Prince George Citizen January 5, 2019

Mayor defends city’s snow removal

Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca

When more than 35 centimetres of snow fell over two days last week, it was a challenge for city crews to deal with it but Mayor Lyn Hall said staff were ready.

“I think the snow removal went well,” Hall said. “We have a policy in place and the crews did a great job of getting out there, given the circumstances.”

As of Friday, Hall said the city was into its sixth day of snow removal.

“And we’ll probably be finished up tomorrow (Saturday),” he said. “Our policy talks about a five-day turnaround and we had some extenuating circumstances in the very beginning around the accumulation, around the rain, so that created a different set of circumstances for us, as it did for us in February of 2018.”

The city was ready with sand and salt stock piled and equipment was ready to go, he added.

“Once again we get hit with not just snow,” Hall said. “We get hit with heavy

snow, we get hit with rain, moisture, a fluctuation in temperature which adds to the things we have to do to get the roads cleared. Those additional things are big factors for us, and under the circumstances we did very well.”

Hall said after every major snowfall, staff is diligent about taking a look what could have been done differently and fine-tune things. Hall mentioned the February snowfall because he said the circumstances paralleled the recent situation.

“We don’t hold off,” he said.

“We continue to look at how we can better do things. We had a tremendous amount of people who contacted us. Some were thanking us for the job that was being done and some were very concerned their neighbourhood hadn’t been done. Some wanted explanations as to how our system works, some wanted explanations as to why we went into certain areas at certain times and staff members were diligent in getting back to them. I know I got back to a number of people as well and I’m sure members of council did the same.”

There’s an important takeway for the mayor, Hall noted.

“I and all of us learn from each snowfall experience,” he said. “And as I look out the window now, here it comes again and we’re anticipating more. The difference in climate and weather patterns – and I do watch the weather diligently – this freeze, snow, rain, freezing rain cycle – that has a drastic impact on how we clear streets and staff are quick to adjust to that but it does take some time.”

Hall said he’d like to thank residents for their patience and city crews for their hard work.

“Staff did a great job under the circumstances in the weather change,” Hall said.

“And I think it’s important for the readers to know that we fine-tune things as we go along and their feedback – whether they’re not happy or people that are – I appreciate getting that feedback because it’s all a part of us being able to look at our policy and look at what we do.”

Coun. Garth Frizzell said there is a great percentage of people who get their news on

Facebook and the general consensus on that social media platform saw a lot of exasperation over the snow removal in Prince George and he’s got a lot of sympathy for them.

“I heard great stories of people who had experienced excellent snow clearing but of course a number of different ones on Facebook where people were very exasperated by what they’d seen,” said Frizzell, who is waiting for the report that comes next week to council about what worked and what didn’t.

“I want to hear the stats because if there are spots where we need to improve then we’ll do it,” Frizzell said. “The thing that’s always on my mind is the budget. We’ve already got an enhancement coming forward for February because we kept the snow budget at a fixed level for a couple of years and when we have to increase it that means an increase in taxes, which is what we also try to avoid. So it’s that trade off. Yes, of course, we’re not going to say the budget is over because that calendar year is over.” — see PEOPLE, page 3

Pettersen’s innovative ideas left a ski legacy

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Bjorger Pettersen, a member of the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame for his work as Canada’s first full-time cross-country ski coach, died Dec. 29 at his home in Okotoks, Alta., after a nearly two-decade battle with sarcoidosis, a chronic disease that causes inflammation of the lungs. He was 76.

Pettersen’s legacy includes leaving Prince George in the mid1960s for Inuvik, NWT, where he quickly transformed a group of Indigenous kids from the Mackenzie Delta region into Olympiccalibre athletes. Two of his skiers, twin sisters Sharon and Shirley Firth of the Gwich’in First Nation,

were on the national women’s cross-country team for 17 years, competing in four consecutive Winter Olympics.

“You know what makes me smile?” Pettersen told reporter Peter Graves in a 2010 SkiTrax. com article. “Well, seven of nine skiers on the 1972 Canadian Olympic team were from the little town of Inuvik, a town of about 1,500 people. It made me very proud.”

Pettersen’s roots in Prince George can be traced back to 1958 when he moved with his family from Kitimat at age 16.

Skiing was a family passion they carried with them from Sarpsborg, Norway, when they immigrated to Camrose, Alta., five years earlier. The Pettersens became active members of the Sons

of Norway Ski Club and cut their own cross-country trails closer to their home on Harper Street through stretches of pine forest in

what is now the residential area west of Spruceland Mall.

Recognizing the need to grow the sport and not be so exclusive, Pettersen and Harry Andersen suggested the club change its name to Hickory Wing Ski Club.

The club developed the trails at Tabor Mountain which became a beacon for ski racers in the region. Tabor was the site of the 1965 biathlon and cross-country national championships and the Centennial Races in 1967 that brought international racers to Prince George.

“Hickory Wing became a real iconic development in Canadian cross-country skiing because we became the main centre in Canada to produce cross-country skiers,” said Pettersen, in an interview with The Citizen a few

months before his death. “It all started in Prince George after we sort of laid the roots to the development we had here in Canada.” Ski racing was Pettersen’s life until an injury cut short his career just before he was about to represent Canada in the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He was named to the Canadian Olympic training squad in 1962 and returned to Norway to train but had to stop entirely when he nearly ruptured his Achilles tendon, an overuse injury he attributed to too much running on hard surfaces.

Unable to ski, he returned to Prince George and became a coach, ordering as many training manuals as he could find through his contacts in Norway. — see ‘WE WERE, page 3

City graders clear Jarvis Street on Friday morning.

PETTERSEN

HANDOUT PHOTO

Jewelles Smith has been picked as one of the federal government’s delegates to the next sitting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Smith grew up in Prince George and attended UNBC on her way to becoming an internationally recognized advocate for people living with disabilities.

Former P.G. woman to take part in UN Commission on the Status of Women

PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

When the next session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) opens in New York, the Canadian delegation will have a Prince George component.

Jewelles Smith now lives in Surrey but her work as a scholar and advocate began in this city. Her current position is the policy and political affairs coordinator with the student association of Kwantlen University, plus she is a PhD candidate and sits as the chair of the Council of Canadians With Disabilities.

“In that capacity I do a lot of work with the federal government and international contacts, in relation to human rights,” Smith told The Citizen. “I’m a trained human rights monitor. My PhD candidacy has a lot to do with mothering – documenting the experience of mothering seen through a human rights lens.”

She is heavily involved in the public input side of renovating the Accessible Canada Act, a bill that is now making its way through Parliament and the Senate in Ottawa.

Smith’s past work has earned her a seat at the United Nations table twice before, both times in Geneva, but this new calling is an advocacy promotion.

“My letter of invitation is as a delegate of the

federal government, which changes my role compared to representing civil society, which is what I was doing in the past with the UN,” she said.

“Because my focus is women with disabilities, I have the background for the government to rely on in this sort of discussion.”

She said Canadian society has a long way to go, both at the street level and inside the rooms where policy is written, to equalize citizenship for those with disabilities. Other countries are ahead of Canada in some ways, and far behind in others, making the agenda at the UNCSW such an important set of discussions.

“It’s about physical barriers but it is also about attitudinal barriers,” Smith said.

“It crosses over into access to education, the right to be a parent, access to employment, anti-violence. I look into all that and then I will look at further intersections, like Indigenous women with disabilities or women with disabilities who are experiencing violence. When I do my work with government, I bring all that with me.”

She also brings Prince George with her everywhere she goes. It was this community, she said, that first ignited her intellect and passion for improving society, even before her spina bifida symptoms began to increase to the point she walks with a cane and uses a guide dog.

She moved to P.G. in her elementary years

from her original hometown of Craigellachie. She attended Ron Brent Elementary School, Carney Hill (now Nusdeh Yoh) Elementary School, did high school at PGSS and Duchess Park Secondary, then began her long post-secondary career at UNBC before transferring to Simon Fraser Uninversity where she obtained her Masters and now with UBC-Okanagan for her PhD.

“I would love to do a semester teaching at UNBC at some point,” she said wistfully.

“I loved UNBC very much – the smaller size, the diversity on campus, and having spent all of my teenage years and early 20s in P.G., I have so many friends there and memories there. I’d love to spend time in P.G. again.”

That will have to wait until at least summer.

The 63rd session of the UNCSW runs Mar. 11-22 at United Nations Headquarters in New York and will, she said, require a lot of preparation on her part to be ready for the event.

The priority themes are “social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls” with the review theme slated to be “women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.”

To these ends, Smith’s invitation read “We appreciate your commitment to advancing gender equality and believe that your contribution to the UNCSW 63 will be invaluable.”

Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — Extreme volatility in oil markets has resulted in a price jump for gasoline of four cents a litre in Metro Vancouver and an analyst predicts a further hike could arrive within days.

Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy. com, says Vancouver residents will be the “poster children” for what he expects will be a wild year for gas prices Canada-wide.

He says the four-cent increase is the culmination of a series of events, including the explosion of the Enbridge natural gas pipeline in October and the unexpected maintenance shutdown of the Olympic pipeline last month in Washington state.

McTeague says traders are still rebounding from those events and must cover gasoline demand in Oregon, Washington and southern British Columbia, prompting the latest hike and another boost of what he predicts could be a “penny or two,” by Sunday.

Greater Vancouver imports all its fuel, adding to the cost, but McTeague says fuel taxes will also climb in B.C. on April 1. He says the tax will add 3.3 cents to the price of a litre of fuel and make the Vancouver area the highest tax jurisdiction for fuel of any major city in North America.

“You knocked out Montreal,” McTeague says.

“There are some occasions where being No. 1 isn’t such a great thing.”

The GasBuddy website pegged the average price for gas in Vancouver at about $1.31 a litre on Friday, well above the average price of gas in some other Canadian cities. In Halifax, the average price was 97.8 cents, while it was at about $1.11 a litre in Montreal.

A written analysis provided by McTeague says the turbulent year ahead for prices at Canadian pumps will stem, in part, from concerns over a looming trade war between the U.S. and China.

Frank

‘We

were trying to push the boundaries’

— from page 1

He attended the annual fall convention of the Canadian Ski Association and was elected chairman and head coach of the CSA’s Western Division. When Pettersen took over as coach, just two of the 28 national team skiers were from the Western Division. By 1966, 22 of the 28 team members came from his program.

To help share the workload, Pettersen got his father John and younger brother Rolf involved and by 1965 Hickory Wing was the top club racing team in Canada. Rolf went on to become an 11-time Canadian champion who competed in the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France. All three Pettersens are now in the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame.

Pettersen moved to Inuvik in 1965, hired as head coach and manager of the TEST (Territorial Experimental Ski Training) program. Working with local athletes, most of whom had never skied before, Pettersen’s impact was immediate. Skiing on a lit track during long winters on the flat Arctic tundra, often enduring cold that hit the minus-40s, within six months he molded the 14-year-old Firth twins into North American champions. Five years later, as part of the country’s first Olympic women’s ski team in 1972 in Sapporo, they joined TEST protégées Fred Kelly, Roger Allen and Roseanne Allen as the first Aboriginal athletes to represent Canada at the Olympics.

Pettersen’s ability to attract world-calibre racers to the Top of the World ski championships in Inuvik and his success in developing so many quality skiers from the Arctic who regularly posted top-10 results against the best Europeans made his name prominent in international ski circles. In 1969, on the way back from their European tour Pettersen and the national team were guests of honour at a dinner at Rideau Gate hosted by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Pettersen left Inuvik that year to become Canada’s first national cross-country ski coach, a job he held until 1975. During his tenure he started the national team training centre and established the

A teenaged Bjorger Pettersen has a hard time containing his excitement as he blasts through the snow on his skis on trails he and his family cut through the forests of Prince George near what is now Spruceland Mall. Pettersen, a member of the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame, died at age 76 last week at his home in Okotoks, Alta.

Yellowhead Ski Club in McBride in 1972, using money he’d made from his ski equipment business, Viking Ski Imports, to build the lodge. He lived in McBride on his own cattle ranch until 1986, when he was hired by the Calgary Olympic Committee. As Canada’s Federation International Ski (FIS) representative, a position he held for 27 years, Pettersen was the primary architect of the Canmore Nordic Centre built for the 1988 Calgary Olympics and he was venue co-ordinator/manager for the cross-country events at the Games. His trail design included steep undulating pitches which reflected the new free technique racing style.

‘People were reaching out stating they were snowed in their own homes’

— from page 1

“We’re always going to provide that service but the problem is when you have to spend extra money for snow clearing you have to find ways to make up that shortfall, either by reducing services in a different area or by increasing taxes and neither of those are ones you want to do,” Frizzel added.

Frizzell said providing the services everyone in Prince George needs is what the city does and he’s looking forward to receiving the report next week so they can take a look at how better to provide those services to all residents.

Coun.Terri McConnachie said she acknowledges those people who are openly frustrated at the level of snow removal service the city has provided after this major snowfall.

“Earlier this week people were reaching out stating they were snowed in their own homes for several days,” she said.

“We’re going to be receiving a brief this week, is my understanding, regarding this first snow event of the season and then we’ll have an opportunity to compare it to the last couple of years and I think the most important thing that I would want folks to know is that I feel the city crews and contracted operators who are out there are going flat out and when the city is stressed and crews are stretched they hear it and they feel it and those snow removal crews are given direction and the buck stops with mayor and council. So I look forward to participating in those discussions next week just to have an opportunity to unpack it and see just what was up with the delay during the first snow event of the year and then we’ll move forward.”

“We were trying to push the boundaries in the big world and trying to innovate,” he said. “You know, what works in Scandinavia is one thing, but we needed something bigger to drive the sport in North America.”

Canmore is now the home of the national biathlon and cross-country teams and is widely recognized as one of the top nordic ski facilities in North America.

One of only a handful of lifetime members of the FIS Cross-Country Committee, Pettersen served as technical director at three Olympic competitions – Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980, Albertville, France, in 1992 and in his native Norway at Lillehammer in 1994.

Pettersen’s first brush with the Olympics came in 1960 when he skipped school in Prince George to attend the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., to learn more about the sport. The cross-country events had a low profile at the Games, which gave Pettersen unfettered access to FIS officials and their contacts and that spurred his entrepreneurial spirit.

Recognizing how hard it was for Canadians to buy quality ski equipment he tapped into the European suppliers and at age 18 began importing the gear himself, based in North Vancouver. Within seven years, with Pettersen’s brother-in-law Bob Gaasbeek from Prince George running the business in Montreal, Viking Ski Imports was boasting annual sales of $8 million and that allowed Pettersen to donate equipment to the national team. He sold the business in 1980 after three snowless winters in main markets of Eastern Canada.

In November 2017, Pettersen released a 435-page self-published book, A CrossCountry Ski Story, which took two-and-a-half years for him to write. Illustrated with photos throughout the pages, the book offers detailed descriptions of the races he attended and how he honed his career as an athlete, coach, official and entrepreneur. Included are chapters written by former national team coaches Dave Wood, Roger Allen, Jack Sasseville, Anton Scheier and current head coach Louis Bouchard. The book is available in Prince George at Books and Company.

