Prince George Citizen June 14, 2019

Raptors capture NBA championship

Digital evacuation system set up for wildfire evacuees

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

Lineups and waiting times should be significantly shorter if another wave of wildfire evacuees show up in Prince George this summer, thanks to a new digital registration system the city is in the process of adopting.

During sessions at CN Centre on Wednesday and Thursday, roughly 250 city staff and volunteers were trained to use the system, which needs about 20 minutes to register an evacuee, a quarter of the time it took under the paper-based system used over the last two summers.

First Nation. Prince George, which welcomed 14,000 evacuees over the last two summers, is the first community to test the system at a scale large enough to resemble a major evacuation.

“It’s a game changer, it really is a step in the right direction,” city emergency programs manager Adam Davey said. Emergency Management BC developed the system which is also being piloted in Kamloops, the Central Okanagan and

City emergency support service director Brad Beckett said the real advantage will come when registrations are renewed and additional vouchers are provided for accommodation and food because all the information will be immediately accessible.

Health care complaints hit record

Pamela FAYERMAN Postmedia

Patient Care Quality Offices and review boards were formed 10 years ago to give health system users and their families an outlet to voice their frustration

A record number of complaints were filed with health authorities last year over patient care – about 9,500 according to the Patient Care Quality Review Boards report for 2017/18.

That’s up from 8,900 the year before and about 9,000 the year before that.

Patient Care Quality Offices and review boards were formed 10 years ago to give health system users and their families an outlet to voice their frustration. The boards in each health region accept complaints from patients and others only if their concerns about their experiences are not resolved to their satisfaction by Patient Care Quality Offices in each health region.

Less than two per cent of complaints are escalated to the review boards, which suggests patients are largely satisfied with how their local health authorities are handling their concerns, said Richard Swift, chair of the Island Health Patient Care Quality Review Board.

Given the fact there are tens of millions of health care interactions, the number of complaints is relatively small, said Swift. The latest annual report gives scarce information about the nature of complaints and recommended changes but a few of them include:

Northern Health

• A long-standing complaint going back to 2015 when Northern

Health officials were alerted by a staff member to lapses in medical device disinfection and sterilization procedures related to instruments called endoscopes.

Thousands of patients had procedures like colonoscopies that relied on the scopes but a consultation with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control did not show any “increase in specific infection types” during the two year period when the errors took place.

Although patients were sent letters to inform them of the breeches, the review board recommended a more fulsome public communication plan including direct meetings with patients or even town hall meetings to broadcast the errors, risks, actions, and any mitigating steps.

As well, the region has to ensure that when such things happen, all affected patients should have a doctor who can address any concerns and ongoing needs.

Interior Health

• An incapacitated patient’s valuables and personal effects went missing at a hospital and were never recovered so the health region offered $500 in compensation.

The board ordered the health region to have designated staff members whose job entails the safekeeping and documentation of patients’ belongings.

Island Health

• A complaint pertained to various issues including extraordinarily long wait time for care in a hospital emergency room for which Island Health acknowledged and apologized.

The complaint also involved

an allegation that a patient was assaulted by a staff member in the ER. The health authority agreed to develop a policy detailing what actions must be taken when such complaints are made, including when police or regulatory bodies for health professionals should be contacted.

• The Island review board recommended a hospital conduct exit interviews with patients to ask about their satisfaction levels with the quality of care and communication.

Currently, the health ministry sends out surveys on a random basis which are then reported to health authorities on a quarterly basis.

But Swift says more can be done to ensure patients are given opportunities to comment on their care.

Fraser Health

• A care aide escorted a frail patient to the bathroom but then left the patient alone to attend to another matter. The low cognition patient fell in the bathroom. There are more than a dozen policies regarding the prevention of falls, some of which were not followed in this case.

Vancouver Coastal Health

• A complaint was lodged about a vulnerable patient who went to a hospital emergency department. The board said the case was an example of how not to “prejudge patients who appear to be homeless, suffering from mental health, addiction issues and/or other challenges.”

— see STAFF, page 3

In the years to come, Beckett said there is a chance evacuees will also be able to register themselves online via their mobile devices.

If, for some reason, the internet goes down, the paper-based system will remain in place as a backup.

About 400 personnel were on hand to register evacuees last year, according to Davey.

—see ‘A LOT, page 3

Bears entering human environments, COs say

The Canadian Press

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service is reminding residents to brush up on bear safety after a spike in conflict calls this spring.

Deputy chief Chris Doyle says the service received 3,826 calls about black bears and 182 about grizzlies in April and May.

That’s more than 60 per cent higher than the average number of bear calls for the same period over the past eight years.

Doyle says conflicts can range from bear attacks to sightings in developed areas, with everything from charging, habitual garbage eating and livestock attacks in between.

He reminds residents that it’s illegal to feed bears or negligently store attractants like garbage and he points to the Wildsafe BC website as a resource for more information.

The cause of the spike is unknown, but Doyle says climate and weather conditions may have meant less food for bears coming out of hibernation.

“It’s possible the cold, dry spring has led to a poor availability of new growth for bears to eat as they emerge from the den,” Doyle says.

Bears are coming in contact with humans all over the province but Doyle says “hot spots” include the Sea-to-Sky region and Metro Vancouver.

He says they have two active investigations on the Sunshine Coast, where residents are suspected of feeding the bears.

“Although the bears may not

look healthy, providing food to them is definitely not helpful,” Doyle says.

“It could put yourself, as well as your neighbours and the bear, at risk.”

In Prince George, conservation officers have received 204 complaints about black bears and eight about grizzlies so far this spring.

Moreover, a dozen black bears have been put down and 95 per cent of the scat of the bear that was most recently put down consisted of garbage, says Conservation Officer Service Sgt. Steve Ackles.

“I’m getting really frustrated with people and their garbage,” Ackles adds.

“You can’t tell me they just don’t know to put it into a bearresistant container or a shed or a garage.”

The same goes with people who fail to take down bird feeders once the winter is over –turning them into another draw for bears looking for easy food. He says only bears that are habituated to garbage will try to break into a shed. Habituated bears cannot be relocated, he also says.

Ackles encourages people to call in bear sightings to 1-877952-7277.

“We’re seeing it on Facebook,” he says.

“People are saying don’t call the COs, they’re just running out to shoot those bears. Well, that’s the last thing we want to do.” — with files from Mark Nielsen, Citizen staff

T’Kemloops

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Training on new digital system for registering evacuees at CN Centre on Thursday afternoon.

Judas Priest, Uriah Heep hit CN Centre tonight

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

If you never thought Judas Priest would ever perform in Prince George, well you’ve got another think comin’.

In an age when the music term “metal” could easily mean glam-posing juveniles with a drum kit, or endless high-speed fret scales to prove your manhood, there was also Judas Priest.

The shredders loved Judas Priest, the glammers loved Judas Priest and the band cut no corners to get that reputation. They were authentic and uncompromising. They occupied a rare space with the likes of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Motorhead –bands that hit hard, hit fast, and didn’t really care what you called them.

The guitars wailed, the drums thundered and Rob Halford’s vocals would lead them to legend status. With a touch of British punk propelling them, and the amps turned up to 11, they were Breaking The Law starting in 1969 and they are still Screaming For Vengeance brandishing their spikes and leather.

The band got record deals and Rolling Stone reviews throughout the 1970s, but it was the 1980s when they struck superstar chords. The album British Steel solidified their position at the top of the charts and the headliner marquees. Metal was a polarizing genre in those days, it was relatively new, it was the bane of censorship movements, but there was Judas Priest

called into action for the Live Aid event and pioneering the advent of MTV. They were mainstream, even if it hurt the mainstream’s ears to admit it. They might represent a Touch Of Evil, but they were also our Turbo Lover. They even won a Grammy Award, and guess when that happened: 2010. Yup, even after Halford left the band (he’s back now) for years on end, they were still charg-

ing around the world fueled by the roars of crowds and motorcycle engines. Judas Priest transcended a single song or a single era and became iconic - the poster-band for studded bracelets, Harley Davidsons, walls of guitar and nearly operatic signing. They have launched six live albums out into the world because it’s in concert where this power klatch really established their whips and chains dominance.

