Prince George Citizen July 25, 2019

Teens charged with murder

Father expects manhunt will end in ‘blaze of glory’

The Canadian Press

The father of a suspect in the deaths of three people in northern British Columbia says his son is in “very serious pain” and he expects a nationwide manhunt will end in the young man’s death.

Alan Schmegelsky says his son, 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, had a troubled upbringing. He struggled through his parents’ acrimonious split in 2005 and his main influences became video games and YouTube.

“A normal child doesn’t travel across the country killing people. A child in some very serious pain does,” Schmegelsky said in an emotional interview Wednesday in Mill Bay, near his home in Victoria.

RCMP charged Schmegelsky and his longtime friend, 19-year-old Kam McLeod, with second-degree murder Wednesday in the death of Leonard Dyck of Vancouver. His body was found on a highway pullout about two kilometres from a burned-out truck and camper police have said the teenagers had been driving. Police had difficulty identifying Dyck and released a composite drawing.

They are also suspects in the deaths of Australian Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, whose bodies were found along the side of a highway in northeastern B.C. on July 15. Four days later, Dyck’s body was found near the teens’ burned-out truck several hundred kilometres from the first crime scene.

RCMP said in a news release the murder charge now means Canada-wide warrants have been issued for McLeod and Schmegelsky.

A statement from the Dyck family said they are truly heartbroken by the tragic loss.

“He was a loving husband and father. His death has created unthinkable grief and we are struggling to understand what has happened.”

Police initially treated the teens as missing, but announced they were suspects after they were spotted in northern Saskatchewan. The manhunt stretched into northern Manitoba this week when a burned-out car the teens were travelling in was found near the community of Gillam.

Alan Schmegelsky said he expects his son will die in a confrontation with police.

“He’s on a suicide mission. He wants his pain to end,” he said,

breaking down into tears. “Basically, he’s going to be dead today or tomorrow. I know that. Rest in peace, Bryer. I love you. I’m so sorry all this had to happen.”

Even if his son is caught, his life will be over, the father said.

“He wants his hurt to end.

They’re going to go out in a blaze of glory. Trust me on this. That’s what they’re going to do.”

Schmegelsky said he and his wife separated when their son was five. She moved with the boy to the small Vancouver Island community of Port Alberni, where he met McLeod in elementary school and they quickly became inseparable best friends.

They were “everyday, good kids” who didn’t get into trouble, but his son had problems at home and, at 16, briefly moved to Victoria to live with him, Alan Schmegelsky said. The boy then returned to Port Alberni to live with his grandmother.

“He hasn’t been nurtured. He doesn’t have a driver’s licence. He never learned to ride a bike. He craved love and affection,” he said. “His influences haven’t been good. His influences have been YouTube and video games.”

He loved strategy and battle video games in particular, Schmegelsky said, and two years ago his son asked for an airsoft gun for Christmas. Schmegelsky bought it for him and the teen and his friends would “battle” each other in the woods, he said. Schmegelsky said his son doesn’t own any real guns and doesn’t know how to drive. He worked at the Port Alberni Walmart after graduating from high school earlier this year, but was disappointed with the job and told his dad he was setting off to Alberta with McLeod to look for work.

The father recalled that his son bought a nice black suit with his second paycheque from Walmart.

“Now I realize it’s his funeral suit.”

Facebook pages under the two young men’s names are both connected to an account called “Illusive Gameing.” The page under Schmegelsky’s name has also previously posted a link to the vigilante group Anonymous.

In Port Alberni, signs with “No Trespassing” were staked outside of McLeod’s large waterfront family home. His father, Keith McLeod, released a written statement to media.

“This is what I do know – Kam is a kind, considerate, caring young man (who) always has been concerned about other people’s feelings,” McLeod said. “As we are trapped in our homes due to media people, we try to wrap our heads around what is happening and hope that Kam will come home to us safely so we can all get to the bottom of this story.” No one answered the door at

Schmegelsky’s mother’s home or at his grandmother’s house where he has been living. Mae Lee, who lives several doors down from the grandmother, said Schmegelsky seemed like a nice boy.

“I would see him outside helping his grandmother,” she said. “I’ve never, never seen him alone on the road. He’s always been with grandma.”

In Gillam, the deputy mayor said residents have been locking their doors earlier than usual. John McDonald said residents are used to seeing strangers come and go from Manitoba Hydro projects, but they’re paying closer attention to faces since the release of photos of the suspects and word Tuesday that they may be in the area. Extra officers have been brought in for a search focused about 70 kilometres northwest of the town near Fox Lake Cree Nation, where Chief Walter Spence has said police would be patrolling.

Petrochemical plant planned for BCR site

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A Calgary-based company intends to build a $5.6-billion petrochemical plant in the BCR Industrial Site. Unveiling the plan Wednesday to about 50 people who attended a gathering at the Courtyard by Marriott, West Coast Olefins CEO Ken James said the company has secured a 300-acre site at the BCR Industrial Site to pursue the project.

If all works out, a fully operating facility will be up and running by the end of 2023 and employ as many as 1,000 people in permanent, highly skilled jobs.

The feedstock would be natural gas supplied via the Enbridge West Coast pipeline.

“This will be the biggest project the city has ever seen,” said James, who lived in Prince George from 1974 to 1984.

He highlighted the city’s access to the CN Rail line to Prince Rupert, availability of land and proximity to the pipeline as three main reasons why the city was chosen.

Steps still to be taken include clearing the provincial environmental assessment process, which will include a public consultation period.

— See CONSTRUCTION on page 3

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Ken James from West Coast Olefins speaks about taking first steps towards the construction of a $5.6 billion petrochemical plan in the BCR site.

CP PHOTO

Alan Schmegelsky, father of Bryer Schmegelsky, pauses during an interview with The Canadian Press in Mill Bay, B.C., on Wednesday.

Calogheros running for Liberals again

Citizen staff

Tracy Calogheros will be the Liberal candidate in Cariboo-Prince George in the coming federal election.

Nominated this week, it will be the second time she has run to be the riding’s MP.

Calegheros finished second to Conservative Todd Doherty in 2015, who drew 19,688 votes to her 16,921.

“I am honoured to have once again earned the trust of local Liberals to represent our community on Parliament Hill, and to work with Justin Trudeau to create new jobs that strengthen our local economy,” she said in a statement issued Wednesday.

“I once again look forward to working hard throughout the campaign to earn the support of

people throughout Cariboo-Prince George, one conversation at a time.”

Married with three adult children, Calogheros is the CEO for the Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre in Prince George, a position she has held since 2003.

She also currently serves as the president of the Canadian Association of Science Centres and is a director at large for the Fraser Basin Council.

Some of her past roles also include president and interim CEO of the Northern British Columbia Tourism Association, Tourism Chair for the Spirit of BC Community Committee and Western Representative on the National Selection Committee - Broadband for Rural and Northern Development.

In-custody death under investigation

Citizen staff

Prince George RCMP has notified B.C.’s police watchdog of an incustody death.

The Independent Investigations Office said it is investigating after the detachment reported that a person who had been taken into cells on Friday night was found in distress early the next morning.

Paramedics were called to the scene and the person taken to hospital but a bit more than two hours later, the hospital staff informed the RCMP that the person had died.

“The IIO will be investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident,” the agency said in a statement posted on its website.

The IIO investigates all police-related incidents of serious harm or death, whether or not there is any allegation of wrongdoing.

Primary colour primates

Si Transken leads an art journal class Wednesday during Art Monkeys, the Community Arts Council summer art classes at Studio 2880. Art journal is a

emotions and feelings through art.

Diaper sting snares sex offender

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A convicted sex offender was sentenced Wednesday to a further two years less a day in jail plus three years probation after he was caught in a police sting violating the terms of his long-term supervision order and showing signs of turning back to his old ways in the process. As part of the order, Ricky Bruce Gordon, 57, was prohibited from possessing diapers, dolls and children’s underwear.

But earlier this year, RCMP received a report from the halfway house where he had been living that he may be violating that term. Police followed up and spotted him going in and out of family washrooms without making any purchases at the businesses he was attending.

Mounties then planted marked diapers at two of those locations and in mid-March he was caught with one of them and arrested.

Police also found a handful of other prohibited items at the time, the court heard Wednesday.

It was the fifth time Gordon had been found in breach of the order, all the infractions committed in the same manner.

Past sentences were one day, nine months, 24 months and 20 months respectively, with the 10-year order, imposed in 2003, put on hold while Gordon served his time.

This time, Gordon was sentenced to three years less time served and because the remainder of the sentence is less than two years, it will be served in a provincial institution. It was also

recommended that Gordon serve that time at Ford Mountain which houses a sex offender treatment program. In issuing the sentence, a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels, provincial court judge Cassandra Malfair noted that there was no suggestion Gordon was trying to secure a child but the prohibition had been put in place to prevent him from starting down that path. She also noted that Gordon had been expelled from treatment programs in the past but also fears

Construction planned for 2021

— from page 1

The project’s value components will be submitted to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office by the end of this year.

Pending a final investment decision at the end of 2020, construction at the site is to begin in spring 2021. And once operating, about $50 million per year would be spent on maintaining the facility.

A recovery plant will take ethane, propane, butane and natural gas condensate from the natural gas retrieved from the pipeline. In turn, an ethylene plant would produce one million tonnes per year of polymer-grade ethylene and a polyethylene plant would, in turn, convert most of that ethylene into raw plastic that would be shipped to Asia where it would be used to make finished products.

The distance to Asia from Prince Rupert is about half that from the U.S. Gulf Coast, James noted. Another competitive advantage, said James, is a supply of cheap Canadian natural gas, its price driven down by the shale gas revolution in the United States.

He said a plant in Prince George will have a $250 per tonne advantage over product produced in the U.S. Gulf Coast and $50 to $75 per tonne on product produced in Alberta. James said as many as five more petrochemical plants will be built in B.C. over the next 20 to 30 years and added there is room for three plants in total at the local West Coast Olefins property.

“This will totally change the economy here,” he said.

In a scrum with local news media, James said he is “over 50 per cent confident” that the project will go ahead. That

may seem pessimistic, he added, but noted that only one of the several liquified natural gas plants that have been proposed for B.C. is progressing.

“So I’m very confident,” James said and alluded to a statement he made during his presentation that the level of cooperation he has had from all levels of government rivals what he has seen in Alberta.

James, who sported a Lheidli T’enneh First Nation pin on his lapel, said he is also working to get the band’s support.

In a statement from West Coast Olefins, Lheidli T’enneh Chief Clay Poutney said the band “looks forward to potentially

Poll respondents back pipeline

Citizen staff

federal government’s decision to go ahead with the TransMountain pipeline expansion?”

Respondents were thinking positive with 68 per cent, and 2038 voters who said “Yes, it’s the right thing for all of Canada.” A distant second with 15 per cent and 453 votes was “No, it poses too many environmental risks for B.C.,” while “No, Canada needs to do more to embrace green energy,” came in with 11 per cent and 318 votes. Finally, with six per cent and 184 votes was “Yes, Alberta oil needs to get to market.” There were 2,993 votes cast during this poll, which is not scientific. The next question for The Citizen online poll asks: “More than 223,000 people participated in a government online survey about daylight savings time. What would you like the government to do?”

To make your vote count visit www.pgcitizen.ca

partnering with West Coast Olefins to ensure that if the project is approved (it) will provide significant economic benefits to Lheidli T’enneh and our members, and is designed and built in a way that is aligned with our values.”

Mayor Lyn Hall welcomed the news, calling it a “game changer” that will be good for the region as well as the city.

West Coast Olefins was formed a year ago to pursue the project. According to the company website, James and Chief Operating Officer Ron Just both have 30 years experience in the industry and hold degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Waterloo.

going to jail and held out the hope that a lengthier sentence will give him the motivation to complete the program this time. Add on the three years of probation, and Gordon will remain under supervision for a further five years. Terms of his probation include wearing an electronic monitor, allowing to be photographed by a police officer on request, avoid being in the company of minors and to refrain from using washrooms where there is a changing table whenever possible.

way for children to express their

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Ken James from West Coast Olefins speaks Wednesday about a proposed $5.6 billion petrochemical plant in Prince George.

telescopes at

summit

B.C. chiefs oppose telescope funding

The Canadian Press Canada should remove its financial support from a plan to build a massive new telescope in Hawaii on land considered sacred by Indigenous Hawaiians, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said Wednesday.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Hawaii Gov. David Ige, the organization called for construction plans for what’s known as the Thirty Meter Telescope project to be shut down and for the Canadian government to withdraw support for the project.

In April 2015, the former Conservative government announced it would provide up to $243.5 million for the project over a 10-year period. The National Research Council is a full partner in the plan, along with the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and national science authorities in India, China and Japan. The construction effort cleared its regulatory hurdles two weeks ago. But opposition to it has been mounting, with protesters blocking a road to the summit of Mauna Kea this week. The new telescope would join 13 other observatories already

on the volcanic peak, a location astronomers prize for its lack of light pollution.

On Tuesday, a judge denied a motion filed by telescope opponents seeking a temporary restraining order to stop construction. Several dozen people have been arrested at the blockade.

The federal government’s support for the telescope runs counter to its commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said Wednesday, adding it also calls upon the governor of Hawaii to ensure the state respects and protects the Kanaka Maoli’s right to be stewards of their lands and waters. The Kanaka Maoli are Indigenous Hawaiians.

“The deep emotional, cultural, and spiritual attachments the Kanaka Maoli have to Mauna Kea must be honoured,” it said.

Canada respects the rights of all people to voice their opinions in a peaceful way, the National Research Council of Canada said Wednesday, adding that hundreds of consultations have taken place since the development process began in 2003.

“Great care has been taken to identify the best location for the TMT, to have minimum

impact out of respect for Mauna Kea’s rich ancestral history and the spiritual beliefs of native culture,” it said in a statement.

“The telescope will be built away from the summit, one mile from Pu’u Wekiu and several hundred feet below it within the astronomy district.”

Pu’u Wekiu is a cinder cone on Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawaii.

Canada will keep working with partners in the project to find a path forward and peacefully engage with Hawaii, the Indigenous communities, and international partners, the research council added.

The office of Science Minister Kirsty Duncan echoed Wednesday that the government believes in meaningful consultation with Indigenous Peoples and supports free speech and peaceful protest.

“Our priority is the health and safety of all involved, and we trust all parties will act respectfully and responsibly as they work toward a resolution,” it said in a statement.

The decision to fund the telescope was made in 2015 by the previous government, it said, adding it is monitoring the situation closely.

Missing toddler found alive in trench

The Canadian Press

A mother says her toddler is tired, scratched up and sunburned but otherwise fine after he spent a night in a muddy trench in southwestern Saskatchewan.

Keeley Moat and her family from Edmonton were visiting an aunt’s farm near Aneroid on Monday when Moat’s two-year-old son, Courtlund Barrington-Moss, wandered off.