Pettersen moved to Okotoks to set up his ranch after the 1988 Olympics. Writing the book gave him a chance to reflect on his nearly seven decades as a contributor and innovator in nordic skiing in Canada.

“When I first kicked my skis on in this country, we were an unorganized, backwoods sport,” he wrote.

“Today, we are world beaters and medal winners! I love my family and cross-country skiing! Go Canada Go!”

A celebration of Pettersen’s life will be held today at 2 p.m. at the Okotoks Community Centre.

Skier killed in avalanche

Citizen news service

PEMBERTON — A 42-yearold man has died in an avalanche in the backcountry near Pemberton as officials warn the risk of slides remains high to extreme across the province and Alberta.

A group of skiers were in the area of Pebble Creek on Thursday at around 3 p.m. when the avalanche happened, burying the man, said RCMP Sgt. Rob Knapton. The man’s emergency beacon alerted the RCMP and the other skiers were able to find him using a probe, but he did not survive, he said.

“They actually were able to locate the person and dig them out,” he said Friday.

“Some of the people, I understand, skied out, but they left a few people behind as well with the body and they relocated to a cabin, which was nearby, and were able to spend the night there.”

Weather conditions and flying restrictions meant the Mounties and Pemberton Search and Rescue could not enter the area until Friday morning, he said. The deceased and the other skiers were flown back to Pemberton around noon.

The man was from the Squamish area and his family has been notified. The RCMP expects to turn the investigation over to the B.C. Coroners Service. Knapton said he didn’t know the relationship between the man and the group of skiers.

The skiers were experienced and carried the proper equipment, but police are reminding the public to take precautions when going into the backcountry.

“You can be experienced and you can have the appropriate safety equipment, but there’s always some level of risk when you’re out there,” Knapton said. “That doesn’t mean don’t go out there. But just be aware that there’s some level of risk...”

PHOTO FROM PETTERSEN’S BOOK, A CROSSCOUNTRY SKI STORY

Surrey family wins millions

Enjoying the snow

Victoria lotto player misses out on $1M prize

This hurts. Hurts almost as much as Canada’s loss to Finland in the world juniors. Worse, if you’re a lottery player.

A $1-million lottery ticket that was sold in Victoria expired Thursday, one year to the day after it was drawn.

Yes, it’s a thing.

VANCOUVER — After realizing she’d won a $39.5-million Lotto Max jackpot, Michelle De Roma did something most winners don’t – she put the ticket in an envelope in a safe place and waited a week to claim her prize.

The mother of three from Surrey says she wanted to focus on enjoying the holidays and celebrating her husband’s birthday before their world shifted.

“This will change our life,” she said Friday at a news conference.

De Roma plays the lottery about every week and the winning Lotto Max numbers were randomly generated through a quick pick. She bought the ticket at Tsawwassen Mills shopping centre in Delta while doing some Boxing Day shopping.

When she realized she had the single winning ticket matching all seven numbers in the Dec. 28 draw, she told her husband first.

“I just hugged my husband be-

cause he’s the one who supported me all the way with this. He just said, ‘Wow!’ And then hugged me and kissed me,” De Roma said.

De Roma said she hasn’t told her children yet but she wants to use the money to build a good life for them, and also travel to Rome to see St. Peter’s Basilica and the Coliseum.

“I first will secure my family. I just want a nice house for my kids and I want to travel – everybody wants to travel with this amount –and I want to invest in real estate for our future.”

All lottery winners have 52 weeks from the draw date printed on their ticket to come forward to claim their prize.

The odds of winning a Lotto Max jackpot are one in 28,633,528 per play, the B.C. Lottery Corp. says.

De Roma said she considers the win an “amazing blessing,” and had hoped for a miracle whenever she bought lottery tickets. She plans to continue playing the lottery.

When the B.C. Lottery Corp. announced two weeks ago that it was still looking for the holder of a ticket bearing all 10 digits –18923844-07 – from the Lotto 6/49 guaranteed prize draw held Jan. 3, 2018, it set off a frenzy of modern-day gold mining –though instead of panning creek beds, Islanders went fishing through glove compartments and coat pockets. It wasn’t just that people wanted to find the wayward ticket themselves.

They wanted someone to find it. The idea of a million bucks going unclaimed appalls any wage slave whose retirement plans are predicated on A) saying yes to the Extra and B) praying.

“These are life-changing amounts of money,” said BCLC spokesman Evan Kelly.

I even got a call from Peter Sewell, a Lower Mainland man who was enlisted by a Victoria friend to use his map-dowsing skills to look for the ticket.

it. You know how dowsers look for underground water sources by holding out a couple of sticks? Map dowsers claim the ability to locate missing objects by poring over maps. Sewell, 77, got a strong signal from an address in Saanich, but when his Victoria friend left a letter at the house, offering to help search the premises, the homeowners grew suspicious.

“They called the cops,” he said. Sewell doesn’t blame them. He knows dowsing sounds weird – though he says he has a solid record of discoveries over the past quarter century, including finding buried pipes for the California parks service and a Roman well beneath a British castle.

Homeowner Greg Russell said yes, he called the police because the letter sounded like some sort of burglar’s house-casing scam, but the subsequent police investigation found nothing to worry about.

And no, he doesn’t figure the expired ticket is in his home.

“I don’t think I’ve ever bought a lottery ticket in Victoria.”

Still, the slim chance that the

ticket was languishing under the chesterfield proved too tempting for Russell and his wife to ignore. “We have looked through the house, just in case.”

The Lottery Corp., citing security, won’t reveal precisely where in Victoria the ticket was sold – which might leave the city’s lotto vendors wondering if they’re losers, too.

It was snowing at the Otway Nordic Centre Friday morning and, with temperatures expected to stay below freezing next week, conditions at the centre are expected to be good. Citizen news service

Had the ticket been redeemed, the seller would have earned a $2,000 reward.

Whoever bought the ticket isn’t the first person to miss out on a million. Four other $1 million prizes have gone unclaimed in B.C. the past 10 years. That’s out of a total of $5.2 million in unclaimed winnings (or make that $6.2 million, as of Thursday). When that happens with one of the nationally run games like 6/49 or Lotto Max, the money goes back into the prize pot. When it’s a BCLC-operated game like the BC/49, the cash goes to the provincial government. Three dozen British Columbians won prizes of more than $1 million last year, the latest being the $39.5-million Dec. 28 Lotto Max winner in south Delta. Thankfully, that ticket wasn’t lost in the toe of a now-packedaway Christmas stocking or didn’t go up the chimney with the wrapping paper.

Map-dowsing?

Google

JACK KNOX Victoria Times Colonist

Guest Column

A Canadian Pacific freight train travels around Morant’s Curve near Baker Creek, Alta. on Dec. 1, 2014. Heavy snowfall, warm temperatures and high winds have led to an extreme avalanche risk in Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Jasper national parks.

Parks Canada warns of avalanche risk

Citizen news service

BANFF, Alta. — Parks Canada is urging backcountry users to stay out of avalanche terrain this weekend after a winter storm led to an extreme danger rating in Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Jasper national parks.

The latest avalanche bulletin for the mountain parks in Alberta and British Columbia said that the areas have received up to 70 centimetres of snow in recent days which is overloading a weak layer from mid-December.

Officials said the rating for Friday was extreme, which means people should avoid all avalanche terrain because natural and human-triggered avalanches are certain.

“Those high avalanche ratings are going to continue through to tomorrow,” Lesley Matheson, a spokeswoman for Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks, said Friday.

“That’s because we got a lot of snow, we had some warm temperatures and strong to moderate winds.

“It’s worth playing it safe right now. We’re really recommending not travelling into any avalanche terrain.”

The forecast said snowfall was expected to taper off across the region Friday night.

Friday’s avalanche bulletin for Banff, Yoho and Kootenay lowered the danger rating to high, which is still very dangerous, and suggested people stay clear of avalanche terrain.

“Slopes that have not avalanched are ripe for human triggering,” said the

bulletin. Officials reminded visitors who travel into the backcountry that they are responsible for their own safety.

“Make sure you are checking the daily avalanche bulletin before you head out, you are prepared for your day out in the backcountry, you’ve got the right equipment and training... and you’ve left your trip plan with someone,” said Matheson.

“Be responsible for your safety, play it safe and make sure you’re making good decisions.”

Motorists travelling through the mountain national parks were also being advised to check conditions before heading out.

Highway 93 North, also known as the Icefields Parkway, through Banff and Jasper national parks is to remain closed until at least Sunday for avalanche control work after receiving between 60 and 80 centimetres of snow.

Control work was also planned for late Saturday morning on the Trans-Canada Highway, leading to intermittent closures near Field.

Avalanche Canada said heavy snow in B.C. has created a high possibility of slides on south coast and Vancouver Island mountains, as well as through most of the province’s east-central and southeastern regions.

It means very dangerous avalanche conditions also exist outside the national parks.

“There’s really not a lot of difference between extreme and high,” said Grant Helgeson, senior forecaster for Avalanche Canada.

“What’s happening when it’s extreme

is we had very large avalanches that were occurring almost everywhere.

“As we move down to high, we’re still at very dangerous avalanche conditions and travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended.”

RCMP in Pemberton said late Friday that they are investigating a death in the backcountry near Pebble Creek.

They said a group of skiers was in the area Thursday when an avalanche buried one person.

The other skiers were able to locate that person with their beacons but the skier did not survive.

Helgeson said conditions across much of B.C. should improve throughout the weekend.

“As the storm exits to the east, we anticipate avalanche dangers coming down somewhat quickly,” he said from Revelstoke. “Natural avalanches remain possible, but human-triggered avalanches become the bigger story.”

He said anyone who is heading into avalanche terrain needs to be properly trained and be equipped with a beacon, probe and shovel.

“Folks really need to think about choosing somewhat conservative terrain as they move into the mountains this weekend,” said Helgeson.

“It’s going to be hard because visibility is probably going to get better this weekend, we’re all feeling great after the holidays and it’s natural to be drawn up into the bigger features.

“But it’s going to be time to be conservative and show some restraint this weekend.”

B.C. ‘adventure’ traveller detained in Syria

Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia man who went to Syria seeking adventure has been detained in the war-ravaged country, and Canada’s foreign ministry says there is little it can do to help him.

The mother of the man from Nanaimo said he has not been in touch for more than a month and is pleading for help getting him home.

Andrea Leclair told The Canadian Press that her 44-year-old son Kristian Lee Baxter messaged her daily because she was worried after he arrived in Syria on Nov. 26, but he went silent after his last message on Dec. 1.

Asked about Baxter, Global Affairs Canada confirmed it is aware of a Canadian who has been detained in Syria.

But the department offered no other details and would not confirm his identity, citing the Privacy Act.

The government has been warning Canadians to avoid travelling to Syria since 2011 after the outbreak of a civil war that has attracted foreign powers and spawned a multitude of militias, including a new Islamist terror group, while leaving an estimated 500,000 people dead.

Canada severed diplomatic relations with Syria in 2012, expelling its diplomats and shuttering its embassy.

“Consular services are being provided to the family and to the individual, to the limited extent possible. Given the security situation on the ground, the Government of Canada’s ability to provide consular assistance in any part of Syria is extremely limited,” said Global Affairs spokesman Stefano Maron.

The Global Affairs travel advisory warns all Canadians to avoid travelling to the country because of the ongoing war.

“Syria is not safe for personal travel,” says the department’s online advisory. “Attempting any form of travel in this very hazardous security environment would place you at grave risk. Criminals, terrorists and armed groups target foreigners for terrorist attacks, assassination and kidnapping for ransom or political gain.”

The advisory says the country is plagued by fighting that involves small arms, tanks, artillery, aircraft fire and chemical weapons.

Leclair described her son as a “world traveller and adventurer” and said he visited a village near the border of Lebanon at the invitation of his girlfriend’s brother-in-law, who now lives in Pennsylvania but regularly

visits the village.

“I just want him home,” Leclair said.

One of Baxter’s flights was delayed on his way to Beirut so his luggage arrived after him, she said.

The brother-in-law arranged for a driver to pick him up from the airport in Beirut and drive him to the village, and Baxter said the driver assured him that he would collect his luggage for him, Leclair said.

“The driver said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to pick up your suitcase, don’t worry, you just stay and visit.’ So he did. And the driver never came back,” Leclair said.

Baxter went back to the border and was told the driver had been detained because a metal detector, which is a prohibited item, was in his suitcase, she said.

Baxter is a “history buff” and uses his metal detector as a hobby, but didn’t realize it was not permitted across the border, Leclair said.

“He loves to find things, he’ll find silly things like bottle tops but they might be old bottle tops, that kind of thing. He never finds anything of any value,” she said. “Kristian is a world traveller, he’s been all over the place, he’s an adventurer.”

Baxter told the border officials that the suitcase belonged to him, but they did not detain him or release the driver, she said. After four or five days, the driver’s family was getting worried, so Baxter returned once again on Dec. 2 to claim responsibility, she said, even though his girlfriend’s brother-in-law was urging him to leave the country at this point because the situation was worrying him. He has not been heard from since, she said.

During their final video chat, Baxter said he introduced her to the cousin of the brother-in-law and several other people in the room.

“He introduced me to all these people, he says, ‘They’re such nice people, everywhere I go they’re feeding me and giving me tea and coffee.’ He was just having a really nice time,” she said.

Leclair said she has been frustrated by the lack of information she has been able to get about Baxter. Global Affairs Canada initially told her it could do nothing because there is no functioning Canadian embassy in Syria, then said it might be able to work through the Romanian embassy, she said.

Baxter was supposed to be home Dec. 13 and his travel visa to Syria expired on Dec. 12 or 13, she said.

“It’s so complicated because we just don’t know anything,” Leclair said.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Storm leaves flooded roads, avalanche danger behind

VANCOUVER (CP) — Rainfall, wind, snow and winter storm warnings have been lifted for all of southern B.C. after a powerful system swept across the province leaving flooded or snowclogged roads in its wake. On Vancouver Island, torrential downpours forced flood watches or high streamflow advisories for several waterways and the deluge also prompted a boil water advisory for all users of the Comox Valley water system, including residents of Courtenay and Comox. The Comox Valley Regional District says in a news release that severe rainfall has caused turbidity levels at a back-up pump station to rise above acceptable thresholds, triggering the need for the boil water notice.

Environment Canada says the two-day storm dropped as much as 100 millimetres of rain on Port Alberni and parts of eastern Vancouver Island, equivalent to an entire month of rainfall, while more than 50 millimetres fell Thursday at Vancouver International Airport.

Two men charged in shooting aimed at home in Surrey

SURREY (CP) — Charges have been laid against two men in what police allege was a targeted shooting on a home in Surrey related to a personal dispute. The men, aged 30 and 42, face several weaponsrelated charges each. Police were alerted to the shooting on Wednesday night by multiple 911 calls of shots fired. There were no injuries. Officers pulled over a vehicle in the area of the shooting that night and three people were arrested, but the third person was later released without charge. An RCMP news release says they don’t believe the shooting was related to the gang conflict in Metro Vancouver.

