Prince George Citizen April 6, 2019

Book sale

Premier launches forest policy review for Interior

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

The provincial government is launching a “regionally-driven” process to renew the Interior’s forest industry, Premier John Horgan said Friday.

Speaking at the Council of Forest Industries convention in Vancouver, Horgan said he has invited forest company executives to join labour, First Nations and communities in local coalitions to develop “positive and forward-looking visions” for their respective timber supply areas.

“This will be a local process, led by those who are committed to the future of forestry in their regions, and who are willing to do the tough work to create a shared vision of a prosperous, competitive industry,” Horgan said in a news release.

The groups will be part of a larger effort that will see the government bring forward updates to the Forests and Ranger Practices Act this spring meant, in part, to put a greater emphasis on highervalue products.

The initiative comes after a similar process for the Coastal forest sector was completed in January, following six months of consultation with various stakeholders.

Opposition Forest, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations Critic John Rustad accused the government of abdicating its responsibility to lead the way.

“John Horgan has announced

that they have basically said ‘the government is not going to provide leadership on this, we’re putting it out to the companies and it’s on you guys to try to figure out how to deal with it,” Rustad said from Vancouver.

He said the process differs from that on the Coast in the sense that forest company executives there were told to “reduce log exports or we’ll do it for you.”

“They had goals that they laid out and tried to force the companies to come forward with solutions,” Rustd said.

“That’s not the case here. What we’re seeing here is they’ve completely voided the field.”

Both sides of the legislature appear to agree that the Interior forest industry is facing tough times

due to the downfall in timber supply following the accelerated logging of beetle-killed pine, record wildfire seasons, declining lumber prices and penalties imposed on exports to the United States under the Softwood Lumber Agreement.

“All of these things, of course, are creating a real challenge,” Rustad said.

“Mills are taking some downtime and we’ve seen some mill closures.

“And that’s going to continue into the future, unfortunately.”

Rustad, the Liberal MLA for Nechako Lakes, said he and his party are in the process of developing policy platforms on the issue while also looking at ways to get help over the short-term, particularly for operators in his riding.

Local delegate not part of protest during Ottawa event

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Prince George’s Lila Mansour kept that saying in mind when some unexpected controversy flared up in the House of Commons this week.

She was among the 338 young women from across the country who were in Ottawa as part of the Daughters of the Vote program and, on Wednesday, they were in the chamber to give speeches on issues that mattered to them. But perhaps the biggest statements were made when dozens of them turned their backs on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and walked out on Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. Mansour was not among them.

“I prefer to keep the dialogue open and, if I don’t agree with someone’s point of view, I prefer to listen to them and hear their perspective and voice my opinion and be able to have a conversation with that person,” Mansour said in a telephone interview.

“And so I preferred not to walk out, I preferred not to turn my back, but instead to listen.”

Mansour said those who chose to turn their backs on the PM did so in protest of the decision to eject former cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott out of the Liberal caucus.

“It was a critical issue espe-

cially for the Indigenous women who felt it was inappropriate that he removed an Indigenous minister speaking truth to power,” Mansour said. “They felt that was kind of threatening them and how they are going to speak to power.”

About the same number walked out on Scheer when he addressed the delegates just prior to Trudeau. Mansour said they did so because he did not want to fund the Daughters of the Vote program, which is run by Equal Voice, an organization that advocates for equal representation of women in parliament. Each of the delegates got a chance to deliver a speech and Mansour, who is of Syrian descent, thanked the government for letting so many refugees from the war-torn country into Canada but added they still need support.

— see ‘IT WAS, page 3

Harkin’s Branch

Prince George Public Library. Members of Friends of the Library

HORGAN

RUSTAD

MANSOUR

UNBC grad students pitch ideas in 3MT contest

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

Call it the academic version of the elevator pitch.

Seven UNBC graduate students tested their ability Wednesday to explain their research in terms almost anyone could understand – and do it within the span of just three minutes.

As part of this week’s showcasing of research at the school, they participated in a three-minute thesis competition. Also known as 3MT, it’s a friendly competition that originated at the University of Queensland in Australia about a decade ago and has since gone worldwide.

Aided by nothing more than their voices and a single slide summarizing their study flashed up on a screen behind them, they gave their presentations before a panel of three judges and about 25 onlookers.

In the process, they provided glimpses into a range of topics – from the response of the Cheslatta First Nation to the 1952 flooding of the Nechako headwaters and the effects of scour patterns on bridge abutments to the use of hospices by residents in long-term care homes.

Jennifer Coburn, a masters candidate in gender studies, emerged the winner for her presentation entitled The “Girl Push-Up:” The Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Women’s Competence and Participation in Physical Activity.

She made a point of getting out from behind

the podium and speaking without notes.

And Coburn started by giving her audience a mental image, asking them to imagine she is standing on a baseball field and about to throw a ball when the phrase ‘throw like a girl’ pops into her head.

“I know that if I mess up in front of everyone else, they will think that women are bad at throwing. So what happens when I throw that ball? Well, I throw terribly and I end up confirming that stereotype.”

Coburn goes on to explain the concept of “stereotype threat,” in which a fear of poor performance only increases the odds of failure and, in turn, “is used to justify the stereotype.”

Her slide depicted images of singer Carly Rae Jepson throwing a flummoxed ceremonial pitch at a Major League Baseball game and a woman performing a so-called “girl pushup” where her knees are on the ground and a man doing a regular pushup.

Coburn’s work is centred on experiments testing whether telling a woman she is capable only of the “girl pushup” affects her performance.

Coburn said she worked on her presentation over the course of at least a month, going through different scripts and slides and practicing her pitch.

“Every day I’d spend about 10 to 20 minutes running through my presentation,” Coburn said.

UNBC chemistry professor Todd Whitcombe, Aboriginal Learning Centre manager Bev Best and alumni relations officer Kirk Walker were

the judges.

Articulation, engagement and clarity were some of the factors they took into consideration.

Walker said he was impressed by Coburn’s TED Talk style. The key for Best was simply whether they communicated clearly and left her interested and wanting to hear more.

“It’s really important because it also speaks to how much they’re engaged with their own research,” Best said.

“If they can engage us in three minutes, that means they are very highly invested in their own research and passionate about it.”

Whitcombe suggested all graduate students will face their own form of the 3MT at some point.

“Everybody has to write an abstract for their thesis,” he said. “You have to write a one page summary of what your thesis is about and try and encapsulate 200 pages – well that’s what this is.”

Coburn won $750 and advanced to the 3MT western regional finals on April 17, which will also be held in Prince George at the Wood Innovation and Design Centre.

Nursing student Ali Marleau was the runner up for her presentation on how people with a heart condition known as atrial fibrillation manage their risk for strokes that comes with it and came away with $500.

Natural resources and environmental studies student David Breault was the people’s choice winner for his presentation on the ecology of the marten on Haida Gwaii and earned $250.

Citizen staff

The city’s unemployment rate stood at 5.9 per cent in March, according to Statistics Canada labour market survey numbers issued Friday. That’s down from 6.5 per cent for the same month last year.

However, at an estimated 47,900, the number of people holding down jobs in the city is down by 2,400.

And while, at 3,000, there are 500 fewer people seeking work, those of working age not participating stood at 21,900, compared to 18,800 a year ago.

As a result, last month’s employment rate was 65.8 per cent, down from 69.4 per cent in March 2018. Likewise, the participation rate was 69.8 per cent, down from 74.2 per cent.

March’s numbers indicate an improvement over February, when the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent, 46,900 were working, 3,200 were seeking jobs and 22,700 were not participating, translating into an employment rate of 64.4 per cent and a participation rate of 68.8 per cent.

However, Statistics Canada strongly advises against making month-to-month comparisons because the data is unadjusted for seasonal factors. The accuracy of last month’s unemployment rate is plus or minus one percentage point, 34 times out of 50.

For the March 2018, the accuracy is also plus or minus one percentage point while that for February is plus or minus 1.1 percentage point, both also 34 times out of 50.

The numbers do not separate part-time from full-time employment and are based on a three month rolling average.

Girl gets support from The War Amps

Citizen staff

Support from The War Amps has started at an early age for a Prince George girl.

Clare McNamara is just two years old but her and her mother were recently in Richmond for a provincial child amputee (CHAMP) program seminar and met a role model.

McNamara was born a right-arm amputee and Sara LaBelle, 21, of Vancouver is a right-leg amputee. Labelle is also a junior counsellor coordinator and oversees a team of older Champs who act as role models and offer advice to younger Champs.

“The seminars are very informative, but one of the best parts is that Clare gets to meet other amputees,” said McNamara’s mother, Karissa. “It’s comforting to know that as she gets older, there are people, like Sara, who will be there to guide her and offer support.”

At the seminars, young amputees and their parents learn about the latest in artificial limbs, dealing with teasing and staring and parenting an amputee child. The seminar was also an opportunity for child amputees and their families to connect, share experiences about living with amputation.

“Seminars are a powerful experience, as Champs and parents learn they are not alone,” said Danita

Chisholm, executive director of

The War Amps’ CHAMP program.

“Thanks to the public’s support

Pressing U.S. on softwood deal would be sign of weakness, ambassador says

Derrick

Canada faces little prospects of getting a deal now to settle the Canada/U.S. softwood lumber dispute, so it’s a bad idea to even try, said David McNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. in a speech Thursday to industry executives.

“If we were to plead with the U.S. lumber coalition to come back to the table to negotiate right now, I think they would see it as a sign of weakness,” McNaughton said during a discussion with the media after his presentation to the Council of Forest Industries convention. “While we’re open to sit down and have negotiations, we think the best way to get a fair deal for Canada is to let the dis-

‘It

pute resolution process continue and work with U.S. interests being damaged by the tariffs.”

Using history as a guide, McNaughton said it’s typically only when the U.S. is at the brink of losing in trade litigation that it’s willing to seriously negotiate a resolution to the long-simmering dispute over the argument that Canada’s structure of public ownership of timber resources constitutes a subsidy. It leaves the industry saddled with punitive duties on its exports to the U.S., but industry representatives remain resolved to staying the course.

“I was not surprised,” said COFI CEO Susan Yurkovich. “We haven’t seen any willingness by the U.S. industry to come to the

table, and that’s what you need in order to move forward on softwood lumber.”

Yurkovich acknowledged that Canadian, American and Mexican trade negotiators remain focused on finalizing NAFTA’s replacement, the U.S., Mexico and Canada Agreement, but that won’t happen until the separate issue of American tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum is resolved.

McNaughton said Canada won’t ratify the USMCA until those tariffs, levied on the argument that imports of Canadian and aluminum represented a security threat, are lifted, to which Yurkovich concurs.

“You can’t let something like that stand, saying that we’re a

was a powerful minute’

— from page 1

“It’s not just about bringing them over, it’s about helping them to become part of this country,” Mansour said and added she touched on racism and Islamophobia.

“I’m also passionate about Indigenous issues, so I made sure I mentioned that as well,” she said.

She had to pack all that into just one minute.

“You can barely scratch the surface in a minute, but it was a powerful minute,” Mansour said.

“Any time is wonderful.”

The graduate of College Heights Secondary

School is currently in her second year of working towards a bachelor of arts in economics at UNBC and plans to study law afterwards.

Mansour is also very active in the local community.

She is an organizer for youth activities at Relay for Life and is a volunteer at the Justice Education Society.

She also led a Hijab for a Day event at UNBC and has helped at Open Mosque events in town. In 2017, she was named the city’s youth of the year.

In 2017, Mansour was among the 150 youth from across Canada chosen to present issues

national security threat,” Yurkovich said.

McNaughton said the softwood lumber dispute, which has continued through several rounds over more than three decades, is one reason Canada fought hard to keep NAFTA’s dispute-resolution process in the revised USMCA.

McNaughton joked that Canada did offer one concession on dispute resolution, “we allowed the U.S. to renumber Chapter 19 (of NAFTA) to Chapter 10 (in the USMCA.)”

Regardless of the chapter number, McNaughton said he believes “we will be vindicated in dispute resolution,” which will push the U.S. into a softwood-lumber deal that works for both sides.

Sex offender back in custody

A convicted sex offender is back behind bars after allegedly breaching the conditions of his long-term supervision order. Prince George RCMP said Friday its sex crimes unit initiated an investigation on Feb. 28 into Ricky Bruce Gordon, who was convicted of sexual interference in 2003 and has been living in the city. RCMP did not provide specifics regarding the investigation but said Gordon’s conditions under the order include not to have any contact with anyone under the age of 19 and not to attend any place where children are expected to be. In 2015, Gordon was sentenced to 20 months in jail less 165 days time served for breaching his conditions while living in a Prince George halfway house. Gordon remained in custody as of Friday.

UNBC professor to talk water at The Exploration Place

A University of Northern British Columbia environmental engineering professor and her work on water will be the subject of a talk this Monday evening at The Exploration Place. Natalie Linklater’s research involves the application of luciferase, an enzyme extracted from fireflies, to test for harmful bacteria in drinking water. Through that work, she developed a method to detect an elusive bacterial population, the viable but not cultural bacteria, in wastewater. During her talk, she will introduce those who attend to the processes used to clean water and wastewater as well as to some of her past research. And there will be a hands-on activity, using readily available local material to clean water. The event is part of the adult speaker series at Exploration Place. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. and the talk begins at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Man convicted of harassing ex-wife

that Canadians will face for the next 150 years. It was a result of that experience that she became interested in Daughters of the Vote.

“I wanted another opportunity to share my opinions and express concerns about issues that are going on in this country,” she said.

Mansour sat in the seat occupied by Prince George-Cariboo MP Todd Doherty but is not sure a career in federal politics is right for her.

It’s “definitely a little bit scary,” she said.

However getting involved in local politics is not out of the question.

“I’m very passionate about my community,” she said.

VANCOUVER (CP) — A man convicted of criminally harassing his ex-wife through a revenge website has been charged with breaching a probation order. The RCMP say Patrick Fox was arrested Thursday in Burnaby. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in 2017 for illegally possessing a firearm and criminally harassing Desiree Capuano, who lived in the United States. Fox’s trial heard Capuano was harassed through hundreds of threatening emails and the website, which falsely maligned her.

PENNER Vancouver Sun

of the key tag and address label service, we are able to bring young amputees like Clare and Sara to-

gether as well as provide financial assistance for the cost of artificial limbs.”

THE WAR AMPS HANDOUT PHOTO

The War Amps CHAMP Sara LaBelle meets Clare McNamara of Prince George at a seminar in Richmond.

Antique fair this weekend

Comedy at the 10th annual Indie Series Awards in Los Angles. The show was nominated in five other categories.

Local show wins award

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

The new title of the show might now be Geoff & The Ninja and the trophy, since Prince George’s first television series has become an award winner.

Geoff & The Ninja was developed over time by lead actors and concept designers Jon Chuby (who plays Geoff) and Jeremy Abbott (who plays the ninja). It was finally accepted for airing by Telus’s OptikTV platform and also has an online viewing presence. It became the first series of any kind to ever air on a television network while being produced in Prince George using Prince George cast and crew.

Now, they are also the first to also win an industry award. Geoff & The Ninja was nominated in six categories at the 10th annual Indie Series Awards.

The show was on the shortlist for: Best Directing – Comedy, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, and Best Original Score.

Their name got called in the Best Directing – Comedy category at the gala awards ceremony in Los Angeles and some of the show’s creative team was in the room to feel the excitement and personally accept the trophy.

