Prince George Citizen April 12, 2019

Students helping sick kids

Lt.-Gov. coming to P.G.

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

The Queen’s viceroy is in Prince George for a full weekend of activities starting today.

Janet Austin, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, will be making her first official visit to this city since being named to the post almost exactly one year ago.

Today, Austin will begin her event schedule with a visit to the Native Friendship Centre, especially for a visit to the Smokehouse Kitchen, the centre’s training cafe.

“Austin will tour the Native Friendship Centre and watch a demo of bannock making by youth enrolled in the Smokehouse Kitchen catering program,” said a representative of the Lieutenant Governor.

On Saturday, Austin’s official duties commence at 10 a.m. at UNBC for a tour of the campus and meetings with university stakeholders. During the noon hour, Austin will move on to the Pacific Autism Centre where she will attend a luncheon with first responders and others associated to the facility.

At 3 p.m. the Khast’an Drummers will perform for the Lieutenant Governor following a tour of Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.

The final duty scheduled for the day is at 6 p.m. when Austin attends the Northern Emergency Support Services Training (NESST) Annual Award Banquet at the Civic Centre.

“Austin will attend and address the NESST Annual Award

Banquet honouring Emergency Support Services (ESS) volunteers in northern B.C. for long-service volunteering with ESS organizations throughout the province,” the representative said.

On Sunday, Austin will spend the morning with the Prince George Elizabeth Fry Society. She will “host a roundtable discussion with service providers and women with lived experience to learn more about the community’s work with women fleeing violence and abuse.”

The early afternoon provides an opportunity for the Lieutenant Governor to tour the Two Rivers Gallery and address an assembly of local arts community members, then in late afternoon she moves to the Northern Lights Estate Winery to address a gathering of leaders in local government, business and non-profit sectors.

At 9 a.m. on Monday, Austin will “attend and deliver remarks at the opening ceremonies” of the BC Association of Healthcare Auxiliaries at their annual conference held this year in Prince George at the Coast Inn of the North.

Union deals fuelled BC Rail sale, documents show

Jeremy HAINSWORTH Glacier Media

The sale of BC Rail by Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals was necessary in part because union agreements were pricing the provincial asset out of the freight market, recently released cabinet documents say.

“It is estimated that BC Rail is 15-18 per cent uncompetitive with other major railways in Canada primarily because of its inability (or previous unwillingness) to address the significant changes required in work practices, union structure and collective issues,” a June 2003 Ministry of Transportation report to cabinet said.

CN Rail in 2004 inked a deal with Victoria to lease BC Rail’s operations for 999 years.

The year before, though, cabinet was hearing reports from the Ministry of Transportation, then headed by Judith Reid, about the benefits of moving the railway to a federally regulated status.

A June 18 ministry presentation to cabinet, obtained under access to information laws, said the federal regulation regime, then under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, was focused on privatization, commercialization and decentralization. That, the ministry said, was favoured by larger shippers, although smaller ones feared competition.

The issue the presentation re-

turned to repeatedly, though, was seven private sector unions representing 1,167 of the company’s 1,573 employees.

The report, produced by then minister Reid’s ministry, said if a partner were found to operate the company and it remained under provincial regulation, “all existing terms and conditions would flow with the assets to the partner and remain in force and effect until such time as the partner could negotiate changes or obtain a new structure through a labour board review process.”

However, the report continued, if the operating partner were federally regulated, it could immediately apply to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to have the existing BC Rail unions and their agreements melded into the partner’s existing unions and agreements.

The report said the railway was regulated under the Railway Act, one of the province’s oldest statutes reflecting 19th century objectives for economic regulation.

— see BC RAIL, page 3

Heritage Elementary leadership students Taylor Terry, Tyler Dahl, Delaney Turner and Morgan Johnson sort through the gift bags that they delivered to peadiatric unit at UHNBC Thursday morning. Inside the gift bags were books, toys and other goodies for children in the ward. They also dropped off pinatas there as well. The students have been fundraising through out the school year to purchase the items.

AUSTIN

Protesters hold a rally in front of a BCR train in Prince George in 2004. The protesters were there to show their concerns over the sale of BC Rail.

Huble Homestead hosting antique appraisal fair

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Huble Homestead has already been appraised at high historical value for Prince George.

Now the nearby tourist site will help local people with their own antiques to know the worth of those objects. An appraisal fair will provide that assessment service and at the same time raise some money for the protection and preservation of the living history museum devoted to Prince George at the turn of the 20th century.

“You never know what is hiding in someone’s closet, and you’d be surprised at what can be found in Prince George’s attics and cupboards,” said Krystal Leason, executive director of the Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Heritage Society.

“Some of these treasures will see the light of day at Huble Homestead Historic Site’s biennial antique appraisals fundraising event, returning this weekend.”

The Exploration Place’s spacious and picturesque atrium is opening its doors to host the event between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.

The professional appraiser in the

spotlight is once again Ted Pappas who has been to Prince George nine previous times for Huble Homestead fundraisers like this one.

“He has a personal reason for returning to support the local attraction: his family has roots in Prince George and ties to the Huble family,” said Leason.

“Pappas’s grandfather, Theodore Pappas, left Greece as a young man in 1910, finding his way to B.C.’s north and working on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway as a water boy by 1913.

“Once the rail line was completed to Fort George, he started seeking other opportunities, and by 1918 he and his wife owned a grocery store on George Street.

“In 1919 he began buying furs from local Lheidli trappers and made a great deal of money in fur auctions over the intervening years. The Pappas family were contemporaries of the Huble family, and his son, also named Theodore Pappas, had fond memories of spending time on the Huble property with Al Huble Jr. in the 1920s.

“The Pappas family fell on hard times with the sudden death of Mrs. Pappas in 1928 and the stock market crash of 1929. In 1931, Pappas took his son and relocated to Vancouver where he founded Pappas Furs, selling fur garments

and auctioning raw furs, solidifying the Pappas family name in the auction business.”

Anyone who wants to have an item appraised need only pay $15 to have it (single item or a set) looked at by the trained Pappas eye.

“Only once or twice has Pappas been stumped by an item in the decade he’s been working with Huble Homestead on this event,” Leason said.

Items that are too large or difficult to move can also be appraised, as long as you bring clear, well-lit photographs of the items.

Photographs must be printed and any notes about markings or labels on the items are also helpful.

Leason said arrangements could also be made for home visits if there were too many items or if they were too awkward to transport.

Appraisal tickets can be purchased at The Exploration Place at the time of the event, on a cash-only basis.

Leason said “general admission to the event is free and everyone is welcome to watch Pappas appraise items live in front of the crowd.”

Find more information visit the Huble Homestead website at www.hublehomestead.ca, or call 250-564-7033.

City working towards Bear Smart status

Mark

NIELSEN Citizen news service mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

Progress is being made on making Prince George a Bear Smart community, but there is still work to be done.

Steps still to be taken include enhancing education installing decals on garbage carts and posting signs at landfills, transfer stations and at trailheads where bears are often found.

“Greenways especially from the river and in College Heights are especially popular bear corridors,” the city’s strategic parks planner, LaurieAnn Kosec, told council on Monday night.

“We’d like to get signage in place to let people know bears frequent these areas.”

The work also includes reviewing the city’s bylaws to make sure they are “Bear Smart compliant.”

“Our last resort is fining people,” Kosec stressed.

“We’d like to work with them and educate them first.”

Just eight communities have achieved Bear Smart status – the northernmost being Kamloops, council was told. The program is designed to address the root causes of conflicts between bears and humans.

Over the past 10 years, Prince George had an average of 890 bear calls and 35 destroyed bears per year, which represents the highest numbers of any community in B.C.

Of the calls received, 70 per cent are due to bears getting into garbage, Northern Bear Awareness president Dave Bakker told council.

“Unsecured trash in our neighbourhoods is bringing these bears in,” Bakker said.

A further nine to 12 per cent involves bears being drawn into yards by fruit trees.

“It doesn’t sound like very much but consider that fruit trees are only available for a four-to-sixweek period,” Bakker said and added it comes at a time when bears go into a state of hyperphagia, when bears up their scramble for calories.

Wanted man arrested

Citizen staff

A man wanted for allegedly driving while prohibited has been arrested.

Keith Christopher Lundy, 40, was taken into custody, RCMP said Thursday morning, adding he was arrested on his outstanding warrant when he attended the detachment on another matter. On Tuesday, RCMP had issued a request to the public for help in locating him.

THE EXPLORATION PLACE ARCHIVE PHOTO

Mr. and Mrs. Teddy Pappas in their store on George Street in 1918. Copyright The Exploration Place.

Pountney elected Lheidli T’enneh chief

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

The Lheidli T’enneh First Nation’s newly-elected chief and council are hitting the ground running.

In a turn towards youth, Clayton Pountney, 36, was elected chief Wednesday, drawing 99 votes to 84 for incumbent Dominic Frederick, who had held the job since 2004. Also elected to the band council were Dolleen Logan (115 votes), Helen Buzas (67), Clarence John (62) and Joshua Seymour (55). All are for two-year terms.

The results were confirmed at about 2 a.m. on Thursday and seven-and-a-half hours later, the newly-elected council hosted a press conference at the Lheidli T’enneh main reserve northeast of the city.

Pountney, who was first elected to band council in 2017, said they will meet next week to lay out a plan for what lies ahead but first they will all be in Vancouver this weekend to support members participating in this year’s Sun Run. It’s part of an effort to promote healthy living among the Lheidli T’enneh’s 450

members and has become something of a tradition that will see about 120 members participating in this year’s event.

Pountney opened the conference by thanking Frederick for his contributions over the years, noting he established a community hall and an economic development office in downtown Prince George and a gas station on the reserve.

“We’ve had a lot of initiatives during Domo’s time and we thank him and we wish him well on all his other successes,” Pountney said.

Pountney went on to say Premier John Horgan has committed to enshrining in legislation the principle stated in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“This will mean a change in how business is done on our unceded traditional lands,” he said. “We want to play a greater part in sustainable development of natural resources in our territory, we want to work in partnership with industry for the benefit of our community, but we will do so with greater vigilance on environmental stewardship and increasing benefits to our community.”

Fielding questions from local media, Pountney said his campaign emphasized

“change and a lot of transparency and communication as well.”

“Bringing the community back together,” in the wake of a divisive vote on whether to ratify a treaty with B.C. and Canada is also on the agenda. By a count of 185-137, it was rejected in June 2018.

The outcome left Frederick disappointed but resigned to the fact that band members had spoken. In a subsequent letter to The Citizen, Lheidli-T’enneh Jo-Anne Berezanski said it came down to a reluctance to give up their rights to the land.

“It kind of tore apart our community,” Pountney said.

“We’re going to have to bring everybody back together now and work together as a community to move everything forward again.”

The campaign platforms of the others elected to council appeared to align with Poutney’s although Seymour said his focus was on building a bridge with School District 57 in the name of bringing curriculum about Lheidli-T’enneh history and culture into the classroom.

Elissa Gagnon (68 votes), Melody Buzas (63) and Phyllis Seymour (57) will make up the lands authority.

Liberals put ‘right to housing’ in budget bill

Jordan PRESS The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals are using their omnibus budget bill to legislate a “right to housing” in Canada, a pledge advocates worry could fall short of being the historic step the government wants without a few parliamentary tweaks before summer.