Police pursuit ends with spike belt and arrest in Langley

SURREY (CP) — Police say they have a man in custody after a police pursuit through the Fraser Valley and into Metro Vancouver.

Surrey RCMP say they received a report of an assault of a person by a man driving a white BMW sedan. An officer in Chilliwack later pulled the vehicle over and the driver stopped, but the RCMP say the vehicle reversed into a police vehicle and fled. Police say they chased the vehicle along Highway 1 through Chilliwack, Abbotsford and into Langley because they believed the victim of the assault was still inside the sedan. The Mounties say they eventually used a spike belt across the highway to stop the vehicle.

Let it snow

With a steady diet of fresh snow in the forecast over the next five days for Prince George, questions remain unanswered about the City of Prince George’s mismanagement of the first major snowfall of the year last weekend.

The Citizen’s request to the city for detailed information on where the snow removal crews were from Friday, Dec. 28 at noon to Wednesday, Jan. 2 at 9 a.m. was answered late Thursday afternoon with a non-response response, repeating previous news releases about how many pieces of equipment were on the roads, following city protocol.

Yet a closer read of senior communications officer Michael Kellett’s reply is revealing for what it doesn’t say.

He lists in detail the amount of equipment on city streets after the snow stopped falling at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 29 but makes no mention of what was happening during the previous 30 hours. Two news releases on the city’s website from Dec. 28, one written in the morning and the other in the late afternoon, assure residents that “snow and ice control crews are in full operation..., clearing priority routes throughout the city due to the ongoing heavy snowfall.” Was that really the case?

We still don’t know.

An email from Kellett Friday morning stated that “administration is reviewing your specific request and will advise you by Tuesday of next week about the best process for you to acquire the information you seek.”

Tuesday would be the day after Monday’s regular city council meeting where, based on comments made to The Citizen in today’s story by Christine Hinzmann, mayor and council will be briefed on the snow removal effort.

Kellett’s answer was in reply to an email

The Citizen sent to Kellett, external relations director Rob van Adrichem, city manager Kathleen Soltis and mayor and council at 6 p.m. Thursday. Here it is in its entirety:

“Hi, Mike.

“Your response below to my information request on snow removal is unacceptable and frankly insulting.

“I already read the releases the city put out over the weekend and I have already read the city’s snow removal policy and protocol posted on the city’s website. None of that information comes close to answering my request, which was a detailed breakdown of where and when was the city’s snow removal equipment from Friday noon to Wednesday at 9 a.m. What streets did they clear and when? Restating the number

of machines working and that they were following the city’s priority snow removal procedure isn’t an answer, it’s a deflection.

“I understand that it might be difficult to provide that information quickly because it may involve getting access to log books and dispatch records, on top of talking to senior staff in public works and streets. The response provided, however, points to either a lack of effort to obtain that information or an outright unwillingness to do so. Both are troubling to me, which is why I have shared this email with all of you, in hopes of receiving some sort of response on Friday.

“If none is forthcoming, I’ll file my FOI request next week.”

FOI stands for freedom of information. Media outlets and private citizens can file formal requests for information from governments and public sector institutions under the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Citizen has filed FOIPPA requests to the city on numerous occasions over the years, most recently in connection with overtime paid to city staff in connection with the 2017 Cariboo wildfires evacuation crisis and, before that, for records to show how the City of Prince George and the Northern Development Initiative Trust offered development funds to kickstart the Courtyard Marriott project (The Citizen won a Ma Murray

Take it from a pro

I have lived in Prince George my entire life and with these years come some pro tips to help with your snow removal frustrations. First off, I would like to say, I drive a small car. Now as a driver I understand the limitations of my vehicle. On the day that it snowed 25 centimetres, my car does not have 25 cm of clearance, so I know that I cannot drive. I want to because I have places to go but that is the knocks with driving a car in the North. Some days my fellow car drivers, you are stranded. So pro tip number 1: If it has snowed more than the clearance from your bumper to the ground and you drive and get high-centred, that, my friends, is not the city’s fault.

Pro tip number 2: Winter tires. If you cannot afford to buy them, then catch the bus in the winter. Winter tires are not an option. You live in the North and if you want that little car of yours to get anywhere this winter, then you need to get the car the proper rubber it needs to get moving on the snow and ice. Summer tires will not make that happen. If your vehicle is not winter-ready, then you are a hazard to other drivers and that is not the city’s fault, it is your own. Here is what happens: you pull out of your driveway in a vehicle that cannot possibly make it to its destination, you block traffic when you get stuck, you hold up other people’s days as they stop to help push you out and the entire time they are trying to help you, you are complaining to everyone that will listen that the City of Prince George sucks. It is a privilege to drive, not a

right, especially if you’re driving in an unwinterized vehicle that is a hazard to other drivers. It’s funny that we totally understand personal impairment and respect that, but are clueless when it comes to vehicle impairment.

Just as dangerous, people.

This discussion happens every single winter and Mayor Lyn Hall has been our mayor long enough for me to ask – knowing the snow removal issues as you do, how many pieces of equipment have we added to the Prince George snow removal roster the last five years to help amend this issue?

Dianna Young Prince George

Want money back

Your snow removal editorial (Jan. 4) was on point. Three hundred and eighty calls was just a drop in the bucket, as far as I’m concerned, for the number of angry citizens who vented or would like to vent on the city.

But we all know that contacting city hall is just a waste of time. All you get is smoke pounded up you know where. There is no accountability so why complain?

Eight days as of today, Jan. 4, and not a piece of snow removal equipment in sight. Where do I sign up to get a partial municipal snow removal tax refund?

Mike Hackman Prince George

Not a plow in sight

A great Jan. 4 Citizen editorial. Thanks to Neil Godbout for expressing our feelings – and I am pretty sure many other Prince George citizens’ feelings – about

our current snow removal. We live on Genevieve Crescent off 15th Avenue. Our road has not yet seen a snowplow since the last snowfall started a week ago Friday. When speaking with the service centre at city hall, the very pleasant woman looked at our address and said “plowing on Orange Garbage Zone roads will be started Friday Jan. 4.” We find this completely unacceptable. What has happened to the promised Priority 3 road clearing within 72 hours? There has been no explanation from the city to explain why this change in the promised snow clearing has happened. It is now 11 a.m. Friday and still not a snowplow in sight or even a glimpse of a plow in our area.

Helen Matson Prince George

Excellent work

I would like to give a thumbs up to the city workers who worked all of New Year’s Day clearing snow from the residential areas off Ospika Boulevard. They did an excellent job and I’m sure they would have preferred to spend the time at home with their families.

Peter Yates

Prince George

A worthwhile read

I have just finished reading The Citizen and was close to tears after reading the article “Es mi mama” by Michael Miller (Dec. 22). Every Canadian teenager should read this article so they would be thankful for the world they are living in and the advantages they have in Canada.

Donalda Carson, Prince George

SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

award for excellence in business reporting for that work).

Short story – we’re on it and we’ll continue to pursue the answers Prince George taxpayers deserve about snow removal service levels. There are too many people with too many stories (see today’s letters) that the city’s own standards weren’t met. Going back to last summer, with the revelation of overtime pay collected by salaried administrators during the wildfire evacuations, on top of their soaring wage increases since 2014, there seems to be a common theme emerging from city hall. The city’s top managers turn to their communications staff to try to gloss over embarrassing revelations with upbeat spin messaging. In the aftermath, city council is left holding the bag, trying to explain the actions of administration to frustrated residents.

Politicians have enough to worry about with media and public criticism of their decisions and statements without having to justify what their bureaucrats are doing. At some point, this mayor and council will hopefully get tired of being thrown under the proverbial snow plow by their own administration and hold the high-priced managerial help accountable when they get it wrong, rather than just endlessly patting them on the back for their efforts.

— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout

Time for some Horgan self-reflection

Midway in a mandate is when a government’s impact is finally felt and its direction usually made clear.

But what I wonder is whether the BC NDP will distract us from the impact with a fresh batch of new directions – not as legislation or regulation or immediate policy, but as campaign promises in a snap election.

The most difficult economic days for British Columbia are on the horizon, likely at the end of 2019 or early 2020.

But, just as U.S. President Donald Trump benefited from the work of Barack Obama until he messed around too much with the stability, so the NDP has benefited from the stewardship of the BC Liberals and has tinkered with a successful tax dynamic. Unlike Trump, who is at least consistent, it didn’t campaign on the measures it has imposed. Its fiddling with the economy –on taxing real estate and payrolls, on perpetuating pipeline opposition – has cemented measures that will only feel more onerous, and provide far less wiggle room on the balance sheet, when times are tougher. Any tax relief it has provided has been nominal, and when revenue tightens, it will have few available options to lessen the load – so significant are its longer-term commitments in housing and child care, among other big-ticket files.

poses no threat, some still-upbeat economic numbers, and perhaps as important, unity in the ranks. And, joy of joys, it has first past the post.

The most challenging questions Horgan has to answer in any consideration of an election call are about himself.

A more cynical person would have suggested this was the electoral plan all along: a confusing, three-option referendum proposal that even its ministers couldn’t explain, a routine endorsement of proportional representation that was at once too partisan and insufficiently passionate and just enough time to wake people up about the shabby process to mail in their distaste. That might be giving the government too much credit. Arguably the most plausible explanation is that, handed its most significant opportunity to make its mark, the NDP stacked the deck as best it could to mystify the unsuspecting public and yet snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Is it then the most optimal time this spring, in advance of a federal election in October, to try to claim a full majority mandate, ride out the expected storm and capitalize as we recover into 2023?

It is true but it need not do so.

Frankly, the party can seemingly careen and taunt as it wishes and not trigger Andrew Weaver beyond his constant huffing and puffing to ever bring the house down.

And, sure, the odds are long that the Nanaimo byelection will not go as planned and perpetuate NDP control, or that the legislative Speaker will not have found a method over the holidays to keep his gig by averting further selfharm – follies that would necessitate a new election.

But the temptation, despite the tenuous numeric hold, is there. The window is the most open it might be for some time for John Horgan’s team: a rebuilding and impoverished BC Liberal opposition, a subdued BC Green Party that

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It is difficult to see how the loss will have direct consequence. The campaign’s opponents are his political opponents and will stay so; his allies are hardly going to switch teams to be with those it opposed on the issue. But it was a statement on leadership and on the degree to which British Columbians were prepared to trust Horgan to deliver on the many details lacking as they deliberated in the referendum.

It takes a lot of time for a party without the recent history of leadership to earn the necessary equity and currency to advance a complex change like electoral reform. Justin Trudeau understood that and backed off the idea; Horgan couldn’t because he had to appease Weaver. That all being said, the most challenging questions Horgan has to answer in any consideration of an election call are about himself. Has he dispelled the perception of tax-and-spend NDP governance?

Has he retained his following in adopting or abandoning policies?

Has he reached across sufficiently to earn an even larger support? I think he would be hard-pressed to answer affirmatively. I’m just not sure it would stop him.

— Kirk LaPointe is vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media

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Guest Column

A wide, watery world

So much more to cruising than just the Caribbean

Fran GOLDEN Citizen news service

For cruise passengers, 2019 is shoring up to be a particularly exciting year. Not only are ships returning to places that have been perceived as politically sensitive in recent years – such as Turkey and Egypt –they’re also heading on increasingly remote voyages, to places that feel like the ends of the Earth. Here, the seafaring trips to prioritize in 2019.

Cuba

Havana has been drawing hundreds of thousands of mass market cruisers since restrictions on U.S. travel were eased in 2016.

This year luxury lines join the party, offering deeper experiences and spending more time in ports than the larger ships.

SeaDream Yacht Club – known for its casual atmosphere and extreme pampering from the crew – heads to Cuba this month with the 112-passenger SeaDream II, sailing between Havana and the French-founded city of Cienfuegos. Among its port calls is Isla de la Juventud, Cuba’s second-largest island, where you can snorkel among sponges and corals in the Punta Frances Marine National Park before returning to your ship for a standout Thai massage.

SeaDream is hardly the only plush way to visit Cuba by ship. Silversea launches a series of five voyages in February, and Seabourn begins sailing to Cuba in the fall.

Bonus: Havana celebrates its 500th anniversary in November, making for tons of festivals, concerts, art exhibitions and other special events.

SeaDream II sailing, from US$5,999 per person for seven days

Egypt

The country is rebounding from a tourism slump that began with 2011’s Arab Spring, and this year luxury lines are returning to Egypt, meaning your World Cruise or Middle East itinerary will actually stop there rather than just pass through via the Suez Canal. Ocean lines such as Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Oceania Cruises, and Silversea will call on Safaga, with access to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings-albeit on a dusty 200-kilometre bus transfer from the Red Sea through the desert-in the spring and fall.

River lines are exploring farther afield, stopping not just in Cairo and Luxor, but in archaeologically-spectacular Aswan as well. Book a top suite on the 42-passenger Oberoi Philae, a steamwheeler replica that’s chartered by companies such as Lindblad Expeditions, and you can lounge in your own open-air whirlpool while pretending

you’re Cleopatra on the Nile.

Passage through Egypt sailing with Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic on the Oberoi Philae, from US$8,480 (top suites from US$13,260) for 13 days

Greenland

One of the most remote places on Earth, Arctic Greenland will be a hot spot with cruisers in 2019.

Until recently it has only been possible to explore the area’s untouched fjords, glaciers, colourful towns and Viking sites on basic expedition ships. Now, new ships are being purpose-built to serve as base camps in icy waters. Among them, Norway-based Hurtigruten’s hybrid electric, 500-passenger Roald Amundsen has a nifty underwater drone delivering video from down below and an infinity pool up on top. From either of those vantages – or even closer-up on excursions – you’ll be able to spot humpbacks and other whales, or see the northern lights high above.

Viking Heritage Cruise, from US$7,305 for 14 days

Galápagos

Cruising has always been the best way to see these remote islands, where you can snorkel and kayak with sea lions, get up close to sea iguanas and go eye-to-eye with blue-footed boobies – all animals that are seemingly unfazed by your presence. And while there’s no need to rough it, this year will see the introduction of several ultra-small ships to make the trips even more intimate. Most notable is the 100-pas-

senger, all-suite Celebrity Flora, which premieres in June with special cabanas for overnight glamping. If you want to go even smaller, check out the new 16- to 20-passenger yachts available from Adventure Life.

Celebrity Flora sailings, from US$8,999 for seven days

Alaska

A record-breaking 1.36 million cruisers are expected to arrive in Alaska from April to October this year – up from one million in 2017.

Don’t let occasional crowds scare you away, though. Seeing and hearing a glacier calve a house-size chunk into the sea is an experience that never gets old, and those increased tourism numbers simply mean there are more ways to do it than ever.

Princess Cruises is celebrating 50 years of bringing guests to see the flowing ice; Cunard returns after 20 years away; and Viking Ocean and Azamara Club Cruises are both making their debut in the Last Frontier State. (Pick Viking if you want more inclusions in your fare, Azamara if you’re looking for an intimate sailing experience, Cunard for its old-world glamour.)

