Hero’s welcome
Prince George Spruce Kings forward Chong Min Lee raises the Fred Page Cup over his head on Thursday
after defeating the Vernon Vipers on Wednesday night to claim their first BCHL championship.
Kidnapping ringleader denied parole
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A man serving a prison sentence for leading an assault, kidnapping and extortion of an elderly man will remain behind bars for the time being after his bid for release on parole was denied.
Wayne Victor Willier, 40, is serving five years, four months and 17 days for putting the 67-year-old victim through a near three-day ordeal in February 2014 in Prince George.
An unjustified accusation that the man was a pedophile was used as the excuse for the attack. Leading as many as eight people, Willier repeatedly hit the man in the head, pointed a pistol at his face and took his keys, cellphone and bank card from him, according to both court findings and a Parole Board of Canada decision.
The victim was also forced to provide the personal identification number for his bank card and because his pension cheque had been deposited, they were able to withdraw about $500 from the man’s account and make some purchases using his bank card adding up to a further $300.
He was held in a room for about 30 hours before escaping and came out with bruising severe enough to swell his eyes shut as well as a fractured nose. He suffered from headaches in the weeks that followed.
The court heard he had pointed a pellet gun at the man, but according to the parole board decision Willier said he used a 9 mm handgun and refused to say where he got the weapon.
Sentenced in January 2016, Willier was transferred to a maximum security institute in April 2018 after assaulting another inmate. Other than to say the other inmate entered his cell, Willier refused to discuss what precipitated the conflict when asked during a hearing before a parole board panel.
Willier “seemed incredulous” when asked who won, and said he did, according to the decision.
“The Board finds your attitude and demeanour in discussing this incident suggested that you continue to endorse violence as a means of solving problems you encounter,” the panel said in the decision.
“The Board is also concerned about your willingness to use violence within the highly supervised and structured environment of the institution.”
While Willier’s behaviour has improved since he was returned to a medium security institute about three months ago, the panel found that the change was very recent and that he has limited insight into his violent offending.
“The Board has also placed weight on the professional psychological opinion that you are at a very high risk to cause serious harm or death to another person before the end of your sentence and any release at this time would result in significant risk to the public,” the panel said. “Finally, you do not have a viable release plan and the Board finds there is no supervision plan that would adequately protect the public.”
The full decision, issued April 10, is posted with this story at www.pgcitizen.ca.
Man who sexually assaulted teen declared dangerous offender
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
A man with a history of committing violent and sexual offences was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison.
Russell Amos, 33, will also be subject to a 10-year long-term supervision order upon completion of his sentence and must spend at least five years in custody before he can apply for parole.
Amos has committed most of his lengthy list of crimes in the Victoria area but the final straw occurred in Prince George in 2015 when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.
She and a friend, both described by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church as vulnerable youth who were living in group homes, had agreed to travel with Amos from the Fraser Valley to Prince George in a stolen car.
While on the way to the city and over the next several days, Amos supplied the girl with cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, which she had never previously used. After about four days, Amos attempted to force sex on her while the two were in the vehicle.
The girl felt “scared and overwhelmed” while worried Amos had a weapon and would become violent and angry. The attack ended when Amos thought police were following them and drove back to where they had been staying.
In reaching her judgment, Church endorsed a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels. Over about a day-and-ahalf, Church heard submissions regarding Amos’ criminal history and psychological state.
Amos’ has spent most of his adult life in custody for an array of crimes and is currently serving a five-year sentence for a string of robberies committed in 2015 on Vancouver Island.
His record also includes three previous sexual offences including one against a woman he met at a bus stop after she had left a session of counselling at a sexual assault centre.
One judge commented that he showed “markings of predatory behaviour.” Amos has also had an extensive history of drug and alcohol abuse and a refusal to accept help. The sexual assault in Prince George occurred 18 months after he had completed a treatment program, it was noted.
According to a psychological assessment, Amos continues to show a high risk for violence and sexual violence that is driven by a wide range of risk factors. Amos has lately shown a willingness to take treatment and there has been some evidence of progress but more work is needed, the court heard.
Amos was also issued a lifetime firearms ban and will be on the national sexual offender registry for 20 years.
Seasonal changes in store for city transit
Citizen staff
Reduced frequency is in store for four routes on the city’s transit service starting Monday.
The move reflects a seasonal reduction in demand as the full sessions end at College of New Caledonia and University of Northern British Columbia come to an end.
“Adjusting service levels when schools are not in session allows for more service
to be allocated during the school year when demand is higher,” BC Transit said in a notice issued Wednesday.
Four routes are affected: 55 Victoria will be reduced by three trips per day; 15 UNBC/Downtown morning and afternoon rush hour and late-night Friday service will be put on hold until September; 17 UNBC and 18 Spruceland will be put on hold until September.
More information is available at bctransit.com/prince-george.
Hall on BC Transit Board
Mayor Lyn Hall is among four new people appointed to the BC Transit board of directors, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said Thursday. The other board members appointed were Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, Squamish Mayor Karen Elliott and Blair Redlin. The four are joining Catherine Holt, the board chair, Saanich city councillor Susan Brice and Wendal Milne.
Feds, BC Hydro fund $289M transmission line expansion in Peace River region
The Canadian Press
VICTORIA — British Columbia’s northeast is getting an electricity boost to help power natural gas expansion in the Peace River region and fight global warming.
The federal government and Crownowned BC Hydro have announced a project to expand transmission lines to meet the area’s growing industrial and development demands.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi says the government and BC Hydro will expand the Peace area’s existing transmission infrastructure by building two parallel 230-kilovolt power lines running from the Site C dam near Fort St. John to an area east of Chetwynd.
The power line project is estimated to cost $289 million, with the federal government contributing $83.6 million and BC Hydro, $205.4 million.
B.C. Premier John Horgan and Sohi say the project will help industry move to clean, renewable energy, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Chris O’Riley, BC Hydro’s president and chief operating officer, says the gas industry is the primary driver for electricity demand in the area and the project will provide industrial users with clean energy.
WestJet appeals to high court in legal action over anti-harassment promise
The Canadian Press CALGARY — WestJet Airlines Ltd. is going to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to have a proposed class-action lawsuit launched by a former flight attendant thrown out of court.
The airline lost efforts to scuttle the action in both the B.C. Supreme and Appeal courts, but documents asking for leave to appeal filed with the high court say the case raises several questions of national importance.
Mandalena Lewis worked for WestJet for eight years and alleges in her legal action that the employer broke its promise to provide a harassmentfree workplace for women. WestJet claims in its filing that the high court needs to decide if the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal have exclusive jurisdiction over the claims of sexual harassment in a non-unionized, federal company. The documents say if the case is allowed to proceed to court, the jurisdiction of the commission and tribunal have effectively been nullified, which couldn’t have been the intent of Parliament when they were created.
Lewis alleges in her civil lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted by a pilot while on a stopover in Hawaii in 2010 and that WestJet breached its antiharassment promise in her contract.
WestJet has denied allegations that it failed to take appropriate action after Lewis reported what happened.
Her lawsuit proposes to represent all current and former female WestJet flight attendants whose employment contract included the airline’s antiharassment promise.
Lewis issued a statement Thursday saying WestJet’s individually signed employment contracts include an anti-harassment policy that surpasses what is required under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Lewis says the company’s attempt to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is a delay tactic “meant to wear down survivors seeking justice.” However, WestJet says in its application that by hearing the appeal, the Supreme Court would provide clarity to the law on the proper forum for systemic sexual harassment allegations, as between human rights bodies and class-actions in the courts.
Before an appeal is heard by the Supreme Court, one must ask the court for leave, or permission, to appeal. The court website says approximately 600 leave applications are submitted each year and only about 80 are granted.
Buses are parked at a
LEWIS
Injured in crash
The driver in one of the cars involved in a crash at the intersection of Victoria Street and Third Avenue on Thursday morning is taken to hospital. The incident caused a short closure of some of the lanes of the intersection.
Privy council clerk Wernick retires
OTTAWA —
has bid farewell to the more than 200,000 workers in the federal public service.
Wernick announced in midMarch that he would leave his post as the top federal bureaucrat prior to the fall election campaign.
At the time, he told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a letter that he would no longer be able to fulfil central aspects of his role, including being an impartial arbiter of whether foreign interference occurs during the campaign and to help whichever party is elected to form government.
He said it became apparent there was no path for him to have a relationship of “mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties” in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin controversy.
His farewell message released Thursday expressed how proud he was to serve as clerk of the Privy Council and reminded those still working in government that what they do matters.
He said a non-partisan public service that is “guided by values, fuelled by evidence” and “a neverending quest to learn” is key to the success of the country.
“For almost 38 years, I have had the very good fortune to work in jobs that have been stimulating and rewarding alongside wonderful people,” Wernick said. “I have
great confidence that the public service is in good hands and that you will rise to the many challenges and even greater opportunities of the months and years ahead.”
Opposition parties called for Wernick’s resignation after he rejected allegations that he and others improperly pressured former
RCMP, CVSE target unsafe vehicles
Citizen staff
Four vehicles were taken off the road when Prince George RCMP joined Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement inspectors in a search for unsafe vehicles over the course of two days this week.
As well, seven notices were issued ordering drivers to fix multiple defects and get a vehicle inspection within 30 days and 15 notices were issued for more minor defects.
And 30 tickets for moving violations and nine tickets for non-moving and administrative violations were issued.
Some of the defects observed were heavily cracked windshields, improper lighting, oversized tires, and rust perforation, RCMP said. They were found through a combination of road blocks and roving patrols.
“It is every driver’s responsibility to ensure their vehicle is safe to be on the road, and in good mechanical condition,” said Sgt. Matthew LaBelle, in charge of the detachment’s municipal traffic services section.
“You cannot drive an unsafe vehicle to a repair or inspection facility; you have to make other arrangements.”
Drivers are also reminded to have studded tires removed by May 1, in accordance with provincial legislation.
To report commercial vehicle safety violations, contact CVSE at 1-888-775-8785. To report unsafe private vehicles, contact Prince George RCMP at 250561-3300.
The Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips:
attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption related to contracts in Libya.
Wernick’s testimony to the House of Commons justice committee was critiqued by MPs as being partisan and unbecoming an
impartial senior bureaucrat. Wilson-Raybould also accused Wernick of making “veiled threats” that she would lose her job as justice minister and attorney general if she didn’t respond to pressure and went on to release a recording of a conversation with him to the committee.