The same year Judas Priest was formed, England also birthed another metal monster. Even more uncompromising was hardedged Uriah Heep, pumping out 25 studio albums and 13 live packages since then. They were the ones who brought the avant-garde to the heavy metal party. If anyone ever doubted the musical abilities of this genre, Uriah Heep gave them a slap across the ears. They did concept songs, had a spine-jangling jazz mentality and took hold of the fantasy-fiction metal fan.

Songs like Lady In Black, The Wizard, Sweet Lorraine and Sympathy all got solid traction in mainstream culture. They had no fear of acoustic elements, dense lyrics and, like Judas Priest, they were founded on technically strong vocals. They also had a streak of organ-driven hard southern rock to them that opened them up to the same crowd that was into early Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy, or later on The Black Crowes.

A good example of that was their anthem Stealin’ (When I Should Have Been Buying) or Easy Livin’.

This is a night for fists in the air, leather and denim in any configuration and restoring your energy in the fight against conformity. Just bring earplugs. Seriously. CN Centre ignites for these two seminal metal bands tonight. Get tickets online at www.ticketsnorth.ca or charge by phone 1-888-293-6613 or in person at the CN Centre box office.

Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford performs at Knotfest USA at San Manuel Amphitheater in 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif. Judas Priest will be headlining a show at CN Centre on Friday.

Pulling out of the station

The Little Prince pulls out of the station on Thursday afternoon in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. The train runs Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holiday’s from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., weather permitting.

Major projects offer upside to displaced forestry workers

Derrick PENNER Vancouver Sun

It seems contradictory, at the same time a major sawmill closure looms over Quesnel, costing 150 well-paying jobs, contractors report having difficulty taking on projects because they can’t find workers, according to Mayor Bob Simpson.

Between a $27-million hospital expansion, school construction and highway diversions, on top of private projects, Simpson said contractors there are scrambling to keep up.

“One of our biggest stumbling blocks in the community is that we’ve got critical job vacancies across the board,” said Simpson.

“That shocked everybody around the table,” Simpson said of a meeting related to the impending closure of Tolko Industries’ Quest sawmill, which will wind down by August.

“The reality is we need to look at (that) workforce and re-tool them for where the jobs are,” he said. Then, on a provincial basis, there is the expected ramp-up for the LNG Canada liquefied natural gas mega-project.

Construction has remained at least a stable point in B.C.’s employment picture as the unemployment rate has shrunk to a nation-leading low of 4.3 per cent as of May.

Unemployment was a touch lower at the end of 2018, said Bryan Yu, deputy chief economist for Central 1 Credit Union, but it has hovered close to the four-per-

cent mark for several months now.

“Though we have seen (some) uncertainty broadly in the global economy and are always concerned about some negative news from Alberta in terms of the domestic economy in Canada, the labour market is still chugging along,” said Yu.

Residential housing construction in B.C. is expected to see a decline along with the overall slowdown in real estate sales, perhaps by the end of this year, said Yu. However, that decline will likely be offset by major projects underway in the province.

RBC tallied a $4-billion surge in spending on major capital projects this year in B.C. as a key reason for upgrading B.C.’s economic forecast for this year, particularly with respect to the start of LNG Canada’s $40-billion plant in Kitimat.

“Employment growth continues to rise and has been rising since mid-2018,” Yu said, notwithstanding weak points, such as grim conditions in the forestry sector.

Struggling with shrinking timber supplies and short-term losses in weak lumber markets, small towns in the Interior have been sent reeling with the announcement of sawmill production cutbacks and closures.

In May, Tolko announced the closure of its Quesnel mill followed by Canfor’s decision last week to shutter its Vavenby mill, which will put 172 people out of work as of July.

On Tuesday, Norbord an-

nounced the indefinite curtailment of production at its orientedstrand-board mill in 100 Mile House, which will mean 160 layoffs.

For some of those workers losing jobs in forestry, however, there are no guarantees.

“Undoubtedly there is an opportunity for those who have what we call the skills or transferable skills,” said Chris Atchison, president of the B.C. Construction Association. He said that for several years now the construction sector has been in what it considers a skilled-labour shortage, with electricians, welders and carpenters among the skills in most demand.

However, if a construction company is looking for ticketed welders, there isn’t a direct path for a forestry worker.

Simpson hears that caveat loud and clear.

“Those who don’t have immediately transferable skills are the ones we have to target and see what the path is for them to transfer into areas that have vacancies and job opportunities,” Simpson said.

And they face a radical adjustment from production jobs that are consistent to a sector where work is project-based and less consistent.

“But we’re at a time where the job opportunities are far more robust and opportunities exist than were (available) even five years ago,” Simpson said.

“That’s the fundamental difference.”

‘A lot of people register and never come for services’

— from page 1

Evacuees are asked to provide their names and addresses, whether they have insurance, if they need food, lodging and clothing and whether they have pets.

“We have a category called incidentals, so do you have your meds with you, your glasses, your false teeth – all of that kind of stuff,” Beckett said.

“Just trying to figure out what they need and figure out whether this program has the ability to provide some of those services for you.” Even if an evacuee doesn’t need help, Beckett said registration is still a good way to keep in touch with authorities.

“A lot of people register and never come for services,” he said. “You can register and drive on your merry way and take your family to safety, wherever that may be.”

Staff reminded about ‘the importance of listening’

— from page 1

In response, hospital staff said there were departmental meetings where staff was reminded about the need to “provide care for the patients as a whole, the importance of listening to patients and their family, and the need to not prejudge patients on any aspect of their presentation.”

• In a case not highlighted in the annual report, a patient bled to death after paramedics could not get access to the individual’s Downtown Eastside building because of multiple security locks on doors and elevators. Health minister Adrian Dix said family members were not satisfied with the way complaints were handled so he has taken the rare step of ordering an independent review.

The case pertains to Tracey Gundersen who bled to death last November after it reportedly took paramedics over half an hour to get to her sixth-floor suite. Firefighters who have master keys to such buildings were eventually dispatched to get paramedics inside. But a few years ago, B.C. Emergency Health Services changed policies and procedures to cut down on multiple crews attending each call so firefighters are no longer sent as first responders to many cases.

Gundersen’s daughter told CBC her mother was dying while on a phone line with a dispatcher and she’s angry that her mother’s case was not treated as life-threatening and that paramedics didn’t call for firefighters’ help sooner, especially since a firehall was just a block away.

Closure looms for Fort St. John OSB plant

Alaska Highway News

Louisiana Pacific is shutting down operations at the Peace Valley OSB mill in Fort St. John. The shut down is indefinite, putting 190 workers out of work. Company officials delivered the news to employees Thursday.

“Despite efforts by our Peace Valley team to reduce costs over the past several months, this decision is necessary to support the optimization of our OSB business in challenging market conditions,” said Jason Ringblom, LP executive vice president for OSB, in a statement.

“Declining housing starts, high wood costs and associated cost pressures require us to take this action that aligns with our performance driven strategy.”

Mark Morrison, LP’s director of corporate affairs, says total housing starts are down 13 per cent from a year ago as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, with commodity OSB prices down more than 35 per cent compared to this time last year.

“The action that LP is taking now is driven by poor market conditions and not a reflection on our team at Peace Valley who have been hard at work looking at ways to reduce costs for several months,” Morrison said. Work will reportedly continue at the mill until the shut down, effective Aug.9, employees say. Employees say they will be

paid through until early September, and then receive a severance package based on their years of service.

The mill has an annual capacity of 800 million square feet. It is the Fort St. John’s largest taxpayer, paying $1.05 million in property taxes last year.

The pending shutdown of the Peace Valley OSB mill in Fort St. John is the latest blow to B.C.’s struggling forestry sector, Peace River North MLA Dan Davies says. The bad economic news follows on the heels of announcements this week that Norbord will indefinitely curtail its OSB mill in 100 Mile House and that Canfor will curtail operations at all but one of its sawmills in B.C.