Alaska-bound fans of giant ships with whiz-bang amenities will find two new options this season, as well: the Norwegian Joy, with its top-deck racetrack, and the Ovation of the Seas, complete with robot bartenders.

Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth sailings, from US$1,549 (US$9,304 for the luxurious Queens Grill suites) for 10 days

Seeing and hearing a glacier calve a house-size chunk into the sea is an experience that never gets old...

Turkey

After an attempted military coup in Turkey in 2016, most cruise companies diverted their ships from Turkey to Greece. That pattern is slowly being reversed as tourism to Turkey picks back up. On the cruising front, that may have something to do with Turkish government financial incentives, which now run from US$25 to US$45 per passenger, according to ports operator Global Ports Holding. See the impressive Blue Mosque and Roman Hippodrome with all-inclusive luxury line Regent Seven Seas (offering overnight stays beginning in June), and you’ll still have time to go on a shopping spree at the Grand Bazaar. Or try voyages on Regent, Holland America Line, or Royal Caribbean, which are all adding back stops in Kusadasi; it’s where you’ll get to see the Greco-Roman city of Ephesus and walk the same marble streets as Roman General Mark Antony. Athens to Venice on Seven Seas Voyager in June, from US$8,999 for 11 days

Papua New Guinea and West Papua, Indonesia

Even for travellers who feel they’ve seen it all, the prospect of sailing the remote far west Pacific sounds like a thrilling opportunity to encounter communities far removed from the modern world.

Australian small-ship line Coral Expeditions will make that prospect a reality when it unveils its 120-passenger expedition ship Coral Adventurer in May, sailing from Darwin to West Papua, Indonesia. The route is identical to the one Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman took 375 years ago, on his second great voyage. Additional itineraries add Papua New Guinea, the other half of the jungle-covered island, where you can learn about spirit masks and dip in hot springs before retreating to the tasteful comforts of the ship, whose wine cellar includes vintage Australian reds. Coral Expeditions isn’t the only company showcasing the archipelago: French yacht line Ponant will sail the region in May with its swanky new vessel, La Laperouse. (You know it as the ship with an underwater bar and lounge.) Coral Adventurer sailings, from US$6,815 for 10 days.

People stand in front of a towering MSC Cruises ship, docked in Havana, Cuba, on Jan. 27, 2018.

Pelicans float in the bay of Puerto Ayora, Galapagos.

Shakirova helps T-wolves find their teeth

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Alina Shakirova knew it would take time to get comfortable with her role as a shooting guard for the UNBC Timberwolves.

Life as a U Sports athlete means she’s taking on some of the best basketball players in Canada as a defensive specialist and that adjustment is complicated by the fact the 20-year-old native of Moscow, Russia, is still getting used to playing her game in a foreign land.

Not that anyone who watched her play Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre would have noticed.

Now in her second season with the T-wolves, Shakirova nailed a career-high 18 points to lead UNBC to a 78-55 victory over the visiting Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.

The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the T-wolves (7-4), who needed a full quarter to pull away from their Kamloops rivals. The loss was the thirdstraight for TRU (3-8).

“It felt pretty good, I like what my teammates did for me and I tried to do what they wanted me to do,” said Shakirova.

“After the break it’s always hard to start right away and we needed the first quarter to adjust and remember our good game and then we started playing strong defence and that allowed us to play good offence. “When you make your open shots at first it gives you confidence and then you have the cour-

UNBC men stage comeback win

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

Just when it looked like the UNBC Timberwolves were about to leave the court with their tails between their legs Friday at the Northern Sport Centre they found a way to make it a miserable ending for the visiting Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.

The clash of the Canada West conference men’s basketball canines turned into an epic dogfight marked by an impressive fourthquarter comeback for the T-wolves. They beat TRU 90-81, outscoring their rivals from Kamloops 31-16 in the final quarter.

“TRU is traditionally a good team, well-coached, so we knew

what was coming to us and we knew it was going to be a challenge so we did our best – we probably showed our best basketball so far this season,” said T-wolves guard Vova Pluzhnikov, who hit for a game-high 25 points.

Trailing 63-57 in the final seconds of the third quarter, Jovan Leamy got the crowd into the game when he stole the ball and finished his breakaway with a dunk. Leamy continued to show a hot hand in the fourth quarter and with 5:52 left he hit for a three that cut the gap to two points.

The WolfPack was guilty of tossing the ball out of bounds a couple times and Pluzhnikov answered with a three-pointer that gave

UNBC the lead with 5:30 left.

Anthony Hokanson, Leamy and Pluzhnikov continued to find their targets but TRU would not go away and got to within 84-81 when Leamy sealed it in the final minute with another three.

“It was just our willingness to win,” said Pluzhnikov. “We’re an experienced squad and we have a lot of fifth-years so we just slowed down our and did our best executing. The shots started to fall and our man guys caught fire. It’s a team win and I’m really excited about the season.”

Leamy finished with 24 points. Derek Rhodes, Joe Davis and Mike Rouault each shot 17 for TRU. They meet again in the rematch tonight at 7.

age to keep going harder.” Shakirova moved to Prince George three years ago for her Grade 11 year and played on the Duchess Park Condors with guard Emily Holmes and forward Madison Landry, now her T-wolves teammates. Having a Russian connection in T-wolves head coach Sergey Shchepotkin is what brought Shakirova to the city. She was the obvious choice when he awarded the game ball in the locker room after the game.

“She gave a lot of energy today and she was aggressive and she played a pretty solid defence,” said Shchepotkin. “She was showing a good game during the practice and this game was one of her best.”

Neither team appeared sharp in the early going, not surprising considering they hadn’t played a meaningful game in about month since the mid-season break. The T-wolves held a slight edge, 17-14 after the first quarter.

Abby Gibb got the T-wolves started on a 14-0 run with a perfect swish from three-point range early in the second quarter and Shakirova followed suit with another three. UNBC led 38-26 at the half – not quite up to snuff for a T-wolves team that averaged 77 points in their first 10 games of the season. But they made up for it in the second half and Maria Mongomo and Landry were the primary instigators, taking advantage of clear lanes to the hoop to make their close-range shots count. By the end of the third

quarter the T-wolves led by 30, up 63-33.

“It was definitely a slow start for both teams – they slowly started hitting their shots and we didn’t this game,” said 22-year-old WolfPack guard Kenesha Reeves. “They have some really good players in their starting lineup and they have some role players that stepped up and hit shots who really hurt us.

“We’ll have to make some adjustments tomorrow.”

Shchepotkin was satisfied with the win, knowing his team had nearly five weeks to think about what went wrong when the Twolves’ perfect 6-0 start crumbled with consecutive two-game series losses on the road to Fraser Valley and Saskatchewan.

“This was the first game after the break and I really hope that’s what affected our game because I believe that’s 20 per cent of what we can show,” he said. “Hopefully tomorrow we will give more energy.”

The women’s teams meet again today at 5 p.m., followed by the TRU-UNBC men’s game at 7.

Penguins stay hot

Citizen news service

PITTSBURGH — Olli Maatta and Matt Cullen scored 11 seconds apart in the first period, Matt Murray stopped 33 shots and the surging Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Winnipeg Jets 4-0 on Friday night for their eighth straight victory.

Maatta got his first goal since last March when his shot on the power play beat Connor Hellebuyck with 5:41 left in the first period. Cullen added his fourth when Zach Aston-Reese’s centring pass went airborne and caromed off Cullen’s left shoulder and into the net. Dominik Simon also scored for

Pittsburgh, picking up his sixth of the season when what appeared to be a spectacular save by Hellebuyck was overturned on replay. Murray made the lead stand up to extend his personal winning streak to seven, tying a career best. One point out of the Eastern Conference cellar in midNovember, the Penguins have won 10 of 11 overall to close in on defending Stanley Cup champion Washington in the competitive Metropolitan Division. Hellebuyck finished with 29 saves for Winnipeg but the Jets remained winless in Pittsburgh since 2007, when the Jets played in Atlanta.

UNBC Timberwolves guard Alina Shakirova drives to the basket against Thompson Rivers University WolfPack defender Kanesha Reeves on Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

Devon Wood of the Timberwolves goes up against Leilani Carney of the WolfPack on Friday night at Northern Sport Centre.

U.S. holds off Russia in world junior semifinal

Gemma KARSTENS-SMITH Citizen news service

American goalie Cayden Primeau just tried to stay calm and composed as the clock ticked down at the world junior hockey championship on Friday.

His team was up a goal on Russia in the final minutes of the semifinal match-up, and the Montreal Canadiens prospect knew there were more shots to come.

“I was just trying to stay big, then you can celebrate after the buzzer has gone,” Primeau said after the U.S. captured the 2-1 win, punching its ticket to the tournament’s gold-medal game.

It was Russia’s first loss at this year’s event, and came despite outshooting the Americans 36-27.

The Americans took home bronze from last year’s tournament after beating Russia in the quarterfinals.

Primeau provided comfort for his teammates, said U.S. coach Mike Hastings.

“When you play a team as good as Russia, they’re going to get their chances and you need that last line of defence to be there for you, to allow you time to catch your breath at times,” he said.

“Your best penalty killer needs to be your goaltender and he was tonight.”

The 19-year-old stopped 35 of 36 shots for the U.S. (5-0-1-0).

Pyotr Kochetkov had 26 saves for Russia (5-0-0-1).

Ivan Muranov dives to try to knock it home during Friday’s world junior semifinal game in Vancouver.

The U.S. got goals from Oliver Wahlstrom and Alexander Chmelevski, while Grigori Denisenko responded for the Russians.

The loss was hard for Team Russia, forward Kirill Slepets said through a translator.

“It’s a big disappointment but tomorrow is a new day, new game,” he said. “Our team is one of the best here. We were a little bit unlucky. Will fight for the medal tomorrow.”

Despite the final score, Denisenko wasn’t the only Russian to put the puck in the net.

Midway through the first frame, Dmitri Samorukov dished a pass to Nikita Shashkov, drawing Primeau across the net. Shashkov deflected it in through the back door but officials reviewed the play and called off the goal, saying Shashkov kicked it in.

“We got a lucky bounce and they decided to call it off,” Primeau said. “It was definitely a big one

Finland overpowers Switzerland

VANCOUVER (CP) — Aarne Talvitie

scored two goals less than three minutes apart in the first period as Finland rolled over Switzerland 6-1 in Friday’s semifinal at the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship.

The Finns will face the United States in tonight’s final for gold. The U.S. beat Russia 2-1 in the other semifinal.

It will be the first time the U.S. and Finland meet for world junior gold.

Talvitie, the Finnish captain who was picked in the sixth round of the 2017 NHL draft by the New Jersey Devils, has four goals in six games.

Jesse Ylonen scored 40 seconds into the game. His side built a 4-0 lead on eight shots.

Aleksi Heponiemi, a 2017 second-round draft pick of the Florida Panthers, had a goal and three assists. Rasmus Kupari, a Los Angeles Kings’ draft pick, scored once and had two assists. Henri Jokiharju, on the power play, also scored for Finland.

Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who plays for the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL, stopped 16 shots as Finland outshot the Swiss 33-17. Philipp Kurashev scored for Switzerland on a power play.

Swiss goaltender Luca Hollenstein was

there and we got back to work.”

Another close call came on a Russian power play early in the third period. A shot from Klim Kostin left the puck rolling along the goal line before U.S. defenceman Phil Kemp swatted it out of harm’s way.

“It was crazy,” said the Edmonton Oilers prospect, adding that he almost hit the post on the play. “To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I was just trying to dig it out. That was a big kill for our

pulled at 7:43 of the first period after allowing four goals on eight shots. Akira Schmid stopped 23 of 25 shots.

Finland was 2-2 in the round-robin portion of the tournament then advanced to the semifinal with a 2-1 overtime victory against Canada. That might explain the chorus of boos from the crowd of 14,014 that greeted the Finns when they first stepped on the ice at Rogers Arena. The Swiss were cheered all game. Switzerland struggled to a 1-2-1 record in the group phase, then upset Sweden 2-0 in the quarterfinal.

Pettis ready for Angel Stadium race

P.G. supercross rider now sponsored by KTM Red Bull

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Backed by a new sponsor, KTM Red Bull THOR Factory, Jess Pettis is about to twist the throttle again in the big leagues of motocross. The 21-year-old from Prince George is the only Canadian entered in today’s AMA Monster Energy Supercross MX2 250cc class at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif. 2018 was a monster year for Pettis. In his first crack at the AMA supercross series racing in football stadiums in the U.S. he made it into the main event in two of the four races he entered. He qualified second-fastest in Seattle on April 28, was second in the last-chance qualifier (LCQ) and finished 17th in the main. That

Spruce Kings’ Coyle locks up scholarship

came two weeks after he won the last LCQ in Salt Lake City on his way to an 18th-place result in the main.

Back home in Canada, Pettis won the Rockstar Energy MX2 National Canadian outdoor series 250cc championship and captured the Canadian Triple Crown arenacross title.

He also qualified for the Team Canada roster at the 30-country Motocross of Nations event in Michigan in October and helped Canada to an 11th-place finish.

Pettis trains through the coldweather months in Menifee, Calif., with motocross trainer Kevin Urquhart. Menifee is located between Los Angeles and San Diego, within a half-hour drive of at least six outdoor tracks.

The KTM Red Bull sponsorship deal was finalized in November.

“I have been working extremely hard and have been super excited for the AMA SX to begin,” said Pettis, in a KTM Red Bull release.

“After finishing strong in last year’s SX rounds, I feel confident

Citizen staff

in not only my ability as a racer but in my brand new 2019 KTM 250 SX-F. I am pumped for the first round in Anaheim and can’t wait for the gate drop.”

Now working with the KTM mechanic who helped Caven Benoit of Quebec become a constant podium threat in the Rockstar Energy MX1 450cc class before Benoit announced his retirement late last year, Pettis is in for at least the first five AMA supercross events of 2019 – all in California and Arizona.

The series stops in Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 12; Anaheim, Jan. 19; Oakland, Jan. 26; and San Diego, Feb. 2.

Forty racers are entered in the 250cc class today. A top-nine finish in the heat race is needed to advance to tonight’s final.

Riders who don’t make the top nine in either race can enter the last-chance qualifier and only the top four from that race will move on to the main event.

The races are being webcast on supercrosslive.tv

If you ask his Prince George Spruce Kings teammates and coaches, Max Coyle is one of the most-liked players on the team. Apparently the University of Alabama-Huntsville Chargers like what Coyle has to offer their NCAA Division 1 hockey program.

team.”

Kemp’s teammates were a little nervous, said defenceman Quinn Hughes.

“I don’t think anyone was feeling calm on the bench. We just knew we had to push back,” he said. It’s good for young players to experience tight games like Friday’s, Hastings said.

“Us as a coaching staff have talked about the ride this group has allowed us to be a part of and what they’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “It was an exciting night for us.”

