Prince George has been selected as the host city for the 2020 World Women’s Curling Championship, one of the top tournaments the sport has to offer, and the only one outside of the Olympics where the very best on the planet try to sweep to ultimate victory.
“This is a great opportunity for Prince George,” said this city’s veteran curling star Patti Knezevic. “Really, women’s curling has evolved and elevated unbelievably in the past 10 years, so this will be incredible for all of British Columbia.
“Curling in B.C. has been a little down in numbers, for various reasons,” Knezevic added, “but I think we can use this event to draw some inspiration to the sport, draw some attention, and see some good light cast in Prince George on a sport that we do really well here.”
There could be no fresher or plainer example of that than Prince George’s Kristen Pilote (nee Fewster) along with skip Sarah Wark, second Carley Sandwith and lead Michelle Dunn (all of Abbotsford) plus P.G.’s Jen Rusnell as fifth and Rick Fewster as coach, winning the B.C. women’s title only days ago. That rink will now represent the province at the 2019 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Prince George’s Brette Richards and Blaine de Jager were part of a rink that took bronze in the same tournament. Their coach, Doug Dalziel, is from Prince George and their fifth...Patti Knezevic.
Another sign of Prince George’s overall curling connection was the man Knezevic grabbed by the arm at the Tuesday announcement and proclaimed “this is who first taught me to curl.”
The passerby was Gerry Peckham, the director of high performance for Curling Canada.
“I have just enough Fraser River
Civic
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
since 1916
Prince George announced as host
city
for 2020 World Women’s Curling Championship
water in my veins to make this always home,” said Peckham, now based in Ottawa, who emotionally told of the way this city formed his love of the sport and shaped his lifelong motivations. “Curling is a fabulous sport, Prince George is a fabulous town, and I’m thrilled at the possibilities.”
Mayor Lyn Hall is originally from Dawson Creek and remembers coming to Prince George for tennis tournaments only to fall to Peckham on the court. Even then, said Hall, sport was clear a strength.
“I can’t think of a better person to make this announcement, Gerry, thank you very, very much,” said Hall, who pointed out that curling icon Jennifer Jones is about to be in the city as the
facilities
upkeep
had conducted.
The city will need to spend $79 million over the next 10 years to keep its civic facilities in proper condition, city council was told on Monday night. The number comes out of an assessment carried out over the last three years of 53 of the 62 facilities under the city’s wing.
To meet that goal, the city will have to spend an additional $5.5 million per year over and above the $2.2 million it has spent historically on the item, Dave Dyer, the city’s engineering and public works general manager, said following a presentation outlining the work staff
VIP guest speaker at the UNBC Timberwolves Legacy Breakfast on Mar. 6, and she won this championship twice (both times on Canadian soil) so would have some insight into how Prince George fans should feel about hosting this prestigious event.
Scott Braley, CEO of Curl BC, was on hand to express his confidence in Prince George’s facilities and abilities.
“You’ve done very well here to attract this event,” Braley said. “2020 is the 125th anniversary of curling in B.C. and the 100th anniversary of curling in Prince George. These are incredible milestones... This will be one of those events that others will build from. You’re going to be wonderful hosts yet again.”
— see BID COMMITTEE, page 2
estimated at $79 million
“This is a very large number and something we will have to address,” he said.
The total does not include the cost of adding new assets or upgrading facilities to a higher standard.
At nearly $24 million, the city’s arenas represent the largest portion, followed by leased buildings at just under $15 million, then cultural facilities at $11 million, administration buildings at $10 million, parkades at $8 million and the Aquatic Centre at $4.4 million. Fire halls, the RCMP detachment, the cemetery and Masich Place Stadium round out the remaining $6.6 million.
However, Dyer said staff will be suggesting a different approach when the item comes up for
discussion during city council’s budget meeting next week – to tackle many of the roofs in need of repair at the same time, “in one big project.”
In particular, the roofs at the SPCA building, South Fort George Recreation Centre, Kinsmen Community Centre, the 1310 Third Ave. building, the Via Rail building and the cattle barn at Exhibition Park are all in high need of repair, according to the assessment. The roofs on a further 28 buildings are in moderate need of repair. Looking at individual facilities, the cattle barn at Exhibition Park is in most need of repair. An estimate for work on that specific building was not provided but collectively $4.8 million worth of work is needed on them while their total replacement value stands at $700,000.
cards exempted from holding period
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff City council voted unanimously in favour Monday night of exempting previously-owned trading and collectible cards from the 30-day holding period under the city’s secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers bylaw.
Kelsy Polnik of Game Quest has been pushing for the exemption, similar to one made in 2014 for video games. — see PROPOSED, page 2
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Hometown boy Gerry Peckham, the Canadian Curling Association’s director, high performance, makes the announcement that the 2020 World Women’s Curling Championship will be played in Prince George.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
CN Centre manager Glen Mikkelsen gives a geography lesson, showing on the globe where the countries are located that will be represented at the 2020 World Women’s Curling Championship.
Bid committee ‘made it impossible’ to say no to P.G.
— from page 1
Curling Canada’s director of communications, Al Cameron, pointed to the strength of this city’s bid committee as a chief reason the event is coming here.
“This bid committee just knocked us over and made it impossible to say no,” he said, singling out CN Centre general manager Glen Mikkelsen in particular. Mikkelsen was also highly involved in the bid to host the 2020 Brier (the national men’s championship) for which Prince George was denied for now, but made the national short-list.
“This event is no consolation prize,” said Mikkelsen, holding a globe papered with sticky-notes indicating all the places from which curlers and their support teams and fans would be coming to converge here in a year.
He said it is always a fan’s thrill “whenever you see the world’s best” going head to head in any activity, and with the long and celebrated history of curling in this region, this would be a special event indeed. He encouraged businesses, neighbourhoods, schools and the general public to think up ways to decorate the town and put Prince George’s best foot forward when the television cameras and visitors touch down next year.
The World Women’s Curling Championship is scheduled for March 14-22 in 2020. CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN Gerry Peckham speaks to the media after Tuesday’s announcement.
Proposed change would be good for business, says Howard
from page 1
But Prince George RCMP had raised a concern that waiving the requirement may turn the cards into a target for thieves looking for quick cash. For most secondhand items, stores are required to hold them for 30 days and record their serial numbers or other identifiers into a database, so police can more easily track down stolen property and return it to its rightful owners.
During a public hearing on the matter, advocates contended the concern is overblown and stressed the cards they were talking about lack any special marking, like those found on hockey and baseball
trading cards.
Instead, they referred to cards used in various forms of gaming, notably Magic and Pokemon cards.
“These cards are indistinguishable,” Reidar Paulson told council. “There’s no way to tell one card from the other that isn’t the exact same. There are no serial numbers, there are no barcodes, there are no distinguishing features.”
Because even a small collection can be worth in the thousands, recording each card into a database for police reference has become more trouble than it’s been worth, council was told, particularly since those records have never been accessed.
It has been enough for Game Quest to opt out of taking in secondhand cards for resale while Wonderland Gaming accepts only a select few...
It has been enough for Game Quest to opt out of taking in secondhand cards for resale while Wonderland Gaming accepts only a select few, forcing enthusiasts to resort to the internet to find the cards they want.
“The proposed change would bring customers back into the stores, it would grow the community the way the video community grew and strengthened after those sales were exempted in 2014,” said Julia Howard of Game Quest.
“It would also centralize the trades to only a few local store locations, so in the rare occasion of thefts of collections, we would work together to keep a cooperative watch.” At the end of the hearing, RCMP Insp. Shaun Wright confirmed that there have not been many calls to police for card theft be they the traditional trading cards or gaming cards, and noted that while the former can be traced, the latter cannot.
Celtic Europe topic of UNBC talk
Citizen staff
Globalization, culture and the politics of identity in Celtic Europe is the subject of the next event of UNBC’s Anthropology in our Backyards series.
The presentation on Thursday at The Exploration Place Museum Atrium, 7 p.m. start, features reflections and experiences from anthropology and political science students who participated in UNBC’s ethnographic field school in Ireland and the Isle of Man in May 2018.
The work focused on issues of globalization, cultural change, the place of heritage and the politics of identity. Students met and interviewed key officials from governmental and non-governmental agencies, visited historical and cultural sites of significance, attended academic presentations and participated in musical and cultural performances.
Anthropology associate professor Dr. Angèle Smith and political science professor Dr. Gary Wilson led the field school.
“This field school is a wonderful opportunity for the students and the instructors alike,” Smith said.
“The students learn about critical social and political issues from their on-the-ground perspective. It teaches them invaluable practical research skills but also teaches them significant interpersonal and communication skills – arming them to be better critical thinkers and problem solvers, and ultimately better citizens as they work closely with communities.
“For the instructors, we get to share with the students the issues that we are passionate about while bringing them to these extraordinary international places that we feel so connected to.”
The event is free and open to the public.
Five arrested in pot bust
Citizen staff
Five people were arrested Friday when RCMP uncovered several pounds of cannabis in a Village Avenue home.
Several pre-packaged bags of other cannabis products, cash and trafficking paraphernalia were also
B.C. still behind in Parkinson’s brain surgery, patient says
Woman charged with animal abuse getting death threats
Citizen news service
LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — A woman facing multiple animal abuse charges has told a southern Alberta judge that she is facing death threats in jail and wants to be moved to solitary confinement.
April Dawn Irving is charged with 13 counts of cruelty to animals, one count of causing suffering to animals and failure to appear in court. Irving was arrested in 2014 after five dogs were found dead on a property near Milk River, Alta., along with more than 200 neglected animals. Those that were still alive were found dehydrated, starving and chained to stakes. A warrant was put out for her
arrest after she failed to show up for several court dates and she only recently was arrested by RCMP in Manitoba and returned to Alberta.
Irving, who is 59, appeared in Lethbridge provincial court Tuesday via closed-circuit television and told the judge that she fears for her safety in custody.
She also asked to see an orthopedic surgeon or a doctor for a knee problem she said she suffers from after a car accident in Jamaica.
The judge in the case noted that her concerns were put on the record. He also said, however, there was nothing he could do about them.
The matter was adjourned until Monday.
found, RCMP said.
The five were released without charges but an investigation is ongoing and they remain subject to charge approval from the federal prosecution service.
“Other than violation tickets, this is the first enforcement action taken in Prince George under the Cannabis Act,” RCMP said. Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — At age 36, Gina Lupino felt her right arm and foot stiffening and tremors starting as she played a snare drum in a percussion band. She would see four neurosurgeons over the next year and a half before learning she had Parkinson’s disease.
Her most recent specialist recommended deep brain stimulation surgery last fall because she experienced extreme fluctuations in how her body responded to medication, which sometimes wears off too early and other times doesn’t absorb at all.