She said she and her relatives looked in places Courtlund had been playing earlier and became

more frantic when he didn’t turn up. Her aunt called the RCMP.

Moat says it was a long night.

“But at the same time it felt like the time was going by quick because we weren’t finding him,” she said in a telephone interview.

“I was getting more and more anxious.”

Shelby Layman, the deputy fire chief in nearby Ponteix, said some 60 volunteers searched overnight with the help of dogs, a helicopter, night-vision goggles, a drone and high-capacity spotlights.

People in the area woke to news

Tuesday that the boy was missing and hundreds more showed up to pitch in. Many had horses and off-road vehicles.

“There were some pretty goodlooking durum fields adjacent to the yard that would have been taller than the boy by a fairly good margin,” said Layman, who added there were also several water holes in the area.

Layman said two searchers on horseback found the boy in a hole about 9 a.m. after they heard him laugh.

“He saw them before they saw

him, actually. He saw their horses and he started giggling and wanted to pet the horses,” said Layman.

“The entire area just erupted with joy. It was pretty emotional. Everybody was yelling and people were running around.”

Moat was searching in an offroad vehicle with her father and a friend, when a friend of her aunt ran up to tell her Courtlund had been found.

“He had found a little gully, almost like a little trench, that was the exact height of him.”

Wilson-Raybould book set for Sept. release

Canadian Press

The

A book by former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould will be released on Sept. 20, according to her publisher. The book, which is titled From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada, will be released by Purich Books – part of the University of British Columbia Press. They say in a news release that it’s a timely, forthright, impassioned and optimistic book for all Canadians.

It urges Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to build on the momentum of the reconciliation journey or risk losing progress.

Wilson-Raybould is now an Independent MP for Vancouver Granville and has served as a British Columbia Regional Chief, in addition

to her roles as minister of justice and attorney general for Canada.

Purich Books says Wilson-Raybould, also known by her Kwak’wala name of Puglaas, draws on her speeches and other writings for the book.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who’s a law professor at Allard Law School at UBC and the director of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, calls the book a must-read.

“Puglaas shares a clear understanding of where we have come from, the issues we must address, and the pathways to a transformed future,” she said in a statement.

“Having witnessed her remarkable courage and capacity as Canada’s attorney general and her determination to do what is right without succumbing to unrelenting political pressure,

Build border fences, cut immigration, Bernier says

The Canadian Press Maxime Bernier says that if he becomes prime minister, his government would slash immigration and refugee numbers, build a fence to block asylum seekers from walking across the border, and end a program that lets immigrants sponsor their families to join them.

With his People’s Party of Canada is barely touching two per cent in opinion polls, the Quebec MP chose to hit one of his key themes at an event in Mississauga, Ont., a western suburb of Toronto.

“I can understand why immigrants would want to bring the rest of their extended family here, including older ones who will benefit from our health-care system,” Bernier said in the prepared text for his speech Wednesday evening.

“But we cannot be the welfare state of the planet.”

He pledged to reduce the number of immigrants admitted to Canada each year to 100,000 or 150,000 at most, if the economy and “other circumstances” allow that many.

Canada currently admits about 350,000 immigrants.

Bernier said Canada must look after its own citizens first, and focus on newcomers who bring economic value to the country.

He denounced “mass immigration” and “extreme multiculturalism,” saying that these policies would lead to “social conflicts and potentially violence.”

These ideas have nothing to do with freedom, his speech said, but rather “a very dangerous type of social engineering.”

He identified “Islamism or political Islam” as a threat to “our values and way of life.”

And Canadians agree with him, Bernier said, citing polls suggesting up to half of respondents think immigration levels are too high.

Bernier promised to make each immigration applicant go through a face-to-face interview with a Canadian official to judge the applicant’s values and his or her acceptance of Canadian “societal norms.”

He cited one of his nominees in Ontario, Salim Mansur, who has written that official multiculturalism is a lie.

“A lie based on the idea that all cultures are equal,” Bernier said. “A lie destructive of our Western liberal democratic heritage, traditions, and values based on individual rights and freedoms.”

Finally, on refugees, he pledged to build fences at popular crossings for migrants between official ports of entry – including a popular one in Quebec – and to rely on private sponsorships for funding new immigrants rather than government support.

Puglaas stands tall among Canadians as a person for whom truth, thoughtfulness, and principle are not mere words - but values to sustain a different kind of policy and politics.”

Wilson-Raybould served as Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffled her to the portfolio of veterans affairs in January. She later revealed she thought the decision to move her out of Justice was motivated by her refusal to intervene in the criminal prosecution of the Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. She ultimately resigned from cabinet.

Trudeau denied any wrongdoing but conceded there was an “erosion of trust” between his office and Wilson-Raybould.

His speech said that a People’s Party government would focus on religious minorities in majorityMuslim countries and “members of sexual minorities,” instead of refugees identified by the United Nations.

Bernier’s speech also rejected any allegations of racism against him and his upstart party.

“I don’t care one bit about people’s race or skin colour,” Bernier’s text said.

“I have said many times that racists and bigots are not welcome in our party. We care about shared values, culture and identity. You can be of any ethnic background or faith and be a Canadian if you share fundamental Canadian values, learn about our history and culture, and integrate in our society.”

CP PHOTO

The sun sets behind

the

of Mauna Kea last week. Scientists are expected to explore fundamental questions about the universe when they use a giant new telescope planned for the summit of Hawaii’s tallest mountain.

Takeaways from Mueller testimony

The Associated Press

Robert Mueller refused to play the part. Not for Republicans and not for Democrats. In back-to-back hearings before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, the former special counsel in the investigation of Russian interference into the 2016 presidential elections largely honoured his pledge to stick to his 448-page report. He often answered questions in a single word.

Republicans tried to get Mueller to spell out the findings that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Democrats pressed him to expand on the conclusion in his report that he could not exonerate U.S. President Donald Trump on possible charges of obstruction of justice. But Mueller left both sides wanting. Some key takeaways from his testimony:

MUELLER WOULDN’T BE A MOUTHPIECE

Mueller wouldn’t even read from his own report. That made it challenging for Democrats who called him in hopes that the sheer force of hearing him say the words on television would be more powerful to many Americans than the written form.

But Mueller demurred, and Democrats had to read his words for him.

Similarly, Mueller wouldn’t answer specifically when Republicans repeatedly tried to question him about the origins of the Russia investigation, the use of secret surveillance warrants.

Mueller would only speak generally about Peter Strozk, a former FBI agent on his team who helped lead the investigation and exchanged anti-Trump text messages during the 2016 election with ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page. Mueller left it to the partisans to do the parsing.

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IS STILL HAPPENING

Mueller was, for him anyway, far more expansive when he was asked about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections. He also condemned Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that released material stolen from Democratic groups, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“Problematic is an understatement,” he said.

U.S. intelligence agencies and Mueller’s investigation determined Russian government entities were responsible for the hack and furnished the embarrassing correspon-

dence to WikiLeaks in order to support Trump’s bid for the presidency. Authorities also found Russia engaged in an organized social media effort to sow discord among American voters.

Mueller warned that what Russia did in 2016 was not a “single attempt.”

“They’re doing it as we sit here,” he told lawmakers.

INDICTING THE PRESIDENT WAS NEVER AN OPTION

During his testimony, Mueller made clear that his team never considered charging the president with a crime because of Justice Department guidelines.

Mueller, in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, seemed to agree that he would have charged Trump with obstruction of justice had it not been for department guidance that a president cannot be indicted. Democrats seized on that answer, but Mueller then said, “That is not the correct way to say it.”

Mueller later said his team “did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

“IT IS NOT A WITCH HUNT”

Mueller swung back at the characterization made hundreds of times by Trump that the Russia investigation that shadowed his presidency was a “rigged witch hunt.”

“It is not a witch hunt,” Mueller testified.

Asked what he wanted the American public to take from his report, Mueller said: “We spent substantial time ensuring the integrity of the report.”

One of the only other times Mueller pushed back on lawmakers during hours of questioning was to offer a spirited defence of the investigation.

“I don’t think you all reviewed a report that is as thorough, as fair, as consistent as the report that we have in front of us,” Mueller said.

Mueller said his nearly two-year investigation was conducted in a “fair and independent manner.” He also repeatedly

Trump declares victory, mocks Mueller

The Associated Press

Believing a two-year shadow over the White House at last has been lifted, U.S. President Donald Trump seized on Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on Wednesday as a clear-cut victory, mocking the former special counsel’s findings and performance.

praised the prosecutors, FBI agents and analysts who worked on his team, saying they were “of the highest integrity” and were “absolutely exemplary.”

IMPEACHMENT REMAINS UNLIKELY

Mueller’s testimony likely did little to change many minds in Congress on impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has made clear she will not pursue impeachment, for now. Mueller wouldn’t take the bait as Democrats asked whether he meant for his report to serve as a referral to Congress to consider impeaching the president. He even seemed to make strides to not even say the word. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, asked Mueller about a mention in Mueller’s report about “constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.” Mueller refused to answer when asked specifically whether one of those was impeachment.

After claiming in advance that he might not watch the day’s proceedings, Trump blasted “the phoney cloud” created by the investigation and declared “there was no defence to this ridiculous hoax, this witch hunt.”

Trump tweeted more than two dozen times during Mueller’s testimony about his investigation into the president and the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. As it ended, Trump tweeted: “TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!”

“This has been a very bad thing for our country,” Trump told reporters. He declared that it was an “embarrassment and waste of time.”

Trump fixated on Mueller’s performance, noting his lack of familiarity with some aspects of the investigation and accusing him

Canada faces uncertainty with Johnson at UK helm

The Canadian Press

Boris Johnson pledged a Halloween Brexit for Britain from the European Union, negotiated or not, after being sworn in Wednesday as Britain’s prime minister. With that, there is almost equal certainty that Johnson’s arrival at 10 Downing Street will roil the geopolitical and economic waters for Canada as it tries to guide its trade deal with the EU into port.

With fewer than 100 days before Canada’s federal election, Johnson’s premiership injects more disruption into Canada’s relationship with two of its top allies – Britain and the U.S. – because both are now led by unpredictably populist men who appear fond of each other.

Moments after being asked by Queen Elizabeth to form a government, Johnson pledged to take Britain “out of the EU on Oct. 31, no ifs or buts.”

“We will do a new deal, a better deal that will maximize the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe based on free trade and mutual support.”

Johnson said that would come with or without a departure deal. That latter option has sparked concern that it would plunge Britain’s economy into recession.

The transatlantic economic spillover into Canada won’t be good either if there’s a nodeal departure, analysts said Wednesday.

“If Britain crashes out of the EU without an agreement, Canada’s trade in goods and services will almost certainly suffer not only because of the adverse economic consequences for Britain, our largest export market in the EU, but also for the rest of Europe,” said Fen Hampson of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

“We clearly have an interest in a properly managed Brexit scenario.”

Either way, Canada and a Britain out of the EU will have to negotiate their own bilateral trade deal because the Canada-EU pact, known as CETA, won’t apply to Britain. But getting Johnson’s attention could prove difficult for Canada because he may be more focused on dealing with Trump – a fan of Johnson’s – and getting a deal with the U.S., said Hampson.

Colin Robertson, the vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said Canada and Britain “were well down the road to negotiation of a Canada-U.K. economic partnership but then negotiations stopped when (former prime minister Theresa) May went down.”

While Britain is not legally allowed to enter trade negotiations until it has actually departed the EU, High Commissioner Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque told The Canadian Press in April that Britain’s top trade negotiator has been meeting regularly with Canadian representatives to sketch out the broad strokes of a bilateral deal.

In the meantime, it is best Canada continue to push ratification across Europe, where France became the 14th and arguably most significant country of the EU’s 28 nations to ratify the CETA this week, said Robertson.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday to express his appreciation for the development.

Johnson made clear that free trade is the key to his country’s success moving forward from three years of uncertainty after Britons voted in 2016 to leave the EU by a 52-to-48 margin.

“It has become clear there are pessimists at home and abroad who think after three years of indecision this country has become a prisoner to the old arguments of 2016,” Johnson said. “I am standing before you today to tell you, the British people, that those critics are wrong.”

of playing favourites.

“The performance was obviously not very good. He had a lot of problems,” Trump said. “This was a devastating day for Democrats.”

Before Mueller even took his seat to testify, the president had tweeted nine times about the investigation, making clear that he had his mind focused squarely on the proceedings unfolding at the

other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

“So Democrats and others can illegally fabricate a crime, try pinning it on a very innocent President, and when he fights back against this illegal and treasonous attack on our Country, they call It Obstruction?” Trump wrote in one early tweet. “Wrong! Why didn’t Robert Mueller investigate the investigators?”

Former special counsel Robert Mueller is sworn in on Capitol Hill before the House Intelligence Committee to testify Wednesday on his report on Russian election interference.

City councils need to be reined in

Afew months after the election, you’re not happy with the way your municipality is being run. The thought of waiting three and a half years for another election is more than you can take –what kind of trouble will these losers get into given all that time? How much more national embarrassment can we stand?

So you organize a recall campaign, get a bunch of others to agree with you, force the jerks from office, and trigger another election. This time, with luck, you will get some councillors you can stand. They will stay in office just long enough to find the washrooms at city hall. Then other people will campaign against them, force another recall and campaign, and there we go again.

Having the ability to fire local politicians makes sense in theory. It could, however, have many unintended consequences, not the least of which would be the nonstop dis-

ruption of council business and the relentless campaigning by those already in office.

We can understand why people upset with the way local city councils are being run. We can understand the frustration level and the feeling that something needs to be done to make things right.

We agree with Stan Bartlett, head of the Grumpy Taxpayer$, when he said that people are angry. “They’re dispirited with local government and the City of Victoria council in particular,” he said in his call for the province to introduce recall legislation for municipal councillors.

We would go even further. Many people have lost faith in the people they trusted with their votes.

They do not hear a voice at the council table that represents their points of view. They are disengaged. They feel councillors are chasing their own agendas and ideologies, not doing the job they were elected to do.

The Grumpies say Victoria council spends

too much time dealing with issues out of its municipal jurisdiction.

“There are deep-seated issues at Victoria council that are not being addressed and what we’re seeing on a regular basis is distraction,” Bartlett said.

Half a century ago, we had municipal elections every fall, with half the council elected each time. That was changed to full council elections every two years, which meant that voters could toss the bums out relatively quickly if things went off the rails. But the election calendar was then shifted to three-year cycles, and since 2014, fouryear terms.

One theory behind the move to four-year terms was that council members would spend less time campaigning and more time doing what they were elected to do. In reality, the change just gave rise to a different problem. Instead of tackling the tasks expected of any municipal government, some councillors have taken their elections as a four-year free pass to charge down

Adjectives key to climate change

They weren’t getting it. I had a room full of bright first-year university students in front of me, but confusion reigned as I tried to describe how embedded fossil fuels are in every aspect of society.

“OK, let’s try this. What do you call a car that uses both gasoline and battery power?” Relieved to be asked a question they could confidently answer, a few students piped up: “Hybrid car!”