Cat found after owner killed in fire
The Canadian Press ESQUIMALT (CP) — Rescuers are caring for a frightened and burned cat that escaped a deadly apartment fire near Victoria.
The blaze broke out April 7 in Esquimalt and quickly spread through the top floor of the low-rise building, trapping the cat’s owner – a woman in her 60s – on a balcony.
Firefighters rescued five other people but could not reach the woman, although neighbours reported seeing her cat leap to safety moments before the balcony and suite were engulfed in flames.
The cat, a ragdoll Siamesecross named Blueberry, was found Monday, more than a week after the fire, cowering under a bush. Staff with Find Lost and Escaped Cats say Blueberry is recovering from dehydration, badly burned paws and singed fur.
The Canadian Press
Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council,
CP FILE PHOTO
Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick retired from his post as the head of the public service.
UPC, NDP begin transition of power in Alberta
Dean BENNETT
The Canadian Press
EDMONTON — Premier Rachel Notley and incoming premier
Jason Kenney began the formal transfer of power in Alberta on Thursday, with Notley saying Kenney is already getting real-life lessons on the difference between political grandstanding and governing.
The NDP’s Notley said that since the United Conservative leader won Tuesday’s Alberta election, Quebec has rebuffed his public pitch to accept new pipelines and the B.C. government officially endorsed this week a federal bill to formalize a tanker ban off its northern coast.
“What it does demonstrate is it’s not as simple as having press conferences and expressing people’s outrage over and over,” Notley told reporters after meeting with Kenney at Government House.
“This is a complicated country. It involves considered diplomacy and strategic pressure in a thoughtful way.
“We will be keeping a close eye to making sure that he engages in that considered diplomacy/ strategic pressure for the benefit of the pipeline – not grandstanding for the benefit of political outcomes.”
Kenney, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister, won a strong majority in the election on a get-tough policy toward any and all oil and gas opponents. He has long criticized Notley’s government as an enabler of federal policies detrimental to Alberta’s oil and gas industry.
He said the NDP’s passivity was deliberate to gain federal approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, which got the green light in 2016 to ship more Alberta oil to the B.C. coast but, due to legal challenges and reversals in court, has yet to see shovels in the ground.
Kenney has promised to fight Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in court on multiple fronts, including the federal carbon tax, and has promised to do what he can to get Trudeau defeated in the fall national election.
Notley said she discussed a number of issues with Kenney on Thursday, including Bill 12, which Notley’s government introduced and passed but never proclaimed into law. The bill gives Alberta power to restrict oil shipments to B.C. if that province continues to resist Trans Mountain.
Kenney has said the first act of his government will be to proclaim Bill 12 into law to send a strong message that Alberta will protect its oil and gas. Legal experts say it’s also a move that could give B.C. the opening it needs to successfully challenge the bill’s constitutionality in court.
Notley said Kenney’s promise to lift her government’s cap on Alberta oilsands emissions could also threaten Trans Mountain approval, given the cap was a key reason why Ottawa approved the multibillion-dollar project in the first place.
Kenney has said his approach will be one of cooperation and diplomacy with all political leaders,
but that he will leave no doubt about Alberta’s determination to stand up for its bread and butter industry, particularly against those who benefit from it while opposing its growth.
As part of that fight-back plan, Kenney has pledged to create a government communications “war room” to challenge oil and gas opponents and those who spread misinformation about the industry.
It will have an initial budget of $30-million, Kenney said Thursday, and it will be staffed with communications professionals who are creative and, more importantly, nimble and quick to fight rhetorical fire with fire.
“Both the industry and governments of different partisan stripes have not been fast enough to respond to the incoming attacks,” said Kenney.
“I want a unit in the government that will be on that (factual errors and lies) the moment it is published, demanding a correction.”
Kenney and his new government are to be sworn in April 30, with a spring legislature sitting starting a few weeks after that.
Notley is staying on as Opposition Leader, but wouldn’t say Thursday whether this will be short-term while a successor is groomed or if she plans to stay the full four years and lead the NDP into the next election.
“That’s a little bit premature,” she said.
“My intention to lead Alberta’s Official Opposition and to stand up for the things that we fought for in the election.”
Quebec expecting serious floods
Sidhartha BANERJEE The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — Quebec communities were bracing for major flooding in various parts of the province Thursday as rainy weather was expected to settle in for the beginning of the weekend.
Librarians saving Albertan scientific reports, documents before
Colette DERWORIZ
The Canadian Press
EDMONTON — An Alberta librarian has been archiving much of the provincial government’s online content – including studies on health, climate change policy and poverty reduction – to prepare for a change in government.
The United Conservative Party won a strong majority government over the NDP earlier this week and is to be sworn in April 30.
Katie Cuyler, a public services and government information librarian at the University of Alberta, said staff used to get paper copies of all government documents but that procedure changed when reports started going online.
“The problem with everything being online is that when there is a new government or new policies, they just change their websites,” she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“You can lose access to a lot of their reports or data.”
Cuyler said they started the archiving project in 2011, with twice yearly downloads of government data, but she ramped it up in advance of the provincial election.
“This year was interesting because there were some industry analysts and researchers who reached out to me because they had concerns about certain data and reports that they rely upon, that they were worried would not be up anymore,” she said.
Cuyler said she has archived hundreds of thousands of policy documents and scientific reports online, which will be available through an online portal with the University of Alberta or Wayback Machine.
A similar effort took place in Ontario shortly after the Progressive Conservatives won a majority government in the province last June.
Nick Worby, a government documents librarian at the University of Toronto, led the initiative there.
“Environmental initiatives like the GreenON rebate program were shuttered and then their web presence was removed within days,” he said in a news release.
“That information is only available now through the archives by the University of Toronto and the Internet Archive.”
There have also been drastic changes to government information in the United States since President Donald Trump took office.
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which tracks changes to thousands of government websites under the Trump administration, has said hundreds of web pages providing climate information were omitted from a federal government website. Other pages have been substantially altered to removing mentions of climate and climate change.
Worby and Cuyler are both associated with the Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network, a collection of university libraries across Canada whose mission is to preserve digital collections of government information.
“I think it’s a great program,” said Cuyler. “It’s important that we keep this information accessible and publicly available so that’s why we do it.”
4-20 organizers expect record crowds
Mia RABSON The Canadian Press
misleading information to justify over-regulation that has helped large companies in the market.
Guilbault advised citizens in municipalities deemed at risk to be prudent.
The province’s public security minister urged citizens in regions at risk of flooding not to take any chances and to follow the advice of civil security officials. Genevieve Guilbault made the comments as two days of heavy rain were forecast for the province ending Saturday, aggravating the danger in areas where water levels are already high.
“If you’re asked to leave your home, if you’re asked to take preventive measures, I’m asking you to co-operate,” she said.
In Beauceville, south of Quebec City, where flooding has struck at least 230 homes, Environment Canada says between 40 and 70 millimetres of rain could fall through Saturday.
“The rainfall combined with the snowmelt could heighten water flows in rivers,” the agency warned.
OTTAWA — Thousands of propot protesters are expected on Parliament Hill on Saturday for the first 4-20 weed day demonstration since Canada legalized recreational marijuana last fall.
The event has been a big draw in past years, but organizers say the folks who used to stay away because cannabis was illegal will be drawn to show up this time and celebrate. While crowd estimates vary from previous years, Shawn Mac, a program director for 4-20 Ottawa, said he expects this year’s crowd to be more than double that from 2018.
“The crowd will be a little bit more diverse this year than it has been in most years,” Mac said.
“Personally, I have lots of friends who have never attended for the simple reason that it’s not been legal and this year it is.”
But while celebrating will be on the agenda, organizers also say there is still an element of protest over a feeling that the federal government has work to do to fully implement legalization.
Concerns remain about the government’s decision to tax medicinal marijuana; legislation to expedite pardons for people previously convicted of simple pot possession is still in the early stages of debate; and provincial and municipal governments are grappling with retail sales and land use for growing, among other issues. The federal government also hasn’t yet legalized edible marijuana products and has six more months to set rules to do so.
Mac said he thinks the legalization has been a “boondoggle” and accuses the government of using
Personal use of recreational marijuana became legal six months ago, fulfilling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election promise.
Kelly Coulter, a cannabis policy adviser based in British Columbia, said Canada is helping change global attitudes and policies as the first G7 nation to legalize pot. She said she plans to be on Parliament Hill on Saturday to celebrate.
Coulter said she believes there were a lot of people who voted Liberals in 2015 solely on this issue, though quantifying that is hard. With a federal election this October, she isn’t sure where those votes will go, but also doesn’t think it will be a ballot issue.
David Coletto, chief executive at Abacus Data, agreed. Polling done by his firm around the time of legalization last fall showed more than two-thirds of Canadians were perfectly fine with pot being legal.
While Conservative supporters were the least likely to be OK with it, support was still above 50 per cent.
“There is no wedge here,” said Coletto. “I don’t see legalization itself having any impact on how people are viewing the government.” Pollster Nik Nanos said at most, cannabis will be a “nuisance issue” for the Liberals from people irritated by some parts of the legalization.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has said he would not roll back legalization entirely, but that a Conservative government would look at what has happened since legalization and make any changes they see fit.
CP PHOTO
Alberta Premier-Designate Jason Kenney and Premier Rachel Notley meet in Edmonton on Thursday. The formal transition of power has begun in the Alberta government.
CUYLER
CP FILE PHOTO
Brandon Bartelds smokes three joints at once while attending the 4-20 marijuana celebration in Vancouver on April 20, 2018.
Pro climbers killed in Banff
Daniela GERMANO
The Canadian Press
BANFF — Three renowned mountain climbers are presumed dead after an avalanche in Alberta’s Banff National Park.
Outdoor apparel company The North Face confirmed Thursday that American Jess Roskelley and Austrians David Lama and Hansjorg Auer disappeared while attempting to climb the east face of Howse Peak on the Icefields Parkway. They were reported overdue on Wednesday.
The North Face said the three professional climbers are members of its Global Athlete Team.
“They are missing, and local search and rescue has assumed the worst,” The North Face said in a statement.
“We are doing everything we can to support their families, friends and the climbing community during this difficult time.”
Parks Canada said recovery efforts are on hold because of a continued risk of avalanches in the area.
Rain and strong winds in the forecast are expected to make conditions worse.
“Parks Canada visitor safety specialists immediately responded by air and observed signs of multiple avalanches and debris containing climbing equipment,” the agency said in a statement.
The east face of Howse Peak is remote and Parks Canada says its mixed rock and ice routes make it an exceptionally difficult climb.
