Prince George Citizen January 15, 2019

The Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre has extended the showing of the

continuing every Wednesday thereafter for the

Museum extending stay of Fox exhibit

FrankPEEBLES Citizen staff

fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Prince George and Terry Fox have run together since before the start of the Marathon of Hope and a few more strides were added Monday.

Fate played an historically important card when Fox first used Prince George’s fall marathon to test his abilities to run a significant distance on his prosthetic leg. It worked, and crossing the Prince George to Boston finish line in 1979 broke the final ribbon in

Fox’s mind that he could indeed attempt the famed run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer causes. (As an added twist of kismet, a wheelchair athlete named Rick Hansen also used the 1979 marathon for the same reason.)

The special connection between Fox and Prince George is why a statue of the national hero stands at Community Foundation Park where that marathon had its starting line. It is also why The Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre

RCMP to review arrests at pipeline blockade

LauraKANE Citizen news service

SURREY — The RCMP will review the actions of officers who arrested 14 people at an Indigenous pipeline blockade in northwestern British Columbia, and will also erect a temporary detachment to maintain safety in the area.

The Mounties enforced a court injunction Jan. 7 allowing Coastal GasLink workers and contractors access to a work site where a natural gas pipeline is planned near Houston. Assistant commissioner Eric Stubbs held a news conference Monday to provide more details about the police operation, in the wake of criticism from Indigenous leaders that the use of force was excessive.

“I appreciate that for those directly involved with the police at the barricade, it was an emotional situation,” he said. “I also understand that there are some concerns surrounding our actions on Jan. 7.”

The RCMP will conduct a review of the incident that will produce recommendations to address any issues and identify the parts of the operation that went well, as it does with any major operation, he said. There is ample evidence available to assist with the review, including the use of bodyworn cameras, drone and helicopter video and publicly available video, he added.

An RCMP member looks on as representatives from Coastal GasLink drive toward the Unist’ot’en camp, through the exclusion zone at the 27-kilometre marker, to remove barriers on a bridge over the Morice River on Friday.

“To date, we have not yet identified any

issues regarding police officer conduct. However, it is important that we engage

was granted the chance to host the official Terry Fox legacy display that has been on display there throughout the autumn, and definitely why Terry Fox: Running to the Heart of Canada has now been held over for two very fateful reasons.

— see FOX’S BROTHER, page 3

with the hereditary chiefs and any other involved persons,” Stubbs said.

He said police have been engaging with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs since the approval of the pipeline, which would carry natural gas to an export terminal in Kitimat as part of a $40-billion LNG Canada project.

“We had hoped... the terms of the injunction order would be met through dialogue and the need for enforcement would not be required,” he said.

After the court order was issued, protesters erected a second blockade on a forestry road. Given the remoteness of the location and the unpredictable situation, Mounties developed an operational plan that included moving additional forces into the area, Stubbs said.

Local Indigenous leaders gave officers cultural awareness training as a part of the plan, he added.

RCMP made “every effort” to peacefully resolve the situation, but could not reach a deal and so enforcement actions commenced late in the day on Jan. 7, he said.

Initially, the primary role of the officers who climbed over the barricade was to make the situation safe so they could remove a gate erected by the protesters, as directed by the court order, he said. see TIMELINE, page 3

Bus service remains in limbo

MarkNIELSEN

Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

An effort to get a bus service connecting Prince George to the Lower Mainland continues to struggle to get on the road.

In October, the provincial Passenger Transportation Board granted Merritt Shuttle Bus Services Ltd. permission to establish a long-haul route from this city to Langley, as well as to the Southern Interior but the proponents have been unable to raise the cash they need to start the operation.

We are sorry to say that our funding just seems to be a huge roadblock for us right now...

— Gene Field and David Brule

“We are sorry to say that our funding just seems to be a huge roadblock for us right now...we have had some investors show interest but no one wants to commit yet,” co-owners Gene Field and David Brule said in a Dec. 21 posting on Facebook.

A letter-writing and e-mailing campaign to convince municipalities, First Nations and the provincial government to help out has fallen flat, they added.

“The government has refused to even try to provide some funding for us, despite every one’s best efforts.

“We thank you for your patience and efforts though. We have had many people phone/ email the government offices on our behalf and we are so thankful.” They remain hopeful, however, saying they know how much the service is needed.

“Basically at this point we need an investor or two to come forward. We will make it worth their while, that’s for certain.”

see OWNERS, page 3

Clearing the way

A City of Prince George worker blows snow off the trails in Cottonwood Island Park on Monday afternoon.

COURT DOCKET

From Prince George provincial court, January 7-11, 2019:

• Frank Ambrose Bennett (born 1973) was sentenced to time served for breaching probation. Bennett was in custody for 22 days prior to sentencing.

• Joseph Paul Flieger (born 1957) was prohibited from driving for two years and fined $750 for driving while disqualified under the Criminal Code.

• Bradley Lorne Johnson (born 1980) was issued a six-month $500 recognizance after allegation of causing fear of injury or damage.

• Nathan Aaron David Peters (born 1985) was sentenced to 60 days in jail for theft $5,000 or under and to three days in jail for a separate count of theft $5,000 or under and to one year probation on the charges. Peters was in custody for 17 days prior to sentencing.

• Vincent Edward Roy Peters (born 1965) was sentenced to one year in jail and issued a

lifetime firearms prohibition for three counts of trafficking in a controlled substance.

• Janessa Cora Alexis (born 1993) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 plus a $150 victim surcharge for driving while prohibited under the Motor Vehicle Act.

• Gurmit Singh Bisra (born 1959) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 for driving while impaired, committed in McBride.

• Jordan Allan Lalonde (born 1994) was sentenced to 15 days in jail for two counts of breaching probation. Lalonde was in custody for 19 days prior to sentencing.

• Kelte Oleen Simon (born 1980) was sentenced to one year probation and fined $200 for theft $5,000 or under, committed in Mackenzie.

• Michael Glenn Stenson (born 1983) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $500 plus a $75 victim surcharge for driving

while prohibited or licence suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

• James Edward Wight (born 1975) was sentenced to 72 days in jail for three counts of breaching probation. Wight was in custody for 10 days prior to sentencing.

• Leah Danielle Brisson (born 1991) was sentenced to 30 months probation with a suspended sentence, issued a 10-year firearms prohibition and ordered to provide a DNA sample for possession of a controlled substance.

• Adam James Robert Gibson (born 1984) was sentenced to 25 days in jail for theft $5,000 or under and breaching probation. Gibson was in custody for one day prior to sentencing.

• Craig Anthony Niedermayer (born 1976) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 plus a $150 victim surcharge for driving while prohibited or licence suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.

Fox’s brother ‘thrilled’ with decision

from page 1

The first factor is how successful it’s been. The Exploration Place has rarely seen an audience outpouring like this display has generated. It has been a box office smash.

The Terry Fox Centre has been looking for a place where the exhibition can have a permanent home and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in Calgary agreed to host it for an extensive period of time. These negotiations did not allow for the show to leave Prince George and move into the Hall seamlessly and it is difficult to store such artifacts unless it is inside the regimented climate controls of a Class-A gallery.

With some quick stickhandling, the goodwill of another exhibition agency and the support of some local Prince George sponsors, it was made possible for The Exploration Place to hang onto this display for another month, giving the public here one more chance to see one of the most popular shows it has ever hosted.

“We are thrilled that the residents of Prince George and area have been offered the opportunity to experience the Terry Fox exhibit for another month,” said Darrell Fox, Terry’s brother and one of the main organizers of the exhibit. “The Exploration Place team has shown a sincere and impassioned appreciation for all things Terry and for this we are eternally grateful.”

They had help.

First, the Canadian Museum of History and the Sherbrooke Museum of Science & Nature had to agree to postpone the opening of their exhibit – the one scheduled

to replace the Terry Fox show. But there was no way to postpone the arrival of all the incoming artifacts and specimens in their travel crates.

It was a love for Terry Fox that motivated the officials at these other institutions to work out a compromise.

“While we are very grateful to

our partner institutions for their dedication and flexibility, this is, after all, what Canada expects of their museum professionals; to safeguard those objects that hold our collective memory,” said The Exploration Place CEO Tracy Calogheros.

Next came the necessary help of Terry Fox Run coordinator

Motorcycle death deemed accidental

Citizen staff

A coroner has classified as accidental the death of a 57-year-old man following a September 2017 collision between the motorcycle he was riding and a minivan.

The man, whose name was redacted, was heading north on Highway 97 when, at about 5:45 p.m., the driver of the southbound minivan turned left onto Nordic Road and struck the oncoming motorcycle.

The victim was found in a ditch several metres away and died in hospital about an hour after emergency personnel were called to the scene.

The incident occurred in daylight hours,

sun glare was ruled out as a factor, the road was dry, the man was wearing a helmet at the time and no mechanical defects were noted on either vehicle.

But, according to the coroner’s report, methamphetamine at a level where toxic effects have been reported was found in the man’s system during a subsequent exam.

The speed limit at the spot is 80 km/h and there were no skid marks from the motorcycle while damage to the van’s front end was more significant on the left side, consistent with the driver making a left turn at the time.

“I classify this death as accidental and make no recommendations,” coroner Nola Currie concluded in the report.

Hydro denies unsightliness claim

Citizen staff

B.C. Hydro is denying a Prince George man’s claim that the appearance of the utility’s Chief Lake substation has made his neighbouring property unsightly.

In a notice of claim filed in September 2017, Peter Houghton alleges that Hydro’s decision to remove all the vegetation from around the substation has decreased if not eliminated the enjoyment of his own land and significantly reduced its value.

Timeline for review unknown: Stubbs

— from page 1

“The situation was challenging,” he said. “The protesters’ reaction to the police ranged from passive resistance to active resistance to actual assaultive behaviour.”

One person secured him/herself to the barricade, while two others attached themselves to the underside of a bus that was blocking access to a bridge and another was suspended in a hammock from the bridge, he said.

There were also fires nearby that caused significant safety concerns, Stubbs added.

After the arrests, the RCMP worked to establish a dialogue with the hereditary chiefs, he said, leading to an agreement last Thursday allowing for access by the company across the bridge.

The implementation of the agreement occurred over the weekend without any significant issues, he said.