“First off, we were ecstatic to have been nominated for as many awards as we were, a lot of the shows we were up against already have network backing and are in their second or third seasons, so for us to come fresh out of the gates with our show and get six nominations is unreal,” said Chuby. “But to actually win an award and especially

Best Directing, is more then we could have ever hoped for. Me and Jeremy high-fived so hard that the echo could be heard all through L.A. A few people at the event commented on it possibly being the loudest high-five in history, just saying...”

The participants from Geoff & The Ninja made the most of their Hollywood experience, playing tourist in the screen arts capital of the world before attending the red carpet event.

“We also went to Six Flags Magic Mountain before the awards show during the day, which was a bucket list item for us as well. Which was a good and bad idea, as we were still a little nauseous when we were first at the event,” Chuby said.

It didn’t affect their ever present sense of humour, though. When they took the stage at the Colony Theater in Burbank, they managed to implant some of the subversive humour their show is famous for.

“You may notice during my acceptance speech I thanked Armo Majzoub (also in Lucifer, Altered Carbon, Prison Break, etc.) as being our sound guy even though he is our most established actor and and has a supporting role in the next Child’s Play movie,” said Chuby. “Which is a big inside joke, as he despises audio guys. We told everyone at the party the night before that he was our sound guy so we got a good laugh with that during the speech.”

Geoff & The Ninja is still swinging on the screen arts award circuit. The show also garnered some nominations at the 2019 Miami Web Fest coming up the first week of May. They are in the running for Best Directing, Comedic Acting, and Best Comedy.

Museum holding info session for aspiring train engineers

The Little Prince is assembling a little army of helpers.

The vintage steam train that chugs around Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park was getting low on engineers, which meant smaller hours of service would be available through the warmer months.

The Exploration Place Museum + Science Centre, the keepers of the train, put out the call for people interested in becoming certified Little Prince engineers. The response was an unexpected success.

“We have had unprecedented interest in joining the museum’s team of engineers at the Fort George Railway,” said The Exploration Place CEO Tracy Calogheros.

“The response was so overwhelming that rather than try to do this one on one, we are holding an information session for all interested parties at the museum on Thursday at 7 p.m.”

Chief engineer John Calogheros will be on hand, along with our other engineers Frank VanDerLans and Nick Chapman. They will help explain the training process. The learning is done on a volunteer basis, but once that is complete, the hours worked are paid. Engineers are tasked with driving the train, taking care of the workday needs of the train, and interacting with the thousands of people who ride the train around the park each year.

“The Little Prince is truly a Canadian treasure,” said Calogheros. “As the only 24-inch narrow gauge steam engine operating in North America, this is a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity. Join us to learn about the railway, what is required to certify and ask any questions you may have. We will be conducting informal interviews that evening with an eye to setting up more formal interviews over the next two weeks. Please bring your availability for this spring and summer with you.”

Expect election meddling, Freeland says

Mike BLANCHFIELD, Jim BRONSKILL Citizen news service

OTTAWA — Malign foreign actors will likely try to meddle in the Canadian federal election in October, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland warned Friday, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at Russia as the most likely culprit.

Freeland sounded the alarm over election interference at a G7 foreign ministers’ gathering in France. At a parallel G7 meeting of interior ministers, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the bloc wants the world’s big internet companies – Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft – to do more to stop their platforms from being exploited.

The dual G7 ministerial mirrored a similar joint meeting in Toronto almost one year ago that unfolded against the backdrop of a van attack on Yonge Street that left 10 people dead. A year later, their meetings occurred just weeks after 50 people were killed in two attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Canada’s upcoming federal election also attracted interest, sparking a question to Freeland about the likelihood of Russian interference.

“We are very concerned,” the minister replied. “I think our judgment is interference is very likely and we think there has probably already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy.”

While Freeland did not specifically mention Russia, Trudeau unloaded on the country when asked about the issue at an event in Toronto.

“We have seen over the past number of years an increase in the interference or the implication of foreign actors in democratic processes. We saw very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns, a lot of the divisive social media,” the prime minister said.

Trudeau and Freeland talked about Canada’s creation of a “critical election protocol,” including a group of five senior public servants who will decide whether a malign act of interference in this October’s federal election warrants going public about a fundamental threat to the vote in the middle of the campaign.

“The election that’s coming up in six months will be decided by Canadians,” Trudeau said.

“We’re going to work very hard with all the intelligence communities and our partners around the world to ensure that our democracies stay strong for all the different voices that express themselves within it.”

The G7 is seized with the issue of foreign intrusions in democratic countries and Freeland made the issue a top priority when Canada hosted the bloc last year.

Goodale also pushed a G7 initiative last year to hold the major internet companies to account for malign and disruptive material on their platforms.

Vendors setup for the Prince George Hospice Society’s

CITIZEN

Local filmmakers Jeremy Abbot and Jon Chuby – seen in this 2018 file photo – won the award for Best Directing –

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

Humboldt marks anniversary of deadly hockey bus crash

Stephanie TAYLOR Citizen news service

HUMBOLDT, Sask. — After the last funeral, Matteo Carboni didn’t go back.

Ten months passed before the minister from Humboldt, Sask., realized he hadn’t set foot again inside the Elgar Petersen Arena, home of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

“There could be some kind of subconscious reasons why,” he says.

Thousands gathered at the arena last April to mourn after the team’s bus and a semi-truck collided while the Broncos were on the way to a playoff game. Sixteen people were killed and another 13 were injured.

Mourners came with flowers and hockey sticks and candles. And they came for funerals.

Carboni attended some of the services and helped organize a vigil. He’s doing so again Saturday for a memorial marking the one-year anniversary of the crash.

“I used to go there all the time,” says Carboni, seated in the stained-glass sanctuary of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church.

Massive farming equipment and a pork plant greet visitors heading into the quiet prairie city, home to about 6,000 people. Along Main Street, reminders of the tragedy are everywhere.

“Prayers for Humboldt” and “Humboldt Strong” stickers pepper storefronts and rear windows of vehicles. Fire hydrants, with the team’s signature green-andyellow stripes, are painted to look

like Broncos players.

At the art gallery, there’s a cycling exhibit of hundreds of crafts and gifts sent to the city after the crash.

The Spotlight sportswear store sells T-shirts, hoodies and hats emblazoned with “We are Humboldt Strong.”

“Everyone still wants a piece of the Broncos, something to wear in honour, to show some pride,” says the store’s founder, Mike Yager. “Last week we shipped a package to Argentina.”

The Broncos crash made news around the world. People from 80 countries donated $15 million to support those on the bus and their families.

No other place felt the impact more than Humboldt, where the Broncos are part of the community’s identity.

Brenda Kraft pours coffee at Wong’s Restaurant on a recent afternoon. She says many of her friends and customers had loved ones on the Broncos bus that day.

“One lady’s daughter is finally realizing her brother’s gone. She’s really taking it hard,” she says.

Lou Pascal sits at a table of men talking over coffee. He’s retired and doesn’t go to games anymore, but years ago used to ride the team’s bus and do colour commentary at games.

“The emotions were pretty good there,” he says, his voice shaking. “It made you feel like you were part of something that was exceptional.”

Pascal can’t explain why he hasn’t visited the crash site yet.

“You feel sorry, but there’s

Saskatchewan

nothing you can do. You feel helpless. You feel useless.”

Some residents say the crash has brought people closer.

“You have more, ‘Hello, how are you?”’ says lifelong resident Val Lins while walking to the legion hall.

At the hockey arena, average attendance at games was up this year and the number of season ticket holders jumped to 750 from about 400, says Broncos president Jamie Brockman.

There were also more out-ofprovince spectators in the stands, he says.

In what would turn out to be an unsuccessful yet celebrated playoff run, the Broncos played their final game on home ice against the Estevan Bruins on March 24.

Hundreds of fans dressed in Broncos jerseys showed up. In between periods, many wandered to a glass display containing tributes and photographs honouring last season’s team.

Carboni says he’s still processing the past year. He wrestles with trying to understand how greatly people around the world - strangers to Saskatchewan - were touched by the crash.

Humboldt is healing, he says, and people are rebuilding their lives.

Carboni suggests Saturday not only marks the anniversary of the crash, but the beginning of another chapter when attention on Humboldt will start to fade.

“The world will never be the same for any of us, but we have each other.”

premier reflects on own crash ahead of Humboldt anniversary

Stephanie TAYLOR

Citizen new service

REGINA — Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says he feels for everyone involved in the Humboldt Broncos crash and thinks daily about the deadly collision he was involved in years ago.

“It’s one that weighs on me heavily every day of my life,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview Friday.

“It’s part of me.”

Moe was driving on a gravel road to his family’s farm near Shellbrook, Sask., in 1997, when he failed to come to a complete stop as he approached a highway. The sun was on the horizon.

A woman in the vehicle he collided with died.

“You dig deep as to why and you also dig deep as to how can I use this, in my case, a personal tragedy, to make a difference as you move forward,” he said.

Moe received a ticket for driving without due care and attention and for failing to come to a complete stop.

In the Broncos crash last April, it was an inexperienced truck driver who blew through a stop sign and into the path of the junior hockey team’s bus at a rural intersection near Tisdale, Sask.

Sixteen people died and 13 were injured. The trucker, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu of Calgary, was sentenced last month to eight years for dangerous driving.

A memorial is being held in Humboldt, Sask., on Saturday to

Prosecutor cited ‘gravity’ of alleged SNC-Lavalin offences in decision

Jim BRONSKILL Citizen news service

OTTAWA — Canada’s director of public prosecutions cited the “nature and gravity” of SNC-Lavalin’s alleged corruption in Libya in making a preliminary decision not to negotiate a special plea agreement on the criminal charges it faces, the company says in a new court filing.

The prosecutor’s office also pointed to the “degree of involvement” of senior company officers and said the Montreal-based firm “did not self-report” the conduct that gave rise to the charges, SNC-Lavalin reveals in the court documents.

Lawyers for the director of public prosecutions provided the three reasons during a brief Sept. 5, 2018, phone conversation with SNC-Lavalin to explain the prosecutor’s “preliminary indication” that an invitation to negotiate what is known as a remediation agreement with the company would not be forthcoming, the filing says.

The company’s submission to the Federal Court of Appeal is the first public mention of the prosecutor’s apparent rationale for not pursuing an agreement with SNC-Lavalin that would see the company avoid a criminal trial and a possible 10-year prohibition from receiving federal contracts.

The engineering and construction giant faces prosecution over allegations it paid millions of dollars in bribes to obtain government business in Libya from 2001 to 2011.

However, SNC-Lavalin says in the court submission there is no basis for the three concerns expressed by the prosecutor’s office, and that the entire process of determining whether to pursue a remediation agreement “was completely flawed.”

SNC-Lavalin cites revelations from recent parliamentarycommittee testimony by former attorney general Jody WilsonRaybould and others in its latest effort to reopen the door to an agreement.

SNC-Lavalin has been at the centre of a national political storm since February, when the Globe and Mail newspaper reported that prime ministerial aides leaned on Wilson-Raybould, while she was attorney general, to ensure a remediation agreement for the company.

Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet days later and was ousted this week from the Liberal caucus.

The director of prosecutions

formally told SNC-Lavalin on Oct. 9, 2018, that negotiating an agreement would be inappropriate in this particular case, prompting the company to ask the Federal Court for an order requiring talks. In a March ruling, the Federal Court tossed out the company’s plea for a judicial review of the decision. The court said the law is clear that prosecutorial discretion is not subject to judicial review, except for cases where there is an abuse of process.

In its new filing with the Court of Appeal, SNC-Lavalin says “new and deeply troubling facts” that came to light in the political drama show that checks and balances intended to ensure accountability were “critically circumvented,” amounting to a “clear abuse of process.”

The company notes testimony before the House of Commons justice committee made it clear that on Sept. 4, 2018, director of prosecutions Kathleen Roussel provided Wilson-Raybould with a memo that apparently outlined the prosecutor’s case against a remediation agreement.

By Sept. 16, Wilson-Raybould told the committee, she had formed the view it was unnecessary to intervene in the prosecutor’s decision.

However, SNC-Lavalin stresses in its filing that significant activity was taking place between those dates.

Following the Sept. 5 phone call, the public prosecutor agreed to receive additional SNC-Lavalin information addressing the three newly stated concerns, the company says. Its subsequent submissions came in letters to the prosecutor Sept. 7 and Sept. 17.

SNC-Lavalin says Wilson-Raybould made no mention of these developments and was likely not aware of them. As a result, her conclusion not to intervene “was based on incomplete information,” the company contends.

It points a finger at Roussel, arguing the prosecutor failed to advise Wilson-Raybould that she had agreed to receive additional information from the company and neglected to update her Sept. 4 memo to the then-attorney general.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wouldn’t discuss the appeal when asked about it at an event in Scarborough, Ont., on Friday.

On Thursday, David Lametti, the current attorney general, cited the possibility of an appeal as a reason he would not answer any questions about his position on a remediation agreement.

— With files from Mia Rabson

B.C. schools to provide free menstrual products for students

Citizen news service

mark the one-year anniversary of the tragedy. Moe is attending the service with his wife.

He said he doesn’t compare the collision he was involved in with the Broncos crash or any other experience.

He has publicly talked about the 1997 crash before. In the leadup to the 2018 Saskatchewan Party leadership race, he said he had been open with his constituents in RosthernShellbrook and gave details to the media.

He doesn’t have any contact with the family of the woman who died, he said.

As a father of two, Moe said, he can’t imagine what the families of the Broncos victims have gone through. And he believes the truck driver will feel the impact of his actions beyond any punishment handed to him by the courts.

“Nobody sets out one morning with any intent of being in a car accident of any type,” Moe said.

“To some degree I feel for Mr. Sidhu and his family.”

BURNABY — Students at British Columbia public schools will have access to free menstrual products by the end of the year.

Education Minister Rob Fleming issued an order Friday that requires the schools to provide the products in washrooms with the province providing $300,000 to cover start-up costs for school districts as well as supplying ongoing funding for the program.

The provincewide program is the first of its kind in Canada and comes after school board trustees in New Westminster voted in February to provide free feminine hygiene products in washrooms.

Fleming said the program is long overdue in schools.

“Quite frankly, the provision of menstrual products in our school system is something that should have been just a basic that was covered and included a long time

ago, but as of today it is and I’m very, very pleased to be able to say that,” Fleming said.

He said research indicates one in seven students has missed classes because of being unable to afford menstrual products. Providing equal access to menstrual products in schools helps create better learning environments and ensures students don’t miss classes, sports or extracurricular activities, he said.

“They miss out on learning time,” Fleming said. “They miss out on the opportunity that other students have to do well in school. With this step we’re making sure that all students get the most from school each and everyday and are able to enjoy school.”

The government also announced a grant of $95,000 to support the United Way’s Period Promise Research Project to help 10 nonprofit agencies provide menstrual products for vulnerable people.

MOE

The wreckage of a fatal crash outside of Tisdale, Sask., is seen on April, 7, 2018. A bus carrying the Humbolt Broncos hockey team was hit by a truck en route to Nipawin for a game .

Try non-coercive vaccinations first

Recently, outbreaks of vaccinepreventable diseases, including a measles outbreak in B.C., have ignited a firestorm of public debate about childhood vaccination and what should be done about current undervaccination.