The Americans will face Finland in tonight’s final. Finland beat Switzerland 6-1 in Friday’s other semifinal (see story below). American forward Jack Hughes – Quinn Hughes’ younger brother – is expected to be picked No. 1 overall at this year’s draft. Finland’s Kaapo Kakko is also likely to go high.

Jack Hughes said facing Kakko will be fun.

“He’s a good player. But I mean, they have two NHL players on their team, too. I mean, they have a really good team over there with a lot of good players,” the 17-yearold said. Both the gold- and bronze-medal games will be played today. The final is slated for 5 p.m. Pacific.

NOTES: Several in the crowd of 14,355 at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena wore jersey’s bearing Quinn Hughes’ name. The 19-year-old defenceman is a Vancouver Canucks prospect, currently playing at the University of Michigan.

Talvitie scored his first goal on a shot that a screened Hollenstein didn’t see. His second goal came on a strange play. Hollenstein stopped a Kupari shot and Talvitie’s rebound appeared to go into the net, but was first waved off before a replay showed the goal was good. The Swiss stood their ground in the second period, killing off a two-man advantage for 1:45. Kupari scored on a pretty pass from Kaapo Kakko with just nine seconds remaining on the 5-on-4. Finland’s last world junior medal was gold in 2016.

The Chargers have signed the 20-year-old defenceman to a scholarship commitment beginning next season. Coyle, a native of Tilsonburg, Ont., joined the Spruce Kings this season after three seasons with the Listowel Cyclones of the Greater Ontario Junior (B) Hockey League. He helped the Cyclones win the GOJHL title last season. In 49 regular-season games he scored six goals and 50 points and put up a goal and 18 assists in 25 playoff games. Through 37 BCHL games this season Coyle had two goals and nine assists and 17 penalty minutes.

veloped his game to where he is one of our most dependable players. He is a great teammate and his leadership abilities are tremendous. He is very deserving of this commitment.”

• The Spruce Kings picked up a single point on Friday night in Merritt, where they lost 3-2 in a shootout to the Centennials. Matthew Kopperud had the winner for the home side.

“We are very excited for Max,” said Spruce Kings general manager Mike Hawes. “He has de-

The teams were tied 2-2 after regulation time, all the goals in the third period.

The Kings will be in Cowichan Valley tonight.

CP/MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS

Phil Kemp of Team USA clears the puck off the goal line of Cayden Primeau as Russia’s

PETTIS

Prescott, Wilson set for compelling clash

Citizen news service

ARLINGTON, Texas — Russell Wilson won a wild-card game with Seattle as a rookie, a Super Bowl in his second season and another NFC championship the third time around. The best Dak Prescott can hope for with the Dallas Cowboys is to join Wilson on that list of title winners in his third year, a quest that will start with the first playoff meeting of quarterbacks with quite a bit in common. Both were mid-round draft picks who became instant NFL success stories. The difference is that Prescott lost his first playoff game after guiding the Cowboys to the top seed in the NFC two years ago, then had to wait two years for his second chance. It comes in a home wild-card game tonight.

In his first three years, Wilson won more games than any other NFL quarterback with 36.

“When you say success of a quarterback or a quarterback’s success depending on what they do in the playoffs, I think that’s where the checks are written and they make their money,” Prescott said. “Our job is to win no matter what happens, no matter how you played individually. At the end of the day, it’s to get the job done.”

When Wilson finally missed the playoffs in his sixth season last year, the Seahawks were eliminated on the final weekend – after they bounced Prescott and the Cowboys from contention with a road win in Week 16.

Seattle was 0-2 this year when the season turned on a 24-13 win over the visiting Cowboys (10-6), with the Seahawks following a familiar formula from their Super Bowl days: an efficient Wilson, strong running game and playmaking defence.

The Seahawks (10-6) kept it up despite overhauling the roster, mostly notably dismantling key pieces of the Legion of Boom defence. An important exception has been linebacker Bobby Wagner, who was just selected an AllPro for the fourth time in five seasons.

“The great thing about this team is the fact that everybody was telling us we couldn’t,” Wilson said. “It shows the heart of this team and it shows the mindset of this team to be able to think the way that you want to think and the places that you want to go. To think big, to believe big.”

Wilson was a third-round pick out of Wisconsin in 2012 and won the job in his first training camp. Prescott was drafted in the fourth round out of Mississippi State four years later and became the starter after preseason injuries to Tony Romo and backup Kellen Moore.

In his first three years, Wilson won more games than any other NFL quarterback with 36. Prescott just finished tied for fifth on that list with 32. Two quarterbacks have an NFL-leading 24 games with at least a 100 passer rating in their first three seasons: Wilson and Prescott. Now it’s time for their third – and most meaningful – meeting, with Prescott looking to beat Wilson for the first time.

“Dak had a phenomenal year to get started and get rolling and has just been solid since,”

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “I think it’s the dynamics of the mobility that when you add that together, and of course they can both throw the ball way down the field. You’ve got the same kind of problems.”

Run first

Both teams figure to try to control the pace with their running games. Ezekiel Elliott just won the NFL rushing title for the second time in his three seasons, and Chris Carson heads a group of Seattle backs that led the NFL in rushing. The Cowboys were 10th, fueled by Elliott, and have had a top-10 defence most of the season led by pass rusher DeMarcus Lawrence and young playmaking linebackers Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch. Dallas was fifth against the run.

“We’re feeling great,” Elliott said. “I believe we have the best defence in football and a pretty good offence, a lot of weapons. I think we have the right recipe to make some noise.”

Wild-card streak

Seattle has won six straight wild-card games, a streak that started when Romo, a first-year starter and still the holder, flubbed the snap on a potential go-ahead field goal in the final two minutes of the Seahawks’ 21-20 home win

Former CFLer Campbell signs with Jets

(CP) — Tevaughn Campbell is hoping the third time is indeed the charm.

The former Montreal Alouettes defensive back signed with the New York Jets on Friday. It marks the third time he’ll try to catch on with an NFL team after previously earning rookie mini-camp invites from the Washington Redskins and New York Giants in 2015.

But much has changed since then for the six-foot, 195-pound Toronto native. This time around he’ll have the benefit of more experience.

Four years ago, Campbell headed to the NFL with just three years of Canadian university football under his belt. Now, the 25-year-old will report to the Jets after playing four seasons in Canada with three CFL teams.

during the 2006 season. Oddly enough during this streak, Seattle has lost every time in the divisional round.

Original line

With left guard Xavier Su’a-Filo listed as doubtful because of an ankle injury, the Cowboys are likely to have this season’s original starting offensive line before Su’a-Filo replaced injured rookie Connor Williams and kept the job.

The starters are left tackle Tyron Smith, Williams, centre Joe Looney, All-Pro right guard Zack Martin and right tackle La’el Collins. Looney has filled in all year for four-time Pro Bowler Travis Frederick, who was diagnosed with a nerve disorder during the preseason.

Settled in Week 3

The Seahawks settled their offensive line in the first Dallas meeting with their best rushing game to that point. A key addition was right guard D.J. Fluker, who sat out Week 17 to nurse a nagging hamstring injury but will play. Left guard J.R. Sweezy is questionable with a sprained foot.

Both teams have had issues protecting their mobile quarterbacks. Prescott (56 sacks) and Wilson (51) were among the four QBs dropped at least 50 times this season.

“I feel like the first time I was fresh out of Canadian university and I think that kind of held me back a little because I’d only played two years (with the Regina Rams),” Campbell said. “I’ve played more, started a lot more games and experienced a lot more the last four years.” Campbell also spent time in the CFL with Calgary and Saskatchewan.

Upper lifts Cats to shootout win

Citizen staff

How’s that for a finish?

Tyson Upper had what it took, scoring in the third round of the shootout to give the Prince George Cougars what they needed to clinch a 2-1 victory Friday over the Kelowna Rockets in Kelowna.

The win improved the Cougars’ record to 13-22-1-2 and they remained fifth in the B.C. Division, closing the gap to eight points behind the thirdplace Rockets (17-18-3-0).

Jackson Leppard, for the Cougars, and Conner BruggenCate, for the Rockets, scored in regulation time. Prince George is just two points behind the Kamloops Blazers, who lost 4-1 Friday in Spokane.

The Cougars were outshot 5-1 in five minutes of 3-on-3 overtime but did not flinch. Taylor Gauthier allowed just one goal on 26 shots to earn his ninth win of the season.

The Rockets drew first blood in the shootout. Nolan Foote put a high shot in behind Gauthier. But the next shooter, Cougar Vladislav Mikhalchuk, went forehand-backhand on goalie James Porter to tie it. Gauthier then stuffed Leif Mattson to set the stage for Upper. The Rockets grabbed the lead 14:28 into the second period on the power play. On a face-off in the Cougars’ end, Conner Bruggen-Cate pushed the puck into the corner and Cougars defenceman Ryan Schoettler tried to clear it but whiffed on the puck. That allowed Lane Zablocki to put a short pass on Bruggen-Cate’s stick and he picked the short side corner behind Gauthier. That came a few minutes after Gauthier robbed Michael Farren with a highlight reel save.

The Cougars evened the count in the third period – a power-play point blast from Rhett Rhinehart that was tipped by Leppard. Leppard’s eighth goal of the season came 10:47 into the period. The Cougars outshot the Rockets 28-27 in the game and 9-1 in the third period.

LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars were without injured centre Ilijah Colina who suffered an upper-body injury last weekend in Kamloops. D Cole Moberg missed his second game since sustaining a lower-body injury Saturday in Everett. D Cole Beamin made his season debut for the Cats Friday, called up from the Nipawin Hawks to replace Moberg. D Tyson Phare (lower body) and F Reid Perepeluk (sick) were also scratched… The Cougars take their road act to Kennewick, Wash., on Tuesday to face the Tri-City Americans. The Cats will conclude their marathon 11-game, six-week road trip Wednesday night in Spokane against the Chiefs.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson tries to get past Los Angeles Chargers tackler Jatavis Brown during a Nov. 4 game in Seattle.

Awards shows looking to set right tone

Lindsey BAHR Citizen news service

LOS ANGELES — To misquote

A Star Is Born, awards shows were far from shallow in 2018. Many confronted sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry head on, but as a new year kicks off with the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday one question lingers: Will it continue for another year?

For an event that’s more known for its boozy moments than promoting social causes, the Golden Globe Awards went all in as the first major show of the #MeToo era last year.

It embraced the newly formed Time’s Up Legal Defence Fund, the red carpet was overtaken by a symbolic sea of black dresses, major stars walked proudly alongside activist leaders, Oprah Winfrey gave a barn-burner of a speech about empowerment and Natalie Portman even got in a jab about the all-male directing nominees while presenting the best director award.

Every televised and non-televised event to come had to take the stage in the shadow of the Globes, and all did so in their own way, sometimes with jokes and sometimes with statements: The Screen Actors Guild had all-female presenters, guests wore white roses at the Grammys and the Oscars gave a spotlight to Time’s Up

leaders and Harvey Weinstein accusers Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Annabella Sciorra.

But this year will be different. With just days to show time, there are no major statements or demonstrations planned for the Golden Globes show or the red carpet, and it could very well set the tone for what’s to come with the other awards shows.

“This year, there’s no sense of urgency the way there was last year,” said Steve Pond, awards editor for The Wrap. “By the same token, there is a sense of ‘we can’t go back.”’

Subjects like equality and inclusiveness are now permanent fixtures of awards show discourse, Pond said, and their absence from topics discussed on stage would be “conspicuous.”

“But the business of everybody wearing black, I think that was kind of a one-time thing until something else that cataclysmic happens and needs to be addressed,” Pond said.

Hosts Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh have said that they don’t necessarily intend to get political on Sunday night, but will leave the door open for anyone who wants to use their platform to do so.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Samberg said he thinks “people could use a little smile.”

“Not to ignore anything, but

we spend so much time every day wallowing in a lot of things that are happening in our world that are really depressing, and with good reason – that stuff needs to be paid attention to – but there’s also power to being positive and celebratory in the tougher times as well,” Samberg said.

Oh added: “I don’t think it’s shallow to 1) have fun and 2) be honestly celebratory... What I’m interested in is pointing to actual real change.”

The “change” Oh referenced includes the cultural phenomena of films like Black Panther, nominated for three awards (best drama, best original score and best original song) and Crazy Rich Asians, nominated for best musical or comedy and best actress (Constance Wu).

In other words, this year it’ll be up to the individual to make a statement. Wendy Shanker, an awards show writer who has also written speeches for individual

Oscar winners, marveled at the way the actresses in Time’s Up took control of the “awards season narrative” at the Globes last year.

“I don’t know that they necessarily need to do the same thing this year. But I do believe that you will see many of the women and men on stage referencing #MeToo, referencing the shift in our culture,” Shanker said.

That also goes for presenters and guests.

“I think they will book people who have strong vocal public personas,” said Shanker. “Producers know that’s what keeps a show interesting and I think audiences are engaged by the players of social media who have something to say beyond the performances.”

Jessica Chastain is one of those who was just announced as a presenter for the show.

The Oscar-nominated actress has established herself as a leading activist voice for equal pay and representation in Hollywood and

has not been shy about making statements.

“I think people will still have a lot of fun... people will be looking for fun and glamour,” Shanker said. “(But) the Globes were always ‘the party’ and now this is ‘the party with a message.’ It’s a protest party.”

And Pond said it makes for a more interesting and powerful show.

“In a way the Globes are kind of uniquely suited to doing that because nobody really cares who wins,” Pond said. “You can put the focus on something else and it’s fine.”

Also, for groups like Women in Film, a non-profit organization that advocates for and advances the careers of women in entertainment, having someone like Winfrey speak about #MeToo and Time’s Up on a national platform is undeniably important and has a ripple effect on the culture.

“We wouldn’t have seen the changes we have this year, for example Les Moonves getting fired, if it weren’t for the consistent media attention on the issue,” said Kirsten Schaffer, executive director of Women In Film, LA. “Next up (is) bringing this same attention to gender parity, because when more women are in power there is less sexual harassment and abuse.”

The Top 10 global concert tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows.

1. Taylor Swift; $7,762,122; $123.21.

2. Jay-Z/Beyonce; $6,815,475; $129.19.

3. U2; $4,976,018; $132.29.

4. Ed Sheeran; $4,935,833; $91.90.

5. Drake; $4,397,229; $118.41.

6. Bruno Mars; $3,689,616; $144.66.

7. Eagles; $3,518,043; $176.21.

8. Billy Joel; $3,110,443; $119.43.

9. Elton John; $2,804,263; $134.47.

10. Roger Waters; $2,779,103; $74.18. For tour information, go to www.pollstar.com.

In this Jan. 7, 2018, file photo, Oprah Winfrey poses in the press room with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Kevin Hart reconsidering hosting Oscars

NEW YORK — Prodded by Ellen DeGeneres, comic Kevin Hart says he’ll reconsider his decision to step down as host of the Academy Awards.

Hart had backed away two days after being named host last month when some homophobic tweets he had made a decade ago resurfaced. But DeGeneres urged him to host the show during an interview that aired Friday on her talk show.

The motion picture Academy has not named a replacement host for its Feb. 24 awards show.