Stubbs said the deal included a framework for continued police presence in the area and RCMP are in the process of bringing in a temporary detachment that will support safety in the area.

The hereditary chiefs have offered to provide cultural awareness training to all members assigned to the detachment, he added.

He said it hasn’t been determined yet how long the detachment will stay in the area.

A timeline for the review also has not yet been established, but Stubbs said he understands there is “urgency.” It hasn’t been determined yet whether a report would be made public or whether its findings would be summarized in a news release, he said.

transaction were covered by another sponsor, PG Recycling and Return-it Centre.

“Austin Kim, owner of PG Recycling and Return-it Centre, will not only support this extension with a donation, but he will make it possible for the whole community to help out, too,” McWalter said. “He will donate 100 per cent of his charity donation bin program to The Exploration Place from Feb. 1 to Apr. 30. It is projected that these bins will accumulate approximately $1,000 a month. So far, since 2015, these bins have raised over $45,000 for over a dozen local charities and nonprofit organizations.”

Scouten said this “great new partnership” was important income at a critical time for The Exploration Place and she encouraged the public to donate into the boxes located at Canadian Tire, the YMCA, CN Centre, Sign-patico and at the 2614 Petersen Road headquarters to maximize the benefit.

Calogheros added that staffing at The Exploration Place was being juggled, due to this new chance to host the Terry Fox show another month. They heard from the public that people were keen to see the display but couldn’t always get there, with work and school to consider.

Scott McWalter and The Exploration Place board chair Katherine Scouten, who started reaching out to personal contacts to get the crates in limbo into warm, dry, secure storage. Local company Mason Lift stepped up to help with transportation and warehouse space.

The cash implications of this

But in a response filed in November, Hydro says the work was done for safety reasons and that it has the legal right to carry out such work.

Houghton is seeking compensation under the Expropriation Act. The allegations have not yet been tested in court.

“I have had the chance to huddle with my management team and we are going to run some evening hours during the extended Terry Fox exhibit,” she said. “Starting Jan. 22 and continuing every Wednesday thereafter for the duration of the exhibit, we will be open until 8 p.m.”

Owners lack previous experience

— from page 2

Through an expedited process following Greyhound Canada’s decision to pull out of Western Canada, the company won permission to run eight 22-passenger shuttle-sized buses along four routes centred on Merritt but also serving Prince George, Langley, Kamloops and Kelowna.

Under the terms the PTB has set out, frequency of service along those routes must be at least three round trips a week.

MSBS also won permission to run four 48-passenger buses twice a day between the Highland Valley Copper Mine and Merritt and Kamloops.

Neither Field, who is the operations director, nor partner Brule, who is the marketing director, have previous experience in operating bus services. Their backgrounds include experience in the military, security and retailing.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Tracy Calogheros, CEO of The Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre, speaks with media on Monday about the extension of the showing of the Terry Fox exhibit.

Straight talk for Trudeau

C“anada has a long and terrible history when it comes to Indigenous peoples,” Justin Trudeau says. “We have consistently failed as a country to live up to the original spirit and intent of the treaties. We have not treated the Indigenous peoples as partners and stewards of this land. We have marginalized and behaved in paternalistic, colonialistic (is this even a word?) ways that has lacked respect of the First Peoples as stewards of the land. We have much to apologize for and much to work forward on together in respect.”

Three things:

1. Canada is a country, it is merely a place; a chunk of land that wouldn’t have a name if someone hadn’t given it one. It doesn’t have a brain and it need not apologize.

2. Canadians are the people who live in the provinces of the country of Canada. We are smart and we are diverse; the French language and maple syrup don’t define us as a country or Canadians.

3. The Canadian government is merely an entity, NOT Canada in its entirety. The Canadian government is only the managing body of this chunk of land called Canada, mandated to manage on behalf of Canadian citizens.

When you say “Canada” has failed the First Peoples’, that “Canada” has a lot to work toward, you are misrepresenting our country and Canadians on the whole by placing blame and shame on all Canadian citizens.

The majority of Canadian citizens had nothing to do with the decolonization, genocide or the treatment of Indigenous peoples. Neither did we develop, write, implement or sign off on any treaties.

“We” have not consistently failed as a “country,” it is the government that has consistently failed, a government that makes independent decisions of all of the Canadian citizens that have supported it. Going forward, sir, it would do you wise, when you attempt your syrupy, half-hearted apologies to please be conscious and place the blame where it truly belongs, within the

government, not on your citizens’ shoulders.

By encompassing all Canadian citizens in your antagonistic apologies, it creates dissension, misunderstanding, racism and resentfulness within the collective consciousness of all Canadian citizens. It makes Canada and Canadian citizens appear dysfunctional and weak to International onlookers.

My letter to the world? Canadian citizens and Canada as a country do not accept the blame being placed upon us or accept ownership of the wrongs of a government that has historically and consistently mismanaged its affairs and the Canadian citizens in our country.

My letter to Canadian citizens?

Stop supporting a government that doesn’t support all of its citizens; a government that believes it is Canada and projects

blame onto us. It is not Canada, we are. Its job is to fairly manage and represent and it surely does not.

Stop voting and believing in a carrot that dangles in front of your face; commonly referred to as democracy or civic/social services and that “what your country can do for you” warrants your subservience, your blind-eye and the biting of your tongues.

Stop believing that voting is the one true way to democracy. Voting is a political constraint that is rigged and it always has been. It is a political mind game.

Stop believing a representative democracy is better than a direct democracy and that a direct democracy is unattainable on a large scale.

Do your homework.

The First Peoples of Canada have never operated on a voting system and survived quite nicely until the settlers arrived. Their

Over Christmas, I read Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari and I am now reading Factfulness by Hans Rosling. These two books have somewhat contrasting views of the world. In Homo Deus, Harari paints a picture of the world over the next century. His view includes the “internet of everything” and the rampant implementation of both machine learning and automation. Essentially, his argument is humans will be put out of work. Is he right? It is estimated seven per cent of the labour force has already been permanently replaced by robotics. Some manufacturing streams have essentially become fully automated with human intervention only at the start and the finish. With advances in technology, increasingly a larger portion of the labour force will become redundant.

For example, who needs taxi drivers once self-driving vehicles are fully realized? Or for that matter, what happens to truck drivers

when the long and short hauls can be handled by machine?

Similarly, railway engineers might become redundant as trains shift to computer control. Right now, many subways or light rail services are run by computers. There is no driver apparent for the Sky Train in Vancouver. But it is not just the transportation sector which will be at risk.

Google already has a computer AI which is diagnosing CT scans and mammography exams to aid doctors. An experimental computer algorithm correctly diagnosed 90 per cent of lung cancer cases versus a 50 per cent success rate for human doctors. In its first year of operation, a robot pharmacist successfully filled two million prescriptions without making a single mistake compared to flesh-andblood folk who err about 1.7 per cent of the time.

Amazon has an automated warehouse. Apple is working on home-based robots which can handle day-to-day tasks. Heck, the Roomba has been vacuuming floors for years.

Each task, by itself, doesn’t seem like a lot but various economists and think tanks estimate by 2030 almost half of all current jobs will be replaced by some form of artificial intelligence or robotic system. Which, of course, begs the question – what do all of the displaced workers do with their time?

In Factfulness, Rosling provides us with “Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think.” His premise is the world is a very different place once you look at the facts. For example, if you are asked “Where does the majority of the world’s population live? A: Low-income countries; B: Middleincome countries; C: High-income countries,” what would be your answer?

To some extent, the answer to this question depends upon where you live. It also likely depends upon how much you travel, what sort of newsfeed you listen to if

politics consisted of communication and respect among all the communities and their citizens.

Remember that we have a voice, that collectively it is strong, can be heard loud and clear and will evoke genuine change to create a country that overflows with abundance, respect, acceptance and pride.

Realize that you, we, are all independent of the government.

Realize there is a time for civil disobedience, like we’re seeing now over the pipeline. It is a peaceful and passive disobedience and it will prove fruitful but it won’t be enough to evoke change in the entire country.

Realize there’s also a time for civil unrest, for a citizen uprising, when we all stand peacefully, passively and strategically in togetherness, in solidarity, and demand a true democracy that works for us, for this chunk of land we all call home, despite any threats or revocations of a blameless and thoughtless government.

Realize that in order for things to stay the same, they have to change. When Canadian citizens finally stand and build a united front that is independent of the government or its current, corrupt voting system and demand our collective voice be heard, it is then and only then that we will realize a true democracy with a government that communicates with and offers its citizens as much support and respect as they want in return.

Take heed, learn from, stand with and mimic the actions of Canadian Indigenous peoples – they are a team, they know how to make change because they know there is no gain with no self-sacrificing pain. We are not weak.

We are not hopeless or helpless, but I would argue the government surely would be, should we all open our eyes, raise our heads and our voices, dig in our heels and take action on one platform rather than whine and accomplish nothing on the many.

Kind regards, mussi cho.

Tired of the moaning, victim mentality and lack of action.

Kelly Little, Prince George

Letters welcome

The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers.

Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7.

Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week.

We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length.

Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published.

The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour.

If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759).

If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844877-1163 for additional information.

any, and what was your socioeconomic status growing up. It depends on your worldview which is shaped by a multitude of inputs.

The correct answer is “B: Middle-income countries.” Of course, we can quibble about what constitutes a “middle-income country” and where the cut-offs should be. But Rosling’s argument is that most of us don’t know this. (If you would like to take his complete quiz on the status of the world, it is available at his website, the Gapminder Institute.)

The central theme of his book is there is a great deal we don’t know or understand about the world because we don’t have access to the data necessary to make good choices. But a secondary theme is the bulk of the population lying in the middle-income bracket is slowly and steadily working its way into the high-income zone by shifting labour markets.

This is being accomplished by increased levels of participation in the labour force. By workers being more educated and increasing their capacity to take on better paying jobs. It is an optimistic view of the world which essentially says

“education leads to better paying jobs and better paying jobs will lead to elimination of extreme poverty.”

This is where the contrast comes into play. In Homo Deus, Harari contends the very jobs supporting this workforce are the ones becoming obsolete. We are moving to the point where AIs and robotics will eliminate all of the mid-level jobs.

