Arts council launching survey
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Survey says... tell us all about the arts and culture of Prince George.
The Community Arts Council (CAC) announced Thursday it is launching a citywide survey to get perhaps the best dataset ever assembled on the state of this area’s arts scene.
“The CAC is conducting a survey in order to quantify the inventory of the arts and culture community of Prince George,” said the association’s executive director Sean Farrell.
“This project is being conducted as part of the CAC’s 50th anniversary. The results of the survey will inform planning of the new artsbased community centre, and other efforts to incorporate arts and culture into municipal planning and development.”
Farrell said the census is ready and waiting online at princegeorgeculture.com and there is hardly nobody who wouldn’t be eligible to answer, since almost everyone creates things
even as a hobby. The CAC hopes to hear from the professional artists of the city, the commercial-level creator, but also those who only use the arts as their personal recreation. People who garden are as much a part of that as the sketcher or those who keep journals or noodle around on an instrument in their private time.
“We want to take the temperature of the arts and culture sector. We want to take an inventory,” he said. “Our goal with this project is to develop a comprehensive and detailed portrait of arts and culture in Prince George and demonstrate just how widespread it is. We’re really trying to be broad in how we characterize arts and cultural pursuits and we hope this will encourage residents to participate in the survey and enable us to capture what they do. We believe that almost everyone in Prince George could participate in this survey, not just those who are ‘professional’ or make their living as artists.”
The survey is being funded by a grant from The City of Prince George.
The municipal staff leader in closest touch
with the arts scene in the city is Doug Hofstede, city hall’s community services manager. He talked about how this survey is going to be helpful in his office as well as Farrell’s.
“They have been our go-to partner more than you probably know,” he said appreciatively, adding that this census would be meaningful “to find out empirically what’s out there” in the number and kind of arts being practiced.
Farrell said the CAC’s upcoming move from their current location to the downtown location picked by the City of Prince George (the corner of Quebec Street and Third Avenue) needed the best collection of information possible, so they know how to formulate the best construction/renovation designs.
The survey’s results will also give the CAC and the City of Prince George together the best dialogue for talking about how the region’s arts scene should be developed in the future.
The survey is free to fill out, takes less than 15 minutes, and all those who participate can enter to win some master-level pottery by local pottery star Karen Heathman.
City’s population grows by 739, says B.C. Stats
Citizen staff
The city’s population grew marginally over the course of 2018, according to a year-end estimate from B.C. Stats.
It stood at 78,675, an increase of 739 people from 2017. B.C. Stats takes the most recent federal census figures, from 2016, and looks at various indicators – notably BC Hydro connections and B.C. health client registry numbers in the case of small population communities –to come up with estimates.
For the Fraser-Fort George Regional District as a whole, the estimate stood at 100,359, up 880 people with 16,100 living in unincorporated areas, up 142.
Community by community, Mackenzie was home to 3,858 people, down 25, Valemount stood at 1,076, up 22, and McBride stood at 640, up two.
Looking at the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District, its count was 40,059, up 203, with 20,397 in the unincorporated areas, up 242.
For Smithers, the count was 5,706, up
45, for Vanderhoof, it was 4,644, up 39, for Houston it was 3,136, up six, for Burns Lake it was 1,185, down 15, for Fort St. James it was 1,613, down 52, for Telkwa, it was 1,404, up three, for Fraser Lake it was 1,015, down three, and for Granisle it was 309, down nine.
The Cariboo Regional District’s population was 65,312, up 377, with 41,400 living in the unincorporated areas, up 257.
For Williams Lake it was 11,359, up 67, for Quesnel it was 10,428, up 40, and for 100 Mile House it was 1,892, down three.
Tickets, tow put man at odds with city hall
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A new Prince George resident plans to fight city hall over $331 in parking fines and towing fees he ran up violating the city’s winter parking regulation.
James Vanveen says he had been parking on Laurier Crescent to the west of 10th Avenue on a fairly consistent basis for a matter of weeks.
But over the course of three days last week he was issued two tickets, each carrying a $50 fine, and then saw his car towed, forcing him to pay $231 to get it out of the compound. It was the latest setback in his search for a safe place to park during the day while he is at work in the area since moving to Prince George in October. He had been parking east of 10th where parking is limited to three hours per day, but after getting two tickets for exceeding the limit due to a lack of time to get out and move his car, he switched to the west side where there is no posted time limit.
Vanveen had thought he had found the answer to his problem – until last week that is. Since then, he has learned that parking on residential streets is prohibited from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Oct. 15 to April 15 in the name of keeping the routes clear for the snow plows.
But he is critical of the city’s efforts to make it known to the public.
The reason printed on the tickets he received was limited “daytime winter parking 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
“How does a person new to Prince George obtain this information?” Vanveen said.
“There’s no street signage. How is a person supposed to know this?”
Vanveen wasn’t the only one to find a ticket on his windshield or worse.
Over the first two weeks of January, city bylaw enforcement officers had issued 371 tickets across the city for the infraction, 74 of them in the area where Vanveen was ticketed – namely Laurier Crescent, McBride Crescent and Alward Street to the west of 10th. As well, 91 vehicles were towed across the city with the vast majority for violating the winter parking rules.
“It’s unfortunate but it’s the way it has to be to ensure that the streets are kept clear of ice and snow and safe for all users,” city bylaw services manager Fred Crittendon said.
“And particularly when we get into residential areas it’s even more important.”
— see PARKED, page 3
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Sean Farrell, executive director of The Community Arts Council, talks about the 2019 Cultural Inventory Survey.
Construction year finishes at all-time high
Citizen staff
Permits for a record-setting
$186.4 million worth or work were taken out during 2018, according to year-end numbers from city hall.
The total surpasses the previous mark of $147.9 million reached in 2007 by nearly $40 million or 26 per cent. That mark was actually surpassed in the fall.
At $156.5 million, private sector investment accounts for 84 per cent. That also surpasses the previous record of $121.6 million, set in 2016, by nearly $35 million or 29 per cent.
Residential construction also set a new record at $114.4 million, breaking the previous record of $76.4 million in 2017 by about $38 million, a 50 per cent increase.
In total, the city issued 438 residential building permits, which include permits for renovations and new construction.
In total, the number of building permits issued rose from 455 in 2016 to 515 in 2018 and
the number of new multi-family permits rose from one in 2016 to 33 in 2018.
“Traditionally, the value of building permits is an important measure of economic progress,” a city press release said. “A high number indicates an increase in construction activity and related employment, as well as other direct and indirect economic benefits.”
The top 10 projects for 2018 in
terms of building permit value are as follows (figures are rounded up to the nearest $100,000):
• New construction of Kelly Road Secondary School: $28.3 million.
• Parkade next to city hall: $12.9 million.
• Apartment building in College Heights (Building B): $6.7 million.
• Apartment building in College Heights (Building A): $5.9 million.
• Renovation at UHNBC:
$5.2 million.
• Federated Co-Operatives Ltd. New Bulk Plant (BCR Industrial Park): $3.5 million.
• Addition to show lounge at Treasure Cove Casino: $3 million.
• New multi-family development (Third Avenue): $2.6 million.
• New multi-family development (Vanier Drive): $1.6 million.
• New single-family dwelling (West): $1.6 million.
Watchdog urges B.C. to change liquor policy
OTTAWA (CP) — Canada’s interim competition commissioner is urging B.C. to change its liquor policy to allow more competition, spark innovation and lower prices. Matthew Boswell writes in an open letter to B.C.’s Attorney General David Eby that the province’s current policy restricts competition, raises consumer prices and limits access to specialty products.
B.C. requires restaurants, bars and hotels to purchase alcohol products at retail prices from government-owned stores. Boswell says he supports recommendations that hospitality providers should be able to buy alcohol products from any licensed source in the province, including private retailers, and they should pay “a proper wholesale price.” Those two recommendations were made in an April 2018 report commissioned by the provincial government as part of its ongoing review of the provincial liquor policy. Boswell, applauded B.C.’s efforts to review its policy and said those changes would encourage more competition and lead to more choice for consumers and lower prices.
Obama to speak in Vancouver
VANCOUVER (CP) — Former U.S. president Barack Obama is coming to Vancouver.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said in a statement that Obama will speak March 5 during a late afternoon event at Vancouver Convention Centre West. It’s billed as a conversation with the first African American to be elected to the presidency.
Iain Black, board of trade president and CEO, said the organization is delighted with the appearance. Obama, who was elected 44th U.S. president in 2008 and served two terms, is scheduled to make an appearance in Calgary earlier in the day. Tickets to the Vancouver appearance will be offered to board members first, but tickets will be made available to the general public on Feb. 1.
This graph shows the annual value of building permits issued by the City of Prince George between 2012 and 2018.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Construction is up to the fourth storey on both buildings of the O’Grady Heights Apartment project by Broadstreet Properties. The new apartments are located on Stringer Crescent and O’Grady Avenue.
Parked vehicles block snowplows from clearing streets, city says
— from page 1
He said residents have complained to the city about the effect cars and trucks parked along the streets have had following a snowfall, saying they prevent the city from properly clearing the streets, “and when they do it’s jammed up so tight that people can’t drive by because of the snow accumulated on the curbs on both sides.”
The city has a dispute resolution process in place to give motorists a chance to appeal their fines.
“It doesn’t always go in their favour but at least they have an opportunity to say their piece and hear the decision on that,” Crittendon said.
Information on snow removal and winter parking can be found on the city’s website, www.princegeorge.ca
Professor to give talk on archeology project
Citizen staff
A University of Northern British Columbia assistant professor will give a talk on the findings uncovered in an archeological project carried out in partnership with the Lake Babine Nation.
Dr. Farid Rahemtulla has been the project director ever since the work began in 2010.
Over that time discoveries have included a large 1,300-yearold fishing village, remnants of complex fish weirs that were used for more than 1,000 years, and evidence of long-distance trade and sophisticated terra forming.