The overwhelming scientific evidence proves the safety and efficacy of vaccination to control, and even eradicate, certain diseases. Yet Canada is not meeting its childhood-vaccination targets, with almost the lowest coverage of all OECD countries. High vaccination coverage is necessary to protect public health via what’s known as herd immunity. And vaccines are regarded as among our most cost-effective public health measures. Some argue that children themselves have a right to be vaccinated to protect against sometimes fatal diseases.

Mandatory vaccination of schoolchildren, for which only medical exemptions would be permitted, is gaining traction in Canada as it is elsewhere, with a strong majority of Canadians indicating their approval.

Currently, Canada has no such mandates, although the Alberta Party has pledged one if elected on April 16. Ontario and New Brunswick have vaccination reporting laws. Neither makes vaccinations mandatory. B.C. promises something similar by September.

For those rightly concerned about under-vaccination, mandatory vaccination of schoolchildren is appealing. However, it remains controversial, even for some who know the benefit of vaccination. For instance, the Canadian Medical Association passed a resolution calling for removal of non-medical exemptions from vaccination-

reporting policies. But it passed with only 58 per cent approval, and after a “heated debate.”

Some claim that parents have a moral and legal right to choose whether to vaccinate. This right is often said to be safeguarded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But that is far from certain.

Most people agree that parents require discretion to make decisions on their children’s behalf. Most also recognize, however, that state intervention is sometimes necessary to protect children’s interests. It is for this reason that blood transfusions can be required for minor children, even against the Charter rights of parents.

The scientific community views vaccination as among our most important health innovations. Schools are principal sites of disease transmission, and under-vaccination is currently listed among the World Health Organization’s top 10 global health threats. Indeed, some argue that it is children’s rights that are violated by parental refusal to vaccinate. Given those facts, it’s uncertain that parents possess either the moral or legal rights claimed.

Despite this, there are reasons to question whether mandatory vaccination makes good policy sense. The unintended consequences of such policies suggest we should move cautiously.

One possible consequence is that some parents might remove children from schools rather than vaccinate, although in what kind of numbers is unknown. Indeed, some argue that mandatory vaccination violates children’s rights to an education for this reason. This argument is unconvincing.

Whatever rights children have to access available education are outweighed by oth-

ers’ rights not to be exposed to potentially fatal health risks.

Nonetheless, the removal of children is a double-edged sword. While remaining children would clearly benefit, those removed would remain unvaccinated – which does not serve their interests. These unvaccinated children would also still go to the park, to the shopping centre, to swimming lessons etc.

That could result in ever more coercive measures, such as the ban on unvaccinated minors entering public spaces – including synagogues, churches, schools, restaurants, stores and public transit – that was implemented in New York’s Rockland County in March 2019. It could include criminal sanctions for failing to follow a recommended vaccination schedule.

Another possible consequence is the emboldening of the small but vocal antivaccination movement and greater entrenchment of anti-vaccine views. Entrenchment of anti-vaccine sentiment would make coercive measures both increasingly necessary and more difficult to implement; it is unclear whether the public has the appetite for that.

Are there ways to increase vaccination rates that avoid these consequences? Maybe.

Notably, not all under-vaccination results from so-called anti-vaxxers rigidly opposing vaccination and impervious to scientific evidence, usually estimated to be between two and three per cent of the population, (although one recent poll puts it as high as five per cent). For example, one third of Canadians express concerns over vaccination, yet many of these vaccinate anyway, if incompletely.

Swing voters could decide Alta. election

As Albertans head to the final weeks of the provincial electoral campaign, the mood of voters is different than in past democratic processes.

In the most recent Research Co. survey, two findings are particularly striking: the lack of an established frontrunner when people are asked who would make the best head of government, and a high proportion of undecided voters, particularly in rural areas. The 2015 ballot was all about change. Rachel Notley commanded the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) to victory in an election that was called early to capitalize on a supposedly fractured opposition. As Albertans headed to the polling stations, Notley was decidedly seen as the best person who was running for premier.

Four years later, and with the emergence of the United Conservative Party (UCP), Notley’s numbers have suffered. Across the province, 45 per cent of residents approve of her performance as premier and leader of the NDP, while 46 per cent disapprove. There is a significant gap in the level of strong approval for the incumbent head of government (18 per cent) and strong disapproval (30 per cent), but Notley’s stand-

BY THE NUMBERS

MARIO CANSECO

ing with voters who supported the New Democrats four years ago is solid (77 per cent).

This is not the case in Alberta.

UCP leader Jason Kenney is a polarizing figure. Just under two in five Albertans (38 per cent) approve of the way he has handled his duties as leader, while almost half (47 per cent) disapprove.

Kenney’s disapproval rating is highest among Albertans aged 55 and over (53 per cent). In addition, about one in four voters who cast a ballot for the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservatives in 2015 (25 per cent and 26 per cent respectively) disapprove of his performance.

The campaign has not been extraordinarily pleasant for the leaders.

All have negative momentum scores, but Kenney has fared worse. Almost two in five Albertans (38 per cent) say their opinion of the UCP leader has worsened since the writ was dropped.

For Notley, this number stands at 30 per cent.

When Albertans are asked who would make the best premier of the province, the two main leaders are tied, with 32 per cent of residents picking Notley and 32 per cent selecting Kenney. Stephen Mandel of the Alberta Party and David Khan of the Liberal Party are way behind (seven per cent and five per cent, respectively), and one in four prospective voters (24 per cent) are undecided.

In the survey, 62 per cent of decided voters in Alberta say they are certain that they will not change their minds before the election takes place. This leaves almost two in five (38 per cent) who may switch depending on what the final days of the campaign bring. While those who are currently backing either of the two main parties are not likely to move (80 per cent of NDP voters and 76 per cent of UCP voters say they will not waver), there are 40 per cent of Alberta Party voters and 50 per cent of Liberal Party voters who may switch. These voters could end up defining the next government. If strategic voting plays a role in the final stages of the campaign, the 2019 election may become less about ideology and more about who Albertans are comfortable with as premier.

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Such concerns, combined with complacency and barriers to access, affect vaccination coverage.

Some non-coercive measures can address these other causes. For example, targeted information campaigns, early intervention, diversification of vaccine delivery, automatic reminders and targeted follow-up are all positively associated with vaccine uptake. Crucially, to gain the most from these measures, jurisdictions would require better reporting and tracking than currently exists. We should not be naïve about the health risks posed by undervaccination, or the impossibility of converting hard-core antivaxxers with appeals to evidence.

In particular, non-coercive measures might prove insufficient to reduce clustering. Some schools, for example, exhibit exceptionally low vaccination coverage. And there is reason to believe that hard-core opponents of vaccination are attracted to such schools. In which case, more coercive measures may become necessary.

But when it comes to such measures, we should proceed carefully. Not because of the fiction that such measures violate parents’ rights or children’s rights to an education. Vaccination is in the public interest, including that of individual children, which the state has a duty to protect.

Rather, it’s because of the potential drawbacks of attempting to force people to vaccinate their children. Mandatory vaccination should not be viewed as off the table, but we might first turn to the aforementioned non-coercive measures that are presently underutilized.

— Alison Braley-Rattai is an assistant professor at Brock University. This article is republished from theconversation.com.

YOUR LETTERS

Guns in right hands

I spent more than three years of my life in areas of the Americas safest from gun violence. We had no shootings, no armed rampages. Yet everyone working there was issued a gun. I refer to U.S. Army bases, at home and in Central America. We were a military force and we knew about guns. We were trained in their use... and aware of their misuse. Our guns were rifles. And, yes, there were machine guns, mortars and such. Unless they were removed from safe storage, where all were kept securely under lock and key, they were issued only for use on the gun range or in case of war. When given out for the firing range, ammunition was withheld until we were prepared to fire. The exceptions to this gun issue was only for the military police, extensively trained and supervised. If we want to be safe in Canada from random gun violence, we need assault rifles and automatic weapons only in the hands of those professionally trained to use them – our military. When it comes to handguns, they should not be in the hands of those without a demonstrated need of protection.

Certainly farmers and those needing firearms for defence of livestock and property as well as hunters could own guns but they should be carried beyond secure storage only when needed. With lethal weapons in the hands only of responsible owners, we will all be safer.

James Loughery, Prince George

More church excuses

Re: Praying for the sinners and the victims, March 30.

Another excuse for concentrating on the Catholic Church and not those victimized by the church.

Such as being concerned about

“that damned Catholic,” which is irrelevant to those who have been abused.

“... Their very nature altered by their vocation.” Altered negatively so that they can abuse others? Is that it?

“ ... Shackled to our vocation.”

Again what does this have to do with the victims except more flannel to avoid what happened to those sexually abused?

“ ... Cover up scandals” “... the person is “part of the faith.” Do the abused get comfort from this? They need more than prayers. There is a concern to prevent future abuses by the church. The present victims of the Roman Catholic Church have to live with their abuse for the rest of their lives. The Vatican should continue to audit itself? Who audits the Vatican? Whether sexual crimes are far higher in the wider population we do not know. The church covers up its sexual crimes.

“Keep watch and pray.” What satisfaction do the sexually abused of the Catholic Church get from this?

M. Warr, Prince George

Proud of Linda

We wanted to let you know how proud we are of Linda’s achievements in Bowling for Special Olympics at the Worlds in Abu Dhabi. Linda has been a member and our board secretary for many years and has constantly supported our other disabled members in their endeavours to enhance their daily lives.

Also a special thanks to Selen Alpay and the support Special Olympics received from his Canadian Tire Store. He is a most generous and thoughtful man and we much appreciate his help. We are fortunate to have him in our community.

Congratulations, Linda! The Board of Handy Circle Resource Society Prince George

LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.

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Gone in six minutes

Young pilots fought to save doomed airliner

Citizen news service

From nearly the moment they roared down the runway and took off in their new Boeing jetliner, the pilots of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 encountered problems with the plane.

Almost immediately, a device called a stick shaker began vibrating the captain’s control column, warning him that the plane might be about to stall and fall from the sky.

For six minutes, the pilots were bombarded by alarms as they fought to fly the plane, at times pulling back in unison on their control columns in a desperate attempt to keep the huge jet aloft.

Ethiopian authorities issued a preliminary report Thursday on the March 10 crash that killed 157 people.

They found that a malfunctioning sensor sent faulty data to the Boeing 737 Max 8’s anti-stall system and triggered a chain of events that ended in a crash so violent it reduced the plane to shards and pieces.

The pilots’ struggle, and the tragic ending, mirrored an Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air Max 8 off the coast of Indonesia, which killed 189 people.

The anti-stall system, called MCAS, automatically lowers the plane’s nose under some circumstances to prevent an aerodynamic stall.

Boeing acknowledged that a sensor in the Ethiopian Airlines jet malfunctioned, triggering MCAS when it was not needed. The company repeated that it is working on a software upgrade to fix the problem in its bestselling plane.

“It’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk,” CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a video. “We own it, and we know how to do it.” Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the preliminary findings add urgency to reexamine the way that the Federal Aviation Administration uses employees of aircraft manufacturers to conduct safety-related tasks, including tests and inspections – a decades-old policy that raises questions about the agency’s independence and is now under review by the U.S. Justice Department, the Transportation Department’s inspector general and congressional committees.

“It is clear now that the process itself failed to produce a safe aircraft,” Hall said. “The focus now is to see if there were steps that were skipped or tests that were not properly done.”

The 33-page preliminary report, which is subject to change in the coming months, is based on information from the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders, the socalled black boxes. It includes a minute-byminute narrative of a gripping and confusing scene in the cockpit.

Just one minute into Flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya, the captain, Yared Getachew, reported that they were having flight-control problems.

Then the anti-stall system kicked in and pushed the nose of the plane down for nine seconds.

Instead of climbing, the plane descended slightly. Audible warnings – “don’t sink” –sounded in the cockpit.

The pilots fought to turn the nose of the plane up, and briefly they were able to resume climbing.

But the automatic anti-stall system pushed the nose down again, triggering more squawks of “don’t sink” from the plane’s ground-proximity warning system.

Following a procedure that Boeing reiterated after the Lion Air crash, the Ethiopian pilots flipped two switches and disconnected the anti-stall system, then tried to regain control.

They asked to return to the Addis Ababa airport, but were continuing to struggle getting the plane to gain altitude.

Then they broke with Boeing procedure and returned power to controls including the anti-stall system, perhaps hoping to use power to adjust a tail surface that controls the pitch up or down of a plane, or maybe out of sheer desperation.

One final time, the automated system kicked in, pushing the plane into a nose dive, according to the report.

A half-minute later, the cockpit voice recording ended, the plane crashed, and all 157 people on board were killed.

The plane’s impact left a crater 10 metres deep.

The Max is Boeing’s newest version of its workhorse single-aisle jetliner, the 737, which dates to the 1960s. Fewer than 400 Max jets have been sent to airlines around the world, but Boeing has taken orders for 4,600 more.

Boeing delivered this particular plane, tail number ET-AVJ, to Ethiopian Airlines in November.

By the day of Flight 302, it had made nearly 400 flights and been in the air for 1,330 hours – still very new by airline standards.

The pilots were young, too, and between them they had a scant 159 hours of flying time on the Max.

The captain, Getachew, was just 29 but had accumulated more than 8,000 hours of flying since completing work at the airline’s training academy in 2010. He had flown more than 1,400 hours on Boeing 737s but

just 103 hours on the Max. That may not be surprising, given that Ethiopian Airlines had just five of the planes, including ET-AVJ.

The co-pilot, Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur, was only 25 and was granted a license to fly the 737 and the Max on Dec. 12 of last year. He had logged just 361 flight hours –not enough to be hired as a pilot at a U.S. airline.

Of those hours, 207 were on 737s, including 56 hours on Max jets. Thursday’s preliminary report found that both pilots performed all the procedures recommended by Boeing on the March 10 flight but still could not control the jet.

While Boeing continues to work on its software update, Max jets remain grounded worldwide.

The CEO said the company is taking “a comprehensive, disciplined approach” to

fixing the flight-control software.

But some critics, including Hall, the former NTSB chairman, question why the work has taken so long.

“Don’t you think if Boeing knew what the fix was, we would have the fix by now?” he said. “They said after the Lion Air accident there was going to be a fix, yet there was a second accident with no fix. Now, in response to the worldwide reaction, the plane is grounded and there is still not a fix.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

Crews work at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines crash south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in March.

The Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips: https://bit.ly/2RsjvA0

Hurry hard

Scott Sherba, third on the Darren Smale rink, delivers a rock in a game against the Rick Cran rink on Friday afternoon at the Prince George Golf and

men’s curling championship.

Cariboo Cats drop Pacific opener Sports

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

The Cariboo Cougars are facing elimination, for the second time this playoff season.

A 5-2 loss to the Calgary Buffaloes Friday night in Calgary in Game 1 of their best-of-three Telus Cup Pacific regional series means there’’s no room for error.

The Cougars will have to beat the Buffaloes tonight (6 p.m. PT)

and force a Game 3 Sunday (1 p.m.) to advance to the Telus Cup national midget hockey championship in Thunder Bay, April 22-28.

The Cougars and Buffaloes were tied 2-2 heading into the third period. John Herrington and Max Arnold scored for Cariboo, while Jayden Grubbe and Justin Ross, with his first of two goals, replied for the Buffaloes. Marco Lopez scored back-to-back goals in the third period, the first at 9:44 and

Barracudas making waves at

Citizen staff

the second at 11:26. Ross added a shorthanded goal with five minutes left to put it away for Calgary.