At the same time, Rosling contends it is exactly these mid-level jobs which will change the dynamics of the labour force in developing countries. It is by developing a ‘middle-class’ that countries will move their economic structure up the scale of human development. By 2050, we will have roughly 11 billion people on Earth. With a changing labour market driven by an electronic business model, for example, where food is grown on robotic farms, packaged in automated centres, shipped via self-driving vehicles, and cooked in ever increasingly sophisticated kitchens, what will people do? And how will be the vast majority of humans adapt to the new economic structure?

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a formal apology over the fate of the MS St. Louis and its passengers in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Nov. 7, 2018.

Young professionals fleeing Vancouver

Citizen new service

Iain Reeve and his wife moved from rental home to rental home in Vancouver but their final solution for secure housing was to move to Ottawa and buy two houses – one for them and another for his parents.

He and his wife, Cassandra Sclauzero, are professionals in their mid-30s who wanted to start a family but they couldn’t afford to buy in the city.

“We wanted to own a home to have stability, and peace of mind and flexibility,” Reeve said.

“The rental market didn’t have stability. We both had settled into pretty good first jobs. But as much as we loved the city and had these connections it wasn’t worth it.”

They were “kicked out” of a few places in three years through no fault of their own, he said, adding that it was because people were selling or flipping properties.

Reeve grew up and went to university in Vancouver.

“I also have parents who live in the Vancouver area who don’t own a home and are working class and not a ton of money saved for retirement, and I’m an only child,” he said. We just couldn’t even get our foot in the door in terms of stable housing.“

Reeve said he knows a number of people who are thinking of moving out of the city simply because of the housing market.

“Life is challenging enough, it’s so hard when you have (housing) insecurity all the time.”

Statistics show that Vancouver, and B.C. generally, is losing skilled workers to other parts of the country.

CMHC spokesman Leonard Catling said one of the main reasons people between the ages of 21 and 25 come to Metro Vancouver is for university but they move out as they get older.

A December news release from Statistics Canada shows that B.C.’s population crossed the five million mark for the first time because of international migration.

However, it lost about 1,200 people to other provinces in the third quarter of 2018 after 21 quarters of gains. Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia had the largest gains in population from other provinces.

Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said Vancouver is mostly able to attract people early in their careers, whether they come for education or a job, but it has a problem retaining talent. Even if they earn a relatively high wage, he said they can’t afford anything except condominiums.

“In a world like that, the labour pool has options,” he said, noting that other provinces offer much more housing for their salaries.

Finance Minister Carole James said in an interview “there’s no question that Vancouver is facing a brain drain.”

“Crisis is not too strong a word to describe

the challenges we are facing, not just in Vancouver, but other urban settings around our province,” she said.

In her budget speech last year, she said young professionals are moving out of the province because they can’t find housing.

Yan said Vancouver is losing people in certain age groups.

Those between 35 and 45 are usually at the apex of their careers and thinking about their first or second child.

But they might find themselves still having to share housing if they stay in Vancouver, he said.

“It doesn’t become cool when you’re 37 and have a roommate.”

In its December report on the housing market, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver pegged the average price of a detached home at a little more than $1 million. An apartment was about $664,100 and an attached home stood at about $809,700.

Figures from BC Assessment, the Crown agency that develops and maintains property assessments in the province, show the housing market is moderating with estimated value of some homes in Metro Vancouver dropping about 10 per cent.

Nationally, experts have said higher inter-

est rates and a new mortgage stress test have also had an impact on property prices across the country.

Yan said despite those changes housing in the Vancouver area remains unaffordable.

Kevin Olenick, who is in his mid-40s, moved back to Vancouver earlier this year. He grew up in Calgary and spent about six months in Kamloops.

“I’m one of the minority who would say moving back here makes sense,” he said, adding that the creative field he works in provides for more opportunities in Vancouver than in other places.

But he said he understands the challenges of living in Vancouver.

“You wouldn’t want to move here if you have a family. It’s especially tough to find a home and buy a home,” he said. “I’m renting... but if you’re looking to start a family I can certainly understand why you’re moving out of Vancouver.”

B.C. Ministry of Housing spokeswoman Melanie Kilpatrick said the government has announced measures that are helping to cool the real estate market and moderate prices with a 30-point housing plan.

Yan said that a study he did in 2018 shows that while home prices in Metro

Father, son killed by avalanche

Citizen news service

A father and son from Calgary have been identified as the victims of a large avalanche that swept down the side of a mountain in southeastern British Columbia.

RCMP say a group of nine snowmobilers was sledding Saturday on Mount Brewer in the Purcell Mountain range near Invermere when two people were swept away by what Avalanche Canada

describes as a slide “capable of breaking trees or destroying a small wood-frame building.

“The avalanche was reportedly triggered after one of the snowmobilers was high marking,” said RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk in a news release.

High marking is a popular sledding activity, where the rider drives straight up a steep slope as far as possible before turning and descending.

Avalanche Canada said in a post on its website that the 200- to 400-metre wide avalanche tore away the entire snowpack from the surface to the ground layer and continued for more than a kilometre down the mountainside before running onto a small lake.

A 51-year-old Calgary man managed to inflate an airbag designed to keep him at the surface of the slide but Avalanche Canada said he was buried under more than

UN issues warning to Canada over Site C

Citizen news service

A United Nations committee has warned Canada that continued construction of the Site C hydro dam in northeastern British Columbia may violate international agreements.

Two dead in highway crash

Citizen news service

Two people have been killed in a head-on crash in Nanaimo and the Independent Investigations Office has been notified because the RCMP saud one of its officers attempted to stop the driver of a pickup truck before the collision.

The crash happened early Monday, killing both drivers in two vehicles that collided in the northbound lanes of Highway 1.

The RCMP said the officer saw the pickup truck leave a home in the city just before 1 a.m. and when the officer tried to pull the vehicle over, it did not stop.

The RCMP said the officer last saw the truck heading southbound in the northbound lanes of the highway. The RCMP traffic unit and its collision analysis team are investigating the crash.

The Mounties said the Independent Investigations Office is investigating if the officer’s actions are linked to the deaths.

The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says Canada may have already violated an agreement it signed 50 years ago. That agreement commits Canada to prevent development on Indigenous land without adequate consultation.

two metres of snow.

Vancouver were still the highest in Canada, median household income was the lowest. The study also showed that Vancouver remained the least affordable city in the country.

Since both ownership and rental is becoming more and more difficult, other problems with the labour force are becoming clearer, he said.

James said the government is aware of the problem and working on it.

Jas Johal, the jobs critic for the B.C. Liberal party, said the NDP government needs to focus on increasing the supply of housing, not taxes.

The NDP government has limited rent increases to 2.5 per cent per year, starting this month. A speculation and vacancy tax was also introduced, aimed at moderating the housing market and creating more homes for renters.

But Yan said neither the speculation tax nor the vacancy tax will make much of a difference and if the city continues to lose workers it will lose its competitive edge.

“And I think that one of the biggest challenges is that how do you build an economy – one that’s knowledge based – when that population seems to be leaving the city?”

By the time he was found, rescuers could not revive him and the release said he was flown to Invermere and District Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A 24-year-old Calgary man, the son of the first victim, is still missing and is believed to have been swept into the lake, said Moskaluk. The names of the men haven’t been released.

Site C is currently subject to two civil lawsuits from First Nations.

B.C. Hydro says the dam is crucial to the province’s energy future and will have minimal environmental impact.

The committee has asked the Canadian government to reply by April 8.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

Iain Reeve and his wife Cassandra Sclauzero moved from rental home to rental home in Vancouver but their final solution for secure housing was to move to Ottawa and buy two houses, one for them and another for his parents.

Trudeau shuffles cabinet; demotes Wilson-Raybould

Citizen news service

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejigged his cabinet Monday, adding two new faces and a new ministry and rewarding competence and friendship.

However it was his decision to move Jody Wilson-Raybould that had tongues wagging in political circles, despite Trudeau’s insistence that her move from the senior justice portfolio to the junior veterans affairs post was not a demotion.

“I would caution anyone who thinks that serving our veterans and making sure they get the care to which they are so justly entitled from any Canadian government is anything other than a deep and awesome responsibility,” he told a news conference, saying the government owes “a sacred duty” to those who have served the country “with heroism and valour.”

Trudeau praised Wilson-Raybould for overseeing legalization of medical assistance in dying and legalization of cannabis, and said he needed her “tremendous skill in navigating very complex files” at Veterans Affairs.

The shuffle was precipitated by veteran Liberal Scott Brison’s surprise decision to retire from politics which left Trudeau’s cabinet without a representative from Nova Scotia and without a president of the Treasury Board.

The latter is a key economic post that oversees how the government is managed, how it spends money and how it goes about regulating many aspects of Canadians’ lives.

Jane Philpott, who has emerged as something of a fixer dispatched to put out political fires, was moved to Treasury Board while longtime Trudeau friend Seamus O’Regan took her place at Indigenous Services.

Bernadette Jordan, a backbencher from rural Nova Scotia, was tapped to take Brison’s role as her province’s cabinet representative.

But rather than move her into O’Regan’s previous slot at Veterans Affairs – which has often been used as a training ground for new ministers and would have minimized the number of changes the prime minister had to make – Trudeau created a whole new ministry for her: rural economic development.

The new role is an apparent bid to shore up Liberal support in rural areas, where the Conservatives tend to dominate. Trudeau also made a little history, with Jordan becoming the first female Nova Scotia MP to be named to a federal cabinet.

Jordan is tasked with creating a ruraldevelopment strategy, including bringing high-speed internet to rural communities and help in rural infrastructure development.

Trudeau’s decision to move Wilson-Raybould into Veterans Affairs resulted in the addition of Montreal MP David Lametti, a former law professor, to cabinet as the new justice minister.

Wilson-Raybould, heralded as Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister, has been, in many ways, the face of Trudeau’s commitment to make reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples his top priority.

Moving her to Veterans Affairs looks like a big step down.

Asked after her swearing-in ceremony if she was disappointed with the demotion, a subdued Wilson-Raybould said no. After a lengthy pause, she added: “I would say that I can think of no world in which I would consider working for our veterans in Canada as a demotion.”

Veterans Affairs has long been treated as a junior post by both Liberal and Conservative governments. Perhaps because of that, ministers have regularly gotten into trouble, accused of insensitivity to or betrayal of Canada’s military vets.