“Right. Now, what do you call a car that you plug in?” The number of students joining the chorus grew: “Electric car!”

“Right again. So, what do you call a car that runs only on gasoline?” The response was a bit delayed this time, but some wry smiles of understanding accompanied the answer: “A car.”

Despite dire warnings of climate catastrophe and research showing that fossil fuels need to stay in the ground, the fossil fuel system remains dominant, normal and even invisible.

We have cars and electricity and home heating and transportation systems and agricultural and industrial production. None of them normally have adjectives that denote their reliance on fossil fuels. That reliance is natural and therefore invisible and unspoken. Normal.

As a society, we have not made the status quo strange and the negative aspects of fossil fuel dominance visible in our language and labels: dirty, gas-powered cars; polluting, coal-fired electricity; unsustainable, oil-dependent agriculture. And we need to.

In their book Ending the Fossil Fuel Era, Thomas Princen, Jack Manno and Pamela Martin explore U.S. philosopher Richard Rorty’s provocative idea that major social change is in part dependent on “speaking differently” to the problem of climate change. Making the fossil fuel world strange and negative in our thoughts, speech and labels is part

of pursuing the transformation that we need to stave off the worst implications of climate change.

Language matters because it helps us to construct our reality. Adjectives or the lack thereof can signal the dominant and nondominant entities.

If your cause or identity has to use, or is subject to, adjectives, you are often at a disadvantage. You’re not the norm. You’re not dominant. Health and women’s health. Students and Black students. Such modifiers serve to marginalize.

A number of climate policy scholars are convinced part of the transformation we need in order to address climate change is for people and societies to positively imagine and envision a low-carbon life, taking for granted the fossil fuel-free world on the horizon.

Perhaps the best indication that societies are succeeding on climate change is not the increase of renewable energy capacity or investments in low-carbon infrastructure, but instead the transformation of adjectives – when descriptors like “renewable” and “low-carbon” become superfluous because they are the natural, normal state of energy and infrastructure.

Changing our language and labels can be part of active strategies to bring about change. It may not be as dramatic as political debates and court cases over carbon taxes or marches in the streets. But this kind of language strategy could contribute to change by making the fossil fuel-dominated world visible and strange, and the low-carbon world normal.

An example of this active language work just emerged in the United Kingdom, where the Financial Times reported that the London stock exchange, known as the FTSE, recently changed the

labels of energy stocks: “BP and Royal Dutch Shell, and other U.K.-listed exploration and production companies like Cairn Energy and Tullow Oil, are now grouped in the ‘non-renewable’ index, previously called ‘oil & gas producers.’”

Just in case anyone thinks this is merely a semantic change, the Financial Times story goes on to note that Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which is actively decarbonizing, will use the classification to: “…determine which fossil fuel companies to divest, with the changes potentially affecting the inclusion or exclusion of an oil company or security from the fund’s blacklist.”

This strategy of making the fossil fuel world strange and negative must become standard as we transition to a low-carbon future. Journalists, thought leaders and politicians all have a role to play here. They should commit to putting descriptive and even negative adjectives on things that do not normally have them – modifiers like “gas-powered,” “polluting,” “high-carbon” – both in speech and on labels that have material impact, like the categorization of stocks on the FTSE index.

Adjectives are not magic, and they do not preclude the hard work of political change. But if imagining and speaking the world we want to see is crucial in building support and momentum for transformation, then what is visible and invisible, strange and normal, positive and negative, has to change.

I told my students I would have more hope for the prospects for avoiding climate catastrophe when “gas-powered” was necessary to modify “car” because the natural state of cars had changed to electric. Changing how we think, talk and label the world we’re in and the world we’d like to be in is part of that transformation.

— Matthew Hoffmann is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. This article first appeared in The Conversation.

whatever path they fancy without fear of being reined in.

The Grumpy Taxpayer$ proposal will probably not win the support of the provincial government and nor should it. We can’t have a system that allows the defeated to demand a rematch for every lost election. Like it or not, the municipal councillors we have today were elected fairly last fall. Besides, even if the province decided to enact a municipal recall provision, it would not be available to get us out of any messes before the next round of municipal elections in 2022.

But that doesn’t mean the current system works. In municipal politics, four years is too long to go without accountability to the voters.

What can we do? Let our MLAs, the only ones who can fix this, know how we feel. Stay involved. Stay informed. Don’t become disengaged, even though those in power seem to want you to be.

Victoria Times-Colonist

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Deal with the real pipeline problem

We are naturally proud of the natural beauty where we live. There are many astoundingly stunning places in Canada, each with its own character, but few match Vancouver for its ocean/mountain/climate combo.

What is worrisome, though, is how some of this beauty is illusory, how the surface esthetic is veneer or canopy, and how this serves to prevent us from tackling the tough issues.

It is most evident, of course, in homelessness, how as a city there has been a tactic to confine the crisis by geographically limiting access to resources to restrict the spread across the city of stark, visible, miserable poverty. Residents live with this, as long as it’s isolated. Rather than build consensus to tackle the large issues, we build containment to suppress them.

The $1 million-plus plowed daily into the Downtown Eastside supports an industry whose basis is the maintenance of negligible opportunity. Well-meaning workers there are doing their jobs, but they are not being led along any kind of path to anything approaching a finish line. They run on the spot.

In our most recent municipal and provincial elections, no candidate or party offered anything approaching a next step, and it would be a mistake to bet on a plan in the federal campaign. We tell tourists not to walk through it, not entirely for their safety – there is more law enforcement in those blocks than anywhere in the city – but also out of some shame that such a prosperous community can so fail its residents. Even so, news leaks, as it did recently when tourists at the affordable family-run Patricia Hotel posted a reality check online on their encounters upon leaving the building.

Hot weather brings people out of their horrible suites and into the streets, and unquestionably this year there are more than ever lining more blocks than ever along Hastings and in a large tent city in Oppenheimer Park. This, despite 600 new modular housing units, is an indictment of city, provincial and federal leaders.

Were these conditions in downtown Toronto or Montreal, junior and senior governments would topple. That this big-city catastrophe exists in a small city like Vancouver should cause deep, lingering outrage.

There is no strategy because there is no common purpose among health, education, housing and employment sectors on how to do what they want to do. The people of the district are played as hot potatoes across institutions

and levels of government.

Which brings us to another significant illusion in our beauty, the putrid state of large parts of our waterfront and the seeming incapacity and incompetence of our governments to protect us. Our drinking water is the envy of the world. We have an ambitious, if somewhat delusional, Greenest City Action Plan. Our messy streets are dotted with garbage bins exclaiming: “Vancouver, Keep It Spectacular!”

Our presence on the ocean, on rivers and near lakes makes us wary of environmental threats. But the threat is really us, or those asleep among those we have elected.

As we expend official attention to oppose the twinning of an oil pipeline that has been safe for more than a half-century, we have ignored the pipelines that deposit untreated waste into our waterways as sewer outlets overflow.

We focus on spills that might be instead of spills that are. These outlets can be seen at low tide. Just one of the five of them poured 674,000 cubic metres of raw filth into False Creek when it was last measured in 2017. (An Olympic swimming pool has 2,500 cubic metres of water, by comparison.)

There is no timetable to quell the pain and suffering amid the Downtown Eastside’s population, but there is a provincial timetable to replace the combined sewer systems with separated ones to avoid the runoff.

Get ready for it: 2050. That isn’t a typographical error, just a judgmental one. This, with Sunset Beach closed due to high E.coli levels. Similar problems exist at Snug Cove, Trout Lake and Ambleside Park. About the best the park board can do, given it is basically on an allowance determined by the parent city, is to write plaintive letters urging assistance.

Commissioner John Coupar moved and was supported Monday night for speedier resolution – 2029, not 2050 – and clear signage from the city to let us know where the crap is coming out. He hopes this effluent matter is a federal election issue, which on this historic week has the feel of another moonshot.

The result is that we will have serious climate change before we have serious sewage change. All the while, our city and province will be officially fighting what has been a safe pipeline while letting the more menacing pipeline expel the shoo. Still, we call that public service.

SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

Sawdust might fix plastic problem

Bloomberg

A technology startup near Ontario’s leafy border with Michigan says it has the answer to the world’s plastic pollution problem: sawdust.

Origin Materials is getting ready to pay sawmills in the area $20 a ton for the scraps left over in the process of turning logs into lumber, which it will use to make recyclable plastic bottles that remove carbon-dioxide from the sky because they’re made from sustainably sourced wood waste. Nestle, Danone and PepsiCo plan to sell water in Origin’s recyclable plant-based bottles in early 2022.

It’s one of the many unconventional ways conceived by scientists to reduce the world’s reliance on plastics made from petroleum, which emit as much climate-damaging pollutants as 189 coal plants each year from production to incineration. Other so-called bio-based plastics are being developed from sugar, corn, algae, seaweed, sewage and even dead beetles.

“Consumers are caring about plastic in a way that they haven’t in a long time, maybe ever,” said John Bissell, 34, who founded Origin Materials in 2008 and has spent 10 years working as an engineer developing alternative plastics that don’t contribute to climate change. “Everyday things like bottles and clothing can now become carbon negative, but remain otherwise functionally identical.”

That may be true in theory, but phasing out petroleum-based plastics will be an uphill battle. Use of the material has become so ingrained for societies around the world that about half of all new oil demand through 2040 will come from petrochemicals, an industry that relies on plastics for most of its business, according to BloombergNEF.

The $500 billion global plastics market is responsible for five per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, Friends of the Earth data show. Some projections see that ratio tripling in the next 30 years.

Plant-based plastics, especially varieties made from sugar cane, are starting to seep into the mainstream as companies try to respond to consumers who are increasingly angry about the ecologically devastating impact of plastics. London-based Bulldog sells its male skincare products in plastic tubes made from sugar cane. Last year, Danish toymaker Lego started including botanical pieces, like leaves, bushes and trees, made entirely of plant-based plastics in its box sets.

It’ll take getting big food and beverage companies on board to really alter the

Fequation. Nestle alone produces 1.7 million tons of plastic packaging a year, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, enough to make over 51 billion bottles. Beverage makers like Coca-Cola Co. and Pepsi use a lot more than that. Coca-Cola rolled out its so-called plantbottle in 2009, but it’s still 70 per cent petroleum based.

“There is no doubt that awareness around plastic waste has become more prominent in the last two years,” said Simon Lowden, president of PepsiCo’s global snacks group, which announced in 2016 it would seek to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2030.

As part of a strategy to find more sustainable packaging, Pepsi last year joined Nestle and Danone’s NaturALL Bottle Alliance to find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of beverage bottles. All three plan to buy 100 per cent plant-derived bottles from Origin Materials when its Ontario plant gets up and running at the end of 2020 with a starting capacity of 300 million bottles a year.

Origin Materials developed a way to extract cellulose from wood waste to make para-xylene, a hydrocarbon usually derived from oil used to manufacture PET, one of the most common plastics today. Since trees and plants naturally capture CO2 through photosynthesis, using sustainably sourced sawdust and wood chips more than offsets any pollutants released in the manufactur-

ing process, according to Bissell.

However ingenious the techniques to make plant-based bottles may get, though, they’re still plastic. Not all varieties are recyclable or biodegradable. And ultimately unless they are recycled – and worldwide only one out of every five bottles is – plastic bottles inevitably end up in landfills where they may spew pollutants into the air, or worse, find their way into the oceans where most could take hundreds of years to degrade, killing birds, fish and whales in the process. When incinerating, bio-based plastics may be little better than oil-based ones because the carbon stored in them is released.

Since David Attenborough’s Blue Planet 2 documentary in 2017 showed albatrosses feeding their chicks plastic by accident, plastic’s environmental impact has “gone from a niche topic of conversation and engagement to something that features in all our conversations,” said Mark Lancelott, a sustainability expert at PA Consulting Group Ltd.

The London-based consultancy has seen a “significant increase” in requests from food and beverage companies on how to manage plastic waste.

After the European Union and New York announced bans this year on certain singleuse plastics, many companies are getting nervous about how far those regulations

Universe still expanding rapidly RELATIVITY

or a large portion of human history, the question of our place in the universe was open to speculation and beliefs. Over the past 500 years or so, science has explored space and been able to provide the start of an understanding.

Western culture has slowly moved from a young earth-centric view of the universe to one in which we are part of a solar system and orbiting a G-class star in one of the arms of a bar-spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. At the beginning of the 20th century, this is the understanding we had. With the building of giant telescopes able to see further and with more clarity, astronomers began to recognize the fuzzy “stars” or nebulae in the sky were actually galaxies, each containing billion of stars.

In 1912, an astronomer by the name of Vesto Slipher measured the Doppler shift for the light from a spiral nebula (galaxy) and discovered almost all of the known nebulae were receding from our

perspective. Unfortunately, he did not grasp the implications of his finding. The universe is expanding.

In 1922, Alexander Friedmann derived equations based on Einstein’s work to show the universe might be expanding at a calculable rate. Indeed, one of the necessities recognized by Einstein is the universe must either be expanding or contracting. Gravity will not let a static universe exist as everything is attracted to everything else.

Friedmann’s work and subsequent calculations by Georges Lemaitre resulted in the theoretical prediction of what is now known as Hubble’s Law. The astronomer Edwin Hubble was using the most powerful telescope in the world at the time at the Mount Wilson Observatory to measure the distance to nebulae. He employed Cepheid variable stars which have an inten-

sity which is linked to the frequency of their oscillations making them standard candle from which distance could be determined.

What Hubble was able to show was the nebula were, in fact, other galaxies and they were well outside of the Milky Way. He was also able to link the Doppler red shift to each galaxy and from this work was able to show the further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving. His work provided the experimental basis for believing in an expanding universe.

Hubble calculated the rate of change of the rate of expansion to be 500 km per second per megaparsec. (Despite Star Wars, a parsec is a measure of distance roughly 3.8 light years in length.)

This is much higher than the current values due to errors in Hubble’s distance calculations but for a first pass at the problem, it was a good attempt.

Determining the exact value of the Hubble Constant, as it is now called, has occupied whole careers for many astronomers and cosmologists. In the past 100 years, our ability to see beyond our

could go, added Katherine Lampen, a London-based partner in Deloitte’s sustainability advisory team, which advises big consumer packaged good companies.

“They are concerned that the future viability of their business could be reduced due to a heavy reliance on the material,” she said.

Skeptics of the bioplastic push say they’re not resolving the underlying problem. It would be better to focus on improving rates of reuse of plastic or glass packaging, with waste collected by the producer, according to Juliet Phillips, an ocean campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organization.

If production of plant-based plastics were to be scaled up, “land-use demands could bring about competition with agriculture, accelerating deforestation concerns and biodiversity loss,” she said.

For Bissell at Origin Materials, the plastic industry has become too important for global commerce to work on only one front to improve sustainability, especially considering soaring demand in emerging markets where reuse programs tend to be underdeveloped.