“I thought we deserved better after 40 minutes,” said Cougars head coach Tyler Brough. “I thought we controlled the majority of the play but didn’t get the results and that’s the way it goes sometimes. We didn’t look fatigued (in the third period), they capitalized on some mental breakdowns by us and they got a save when they needed it

national trials

Three Prince George Barracudas Swim Club members are swimming in the fast lane this weekend in Toronto.

Josiah Binnema, Haley Black and Avery Movold and Josiah Binnema are racing at the Canadian swimming trials vying for berth on the national team for the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, Korea. Black began her competition with a silvermedal win in the 50 metre butterfly. She stopped the clock in 26.43 seconds, a personal best time and club record. Movold set two Barracudas records in women’s backstroke events.

In the 200m backstroke she timed in at 2:17.02 and finished 34th in the 100m back stoke(1:04.13).

Binnema was agonizingly close to a medal, finishing fourth in the men’s 50m

Movold set two Barracudas records in women’s backstroke events. In the 200m backstroke she timed in at 2:17.02 and finished 34th in the 100m backstroke (1:04.13).

butterfly in 24.41. Black and Binnema are both based in Vancouver, where they train at the High Performance Centre, while Movold is a student at the University in Akron in Ohio. The three Barracudas are also in line for berths in the Pan American Games, FISU Summer University Games and FINA world junior championships.

and it cost us.

“We’ve been pretty resilient all year with our third periods and closing the deal and tonight it just didn’t happen. We need a big effort tonight, obviously, our backs are against the wall but there’s more at stake here. I fully expect us to show up with our best effort of the year.” Shots were even at 28 apiece.

Garin Bjorklund picked up the win in net for the Buffaloes, while

Club during

Devin Chapman took the loss. Brough said he’ll start goalie Xavier Cannon in today’s game.

The Cougars bounced back from a Game 1 loss in their B.C. Hockey Major Midget League semifinal series against the Vancouver Northeast Chefs, winning two straight games on home ice at Kin 1 to advance to the final last weekend in Abbotsford, where they swept the defending-champion Fraser Valley Thunderbirds.

Young makes impressive debut

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

Jared Young put himself in good company. In his first double-A at-bat with the Tennessee Smokies, the 23-year-old Prince George native took a 1-1 pitch for a ride, knocking it over the right field fence Thursday night at Smokies Stadium in Kodak, Tenn. Young, who was promoted to the Southern League this season after a solid spring with the Chicago Cubs, joins an exclusive club that includes Cubs superstars Kris Bryant and Javier Baez whose members have hit home runs in their first double-A plate appearances.

Young’s two-out solo shot gave the Smokies the lead and they hung on to beat the Mississippi Braves 7-5. He hit third in the order and finished 2-for-5 while playing first base. Young, drafted in the 15th round by the Cubs in 2017, is now in his third pro baseball season. Selected as the Cubs

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Curling

Kelly Cup

minor league player of the year in 2018, he finished with a .300 batting average in a season combined with the Class A South Bend Cubs and the Class A Advanced Myrtle Beach Pelicans.

YOUNG

Final Four teams gunning for glory

Citizen news service

It has been nearly two decades since Mateen Cleaves and the rest of the Flintstones carried Michigan State to the national championship, triumphing over Florida at the long-since demolished RCA Dome in downtown Indianapolis. Nearly two decades since anyone in the Big Ten hoisted the trophy.

The Spartans are back at the Final Four this weekend, their seventh attempt at giving coach Tom Izzo a validating championship ring. But even if they’re unable to end their league’s maddening drought at the glitzy new U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday night, the team that does emerge – be it Virginia, Auburn or Texas Tech –will have a coach that followed the Big Ten blueprint.

Brutally tough defence. Efficient offence. Physical inside, smart outside. Limit turnovers and crash the boards and basically play like it is November on the gridiron.

“There’s a little flavour,” Izzo acknowledged, “in a lot of ways.”

That remains the way Izzo’s teams play. But in some respect, it’s the way all the Final Four teams play, a byproduct of the coaching that their own coaches received through the years.

Virginia’s Tony Bennett learned the game at the hip of his father, Dick Bennett, who led Wisconsin to a surprising Final Four in 2000coincidentally, the Spartans ended the Badgers’ run.

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who spent the 1980s working alongside Tom Davis at Iowa, recalls buying Dick Bennett’s instructional videos to learn the basics of his man-toman defence.

“I adopted his first tape,” Pearl said, “and in many ways still keep some of those same principles. I would say Dick taught me, through clinics and tapes, a lot of how we try to guard.”

The rest he learned from Davis, who took the Hawkeyes to the Elite Eight with Pearl on his staff. Those were the teams of B.J. Armstrong and Roy Marble - seven players from that season would reach the NBA, a then-unheard-of number that speaks volumes of the Big Ten’s decade of dominance. By the way, those instructional tapes? The younger Bennett can’t help but chuckle at them.

“I was like, ‘Why do we have to do these instructional videos?”’ he said this week. “My dad, he’s just an open book, as they say. He’s so honest. He just wants to help the game because the game’s been so good to him. I have said this before, you don’t have to share everything. Obviously people pick and choose. But he absolutely has influenced a lot of people.”

That goes for most coaches during the Big Ten’s glory years.

Longtime Purdue coach Gene Keady was a guiding influence on current coach Matt Painter, whose team was a last-gasp basket away from beating Virginia to reach the Final Four.

Izzo will speak until breathless of the lessons he learned under Michigan State’s Jud Heathcote, not only the X’s and O’s of the game but how to influence and inspire.

That guy for Texas Tech coach Chris Beard was Bob Knight, the irascible but nonetheless brilliant coach who guided Indiana to three national championships. Beard hooked up with him when Knight

was hired to rebuild the Red Raiders, but the lessons he learned were steeped in Big Ten blood.

The similarities between Texas Tech and Michigan State – who meet in the second semifinal Saturday night – are so extensive that they might as well watch scouting film of themselves.

“Their culture, toughness, everything they believe in, we do too,” said bruising Texas Tech forward Norense Odiase. “They are a great rebounding team and they are good in transition.”

All of which Izzo takes as a compliment.

“We kind of clone each other in

some ways, yet I think Chris has done a great job with his team,” he said. “We’re both disciplines of Bob Knight and Jud Heathcote. Those two guys were best friends. Chris and I are getting to know each other, but I have great respect for what he’s done.”

Izzo gets nostalgic when he talks about the Big Ten’s golden age, when Clem Haskins presided over Minnesota and Lou Henson led Illinois.

Three programs won a combined five national championships during one 14-year span in the 1970s and ‘80s, though that success seems so long ago.

Seven different Big Ten schools have made a combined 13 trips to the Final Four since the Spartans won their last championship. Three times, the league has had multiple Final Four participants. There’s only one this year. But in some ways, it seems like there are four.

“To be a Final Four team, you usually have to have those kinds of qualities of togetherness and toughness, both mental and physical,” Izzo said. “But if we could carry the mantle for our league and end that drought, I’d be double excited, one for Michigan State and one for the Big Ten.”

Early-entry junior phenom going to Kingston

The latest player to be given early entry into a Canadian Hockey League draft will be a member of the Kingston Frontenacs.

Shane Wright, granted exceptionalplayer status last month after a review by Hockey Canada, will be selected first overall by the Frontenacs in the Ontario Hockey League draft Saturday.

Frontenacs president Doug Gilmour confirmed the pick Friday at Kingston’s city hall. The league traditionally allows teams with the first selection to make the announcement a day before the draft.

Wright, 15, led the Don Mills Flyers win the OHL Cup minor-midget championship this season, earning tournament MVP honours.

The native of Burlington, Ont., had 66 goals and 84 assists for 150 points in 72 games.

“There is a reason Shane was granted exceptional-player status,” Frontenacs general manager Darren Keily said in a statement. “It starts well before he plays the game; Shane is an exceptional person, with exceptional character, from an exceptional family. His hockey is partin-part with that, and he will be a great asset to our club. That’s what separates him from others.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS

Above, Virginia’s Kyle Guy (5) laughs as he gather with Ty Jerome (11), Jay Huff (30) and De’Andre Hunter (12) during a practice session for the semifinals of the Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament on Friday in Minneapolis. Below left, Auburn’s Austin Wiley (50) shoots against Thomas Collier during a practice session Friday. Below right, Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver (23) warms up during a practice session Friday.

Citizen news service

UNBC honours top T-wolves

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Stingy defence and a nose for the soccer ball made UNBC Timberwolves defender Gordon Hall a first-team Canada West all-star in his final season of eligibility in the U Sports. Hall made the all-star team in three of five season with the T-wolves and on Friday he was recognized as the school’s male athlete of the year for the second consecutive year. With Hall on the case guarding the defensive end, UNBC allowed just 24 goals in 15 games. In what turned out an historic season for UNBC in which the female soccer team and male and female basketball teams each made the Canada West playoffs, basketball forward Vasiliki Louka

Gauthier

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

stood out as the T-wolves’ female athlete of the year for the third straight year.

The native of Athens, Greece joined Hall as the only T-wolves ever to be picked as first-team Canada West all-stars.

Louka led Canada West in rebounding with 12.7 per game, finished in the was top 10 in points (17.3 average) and blocks (1.1 per game).

She also had 17 double-doubles, second all-time in a Canada West season, and became UNBC’s alltime leader in points, rebounds, minutes, and blocks.

In other T-wolves awards presented Friday night soccer striker Anthony Preston was named the T-wolves male rookie of the year. Preston, a Prince George native, started four of the T-wolves’ 14 games and finished with two goals

and two assists and his four points ranked second in team scoring.

Soccer midfielder Kiana Swift was the female rookie of the year.

The Sooke native started all 14 games and was held off the scoreboard but produced 20 shots on goal.

Basketball guard Emily Holmes and soccer forward Francesco Bartolillo each received the KJM Sales Timberwolf Award for excellence in athletics, academics, and community service.

Bartolillo won the award in 2017 and 2018 and was selected for the U SPORTS National Student-Athlete Community Service Award.

Holmes is president of the Timberwolves Student Athlete Society and like Bartolillo has shown leadership spearheading community and fundraising projects.

headed to U18 training camp

Taylor Gauthier of the Prince George Cougars is one of three goalies selected for Canada’s training camp roster for the world under-18 hockey championship in Sweden.

Gauthier, who turned 18 on Feb. 18, won’t have far to go. The 23-player camp is being held in his Calgary hometown next week. In his second WHL season with the Cougars, Gauthier played 55 games, posting 15 wins with a 3.25 goals-against average, .899 save percentage and three shutouts.

Gauthier last played for his country in August 2018. He came on in relief the championship game and helped Canada win the gold medal at the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in Edmonton. He was also

part of the 2017 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek.

Now ranked fifth among North American goalies available for the 2019 NHL draft, Gauthier played in the Sherwin Williams CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in Red Deer in January.

The world tournament will be played April 18-28 in Ornkoldsvik and Umea, Sweden.

TSN will be in Sweden to broadcast 15 games and will show all of Canada’s games, starting with their opener against Switzerland on Friday, April 19.

Canada shares Group A with Belarus, Finland, Switzerland and Czech Republic. Group B includes Sweden, Latvia, Russia, United States and Slovakia.

Koe secures playoff spot at world men’s curling championship

Gregory STRONG Citizen news service

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — The parity among the elite teams has been on full display this week at the world men’s curling championship. It resulted in a playoff picture that wasn’t clear until the completion of the final round-robin draw at the Enmax Centre.

Canada’s Kevin Koe won both of his games Friday to secure the No. 3 seed. He beat Switzerland’s Peter De Cruz 10-3 in the morning and defeated Jaap Van Dorp of the Netherlands 6-5 in the evening.

The Calgary skip (9-3) will play Scotland’s Bruce Mouat (8-4) in a qualification game Saturday morning.

“These chances, they don’t come too often,” Koe said.

“You’re in the playoffs at a world championship, especially in our home country and home province. We want to win really bad.”

Sweden’s Niklas Edin (11-1) secured the top seed earlier in the day. Switzerland (9-3) beat China 8-4 in the evening to wrap up the No. 2 seed and the other direct semifinal berth.

Scotland defeated Italy’s Joel Retornaz 9-5 in a win-andyou’re-in game to get the sixth seed.

Japan’s Yuta Matsumura (9-3) will face American John Shuster (8-4) in the other qualification

game. Shuster beat Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell 8-4.

“There’s no easy games out here,” Koe said after his morning win. “It just seems like anyone can beat anyone. A good team is probably not going to make the playoffs here.”

In the end, Italy missed the sixteam cut despite a 7-5 record. Only Japan and Sweden had secured playoff spots at the start of the day.

Edin picked up an 8-4 morning win over Shuster and the defending champion then topped Italy 7-4 in the afternoon, a result that ensured Koe, Shuster and De Cruz would make the cut.

“There’s a bit of separation from the top teams and the bottom teams,” Koe said. “Not a lot of upsets here. I guess when that happens, more than half the field is going to have a chance.”

Tiebreaker games are not used at this event. Head-to-head records and cumulative last stone draw statistics are used to break ties. The lowest-seeded winner in the qualification round will play Edin with the other winner to meet De Cruz.

“Definitely not afraid of it if that’s the route we’ve got to go,” Koe said after his morning win. “If you can get in those games and play well and get on a roll, you’ve got as good a chance as anybody.” Medal games will be played Sunday.

Vipers-Spruce Kings BCHL final starts Friday

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

There will be a new B.C. Hockey League champion crowned. The Vernon Vipers guaranteed that will happen when they defeated the Wenatchee Wild 3-1 Friday night in Wenatchee, Wash., to win the best-of-seven Interior Conference championship 4-1.

Vernon will advance to the Fred Page Cup championship series against the Prince George Spruce Kings which starts next Friday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. The Vipers leaned on the goaltending of Aidan Porter to get them through the first period relatively unscathed, then scored three goals in the second period to take control.

Marko Reifenberger staked the Wild to a 1-0 lead 3:21 into the game and Porter made 15 saves to keep it a one-goal game. Ben Sanderson scored the game winner three seconds after a penalty to Wild forward Lucas

Sowder had expired. That came 8:28 into the second period, less than five minutes after Jack Judson got the Vipers on the scoreboard.

Jagger Williamson added another even-strength goal 18:30 in to the period to cap the scoring.

Porter made 25 saves for his 12th win of the playoffs. Austin Park took the loss in goal for the Wild, making 18 saves.

The Vipers are 12-5 so far in the playoffs.

They opened with a 4-1 series win over Salmon Arm, then defeated Trail 4-3 in the second round.

The Spruce Kings have lost just one of their 13 playoff games. They eliminated Coquitlam in a five-game series, then put together back-to-back sweeps against Chilliwack and Victoria to advance to the final for the second time in team history. Last year the Kings lost the championship series to Wenatchee in a five games.

GAUTHIER

CITIZEN PHOTO BY TED CLARKE

The UNBC Timberwolves handed out their annual awards Friday night. Holding their awards are from left, Anthony Preston, male rookie of the year (soccer); Gordon Hall, male athlete of the year (soccer); Vasiliki Louka, female athlete of the year (basketball); and Kiana Swift, female rookie of the year (soccer).

Oh, baby! Legendary hockey broadcaster calls last Hockey Night In Canada game tonight

Citizen news service

Bob Cole still remembers the butterflies flapping in his stomach as he walked into the old Boston Garden in the spring of 1969.

Calling games for Hockey Night in Canada was his dream. This was the opportunity, one he wasn’t about to let pass him by.