O’Regan had his own share of difficulties in the job, including coming under fire for likening the depression he felt upon leaving a high-profile career in journalism to the post-traumatic stress faced by some veterans.

For some Liberals, who’ve grumbled about Wilson-Raybould’s performance in

Justice, the move was long overdue. They have privately complained that she is difficult to get along with and a poor communicator who has taken what some consider a conservative, restrictive approach to respecting charter rights in a number of bills, including those dealing with assisted dying, impaired driving and genetic discrimination.

“I can’t imagine where you’ve been hearing that,” Wilson-Raybould said when asked about the grumblings. She said she’s “incredibly proud” of the work she did in Justice. She later took the unusual step of posting a long defence of her performance at Justice on her website, acknowledging that she’s received “many questions and inquires” about why she was shuffled out of that job. She said serving as justice minister “was one of the greatest privileges” of her life but suggested she’s accomplished everything in that post that Trudeau had asked of her.

On Twitter, Conservative MP Erin O’Toole said Philpott and Lametti “are solid performers and well regarded,” but called the remainder of Trudeau’s move “quite a headscratcher.”

He said Indigenous Peoples and veterans “will be concerned.” Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said the moves amounted to shuffling “the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”

FOUR LEFT STANDING IN PLAYOFFS Page 9

Prince George Cougars forward Josh Maser prepares to fire a backhander against Kelowna Rockets goaltender Roman Basran while being checked by

on Saturday night at CN Centre. The Cougars, who beat the Rockets 4-0, were wearing denim-themed jerseys for their Country Night promotion.

Cats prevent Rocket launch in shutout

TedCLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

As far as the Prince George Cougars are concerned, beating their Western Hockey rivals from Kelowna is not Rocket science.

It’s a formula they figured out early in the season and it’s worked extremely well for the Cats throughout the 2018-19 campaign.

They’ve been pure poison for the Rockets, taking 13 of a possible 16 points while winning six of eight meetings since the season began in late September and they force-fed their opponents more of those toxic ingredients Saturday in a 4-0 win.

Taylor Gauthier blocked all 20 shots he faced to record his third shutout of the season. He had plenty of help from an airtight Cougar team defence that held the

Rockets (17-22-3-1) without an even-strength goal in both weekend wins, which moved Prince George (16-22-1-2) back into a playoff position.

Vladislav Mikhalchuk had two of the four goals, playing on a line with Josh Maser and Ethan Browne which dominated both games. Maser also connected, as did Cougars captain Josh Curtis.

It was the Cougars’ fourth game in five nights and they won four of those games, their most productive stretch all season.

Maser maintained his hot streak.

After a two-goal outing the previous night he scored the game’s first goal, 7:53 in, using his Houston lumberyard grip to muscle in a perfect feed from Browne, a shot that deflected in off the crossbar behind James Porter. It was Maser’s team-leading 16th goal of the season and he also drew an assist on the fourth goal.

“Since Christmas time we’ve

There’s definitely a lot of confidence coming to our team here.

— Josh Maser

kind of struggled to put the puck in the net and it was kind of nice to get a couple wins here and 11 goals in two games against a division rival,” said Maser. “There’s definitely a lot of confidence coming to our team here. We know how much these divisional games count – every game is four points and with the standings being as close as they are now every game is so important. We know between us, Seattle, Kamloops, Kelowna, we’re all within five points of each other and every win counts so much.”

The Cougars had all the bounces in Friday’s 7-2 win over the Rockets and they caught another huge break with a fluke goal that gave them a 2-0 lead, 1:08 into the second period. Curtis carried the puck out of his own zone and took off on a left-wing rush, letting go a backhander from a sharp angle that stopped at the feet of Rockets’ defenceman Lassi Thomson. Thomson tried to clear the puck but it deflected off the leg on his blueline partner Kaedan Korczak into the net behind Porter. It was the first goal for Curtis since Nov. 23 and it pretty much spelled the end of the night for Porter, replaced by Roman Basran three minutes after Curtis scored.

The goal was a bonus for Curtis and his linemates Brendan Boyle and Jackson Leppard, who drew the tough assignment of trying to negate the potent Rockets trio – Nolan Foote-Liam KindreeMichael Farren.

Louka, T-wolves overcome Bisons

UNBC men drop third straight

TedCLARKE Citizen staff

Vasilki Louka was getting frustrated.

Double- and triple-teamed by the Manitoba Bisons whenever the ball came near her Saturday at the Northern Sport Centre, the six-foot-four UNBC Timberwolves forward protested a late-game mauling by the Bisons while contesting a loose ball and got no love from the officials.

Slapped with a technical foul, Louka, the leading rebounder in the Canada West conference, tried to keep her temper from reaching the melting point.

At that point, with about two minutes left in the game, the T-wolves had the game well in command, leading by nine on the way to a 90-81 victory which gave them a split in their weekend series with Manitoba.

While Louka didn’t dominate the boards like she usually does, she still managed 20 points and 10 rebounds – just another day at the office for the fifth-year veteran from Athens, Greece.

“They play a pretty good defence and they are a tough team and it was hard for us to go the basket and it was really difficult to score but in the end we found our way and got this win,” said Louka.

“I played with a doubleteam the entire game and

they didn’t give me any fouls so I was kind of mad. Obviously (the technical call) was my fault. I’m a fifth-year so I should hold myself accountable and not get mad.”

Maria Mongomo set the tone early, hitting her first four attempts from three-point range to give her team a 10-point bulge after one quarter. She finished with a game-high 25 points and led all players with 17 rebounds. Madison Landry contributed 23 points and had five assists, Alina Shakirova had a 13-point game and Abby Gibb handed out eight assists for the T-wolves.

“This year we have a lot of players who can score and contribute different ways on

our team and I think that’s why our record is better than last year and the other years,” said Louka.

Bisons fourth-year forward Emma Thompson lit it up, nailing seven of 13 three attempts for a 23-point game. Taylor Randall was also a three-point threat while collecting 21 points and Nicole Konieczny contributed nine assists and 11 points.

The Bisons, skunked in all six trey attempts in the opening quarter, heated up in the late stages of the half. Thompson hit both her long shots and Randall also found the range to keep it within nine, down 45-36 heading into the final 20 minutes.

In the third quarter, Thompson and Randall continued to have the hot hands and in the final minute of the quarter the Bisons drew a couple of fouls and forced a turnover during a seven-point run which gave them a 62-60 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Shakirova’s defensive hustle under the rim led to more turnovers. Mongomo was money in the bank for UNBC when she was able to get free and Gibb delivered a timely three in the middle of a nine-point run which gave the T-wolves the lead again. Landry and Skakirova then traded points the rest of the way to seal it. — see WOMEN’S, page 8

“I was kind of in a slump and I kind of figured it would end up a goal like that,” said Curtis. “It was about hard work. We were up against their top line and we did a good job of shutting them down.”

After being held to just five shots in the first period, the Rockets’ offence was almost non–existent in the second period. The Cougars made it difficult, standing them up at the blueline, plugging up the middle and blocking shots. Boyle, a 17-year-old WHL rookie, has played well filling in at centre on Curtis’s line for centre Ilijah Colina, who got hurt Dec. 30 in game in Kamloops.

“Boyle is such a smart player and with the help of Curtis and Leppard out there it made a world of difference which freed up the Browne, Vlad and Maser line and we got the matchups we wanted,” said Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk. see FIRST-PLACE, page 8

Kings bow to Chiefs in shootout

TedCLARKE Citizen staff

Good teams find ways to come back.

The Prince George Spruce Kings have to be feeling good that they found a way to do exactly that Sunday afternoon against their B.C. Hockey League Mainland Division rivals, the Chilliwack Chiefs.

The Kings did not get the road victory they were after but did salvage a point, losing 4-3 in a shootout.

Trailing 3-1 in the third period, the Spruce Kings scored two goals to tie it and force overtime. Chong Min Lee scored 1:16 into the period and Nick Poisson potted the equalizer with just 1:36 left in regulation time.

Nothing was decided in the five-minute 3-on-3 session and it took eight shootout rounds for Chiefs shooter Matt Holmes to end the game, scoring the only goal of the shootout.

Harrison Blaisdell, with his team-leading 26th of the season, opened the scoring for the Chiefs, 7:59 into the game.

Ben Brar tied it for Prince George with his 25th, 2:41 into the second period, but the Chiefs retook the lead on second-period goals from Carter Wilkie and Nathan Kelly. Wilkie’s goal came 10 seconds after Brar scored and Kelly’s came 5:49 into the period.

The Spruce Kings peppered Chiefs goalie Daniel Chenard with 16 shots in the second period on the way to outshooting the Chiefs 29-21.

The win moved the Chilliwack (27-11-1-0) two points ahead of Prince George (26-112-3).

The Chiefs beat Surrey 6-4 Saturday in Chilliwack to retake top spot overall in the BCHL.

The Spruce Kings will be back on the road this weekend with games Friday in Penticton, Saturday in Vernon and Sunday afternoon in West Kelowna.

CITIZEN

Kaedan Korczak

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

UNBC Timberwolves forward Vasiliki Louka drives to the basket against Addison Martin of the University of Manitoba Bisons on Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre.

Women’s team steps up play in rematch

from page 7

The win improved UNBC’s seventh-place record to 9-5. The Bisons, who beat UNBC 76-69 Friday, dropped to 6-8, 11th in Canada West.

Thompson knew it was going to be tough to sweep the two games and the T-wolves were tougher to contend with in the rematch.

“They stepped it up at every angle today and our defence wasn’t great in the first half and we got ourselves into a hole,” said Thompson. “We pushed back but they’re an outstanding team, they rebound hard and they pass well.”

In the men’s game that followed, Manitoba beat the T-wolves 69-65, a day after they edged UNBC 66-63.

“We have been struggling on offence, so we have some things to figure out,” said T-wolves forward Anthony Hokanson. “We can hang our hats on the fact that we had a good defensive weekend, but we really need to get our offence going forward.

“They threw some different looks at us, switching up some zone coverages and man coverages. If we can be faster in recognizing what teams are playing, that will help us.”