Barry Blanchard, a mountain guide in nearby Canmore, said he talked to Roskelley when the three climbers arrived in the area about a week ago.
He gave them some suggestions on routes, including some in the Howse Peak area.
Blanchard called it a breathtaking mountainscape with a steep alpine wall, including many hazards, that’s popular only with expert climbers.
“There’s definitely avalancheprone slopes and cornices and snow mushrooms that are a form of avalanche that can be deadly,” he said.
He said the three men are considered among the top one per cent of alpinists in the world.
“If you want to equate it to racing, they are Formula 1 drivers,” Blanchard said.
Ash Routen, an outdoor adventure writer based in England, said their deaths would be a heavy loss for the sport.
“It’s always a shock when any climber dies, particularly those that are very well publicized, but perhaps people might be a little more shocked that it wasn’t an 8,000-metre peak with a high death rate in the Himalayas,” said Routen, who has been closely following the careers of Lama and Auer.
“Inherently all mountains carry risk... You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Routen said the 28-year-old Lama, who is the son of a Nepali mountain guide and a nurse from Austria, was only five when Everest mountaineer Peter Habeler discovered his talents and took him under his wing.
Lama became the youngest person to win an International Federation of Sport Climbing World Cup in both lead climbing and bouldering.
He shifted his focus to free climbing in 2011.
A standout climb by Lama, Routen said, was on the Compressor Route in Patagonia’s Cerro Torre.
He became the first to scale the
mountain without the assistance of bolts.
“That made people sit up and talk, for sure,” Routen said.
Auer, 35, who grew up near the Dolomites in Austria, guided sheep from the family farm into the mountains every summer as a boy, said his North Face profile.
Routen called him a brave and a technically skilled alpinist who often climbed difficult routes on his own.
“He is a relatively reserved guy who wasn’t somebody looking to play his achievements out to the media,” Routen said.
“Sure, he was sponsored by North Face and a few other companies, but very much he wanted to do his own thing... and climbed purely for the enjoyment of being in the mountains.”
An online biography of Roskelley on The North Face website says he grew up in Washington and spent his childhood adventuring with his family throughout the Pacific Northwest.
In 2003, at age 20, he summitted Mount Everest with his father, John Roskelley, who is considered one of the best American mountaineers of his era.
The American Alpine Journal said there is at least one route named after the younger Roskelley in Alaska called the ErdmannRoskelley Northeast Face.
In Banff, a daily avalanche bulletin by Parks Canada’s mountain safety team shows the danger level as variable, ranging from low to high.
Parks Canada notes that a significant storm blew into the area late Wednesday.
The storm is expected to drop 30 centimetres of new snow and rain, along with extreme winds.
— With files from Colette Derworiz
NEWS IN BRIEF
BC Ferries to allow beer, wine sales
VICTORIA (CP) — Travellers on select BC Ferries vessels between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay could soon have the option of enjoying a glass of wine or a beer with their meal.
BC Ferries officials confirm the independently managed, publicly owned company is exploring a pilot project that would allow limited alcohol sales in the Pacific Buffet aboard the Coastal Celebration, Spirit of British Columbia and Spirit of Vancouver Island.
A leaked memo posted on the online news website The Orca says the project could begin sometime in June.
The memo says alcohol would only be available after 11 a.m., passengers would be limited to two drinks and would only be permitted to buy alcohol along with a full meal.
Ian Tostenson, president of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association, says he approves of the pilot project.
He says he travelled on Helijet, the scheduled helicopter service between Vancouver and several locations on Vancouver Island, and was pleased to be offered a complimentary glass of wine, which he calls and enjoyable “part of the experience.”
“They don’t offer five glasses of wine and they control it,” says Tostenson.
A showcase of B.C. wines and craft beers aboard ferries could also offer a good venue for producers, he says.
“If you look at Europe, there’s a couple places that you can dine and have beer and wine, in fact, you have the full bar service.”
“I think it’s a great idea.
Rare Snow Tower tree blooming
VANCOUVER (CP) — A tree described as one of the true giants of the herbaceous plant world is bringing some tropical warmth
to British Columbia.
The Vancouver Park Board says a plant native to the Canary Islands and rarely grown in Canada is now flowering at the Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park. The tree echium, also known as snow tower, produces white flowers on a spike up to 4.5-metres high, but horticulturalists say the blooms will only last about two months. A news release from the park board says staff acquired some seeds from the endangered plant about two year and nurtured the plant from the seedlings. The park board says common names for the stunning plant range from tower of jewels, to pine echium and even giant viper’s bugloss. Whatever the name, park board chairman Stuart Mackinnon expects the exotic, beautiful and very tall plants will excite plant lovers. “Flower buds will continue to unfurl and expand over the bloom phase, making the flower stalk wider and more impressive over time,” Mackinnon said. The snow tower is expected to continue flowering into June before completing its life cycle and then dying.
B.C. funds Surrey school expansion
SURREY (CP) — The provincial government has announced $9.6 million in additional funding for the long-awaited expansion of a Surrey elementary school. Premier John Horgan and Education Minister Rob Fleming made the announcement Thursday at Sullivan Heights Elementary in southeastern Surrey. The funds are in addition to a $1.5-million contribution from the Surrey School District and $3.9 million that was pledged by the previous Liberal government in 2016 but not spent because construction did not begin. Horgan says work on the entire $15-million addition is now underway and is expected to be completed by September 2020. The expansion will include a larger gym and library, as well as eight more classrooms to replace existing portables.
Outdoor apparel company The North Face confirmed Thursday that American Jess Roskelley and Austrians David Lama and Hansjorg Auer disappeared while attempting to climb the east face of Howse Peak in the Icefields Parkway in Banff. They were reported overdue on Wednesday. The North Face said the three professional climbers are members of its Global Athlete Team.
Kings transcend sports cliches
Chemistry.
Commitment.
Grit. Hard work.
Leadership. Best players playing their best.
Role players stepping up.
The Prince George Spruce Kings have been all of those things on their path to their first-ever B.C. Hockey League championship, which they clinched Wednesday night in Vernon.
The numbers are incredible. The last time the Kings lost a game was on March 5. When they face the Brooks Bandits, the Alberta Junior Hockey League champion, next week for the Doyle Cup, the Kings will only have lost two hockey games in the previous three months.
The chemistry between the players and the commitment they give to one another and to their coaches is a pleasure to watch. This is a group that takes having fun playing hockey very seriously. Their work is a joy because – win or lose – they do it together. Put another way, they lose hard and they win even harder.
The grit and work ethic has been in abundance. Except for two games of the secondround sweep of the Chilliwack Chiefs, they have not dominated anyone, in stark
contradiction to that record-breaking 16-1 run to the league championship. Despite only losing once to the Coquitlam Express in the opening round and then sweeping both the Victoria Grizzlies and the Vernon Vipers to capture the Fred Page cup, most of the games were low-scoring victories by just one or two goals. The Kings needed to go to overtime three times – once each against Coquitlam, Victoria and Vernon – and won each time.
Leadership has also been obvious, from head coach Adam Maglio to the on-ice heroics of team captain Ben Poisson to the gallantry in goal of Logan Neaton, this team is overflowing with talent in the dressing room willing to lead the charge. From Ben Brar to Dustin Manz, the best players have shone while the younger players, from Layton Ahac and local product Corey Cunningham to 15-year-old Finn Williams, have made opponents pay for taking them and their skills for granted.
Yet these Kings are more than all that. Like all great teams at any level of sports or entertainment or business, there is something special, a mystery ingredient, some X factor that has transformed them into something beyond the sum of their parts.
Experts in a variety of fields, from organizational psychologists to motivational speakers, have studied how to put great
teams together. There is an entire industry worth millions of dollars with books, videos, speaking tours and on-site consulting on how to create transformative teams that excel in their field with all those ingredients of chemistry, commitment, grit and leadership.
If only it were that easy.
There is no formula, no spreadsheet, no recipe for team dynamics.
It makes no sense that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick keep winning Super Bowls for the New England Patriots, just like it makes no sense that the Tampa Bay Lightning, after tying the NHL record for most wins in a regular season, are swept out of the opening round of the playoffs in four straight games.
It makes no sense that four young men from Liverpool changed popular music forever over so many others – at least on paper – more talented songwriters and musicians. The Beatles had that mystery ingredient. It made no sense that two husband and wife couples from Sweden formed a group that sold almost as many records as the Beatles. ABBA had that X factor.
Experts have clearly demonstrated three clear historical trends around individual and team success.
First, transformative excellence belongs to the young and not just in sports from athletes in peak physical condition but in
Pot legalization support strong
This month, Canada will observe six months since marijuana was legalized. The culmination of a Justin Trudeau campaign promise made in 2015 took longer than originally anticipated and has endured its share of setbacks.
At this point, there is a minuscule number of stand-alone marijuana stores operating across the country and most legal sales are being conducted through the mail. British Columbia’s government calculated it would garner $200 million in cannabis tax revenue over the first three years after legalization, but the figure was recently revised to “just” $68 million. The slow process to open stores is partly to blame for this alteration.
I first had the chance to ask Canadians about marijuana legalization in May 2008. At the time, 53 per cent of British Columbians wanted to make cannabis readily available. As the debate over legalization continued, some Conservative Party of Canada supporters expressed dismay at the thought of legal marijuana, but also welcomed the tax revenue that would be associated with it. For these voters, a perceived fiscal advantage was more important than social values. Earlier this month, Research Co. asked British Columbians about the current state of affairs. More than three in five residents (63 per cent) agree with marijuana being legal in Canada, while three in 10 (29 per cent) are not in favour of the federal government’s course of action.
BY THE NUMBERS
MARIO CANSECO
The highest level of support for legal marijuana is observed in northern B.C. and Vancouver Island (72 per cent in each region), as well as among residents aged 18 to 34 (70 per cent). In contrast, opposition climbs slightly among those aged 55 and over (35 per cent), but not nearly enough to suggest that a “generational war” will be waged over cannabis.
Some of the early criticism toward marijuana legalization proponents focused on the idea that it would be difficult to explain the ramifications of this decision to children.
The federal government has recently dealt with this by running radio advertisements where parents are urged to have “the talk” about marijuana with their kids.
Legalization did not bring with it a massive amount of curious new users. While just over half of British Columbians (51 per cent) say they have never consumed marijuana in Canada, 43 per cent acknowledge trying cannabis before it became legal in the country. This leaves just six per cent of British Columbians who used marijuana for the first time after legalization, including 10 per cent of millennials.
