other tackle, George Starke, was 260 pounds.

In kids’ sports, it seems there are fewer local neighborhood leagues and teams than years ago.

More kids play on travel teams and go to tournaments held at faraway locations. That means kids’ sports are more expensive than ever. Maybe that’s why kids from wealthy families are twice as likely to play organized sports as kids from poorer families. That’s too bad.

Of course, it is not all bad that some things have disappeared from sports. Na-

tional Hockey League players didn’t wear helmets for decades. The NHL started requiring some players to wear helmets only in 1979.

Those long basketball shorts haven’t been a safety hazard, but I wouldn’t be sad to see them go.

97/16 news service photo

College and pro basketball players are moving away from the long shorts of the past 25 years. University of Virginia guard Kihei Clark wears a shorter version in an NCAA tournament game. Just as sports fashions change, so do elements of the sports themselves.

IS YOUR MORNING READY FOR CHICKEN AND WAFFLES CEREAL?

MAURA JUDKIS

At least initially, it doesn’t seem to make sense that sugary junk-food cereals are back in style. In many other aspects of modern eating, we’ve been moving away from artifice and vice. Fast-food companies tout freshness. Salad chains are hot. “Plant-based eating” is the buzz-phrase for the year. Trendy paleo and keto diets made eschewing sugar cool. Companies have worked to eliminate artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.

And, for a while, cereal seemed aligned with that movement. Sugary cereals were blamed for childhood obesity, and the industry made moves to improve the nutrition content in their products. A report on sugar in children’s cereals by the Environmental Working Group noted that a 2012 study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, then a part of Yale University, found that the average sugar content in children’s cereals had decreased from 36 per cent to 33 per cent from 2009 to 2012. General Mills pledged to cut sugar in its cereals in 2009. Kellogg’s cut sugar in three cereals, including Rice Krispies, last year. But in 2017, two years after General Mills made a version of its fruity cereal Trix with no artificial colors, the company brought back the old, Technicolor neon version of the cereal. Customers had complained that the all-natural version, which was colored with vegetable and fruit juices and turmeric, looked dull. Meanwhile, cereal sales continued to tumble for a variety of reasons – people were choosing breakfast sandwiches or yogurts instead, and one much-derided report found that millennials hated cleaning bowls. More healthful adult cereals were performing poorly, too. So, to counter declining sales, cereal companies are reversing course: they’re doubling down on the junky, sugary rainbow colors and flavors that kids know and love. Turns out, all that fibre and nutrition and lack of sweetness just wasn’t very fun. That’s why sugary cereals are back in a big way. Cereals modeled after Pop-Tarts, Oreos, Nutter Butter, Chips Ahoy and Nilla wafers have been revived or made their debuts in the past year. For the third time since 2015, Lucky Charms is in the midst of a promotional giveaway of marshmallow-only boxes of its cereal. And there’s Unicorn cereal (“we’ve unicorned pretty much any food that can be unicorned at this point”), Dippin’ Dots cereal (“tastes suspiciously like another General Mills cereal, Kix”) and Sour Patch Kids cereal (“it opens up a portal to hell”).

In the midst of this sugary cereal boom, there are so many new flavors! Let’s try them, and see which ones we will live to regret.

PEEPS CEREAL

Sugar: 13 grams per serving

Making a cereal out of a candy that is just marshmallows dipped in sugar - so, yes, sugar-covered sugar - shows precisely how far we’ve strayed from the light. This is a marshmallow-flavored cereal with marshmallow bits in it, and it’s basically what would happen if you took the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms and put them in Froot Loops instead (except Lucky Charms has only 10 grams of sugar per serving). For a pretty fun-to-eat cereal, it’s

not much to look at: the yellow, pink and blue loops are supposed to emulate the colors of standard-flavor Peeps. And the marshmallows are plain white circles. Are they Peep eggs? They’re not egg-shaped, though. It seems lazy. Though Lucky Charms marshmallows often come out as indistinguishable rainbow blobs, they at least try to make them look like unicorns and pots of gold. How hard would it be to make chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallows?