The T-wolves came into Saturday’s game averaging 84 points per game. Both teams struggled in the offensive end and after three quarters the T-wolves trailed 46-38. They got the deficit down to five with about three minutes left when James Agyeman nailed a three and Hokanson hit both his free throws

Then with 1:07 left, Jovan Leamy stole the ball and found his three-point range to make it a 67-65 game. Leamy missed on his jump shot with 32 seconds left and Austin Chandler got the rebound but couldn’t put it in. James Wagner iced it with 16 seconds left when he sunk both his foul shots. Vova Pluzhnikov’s buzzer-beating attempt fell short of the target.

Wagner led all shooters with 16 points and had 10 rebounds. Rashawn Browne had 14 points and forced eight turnovers. For UNBC, Hokanson and Pluzhnikov each finished with 14 points, while Leamy

First-place Raiders on way to CN Centre

— from page 7

Kelowna has the league’s eighth-best power play and in both weekend games that’s when they were at their most dangerous. Late in the second period at the tail end of Leppard’s double-minor for highsticking the Rockets generated five quality shots on goal but could not beat Gauthier. He anticipated a goalmouth pass to Leif Mattson standing at the side of the net and slid across the crease for his best save of the game.

Pettis

The Cougars made it 3-0 a minute into the third period. Browne spun a pass out of the corner to Mikhalchuk, who buried a low shot in behind Basran. Mikhalchuk capped the scoring on a power play with about six minutes left.

He continues to lead the team in scoring with 33 points in 41 games, now with 15 goals. Adam Foote, who took over from Jason Smith as the Rockets’ head coach 14 games into the season on Oct. 23, left the rink

12th in Arizona

TedCLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Ride it like you stole it.

For Jess Pettis, there was no other choice.

After finishing 18th out of 20 riders in the heat race, the 21-year-old from Prince George had to put the hammer down in the Monster Energy AMA Supercross SX-250cc last-chance qualifier to make the cut into the main event.

That meant nothing less than a fourth-place result in the LCQ and Pettis got what he was after. He led the LCQ for three of the six laps on the course Saturday in Glendale, Ariz., and finished second, which qualified him for his second supercross main event of the season and a chance for him to top his impressive 10th-place finish at the season-opener a week ago in Anaheim, Calif.

As the lone Canadian racing the AMA supercross circuit he stayed on the lead lap of the 16-lap feature race on the Arizona course and ended up 12th out of 22. Riding for the KTM Red Bull THOR Factory team, Pettis finished the main 1:08.278 behind the winning pace set by Adam Cianciarulo of Port Orange, Fla., racing a Kawasaki. Colt Nicholls of Muskogee, Okla., who won the main in Anaheim, was second aboard a Yamaha and KTM rider Shane McElrath of Canton, N.C., was third.

After two events Pettis now ranks 10th in the 250SX standings with 23 points, picking up where he left off last year when he made his debut racing the world’s best motocross riders on the AMA supercross circuit.

Last year in his supercross debut a year ago in Oakland, Calif., Pettis turned heads as a relative unknown, gaining the holeshot in his heat race after qualifying 19th quickest. He went on to qualify for two main events in the four AMA Supercross races he entered and captured the outdoor Canadian Rockstar Energy MX-1 championship and Canadian supercross series title.

The AMA Supercross series returns to Angels Stadium in Anaheim for Round 3 on Saturday.

searching for answers, knowing his team has lost four straight and is in danger of getting bumped out of third place in the B.C. Division standings.

“We didn’t play well and the score was a good indication of it,” said Foote. “It’s one of those things, the kids are young and we just have to go back to square one and start over, start working hard.”

The teams will meet one more time in the regular season, Feb. 8 in Kelowna. Foote expects a much different result.

“I’m not worried about the Cougars or any other team, it’s what we do and I’ve always said that to our players,” he said. “It didn’t matter this weekend if we’d played any other team in this league. If we play like that we’re going to have the same outcome. We just didn’t have it. We can play better and we didn’t bring it.”

The Cougars will now get set to host the league-leading Prince Albert Raiders (37-50-1), who begin a six-game B.C. tour at CN Centre Wednesday night.

Canadian women 13th in World Cup relay

TedCLARKE Citizen staff

Sarah Beaudry has her eye on the prize but on this day her rifle was not her best friend.

Skiing the lead leg of the World Cup biathlon women’s 4x6 km relay, the 24-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member had four misses and used spare rounds in four bouts on the shooting range and that dropped Canada out of medal contention on the way to a 13th-place finish Sunday in Oberhof, Germany.

Beaudry handed off to Emma Lunder of Vernon, who needed six spares to knock down all 20 of her targets.

Megan Bankes of Calgary took the third leg, using just one spare, and anchor Rosanna Crawford went through two spare rounds.

Canada ended up 5:58.8 behind the winning team from Russia (Evgeniya Pavlova, Margareta Vasileva, Larissa

Kuklina, Ekaterina Yurlova-Perscht), who finished in 1:18:46.3. Germany (+33.5) took silver and Czech Republic (+36.7) won bronze. The event drew 21 teams. In the men’s 4x7.5 km relay, Canada

Stottlemyre dies at 77

NEW YORK (AP) — Mel Stottlemyre made his mark on the mound: he started Game 7 of the World Series, earned five championship rings as a pitching coach, wound up with a plaque at Monument Park.

But his most enduring impression might have come with the bat – more than a half-century later, he remains the last pitcher to hit an inside-the-park grand slam.

Stottlemyre, the ace who later oversaw stellar staffs for both the New York Yankees and Mets, has died. He was 77.

The Yankees said Stottlemyre died Sunday. He had been living in the Seattle area and had multiple myeloma for nearly 20 years. A five-time all-star and three-time 20-game winner, Stottlemyre went 164139 with a 2.97 ERA in 11 seasons, all with the Yankees.

Stottlemyre made his major league debut in August 1964, providing a boost in the pennant race. The 22-year-old started three times against St. Louis great Bob Gibson in the World Series, eventually losing Game 7 on two days’ rest.

(Scott Gow and Christian Gow of Canmore, Jules Brunotte of Sherbrooke, Que., and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T.) placed 18th out of 27 teams. Canada got lapped by the winning team from Russia (Maxim Tzvetkov, Evgeniy Garanichev, Dmitry Malyshko, Alexander Loginov), who clocked 1:20:54.3. France and Austria won silver and bronze respectively. • In other biathlon news, Caledonia club member Emily Dickson, 21, has been named to Canada’s team for the world junior biathlon championships for the seventh consecutive year. Now in her final year of junior eligibility, Dixon has been competing this season in Europe on the IBU Cup circuit. She will meet up with the Canadian team in Osrblie, Slovakia, Jan. 21. The junior/ youth world championships run from Jan. 24 to Feb. 3. Dickson resumes racing Thursday in the IBU Cup in Arber, Germany.

The right-hander showed he could excel at the plate, too. He got five hits in a game during his first year. On July 20, 1965, Stottlemyre came up with the bases loaded in the fifth inning against Boston righty Bill Monbouquette. The Red Sox drew in their defence all over the diamond. Instead, Stottlemyre hit a line drive that split left fielder Carl Yastrzemski and centre fielder Jim Gosger and kept rolling, well over 450 feet away at Yankee Stadium. Stottlemyre took off, ran around third and slid home as the throw bounced past the catcher.

had 13.

The UNBC men (7-7) have now lost three straight and they remain seventh in Canada West. The two wins in Prince George left the Bisons (5-9) 14th in the 17-team league.

Both T-wolves teams hit the road the next two weekends, playing at UBC and Alberta before they return home to end the regular season with a two-game set against Lethbridge.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

UNBC’s Madison Landry takes advantage of a clear lane to the hoop, created by a pick from Vasiliki Louka, during Saturday’s game at the NSC. The Timberwolves wore pink for their Shoot For A Cure breast cancer awareness night.

Scoring machines into championship games

BarryWILNER Citizen news service

NEW ORLEANS — The big boys showed up this weekend and showed those usurpers from the wild-card round how it’s done.

The top two seeds from the AFC and NFC returned to action in their comfortable home settings –ice and snow and chills be darned in the AFC – and swatted aside the survivors of the opening set of games. Only the Saints struggled against the resilient defending Super Bowl champion Eagles, and even as that game wore on, New Orleans wore out Philadelphia.

Sure, the Eagles had a chance to move on even after blowing an early 14-0 lead and then being dominated for nearly three quarters. But the Saints (14-3) got through it, and they’ll likely be the better for it when they host the Rams (13-4) next Sunday.

It’s certainly easier on the nerves when you pretty much blow away the opposition, as the Chiefs (134) and Patriots (12-5) did. The Rams never seemed threatened by the Cowboys down the stretch Saturday night. But Drew Brees and company have some evaluating and adjusting to do after the banged-up Eagles nearly pulled off another stunner.

Brees is certain a lesson has been learned.

“We found a bunch of ways to win during the season,” Brees said after the 20-14 victory. Every game kind of stood alone, but many of them came down to third quarter, fourth quarter, second half-type comebacks and it took

Championship.

everybody. It took maybe a big play on offence or a big play on defence or a big play on special teams to kind of turn the tide. But they were all great team victories and it looks like that carried over into the playoffs.”

One lesson, perhaps, from all four divisional-round contests: balance is going to matter.

We know these teams can light up the scoreboard; for the first time, the top four scoring clubs in the league make up the final four. But if you can’t play solid defence at some

point, you’re probably doomed. “The only thing we’re thinking is get on the field and get back off the field,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said after a 41-28 romp over the Chargers. “We play defence. We know how hard it is if an offence has a long drive... and if we can go and get stops and get the (New England offence) right back out there. It’s tough as a defence, for one, to get the adjustments that are happening, to catch your breath – like, you just feel like you’re out there, you’re out there.”

If there’s one defence among the final four that might not be on the field for long stretches, it could be New England when it journeys to Kansas City. Not because the Patriots are staunch, but because the Chiefs have a tendency to make big plays, to score quickly. New England – and New Orleans – showed tremendous aptitude for long, clock-eating drives on Sunday. The Rams have their super running back in All-Pro Todd Gurley, and a dynamic offensive scheme. No matter how it’s

Petry swats OT winner for Canadiens

BOSTON (AP) — Somewhere along the way, Canadiens defenceman Jeff Petry must have learned a little baseball, too.

The son of major league pitcher Dan Petry scored the game-winner just 15 seconds into overtime on Monday night, batting the puck out of the air and past Tuukka Rask to give Montreal a 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins.