On Tuesday, Lupino said she was excited to learn British Columbia plans to double the number of so-called DBS surgeries, up from 36 in the last fiscal year to 72 in 2018-19 as part of an expanded program at UBC Hospital. However, she was concerned about long wait lists compared with other provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.
“One of the things I’ve been looking at is moving to another province just to get this procedure, having to establish residency and a life there. But you can imagine how disruptive that is to my work, to my professional life, to my family,” said Lupino, an intellectual property lawyer specializing in U.S. patent, trademark and copyright prosecution.
Dr. Christopher Honey is the only neurosurgeon in B.C. who performs the invasive eighthour procedure that is done while a patient is awake to target a specific area of the brain. — see OTHER, page 4
Court rules salmon must be tested for deadly virus
Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — The Federal Court has struck down a Fisheries and Oceans Canada policy regarding a lethal virus that has the potential to infect wild chinook salmon in British Columbia waters.
Piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV, is highly contagious and often found in fish farms off the B.C. coast, many of which are positioned along wild salmon migration routes.
In her ruling issued Monday, Justice Cecily Strickland says the federal policy unlawfully allows young farmed Atlantic salmon to be transferred into open net pens without testing for the virus.
She has given the department four months to begin testing for the disease.
PRV causes fatal heart and skeletal muscle inflammation in Atlantic salmon but a 2018 study
led by a Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist found it is linked to an equally deadly type of anemia in at least one species of wild B.C. salmon.
Marine biologist Alexandra Morton is celebrating the victory after working with the Namgis First Nation and Ecojustice to convince the Fisheries Department to test farmed salmon before they are put in open net pens.
She says the problem is that PRV screening could dramatically reduce profits in the aquaculture industry.
“If the minister of fisheries follows the law of Canada and screens these fish and does not allow the infected ones to go into the water, I don’t think the fish farm industry has enough fish to keep farming in these waters, and I think that is the crux of the problem,” Morton says.
— see NOT TESTING, page 4
More than a ‘protest camp’
Amy SMART Citizen news service
HOUSTON — Staring into a fire outside a sweat lodge at the Unist’ot’en camp, Johnny Morris passes a ball of snow between his hands until it melts.
The 31-year-old Wet’suwet’en man said he’s almost three months sober for the first time in years and he attributes it to his time spent on the land focusing on daily activities like trapping and ceremonial sweats.
The camp is known as the place where protesters blocked a natural gas company from accessing a nearby work site, but its healing centre is what’s significant to Morris and some others.
“Coming back to the roots of our ancestors, having access to the land, I’m able to trap, to go hunting, to harvest what’s out on the land, reconnect with my culture,” Morris said. “It truly is a medicine for my spirit, for my soul.”
Weeks earlier, emotions at the camp were at a fever pitch as residents and supporters prepared for what they believed would be a police raid on the camp. Many flocked to the area after RCMP enforced a court injunction, dismantling a blockade and arresting 14 people at a site down a gravel road from the camp.
The conflict surrounds Coastal GasLink’s plans to build a pipeline from northeastern British Columbia to LNG Canada’s export terminal in Kitimat on the coast. While the company said it has agreements with all 20 elected First Nations councils along the pipeline’s path, including some Wet’suwet’en bands, the nation’s five hereditary clan chiefs say it’s illegitimate without their consent too.
The clan chiefs ultimately reached an agreement with RCMP allowing pipeline workers down a road that cuts through the camp, aligning with the interim injunction granted by the B.C. Supreme Court.
The truce has failed to calm concerns at the camp. Members have complained the company began construction work without an archeological assessment and bulldozed through their traplines.
“Them coming into the territory, it’s making a big impact. I’m doing my best to better myself, and to see them coming in, bullying their way in, it triggers me,” Morris said.
The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission and the Environmental Assessment Office are investigating the complaints, while Coastal GasLink said its actions have been lawful.
Unist’ot’en residents talk about life on the land
Several images repeat in Morris’s head from his life before arriving at the camp: The arrest of his father for a crime he says he didn’t commit. Waking up in a trauma room to deafening silence with his mother and aunt on either side after nine viles of Narcan reversed his fentanyl overdose. Walking without shoes down a road in the dead of winter after a night of drinking.
Morris arrived at the camp with his wife, Jessica Wilson-Morris, after she had her own wake-up call in a hospital bed. The doctor told her he’d never had to tell a 25-year-old that she would die if she didn’t stop drinking.
Wilson-Morris said she and Morris have supported one another through trauma after trauma, including the deaths of their fathers and her five-week-old niece. When she told him she was getting sober, he said he would too.
“He’s the glue that keeps my broken pieces together,” she said.
Wilson-Morris said she’s tried rehab before but it never stuck.
“I went to a treatment centre and they wouldn’t even listen to me,” she said.
The Unist’ot’en camp is different, she said. She’s begun sharing her story with residents and supporters, many of whom didn’t realize she was there for recovery.
“They listen here,” she said.
“And we’re isolated in a good way
here, we’re not half an hour away from the liquor store.”
Freda Huson, who is named in the court injunction, said she moved onto the land at the camp 10 years ago after the Supreme Court of Canada’s Delgamuukw ruling in 1997 recognizing the existence of Aboriginal title.
The case was fought by the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan First Nations and paved the way for later rulings.
“My dad told me that the only way to truly protect our land was to occupy it, so that’s what I did,” Huson said.
Today, the largest building at the Unist’ot’en camp is the threestorey healing centre topped with solar panels. It has sleeping quarters, plumbing, a dining hall downstairs and a room upstairs for storage alongside foosball and pool tables.
Further down the path there’s a cabin and across the road is a bunkhouse with a mural of past Unist’ot’en leaders painted on its side. Three dogs roam the grounds and one rolls over regularly for belly rubs.
Members of the camp conduct “protocol” at the entrance of the bridge into camp and towards Coastal GasLink’s planned work site. Visitors and workers are asked questions like who they are, how long they plan to stay and whether they’re doing work for
government or industry that will destroy the land.
“We’ve let (logging company) Canfor in, we’ve let tree planters in, we didn’t block all industry,” Huson said.
The camp began as tents, but has grown with help from supporters who raised money and volunteered their time in construction.
Huson’s sister Brenda Michell said the Wet’suwet’en used the lands southwest of Houston long before the Unist’ot’en camp was established.
“My uncle used to come here as a boy, trapping before the bridge came in,” she said, looking across the Morice River, which is home to steelhead trout and five salmon species, and is so clean that residents drink straight from the waterway. Members of the First Nation like her grandmother set up seasonal camps on the land while the men went trapping, with the idea that they would move regularly so as not to deplete moose populations or other resources, she said.
Lht’at’en – who is Huson and Michell’s aunt – said her grandmother, who was born in 1867, warned her descendants never to sell the land, which they refer to as the yintah.
“She always told us, ‘Don’t sell our yintah. Your ancestors, your great uncles, they lived off the land and made it very clear for us
Not testing for virus is wilful blindness, judge says
from page 3 Morton and the Namgis filed a lawsuit last year against the policy.
Strickland’s judgement, released Monday, says the federal policy of not testing for the
virus “perpetuates a state of wilful blindness on the part of the minister with respect to the extend of PRV infection in hatcheries and fish farms.”
An emailed statement to The Canadian
Other western provinces have shorter
— from page 3
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the expanded program will mean another doctor will help replace patients’ worn-out batteries, each of which is implanted in a patient’s chest like a pacemaker, as the province works to recruit another neurosurgeon. Dix said 70 patients are currently on the wait list for deep brain stimulation surgery.
Lupino said that number doesn’t tell the whole story because so many people like her – “a poster-child patient for DBS” – could wait up to four years just to get a consultation before waiting another year for the operation.
“The backlog of the surgery is one thing but the backlog is actually getting the consult,” she said.
“Our government understands that a strong, science-based approach to regulat-
wait times than B.C.
“The concern that we’re having is that because DBS is such an intensive procedure it’s not just a one-day thing that you’re in the hospital,” she said, adding patients must return multiple times and that’s particularly expensive for those who don’t live in Vancouver.
“For people who are on disability and on a fixed income and depend on family members’ help for basic lifestyle- and self-care tasks, getting from somewhere in remote B.C. to UBC is really burdensome.”
Lupino considers herself fortunate because she has her own law practice and can accommodate her limitations by working from home or using speech-detect software to write when her right hand won’t co-operate.
“It’s hard to walk, it’s hard to just move. You feel like you’re embedded in molasses or in a pool of water and trying to run, or get dressed or shower or do basic tasks.”
Alicia Wrobel, spokeswoman for the Parkinson Society of British Columbia, said
to continue using the land,’” said Lht’at’en.
Despite the role of the camp in resisting the pipeline, she said it’s been misrepresented.
“They call our camp a protest camp, it is how people look at us. But the reason why the barriers were up is (because) we’ve been victims,” she said.
About three years ago, she said shots were fired from across the bridge and racist slurs were shouted, but no one was every charged.
It was Michell’s daughter, Karla Tait, who had the idea for a healing centre at the camp.
Tait, who holds a PhD in clinical psychology, said she was starting to recognize a disconnect in her work life, where non-Indigenous clinicians often had trouble understanding the impact of generational trauma and colonization on their Indigenous clients.
The idea was to integrate wellness treatments within the Wet’suwet’en cultural context and territory. Since then, Tait has hosted workshops focused on women or youth that incorporate traditions like berry picking and traditional art practices.
Tait said the pipeline conflict has triggered many members of the community.
“One of the really difficult things about this particular conflict is that it resurfaces and triggers all of the historical intergenerational trauma our people have experienced since contact in different ways on a daily basis,” Tait said, giving the arrests of Indigenous women and the encroachment on land as examples.
Tait has been unable to visit the camp recently, but said she’s been curious to hear of the progress of clients like Morris and WilsonMorris without a more formal treatment plan. She attributes it to Huson’s compassion, and the value of reconnecting Indigenous people to the land in a way that instills a sense of pride and feeling valued.
“Behind (those cultural practices), the healing just occurs naturally and doesn’t require a lot of interference,” she said.
Wilson-Morris said she and Morris plan to stay until the snow melts, or for as long as it takes for them to feel strong enough to leave.
“It’s really good healing, seeing nature and stuff, listening to the river, the dogs. This place has helped me – it’s a life changer,” Wilson-Morris said.
ing the aquaculture industry is essential and that is why we have and will continue to conduct extensive research which informs our policies and regulations,” Wilkinson said in the statement.
patients in some provinces have little wait time for deep brain stimulation surgery. Saskatchewan has “virtually no wait list with three qualified neurosurgeons,” she said, adding Alberta has a wait list of six months and employs two neurosurgeons. Christine Sorensen, vice-president of the BC Nurses Union, said she fully supports shorter wait times and more access to surgeries for all patients but there aren’t enough nurses to care for them.