“Nervous as heck,” Cole recalled this week. “It was radio on the CBC network. Playoffs. It was something I always wanted to do. Now you’re asked to step up and you’re front and centre. If you’ve never done something like this, it’s hard to understand – you really wanted to do it, and here you are given a chance.

“You better do it. It’s a crazy world, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

A half century later, the legendary play-by-play man – the iconic voice millions of viewers in this country associate with hockey – will hang up his microphone after calling Saturday’s regularseason finale between the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.

Cole knew this moment would eventually come. The timing, though, isn’t his choice. That makes it tough.

“Mixed feelings, I guess,” the 85-year-old broadcaster continued in an interview from his hometown of St. John’s, N.L. “It’s starting to sink in. It’s hard to get my head around it, you know?

“It’s difficult.”

Cole, who moved to TV in 1973, saw his workload scaled back in recent years by Sportsnet and Rogers Media, which took over national television rights in 2013 – a deal that included a sub-licensing agreement to allow the CBC to continue airing HNIC.

He didn’t call any playoff games last spring for the first time in his career, and got 16 dates on the 2018-19 schedule.

There will be tributes Saturday on TV and at the Bell Centre in Montreal, but as always, Cole would prefer the focus remains on the ice.

“It’s going to end. Let it end,” Cole said. “The players are the game – not me.”

The memorable calls, however, are almost too many to count. Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996 as a recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for broadcasting excellence, his personal highlights include the 1972 Summit Series on radio and the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City – “It’s going to be a break! It is Jooooooe Sakic ... scores!” – when Canada won gold to snap a 50year drought. And then there’s his signature

phrase, one that nearly every Canadian hockey fan associates with Cole.

“Ohhhh baby!”

“I used that many times, I’m told, at home growing up,” said Cole, who got his start with VOCM radio in St. John’s. “If you spilled some milk and your mother found out that you’ve made a mess, it’s: ‘Oh baby.”’

Players and coaches across the league got to know him over the years, and like the man, have mixed feelings about his exit.

“An unbelievable gentleman,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock

said. “If you let him, Bob would probably work another 10 years. I’m privileged to call him a friend.”

Ottawa Senators interim head coach Marc Crawford was behind the bench for Toronto’s farm team in St. John’s in the early 1990s.

“He’d always come down to our office and I thought it was such a cool thing,” Crawford said. “Little did I know that he was there because it was the only place in the rink he could smoke. Didn’t matter to me. I was happy to share any moments I could with him.” Leafs centre John Tavares fell in love with his hometown team

during Toronto’s 1993 playoff run. Cole provided the soundtrack to some of his earliest hockey memories.

“He made the game even more special than what it was,” Tavares said. “He brought you into the game, to be a part of it.”

“He had a way of calling games that just captivated you,” Canadiens winger Brendan Gallagher added.

Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said he’ll cherish getting to know Cole during informal chats before games.

“A living legend,” Stamkos said. “His voice is iconic. It’s all I associated with watching hockey growing up. Bittersweet for sure, but a great man. He has a close spot in a lot of Canadians’ hearts.”

Outside the inner circles of the hockey world, Cole has received plenty of support on this final professional journey.

“A lot of people have stopped me at airports,” he said. “It’s quite humbling when all these people you’ve never met take time to say hello and talk about how they enjoyed your work.”

He hopes he added something to their hockey experience.

“It’s always the game,” Cole said. “If you enjoyed the game and you had a good time watching the game – and I happened to be working – that’s a compliment.”

Asked if there’s any animosity with how his broadcasting career is coming to an end, Cole said that’s not the word he would choose.

“I respect what my superiors are doing,” he said. “There’s a lot of great talent working on our games now, but of course I’m disappointed. I always wanted to be involved. I’ve given it my best shot. I’m going to miss it.”

But just in case someone changes their mind, his phone number and email address are staying the same.

“I have no plans. I hate to even think about plans because I don’t have any. It’s going to be strange. I’m going to need some help to get through it all.”

Former NHL forward skating on prosthetic leg

Citizen news service

Former NHL forward Craig Cunningham just wanted to say thanks and debut his new skating leg.

The 28-year-old posted a video to Instagram on Wednesday that shows him taking a quick spin around an arena in San Diego, deftly carving the ice using a prosthetic leg. By Friday, the clip had been viewed nearly 600,000 times and garnered hundreds of comments calling Cunningham an inspiration.

“I was pretty surprised. I wasn’t totally paying attention. If you look at my social media profile, I wouldn’t say I’m a very good social media doer,” Cunningham said by phone from Phoenix on Friday.

“I was more just trying to thank the (American Hockey League’s San Diego) Gulls and (coach) Dallas Eakins for letting me on the ice, kind of just show ‘Look at this new skate that I have.’ And show that I can continue to do stuff, that it doesn’t matter if you have an amputation. I didn’t think it was going to blow up the way it did.”

The clip blew up because of what happened to Cunningham more than two years ago.

The native of Trail, B.C., was warming up for a game with his AHL team, the Tucson Roadrunners, when he suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the ice.

Advanced medical procedures saved his life but a complication required doctors to amputate part of Cunningham’s left leg, ending his time as a professional hockey player.

Picked up by Boston in the seventh round of the 2010 draft, the former star of the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants played a total 63 games with the Bruins and Arizona Coyotes over his NHL career.

The journey back to the ice has been long and bumpy, Cunningham said.

“It’s been a pretty big roller coaster ride. Lots of ups and downs, kind of emotional roller coasters,” he said. “At the start there, there were a lot more downs than there were ups. Now there’s a lot more ups than there are downs.”

Rehab was tough. Cunningham had to learn how to walk again, and fought pain and discomfort the entire way.

His background as an athlete helped.

“I was already used to pushing my body to the limits and pushing it a little further when I didn’t think it could go any farther,” he said.

About three months after the accident, Cunningham tried skating for the first time.

The experience was disheartening.

“I was pretty let down after. My leg wasn’t healed. I was maybe pushing things a little quicker than I should,” he said. “So I kind of took a deep breath, took a step back and let myself heal. It’s been a lot better ever since.” Over the years, Cunningham tried a few different set ups in an effort to get back on the ice, including a skate boot on a prosthetic leg, but he couldn’t find a rig that was comfortable.

Then, a few months ago, he started working with Peter Harsch Prosthetics.

A specialist in making prosthetics for elite athletes, Peter Harsch crafted a leg that attaches to a light, streamlined skate blade.

Finally, Cunningham had something that felt good.

In the video posted this week, he streaks across the ice in big arcs, stick in hand, as he confidently crosses over. He turns backwards and his balance falters slightly. Cunningham turns to the camera, a grin on his face.

“Still can’t skate backward,” he says.

Being able to skate comfortably again was key for Cunningham, who’s been working as a pro scout for the Arizona Coyotes since May 2017.

“I didn’t want to be physically restricted to one role or one job,” he said. “I wasn’t really sure if I’d be able to coach or get back on the ice regularly. But this gives me some hope moving forward here.”

Working as a scout has been a drastic change for a young man who’s playing career was cut short.

Cunningham describes his first few months on the job as tough.

“I still wanted to be out there and I missed it every day,” he said. “I think at some point I was being a little selfish and I had to realize ‘Hey man, these are the cards that you were dealt and you were lucky enough to play and be a part of the hockey family. And you’re still involved.”’

He’s also giving back to the community that saved his life through the All Heart Foundation, which uses technology to research and help prevent cardiac arrests.

Doctors were never able to pinpoint what caused Cunningham’s healthy heart to fail, and he’s since heard many similar stories. He wants to use his experience to create change.

“The technology nowadays is so good, but instead of using the smart technology on saving lives, we’re putting out iPhone 13s,” Cunningham said, adding that the foundation plans to release a new app in about six weeks.

“We really think it’s going to make a difference in saving people’s lives.”

Broadcaster Bob Cole speaks as part of Thank You, Mr. Hockey Day remembering Gordie Howe in Saskatoon in Sept. 2016.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

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

The markets today

The energy sector led a broadbased rally on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which closed higher Friday along with the American markets.

“When we look at markets in both Canada and the U.S., one thing that stands out is we’re really seeing the energy sector in both markets really doing well,” said Kevin McLachlan, portfolio manager at Fiduciary Trust Canada.

The S&P/TSX energy index jumped 2.93 per cent as the May crude contract closed up 98 cents at US$63.08 per barrel.

The May natural gas contract was up two cents at US$2.66 per mmBTU.

The gains helped the S&P/TSX composite index close up 84.54 points at 16,396.15 on subdued volume.

The health care index gained 1.34 per cent after Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Aphria Inc. announced they were among the three companies selected by the German government to cultivate and distribute medical pot in the country. Real estate was the sole index that slipped on the day, down 0.27 per cent.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 40.36 points at 26,424.99. The S&P 500 index was up 13.35 points at 2,892.74, while the Nasdaq composite was up 46.91 points at 7,938.69.

U.S. markets got a boost from data that showed employers added 196,000 jobs last month to beat analyst expectations.

“The market viewed that as a good result, because expectations were getting maybe a bit lower, you know there have been concerns about growth. So I think that helped today,“ said McLachlan.

Statistics Canada said employment in Canada dipped by 7,200 positions in March to end a sixmonth streak of job creation. The unemployment rate held firm at 5.8 per cent.

The Canadian dollar averaged 74.70 cents US compared with an average of 74.87 cents US on Thursday.

The June gold contract ended up US$1.30 at US$1,295.60 an ounce and the May copper contract was down 1.6 cents at US$2.90 a pound.

YouTube ignored warnings, let toxic videos run rampant

Citizen news service

A year ago, Susan Wojcicki was on stage to defend YouTube. Her company, hammered for months for fueling falsehoods online, was reeling from another flare-up involving a conspiracy theory video about the Parkland, Fla. high school shooting that suggested the victims were “crisis actors.”

Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive officer, is a reluctant public ambassador, but she was in Austin at the South by Southwest conference to unveil a solution that she hoped would help quell conspiracy theories: a tiny text box from websites like Wikipedia that would sit below videos that questioned well-established facts like the moon landing and link viewers to the truth.

Wojcicki’s media behemoth, bent on overtaking television, is estimated to rake in sales of more than $16 billion US a year. But on that day, Wojcicki compared her video site to a different kind of institution. “We’re really more like a library,” she said, staking out a familiar position as a defender of free speech. “There have always been controversies, if you look back at libraries.”

Since Wojcicki took the stage, prominent conspiracy theories on the platform-including one on child vaccinations; another tying Hillary Clinton to a Satanic cult-have drawn the ire of lawmakers eager to regulate technology companies.

And YouTube is, a year later, even more associated with the darker parts of the web. The conundrum isn’t just that videos questioning the moon landing or the efficacy of vaccines are on YouTube. The massive “library,” generated by users with little editorial oversight, is bound to have untrue nonsense. Instead, YouTube’s problem is that it allows the nonsense to flourish. And, in some cases, through its powerful artificial intelligence system, it even lets it spread.

Wojcicki and her deputies know this. In recent years, scores of people inside YouTube and Google, its owner, raised concerns about the mass of false, incendiary and toxic content that the world’s largest video site surfaced and spread. One employee wanted to flag troubling videos, which fell just short of the hate speech rules, and stop recommending them to viewers. Another wanted to track these videos in a spreadsheet to chart their popularity. A third, fretful of the spread of “alt-right” video bloggers, created an internal vertical that showed just how popular they were. Each time they got the same basic response: don’t rock the boat.

The company spent years chasing one business goal above others: “engagement,” a measure of the views, time spent and interactions with online videos. Conversations with over 20 people who work at, or recently left, YouTube reveal a corporate leadership unable or unwilling to act on these internal alarms for fear of throttling engagement.

Wojcicki would “never put her fingers on the scale,” said one person who worked for her.

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” — Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441

“Her view was, ‘My job is to run the company, not deal with this.’” This person, like others, asked not to be identified because of a worry of retaliation. A YouTube spokeswoman contested the notion that Wojcicki is inattentive to these issues and that the company prioritizes engagement above all else. Instead, the spokeswoman said the company has spent the last two years focused squarely on finding solutions for its content problems. Since 2017, YouTube has recommended clips based on a metric called “responsibility,” which includes input from satisfaction surveys it shows after videos. YouTube declined to describe it more fully, but said it receives “millions” of survey responses each week.

“Our primary focus has been tackling some of the platform’s toughest content challenges,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

“We’ve taken a number of significant steps, including updating our recommendations system to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation, improving the news experience on YouTube, bringing the number of people focused on content issues across Google to 10,000, investing in machine learning to be able to more quickly find and remove violative content, and reviewing and updating our policies – we made more than 30 policy updates in 2018 alone. And this is not the end: responsibility remains our number one priority.”

In response to criticism about prioritizing growth over safety, Facebook has proposed a dramatic shift in its core product. YouTube still has struggled to explain any new corporate vision to the public and investors – and sometimes, to its own staff. Five senior personnel who left YouTube and Google in the last two years privately cited the platform’s inability to tame extreme, disturbing videos as the reason for their departure. Within Google, YouTube’s inability to fix its problems has remained a major gripe.

YouTube’s inertia was illuminated again after a deadly measles outbreak drew public attention to vaccinations conspiracies on social media several weeks ago. New data from Moonshot CVE, a London-based firm that studies extremism, found that fewer than twenty YouTube channels that have spread these lies reached over 170 million viewers, many who were then recommended other videos laden with conspiracy theories.

The company’s lackluster response to explicit videos aimed at kids has drawn criticism from the tech industry itself. Patrick Copeland, a former Google director who left in 2016, recently posted a damning indictment of his old company on LinkedIn. While watching YouTube, Copeland’s daughter was recommended a clip that featured both a Snow White character drawn with exaggerated sexual features and a horse engaged in a sexual act. “Most companies would fire someone for watching this video at work,” he wrote. “Unbelievable!!” Copeland, who spent a decade at Google, decided to block the YouTube.com domain.

Micah Schaffer joined YouTube in 2006, nine months before it was acquired by Google and well before it had become part of the cultural firmament. He was assigned the task of writing policies for the freewheeling site. Back then, YouTube was focused on convincing people why they should watch videos from amateurs and upload their own.

A few years later, when he left YouTube, the site was still unprofitable and largely known for frivolity (A clip of David, a rambling sevenyear old drugged up after a trip to a dentist, was the second most-watched video that year.) But even then there were problems with malicious content. Around that time YouTube noticed an uptick in videos praising anorexia. In response, staff moderators began furiously combing the clips to place age restrictions, cut them from recommendations or pull them down entirely. They “threatened the health of our users,” Schaffer recalled.

He was reminded of that episode recently, when videos sermonizing about the so-called perils of vaccinations began spreading on YouTube. That, he thought, would have been a no-brainer back in the earlier days. “We would have severely restricted them or banned them entirely,” Schaffer said. “YouTube should never have allowed dangerous conspiracy theories to become such a dominant part of the platform’s culture.”

Somewhere along the last decade, he added, YouTube prioritized chasing profits over the safety of its users. “We may have been hemorrhaging money,” he said. “But at least dogs riding skateboards never killed anyone.” Yonatan Zunger, a privacy engineer at Google, recalled a suggestion he made to YouTube staff before he left the company in 2016. He proposed a third tier: videos that were allowed to stay on YouTube, but, because they were “close to the line” of the takedown policy, would be removed from recommendations. “Bad actors quickly get very good at understanding where the bright lines are and skating as close to those lines as possible,” Zunger said.