BANANA CREME FROSTED FLAKES

Sugar: 10 grams

Frosted Flakes has introduced several new flavors – chocolate, cinnamon and honey nut, among them – but banana cream seems like a real gamble. People either love or hate artificial banana flavor, and more often, they seem to hate it. If you don’t mind fake banana, you might think that this tastes like banana bread. If you don’t, you’ll think it tastes like Laffy Taffy in a bowl of milk.

CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH

CHURROS

Sugar: 8 grams

Somehow, a cereal modeled after these cinnamon-sugar fried pastries managed to have the least sugar of the entire bunch we’ve tried. But Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros are just Cinnamon Toast Crunch in a more worldly and sophisticated shape. They taste the same, but the shape makes a big difference: The churros are thicker and crunchier than expected, and bigger, too –almost the size of a Cheeto, which seems, quite frankly, enormous for a cereal. Honestly, you should just eat these plain, for dessert. Don’t even bother with milk. This is a pretty good snack food pretending to be a cereal.

HOSTESS DONETTES CEREAL

Sugar: 13 grams

Well, they look just like miniature versions of Donettes, the powdery snack you’d get as a reward for making it through Sunday school or the last sad snack always

left over in the teacher’s lounge. They even nailed the powdery residue. The loops are larger than Cheerios but smaller than Froot Loops. They taste like absolutely nothing, though. The texture is Styrofoam.

HOSTESS HONEY BUN CEREAL

Sugar: 14 grams

Set aside the rather off-putting shape of this cereal – it looks like a snail or like a misshapen funnel cake, if you’re being generous - this cereal is delicious for all the reasons it’s not supposed to be. Which makes sense, because it has the most sugar of all the ones we taste tested! It somehow manages to have more sugar in it than the cereal with marshmallow bits, which is truly an achievement. It is just a bowl of sugar, and therefore, it is a delight. It gets soggy fast, and it barely tastes like the cinnamon you’d expect in a honey bun. Somehow it works anyway!

MAPLE BACON DONUTS HONEY

BUNCHES OF OATS

Sugar: 9 grams

There is no pork in this cereal, in case you were worried. But that doesn’t make it any less weird of a combination. It’s your typical Honey Bunches of Oats flakes, with some doughnut loops thrown in – they even have red sprinkles, like a bacontopped doughnut. Which were all the

rage in 2010. The bacon flavor seems to come from some sort of artificial smoke flavor, but it’s unclear from the ingredient list – “natural and artificial flavor” is quite a catchall – so it’s hard to say. What I can tell you is that it is altogether rather unpleasant.

CHICKEN & WAFFLES HONEY

BUNCHES OF OATS

Sugar: 9 grams

If you recognize those adorable waffleshaped pieces, it’s because Post, the maker of Honey Bunches of Oats, used to make a cereal called Waffle Crisp. It was discontinued last summer. Are the waffles in here just the leftover bits of Waffle Crisp? Seems possible! Anyway, all you need to know about this cereal is that the chicken drumstick-shaped pieces contain onion powder, garlic powder and a spice blend of black pepper, marjoram and thyme.

In milk.

Let me reiterate: Garlic. Onion. In milk.

With sugar. It tastes sort of like a sweet corn bread stuffing for Thanksgiving decided to cosplay as breakfast. Maybe next time we mess around with meat-themed cereals, we just stick to the cutesy shapes?

97/16 staff

97/16 news service photo

In the midst of this sugary cereal boom, there are so many new flavors.

97/16 news service photo

Peeps cereal is basically what would happen if you took the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms and put them in Froot Loops instead.

Litter is stuff that is on the ground and in the water that shouldn’t be there. Litter is a big, yucky problem. Some of it is killing animals and poisoning our planet.

The good news is that everyone can help solve the litter problem! How?

Put trash in cans where it belongs. Pick up litter when you see it. Put the litter in the proper place. Reduce the number of things you use that get thrown away after one use. Teach others!

Graph That Trash!

Look at the bits of trash on this page. Make a graph to show how much of each type of trash you found.