The budget bill would set into law rules for the Liberals’ 10-year national housing strategy, now valued at more than $55 billion, impose those rules on future governments and create two new oversight bodies meant to make sure the spending reduces homelessness.

A national housing council is to advise the government on the effects of the strategy and a new housing advocate, tied to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is to report annually on systemic issues preventing Canadians from finding affordable and safe places to live.

Reports would also be required every three years on how well the strategy is meeting national goals and furthering “the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing” – wording that mirrors international standards.

In each case, the minister in charge of the strategy would have to “reply and act” on the reports, said Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, “which will ensure there

is sufficient pressure on the federal government to meet the legislated right to housing.”

Characterizing housing as a human right is meant to provide recourse, usually through tribunals, to anyone wrongfully denied a home for reasons such as ethnicity, religion, or gender identity, and put pressure on the federal government to help make the right a reality.

“The federal government has admitted to having an obligation when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable of Canadians,” Duclos said in an interview Wednesday. “There will always need to be a continuing conversation (and) that’s exactly what the bill says - the national housing strategy will need to evolve, but I think we’ve made major steps in very little time.”

The UN special rapporteur on the right to housing said wording in the budget bill is a big step forward and addresses a long-running concern from the international body.

But Leilani Farha said her chief concern is that having an advocate “hot-desking” at the human-rights commission and filing annual reports “doesn’t amount to human-rights accountability by any measure.”

“The government needs to strengthen the role of the advocate so that they can appoint panels to hear systemic housing-related claims and recommend remedies,” she said.

— from page 1

Moving to a federal partner would have brought the railway under the Canada Transportation Act, the report said.

The BC Rail case also sparked one of B.C.’s biggest scandals when police raided the legislature in December 2003. David Basi and Bob Virk, ministerial aides to then finance minister Gary Collins and then transportation minister Reid, later pleaded guilty on four charges in 2010. After their trial heard one witness, the pair admitted giving insider information to parties to the BC Rail 2003 sale and receiving benefits for the information, including a trip to a Colorado NFL game and money.

Earlier controversy over the government asset also helped Campbell lose the 1996 election to the NDP’s Glen Clark. He’d promised to sell the railway, a mistake he didn’t make in the 2001 election – after which plans moved forward to sell it.

BC Rail sparked major scandal Masich Place to open

Citizen staff

Hibernation will soon be over for Masich Placeit will be open to the public starting Monday. Hours of operation will be from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, but is subject to change depending on bookings by user groups.

Only the track will be open to the public and it will be closed during ticketed events.

As well, the stadium will be closed on all statutory holidays.

A schedule will be posted at the stadium but can also be reached via the city website. Go to princegeorge.ca, scroll down to “Events Calendar” and select “Active Living.”

The stadium’s synthetic turf infield allows teams and user groups to access the field earlier in the spring and later into the fall than at other civic fields, which have natural turf.

“Following spring melting, natural turf takes up to a month to dry out before it is safe for regular play, while synthetic turf takes about a week to be ready,” the city said.

It is not anticipated that other city fields, including Rotary Soccer Fields, will be available for use until early May this year.

Man goes missing in Fort St. James

Citizen staff

Fort St. James RCMP are asking for the public’s help in locating a man who been missing in nearly a week.

Personal items belonging to Jarrett Sutherland, 27, were found near the Stuart River Bridge and there is believe he may have intentionally walked into the river, RCMP said Thursday. However, searches by ground, air and water have failed to locate him. Sutherland is described as Caucasian, five-footnine, 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last heard from on Friday when he spoke to his mother.

Anyone with information about where Sutherland may be is asked to contact the Fort St. James RCMP at 250 996-8269 or 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.

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

BUZAS

JOHN SEYMOUR

FREDERICK

NEWS IN BRIEF

Dental college ordered to create transparency plan

VICTORIA (CP) — The College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia has 30 days to brush up on its accountability to the public following the release of a performance inquiry report.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says he’s accepted the inquiry’s 21 recommendations to ensure the college, which registers, certifies and regulates B.C.’s dentists and dental assistants, acts in the public’s best interests.

Harry Cayton, a regulatory administrative expert, was appointed to conduct the inquiry and concluded the dental college was meeting 17 of 28 international standards for good governance, which is about 60 per cent.

Cayton’s report says the college board and its committees are more focused on protecting the interests of dentists instead of the public and the college has not been effective in ensuring the safety of patients.

Dix launched a review into the college’s administrative and operational practices in March 2018 following concerns about governance and performance.

The minister says an all-party committee was also appointed to examine plans to modernize the regulatory framework for all of B.C.’s health professions, which currently include 20 professional colleges.

Suspect jumps into car with police dog

KAMLOOPS (CP) — A 51-yearold fraud suspect is in custody in Kamloops, after leading RCMP on a cat-and-mouse chase and then practically arrested himself.

Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jodi Shelkie says it began Wednesday

afternoon when officials at a bank reported a man was allegedly impersonating a known client while trying to transfer a large amount of money from that person’s account.

When officers arrived, they saw the suspect fleeing on foot and gave chase, but he was easily able to identify uniformed officers and evade them.

Shelkie says in a news release that an off-duty police dog service officer was driving through the area with his dog and was listening to the unsuccessful search on a police radio when he realized the wanted man was just steps away.

The officer simply waved the man over, invited him into the vehicle, then identified himself as an officer and warned him that if he tried to run the dog would be right behind him.

Uniformed officers arrived on the scene and arrested the man, who police say is a Calgary resident.

Man injured in pub explosion

SURREY (CP) — RCMP in Surrey say an explosion and fire at a local pub is suspicious and may have left a local man with lifethreatening injuries.

The blaze at Jack’s Public House, in the 9000 block of 152 Street, broke out early Thursday. Witnesses at the scene reported hearing a blast and an RCMP news release says a man was seen running from the area.

A search by a police dog could not locate the man, but police say paramedics were called to a Surrey home about an hour later for a victim suffering severe injuries that could be linked to a fire.

Fire officials and RCMP continue to investigate the cause of the blaze.

Police are also appealing for anyone who may have surveillance or dashcam video from the area that could move the case forward.

David White, an arborist with the City of Prince George, prunes the apple trees along 15th Avenue on Wednesday morning.

Yield curve inversion a ‘shot across the

At a training session in the heart of the financial district in Toronto about a decade ago, this weird thing happened. My classroom cohorts were middle-aged bankers. That’s not the weird thing. A little crow’s feet around the eyes, some salt and pepper around the temples are common assets for investment advisors. Invokes a sort of sagey, wisdomy feel. As cheese, we’d have been a sharp bunch –with hardly any mold.

Anyhow, the weird thing I mentioned earlier, not the cheese – I’m getting to it. As we were moving from one seminar room to another, a group of about 30 very well-dressed preppy-looking boys and girls were migrating the opposite way for the same reason.

Crisp, pressed business suits and skirts, fresh haircuts, pointy shoes – really pointy shoes. A very handsome young bunch. And not chewing gum. It was about as downtown as Toronto gets. Big bank blocks busted out all around us, interspersed with world-class hotels, trendy restaurants. And yet, amidst the stack of corporate concrete, there was apparently a high school. The actual weird thing happened next.

At lunch, I went for a little walk and came across a nearby classroom there on the 239th floor, and saw those same kiddies sitting down to their mid-day meal. No Spiderman lunchboxes. No Disney Princess pencil crayon bags. There was a sign on the wall next to their classroom door which read:

RBC Capital Markets – Financial Analyst Team.

The Brain Trust.

Oh.

Weird. Babies.

Preppies. Cyborgs.

Doogie-Howser-cyborg-clonepreppy-fast-track-certified-financial geniuses.

Twenty-somethings, not grade schoolers. It occurred to me that the crispiness of their countenances was a function of my raisinness, not their grape-ness. While they were calculating regression analyses on bionic Bluetooth eyeabacuses, I was getting long-jowl-

ed, fighting off my afternoon nap by telling boring analog banker stories.

Speaking of which, on the other end of the expertise spectrum we have this old guy, Jim Allworth, (his real name). Our chief investment strategist, Allworth has been on the money for as long as I can remember.

Nobody knows his real age, but he once took a bus load of grandchildren to watch the Vancouver Millionaires (their real name) win the Stanley Cup at the old Denmen Arena near present day Cole Harbour.

He says 1915 was a good year. Silly hyperbole aside, below I’ve included some snippets of Jim’s latest wisdom on yield curves, economic cyclicality and money. Seriously, when Jim speaks, I perk up.

Despite the wonderful track record of yield curve inversion as a recession/bear market early warning, we believe this time the economy and markets will undoubtedly wind up being different in some important aspects. That should make investors reluctant to bank everything on just one indicator, no matter how historically reliable.

Our U.S. recession scorecard follows six indicators, all of which have usefully warned of recessions ahead of time. Three (the yield curve, unemployment claims, and the Conference Board Leading Economic Index) have all given their signals about a year ahead of any previously imminent recession. Other signals typically flash red much closer to the event. To date, only the yield curve has given a warning.

Indicators aside, we believe it will take some doing to get the U.S. into recession from here.

One need only check in on the American consumer who thoroughly dominates the U.S. economy at almost 70 per cent of GDP. Consumers are confident and for many good reasons. The unemployment rate was last below

bow’

four per cent in the mid-1960s; unemployment claims recently hit all-time lows; there are 7.6 million unfilled jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department; wage rates are rising nicely; home values and other components of household wealth are elevated and don’t look frothy or otherwise overly vulnerable; and consumer spending has remained mostly in line with income growth, suggesting household debt has not become unmanageable.

The inversion signal has always been hard to get behind precisely because it has given such a long early warning. It is usually followed by several quarters of positive economic growth – one such interval lasted almost two years. And the stock market typically has some months or even quarters to go before it sets its final high. It is difficult for investors to adopt a defensive approach when the economy continues to perform and earnings look set to go on growing.

Most stock markets are still below last year’s highs and about at the same level as 12 months ago. Price-to-earnings multiples are no longer as extended as they were in early 2018. We have been impressed by the power and breadth of the liftoff from the December low point. We expect new highs lie ahead for the U.S. broad averages and for most developed-economy stock markets. We are content for now to maintain our benchmark target weight exposure to stocks in a global portfolio.

However, we are treating the inversion of the yield curve as a “shot across the bow” for equity investors. We expect to counsel the adoption of a progressively more defensive posture over the course of the next six to 12 months.

Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member – Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See Ryan’s website at: http://dir. rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan.

Managing employee retirement a challenge

Recently a girl came up to me and told me that she wants to quit her job, that she doesn’t want to work any more or go to school.

“It sounds like you want to retire” I said. “What would you do with all your time?”

“I might want to do some travelling or play basketball, I really don’t like working” was the response.

“That sounds like retirement to me” I suggested.

“How are you going to pay for those activities?”

To that, she didn’t have a response. My gut feeling is that she wanted her parents to pay for her retirement.

Knowing her parents quite well, I suspected that would never happen.

I myself am at the age when some of my friends are talking about retirement. Some of them are tired of working, and others would like to move on to doing something else.

I heard last week that my friend Al recently retired from his job and was spending his days doing yoga.

A few years back, Workopolis surveyed 4,000 Canadians and found that most people will have two to three different careers in the course of their working years.

The three main reasons most people left their jobs were:

1. They wanted to find a career that they were passionate about.

2. They were becoming bored or disillusioned with their current job.

3. There was a lack of opportunity

for advancement in their current career path. This can be a challenge for employers.