“You have grown,” DeGeneres told him. “You have apologized. You’re apologizing again right now. You’ve done it. Don’t let these people win. Host the Oscars.”

She applied subtle pressure by saying after one commercial break, “We’re back with this year’s Oscars host, Kevin Hart.”

Hart told her that “you have put a lot of things on my mind,” and that he would think about their conversation.

If there’s a campaign to get him back, it couldn’t have started more slickly: on the hugely successful talk show run by one of Hollywood’s most prominent gay celebrities, who hosted the Oscars herself in 2007.

DeGeneres said she called the Academy this week to urge that Hart be brought back, and was told that officials would be “thrilled” if he did. An Academy representative did not immediately return a message for comment.

Hart told her that when his old messages resurfaced, “what was once the brightest light ever just got real dark.”

He initially said he wouldn’t apologize because he had addressed the issue several times. But given an ultimatum to apologize, he did so and stepped down. Hart said it was hard for him because he considered it an attack when his tweets resurfaced a day after he got the Oscars gig.

“That’s an attempt to end me,” he said. “That’s not an attack to just stop the Oscars... Somebody has to take a stand against the... trolls.”

DeGeneres received some resistance on social media, with some commenters saying that Hart’s homophobic jokes were a legitimate issue for discussion, and it wasn’t a case of people maliciously trying to hurt him.

She responded on Twitter: “I believe in forgiveness. I believe in second chances.”

The Oscars are looking for something to juice Hollywood’s biggest night, after the ceremony drew its smallest audience ever in 2018.

Bryan

surprises Broadway audience

NEW YORK — Rocker and composer Bryan Adams surprised a sold-out audience at the Broadway show Pretty Woman: The Musical with a performance during the curtain call. The Canadian hitmaker appeared onstage at New York’s Nederlander Theatre with guitar in hand to serenade the audience Thursday.

Adams sang You and I followed by Together Forever as cast members joined him onstage to clap and sing along. The Grammy-winner co-wrote the songs with long-time collaborator Jim Vallance. He jokes on his verified Instagram account that it was his “Broadway debut.” The musical is based on the top-grossing 1990 film

David BAUDER Citizen news service

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO BY JORDAN STRAUSS

In this 2017 file photo Kevin Hart arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in Los Angeles. Hart who appeared on the Degeneres show said he may reconsider stepping down as Oscar host at her behest.

Citizen news service

featuring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. The stage version stars Samantha Barks and Andy Karl.

CITIZEN NEWS ERVICE PHOTO BY GREG ALLEN Bryan Adams attends Pretty Woman: The Musical Broadway opening night at the Nederlander Theatre on Aug. 16, 2018.

Adams

What to watch for at this Sunday’s Golden Globes

Jake COYLE Citizen news service

NEW YORK — Dramatic period pieces will vie for the top comedy-musical awards and song-stuffed movies are poised to dominate the dramatic categories. Welcome to the 71st annual Golden Globes. Category confusion often reigns at the Globes. Remember when laughers like The Martian and Get Out competed as comedies? But the Globes, reliably the frothiest, quirkiest and most entertaining stop in the awards-season march to the Academy Awards, might feel especially upside down this year.

The night, to be broadcast live Sunday on NBC, may ultimately belong to Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born revival. It’s the favourite for best picture (drama), best actress (Lady Gaga), best song (Shallow) and best actor (Bradley Cooper). The film’s stiffest competition may come from another music movie: the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, whose star, Rami Malek, some believe could pull off the acting upset over Cooper.

Despite their copious tuneage, the campaigns of both A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody elected for the more serious dramatic category. For A Star Is Born, it’s a kind of power move to firmly establish itself as the Oscar front runner many believe it is. Oscar voting, as it turns out this year, commences Monday, the morning after the Golden Globes. If A Star Is Born runs away with the Globes, it will enter the nominations period of the Academy Awards as the favourite by a wide margin.

With A Star Is Born (along with Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk and BlacKkKlansman) up for best picture as a drama, that’s left a few humour-tinged movies many would peg as dramas – The Favourite, Green Book and Vice – to give the comedy/musical side of the Globes a bit more heft than usual.

Of those, Vice comes in with the most nominations of any film (six), but the chances of The Favourite are probably the best on Sunday. The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’ triangular power struggle in Queen Anne’s court, is the most decorated film of the bunch in an awards season that, despite any other fluctuations, has been rigid in its acclaim for the powerhouse trio of Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. Emily Blunt, nominated twice this year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (best actress for Mary Poppins Returns and best supporting actress for A Quiet Place) could give Colman – named the lead of The Favourite – a run for her money.

But Colman’s tragicomic performance as Queen Anne has made her the definite front-runner and potentially Lady Gaga’s stiffest competition come the Oscars when the two best-actress contenders will presumably go head to head.

The awards season of Green Book has been marred by backlash, so Peter Farrelly’s 1960s road trip tale probably has the most to gain from a strong showing at the Globes. The film’s best actor (comedy) contender, Viggo Mortensen, may not be able to challenge Christian Bale’s Dick Cheney, but the HFPA – which overlooked Mahershala Ali for Moonlight –may right that wrong with an award for his supporting performance in Green Book.

But if the lines of comedy, musical and drama are particularly blurred at this year’s Globes, they are even more so between film and television.

There are as many movie stars nominated in the TV categories as there are in the film ones. Among them: Julia Roberts (Homecoming), Jim Carrey (Kidding), Amy Adams (up for both Vice and Sharp Objects) Michael Douglas (The Kominsky Method), Benedict Cumberbatch (Patrick Melrose), Penelope Cruz (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story), Patricia Arquette (Escape at Dannemora), Hugh Grant (A Very English Scandal) and Laura Dern (The Tale).

Their shows and others (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Barry, Bodyguard, Killing Eve) will be in the mix, and the victors may well muddy another awards show boundary: that between host and winner. Sandra Oh, the star of Killing Eve, is favoured to win best actress in a drama series, potentially giving her a welcome respite from hosting duties alongside Andy Samberg. Oh and Samberg will have the challenge of marshalling a broadcast that last year fell 11 per cent in viewership for NBC.

That ceremony, when women attendees wore black, was atypically solemn for the Globes, and rife with protest, coming as the first major awards show of the post-Harvey Weinstein #MeToo era. But for a Globes full of head-scratchers, Samberg and Oh – each hailing from different realms of comedy and drama – are a fittingly, charmingly incongruous pair.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE BY WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Bradley Cooper, left, and Lady Gaga in a scene from A Star is Born, which is nominated for several Golden Globe awards.

Five workplace predictions for 2019

Jena McGREGOR Citizen news service

Some predictions about life at work in 2019 are hard to know: whether the economy will slow down, and if so, when. Others seem like sure bets: The #MeToo movement will continue, with more women coming forward with tales of misconduct on the job, while issues such as diversity, flexibility and gender equity will remain at the fore. Others fall somewhere in between. We asked several experts on workplace technology, data, compensation and other issues to make predictions on the rest –their bets on the likely-but-not-obvious trends they believe will take hold, the challenges managers will face and the new perks employees could see. Some are quirky – a phone booth in the office? – while others will remind us of the risks that exist for our personal data at work. Here are five trends you may see in the office this year:

Family leave changes

Family leave for non-parents will become more common.

In recent years, extended parental leave – even a promised year off at some U.S. tech companies – has become all the rage for new mothers and even fathers as companies try to recruit and retain millennial workers. But Carol Sladek, who leads Aon Hewitt’s work-life consulting program, believes more companies in 2019 will start to extend “family leave” to non-parents who want time off to care for an aging parent, grieve for a lost family member or help with a sick spouse.

“It’s come up in almost every conversation I’ve had in the last six months,” she says of her discussions with clients.

More companies may decide to broaden family leave coverage out of a sense of equity, as employees sense that “‘I’m sitting here trying to care for my 83-year-old father, and Jane, sitting next to me, gets 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. That doesn’t feel right,’” she said.

While the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act allows employees to take up to 12 weeks to care for an ailing family member, many employees don’t know about it, and it only guarantees unpaid time off. A benefit of paid leave for family care may not “explode” in 2019, Sladek said, but she expects enough growth that Aon Hewitt plans to include it in its annual benefits surveys. “Organizations are getting that ‘Aha, we solved that problem, but we missed this group.’”

Generational wage gap

A wage gap between old and new workers will create new headaches. As the labour market remains tight and people switch jobs more often, there’s a different kind of wage gap forming, said Brian Kropp, the group vice president for Gartner’s human resources practice.

Companies have to dangle more to lure in new workers, making pay disparity grow between workers who’ve been in a job with

a company for years and those who’ve been newly recruited.

“In today’s labour market, the best way to get a raise is to go find a job at another company,” Kropp said. Employers are “not as willing to pay more for the people they’ve got. It’s a really interesting dynamic.”

Yet as pay transparency becomes more common – with more employees opening up about what they are paid or websites such as Glassdoor making such data more available – the problem could lead to morale issues between workers and headaches for managers. Companies, Kropp said, will need to make more-frequent adjustments.

Too many companies don’t do that, he said.

“They haven’t done the followthrough,” he said. “In some places, it could get worse.”

But Laura Sejen, a managing director with Willis Towers Watson, says the increased focus on the gender pay gap and pay equity should help address gaps that occur between incoming and existing workers.

“If not all, a large majority of organizations, as part of their annual pay review cycle, are now including a gender pay equity analysis,” she said. “Whether they did the initial analysis two years ago or five months ago, they’ve been moving fairly systematically.”

Protecting worker privacy

Workers will demand that employers do more to insure their personal data.

A “global awakening” about threats to the privacy of our data as consumers will spill over into concerns about the personal data we give our employers, predicts Kristina Bergman, the CEO of Integris Software, which helps or-

In today’s labour market, the best way to get a raise is to go find a job at another company.

— Brian Kropp

ganizations manage the personal information they store and meet compliance mandates.

“There are an increasing number of protections in place for consumers – things like the ability to opt in and opt out, or needing consent to use their data,” she said. “Employees, however, have less control over how their employers use their data.”

Yet plenty of data is at risk. Beyond social security numbers and bank account information from direct deposits, data like what movies you watched in a hotel room on a business trip (charged to a corporate credit card) or what vacation days you took could reveal other personal tastes or even religious information to outside parties.

Bergman predicts more pressure for employers to provide some of the same options to their workers that customers have, such as being able to request access to information that companies have about them.

“I think what they’ll start to demand is that employers specify a certain duty of care when it comes to dealing with their data,” Bergman said. “I think it will become part of their marketing pitch, in the same way benefits packages are, as employers start to disclose how they treat employers’ data, too, and use that as an indicator of the moral and ethical fabric of the company.”

Phone booths in the office

The office phone booth will become a workplace staple.

People may hate the open office design – and there are plenty of reasons to, including their stifling of collabouration and the incessant noise and lack of concentration – but it’s probably here to stay, albeit with design tweaks around the edges: more small conference rooms and collabouration areas for people to find some privacy or host a meeting. Furniture designs that allow people to put up barriers around their desk.

And increasingly, says Jonathan Webb, vice president of workplace strategy at the design firm KI, office “phone booths” or “privacy pods” for people to have private conversations without taking up an entire meeting room designed for a larger group.

While they’ve already begun showing up in some workplaces, such booths are poised to become commonplace in 2019, Webb says.

“People are going to start to figure out how to make these things more efficiently” – lowering the high price for companies to purchase them – “and make them a little more flexible in their design,” he said. (KI is working on its own version, he said.) The Wall Street Journal reported in November that in 2015, only one boothmaker was part of the commercialdesign industry’s trade show in Chicago. In 2018, there were more than a dozen.

“As the cost of real estate continues to increase and the sizes of individual workspaces continues to decrease, we have this issue of letting employees have different work styles to allow them to conduct all kinds of different business,” he said – including the lost art of the private phone call at work.

Email on the way out

Email will move past its peak and continue its demise.

Companies have been moving toward messaging and away from email for internal communications for years, but 2019 will be the year email moves past its peak – at least at work, predicts Josh Bersin, an industry analyst who studies workplace technology.

“If you’re working with less than 200 people at a time, you really don’t need email – it’s a waste,” he said.

The popularity of messaging tools such as Slack will continue, he said, but he also believes greater adoption of Microsoft’s Teams – its take on the group messaging app that’s integrated into Office 365 – will be a game-changer. Although Teams was released in 2017, it’s still being adopted or turned on by many corporate IT departments, and Bersin believes 2019 will be the year it takes off because of how closely it’s embedded with other Microsoft software or features.

Both Bersin and Kropp also see greater adoption of workplace tech tools that “nudge” managers or employees via texts or other alerts that could divert users, too, from traditional emails (though the nudges are likely to come through email initially, too).

From reminding managers with a phone alert that an employee in a competitive field hasn’t had a raise to nudging people within an HR software system about using their remaining days of paid time off, artificial intelligence is likely to do more and more to urge behaviours among managers and employees. (Former Google HR chief Laszlo Bock is behind one start-up working in this area).

“I think it’s a new communications paradigm” at work – “a paradigm of nudges, texts and alerts,” Bersin said.

Calgary office values crash, as oil sector unemployment rises

Dan HEALING Citizen news service

CALGARY — A 32 per cent decline in Calgary’s downtown office building property assessment this year will likely translate into lower costs for some tenants, but don’t expect much improvement in the vacancy rate, according to a commercial realtor.

Lower property taxes will bring rents down and could attract more tenants to the downtown area, said Greg Kwong, Alberta managing director for realtor CBRE.

But he added companies will have to start replacing the thousands of oil and gas industry workers laid off following the oil price crash of late 2014 before the city’s downtown vacancy rate will substantially recover from its year-end 2018 level of 26.4 per cent.

“The disease is unemployment, it’s not property values,” he said on Friday, adding the vacancy rate could improve to about 25 per cent this year, which would still leave one in four offices empty.

“It’s not going to change dramatically until we get people back to work.”

The total assessed value of downtown office properties fell by $5 billion over the past year, the city said Thursday, adding those towers now make up only 18 per cent of its total non-residential base, down from about 32 per cent in 2015. The crescent-shaped Bow Tower, for example, home to oil companies Cenovus Energy Inc. and Encana Corp., lost 18.6 per cent of its value in 2018, falling to about $779 million. In 2015, it was valued at $1.43 billion.

The assessment changes mirror the lower values reflected in recent property sales and could make it difficult for property owners to obtain or renew their mortgages, Kwong said.

Continuing reductions in property values in the downtown area mean property taxes are likely going to have to rise for businesses throughout the city to make up the difference, pointed out Mark Cooper, spokesman for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber wants the city to continue with a program that capped nonresidential property tax increases at five per cent over the past two years.

“We’ve seen the vibrancy stripped from

the downtown core due to the rising vacancy rates because of the downturn and now we risk losing businesses outside of the core that are being weighed down by these unsustainable tax increases and other regulatory burdens,” Cooper said.