“That bloodline of Jeff Petry in the baseball world,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said with a smile. “He showed his talent on that goal.”

Carey Price stopped 41 shots for the Canadiens, but he allowed David Krejci’s 6-on-4 goal with 38 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime. Once there, Montreal didn’t need a lot of time to regain the lead.

After winning the opening faceoff, the Canadiens gathered in their own zone before Max Domi carried the puck over the blueline and then waited for Petry to get into position in front of the Boston net. Domi’s shot went off Rask’s glove and into the air, where Petry swatted it into the net with his backhand.

“We lost the draw and then all of a sudden, we never touch it,” Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. Paul Byron scored a short-handed goal, and Brendan Gallagher also scored to help Montreal earn its third victory in

four tries. Rask made 19 saves but lost for the first time in his last six starts. A year after the Bruins swept their Original Six rivals in the season series – winning six games in a row in all – the Canadiens managed to split their four meetings this season.

“It’s our No. 1 rival, lot of history here,” Byron said. “And every time you come in this building and win, it’s huge.”

Brad Marchand scored for Boston, giving the Bruins a 1-0 lead about six minutes into the game. Julien said the turning point was when Nicolas Deslauriers and Boston’s Kevan Miller dropped their gloves late in the first period.

Although it was the Canadiens defenceman who lost his helmet and wound up on the bottom when the two went to the ice, Julien said it gave his team a boost.

“I think it helped,” Julien said. “We scored afterward, and I think when you look at the kind of fight it was, there’s no doubt it gave us a spark. It’s the kind of thing we don’t see much anymore, but I think the players and the coaches appreciated what he did.”

Gallagher tied it about two minutes later. Late in the second, with Victor Mete off for hooking, Byron outskated Boston’s Patrice Bergeron to a loose puck at the blueline and went in on the net, switching to his backhand before flip-

ping it past Rask’s glove for the go-ahead goal. It stayed that way until Montreal’s Michael Chaput was called for delay of game for shooting the puck over the glass with 2:05 left. Rask came off 30 seconds later, and the Bruins worked their two-man advantage and got the puck to Krejci, who wristed it into the net to assure Boston one point.

“We got one. Krejci got a big goal there late to get us that point,” Marchand said. “Would have been nice to get the second with Toronto losing tonight.”

Avs 6 Leafs 3

TORONTO (AP) — Carl Soderberg had his first career hat trick and Colorado topped Toronto. Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Matt Calvert also scored for Colorado, which had lost nine of its last 10 games overall (1-7-2), and seven straight in regulation on the road. Semyon Varlamov stopped 17 shots. Igor Ozhiganov, Kasperi Kapanen and Mitch Marner scored for Toronto. Frederik Andersen made 32 saves in his return to the starting lineup after missing eight games with a groin injury. Auston Matthews added two assists.

Toronto has lost five of its last seven games and four of five at home.

sliced, championship weekend is going to have a shootout taste.

So let’s see who can sour that taste with a huge helping of D. Maybe the Chiefs, who romped past the NFL’s hottest team, Indianapolis, 31-13. KC is adept at rushing the passer and that seemed to be its only strength without the ball. Ask Andrew Luck and Marlon Mack, though. They’ll bear witness to the Chiefs’ ability to take control on defence.

Maybe the Patriots, who other than a long TD pass to Keenan Allen in the first quarter, never were pushed by Philip Rivers and the Chargers’ offence until garbage time.

Maybe the Rams, who held league leader Ezekiel Elliott to 47 yards rushing in a 30-22 victory over Dallas that was more onesided than the score shows. And maybe the Saints, who yielded 153 yards in the first quarter at New Orleans, then gave up 72 in the next two periods combined.

Or maybe nobody, and these two rematches of points extravaganzas will set all kinds of records.

“It’s just about the approach we are taking out there,” Chiefs linebacker Anthony Hitchens said. “It’s not what coach is calling, it’s not what we are doing, it is how we are doing it. We are playing with aggressiveness, we are having fun, we are jumping around. It’s just a different type of feel and vibe from our defence. It is never too late, and we caught on at the right time, and these past couple weeks we are playing good ball and we just need to keep doing that.” Times four.

Bouchard a winner in Melbourne

Citizen news service

MELBOURNE, Australia — Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard cruised into the second round of the Australian Open on Tuesday, downing wild card Shuai Peng 6-2, 6-1 in under an hour.

The 24-year-old Bouchard came out firing, winning the first set in just 28 minutes. The match lasted 59 minutes total.

The 33-year-old Peng showed some life in the second set, breaking Bouchard’s serve down 3-0, but the Westmount, Que., native broke right back when Peng sailed a backhand shot wide.

Peng saved one match point on her serve but a backhand wide gave the Canadian another, and Bouchard clinched with a forehand to the open court.

Bouchard, a former World No. 5, entered the Australian Open ranked No. 79.

The 2014 Wimbledon finalist, who also made the Australian Open and French Open semifinals in a breakthrough 2014, will be severely tested in her second-round match Thursday when she plays 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams.

Williams was relentless in her first appearance at Melbourne Park since winning the title in 2017, losing only five points in the opening set on her way to a 6-0, 6-2 win over Tatjana Maria in just 49 minutes. The 23-time major winner didn’t defend her title last year while she was taking time off following the birth of her daughter.

Maria wasn’t helped by her woeful serving – she made only three of 14 first serves in the opening set.

AP PHOTO

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees speaks with Philadelphia Eagles pivot Nick Foles after Sunday’s divisional playoff game in New Orleans. The Saints won 20-14 to advance to the NFC

‘Slightly constipated and stoned’

Meet

the stars who hated playing your favourite movie character

Citizen news service

Not everyone loves going to work, so it’s only fair that actors will sometimes sour on the characters they portray. That’s the case right now for Penn Badgley, who has been on the receiving end of a flood of messages from thirsty fans of his Lifetime show You, imploring him to “kidnap me, pls.”

Those messages get a little creepier once you realize his character is a murderer and all-around bad guy. Though he enjoys portraying the complex character (and will continue to do so in Season 2), he’s not exactly thrilled that fans have taken to romanticizing the fictional stalker. To that end, he’s done his best to shut down these lusty crushes online.

But it got us thinking: What other actors hated their iconic characters and why? Turns out, it’s more common than you might think – and everyone loathes in their own distinct way.

It’s the rare occasion that an actor’s detestation for his character actually makes for a better performance – but that’s exactly what happened with Harrison Ford’s breakout role in the first three Star Wars movies.

“As a character he was not so interesting to me. I thought he should have died in the last one, just to give it some bottom. George (Lucas) didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys,” he told ABC in 2010, the same year he told MTV of the character, “I’m done with him.”

“The character kind of mocks the movies that he’s in,” Ryan Britt, author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read, said. “You always got the impression that he didn’t really care... You always got the impression that he could literally walk out at any second, and not in a prima donna kind of way, just in an ‘I’m done’ kind of way.”

Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, the rapper decided to give acting a go. His breakout role came in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights”as porn star Dirk Diggler, who spirals into drug addiction as he climbs the adult film ladder. The movie is considered a classic and among Wahlberg’s best screenwork.

Though the then-young actor seemed to relish in the role at the time, his opinion has changed. A devout Catholic, Wahlberg told a crowd in Chicago that he now regrets some of his films – especially Boogie Nights. “I just always hope that God is a movie

fan and also forgiving because I’ve made some poor choices in my past,” he said of the movie.

Later, he clarified the comments: “I was sitting in front of a couple of thousand kids talking about and trying to encourage them to come back to their faith, and I was just saying that I just hope he has a sense of humour because I maybe made some decisions that may not be OK with him.”

Katherine Heigl is no stranger to speaking her mind about movies – even, or perhaps especially, the ones in which she appears. About Knocked Up, in which she co-stars, she told Vanity Fair: “It was a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight... Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

That example merely led to Seth Rogen’s hurt feelings, but some argue her comments about the story arc of her Grey’s Anatomy character, Izzie Stevens, led to her dismissal from the show.

After winning an Emmy in 2007 for the character, Heigl refused to submit her performance for consideration in 2008, calling her character’s story line “a ratings ploy.”

“I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention,” she told the New York Times. “In addition,

I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials.”

This infuriated much of the show’s cast and crew, and she eventually left the show in 2010 as rumours that she was “difficult” to work with swirled around the gossip rags. There’s probably some truth to that, given that show runner Shonda Rhimes praised the actors on her show Scandal by saying, “There are no Heigls in this situation.”

One of Hollywood’s dream roles is James Bond. The work is consistent, lucrative and part of the silver screen’s fine history. Someone should probably mention this to Daniel Craig, who despises playing the character. He hates the role so much that fans wondered who would be the next Bond. After all, Craig told Time Out London in 2015 of reprising the role: “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.”

“If I did another Bond movie,” Craig added, “it would only be for the money.”

Everyone wondered who might be next: Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, insert any living male British actor here. When the question was floated by Craig, he simply said he didn’t care who took up the mantle.

So who’s the next James Bond? Looks like

someone needed money because Craig has, indeed, reprised the role for the 25th installment of the series, due out in 2020.

Robert Pattinson despises his iconic Twilight character, Edward Cullen, with a fury unlike any other. Pattinson has complained in so many interviews about Edward, the century-old telepathic vampire who falls for Kristen Stewart’s Bella, that there’s an entire Tumblr feed dedicated to his most (self-) scathing comments.

Among his harshest words: He has said Twilight “seemed like a book that shouldn’t be published.” That “if Edward was not a fictional character, and you just met him in reality – you know, he’s one of those guys who would be an ax murderer.” He called his performance “a mixture of looking slightly constipated and stoned.”

Once, when asked which “co-worker helped make your Twilight experience the most rewarding,” all he could muster was a nearly minute-long pause, followed by “huh, my uh, oh I can’t think of anything. I would say SK-II face packs,” referring to facial cream.

Toward the end of his run as Edward, Jimmy Fallon said to Pattinson, “There’s millions of Twilight fans out there that just cannot wait to see (the final movie). It’s almost heartbreaking because they don’t want it to be over. It’s a little bittersweet, isn’t it?”

“For them!” the actor replied.