When employees leave a job for whatever reason, there is a significant cost to replace them.

Losing good young people because we haven’t been able to create jobs that are challenging and motivating is discouraging for us and our employee.

As baby boomers grow older and reach that retirement age, there is the possibility that firms will lose the brainpower that had fueled the company for many years.

While this leaves the opportunity for younger staff with new ideas and youthful energy to direct the company, often there is a gap in skills and the risk of loss of knowledge if we haven’t prepared for this transition. There is a challenge for employers but retirement can also be a challenge for the ones retiring.

I have seen work cultures where staff are seen as a commodity who should feel privileged to work for us them or to have a job at all.

There is no foresight into how these employees will be able to live out their remaining days after many years of working to benefit the company. Usually this doesn’t end well for the company or the employees. As

leaders we must consider the long term welfare of our staff.

Not only should we, the senior management team, have a decent retirement package, we should have a plan for our front-line workers as well.

As business leaders, our retirement can be a daunting thought.

For many of us who own our own businesses, we don’t have a real strategy for who will take over the company and manage our clients or customers.

Yes, we might be burned out and looking forward to a new “career” travelling, playing golf and drinking coffee with our friends, but like my 18-year-old friend, as entrepreneurs, we really don’t have a clear idea on concerning how we are going to pay for those activities.

It’s unlikely that my 18-year-old friend can retire or should live a life of leisure.

However, if we can help her find a career that is meaningful and lifegiving, there is no reason that she would want to retire for at least 35 years or 40 years.

When we are passionate about our work and continue to feel that we are creating something meaningful and valuable for society, there is less internal pressure to quit our jobs and hang out at a yoga studio or basketball court.

Dave Fuller, MBA, is an awardwinning business coach. Fuller probably could retire but is passionate about making live better for business leaders and their employees. Retire your thoughts to dave@ profityourselfhealthy.com.

Canadians divided on banning handguns, assault-style weapons, feds hear

Jim BRONSKILL

Canadian Press

The

OTTAWA — Canadians have wildly diverging views on banning handguns and assault-style firearms, says a newly released summary of federal consultations.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair to study the possibility of such a ban shortly after a shooting spree in Toronto last July.

The federal report released Thursday says opinions expressed during in-person discussions and through written submissions both opposed and supported outlawing handguns and assault-style firearms. In contrast, most people who responded to a questionnaire were against a ban.

Many participants felt strongly that a ban would target lawabiding owners, rather than illicit firearms, and would not reduce gang violence, the report says. As a result, many called for beefing up police and border services, as well as tougher penalties for firearmstrafficking and gun-related crime.

“A wide range of approaches and ideas were discussed, which suggests that a multifaceted approach is needed to address this issue rather than implementing a ban in isolation,” the report says. There was consensus on the need to address the underlying social conditions that can lead to gun violence, such as poverty, lack of education and employment opportunities, poor mental-health supports and social isolation, the report adds.

Participants also supported better collection and sharing of data on gun crime, especially on sources of illicit firearms and the types of offences being committed.

In addition, many people active in the firearms community said they wanted to work with the federal government to come up with

solutions.

New Zealand recently banned military-style semi-automatic weapons after 50 Muslims were brutally gunned down in Christchurch.

Blair said Thursday there are “opportunities to take measures that will make Canada safer,” though he declined to provide details or speculate on timing.

Blair said he has been looking at the data, the experience in other jurisdictions, Canada’s regulatory environment and how firearms get into the wrong hands.

“And as a result of that work, I believe that there are some things that we can do to create a safe environment, reduce gun violence in our communities and make it far more difficult for people who would commit crimes.”

Participants at a series of eight in-person roundtables in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and

Moncton, N.B., last October “were divided in their views on a ban,” the summary says.

There was also a range of opinion among 36 written submissions. Opposition to a ban came from shooting clubs, retailers, academics, wildlife associations, a territorial government, an association representing rural municipalities and a group of LGBTQ firearms owners.

“You are reacting to a crime wave, no question, but not a firearms problem,” said one submission. Support for a ban came from some health associations, victims’ organizations, women-focused groups, a provincial ministry and an organization that deals with municipal affairs.

“As these firearms have no legitimate use in hunting, current owners may only legally use them for target shooting or collecting,” said one such submission. “This is

not a compelling enough reason to justify the risk they pose to public safety.”

However, about four in every five of the almost 135,000 responses to an online questionnaire objected to doing more to limit access to handguns or assault-style weapons.

A federal bill introduced in March last year, and currently before the Senate, has proposed expanding the scope of background checks on those who want to acquire guns, strengthening record-keeping requirements for sales and requiring purchasers to present valid firearms licences.

But the government has long been eyeing additional measures.

The government thinking evolved further after a July 2018 shooting in Toronto that killed two people, injured 13, led to the gunman’s death and left a neighbourhood deeply shaken.

Wildfire fighters to get coverage for firefighter occupational diseases

The Canadian Press

VICTORIA — Firefighters who have battled British Columbia wildfires, fire investigators and fire crews working for Indigenous groups will be eligible for greater access to job-related health compensation under legislation introduced Thursday.

Labour Minister Harry Bains tabled amendments to the Workers Compensation Act that extends occupational disease and mental-health benefits to more people who work around fires.

The proposed changes will expand cancer, heart disease and mental-health disorder presumptions to include the three other job categories, because Bains says those workers are often involved in the traumatic issues related to fires.

Presumptive illnesses faced by firefighters are recognized under the act as conditions caused by the nature of the work, rather than having firefighters prove their issue is job related to receive supports and benefits.

Bains says the government expanded the presumptive job-related conditions last year to include mental-health disorders for police officers, paramedics, sheriffs, correctional officers and most urban firefighters. He says firefighting is dangerous work that can have serious impacts on an individual’s physical and mental health.

“They will enjoy the same coverage as the other firefighters – the first responders –receive as part of giving them certain cancer protections, heart disease and injuries and mental health,” Bains said during a news conference after the legislation was introduced.

Brexit delay makes time for Canada, U.K. to craft trade deal, envoy says

Mike BLANCHFIELD The Canadian Press OTTAWA — Britain’s prolonged divorce proceeding from the European Union will give it more time to forge a proper freetrade deal with Canada, says the country’s envoy to Ottawa.

The United Kingdom is not legally allowed to engage in free-trade negotiations until it has departed the EU, but High Commissioner Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque said her country’s top trade negotiator has been meeting regularly with Canadian representatives to sketch out the broad strokes of a bilateral deal.

Britain remains part of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada as long as it is a member of the 28-country bloc.

Canadian and British negotiators aim to replicate CETA as much as possible in a twocountry pact, le Jeune d’Allegeershecque told The Canadian Press from London on Thursday.

She spoke hours after a frustrated EU, in an emergency meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, granted Britain a Brexit reprieve until the end of October.

The Halloween extension avoids a messy no-deal departure from the EU that was to occur Friday, which could have triggered a British recession with immediate tariffs on trade with the continent.

“The plan is still to have a transitioned form of the CETA agreement, which would

reflect all the benefits that that (deal) has,” le Jeune d’Allegeershecque said. “We obviously now have a little bit more time.”

That includes technical discussions about particular chapters and topics, she added.

“The legal position is we’re not allowed to negotiate,” said le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

“Technical talks about what an agreement might look like are possible and those have been going on. There’s been intense co-operation and contacts between our two trade-policy and trade-negotiating teams.”

That work follows May’s September 2017 visit to Ottawa during which she and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged a “seamless” transition out of CETA and into a new trading relationship after Brexit.

The May government’s attempts to follow through on its pledge to break from the EU have been fraught with frustration, delays and no end of drama.

The extension was reached in Thursday’s early morning hours in Brussels, between May and EU leaders. She was back in London later Thursday and told Parliament she wanted to strike a compromise to exit as soon as possible.

That won’t be easy because the House of Commons has rejected her Brexit plan three times. In multiple votes meant to gauge what the British Parliament might support, majorities have rejected every scenario they’ve been offered, from simply scrapping the plan to leave the EU to holding a new national vote on the idea to leaving in a

“hard Brexit” with no agreed terms.

May said if her own divided Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party can’t find a way forward soon, Britain will have to take part in the European Parliament election late next month.

May told reporters before leaving Brussels that she was hopeful the departure could take place before June 30 and if possible, before the European election.

“It’s quite an ambitious objective on her part because she will have seen how difficult it has been to get anything through Parliament recently,” said le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said her department has been “very assiduous in working out a transition on all of our treaties, including CETA” for a post-Brexit Britain.

“However, I think it would be fair to say we are negotiating with a target which is both moving and quite understandably focused on serious challenges at home,” Freeland told the Senate foreign-affairs committee this week.

Canada views the situation as it’s watching two married people it cares about “going through some difficulties,” Freeland said.

“They seem not quite yet to have decided where they’re going to end up as they work through those difficulties, but what we say to both the EU and to Britain - and this is very warmly received - is we are going to re-

main the best of friends with both of them, no matter what the outcome.”

The prolonged British departure is weighing heavily on Britain’s European allies. Kareen Rispal, the French ambassador to Canada, said that as a long-time EU booster she hopes that Britain’s inability to say goodbye might actually lead to its staying in the bloc.

“Brexit is not a win-win for anyone,” she said in an interview. “It’s not one for the U.K. It’s not one for Europe. It’s not one for France. France will suffer because we do lots of trade with the U.K.”

France will find a way to carry on with Britain, regardless of the outcome, she said, but added: “At one point we need to end this uncertainty because it’s not good for the economy, for companies.”

U.S. President Donald Trump used Twitter Thursday to complain that it was “too bad that the European Union is being so tough.” He said the EU is “likewise a brutal trading partner with the United States,” something he said he would change.

Le Jeune d’Allegeershecque had no comment on Trump’s tweet, but said the EU has not been tough on her country.

“I think they have legitimate concerns about such things as the European parliamentary elections. I think what came out was a very decent compromise, which gives us both what we wanted,” she said. “The fact that we and the EU are content to what’s been agreed is the most important thing.”

Physicians and health workers protesting in Toronto, walk past a volunteer from the anti-gun group

Silence the Violence and Shun the Guns, on April 3. The protest was part of a National Day of Action to call for stronger gun control laws.

PM keeps adding fuel to scandal fire

The scandal was supposed to be squashed, story over, the damage done. But instead of closing the door on the political controversy that’s dogged his government for months, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has thrown it back open.

For months now, the ordinarily primetime-ready prime minister has struggled to stay ahead of allegations that his team inappropriately pressured the woman who was then Canada’s first indigenous attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to defer the prosecution of an engineering firm from Trudeau’s home province of Quebec.

The story seemed to culminate last week with the ouster of Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, another high-profile, female ally from Trudeau’s Liberal Party, in what the National Post, called the “Tuesday night massacre.”

Trudeau, in announcing the move, tried to cast it as a simple matter of party discipline: they were disloyal, they’ve been expelled, it’s time to move on. Or not.

On Sunday, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer held a news conference to announce that he had received a letter from Trudeau’s lawyer threatening to sue him for

comments he made about the controversy.

In the letter, dated March 31, attorney Julian Porter said criticisms in a Scheer news release two days earlier had gone “beyond the pale of fair debate and is libellous” and warned of possible action under Ontario’s Libel and Slander Act.