In a contract ratified last month, the union negotiated a so-called workingshort premium requiring employers to pay all nurses on a unit an extra $5 per hour when adequate staffing levels have not been met.
“It’s unique to B.C. and it’s a very innovative idea,” Sorensen said. “It is our goal that the employers will hire more nurses so this penalty will not be paid. Nurses don’t want additional money, they want the nursing staff present in order to provide safe patient care.”
Press from Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Jonathan Wilkinson said the court ruling is being reviewed.
CP PHOTO
Johnny Morris of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation poses for a photograph at the Unist’ot’en camp near Houston on Jan. 17.
VICTORIA — The British Columbia government says it will implement accountability reforms at the legislature following a call by three independent watchdogs for sweeping changes to restore public confidence amid allegations of inappropriate spending and a police investigation.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said Tuesday the government will work with the information and privacy commissioner, merit commissioner and ombudsperson to ensure new rules to monitor the legislature and its officials are enacted.
A report released by Speaker Darryl Plecas last month alleges spending abuses on overseas trips, payout packages and personal purchases by two top officials at the legislature.
Clerk Craig James and sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz were placed on administrative leave in November after members of the legislature learned of an ongoing RCMP investigation. They deny any wrongdoing.
Farnworth said the government will act on the rules recommended by the oversight bodies.
“I am saying we are going to be working with those three independent officers of the legislature on the best way to do that. I would like to see that sooner than later,” he added.
Farnworth said the changes could come during the upcoming spring sitting of the legislature or next fall.
The independent watchdogs called on the government to amend three laws to ensure they apply more completely to the legislature.
Among the recommendations are ensuring the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Act apply to the legislative assembly. They also want the merit commissioner to have the power under the Public Service Act to conduct independent audits of staff appointments to the administration of the legislature.
“Let me be really clear: those three recommendations are going to be implemented,”
said Farnworth. “In terms of the legislature, the clerk’s office and the sergeant-at-arms office, for example, yes, there needs to be changes. Those recommendations are very helpful.”
Premier John Horgan said last December he supported making almost everything at the legislature open to freedom of information requests.
Horgan said his expenses and those of all other elected officials are posted online for the public to view but officials at the legis-
lature are not bound by the same disclosure rules.
Privacy commissioner Michael McAvoy said his organization has been calling for more freedom of information access at the legislature for decades. The spending allegations in the Speaker’s report and the suspensions of Lenz and James have raised the issue’s profile, he said.
“It provides an opportunity for discussion among legislators, certainly the public is talking about this and it’s bringing back to
‘Not anything the crew did’
TSB says fatal train derailment started on its own
Lauren KRUGEL Citizen news service
CALGARY — A Canadian Pacific freight train parked on a frigid night in the Rocky Mountains began to move on its own before a derailment that killed three workers and sent 99 grain cars and two locomotives hurling off the track.
The Transportation Safety Board says the westbound train had been parked on a grade with its air brakes applied for two hours near Field, B.C., just west of the Alberta-B.C. boundary, when it started rolling. The handbrakes were never applied.
“It was not anything the crew did,” senior investigator James Carmichael said Tuesday.
“The train started to move on its own.”
He said the Calgary-based crew was taking over the train east of Field on Monday because the previous workers were nearing maximum work hours. The new crew was not yet ready to depart when the train started moving at about 1 a.m.
He said the train consisting of 112 cars and three locomotives was carrying grain to Vancouver and gained speed well in excess of the 32 km/h maximum for the tight turns in the mountain pass. It barrelled along for just over three kilometres before it derailed at a curve ahead of a bridge over the Kicking Horse River.
Only 13 cars and the tail-end locomotive remained on the tracks.
“The lead locomotive came to rest on its side in a creek and a number of derailed cars came to rest on an embankment,” said Carmichael.
“The remaining cars, including the mid-train remote locomotive, piled up behind.”
The crew was in the lead unit, which was severely damaged. Carmichael said the data recorder had not yet been retrieved from that locomotive.
The railway identified the men who died as conductor Dylan Paradis, engineer Andrew Dockrell and trainee Daniel WaldenbergerBulmer.
The derailment happened between the Lower and Upper Spiral Tunnels in Yoho National Park, which were built 110 years ago to help trains traverse the treacherously steep Kicking Horse Pass.
“This territory’s among the most challenging railway territory in North America,” said Carmichael. “Investigators and others are
working hard under challenging circumstances to fully understand what went so terribly wrong.”
Canadian Pacific said it has started its own investigation and will also fully co-operate with the Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada.
Meanwhile, CP crews, contractors and agencies are working to remove the damaged rail cars and equipment, the company said in a statement Tuesday evening. The work is expected to last “a number of days.”
“We continue to mourn the loss of our three CP family members,” said president and CEO Keith Creel.
“I spent the day at the derailment site yesterday, and I have not stopped thinking about this incident since it occurred.”
A GoFundMe site to help Paradis’s family said he is survived by his wife and two young daughters.
“He was kind, hilarious, hard working, easy going, and IN LOVE with his family. They were everything to him,” said the page set up by Marie Armstrong.
Waldenberger-Bulmer’s twin brother Jeremy – also a CP Rail conductor – said it feels like half of him is gone.
He said his family is feeling an “emptiness in our home that is indescribable.”
He said in a statement that his brother had just started working for the railroad in November.
“He was loving it and knew he
would make a lifetime career out of it. We had big plans of living out our careers with CP Rail and retiring together to golf all over the world. He and I would go golfing any chance we got in the summer. That was our thing to do.”
The derailment sounds “eerily similar” to the 2013 Lac-Megantic rail disaster in Quebec in that both involved a freight train rolling down a grade, said Garland Chow, a professor with transportation expertise at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.
But there’s a big difference, he said, in that no one was on board when the Lac-Megantic train derailed, killing 47 people in the town.
The Transportation Safety Board concluded not enough handbrakes were applied.
Chow noted that the transportation board said the crew in B.C. was not responsible for the train starting to move.
As soon as it began rolling, the crew would have tried to stop it, Chow suggested, so it’s possible the air brakes failed.
“It’s either process or equipment or behaviour,” he said.
“If the processes were done right and the behaviour was right, it has to be the equipment... Something must have failed to allow the train to go down that hill.”
— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Winnipeg and Laura Kane in Vancouver
the forefront the issue of applying access to information to the legislative assembly,” McAvoy said.
Ombudsperson Jay Chalke said the watchdogs can help the government bring reforms to the legislature.
“As oversight bodies we collectively have decades of unique and collective experience in ensuring the public bodies are accountable and we think the administration of the legislative assembly should be no exception,” he said.
New gun-control recommendations due ‘in the coming weeks’
Stephen COOK Citizen news service
OTTAWA — New ideas for federal gun-control rules will likely come with in weeks, says the minister responsible for devising them.
Since August, Bill Blair has been studying ways to get handguns and assault rifles off Canada’s streets, with measures that might include anything from restrictions on sales to crackdowns on smuggling.
Tuesday, the former Toronto police chief and current minister for organized-crime reduction told reporters he hopes to complete the work “in the coming weeks” and present a report to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“When we’ve got it all compiled, I’ll take it back to him and share with him what Canadians have told us,” he said.
When Trudeau named Blair to the cabinet, his instructions included that he lead an examination into “a full ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada.” Since his appointment, Blair has been travelling the country to discuss the issue.
Blair’s mandate also includes supporting Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s Bill C-71,
When we’ve got it all compiled, I’ll take it back to him and share with him what Canadians have told us.
— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
currently in its second reading in the Senate.
The bill includes changes to the Firearms Act and Criminal Code. Among its amendments are considering events more than five years in the past when judging applicants’ eligibility for gun licences; requiring a buyer’s licence be verified in the sale of non-restricted firearms; and having businesses record information about the people to whom they sell guns.
The Liberal government is concerned that the bill’s provisions won’t do enough to stop gang violence in large cities such as Toronto. In 2016, more than half of firearm-related violent crimes involved handguns, according to Statistics Canada.
British Columbia House Speaker Darryl Plecas arrives at the Legislative Assembly Management Committee meeting at the Legislature in Victoria on Jan. 21.
Are we the next Cranbrook?
The Prince George Cougars play the second game of a back-toback set against the Vancouver Giants tonight at CN Centre. If last night’s more than halfempty barn was any indication, coming out on a -25 C night to watch a team that hasn’t won in nearly a month and is near the bottom of the Western Hockey League standings doesn’t seem to be many people’s idea of a good time.
This continued apathy towards the Cougars can’t continue or Prince George will lose its WHL franchise and it won’t get another one back for a generation or more. That’s not being overly dramatic. That’s reality.
The owners and the management team for the Cougars aren’t hitting the panic button yet but they’re increasingly less shy about bluntly stating their current situation.
Last week, Crankbrook lost its WHL team, as the Ice are moving to Winnipeg next season.
As Ted Clarke’s story explained, the Ice has had some of the worst fan support in the league for the past several years, including this season, where they’ve been pulling in 2,218 fans per game on average, last in the entire league.
Guess who’s third last and 20th overall in the league?
Your Prince George Cougars, averaging 2,657. Compare that to the usual turnout for the Kelowna Rockets (4,748) and the Kamloops Blazers (4,153).
Worse for the Cougars, fan support is getting worse. Just two seasons ago, average attendance for a regular season game with 3,626. In other words, the team has shed 1,000 fans per game. Now multiply that by 36 home games. Now factor in that this regular season has four fewer games, meaning two less home games to put bums in seats and sell tickets.
EDGEPRO Sports and Entertainment, the team ownership group, has no plans to move the team, Andy Beesley, the team’s vice-president of business, told The Citizen, but he didn’t mince words, either.
“The owners have made it clear we’re not in a profitable situation, we’re not even at a break-even situation at this point, but having said that we feel we have a very strong blueprint moving forward,” he said. “Our ownership, our hockey staff, our business staff, our management are all more committed than ever to not just make this team viable but to keep it here for the long term and to make sure we’re putting a great
product on the ice. The reality is we’ve had a tough couple of years for sure.”
Better days are ahead, Beesley promised. “The great news is we have a young team that is the talk of the league right now. The coaching staff will tell you when we talk to other teams they are envious of what we’ve got coming up the ranks. Next year we have almost our entire team returning and many of our players are starting to mature into their WHL performance years and settling into their roles. We think the next couple years are going to be strong and that more and more fans are going to come out and watch us.”
We hope he’s right. Winning has always been seen as the recipe for success for this hockey team, since it moved here 25 years ago from Victoria. When they win, the fans come out and when they don’t, they won’t, the logic goes.