“The end of life of plastics is really important. I’m not too sure that I’d argue that it’s more important than climate change. That feels like maybe not the right trade off to make,” he said.

atmosphere has been enhanced and altered in so many ways. We now have radio telescopes able to image black holes, infrared telescopes capable of detecting thousands of planets around other stars, and microwave telescopes capable of picking up the echoes of the big bang

But debate over the value of the Hubble Constant remains. At a recent meeting at the Kavli Institute in Santa Barbara, California, astronomers and cosmologists presented their results for a better or more refined values but not without some controversy.

The results from the European Planck satellite provide a value of 67 km per second per megaparsec. This is lower than the currently accepted value of around 74. Research from John Hopkins University using supernovae as their standard candles reinforced the value of 74.

A team called H0LiCOW presented their results for the constant measured using gravitational lensing of distant quasars. The light from the quasars is broken up into several distinct images by the

intervening gravitational field and by measuring the different components independently the team was able to calculate the value of the Hubble Constant as 73. But not too long after, Wendy Freedman presented her results based on swollen red giants. These are stars which have almost exhausted their hydrogen fuel. As the hydrogen shell around the core continues to burn, they grow brighter until at a certain predictable limit, they release an explosive flash which rearranges the interior. The net result is another standard candle and with this, Freedman’s team have come up with a Hubble Constant of 70. It might not seem like there is a big difference between all of these results (67 to 74) and it is possible they will all converge on a single value as the measurements become more refined but the value of the Hubble Constant is important as it tells us much about the fate of the Universe.

It also tells us the universe began 13.776 billion years ago with a big bang and it has been expanding ever since.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

A loader fills a sawdust hopper in this 2001 file photo.

Going without Google

Some web users taking the ultimate step to guard

The Washington Post

In the small South Carolina town of Newberry, Bob’s Red Mill muesli cereal is hard to come by.

That presents a challenge for resident Gregory Kelly, who can’t get enough of the stuff. He’d rather not truck the 40 miles or so to Columbia to stock up on it, but he’s also loath to buy it from the company’s website, which he says is riddled with tracking software from Google.

His privacy being paramount, Kelly grudgingly chooses to head into Columbia every so often, rather than cede his data to Google or turn over his purchase history to another online retailer. “I’m just not sure why Google needs to know what breakfast cereal I eat,” the 51-year-old said.

Kelly is one of a hearty few who are taking the ultimate step to keep their files and online life safe from prying eyes: turning off Google entirely. That means eschewing some of the most popular services on the Web, including Gmail, Google search, Google Maps, the Chrome browser, Android mobile operating software and even YouTube.

Such never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the search and advertising titan, while others are taking to social media to get word out. Online guides have sprouted up to help consumers untangle themselves from Google.

These intrepid Web users say they’d rather deal with daily inconveniences than give up more of their data. That means setting up permanent vacation responders on Gmail and telling friends to resend files or video links that don’t require Google software. More than that, it takes a lot of discipline.

People like Kelly are trying to build barriers to Google and other tech giants largely due to increasing concerns about the massive data collection. A series of privacy scandals showing how these companies collect and use consumer data has raised alarm bells for many people about how much they’ve traded for customization and targeted ads. For example, a Washington Post investigation last month found more than 11,000 requests for tracking cookies in just one week of Web use on Google’s Chrome browser.

As a result, more consumers are taking measures to wrest greater control of their personal data, like deleting Facebook and its photosharing app Instagram.

About 15 per cent of U.S. households’ primary shoppers never shop on Amazon, according to Kantar ShopperScape data. Some Amazon Echo and Google voiceactivated speakers have landed in the trash. And some consumers are saving photos and other personal documents to external hard drives, rather than on Google or Apple’s clouds.

Brands are jumping on the trend, advertising what they say are superior privacy controls. At the CES 2019 tech conference earlier this year, Apple promised in a billboard above Las Vegas that “What Happens on Your iPhone, Stays on Your iPhone,” though many apps siphon data from

their data

the phones and track users. And DuckDuckGo, a privacy-oriented search engine, said daily average searches have grown to 42.4 million, from 23.5 million a year earlier – although still a fraction of Google’s.

Over the past few months, Jim Lantz, of Spokane, Washington, has been systematically eliminating Google products from his online life, spurred by reports of how the Silicon Valley company collects and distributes customer data. That’s included scanning lengthy privacy agreements and researching websites’ legal statements. “It’s quite the challenge figuring out what they own,” said the wholesale sales manager.

“I don’t want to give up every ounce of myself over to Google,” he said. “At least I can make it hard for them.”

Google in May unveiled new features it said would help users protect more of their data, including storing more of it on personal devices, rather than in cloud computing centers, and giving people more control over how and when tracking software, or cookies, is deployed. And the Web search giant is offering ways to permanently erase data, including search and location history.

No data on how many consumers may be phasing out Google is readily available, and the company didn’t provide figures on how many have deleted its apps.

“We want to help people understand and control their data, even if they want to leave Google,” said spokesman Aaron Stein.

He pointed to Google’s service allowing consumers to download information stored with the company for their use elsewhere.

Joshua Greenbaum, of Berkeley, Calif., said he pays about $100 per year to use Microsoft Office 365

software that he says has better privacy protections than Google’s.

“I am giving up more than I am getting” from Google, said the 61year tech consultant who started scaling back his Google usage a couple years ago when advertisements began appearing in his Gmail account.

“With Gmail they get your email, with Android real-time location and app usage, with Maps more location data, with Google Wallet that can see into your finances, with Google Docs your personal and work history, Chrome gives your online history, your location,” Greenbaum said. “I started asking myself what other data could they get to.”

All that consumer data is precisely the reason Google may be in the crosshairs of the Justice Department, which earlier this year took initial steps toward a potential antitrust investigation, The Post reported. The House is preparing its own probe of Google and Facebook amid comments from President Donald Trump that the government should be “suing” them.

Users say that it’s difficult to eliminate using Google completely. Greenbaum still maintains a Gmail account “for spam” he said, and finds that YouTube is all but unavoidable if he wants to watch videos online.

For him, “the improvement is mostly in the category of self-righteousness,” he said.

Not so for Janet Vertesi, a Princeton University sociology professor, who in her private life has avoided Google since 2012. She said it’s a matter of being able to control her own data, which Google automatically shares across its many properties.

Data collected in Gmail, for instance, is supplied to the mapping

software, whether a consumer uses Google Maps or not.

“I want to know where my data goes,” Vertesi said. That sometimes involves asking people to turn off their voice assistants in their homes or re-sending documents in a format other than Google Docs, she said.

Tech firms like Google say the data helps drive more personal advertisements, which are beneficial to consumers, and underwrite products that would otherwise not be free, like email and photo storage programs. But there’s some evidence that so closely tracking people’s online behavior may not provide the boost that tech companies tout.

A recent study by academics from three U.S. universities who observed millions of transactions at a large media company over the course of a week found that such behavioral targeting only amounts to four per cent more revenue than when tracking is not enabled through online “cookies,” software that records browsing activity.

That suggests that companies like Google and Facebook could easily absorb the lost revenue if they were less meticulous about tracking consumers.

Some lawmakers and Google’s competitors have expressed concern that the search giant can unfairly control ad pricing and other online activity because of its outsize market share. The European Commission this year fined Google about $1.7 billion US over allegations that the company thwarted rivals from working with other companies that had deals with Google.

Data analyst Peter Rowell, 64, pays $8 monthly for a private Web network, known as a VPN, which helps cloak a user’s online identity. He said he worries private infor-

mation about what he does online could end up spread far across the Web. “Google’s got enough of my information,” said the Stewartstown, Pa., resident, noting he has deleted the company’s apps from his iPhone and switched to Web surfing on DuckDuckGo and Mozilla as his browser.

Still, some academics say that efforts to abandon use of Google –or Amazon and Microsoft, for that matter – are nearly impossible. Those companies all have cloud services businesses, or essentially data centres that other companies can rent, and they power most websites, as well as other consumer services. For example, Amazon’s Web services business enables Netflix, while Google helps power Snapchat and Target.

Quitting Google is a major undertaking that may not be possible, said Jonathan Mayer, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University.

“The reality is, you’re going to use these services whether intentionally or not,” he said. “It is exceedingly hard to control the data flows of these companies.”

Not everyone is avoiding Google just to protect their data.

Amy Manlapas, a high school teacher in Atlanta, said the company’s recent failure to more strongly condemn a conservative YouTube personality for repeatedly mocking a gay reporter caused her to stop using the video sharing site. She said she is researching document-storing software for her files so that she can drop Google Docs, and plans to eliminate her use of Gmail and other Google services.

“I don’t want to give my time and money to a company that’s not going to be conscious of diversity,” she said.

“It’s hard work being ethical.”

BLOOMBERG PHOTO

The Google logo sits on the company’s exhibition stand at a Berlin tech conference in 2018.

Fast and furious

A

Gator in the Cougars’ den

Jason Smith bringing NHL leadership experience to coaching role

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Jason Smith wasn’t your typical Calgary kid. He grew up an Edmonton Oilers fan. In Calgary, that’s like saying you’re in league with the devil. Smith went on to become one of the most tenacious and effective hockey defencemen the Stampede City has ever produced. He gained a reputation among his teammates as the guy you want leading you into a battle – a fearless shot-blocker whose punishing bodychecks fed his reputation as a bruiser.

Nicknamed Gator, Smith wasn’t afraid to drop his gloves to settle a score, even against the toughest heavyweights, and most times he gained the upper hand. The evidence is on hockeyfights.com

He didn’t go looking for trouble during a 13-year career that included stops in New Jersey, Toronto, Edmonton, Philadelphia and Ottawa, but was quick to step in if he saw a teammate getting picked on.

At whatever level Smith played, his teammates loved him and when Doug Weight left the Oilers to sign with St. Louis as a free agent Smith was the guy they wanted to wear ‘C.’ He had that honour for six of his eight seasons in Edmonton and shares the Oiler record for the longest time served as captain with a guy named Gretzky.

So when Mark Lamb went looking for an associate coach to help him teach the Prince George Cougars, Smith’s name jumped out of the pile. Fired as head coach of the Kelowna Rockets 14 games into last season, Smith has already proven he knows how to win as a WHL coach, having posted backto-back 40-win seasons his first two years in Kelowna. Smith, 45, played for Lamb in 2001-02 when Lamb was an assistant coach in Edmonton and current Cougar owner Eric Brewer was an Oiler defenceman. Those relationships and Smith’s credentials gave him the inside track on the Cougar job.

“It’s exciting having that relationship with Mark, knowing how much he cares about developing players – his work ethic in the game for as long as he’s been in it has been second to none,” said Smith. “The opportunity to work with Mark, who has been involved in the Western League for a long time, will be great for me. It’s an

exciting opportunity to join the Cougars and help the team turn around and be involved in developing some young guys.”

The Cougars are coming off consecutive non-playoff seasons and Smith, who will be working with the defencemen, has confidence the team will be successful in its first season with Lamb holding a dual role as head coach and general manager.

“The biggest thing is we’re going to be a team, as Mark has talked about, that is going to compete and give us an opportunity to win games,” said Smith. “We’ve got some great young skill, we’ve got some solid guys on the back end and I think our goaltending can help us win games. That’s where it all starts, being able to defend and get the puck out of your end, but you’ve also got to capitalize on your opportunities in the offensive end. That’s what we’re going to

work at and be a team that’s exciting to watch.”

At age 18, Smith was playing in the WHL with the Regina Pats, preparing for the pros after getting drafted 18th overall by the New Jersey Devils. His high-water mark came in the spring of 2006, when the Oilers came out of the lockout season and advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup final. But it ended painfully for Smith when they lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 7.

“That was the most exciting point in my career and also the most disappointing,” he said.

“That experience alone as a player was special and that run we had in Edmonton you can never take out of your memory bank. It’s something I’ll cherish for a long time.”

Smith was not only a tough guy but he also proved durable, playing 1,008 regular season games and 68 in the playoffs over

13 years. He collected 41 career goals, 128 assists and 169 points and drew 1,099 penalty minutes. He suffered a knee injury that forced him to miss most of his second NHL season but returned to lead the Albany River Rats, the Devils’ AHL affiliate, to the Calder Cup in 1995. After four NHL seasons he was traded to Toronto in a deal that sent Doug Gilmour to New Jersey. The Oilers traded Smith to Philadelphia in 2007 and that year with Smith as captain the Flyers improved from a last-place finish to the Eastern Conference final. He signed as a free agent with the Ottawa Senators and played one more year until he retired at age 35. Twice in Smith’s career he played for a national team. He helped Canada win gold at the 1993 world junior championship in Sweden and also went to the

2001 IIHF world championship in Germany.

Having been mentored early in his NHL career by a Montreal Canadiens legend, Smith looks forward to sharing his experiences as a player and coach with the new crop of Cougar players.

“When I started in New Jersey, Larry Robinson was an assistant coach and obviously he was a great defender in the league and a great player but also was a quality person,” Smith said. “Just his work ethic and the time he put in as a coach, working with the individual players helping guys get better and the beliefs in his game, things that are still successful 30 years later, are things young defencemen can learn from. Hopefully I can relay some of those messages from a lot of good coaches along the way to these guys.”

Smith learned how to coach pros during a two-season tenure as an assistant coach with Ottawa, after two years as a Senators scout, and he’s not that far removed from his junior hockey days to know how what it takes to motivate a group of teenagers to excel at the game. As he learned during his time with the Rockets, that requires a somewhat gentler approach.

“You have to realize that they’re kids,” said Smith. “Being able to wander through the locker room and have the players feel comfortable is very important. You don’t want them to be intimidated and be scared of you. The days of the coach being a dictator and yelling and screaming on a daily basis and punishing the kids on a daily basis have passed.

“It’s hard for these guys at the junior level to be away from home. Experiencing life growing up is a lot on their table too, and you want to get the best from them by being able to communicate, working with them in a lot of different ways.

“In pro hockey you really have to hone in on the mistakes and you can’t afford to make mistakes. In junior hockey there’s going to be mistakes and hopefully you can learn from them and not have the mistake that you push the repeat button five or six times over in a game.”

Smith and his wife Wendy are the parents of two daughters, Jordan, 22 and Britany, 20, who both attend university. They’ve found a house in Prince George but also plan to keep their home in the Okanagan. Training camp starts on Aug. 23.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Retired NHL defenceman Jason Smith is the new associate coach for the Prince George Cougars.

Quebec has no plans for SNC-Lavalin bailout

The Canadian Press

Quebec Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said Wednesday the province will not offer financial help to SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. in spite of the construction giant’s gathering financial, legal and political storm.

“Despite the obvious operational problems... I don’t see the need for the Quebec government to intervene at the financial level,” Fitzgibbon told reporters in Montreal days after the company revealed a $1.9-billion impairment charge and slashed its profit forecast for the third time this year.

The beleaguered company has also been the centre of political controversy this year over the handling of corruption charges levelled against it.