“This is the first time that any significant archaeological research has taken place in the Babine area and so far, the results have been extraordinary,” Rahemtulla said. “Much of what we have discovered supports Babine oral histories but there are many exciting surprises that we did not expect.”
The talk, entitled “Salmon, fish weirs, villages, and engineered islands in north-central British Columbia; results from the Babine Archaeology Project,” will be held at ArtSpace, above Books and Company at 1685 Third Ave. (at Prince Rupert St.) on Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. Part of UNBC’s ongoing Anthropology in our Backyards series, the lecture is free and everyone is invited to attend.
Go to city services and click on snow removal. Information on dispute resolution can be found by clicking on bylaw services, also under the city services tab.
Vehicles are typically towed on the third infraction, although they can be towed immediately in certain circumstances.
Vanveen takes issue with that policy, noting that while the stated reason his car was towed was because there were “outstanding tickets” against the vehicle, he has 30 days to pay the fines.
Only once that deadline has lapsed are the tickets outstanding, he contended.
Vanveen said he continued parking on Laurier after getting the first ticket because others were still parking there and there is nowhere else to park.
He said he has talked to his employers – who he asked not be named in this story – and was told they can’t do anything.
“I said ‘well, have you looked at buying a lot across the street for extra parking?’ And they said ‘we all looked at that. We had meetings with city hall about why they took away the parking on 10th for a bike lane,’” Vanveen said.
He’s now parking in a friend’s driveway, five blocks away from where he works.
As he made his way to work on Wednesday morning, Vanveen walked by lines of vehicles parked on both sides of Laurier Crescent.
City spokesman Michael Kellett confirmed that no tickets were issued along Laurier on that day as bylaw enforcement officers were being deployed to other matters.
B.C. to curtail log exports, rebuild forestry industries
Hayley WOODIN Citizen news service
Premier John Horgan revealed on Thursday the pillars of a “conscious and deliberate strategy” to curtail exports of minimally processed lumber.
The goal: to rebuild the province’s solid wood and secondary forestry industries, and to turn profits from processing abroad into investments in British Columbia.
“The changes that were made by the BC Liberals have enabled log exports to be the easiest way to make quick money. We’ve seen Canadian companies investing in U.S. mills, not investing in British Columbia. We want to turn that around,” the premier told attendees of the 76th annual Truck Loggers Association (TLA) Convention.
“Shareholders are happy with that, British Columbians are not.”
In his address, Horgan outlined in broad strokes a plan to ensure more B.C. timber gets processed
in the province. The plan will include reforms to raw log export policies, as well as carrot-andsticks measures to eliminate surrogate bidding, penalize waste, encourage fibre production and discourage high grading - a type of logging where the highest grades of timber are selectively removed from a forest.
The plan will be phased in, and more details will come to light in the coming months.
“I want to leave no doubt that we are not going to continue to send away unprocessed material to be processed somewhere else,” said Horgan.
The premier also said government will eliminate the fair market rate test: a framework used to help resolve rate disputes between logging licence holders and contractors who do the work, which the TLA maintains has caused rates to stagnate and in some cases fall.
The announcement received a standing ovation from the audience.
Wildfire preparedness grant applications being accepted
Citizen staff
B.C. residents can now apply for a chance to receive a $500 award from FireSmart Canada to help their communities hold FireSmart activities or events on Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. Set for May 4, Wildfire Community Preparedness Day is part of an annual campaign by FireSmart Canada and encourages homeowners to work together to reduce the risk of wildfire damage in their communities.
A few suggested activities that can qualify for a grant award are:
• Hosting information sessions with local fire departments.
• Planning a work party to remove wood debris and fallen trees around their community.
• Holding a wood chipping event and inviting neighbours to remove or thin vegetation on their properties.
• Inviting local fire departments to help conduct FireSmart structure and site hazard assessments.
• Working with neighbours to remove debris such as leaves and tree needles from the eaves of every house in the neighbourhood. Applications for will be accepted until March 1.
For more information, visit www.firesmartcanada.ca/wildfire-community-preparednessday-2019/.
CITIZEN STAFF PHOTO
James Vanveen plans to dispute the two tickets he was issued and the cost of recovering his vehicle from a local towing company for parking on Laurier Crescent, west of 10th Avenue, last week.
Freeland condemns killers of Canadian mining executive
Michael
TUTTON, Brett BUNDALE
Citizen news service
HALIFAX — Canadian officials are condemning the killers of a Halifax mining executive praised as a much-loved family man and highly talented geologist with a knack for spotting producing mines.
Kirk Woodman, who worked for Vancouver-based Progress Minerals Inc., was found dead Wednesday in Burkina Faso’s Oudalan province.
He had been shot multiple times, Jean Paul Badoum, an official with the west African country’s Ministry of Security, said from the capital Ouagadougou.
The geologist had been kidnapped a day earlier by gunmen as he worked on a gold mining project, but officials have not yet identified the kidnappers, Badoum said.
Woodman was vice-president of exploration for Progress Minerals, according to his LinkedIn page.
“Kirk was a loving and hardworking husband, father, son and brother,” Woodman’s family said in a statement.
“Not a day will go by that he won’t be missed. Our family would like to thank everyone for the love and support we’ve received, but we ask for privacy while we grieve during this difficult time.”
David Duncan, a veteran exploration geologist and friend of Woodman, said he had the ability to tell whether a good prospect could become a producing mine, and was part of a wider community of Nova Scotia-trained geologists who helped find mines around the globe.
Although based in Halifax, he had worked in Africa for decades.
“He was very passionate about the work that he was doing there,” Acadia University professor Sandra Barr said in an email late Wednesday.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que., Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called Woodman’s killing a “terrible crime.”
“Canada is absolutely committed to working with the authorities in Burkina Faso to bring those responsible to justice. And I think our first thought today is with his family, with his friends who have received some really dreadful news.”
Badoum said no group had taken responsibility for the kidnapping.
The security ministry said Woodman’s body was found alone 100 kilometres from the site where he worked for Progress Minerals.
Woodman was kidnapped Tuesday night during a raid on a mining site in Tiabongou, about 20 kilometres from Mansila in Yagha province.
The prefect of the rural commune of Sebba in that province, Felix Ouedraogo, said the body of a white man riddled with bullets was transferred to a hospital in Dori by defence and security services.
Burkina Faso’s minister of foreign affairs, Alpha Barry, said the government “condemns with the utmost energy this cowardly assassination” and will do what it can to find and punish the killers.
In a statement, Progress Minerals said it was “heartbroken” by the loss.
“Kirk was an incredibly accomplished and highly respected geologist with a career spanning over 30 years, with 20 years spent in West Africa. More importantly, Kirk was a kind person, a dedicated father and husband and considered a friend by all who knew him,” said CEO Adam Spencer.
Werner Claessens, a geologist who worked with Woodman in Burkina Faso, said his friend had a deep concern for the people who lived in poor communities near where the mines operated.
Canada faces tough decisions as Trump unveils ambitious missile-defence plan
Lee BERTHIAUME
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — America’s allies will have to pay their share of a new missile-detection system, U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday.
That likely includes Canada, which might also be forced to reconsider its decision to stay out of an American-led effort to shoot down incoming attacks.
Trump revealed his vision Thursday following a U.S. military review of the threat posed by Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian missiles – and the ways to counter such threats.
The final report had been highly anticipated in Ottawa as Canada and the U.S. prepare to launch discussions about upgrading North America’s aging early-warning system to protect against attacks that use more advanced technology.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command, or Norad, is currently configured to detect incoming ballistic missiles and foreign aircraft such as bombers, but not threats such as cruise and hypersonic missiles.
Both Trump and the U.S. military report put a heavy emphasis on space-based sensors and defences to detect, track and ultimately stop missile attacks against the U.S. and its allies from anywhere in the world.
“We will recognize that space is a new warfighting domain,” Trump told dozens of U.S. military personnel during an event at the Pentagon.
“My upcoming budget will invest in a space-based missile defence layer. It’s new technology. It’s ultimately going to be a very,
very big part of our defence and, obviously, of our offence.”
The president and the report also underscored the importance of being able to defend against attacks with interceptors like those employed by the U.S. ballisticmissile defence shield, which Canada famously opted not to join in 2005.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s spokeswoman Byrne Furlong said the government remains committed to working with the U.S. through Norad, even as officials were scrambling to understand what Trump’s plan means for Canada.
“Norad remains the cornerstone of our defence relations with the United States,” Furlong said in an email. “Canada will continue to work with the United States to look broadly at emerging threats and perils to North America, across all domains, as part of the modernization of Norad.”
The report does mention Canada, revealing without offering any details that Norad is “pursuing a three-phase plan to improve the defense against cruise missiles for the United States and Canada.”
In general, ballistic missiles are aimed precisely and fired from ground level, in some cases rising high enough to leave the earth’s atmosphere before falling on their targets. Cruise missiles fly lower and straighter and are typically powered and guided most of the way, making them more difficult to intercept.
Hypersonic missiles are even newer technology, whose special threat is their extreme speed compared with older devices.
“NORAD and the U.S. Air Force are upgrading aircraft that moni-
tor the U.S. airspace with new sensors capable of tracking and targeting challenging offensive air threats like advanced cruise missiles,” the new American report says.
Trump’s plan raises some clear questions that the Canadian government will have to address.
Those include the extent to which Canada would participate in a space-based system and whether it will reverse its previous decision not to participate in missile defence as the U.S. looks to expand it for other threats.
There will also be the question of price, with Trump underscoring during his comments both the importance of working with allies to protect against missile threats and the need for them to shoulder their share of the costs.
The reality is that Canada has been out of step with the U.S. on missile defence for years, said Anessa Kimball, an expert on North American defence at Laval University in Quebec City, and must now make some tough decisions.