Bamboo = Nature’s Straw

Plastic straws are bad news. They are causing many problems for the environment. Birds and fish think they are food. But eating plastic straws can kill them. Plastic straws also clog our drains and waterways causing flooding. And a bunch of old straws littering streets and waterways looks ugly.

The good news is that nature has a natural straw! Straws made of bamboo don’t hurt animals. If they end up in the trash, they decompose like all natural materials.

Bamboo straws can also be used, cleaned and then used again and again. One straw can be used as much as ____________ times! (Color the even-numbered squares green to reveal the answer.)

Earth Month Scavenger Hunt

Have fun, get outside, get moving and help out the planet earth by going for a walk to pick up litter in your neighborhood with your family. Wear rubber gloves and be careful!

How many plastic bottles did you pick up? How many aluminum cans did you pick up?

How many pieces of waste paper did you pick up?

How many glass bottles did you pick up?

Tragedy

The result of plastic _____________ of the ocean was recently found in a young whale found dead in the Philippines. According to marine biologists who ________________ the dead whale, 88lbs (40kg) of plastic bags were __________________ by the whale and found in its stomach. Disposable shopping ___________, 16 rice sacks and commercial bags from banana plantations were included. The haul was described as “disgusting.” Many marine mammals are found dead after ___________ discarded ____________. It is a problem that must be addressed if marine life is to survive.

The Good Life

Look through the newspaper for

There could already be 150 million tons of plastic litter in the world’s oceans. That’s the same weight as 25 million of these large animals. If they stood in a line it would be 124,274 miles (200,000 km) long. It would go around the world five times. To find out what kind of animal, unscramble the letters on the correct path.

WATERWAYS ELEPHANTS PLASTIC NATURE LITTER OCEANS PROPER DRAINS

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

How many plastic straws did you pick up?

Litterati: The APP for Planet Warriors

Do you think litter is ugly and bad for the planet? Do you want to be a part of making the planet a cleaner, healthier place? Now there is an APP for that!

Litterati.org has developed an app that asks people to collect, photograph and geotag litter and contribute that data to a global database that tracks and analyzes the world’s litter problem. With the extensive data this citizen science project can provide, litter policies can be created that will make a difference.

What does “green” mean?

What does the term “green” mean when used to describe businesses and lifestyles? What do you do that is “green”?

© 2019 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 35, No. 18

This is the front page from the April 11, 1979 edition of the Prince George Citizen. You can search all of The Citizen’s archives online at pgnewspapers.pgpl.ca

HOW BLACK PANTHER HELPS IN CHEMISTRY CLASS

Now that “Black Panther,” the best movie of 2018, has failed to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, let’s talk about the periodic table of the elements.

Wait, what?

You know, the periodic table, the iconic arrangement of the chemical elements according to their properties that was developed by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869 in order to torture high school science students. Oh, sorry. That’s not it. He created the periodic table as a way of grouping known elements by their commonalities and predicting new ones. (For the most part, he made great predictions.) This year, we celebrate its sesquicentennial.

The periodic table has accomplished the task – odd among abstruse theoretical constructs – of becoming part of the public discourse (perhaps only the theory of relativity is mentioned more often). Devised at first to help scientists understand the properties of the elements, the table grew into a teaching tool, memorized (or not) by miserable eighth-graders. And among all the great scientific discoveries, only the periodic table inspired a magnificent song by the great Tom Lehrer – a song that, in its entirety, made a delightful if ominous appearance in an episode of the television drama Better Call Saul.

OK, great. Three cheers for Mendeleev. What’s any of this got to do with Black Panther?

The answer is one word: vibranium. That’s the name of the mythical element on which the film’s story turns. Vibranium possesses an astonishing strength and resilience, and can even resist kinetic energy.

Upon this remarkable substance rests the technological might of the tiny nation of Wakanda, enabling it to create a “postscarcity society.” And it’s from vibranium that the Black Panther derives his power. Much of the film’s plot involves a battle over whether technology based on vibranium should be kept secret or shared with the world (at least with the oppressed of the world).

All of which leads to a question: if vibranium really existed, where would it reside in the periodic table?