What’s new with the Cougars? Get the latest on trades, injuries, post-game analysis and more in The Citizen

Loretta Lynn birthday show set

Citizen news service

Country music queen Loretta Lynn has big plans for her 87th birthday this April in the form of an all-star tribute concert featuring Jack White, Garth Brooks, George Strait and many more. The Coal Miner’s Daughter singer-songwriter on Monday announced details of the April 1 show in Nashville, Tenn., at the Bridgestone Arena.

She released her album Wouldn’t It Be Great last year, but hasn’t been performing publicly since she had a stroke in 2017 and missed being honoured at the CMT Artists of the Year show last October due to an illness.

Other artists scheduled to perform are Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark, Darius Rucker and the Pistol Annies.

Lynn said she’s not planning any duets during the concert, instead saying she just wants the artists to sing for her. “I know what I want to hear and I am pretty sure they will be singing them,” Lynn said. Still the Country Music Hall of Famer said she would eventually like to perform again.

Despite her health problems, including fracturing a hip, she has continued to put out music and earned a Grammy this year for best country solo performance for her song Wouldn’t It Be Great, which she wrote about her late husband Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn. “I sang that song to him,” Lynn said. “It was the last song I sang to him. And he always said, ‘Honey, that’s a hit.’ I said, ‘Honey, you think so?”’

Brooks joined her on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, where she was presented with a birthday cake.

The two artists are close, and Brooks told a story about how he was her date when she was given a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2010. She insisted that he bring her in his truck rather than a limousine, Brooks said, and she climbed inside wearing one of her big ball gowns that she’s fond of wearing. “That truck still has so much glitter in it,” Brooks said.

January1,2019-January5,2019

SCHEIBERINSTALLATIONSLTDMILLWRIGHTS, PIPEFITTERS,WELDERS

ScheiberInstallationsinQuesnel,BC,islookingforparttime-shutdownmillwrights,pipefittersandpressure welders.Pulpandpaperexperiencewouldbeanasset. Competitivewagesoffered. LOAcompensationwillapply. scheiberinstall@shaw.ca

OnJanuary1st,2019,at11:43am,ourprecious IzayaStarretSmithwasborn,weighing7pounds,14 inches,inPrinceGeorge.Ourspecialboywas immediatelytakentoBCChildren’sHospitalNICU, joinedbyhismomma,wheretheyweresurrounded bytheloveofGramaDeniseSmith,GrandpaRandy Smith,AuntyAmberDineen,andAuntyAshlee/Bryan Moore.AliciaheldIzayafor5beautifulhourswithout tubesorlinesuntilhepassed.Izayawaslovedand alsosurvivedbyGregDineen(Natalie,Alexa,and Linden)andJacobandGraysonMoore. SpecialthankstoDoctorsO’Malley,Johnson, Zimbler,Odulio,andChaudry,andtheamazingteam ofnursesandparamedicsfromPrinceGeorge.An extraspecialthankyoutoBCChildren’sNICU: DoctorsCostaldo,Binnie,Ansen,Synnes,Lavoie, Sibley,Dheensaw,andMay.Tothenursesthatmade ourfamilyyoursKaitlyn,Tara,Stephanie,Emma, Delmar,andLisa.Weloveyou!Thereweresomany othersthatweknowwemissed,wethankyou! QUENTIND.CURRIE SEPTEMBER29,1995

TL’ETINQOXSOCIALWORKER

Tl’etinqoxGovernmentisseekingaRegisteredSocial Worker(MSW)whoworkswellinateamenvironment andhasextensiveexperiencewithadvancedand complexsocialworkcases.Underthedirectionofthe HealthandWellnessDirector,andinconsultationwith thehealthteamandrelatedgovernmentagencies,the individualwillmanagecomplexpsychosocialproblems, andperformavarietyofcaseworkandcounseling services.PreferencewillbegiventocandidateswithFirst Nationexperience.Foracompletejobdescription,email katrina.elliot@4cmc.ca.byJanuary25th,2019. 778-227-9493katrina.elliot@4cmc.ca

TL’ETINQOX:VARIETYOFPOSITIONS

HAPPYNEWYEARFROMTHEMANAGEMENTAND STAFFOFTL’ETINQOXGOVERNMENT.

CURRENTLYRECRUITINGTHEFOLLOWINGFULL-TIME

POSITIONS:

JusticeProgramCoordinator,ReintegrationSupport Worker,SupportedChildDevelopmentWorker,Youth RecreationCoordinatorandCultureandLanguage Coordinator.

Contactkatrina.elliot@4cmc.cafordetailedjob descriptionandtoapplybyJanuary25,2019.

Adult & Youth Newspaper Carriers Needed in the Following areas:

• Hart Area • Queensway • Lakewood • Lower College Heights • Central • Pineview • Domano Full Time and Temporary Routes Available. Contact for Details 250-562-3301 or rss@pgcitizen.ca

There will be a CELEBRATION OF LIFE For CLARENCE LAPP Saturday, January 19, 2019 1:00 to 4:00 pm Elder Citizens Recreation Association 1692 - 10th Avenue Prince George, BC For those who wish, a donation may be made to: Daniel Lapp’s House of Music Society www.houseofmusic.ca or BC Oldtime Fiddlers Association Box 416, Prince George, BC V2L 4S2 or Heart & Stroke Foundation PO Box 3632, Stn. Terminal Vancouver, BC V6B 3Y8

PrinceGeorge.Inlieuofflowersordonations,please sharememorieswithu:stories,videos,photos,and themusicyousharedwithhim.We’dlovethe opportunitytoputthesethingstogethertoshare;so pleaseemailusatquentincurrie2019@gmail.com.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

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

Air Canada inks Jazz deal

Citizen news service

Air Canada and Chorus Aviation Inc. have extended a purchase agreement by 10 years that will see Chorus subsidiary Jazz Aviation LP continue to provide Canada’s biggest airline with regional service through to 2035.

The deal quelled concerns about Chorus’s future after Air Canada announced last February it would expand its Rouge fleet and fly the lower-cost airplanes on Canadian regional routesJazz’s traditional territory.

The agreement Monday tacks on another $940 million in aircraft leasing income and fixed fees flowing to Chorus over the next 17 years, swelling the revised contract’s worth to $2.5 billion in total, the holding company said.

The amendment to an agreement from 2015 includes lowering the fixed fees and other revenue that Air Canada hands to Chorus by about $50 million annually for 2019 and 2020, a tradeoff for the buffed-up, longerterm contract now in place.

Both companies characterized the deal as a “win-win.”

The markets today

Canada’s main stock index inched forward Monday, while major indices south of the border fell slightly during a relatively flat day for the markets.

“The real headliner was the data we got out of China,” said Craig Fehr, a Canadian markets strategist for Edward Jones. China reported that its exports fell last month.

Chinese exports to America fell 3.5 per cent to US$40.3 billion in December compared to the same month the previous year. Meanwhile, imports of American goods rose 0.7 per cent from 2017 to 2018. Those figures are consistent with concerns around China contributing to a global slowdown and worries around the impacts of ongoing trade tensions between the two countries, said Fehr.

On a positive note, he said, the markets didn’t fall sharply, indicating some bad news is already priced into the markets, unlike several months ago when the markets treated such news much more severely. Those two forces counterbalanced each other to provide for a relatively flat market to start the week, he said.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 36.35 points to 14,975.53. That rise came in response to news of more consolidation in the mining industry, Fehr said.

Newmont Mining Corp. announced a US$10-billion deal to take over Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc. and form a company named Newmont Goldcorp. that will target annual production between six and seven million ounces. The news provided a bit of a lift to gold prices, as well.

The February gold contract advanced US$1.80 to US$1,291.30 an ounce.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average shed 86.11 points to 23,909.84.

The S&P 500 index retreated 13.65 points to 2,582.61, while the Nasdaq composite fell 65.56 points to 6,905.92.

The Canadian dollar averaged 75.36 cents US compared with an average of 75.42 cents US on Friday. Elsewhere in commodities, the February crude contract fell US$1.08 to US$50.51 per barrel, the February natural gas contract rose 49.2 cents to US$3.59 per mmBTU and the March copper contract retreated 2.7 cents to roughly US$2.64 a pound.

Air Canada chief executive Calin Rovinescu said the contract offers his company long-term stability, cost certainty and “the flexibility to modernize the regional fleet for the benefit of our customers.”

Chorus CEO Joe Randell, who helped launch Jazz in 2002 – then still a branch of Air Canada – acknowledged the unease over the previous agreement’s expiry date in 2025.

“There has been some concern about where does Jazz sit in Air Canada’s plans and how long is this relationship going to last,”

Randell said on a conference call with investors. “This really puts those concerns to bed.”

Investors cheered the deal and sent shares of Halifax-based

Chorus up 15 per cent to close at $7.24.

Under the new agreement, Air Canada will make an investment of $97.3 million in Chorus, giving the airline about 10 per cent of Chorus’s class A and class B voting shares, cumulatively.

Chorus aims to use some of the proceeds from that investment to buy new, larger-gauge aircraft, including nine CRJ900s for lease to Air Canada in 2020, Randell said.

Air Canada is committed to lease 105 aircraft annually from now through 2026, and at least 80 aircraft in the 75-to-78 seat

range each year from 2026 through 2035, according to Chorus. Those leases will yield $1.6 billion in revenues, nearly two-thirds of the contract’s worth going forward.

Analyst Walter Spracklin of RBC Dominion Securities called the announcement “very positive” and said the agreement “should be very well received.”

“The most important element of the new CPA is the 10-year extension to 2035, as it meaningfully reduces the potential ‘cliff risk’ of an unextended CPA,” he said in a note to investors.

Cameron Doerksen, an analyst

with National Bank Financial, stressed “certainty and predictability” for the two companies and their investors. Previously, the fees Chorus charged Air Canada for controllable costs such as labour were set annually, but could fluctuate broadly from year to year. The amended deal installs “guardrails” so that the fees –while lower than originally contracted over the next two years – shift within a range of plus or minus $2 million yearly, ensuring more predictability, Chorus said. The fee total will add up to about $858 million.

Utility files for bankruptcy in wake of wildfires

Citizen news service

The largest U.S.utility said Monday it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it faces at least $30 billion in potential damages from lawsuits over the catastrophic wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018 that killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes.

The move will allow Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. to hold off creditors and continue operating while it tries to put its finances in order. PG&E said it does not expect the filing to affect the delivery of electricity or natural gas to its 16 million customers in Northern and central California.