Yet that recipe didn’t work in Cranbrook.
In their 20 years in the Kootenays, the Ice won three league championships and a Memorial Cup, reaching heights Cougars fans can only dream about. The success and the history weren’t enough, Cranbook residents voted with their feet over the past five years or so to stay away and now the Ice are going to Winnipeg.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be Tom
Tom Brady won the Super Bowl again. That Cheshire cat smirk will live on long after he dies, which he never will, because the 41-yearold is the ageless Voldemort of the NFL, made immortal through the boundless consumption of crushed souls. Not that I mean that in a negative way.
Some consider me uncharitable. They call the New England Patriots quarterback the GOAT — the Greatest Of All Time — which is hard to dispute, but I suspect the name also derives from the horns that hide in his perfectly coiffed hair (and occasionally poke holes in his helmet). He also has cloven hooves.
This is not an uncommon view. Brady, who already has five Super Bowl rings, regularly tops lists of the most admired and most despised figures in football. Even the South China Morning Post published a story headlined “Why do people hate Tom Brady and the Patriots so much?” Maybe it’s because they know that even in the unlikely event Brady ever does die – leaving behind his perfectly chiselled looks, his supermodel wife, his estimated $180-million US net worth – St. Peter will be waiting at the pearly gates, giddily anticipating an autograph. And the GOAT will just gloat, taking it as his due. It isn’t simple envy that curls his critics’ lips. Nor is it the unhappiness that results when mortals compare themselves to the gods, though that doesn’t help. (In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari put it thusly: “If you were an 18-year-old youth in a small village 5,000 years ago you’d
probably think you were goodlooking because there were only 50 other men in your village and most of them were either old, scarred and wrinkled, or still little kids. But if you are a teenager today you are a lot more likely to feel inadequate. Even if the other guys at school are an ugly lot, you don’t measure yourself against them but against the movie stars, athletes and supermodels you see all day on television, Facebook and giant billboards.”)
No, we all know – and accept –that life favours some more than others.
That was demonstrated one day many years ago when I trundled into a Mill Bay fast food restaurant, only to find myself draped in a Harry Potter invisibility cloak as the three young women behind the counter gave their undivided attention to filling the order (an orange juice) of the only other customer, a Greek god of a blond California rower who had wandered up from a regatta at Brentwood College. (Think Ryan Reynolds meets Orlando Bloom, only better looking.)
So, I waited. And waited. Made a couple of phone calls, did my income taxes, reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Somewhere, a bird sang.
Finally, one of the counter staff snapped out of her reverie long enough to take my money, but
Brady?
then — I am not making this up — gave my change to the goodlooking guy.
“Um, I think this is yours,” he said, handing the coins to me. “Thanks,” I replied. “Good to see you again. Glad they’re letting you out unescorted. Oh, we got your tests back and it’s probably not gonorrhea.”
I shouldn’t have done that. He did nothing wrong. Had Brady been handed my change, he would have slipped it into his own pocket, not given it back. If Brady won the lottery, he would think he deserved it. Or so I like to believe.
This is at the heart of the ill will toward the quarterback, the notion that he is smug, entitled, not sufficiently grateful for what he has – a crime worthy of banishment to Perfection Prison, where he will be shanked by cellmate Martha Stewart with a darling little shiv fashioned out of an ivory toothbrush she pilfered from the Dalai Lama’s guest bathroom when she popped by Himachal Pradesh to pick up some mountain air for her compressor.
Of course, you could also apply the same judgment to many of us in Canada.
From the view of the rest of the planet, we won life’s Super Bowl when born in such a peaceful, prosperous place, yet so many of us take our blessings as a birthright. It’s not a good look.
Even Brady, after losing last year’s Super Bowl, had the good grace to post a social media message that used the word “gratitude” seven times.
Jack Knox writes for the Victoria Times Colonist.
The next two seasons for the Cougars won’t be just about positioning the team to win the division and contend for a league title. Those victories will be shallow if there are more green seats than fans to witness them. As for a move, let’s not kid ourselves. There isn’t a team in the league that looks forward to visiting the most geographically isolated team in all of Canadian major junior hockey, a six-hour bus ride one-way when the highway’s clear and dry. Every team in the league would save on travel costs, particularly those in the B.C. division, if the Cougars played somewhere else. Nanaimo? Grande Prairie? Yakima, Wash.? Since the EDGEPRO group bought the Cougars from the Brodsky family, the new owners have poured money into the team and worked tirelessly to build corporate and personal relationships with their fan base. If the team fails here, it won’t be for lack of effort on the part of ownership, it will be for lack of commitment on the part of local hockey fans.
The Cougars are Prince George’s team. Whether they stay that way is up to Prince George.
— Editor-in-chief
Neil Godbout
Five years at the keyboard
This week marks my fifth year as a columnist for The Prince George Citizen. And while my anniversary topic might seem self-indulgent, the fact is readers often ask me how I write my column. What follows are details about “the process” I have come to use in my writing routine.
As a start, I use Google Drive for word processing; this allows me to access and edit my work from anywhere, which is an invaluable asset when I’m travelling or low on time. I begin by pounding on the keyboard, starting new drafts in the same document until I get the right flow for my first paragraph. All of my columns are exactly a page long, including my byline and name at the top, which means that I have just 42 lines of Arial 11 in 1.15 spacing to get my point across. My paragraphs are either five or three lines long, often with a couplet for the conclusion – a hangover from analyzing poems. And, for the last time, please understand that I have never once authored any of my titles for the Citizen – just my dozens of typos and grammatical errors.
Of course there’s the issue of diction. Truth be told, I’m not an essayist, I’m a rhetorician; every one of my columns is read aloud before submission, both to check for errors but more importantly to hear if it flows. This simultaneously reveals my choice in vocabulary as well as style: I love lists, alliteration, and, that beautiful grammatical tool, the semicolon. Finally, while you can’t see them in print, I use the Oxford comma but I don’t care about particular spellings.
As to when I begin writing, usually it’s Monday morning. In the last 18 months or so, the rhythm has become an early start on Monday, with the hope that a first draft is done before end of day; then follows a quick rework on Tuesday, aiming at a filing time of 2:30 p.m. for the editor.
I am often asked how long it takes me to write a column but it’s a hard to say. The truth is that for some the colour and the content come down in a flash while others are slogs, as I try to take a complex theme and sum it up in 600 words. My column on John A. Macdonald’s statue being removed
in Victoria was typed in two hours flat; but U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brent Kavanaugh’s confirmation took me days and I still wasn’t happy with it by my deadline, as I noted at the beginning of that piece.
Many readers ask what I read myself. To put it bluntly, I utterly refuse to read or listen to our state broadcaster’s news or personalities; ditto for all other mainstream Canadian media, save the National Post – of which I only read “opinion.” For newswire items, it’s the Citizen.
I do not watch televised news except on election night. For YouTube, I enjoy the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, the Munk Debates, and The Mark Steyn Show, among others. For independent media, I read Quillette and any items shared by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Finally, I have several friends across the spectrum who send me good content; locally, the most reliable algorithm for great articles is Paul Strickland’s Facebook feed.
As to topics, there really isn’t any mystery here. I follow the same smoke as everyone else, though my take on the fire usually differs from the consensus. I’m a columnist and not a reporter, so I must rely on the news cycle and given that The Citizen does not have a blogging system for its pundits, I cannot react in real time to events as they unfold. To be candid, I am quite grateful for this, as it allows me more time to weigh all the facts and formulate an opinion. However, the single most important factor has been the generous freedom allotted to me by the editors at The Citizen. I am well aware that many have argued for my dismissal but I am blessed by overseers whose primary loyalty is to free expression and open debate on all topics. I hope this exposition has been more enlightening than tiring. Thank you to all readers for your continued interest and helpful feedback. Hopefully, another great half-decade is on its way.
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
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of the
RIGHT OF CENTRE
NATHAN GIEDE
Trump uses state of the union speech to urge approval of USMCA
James McCARTEN Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — The NAFTA-bashing president of the United States used his state of the union speech Tuesday to urge a divided, combative Congress to come together to ratify a continental trade pact he’s convinced will breathe new life into America’s moribund manufacturing sector.
In the same breath as he derided NAFTA as a “catastrophe” and a “historic trade blunder,” Donald Trump sang the praises of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a recipe for resurrecting his country’s farm sector, creating blue-collar jobs and restoring the lustre of the once-mighty American auto industry.
Speaking to a joint session of Congress one week later than originally planned, Trump described meeting struggling workers in Rust Belt states who lost their jobs and livelihoods to 25 years of trilateral free trade that caused manufacturing work to migrate south, lured by low labour costs.
“For years, politicians promised them they would renegotiate for a better deal. But no one ever tried until now,” he said.
“Our new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, will replace NAFTA and deliver for American workers, like they haven’t had delivered to for a long time. I hope you can pass the USMCA into law so we can bring back our manufacturing jobs in even greater numbers, expand American agriculture, protect intellectual property, and ensure that more cars are proudly stamped with our four beautiful words: made in the U.S.A.”
Trump’s trade czar, Robert Lighthizer, issued a statement after the speech that described the USMCA as “a model for all future trade deals” – a harbinger of what might be U.S. thinking on its ongoing trade efforts with China, which the president promised would deliver “real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit and protect American jobs.”
Whether Congress will indeed ratify the new trade agreement remains an open question.
Democrats, who won control of the House of Representatives in last year’s midterm elections, have expressed misgivings about the deal – in particular what they say is a lack of enforcement tools for the deal’s labour and environmental protection provisions. And in the current political climate, with the 2020 election machine throttling up to full roar, few are feeling inclined to give the president even a single political victory.
“If the president truly wants to support American farm families, he will begin to restore our reputation around the world as a reliable trading partner,” National Farmers Union spokesman Rob Larew said in a statement.
“He will reassert American leadership in the international trade arena, rather than straining relationships with our top trading partners.
“To tout progress with China or USMCA is misleading – you can’t dig a ten-foot hole, fill it up with a foot of dirt and call it a win.”
Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who rose to prominence last year with her unsuccessful bid to become governor of Georgia, delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s speech, salvaging the president’s insistence on a U.S.-Mexico border wall and lack of action on gun control, among other things.
And though she didn’t mention USMCA
by name, his approach to trade is proving counterproductive, she said.
“We owe more to the millions of everyday folks who keep our economy running, like truck drivers forced to buy their own rigs, farmers caught in a trade war, small business owners in search of capital and domestic workers serving without labour protections,” Abrams said.
“Women and men who could thrive – if only they had the support and freedom to do so.”
Trump also used Tuesday’s speech to urge an end to what he called the politics of “revenge, resistance and retribution,” warning his critics away from zealous investigative pursuit of his presidency and his 2016 campaign for fear of hamstringing a humming U.S. economy.