“This latest shutdown will put at least 190 workers out of work and will affect hundreds of additional indirect jobs. My community simply can’t afford this loss,” Davies said in a statement.

“For months my fellow MLAs and I have raised concerns about the mounting crisis in the forest industry and for months our concerns have been ignored. It’s time for John Horgan and the NDP to step up, take action and offer tangible solutions to address the crisis situation.”

The curtailments announced across B.C. so far in 2019 amount to hundreds of millions of board feet and at least 83 weeks of operational downtime, the BC Liberals said in a statement.

Home invasion charges dropped

Citizen staff

A Prince George man no longer stands accused of participating a home invasion.

A total of 13 charges against Bradley Andre Ouelette were stayed in provincial court on Wednesday.

Ouelette was one of two men suspected of forcibly entering a Columbia Road home south of the city on March 13. The other suspect remains at large.

Stays of proceedings are issued whenever it’s determined there is not enough evidence to achieve a conviction.

Although most matters that have been stayed are not reopened, Crown counsel can, within certain limits, restart the proceedings.

The time limit is six months for summary matters and a year for indictable matters. Ouelette had spent two months in custody following his arrest.

DAVEY

Show ‘n’ Shine returns for Father’s Day

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

There’s something about the sleek lines of a vintage tail fin, the inspired curves of a classic fender, the shine of polished chrome to inspire the human spirit.

The pull of the highway is a primal urge and the need for speed is an intoxicating sensation that draws us in wonder and fantasy to the automobile. If dog is our best friend then the automobile is our best machine.

The city’s finest will be on proud display this Sunday at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. The 45th Annual Cruisin’ Classics Show ‘n’ Shine is on again for Father’s Day.

“The park is always packed. It’s just a ton of people who come out to see,” said club member Rick Fewster. “We’ve had estimates of 15,000 people before. It’s so exciting to see how much support the community gives this one-time-a-year event.”

There are prizes for a number of vehicle and vintage categories. There are big rigs, motorcycles, precisely restored classics, inventive hotrods, army vehicles, even boats –everything from ancient artifacts to cutting edge modern machines. Fewster said it is a thrill for the club members to see the different kinds of autos people bring to the park each year to enter in the display.

To bring your own pride-piece, simple drive it down between 8-10 a.m. (trailering can also be done, for the non-street-legal vehicle, as long as the trailer can be removed from the public viewing area during the show) and sign in at the registration desk (20th Avenue and Ingledew Street). It costs $10 to display.

Admission for spectators is free.

“People always know they’re going to

get to see some spectacular vehicles, and every year there are interesting new ones,” Fewster said. He likes this event himself, as do all the club members. They have their own cars there to show the public, but they are fans just like everyone else.

“I like to wander around and look at the

No quick fix for sawmill closures linked to drop in timber supply

HOEKSTRA Vancouver Sun

Gordon

There are no immediate solutions to prevent more sawmills closures in the B.C. Interior as the amount of timber available for logging has been significantly reduced by the mountain pine beetle epidemic.

Both the B.C. government and industry agreed on that point as a sixth wood-manufacturing facility announced a mill or shift closure in the past seven months.

Norbord Inc., which operates an oriented strand board mill in 100 Mile House, cited the reasons for its closure as the beetle epidemic and, more recently, the increased number of wildfires that have led to woodsupply shortages and high prices. The timber-supply problem has been exacerbated by lumber prices that are falling in B.C.’s main market, the United States.

“I think we are dealing with the reality of the timber supply coming home to roost. It’s not something that wasn’t known,” B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson said Wednesday.

The B.C. government wants to focus on helping communities and workers after the closures and to find ways over the longer term to get more value out of the timber supply.

The mayor of 100 Mile House, Mitch Campsall, and others are lobbying to have Crown timber harvesting fees – called stumpage – reduced to make B.C. mills more competitive.

But giving forest companies an artificial break on stumpage to prevent sawmill closures is a non-starter as prices are set based on market forces, said Donaldson. And fiddling with stumpage would also be a “dangerous game” in the middle of the latest softwood lumber dispute with the United States, he said.

B.C. lumber producers currently must pay a 20 per cent tariff on shipments across the border.

Donaldson said the focus needs to be on maximizing the value of timber, not the volume, and finding a way to give smaller wood-manufacturing facilities access to

wood fibre.

The government can also help in the interim by investing in Interior communities, including projects such as a rebuild of a hospital in Williams Lake, said Donaldson.

Showcasing wood in public buildings, as will be done in the new St. Paul’s hospital project in Vancouver, can also help, he said.

More than 700 jobs will be lost with the already-announced permanent closures of a Canfor sawmill in Vavenby, a Tolko sawmill in Quesnel, a reduction of one shift at a Tolko sawmill in Kelowna and the reduction of shifts at West Fraser sawmills in Fraser Lake and Quesnel.

The companies have all cited the loss of timber supply from the beetle epidemic in the closures.

The B.C. Council of Forest Industries president, Susan Yurkovich, said Wednesday the issue is clear: the timber supply is declining and there is not enough to feed mills.

Yurkovich said what is needed is for industry, government, First Nations, communities and workers to work collectively through the transition period.

“But going forward, when rebalancing milling capacity with a sustainable timber supply – we have to ensure conditions that allow us to be competitive globally,” she said.

Forest industry analysts have forecast that another 12 sawmills will be closed in the next decade to cope with the shrinking timber supply, with a loss of 2,000 to 2,500 mill jobs.

According to B.C. government data, the B.C. Interior timber supply is forecast to drop as much as 40 per cent in the B.C. Interior to 40 million cubic metres from its peak during the beetle epidemic when harvesting was increased to salvage dead trees before they were no longer economically viable.

According to B.C. government data, the Interior timber supply is forecast to stay at 40 million cubic metres from 2025 to 2070, when it will begin to increase.

At its peak in 2005, the beetle killed 140 million cubic metres of pine timber.

craftsmanship,” Fewster said. “Not everybody is a mechanic, not everyone is trained to do it, but they still find a way to do spectacular work. People figure it out, and it’s amazing to see the imagination people put into it. It really is both a science and an art.” He loves the camaraderie within the club. There are so many backgrounds and variet-

ies of experiences within the membership that if you ever get stuck on a problem, or have concerns about what to do on your own project, someone is likely nearby who can give you some advice. The Father’s Day Show ‘n’ Shine goes ahead whatever the weather from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Woman reported missing

Citizen staff

Prince George RCMP are asking for the public’s help in locating a missing woman.

Tori Darian Schram, 24, is described as Caucasian, five-foot-six, 119 pounds with long brown hair and blue eyes.

Schram has not been seen since April 30. She was living in the Pineview area and has ties to Quesnel.

Anyone with information on where Schram may be is asked to contact the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1–800–222-8477 or online at www. pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca (English only). You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers.

Property crime suspects arrested

Citizen staff

Police have nabbed some familiar faces in the city’s property crime scene.

Donald John Peregoodoff, 26, was arrested when RCMP were called to a report of a disturbance near First Avenue and Claxton Crescent.

Police said he was found hiding from RCMP and when discovered, provided a fake name. He was arrested for obstruction and found in possession of a forged cheque, as well as a stolen wallet, credit cards and a passport from a break and enter late last month.

Just after midnight Thursday, RCMP

were called to a theft from an unlocked vehicle on Upland Street and about a halfhour later arrested Brandon Michael Felix, 26, and Dallas Isaac John, 22. The two were found in possession of about $700 worth of stolen items, RCMP said. Then, shortly after 4 a.m., RCMP came across a suspicious man walking along Northwood Pulp Mill Road. A check revealed that William Ernest Parent, 50, was out past his curfew. Moreover, police said a hammer was found hidden up his sleeve. All four are known to police. Peregoodoff was released on an undertaking while the other three remained in custody as of Thursday.