That starts with deciding whether Norad remains the best organization for the job and balancing Canada’s defence obligations, concerns about the weaponization of space, American pressure and expectations and public opinion.
Trump’s unpredictability and the vagaries of U.S. politics raise questions about how much of the strategy will come to fruition.
“But from what we see from the Americans, they’re going full steam ahead,” said Kimball. “They have a vision of what it is, and so Canada really has to kind of make the decision on if they’re getting on the train or not.”
Homeowners not ready for climate change, study says
Bob WEBER Citizen news service
Canadians aren’t keeping up with the need to protect their homes against catastrophic events made more common by climate change, says a coast-to-coast study from the University of Waterloo.
“Homeowners can do a lot themselves to reduce risk of flooding,” said Natalia Moudrak, study co-author and researcher at the university’s climate adaptation centre.
Climatologists have long warned that extreme weather, including floods, will become more common as temperatures warm.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that insurance payouts from extreme weather have more
than doubled every five to 10 years since the 1980s.
The Waterloo study reports that property and casualty payouts averaged about $405 million a year from 1983 to 2008. Since then, payouts have more than quadrupled to $1.8 billion, mostly from flooding.
That’s not inflated by rising real estate values.
“All of this data is corrected for inflation and it’s corrected for wealth creation,” said co-author David Feltmate Thursday. “This is an actual increase in the amount of money being paid out.”
At the same time, the study found a large number of Canadians are vulnerable to flooding. It concluded about 1.7 million
households representing about 20 per cent of Canada’s population are at risk.
Repairs can be expensive. The average cost to homeowners for flood damage in the Greater Toronto Area is estimated at $43,000. And for some, insurance is out of reach.
“Increasingly,” said Feltmate, “people cannot get insurance for their homes because they have experienced one or more floods or they live in an area that’s designated high-risk and the premiums that the insurers would have to charge are off the charts.” And householders aren’t doing everything they can to protect themselves and their homes, even when subsidies are available.
Citizen news service
BURNABY — The National Energy Board has rejected the City of Burnaby’s request that it rescind orders allowing the company building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to conduct work at its terminal in the city.
The city had asked that the board cancel the orders after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed government approval for the expansion project. Burnaby had argued the terminal work was primarily related to the project, but the board said in a written decision Thursday that it’s upholding the orders, allowing Trans Mountain Corp. to do infrastructure work at the Burnaby Terminal.
The NEB says piping modifications are not associated with the expansion project and the relocation and decommissioning orders appropriately allow Trans Mountain to optimize the site in preparation to offer new services to shippers.
An Aegis missile defense system is fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai in Hawaii on Dec. 10. The missile intercepted an intermediate range ballistic missile.
on Jan. 2
50 per cent of food produced in Canada is wasted.
Spilt milk
Bob WEBER Citizen news service
More than half the food produced in Canada is wasted and the average kitchen tosses out hundreds of dollars worth of edibles every year, says a study researchers are calling the first of its kind.
“It’s a lot of food,” said Lori Nikkel of Second Harvest, the Toronto-based group working to reduce food waste that commissioned the study.
“We waste more food than we consume.”
The study released Thursday is the world’s first to measure food waste using data from industry and other sources instead of estimates, said Martin Gooch of Value Chain Management International, which conducted the study.
Value Chain works with agriculture, aquaculture, marine and food industries to make them more profitable.
“What we did was actually go to industry and (said), ‘Give us primary data,”’ Gooch said. “This is the first time anywhere in the world that anyone’s gone out and got primary data that connects production with consumers.”
Results were checked with industry experts.
“At every point in the process, we groundtruthed it,” said Gooch. “We’re confident our results are conservative.”
Previous work has suggested that Canadians waste almost 400 kilograms of food per person, one of the world’s highest totals.
The new work adds considerable detail to that figure.
Apples rot in the grass for lack of harvest workers. Surplus milk is flushed. Thousands of hectares of produce are plowed after cancelled orders.
The report, funded largely by the Walmart Foundation, concludes 58 per cent of Canadian food production is wasted. That includes unavoidable waste such as animal bones. But a solid one-third of the waste – more than 11 million tonnes – could be recovered.
The report says the value of usable grocer-
More than half of food produced in Canada wasted, study shows
ies that wind up in landfills or other disposal sites is almost $50 billion. That’s more than half the amount Canadians spend on food every year and is enough to feed every Canadian for five months.
As well, it says avoidable food waste in Canada produces more than 22 million tonnes of climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions.
The report says processing and manufacturing are the largest sources of avoidable waste, accounting for 43 per cent of it.
Produce that doesn’t meet exacting grading standards, inaccurate market forecasts and inefficient processes are all part of the problem.
So are date codes which remove perfectly healthy food from the market.
“Best-before doesn’t mean awful-after,” said Nikkel.
Canadian kitchens are also conspicuous wastrels, responsible for 21 per cent of avoidable waste. That’s about $1,700 per household in a country in which four million people struggle for regular meals.
Hospitals, restaurants and institutions contribute 13 per cent of avoidable food waste. Retail outlets are close behind at 12 per cent.
Farmers waste only six per cent of the usable food they produce. Distributors waste even less at five per cent.
The report details many ways waste could be cut. Better co-ordination between farmer and processor, changes to crop insurance, clearer date codes, improved safety assessments for donated food and liability reform could all help keep nutrition out of the garbage and on somebody’s plate.
Even avoiding bulk buys that result in excess being tossed away would help, said Nikkel.
Canadians should change their attitude toward food, she added.
“We’ve cheapened it so much that it doesn’t have value any more. It would horrify our grandparents.
“We need to go back to that valuing of food.”
Man found guilty of murdering B.C. girl in 1978
Camille BAINS Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — Family members of a 12-year-old British Columbia girl murdered in 1978 cried, hugged and thanked jurors who found a man guilty of firstdegree murder Thursday.
Garry Handlen, 71, told undercover police during a sting in Minden, Ont., that he abducted Monica Jack while she was riding her bike, sexually assaulted and strangled her, but his defence team said the confession was coerced.
As sheriffs led him out of B.C. Supreme Court, Handlen turned to face a woman
who yelled: “And that goes for... trying to kill me!”
The woman, whose name is under a publication ban following a trial in 1979 where Handlen was convicted of sexually assaulting her, wept as she supported Jack’s family. Jack’s mother, Madeline Lanaro, said she would not comment on the verdict. The family will return to court for a sentencing hearing on Jan. 28 and provide victim impact statements. During the 11-week trial, the jury heard tearful testimony from Lanaro, who last saw her daughter riding her new bike on May 6, 1978.
Wang says volunteer wrote controverial post
Laura KANE Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — A former Liberal byelection candidate says her political career is “probably” over after an online post singled out NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s ethnicity, but she’s still considering running as an Independent.
With her crying mother and sister at her side, Karen Wang said during a hectic news conference Thursday that she is not a racist and she has many friends of Indian background in the Burnaby South riding.
“Recently, I have been labelled a racist, which really, really makes me hurt. I feel like I am abused and I am insulted, and this is not me at all. I am not a racist,” she said through tears.
Wang stepped down Wednesday after StarMetro Vancouver reported she posted on Chinese social media platform WeChat that she was the “only” Chinese candidate while Singh – her opponent in the byelection – was “of Indian descent.”
She said a campaign volunteer wrote the controversial post and she didn’t have time to proofread it. But she said she isn’t angry with the volunteer and she takes the responsibility.
“Nobody is perfect. We make mistakes, and myself too,” she said. “I wouldn’t have mentioned anybody’s cultural background.”
Wang added the volunteer meant to make a “statement of fact” by pointing out Singh’s ethnicity, rather than a “racial statement.”
“I love all the people in the community, and I have so many Indian friends and I always call them brothers and sisters,” she said. “I believe all Canadians are brothers and sisters. We are one family, we are one nation, we are all Canadians. We should support each other.”
Wang, who was still wearing a Liberal button on her coat, said she was asked by the party to resign on Wednesday. Someone else wrote her apology and she approved it before speaking to the media, she said.
She said she believes the apology was warranted and she hopes to say sorry to Singh in person.
The party said earlier Thursday that Wang’s online comments don’t align with its values and her resignation still stands. Elections Canada has accepted her withdrawal, it added.
The Liberals did not have a strategy to target Chinese-Canadian voters in the riding, Wang said.
Wang, a daycare owner who ran unsuccessfully for the BC Liberals in 2017, said she’ll speak with her supporters and decide whether to run as an Independent before the Feb. 4 deadline to enter the race.
But asked if her political career was over, she replied, “Probably.”
“It doesn’t matter if I have a political career or not,” she said. “I always think giving back to the community and contributing to society, you have lots of ways to fulfil your dream.
“I have already fulfilled my Canadian dream step by step. I have a successful business. I have a family.”
Her news conference got off to a chaotic start when she was asked to leave Burnaby Public Library property. Chief Librarian Beth Davies said Wang didn’t make a formal request to hold her event outside the building.
Wang and her family moved to a nearby sidewalk, where they were swarmed by reporters. She told the media she grew up in a Chinese village and moved here with her husband 20 years ago, “with zero.”
Singh, who is Sikh and speaks Punjabi, accepted Wang’s apology on Wednesday while expressing concerns about “divisive politics.”
“We see that in the south – divisive politics and how it tears apart a country. I want to focus in on politics that bring people together,” he said.
The Liberals have not yet said whether they will replace Wang. The byelection is scheduled for Feb. 25.
The New Democrats narrowly beat the Liberals in the riding in the 2015 election by about 550 votes.
Volunteers Jack and Marty Greendonner help organize donated food
at the Bridgman Fire Department in Bridgman, Mich. A study has found more than
The best an ad can get
As Terry O’Reilly has said countless times in countless different ways on Under The Influence, his regular weekly CBC Radio show about the advertising industry, the best advertising doesn’t shout “BUY! BUY! BUY!” at the consumer. Instead, it offers a solution to a problem the consumer is having, even if he or she doesn’t even know it’s a problem. Hungry? That’s a problem. How about a burger?