The news conference gave Scheer a jumpstart on the news cycle and a chance to grandstand on the issue of the day. He told the cameras that he stood by every criticism Porter mentioned. He said he would welcome the chance to hear Trudeau’s sworn testimony in court – an “I double dare you to sue me” response that evoked some sort of comical, Canadian political duel.

Trudeau is accused of pressuring WilsonRaybould as attorney general to defer the prosecution of the Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin and then demoting her to a lesser cabinet role when she resisted.

Canadian authorities charged SNC-Lavalin with paying bribes to secure business in Moammar Gaddafi’s Libya. If convicted, it could be barred from contracts with the Canadian government for 10 years. Under deferred prosecution, it could avoid a conviction by admitting wrongdoing, paying fines and committing to stricter compliance rules.

Wilson-Raybould told a parliamentary committee in February that Trudeau, top aides and government officials pressured her inappropriately to offer the company a deal. Last month, she released an audio recording of a telephone call with a senior Canadian official, angering Trudeau and his allies.

Those following the story from outside Canada might wonder whether this is normal – whether Canadian prime ministers tend to sue their political critics. It’s not unprecedented: Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, once launched a multimillion-dollar libel suit against the Liberal Party after it published material alleging two Conservatives tried to bribe an independent member of Parliament. He eventually dropped the claim. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien once threatened to sue an opponent over allegations of bribery but never followed up.

Trudeau is certainly entitled to sue. But whatever the legal merits of his case, it’s hard to imagine how taking legal action against the leader of the opposition would help Trudeau move past SNC-Lavalin or put the focus back on his platform heading into on election in October.

In Ottawa, there’s speculation that the

YOUR LETTERS

City spending ideas

Two weeks ago, I wrote a letter to this newspaper comparing the Prince George city administration’s spending habits to the My 600-lb Life TV show. In this comparison, our city council was identified as an enabler, allowing the poor spending behaviour of city administration to continue. To help our councillors understand that alternatives to their present enabling behaviour are available, I sent an email to all of our city councillors offering recommendations for change that would decrease costs and develop a strategy for more effective spending. I have had acknowledgment of my email from only one councillor and nothing at all from the remainder. Here is the email I sent: I see the ongoing lack of control of both operating and capital spending by the city as the number one issue for our council in 2019. Over the past few years this spending has resulted in higher than necessary property tax increases. There appears to be little appreciation on the part of council as to the impact of increasing

taxes on the local economy. I find this situation alarming.

As our taxes go up, our disposable income goes down. When this happens taxpayers have fewer dollars to spend in our city and the cost of living in Prince George goes up. As our council, it is my view that it is your responsibility to manage costs on an annual basis, however your spending behaviour leaves me to conclude that you believe that your present spending is necessary and appropriate. It isn’t.

There are cost management processes and tools available to help the city reduce its costs and lower its capital spend, but we need all of you on our city council to understand that the city’s current spending profile is not necessary and that there are ways to change without significant decreases in services.

Providing the most cost effective governance will be challenging, but it will lead to a more economically healthy Prince George and it will have long term beneficial effects for our city.

Following are recommendations that will lead to a reduction of our annual operating and capital spend:

• Recast your 2019 budget to 2018 levels.

• Adopt policy where budgetary increases beyond two per cent require a referendum.

• Reduce your forecasted capital spend to reflect no more than a two per cent increase going out five years.

• Eliminate reserve funds.

• Develop a forward liability cost curve that includes pension liabilities.

• Develop capital project execution criteria that includes performance expectations.

• Adopt a root cause analysis approach to capital project schedule and cost overruns.

• Employ a third party to audit both the Willow Cale bridge project and the sinkhole project.

• Freeze City employment at 2018 levels.

There are effective budgeting and spending alternatives that have been used for many years in the private sector that will enable lower operating costs by our city but nothing can happen until our city council determines that correcting its current spending behaviour is a priority.

Alan

Laundry Prince George

LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.

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departure of Trudeau’s closest adviser, Gerald Butts, in the early days of the scandal has left the prime minister’s office short of sound, strategic advice.

Analysts have questioned, for instance, why a leader known for offering tearful apologies chose not to apologize for his treatment of Wilson-Raybould - a simple move that might have ended the issue right there.

Canadian pundits have for the most part been unsparing in their assessment of team Trudeau’s performance.

In an opinion piece published Sunday, Campbell Clark, chief political correspondent for the Globe and Mail, wondered why Trudeau’s team lobbed a “slow pitch” for his political opponent to smash out of the park.

“The Liberal strategy to put the SNCLavalin affair behind them is going exactly according to plan,” he wrote. “Unfortunately for the Liberals, it is Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s plan.”

The response from the prime minister’s office has been to call out Scheer for focusing on SNC-Lavalin rather than on election issues, Clark wrote. The reality, he said, is that it’s Trudeau’s Liberals who “keep bringing it up.” — Emily Rauhala, Washington Post

No money set aside to fight cash crimes

There are zero federally funded RCMP officers working the money-laundering beat, went the headline this week.

There’s a longer story behind that finding. It was excerpted from a larger report on money laundering and rushed out by Attorney General David Eby this week to make the case for more federal funding. That policing top-up has already been promised in the federal budget. But it hasn’t been divvied up nationally yet. So Eby needed something to prove the case that B.C. needs a bigger chunk of the new money.

Peter German’s outline of how the police focus on money laundering gradually withered away recounts the recent past. But it could also hint at what’s to come.

His specific finding was that 25 officers who were committed on paper to investigating money laundering translated to five actual persons on the beat.

And they were just referring suspicions to the provincial civil-forfeiture office, which is a shortcut method of dealing with the problem.

So there were no officers actually dedicated to criminal moneylaundering investigations.

Eby hyped that finding for maximum shock value. But RCMP shortcomings in staffing and priorities have been a fact of life in B.C. for years. German’s explanation of how it developed on money laundering makes it a bit more understandable.

It’s symptomatic of a greater problem, he said.

Police resources were focused on organized crime and terrorism about seven years ago, and that led to a dramatic decrease in commercial-crime and proceedsof-crime enforcement in B.C.

German, a former top RCMP officer and an expert on proceeds of crime, said that many financialcrime specialists became generalists on the organized-crime teams and many others retired or moved to other sections.

At one point, there was an integrated proceeds-of-crime section that was the first-response unit when any suspicions arose.

After a federal restructuring, it became “a lonely place,” he said.

One officer was left in charge of two people and their main job was to disband the unit and move over to a new unit – federal and serious organized crime.

It operated in the same environment as rest of the force – facing federal austerity measures aimed at reducing the deficit.

Many positions listed on rosters

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went unfunded. Any pay raises were funded from existing budgets, meaning services were cut. Investigation costs rose but budgets didn’t, he said.

All the while, experienced cops were retiring and training of replacements lagged. In B.C., the big complement of general-duty officers contracted by the B.C. government to serve communities had to be staffed, often to the detriment of “the federal business line,” meaning those specialist units.

German said even fighting forest fires resulted in federal resources being temporarily deployed to other duties.

The picture he painted in the brief chapter is one of a big, underfunded bureaucracy with dozens of urgent priorities (fentanyl, gangsters, violent crime, etc.)

It can’t possibly do them all justice, so it shuffles staff around as emergencies arise and public priorities ebb and flow.

For all the media focus it’s received in the past two years, money laundering didn’t previously sustain the attention needed to keep its place on the priority list.

That’s why the list of successful prosecutions is virtually nonexistent.

German said the lost specialization will take years to redevelop, and questioned whether it’s even possible.

“Some critics, including former members, simply do not feel that the force’s current structural and staffing model will allow for a revitalization of financial-crime investigations.”

Note the phrase.

He’s talking about the entire field of “financial crime,” not just money laundering.

There’s a separate police presence on a joint unit dedicated to money laundering in casinos that’s in the middle of a five-year run. German said it is “cutting its teeth” but warned that the first big case it sends to prosecutors will tie up resources for years.

Although Eby described German’s findings as “startling” and needing urgent action, it was old news to his colleague, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth. He acknowledged them at length in the legislature a year ago.

The overarching problem is that the RCMP has dozens of urgent priorities in B.C.

And when you have dozens of priorities, you have no priorities.

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IN THE FAST LEYNE LES LEYNE

For many GOT fans, real ending will be the books

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – Devoted Game of Thrones fans who’ve watched and rewatched all 73 episodes of the HBO series, and read and reread all 4,000 pages of the books by George R.R. Martin, will at long last get the ending they’ve craved with the series’ eighth and final season that starts Sunday.

But will it be the “real” ending?

The plotlines of the show have long since shot past what’s in Martin’s books, whose own finale may be many years away. While the endings will likely be similar, Martin, the master of this universe, could take a very different path to get there, making the coming end of the HBO show with its showdown between the humans of Westeros and the invading White Walkers possibly just a preview.

For some it all just means twice the fun.

“It doesn’t bother me. I don’t think they need to be one and the same,” said Adonis Voulgaris, a fan of both formats who lives in San Francisco. “For me, it just means more content I get to immerse myself in.”

The show premiered in 2011, the same year Martin’s fifth book in his A Song of Fire and Ice series was released. Fans have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for the sixth, The Winds of Winter, ever since, and many wonder whether the 70-year-old author will live long enough to finish all seven planned books in the series.

“George is not a fast writer,” said bookand-show devotee Andrew Stachler, 44, of South Pasadena, Calif. “So if you were following along, I think it was pretty evident

early on that the show was going to get ahead of the books.”

That did indeed happen, and by season six warrior and king-in-the-making Jon Snow had been resurrected and went back to trying to save the world, while he still lies stabbed to death in a mutiny in the books.

Martin, an executive producer on the TV series who has written episodes but is sitting this season out while he works on the book, gave HBO showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss an outline of where his longplanned plot goes, including the fates of characters like Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark.

Armed with that roadmap, Benioff, Weiss and other writers have been telling the tale without books to back them. Fans are divided about the results, and how true they are to Martin.

“It doesn’t seem any less planned out to me,” Stachler said. “It’s absolutely a continuation of his vision. I always felt like the show cleaned up the narrative in tighter, better-paced ways anyway.”

Other readers feel the showrunners’ vision and style have taken over.

“I think you’ve seen that in the last couple of seasons where you don’t have the book as guide, you just go from one big event to

Hi-diddly-ho, heavy metal!

Meet the Ned Flanders-inspired band Bart would love

The Washington Post

In the music world, heavy metal comes in many different forms. There’s black metal, death metal – and even a subgenre inspired by Ned Flanders.

Yes, Ned Flanders – the ultrareligious, clean-cut character on TV’s The Simpsons, known for his cheery “Hi-Diddly-Ho” and “Okily Dokily” catchphrases that are bemoaned by next-door neighbour Homer Simpson. The cheeky genre’s name is Nedal, a sound coined and – for now – solely produced by Phoenix band Okilly Dokilly.

Okilly Dokilly harnesses the sonic elements of sludge metal, akin to early Black Sabbath and Alice in Chains, but eschews doom-andgloom lyrics in favor of quotes from the overly friendly Flanders. As it turns out, a Simpsons metal band can indeed procure a large, dedicated fan base, and no one is more surprised than the lead singer himself, Head Ned.

“When we first started the band, we didn’t think we’d have much of an audience,” says Head Ned, who co-founded the quintet in 2015. But within a week after Okilly

Dokilly released some demo tracks on Bandcamp that same year, the tunes garnered roughly a million streams and the band’s newly created Facebook page amassed 25,000 fans.