Fitzgibbon cited the Montreal-based company’s pending sale of part of its stake in Ontario’s 407 toll highway as proof of its ability to liquidate assets to shore up its balance sheet.

“The issue to me is not ‘will they get the money?’ but when they will get the money,” the minister said.

407 International Inc.’s two other owners – the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Cintra Global S.E., a subsidiary of Spanish multinational Ferrovial S.A. – are engaged in a legal battle over which one gets to scoop up the $3.25-billion stake.

“I’m optimistic, but it is a difficult period for

them to go through,” Fitzgibbon said of the firm.

The minister’s stance marks a stark difference from the province’s 2016 decision to invest $1 billion in Bombardier Inc. for its C Series passenger jet program – before the company sold a majority share to Europe’s Airbus last year.

However, he left the door open to a bailout down the line, as SNC’s falling share price leaves it increasingly vulnerable to potential hostile bids. SNC’s stock has plummeted by more than 62 per cent over the past year, closing at $21.24 Wednesday, its lowest point in more than 14 years.

“If a transaction were required to save it from a hostile takeover, we could intervene,” he said.

SNC’s lower valuation could make the company more attractive to potential bidders, said Karl Moore, an associate professor at McGill University’s business school. “On the other hand, their reputation has been hurt, and is that something you want to get involved with?”

“Organizations that would buy them would let them get all the bad news out of the way, let them get reordered and then visit them in a year or two, when it’s probably undervalued but it’s a more valuable property,” he said.

On Monday the company said it is quitting the competitive field of fixed-price contracts,

which leave companies vulnerable to cost overruns, as interim CEO Ian Edwards pivots toward a stabler business model based on engineering services.

The firm now expects core adjusted losses of between $150 million and $175 million in the latest quarter, far worse than analysts’ previous expectations.

SNC-Lavalin faces a trial after allegedly paying $48 million in bribes to officials under Moammar Gadhafi and defrauding Libyan organizations of some $130 million between 2001 and 2012.

The company was at the centre of a drawnout political controversy earlier this year following accusations by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould that top government officials pressured her to overrule federal prosecutors in the Libya case and negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement, a kind of plea deal that would have seen the firm pay a fine rather than face prosecution.

Moore said those stains will surface repeatedly as the federal election in October nears.

“It’s going to be an unpleasant time for SNC from a news viewpoint.”

On Monday, Quebec’s Caisse de depot, SNCLavalin’s largest investor at nearly 20 per cent of the company, took the rare step of publicly rebuking the firm, saying its recent performance “requires decisive and timely action” by the board.

U.S. fines Facebook $5B

The Associated Press

Federal regulators have fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations and are instituting new oversight and restrictions on its business. But they are only holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible in a limited fashion.

The fine is the largest the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a tech company, though it won’t make much of a dent for a company that had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year. Two of the five commissioners opposed the settlement and said they would have preferred litigation to seek tougher penalties. Privacy advocates worry the settlement will do little to force Facebook to rein in its data-collection practices.

As part of the agency’s settlement with Facebook, Zuckerberg will have to personally certify his company’s compliance with its privacy programs. The FTC said that false certifications could expose him to civil or criminal penalties.

Some experts had thought the FTC might fine Zuckerberg directly or seriously limit his authority over the company.

Facebook isn’t admitting any wrongdoing. The company’s top lawyer, Colin Stretch, said the company’s FTC settlement will lead to more rigorous management of user privacy – including more technical controls to better automate privacy safeguards.

FTC Chairman Joe Simons said the settlement is “unprecedented in the history of the FTC” and is designed “to change Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations.”

The FTC opened an investigation into Facebook last year after revelations that data mining firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The agency said Wednesday that Facebook “repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences.”

The agency is also launching a case against Cambridge Analytica over the privacy violations and has settled with its former CEO Alexander Nix and an outside researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who developed the Facebook app that harvested people’s personal information. Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy and hasn’t settled the allegations, but Kogan and Nix have agreed to restrictions on how they conduct business in the future. The settlement requires them to delete or destroy all personal information gathered.

Facebook will pay a separate $100 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges it made misleading disclosures about the risk of

misuse of Facebook user data.

The SEC said Facebook presented misuse of data as a hypothetical for two years even though it knew since 2015 that the third-party developer had actually misused user data. The SEC complaint notes that Facebook also “falsely claimed” to have found no evidence of wrongdoing when asked by reporters about Cambridge Analytica in 2017, the year before the scandal broke.

Stretch said Facebook’s handling of the Cambridge Analytica affair was “a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who depend on us to protect their data.”

Three Republican commissioners voted for the settlement while two Democrats opposed it, a clear sign that the restrictions on Facebook don’t go as far as critics and privacy advocates had hoped. That wish list included specific punishment for Zuckerberg, strict limits on what data Facebook can collect and possibly even breaking off subsidiaries such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

“The proposed settlement does little to change the business model or practices that led to the recidivism,” Commissioner Rohit Chopra wrote in his dissenting statement. He noted that the settlement lacks “any restrictions on the company’s mass surveillance or advertising tactics.”

Ashkan Soltani, a former FTC chief technologist, said the settlement “amounts to essentially a get-out-of-jail free card for Facebook,” by indemnifying the company from government prosecution for all claims prior to

June 12.

Simons, the FTC’s chairman, said in a news conference Wednesday that the agency has limited legal powers to enforce privacy rules. For stiffer penalties, he said, the agency would have faced long odds in drawn-out litigation.

Commissioner Noah Phillips, a Republican, said the purpose of the action isn’t “to vindicate every concern that the world has about Facebook,” but it sends important messages that the price of privacy violations is getting higher and “paying attention to privacy issues is something that companies ought to consider whether to elevate to the board level.”

But despite the record fine and all the public flogging triggered by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is worth more than it was before the blowback began. The company’s stock had slipped by less than one per cent to $201.51 in Wednesday’s midday trading, a few hours after the settlement announcement. The company’s market value was hovering around $575 billion – roughly $40 billion above where it stood before the news of the Cambridge abuses broke. Those gains make the $5 billion fine easier to swallow for Facebook and its shareholders.

The FTC had been examining whether that massive breakdown violated a settlement that Facebook reached in 2012 after government regulators concluded the company repeatedly broke its privacy promises to users. That settlement had required that Facebook get user consent to share personal data in ways that over-

ride their privacy settings.

The FTC said Facebook’s deceptive disclosures about privacy settings allowed it to share users’ personal information with thirdparty apps that their friends downloaded but the users themselves did not give permissions to.

The agency also found that Facebook misrepresented the extent to which users could decline, or opt out of, facial recognition technology used to identify people in pictures and videos and that it failed to disclose that phone numbers collected for a security feature known as two-factor authentication could also be used for targeted advertising.

Privacy advocates have pushed for the FTC to limit how Facebook can track users – something that would likely cut into its advertising revenue, which relies on businesses being able to show users targeted ads based on their interests and behaviour. The FTC did not specify such restrictions on Facebook.

The fine is well above the agency’s previous record for privacy violations – $22.5 million – which it dealt to Google in 2012 for bypassing the privacy controls in Apple’s Safari browser. There have been even larger fines against non-tech companies, including a $14.7 billion penalty against Volkswagen to settle allegations of cheating on emissions tests and deceiving customers. Equifax will pay at least $700 million to settle lawsuits and investigations over a 2017 data breach; the FTC was one of the parties. The money will likely go to the U.S. Treasury.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 39.16 points at 16,611.84 points even as the health care index was dragged down by a plunge in shares of CannTrust Holdings Inc. The cannabis producer saw its shares close down about 22 per cent after a media report alleged that the cannabis company’s chief executive and chairman of the board were aware of pot cultivation in rooms without government approval, months before Health Canada discovered the illicit activity.

The stock slide helped push down the health care index by 0.7 per cent, while energy stocks were down 1.19 per cent as the price of oil dropped.

Despite the drops in some sectors, the TSX overall rose as part of a global expectation of more action coming from central banks.

“On the equity market front we’re seeing broad-based gains across the world and interestingly it’s a case of bad news on the economic front being met with a positive response from the equity markets,” said Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager for Fiera Capital.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 79.22 points at 27,269.97 points. The S&P 500 index was up 14.09 points at 3,019.56, while the Nasdaq composite was up 70.10 points at 8,321.50.

Bangsund said markets will likely be volatile as markets try and balance economic signals with central bank indicators.

“It’s going to be a very volatile period for the remainder of 2019, because there is going to be a lot of speculation as to the direction of monetary policy.”

The Canadian dollar averaged 76.12 cents US, up from an average of 76.09 cents US on Tuesday.

The September crude contract ended down 89 cents at US$55.88 per barrel and the September natural gas contract was down 7.3 cents at US$2.20 per mmBTU. Oil dropped despite a sixth week of U.S. stockpile drawdowns and a production slide over fears of global growth, said Bangsund.

The August gold contract closed up $1.90 at US$1,423.60 an ounce and the September copper contract rose 1.2 cents at US$2.71 a pound.

AP PHOTO

Federal Trade Commission FTC Chairman Joe Simons, accompanied by Noah Joshua Phillips, speaks during a news conference about the Facebook settlement at FTC headquarters in Washington on Wednesday.

Wilson,YvonneM. December28,1935-July11,2019

Ingreatsadness,weannouncethepassingofour lovingmother,grandmother,andgreatgrandmother, YvonneMatildaWilson.Yvonnewasbornin SaskatchewanonDecember28th,1935.Shepassed awayat83inPrinceGeorgeHospiceHouse surroundedbyfamilyonJuly11. Shewaspredeceasedbyherlovinghusbandof47 years,Aubrey,anddaughter,Brenda.Yvonneis survivedbyherdaughter,Audrey(Ross); granddaughters,Lindsey(Curt),Jamie(Brad),and Amanda;andgreat-grandchildren,Emery,Perrin, Gradie,andAubrey.Shealsoleavesonesister, Gladys. ThecelebrationoflifewillbeheldonJuly31stat 1:00PMattheFirstBaptistChurchon5thAvenue, PrinceGeorge.

Ray Thomas Miller

It is with a heavy heart we announce Ray’s passing on July 15, 2019, just past his 84th birthday. He leaves behind his wife of 61 years, Alice, also daughter, Corey (Ian), son, Terry (Helene), son David, daughter, Caron (Corey), brother Earl (Tracy), furbaby Puddin’, his grandchildren, Matt, Luke, Ryan, Greg, Zachary, and Jennifer, as well as many relatives and friends. Ray lived in many locations as his father worked for the CN. Ray took up with the railway in 1951 switching over to the telegraphs in 1959. He spent 3 years in the Royal Cdn. Armed Forces and in April of 1958, he met Alice and they were married 3 months later. They moved around a bit but in 1976, they settled in Miworth where they lived for 42 years. In 2018, they moved to town because of poor health.

A celebration of life will be held Sunday, July 28th at 1:30 pm at the Miworth Community Hall on Flint Road. Ray will be cremated and taken home to Miworth. In lieu of flowers, donations to the PG Hospice House or the SPCA would be greatly appreciated.

TIDSBURY,LORI

December9,2018

Pleasejoinusinremembranceofoursparkling angel,LoriTidsbury.Acelebrationofherlifewillbe heldonSaturday,August3,2019,from2:30pm5:00pm,attheCourtyardMarriot,900Brunswick StreetintheGreatNorthernBallroom.

WESTGAARD,DagS.

July22,2019

DagWestgaard,age76,passedawaypeacefullywith hislovingfamilyaroundhimonMonday,July22nd, afteralongandpainfulbattlewithcancer. Dag,borninTønsberg,Norway,onOctober10, 1942,cametoPrinceGeorgeasayoungmanwith hisparents,wheretogethertheyopenedRitzBakery in1959.ThebakerywaseventuallysoldandDag continuedinasuccessfulaccountingcareer,untilhis retirementat70.Dag’smanypassionsincluded readingandwriting,drawing,writtentranslations,as wellascitytransitconsultation. Dagissurvivedbyhiswife,Lennie;children,Ami (Matthew)andBrie;sister-in-law,Fanny; granddaughter,Seija;andformerwifeandfriend, AdeleSjoberg.Heisprecededindeathbyhis parents,EdithandNormanWestgaard. Hewillbemissedbyallthatknewhim. Inlieuofflowers,donationscanbemadetoUnicefin Dag’smemory.Acelebrationoflifewillbeheldin September,dateandlocationtobeannounced.

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There are few universal traits among cultures, but storytelling is one of them. Regardless of which First Nation across Canada you belong to, or from which ancestry you are descended, the telling of stories is a foundational reality.

In a thousand years, that will still be true, which is why Noirfoot Narrative Labs was in Prince George earlier this month. This initiative puts Indigenous people in touch with the most modern of storytelling genres: filmmaking. Teaching the skills of cinema provides power to collect and disseminate information to anyone who wants to know. One no longer needs to be a Hollywood insider to use the filmmaking medium. The technologies and hardware are readily available, but the know-how isn’t always available or intuitive.

One of those Hollywood insiders was in Prince George to help pass on these skills to grassroots storytellers of the future. Grace Dove rocketed for international fame in the movie The Revenant, then carried her fame deeper in the Netflix hit movie How It Ends, and is now the star in the upcoming film version of the bestselling novel Monkey Beach.

However, Dove is also a Prince George insider. She is Tsq’escenemc First Nation (CAnim Lake, near 100 Mile House) by heritage, raised at Salmon Valley in Lheidli T’enneh territory here in this city. She is a graduate of Kelly Road Secondary School where she was a standout in the drama department.

It is the third time in the past month that Dove has travelled to Prince George to take part in mentorship sessions. Each time she gets in some visits with family and friends, but this is a busy part of the audition season for the film industry, so she has to quickly return to Los Angeles and Vancouver for a heavy schedule of meetings and readings leading towards future roles.

“It’s very rewarding,” she said. “I was in L.A. just a few months ago literally living my dream and doing what I had always imagined. There was one day where I had three auditions in the one day.”

That may not sound like “the dream” to which most young actors aspire. Most cut the corner straight to their face on the silver screen. For Dove, the dream is being a working actor, not a celebrity. For Dove, the dream is the job and the job is 90 per cent auditions.

These auditions each come with their own form of stress. Each one is a miniperformance requiring costume, characterization, and delivering lines, all for someone’s judgment. (And it is hard enough just getting to three places in one day in the ocean of traffic that is Los Angeles, let alone getting into three completely different characters, each one representing a potential career eruption.)

“It was for three leads of three pilots, and I had to learn 30 pages of dialogue. It was so committed, fully. I knew that if I did that, that’s all I can do, give it everything I’ve got, and then you’ve got to let it go.

“That hustle was just as I’d always dreamed it, and in that moment I had to stop for a second and celebrate that winnot booking the role, but just getting that far, just being there in that opportunity.”

She is landing good roles, though. Playing opposite Forest Whitaker and Theo James in key segments of How It Ends, and being the love interest of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant have seen to the interest she’s getting from casting directors, and that is going to increase again when Monkey Beach reveals her abilities as a lead actor.