Fridge empty? That’s a problem. Did you know your local supermarket has a big sale on?
Not a lot of money? That’s a problem. Here’s reduced prices on some products you want.
Too much money? Even that’s a problem. Here are some luxury goods for you to buy. The problem advertising tries to solve isn’t just the consumer’s problem, it’s also the advertiser’s problem. Keeping sales and revenues strong and growing, increasing market share and beating the competition is the problem advertisers are trying to solve with their marketing efforts.
That’s the lens in which to view the nearly two-minute spot We Believe: The Best Men Can Be that Gillette unveiled online this week.
The ad takes “the best a man can get,”
Gillette’s longtime advertising slogan for its men’s shaving and personal grooming products, and turns it on its ear. Instead of a clean shaven face attracting hot women being the best a man can get, the spot dives headfirst into modern gender politics in the era of anti-bullying efforts and the #MeToo movement. By the end of the ad, it’s clear that “the best a man can be,” the newly updated slogan, means standing up to bullies, supporting sexual assault victims, treating women as equals, having no tolerance towards unwanted sexual advances and encouraging other men to do the same.
Some men see the ad as an attack on masculinity and are threatening to boycott. Others have pointed out that Gillette made billions over decades selling razor blades and shaving cream through advertising advocating for the vision of maleness it now criticizes.
The conversation about gender equality is an important one that has been going on for decades and will be ongoing. Gillette’s ad is merely the company inserting itself into the conversation.
But what’s in it for Gillette? What’s the problem Gillette is trying to solve, both for itself and for its customers?
The spot had been seen nearly 17 million times on YouTube since it debuted Thursday morning, five days after it was first posted. While people are talking about the ad’s messages about anti-bullying, antisexism, inclusion and positive role models,
they are also talking about Gillette. That’s a huge win in the short term.
In the long term, the ad is a savvy (and cynical, depending on the viewer’s politics) move to rebrand Gillette and reposition the company and its product in the marketplace.
Long gone are the days when NBA superstar Michael Jordan refused to speak out on racial inequality for fear of angering some Nike customers. These days, athletes are expected to speak out on a variety of social issues and more than a few realize this not only improves their reputation with fans, it enhances their brand and makes them even more valuable to companies looking for celebrity endorsements.
Any knowledgeable National Football League fan will say Colin Kaepernick is somewhere between being a decent quarterback and a second-string guy to bring in if the starter falters or gets hurt. Even big fans of Kaepernick would admit he’s not an elite player, meaning that if he was playing, he wouldn’t be anyone’s first pick for a national marketing campaign.
His protests during the playing of the national anthem and then the fact no team signed him to play this past season after he was cut by the San Francisco 49ers have made him far more valuable, which is why Nike signed him to endorse their products and star in a commercial late last year that sent many of the same messages about equality and empowerment that the
A matter of survival
here’s a method to
TU.S. President Donald Trump’s shutdown madness and it actually makes a lot of sense once you realize that the shutdown isn’t about “the wall.” It’s not about “winning.” It’s not about beating “Chuck and Nancy.” Trump’s quixotic shutdown fight is really about consolidating his political base to prevent any Republicans from impeaching him when the Mueller report comes out. The bad news is that Trump’s decision to double down on his shrinking base could very well work – at least for a while. As it stands now, he is likely to survive 2019, limp into the 2020 election and stand for reelection as the Republican nominee. The good news is that the more he doubles down on his base, the more he guarantees that voters will oust him at the ballot box and punish the Republicans for catering to party loyalists rather than doing what is best for the country. For the past two years, elected Republicans have refused to cross the political Rubicon of turning on their party’s leader. They won’t challenge Trump on the shutdown. They won’t challenge his illegal or immoral conduct. They won’t challenge his lies. But there are cracks in Trump’s GOP armour. House Republicans just got shellacked in the midterm elections, and that has caused at least some members of Congress to wonder whether saving Trump’s skin will cost them their own.
There are two main ways Trump could be booted from office. First, he could be impeached. That would require a palace coup – Senate Republicans would
have to vote to destroy their own party’s president. Second, Trump could lose in the 2020 election, with voters sending him back to Trump Tower.
Trump will soon face the biggest threat of his presidency.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s impending report is likely to present both illegal and disqualifying behaviour. Trump’s risk of impeachment is therefore imminent, while his danger of losing at the ballot box is nearly two years away. Therefore, Trump’s urgent priority is just surviving 2019. If he doesn’t, he won’t even be in the 2020 election.
To survive 2019, Trump needs to make sure congressional Republicans refuse to devour one of their own. And to make sure that they don’t, he needs to make them fear a backlash from the Trumpian base more than they fear anything else. From Trump’s vantage point, it’s more important to pander to his core supporters than it is to govern the country effectively.
That dynamic is usually present only in authoritarian regimes, but it has now taken root in the United States. I’ve lived and worked in an array of countries ruled by despots and dictators. Many of those leaders pretend to have an iron grip on power, while the reality is much more brittle. But because elections are not competitive in authoritarian regimes, losing power at the ballot box isn’t a genuine threat. And that means despots only need to cater
to a narrow base. So long as elites of their same political stripe are on their side, they are probably safe. But when loyalists feel both abandoned and emboldened, they may turn on the president and overthrow him.
That logic is inverted in functioning democracies. When elections are competitive, catering to the elites in your own party above the country’s interests is a recipe to lose badly in the next election. Catering exclusively to your political base is a losing strategy, too.
Of course, Trump’s America is still a democratic country. So why is Trump pandering only to people who already support him? Why is he digging in on a government shutdown that poll after poll shows is a losing issue? In most democracies, it would be riskier to back an unpopular criminal president plagued by scandal than to challenge him. The difference in the United States is that most congressional elections are not competitive. The average margin of victory for a House seat in 2016 was 37.1 per cent. Of the 20 Senate Republicans up for reelection in 2020, 13 are safely Republican. Four more are likely Republican. As a result, most Republicans in Congress fear a primary challenger far more than they fear a Democrat. Trump is trying to show them they’re right to be afraid. He is trying to reinforce Republican voters’ loyalty to him, so that elected Republicans in Congress believe toppling Trump would be a self-inflicted wound, one that buries them alongside him.
— Klaas is a professor of global politics at University College London
SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING
Gillette ad now does.
Nike and Gillette realize that customer loyalty is a fickle thing without an emotional connection to the product and the brand. Forging that connection through progressive politics may lose a few customers but their market analysis clearly showed the opportunity to grow loyalty amongst existing customers while attracting new business was too good to pass up.
Gillette lays its cards right on the table about its long-term strategy with the final words spoken in the ad: “Because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.”
No self-respecting man wants to be yesterday’s man so using Gillette products both deals with unwanted body hair while also identifying that man as a man of tomorrow. Problem solved for the customer.
No company wants to be identified as yesterday’s company selling yesterday’s products to yesterday’s consumer. The ad proclaims Gillette as tomorrow’s company selling tomorrow’s products. Problem solved for the advertiser.
Like the Nike ad, the Gillette commercial is a positive step in the right direction of removing social stereotypes and encouraging responsible behaviour.
But just because shoes and razors aren’t prominently featured doesn’t mean Nike and Gillette aren’t trying to sell something.
— Editor-in-chief
Neil Godbout
Mid-Island intrigue
Nanaimo is one of the safest NDP seats in B.C., so a byelection there would normally be considered as exciting as a line change in a hockey game.
But not this time around. The prospect of a perfectly balanced hung parliament in the event of an NDP loss is so frightening/encouraging/exciting, depending on your outlook, that the political world is in a positive tizzy. So instead of making safe assumptions about the NDP chalking up yet another win, people are tantalizing themselves with the “what if” scenario.
only elections there in the past 55 years.
It has been NDP for decades. The party has lost two only elections there in the past 55 years.
The NDP (41), Green (3) arrangement has lasted 17 months by virtue of a two-seat edge over the B.C. Liberals (42).
If the mid-Island seat flips to the Liberals, the new count would be 43-43, with the Speaker having to break ties.
Speaker Darryl Plecas, the former B.C. Liberal MLA who erupted at former leader Christy Clark at a closed caucus meeting after the election, then broke ranks to snatch the Speaker’s chair, would be expected to side with the NDP and Greens.
Liberals have nothing but contempt for him and it looks to be mutual. So it’s hard to picture him siding with them.
But he has been confounding expectations lately. His handling of the suspensions of the clerk and sergeant-at-arms left everyone in the house confused. Goaded by the Liberals, he erupted at a committee meeting last month and went on a tirade about outrageous mismanagement of the legislature that further mystified everyone.
At a later meeting, he also reversed course on a side issue related to a $180,000 allowance he thinks he’s entitled to as an independent MLA.
On Dec. 6, he noted as a point of pride that he didn’t ask for it because he didn’t want to burden the taxpayer. Then on Dec. 19, he served forceful notice several times that he wants the money right now.
So expectations are a risky proposition, as far as Plecas is concerned.
Election expectations also don’t seem to be as safe as they once were. But the Nanaimo track record is clear. It has been NDP for decades. The party has lost two
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The last time, it took the complete collapse of the party in 2001 to pry Nanaimo out of its hands. The time before that was in 1969, when flamboyant force of nature Frank Ney, the mayor, decided to take on the MLA’s job as well, and unseated New Democrat Dave Stupich for one term.
That historical note is relevant again today, since his daughter Michele Ney is the Green candidate. Her father was a swashbuckling bon vivant who dressed up as a pirate every chance he got. Her last name still resonates among people of a certain age, even 28 years after he lost the mayoralty.