The “root problem” for empty downtown towers is a lack of energy industry investment in part due to proposed federal policies such as the oil tanker ban off northern B.C. and Bill C-69 to revamp the National Energy Board, both blamed for hindering the building of new pipelines, he said. He added businesses are also facing higher costs due to the province’s minimum wage increases, carbon tax and labour law changes.

Alberta oil prices failed to keep up with last year’s global oil price rally due to price discounts blamed on a lack of export pipeline capacity.

Many oil and gas companies have released stand-pat 2019 budgets or have postponed capital budgets because of uncertainty. The province imposed oil production constraints of 325,000 barrels per day earlier this week to try to reduce the glut of oil and free up pipeline space.

Residential property assessments in Calgary are down one per cent compared with the previous year and retail assessments were little changed, the city reported.

Property taxes are due on June 28.

BLOOMBERG PHOTO BY MICHAEL SHORT

Members work on laptop computers in a common room at the Embarcadero WeWork Cos Inc. offices in San Francisco on Oct. 19, 2017.

At Home

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

— Mark Twain Call

Experts make their picks for the best doormats

Lindsey M. ROBERTS Citizen news service

Even if you have a no-shoe policy in your house, there will be times when you need to dash inside with your shoes on for one last thing, or times when a handyman or repair person needs to wear work boots indoors.

For these situations – and for shoe-on houses – doormats are essential.

“With a good brush and stomp, doormats can prevent debris, wet snow and dripping rainwater from entering your home,” says Lindsey Handel, a buyer for the garden and home store Terrain in Pennsylvania.

Doormats may help with a comprehensive allergy-fighting plan, too, says Stephen Kimura, a board-certified allergist in Pensacola, Fla.

“If you’re going to wear your shoes in the house, at least wiping them is going to help some. We’ve got pollen season now yearround, so these measures are important,” he said.

Kimura’s family doesn’t wear shoes indoors, but they do have inexpensive washable cotton mats with rubber backings at each door to catch crud and set shoes on.

The right doormat for your house depends on whether it will be completely exposed or under a covered porch. For exposure, Handel recommends coir; for covered exposure, she says you can go for a less-durable jute-and-coir mix. The best thickness depends on whether the mat is inside or outside.

“It’s nice to have a softer and thinner rug inside and a more bristly, durable one outside,” says Joy Cho, of California design studio Oh Joy. We dug up more dirt on doormats to deliver you five options chosen by experts. Welcome home to a cleaner house.

Although Cho, with two children, has a no-shoe policy at home, she considers doormats a “decorative and a fun way to greet guests” and help catch dirt, water and snow before shoes are placed inside the door. If you have one main entry, Cho says to go “with one you really love that makes a statement or has a fun greeting.”

For any secondary entries, she suggests coordinating the look of those mats: “They could all be exactly the same for consistency or just have a similar vibe.” For interior en-

Back(wall) in black

Kim COOK Citizen news service

There was a time when black walls were mostly the purview of goth teens and indie movie theatres. But the colour has been quietly cultivating a broader following among designers and homeowners who want a cozy, enveloping ambiance that’s still got theatrical flair. Bedrooms, libraries and bathrooms clad in inky or charcoal tones can be relaxing retreats. If you’ve got loads of windows, the colour helps frame exterior views. And if the space is mostly walls, black creates a cocoon-like setting

that can showcase a collection of objets d’art, vibrantly patterned rugs and furniture, or meditative warm woods and textures.

Laboratory-white kitchens are also yielding ground to kitchens dressed in dark hues. Houzz.com

editor Mitchell Parker says black is having a moment in the cooking space.

“Our community of homeowners is embracing a heavy dose of dramatic colour with large swaths of black range hoods, island accent colours and full-on, all-black cabinetry,” he says.

For a kitchen in Brentwood, Calif., Shannon Wollack and

tryways, she recently designed some washable interior entry rugs for Lorena Canals. For exterior doors, she likes vinyl Chilewich mats, which are mold-, mildew- and chlorine-resistant, with a water-blocking, slip-resistant vinyl backing. The company’s latest design, Simple Stripe, which comes out today ($52, chilewich.com), has a functional stripe made of PVC yarns that scrape away debris.

Terrain’s Handel says that in most climates the fibre coir, made from coconut husks, is best for exterior doormats that are exposed to the weather. “The thicker and

Brittany Zwickl of Studio Life. Style wanted to add a little more punch. “The kitchen’s all-black palette, infused with a large slab of blackand-white marble and bold brass accents, warms and fills the space without feeling too heavy,” says Wollack.

LG, GE, Kitchenaid, Bosch, Frigidaire, Smeg, JennAir and others are offering suites of charcoal-black appliances with either a matte or satin smudgeproof finish. And there’s black cabinetry, countertop gadgets and cookery as well.

Designer Mark Zeff and his

scratchier the doormat you can find, the better” for scraping off dirt, she says. She prefers a knot-patterned weave doormat for its classic look. These can be found almost everywhere, including Home Depot, which has the Entryways Knot-Ical coconut-fiber doormat ($38.57, homedepot.com). In the Midwest and Canada, doormats need to be winterproof. The Chicago-based co-founders of the Everygirl Media Group, Alaina Kaczmarski and Danielle Moss, both use coir doormats to dust off the snow.

“The bristles absorb moisture and actually catch the snow as you brush your feet off,” Kaczmarski says. Coir doesn’t always last past a season, but she says it’s worth buying because coir is best at snow removal. Both Kaczmarski and Moss like coir mats from Williams-Sonoma, such as the French stripe doormat ($59.95, williams-sonoma.com). For a multiseason mat that can handle whatever winter throws at it, try a lobsterrope mat, says Lisa Myers, owner of homegoods store Capers in Seattle. “They work to shed the water and they have a little bit of coarseness to the rope that takes the dirt off,” Myers says. She highlights the Rope Co.’s doormats, handmade in Maine by fifth-generation lobstermen ($65-$129, theropeco.com). “They’re super durable. I had a similar one for many years and I just hosed it down and it keeps looking great.”

“I’ve used rope mats on several projects, usually beach or summer homes,” says Josh Linder, owner of Evolve Residential in Boston. They are “a fun first peek into the interior of the home, but also are incredibly rugged and well wearing,” he says. “Rope, made for the oceans... is intended to take a beating.”

wife, Kristen, have a home in East Hampton, N.Y., that celebrates black in several ways. The exterior is half-white, half-black. Inside, black serves as a narrative thread for large design elements including a floating fireplace, a stained pinewood wall in the master suite, and a glass wall in the shower. Punctuation is added with black cowhide rugs; curvy Bibendum chairs by Eileen Gray; and Eero Saarinen Womb chairs.

“Black has properties that make it ideal for interior design: It’s calming to the eye, it’s elegant and it underscores organic beauty,” says Mark Zeff.

“Some may think white is a more ‘natural’ choice, but it’s actually much starker in comparison to black when blended with an environment. Because of the use of black, our home appears to hunker down and stay closer to the earth, like a natural landmark.”

Adds Kristen Zeff: “We also like that black can paradoxically open up a smaller space when applied as a paint, to make a room feel much larger than if white is used. The illusion is achieved by tricking the eye into not knowing where a room ends, by disguising the edges.”

ROPE CO. HANDOUT PHOTO VIA THE WASHINGTON POST

A Rope Co. doormat, handmade in Maine by fifth-generation lobstermen, is shown on a deck outside a home in an undated handout photo.

ENTRYWAYS HANDOUT PHOTO VIA THE WASHINGTON POST

The Entryways Knot-Ical handwoven coconut-fibre doormat is shown in an undated handout photo.

Cryderman,JamesN. May23,1940-December19,2018

Itiswithgreatsadnessthatweannouncethepassing ofJames(Jim)NormanCrydermanonDecember19, 2018.JimwastheyoungestsonofWarnerand KatherineCryderman,borninSudbury,Ontario,on May23,1940.GrowingupinSkead,Ontario,onLake WanapiteiwithhisgoodfriendsMickeyandBrian Prime,Dadlearnedtolovetheoutdoors,hunting, andfishing.Asateenager,DadandBrianworkedas fishingguidesonthelakeuntilmovingtoBCinthe 1950swhereJimmethiswifeJeanCarol(nee Scanks)inSurrey,BC,athisparents’motelthatthey purchased.TheyweremarriedonOctober24,1959, inSurrey.MovingfromSurreyinthelate1960supto PrinceGeorgebecause,asDadwouldsay,thetraffic wasbadthen,wehavetomovetoaquieterplace. SettlinginPrinceGeorgewherehecouldteachhis threesonshisloveforthewoods.Dadwouldrather beonthelakethanathome.Helaterpurchased, alongwithhisfriendHerbKnoppfromSurrey,the InzanaLakeLodge.JimandHerboperatedthe huntingandfishinglodgestartingin1988.Visitors andfriendsenjoyedtheirstayatthelodgewhere manystoriesweretoldandmade!Dadlovedtochat witheveryonehemetandalwayshadastorytotell. ThelodgewassoldonlyafterHerb’spassingin1995. DadcontinuedtoenjoythecabinonGreatBeaver Lakewebuiltthereuntilhishealthwouldnotallow. HetookupthecoffeeclubatPineCenterMallasa wayofcontinuingtotellhisstoriesandenjoythe manyfriends,especiallyKeith,whovisitedDadmany timeswhenhewasunabletogoorwasinthe hospital.

Heissurvivedbyhiswife,Jean;sons,Jim,Gord,and Rod(Anita);grandchildren,Jason(Kelly),Alexandra, Candace(Dale),Kaitlyn(Nick),Nicole(Matt),Andrew (Jenifer),andMichelle(Gavin);andmanygreatgrandchildren.Thefamilywishestoextendour thankstothedoctors,nurses,andstaffatUHNBCfor theircaringandsupportforDadinhisfinaldays.

Dawn Marguerite Martin

Thesen 1926-2018 passed away peacefully, surrounded by her three children, Sharon, Murray, and Patricia, and her dear friend Henry Engelsjord, on December 26, 2018 at age 92. Dawn grew up in Masset, BC, on Haida G’waii (Queen Charlotte Islands) and married Clarence (Kelly) Thesen in Tisdale, Saskatchewan in 1945. They moved to Prince George (via Kamloops) in 1959. She will be greatly missed by her family and her friends. Dawn was a lively, smart, friendly, active, and thoughtful person. She exercised her many talents at the golf course, the curling rink, the Saturday night dances at the Legion, and the walking paths along the river at Leidlh Park. Well into her eighties she attended the Cougars hockey games and had season’s tickets to the symphony. She was appreciated for her baking gifts, her hospitality, and her beautiful soprano singing voice. For more than a decade she belonged to the Forever Young Chorus of the Elder Citizens Recreation Association. Dawn is survived by her three children, Sharon (Paul), Murray (Linda), and Patricia (Mike), and is predeceased by her husband Kelly in 1997 and her grandson Tyler. Also mourning her passing are her grandchildren Jesse (Carla); Blair (Jeannette); Trevor (Sarah); Joanna (Dan); Ashley (Ryan); and twelve greatgrandchildren. Our family expresses our deepest appreciation and gratitude to Dr. Barend Grobbelaar and the palliative home nursing team - Diane, Jessica, and Magda - who attended our mother’s last days and hours with such compassion and professionalism. We are also deeply grateful to Lindsay Jezierski, Northern Health, and the Home Care women who visited daily in the last weeks and provided gentle care and uplifting good advice. We are especially grateful that these services were provided over the Christmas holiday. We are also grateful for the medical equipment loans from the Prince George Red Cross. A celebration of life in the Magnolia Room at Magnolia Gardens will be held during the Easter holiday. Notices will be sent. The family respectfully requests that anyone who wishes to would make a donation to the Prince George Red Cross in Dawn’s name.

Darren Lee Gill (Eiriksson)

September 18, 1978December 28, 2018

Darren lost his very brief fight with cancer at the age of 40 years. He will be greatly missed by his loving wife and best friend Patricia. Also left with memories are family and friends. A memorial service and tea will be held on January 15th, 2018 11:00am at The Salvation Army Church, 777 Ospika Blvd. Everyone Welcome. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Rotary Hospice House.

Glenis Burke September 12 1946December 21 2018

It is with great sadness we announce that Glenis Anne Burke passed away on December 21st, 2018 at the age of 72. She was happy to spend her final days surrounded by loving family, her dog, and the caring staff of the PG Rotary Hospice House.

Glenis loved to spend time with her children and grandchildren and could often be found in one of the local parks enjoying nature with her dog, Maggie. Her fighting spirit, sense of humor, generosity, and loving nature remained until the end.

Glenis’ death was preceded by her parents Kathleen and Pieter Mostert, her brother Peter Mostert and her nephew Brian Spencer. She is survived by her children, Stacey (Josh) and Jason (Nadia), sister Marie (David), niece Robyn (Dave), and beloved grandchildren

Jocelynne, Christian, and Oliver.

We would like to send a heartfelt thank you to Dr Tsang, Dr Carter, the staff of the PG Rotary Hospice House, and many other caregivers for their quality care and compassion.

There is no date set for the celebration of life at this time. In lieu of flowers, please be so kind as to donate to the Kidney Foundation or Prince George Hospice Society.

Ruddick,ClaytonA. September17,1926-December20, 2018

RUDDICK,ClaytonAlexander"Duffy"passedaway peacefullyDecember20,2018,inNewWestminster attheageof92.Heispredeceasedbyhiswife, Berniece,theloveofhislife.Hewillbelovingly rememberedbyDon(Denise),Lana(Christian), Harold(Sherry),Tracy(Mike),Martin(Carrol),Holly (Dean),11grandchildren,andeightgreatgrandchildren. DuffywasborninKirkella,Manitoba,in1926,and madethelongtriptoKelownawithhisfamilyina ModelTin1932.Therehespenthisschooland youngadultyearsincludingthetimeaspart-ownerof Duffy’sFish&Chips.DuffyandBerniecestartedtheir marriedlifeinPrinceGeorgewhereheworkedasan electricianatAcmeElectric.Whileraisingtheir family,DuffywasactiveintheBoyScoutsofCanada. After25yearsinthenorth,theymovedtoVancouver IslandwherehesoldSnap-Ontoolsuntiltheearly 1980s.WhileinNanaimo,heandBerniecewere activeintheACTandCoasttoCoastRVclub.They thenmovedtoSurreybeforefinallysettlingin Chilliwack.DuffyandBerniecetravelledextensivelyin theirmotorhomeandweresnowbirdsformorethan 15years.Duffylovedhisroses,tendingthemdaily forBerniecetoenjoy. Duffytouchedmanyliveswithhiscalm,caring manner,unforgettablesmile,quickwit,andsenseof humour.Hewillberememberedforeverwithpride andjoy. ThefamilywouldliketothankthestaffofRoyalCity ManorinNewWestminsterfortheirwonderfulcare andkindnessduringDuffy’sshorttimewiththem. MemorialdonationsmaybemadetoCanadian CancerSociety,HeartandStrokeFoundation,or SalvationArmy.