Quesnel man killed in apparent shop explosion

Citizen staff

A 56-year-old Quesnel man was killed Wednesday in an apparent explosion in a shop on a Timothy Road property.

The exact cause remains under investigation but does not appear to be suspicious, said RCMP, who were called to the scene at 4:45 p.m. The victim’s name was not provided.

The Citizen archives online: https://bit.ly/2RsjvA0

Simon and Sean Dengel stand beside Simon’s 1969 Camaro SS during the Cruisin’ Classics Show ‘n’ Shine held at Lheidli

T’enneh Memorial Park in 2018.

Higher carbon taxes needed to hit Paris target, PBO says

Christian PAAS-LANG

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Canada’s price on carbon will have to be five times what it is now if the country is to reach its Paris Agreement greenhouse-gas emissions targets just by charging for those emissions, Parliament’s budget watchdog says.

The current $20-a-tonne federal levy on fuels is set to rise to $50 a tonne by 2022. It applies in provinces that don’t have equivalent carbon-pricing systems of their own. The Parliamentary Budget Office says that may not be enough.

In a new report Thursday, the PBO says an additional levy that goes beyond fuels would have to start at $6 per tonne of emissions in 2023 and rise to $52 by 2030.

Combined with the current federal fuel charge, that would add up to $102 per tonne. The PBO estimates that would mean an additional cost of 23 cents for a litre of gasoline.

The report was released the same day Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said the government would enforce the federal carbon tax in Alberta starting next January. Alberta repealed its consumer carbon tax in May, though a separate tax on large industrial emitters in Alberta remains in place.

“We clearly need Alberta to be part of our national climate plan,” McKenna told reporters in Ottawa. She emphasized all revenues from carbon levy would be returned to the province through direct rebates and program spending.

The minister also said the national fuel charge will not increase beyond 2022.

McKenna reiterated that the government is committed to meeting the Paris targets and emphasized the role of factors other than the price on carbon, such as clean technology and infrastructure.

In a statement Thursday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the report proves the current carbon price is “another cash grab which is hurting already-overtaxed Canadians.”

Scheer said he would scrap the current carbon tax if elected prime minister and that he will release his own climate plan June 19.

Under the Paris Agreement, Canada committed to reducing

its emissions by 30 per cent from their 2005 levels, which works out to a target of 513 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents in emissions in 2030.

The PBO cites government estimates that Canada will reduce its emissions from 704 megatonnes in 2016 to 592 megatonnes by 2030 under its current policies – leaving a gap of 79 megatonnes.

The analysis assumes that additional carbon pricing is the only thing Canada would implement beyond already-announced climate change measures. It also assumes this new tax would be broadly applied across all sectors, except agriculture, and in all provinces and territories.

And it relies on projections that include already-announced federal government programs as well as the impact of land-use changes and forestry. They include the impact of Ontario’s cancelling its cap-and-trade system for reducing emissions, but not the scrapping of Alberta’s existing consumer

The PBO cites government estimates that Canada will reduce its emissions from 704 megatonnes in 2016 to 592 megatonnes by 2030 under its current policies – leaving a gap of 79 megatonnes.

carbon tax.

The analysis notes the effects of some spending on clean technology and public transit had not yet been modelled and were not included in Environment and Climate Change Canada estimates in 2018, which the report uses as

Transport Canada to require commercial drivers to have electronic logging devices

Colette DERWORIZ The Canadian Press

ETOBICOKE, Ont. — Transport Canada says it will require all commercial drivers to have electronic logging devices – one of the recommendations from a coroner’s report into the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

The federal department says the tamper-resistant devices will be mandatory starting June 12, 2021.

“These new mandatory logging devices in commercial vehicles will improve safety for drivers and for all Canadians,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a news release Thursday.

Electronic logging was one of six recommendations made by the Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service after the Broncos crash in April 2018. The collision between the junior hockey team’s bus and a semi-truck left 16 people dead and 13 injured.

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu of Calgary pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 counts of dangerous driving and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Court heard that Sidhu was an inexperienced driver who had been on the job for three weeks. He had worked with another driver for two weeks and had been on his own for just a few days before he missed a stop sign and drove into the path of the bus.

Fatigue was not considered a factor, but the truck’s owner admitted he did not follow provincial and federal safety rules.

Sukhmander Singh of Adesh Deol Trucking pleaded guilty to failing to keep a daily driver’s log, neglecting to ensure his drivers complied with safety regulations and having more than one daily logbook in the months before the crash. He was fined $5,000. The federal government said mandatory electronic logging will ensure truck and bus drivers are not on the road for longer than their daily limit.

The devices, which are integrated into vehicle engines, will track when and how long drivers have been behind the wheel.

Garneau said the decision comes after talks with industry partners and all levels of government.

“We know fatigue increases the risks of accidents

and that is why we are taking action,” he said.

Some industry groups said the move will improve road safety and level the playing field between compliant carriers and those who operate illegally.

Some parents who lost their children in the Broncos crash aren’t sure it’s enough.

“As a former commercial driver, I have some reservations about electronic logs,” said Lyle Brons, whose daughter, Dayna, died days after the collision.

He said a U.S. study showed the number of tickets issued to commercial drivers for infractions such as speeding and going through stop signs has substantially increased with electronic logs. But the study didn’t look at collisions, he said.

Brons said Ottawa also needs to make the hours-ofservice rules more flexible.

“There needs to be an adequate number (of) rest stops so drivers have a safe place to park when they are off duty and provide washroom facilities,” he said. “If these changes are not made, I’m not convinced that our highways will be any safer.”

Chris Joseph, whose son, Jaxon, was killed, said it’s a giant step forward.

“My hope would be that if they cracked down on things like speeding, running stop signs, etc. that it would also help reduce collisions,” he said.

The moves are helpful, Joseph said, but he gets frustrated at how slowly they are coming.

He would also like to see new federal seatbelt rules come in sooner.

Transport Canada announced last June that it will require all newly built highway buses to have seatbelts by September 2020. Some charter bus companies say many new vehicles already have seatbelts.

“Why not 2019? Who will enforce wearing them?” said Joseph.

its starting point.

The government could also do any number of things to reduce Canada’s emissions besides raising the price of carbon, the PBO acknowledges.

The costs the PBO projects are “actually quite modest” said Trevor Tombe, a professor in the economics department of the University of Calgary.

“This report shows that, coupled with other policy measures taken by the federal and provincial governments, the extent of carbon price increase is actually quite a bit less than we thought,” he said.

Tombe said governments could certainly pursue non-carbon tax approaches to emissions reductions, but that the cost per tonne of these “centrally planned” measures “tend to come with a higher cost per tonne.”

“There are lots of routes to meet our targets,” Tombe said. “The question we have to ask ourselves is: At what cost?”

The report provides estimates

on several alternative scenarios. With fast GDP growth and high oil prices prompting more production in the western oilsands, the gap in emissions from the Paris targets nearly doubles, while a case of slow GDP growth and low oil prices would result in an outcome similar to the PBO’s baseline.

The PBO notes that in Environment Canada’s “Technology Case,” a scenario where Canada aggressively pursues clean technology, the country would exceed the Paris targets by 22 megatonnes.

The PBO also projects that the expanded carbon tax will reduce economic growth by an average 0.04 percentage points a year between 2023 and 2030, if the proceeds are rebated to taxpayers in lump sums the way the current carbon levy is.

Combined with the effect of the current federal carbon charge, it estimates the cumulative cost of the current tax and a future, additional price would be about one per cent of real GDP by 2030.

Suncor’s base plant with upgraders in Fort McMurray Alta. are seen in 2017. Canada’s parliamentary watchdog announced Thursday an additional price on carbon will be needed if the country is to reach its Paris Agreement emissions targets.

Wrong words for horrible crimes

Marion Buller, the chief commissioner of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, insisted Monday it’s “pretty obvious” that those crimes amount to a genocide.

Not only is it not obvious, it’s not even true.