Every Canadian province sets up the rules under which marijuana is sold. British Columbians
agree with what Victoria has mandated, with sizable proportions agreeing with the legal age of 19 for buying, selling or consuming cannabis (79 per cent), limiting the venues and areas where a person can smoke it (also 79 per cent) and authorizing adults to grow up to four plants in their household under certain conditions (67 per cent).
The most contentious measure – albeit with the agreement of 57 per cent of British Columbians – is establishing the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch as the wholesale distributor of non-medical marijuana in the province.
While some users hoped to be able to acquire marijuana in more places – such as a pharmacy or liquor store – the stand-alone model is here to stay.
At a time when the province struggles to deal with a tainted illicit drug supply, the level of support for legalizing other drugs is negligible at best.
The survey shows that 15 per cent of British Columbians – or fewer – believe that ecstasy, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, crystal meth and fentanyl should also be acquired legally by whoever wants to use them.
We have learned a few things in the first six months of legal cannabis.
First of all, the ability to acquire marijuana legally did not make the substance more enticing for British Columbians who had not used it.
Accessing marijuana was not particularly difficult before October 2018, and many British Columbians remain uninterested in trying it.
DIRECTOR
science, the arts and business where innovation, enthusiasm and the willingness to fail on the way to success are generally much higher than in older adults.
Second, there is no such thing as individual achievement. There is always a team around that individual, working to bring out the best.
Lastly, and some argue most importantly, is the overall luck of the right people coming together at the right time in the right place along with situational luck. In playoff hockey, that would be staying healthy, a missed penalty call, a broken stick or a mental error. It takes skill, imagination and experience to convert those opportunities into success but the arrival of those lucky breaks is never predictable.
Whether or not the Kings win the Doyle Cup as Pacific champions and whether they win the RBC Cup, the national Junior A hockey championship, next month, this team’s regular season and playoff success has been thrilling, not only because of the victories and those characteristics traits of winning sports teams but also because that extra something something – the je ne sais quoi as the French say.
Thank you to the entire Spruce Kings organization from a proud city and good luck in the games ahead.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Relationship frays between B.C. and Alberta
The single most dismaying political development in B.C. so far this century is the deterioration in our relationship with Alberta.
They are friends and family, partners and neighbours. It’s an ongoing disgrace that political differences have gotten to the point where those relationships are starting to fray.
I spent a fun night last summer with B.C.-born friends formerly from Victoria, who hosted us in Calgary, where they have lived for years. The fun stopped for a while when we talked seriously about pipeline politics.
It was striking how deep-seated their resentment was about B.C.’s position. And what sometimes gets overlooked in B.C. is how prevalent that resentment is.
B.C. is split on the pipeline between the diverging views. Alberta is virtually united. That makes for a government that will be determined in pressing its case.
That solid majority support for the pipeline and the deep frustration that it’s still hung up on processes was a big part of Jason Kenney’s taking power in Alberta with such ease on Tuesday.
He exploited that sense of resentment and now has free rein to ride as far as he can.
There has never been an election campaign where a full-scale economic assault on a neighbouring province was one of the big issues.
The pipeline was a significant disagreement when the NDP took power in B.C. in 2017.
It turned into a serious argument soon after, and that in turn became a legal war with duelling court cases.
Now it’s going to turn into the political equivalent of a fistfight, unless Kenney gets too preoccupied with his carbon-tax fight against Ottawa.
It would be a shame to see the argument intensify.
There has been lots of rhetorical crossfire between the two provinces, but there are two specific actions that started us down this road.
The first was the Jan. 30, 2018, announcement by B.C.’s Environment Ministry: “Additional measures being developed to protect B.C.’s environment from spills.”
Buried near the bottom – the fifth of five points – was the news that B.C. wanted feedback on the idea of imposing restrictions on the increase of diluted bitumen transport, pending environmental studies.
A unilateral blockade of any new
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pipeline, in other words.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley reacted harshly, calling it an unconstitutional attack on Alberta’s economy.
“There need to be consequences,” she said.
A few months later, those consequences arrived. A remarkable bill that gives the Alberta government full authority over what goes in the existing pipeline to the coast was introduced.
The Preserving Canada’s Economic Prosperity Act passed unanimously, another sign of the solidarity in that province.
The energy minister can dictate details of any shipments – how much of what product can move, by what mode. Volumes can be changed at any time. The minister is immune from lawsuits. Breaching licence requirements can bring fines of $10 million a day. It’s only a signature away from taking full effect.
The pipe used to be just a supply line to the coast. Now it could turn into a weapon, aimed at B.C. The legal cases began soon after. B.C. backed up slightly and referred its idea of restrictions to the B.C. Supreme Court for a ruling on the validity. And suits were readied against Alberta about the “turn off the taps” bill.
In the midst of all that, B.C. imposed a tax on vacant homes that hits Albertans with B.C. vacation properties.
It was even going to be at a higher rate for Albertans than for British Columbians, before the government relented and made it even.
Albertans with lakeside cabins and condos don’t have much to do with B.C.’s urban housing crisis. So it’s another source of resentment.
B.C.’s opening salvo about restricting new movements of heavy oil is so innocuously worded, it’s hard to know what judges will make of it.
But it looks pretty dubious from a constitutional point of view. Alberta’s retaliation looks well offside, since all the debate makes it clear the bill’s only purpose is to punish another province. The enduring shame is that whatever the courts make of it, the damage is done. It will take more than court verdicts to smooth this over.
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IN THE FAST LEYNE LES LEYNE
Mueller reveals Trump’s attempts to choke off Russia probe
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Public at last, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed to a waiting nation Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump tried to seize control of the Russia probe and force Mueller’s removal to stop him from investigating potential obstruction of justice by the president. Trump was largely thwarted by those around him who refused to go along.
Mueller laid out multiple episodes in which Trump directed others to influence or curtail the Russia investigation after the special counsel’s appointment in May 2017. Those efforts “were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” Mueller wrote.
After nearly two years, the twovolume, 448-page redacted report made for riveting reading.
In one particularly dramatic moment, Mueller reported that Trump was so agitated at the special counsel’s appointment on May 17, 2017, that he slumped back in his chair and declared: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f---ed.”
With that, Trump set out to save himself.
In June of that year, Mueller wrote, Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to call Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the probe, and say that Mueller must be ousted because he had conflicts of interest. McGahn refused –deciding he would sooner resign than trigger a potential crisis akin to the Saturday Night Massacre of Watergate firings fame.
Two days later, the president made another attempt to alter the course of the investigation, meeting with former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and dictating a message for him to relay to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The message: Sessions would publicly call the investigation “very unfair” to the president, declare Trump did nothing wrong and say that Mueller should limit his probe to “investigating election meddling for future elections.”
The message was never delivered.
The report’s bottom line largely tracked the findings revealed in Attorney General William Barr’s four-page memo released a month ago – no collusion with Russia but no clear verdict on obstruction –but it added new layers of detail about Trump’s efforts to thwart the investigation. Looking ahead, both sides were already using the findings to amplify well-rehearsed arguments about Trump’s conduct, Republicans casting him as a victim of harassment and Democrats depicting the president as stepping far over the line to derail the investigation.
The Justice Department released its redacted version of the report about 90 minutes after Barr offered his own final assessment of the findings at a testy news conference.
Average Americans, Congress and Trump’s White House consumed it voraciously – online, via a compact disc delivered to legislators and in loose-leaf binders distributed to reporters.
The release represented a moment of closure nearly two years
Mueller wrote that the (Trump) campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
in the making but also the starting bell for a new round of partisan warfare.
A defiant Trump pronounced it “a good day” and tweeted “Game Over” in a typeface mimicking the Game of Thrones logo.
By late afternoon, he was airborne for his Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida with wife Melania for the holiday weekend, without further comment.
Top Republicans in Congress saw vindication, too.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said it was time to move on from Democrats’ effort to “vilify a political opponent.”
The California lawmaker said the report failed to deliver the “imaginary evidence” incriminating Trump that Democrats had sought.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said Republicans should turn the tables and “investigate the liars who instigated this sham investigation.”
But Democrats cried foul over Barr’s preemptive press conference and said the report revealed troubling details about Trump’s conduct in the White House.
In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote that “one thing is clear:
Attorney General Barr presented a conclusion that the president did not obstruct justice while Mueller’s report appears to undercut that finding.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler added that the report “outlines disturbing evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice and other misconduct.”
He sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting that Mueller himself testify before his panel “no later than May 23” and said he’d be issuing a subpoena for the full special counsel report and the underlying materials.
Signalling battles ahead, Nadler earlier called the investigation “incredibly thorough” work that would preserve evidence for future probes.
Barr said he wouldn’t object to Mueller testifying.
Trump himself was never questioned in person, but the report’s appendix includes 12 pages of his written responses to queries from Mueller’s team.
Mueller deemed Trump’s written answers – rife with iterations of “I don’t recall” – to be “inadequate.”
He considered issuing a subpoena to force the president to appear in person but decided against it after weighing the likelihood of a long legal battle.
In his written answers, Trump said his comment during a 2016 political rally asking Russian hackers to help find emails scrubbed from Hillary Clinton’s private server was made “in jest and sarcastically” and that he did not recall
Liberals extend deadline for Trans Mountain decision
Mia RABSON The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The federal government is putting off plans to pass judgment on the reconsidered Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal for nearly a month in order to finish its consultations with Indigenous groups, says Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi.
The deadline is being pushed back – from May 22 to June 18 – on the recommendation of Indigenous communities and former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, who is advising the government on the consultation process, Sohi said Thursday.
“The government has consistently said that a decision would only be made on the project once we are satisfied that the duty to consult has been met,” he said in a statement.
government, ran on a no-holds barred approach to building pipelines.
He threatened to turn off the oil taps to B.C. unless opposition to the pipeline is removed and also says he plans to hold a referendum in Alberta on equalization if there are no new pipelines built by 2021.
On Thursday, however, Kenney – who said he discussed the matter this week with Prime Minister Trudeau – struck a more conciliatory tone.
“I agreed with the prime minister that they need to make sure that they cross every T and dot every I when it comes to discharging the federal government’s duty to consult,” he said.
being told during the campaign of any Russian effort to infiltrate or hack computer systems.
But Mueller said that within five hours of Trump’s comment, Russian military intelligence officers were targeting email accounts connected to Clinton’s office.
Mueller evaluated 10 episodes for possible obstruction of justice, and said he could not conclusively determine that Trump had committed criminal obstruction. The episodes included Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, the president’s directive to subordinates to have Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to co-operate.