In taking credit for that economic strength, Trump inadvertently delivered
Serial killer Bruce McArthur plucked his victims from margins of society
TORONTO — When Bruce McArthur chose to kill, he looked to the margins of society to find his prey.
While all eight of the men he admitted murdering had ties to Toronto’s gay community, most of them were further isolated due to a combination of racial, cultural or economic factors.
As the facts surrounding McArthur’s crimes came to light at the 67-year-old’s sentencing hearing this week, those with ties to the communities his victims belonged to say it’s time to explore the issues that made those men so vulnerable.
“It’s really shone a huge spotlight,” said Haran Vijayanathan, executive director of the Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention.
“It’s allowing us to really see some of these major cracks that actually create unsafe environments for many of our marginalized people.”
Vijayanathan, who has worked closely with friends and relatives of many of McArthur’s victims, echoed language similar to what emerged in court when describing the men McArthur targeted.
A statement of fact presented at the sentencing hearing outlined
the clear victim profile McArthur developed between when his killing streak began in 2010 and his arrest in 2018.
Six of his eight victims were of South Asian descent, often sharing physical characteristics such as beards. Many of the men kept their sexuality hidden from friends and family, pursuing homosexual encounters furtively using dating apps. Several also grappled with substance abuse, poverty, or unstable housing situations, court heard.
Crown lawyer Michael Cantlon said McArthur actively “sought out and exploited these vulnerabilities to continue his crimes undetected” – an assessment shared by Vijayanathan.
Cultural attitudes towards homosexuality almost certainly played a role in keeping some of McArthur’s victims isolated, Vijayanathan said.
Those who grow up in cultures where homosexuality is heavily stigmatized often find themselves trying to manage the anxieties of family members and friends whose upbringing leaves them fearful that their loved ones’ sexual orientation may place them in danger, Vijayanathan said. Homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries and punishable by death in seven, according to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Senior Resettlement Officer Michael Casasola said many of those identifying as LGBTQ are fleeing high levels of persecution and harassment, adding the organization frequently “prioritizes” such cases for resettlement in a country that offers stronger protections.
“Unfortunately they often find themselves in countries where they face detention, face persecution, face injustice because of their sexual orientation,” he said.
Vijayanathan said many men yield to family pressure to marry women in order to mitigate the cultural stigma they face.
Such may have been the case for Abdulbasir Faizi and Soroush Mahmudi, both of whom had wives who offered emotional victim impact statements on Tuesday.
Another married Middle Eastern man known only as John was visiting McArthur’s apartment in secret and was likely moments from becoming a ninth homicide victim when police arrested the former landscaper, court heard.
Another victim, Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, was further isolated from his family by virtue of being a Sri Lankan refugee claimant who came to Canada aboard the MV Sun Sea vessel in 2010.
one of the night’s most memorable moments when he noted that 58 per cent of the new jobs created in the last year went to women. That prompted several of the 36 new female members of Congress, many clad in white in a show of solidarity with the suffrage movement, to pretend the president was talking about them as they got up and celebrated their electoral success.
Trump did not appear overly amused, but he rolled with the punch – “Don’t sit down yet; you’re gonna love this,” he urged them – as he continued with his prepared remarks, which acknowledged their achievement.
“Exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before.”
Man accused of smothering sickly wife
Citizen news service
MONTREAL — Michel Cadotte, on trial for seconddegree murder in the death of his ailing wife, said Tuesday he understood what he was doing when he smothered her with a pillow. Under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Genevieve Langlois, Cadotte, 57, said he knew what he was doing before, during and after the death of his wife, Jocelyne Lizotte.
The defence stated during its opening statement to the jury last week that Cadotte was so depressed and sleep deprived at the time that “he didn’t have the
freedom of choice” and that his state of mind does not support a conviction for murder.
Cadotte testified Tuesday that he realized his actions would “cause the death” of Lizotte, 60, and that doing so was a crime. He admitted he understood the consequences of such a crime and added that he asked staff at the long-term care centre where Lizotte died to call 911, knowing it would lead to his arrest. He then waited for police in her room. Cadotte said Tuesday that he was frustrated to see his wife was not receiving adequate care, which he said triggered the desire to end her life.
AP PHOTO
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts while leaving the House chamber after giving his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Michelle McQUIGGE Citizen news service
In this artist’s sketch, serial killer Bruce McArthur (centre) attends his sentencing hearing in Toronto on Monday.
WestJet eyes premium market
Citizen news service
WestJet Airlines Ltd. says strong demand, higher-paying passengers and its new ultra-low-cost subsidiary will bolster revenue in 2019 as the company continues its transition from regional airline to international player.
“We’re not seeing any potential slowdown in our booking curve,” said John Weatherill, vice-president in charge of pricing and revenue. Despite tight domestic competition and volatile fuel prices, the Calgary-based company aims to boost revenue per available seat mile – an industry metric of how much cash each seat on the plane brings in – by between two per cent and four per cent in 2019.
Revenue from premium economy passengers shot up 70 per cent last year, chief executive Ed Sims said.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen analyst reports use the word ahead in the 12 months that I’ve been in the role,” Sims said. “But we are incredibly conscious of the heavy lifting that we have ahead of us.”
The airline is starting to reap the benefits of more branded fares, which bundle various perks such as extra leg room and on-demand dining, and ancillary fees for meals and baggage. The proportion of WestJet passen-
gers who opted to buy up to a fare higher than the lowest one available increased to 36 per cent in the fourth quarter, up from six per cent at the start of the year, Sims said.
The 23-year-old airline plans to grow passenger capacity by between six per cent and eight per cent – down half a percentage point from its previous guidancelargely through three Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft embarking on non-stop service from Calgary to Dublin, Paris and London’s Gatwick Airport this spring.
The intercontinental flights will furnish the first of an expected 10 Dreamliners in a bid for business passengers that challenges Air Canada’s transatlantic dominance.
Intense competition remains a concern. A freshly expanded Flair Airlines, soon-to-launch Canada Jetlines Ltd., and Air Canada’s low-cost Rouge are all crowding the budget airspace that WestJet has flown into with its eightmonth-old, ultra-low-cost Swoop.
“We still see risks related to increased ultra-low-cost carrier competition, labour and execution around the company’s international growth strategy,” said analyst Cameron Doerksen of National Bank Financial.
Sims said Swoop will expand to 10 planes from six in 2019.
After a turbulent year, labour relations still pose a potential hurdle. WestJet is now in negotiations with two unions that represent dispatchers and its regional airline pilots, while talks with flight attendants are set to begin this year as well. The company is also holding internal negotiations with its mechanics.
Canada’s second-largest airline saw the repercussions of labour strife last May, when WestJet pilots voted in favour of strike action before the Air Line Pilots Association and the company agreed to a settlement process two weeks later. The initial threat scared off potential passengers and prompted discounted fare offers that cost the carrier “tens of millions of dollars” throughout the second and third quarters, Sims said last year.
“Throughout 2018, we faced compounding headwinds that resulted in our business delivering results well below where we could and should perform,” he said Tuesday.
In the fourth quarter WestJet saw surging jet fuel prices - also a problem last spring - dent its profits, with net earnings falling 39 per cent year over year. Passenger revenue grew seven per cent last quarter compared to the same period a year earlier,
but fuel costs rose 21 per cent to $304.9 million, WestJet said, cancelling out some of the gains.
The expense pushed cost per available seat mile up 3.8 per cent.
WestJet earned $29.2 million in the fourth quarter, down from $47.8 million in the same period a year earlier. Profits amounted to 26 cents per diluted share for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with 41 cents per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Revenue totalled $1.19 billion in the last three months of 2018, up from $1.12 billion a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of 13 cents per share for the quarter and revenue of $1.19 billion, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.
Kevin Chiang, an analyst with CIBC World Markets, cited a “healthy demand environment and strong revenue growth.”
“While fuel has become a lot more volatile, we have greater comfort in our view of expanding profitability from Canada’s two largest airlines,” he said in an investor note.
For the full year, WestJet said it earned $91.5 million or 80 cents per diluted share, down from $279.1 million or $2.38 per diluted share in 2017.
Saks Fifth Avenue wraps up $250M reno
Citizen news service
Saks Fifth Avenue will debut the new main floor of its flagship New York City store this week, marking a major milestone in its $250 million renovation project.
Hudson’s Bay Co.’s 41 Saks stores have been one of the few bright stars for the struggling retailer, which over the past year sold the e-commerce site Gilt, merged European operations with a rival and closed some Lord & Taylor stores. Comparable-store sales at Saks rose for the past six consecutive quarters. “I think we know the New York customer more than anybody,” said Marc Metrick, president of Saks. “We have a dominant flagship presence.”
Handbags will be the most prominent items at Saks, which has added 15 more fashion labels to its accessories lineup, including Celine, Bottega Veneta and The Row. The remodeled main floor is about 53,000 square feet – about the size of a local Save-On-Foods store – and will be staffed by 50 handbag style advisors in addition to the store associates that sell each brand.
On the ground floor, the design centerpiece is an escalator equipped with LED art. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, Metrick expects it to attract curious shoppers and make for “one hell of an Instagram moment.”
CITIZEN
Luxury handbags are displayed at the newly renovated ground floor of the Saks Fifth Avenue Inc. flagship store in New York.
The escalator leads to the new beauty floor. Last year Saks broke with decades of tradition by moving its beauty section to the second floor, growing its size by 40 per cent and offering high-end services such as face workouts and slimming massages. Stores typically keep cosmetics on the ground level to drive traffic.
Saks plans to make similar design changesespecially in the beauty section-in others stores, including Miami, Houston, Toronto and Beverly Hills. The retailer won’t neces-
sarily relocating its other beauty floors, but will instead tweak existing spaces to optimize services, lines of sight and lighting.
Metrick hopes the renovation will put Saks on par with Europe’s palaces of luxury consumption, such as Harrods, Selfridges, Bon Marche, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. America’s department stores historically lacked that level of extravagance, he said.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” — Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441
Canada’s main stock index posted a triple-digit gain Tuesday ahead of
Suncor Energy Inc. will be the first major Canadian oil company to report this quarter, after markets close Tuesday. The results come a day after British Petroleum crushed expectations in its fourth-quarter results, says Brian See, vice president at CIBC Asset Management.
“It’s almost like a forecast of what to expect from Canadian producers this upcoming season,” he said in an interview. Canadian earnings season is beginning as about half of S&P 500 companies have reported with most topping analyst expectations but not at the pace of a year ago when they got a boost from lower U.S. federal taxes.
“They’re still positive but they’re definitely slowing down,” he said.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 100.37 points to 15,702.69 after hitting an intraday high of 15,702.69.