His proposal, which went to the head of YouTube policy, was turned down. “I can say with a lot of confidence that they were deeply wrong,” he said.

“It’s an addiction engine,” said Francis Irving, a computer scientist who has written critically about YouTube’s AI system. Irving said he has raised these concerns with YouTube staff. They responded with incredulity, or an indication that they had no incentives to change how its software worked, he said.

“It’s not a disastrous failed algorithm,” Irving added. “It works well for a lot of people, and it makes a lot of money.”

A YouTube spokeswoman said that, starting in late 2016, the company added a measure of “social responsibility” to its recommendation algorithm. Those inputs include how many times people share and click the “like” and “dislike” buttons on a video. But YouTube declined to share any more detail on the metric or its impacts.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at the South By Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, on March 13.

Democratic candidate appeals to religious left

Citizen news service

A gay mayor from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s home state who wrote a Harvard thesis on the Puritans, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg wants his party to embrace religion but not at the expense of excluding others.

Buttigieg said the Democratic Party has sometimes become distant from religion, but it’s “a side effect of something healthy” because of its commitment to the separation of church and state, and the belief that it speaks for people of any faith and of no faith equally.

“I think there’s an opportunity hopefully for religion to be not so much used as a cudgel but invoked as a way of calling us to higher values,” he said.

Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg (pronounced “Buddha-judge,” his husband says) recently went from political obscurity to matching former congressman Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Amy Klobuchar with six per cent support in an Iowa poll released this week by the progressive group Focus on Rural America.

Mayor of the home to the University of Notre Dame, one of the most prominent Catholic schools in the country and where his parents were professors, the 37-year-old Episcopalian mayor did not grow up in a religious home. His interest in faith emerged in Catholic high school, when he was drawn to Catholic theology, and grew while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University.

Now Buttigieg wants a “less dogmatic” religious left to counter the religious right, an unofficial coalition of religious conservatives that for decades has helped get mostly Republicans into office.

“I think it’s unfortunate (the Democratic Party) has lost touch with a religious tradition that I think can help explain and relate our values,” he said. “At least in my inter-

pretation, it helps to root (in religion) a lot of what it is we do believe in, when it comes to protecting the sick and the stranger and the poor, as well as skepticism of the wealthy and the powerful and the established.”

He thinks U.S. President Donald Trump has found favor among many white evangelicals and white Catholics because of his opposition to abortion, he said. But Buttigieg said he believes the president is behaving “in bad faith” and said there’s no evidence that he doesn’t favor abortion rights deep down.

“I do think it’s strange, though, knowing that no matter where you are politically,

the gospel is so much about inclusion and decency and humility and care for the least among us, that a wealthy, powerful, chest-thumping, self-oriented, philandering figure like this can have any credibility at all among religious people,” he said.

The alignment of Pence, the former governor of his home state, with Trump can only be explained in one of two ways, he said.

“Either he abandoned his religious principles in order to be part of this campaign and administration,” he said. “Or he has some very strange sense of destiny, that God somehow wants this in order to get somewhere better, which I think does very little credit to God, but it’s the only other

possible explanation.”

Buttigieg wrestled with his public identity as a gay man during a decade when his own church and state battled over same-sex marriage under the national spotlight. Buttigieg was married last year in a denomination that only in the past decade began performing same-sex marriages. The marriage debate was hovering over the Episcopal church and over his diocese, he said, around 2008, when he moved back to South Bend. “Thankfully, it had been settled as far as our diocese was concerned by the time I got married, because I wanted to be married in the church, and I’m glad we were able to do that,” he said.

Bible remains relevant in modern times

Learning to read is one of the greatest gifts that a young child could ever receive. The acquiring of that simple skill awakens one’s conscience to unimaginable worlds of reality and possibility. And so it was for me. As a child, I read many interesting books, but one of my favourite childhood memories was the gift of my own very first Bible. My mind and heart were captivated by the amazing things that happened in the lives of such people as Noah, Moses, David, Esther, and Daniel, and of course, the life of Jesus.

Because of these stories, while still in my teens, I determined that the best investment of my life would be to study the relevance of the sacred scriptures for our lives

CLERGY COMMENT

ED DREWLO SECOND WIND MINISTRIES

today. This interest led me first to university and then to seminary to prepare for Christian ministry. In seminary, I learned a lot about the historical foundations of the Christian faith in the sacred text of our heritage. I found myself constantly impressed with the unity of thought that pervaded the Bible despite its many contributors over a span of 1,500 years. It seemed every story and instruction, often in not so subtle ways, pointed to the fulfillment of one great theme. Over the years, I have read the

Bible through many times, not merely for the purpose of church ministry but also for my own intellectual, emotional and spiritual enrichment. Recently, for example, I found myself spellbound once again by the story of Joseph (encompassing chapters 37 to 50 of Genesis).

The story itself is so human, so very much like many of our own stories. In a family of many sons and a daughter, Joseph is his father’s favourite. Early on, he tells his family about certain dreams that allude to his own future fame. Being intensely jealous, his brothers seize an opportunity to get rid of him by selling him to foreign merchants while telling their father he had been killed by a wild animal.

As time passes however, despite

false allegations which land him in prison, Joseph rises to regal honour and authority in Egypt through his supernatural ability to interpret dreams. It is by this means that Joseph predicts and ultimately prepares the land for its seven-year famine. Through the famine Joseph’s brothers are literally brought to their knees before him just as his childhood dreams had predicted. In the end, he has the power to punish them but mercifully forgives them and saves their lives.

Of course, this is more than an enthralling true human story.

Two thousand years later, another person of stellar character and supernatural ability is likewise sold and sacrificed by his own people but ends up becoming the means of salvation for all who are willing

Diversity abounds within Catholicism

Halfway through Lent, it occurs to me that I have only focused on the “altar side” of the railing. Yet the overwhelming majority of us Catholics are neither ordained nor consecrated. We are the laity, caught between life in the church and life in the world. Add to this eternal struggle that our strange crowd spans every human type and station in life, and the bizarre performances of our global family begin to make sense. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “here comes everybody.”

Trying to profile the one billion adherents of any religion is patently absurd. And yet we are a universal body, with unmistakable traits that cross every distinguishing mark. Not only are we always recognizable characters, but our roles have been played for well over two millennia.

RIGHT OF CENTRE NATHAN GIEDE

The first mark is the fighting spirit that abounds in Catholicism. Clerics call this the “Church Militant,” but I prefer the “Body Truculent,” as our skirmishes with each other, or the wider world, are not necessarily the stuff of brilliant military strategy. Indeed, a look at our history reveals a proclivity for mobs and immediate action over even the smallest offences.

This is accompanied by the second mark, guilt. Our great souls and appetites make for some poor life choices, a pagan trait never fully wrung out of the Catholic faithful. The availability of confession somewhat compounds this problem – why be good when you

can be absolved regularly instead? This traps many of us in our own perpetual Holy Week, with triumphs giving way to dark nights of the soul. Those who successfully break the cycle are probably saints.

There is a difference in type between Catholics masculine and feminine. Jesus clearly had an affection for His perfect mother as well as the many scandalized women He met. And of His disciples, Peter was made leader –the fisherman who lobbed off ears and ran like a coward.

Beyond these two poles however, there are still many characters to play – who do you want to be? At Christ’s passion we have a suicidal betrayer, weeping women, corrupt religious and state officials, the best friend who took in God’s mother, and two thieves also crucified – one spitting, the other begging. Then comes St. Paul’s conversion and

St. John’s apocalyptic vision – not to mention all the players between the tortured Augustine and the convicted John Paul II.

The cast list has only grown with time, as the medium of Catholic culture becomes the message within art, drama, music, and film, as papist Marshall McLuhan foretold. The only real question left is who do we identify with the most – Falstaff? Galadriel? The Boondock Saints?

The last definitive mark on every Catholic is when we go to mass. For non-papists this might sound odd, but given the nature of sacred time and how ancients reckoned the calendar, a valid Sunday service can be held from 4 p.m. Saturday to well into the night on the Sabbath.

I belong to the Saturday night crowd and we’re a rowdy lot. We’re here so that Lent ends quicker and we can get back to our vices post haste. Of course, history

to bow before him. And many of us believe that the conclusion of that story is yet to be realized. It is this supernatural quality of the Bible that has made it the world’s best eller for hundreds of years. The Indian writer, Vishal Mangalwadi, has written about the phenomenal influence of the Bible on western civilization in his recent publication, The Book That Made Your World. But in a strange twist of irony, western nations have largely forgotten about this dynamic factor in the enviable quality of life they have come to enjoy.

One can’t help but conclude that one of the greatest travesties of our times is the obvious and serious neglect for what we have always, rather axiomatically, regarded as the Holy Scriptures.

is on our side, as all the important services – Christmas Eve, Holy Thursday, and Easter Vigil – are held the night before. Sunday morning Catholics are good Christian folks, ready for full length services and the fellowship thereafter. It is almost certain these faithful will get to paradise before most of their brethren, if for no other reason than the rest of us will sleep past when the final trumpet sounds. Last chance mass is I call Sunday night service. While many attend for legitimate reasons around work and family life, some of us are also there because we failed to plan ahead. Our consolation, and our only hope, is that scripture says, “the last shall be first.” Thus, the Catholic cast of characters is very much a mixed bag. But that truly begs the question, what was God thinking when He entrusted this motley crew with His ship of salvation?

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg stands outside of his hotel before a fundraising event in West Hollywood on March 14.

It’s

been 20 years since Columbine; his job is to stop the next attack

Citizen news service

Before the call came, John McDonald had finished his breakfast of Diet 7Up, put on his uniform and tucked his Smith & Wesson into its waistline holster. He made it to his office at Jefferson County Public Schools, where he is in charge of safety and security for a sprawling district that includes Columbine High School.

On this morning, he even made it to his earliest meeting.

And then his phone rang.

He knew as soon as he answered: the first school-shooting threat of the day had arrived.

“What do you got for me?” he said, and then he listened to find out how bad this one was going to be.

In a nation always awaiting the news of another school shooting, no community may be braced for that threat quite like the one surrounding Columbine High, a place forever defined by the 1999 attack that killed 13 people, wounded 24 more and ushered in an internet-fueled era of mass violence. Twenty years later – the anniversary of the shooting is April 20 – Columbine is constantly invoked as the first name in the ever-growing list of campuses turned into crime scenes. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe –each addition a reminder that this could happen anywhere, any time. Almost as if it were impossible to stop.

But all the while, Columbine has been figuring out how to do just that.

In the Denver suburbs, the district has built what is likely the most sophisticated school security system in the country: installing locks that can be remotely controlled and cameras that track suspicious people; setting up a 24-hour dispatch centre and a team of armed patrol officers; monitoring troubled students and their social media; getting training from worldrenowned psychologists and former SWAT commanders; researching and investing, practicing and re-practicing, all to ensure that when the next significant threat comes, it is stopped before the worst happens again.

At the center of it all is McDonald, a 50-year-old police officer turned security expert who took the top job here 11 years ago because his only daughter was going to attend Columbine. Today, he is responsible for the safety of 157 schools and 85,000 students in a community that long ago stopped talking about a need for healing or forgiveness and started focusing on recovery and preparation.

The officer who called McDonald was stationed inside one of the county’s other high schools. It was a Tuesday in March, one month before the 20th anniversary. There was a rumour, the officer said, that someone was going to shoot out the school’s windows.

Without McDonald giving an order, everything he had put in place to respond to threats was already in motion. More officers had been dispatched. Areas were being searched. His team and the local sheriff’s department would interview students, teachers and administrators until they felt certain there was nothing they had missed. Because what McDonald had learned, what he had preached around the country was this: every threat counts. Even vague, unspecific ones. Nearly all past school shooters gave some indication of what they were about to do. They bragged to friends,

wrote it in an essay or made what seemed at the time like just a bad joke. The teenage Columbine shooters did so. The next shooter likely would, too.

“If you say you are going to kill us, are going to blow us up, if you make a threat to harm us, we are going to believe you,” McDonald liked to say, but lately, following through on that vow had become increasingly difficult.

Already, the district was dealing with more anonymous tips than ever from Safe2Tell, the online system Colorado students and parents use to report anything of concern. On his phone, McDonald kept photos of the pistols confiscated from students because of those tips: a 9mm in November, a .25 calibre in December, a Glock .45 in January.

And those were just the internal threats. With the anniversary approaching, the intense and sometimes disturbing interest in Columbine that has long festered on the internet is spilling into the real world with greater frequency. Every day, multiple times a day, people show up at the high school wanting to see it, photograph it and get inside it. McDonald’s team usually stops them before they can even step out of their cars. Some explain that they just wanted to pay their respects to the victims. Others claim they are in love with the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed themselves inside the school. Some say they have been reincarnated with the shooters’ souls.

More than 150 of these strangers were showing up every month. The planning for the anniversary was underway. And now there was one more threat to handle from one of the district’s own students.

“Keep me updated,” McDonald said before hanging up his phone. Each day, he drained its battery at least twice answering all the calls from people who trusted him to keep this place safe. Each day was a test of whether all he has done to protect them would be enough. The overnight dispatchers have grown accustomed to McDonald calling at all hours to check that every report is being met with a response. His staff knows his jokes about all the weight he has gained since taking this job and how he doesn’t take sick days because he is saving them for a massive heart attack. They know he vacations only in the weeks when school is out.

McDonald lets people believe he is simply dedicated to preventing additional suffering in a place that had already endured so much. That, after all, is true, and far easier to talk about than what happened when he was 19 years old.

In 1989, McDonald’s older sister Christy was assaulted, strangled and stabbed to death by a stranger who broke into her condo. The man was caught, and while McDonald was attending the criminal hearings, he was also working to become a police officer. His sister’s attacker eventually killed himself in jail. McDonald became an expert in violence prevention and taught his daughter, now a law student, to check locks twice before bed.

He circled around the back of Columbine, parked his car and swigged his second Diet 7Up.

In the world of school safety, so many of the practices taught in 2019 have their origins here and in all that went wrong in this place in 1999.

The spot where McDonald parked was not far from where law enforcement had formed a perimeter around the school. Police did not go into the building until a SWAT team arrived.

Today, officers are trained to enter immediately and take down the shooter, even if it means stepping over bodies.

The radio McDonald was using to talk to dispatch also connected to the area’s other first responders and law enforcement agencies.

Twenty years ago, schools, police and emergency medical services had no single frequency on which they could all operate, causing chaos. They also didn’t have a blueprint of Columbine when they arrived, meaning many had no sense of the layout inside. Now McDonald keeps detailed floor plans of all 157 schools in his trunk, along with extra ammunition, a bulletproof vest, a sledgehammer and an emergency stash of Peanut M&Ms for his diabetes.

He stepped out of his car and appeared on one of the school’s dozens of security cameras. More were being installed before the anniversary. He entered through a door his dispatchers have the capability to lock or unlock.

Each classroom he passed was equipped with a deadbolt that locks from the inside with a simple turn.

No more teachers stuck in the hallway, fumbling with a ring of keys.

The students he passed were all trained in what to do if a shooter entered the building, and all 1,700 had received a handbook outlining what would happen if their own behavior indicated they might be a danger to themselves or others.

School officials perform hundreds of threat assessments a year, bringing Jefferson County students and their parents in to analyze their actions, social media posts and mental well-being. They may order students to check in with campus security on a daily basis, attend therapy or carry a clear backpack.