This fun puzzle turns out to have pro-

voked plenty of debate among fans and scientists alike. Even while Black Panther was still in the theatres, some online spelunkers thought they’d found the answer elsewhere in the Marvel universe. Vibranium – Vb, as we’re apparently supposed to call it – belongs in Group 2, among the alkaline earth metals. Around the same time, another commenter decided that vibranium should have atomic number 22, making it titanium. (A sixth stable titanium isotope?) Marvel itself has licensed for sale a T-shirt that gives Vb the atomic number 76 (currently occupied by osmium) and an atomic weight of 194.1 (which would rank between iridium and platinum).

The trouble is that the seven existing rows of the periodic table are now full, and other inconvenient elements can’t simply be shouldered aside. So vibranium would have to appear among the “superheavy” elements of the hypothesized eighth row – or perhaps beyond.

But now, even within the fiction, a problem arises. You’ll remember from high school science that protons repel each other. When atomic nuclei are large – as they are in the superheavy elements – the binding forces can’t hold all those protons together. Thus the superheavies are, for the most part, unstable. No sooner do they come into existence than they begin to decay. Many exist only for milliseconds, and researchers have yet to be able to create them in anything like the mass that would be necessary to build one tiny Wakandan instrument – to say nothing of the meteorite rich with the stuff that brought the tiny nation its riches.

Nevertheless, theorists believe that an “island of stability” exists somewhere among

the superheavies. In particular, researchers expect greater stability in elements 120, 124, and 126, although some think the stability will arise elsewhere in the row. Wherever the island is located, perhaps it could provide Vb a safe harbor.

Yes, yes, OK: Vibranium is fictitious. An element with its properties couldn’t exist in our physical world. Marvel tells us that vibranium is of extraterrestrial origin, but the fact that it’s not from Earth doesn’t make its collection of attributes any more possible. Nor does it make the attempt to find it a place in the periodic table entirely pointless.

Last June, the Journal of Chemical Education published a letter on the topic from two chemists, Sibrina N. Collins and LaVetta Appleby, both of Lawrence Technological University. They gave students in general chemistry courses an examination question asking where vibranium should be placed in the periodic table. The idea was to show that inquiries of this sort, tying science to popular culture, engage both the attention and the critical faculties of the young. The answers were thoughtful and instructive, and bear close reading, if only to delight in the seriousness that Collins’s and Appleby’s students brought to the endeavor.

When we can make science fun, we should. Yes, plenty of movies feature atrocious science. But many others, even within physically impossible settings, present fine opportunities to debate the real thing. That’s why it’s important to place vibranium in the periodic table. Not because we can; we can’t. But we can sure learn a lot while trying.

97/16 news service file photo

Letitia Wright plays Shuri in Black Panther

CAN MACHINES HELP MAKE MEDICINE BETTER?

97/16 WIRE SERVICE

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has stormed into health care like a consultant from hell, promising to improve quality, cut costs, increase productivity, eliminate diagnostic errors, catch impending strokes before they happen, distinguish benign blips on a mammogram from breast cancer and generally usher in a halcyon era of medicine.

Or so claim the more ardent boosters of AI. Open Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again to almost any page, and you’ll read author Eric Topol’s encomiums of deep learning, in which computers ingest zettabytes of big data and, using a layered algorithmic formula to analyze it, spit out answers about whether, for example, a CT scan indicates cancer or an MRI is evidence of depression. Already the technology, in at least some applications – such as analyzing retinal scans for signs of diabetic retinopathy and skin lesions for hints of melanoma – provides diagnoses and treatment recommendations. Through deep learning, advocates say, AI soon will be able to discover new drugs, construct personalized diets based on individuals’ genetics and other data, and one day make hospital stays obsolete.

Topol - a cardiologist, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and paid adviser to two AI health companies - isn’t advocating handing over medicine to the machines completely. Instead, he argues that using AI will, paradoxically, make medicine more humane. For one thing, he writes, the technology could make medicine more efficient, allowing doctors to spend more time with patients. “The rise of machines has to be accompanied by heightened humaneness - with more time together, passion and tenderness - to make the ‘care’ in healthcare real,” he notes. It’s a noble wish endorsed by veteran doctor Abraham Verghese in a praising foreword. Give Topol credit for timing.