The consumer staples sector rose about two per cent as Alimentation Couche Tard Inc. led the index. It was followed by industrials. Health care was the lone sector to lose ground, falling 1.2 per cent as cannabis stocks dipped a day after posting strong gains. The influential energy sector was essentially flat despite another dip in crude oil prices.
The March crude contract was down 90 cents at US$53.66 per barrel and the March natural gas contract was up 0.2 of a cent at US$2.66 per mmBTU. Oil prices fell as reports showed that Russian oil production was higher than expected in January as promised cuts won’t take place until after the first quarter, and Iranian exports continued to surge to add more supply to an oversupplied market.
The financials sector was in the middle of the pack, rising 0.68 per cent despite reports pointing to mortgage growth falling to a 17-year low in Canada.
“That’s a trend that’s been happening but that is something that people are talking about,” said See.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.14 cents US compared with an average of 76.18 cents US on Monday.
The April gold contract was down 10 cents at US$1,319.20 an ounce and the March copper contract was up 2.25
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
A WestJet flight arrives at the Prince George airport in February 2018.
Page 10
Giant encounter
Prince George Cougars forward Josh Curtis battles Davis Koch of the Vancouver Giants for position while chasing a loose puck on Tuesday night at CN Centre. Koch scored the opening goal of the game and helped the Giants to a 4-2 victory. The teams meet again tonight.
Ovechkin sets points record at expense of Canucks
Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — T.J. Oshie put in the work to help Alex Ovechkin set another record and get the defending Stanley Cup champions back on track.
Oshie scored his 16th goal of the season as part of a dominant performance, Braden Holtby made 30 saves and stopped a penalty shot and the Washington Capitals beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 Tuesday night in Jay Beagle’s return to his old home arena.
With an assist on Oshie’s goal, Ovechkin picked up his 1,180th career point to become the NHL’s all-time scoring leader among Russian players.
The milestone wouldn’t have happened so soon without Oshie, who rebounded from an ill-timed penalty late in a loss to Boston on Sunday to be at his best against the Canucks. He hounded Chris Tanev to force the turnover that led to his goal, flipped the puck over defenders for a scoring chance in the first and created another one in the second.
“Personally I’ve felt good here for the last couple weeks,” Oshie said. “Tonight was just kind of another one of those games the puck was kind of finding me. Would’ve
LOCAL SPORTS IN BRIEF
Pettis posts best-ever supercross finish
liked to score more than one, but I had some fun out there.”
Holtby made 13 saves and denied Bo Horvat on a penalty shot in a busy second period to help the struggling Capitals pick up two important points. Holtby was run over by Horvat prior to Elias Pettersson’s goal with 7.6 seconds remaining and was attended to by a team athletic trainer before finishing the game.
Ovechkin is ready to move forward after setting another record by passing former teammate Sergei Fedorov for the Russian scoring lead. He did it in 193 fewer games than Fedorov, who
Jess Pettis keeps getting better with age. The 21-year-old motocross rider from Prince George posted a new career best Saturday when he finished fifth in the 250SX main event at the AMA Monster Energy Supercross at Petco Park in San Diego. After qualifying ninth, Pettis finished fourth in his heat race. Then, in the 22-rider feature race, Pettis started second, just missing the hole shot taken by Adam Cianciarulo of New Smyma Beach, Fla., who went on to win his third main event of the season. Garrett Marchbanks of Coalville, Utah, and James Decosta of Peabody, Mass., finished second and third respectively.
Fellow KTM rider Shane Mcelrath of Canton, N.C., edged Pettis for fourth place. His outstanding effort Saturday gave Pettis 18 points and moved him into 10th place in the season standings. Pettis, the only Canadian racing the AMA Supercross circuit, now has 66 points, five races into a 17-event calendar. Cianciarulo leads with 114 points.
In the 450SX class, Eli Tomac of Cortex, Colo.,
O’Dine lands a top-10 on world stage
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Meryeta O’Dine of Prince George and Eliot Grondin of Saint-Romuald, Que., finished 10th Sunday in the team snowboard cross event at the world snowboard championships in Park City, Utah.
O’Dine, 21, was coming off a 13th-place result in the individual race on Friday.
Carle Brenneman of Comox and Brochu Baptiste of Saguenay, Que., were the top Canadians in the team event, finishing sixth. Americans Mick Dierdorff and Lindsey Jacobellis won gold. Omar Visintin/ Michela Moioli of Italy and Paul Berg/Hanna Ihedioha of Germany took silver and bronze respectively.
In Friday’s individual women’s event, Eva Samkova of Czech Republic won gold, Charlotte Bankes of Great Britain took silver and Moioli captured bronze. Brenneman was the top Canadian in eighth. In the men’s race, Dierdorff won gold, Hanno Douschan of Austria took silver and Emanuel Perathoner of Italy claimed bronze. In Canadian results, Grondin was 17th, Kevin Hill of Vernon was 30th and Danny Bourgeois of Rosemère, Que., was 40th.
Ovechkin played with in 2008 and 2009 and considers a friend.
“I talked to him and said it’s a huge honour,” Ovechkin said. “We have a very good relationship and I’m pretty sure he’s pretty happy for me that I beat him.”
Brett Connolly and Jakub Vrana scored third-period goals for the Caps, who had lost eight of their previous nine games. Vrana’s goal with 7:47 left had to be reviewed to make sure Evgeny Kuznetsov didn’t bat it in with a high stick.
Markus Granlund also scored for the Canucks, who lost for the second consecutive night and have dropped three of four. Forced to start each side of this back-to-back because of an injury to rookie Thatcher Demko, Jacob Markstrom made 17 of his 28 saves in the first period to keep the Canucks in it.
“Most of the game I thought we played good,” Markstrom said. “Same in Philly (Monday). Come February, come March and April we need points and we need them bad. It’s tough when there’s a lot of teams chasing you and our chasing a lot of teams.”
The game was Beagle’s first time facing his former teammates after playing parts of 10 seasons with the Capitals and helping them win
won his first race of the season Saturday. Marvin Musquin of Corona, Calif., was second and Ken Roczen of Clermont, Fla., placed third. Tomac, with 106 points, holds a four-point lead atop the standings over Musquin and Roczen, who each have 102.
The series resumes Saturday in Minneapolis, Minn., with races on each of the following weekends in Arlington, Texas; Detroit; Atlanta; Daytona Beach, Fla.; Indianapolis; Seattle; Houston; Nashville; Denver; East Rutherford, N.J.; and Las Vegas.
P.G. Sports Hall of Fame banquet tickets on sale soon
On March 30, race car driver Cliff Hucul, wheelchair basketball player Elisha Williams and Prince George Track and Field Club coach/president Brian Martinson will be inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame.
That’s cause for celebration and everybody is invited to the banquet that night at the Hart Community Centre. The event includes dinner, a guest speaker, award presentations and a silent auction. Tickets are $45 each and, starting on Feb. 11, will be on sale at Northern Food Equipment, 814 Fifth Ave., available until March 22.
The Hall of Fame committee will also present 12 young athletes with youth excellence
the Stanley Cup last year. Beagle, who signed a $12 million, fouryear contract with Vancouver, got a standing ovation from the crowd during a video tribute in the first period and a hug from Ovechkin after it was over.
Edler has concussion
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vancouver Canucks defenceman Alexander Edler avoided long-term injury from hitting his head on the ice but will be out at least a week with a concussion.
Coach Travis Green said Tuesday that X-rays revealed no facial fractures. Edler was released from hospital and headed back to Vancouver. He will miss at least three games, but the Canucks are glad it wasn’t worse.
“Obviously a scary incident,” Green said. “Medical staff I thought did a great job getting out there as quick as they did, and we’re thankful that he’s going to be all right.”
Edler’s skate got caught in the stick of Flyers winger Jakub Voracek in the first period Monday night, causing him to lose his balance and slam into the ice. Edler lay motionless on the ice before being wheeled off on a stretcher.
awards. This year’s list includes: Jonah Brittons (motocross), Ben Hendrickson (five-pin bowling), Kimoko Kamstra (judo), Natasha Kozlowski (golf), Anna MacDonald (trampoline gymnastics), Eric Orlowsky (long-track speed skating), Colburn Pearce (basketball/ football), Derian Potskin (fastball/baseball), Ainslee Rushton (lacrosse), Matthew Shand (volleyball), Zenze Stanley-Jones (wrestling) and Jordan Vertue (swimming).
Goto a double-medalist at judo provincials
All that glitters is gold... and silver, for Tami Goto.
The Prince George Judo Club member captured gold in the under-18 women’s minus52-kilogram category at the B.C. provincial championships over the weekend in Quesnel. Goto also won silver in her weight category in the under-21 age division.
In other PGJC results, Fallon Jones was a silver medalist in the U-16 girls, minus-63 kg competition and Aiden McComber won bronze in the U-16 boys, minus-50 kg class.
Last year, competing in the under-48 kg weight class at the provincial championships in Abbotsford, Goto won the U-18 and U-21 divisions. — Stories by Ted Clarke Citizen
O’Dine won her first World Cup individual medal in February 2017 when she claimed bronze in Feldberg, Germany. She was named to the Canadian Olympic team in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but was unable to compete after she fell in a practice run and suffered a concussion. She started this season in November with two third-place finishes at Europa Cup events in Pitzal, Austria. She placed seventh and 18th at Word Cup races Dec. 21-22 in Cervinia, Italy, and was second and fifth in Nor-Am events at Panorama, Jan 8-9.
Dickson 51st in world junior pursuit race
Citizen staff
Nadia Moser of Whitehorse just missed the world junior biathlon championships medal podium, finishing fourth Sunday in the women’s 10-kilometre pursuit in Osrblie, Slovakia. Moser started the race in 15th place, her sprint result on Saturday. She hit 16 of 20 targets in four shooting bouts in the pursuit and finished 27.7 seconds behind race winner Ekaterina Bekh of Ukraine, who covered the course in 31:23.8.
Hanna Kebinger of Germany (+9.1) and Sophie Chauveau of France (+16.4) took silver and bronze. Emily Dickson, a Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member from Burns Lake, was 51st (+5:48.4), after posting a 56th-place result in the sprint. She missed eight of 20 targets. Larissa Black of Calgary was 53rd (+7:39.0).
Vebjoern Soerum of Norway won the junior men’s 12.5 km pursuit Sunday, clocking 32:47.2. Martin Bourgeois Republique of France and Sivert Guttorm
of
in the sprint.
Bakken
Norway took silver and bronze. Leo Grandbois of Sherbrooke, Que., was the top Canadian in 38th place after finishing 16th
OVECHKIN
Leafs lock up Matthews Lowry steps up for Raptors
Dave ZEITLIN Citizen news service
PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Lowry doesn’t want to play for any team but Toronto.