Sessions was so affected by Trump’s frequent criticism of him for recusing himself from the investigation that he kept a resignation letter “with him in his pocket every time he went to the White House,” Mueller said.
The president’s lawyers have said Trump’s conduct fell within his constitutional powers, but Mueller’s team deemed the episodes deserving of scrutiny for potential criminal acts.
As for the question of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, Mueller wrote that the campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
But Mueller said investigators concluded, “While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”
Workers at a Russian troll farm contacted Trump’s campaign, claiming to be political activists for conservative grassroots organizations, and asked for signs and other campaign materials to use at rallies. While volunteers provided some of those materials – and set aside a number of signs – investigators don’t believe any Trump campaign officials knew the requests were coming from foreign nationals, Mueller wrote.
Mueller wrote that investigators “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or co-ordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, stressed that Mueller didn’t think the president’s obligations to run the executive branch entitled him to absolute immunity from prosecution. But to find that the president obstructed justice, he said, Mueller would have needed much clearer evidence that the president acted solely with “corrupt intent.”
“The evidence was sort of muddled,” Blackman said, adding that the president’s actions had multiple motivations.
The report laid out some of Mueller’s reasoning for drawing no conclusion on the question of obstruction.
Mueller wrote that he would have exonerated Trump if he could, but he wasn’t able to do that given the evidence he uncovered.
And he said the Justice Department’s standing opinion that a sitting president couldn’t be indicted meant he also couldn’t recommend Trump be criminally charged, even in secret.
The proposal to twin the existing Trans Mountain pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby was first approved by cabinet in 2016. The Federal Court of Appeal rescinded that decision last August, however, declaring that neither the environmental review nor the Indigenous consultations had been properly completed.
After taking into consideration the impact of more oil tankers on marine life off the coast of B.C., the National Energy Board said on Feb. 22 that it still believed the project was in the public interest and should go ahead, subject to 156 conditions and 16 new non-binding recommendations for Ottawa.
That decision gave cabinet 90 days to make its call, setting May 22 as the expected deadline. But even as that report was being finalized, officials in Sohi’s office were signalling that more time would likely be required. It was not lost on some critics that Thursday’s decision came two days after an Alberta election in which the lack of new pipelines played a significant role.
Conservative natural resources critic Shannon Stubbs also pointed out on Twitter the Liberals were announcing the deadline extension one month before the deadline and on the last day before the four-day Easter long weekend.
“Clearly never was a plan to decide in time for summer construction,” she said.
Alberta premier-designate Jason Kenney, whose United Conservative Party handily defeated Rachel Notley’s NDP
“We certainly don’t want them having to go back to the drawing board a third time on this. We will continue on our part to build an alliance across the country that supports TMX and other pipelines.”
Sohi said consultation teams are continuing to meet with Indigenous communities that could be impacted by the project.
“This process includes engaging in meaningful, two-way dialogue – to discuss and understand priorities of the groups our teams meet and to offer responsive accommodations, where appropriate.”
He said the government remains committed to doing “things differently” on the project.
The Liberals are under intense pressure to make progress on Trans Mountain, the only pipeline project the government has approved to date. Ottawa spent $4.5 billion to buy the existing pipeline last year in a bid to overcome political hurdles holding up construction.
Kinder Morgan investors got skittish in the wake of a B.C. court challenge, which aims to determine whether the province can prevent more diluted bitumen from flowing through B.C. given the limited understanding of how the product behaves when spilled in water.
The company halted work last spring, and warned it would cancel the project altogether unless Ottawa could convince it that the delays would not continue. Ottawa bought the pipeline instead, planning to expand it and sell it back to the private sector or Indigenous-owned companies once complete.
The National Energy Board told Sohi a few weeks ago that existing pipeline capacity is both full and running at near-maximum efficiency.
Nancy BENAC, Chad DAY, Eric TUCKER and Michael BALSAMO
AP PHOTO
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 American presidential election as released on Thursday.
Vancouver may delay plastic straw ban
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — A ban on the unnecessary use of plastic straws and Styrofoam takeout containers in Vancouver may be delayed until next year to give small businesses more time to adapt.
The city says in a news release that staff will present a report to council on Wednesday requesting a time extension and also calling for a provincial policy for dealing with single-use items like “compostable” cutlery and plastic waste.
The city launched its strategy to reduce the impact of plastic and paper shopping bags, disposable cups, takeout containers, plastic straws and single-use utensils last spring with the goal of having bans in place by June 1.
It has previously said there won’t be an outright ban on straws but a reduction of their use because some people with disabilities and other health challenges need them to drink.
The staff report requests to extend the start date for a ban on foam cups and take-out containers to Jan. 1 and a ban on unnecessary plastic straws to next April.
It says another report this November will provide more details on the proposed bylaws.
“The request to extend the start dates for the ban on foam cups, foam take-out containers and the unnecessary use of plastic straws is in response to stakeholder feedback, particularly from small businesses, who have indicated that the most meaningful support the city can provide is enough time for businesses to find convenient, affordable and accessible alternatives,” the release says.
The city says reducing pollution can’t be done at the local level alone, so staff are recommending council put forward resolutions at
the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention requesting provincial support.
The proposed resolutions would call on the province to ensure “compostable” single-use items are designed to fully biodegrade if littered in the natural environment and the items align with composting infrastructure, collection and management in the province.
They also call for a more comprehensive pro-
vincial strategy for reducing the use of disposable items that aligns with federal goals for the reduction of plastic waste.
“Concerns around plastic packaging and marine plastic pollution have emerged as a global priority.
“It is clear that these issues require support and action from all levels of government – not just at the local level,” the release says.
Report on USMCA predicts modest gains
Mike BLANCHFIELD
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — With Washington riveted to the Mueller report, a comprehensive economic assessment of the new North American free trade deal quietly emerged Thursday, predicting less-thanstellar economic gains for the United States.
Moreover, the much anticipated report of the U.S. International Trade Commission undercut the Trump administration’s rationale for forcing a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, said one leading Canadian trade lawyer. The new report arrived in the face of rising doubts in some quar-
ters about the real impact of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, and with political roadblocks to ratification piling up in all three countries. The trade commission tome – all 379 pages of it – landed Thursday after being delayed months by the 35-day shutdown of the American federal government. Its findings are significant because it is widely viewed as a neutral body that can provide a sober assessment of the economic merits of the new deal, which faces growing opposition – primarily from Democrats who want to deny Trump a political victory on a trade deal he sees as positive. The commission predicted modest economic growth in the U.S. as
a result of the agreement – a 0.35 per cent increase in gross domestic product and 176,000 new jobs, an increase of just 0.12 per cent.
“That’s it? All this time and all this headache, and the disruption to the North American supply chain and to the companies for the sake of 176,000 jobs?” said Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, a Toronto-based international trade lawyer.
The report also predicted that U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico would increase by $19.1 billion, and that U.S. imports from the two countries would also increase by the exact amount – $19.1 billion.
Todgham Cherniak said the identical figures debunk the American raison d’etre for renego-
tiating NAFTA – that the U.S. was suffering under an unfair trade deficit that needed correcting.
“The trade deficit issue is completely neutralized.”
In the crucial auto sector, the assessment was positive but with one caveat: it might make autos more expensive for consumers because of new content rules that would prevent the use of cheaper, foreign parts – something Trump has railed against as being a job killer in the U.S.
The Trump administration anticipated the arrival of the trade commission’s assessment by going on the offensive to sell the merits of the new free trade pact, and to counter growing skepticism about the economic benefits of the deal.
Top one per cent pay more tax under Liberals
Andy BLATCHFORD
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The country’s top one per cent of earners paid a slightly bigger share of federal income taxes after a policy shift from the Trudeau Liberals designed to make the rich contribute more, according to new federal data.
Having high income earners pay more, however, only appears to have materialized after efforts by some at the top to escape a bigger tax hit.
The Liberals came to power in 2015 on a signature campaign pledge dubbed the “middle class tax cut,” a reduction they planned to pay for by raising taxes on the wealthiest Canadians. Starting in 2016, they lowered the tax rate on the middle income bracket and hiked taxes on all income earned above $200,000.
With so many economic factors to consider, experts say the exact effects are hard to pin down – espe-
cially since there is evidence many high earners moved income forward to the 2015 tax year to take advantage of a lower tax rate.
On Thursday, the Finance Department released 2017 figures showing the share of overall personal taxes paid by top earners that year was 25.1 per cent. It was an increase of 0.9 per cent compared to the 24.2 per cent share in 2014, which was the last full tax year before the Liberal measures were announced.
The plan was unveiled in late 2015, but only took effect at the start of 2016, giving top earners time to shield their income. Because of this, a more fitting beforeand-after look required a comparison of 2014 figures to those from 2017.
A separate report released Thursday by the parliamentary budget office highlighted the late-2015 income movements and how the tax-planning efforts affected numbers for 2015 and 2016.
The budget watchdog’s report estimated many top
earners brought forward their income as part of behavioural changes that raised government tax revenues by $5.6 billion in 2015 and lowered them in 2016 by $3.2 billion.
In addition to the tax planning, the Liberal changes on their own reduced incometax revenues in 2016 by another $400 million, the report said.
Combined, the tax increase on the highest earners fell short of fully offsetting the tax reduction for middle-income earners.
Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux said in an interview Thursday that there was more income shifting than expected.
“People in high income brackets, they can adjust their behaviour and they can adapt their tax-planning strategies according to changes in the tax system,” Giroux said.
He said other factors blur the picture even more, like the natural growth of the economy, inflation and demographic changes.
of its value. The S&P/TSX composite index gained 68.57 points to 16,612.81, surpassing the previous record close of 16,567.47 set last July.
Stock markets are feeling “calm and bliss” following a reversal in language from central banks towards advocating a slow rise in interest rates, says Kash Pashootan, CEO and chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel Inc. “That has the market feeling much more comfortable and confident, which has continued to push equity markets higher,” he said in an interview. The TSX has recovered 2,832 points or 20.6 per cent since sinking to its December low. Pashootan said the softening of Federal Reserve language about raising interest rates has been the foundation of the markets’ recovery, but some other factors have contributed fuel to the fire.
A 41 per cent surge in oil prices in 2019 was among the main contributors. The election of a conservative government in Alberta and first-quarter U.S. corporate results beating downward revised estimates have also injected some enthusiasm into markets.
Recent data has also been supportive as economic growth in China and the U.S. is better than expected, U.S. jobless rates are at 50-year lows and March retail sales announced Thursday were the strongest gain since September 2017.