Mix in some pivotal public appearances like a TED Talk and at We Day, guest spots on the television series Coyote’s Crazy Smart Science Show, her hosting duties for the adventure sports reality show UnderExposed and it’s easy to see her value as a mentor to local youth and Aboriginal cultures looking for examples to look towards.

In this case, Dove is one of the professionals brought in by Noirfoot Narrative Labs to teach a guerrilla seminar in how to make films.

“We are doing a 72-hour film competition, so we are actually making a high quality short-film,” she explained. “We are starting from the very beginning, writing

it ourselves and filming it. So that’s why we are doing 12-hour days and we will be done by the end of the weekend. We split into two teams of about 12. In our group we only have one youth and the rest are adults.”

She knows what that means. It is highly suggestive that Indigenous people are anxious to say what’s on their mind, and document their realities. Young people are typically interested in filmmaking because they want to pursue it as a profession, be that as an actor or set-builder or costume designer or film editor, or any of the many trades within the industry. But adults dive in to acquire filmmaker skills because they have something important to say and film is a way they hope to say it.

“My friend is making (the movie Portraits From A Fire) in the Williams Lake area, said Dove (it is a co-production by Trevor Mack, Kate Kroll, and Rylan

Friday). He is from the Chilcotin area. He’s based in the Vancouver film industry now. Imagine coming from the Chilcotin, training for 10 years to be a filmmaker, then getting to go back to community and make a film. That’s most Indigenous filmmakers’ dream, to tell their stories on their land. That’s what he’s doing, that’s what we did with Monkey Beach, and that’s what we’re setting out to do (with Noirfoot Narrative Labs). I think a lot of people in our groups here have never been able to learn filmmaking even though they’ve been interested their whole lives. That’s what I’m hearing. And it’s adults. And we are teaching them.” Noirfoot Narrative Labs has been conducting crash courses in filmmaking for Indigenous and other marginalized or underrepresented communities since 2016. Their Prince George seminar was supported by Telus’s StoryHive program.

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MENTAL DISORDER LAW NEEDS TO BE CHANGED

An open letter to MP Bob Zimmer, MP Todd Doherty, Shadow Justice Critic Lisa Raitt, Justice Minister David Lametti and the Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Dear elected representatives:

Thank you for the work you do on our behalf. I know that your job is not an easy one.

One of your roles is to ensure public safety and my letter is in regards to an issue that is of great concern to many: our current laws around those that commit serious violent crime, but are found “not criminally responsible due to mental disorder” or NCRMD.

Please allow me to quote from a news article about the judgment on the violent attack that occurred in a Fox Creek, Alta. work camp in 2015, where my cousin David Derksen was murdered.

Curtis Galbraith in Everything GP, Nov. 8, 2018, writes: “In a one hour and 15-minute reading of his decision, Justice Ken Nielsen found that while (Daniel) Goodridge did cause the deaths of David Derksen and Hally Dubois, plus committed the assaults on three others, he is not criminally responsible, as set out in the law in the Criminal Code of Canada.”

If you know anything about this incident, you will know it was not instigated by the victims, that it was a horrifying, surreal event, the kind we may see in a horror movie or in our worst nightmares. If you have not been aware of this case, I would encourage you to look into it. So where is the offender today?

THINKING ALOUD

TRUDY KLASSEN

Quoting from a July 15, 2019, article by Janice Johnstone on CBC online: since then (his trial), he’s been held at Alberta Hospital Edmonton. After a hearing last month, the Alberta Review Board said Goodridge, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and cannabis-use disorder, continues to pose a risk to public safety.

“It is the opinion of the board that while he is currently being treated and is exhibiting no active symptoms, the risk of relapse is very high, and that should he relapse, he is likely to commit a violent act against a member of the public,” the board said in its written decision.

“Mr. Goodridge is a significant risk to the safety of the public.”

He will continue to be held at Alberta Hospital on full warrant but has been allowed to make supervised visits into Edmonton and has unsupervised grounds privileges at the hospital.

His behaviour on all supervised passes was described by a psychiatrist as “excellent.” At the discretion of his treatment team, Goodridge may given more freedom in future.

The public is left to assume that at some point, at the discretion of his treatment team, this man will go free, as his

behavior at Alberta Hospital is exemplary. He is getting his medication and he is testing negative for cannabis.

But what will he encounter when he is eventually released? Very likely cannabis.

Who will be monitoring him to ensure he is taking his medication? Perhaps no one.

This uncertainty should not be and points to an error in our current laws around the sentencing of NCRMD offenders.

However, one person or incident alone is not a reason to change a law. As evidence of a wider problem, I provide statistics I heard at a guns and gangs conference in February , which I attended with law enforcement and interested educators. Todd Negola from Penn State University, talking about our most common offenders, cited these statistics about psychopaths (or anti-social personality disordered):

• They make up 0.5 to one per cent of the population.

• They make up 15-25 per cent of the prison population.

• 35 per cent of rapists are psychopaths.

• 44-51 per cent of cop killers are psychopaths.

• 90 per cent of serial killers are psychopaths.

• Four per cent (other sources say up to 21 per cent) of corporate executives are psychopaths.

• Half of pimps and hostage takers are psychopaths.

• Psychopaths have 90 per cent recidivism rates to reoffend

• Psychopath make up 85-90 per cent of violent recidivism.

If these numbers are correct for Canada as well, it would make sense for us to improve how we treat and restrain these members of our population. We need to clarify our NCRMD law to make it safe for the public, as well as the offender. It seems unconscionable to me that we would release, unsupervised, an individual who is so very likely to reoffend, when keeping them either in a facility, or at the very least, under probation, would keep them and the public safe. I am a mother of adult children. If one of my children committed a violent crime, I would rather visit them in a facility where they were safe, or deal with the hassle of their probation requirements, than see one more innocent individual attacked by them.

The judge told my aunt and uncle and their family that the only way the law could protect the public from those suffering from mental disorders that commit this kind of violent attack, is for a change in the law.

That is why I am writing you.

I am asking for changes to the law around the release and probation of violent offenders who use the Not Criminally Responsible due to Mental Disorder (NCRMD) provision. I am asking that if these NCRMD offenders are released into the public, that they be required to be on lifelong parole.

Thank you for your time.

EACH PERSON IS A UNIQUE GIFT

In his book Horton Hears A Who, Dr. Seuss reminds us, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Being mindful of this fact is one of the keys to finding joy and fulfillment in life. Everyone we meet, above all else, is a person. Each of us is worthy of dignity and respect. The more we embrace this truth about ourselves, the more we can see it in our neighbours.

We live in a society that loves to put labels on people, however. In education we say, “that child is gifted, that child is autistic and that one is dyslexic.” The truth, however, is that these terms do not define the person, they only give us information about how they process the world around them.

Each person is an individual, unique and gifted unto themselves. The fact that different people see the world differently allows us to find new and creative ways to solve problems.

It is strongly suspected, for example, that Albert Einstein was somewhere in the autism spectrum, that Leonardo da Vinci had dyslexia and Thomas Edison

LESSONS IN LEARNING

exhibited characteristics of ADHD. What we know for certain is that they were extraordinary people, just like each one of us.

I love telling my students, especially the ones who struggle with traditional academics, that the world needs them, with their unique gifts. Thank goodness everyone is not a teacher like I am! We need builders, inventors, people who can fix things and people who draw out the best in each other.

Teaching with this perspective allows me to make discoveries every day. What new insights into global issues will my students teach me as we look at geopolitical and historical aspects of the world? What unique perspectives will they take on a short story we read? How will they

approach a math problem, given their particular thought processes? Every class, every interaction, has the potential to provide deeper insights into life itself.

We can embrace this same concept on a global scale. Some cultures stress cooperation, some stress individualism. This can cause conflict, but when we learn to listen and show respect for different world views, it brings life into balance.

The fact of the matter is that even though every person is different, there is an essence within each one of us that unites us as members of the human family. The more I live, the more I am convinced of the truth of this statement.

Over the last several years, I’ve taken up driving an airport shuttle. It seemed like the obvious choice of a language teacher on summer holidays. While it is always enjoyable to practice speaking French and German, driving shuttle gives me an opportunity to hear the stories of others, especially those who are not from Prince George and those who work outside the field of education.

This allows me to be the student, learning to see the world from the amazing and unique perspective of every person I meet.

Regardless of how we look, where we are from, what language we speak, how young or old we are, our gender or the way we process information, we are all people. It is such a beautiful irony that one of the things we have in common is that each of us is so unique.

Perhaps it is time to begin to move beyond our fear of one another and embrace what makes us human. Everyone has a story to tell. Yes, we have struggles, we all experience pain and we all face challenges, but we are all here on this beautiful earth together. From the heart of the Congo to Hollywood, from refugee camps to bank towers, a person is a person, a wonderful and amazing gift to the world.

Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com.

GERRY CHIDIAC

ALGORITHMS AFFECT DIETARY BELIEFS

How do most people keep themselves informed of up-to-date affairs? The morning paper and the nightly news are no longer the only go-tos for current events. Instead, search engines and social media platforms are increasingly popular means for staying informed. While this can arguably lead to a more superficial and selective understanding of world events, as well as a pull towards a biased, one-sided viewpoint, it can also mean your consumption of other information may be influenced, based on the results you choose to click on and the selective nature of the algorithms utilized by that search engine.

Searching for “current events” could leave you with millions of results. However, if you show interest in a particular topic by clicking on it, such as “overcrowding in hospitals,” your future results are more likely to centre around hospitals, health care and other similar topics.

Much in the same way, Google searches for topics relating to health and diet may likely pull you in a particular direction based on the results you click on (i.e. what topics you’ve shown interest in).

Since searching for information online can leave you with countless results, those results need to be delivered in a way that provides the user with information that is most relevant to their query, otherwise you’d be spending hours and hours trying to find what you’re looking for.

Let’s say you’ve typed “how to lose weight” into Google. Doing so will likely

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

KELSEY LECKOVIC

result in millions of links relating to weight loss products, blog posts, articles, “top tips” and fad diets.

Now let’s say you click on a result for an article referencing the keto diet. Maybe you’ve had a friend who’s tried it, you’ve seen advertisements for keto products or you’ve heard of a celebrity who’s lost weight on the keto diet and you want to find more information and see what it’s all about.

When you click on that “keto diet” result, you’re giving Google information on what topics interest you, so the next time you search “how to lose weight?” or a related topic, you’ll likely be presented with results which lean heavier towards a keto/low carbohydrate diet.

Not only can this sway the consumer into believing this diet to be a more popular (and reputable) diet than it actually is, but repeated exposure to that particular result can strongly influence the reader/consumer into believing baseless claims.

A search engine, such as Google, makes money based on growth and growth is associated with engagement. In order to get users to engage, algorithms feed them a wealth of content based on what they’ve previously viewed. Algorithms cater to a user’s currently held beliefs, amplifying them and

fostering bias, potentially leading to the spread of misinformation and the belief that an individual’s own personal opinions are widely held, especially when those opinions are motivated by wishful thinking.

If a consumer is already hopeful to believe there’s a quick “solution” to losing weight or achieving a desired result, they’ll be more likely to pursue these headlines and to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far (i.e. the Google search results) confirms views or prejudices they would like to be true.

Once a viewpoint has been formed, it’s more likely that a consumer will not only embrace information that confirms that view, but also ignore or reject information that casts doubt.

I’m not suggesting that algorithms remove free thought, just that it’s important to be aware that there are influences on our beliefs surrounding diet and nutrition coming from many angles, not just through commercials and front-ofpackage labeling.

As a dietitian, I’m often clarifying misinformation which patients have found via social media, search engines or from a variety of other online sources. It’s sometimes very difficult to provide evidence-based recommendations when they directly conflict with a patient’s preconceived beliefs, especially when those beliefs have been solidified by a variety of unverifiable sources, such as random websites, social media influencers or celebrities.

While we rely on algorithms to help us make consumption choices by narrowing our search results, it’s important to understand that they can also aid in the spread of misinformation by feeding into, and amplifying, our personal and preconceived beliefs. Being informed consumers who are aware of the subtle factors that influence our decisions, can allow us to make well-informed choices regarding important contributors to our overall health, including diet and nutrition.

Kelsey Leckovic is a registered dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.

SO WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

If you are an immigrant, you can easily be identified as one, partly from your look and partly from your accent. If you are living in smaller cities, in which people tend to be nicer and kinder, you may be familiar with what I am about to say. Being an immigrant is one story, answering some general questions about yourself is another story and it can happen in any random conversation you have with someone.

I always get a series of these questions like where I am originally from, how I ended up in Prince George, how long I’ve been here and how I like it.

I answer all these questions almost everywhere that I go and anytime that I meet someone new. But if we put being an immigrant and being questioned on one side of the story, now the other side is how people react to your answers. There are a few general categories for those reactions or at least that’s what I have experienced so far.

Most of the time, when you talk about yourself by answering questions, people show excitement and interest. You can hear very nice and generous comments in this case. They admire you that made such a difficult decision and they give you some credit for dealing with this huge change. In my personal experience, the level of excitement in these kinds of reactions can go higher when they hear I have graduated from UNBC and I was studied computer science there. Sometimes, you may also need to answer questions about the weather and how winter is in your country.

I always feel good about this type of reactions.

Sometimes when you talk about where you come from, people know something about your country and try to lead the conversation by showing that. They may know someone or have a friend who is from the same place, for example, which is still friendly and nice.

But I’ve met some people who follow the news and they heard about my country . Most of them like to speak about all the political issues and

discussions. They try to pronounce the name of the president and ask how he is doing his job. They talk about oil and war. It doesn’t really matter if I try to correct them by saying that there is no war in my country, they still think the same thing. I always think about how famous my country is only because of politics, but not because of its food, or nature or its history. I am feeling sad about it but the truth is one person is not enough to repaint the picture that the mass media has created of my country.

In some rare cases, you may meet people who tried to guess where you come from. Most of the time they get it wrong and you should learn not to become upset about that. But for me, the more interesting thing is that when I tell them the name of my country, it seems they’ve never heard it before. On my early days, I was thinking this is strange. But later I realized not everyone will always be familiar with a random country around the world.

Other times, when you meet curious people, they can have endless questions about everything. They want to know more and more, which sometimes can result in asking – from your point of view – silly questions. For example, I’ve been asked if we eat pizza and burgers in my country. That can make you angry as the same as it made me the very first time. But the point here is they simply don’t know and you just need to learn how to handle these questions and reactions instead of reacting to them.

If you are not an immigrant, maybe you’ve got some ideas about how we feel about being in such situations. We would like to share our story with you. We just need

TRAIL BLAZING

NAHID TAHERI

AROUND TOWN

Dog Show and Rally Trials

On Friday through Sunday, the Prince George Kennel Club hosts the annual Dog Shows and Obedience and Rally Trials at Oriental Wellness Centre, 5100 North Nechako Rd. Entries are from other provinces and the U.S. as well as local participants. Public welcome but please leave unentered dogs at home. Contact: 250-964-1429.