The first female First Nations judge in B.C. history should know that the word genocide has a specific definition under international law. The tragedy that has claimed thousands of Indigenous women and girls over the past four decades is a horrendous crime but it doesn’t come close to clearing the genocide bar.

Sprinkling the word extensively through the inquiry’s final report is not only a disservice to the murdered and missing women and girls, as well as their grieving families, it’s an affront to real victims of genocide, such as the Indigenous survivors of residential schools.

While many First Nations peoples who attended residential schools enjoyed a positive educational experience, far more

endured the forced removal from their homes and their communities and institutional physical, sexual and emotional abuse in a concerted effort condoned by the federal government for more than a century to wipe out Indigenous culture, languages, traditions and ways of life.

Some Canadians grudgingly call this “cultural genocide” and invoke the Holocaust, Cambodia and Rwanda as “real” genocide except that the United Nations definition of the word makes no distinction between the butchering of an identifiable group of people and the violent eradication of their heritage.

Both are genocide without qualification. Intent and action, not body count, are the legal measurements for genocide.

If Buller and the inquiry’s commissioners honestly believe missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls were the victims of genocide, then they should file a claim to the International Criminal Court, naming the Canadians who should be formally charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.

But whom would they charge? Every living former prime minister? Every living for-

mer premier? Every living former minister of Indigenous (previously Indian) affairs? Every living former RCMP commissioner at both the provincial and national level? Should the current occupants of those offices also be charged?

There is no evidence whatsoever that the killers of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women were following orders as agents of a government or police agency or were encouraged to do so. There is a long history of individuals who were apprehended for abducting and/or murdering Indigenous girls and women, convicted of their crimes and sent to prison. The girls and women who suffered crimes that no one was held responsible for were further victimized by government, legal and social negligence, as opposed to a willful attempt to destroy them.

Residential schools, like atrocities in other parts of the world, is relatively easy to prove as a genocide because the people in power were so sure of their righteousness that they kept records of their intent and their direct orders to subordinates to act on those intentions.

Not only did the people in power not try

YOUR LETTERS

Smarten up, smokers

Seriously, smokers – butt out!

Recently, I witnessed people tossing lit cigarettes out of their car windows in Prince George. The two instances I saw were on the same day within a few hours of each other.

How does this still happen with the current forest fire situation and the media attention towards it?

I was shocked and appalled by how careless these two individuals were. Maybe if they thought for a split second what the consequences could be, like destroying an entire community, they may reconsider that mindless flick out the window.

There is a current $575 fine for violating the B.C. Wildfire Act that includes tossing cigarettes. This fine is way too low for an act that can be so detrimental. According to a CBC news article,

$274 million was spent in 2018 fighting fires in B.C.

Over the past 10 years, the BC Wildfire service states that 44 per cent or 666 fires per year have been caused by humans. I believe the fine should be increased substantially and include an additional penalty of having the violator visit a wildfire site (at their own expense, of course) to see firsthand what damage can be done.

Please, smokers – think before you act.

Tana Gowan Prince George

Behind the beauty

Regarding Todd Whitcombe’s May 30 column concerning neurons and hormones, as well as some of his preceding columns in the weeks before that, it is always fascinating to read about the complex workings of the hu-

man body – neuro-transmitters and hormanes sending chemical messages, “reponsible for regulating both our automatic nervous systems and hormonal systems.”

All that begs the question of how can anyone research all of that and not acknowledge a divine creator? Whitcombe’s May 30 article ends with: “... the human body is a complex mixture of chemicals and electrical interactions which regulate all the cells which make us, us.”

One of the books in the Bible speaks of how surrounded by so much beauty and awesomeness we strive to comprehend them apart from God, “ .. and fall victim to appearances... if they (we) are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they (we) been so slow to find its Master?”

Joan McKay Prince George

LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.

to hide their goals, they broadcast them to the population as responsible social policy. There are no such records to show a blatant conspiracy to wipe Canadian Indigenous women and girls from the face of the Earth.

Unfortunately, our national leaders have responded with politics, instead of honesty, to the inquiry’s findings.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he accepts the commissioners’ report but dodged whether he believes it meets the definition of genocide.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer clearly stated he feels the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls “does not fall into that category of genocide” without recognizing the residential school survivors of genocide.

Neither wants to offend their political base so close to the fall election by speaking truth to power.

Remembering the murdered and missing starts with accuracy and facts. Incorrect words and carefully worded soundbites does not give them the justice they deeply deserve.

— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout

B.C. residents back universal child care

After Quebec began the implementation of a nearly universal child care system in 1997, many other jurisdictions in Canada have attempted to emulate the policy.

Proud Quebecers who have benefitted are quick to point out the success rate of mothers going back to work thanks to a system where parents pay less than $10 a day for child care.

During the 2017 British Columbia provincial electoral campaign, the B.C. New Democratic Party vowed to create a child care plan with more affordable parent fees, more spaces and better wages and education for those who work in child care settings.

Most of these elements had been outlined by the $10/Day Child Care Plan, a coalition that has been looking to change the dynamics surrounding this issue in British Columbia since 2011.

Public opinion has consistently been on the side of change.

In 2015, a survey I conducted showed that four-in-five British Columbians favoured a proposal for child care that would cost parents $10 a day, increase the number of available spaces and improve wages and training of early childhood educators.

At that time, the provincial government in Victoria failed to give this plan the attention it deserved.

It was only until the last days of May 2017, when the continuation of the B.C. Liberal tenure was in peril, that a hasty pledge of $1 billion for new child care spaces was issued by the outgoing premier.

In an ideological sense, the approach of some former and current B.C. Liberals could safely be described as “Nixonian.”

It was U.S. President Richard Nixon who in 1971 vetoed a bill that would have reconstructed a national child-care system that existed during the Second World War, arguing that a “family-centered approach” to child rearing was superior to “communal approaches.”

Almost four decades later, Nixon’s words continue to ring hollow.

A survey of British Columbians conducted earlier this year by Research Co. on behalf of $10/Day shows that child care is nowhere near as easy for families as it once may have been.

In our survey, 70 per cent of parents who currently have a kid enrolled in child care say their return to work was delayed because of lack of access to a space, and 76

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per cent acknowledge the cost of child care has put a financial strain on their families.

The long wait times that parents have to endure are still a problem. Thirty eight per cent say they waited at least five months before a child care space became available for their child.

These parents were not able to return to work as quickly as they envisioned.

Or perhaps they ended up resorting to alternatives that are significantly more expensive (such as a nanny or individual caregiver) or more risky (such as unlicensed facilities).

There are, however, some reasons to rejoice, with 64 per cent of parents saying that the government investments in child care are having a positive impact on their situations.

Some features are getting better but more work needs to be done. British Columbians who do not currently have a need for child care are also cognizant of what can be achieved.

Sixty six per cent believe the provincial government should continue to make public funding for child care a priority in order to make it more affordable and available for families.

In addition, 76 per cent want the provincial government to move more quickly to achieve the goal of quality, affordable child care.

Child care may become an issue in the upcoming federal election as well.

A Liberal government that has decided to deal with plastic use and refuse as a nationwide endeavour may feel compelled to connect with urban voters by offering to play a role in meeting their child care requirements. Taking this conversation to a national level can only help young parents or those who are hoping to join them in the next few years. Results are based on an online study conducted from May 9 to May 12, 2019, among 800 adults in British Columbia. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region in British Columbia. The margin of error – which measures sample variability – is +/- 3.5 percentage points, nineteen times out of twenty.

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Member of the

BY THE NUMBERS

MARIO CANSECO

Trudeau to meet Trump next week

The Canadian Press

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland firmly rebuffed China’s latest demand Thursday to free high-tech scion Meng Wanzhou, saying it would set a dangerous precedent that could endanger all Canadians abroad.