The concept for Okilly Dokilly started as something of a gag.

Head Ned wanted to form a metal band, but under the guise of something more playful and totally divergent from the genre’s brutal trappings. The group’s latest selfrelease, Howdilly Twodilly, the follow-up to 2016 debut album Howdilly Doodilly, is a testament to how this off-kilter juxtaposition comes together in a harmonious way. All of the record’s 11 songs are packed with references to and sayings from the God-loving Simpsons character, yet they paint Flanders in a much different light.

“One thing that I look for when finding quotes is that if Ned Flanders says something out of context, how heavy metal is it?”

Head Ned says. To find quotes for the new record, Head Ned went back and watched the first 10 seasons of the long-running animated series before writing the songs.

One example is the song When the Comet Gets Here, a nod to a

Season 6 episode in which Flanders hides in his homemade bomb shelter after learning that a comet is set to decimate Springfield. The shelter becomes overcrowded when more townsfolk discover its existence. After being nominated by Homer to leave due to overcapacity, Flanders willingly agrees to go, and tells his son Todd to “shoot daddy if he tries to get back in.”

Okilly Dokilly spun the quote in a way that makes Flanders sound much more menacing.

Complementing the music is the band’s complete dedication to looking the part. All five members, including drummer Dread Ned, guitarist Shred Ned, bassist Bed Ned and keyboardist Zed Ned, sport Flanders’ hallmark green sweater, crisp pink polo, round glasses and, of course, his neatly trimmed mustache onstage. At shows, their fans often rise to the occasion and wear the same costume. Okilly Dokilly refers to these superfans as “Bonus Neds.”

Okilly Dokilly has also caught the attention of Simpsons producers, who featured the band’s video for White Wine Spritzer during the credits of this past Sunday’s episode.

another to another, without that feeling of the backstory,” said Gabriela Perez, 44, of Mexico City. “It’s sort of like drinking a Diet Coke, it has all the flavour and all that, but you can tell the difference.”

Voulgaris, 27, said “last season was absolutely on fast-forward. The rate at which people would travel from one place to another was incredible. But that makes it fun to watch, it makes it accessible to any viewer.”

But the quibbles seem to go out the window when it comes to the giddy anticipation that comes with the six episodes, most running well over an hour, that make up the final season.

“Oh, I’m still super excited,” Perez said. “I want to know what this version of the ending is.”

And wanting to be a part of a massive shared event may dwarf any thoughts that this is less than final. Some 12.1 million viewers tuned in to the season seven finale, with four million more streaming it the same night and many millions more in the following days. The May 19 series finale is sure to draw a bigger audience, and a social media maelstrom.

“I do think this last season is going to be the largest cultural moment we’ve had in a long time for any kind of branded property,” Stachler said. “I don’t know what to compare it to. I don’t know when we’ll see something this big again.”

And with no book to spoil it, readers and non-readers alike get to be, and expect to be, surprised.

“Everybody has an idea,” Voulgaris aid. “It literally could go in any direction.”

This photo provided by HBO shows Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen and Kit Harington as Jon Snow in a scene from Game of Thrones.

WASHINGTON POST HANDOUT PHOTO

Okilly Dokilly calls its heavy metal sound “Nedal,” which quickly found a dedicated following.

Spruce Kings look to slay the Vipers

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

The B.C. Hockey League finish line is in sight.

Four more wins is all it will take. Either the Prince George Spruce Kings or the Vernon Vipers will wear the crown as Fred Page Cup champions.

Bill Baldridge figures it’s the Spruce Kings’ turn. Since joining the league in 1996 they’ve never won the BCHL championship. After coming close last year, losing in a five-game final to the Wenatchee Wild, the Spruce Kings’ longtime equipment manager says he wants to see his name engraved on the same trophy as his son Kevin, a Fred Page Cup champion in 1989 when he was the backup goalie for the Vernon Lakers.

The Lakers became the Vipers in 2005 and that season they doused the Spruce Kings’ title hopes in a five-game opening-round series, the last time the two teams met in the playoffs. Vernon is a perfect 4-0 against the Spruce Kings in BCHL playoff history and 7-0 if you count the three years the Kings, as Peace-Cariboo/Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League champions, played Vernon in the Mowat Cup.

Vernon is 12-7 in BCHL championship series history, which dates back to 1970 when they were known as the Essos. The Vipers last won it in 2011 when they swept Powell River and they haven’t been to the final since 2014, when they lost 4-0 to Coquitlam. The Vernon franchise has won six national junior A championships, more than any other team in Canada.

Both teams have had lengthy breaks to prepare for battle in the best-of-seven final, which starts tonight (7 p.m.) at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

The Spruce Kings are standing in the Vipers’ way and seem to have everything going for them. They lost just 13 of their 58 games in the season in regulation time and finished just one point behind the Chiliwack

Chiefs for first overall. In the playoffs, the Kings and their tenacious defence have been almost unbeatable, going 12-1 heading into the final. Dating back to late-January, they’ve won 20 of their last 22 games.

Last year at this time the Kings had already played 19 playoff games when they hit Wenatchee for the final and they knew right away they would be hard-pressed to keep the Wild from winning. The feeling is different now. This time they are the favourites, having swept Chilliwack and Victoria, the respective Mainland and Island Division regular season champions, after silencing Coquitlam in a five-game opening-round series.

“Obviously we’ve had an easier path this year and I think we’re ready for the finals, we’re well-rested and I think we’re going to handle Vernon well and I think we’ll win,” said Kings centre Dustin Manz.

“They’re pretty physical, they’re kind of a dump-and-chase team, rather than the previous three teams we played who were kind of a little more skilled. They have good goaltending and they play the right way so we have to match them with our intensity and play fast and we’ll be fine.”

In their season the Vipers (26-21-8-3, fourth in Interior Division) suffered a few key injuries and last-minute recruiting woes and few observers expected them to get this far, but they got hot at the right time. Aside from their seven-gamer with the Trail Smoke Eaters, the Vipers haven’t had much trouble advancing in the playoffs. They opened with a 4-1 series win over the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and wrapped the Interior Conference title last Friday in Wenatchee when they took out the defending champs in a five-game affair.

“Obviously we had a lot of adversity and went through a lot of players this year,” said Mark Ferner, the Vipers head coach and director of hockey operations. “We lost five guys to the Western Hockey League and when that happens you don’t get to recover those players, but it gave other guys

opportunities. Injuries put other players in situations to play more but we were losing some of our veteran players for long periods of time. We finally got healthy and after the trade deadline stayed relatively healthy. I always knew it was a good group and they believe in each other and when things started to happen for us they started playing with more confidence.”

The Vipers lack the firepower of the BCHL’s elite teams but still found the net with enough frequency in the playoffs to get to the final. They’re a bigger team that defends well and the Kings are expecting a physical series. The Kings won both games against the Vipers during the season, pulling out a 2-1 decision at home Dec. 5, then beat them 4-1 in Vernon on Jan. 19.

“In ways we’re similar teams, but in ways we’re not,” said Kings head coach Adam Maglio. “We’re going to try to get in on their D pretty hard here and be aggressive on them and use our footspeed to our advantage.

“We’re a better team today through the playoffs, and they are too. We have a little more polish today than when we played them last. I hope we can push a little harder offensively this time. It’s the league finals and every player is going to get up for this and it’s going to be tighter for sure. We’re preparing for a hard series and I’m sure they are too.”

Here’s how the teams stack up against each other:

Goaltending

As good as he was in 47 regular season games, Logan Neaton has been even better in the playoffs as a game-saver. He’s dropped his league-leading goals-against average from 1.92 in the season to 1.47 in the playoffs.

The UMass-Lowell recruit has played every minute of every playoff game, has two shutouts and his .936 save percentage is only a couple thousandths of a percent-

age point behind the league’s best. The Vipers have leaned almost exclusively on Aidan Porter and the Princeton Universitybound Boston native was spectacular in the Wenatchee series, earning player-of-theweek status with three wins while stopping 61 of 65 shots in those three games. That brought his goals-against average down to 2.22 in the playoffs and he has a .910 save percentage. The Vipers had the third-stingiest defence in the BCHL in 2018-19, allowing 160 goals, 40 more than the league-leading Spruce Kings. Former Spruce King goalie Bradley Cooper, traded to the Vipers in November, has played just 35 minutes in the playoffs, relieving Porter in their only loss to the Silverbacks.

ADVANTAGE: Spruce Kings

Defence

The blueline has been a pillar of strength for the Kings all season and there’s no reason to doubt Layton Ahac, Dylan Anhorn, Max Coyle, Jay Keranen, Liam WatsonBrawn and Nick Bochen will falter in the final. Ahac tapped into his offensive abilities late in the season and cranked it up a notch for the playoffs. He and Anhorn and Coyle are all in the top-10 in team scoring. They’ve been monsters all season standing up at their own blueline to prevent teams from launching attacks and that separates them from the rest of the league. The Vipers have been receiving offensive production from their pointmen, led by 20-year-olds Michael Young (6-7-13), Jack Judson (4-8-12) and Carver Watson (1-6-7). Landon Fuller of Williams Lake (six-foot-5.5, 225 pounds) had WHL seasoning with Tri-City and Vancouver and he can be a punisher on the back end. Ferner, who played 15 years of pro hockey as a defenceman, has helped turn rookies Trey Taylor and Brendan Kim into capable BCHL’ers.

— see ‘IT’S DEFINITELY, page10

Former Cougars goalie ending WHL career

Steve EWEN The Province

Goaltender Griffen Outhouse

could probably get a letter of reference from fans of the Vancouver Giants.

The way things are going for the Victoria Royals’ stopper with NHL teams, it couldn’t hurt.

Outhouse, who turned 21 last month, is in his final season of junior hockey eligibility. He’s been one of the Western Hockey League best goalies the past two or three seasons, and he’s been Kryptonite on many a night against the Giants in particular.

Vancouver carried a 3-0 lead on the Royals into Thursday’s action at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal, but Outhouse had steered two of the games to overtime, especially when you factor in the Giants held a combined 124-45 edge in shots in those games.

You’d think that some NHL club would be willing to give him a look, but Outhouse says he has nothing pending yet in that re-

gard. He went to a Vegas Golden Knights development camp two summers ago and never heard back from them after. He’s had no offers since.

“Right now, I’m just trying to work as hard as I can. The goal is to get an NHL contract,” said Outhouse, who’s originally from Likely, a community at the mouth of Quesnel Lake – about a 90-minute drive north of Williams Lake.

Before moving on to the Royals, Outhouse played for the Cariboo Cougars in the B.C. Major Midget League, where he backstopped the team to victory at the 2015 Mac’s Tournament, winning top goaltender honours.

“The goal is to play pro hockey. I want to play in the NHL. Just because I haven’t got that opportunity yet doesn’t mean that I’m ready to quit. If anything, it sets a fire under my butt and I just want to prove people wrong.”

Victoria general manager Cameron Hope maintains that NHL teams still covet netminders six-foot-two or taller, and won-

ders if Outhouse being a six-foot, 180-pounder isn’t at play here.