In Canada, retail sales rose 0.8 per cent in February to $50.6 billion, the first increase since October.
But Pashootan is cautious about his outlook for markets.
“We feel that although we have seen a relief in equity markets here in the first few months of the year...we’re not becoming comfortable because we feel that this party is not going to last for all of 2019.”
He said some of the positive economic data is a hangover from 2018 that was primarily fuelled from U.S. tax cuts as opposed to true economic growth.
In a trade-shortened week because of Good Friday, the Dow
CP FILE PHOTO
The City of Vancouver is considering delaying its ban on single-use plastic straws and Styrofoam takeout containers.
Sports
Blues top Jets in Game 5 for 3-2 lead
Judy OWEN The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG — Jaden Schwartz
scored with 15 seconds remaining in the third period, lifting the Blues to a 3-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday and handing St. Louis a 3-2 series lead in their Western Conference quarterfinal.
Ryan O’Reilly and Brayden Schenn also scored for the Blues, who host Game 6 of the best-ofseven series on Saturday. Jordan Binnington stopped 29 shots for St. Louis.
Winnipeg was up 2-0 after the first period on goals by Adam Lowry and Kevin Hayes.
Connor Hellebuyck made 26 saves for Winnipeg, which lost the first two games in the series and extended their home losing streak to six games, including the regular season.
According to a league stat, when a best-of-seven NHL playoff series is tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 takes the series 78.8 per cent all time (205-55).
Schenn tied the game 2-2 with 6:09 remaining in the third period following a review. Oskar Sundqvist passed the puck over to Schenn and then slid into the net and knocked it off, but it was ruled Schenn had shot the puck into the net before a defensive player caused it to come off.
Tyler Bozak sent a pass over to Schwartz, who redirected it past Hellebuyck for the game-winner.
“(Bozak) came on, he was fresh, and probably knew there wasn’t much time left so he just threw (the puck) on net and I kind of got lucky, it just hit my stick,” Schwartz said.
Hellebuyck agreed that Schwartz got lucky on the play.
“Lucky pinballs,” he said. “The puck just bounced and ended up right on their tape. Tough to eat that one, but I thought we were the better team. If we keep fighting here, it’s not over.”
Winnipeg mounted a 2-0 lead after the first period, even though the Blues had the 15-12 advantage for shots on goal.
“That’s an emotional one, especially the way it starts,” said Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo. “You’re down early, but you can probably count the interviews I’ve had with (reporters) that we say we’re a resilient group, we’ve got character in here and tonight’s a prime example of that.”
Lowry got the crowd fired up 12 seconds into the game when he used Brandon Tanev’s rebound to
notch his first goal in the series. It set a franchise record for fastest goal in the playoffs. Jacob Trouba had the previous mark of 31 seconds, scored in Game 5 against Minnesota last season.
After fans stopped cheering, some on the rink side of St. Louis’s net started chanting “You look nervous” to Binnington. Before Game 1, a video clip of the rookie saying, “Do I look nervous?” to reporters made the rounds on social media. Hayes cut to the front of the net at 13:35 and sent the puck
under Binnington’s pad to make it 2-0 with his second goal of the playoffs. Hayes almost scored twice more in the second period. He took away his own goal when his close shot slid under Binnington and started going toward the goal line. He tried to swipe it across, but his stick pulled the puck out instead. Hayes also had a breakaway late in the period, but Binnington sprawled on the ice and the shot from the side went into his pads. Winnipeg got a four-minute
power play when Robert Thomas was dinged for high sticking Mark Scheifele in the face shield, but the Jets only had one shot on goal after a number of misses and blocked attempts.
St. Louis went on its first power play with 21 seconds remaining in the frame when Trouba was called for roughing. The period ended with Winnipeg holding the 22-21 edge in shots on goal.
O’Reilly scored with 11 seconds remaining in the power play, off a rebound in a crowd in front of the net at 1:29.
Held at bay, Gaudreau hopes to ignite Flames in Game 5
Pat GRAHAM
The Associated Press
DENVER — Summoning Johnny Hockey! His scoring prowess is required ASAP.
After a 99-point regular season, Calgary All-Star forward Johnny Gaudreau has been held to a single assist and just 12 shots against Colorado.
It is a big reason why the topseeded Flames trail the Avalanche 3-1 in a first-round series that heads back to Calgary for Game 5 on Friday night.
Gaudreau’s linemates, Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm, have been held in check, too, with a goal apiece. Even more, captain and Norris Trophy candidate Mark Giordano has two assists in the series. This after finishing second in scoring among defencemen during
the regular season. No panic, though. Just action.
“Everyone has to look at their own games and be better,” Gaudreau said. “We’ve got to get back to the way we were playing all year.”
Either that, or summer starts early. The Flames are on the brink of being knocked out in the first round, just like Tampa Bay – the top seed in the East.
Dating to the expansion in 1967-68, there have been various playoff formats in the NHL from division-based, conference-based and for two seasons, ’79-80 and ’80-81, the top 16 teams being seeded by regular-season points.
At no point over that time have the top two teams in each division or conference – or the teams with the two best records – been eliminated in the first round, according to the
league.
“It will be tough. Obviously we’d rather be 2-2 than 3-1,” Lindholm said. “Go back to Calgary, we have a good crowd there for us, try to come back and play even better than (Wednesday) and hopefully get a win. Then it’s game on again.”
The Flames don’t have a monopoly on vanishing stars in this post-season. Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov had one goal and three assists between them in being swept by the Blue Jackets; while Sidney Crosby only had an assist as Pittsburgh lost four straight to the New York Islanders.
Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen have been as advertised for Colorado. They have a combined six goals and five assists.
“Our depth,” MacKinnon said,
“is very underrated.”
In particular, J.T. Compher (two goals) and Matt Nieto (two shorthanded tallies).
“They don’t get enough credit for what they’ve done all season, how much they’ve contributed,” MacKinnon said of Colorado’s supporting cast. “It’s very encouraging that we can flip the switch. You don’t have to play a perfect game to win.”
Game 5 can’t get here soon enough for Flames centre Mikael Backlund, who had a forgettable final flurry in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Avalanche on Wednesday. He took a late tripping penalty that led to Rantanen’s tying goal in regulation. In overtime, Backlund had a perfect view on Rantanen’s winning shot soaring right past him.
No time to hang their heads,
though.
“We have nothing to lose now,” Backlund said. “I don’t think a lot of people think we can do it but we can. We’ve faced a lot of adversity and if there’s any group I believe in and know they can do it, it’s this group right here.” It starts with Gaudreau, who’s been bottled up in the series with Colorado clogging the middle of the ice. Gaudreau and his teammates just can’t seem to break free.
“We’ll regroup,” Giordano said. Keeping them in games is goaltender Mike Smith , who’s stopped 99 of 108 shots over the last two contests.
“I’m just one little cog,” Smith said. “It’s nice to have personal success but when you don’t get the results it doesn’t matter. You need to do more.”
CP PHOTO Winnipeg Jets’ Kevin Hayes (12) attempts to tip the loose puck into the net of St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington (50) as Colton Parayko (55) defends during second period NHL playoff action in Winnipeg on Thursday.
Seattle NHL arena not expected to open until middle of 2021
SEATTLE — The arena for Seattle’s new NHL franchise won’t be completed until late spring or summer of 2021 but that shouldn’t have any impact on the expansion team’s first season.
Team President Tod Leiweke said Thursday the delay could end up affecting some other plans for the franchise, including the hopes of hosting the 2021 NHL draft. After being awarded the league’s
32nd team last December, Seattle officials were hoping to have the building open by early spring 2021, but design delays and a change in general contractors has delayed the project.
Leiweke said Mortenson, the new contractor, has been provided with incentives to try to have the arena ready by June 1, 2021, in the hope of having the building host the team’s expansion draft, the NHL draft and a full home slate for the WNBA’s
Seattle Storm.
“We have had discussions with the NHL, they’re open to that idea, where we would host not only the expansion draft in the building but the full league draft,” Leiweke said. “That would be a heck of a way to start a franchise. We are fully motivated.”
Getting the Storm back into the building is a major priority, Leiweke said. Coming off winning the WNBA title last season, the Storm will play this season and the next
in temporary homes around the Seattle area.
Ken Johnson, construction executive with Oak View Group, said they should have a more detailed construction timeline by next spring.
“The Storm will play in this building and they’re not really a tenant, they’re a partner,” Leiweke said. “We have deep admiration for them and what they do. We have a deep admiration for their championships. Hopefully, some
of that will rub off on other teams in the building.”
The price of the privately funded project, which is being built on the site of the former KeyArena, has grown to between $900 million and $930 million, Leiweke said. The price was originally expected to be about $650 million. Mortenson has agreed to a guaranteed price for the project and Leiweke said there are contingencies built in should unexpected issues arise.
Details crucial for Maple Leafs after mistakes cost them Game 4
Joshua CLIPPERTON The Canadian Press
BOSTON — Mike Babcock’s frustration didn’t stem from the Boston Bruins scoring on the power play – it was how the sequence unfolded.
The Maple Leafs had gone over their opponent’s lethal man advantage earlier in the day, pointing out the Bruins’ ability to suck penalty killers in before striking.
So when Charlie McAvoy snapped a shot past Frederik Andersen to finish off a crisp three-way setup, giving Boston a 1-0 lead early over Toronto in an eventual 6-4 victory that evened the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal 2-2, Babcock had reason to be annoyed.
“It’s easy to sort out,” the Leafs’ head coach said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. “We didn’t sort it out on the top and they ended up outnumbering us on the bottom... we gave up an easy one.
“We’ve got to execute.”
It was the first of a couple crucial mistakes largely pinned on a lack of attention
to detail that would cost Toronto dearly in its failed bid to grab a 3-1 stranglehold on a series that now shifts back to Boston for Friday’s Game 5.
The Leafs pinched a few times when they shouldn’t have Wednesday, lost a couple Bruins at key moments in the defensive zone, allowed a second power-play goal thanks to some lax coverage and, despite mostly owning even-strength proceedings, squandered too many chances at Scotiabank Arena.
They mostly played well. And they lost.
Focus now pivots to a return to Boston’s TD Garden – a venue where the Leafs dominated Game 1 and were dismantled in Game 2.
“It’s a real good opportunity for our group,” Babcock said. “To get to where we want to go, we’ve got to push through and overcome opportunities like we’re about to face.
“It’s all about growing as a team and building a program here that has a chance each and every year.”