The unapologetic rejection came in Washington, where Freeland ended two days of meetings with top Trump administration officials and U.S. lawmakers, a table-setter for next week’s White House meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump and Trudeau are to discuss the ongoing effort to ratify the new North American trade agreement as well as their shared challenges with China. The meeting will give Trudeau and Trump an opportunity to discuss strategy ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit in Japan at the end of the month, when they’ll have face time with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In December, China detained Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in apparent retaliation for the RCMP’s arrest of Meng, a Chinese high-tech executive, on a U.S. extradition warrant.

Canada is caught between its two biggest trading partners on that issue, with Trudeau insisting Canada has to follow the rule of law but having no luck pressing the case with China’s leaders.

“What I can say is that the current difficulties in China-Canada relations are caused solely by the Canadian side, who must assume full responsibility,” Geng Shuang, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said Thursday.

“We hope it will take China’s solemn concerns seriously, release Ms. Meng Wanzhou without further delay and ensure that she returns to China safe and sound, and take concrete measures to bring bilateral relations back to the right track at an early date.”

Freeland said that wasn’t an option.

“It would be a very dangerous precedent indeed for Canada to alter its behaviour when it comes to honouring an extradition to treaty in response to external pressure,” she said.

“When we think about the implications of setting such a precedent we could easily find ourselves in a situation where by acting in a single, specific case we could actually make all Canadians around the world less safe.”

Besides the Kovrig and Spavor cases, China has obstructed shipments of Canadian agriculture products such as canola and pork, claiming that they’re ridden with pests or have labelling problems. On Thursday

the government promised that Export Development Canada will put up $150 million in additional insurance backing for canola farmers looking to sell in new markets.

U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence has said Trump will press Xi to release Kovrig and Spavor and will link the plight of the two Canadians to broader trade talks between Washington and Beijing. Global Affairs Canada says Spavor received his eighth consular visit from Canadian diplomats on Thursday, one day after Kovrig’s latest visit.

While Trudeau and Trump have crossed paths at various international events and had several telephone conversations, this will be their first substantive meeting since

the U.S. president insulted the prime minister a little over a year ago after departing the G7 summit in Quebec. The two leaders have continued to engage because both governments needed to wrestle a conclusion out of the often acrimonious renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump forced on Canada and Mexico.

Now, with the recent removal of U.S. tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum imports, there is renewed momentum to ratify the new trade pact.

Mexico’s Senate is expected to give its final legal approval to the new deal next week, but a delicate political dance continues between Ottawa and Washington over ratification. Trudeau has tabled the government’s ratification bill and it is winding its way through Parliament – slowly – ahead of next week’s adjournment of the House of Commons.

Canadian government sources have said the House could be recalled after its summer recess, in a last session before the October federal election, to deal with ratifying the new NAFTA if the U.S. Congress doesn’t deal with the matter promptly. As much as the government wants to move “in tandem” with the U.S. toward final approval of the new agreement, it doesn’t want to get too far ahead.

Freeland sidestepped a series of questions about the exact timing of Canada’s ratification during her press conference at the Canadian Embassy in Washington.

“We think of it as a kind of Goldilocks approach – not too hot, not too cold; we’re not going to go too fast, we’re not going to go too slow.”

She said that means spending a lot of time talking with U.S. counterparts “to get that pacing right.”

Freeland met two leading Republican and Democratic senators on Thursday after discussing trade with U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer and China with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a day earlier.

CP PHOTO

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G7 leaders summit in La Malbaie, Que., last June.

Capitalism’s bad reputation ridiculous

By 1933, westerners’ fascination with the Soviet dream was magnified by the Great Depression in the free world. Propaganda from Moscow showed crisp young communists eating scrumptious meals or working in busy factories, inflating the progress of the Bolshevik machine. Over 100,000 scholars, artists and intellectuals travelled east to fawn over the Soviet experiment. As the truth leaked out, western thinkers parroted Stalin’s heartless quip: “If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.” Cute.

May 2, 1933, New York: Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth, and another Pulitzer was awarded to a one-legged American newspaper man named Walter Duranty for his years of foreign correspondence from Moscow. A darling of American intellectuals and journalists, Duranty had the ear of Joseph Stalin himself. When he coined the term Stalinism, it was a compliment –the firm hand of inevitable change at work. Most people agreed. Flashback. 1930, Moscow: A 24 year-old Jewish woman from Toronto, Rhea Clyman, having lost part of her leg to a Toronto street car as a six-year-old, had a handicap in common with Duranty and he employed her in his Moscow office. Initially sympathetic to the communist ideal, by 1933 she had been booted out of Russia for criticizing the Gulag system, which had snatched her Russian boyfriend out of her loving arms. (She

IT’S ONLY

MONEY

MARK RYAN

never married.) Unlike her former employer, she told the truth.

May 7, 1933, Washington: U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt gave the first “fireside chat.” The New Deal introduced several social programs to soften economic hardship. Genuinely vexed by the financial mess, Roosevelt was influenced by Duranty’s Moscow musings.

Berlin: That same day the German government fired all Jewish workers from its armed forces service.

May 8, New York: Artist Diego Rivera was forced to stop work on Man at the Crossroads, commissioned for the Rockefeller Center in New York. His futuristic piece drew from Communist symbolism and the very likeness of Vladimir Lenin. Oops.

Exiled: That same day, Rhea Clyman, contradicted her former boss by publishing her eye-witness account of the brutal starvation of some 5,000,000 Ukrainians under Stalin. In the “Breadbasket of Europe,” children were on their hands and knees eating grass like goats. Peasant farmers, with their entire harvests removed, animals seized, land stripped from them, were dying at a rate of 25,000 per day. They were shot for stealing an ear of corn. Borders were sealed. All under Stalin’s deliberate hand.

Moscow: Walter Duranty uses

Dollarama shares surge

The Canadian Press

Dollarama Inc. shares surged more than 11 per cent Thursday after the discount retailer boosted its sales forecast for the year on hopes its strategy to increase traffic and sales numbers pays off.

The Montreal-based retailer’s shares gained $4.72 at $46.93 in early afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The company said Thursday that it expects comparable store sales growth of between three and four per cent, up from the 2.5 to 3.5 per cent identified at the end of the last quarter.

Dollarama has focused on augmenting customer traffic and unit sales because it has limited room to raise prices, even as some costs rise, said CEO Neil Rossy on a conference call.

his Pulitzer prestige to brush off Clyman’s stories in open mockery. His blatant lies, embraced by most thought leaders, probably cost many more thousands of lives.

Flashback, November 1932: Stalin’s wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, commits suicide on learning that her husband orchestrated the starvation of millions of Ukrainians.

May 15, 1933, Berlin: Adolf Hitler stripped power from Kaiser Wilhelm II, displacing the monarchy with himself. Also, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck asked Hitler to intervene for his Jewish colleagues. Hitler retorted: “Jews are all Communists… the enemy I am fighting against.”

May 26, Berlin: Germany invokes human sterilization, to further the Nazi plans to build a “master race.”

We could go on. Both Nazi and Soviet brutalities were woven unimaginably through these years, but in terms of longevity and volume of corpses, Stalin and friends would take the gold medal, even without a Russian judge. Despite this, the feelings engendered by Nazism are for some reason more repulsive than those stirred up by communism. Why?

Maybe the conservative side was forced to embrace humiliation when they found themselves (even remotely) associated with the wrong end of the right. One day they could boast of capitalist reforms in post-war Germany, the next day... Auschwitz. When they watched the Fuhrer and his ilk work this special brand of home improvement on the world, in a high-kicking self-serving reaction

to communism, it made them sick. And they drew a line. And yes, they are aware that the line is under attack today.