The Greens would be wiser to sit this one out, given that any vote-splitting would likely benefit the B.C. Liberals. But they have a disdain for strategic games and feel a need to provide a candidate.
Any Green-NDP differences in the campaign will be in the nature of a pillowfight, though, as they have an obligation to co-operate under terms of the confidence agreement.
Ney, a retired teacher, is part of another facet of this byelection, the outstanding field of candidates. Her NDP rival is Sheila Malcolmson, the best candidate the party had available. It’s a measure of how badly they need this win. They raided the federal caucus and persuaded her to step down as MP to run provincially. Then they made it clear she was hand-picked by the premier, to ensure she won the nomination by acclamation.
The Liberals rose to the occasion, taking on Ney and Malcolmson with Tony Harris, a prominent business leader whose family name is well-known all over the Island. There has rarely been an election with so much name recognition.
In normal times, this byelection would be a foregone conclusion. But a Liberal win would spin off so many fascinating scenarios it has become a subject of fascination. The NDP and the status quo could hold. But what if …?
Shawn Cornell, director of advertising: 250-960-2757 scornell@pgcitizen.ca
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LES LEYNE
In the Fast Leyne
BRIAN KLAAS
Guest Column
Huawei to grow Canadian R&D budget
Citizen news service
TORONTO — Huawei Canada will be get-
ting a piece of the US$2 billion that its global Chinese parent will spend over five years to hire more software engineers to make its equipment more secure, resilient and efficient, the company said Thursday.
A company spokesman in Ottawa said Huawei’s head office hasn’t decided how much additional money and people will be allocated to its Canadian operation, which employs about 500 people at its research and development facilities.
But Huawei Canada president Eric Li, who is attending corporate meetings in Shenzen, said in a statement that its “top priority” has been the security and integrity of the networks that it supports through its technology.
“Huawei has been supplying telecommunications equipment in Canada for a decade,” Li said.
“We have a 10-year record of success when it comes to cybersecurity. To make our equipment even more secure, Huawei is investing a further $2 billion over five years to enhance
the way we design and build our products.”
Huawei will also work with an independent third-party organization to monitor and assess its progress, he said.
Huawei Canada spokesman Jake Enwright said more details will be released when they’re available.
Li’s announcement comes as Huawei Technologies Ltd. faces intense pressure as the United States and some of Canada’s other allies move to shut the China-based company out of their networks on national security grounds.
The Canadian government is also investigating the national security implications of having advanced fifth-generation wireless networks use equipment by a China-based company that’s legally subject to Beijing’s government.
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei told reporters earlier this week in a rare media briefing that the private company would “definitely say no” if the Chinese government requested its help to facilitate spying, as required by a 2017 law. Ren also said his daughter Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, has been well-treated by Canadian justice officials since her arrest
Three ways to sleep better
Citizen columnist Gerry Chidiac can sleep anywhere. One of the best stories of Gerry sleeping relates how he fell asleep in the front row at a convention only feet away from the keynote speaker. Imagine the confidence you would have delivering your “riveting” speech when some guy with a flowbie haircut starts dozing off and snoring away at your feet. However, getting great sleep is a challenge for many leaders. The reasons for a lack of restful, wholesome sleep are many. They might include people problems, financial challenges, cash flow issues, organizational dysfunction or negotiations for that big deal. Other causes may be is that adrenaline rush from the excitement of the day or perhaps our sleep is interrupted for health reasons such as low blood sugar. The truth is that too few hours of healthy, restful sleep hours has serious consequences both in the short term and the long term for leaders and entrepreneurs. Whether we are having trouble getting to sleep or if we are waking up at 2 or 3 a.m. and tossing and turning or pacing the floors while the rest of the household is sleeping, we are exhausted in the morning. In order to make it
through the day we must resort to big shots of caffeine and sugar. We need energy and end up craving carbohydrates. Sleep deprivation affects our work too. When we are fatigued we tend to make poor decisions. Emotionally unbalanced, we say things we regret. Our minds, when not rested, fail us when we try to concentrate on the important tasks we have aspired to undertake. We accomplish less, our problems accumulate, and because we are stressed about all the things that are going wrong, we can’t sleep again at night, in spite of the fact that we are overtired.
The cycle continues. Research shows that over the long term, lack of sleep can lead to depression, anxiety, lack of concentration and loss of memory. In addition sleep deprivation affects our relationships, as well as our mental, spiritual and physical well-being. Lack of sleep can lead to blood sugar issues, immune dysfunction, adrenal dysfunction, weight gain, heart issues and serious illnesses.
in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has demanded Meng’s release, with its ambassador to Ottawa saying her arrest was an act of “backstabbing” by a friend. Ambassador Lu Shaye also warned that if Huawei is barred from new 5G networks for security reasons that there could be “repercussions.”
While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is leading the Trudeau government’s diplomacy with China, the decision on whether to bar Huawei from Canadian networks is under the jurisdiction of Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale and Navdeep Bains, the minister responsible for telecommunications. Bains said in an interview with The Canadian Press this week that “we never have and never will compromise our national security.” He added that the national security review is a “broader review” than just Huawei and than the government will take the necessary time to “get all the relevant information, that we co-ordinate with our international partners and ultimately make a decision that is in the best interests of Canadians.”
So what can we do to improve the quality of our sleep, besides quitting our jobs or closing our businesses?
• Manage your sleeping environment. Research shows that having a darker room with minimal artificial light improves sleep times. Shutting off electronic devices and their notifications gives your brain a better chance of relaxing. In addition, having a sleep routine that is static gives you a better chance of optimizing your sleep hours. Napping might just be part of your routine.
• Get some exercise. One of the reasons that many people have trouble sleeping is because they are in sitting or resting positions most of the day. Exercise can clear the mind of those nagging thoughts, add oxygen to the bloodstream and set you up for a good night’s sleep. Going out for a walk or hitting the gym earlier in the day may be just what your body needs to feel ready for a better sleep. You will want to avoid exercising right before bed if you have sleeping challenges as this may speed up your metabolism and leave you wide-eyed when the rest of the house is snoring.
• Try nutrition. Common sense nutritional practices like avoiding caffeine later in the day or eliminating those afterdinner snacks can make a huge
difference for some people with insomnia. Relaxing teas like chamomile or even peppermint can improve your chances of a good night sleep. Supplementation with melatonin, GABA, 5HTP or herbs like valerian can make you sleepy. If it’s your brain that is racing, one of my favorite supplements is vitamin B complex, which has helped me get through many bouts of stress. Reducing stress by putting things in perspective and getting clarity on those things that are important to us as leaders can often relax us more than any drug. When we are at peace with the challenges of the day and our ability to overcome them we are more likely to fall asleep and stay asleep. Resolving chronic sleep issues can take time, but rest assured that they can be overcome. Wouldn’t it be nice to be like Chidiac and be able to fall asleep whenever you wanted?
It is possible and a great sleep will help give you a clearer perspective concerning your role as a leader in achieving a greater future for your company.
Dave Fuller, MBA, is the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy and wrote this article because he woke up at 3 a.m. one night this week. Have business problems that are keeping you awake at night? Email dave@profityourselfhealthy. com.
Potential customers are reading this ad right now. Call 250-562-3301
OTTAWA (CP) —
TORONTO (CP) — The winning streak of Canada’s main stock market continued for a 10th straight day Thursday as early energy losses dissipated and investors saw a hopeful sign ahead of trade talks resuming later this month between the U.S. and China.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 99.96 points to 15,211.22, its highest level in more than six weeks.
“It’s certainly a bounce back from the very difficult days of December,” says Anish Chopra, managing director with Portfolio Management Corp.
The Toronto stock index fell by 16.8 per cent from its July peak to its late December low and has since increased by 10.4 per cent.
“Today it’s just a continuation of that up trend that we’ve seen during the month of January.”
All sectors but health care and consumer staples gained on the day, led by consumer discretionary, materials, financials and industrials.
The energy sector rose by 0.44 per cent even though MEG Energy shares plunged nearly 36 per cent after Husky Energy Inc. abandoned its hostile takeover bid for the company because of the lack of MEG board and shareholder support.
The March crude contract was down 25 cents at US$52.36 per barrel and the February natural gas contract was up 2.9 cents at US$3.41 per mmBTU.
Crude prices fell as much as 2.5 per cent earlier in the day following reports that U.S. oil production rose to nearly 12 million barrels per day and OPEC output fell by 751,000 barrels in December.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.22 cents US compared with an average of 75.48 cents US on Wednesday.
The February gold contract was down US$1.50 at US$1,292.30 an ounce and the March copper contract was up 0.65 of a cent at US$2.68 a pound.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 162.94 points at 24,370.10. The S&P 500 index was up 19.86 points at 2,635.96, while the Nasdaq composite was up 49.77 points at 7,084.46.
Chopra said North American markets were helped Thursday afternoon after the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. officials are considering reducing the new tariffs on Chinese imports as part of trade negotiations between the two countries that restart in Washington in a couple of weeks. “Certainly that’s what’s helping the markets right now this idea that (Treasury Secretary) Steve Mnuchin was floating around that they may ease tariffs.”
DAVE FULLER Business Coach
AP PHOTO Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, smiles during a roundtable meeting with the media in Shenzhen, China, on Tuesday.
LOCAL FIGURE SKATER PLACES 13TH AT NATIONALS
Page 10
Cats’ captain has playoff ambitions
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Josh Curtis knows the clock is ticking down on his junior hockey career.
A check of the schedule confirms the 20-year-old Prince George Cougars captain has just 24 regular-season games left and he’s not ready to call that a career.
Not when there’s a playoff carrot being dangled in front of him.
The Cougars right now are in a playoff position but their current standing is precarious. Heading into Saturday night’s game at CN Centre (7 p.m.) against the Kamloops Blazers the Cougars sport a 16-23-1-2 record and they hold down the second of two Western Conference wild-card spots.