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DION, Doreen Helen (Fry)

Doreen passed away suddenly but peacefully on December 31st, 2018 in Prince George at age 83. Doreen was predeceased by her husband Jean-Marie and parents Helen and Peter Fry. She will be deeply missed by her devoted son Barry (Mark), her sisters Joyce Jacobsen (Don) and Barbara O’Reilly (Pat), her many nieces, nephews and friends. A very special thank-you to all the staff of Parkside Residence who appreciated Doreen’s very independent spirit and made her stay so comfortable and safe. A small gathering to remember Doreen will take place at a later date and in lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made towards Parkinson’s research.

Alfred John Rolfes

Our Dad passed away on December 26th, 2018 at the Hospice House in Prince George, BC. Alfred was born on October 24, 1944, in Humbolt, SK (Son of the late Bernard & Maria Rolfes). Dad battled with oral cancer and fought the good fight. We are all very proud of him.

“Cancer is just one chapter in your life, not the whole story. “ There will be a celebration of life held on April 13th, 2019 - at 2pm with refreshments to follow. Pineview Hall, 6470 Bendixion Rd, Prince George, BC - for info please contact 1-250-614-9772

We kids: Barry (Michelle), Dwayne (Kari-Lynn) and Colleen (Les) along with Grandchildren, Jessica (Brandon), Micheal, Marinus, William, Kaya and Sam would love to see you all there! (Predeceased by wife Ann Kathleen 2007 and granddaughter Emily Rose 1997)

Obituaries

Obituaries

Currencies

OTTAWA (CP) — These

provided by the Bank of

on Friday. Quotations in

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — North American stock markets ended a wild first trading week of the year by rebounding strongly Friday on positive trade, employment and interest rate news and a further boost in the price of oil. A day after plummeting on concerns about Chinese growth, markets recovered on improved sentiment as the U.S. and China are set to resume trade talks, U.S. jobs numbers soared in December and the Federal Reserve chairman suggested it may slow rate hikes.

“I think it’s three items that came together to say maybe we’re in an environment where job gains are strong, wage growth is actually improving and then combine that with maybe we don’t have to be afraid of monetary policy tightening and you have at the very least people being less pessimistic,” says Patrick Blais, senior portfolio manager at Manulife Asset Management.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 213.87 points or 1.5 per cent to 14,426.62 after hitting an intraday high of 14,438.27.

The broad-based rally was led by the energy sector, which gained 3.1 per cent, on higher oil prices.

The February crude contract was up 87 cents US at US$47.96 per barrel after a report that U.S. crude inventories remained essentially unchanged. The February natural gas contract was up 9.9 cents at US$3.04 per mmBTU. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude gained 5.8 per cent over the week to nearly $50. Blais expects WTI will rise to around US$60 per barrel this year once the supply-demand dynamic is brought back into balance. Cyclical sectors like technology, consumer discretionary and industrials that fell during selloffs gained on the day. Five companies saw their share prices increase by at least three per cent Friday – Nutrien Ltd., Brookfield Asset Management Inc., Suncor Energy Inc., Manulife Financial and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 3.3 per cent or 746.94 points at 23,433.16 a day after losing 660 points. The S&P 500 index was up 84.05 points at 2,531.94, while the techheavy Nasdaq composite was up 4.3 per cent or 275.35 points at 6,738.86. Apple Inc. partially recovered its 10 per cent loss on Thursday by closing up 4.2 per cent. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.57 cents US compared with an average of 74.02 cents US on Thursday. The February gold contract was down US$9 at US$1,285.80 an ounce.

On the right track

Canada’s major railways well-poised for trade headwinds in

Christopher REYNOLDS Citizen news service

Canada’s two major railways are well-positioned to weather potential economic headwinds and the U.S.-China trade war, analysts say, as ongoing investments in new cars and track bolster crudeby-rail and commodities shipments.

Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. shipped 23 per cent more oil and petroleum in 2018 to drive a four per cent increase in total freight traffic, according to the Association of American Railways.

Crude-by-rail exports have spiked over the past year amidst a pipeline shortage and a big discount on Western Canadian Select oil, hitting a record 327,229 barrels per day in October, a 58 per cent year-over-year increase, according to the National Energy Board.

With Enbridge’s Line 3 not set to come online until late this year and the Trans Mountain expansion facing uncertainty, CN and CP can expect continued high demand for shipments of the black stuff, DBRS analyst Amaury Baudouin said.

The railways have drawn on lessons from unfilled contracts following the crude-by-rail boom five years ago, entering into multi-year contracts with oil shippers that set minimum volumes and higher fees to help insulate them from volatile demand, he said.

“I think lessons of the past have been learned, and a lot of this capacity is being contracted on a take-or-pay basis... which means that if the economics of Western Canadian oil change a lot, CN and CP will still have that oil to move around to the U.S. refineries and the Gulf Coast.”

In 2017 petroleum, chemicals and plastics brought in 16 per cent of CN’s $13.04 billion

2019: analysts

With Enbridge’s Line 3 not set to come online until late this year and the Trans Mountain expansion facing uncertainty, CN and CP can expect continued high demand for shipments of the black stuff...

in revenue and 14 per cent of CP’s $6.38-billion revenues. With crude comprising only a portion of those categories, surging sales will have a limited impact on the bottom line and the stock price, Baudouin cautioned.

Over the past year, Montreal-based CN has invested in rail cars, track doubling and expanded rail yards – particularly between Chicago and the West Coast – to the tune of $3.5 billion, 30 per cent more than its threeyear average. It has plans to keep building in 2019. Calgary-based CP, meanwhile, aims to have 1,000 more grain cars in service by this spring, following CN’s order for 1,000 hoppers last May.

The moves follow a major backlog in grain shipments last winter. However both railways have roared back from the bottleneck. CP moved 2.64 million tonnes of Canadian grain and grain products in October, a company record for monthly shipments that it nearly matched in November.

CN reported the highest quarterly revenues in its 99-year history in October, spurred on by revenue growth of between 15 per cent and 25 per cent for grain and fertilizers as well as metals and minerals, forest products and coal.

CP, though lacking its rival’s broad access to maritime ports, traffics heavily in bulk commodities such as grain, potash, coal and fertilizer that amount to 44 per cent of its revenue, according to a DBRS report from October.

“There’s this shift in China where the diet

is changing to more Western-style habits and they’re eating a lot more grain. That also demands a lot more potash for fertilizer than the traditional seafood-based diet,” Deutsche Bank analyst Seldon Clarke said. The expanded port at Prince Rupert, where CN has laid track directly on the dock, is another reason for long-term optimism. It offers shippers a swift route for Asianproduced goods, avoiding the congestion of Vancouver and Los Angeles. Meanwhile, more grain is being stuffed into shipping containers and dropped on carriers bound for China, he said.

Lumber and automotive parts, however, pose a potential weak point for both railways.

“The American housing market is looking pretty weak and not going to have a sharp turnaround any time soon. Same goes for the auto industry in the U.S.,” Clarke said, pointing to plummeting lumber prices. Automotive shipment revenues dropped 21 per cent for CP and 10 per cent for CN in 2017, with further declines in 2018.

Ongoing steel and aluminum tariffs affect only a fraction of the railways’ shipments, but CN and CP remain vulnerable to the fallout from U.S.-China trade tensions and a potential economic slowdown following a decade of global growth, Clarke said.

“You’re seeing a slowdown in economic activity in China, and it’s probably a fair guess to say that that starts to impact North America at some point.”

Powell says he would reject any Trump request to resign

Citizen news service

WASHINGTON — U.S. Federal Reserve

Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday he will not resign if asked to do so by President Donald Trump, and that he is prepared to be patient in deciding when to raise interest rates again.

Both of those messages cheered stock market investors who had been worried about Trump’s repeated attacks on his hand-picked choice to lead the nation’s central bank and also the Fed’s seemingly inexorable march to higher rates. “There is no pre-set path for policy,” Powell

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said during an appearance at a conference of economists in Atlanta. “With the muted inflation readings we have seen coming in, we will be patient as we watch to see how the economy evolves.”

Private economists viewed Powell’s comments as a strong signal that the Fed, which in December had projected another two rate hikes in 2019, may end up deciding to pause hikes for several months.

“With Chairman Powell’s remarks today, I would say they will do just one hike or maybe no hikes this year,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at SS Economics. “Powell is definitely trying to calm the markets.”

Wall Street, which opened sharply higher after a report showing 312,000 jobs gained in December, surged even higher during Powell’s appearance. The Dow Jones industrial average finished the day up 746 points or 3.3 per cent. Powell called the jobs report “very strong” and said he was also encouraged by the rise in the labour force participation rate and gains in wages, which he said “for me at this time does not raise concerns about too high inflation.” Trump has complained that the Fed has pushed rates higher despite the fact that there is no evidence that inflation was getting out of control.

Plain words from the pope

In letter to U.S. bishops, Francis says sexual abuse scandals damaged the church

Chico HARLAN Citizen news service

ROME — In a letter to U.S.

bishops released Thursday by the Vatican, Pope Francis directly acknowledged the damage done to the Catholic Church by sexual abuse scandals and provided a lengthy explanation of his proposed response: one focused on discernment, unity and a “change in our mind-set.”

“The Church’s credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them,” Francis wrote. “This has led to a growing sense of uncertainty, distrust and vulnerability among the faithful.”

The 3,600-word letter was largely prescriptive and spiritually oriented. It did not call for new measures to punish high-ranking clerics or hold them accountable – steps recommended by victims’ advocacy groups.

Instead, Francis made a case that the problem required more than “stern decrees” or “improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources.” He also referenced divisions within the U.S. ranks.

“Let us try to break the vicious circle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander in the pursuit of a path of prayerful and contrite acceptance of our limitations and sins,” Francis wrote.

Francis’s letter came as the U.S. bishops were gathering for a week-long retreat focused on prayer and spiritual reflection at a seminary outside Chicago. That retreat, which is closed to the media, was suggested by Francis after he met in September with several U.S. Catholic leaders.

For some Vatican watchers, the letter provided signals about how Francis is trying to guide the church through the most turbulent period of his papacy, while dealing with fractures – in the United States and beyond – over the reasons for the clerical abuse scourge. Francis has repeatedly connected

the issue to abuses of power and clerics who have lost sight of their mission. But some church traditionalists say he has overlooked a problem of homosexuality in the priesthood.

Tensions have grown between Rome and the U.S. church after a year of abuse-related scandals. When the pope was accused by a former diplomat of knowing about some of the alleged abuses of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a handful of U.S. higher-ups said the accusations were credible. Subsequently, Francis did not green-light an investigation into McCarrick requested by the head of the U.S. bishops conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. And the

It did not call for new measures to punish high-ranking clerics or hold them accountable – steps recommended by victims’ advocacy groups.

Vatican intervened to halt the U.S. bishops at their annual meeting in November from voting on new measures for handling abuserelated complaints.

Next month, bishops from around the world will meet in Rome for a summit on sexual abuse and the protection of minors. Francis in his letter did not mention that gathering but called for a “collegial and paternal” response, rather

than one in which “some emerge as ‘winners’ and others not.”

The pope urged the church leaders to acknowledge “our hurt before the present situation and (let) ourselves together be summoned anew by God’s word.”

“Look, I can understand the Catholics who might scoff and say, ‘We don’t need more discernment. We need action,’” said John Gehring, the Catholic program

director at Faith in Public Life, an advocacy group in Washington. “I think what the pope is saying is we need the deep discernment and the change of heart before we get to the policy.”

Scandals in multiple countries over the past year have highlighted the church’s struggle to deal with both abusive clerics and higher-ups who failed to stop them. In the United States, in addition to McCarrick’s resignation, a blistering Pennsylvania grand-jury report released in August detailed the behaviour of 300 “predator priests” over seven decades. Dozens of dioceses have since followed in publicly identifying abusive priests.

Evangelist claims Facebook ‘is censoring free speech’

Citizen news service

Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and a staunch supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, said this week he accepts “Facebook’s apology” after the platform blocked him for 24 hours. Graham wrote on Facebook that his account had been temporarily blocked over a 2016 post about North Carolina’s House Bill 2, more commonly known as the “bathroom bill.” According to Graham, Facebook said the post went against its “community stan-

dards on hate speech.”

Those responsible for blocking his account were trying to police his speech, he said.

“Facebook is trying to define the truth,” Graham wrote. He added, “Actually, Facebook is censoring free speech. The free exchange of ideas is part of our country’s DNA.”

In a statement provided Sunday, Facebook spokeswoman Sarah Pollack acknowledged that the 24-hour block was made after the platform had removed the post for “violating (its) hate speech policies.”

“Upon re-reviewing this content, we

Living with hope

The new year is a time for celebration. Thousands gather in Times Square to watch the ball drop at midnight. Cities compete to have the most spectacular fireworks display – from Sydney to Bangkok, Moscow to Dubai – welcoming the new year. It may be a time of celebration with friends and family, or just a time to reflect on the past year, its triumphs and tragedies, high and low points. For many it may be a time of anxiety. What will the new year bring? Fortunately we live in a world of relative peace. Conflicts of the past few years, ISIS and terrorism, are fading. However, new threats of hurricanes, floods and fires are becoming more prevalent. Populist leaders, trade wars and cyber attacks threaten the stability of the world’s political and economic systems. Beneath the relative calm there are significant worries that wear people down. How do we face uncertainty and threats to the

Clergy Comment

identified that the post does not violate our hate speech policy and has been restored,” Pollack said.

The Charlotte Observer reports that a member of Facebook’s content review team had decided – mistakenly – that Graham’s post violated a policy that prohibits “dehumanizing language” and excluding people on sexual orientation, race and other factors.

The 2016 post in question, which Graham republished to his page, asserted that House Bill 2 protected “the safety and privacy of women and children.” The controversial

well-being of our nation and the world?

In 1939 Britain had declared war due to Nazi Germany’s expansion in Europe. In his Christmas address, King George V spoke of Christmas as a festival of peace, though true peace was in the hearts of men. He also acknowledged the reality of powerful countries “whose whole direction and policy are based on aggression and the suppression of all that we hold dear for mankind.”

He thanked his allies and armed forces who faced severe danger with courage. He concluded with the words of M. L. Haskin: I said

2016 bill required people to use public restrooms that matched the sex on their birth certificate instead of the gender they identified with – particularly affecting the transgender community.

The law was repealed in 2017 but was replaced by a bill that prevented local governments from passing measures that protect LGBT people – considered to be a compromise.

The post specifically targeted Bruce Springsteen, who canceled a concert in protest of the bathroom bill.

to the man who stood at the gate of the year. “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied. “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

King George held to hope throughout the darkest days of Britain’s history.

We may not face war, but we face uncertain times. We do not know what this year will bring.

Just before Jesus’ death he told his followers, “I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. So do not be troubled or afraid.” He

also said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.” Jesus does not offer absence of turmoil, but he promises he will not leave us alone. At our wedding we were given a motto, “He who has helped you hitherto, will help you all your journey through.” We have found this true through more than 50 years of marriage. At the beginning of this new year I encourage you to “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God,” and you will find hope and light for the way. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him” during this coming year.

ALAN BROMLEY College Heights Baptist Church