The world has seen a dramatic reduction in poverty over the past 30 years, as communist regimes fall one after another, yet words like capitalism, speculation and profit still spill out of young mouths with venom. His disciples haven’t examined Karl Marx’s doctrinal core closely enough to actually own the horrors of its outcomes. Each brutal regime concentrated power in excess of those they replaced. Communism didn’t so much love the poor as hate the rich. The poor were its pawns. Marx himself was a Bourgeois spendthrift, who blew his motherin-law’s inheritance and never held a real job. His wife pawned household items for groceries. Proletariat? He couldn’t find his way to the factory floor lunchroom. No fear. What’s a partly-handicapped Toronto woman to do once exiled from Moscow? Later in 1933, just as the Holocaust was getting warmed up, Clyman, a known Jew, headed straight for Nazi Germany looking for an interview with Hitler. More next week. Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See his website at: http://dir.rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan

Lessons from Trump

There have been few politicians in recent history who have been able to polarize the opinions of so many people in the world as Donald Trump.

Chances are you either love him or you hate him, but whatever you think of him, there is probably something you could learn from Trump. So, what is it that Trump is doing that most business leaders could learn from? Let’s start with the obvious and work backwards.

Extracurricular activities

Listening to a news channel during the week, I was told that the Donald was taking a golf day on Saturday.

If the self-proclaimed leader of the western world can take a day off to relax and enjoy himself, why can’t you? Unfortunately, many owners of small businesses, think that they can’t take time off because their business will fall apart.

Many haven’t taken real holidays in years; however, Trump just took his family to London for a holiday!

If you own a business you could learn from Trump by blocking more time for yourself and your family.

Quick to fire

According to some reports on the administration of the White House, there have been more people fired by Trump than any other president in recent history. While there is some controversy on some of those firings, the truth of the matter is that most business owners are too slow to fire employees who are not working out for their firms. In this time of record low unemployment rates, business leaders are often hesitant to let people go because “a warm body is better than nobody.” Trump, on the other hand, recognizes that if an employee has different core values, that person probably doesn’t fit in the organization. While you might have different core values than the Donald, you might benefit from his approach of setting people free! Chances are if you have an organization that has a number of employees, there are a few of them who probably aren’t working out. If you have done your best in trying to address

the underlying issues and you are both still frustrated, helping them with a plan for a change in career can often be the best thing you could do for them.

Playing to win

Complacency affects many small businesses and organizations. As leaders, we are often too tired, overwhelmed and stuck in the day-to-day operations of our business to strategically think about how we are going to really achieve our goals. Trump, on the other hand, is playing to win. Whether its it’s in negotiating with North Korea, or talking trade with his neighbours, Trump has a goal in mind and is doing his utmost to achieve that goal. He is playing to win. At this point, there are some who might argue that they disagree with Trump’s tactics and his “win at all costs” attitude. However, I am not talking about his tactics; I am talking about his mindset. If we have clearly defined what we want to achieve with our company and set our mind to accomplish those goals, we are more likely be successful. Unfortunately, most of us have rather vague ideas of what success means, and very few have defined how we will measure our success. There are books already written on the pros and cons of Trump leadership and most people have their minds made up whether they like the guy or not. If his foreign policy reopened steel factories in your neck of the woods and you can now feed your family, you might be a fan. If you were a die-hard Hilary Clinton supporter, chances are you will never like him. Yet as aspiring business leaders, we need to be open to ideas that we can incorporate into our organizations from people of differing points of view.

Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award-winning business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy who doesn’t vote in American elections. Email comments to dave@profityourselfhealthy.com.

oil tankers in the Middle East. Market watchers have increasingly been anticipating rate cuts to counter a softer economy in the U.S. and around the world. The rise in jobless claims could be another indicator that the world’s largest economy is losing steam.

The S&P/TSX composite index underperformed U.S. markets as it closed up 12.02 points to 16,239.26.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 101.94 points at 26,106.77. The S&P 500 index was up 11.80 points at 2,891.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 44.41 points at 7,837.13. Bangsund said the gap between markets on both sides of the border was surprising because of the large increase in oil prices helped the energy sectors in both countries. She attributed the main difference to the U.S. being the prime beneficiary of lower interest rates.

The key energy sector gained 0.84 per cent as Crescent Point Energy Corp. shares increased 3.9 per cent followed by Encana Corp.

The July crude contract was up US$1.14 to US$52.28 per barrel and the July natural gas contract was down 6.1 cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU. Oil future prices rose 2.2 per cent after two oil tankers came under a suspected attack Thursday near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. blamed on Iran’s campaign of “escalating tensions” in a region.

The Canadian dollar traded for an average of 75.05 cents US, down from an average of 75.17 cents US on Wednesday.

The consumer discretionary sector was the day’s leader, gaining 2.5 per cent as Dollarama shares surged 11 per cent after the discount retailer boosted its sales growth forecast for the year.

Materials was the third best performer as higher metals prices helped Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. as investors sought safe havens.

The August gold contract was up US$6.90 at US$1,343.70 an ounce and the July copper contract was up 0.25 of a cent at US$2.66 a pound. also a positive for gold prices,” Five of the 11 major sectors on the TSX fell, as BCE led telecommunications lower.

Raptors win first NBA championship

EWING The Canadian Press

Lori

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Toronto Raptors are bringing the Larry O’Brien Trophy as NBA champions home to Canada, a brilliant basketball story 24 years in the making.

Kyle Lowry had 26 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds to lift the Raptors to a thrilling 114-110 victory over the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors on Thursday in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Raptors in six. Or 6ix. A storybook ending.

“Basketball has come full circle in Canada, invented by a Canadian, the first NBA game was in Toronto and now an NBA championship,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said before presenting the trophy to the Raptors.

“Toronto, Canada, we brought it home baby!” Lowry, standing with his two sons, said on the live television broadcast after the trophy presentation.

Lowry caught Stephen Curry’s full-court heave at the buzzer and held on to the ball as he went to embrace Raptors star Kawhi Leonard, who had his arms held high, kicking off a massive celebration.

Pascal Siakam added 26 points, while Fred VanVleet had 12 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter. Leonard finished with 22, and Serge Ibaka chipped in with 15.

Leonard was named Finals MVP for the second time in his career. He was acquired in a blockbuster deal that sent former Raptors star DeMar DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs last summer.

Leonard played just nine games last year because of injury.

“Last summer, man, I was going through

Cricket

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

a lot,” Leonard said on the live TV broadcast. “And I had a great support system, just kept working hard and had my mindset on this goal right here. I came to a team and a coach with the (same) mindset as mine.”

Leonard becomes a free agent this summer.

“I’m going to enjoy this with my teammates and coaches and I’ll think about that later,” Leonard said.

Hundreds of Canadian fans at Oracle sang Oh Canada as the Raptors took pictures with the trophy.

Leonard wore goggles in the dressing room and danced in the locker-room as the champagne started to flow.

Klay Thompson had 30 points for the Warriors, who had won three of the past four NBA championships. Andre Iguodala added 22, while Curry finished with 21.

In what will go down as one of the most exciting games in recent Finals history, Lowry, playing with the sprained left thumb he suffered in Game 7 of the conference semis 12 games earlier, got the Raptors going, staking his team to an early nine-point lead in a thoroughly entertaining first half of breakneck basketball. Three days after connecting on just eight three-pointers in Game 5, the Raptors had nine from deep by the end of the first half Thursday.

Both Lowry and Leonard ran into foul trouble in the third quarter, picking up their fourth fouls.

A three-pointer by Andre Iguodala with a minute left in the third put the Warriors up by five – their biggest lead to that point –and ignited the rowdy crowd. Golden State led 88-86 with one quarter to play.

VanVleet had three big three-pointers in the second half: his first tied the game, his second gave Toronto a one-point lead with 7:08 to play, and his third put Toronto up 104-101 with 3:44 to play. VanVleet, looking battered with a bandage under the eye he cut a couple of games earlier, clenched his fists and let out a jubilant yell after the final one.

A Lowry basket made it a six-point Raptors lead with 2:14 to play. But a threepointer by Draymond Green sparked a Warriors run capped by a DeMarcus Cousins layup that slashed Toronto’s lead to a point with 38 seconds left.

On Toronto’s second-last possession, Leonard was swarmed by Warriors as he finally got a pass off to Danny Green. But Siakam fumbled Green’s pass and it went out of bounds, giving the ball back to Golden State with 9.6 seconds to play. Curry’s three-pointer bounced off the rim, then the Raptors regained possession with 0.9 seconds left after a mad scramble.