The Blazers (15-23-2-1) have lost seven of their last 10 but are only two points behind Prince George with a game in hand. The Seattle Thunderbirds are just one point shy of the Cougars for the second wild-card spot. On the other hand, the Cats are only three points behind the Kelowna Rockets for third place in the B.C. Division and have played one fewer game.
“It’s a good feeling,” said Curtis, “but it can go south as much as it can go north.
“We have to make sure we stick
to it and we can’t have nights off, especially against Kamloops. Any divisional game is a big game and we have to make sure we bring our top game.”
The fact the Cougars have been playing their best hockey of the season this month (notwithstanding their 6-2 loss Wednesday to the top-notch Prince Albert Raiders) has Curtis believing there will be life ahead of the Cats in the playoffs after the regular season ends with a home-and-home weekend series against the Blazers March 15-16.
If they keep beating their division rivals like they did last weekend while sweeping the Rockets in a two-game set, that postseason
We have to make sure we stick to it and we can’t have nights off, especially against Kamloops.
— Josh Curtis
scenario will appear much more likely. Fifteen of the Cougars’ 24 remaining games are against B.C. Division opponents.
The Blazers will stick around town for a Sunday matinee at CN Centre that starts at 2 p.m. Revenge is obviously on the minds of the Cougars this weekend, knowing the Blazers came into Prince George Nov. 17-18 and won both games at CN Centre. They spanked the Cats 5-1 and 7-3 and also beat them 2-1 Dec. 30 in Kamloops.
“This is a big weekend and we have to make sure we get some games up on Kamloops,” said Curtis. “They’ve kind of had our number this year but they’ll be back in our house and we’re excited for it.”
In Wednesday’s game the Cougars were still within a goal of tying the Raiders until the fiveminute mark of the third period and Curtis says that gives his team confidence they can hang with any team if they bring their best effort every night.
“It was a good test for us, there’s a lot of speed on that team and they’re a real good offensive team with a lot of experience and it got away from us in the third,” he said. “It was a tough start (falling behind 2-0) but it was a good rebound by us. The first two periods we played pretty decent and (goalie Taylor Gauthier) played really well and kept us in it.”
Curtis joined the Cougars midway through the 2015-16 season from the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, where he played parts of two years for his hometown Winnipeg Blues. Now in his third full season with the Cougars he’s been playing right wing on a line with Brendan Boyle and Jackson Leppard. Through 42 games Curtis has seven goals and nine assists for 16 points.
The Cougars are the secondlowest scoring team in the WHL (just 97 goals in 42 games) and the overager Curtis will be hardpressed to match his 36-point total from 2017-18 with just two months left in his last WHL season.
That’s not a real concern to him.
“It does go really fast, next thing you know it’s going to be March and I’ve really enjoyed my last year,” he said. “But it would be a lot more enjoyable if March 18 comes around and it’s not my last game as a Cougar and we’re in playoffs.
“That’s the goal for me and that’s the goal for us.”
Tandy’s biathlon career on hold
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
Prince George biathlete Megan Tandy has had to decline her second trimester spot on Canada’s IBU Cup team and will not be racing for at least the next month.
“Sometimes life is just not plannable,” said Tandy, in a Facebook post.
“My plans have taken an abrupt change of direction. I am disappointed to share that I will not be racing this month. Due to an unexpected situation in my son’s family, I need to stay home to care
for my son full-time for the next little while.”
The 30-year-old three-time Olympian lives in Klingenthal, Germany, where she has shared custody of her eight-year-old son Predo.
Predo also lives with his father, Tandy’s ex-husband and former Caledonia Nordic Ski Club biathlon coach, Ilmar Heinicke, who is based in Ruhpolding, Germany. Tandy learned a couple weeks ago that Heinicke is unable to care for Predo and she will no longer be able to fulfill her commitments to
the national team.
“Family always has, and always will, come first,” she said. “While the timing is not ideal, I have no regrets – just Mom priorities! Every situation has a silver lining and this time it is lots of extra time with my favourite little man.”
Since winning the national team trials in Canmore in November, Tandy has struggled with her ski times on the World Cup circuit and Biathlon Canada made the decision to drop her to the IBU Cup international circuit to start the new year.
Kings on Okanagan tour
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
It might seem like just two points are on the line when the Prince George Spruce Kings begin a three-game road trip tonight (7 p.m.) in Penticton against the Vees but this matchup of B.C. Hockey League frontrunners could well have playoff implications.
Right now the Interior Division-leading Vees (28-12-1-2) hold a two-point edge over the Spruce Kings (26-11-1-4, second in the Mainland Division). While that might not mean much now, if the teams meet in the playoffs in what would be the BCHL final the team with the most regular-season points gets home-ice advantage. There’s still a lot of hockey to be played to get to that point. Prince George and Penticton would have to win three playoff series each to get to the final. The Vees have 15 games left in their 58-game schedule and the Spruce Kings still have 16, including their Saturday night game against the Vipers in Vernon (6 p.m.) and a Sunday (noon) encounter with the West Kelowna Warriors.
“We’re battling for first place in the league and against Penticton, as much as it isn’t a big division game it’s a big swing in points here,” said Spruce Kings head coach Adam Maglio. “We can jump two ahead and these games will matter in the end if we want to win a league championship.”
The Vees are on a four-game winning streak, having won seven of their last eight games.
The Spruce Kings and Vees will face each other three times this season and the Kings have won both games so far. They defeated Penticton 3-2 at the BCHL Showcase in Chilliwack Sept. 21, then hung another 3-2 loss on the Vees Nov. 3 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, winning on Ben Poisson’s overtime goal.
The Vees are on a four-game winning streak, having won seven of their last eight games. The Spruce Kings have cooled off slightly in the new year, losing four of five after zipping through December at a 5-1 clip, but they’re only two points back of the Mainland-leading Chilliwack Chiefs (29-11-1-0).
Dickson just outside top 50 in IBU Cup race
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
In one of her final tune-up races before she heads off to her seventh consecutive youth/ junior world biathlon championships, Emily Dickson of Burns Lake finished 51st Thursday in the IBU Cup women’s 12.5-kilometre short individual race in Arber, Germany. The 21-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member had seven misses in four shooting bouts and finished six minutes 57.6 seconds behind race winner Yuliia Zhuravok of Ukraine, who cleaned all her targets. Swedes Chardene Sloof (+1:01.9) and Elisabeth Hoegberg (1:38.2) took silver and bronze. Nadia Moser of Whitehorse was the top Canadian, finishing 41st, 5:46.7 off the pace. There was heartache for Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., in the men’s 15 km short individual event – his first IBU Cup race this season since being dropped from the World Cup
team. Green finished just off the medal podium in fourth place, 2:09.3 behind gold medalist Alexander Povarnitsyn of Russia. Lucas Fratzcher of Germany (+1:11.7) and Aristde Begne of France (+1:49.2) also made the podium. Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I., finished 37th, Matthew Strum of Canmore was 43rd and Trevor Kiers of Canmore placed 45th.
Dickson will join the Canadian junior team on Monday in Osrblie, Slovakia, for a week of competition in the world championships which start Thursday and run through Feb. 3. Meanwhile, in the BMW World Cup sprint Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany, Sarah Beaudry continued to struggle on the shooting range. The 24-year-old from Prince George missed three of five prone targets and went 3-for-5 while standing and finished 96th out of 103 starters. Beaudry was 3:40.3 behind the gold-medal pace of Anastsiia Kuzmina of Slovenia, who completed the 7.5 km course
in 19:15.1. Lisa Vitozzi of Italy won silver (+11.5), and Hanna Oeberg of Sweden was the bronze medalist (+29.1). Rosanna Crawford of Canmore was the top Canadian in 27th (+1:32.3). In other Canadian results, Megan Bankes of Calgary was 68th (+2:32.8) and Emma Lunder of Vernon was 88th (+3:17.9). In the men’s 10 km sprint, the Boe brothers of Norway finished 1-2. The younger Boe, Johannes Thingnes, won gold in 22:56.3, 7.9 seconds ahead of his brother Tarjei. Benedikt Doll of Germany claimed bronze (+10.5).
In Canadian results, Scott Gow of Canmore was 42nd (+1:36.0), Christian Gow of Canmore was 56th (+1:52.7), Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., was 67th and Aidan Millar of Canmore was 102nd. The men race today in the 4x7.5 km relay, with the women’s 4x6 km relay on Saturday. Mass start races are on tap for Sunday.
“This is a tough road swing again and it’s a 12 p.m. game on Sunday and we do need to be real cautious of our shift lengths through Friday and Saturday’s game, there’s not a lot of turnaround on Sunday,” said Maglio.
“It’s a fun trip for the guys, these are all good teams and lots of the Lower Mainland families come down on this trip.”
The Spruce Kings are coming off a 4-3 shootout loss Sunday in Chilliwack, after posting a 3-0 shutout win Friday at home over the visiting Cowichan Valley Capitals. The Kings started January losing in a shootout in Merritt, followed by regulation losses in Cowichan and Victoria. That marked the first road trip all season the Kings failed to get at least one victory.
“That was probably one of our tougher travel schedules, there was a lot of miles put on even on game day trying to get over to the Island and the start in Cowichan was indicative of the travel and we got better as the game went on (eventually losing 5-2),” said Maglio. “Our home game against them was the way we wanted to play the week before, for sure. Sunday’s game I thought we played well. One goes off our D in front of the net and we’re down 3-1. I thought we outchanced (the Chiefs) and we stuck to our game plan and it was a good resilient effort from our group.” — see BLUELINER, page 10
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Prince George Cougars captain Josh Curtis fights off Jerzy Orchard of the Kamloops Blazers while driving to the net during a November
2018 game at CN Centre. The Cougars and Blazers square off Saturday night and Sunday afternoon on the same ice surface.