Of the top 20 goalies listed by NHL Central Scouting in their midterm rankings for the 2019 draft, nine are at least six-footthree. The four shortest are all listed at six feet, and that includes Giants’ backstop Trent Miner. Outhouse, oddly enough, won the backup job with Victoria in 2015-16 from returnee Evan Smith, prompting Hope to deal Smith to the Saskatoon Blades

that December. Smith, a six-foot-six, 181-pounder from Colorado, had been a seventh-round pick of the Nashville Predators the summer before, despite the fact he had played just four games with Victoria and another 21 in Junior A in 2014-15. Smith retired after that season with Saskatoon.

Outhouse does balk at the height issue being a factor, though. He says he’s needed to get better technically and believes he’s done so.

One-time Royals’ goalie coach Brady Robinson, who’s now the Philadelphia Flyers’ goalie development coach, told Outhouse he’d be better off being on the league’s weekly highlight reels less, because those head-shaking, hard-to-fathom saves are often a result of being out of control and relying on pure athleticism.

“This year I’ve felt that my edge work was better,” said Outhouse.

“I was more in control, I was in better position and I made saves easier.

“When Brady told me, we

laughed about it, but it’s true. And I think you saw me on the highlight reels less. I think that’s a positive.

“I know there’s a lot of things that I need to work on and I have worked on them over my career, and I feel like I’ve taken a big step this year. I’m playing more of a pro game and I need to continue to do that.”

This isn’t new for Outhouse. He was passed over in the WHL bantam draft and was cut from his major midget team in his first year. From that, he’s gone on to fashion a 114-60-11-4 record with a 2.77 goals against average and .917 save percentage in four regular seasons with the Royals. It’s easy to suggest he’s not going to give up on this NHL aspirations quietly or quickly.

“I’ve gotten lots of help from lots of people in hockey, but I’ve never really been given anything when it comes to a spot on a team or something like that,” Outhouse said. “It’s taken a little longer for me, so I’m willing to take that route again.”

Prince George Spruce Kings forward Nick Poisson goes after the loose puck while being chased by a Vernon Vipers centre Jagger Williamson at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena in December. The Spruce Kings and Vipers will start their Fred Page Cup BCHL championship series today in Prince George.

CITIZEN

Prince George Spruce Kings forward Ben Poisson throws a shot through traffic on goal against Vernon Vipers goaltender Bradley Cooper on Dec. 5, 2018 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

‘It’s definitely nice to have a balanced attack’

— from page 9

Ferner preaches low-risk breakouts from the defensive zone and while they are more prone to giving up the defensive zone the Vipers’ defencemen protect their own net well, clear the zone quickly and don’t often get caught out of position.

ADVANTAGE: Spruce Kings

Forwards

Manz led the Kings in scoring with 70 points in the season, playing on a line with Ben Brar (61 points) and Patrick Cozzi (58 points), who were second and third in team scoring. Not surprisingly they’ve drawn the other team’s best checkers in all three playoff series. They’re still getting their points, but so are the Kings’ other two scoring lines – Nick Poisson-Ben Poisson-Chong Min Lee and Corey Cunningham-Lucas Vanroboys-Nolan Welsh. That scoring balance among the forwards, supported by a group of mobile defencemen, has made it especially tough for opponents to key on just one line with their shutdown units.

“It’s definitely nice to have a balanced attack.” said Brar.

“Sometimes it almost felt like if (his line) didn’t score we might not win the game because nobody else was kind of producing. It’s nice to have that even load.

“Ben (Poisson) has been playing great all year and he’s stepped up his game for playoffs and he’s been scoring goals. It’s not just his offensive play, he’s physical and hard on the puck, he plays the right way. We’re used to the physical play. We played Langley all year and we’re a physical team ourselves so that doesn’t really scare us.”

Centre Jagger Williamson and left winger Jesse Lansdell, who play on the Vipers’ top line with Logan Cash, each missed two months with injuries which dropped their regularseason numbers but they’ve been deadly in the playoffs, each with 16 points in 17 games. Matt Kowalski, acquired in a midseason trade from West Kelowna, put up 43 points in the regular season and Vernon has three 40-point men –Teddy Wooding, Josh Latta and Connor Marritt – now making noise in the playoffs. Wooding centres a line with Ben Sanderson and Lane Zablocki, a former Prince George Cougar draft

choice picked in the third round by the Detroit Red Wings in 2017. Zablocki bounced around a few WHL teams before he landed in Vernon.

He collected seven goals and 12 points in 11 regular season games but has struggled to find that pace in the playoffs with a goal and six points in 15 games.

“Not disrespecting him by any means but at times he can be the best player in the league,” said Ferner. “We’re just fortunate to get him and he’s been good for us. He’s a great kid and when he’s going and feels good, he can be a handful.”

Through 13 playoff games the Kings have scored 51 goals and given up just 21 for a plus30 differential.

The Vipers in their 17 games have 54 goals and have allowed 42 goals for a plus-12 differential. Four-line depth and speed is the difference and the Kings have that in abundance.

ADVANTAGE: Spruce Kings

Special teams

The Kings have been slightly better on power plays, scoring at a 25 per cent clip (12-for-48), as compared to the Vipers 20 per cent (9-for45). Vernon’s 87 per cent penalty-kill rate (seven goals allowed in 54 times shorthanded) is better than Prince George’s 82 per cent (7for-40) kill rate.

ADVANTAGE: Nil

Coaching

Maglio is coaching career began seven years ago when he went to Hong Kong to run a minor hockey club program and his star has steadily risen since he joined the Spruce Kings in 2015 after a season as assistant at UBC.

Two years as an associate in the BCHL led to his hiring last year as head coach and together with assistant Alex Evin their progressive techniques have taken the Spruce Kings into uncharted territory as league finalists two years running.

He’s a career coach climbing the ladder to bigger and better things and the Spruce Kings will have a hard time keeping him beyond the length of his contract, with two years still to come.

Ferner, 53, has 21 years on Maglio and has

seen and done a lot as a former NHL player with the Sabres, Capitals, Ducks and Red Wings, with stops in the AHL, IHL, WCHL and Germany. His 14 seasons as a coach have taken him to the WHL (Kamloops, Everett) and he’s learned what it takes to win in the BCHL in nine seasons with the Vipers.

“I’ve always proclaimed that you need good goaltending, you need good defence and you need good luck,” said Ferner. “Both teams have had the first two, for sure, and maybe we’ve had a bit of luck along the way as well.”

ADVANTAGE: On experience alone, Ferner gives the Vipers an edge behind the bench.

Intangibles

The Kings have had home ice to start the playoffs in all four series and nobody’s been able to take that away from them. The fans at RMCA are right on top of the action and when there’s a full house, like there will be this weekend, it’s an intimidating place to play. The Vipers can pack 3,000 or more souls into Kal Tire Place in Vernon and when it’s chock-ablock, like it will be in the final, the road team has to find a way to channel that energy in feed off it. Both teams have found ways to win in enemy buildings. The Spruce Kings are 5-1 on the road in the postseason while the Vipers went 6-2. The Kings are the most remote team in the BCHL and love playing on their shorter rink at RMCA. They’re well used to the travel, especially if the series goes long.

ADVANTAGE: Kings

Series prognosis

The Spruce Kings have gotten progressively better in the playoffs and are playing with the confidence that comes with being the consensus pick as best team in the league. This series is theirs to lose. It won’t be as easy as their previous three series but it will take a colossal upset for the defensive-minded Vipers to beat the Kings at their own game and extend this one to the limit.

PREDICTION: The Kings will win it six games, then will get a crack at beating the Alberta champions in the Doyle Cup regional series to advance to the national championship next month in Brooks, Alta.

Leafs down Bruins

Joshua CLIPPERTON

The Canadian Press

BOSTON — Hours after joking about his continued inability to grow a playoff beard, Mitch Marner stepped up like a hardened post-season performer.

At this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

The slick winger scored twice, including on a shorthanded penalty shot to give his team a lead it would never surrender, as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 4-1 on Thursday to grab a 1-0 advantage in their best-of-seven first-round series.

Marner paced the Leafs with nine points in their sevengame exit at the hands of the Bruins at this stage some 12 months ago, and once again demonstrated an uncanny ability to step up in big moments.

“We’re a fast team,” said Marner, who pointed to Toronto’s confidence as a difference this time around against Boston.

“When we play right, it’s hard to stop us.”

The 21-year-old got the Leafs back to even after the Bruins pulled ahead in the first period before connecting on his penalty shot with a ridiculous move on Tuukka Rask.

“He’s one of our special players,” said Toronto defenceman Jake Muzzin, a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Los Angeles Kings.

“He reads the play so well. He’s almost one step ahead, to be honest.”

“(Marner’s) an elite player in the league at a young age,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy added.

“He’s always played well against us, always played hard against us.”

Marner, who said prior to the game the peach fuzz growing on his face “gets heavier now,” not only lead the offensive charge, but along with John Tavares and Zach Hyman, kept Boston’s big line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak – which combined for 30 points against Toronto last spring – in check at 5 on 5.

“We just wanted to stay above them,” Marner said.

“We wanted to make it hard on them getting to our blue line and getting it in. Muzzy and (defence partner Nikita) Zaitsev did a great job as well.” • The other Canadian team in playoff action, the Calgary Flames, defeated the Colorado Avalanche 4-0.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

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

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index briefly hit another 2019 high Thursday but North American markets ended relatively flat on anticipation that the start of first-quarter reports will see U.S. corporate earnings down for the first time in about three years. It was a quiet day on both sides of the border before U.S. banks provide on Friday the first financial signals about the quarter, said Michael Currie, vice-president and investment adviser at TD Wealth.

Earnings on the S&P 500 index are expected to fall 2.5 per cent in the quarter, the first yearover-year declines in about three years, although revenues should be higher, Currie noted. He said the results will either mark a one-quarter blip or a sign of something more negative to come.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 3.18 points to 16,399.47 after hitting a high for 2019 at 16,471.82.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 14.11 points at 26,143.05.

The S&P 500 index was up 0.11 points at 2,888.32, while the Nasdaq composite was down 16.88 points at 7,947.36 U.S. markets changed little despite good data, including wholesale cost of U.S. goods and services increasing in March and jobless claims hitting a near 50year low. Currie said the first-quarter results are going to be important.

“The numbers are saying it’s going to be a weak season but the market is saying they’re not too worried about it because we wouldn’t be up 14 per cent yearto-date if people were worried that it’s going to be a long-term thing.” Technology led the TSX as Shopify Inc. gained 2.55 per cent. Health care dropped three per cent after a downgrade by Scotiabank caused Cronos Group, Canopy Growth Corp. and Aphria Inc. to lose 6.6, 5.1 and 3.5 per cent respectively. Oil and gold prices fell as a stronger U.S. dollar also weighed down on the loonie.

The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.75 cents US compared with an average of 75.04 cents US on Wednesday.

The May crude contract was down US$1.03 at US$63.58 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was down 3.6 cents at US$2.66 per mmBTU.

The June gold contract was down US$20.60 at US$1,293.30 an ounce and the May copper contract was down 3.85 cents at US$2.89 a pound.

Fewer oilpatch players seen

The Canadian Press CALGARY – A lack of capital for drilling coupled with rising exploration costs make it unsurprising that fewer players are operating in Western Canada’s oil and gas fields, analysts say.

A study from consulting firm XI Technologies of Calgary finds that almost 300 names have disappeared from a roster of all companies producing oil and gas in Western Canada since global oil prices began crashing at the end of 2014.

A total of 1,334 active companies - privately held and foreign-owned entities as well as publicly traded firms – reported oil or gas production in Western Canada in December 2018, XI found.