But to have a chance to move on when they host Game 6 of the series back at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday, the Leafs will need avoid the silly mistakes that plagued them Wednesday. Finding an answer to the Bruins’ power play wouldn’t hurt either.
Boston, which ranked third on the man advantage in the regular season, is 5-for-11 through four games. The Leafs’ penalty kill operated at just 66.7 per cent in last spring’s seven-game defeat to the Bruins at the same stage of the playoffs, and wasn’t much better at 70.6 per cent in the first round in 2017.
“It isn’t good enough right now,” Babcock said following Game 4. “The great thing about it is the series isn’t over so we don’t have to live with that number.
“We can still fix it.”
Toronto did a good job limiting the Bruins’ big line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak through the first nine periods of the series, holding them to just six points, and only two at 5-on-5.
But Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy lit
a spark under his stars in Game 4, moving Pastrnak off the unit most of the night as the talented trio exploded for six points.
Finding another answer will be crucial for the Leafs on Friday, or they could be facing elimination when they return home.
“We feel great about our team and our game,” Leafs centre John Tavares said Wednesday night.
“You always want to clean things up and be better.
“This time of year it’s very small differences so just stay with it and build off the good things.”
For his part, Babcock has liked his team’s approach in three of the four games.
The Leafs will need at least two more good performances to advance.
“We’re excited about our opportunity,” Babcock said. “We just made too many critical mistakes (in Game 4).
“We can’t make those mistakes.”
If they do, a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2004 will be packing its bags for another early summer.
Tim BOOTH The Associated Press
The interior of the existing roof of KeyArena, the only structure that will remain during a major renovation of the building, is visible above
below as media members gather on the floor during a tour of what will be a NHL hockey team
Thursday,
Seattle Center in Seattle. Seattle will add the NHL’s 32nd team and play is scheduled to begin at the arena in 2021.
CP PHOTO
Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime returns to John Isner during their semifinal match at the Miami Open tennis tournament in March in Miami Gardens, Fla.
Penguins and Lightning exits show playoff differences
Stephen WHYNO The Associated Press
Scotty Bowman had already coached six teams to the Stanley Cup championship when his high-powered Detroit Red Wings that won 12 of their first 14 playoff games couldn’t get the puck away from the New Jersey Devils and got swept in the 1995 final.
“They just shut us right down,” Bowman said. “We were shocked, but it happens.”
The coach with the most Stanley Cup rings in NHL history wasn’t as shocked to see the Tampa Bay Lightning get swept out of the first round this post-season after tying the single-season wins record set by his 1995-95 Red Wings and finishing 21 points ahead of the rest of the league.
He wasn’t surprised, either, when the same thing happened the same night to the Pittsburgh Penguins after they won two of the past three championships.
If the Calgary Flames can’t come back from a 3-1 series deficit against Colorado, it will mark the first time each conference’s top seed is eliminated in the first round.
More than any other sport, playoff hockey is a much different animal than the regular season because of increased emphasis on scouting and preparation, fewer penalties and even-strength goals, and more all-out shot-blocking and sacrificing.
The way games are coached, played and officiated changes enough that the Lightning can go from being the best team for seven months to gone in seven days.
“The ice shrinks and you have less time, less space, the hits are harder, guys are not preserving energy over the course of a game,” said NHL Network analyst Mike Rupp, who won the Cup in 2003 with New Jersey. “You’re exhausting it every shift.” Tampa Bay looked so exhausted after winning 62 of 82 regular-season games that it lost four in a row to eighth-seeded Columbus, which didn’t even clinch a playoff spot until game 81. The Blue Jackets were by far the better team, and Bowman – who lives in Florida and frequents the Lightning’s press box – saw a totally different Tampa Bay team without top defencemen Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman because it couldn’t move the puck up ice without a strain on the top forwards.
Bowman compared it to what Detroit would’ve been like without Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom, who hardly ever made a mistake with the puck and made everything happen.
The Lightning ran into a tough John Tortorella-coached forecheck, struggled to control the game against the disciplined Blue Jackets and all their star power couldn’t dig them out of a deep hole.
“During the season, Tampa would have the puck so much, the other team would get four, five or six penalties and, boom, their
power play was at 28 per cent and had the most goals in the league,” Bowman said.
“They were so hard to play against all year because they forced the other teams to take penalties. (Hedman and Stralman) are bringing the puck up, they’re in the (offensive) zone. The game changes.”
Star players also get much more attention in the playoffs. Tampa Bay’s top scorers, presumptive MVP Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point, combined for five points against Columbus after averaging 1.3 a game during the regular season. That problem isn’t limited to the Lightning. Two-time playoff MVP Sidney Crosby was limited to one point in the Penguins’ sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders, and Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau has one
point through four games against Colorado. Tampa Bay, Calgary and Pittsburgh all ranked in the top six in the league in scoring during the regular season. When Hall of Fame defenceman Scott Stevens does an autopsy on the Lightning and Penguins’ quick playoff exits, he sees fundamental problems in other areas.
“I saw two teams that don’t defend very well, really don’t have a lot of structure in their D-zone and they didn’t have anything to fall back on,” said Stevens, who won the Stanley Cup three times with the Devils and now is an NHL Network analyst.
“They weren’t able to score goals, and they weren’t able to defend and therefore they’re not playing anymore.”
Belying a common misperception, scor-
ing isn’t down much in the post-season so far: an average of 5.8 goals over the first 31 playoff games compared to 6.0 in the regular season. But after 77.8 per cent of regular-season goals came at even strength, that number is 59.4 per cent so far in the playoffs, which means each power-play goal is all the more important.
“You want to stay out of the penalty box,” Stevens said. “There’s teams that their power play might’ve been average during the year but they find a way to get a few in the playoffs and make a difference and that can win a series for you.”
Or lose a series. Pittsburgh went one for 11 on the power play, and Tampa Bay went one for six.
Of course, there are fewer penalties called this time of year. The NHL has said it wants officials to call games the same way in the playoffs, but referees don’t want to overreach when games are so tight.
“I was always told that penalties are like money and it’s like other people’s money in that you should be frugal with them unless the action demands a call,” said retired referee Paul Stewart, who worked 49 NHL playoff games during his career.
Stewart likens the first two rounds of the playoffs to a guy being so excited for a date that he gets a speeding ticket on the way, and because of that officials need to take extra care to rein in players. It’s easy for him to understand why players feel like there’s less room on the 200-by-85-foot ice surface than during the regular season because he has seen it up close.
“Players tend to cover a lot more ice because their speed level and their intensity level is up and where they might’ve dogged it a step or two here or there, they seem to put a little more churn in the butter,” Stewart said. “They’re getting from point A to point B a lot faster and then they’re going to point C and point D where during the regular season they might only get to point C and now they’re hitting D, E and F because they’re all jacked up and they want to make sure that every 45-second shift is momentous for them.”
Stevens said a great regular-season team’s confidence can evaporate quickly and lead to a long summer of reflection.
“The teams that are undisciplined, the teams that get away from their game quickly and can’t stay with their game tend to get in trouble because you become a little reckless, you don’t manage the puck and then they feed the other team’s offence and then they tend to find themselves chasing,” Stevens said. “They just have no answer and it’s frustrating for that team that can’t find their game, has no answers, the adjustments don’t work and you’re still working hard, you’re trying hard but you can’t find a way to win.”
Major tracks to ban race-day use of anti-bleeding meds
Beth HARRIS
The Associated Press
ARCADIA, Calif. — All three hosts of the Triple Crown were among several major tracks that agreed Thursday to phase out the use of a common anti-bleeding medication starting next year, sparked by the deaths of 23 horses in three months at Santa Anita.
Starting in 2020, two-year-old horses won’t be allowed to be treated with the drug Lasix within 24 hours of racing. Lasix, formally known as furosemide, is a diuretic given to horses on race days to prevent pulmonary bleeding.
In 2021, the ban would extend to all horses running in any stakes races at tracks in the newly announced coalition. That’s the year the Triple Crown would be run for the first time under the new medication rules. Churchill Downs, Pimlico and Belmont are host to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.
Lasix has not been linked to any horse deaths, but critics of the sport have cited its use in calling for the end of race-day medication. Outside North America, most countries ban race-day medication.
In the U.S., 38 states regulate horse racing, but the sport lacks a
common set of rules enforced by a single entity. Previous efforts to ban Lasix on race days have fallen apart because of a lack of consensus.
Other tracks participating in the coalition are Aqueduct and Saratoga in New York, California’s Del Mar and Los Alamitos, Gulfstream and Tampa Bay Downs in Florida, Arlington International outside Chicago, Keeneland in Kentucky, Lone Star in Texas, Fair Grounds in Louisiana, Remington in Oklahoma and Oaklawn in Arkansas.
Other tracks involved are Laurel in Maryland and Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania.
Santa Anita in Southern Cali-
fornia and Golden Gate Fields in Northern California will continue to run under recently announced limits to race-day medication that were prompted by the rash of horse deaths since Dec. 26 at Santa Anita. Both are owned by The Stronach Group.
Lasix is being phased out in stages at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields. Now it’s allowed on race day at 50 per cent of previous levels. In 2020, all two-year-old horses will have to race medication-free at the two tracks.
“National collaboration is necessary in order to truly evolve the sport,” said Belinda Stronach, chairman and president of The
Stronach Group. “The desire to achieve uniform policies is the beginning of a movement that will redefine the expectations and views on safety within our sport.”
The announcement was welcomed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“It took 23 dead horses on one track, but we were sure that the racing industry could change if it wanted to and phasing out Lasix for stakes races and two-year-olds is an excellent first step in what must be an ongoing overhaul of racing rules nationwide,” Kathy Guillermo, PETA’s senior vicepresident, said in a statement.
AP PHOTO
Pittsburgh Penguins’ Phil Kessel carries sticks and equipment from the practice facility locker room before leaving for the off season two days after being swept by the New York Islanders in the first round of the NHL hockey playoffs, Thursday at their practice facility in Cranberry Township, Pa.
Whatever Gets You Through deals with sexual violence
Adina BRESGE The Canadian Press
TORONTO — For Lauren McKeon, it’s the force of impact between a boxing glove and its target. For Amber Dawn, it’s the reclamation of pleasure through kink. For Alicia Elliott, it’s the intentional act of forgetting. For Gwen Benaway, it’s a love communicated in silence.
These are some of the acts of survival shared by the authors in Whatever Gets You Through, a newly released anthology of essays on life after sexual violence.
The book posits that the path to healing is one without a destination. Sexual violence is not a hurdle one “gets over,” the essayists suggest, but a contentious coexistence with trauma that shadows survivors wherever they go, shaping daily routines, work, sex lives, relationships, physical beings and inner monologues.