TANDY
CURTIS
Blueliner Coyle should be in uniform
— from page 9
Shootouts have not been kind to the Spruce Kings this season: they’re 0-4 in the first year the BCHL has adopted the format as a tiebreaker.
“We try and touch on it once a week in practice but the problem with the shootout is it doesn’t happen in the playoffs,” said Maglio. “It is important and I guess we’re realizing that. There are points on the line and maybe we need to spend a little more time on it.”
The Kings expect to have 20-year-old defenceman Max Coyle back in the lineup tonight. He missed the Chilliwack game with a lower-body injury. Centre Nolan Welsh, who suffered a lower-body injury in the game against the Caps last week, remains sidelined.
• Former Spruce King defenceman Adam Brubacher, who now plays college hockey at RIT in Troy, N.Y., is one of 15 BCHL alumni being considered for the Hobey Baker Award as the most outstanding NCAA player.
Hampole 13th at junior nationals
Citizen staff
For the second straight year Justin Hampole of Prince George has finished as the 13th-ranked junior men’s figure skater in Canada.
The 17-year-old from the Northern B.C. Centre for Skating wrapped up competition with his free skate Wednesday at the Canadian Tire skating championships in Saint John, N.B., and ended up with a 141.63-point total (53.46, short program, 88.17 free skate).
B.C. skaters finished 1-2 in the junior men’s class. Alexsa Rakic of Burnaby won gold, totaling 199.0 (68.44 short program, 130.6 free skate). Beres Clements of Gibsons (191.02) was the silver medalist and Corey Cirelli of Ontario (181.98) claimed bronze. Hampole was coming off an 11th-place finish at the Skate Canada Challenge in Edmonton in December. Only the top 18 skaters from that event qualified for the national championships.
Lowry hits milestone
TORONTO (CP) — Pascal Siakam drove to the basket for the winning bucket with no time remaining as the Toronto Raptors, despite squandering an early 16-point lead, hung on to edge the Phoenix Suns 111-109 on Thursday.
Kyle Lowry had 16 points and collected his 5,000th career assist for the Raptors. Lowry and Serge Ibaka, who finished with 22 points, turned it on in the fourth quarter Toronto went into the fourth trailing 78-77.
Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska celebrates after defeating Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro in their secondround match at the Australian Open on Thursday in Melbourne.
Ukrainian teen gets Serena next
Howard FENDRICH Citizen news service
MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams’ next Australian Open opponent, 18-year-old Dayana Yastremska, feels as if she saw Saturday’s matchup coming a decade ago. She tells the story of being at home in Ukraine at the age of eight and watching on TV as Williams – whom she calls “a legend” –fell behind in a Grand Slam match. That was, understandably, distressing to the little fan. Dayana, who’d been taking tennis lessons since she was 4 1/2, decided Williams could use some help.
So the kid ran to her bedroom, grabbed a racket and resumed following along with the broadcast, pretending to hit the shots Williams needed to hit.
“She won a point. She won a game. She won a set. She won a match. I was screaming at the same time she was screaming. And when she won the match, I had in my thoughts that, ‘Well, I guess we won together. It’s our win,”’ Yastremska said, laughing at the memory.
“And then I had another thought that, ‘Maybe, one day I’m going to play (against) her in the big arena.”’
That’ll happen in the third round at Melbourne Park – in what’ll be only the fourth Slam match for the 57th-ranked Yastremska, who trains at Justine Henin’s tennis academy in Belgium.
Yastremska’s two wins this week are her first at this level and they came against 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur and No. 23 seed Carla Suarez Navarro.
It’ll be Slam match No. 379 for the formerly top-ranked Williams, who is 333-45 and already has 23 Grand Slam titles, including seven from the Australian Open alone.
Asked what she knows about Yastremska, who was born about eight months after Williams won her first major championship at the 1999 U.S. Open, the 37-year-old American responded that her coach would provide a scouting report.
“I’m going to just go out there and obviously take her extremely serious,” Williams said.
“She’s here, made it this far, and she’s here to win.”
Saturday’s match won’t be their first face-toface encounter, according to Yastremska. She said the pair crossed paths in the locker room this week.
“I just say, ‘Hello,’ and ‘You have a great daughter, and I respect you a lot as a person, as a player.’ She told me, ‘Thank you so much. You’re so nice, so sweet,”’ Yastremska recounted.
Just like any admirer getting the chance to meet an idol. Now they’ll share a court with a fourth-round berth at stake.
“I always wanted to be like her. But getting older, I realized I have to (have) my own style,” said Yastremska, the junior runner-up at Wimbledon in 2016 and owner of one WTA title.
“It’s like a dream come true, so I’m going to try to (beat) her. I’m going to try to show my best tennis,” Yastremska said, then, thinking back to her eight-year-old self, added: “And maybe later, I’m going to tell her this story.”
Hellebuyck backstops Jets to win in clash of titans
NASHVILLE (AP) — Connor Hellebuyck delivered the dominant performance he needed with backup Laurent Brossoit nipping at his net.
Hellebuyck made 37 saves and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Nashville Predators 5-1 on Thursday night to stay alone atop the Central Division in a mid-season showdown between rivals.
“I like this rink, too,” Hellebuyck said. “Good memories here, too. Something about this place, it just suits my style I guess. I was excited. I was excited to play tonight, and I think it showed.”
Hellebuyck improved to 21-13-1 with a big win after Brossoit moved to 10-1-1 with a win over Vegas on Tuesday night.
The Jets leave Nashville four points ahead of the Predators with two games in hand. Their final two meetings this season are at Winnipeg in March. The Jets edged Nashville in seven games in the second round of the playoffs last year.
Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said Hellebuyck was really, really good.
“He had two or three glove saves that you have to make because this building, it’s like ours,” Maurice said. “If the home team scores a goal, you saw when they scored a goal it got going in here. He kept the building quiet with two, three really important saves.”
Brendan Lemieux had two goals for the Jets, who won their fourth straight game. Mason Appleton, Bryan Little and Brandon Tanev also scored. Sami Niku and Joe Morrow each added two assists.
“This was one of those games that you circle on your calendar and know it’s going to be a fun one, so I was looking forward to it and it was awesome,” Lemieux said. “Our line played great. It’s good. It’s always good when you can chip in offensively.”
Viktor Arvidsson scored his fourth goal in two games for Nashville, which has lost three of four.
The Predators had won five of the last six against the Jets on home ice, not counting that playoff series in which Winnipeg took three of four in Nashville to reach the Western
Conference final. Nashville shut out Winnipeg 3-0 on Oct. 11.
“It was a big game for us,” Predators captain Roman Josi said. “They are right in front of us. They are obviously a great team in our division. It was a big game for us and definitely not happy with the result, but then we’ve got to learn from it.”
Nashville started strong, swarming Hellebuyck in the opening minutes. Yet Winnipeg took a 1-0 lead when Lemieux finished off a wraparound by squeezing the puck between the post and Pekka Rinne’s left skate midway through the first period for his fourth this season.
The Jets thought they had a 2-0 lead on a wrister by Blake Wheeler late in the period, but Nashville won its challenge that Winnipeg was offside.
“They are a fast team, and they are big,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s not like we’ve never beaten the Jets. They’ve always been this way. Tonight they had their game. They were better.”
Flames and smoke rise from railway cars after a derailment in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que., on July 6, 2013. The cars were carrying crude oil. Netflix is under criticism for using actual footage of the disaster in the movie Bird Box.
Netflix rejects request to remove Lac-Megantic images from Bird Box
Giuseppe VALIANTE Citizen news service
MONTREAL — Netflix is refusing to remove from its hit movie Bird Box footage of the rail explosion that killed 47 people in LacMegantic, despite an appeal from the town’s mayor.
But the streaming company has said it will ensure no future productions on its platform use images of the disaster for entertainment, according to Lac-Megantic Mayor Julie Morin, who spoke to a Netflix representative Thursday. Meanwhile, the head of the company that sold the images of the Lac-Megantic disaster to the producers of Bird Box, said he is “devastated” by the way the footage was used.
“We didn’t do all we could on our end to make sure that people understood the sensitive nature of the content, because what happened is not appropriate,” Jason Teichman, the CEO of New York City-based Pond5, said in an interview Thursday.
Morin said in a statement she is satisfied Netflix has “committed to reflect with their partners on the use of images so that this
Pond5 sold footage of the burning town to Bird Box and another Netflix production, Travelers.
situation is not repeated.” She said she “sensed a sensitivity to the recovery of our citizens.”
Town spokeswoman Karine Dube said the Netflix representative called the mayor unsolicited Thursday morning and told her the company would not be removing the images from Bird Box.
At least two dramas currently on Netflix’s Canadian platform, including Bird Box, briefly use actual footage of the 2013 derailment. Morin told The Canadian Press Tuesday that she wanted the company to review its catalogue and remove the images. She said use of the videos showed a lack of respect and had upset residents, many of whom are suffering posttraumatic stress.
Pond5 sold footage of the burning town to Bird Box and another Netflix production, Travelers.
Teichman said his company doesn’t hold the rights to the 14 million video clips in its global content catalogue, which is accessible through its website. Rather, he said, Pond5 licenses footage from people such as historians, filmmakers and journalists and splits the revenue 50-50 when the images are sold.
He wouldn’t say who shot the Lac-Megantic video, citing privacy concerns. He said his company has contacted customers who purchased any related clips of Lac-Megantic. It held “very clear conversations so that there was zero ambiguity regarding the sensitive nature of the content so that there can be no room for misunderstanding,” he said.
But he recognized that his company doesn’t control the artistic direction of the people who purchase his content.
“We don’t police them, and we don’t censor what they do,” he said. “We’re going to make the efforts to do what we can on our end, to ensure (the footage) is being used as appropriately as possible.” Netflix spokespeople have declined repeated requests for comment on the controversy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet dies at 83
Citizen news service
NEW YORK — Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose rapturous odes to nature and animal life brought her critical acclaim and popular affection, has died. She was 83.