That’s down 282 names or 17.5 per cent from 1,616 in the same month four years earlier, a shift that XI data solutions specialist Shovik Sengupta says points to a period of significant consolidation in the industry.

“There’s no capital,” said Tom Pavic, senior vice-president with Calgary-based Sayer Energy Advisors, when asked what he thinks is causing the shrinkage.

“There’s an uptick in oil prices but we’re not seeing it with the producers’ stock price on the exchange.... No one wants to touch Canada because of all the uncertainty as it relates to pipelines.”

Most of the missing names are likely to be small players who haven’t been able to win investor backing to pay for drilling expensive oil and gas wells in trendy unconventional resource oilfields like the Montney and Duvernay, added Sayer president Alan Tambosso.

The loss of producer names is more stark among publicly traded issuers.

As of Dec. 31, 2014, a total of 108 oil and gas companies with a market capitalization of $311 billion were listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while 229 smaller companies worth $5.1 billion resided on the TSX Venture Exchange.

Four years later, the number on the senior exchange had fallen by 31 per cent to 72 with a market cap of $214 billion, and venture listings were off by 44 per cent to 119 companies worth $3.9 billion.

The market for oil and gas corporate sales looked to be heating up last year but stalled on lower global oil prices over the summer and price discounts for western Canadian oil in the fall as production exceeded export pipeline capacity, said Stephanie Stimpson, a Calgary-based partner at law firm Torys LLP specializing in oil and gas mergers and acquisitions.

“It’s really is about the access to capital here,” she said.

“There are very few financings getting done.

Certainly the junior sector is not able to raise

capital now.”

She said recent transactions show even Canadian energy companies and pension funds often have a preference for putting their money in the United States oilpatch instead of investing at home.

Going forward, M&A activity will depend on investor confidence, she said, which could swing up or down based on whether the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is re-approved for construction this spring, as well as other factors including results from the Alberta provincial election next week.

Sayer data shows total Canadian oil and gas M&A value in 2014 was $49.4 billion but it fell to $16 billion in 2015 and $12.1 billion last year.

XI says it can track the government business associate codes attached to assets or companies as consolidation has taken place.

For example, it reports Calgary-based Canadian National Resources Ltd. – the largest listed producer in both 2014 and 2018 – nearly doubled the number of codes it owns from 77 to 135 over the four years, a period when it made numerous large and small acquisitions. In spite of the acquisitions, XI reported Canadian Natural production in Western Canada (not including mined oilsands) fell from about 741,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in December 2014 to 618,000 boe/d in the same month of 2018.

Data doesn’t match SNC-Lavalin CEO’s claims

The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – It was a sunny Wednesday in March, and Neil Bruce was making his case for why SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. deserved a negotiated settlement over corruption charges tied to alleged dealings in Libya.

After spending six weeks in the eye of a political storm over the actions of top government officials who had pushed to head off a criminal prosecution in the case, the CEO of Canada’s most renowned engineering and construction firm went on a press offensive.

Flanked by a public relations team in a downtown Toronto boardroom, Bruce shared some internal data on the use of deferred prosecution agreements (DPA) by SNC-Lavalin’s rivals to illustrate the competitive disadvantage his firm faces.

“We’ve calculated that about 75 per cent of these U.S. and European competitors have done DPAs in their own host country

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

— Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441

and are free to work in Canada,” Bruce told The Canadian Press on March 20.

When pressed for details on this claim – made to at least one other news outlet – SNC-Lavalin told The Canadian Press it does not have a comprehensive list of competitors who have entered into DPAs. The firm did not share how it arrived at the number.

The Canadian Press analyzed figures on corporate settlements from a pair of databases and

found that only a handful of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.’s rivals or their subsidiaries have received deferred prosecution agreements.

In the U.S. and United Kingdom, just one of SNC-Lavalin’s 16 main competitors listed in its 2018 annual information form is named as a DPA recipient, according to the databases that go as far back as 1992. Of 216 DPAs and non-prosecution agreements – which are similar, but more lenient – in the U.S. since 2014, only eight were granted to construction or design firms, and only three of those companies qualified as global players, according to figures in annual reports by law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The U.K. has granted only four DPAs since legislation was passed in 2013, records from Fieldfisher law firm show. When asked about the discrepancy in the numbers, SNC-Lavalin stood by its figures.

“SNC-Lavalin did internal research on the topic and calculated

that about 75 per cent of its rivals have concluded DPAs in their host countries,” spokesman Nicolas Ryan said in an email.

While none of SNC-Lavalin’s 16 competitors appear to have received DPAs in the U.S. or U.K. in the past five years, a few of their subsidiaries have, and several rivals accepted deals prior to 2014. In 2012, Tokyo-based Marubeni Corp. agreed to pay US$54.6 million in a DPA linked to its participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Montreal-based engineering firm WSP Global Inc. bought Louis Berger in 2018 – three years after that company paid US$17.1 million to resolve charges it bribed officials in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Kuwait. Tishman Construction Corp. –purchased by Aecom in 2010 – accepted in 2015 a US$20.2-million DPA tied to an overbilling scheme dating back to 1999.

A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in Edmonton on Dec. 28, 2018.

BRUCE

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 flowers, donations be made to the memorial established by the family.

September 22, 1926

April 5th, 2019

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Elvira Di Benedetto. She passed peacefully with her husband Luigi, and children Carmela (Pasquale), Paul, Frank, and niece Silvana by her side.

Predeceased in May of 2012 by her son Peter Di Benedetto of Limerick Ireland. Elvira will be greatly missed by her husband, children, and her beloved grandchildren, Ida (Peter), Carla (Damian) (Ireland), Oran (Amy) and Meta of Limerick, Ireland (daughter-inlaw). Great grandchildren, Cameron, Dylan, Flynn & Rian, Louis & Layla of Limerick Ireland, and Mikaela and Nicolas of Maple Ridge, BC.

Elvira was one of the early pioneers of immigrant families to settle in Prince George in 1952, originally living in the Cottonwood Island Community, like many new Canadians of that generation. In 1964 the family moved to the Spruceland subdivision and is where she lived until her passing.

Elviraπs passion was her family and friends. She was a bundle of energy, and always had time to somehow manage everything that was going on. From tending to her beloved garden and green house, baking, canning and looking after the house. Family dinners were always a great delight at Christmas, Easter, family gatherings and just simple old fashioned Italian cooking at any time. As Matriarch of the family, she will be greatly missed by everyone.

Special Thanks to Dr. Khan and the nursing team at UNBC PG Regional Hospital for their care.

Prayers will be said on Friday April 12th, 2019 at 7:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. Funeral Mass will be held at St Mary’s Catholic Church, on Saturday April 13th, 2019, at 11:00am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

On March 24, 2019 Bob Townsley (born in Coal Creek, BC August 30, 1932), passed away quietly in his sleep. Immediately after his passing, Lucy Townsley (born in Marynin, Poland February 18, 1937) began to decline and 15 hours later she joined her love in Heaven.

This is Bob and Lucy Townsley’s love story; Bob was the rebel son of a fallen Canadian soldier and a very young mother ill-equipped to cope with the needs of her 3 kids. Lucy, the daughter of an immigrated German coal miner and a stay at home housewife. Many times she refused his advances, until one day she just didn’t. The world was a different place back then and both families had reservations about the pairing. But love persisted and continued to grow. They married in May of 1955. Bob and Lucy lived life the way they chose, surrounded by family and full of love. Although this is tragic and the most monumental loss, this is the story Bob and Lucy wanted; a love so pure and strong that not even death can keep them apart. They leave behind a grieving family but we take comfort in the knowledge that they remain together and are no longer in pain. There was nothing they would not do for their family. Kind hearted people who helped out anyone whenever they could. We grew up in a house full of singing and happiness. Where a quick snack was a sugar bunny, breakfast was a bowl of coco mush, and there was always homemade bread. All seemed to be welcome in their home and their home was constantly full of kids. To some they will be remembered as hero’s, always there to catch any one of us if we fell.

Six and a half decades later; predeceased by their parents Francis and Molly, Ferdinand and Wanda, and by their siblings Bill, Ruth, Gerda, and Anita, they are survived by Lucy’s sister Rose, and all of their descendants.

Bob and Lucy were great parents to 5 children, amazing grandparents to 11 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.

After all these years they still held hands and

Bob still told Lucy how beautiful she was.

Bob and Lucy showed us all how strong their love still was. Like Bob has been saying for 30 years; “When the time comes Lucy… let me go first”. And she did.

Bob and Lucy requested no service and wished their bodies to be donated to science. The family will grieve privately.

Di Benedetto Elvira

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Needed in the Following areas:

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• 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.

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Central

Domano

2019 NomiNees:

advocate

HealtH & WellNess of The Year award

HealtH & wellness aDvoCate margo greenwooD

was diagnosed with a very rare cancer and when that would have knocked most people down, it inspired her to do more. Carrie is a member of Team Diller at the Relay for Life as well as part of Thelma and Louise in the MS walk and participates in the Terry Fox Run every year.

HealtH & wellness aDvoCate wHeelin’ warriors oF tHe nortH

YoutH of The Year award initiative

Dr. Christine Brenckmann took a social media post from a summit in Vancouver and turned it into a way to help her patients. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has been correlated with many negative lifelong outcomes that can affect different aspects of a person’s life. A simple questionnaire consisting of 10 questions gives her patients a chance to tell their story without having to talk about it and that makes a huge difference in how they need to be treated. This has created a compassionate, respectful, and safe place for her clients. She has inspired other doctors in the area to start this practice as well.

awarded to a company/individual/organization that has developed or introduced a product or service which enhances the health and wellness of youth within Northern British Columbia

awarded to a Northern British Columbia company/individual/organization that has had a positive impact on our region, through advocacy for health and wellness. award sponsored by

The Healthy Family Living Program works in partnership with Prince

Margo Greenwood is an Indigenous scholar of Cree ancestry with more than 20 years of experience in the field of early childhood education. Professionally and personally, children have been the focus of her life. She is recognized provincially, nationally and internationally for her work on Aboriginal children. She has served with over 20 national and provincial federations, committees and assemblies, and has undertaken work with Unicef, the United Nations, and the Canadian Reference Group to the World Health Organization Commission on Health Determinants. In recognition of her years work in early childhood, Margo Greenwood was the recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee medal in 2002.

YoutH initiative

Camp kanannaq Borealis expeDition

Wheelin’ Warriors of the North is a team that participates in the BC Ride to Conquer Cancer. Karin Piche started the team over 5 years ago with a handful of people and has grown it to a team to over 70 riders. Thanks to her leadership and efforts, the team has collectively raised nearly a million dollars towards cancer research. This group is very much a testament to pulling community together in a common cause and raising awareness while having fun in doing so.

YoutH initiative aDventures in HealtHCare

Borealis guides youth on a journey of selfdiscovery to continue to grow as leaders. Camper’s journeys begins in June as they take part in pre-camp training to learn about communication, group dynamics, child protection, risk management and programming. Their discovery continues through two-weeks of summer placement under the mentorship of a seasoned camp staff. Campers will have several opportunities to lead with group placements with younger campers in the Solaris program throughout their sessions. With an emphasis on leading and working with others, campers will participate in daily self-reflection and program that includes theory, observations, and analysis. Whether campers are working to become future camp staff, are in need of volunteer hours for graduation or simply want a meaningful way to spend their summer, the Borealis program will leave them with fond memories, strong friendships, and lasting confidence.