Teen Beach Party Nerf

Friday from 5:15 to 7 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch of the library, 888 Canada Games Way. Wear beach clothes, goggles and snorkels to complete in the ultimate summertime Nerf battle. Free registration: 250-563-9251 ext. 108.

Walking Tours

Tuesdays and Thursdays until Aug. 22 from 11 a.m. to noon take a free interesting trip through the city’s core. Meet in the main lobby of the Bob Harkins Branch for a guided tour of Prince George’s fascinating historic sites. Done in partnership with The Heritage Commission and The Exploration Place.

Foodie Fridays

Every Friday until Sept. 6 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Canada Games Plaza, 808

Canada Games Way, hungry residents and visitors are invited to come downtown for Foodie Fridays. Tantalize your tastebuds at a variety of licensed sidewalk and food truck vendors and listen to live music through the lunch hour. For more information call 250-614-7880.

Composting 101

Saturday and Aug. 10 from 2 to 3 p.m. there is a workshop to learn to compost, which is the ultimate in recycling. Learn to take items meant for the garbage - banana peels, apple cores, fall leaves, weeds, and animal bedding - and turn it into something that will literally transform a garden. While there are some rules to follow when learning how to compost, rest assured that they’re pretty basic, and that, in the end, no matter how many “mistakes” you make, compost just happens. Contact: 250561-7327, recycling@reaps.org

Sunset Theatre Plays

July 25, 27

Theatrical musician Bruce Horak has a pair of plays coming to the Sunset Theatre in Wells. He performs his oneman-play Assassinating Thomson today. Theatre spokesperson Julia Mackey said “Bruce is a legally blind visual artist and performer. During the show, he paints the audience while he tells the tale of how he lost his sight, and how he came to love Tom Thomson’s (of the famed

Group Of Seven) art. Bruce tries to figure out the mystery around Thomsons’s death as the show unravels.” Horak and fellow musical actor Onalea Gilbertson provide a second production at the Sunset Theatre during this run.

Their play The Railbirds tells a tuneful tale of travelling across Canada on the Via Rail train. It can be seen Saturday. Tickets for Sunset Theatre shows can be purchased at the door, or, to reserve seats, call 250-994-3400.

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Corine Rainsforth, from Vernon, gets Shelgrande E Street band “Boss” an eightmonth old shetland sheepdog ready to show at the The Prince George Kennel Club Dog Show in 2016.

AROUND TOWN

in the Park.

Storytime

July 25

Small children have a storytime all their own, outside at the public library. The Knowledge Garden is the place for gathering around for a good yarn and a song or two. It runs for 30 minutes every summer Thursday from 10:15 a.m., free of charge. It is aimed at kids up to five or six years old. It is the companion to the indoor storytime at the downtown library every Tuesday at the same time.

Live Music

July 26

spend a few hours of your Saturday at the homestead working at your own pace to complete the challenge. Huble Homestead is a 30 minute drive north of Prince George. Head up Highway 97, turn off on Mitchell Road to continue another six kilometres down a well-maintained dirt road. Huble Homestead is dog friendly and open daily for guided tours and shopping in the General Store. Enjoy a picnic or purchase lunch from the BBQ as you relax in the fresh air. Admission is by suggested $10 donation per family. Contact: 2505647033 | programs@ hublehomestead.ca

Pineview SunFrolics

July 27-28

The summertime counterpart to the popular snowy event, the Pineview SunFrolics weekend happens at the Malcolm McLeod Grounds, 6355 Bendixon Rd., community complex. There is a volleyball tournament, a slo-pitch tournament, family dance, vendor market, petting zoo, magic show, pancake breakfast, classic car show, and a full range of kids’ activities. For full details call 250-963-8214 or visit the Pineview Community Association website for registration fees, ticket options, vendor bookings and more.

Free Yoga in the Park

Every Sunday until Aug. 25 from 10 to 11 a.m. join Chinook Yoga at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park bandshell all summer long for free Yoga in the Park. Bring a mat or do yoga in the grass. Bring a water bottle and grab a friend or two, all ages welcome. Contact: 250-564-9642 | www.chinookyoga.com

Scrabble Sundays

Every Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at Books & Co., 1685 third Ave. in Cafe Voltaire there is scrabble Sunday every weekend. Bring friends, family, or yourself and your scrabble board. Contact: 2505636637 | orderbooks@shaw.ca

Haida Raid & Menstrual Mayhem Tour

At 8 p.m. hear the rock stylings of the band Subtotal. Strong local musicians Roman Kozlowski, Mike Howe and Brad Martin are excited to be back playing at the Oakroom Grill. Have dinner or enjoy a drink while they play some great cover and original tunes for you. No cover charge.

Scavenger Saturday

Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Huble Homestead Historic Site, 15,000 Mitchell Rd., round up the troops for an exciting search in the great outdoors. This fun and inexpensive day will have guests exploring the homestead with the entire family working together to find all the items on a scavenger hunt list. However, the list doesn’t just have things to find – there are also a number of tasks to complete before our staff will declare you finished. Pack a lunch, or purchase one from the BBQ, and

Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. at Ominica Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., surfing a war canoe to the mainland on a crimson tide, Jason Camp & the Posers and the Minstrel Cramps are bringing their rock from “the rock” with special guest Saltwater Hank. It’s sure to be a boot stompin’, pit moshin’, head bangin’ good time. Period. $10 at the door. Contact: 2505520826 | info@ominecaartscentre.com

Summer camp

Every Wednesday until Aug. 21 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Studio 2880, 2880 15th Ave., Art Monkey summer kids art classes are geared for children ages six to 11. Cost is $45 Call 250-563-2880 or register online at www.studio2880. com.

97/16 file photo

Jaylene Pfeifer, co-owner of Chinook Yoga, leads roughly 100 yoga enthusiasts at Lheidli T‚Äôenneh Memorial Park on July 7 during the first summer session of the yoga studio’s ninth season of Yoga

AROUND TOWN

Red Green

Sept. 26

He’s colourful in name and deed. Red Green is the bumbling but pleasantly practical TV fix-it man, the clown prince of duct tape, the sage of the man-shed. This Canadian comedy icon is coming to Vanier Hall on his Red Green-This Could Be It Tour. His PG shows are always a sell-out. Get tickets at the TicketsNorth website/box office.

Patrick, Scott & Tessa

Oct. 12

During last year’s sold out Thank You Canada tour, it was clear to figure skating superstars, Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir and Patrick Chan, that they were far from done creating and developing a new style of skating entertainment. They and some special guest performers come back to CN Centre to show the Prince George fans what they’ve come up with next.

Rock The Rink is the first edition of an annual tour that focuses on being more than a figure skating show. Combining the highest level of on-ice superstar talent with an ever-evolving touring production, Rock The Rink will produce the highest value of entertainment in the figure skating realm. This year –along with upgrades to lighting, video and interactive technology – live music will be introduced to the show, with featured special musical guest, Birds of Bellwoods.

Burton, Live

Oct. 18

Canada’s piano man, the Guess Who’s epic vocalist, the only artist inducted into the nation’s music Hall of Fame for both his band and his solo career, the incomparable Burton Cummings is coming to PG. He was the power voice propelling American Woman, These Eyes, No Time, Clap For The Wolfman and many other hits of the groundbreaking band The Guess Who, but then when he went solo he continued the multi-platinum success with I Will Sing A Rhapsody, Stand Tall, My Own Way To Rock, Fine State Of Affairs, You Saved My Soul, Break It To Them Gently, and more besides. Cummings will be solo at the piano at Vanier Hall. Tickets are on sale now through all TicketsNorth platforms.

World Curling

March 14 start

Don’t let the date fool you. The event may be in 2020 but the plans are underway now and the tickets are on sale for this Prince George groundbreaker. P.G. goes global as the host of the World Women’s Curling Championships starting. Get your tickets now, and spread the word to friends and family everywhere that this is the time to come spend some Prince George time, and get a close, personal view of the world-class action the rest of the winter sports community will only get to see on TV. Oh yeah, and there’s also the great social side of curling – there’ll be no bigger party in Canada. Contact Tickets North for tickets and info.

97/16 file photo

Hannah Schade, 5, enjoys a choclate ice cream cone from Frozen Paddle Ice Creamery at Foodie Froidays in Canada Games Plaza in July 2018.

Name: PhoNe:

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NEW SURGERY STANDARDS FOR SENIORS

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - The 92-year-old had a painful tumour on his tongue, and major surgery was his best chance. Doctors called a timeout when he said he lived alone, in a rural farmhouse, and wanted to keep doing so.

“It was ultimately not clear we could get him back there” after such a big operation, said Dr. Tom Robinson, chief of surgery at the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System.

The Denver hospital is trying something new: When their oldest patients need a major operation, what to do isn’t decided just with the surgeon but with a team of other specialists, to make sure seniors fully understand their options - and how those choices could affect the remainder of their lives.

It’s part of a move to improve surgical care for older Americans, who increasingly are undergoing complex operations despite facing higher risks than younger patients.

The American College of Surgeons launched a program Friday to encourage hospitals around the country to adopt 30 new standards to optimize surgery on patients who are 75 and older - information seniors and their families eventually will be able to use in choosing where to get care.

Seniors account for more than 40% of surgeries, which is expected to grow as the population ages. Certainly there are plenty of robust elders who can withstand major operations.

But as people get older, they don’t

In this July 16 photo provided by the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, George Barrett, 85, of Lakewood, Colo., is checked by nurse Renee Whitley as he recuperates from open-heart surgery at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora, Colo. The hospital helped the American College of Surgeons test new standards to improve surgical care for older adults.

bounce back like they did even in middle age. Seniors rapidly lose muscle with even a short period in bed. They tend to have multiple illnesses that complicate recov-

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ery. And 15% of older adults who live at home - and a third of 80-somethings - face particular risks because they’re frail, meaning they’re weak, move slowly and get little physical activity.

The new standards stress team-based care and better communication about surgical risks and quality of life, to help patients choose their treatment. They must be evaluated for vulnerabilities such as frailty, being prone to falls or having dementia, and the hospital must have plans to handle them. After surgery, standards run the gamut from geriatric-friendly hospital rooms - with non-skid floors and windows to help stay oriented to day and night - to preventing post-surgery complications like delirium, a frightening state of confusion that can impair recovery and cause long-term memory and thinking problems.

Some of the steps have long been recommended, “but we realized guidelines are just that - they’re suggestions. The uptake of them in hospitals is pretty spotty,” said Dr. Ronnie Rosenthal of Yale University, who chaired the standards task force.

So the surgeons’ group, with funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation, created a geriatric surgery “verification program,” similar to programs credited with spurring trauma and pediatric surgery improvements. Hospital participation is voluntary, but those that join will be inspected and have to document how patients fare.

Eight hospitals including the Denver VA tested the standards. Robinson already sees a difference: 1 in 4 patients change their original surgical plan after a team review, and more go home rather than needing at least a temporary stay in a nursing home or other facility.

Consider that 92-year-old with a tumour on his tongue. After consultations with speech and swallowing experts, and an evaluation of his house, Robinson said the man ultimately chose a smaller operation. The tumour and only part of the tongue were removed to relieve

pain rather than trying for a cure, and he returned home.

“These are difficult conversations,” Robinson said. But choosing to spend, say, their last year at home rather than two in a nursing home, “those are trade-offs people are making.”

After surgery, the standards also focus on seniors’ special needs such as maintaining mobility; prompt return of glasses and hearing aids to help keep patients oriented and able to follow care instructions; and steps to prevent delirium that include avoiding risky medications.

To implement them, Robinson’s hospital set up new nurse-led teams that check each older patient daily. For example, no more waiting for the surgeon to decide if physical and occupational therapy are needed; the nursing team puts that in place up front, explained geriatric nurse specialist Jennifer Franklin.

One of her team’s patients, George Barrett, 85, of Lakewood, Colorado, is recovering from successful open-heart surgery, and being prepped to go to a cardiac rehabilitation facility to regain his strength.

“They told me about all the risks and I wanted to go ahead with it anyway,” Barrett said of the surgery. “I want to hang around.”

Even before any hospitals go through the quality-improvement program, the standards can offer guidance to seniors and their families in making surgical decisions. For example, make sure the patient’s vulnerabilities are discussed up front: If dad already needs a walker, will being in the hospital make him worse? And what will the hospital do to help? Especially make clear the patient’s goals: “It’s most important they ask, ‘What will my life look like after? What will I be able to do?”’ said Yale’s Rosenthal.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

AP photo

RAMSAY NO BOURDAIN – YET

Gordon Ramsay has a new TV series, the appropriately self-referential “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted,” and it’s clearly aiming to fill the foodtravelogue void left behind by the late Anthony Bourdain, the chef-raconteur whose signature moves no one can copy. Not even the great Ramsay, a man with more energy than 100 suns.

Announced a year ago, less than two months after Bourdain died, “Uncharted” was met with fierce, whitefanged criticism when the show’s news release touted that Ramsay would be “discovering the undiscovered” and cooking against local chefs in some “friendly competition.” A month after the announcement, Ramsay defended the project to Entertainment Weekly, saying, “God, the feeble warriors that sit in their dungeons and spout negativity without understanding what we’re doing.”

He then suggested that all of us wait to judge him after viewing “Uncharted.”

Three episodes into the debut season and I’m ready to issue some opinions: “Uncharted” presents a cuddlier, selfdeprecating version of Ramsay to the public, a Michelin-starred chef who willingly turns the tables on himself so that he’s the neophyte suffering for the sake of something to eat. Serving up fewer f-bombs (all bleeped) and not a single moment in which Ramsay looks like he might spontaneously self-combust into rage dust, “Uncharted” won’t easily lend itself to YouTube collections of the chef’s greatest outbursts.

Yet Ramsay’s DNA suffuses every frame of “Uncharted.” Produced by Studio Ramsay, the chef’s international production company, the series isn’t content with vignettes or mere glimpses into a country’s culture. “Uncharted” insists on injecting a dramatic arc into every episode, so that the narrative builds to a climax over the course of an hour. The climax is usually some kind of cooking challenge in which Ramsay pits himself against a local chef (such as Virgilio Martínez, the Peruvian mastermind behind Central, No. 6 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants) or cooks for a special occasion (as when he and celebrated Moroccan chef Najat Kaanache prepare a spread for the Berber New Year).

With each episode, Ramsay uses the challenges as motivation to explore a particular food culture. He uses his bare hands to fish for big, freshwater eel, a specialty of Māori cuisine in New Zealand. He repels down a sheer rock face, with a waterfall showering him from above, to hunt for Berber mountain mushrooms. He hikes across the Andean highlands and fords streams to track down Peruvian herbs. He shows

off his athleticism - and his age, 52 - as he huffs and puffs and curses his way through jungles, mountains and lakes to source ingredients. While instructive (and amusing to watch Ramsay make a pinched face and spit out huhu grubs), these Iron Man explorations only underscore the artificiality of this brand of reality television. Ramsay’s pursuits focus almost exclusively on the rural, the indigenous and the preindustrial, at the expense of a country’s more sophisticated takes on cuisine. Conscious or not, Ramsay’s decision to deal with old cooking cultures, each essentially untouched by the modern world, carries a whiff of Western superiority. It’s not the best look for a middle-aged white dude in the 21st century.