Bill Reichblum, Oliver’s literary executor, said she died Thursday at her home in Hobe Sound, Fla. The cause of death was lymphoma.
“Thank you, Mary Oliver, for giving so many of us words to live by,” Hillary Clinton wrote in a tweet. Ava DuVernay quoted from Oliver’s poem, Praying, and fans online shared their favourite lines.
Author of more than 15 poetry and essay collections, Oliver wrote brief, direct pieces that sang of her worship of the outdoors and disdain for greed, despoilment and other human crimes. One of her favourite adjectives was “perfect,” and rarely did she apply it to people. Her muses were owls and butterflies, frogs and geese, the changes of the seasons, the sun and the stars.
“In my outward appearance and life habits I hardly change – there’s never been a day that my friends
haven’t been able to say, and at a distance, ‘There’s Oliver, still standing around in the weeds. There she is, still scribbling in her notebook,”’ Oliver wrote in Long Life, a book of essays published in 2004.
“But, at the centre: I am shaking; I am flashing like tinsel.”
Like her hero Walt Whitman, whom she would call the brother she never had, Oliver didn’t only observe mushrooms growing in a rainstorm or an owl calling from a black branch; she longed to know and become one with what she saw. She might be awed by the singing of goldfinches or, as in the poem White Flowers, overcome by a long nap in a field.
Never in my life had I felt myself so near that porous line where my own body was done with and the roots and the stems and the flowers began
Her poetry books included White Pine, West Wind and the anthology Devotions, which came out in 2017. She won the Pulitzer in 1984 for American Primitive and the National Book Award in
1992 for New and Selected Poems. In 1998, she received the Lannan Literary Award for lifetime achievement. Her fans ranged from fellow poets Stanley Kunitz and Rita Dove to Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush.
“Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward,” Stephen Dobyns wrote of her in The New York Times.
Oliver was a native of Maple Heights in suburban Cleveland, and endured what she called a “dysfunctional” family in part by writing poems and building huts of sticks and grass in the nearby woods. Edna St. Vincent Millay was an early influence and, while in high school, Oliver wrote to the late poet’s sister, Norma, asking if she could visit Millay’s house in Austerlitz, N.Y. Norma Millay agreed and Oliver ended up spending several years there, organizing Edna St. Vincent Millay’s papers.
Oliver studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College, but never graduated. She later scorned much of her education as “a pre-established collection of certainties.”
Adams getting helping hands from Sheeran, Lopez
Citizen news service
TORONTO — Bryan Adams is getting some powerhouse support from two of pop music’s biggest names on his upcoming album.
The Canadian hitmaker says he’s enlisted both Ed Sheeran and Jennifer Lopez for his 14th studio release Shine a Light, which arrives March 1.
Sheeran co-wrote the titular lead single, which debuted on streaming services Thursday, though the Shape of You performer doesn’t sing on the track.
Adams says the two met at one of Sheeran’s Dublin concerts and stayed in touch afterwards.
He explained in the announcement that one day he sent Sheeran the chorus for a song he called Shine a Light, asking him if he’d consider a writing collaboration. Sheeran responded by sending Adams a few verses which ultimately became part of the song.
The Grammy winner also recorded a duet with Lopez called, That’s How Strong Our Love Is. Adams, who recently co-wrote songs for the Broadway show Pretty Woman: The Musical, plans to launch a world tour in Belfast on Feb. 25, following a run of Canadian tour dates in the
coming weeks. The musician is playing nine shows, including Moncton, N.B. (Jan. 22), Halifax (Jan. 23), Montreal (Jan. 26) and Kingston, Ont. (Jan. 30).
Shine a Light will be distributed in two versions, each with an exclusive track.
One will include the song The Last Night on Earth, and will be available on streaming services, CD and cassette. An alternative vinyl edition will replace that song with the cut I Hear You Knockin’.
ADAMS
It is with heavy hearts that our family announces the passing of our amazing husband, father, son, brother, friend and teacher, Vince Truant on January 9th at the age of 51. Vince was a loving and wonderful husband, son, brother, father, friend and teacher and is survived by his loving wife Margaret, together for 27 years, daughters, Airah and Brooklyn, parents Ray and Diane, sister, Dawn (Dave), in-laws Roger (Marlene), Lynda (Paul), sisters-in-law Cheryll (Bart), Jenny and brothers-in-law Wayne (Vanessa), and Bill as well as numerous aunts & uncles, nieces & nephews. Predeceased by his Grandparents on both sides, Uncle Richie and Aunt June and brother-in-law Noel. Vince was an avid outdoors man, who enjoyed snowmobiling, fishing, biking, camping, hiking, and playing hockey. Spending time with family and relaxing at the cabin was always Vince’s favorite past times. A Celebration of Life will be held at the Columbus Community Centre on Domano Blvd, on Sunday, January 20th at 2:00 PM, followed by refreshments. Please bring your humorous stories to share with us. In lieu of flowers, Memorial Donations may be made in Vince’s name to the Vince Truant Memorial Scholarship. A GoFundMe Page is set up as Vince Truant Memorial Scholarship. Https://gofundme.com/vince-truant-memorial-scholarship-fund
Brian Michael Stoppler
Brian Michael Stoppler died unexpectedly and peacefully, of natural causes, at his home on January 13, 2019 at the age of 66.
Brian is survived by his mother Mrs. Alma Stoppler; his wife of 46 years, Lynda; their children, Ashley (Travis Stewart) Prince George, Adam (Karri) Grande Prairie, and two grandsons Landon Stoppler and Spencer Stewart. He is also survived by his brothers Richard (Lois), Allan (Vickie) and their respective families. Brian leaves behind his “brother in fishing” Doug McCumsey, and his canine companion, Bella. He will be missed by his nieces and nephews. Brian was preceded in death by his father, Frank Stoppler, and his canine companions Springer and Bentley.
Brian was born March 1, 1952 in Gravelbourgh, Sk. As the son of a railroader he lived in many different small Saskatchewan towns and played hockey and baseball in most of them. He and Lynda married in 1972 and lived in Burnaby until January 1, 1974 when they moved to Prince George where Brian continued to work for CN Rail. Later he was in charge of Landtran Logistics and, hired not only his own children at various times but also some of their friends as they worked their way through university. Brian retired thirteen years ago and during that time he watched a lot of baseball, the Seattle Seahawks (until they would lose and then he’d throw his Seahawks hat out the door), curling, and most recently, he was an avid viewer of MSNBC keeping up on the Trump debacle.
Brian was very proud of his children and all that they have accomplished - at one point when they were both working for him he said “you can say what you want about having your kids work for you; those two ding dongs have just done a great job”. He recognized the happiness that Karri brought to Adam, and that Travis brought to Ashley and was totally taken with his two grandsons. He was able to have his mother, his children, their spouses, and grandchildren with him at Christmas. Brian was an insulin dependent Type 1 diabetic from the age of 17. That he lived as long as he did is a tribute to his physiological make-up and the skills of the medical practitioners in Prince George. Surprisingly he had very few complications from his diabetes - and it wasn’t due to good management on his part. He had the utmost respect for Dr. Donald MacRitchie (not that he always did what Dr. MacRitchie recommended but…) and appreciated the people at the Diabetic Clinic, the Burn and Wound Clinic (which he called the Hoof and Wound Clinic), Davinder, the Pharmacist at Save-On Foods, Joanne, the footcare provider, Dr. Kjorven and her dental team, and Dr. Dergousoff, Optometrist, and Dr. Lukaris, Opthamologist. Brian marched to the beat of his own drumhe was incredibly stubborn and opinionatedbut also very willing to help those with less than he had. He loved telling stories, embellishing details - he never let the truth get in the way of a good story - what he didn’t know he made up - and he could make you believe him.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, January 18th at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club. In lieu of flowers there will be an opportunity to make a donation to the Quinson Elementary School Breakfast Fund. Lynda and family extend their thanks to the paramedics, the firefighters, the Victim Services team, the Coroner, and the RCMP for their assistance.
Pauline Rice June 13, 1942 - January 14, 2019
It is with the heaviest of hearts that our family announces the passing of Pauline after a 14 year battle with ideopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Survived by her husband Robert, son Todd Green (Shelly), stepson Joseph Rice (Jacqueline), grandchildren: Danielle, Carter, Kaitlyn, Andra and Robert. Special thanks to Dr. Key, Dr. Textor, the Health Care Nurses and the angels at Rotary Hospice House. No service by request. Donations can be made to the SPCA.
Syl Meise
October 16, 1935January 10, 2019
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With great sadness we announce the sudden passing at home of Syl Meise, a loving family man and generous friend to all, who struggled with congestive heart failure and COPD for several years. He is survived by his heartbroken family, wife of 51 years Linda Christine, son Scott, daughter Leah, granddaughter Donna, step-grandson Trevor, great grandchildren Ariya, Kayleen and Logan, brother Dave (Marie), sister Beverlie Flegel (John), sisters-in-law Barbara and Pat and many cousins, nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents Franz & Helena, brothers John, Henry, Lud, Ernie, Bill, Pete, Fred & George and sisters Frieda, Josephine and Isabel. Syl was an unforgettable man with a big heart, a positive attitude, an endless supply of stories and jokes and a desire to make everyone smile. To his family he was loving and full of fun, to his friends and community he was selfless and generous, as a professional driver during his work years he was skilled and conscientious. He loved life and never hesitated to try something new whether it was skiing, golfing, acting, curling, loggers sports, racing & training horses, coaching and playing baseball & bowling just to name a few. He will be missed by so many. A celebration of life will be held at First Baptist Church 483 Gillette Street at 11:00 am Saturday, January 19 with a tea to follow at Pineview Hall. In lieu of flowers donations could be made to the Prince George Hospice House.
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