The bankruptcy filing will not make the lawsuits disappear, but it will result in all of the wildfire claims being consolidated into a single proceeding before a bankruptcy judge, not a jury. That could shield the company from runaway jury verdicts, and also buy time by putting a hold on the claims.

State officials are investigating whether the utility’s equipment sparked the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history, a blaze in Northern California in November that killed at least 86 people and burned down 15,000 homes.

In addition, state investigators blamed PG&E power lines for some fires in October 2017. Also, authorities are still investigating the cause of a blaze that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 22 people in Santa Rosa last year.

California law compels utilities to pay for damages from wildfires if their equipment caused the blazes – even if the utilities weren’t negligent through, say, inadequate maintenance.

Chapter 11 reorganization represents “the only viable option to address the company’s responsibilities to its stakeholders,” Richard Kelly, chairman of PG&E’s board of directors, said in a statement.

“The Chapter 11 process allows us to work with these many constituents in one courtsupervised forum to comprehensively address our potential liabilities and to implement appropriate changes,” Kelly added.

PG&E, which is based in San Francisco, said it is giving the required 15 days’ notice that it plans to file for bankruptcy protection at the end of the month.

It said it will continue working with regulators and stakeholders to consider how it can safely provide energy “in an environment that continues to be challenged by climate

change.”

The announcement follows the resignation of chief executive Geisha Williams a day earlier.

In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the amount of liability it faces from 2017 and 2018 wildfires could exceed $30 billion, not including punitive damages, fines and penalties.

Veteran New York bankruptcy lawyer H. Jeffrey Schwartz said Chapter 11 will allow the company to operate without being burdened by its liabilities.

“The liability is too great. It’s too many claims, the aggregate amount is too great, and it looks at first blush to be indefensible because PG&E knew of this risk and didn’t clear the line areas as it should have,” he said.

He said he expects shareholders to bear the brunt of the restructuring. Bankruptcy court has no say over the rates utility customers pay; those are decided by state regulators and politicians.

As for the lawsuits, PG&E will negotiate with the plaintiffs and its other creditors a reorganization plan based on how much the utility is able to pay, said Hugh Wynne of Sovereign Research, an investment research firm.

“You avoid a situation where some jury in

California thinks PG&E is responsible for this fire, so we should hit them up for all these damages and let them sort out how they pay for it,” Wynne said.

A bankruptcy also would allow PG&E to raise cash by selling assets – such as its gas business and hydropower plants – more easily, he said.

PG&E spent millions in an 11th-hour lobbying effort at the end of the California legislative session in August in a failed attempt to change the law to reduce its financial liability in wildfires.

Barricades surrounded the company’s headquarters office in downtown San Francisco after the Chapter 11 announcement. Before last year’s disastrous fire in Northern California’s Butte County, PG&E’s stock stood at $47.80. But in early Monday trading it tumbled $8.48 to $9.11, its lowest

in more than 16 years. Wall

Facing

will file for bankruptcy protection.

Jazz passengers disembark from their flight to Prince George in this

How long will I live?

Looking into my family history, I found unexpected clues

DebraBRUNO Citizen news service

Fascinated with genealogy, I’ve started spending too many hours chasing snippets of family stories. I figure if I can learn something about my family tree, it might shed light on my health and how long I will live. I’ve become obsessed with two ancestors in particular: Permelia Van Valkenburgh and her son Amasa Matoon Van Valkenburgh.

Permelia was my great-great-great grandmother. Married at 17 to a distant cousin who shared her last name, she gave birth to 10 children over 18 years and died in 1855 at age 42.

Permelia was a 19th-century farm wife in the Catskill Mountains, a place where people didn’t roam alone at night for fear of panther attacks. Two of her 10 children died in infancy and one at 20. Her nextto-last child, Amasa, was my great-great grandfather. He was nine years old when his mother died.

What killed her? If it was childbirth, there is no record of a child born or buried the year she died. If it was flu or tuberculosis or another contagious disease, there is no evidence of anyone else in her family dying in May 1855, although both were common causes of death in 19th-century communities. Maybe it was a laceration that became infected, picked up in unrelenting farm and housework. The month of May in the high Catskills could be chilly, and the winter stores of food would have been nearly depleted. Crops would not yet have produced anything. There was the occasional flash flood in the nearby creeks, so maybe she drowned.

Curious about what killed people in rural New York in the mid-19th century, I found the U.S. Census Mortality Schedules for the state from 1850 to 1880. The United States recorded this information once every 10 years and listed only those who died the year of the survey. Even so, I found some interesting details for Greene County, where she lived, in 1850: consumption (tuberculosis), cholera, dysentery, whooping cough, infection of lungs, infection of hand, infection of brain, asthma, childbirth, drowning and cancer were listed as causes of death. The most frequent cause was cholera. Many times, the named cause of death for people in their 80s and 90s was “old age.” Did any of this have any meaning for me? Probably not. “The big picture is the shift from infectious disease as a major cause of death to chronic diseases,” said Charles Rosenberg, professor of history of science at

Harvard. Causes of death such as tuberculosis were “background noise,” he said, so common that they were unremarkable. What drew more attention were cholera epidemics or influenza sweeping through communities.

Susan Speaker, a historian with the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, said that before the 1920s, more Americans died of “microbecaused diseases” than anything else. The balance started to shift by the 1930s and ’40s, she said. In other words, a farm wife living in the country – while not exposed to the overcrowding and bad water of cities –would have had a number of other health challenges.

For instance, “if you came down with appendicitis in the 1900s in the country, you might be out of luck,” said Speaker, “unless you had a local practitioner who was a decent surgeon.”

While I was getting closer at making an educated guess at the cause of death, my mother and I ventured into the Catskill Mountains one Sunday morning in August after services at the First Reformed Church in Athens, N.Y., the village on the Hudson River where we both grew up and where many of our ancestors now rest.

We drove high into the mountains until the ski resorts and gift shops dropped away, the houses became more spread out, and

the forests got thicker in the Catskill State Park, land first preserved by the state in 1885. Finally we reached the turnoff to Westkill, the hamlet of a hamlet, tucked between hills in a valley.

The cemetery was small, with maybe 40 stones. The grass had been newly mowed, and damp cuttings thrown by a power mower still plastered the white sides of the Westkill United Methodist Church (built in 1848) and, next to it, the Westkill Baptist Church (built in 1830). One or two graves had collapsed, leaving a deep, grass-lined trench in the earth. We peered inside the churches, but both had been long abandoned. Even the pews were gone.

Back at the far edge of the cemetery, just before the ground dropped off to a creek, I found a dark, mottled headstone. It read:

PERMELIA A.

Wife of Jacob Van Valkenburgh

Died May 7, 1855

Aged 42 years, 3 mo, 5 ds

Near her was the stone of James, the 20-year-old son who died just two years before her. Along with losing babies Elizabeth, Huldah and George, did James’ death in 1853 lead to her decline?

Just a few steps away was her son Amasa, my great-great grandfather.

Amasa M. Van Valkenburgh Died July 1, 1890

Aged 44 years

Here was another ancestor who died young. Amasa married at age 24, had five children with his wife, Christina Smith, and died in the middle of the summer.

Town records in Lexington, N.Y., eventually turned up his cause of death: “acute peritonitis,” which is an inflammation of the abdominal wall. Untreated, as it would have been in pre-antibiotic times, peritonitis leads to sepsis and death. What is still a mystery is what caused the peritonitis. It could have been a puncture wound to the stomach. It also could have been cirrhosis of the liver, which often leads to peritonitis. NIH’s Speaker said it would be impossible to know whether the peritonitis resulted from cirrhosis, a perforated gastric ulcer, a burst appendix or a ruptured gall bladder. Buried alongside him was his wife, Christina. She went on to remarry and outlive a second husband. Christina passed away in 1946 at age 96. She would have remembered the Civil War, the First World War, women getting the right to vote and the Second World War.

Of her five children with Amasa, two lived into their 90s, and another to 87. And her grandson, my grandfather Orrin, lived to 97. Does this mean, then, that I could count on a longevity gene?

A study published in Genetics shut down that fantasy. Looking at 400 million people born between 1800 and 1920, whose information had been collected from public family trees in Ancestry.com, investigator Graham Ruby found that only about 10 per cent of human longevity is inherited. Previous estimates ranged from 15 to 30 per cent.

Our intuition is that long life spans run in families, Ruby said. And yes, genetics does contribute to life span, he said, “but to a much lesser extent than we thought.”

Both Ruby and Ball said that a much more important role in longevity is “assortative mating.” In other words, people tend to marry people who are similar to them in location, socioeconomic status and education, and those factors also influence longevity. People are more likely to match the longevity of their in-laws than their ancestors, Ruby said. In other words, both researchers said, much of what foreshadows our longevity today involves healthy lifestyles and access to medical care more than genes. I didn’t necessarily uncover any clues about my own health ancestry in my research, but I did develop a greater respect for the enormous achievements of modern medicine.

Arby’s staffer celebrates 94th birthday

Citizen new service

Dorothy Bale has become a fixture and customer favourite during her 25 years working at an Arby’s in a Salt Lake City suburb.

The 94-year-old has worked at the sandwich shop longer than some of her co-workers have been alive, going through two remodels and 21 managers, The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported . She works the counter, taking orders at the cash register or keeping tables and the condiments bar clean. She has become an essential

component of the fast food restaurant, working the lunch rush Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, said Cici Salvador, the restaurant’s manager.

“I get a lot of customers who come in when she’s not here, and it’s ‘Where’s Dorothy? Where’s Dorothy?”’ Salvador said. “Even when it takes a little longer to take their order, they wait in line.”

Bale first walked into the restaurant near her home in 1994 when she was 69. She had decided to go back to work following the death of her husband, Dennis Bale.

“I just came in and asked if they were hiring,” Bale said. Dennis Bale had launched a dental practice in Sugar House following the couple’s return to Utah in 1953. He maintained the practice for 35 years, and Dorothy Bale worked there for 23 years. They retired in 1988.

He died of a heart attack at the age of 66, just over a year after retiring.

“She’s going, going, going. She never stops,” Salvador said. “You never see her just standing there. She’s like a little bunny.”

Looking back into our family history can shed a light on who we are today.