A detour through his hometown is always welcome, though. Lowry had a big first half amid reports that Toronto has offered him in a trade, Kawhi Leonard finished with 24 points, and the Raptors held off the Philadelphia 76ers 119-107 on Tuesday night in a matchup between two of the Eastern Conference’s top teams.
Lowry, a Philadelphia native and former Villanova star, had 17 points in the first half and finished with 20. He seemed unfazed by a report from Sports Illustrated that Toronto had offered him to Memphis as part of a trade package for Mike Conley and Marc Gasol.
“I personally want to be in Toronto,” Lowry said. “I’ve never asked for a trade. My goal is to try to win a championship here, and that’s what I want to do.”
Serge Ibaka also had 20 points to help the Raptors overcome the Joel Embiid-led Sixers. Embiid had 37 points and 13 rebounds for his league-leading 44th double-double, while Ben Simmons scored 20 points and Jimmy Butler had 18. With the Sixers trailing by 18 early in the fourth quarter, Embiid ripped off 12 points in a threeminute stretch to slice Toronto’s lead to 108-101 with 6:59 left and get the home crowd on its feet for the first time all night. But the Raptors (39-16) never let the Sixers (34-20) get closer than seven.
“Offensively, defensively, they were just better than us,” Embiid said. “But I’m proud of our effort in the second half.”
After erupting for 40 points in the first quarter behind 11-for11 shooting from the free-throw line, the Raptors built a 21-point advantage midway through the second quarter. Lowry, who missed Toronto’s last game due
to back soreness, fueled the run with three three-pointers in a twominute stretch.
“He was awesome,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “You know, that’s Kyle in a super-focused game. He took his threes, he took his deep ones, he took some drives. Whenever you see him pull that little slam-on-the-brakes, spin-to-the-left fadeaway, you know he’s in the game right.”
Lowry added another three, which bounced all around the rim before dropping in, four minutes before halftime to help Toronto take a 72-55 lead into the break – the Raptors’ best offensive first half of the season.
“I love playing at home,” Lowry said. “My mom’s in the building. It’s different.”
The Sixers were without two starters as Wilson Chandler
(quad) missed his second straight game while JJ Redick was a late scratch due to nausea.
That led to the team’s Big 3 of Embiid (42 minutes), Simmons (44 minutes) and Butler (39 minutes) all playing more than coach Brett Brown would have liked.
“We got two days off before we played and I just felt like it was our only chance to win,” Brown said. “But it is not an ideal volume of minutes that I played them.”
While the Raptors had a big offensive performance, they were mostly proud of the work they put in on the defensive end. That includes forcing Simmons into six turnovers.
“He’s a great player, very good at getting to the basket and finding his teammates,” Leonard said. “I just tried my best to get in the passing lane and stick to our game plan.”
Tip-ins
Raptors: Toronto is now 17-11 on the road this season, the third best mark in the league. The Raptors’ next two games will also be away from home. ... Toronto won the season series with Philadelphia, 3-1, with the Sixers’ only win coming on Dec. 22 when the Raptors were missing Leonard and Ibaka, their top two scorers this season.
76ers: Tuesday’s game marked the start of a four-game homestand after a 2-2 road swing out West. ... Some of the biggest cheers of the night came in the pregame when Sixers great Allen Iverson rang the team’s ceremonial bell at midcourt. ... This was Embiid’s NBA-leading 22nd game this season with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds.
Homan seeking apology after ‘disappointing incident’ at provincials
Gregory STRONG Citizen news service
Simmering tension regarding provincial eligibility and residency rules appeared to boil over at the recent Ontario curling championship, leaving skip Rachel Homan seeking an apology and the provincial association launching a review into a harassment complaint.
A number of curlers in the competition, long upset that Homan’s team was eligible despite two players primarily living out of province, voted for her to win the competition’s sportsmanship award in an apparent mock gesture, sources told The Canadian Press on Tuesday.
The player vote was conducted last Thursday and Homan was presented with the award Friday at the Woolwich Memorial Centre in Elmira, Ont. She went on to win the competition Saturday and will represent Ontario at the upcoming national championship in Sydney, N.S.
On Tuesday, Homan issued a statement on Twitter that included the post: “Let’s be better than yesterday. Stand up and speak out #antibullying.”
She did not reveal specifics, only saying an incident occurred at the Ontario playdowns that
was “disappointing” and “hurtful and disrespectful to all of those involved.”
“On a positive note, many have come forward to apologize and take responsibility for their participation,” Homan said in the statement. “It takes a lot of courage to do so. We appreciate that we all make mistakes and there is a lot of room for forgiveness. To those still attempting to hide and take no responsibility, it is a shame. We are simply seeking an apology.
“To personally tear someone down for reasons we may never know, is not a part of curling. There is no place for bullying in or out of sport.”
Messages left with several curlers who played in the competition were not immediately returned.
Team Homan declined to comment further.
At least three of the four players on a team must live in the same province, according to residency policy agreed to by Curling Canada and its member associations.
Team Homan second Joanne Courtney is based in Edmonton and is the rink’s so-called ‘import’ player.
Homan, meanwhile, goes to school in Edmonton, her husband lives in St. Paul, Alta., and she maintains a residence in her native Ottawa.
She can compete in the Ontario championship under an exemption for full-time post-secondary on-campus students, who can play either out of the province where they’re attending school or where they have a residence.
Homan has not violated any residency rules, which have long been an issue in the domestic curling world and are expected to be updated again over the coming months.
However, some Ontario players have remained frustrated since learning of Homan’s residence situation this season, sources said, wondering whether a student exemption should be used by a player who has regular travel commitments, is a full-time curler, and only resides in the province on a rare or part-time basis.
Ontario Curling Association executive director Stephen Chenier said one player had formally questioned Homan’s eligibility.
“I confirmed CurlON and Curling Canada had received the documents required under the current residency policy and that Team Homan was eligible,” Chenier said in an email. “The player was satisfied and no other challenges were received.”
Homan, a three-time national champion who represented Canada at last year’s Pyeongchang
Olympics, currently holds the No. 1 position in the world rankings.
In her statement, Homan also said her team would be making a donation to an anti-bullying campaign in Ottawa.
“I’m sure at one point we have all been in the wrong; whether we were the bully, the ones who jumped on board, or the bystander that didn’t speak up,” she said. “We need to learn from mistakes of the past and of others to be better. It’s OK to speak up, to reach out. Bullies should never win.”
Also Tuesday, CurlON confirmed a review was underway involving an “individual who was in the arena.”
“All I can say is that we have received a harassment complaint against an individual – not a participant in the event,” Chenier said. “We’ve initiated a review. We have a harassment policy and so we’re in that due process right now. Until both parties have had an opportunity for their day in court, for lack of a better term, I really can’t comment further than that.”
The association has asked witnesses for a written report and will have involved parties speak to a CurlON review committee, Chenier said. Once a decision is made by Chenier and two board members, potential disciplinary action could be applied.
The
signed their 21-year-old star centre Tuesday to a US$58.17, five-year contract extension with an average annual value of $11.634 million.
Matthews will be 26 when the deal expires in 2023-24. Unless something untoward happens in between, an even bigger Brink’s truck will be needed then, given he will be an unrestricted free agent.
“Regardless if I’m making $1 or $11 million, I’m not going to change who I am,” a relaxed Matthews told eight TV cameras and a phalanx of some three dozen media squeezed into in the Leafs dressing room.
“Nothing really changes for me,” he added. “I’m going to be myself every day. I’m going to have fun. I get to play hockey and do what I love. Now I’m fortunate to do it for a lot of money... I feel very fortunate and very lucky – especially to do it in a city of Toronto.”
Signing Matthews now gives Leafs GM Kyle Dubas a clearer picture of his salary cap ahead with the Feb. 25 trade deadline looming.
With William Nylander signing a six-year extension in December – with an average annual value of $10.2 million this season and $6.9 million in the next five – and veteran John Tavares on Year 1 of a seven-year, $77-million deal, the focus now switches to 21-year-old winger Mitch Marner.
Like Marner, Matthews was eligible to become a restricted free agent on July 1 after their three-year entry-level deals expire. Contract talks with Marner, however, have been put on hold until after the season at agent Darren Ferris’s request.
“We’re respecting the wishes of Darren,” said Dubas. “If they were to change their stance on it, then we’re open to that. But for right now, we’ll respect their wishes and we’ll carry on with the season here.”
Added Dubas: “When they’re ready to sit down, we’ll talk. He’s going to be a Toronto Maple Leaf for a long time, regardless of how we have to come to that.”
In addition to Marner, Toronto has some more loose ends. Forwards Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson and backup goalie Garret Sparks are eligible to become restricted free agents while defenceman Jake Gardiner and Ron Hainsey are headed towards unrestricted free agency.
The goal is to keep the Toronto talent together for as long as possible. Going into league play Tuesday, the Leafs ranked fourth in the league with a 3217-3 record.
Dubas said talks over a new deal for Matthews started last July with Matthews adding they talked contracts with a range in terms from three years to eight. The Matthews camp initially wanted longer term, which carries a higher average annual value, but agreed on the fiveyear deal giving the Leafs more flexibility, Dubas suggested.
Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, left, tries to get a shot past Mike Muscala of the Philadelphia 76ers during the second half of Tuesday’s game in Philadelphia. Toronto won 119-107.
Like a hurricane
Luke Combs took his own path to the top of Nashville
Citizen news service
About three years ago, songwriter Jonathan Singleton was at a bar in Nashville when a singer he didn’t recognize took the stage. Suddenly, the crowd started buzzing, as though a superstar had just arrived. “What is happening?” Singleton asked his friends, but they didn’t know, either. Singleton caught the singer’s name and then discreetly took out his phone to Google: who is Luke Combs?
Singleton had no idea that soon it would be tough to find a country music listener who didn’t know the answer. But at that moment, as he heard Combs’s powerhouse voice belt out a song called Hurricane, he knew that he wanted to work with the guy. A few months later, Singleton signed Combs to a publishing deal with Big Machine Music. And Hurricane would eventually go triple platinum.
Fast-forward to now, and Combs, 28, has shot to stardom so quickly that it’s startling to almost everyone, including him. After he landed a record deal with Sony Music’s Columbia Nashville in fall 2016, his first four singles reached No. 1 on the radio, with the fifth (Beautiful Crazy) expected to soon hit the top of the chart. His debut record, This One’s For You, was the highestselling country album of 2018. Most of the dates on his first arena headlining tour are already sold out. On Sunday, he’ll be in the national spotlight at the Grammy Awards, where he’s nominated for best new artist.