But for each of the 12 contributors, there are moments of grace when the struggle subsides to become something more manageable, or even, a source of strength.
By drawing on the collective experiences of this diverse set of writers, co-editors Stacey May Fowles and Jen Sookfong Lee hope the anthology will connect survivors not only to each other, but also with those who, by witnessing trauma or providing support to those experiencing it, may have been proximally impacted by their pain.
“The reality we’re facing now is that if you’re not dealing with your own trauma, you’re helping someone else deal with theirs,” said Fowles, a Toronto-based sports writer and novelist.
for a photograph
“We spend so much time worrying about the futures of the mostly men who are accused of sexual assault,” she said. “What appears to be less worrisome to the public is the futures of the people who have endured sexual assault. This book is an answer to that future.”
Rather, the book presents several different examples to what a future after sexual violence can look like.
Some essayists find solace in all manner of therapies, while others repair their relationships with their bodies through physical activity.
Several survivors recount their assaults with vivid precision, while others make sense of their trauma through metaphor, or exert control over their stories in the details they choose to withhold.
“I think the book does speak to that: We have to find ways to support each other or support ourselves, or we won’t survive it.”
Fowles said she was first approached by Vancouver-based publisher Greystone Books about curating the essay collection in February 2017, months before the #MeToo movement picked up steam.
But even amid our current reckoning about sexual violence, the ongoing, tumultuous work of coping with trauma is for the most part carried out in private – and this may be by design, said Lee.
“Survivors in general, nobody wants to be inconvenienced by their feelings,” said Lee, a Burnaby, B.C.-based broadcaster and author of The Conjoined.
“The world wants you to behave quietly.
They care about those stories not being told.”
Lee said the mainstream consciousness is fixated on the moment when sexual violence is inflicted, dissecting survivors’ accounts in voyeuristic detail, but seems to lose interest when it comes to the lingering aftershocks of trauma.
For more than a decade, Winnipeg-raised writer Karyn Freedman felt too ashamed to talk about being raped at knifepoint while backpacking in Paris. Even after writing about this experience in a 2014 memoir, One Hour in Paris, Freedman said she felt honoured to see her story of healing through hockey alongside those of so many other survivors in Whatever Gets You Through.
“I know there is a great power in being able to see yourself represented in somebody else’s story,” said Freedman.
“For those people who haven’t yet told their stories, but have experienced sexual violence, I think they will find a tremendous amount of comfort and solidarity in reading these stories. I really hope it finds its way into the hands of just about everyone.”
Study suggests kids’ television in Canada lacks female representation
Victoria AHEARN The Canadian Press
TORONTO — A new study suggests female representation is low in Canadian children’s television, both onscreen and off.
The report from the non-profit Center for Scholars and Storytellers looked at a variety of areas of the children’s TV landscape in Canada and the U.S., using data from a sample of programs targeting children up to age 12 in November 2017.
It found men dominate the professions behind the scenes, from directing to content creation and writing. Researchers say the male presence is also dominant onscreen, particularly when it comes to non-human characters.
The findings from a research lab led by Ryerson University’s Faculty Of Communication & Design and UCLA compared data with the results of a 2007 study on children’s TV.
Prof. Colleen Russo Johnson, Toronto-based coauthor of the new study, says not a lot changed in the decade between the studies.
“In Canada we have not seen any change in the percentage of female representation seen onscreen,” Russo Johnson, co-director of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, said in a phone interview.
“We were at 35 per cent in 2007, and in 2017 we see that we were still at 35 per cent. That’s really disappointing to see.”
In Canada, the study culled information from 595 programs and 154 hours of recording on seven television broadcasters.
It found 62 per cent of children’s shows in Canada are created by men, 63 per cent of episodes are written by men, and 82 per cent are directed by men.
“If we don’t get the representation behind the scenes, then it makes sense that we’re not going to see it reflected onscreen, because people often write to what they know,” said Russo Johnson, who led the Canadian data collection for the study.
“It’s also really important that people are telling authentic stories. So if we want stories about diverse girls, they should be written by diverse girls.”
When it comes to onscreen gender disparity, researchers found no difference in U.S. and Canadian public vs. commercial TV. Disney channel had the highest percentage of female characters of all channels with 51 per cent.
The gender gap was greatest in non-human characters, particularly with robots/machines, of which only 15 per cent were female in Canada.
Human characters in general are on the decline, said Russo Johnson, “which is unfortunate because there is some research that suggests that children actually learn better, especially prosocial lessons better, from human characters rather than anthropomorphic characters such as talking animals.”
Non-fiction children’s programming is also on the decline, says the study, which found the majority of the content was fictional, and over three quarters of that was animated.
The study found the majority of human characters on children’s TV are Caucasian – 65 per cent in the U.S., and 74 per cent in Canada. Other key findings from the report include a virtual absence of main kids’ characters with disabilities.
Prof. Dafna Lemish of Rutgers University led the U.S. data collection and co-wrote the report with Russo Johnson, while Prof. Maya Gotz led the international study as a whole.
They plan to publish the findings online and discuss it at events targeting students and content creators, especially those in animation, in Toronto and possibly New York and Los Angeles.
“I am very assured that the future of kids’ TV is bright,” said Russo Johnson.
“The producers and creators and writers I’ve already spoken to about this, they are just shocked about some of these findings. They’re like, ‘Well now that I know, I will be mindful and I can make changes.”’
Judge allows sex-trafficking claim in suit against Weinstein
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A New York judge has agreed to let a class-action lawsuit proceed with a sex-trafficking claim against disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein eliminated all of the other claims.
The lawsuit was first filed in late 2017 and had 10 plaintiffs alleging Weinstein harassed and assaulted them from 1993 to 2011. It is one of several against
Weinstein. He is also set to stand trial on criminal sexual assault charges.
Weinstein has denied the allegations.
Weinstein’s lawyers argued it wasn’t fair to let aspiring actresses equate Hollywood’s casting couch with a brothel.
But Hellerstein wrote that the sex-trafficking law is appropriate if victims are enticed into sexual acts with false promises of career advancement. Hellerstein eliminated all defendants but Weinstein and reduced the claims from 18 to one.
CP PHOTO
Co-editors Jen Sookfong Lee, left, and Stacey May Fowles pose
in Toronto last week. The two collected essays by sexual-assault survivors and created a book called Whatever Gets You Through.
It is with broken hearts the family of Norman Everett Howe announce his passing on April 14, 2019.
He is survived by his wife and best friend of 43 years, Anne, his children, Lorie, Glenn and Cristel, his brothers Steve, Gary, Ron, Doug, his grandchildren and great grandchildren. No service at his request, but a gathering at the farm is planned for the summer. Donations are welcome at the Prince George Hospice House.
Barbara Joan Snow
May 27, 1953 - Apr 7, 2019
Passed away peacefully surrounded by her family and friends. Celebration of Life to be held at Spruceland Baptist Church Spruce Capital Senior’s Center 3701 Rainbow Dr. Saturday April 20, 2019 at 2pm.
Darrell Wade Biddle Cunningham (Yellow Buffalo Bull)
Darrell Wade Cunningham, resident of Grande Cache, AB, formerly of Prince George, BC, passed away Friday, April 12, 2019, in Grande Cache, at the age of 34 years.
Darrell Wade was born and raised in Prince George and later moved to Grande Cache to be in the mountains with his mom whom he loved so dearly.
He was an avid hunter and all-around outdoorsman. That’s where he was happy. He put his heart and soul into his crafts and was a true artisan. He was always learning and teaching traditional ways of making hides and tools.
Darrell Wade leaves behind his mom Kim Biddle; dad and step-mom Darrell and Sharon Cunningham; loving girlfriend Allison Desjardins; their son Colt; his sweet daughter Jordan; Allison’s children: Knoll, Leo, Evan, Violet, and Avery; sister Sam (Bryon) Redknap and their children: Josh, Mikey, and Anna; grandparents Rose and Gordon Biddle; as well as aunties, uncles, and cousins. He was predeceased by his Grandma and Papa Cunningham, and his Aunty Dolly.
A Celebration of Life was held on Thursday, April 18, 2019.
Condolences may be sent by visiting www.oliversfuneralhome.com
Margaret Catherine Cosh (nee Vickers)
It is with sorrow and heartfelt loss we say goodbye to our beloved Margaret. Loving wife, mother, Grandma and Granny. She will be missed and will always have a place in the hearts of her loved ones.
Margaret was born April 26/1933 in Nipawin SK and deceased April 14/2019 in Prince George BC.
Survived by her loving husband Ray Cosh, adored children Donna (Jon), Darrell (Donna), Garry (Darlene), Catherine (Paul), Vicki (Rod), Al (Val) 15 beloved grandchildren, 14 great grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews and many dear friends.
Predeceased by her parents James and Margaret “Birdie” Vickers, 5 brothers, 3 sisters and her favourite Pomeranian Rusty.
Margaret and Ray were married for 65 years. They moved to Prince George in the summer of 1972. She worked in laundry at the hospital for over 20 years. She’s been a member of the Women of the Moose since 1980. She was proud to hold the position of Senior Regent twice. She was also a member of The Red Hat Society.
Donations to the charity of your choice should be made in lieu of flowers.
No service by Margaret’s request. A Celebration of Life to be announced at a later date.
The most important thing in Margaret’s life was family which were many! She gave time and thought to all she loved. Thank you for being amazing at everything a woman can be. Sister, Aunty, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother and Friend.
Cres,
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.
O’Grady Rd and Park, Brock, Selkirk, Oxford, Simon Fraser,Trent, Fairmont, Guelph, Gladstone,Hartford, Harvard, Imperial, Kingsley, Jean De Brebeuf Cres, Loyola, Latrobe, LeicesterPl, Princeton Cres, Prince Edward Cres, Newcastle, Melbourne, Loedel, Marine Pl, Hough Pl, Guerrier Pl, Sarah Pl, Lancaster, Lemoyne,
• • Upper College Heights
• St Barbara, St Bernadette, Southridge, St Anne Ave, Bernard, St Clare St, St Gerald Pl, Creekside, Stillwater.
• • KGV Area
• Wainwright St, Burden St, Irwin, Harper, 1st, 2nd, Douglas, Hammond,Nechako Dr, Carney, Douglas, Melville, Tofield, Alward, Ewert St, Freeman St, Gillett St, Laurier Cres
Central
Pineview
Domano Full Time and Temporary Routes Available. Contact