The close monitoring sometimes continues even after a student graduates.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

John McDonald is in charge of security for the school district near Denver, Colorado, that includes Columbine High School in Littleton.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

John McDonald talks with judicial specialist Maryann Peratt in Columbine High School’s new library, which was built after the attack in Littleton, Colo.

‘This

love is steel’

After brutal attack, they learned to rebuild their marriage

Citizen news service

On the day everything changed, Abigail Maslin sat on the front stoop of a Capitol Hill apartment building, watching her 21-monthold son play in the small yard while she dialed 911.

Her husband Thomas, who goes by “TC,” had gone to the Nationals game the night before and hadn’t come home.

As she waited for the police, Abby’s mind raced. Was he on a friend’s couch? In another woman’s arms? No. She knew her husband. TC was so devoted to Abby and their son, Jack, that he had considered skipping the ballgame because he didn’t want to leave them for the evening.

On a stranger’s porch, several blocks away, TC had spent the night clinging to life. He had been walking home when three young men accosted him. They took his wallet and phone, and one of them cracked him in the head with a baseball bat. TC had stumbled to the porch, collapsed, and lay there for eight hours. If he hadn’t been spotted by a pedestrian, he might have been lying there for hours more.

The next time Abby saw her husband, he was in a hospital bed, in a coma, with a chunk of his skull missing.

At the time, the 30-year-old could not conceive of all she had already lost. She and TC were young parents, three years married, with a clear vision of themselves, each other, the life they wanted to build together. Now, the man Abby fell in love with was gone, though his heart was still beating. When her husband finally woke up, he couldn’t speak or walk. Even after relearning those skills, he wouldn’t be the same. And neither would she.

During the past six and a half years, the Maslins have not recovered so much as transformed. TC’s health journey is one part of the story, but when the attacker swung at his head that night in August 2012, he struck Abby, too. The blow shattered her sense of safety, her belief in life’s benevolence, her carefree and spontaneous way of walking through the world. She assumed the roles of full-time caregiver to her husband and single mom to their son, and prayed her overachieving husband would someday utter complete sentences that once again made sense to her. She composed sentences of her own – first in a blog, then a book – trying to make sense of it all. Gradually, she came to accept, in waves of realization that first alarmed and then amazed her, that she was very different from the woman who sat on the stoop that morning.

In the weeks after the attack, Abby, who taught at a Capitol Hill elementary school, started writing a blog to update friends and neighbors about TC’s condition.

She continued posting in the years that followed, as their situation and lives and relationship evolved.

Last month, she published Love You Hard: A Memoir of Marriage, Brain Injury and Reinventing Love. The book is a wrenching account of the agony of those first days – and then those first years, when Abby feared she might never fall in love with her “new husband.”

The man she had married was always on top of things. TC grew up poor and fatherless in West Virginia. But he had grit and ambition, and he was smart. By the time Jack was born, TC was an energy analyst with a graduate degree, a master plan and an overwhelming urge to give his son everything his childhood lacked. “If there’s a dirty dish or an unmade bed or an electric bill somewhere waiting to be paid,” Abby wrote of their early years together, “TC is on the job before I can blink.”

His competence, she admits, allowed her to become “quite lazy,” secure in the knowledge that TC would take care of everything for both of them.

Until he couldn’t.

When TC was released from the hospital, three months after the attack, he had roughly the same level of self-sufficiency as their two-year-old.

It was up to Abby to navigate the mazes of bills and therapy schedules, to keep their family fed and solvent, to figure out where to live and how to help her husband regain his capacities and the buried memories of his former life. It also fell to her to process the meaning of the attack itself. It was Abby who testified in court against

the three men who were eventually charged. They were 21, 18 and 17 at the time. As a teacher, she wondered about their lives – what had put them on a collision course with her family – and whether someone, somewhere along the line, could have diverted them.

Again and again, the person she most wanted to turn to for advice was TC. But he couldn’t tell her what to do. In those early months, he couldn’t even tell her who he was. “Ah, la wha? Me?” he replied when she asked him his name. “I sometime gadda, I learned, how do, ooh ya, or sometimes I sing. Ya.”

It’s February, six and a half years later. TC Maslin is sitting in a coffee shop. The words come more easily now, though the questions are harder. They’re not about his name, but about who he is, and was.

Sometimes he pauses in the middle of a sentence, searching for the word he wants to use. His memory of life before the attack is still sketchy.

“It’s like you have your house and you know where all the items are there,” he says. “And then you have an earthquake and everything’s sort of scattered. So all the memories are there, I know. But it’s very hard for me to, first of all, find them. And then it’s hard to verbalize them.”

He remembers nothing of the attack – “I wonder if my mind is, on purpose, trying to not remember any of that” – but can recall the low points after, in the hospital, trapped in a body he couldn’t control. The worst part, he says, was not being able to see his son,

who wasn’t allowed to visit the intensive care unit.

“I was like, ‘Where is he? Where am I?’” TC recalls. “My primary driver to get better was that my own father was absent for most of my life.”

TC is, by all measures, dramatically better. The coffee shop is near his office. He’s back at his old job, working as an energy analyst, just as he was before the attack. He is by no means fully recovered, and probably never will be. The challenges of day-to-day living have redirected his ambition. He says he’s less “career focused,” less occupied with “long-term planning.” He’s regained some of his athleticism: he ran a half marathon last fall and he’s thinking of attempting a full marathon this year. At the same time, he has very little feeling on the right side of his body and does almost everything with his left hand. He walks with a slight limp and will remind Abby every once in a while that he lives in chronic pain.

Abby has learned to acknowledge her own pain. The second half of Love You Hard charts not just TC’s recovery, but Abby’s, as she battled depression and struggled to adjust to the jarring reality of her new life and marriage. At her lowest point, six months after the attack, she stood in her parents’ kitchen while her family slept and wrote a note to two-year-old Jack that read, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be stronger for you.” Then she opened a bottle of OxyContin and poured a potentially lethal dose out in front of her. In that moment, she wrote, “I long for the old TC with more desperation than I’ve ever felt. I want

him to rip me from this moment; I want him to be rattled with my pain. I want to shake him until the brain-injured person inside disappears and the man who once loved me reveals himself again.”

And then, things changed again. Not in an instant, like the knockout blow that had left their lives in pieces, but over time, as they figured out how to put those pieces back together in a different order. In the new version of their marriage, their roles are swapped. “He sees it better than I do, which is so interesting,” Abby says. “He’s like, ‘You are so much more ambitious and so much more clearheaded and driven and intentional than you were before.”

She almost gave up on the book.

“I don’t know if I can give you a happy ending,” Abby remembers telling her book agent. But on the other side of despair, she found words that reflected something heavier, and sturdier, than adoration.

“What binds us now is different,” Abby wrote. “This love is not sexy, or romantic, or lighthearted. This love is steel: made of loyalty, respect, solidarity, friendship.” It was an ending she could live with. In fact, it felt like a beginning.

It’s a Wednesday night in the Maslin home and the family turtle, Forest, has inched perilously close to the edge of the dining table.

“Jack,” Abby calls, “you need to come get your turtle.”

“Remember, Jack, you’re his dad,” TC adds. “I wouldn’t just leave you on the table, would I?” Their new life is superimposed on their old one. After two years in Southern Maryland, staying near family, the Maslins moved back to Capitol Hill, less than a mile from their former place. Abby teaches at the same school, Brent Elementary, where Jack is now in the second grade.

The biggest difference in their lives is asking for a second helping of pasta and trying to wriggle out of her booster seat.

Two and a half years ago, Abby gave birth to a fiery little girl named Rosalie.

Rosie, as she’s called, is a primary source of chaos in the Maslin home these days. She’s also a sign of renewal in Abby and TC’s marriage – a choice they made, together.

“Nobody can say for certain that they’re going to be around to take great care of their kids,” Abby says. “It is all a gamble. What I do know is that we’re really good parents and that our family’s not done.”

Their life today resembles that of any other busy young family on the Hill, a reality that feels both mundane and miraculous.

“It’s just the normal challenge of getting through the day and getting everybody to where they need to be,” Abby says. “Making sure everybody gets their lunch – those kind of normal problems that I used to just pray for.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

Abby and TC Maslin read with their kids Jack, eight, and two-year-old Rosie, in their Washington, D.C., home, on March 10.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

Abby and TC Maslin of Washington, D.C., had to rebuild their marriage after a 2012 attack left TC with severe brain damage.

Defamation lawsuits against Cosby settled

Citizen news service

Seven women who said Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them decades ago and then labeled them liars by denying it have settled defamation lawsuits against the imprisoned actor.

Court documents filed Friday in Springfield, Massachusetts, show a settlement has been reached since Cosby went to prison last fall in a separate Pennsylvania sex assault case. Cosby, 81, is serving a three- to 10-year prison sentence.

Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said Cosby did not authorize the settlement reached between the women and American International Group Inc., and “vehemently denies the allegations.”

“Mr. Cosby did not settle any cases with anyone. He is not paying anything to anyone, and he is still pursuing his counterclaims. AIG decided to settle these cases, without the knowledge, permission and/ or consent of Mr. Cosby,” Wyatt said in a statement.

Courts had ruled that AIG had to pay for Cosby to defend the defamation lawsuits as part of his coverage. Cosby had homeowners and other coverage through AIG.

The judge overseeing the defamation case in Massachusetts must still approve the settlement. The terms were not disclosed in the filings Friday. A message left with AIG’s corporate press office was not immediately returned late Friday.

The plaintiffs are among the dozens of women who have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. They include Tamara Green, Barbara Bowman and Therese Serignese.

Cosby, in a 2006 deposition, acknowledged giving Serignese quaaludes that made her “high” before a sexual encounter in Las Vegas in 1976, when she was 19. Some of that deposition testimony was

aired in his criminal case.

“I don’t think he has much to contest the cases with, given his conviction,” said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. “I don’t know how much resources (he

has left). It probably makes sense for both sides to resolve it.”

Joseph Cammarata, an attorney who represents the women, told The Associated Press on Friday that “each plaintiff is satisfied with the settlement.” He declined to comment further.

However, he warned in a status report also filed Friday that his clients would seek to depose Cosby and gather other documents and evidence if Cosby does not drop counterclaims that accuse the women of harming his reputation through their accusations. Wyatt said that Cosby still intends to pursue those claims.

Cosby’s wife, Camille, had been ordered to give a deposition in the defamation case in 2016, after a heated fight over her testimony.

Lawyers for the Cosbys tried to quash her subpoena to testify, saying she didn’t have any relevant information on the women’s claims and that any marital conversations she had with her husband of 50 years were confidential. The judge agreed that marital conversations were private, but the women’s lawyers noted she also served as his business manager throughout their long marriage.

The case had largely been put on hold amid the Pennsylvania criminal case, which involved charges that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted a woman at his home in 2004. The first trial ended in a deadlock in 2017, but a second jury convicted Cosby last year.

Cosby is appealing the conviction. He is being held at a state prison in Montgomery County, outside of Philadelphia.

Gifford says goodbye to Today

Citizen news service

Kathie Lee Gifford wrapped up 11 years with NBC’s Today show Friday with laughs, tears, Scripture and – of course – wine.

The 65-year-old host received a standing ovation from the audience after rapper Flo Rida opened the program by singing that the studio was “Kathie Lee’s house.”

Co-host Hoda Kotb credited Gifford for their success, and Gifford said they have fun because they have “a very real friendship.”

Gifford plans to pursue working on movie and music projects in the next phase of her career. Jenna Bush Hager will join Kotb on the program.

On Friday, Gifford announced every member of audience would receive a free four-day Carnival cruise – she was once a spokeswoman for the cruise

line – after explaining that her 29-year-old son, Cody, was conceived on just such a “Fun Ship.”

Cody was in the audience, but his sister, 25-yearold Cassidy, was away working on a series. The children appeared in a video tribute and called her a “legendary mom” who surrounded them with kindness. Gifford’s husband and their father, NFL great Frank Gifford, died in 2015.

Her former Live With Regis and Kathie Lee co-host, Regis Philbin, saluted Gifford in a video, saying the best part of his TV life were the “15 years I spent with you.”

Gifford screamed when mystery guest Barry Manilow appeared, and she joined him as he sang Can’t Smile Without You.

There was a trivia contest in which it was revealed about 5,300 glasses of wine were served on the show during Gifford’s tenure.

Royals launch Netflix series

Citizen news service

A new eight-part Netflix series chronicling life on Earth and the threat posed by climate change received a royal sendoff at London’s Natural History Museum.

Prince Charles lauded the Our Planet series and its narrator David Attenborough at the world premiere Thursday night. He was joined by sons Prince William and Prince Harry.

Charles praised Attenborough, 92, for helping to “lift the veil of ignorance from our eyes about the intricate and integrated beauty of our home.”

He also said he is proud of his sons William and Harry for sharing his passion for working to restore “the balance of nature,” joking that he thought they had been ignoring him when he told them about the importance of the natural world but found out when they reached adulthood that they had actually been listening.

The ambitious Netflix series, produced in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and Silverback Films, was four years in the making and involved 600 crew members filming in 50 countries and on each continent.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

Bill Cosby arrives for a sentencing hearing in September 2018, following his sexual assault conviction at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa.

The cover for Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness

Crowds,

A 19th century parable for modern times

Michael DIRDA Citizen news service

Speaking of William Morris’ medieval fantasy, The Well at the World’s End, C.S. Lewis once asked himself whether anyone could actually write a story as magical as that title.

To me, Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds possesses an almost equally evocative power. First published in 1841 and expanded in 1852, it chronicles some of the many varieties of human folly, obsession and self-delusion.

Here, in fact, are the deep taproots of the credulity and lemming-like behavior that characterize today’s social media.

Mackay himself was a wide-ranging man of letters, as well as the father – via a servant – of Marie Corelli, at one time the best-selling novelist in England. Today her books, such as the wittily macabre fantasy The Sorrows of Satan, are somewhat undeservedly forgotten. Not so her father’s masterpiece, which is periodically rediscovered and acclaimed. I myself first learned about it as a boy from reading Baruch: My Own Story, the autobiography of the financier Bernard M. Baruch, who credited Mackay with convincing him to sell all his stock just before the 1929 market crash. More recently, economic writers such as Andrew Tobias and Michael Lewis have championed the book.

Overall, one might characterize Mackay’s work as popular history, conveyed in a tone of ironic, headshaking amusement. Its epigraph could easily have been Puck’s famous observation, “What fools these mortals be!”

In its first chapter, Money Mania – The Mississippi Scheme, Mackay recounts how the professional gambler John Law took over the banking of 17th-century France, flooded the market with paper currency, ran up the national debt to Trumpian levels and ultimately wreaked havoc throughout society. For a short while, though, everyone from shopkeepers to the most distinguished nobles trusted Law’s financial genius and, like the victims fleeced by Bernie Madoff, could hardly wait to give him their money.

Following a description of England’s similar mania, The South-Sea Bubble, Mackay’s third chapter remains his most famous. The Tulipomania tracks the introduction of tulips into Europe, the particular passion of the Dutch for these flowers, and the increasingly vast sums paid to acquire rare examples. People traded land, jewelry, carriages and art for a single onion-like bulb. And then, poof, in a twinkling, the demand for tulips collapsed, and investors found themselves desperate to unload their stock at any price. For a modern analogue, on a much lower scale, think back to the craze for Beanie Babies.