At the same time, there’s also something strangely vulnerable about “Uncharted.” Vulnerability is about the last word I’d ever associate with Ramsay - a guy who has made a living off his invincibility - but you can see it in his eyes as he cooks for Berbers or those with Māori blood in their veins. Yes, he sometimes behaves as if he’s competing with Martínez or Māori chef Monique Fiso, hoping to better their dishes, but it feels like an old adrenaline rush that’s lost its power. Mostly, Ramsay acts as if he’s seeking everyone’s approval. In those moments, you feel this wave of sympathy and affection for Ramsay, as if he were allowing us a glimpse into

the inner life of a poor, working-class kid who perpetually sought the approval of his alcoholic father. Why do I suspect that Ramsay despises the idea of being an object of sympathy?

For years, you could argue, Ramsay has just been redirecting the abuse he endured as a boy onto the chefs, line cooks, managers and restaurateurs naive enough to appear on his shows. Then again, you could also argue he has been passing along his hardearned wisdom: Ramsay learned at a young age to despise those who lied to themselves and others. He has devoted a significant chunk of his TV career to exposing professionals who deceive the public about the quality of their ingredients, their management and their restaurants. You could label his shows public service television if they also weren’t vehicles to make Ramsay rich and famous.

“I’d reinvented myself, I suppose,” Ramsay wrote in his autobiography, “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen.” “I’m not ashamed of that. I’ve never tried to pretend anything else. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be like [my father], and any time I came even close to doing so, I would put the fear of God into myself.”

If you read his memoir, you learn that Ramsay survived his childhood by keeping his head down and working hard. Working hard and putting up with the kinds of kitchen abuse that

only a certain kid can. With “Uncharted,” he’s still working hard, perhaps unnecessarily so. I mean, no one needs to scale a mountain to appreciate the beauty and importance of the Sacred Valley in Peru, even if it makes for good television.

But by keeping his head down, Ramsay has developed a singular focus, which has made him a brilliant chef and a keen observer of those who would betray the cause of gastronomy. Yet this trait doesn’t make him a great tour guide (a role that he previously attempted with the U.K. series “Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape”). Each of his “Uncharted” episodes is devoted almost wholly to food - and to Ramsay’s obsessive pursuit of it. What made Bourdain an exceptional host was his boundless curiosity, which led him to places far from the kitchen, and his humility, which graciously turned the spotlight on others.

“Uncharted,” it seems to me, is the beginning of Ramsay’s professional shift. The show exhibits signs of a chef moving away from the thrill of competition and the dinner-rush high of the kitchen, the stuff that has fueled his drive for so long. Ramsay may even be trying to shed a little of the body armor that he has worn like a soldier. If my instincts are right, “Uncharted” could make for compelling TV in the not-too-distant future, all without a single scream from the chef known for them.

Washington Post photo via National Geographic Gordan Ramsay and an eel fisherman, Jeremy, hold their latest catch in New Zealand.

TIM CARMAN

The Washington Post

Living in Space: International Space Station Living in Space: International Space Station

In 1984, the United States invited countries around the world to build an international space station. Now, with the participation of 18 countries, it has truly become a global cooperation project.

The flags below represent the 18 countries participating in the International Space Station project. Unscramble the letters to discover the name of each country.

When completed in 2010, the ISS was longer than an American football field, has a living and working space the size of a 747 jumbo-jet, and is able to house up to seven astronauts.

How does it get electricity? Hold this sentence up to a mirror:

The space station ______ humans to live and _________ for long periods in a “weightless” _____________. The space station provides an opportunity to study a world without gravity— and better understand gravity’s _______ on plants, animals, and humans.

Lessons from past space travel show that living with little or no gravity ___________ bones and muscles. The space station allows scientists to understand these effects and find ______________ for long-term space travel.

Space Milestones

In which year did each of these events happen? Do the math to find out!

Astronaut Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.

(21 X 3) + 6

U.S. sends four monkeys into the stratosphere.

(25 X 2) + 1

U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik 1 satellite into space.

(25 X 2) + 7

John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the earth.

(15 X 4) + 2

Want to blast into orbit? Walk on the moon? Snag a personal photo of a shooting star? Well your time is coming! And when it does, you're going to need this book. Grounded in the history of space travel and the planned future of space tourism, this guide book will start you daydreaming about space vacations!

To discover the name of this book, find the letter on the outer ring, then replace it with the letter below it on the inner ring.

The ISS was built, section by section, in space. Why not build it on earth and then take it to space? The completed station weighs a million pounds on Earth—too difficult and costly to attempt to take into space in one flight.

ISS IS BUILT IN MODULES, OR SEGMENTS

Astronaut Ad

These words oated away in zero gravity! Find where each one belongs.

Write a Help Wanted Ad to find people who want to be astronauts on the ISS. Use the Help Wanted ads in the print or e-edition of your newspaper as examples.

Standards Link: Writing Applications: Write brief expository descriptions.

Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page?

This page was fun! I wonder what books the library might have about space?

… wondering about and exploring our world and beyond.

Pretend you are exploring a country you have never visited. Where would you go? Write a journal entry.

© 2019 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 35, No. 34

SOLAR PANELS

RADIATORS

CREW QUARTERS

Use the Kid Scoop Secret Decoder Ring to discover the name of this book by Susan E. Goodman, illustrated by Michael Slack, which is available at the library.

YOUR ONLINE DATA IS FOR SALE

I’ve watched you check in for a flight and seen your doctor refilling a prescription.

I’ve peeked inside corporate networks at reports on faulty rockets. If I wanted, I could’ve even opened a tax return you only shared with your accountant.

I found your data because it’s for sale online. Even more terrifying: It’s happening because of software you probably installed yourself.

My latest investigation into the secret life of our data is not a fire drill. Working with an independent security researcher, I found as many as 4 million people have been leaking personal and corporate secrets through Chrome and Firefox. Even a colleague in The Washington Post’s newsroom got caught up. When we told browser makers Google and Mozilla, they shut these leaks immediately - but we probably identified only a fraction of the problem.

The root of this privacy train wreck is browser extensions. Also known as addons and plug-ins, they’re little programs used by nearly half of all desktop Web surfers to make browsing better, such as finding coupons or remembering passwords. People install them assuming that any software offered in a store run by Chrome or Firefox has got to be legit. Not. At. All. Some extensions have a side hustle in spying. From a privileged perch in your browser, they pass information about where you surf and what you view into a murky data economy. Think about everything you do in your

browser at work and home - it’s a digital proxy for your brain. Now imagine those clicks beaming out of your computer to be harvested for marketers, data brokers or hackers.

Some extensions make surveillance sound like a sweet deal: This week, Amazon was offering people $10 to install its Assistant extension. In the fine print, Amazon said the extension collects your browsing history and what’s on the pages you view, though all that data stays inside the giant company. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Academic researchers say there are thousands of extensions that gather browsing data - many with loose or downright deceptive data practices - lurking in the online stores of Google and even the more privacyfriendly Mozilla.

The extensions we found selling your data show just how dangerous browser surveillance can be. What’s unusual about this leak is that we got to watch it taking place. This isn’t a theoretical privacy problem: Here’s exactly how millions of people’s data got grabbed and sold - and the failed safeguards from browser makers that let it happen.

- -I didn’t realize the scale of the extension problem until I heard from Sam Jadali. He runs a website hosting business, and earlier this year found some of his clients’ data for sale online. Figuring out how that happened became a six-month obsession.

Jadali found the data on a website called Nacho Analytics. Just one small

player in the data economy, Nacho bills itself on its website as a marketing intelligence service. It offers data about what’s being clicked on at almost any website - including actual Web addresses - for as little as $49 per month.

That data, Nacho claims, comes from people who opt in to being tracked, and it redacts personally identifiable information.

The deeper Jadali looked on Nacho, the more he found that went way beyond marketing data. Web addresses - everything you see after the letters “http” - page titles and other browsing records might not seem like they’d expose much. But sometimes they contain secrets sites forget to hide away.

Jadali found usernames, passwords and GPS coordinates, even though Nacho said it scrubs personal information from its data. “I started realizing this was a leak on a catastrophic scale,” Jadali told me.

What he showed me made my jaw drop. Three examples:

- From DrChrono, a medical records service, we saw the names of patients, doctors, and even medications. From another service, called Kareo, we saw patient names.

- From Southwest, we saw the first and last names, as well as confirmation numbers, of people checking into flights. From United, we saw last names and passenger record numbers.

- From OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage service, we saw a hundred documents named “tax.” We didn’t click on any of these links to avoid further exposing sensitive data.

It wasn’t just personal secrets. Employees from more than 50 major corporations were exposing what they were working on (including top-secret stuff) in the titles of memos and project reports. There was even information about internal corporate networks and firewall codes. This should make IT security departments very nervous.

Jadali documented his findings in a report titled “DataSpii,” and has spent the last two weeks disclosing the leaks to the companies he identified - many of which he thinks could do a better job keeping secrets out of at-risk browser data. I also contacted all the companies I name in this column. Kareo and Southwest told me they’re removing names from page data.

I wondered if Jadali could find any data from inside The Washington Post. Shortly after I asked, Jadali asked me if I had a colleague named Nick Mourtoupalas. On Nacho, Jadali could see him clicking on our internal websites. Mourtoupalas had just viewed a page about the summer interns. Over months, he’d probably leaked much, much more.

I called up Mourtoupalas, a newsroom copy aide. Pardon the interruption, I said, but your browser is leaking.

“Oh, wow, oh, wow,” Mourtoupalas said. He hadn’t ever “opted in” to having his Web browsing tracked. “What have I done wrong?”

- -I asked Mourtoupalas if he’d ever added anything to Chrome. He pulled up his extensions dashboard and found he’d installed 17 of them. “I didn’t download anything crazy or shady looking,” he said.

One of them was called Hover Zoom. It markets itself in the Chrome Web

Researcher Sam Jadali identified the browsing data of as many as four million people for sale online.

Store and its website as a way to enlarge photos when you put your mouse over them. Mourtoupalas remembered learning about it on Reddit. Earlier this year, it had 800,000 users.

When you install Hover Zoom, a message pops up saying it can “read and change your browsing history.” There’s little indication Hover Zoom is in the business of selling that data.

I tried to reach all the contacts I could find for Hover Zoom’s makers. One person, Romain Vallet, told me he hadn’t been its owner for several years, but declined to say who was now. No one else replied.

Jadali tested the links between extensions and Nacho by installing a bunch himself and watching to see if his data appeared for sale. We did some of these together, with me as a willing victim. After I installed an extension called PanelMeasurement, Jadali showed me how he could access private iPhone and Facebook photos I’d opened in Chrome, as well as a OneDrive document I had named “Geoff’s Private Document.” (To find the latter, all he had to do was search page titles on Nacho for “Geoff.”)

In total, Jadali’s research identified six suspect Chrome and Firefox extensions with more than a few users: Hover Zoom, SpeakIt!, SuperZoom, SaveFrom.net Helper, FairShare Unlock and PanelMeasurement.

They all state in either their terms of service, privacy policies or descriptions that they may collect data. But only two of them - FairShare Unlock and PanelMeasurement - explicitly highlight to users that they collect browser activity data and promise to reward people for surfing the Web.

“If I’ve fallen in for using this extension, I know hundreds of thousands of other people easily have also,” Mourtoupalas told me. He’s now turned off all but three extensions, each from a well-known company.

- -After we disclosed the leaks to browser makers, Google remotely deactivated seven extensions, and Mozilla did the same to two others (in addition to one it disabled in February). Together, they had tallied more than 4 million users. If you had any of them installed, they should no longer work.

A firm called DDMR that made FairShare Unlock and PanelMeasurement told me the ban was unfair because it sought user consent. (It declined to

Washington Post photo

say who its clients were, but said its terms prohibited customers from selling confidential information.) None of the other extension makers answered my questions about why they collected browsing data.

A few days after the shutdown, Nacho posted a notice on its website that it had suffered a “permanent” data outage and would no longer take on new clients, or provide new data for existing ones.

But that doesn’t mean this problem is over.

North Carolina State University researchers recently tested how many of the 180,000 available Chrome extensions leak privacy-sensitive data. They found 3,800 such extensions - and the 10 most popular alone have more than 60 million users.

“Not all of these companies are malicious, or doing this on purpose, but they have the ability to sell your data if they want,” said Alexandros Kapravelos, a computer science professor who worked on the study.

Extension makers sometimes cash out by selling to companies that convert their popular extensions into data Hoovers. The 382 extensions Kapravelos suspects are in the data-sale business have nearly 8 million users. “There is no regulation that prevents them from doing this,” he said.

So why aren’t Google and Mozilla stopping it? Researchers have been calling out nefarious extensions for years, and the companies say they vet what’s in their stores. “We want Chrome extensions to be safe and privacy-preserving, and detecting policy violations is essential to that effort,” said Google senior director Margret Schmidt.

But clearly it’s insufficient. Jadali found two extensions waited three to five weeks to begin leaking data, and he suspects they may have delayed to avoid detection. Google recently announced it would begin requiring extensions to minimize the data they access, among other technical changes. Mozilla said its recent focus has also

been on limiting the damage add-ons can do.

Just as big a problem is a data industry that’s grown cavalier about turning our lives into its raw material.

In an interview, Nacho CEO Mike Roberts wouldn’t say where he sourced his data. But Jadali, he said, violated Nacho’s terms of service by looking at personal information. “No actual Nacho Analytics customer was looking at this stuff. The only people that saw any private information was you guys,” Roberts said.

I’m not certain how he could know that. There were so many secrets on Nacho that tracking down all the ways they might have been used is impossible.

His defense of Nacho boiled down to this: It’s just the way the Internet works.

Roberts said he believed the people who contributed data to Nacho - including my colleague - were “informed.” He added: “I guess it wouldn’t surprise me if some people aren’t aware of what every tool or website does with their data.”

Nacho is not so different, he said, from others in his industry. “The difference is that I wanted to level the playing field and put the same power into the hands of marketers and entrepreneurs - and that created a lot more transparency,” he said. “In a way, that transparency can be like looking into a black mirror.”

He’s not entirely wrong. Large swaths of the tech industry treat tracking as an acceptable way to make money, whether most of us realize what’s really going on. Amazon will give you a $10 coupon for it. Google tracks your searches, and even your activity in Chrome, to build out a lucrative dossier on you. Facebook does the same with your activity in its apps, and off.

Of course, those companies don’t usually leave your personal information hanging out on the open Internet for sale. But just because it’s hidden doesn’t make it any less scary.