“It’s really the fastest thing I’ve ever seen in this town,” said Singleton, who has written hits for Tim McGraw, Billy Currington, Gary Allan and others. The thing he remembers most from that first night is how loudly fans sang along to Combs’s songs, which had found early popularity online. “He really hit the nail on the head of what they were looking for.”
It has all led to an enduring mystery that everyone in Nashville wants to solve – how other singers can replicate Combs’s success.
“People always ask me, ‘What’s the secret?’” Combs said, laughing. “If I knew what it was, I would be bottling it and selling it instead of what I’m doing now. I would be trying to manufacture whatever it is.”
Pressed for an answer, Combs will offer that it’s a combination of things: Hard work.
sacrifice. Luck. Timing. Surrounding yourself with trustworthy people. Writing songs that you yourself would want to hear on the radio.
Others point to Combs’s traditional ‘90s country-influenced sound, which, combined with modern production, struck a chord with fans, or suggest that some singers just have that intangible X-factor. Rob Williford, Combs’ bandleader and frequent songwriting partner, has another theory.
“I genuinely think for him, it’s nothing but the lack of trying to have a brand. It’s literally authenticity at its core. It’s unabashed, ‘This is who I am.’ It’s the lyric, it’s the melodies, it’s the production, it’s the guy that goes onstage in a black PFG shirt every night,” Williford said of Combs’s signature performance fishing gear apparel. “It’s 100 per cent authentic. You can’t fool people when it comes to that.”
When Combs moved to Nashville in September 2014, a “brand” was the furthest thing from his mind. A North Carolina native, Combs had enjoyed singing in middle school and high school but first picked up a guitar in college at Appalachian State University about 2011. He started out playing gigs at the same bar where he worked in Boone, N.C., and persuaded his boss to charge $1 a ticket – he made $200 one
night, and it dawned on him that maybe, one day, he could earn a living playing music. He scraped together enough cash to record two EPs and posted performance videos to Facebook and Vine. He racked up thousands of followers and began playing every bar in the area, sometimes with a crowd of a few hundred. Combs’s music idol was Eric Church, a fellow North Carolinian who proved you can pave your own way in Nashville, as long as you build a solid fan base first.
The strategy paid off, especially with Hurricane, which Combs wrote with Thomas Archer and Taylor Phillips. Even though he didn’t think it was “outstandingly memorable,” he uploaded it to iTunes; it sold nearly 15,000 copies in a week. The song, describing the jolt of unexpectedly seeing an ex, became Combs’ first hit. He used the money from Hurricane to master another EP. It caught the attention of a booking agent, a manager and other influential people in town. Then he signed with Columbia Nashville, a joint deal with independent label River House Artists.
Although the plan was to slowly and deliberately build his fan base, his singles turned into streaming and radio smashes and sold faster than expected: When It Rains It Pours, about a guy who gets
Ghost haunts Grammys
Citizen news service
The first time Tobias Forge walked up to collect a Grammy, few people knew his name – and that was purposeful.
The leader of the Swedish metal group Ghost fiercely protected his anonymity and hid behind thick ghoulish makeup. Things will be different if he wins this year.
If Forge’s band’s name is called, he will go up as himself, leaving aside his alter ego. He has two chances: Ghost is up for best rock album and best rock song. It’s a category switch from 2016, when it won for best metal performance.
Forge, who creates demonic characters for every album, has slipped into his latest, the creepy Cardinal Copia, to tour with the new CD, Prequelle, which continues the band’s ability to mix the metal of Scorpions or Ratt with a surprisingly tight sax solo. Forge was unmasked in 2017 when former band members sued him, forcing him to reveal his identity.
Prequelle hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and No. 1 on the top rock album list, spawning the Top 20 rock hits Rats and Dance Macabre. Forge took time out from Ghost’s European tour to chat by phone. In 2016, you seemed kind of restrained for a guy who just won a
Grammy. Were you playing it cool?
Forge: I guess I am a somewhat composed guy. But, obviously, the last time you saw me there, also, we were in character. And it doesn’t really translate very well. Any sentiments you may have – unless it’s wrath – it won’t show very well. But I was ecstatic, absolutely.
Will you attend the awards in character this time?
Forge: From a comfort level and just to make it doable, we’re just leaving the Cardinal in Germany to wait for us to come back.
At the ‘16 Grammys, you competed in the metal category. This year, you’re in two rock categories. Have they changed the way they look at you or have you changed your approach to music?
Forge: Each record is its own being but you will recognize the style – there are certain fingerprints in there, there are certain traces of DNA – that will be unmistakably mine. But I personally don’t believe that our step is so far out of the zone that we should naturally change categories.
Is being in the rock category more intimidating?
Forge: All of a sudden, you’re playing with the big boys and girls. Over time, the best rock category has had Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, The Killers
– all these bands that are obviously bigger than we are. You’re playing in a different league. I don’t feel certain about winning at all. I wouldn’t even if we were in the metal category. We’ll see what happens. I’m just happy to be nominated once again.
The Grammys seem to have a fluid idea of what you make. How do you call what you do?
Forge: I don’t feel the need to categorize what we do. Let me put it this way, if I’m in a cab, and the cab driver says, “What do you sound like?” Depending on the age, if it’s someone likely to know who Alice Cooper is, I’d say, “Well, it’s theatrical rock, kind of like Alice Cooper or Kiss.” That’s basically what it is in laymen’s terms. At the end of the day, I think that the easiest way to explain it is melodic rock music with a big theatrical presentation. You’ll be opening for Metallica on tour this summer. How does that feel?
Forge: I grew up with Metallica. Definitely from an early age, I became a fan. They’ve inspired me tremendously. Obviously, one of my favourite bands. A huge inspiration musically. They’ve been mentors without practically doing it themselves. They’ve always mentored me. Without them, I wouldn’t be here.
dumped and then has a streak of good luck; One Number Away, about the temptation to call an ex; She Got the Best Of Me, the aftermath of a rough breakup; and Beautiful Crazy, a much more optimistic tune, inspired by his girlfriend-turned-recent fiancee, Nicole Hocking. Last week, Combs became the first solo artist since Tim McGraw in 2000 to have two songs simultaneously in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country Airplay chart. (“Welcome to the club buddy,” McGraw tweeted to Combs.)
But even as Combs has gone from playing for 250 people in bars to selling out 12,500seat arenas, he’s determined not to forget his working-class roots, his true connection with his die-hard fans. He still wears his black PFG shirt onstage every night, and although that resulted in an endorsement deal with Columbia Sportswear, his fans just see the guy with a beard and black shirt and hat and boots, dressed very similarly to them. Singleton said they call those fans “Luke-alikes.”
“When those fans are there, they see themselves up there,” Fulcher said, adding that Combs often tells his audience, “If I can do this, you can literally do whatever your dream is.”
“He really believes that... when he says it, the resonance really strikes people.”
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Ghost poses with the Grammy for best metal performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards. Ghost is up for best rock album and best rock song at the Grammys this Sunday.
Personal
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Luke Combs is up for a Grammy Award for best new artist.
CHERYL ARLENE
TOPOROWSKI
born in Outlook, Saskatchewan in 1952, passed away in Prince George, February 4th, 2019. Cheryl is survived by her sons; Leroy and Trent (Helena), daughter Sherry Rempel as well her grandchildren Caitlin, Logan and Tejay. She is also survived by her brothers; Wilfred, Gerald and Willard McNernie, sisters Lillian Forester and Lavena Bardell and her special friend Wayne. Cheryl had a love for angels. She spread her wings and flew with the angels on February 4th, 2019. She is loved and missed by her children and grandchildren. No service by her request.
Carl Felix Bjorklund
November 13, 1940February 1, 2019
Carl passed away peacefully with family by his side. He was predeceased by his wives Mary, and Cita, parents and siblings. Carl is survived by his first wife Mae and his children Sharon (Bill), Lloyd (Ruby), Vincent, Karl, Donna, Duwayne, Cheryl (Mike), Curtis, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and many other family members and loyal friends. Carl was born and raised in Prince George. Throughout the years, he accomplished many things. He was in the logging and trucking industry, also a successful business man, he loved the outdoors and truly enjoyed fishing with his buddies. Carl was gentle, kind, giving, and compassionate and his genuine smile would warm your heart. He has met so many wonderful people over the years and he was truly grateful for all the wonderful friendships that came of it. Carl will be deeply missed by his family and friends whom he cherished. A funeral service will be held on Friday, February 8, 2019 at 1:00pm at Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church, 2658 S. Ospika, with a viewing held prior to the service at 12:00 noon at Westwood Mennonite Church. Carl will be laid to rest in the Prince George Cemetery. Following the interment, friends are welcome to join the family at Westwood Church for some snacks and refreshments.
DUFTON, Jeremy
It is with the saddest of hearts that we announce that Jeremy Dufton, age 44, our beloved son, brother and friend passed away suddenly on January 31, 2019. Jeremy loved everything outdoors. He enjoyed photography, fishing, surfing and gardening. Our family will always remember his passion for nature and wildlife. He was happiest when he was on a river, somewhere remote in Northern BC. Jeremy was an accomplished fly fisherman and was so proud to have worked as a fly fishing guide. Jeremy was a kind person who always wanted to help others. He inspired and comforted many. Jeremy leaves behind his father, John Dufton; mother, Ann Dufton; sister, Kate Cahill; brother, Ian Dufton and nephews, Owen, Liam and Jackson as well as numerous friends in Victoria and beyond.
“We miss you and want you to know that you will always be loved and never forgotten.”
A Celebration of Life will be held in the Sequoia Centre at McCall Gardens, 4665 Falaise Drive in Victoria at 2:00 pm on Monday, February 11, 2019. Memorial donations may be made to Umbrella Society for Addictions and Mental Health. Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccallgardens.com
McCall Gardens of Victoria, BC (1-800-870-4210)
SCHWEDA, MARGARET TERESA June 12, 1928 — January 30, 2019.
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our Mom. She was predeceased by her husband Paul Schweda, sisters Thelma and Norah. She is survived by her 3 daughters, Debbie, Karen and Terri and sister Kandy. 7 grandchildren and many great grandchildren. Margaret moved from North Vancouver in 1949 and started teaching in Shelley, BC and then taught at Connaught Elem./ Ron Brent for 42 years. She will be missed by all who knew her. There is no service by request.
NORMA WARR Died suddenly January 30, 2019 at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. She was the most important person to Mike and a caring mother for Stephen and Julie (now deceased).
Norma worked at Sears for many years before retiring with Mike. She enjoyed European travel, and held the fort when Mike was off on Antarctic cruises. We both enjoyed reading so we met in a bookstore. Her favourite music was The Marriage of Figaro. There will be no service. Donate to charities of your choice. Norma will be remembered by friends and family and as Mike’s best friend.
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