To my mind, though, Mackay really shines in his lively but disdainful accounts of alchemy, the fanaticism and brutality of the Crusades and the persecution of reputed witches. Here is how he introduces his overview of alchemy:

“Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek for remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and ignorance of the future... The first has led many to imagine that they might find means to avoid death, or failing in this, that they might, nevertheless, so prolong existence as to reckon it by centuries instead of units. From this sprang the search, so long continued and still pursued, for the elixir vitae, or water of life, which has led thousands to pretend to it and millions to believe in it. From the second sprang the search for the philosopher’s stone, which was to create plenty by changing all metals into gold; and from the third, the false science of astrology, divination, and their divisions of necromancy, chiromancy, augury, with all their train of signs, portents, and omens.”

Like Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Isaac D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature and Charles Fort’s The Book of the Damned, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an encyclopedic hodgepodge, the bookish equivalent to Aladdin’s cave of wonders.

Above all, Mackay is a compelling storyteller, whatever his topic: haunted houses, phony relics, celebrated highwaymen, the clever guiles of fortune-tellers. While mocking the pseudo-scientific use of magnets to treat disease, he even neatly sums up the power of all charlatans: “Induce belief and blind confidence, and you may do any thing.”

Every age, Mackay writes, “has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation.” Gain, excitement, imitation – today’s social media certainly trades in all those, while confirming more than ever the virulent and now viral “madness of crowds.”

of

the new book by Charles Mackay.

Toews uses horrific crime to anchor new novel

Citizen news service

The true crime at the center of Miriam Toews’ novel Women Talking is unspeakable. It sounds like something from the Middle Ages or a dystopia by Margaret Atwood. But, in fact, these horrors took place only a decade ago in the Manitoba Mennonite colony in Bolivia. For several years, more than 100 women and girls woke up in the morning bruised and sore, lying in their own blood. Strictly isolated in this patriarchal religious community, the women were told they must be imagining things or that evil spirits were punishing them for their sins. But finally the truth came out: at least eight men had been using a veterinary sedative intended for cows to knock out whole families and then rape the women and girls – some as young as three years old.

The Mennonites, a pacifist Christian denomination founded in the 1500s, have no formal legal system, and the most conservative colonies remain separate from modern society. The leaders of the Manitoba colony intended at first to handle this horrendous crime themselves, but the Bolivian government eventually became involved, and the rapists were sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Toews brings an unusual perspective and a unique approach to her fictional treatment of this atrocity. A Canadian author, she was raised by Mennonites, an experience that informed her brilliant 2004 novel, A Complicated Kindness. Although she has long since left the church, she understands the contours of the Mennonites’ exceptionally private faith, and she also knows the ills that can fester in such hermetically sealed communities.

But Toews has no interest in exploiting this crime for dramatic purposes. Crucially, Women Talking opens after the attacks have been exposed and outside authorities have become involved. The entire novel takes place during a brief two-day window when the leaders of the colony have taken their animals into town to raise money to bail out the rapists, whom they insist on referring to as “unwelcome visitors.” During this period, eight women gather in a hayloft to decide what they should do next. They are all victims – and mothers or daughters of victims –and they are all related in some way to the men who violated them.

The community’s leader has decreed that the women must forgive their attackers or forfeit their own salvation. For people who take religious authority and spiritual salvation seriously, this is a formidable challenge, which Toews conveys with all due solemnity. In the opening pages of the novel, her eight female characters have arrived at three options:

1. Do Nothing.

2. Stay and Fight.

3. Leave.

Of course, each of these choices is dangerous, as any victim of sexual assault knows, but the situation is particularly fraught for these women, who are illiterate, possess no property and have no knowledge of the world outside their community. They know only farming and what they have been told is in the Bible. Is that enough to determine how they should respond to this extraordinary situation? Can they suddenly assume agency over their own lives?

These are just women talking. And this is a novel fully aware of the dismissive attitudes that infect that phrase. After all, for years their complaints of mysterious bruises and cuts were dismissed as mere women’s talk. But now they are determined to set their own fate. They have roughly 24 hours before the men return and block their escape.

This is fiction as deliberation, and yet it feels packed with drama.

It also feels infused with a deeply sympathetic understanding of the way women talk – a subject that has drawn the attention of scholars as diverse as Luce Irigaray and Deborah Tannen. Toews captures the Mennonites’ antique way of speaking, a language thick with biblical tropes and Christian ideals challenged by the obscenity of what has been done to them. “We must love,” one of the women insists, but how can that imperative be fulfilled in the face of such abuse?

Yes, these eight brave women disagree, even caustically sometimes, but they also listen and forgive and move on as they constantly circle around the question at hand, define their terms and challenge their assumptions. There is something strangely thrilling about this endlessly cycling conversation, which darts from petty grievances to philosophical conundrums to parental responsibilities.

These are women trying to construct the elements of a feminist theology from scratch using only the metaphors of their farm work and the logic of their maternal affection.

Sitting in a barn as the light fades, they have taken on nothing less than deconstructing the patriarchal strictures of their church while somehow retaining their faith.

It is literally a matter of life and death and afterlife.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE IMAGE

Women Talking is the new novel by Miriam Toews.

For those about to rock, here’s an exhibit for you

Citizen news service

Museum exhibits tend to be quiet. Not this one.

In Play It Loud, an exuberant show that can be heard as well as seen, the Metropolitan Museum of Art takes on the history of rock ‘n’ roll through iconic instruments on loan from some of rock’s biggest names. There are flamboyant costumes worn by Prince and Jimmy Page, videotaped interviews with “guitar gods,” even shattered guitars.

The show runs here from April 8 through Oct. 1 before travelling to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, where it will be on view from Nov. 20, 2019 through Sept. 13, 2020.

“We’re looking at rock ‘n’ roll instruments as an art. They serve as muses, tools and visual icons, and many of them are handpainted and lovingly designed,” says Jayson Kerr Dobney, curator in charge of the department of musical instruments at the Met. For anyone who ever dreamed of climbing onstage at a rock concert for a closer look, this may be your best shot.

“Instruments are some of the most personal objects connected to musicians, but as audience members we are primarily used to seeing them from far away, up on a stage in performance. This exhibition will provide a rare opportunity to examine some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most iconic objects up close,” says Dobney.

Highlights include Chuck Berry’s ES-350T guitar (at the entrance to the exhibit), John Lennon’s 12-string Rickenbacker 325, an electric 500/1 “violin” bass on loan from Paul McCartney, Keith Moon’s drum set, and the white Stratocaster played at Woodstock by Jimi Hendrix.

Page, the guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin, said that when curators approached him and explained their vision of the exhibit, he was all in.

“My guitar was confiscated if I took it to the school field to play,” he says. “That’s the kind of respect given to guitars in those days. To see guitars from people I listen to, it’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s humbling.” Over 130 instruments are featured in the show, including ones played and beloved by the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Lady Gaga, Joan Jett, Metallica, Steve Miller, Page and other rock ‘n’ roll greats. The collection spans 1939 to 2017. All the instruments are on loan, most by the musicians themselves, although Miller has promised to donate to the Met his 1961 Les Paul TV Special guitar, painted by surfboard artist Bob Cantrell.

The show features its own soundtrack and is organized in thematic sections. Setting the Stage explores rock’s early days in the American South of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when pianos, saxophones and acoustic guitars were among

the instruments of choice. Soon, Berry helped revolutionize the sound, establishing the electric guitar as the genre’s primary voice and visual icon. Also featured is a setup like that used by the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in

1964. After that performance, “thousands of rock bands were formed using that same lineup: two guitars, a bass and a drum set,” says Dobney. The Guitar Gods section traces that phrase to Eric Clapton’s stardom and a piece of 1966 graffiti in London proclaiming, “Clapton is God.” Others dubbed guitar gods included Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend and Hendrix. All exemplified virtuoso musicianship and awe-inspiring swagger. By the 1970s, women, too, were fronting bands and finding platforms for their own personae and skills, Dobney says. The Rhythm Section explores the sources of the genre’s powerful rhythms, with accented backbeats created using a drum set and electric bass guitar. Even as guitars were lovingly painted, and sometimes even built by the musicians who played them (like Eddie Van Halen’s red and white Frankenstein guitar, featuring a Fender-style body and neck with Gibson electronics), instruments were also famously destroyed by rock stars as part of their act.

“It may be the only musical genre where destruction of instruments became a part of the performance,” Dobney says.

Featured is a fragment of a Hendrix guitar that he set on fire and smashed onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; a Gibson SG Special guitar destroyed by Townsend during a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone (and preserved in Lucite); and a modified Hammond L-100 organ used by Keith Emerson as a “stunt instrument,” which he would jump on, pull on top of himself, stick knives in and – in this instrument’s case – set ablaze during performances.

Expanding the Band explores the way the classic four-piece rock band was augmented by instruments like dulcimers, sitars and a range of experimental keyboards to expand the sound.

Creating an Image opens with an enormous, jagged electric piano housed in acrylic with built-in lights, owned by Lady Gaga. That section also includes Prince’s Love Symbol guitar and a dragon-embroidered outfit once worn by Page.

Creating a Sound explores the technical side of rock music, with the amps, guitars and rigs used by Page, Keith Richards, Van Halen and Tom Morello. Each of the four rigs is accompanied by a videotaped interview with the artist explaining how they created their unique sound.

The show ends with footage of some of rock’s most iconic moments, along with decades of posters advertising groundbreaking concerts.

CITIZEN

Above, a five-neck guitar used by Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick is displayed Monday at the Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Below, guitars, including a bass, right, designed for Paul McCartney to play at Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebration.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

A double-neck guitar played by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is seen at the exhibit Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

BROUHAHA IN BEDROCK! California town rejects Flintstones property

Citizen news service

Towering dinosaurs stand among fanciful mushrooms in the sloping backyard.

A life-sized Fred Flintstone welcomes visitors near the front door.

And by the driveway on the lawn is a giant “Yabba Dabba Do” sign in orange, purple and red.

The latest battle in the war between government rules and property rights is playing out in a posh San Francisco suburb, where a retired publishing mogul has installed an elaborate homage to the Flintstones family. The bold, bulbous house is surrounded by Stone Age sculptures inspired by the 1960s cartoon, along with aliens and other oddities.

The controversy has sparked international media coverage and an online petition signed by thousands to preserve the attentiongrabbing property, visible from a nearby highway.

The 2,730-square-foot (832-square-metre) house itself is not at stake, but the town of Hillsborough says Florence Fang’s multimillion-dollar property is a public nuisance and an eyesore.

Officials filed a lawsuit in state court last month to make her remove the unpermitted garden installations. Fang does not live in the house but uses it to entertain.

An attorney for the 84-yearold says snobby officials want to squelch Fang’s constitutional right to enjoy her yard, and promises a vigorous fight.

“Mrs. Fang has made people smile, she’s giving them joy. What’s not to love about Dino, who acts like a dog?” said Angela Alioto, a former San Francisco supervisor. “What is wrong with these people?”

The oddly shaped house, currently painted red and purple,

was designed by architect William Nicholson and built in 1976. Fang, a prominent philanthropist who once published the San Francisco Examiner, bought the property in June 2017 for $2.8 million.

The whimsical front yard has statues of Barney and Betty Rubble, along with Fred and Wilma.

A sign reads “No Dino Allowed” and features a purple cartoon dinosaur. Colorful mushroom sculptures dot the front and back.

A steep staircase, deemed unsafe by town officials, leads to a garden of giant metal prehistoric animals.

Mark Hudak, an attorney for Hillsborough, says the town prides itself on its rural, woodsy feel, and rules are in place “so neighbours don’t have to look at your version of what you would like to have, and you don’t have to look at theirs.”

The case is simple, he said.

“Whether she is building a project with amusing cartoon characters or Rodin statues or anything else, she still has to go through the process like everyone else,” he said.

Government has the right to enforce public safety codes, and to ensure property owners don’t impinge on the rights of other property owners, said Tim Iglesias, a property professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Private property has been regulated in the United States since colonial times, he noted.

But Iglesias says it’s unusual for a homeowner to ignore three work-stop orders issued by the city, as the March 13 complaint states Fang did. She also ignored an administrative order to remove the installations by Dec. 5, 2018, although she paid a $200 fine.

“This is a situation where a very wealthy, sophisticated homeowner has basically thumbed her nose

at the city consistently,” he said.

“If they let her get away, then all the other wealthy people in Hillsborough can say, ‘Hey, I can do whatever I want with my property. Who cares about the planning department?”’

David Levine, who specializes in civil litigation and remedies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said property owners flout permit regulations all the time. Usually, they pay a fine and correct any safety issues.

And as for which party might prevail in court?

“You have to figure out: Who’s the twit? They’re going to rule against the one that’s being a twit,” he said. “Is the twit the homeowner that ignored all the orders or the twits saying, ‘We don’t like Wilma and Betty?’”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

An aerial view Monday of the Flintstones house in Hillsborough, a suburb of San Francisco.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS

Above, the kitchen inside the Flintstones house. Below, lifesized figurines of Barney and Betty Rubble stand in the front yard outside of the Flintstones house in Hillsborough, Calif.

Evelyn Mae Mehnke May 2, 1935 - April 3, 2019

Evelyn passed away peacefully with her daughters Sandra and Bonnie at her side. A huge thank you to her doctors, caregivers and Gateway staff. No service by request.

She will be missed by all those who knew her.

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John Gregory Temperley

Greg was born in Powell River on Aug. 4, 1930. He died in Prince George on March 29, 2019. He worked many years in aviation as an aircraft maintenance engineer after attending the Spartan School of Aeronautics in 1949. He did maintenance and overhaul work on fixed wing aircraft and on helicopters until 1983. Greg held the Imperial Oil agency at the Prince George airport from 1965 to 1978. He drove school buses for School District 57 from 1984 to 1992. Greg was predeceased by his parents, his first wife, Eileen, and his second wife, Peggy. He is survived by his sister Muriel, his Aunt Gladys, and several cousins in Powell River. He is also survived by his two nephews and his niece and their families, in Abbotsford. No service by request.

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

This is Bob and Lucy Townsley’s love story; Bob was the rebel son of a fallen Canadian soldier and a very young mother ill-equipped to cope with the needs of her 3 kids. Lucy, the daughter of an immigrated German coal miner and a stay at home housewife. Many times she refused his advances, until one day she just didn’t. The world was a different place back then and both families had reservations about the pairing. But love persisted and continued to grow. They married in May of 1955. Bob and Lucy lived life the way they chose, surrounded by family and full of love. Although this is tragic and the most monumental loss, this is the story Bob and Lucy wanted; a love so pure and strong that not even death can keep them apart. They leave behind a grieving family but we take comfort in the knowledge that they remain together and are no longer in pain. There was nothing they would not do for their family. Kind hearted people who helped out anyone whenever they could. We grew up in a house full of singing and happiness. Where a quick snack was a sugar bunny, breakfast was a bowl of coco mush, and there was always homemade bread. All seemed to be welcome in their home and their home was constantly full of kids. To some they will be remembered as hero’s, always there to catch any one of us if we fell. Six and a half decades later; predeceased by their parents Francis and Molly, Ferdinand and Wanda, and by their siblings Bill, Ruth, Gerda, and Anita, they are survived by Lucy’s sister Rose, and all of their descendants. Bob and Lucy were great parents to 5 children, amazing grandparents to 11 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. After all these years they still held hands and Bob still told Lucy how beautiful she was. Bob and Lucy showed us all how strong their love still was. Like Bob has been saying for 30 years; “When the time comes Lucy… let me go first”. And she did.

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

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