Hardly a week passes without another study describing a triumph for AI in medicine.

Among the promises heralded in these pages: diagnosing some forms of melanoma “even better than board-certified dermatologists,” identifying heart rhythm abnormalities as expertly as cardiologists and scrutinizing pathology slides for signs of cancer as well as experienced pathologists.

Medical AI systems use a similar process to the one that teaches driverless cars to recognize pedestrians, other vehicles and stop signs. Just as Waymo’s algorithms are based on what millions and millions of people look like - in shadow and light, tall or short, running or walking – in order not to run them

over, so AI systems in medicine are trained on images and what they mean. For example, they suck up thousands of retinal images that mean diabetic retinopathy and thousands that don’t, and images of thousands of moles that mean melanoma and thousands more that don’t, in each case learning which features indicate the presence (or absence) of serious disease. The result, in an ideal world, is faster, more accurate diagnosis; with minimal human input, the technology also enables advanced medicine to reach underserved areas.

Some of these AI systems have proved viable: last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of one used to read head CTs and diagnose

stroke, and in 2017 the agency approved an AI system for reading heart MRIs.

To his credit, Topol points out that most deep-learning successes have come in best-case settings. “The field is long on computer algorithmic validation and promises but very short on real-world, clinical proof of effectiveness,” he tells us. He also includes examples of where AI blew it. One of his own patients elected to undergo stenting of a coronary artery to treat severe fatigue, and it worked - even though an AI system ingesting all the medical knowledge in the world would have said don’t do it. He points to studies of algorithms that have found “far more false positives than a human would make” in detecting some types of cancer.

If you’re the type who remembers past techno-predictions and wonders, “where’s my flying car?,” Deep Medicine may give you permanently raised eyebrows. Take the Apple Watch: the device can detect changes in heartbeat that might mean atrial fibrillation, but in at least one test it had an accuracy rate of only 67 per cent. More fundamentally, since much published research - by one account at least half of medical studies - is wrong, and one basis of deep learning is these studies, how will AI know which ones to ignore? And since almost every association between genetic variants and risk of disease comes from studies of white Europeans, how do we tell AI not to apply those findings to Asian or African patients? Aware of both the promise and the limitations of deep learning, federal regulators are rushing to establish oversight of this use of AI in medicine, with the FDA announcing Tuesday that it will begin formulating rules for the systems.

Topol has clearly thought deeply about all this, but Deep Medicine”would have been even better if he’d explained how we’ll get from today’s highly imperfect AI systems to the brilliant ones he calls inevitable. He notes “how challenging it will be

for AI to transform medicine,” but the reader is left with something like that old New Yorker cartoon: equations on the left, equations on the right, and in the middle, “Then a miracle occurs.”

Since making AI work is a scientific and data problem, that miracle would presumably involve scientific and data solutions. But there are other AI drawbacks that arise from more nefarious threats: hacking and data privacy, as well as “the potential to deliberately build (AI systems] that are unethical, such as basing prediction of patient care recommendations on insurance or income status,” Topol notes.

Too cynical, you scoff? Try electronic health records. EHRs were supposed to reduce medical error, avert duplicated tests and prescriptions, and otherwise improve patient care, but they have not. Rather, they have enabled American doctors and hospitals to wring the last possible penny out of patients and other payers, as Topol laments, such as by finding every single billable code (and suggesting the most expensive ones). A study by researchers at MIT and Harvard has concluded that a deliberate, “small, carefully designed change in how inputs are presented to (an AI) system [can] completely alter its output, causing it to confidently arrive at manifestly wrong conclusions,” such as calling benign moles malignant. How’s that for a dermatologist income booster – and for instilling fear (and lack of trust) among patients?

Topol is a dreamer. “One can imagine that AI will rescue medicine from all that ails it, including diagnostic inaccuracy,” he writes. (There are roughly 12 million misdiagnoses of serious illness in the United States every year, and medical error kills a quarter-million Americans annually.) But even Topol admits that this hope is far from being actualized. Indeed.