For Houston’s Silverthorne Elementary, setting

grants and Farm to School Canada grants. Evelyn Meehan, special education assistant and school meal coordinator subscribed to the Northern Health Salad Bar Kit Loan program and have seen great success and impact as a result.

Adventures in Healthcare is a program initiative for Grade 10 & 11 students to offer them the opportunity to learn about career and educational opportunities in health care with hands-on experiences within the classroom. The initiative was launched by the Rotary Club of Prince George - Yellowhead in collaboration with AiMHi, CNC, UNBC, Northern Health, the Northern Medical program and School District 57. A key focus within Rotary is youth programs and they identified the need to create more awareness with high school students about health care opportunities in Northern B.C and encourage interest in the related career paths. The program provides health science exposure through multi-day, hands on adventures through many aspects of health care including tours that respect privacy and confidentiality while showing a variety of related, diverse and real health care amenities and services provided to patients and their families

YoutH initiative parksiDe seConDarY sCHool kitCHen program

YoutH initiative silvertHorne elementarY salaD Bar program Laurie Mutschke, School Meal Coordinator, and Terri Finlayson, Foods, Science and Life Skills teacher recently celebrated the grand opening of their brand-new kitchen they share with their students at Parkside Secondary School in Terrace where healthy eating is taught and promoted by the team and the students. The school receives donations from the local Food Share program, Terrace Church’s Food Bank, Donna’s Kitchen and Catering, and Breakfast Club of Canada, along with food from the local community garden where the students help out. Nothing goes to waste – even the food scraps get put into the aptly named “Critter Bin.” The students also get credit for helping Laurie in the kitchen. When fresh produce shows up at the school, they often decide what to make for lunch.

HealtH

YoutH initiative

Part of the provincial Foundry network, Foundry Prince George is one of five integrated youth wellness hubs in an initial wave of sites that transform access to the health care and social support youth need to face challenges and thrive. Since late September 2017, local young people ages twelve to twenty-four years old can now visit a single location that provides comprehensive and youth-friendly services. Foundry Prince George offers free, confidential primary care, sexual health services, mental health and substance use information and counselling, emotional and practical support including peer support, family support, groups, connections to employment, housing, and educational supports, and more. Foundry Prince George works with young people and their families to create a plan around their identified needs and desire for wellness.  YoutH initiative FounDrY

YoutH initiative

sCHool DistriCt 91 - st. JoHn Hospital proJeCt

pHYsiCal literaCY For Communities - BritisH ColumBia (pl4C-BC)

In partnership with:

outstanDing multiCultural ContriBution Dr. sHeona mitCHell-Foster

Dr. Mitchell-Foster is leading the collection of data and analysis in Prince George to find out if there are different impacts on a baby’s gut bacterial community, or its microbiome, depending on cesarean or vaginal delivery. Gut microbiome is now believed to potentially have a lifelong impact on a variety of chronic diseases from obesity to diabetes. The study hopes to uncover what role the mother’s vaginal microbiome has on how an infant’s microbiome develops. The University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George is one of three sites in B.C. participating in the study, which also includes BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre and Surrey Memorial Hospital.

HealtH & wellness innovator

karen HeatHman - Healing arts kits

The “Healing Arts Kits” initiative was envisioned, designed and coordinated by Karen Heathman over a period of one year, and undertaken for The Community Arts Council of Prince George & District. Karen unilaterally did the fund raising for the program and ensured the program was executed on time and on budget. The Healing Arts Kits program is a system

As part of a local initiative to promote engagement in the local healthcare system, a group of District 91 high school students interested in health spent two full days learning aspects of medical professions at the facility. Twenty four students from four high schools spent time at Vanderhoof’s St John Hospital suturing pig’s feet. For the past 15-years students from the Omineca, area have come to the hospital and are able to have access to behind the scenes health care. St John Hospital hosts the students and gives them time to watch and learn from healthcare professionals. Exposing young students to a medical field may encourage some to consider it as a career.

Dr. Sarah De Leeuw is co-leading a team

received $1.3 million as part of a

from the

and

council and the Canadian Institutes Of Health Research which will support embarking on a five-year research project focused on further enhancing indigenous health in Northern B.C. it is the first joint federal research partnership grant of its kind to be held at UNBC, and is one of only nine such grants held across Canada. The work builds on a pilot project launched in 2016. Key partners include numerous Indigenous

HealtH & wellness innovator

rainBow BaBY proJeCt, little wHite rose pHotograpHY

A rainbow baby symbolizes the rainbow that comes after the storm, as it’s the first child to be born after the loss of a baby or pregnancy. Dawson Creek photographer Meg Duncan experienced the loss first hand and set her lens on shining a light on pregnancy loss and telling the story behind it with a photo series which she called the Rainbow Baby Project. For no cost, she photographed women and families around the Peace Region to show those grieving they are not alone.

This community initiative, supported by the Active People, Active Places, BC Physical Activity Strategy and delivered by the Sport for Life Society, seeks to improve the development of physical literacy in British Columbia, which leads to increased physical activity, positively impacting health and well-being. The Physical Literacy for Communities–British Columbia initiative will support 17 B.C. communities over a two-year period in educating and activating local decision makers, increasing capacity by training leaders, and creating the environment to develop physical literacy in multiple setting and sectors.

outstanDing multiCultural ContriBution margo greenwooD

HealtH & wellness innovator manDY paavola oF mp makeup artistrY

Two time Leo award winner Mandy Paavola is well known to the Prince George community for her efforts to put smiles on faces with her outstanding make-up artistry. Beyond her philanthropy at charitable events like the Relay for Life, Mandy’s passion for helping people look and feel their best extends into an element of care – complimentary make up sessions for cancer patients. Using her knowledge of sensitive products and her creative style, Mandy has applied her art and positive energy to putting a pretty face on a challenging situation.

UNBC has not only provided ongoing health and wellness education through its academic programs but has also invited speakers like sports broadcasting personality Michael Landsberg to discuss mental health and address the importance of removing the stigma surrounding depression. Landsberg’s documentary “Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me” focuses on the mental health challenges experienced by athletes. Inspirational speakers like Landsberg open up the conversation around mental health for students, staff, faculty and administrators. UNBC’s creation of the “In the Loop Newsletter” with an Employee Spotlight surrounding health issues also reaches out to the university community to mention health services that are available. These initiatives show us that many people struggle and that it is important to practice self-care. HealtH &

oF nortHern BritisH ColumBia For the past three years, the Prince George Cougars along with the Spirit Of The North Healthcare Foundation have been delivering the idea of wellness, reading, active lifestyle and philanthropy to thousands of young students. Three times a year, players from the team and Rowdy Cat host assemblies where they speak to the value and importance of spending time reading, keeping physically active,

researCH

Dr. sHeona mitCHell-Foster

what role the mother’s vaginal microbiome has on how an infant’s microbiome develops. The University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George is one of three sites in B.C. participating in the study, which also includes BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre and Surrey Memorial Hospital.

seniors initiative aCtive HealtH solutions

seniors initiative

nortHern HealtH - DementiaBilitY

It gives him a reason for getting up each day and gives him something to be responsible for.

First nations initiative

Dr. saraH De leeuw

culturally humble environment in which to provide and receive care. It also aims to inspire new generations of indigenous youth in the north to enter the health-care field.

researCH

researCH

Dr. JaCqueline pettersen

Dr. Pettersen’s research study, entitled, “Does High Dose Vitamin D Supplementation Enhance Cognition?” garnered international recognition in 2018 when she was awarded the Fritz Worwag research prize in Germany . She is one of two recipients of the award for this year and the lone recipient from North America. The profile of Dr. Pettersen’s research will open the door to international collaboration efforts in this area of study.  She is passionate about the importance of healthy living for disease prevention and looking forward to continuing her work in the area of vitamin d and cognition in particular, but also more broadly, in nutrition and cognition.

seniors initiative CHoose to move

Partners and owners, Tracie Albisser and Ann Holmes stay current with the latest research in health, rehabilitation, fitness, nutrition, and aging, and have realized that the modern solutions of diet and exercise simply are not working for a segment of the population, particularly older Canadians (the Baby Boomers, and that demographic is increasing in size). Their concept of a full-service, clinical wellness facility emphasizes all dimensions of holistic health. Their community approach and commitment to social connection will increase adherence to long-term, positive changes in every client that comes to Active Health Solutions.

seniors initiative

tHe aDvanCeD Foot Care

Two feet and a heartbeat can’t get you very far if you’re not taking care of your feet. The Advanced Foot Care course is a continuing education program for registered or licensed practical nurses. It’s a seven-day course that students from around the province travel to Prince George for, as it’s the only northern college that offers it. Part of the program offers free clinics for the elderly. Clients get their nails trimmed, feet buffed, and shoe recommendations. Instructor Judy Bala says having healthy feet is important for your physical and mental wellbeing, as mobility isn’t possible if you’ve got sore feet. The Native Friendship Centre and Central Interior Native Health Society host the free clinics.

First nations initiative

First nations CommunitY-BaseD learning program

In an effort to improve relationships between healthcare providers and First Nations people, health agencies in B.C. have been working to offer medical students the chance to take part in cultural exchange programs on rural and remote reserves. Since 2012, over 40 undergraduate medical students have taken part in the First Nations Communitybased Learning Program. The program is the result of a partnership between Northern Health, the First Nations Health Authority, the Northern Medical Program and the Health Arts Research Centre. Organizers say the goal of the program is to help students become better practitioners by learning about First Nations culture, history and traditional medicine.

Choose to Move is an initiative of the Active Aging Society and Active Aging Research Team at UBC, delivered in partnership with the YMCA, BC Recreation and Parks Association and United Way of the Lower Mainland, and funded by the BC Ministry of Health.

First nations initiative post-seConDarY stuDent awarDs program

The Post-Secondary Student Awards Program, is a bursary program designed to reduce barriers for indigenous youth looking to study in health-related disciplines. The bursary program offers awards ranging from $500 to $2000 to students studying at northern postsecondary institutions, including UNBC, the College of New Caledonia, Northern Lights College and Northwest Community College.

Sunset Yoga is an accepting atmosphere where students of all levels will find that yoga is a holistic approach to improving mental, emotional, and physical health.  Sunset Studio is a collective of certified teachers, each very passionate about sharing their love of yoga.   Sunset Studio is known for being the most affordable yoga studio in Prince George.  Our

Golden Rays Apothecary and Wellness is committed to offering a holistic approach to healthcare, by

and products that integrate authenticity, awareness,

and

well being. They are committed to each client and their

Helping people balance their health in an all-encompassing way, through the unique perspective of holistic health, they understand that the mind and emotions must also be treated in addition to physical afflictions. All avenues are considered, discussed and tailored to your individual needs. Ashley has made helping others and healing a goal, and she is fabulous at it. Always placing the care and safety of her clients as

technology in Healthcare

virtual HospiCe - prinCe george HospiCe soCietY

‘Virtual

when the caregiver needs the support more, or they may be in a rural remote area that just can’t get in as frequently,”  said Executive Director, Donna Flood. It gives them the opportunity to connect face-to-face with someone that can offer advice and support in a difficult time. The program was made possible through funding from Northern Health and donations from the Sovereign Order of St. John and Wood Wheaton. teCHnologY in

Workplace Wellness

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