Leonard scored on a technical awarded because the Warriors called a timeout when they didn’t have one to take. He connected for two more to clinch Toronto the victory.

After 82 regular-season games, and 24 post-season battles, all leading to this moment, finally the Raptors could celebrate.

The Raptors had been methodically working since president Masai Ujiri, dreaming of an NBA title, acquired Leonard last summer, and then added Marc Gasol at February’s trade deadline. Leonard has been their emotional gauge, his teammates assuming his mantra of living in the moment. Never

tournament this weekend

The concrete has been cured and the Prince George Cricket Club is on solid footing in its new home at Vanier Park –just in time for this weekend’s six-team tournament.

The joint project with the club and the city gives cricket its first permanent home at 2727 Vanier Dr., in the field east of Westwood Mennonite Church.

Four local teams – Royals United, Kings X1, Yadwindrian and BC Chargers – will converge on the field with Surrey Cricket Club and Dawson Creek in the three-day tournament, which starts today at noon.

“This is a project we’ve been working on this since last year when we sent a proposal to the city and they accepted our proposal and gave us a letter of support,” said Prince George Cricket Club director Kanwal Bains.

Bains said the club sent a letter to neighbourhood residents and met with Mayor Lyn Hall and city council to explain their plan to build a dedicated cricket field at Vanier Field.

“It’s a little bit late because of the weather, we thought we would have it done two weeks ago but we just finished construction this week,” said Bains.

“It is ready now.”

The project was paid for entirely through private donations and contributions from local businesses and the field will be jointly managed by the club and city parks staff. Similar to baseball, cricket is a batand-ball game in which two teams of 11

This is a project we’ve been working on this since last year when we sent a proposal to the city and they accepted our proposal and gave us a letter of support.

of the pitch before the ball is thrown to knock down the bails. A ball hit in the air which lands out of the field is worth six runs. A ball that bounces and then goes out of the boundary is worth four runs. An over consists of six consecutive legal pitches made by the bowler at each batter. Typically, two bowlers alternate overs, bowling in tandem.

too high, never too low.

“This is a strong-minded tough-ass group of guys,” said Raptors coach Nick Nurse, almost a year to the day he was promoted to head coach after the firing of Dwane Casey. The Raptors’ post-season run had seen Toronto trail Orlando 1-0, Philadelphia 2-1, and Milwaukee 2-0. But the level-headed Raptors never allowed doubt to creep in.

The Raptors had missed an opportunity to close out the Finals at home on Monday, losing to the Warriors 106-105 on a night marred by Kevin Durant’s torn Achilles tendon. The Warriors vowed to win for Durant, and when highlights of the 10-time all-star were played on the Jumbotron, the arena erupted in chants of “K-D!”

The already short-handed Warriors lost Thompson in the third quarter Thursday after his left leg buckled underneath him when he came down from a dunk. The Warriors’ sharp-shooter was on the ground for several minutes, returned to the game briefly to sink two free throws – Danny Green was whistled for a foul on the play – before heading to the Warriors’ lockerroom. He was on crutches soon after.

The Raptors had already won all three previous games – each by double digits – at Oracle this season, including two wins last week in a storied building that Raptors fans have practically turned into their own Jurassic Park – O-Town version.

The Raptors’ historic run to the Finals gave the NBA something new, a fan base that extended beyond the boundaries of just one city, but stretched across an entire country.

Bentey delivers full ride for Vanroboys

Citizen staff

Lucas Vanroboys now has a college scholarship tucked into his hockey bag.

The 19-year-old Prince George Spruce Kings centre is heading to Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., next season.

— Kanwal Bains, Prince

George

Cricket Club

players play against each other. The object of the game is to score the most runs and get the other team’s batsmen out.

In cricket, the ball is bowled (thrown) at the batsman who stands in front of the wickets. The bowler must release the ball with a straight-arm motion and bounce the ball off the pitch before it gets to the batsman. The bowler tries to knock off the bails which sit on stumps to form the wicket behind the batter. If he does that, the batter is out.

A batsman is also out (dismissed) if the ball he hits gets caught or if the opposing team throws the ball and hits the stumps before the batter reaches the end of the pitch. If the batter gets his body in the way of a bowled ball that would hit the wicket, it’s an automatic out. The fielding team must retire or dismiss 10 batsmen to end the innings. Once contact with the ball is made, the batter takes off running and can score a run by reaching the other team’s end

All of the bowling and hitting takes place in a rectangular concrete pitch nine feet wide and 65 feet long. “Comparing to baseball, you bounce the ball and throw it towards the batsman, so it has to be a concrete surface for the ball to bounce properly,” said Bains. Games will be about three hours in length. The group games will be 15 overs long, while playoff games will be 20 overs in length. The tournament resumes Saturday at 8 a.m. Semifinals will be played Sunday at 8 and 11 p.m., with the final to begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday Cricket is one of the most popular sports in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean and is played professionally in those countries but lacks a high profile in Canada. Prince George has only about 100 players involved in the season, which runs from May-September. Bains and the club are hopeful that more people will see cricket played at Vanier Field and that new players will accept the cub’s open invitation to join them on the field for club practices and future tournaments. He encourages players to get in touch with the club through email at princegeorgecricketclub@gmail.com.

Vanroboys joined the Spruce Kings in January in a deadline trade from the Cowichan Valley Capitals and his toughness and playmaking skills were instrumental in helping the Kings make it all the way to the final of the National Junior A Championship in Brooks, Alta.

He played 15 regular season games for Kings and had three goals and five assists, after putting up seven goals and 15 points in 27 games with Cowichan.

He had four goals and five assists in 17 BCHL playoff games, helping the Kings win their firstever Fred Page Cup BCHL title. He also had a goal and an assists in the Doyle Cup series against the Brooks Bandits, which the Kings won in six games to claim the Pacific regional title. He contributed one assist in six games at the NJAC.

The Kings lost the championship in the final 4-3 to Brooks.

Vanroboys, a native of Thamesville, Ont., becomes the 10th Spruce Kings roster player from this past season’s team to lock up an NCAA Division 1 scholarship for next season.

• The Spruce Kings will host their annual general meeting to elect a new board of directors on July 9 at 7 p.m. at the multipurpose room at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

• The Kings announced on Twitter they’ve traded winger Tyer Schleppe to the Coquitam Express to complete an earlier deal. Schleppe, a 2001-born Vancouver native, had five goals and nine points in 51 games this year with the Kings.

AP PHOTO

Toronto Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard, centre, holds the Finals MVP Trophy after defeating the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday. Raptors have won their first NBA title in franchise history.

Local lacrosse community mourns Fred Doig

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Fred Doig, the father of lacrosse in Prince George, died early Tuesday morning at 91. Doig, a two-time Mann Cup champion with the Victoria Shamrocks, brought Canada’s national summer sport with him when he moved to Prince George in 1965. Within a few years the city was sharing his passion for the game, watching him play in the roughand-tumble four-team Prince George Lacrosse Association, which drew packed crowds to the Coliseum.

His influence spawned the Prince George Minor Lacrosse Association and the future of the sport in the city became entrenched. As a player, nobody shot harder or more accurately than Doig and once he had the ball, good luck trying to take it away from him. As a coach, his knowledge of the game and his gentlemanly approach to teaching it empowered his players to want to stick with it. The examples he set for his players, in lacrosse and in life, made them want to push themselves to the limits of their capabilities to accomplish their goals.

Above all that, he was a family man grounded in solid principles who raised seven kids with his wife Marian and he made them all feel privileged to be part of the clan. Anybody who had the pleasure of meeting Fred knows how personable and witty he was and how genuinely concerned he was for your well-being. Whether you were a friend or a stranger, he made you feel special.

In October 1999, when he was about to be inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame, I wrote the following story to try to encapsulate the legend that made Doig the man he was.

Fred Doig remembers the day he pulled the wool over the eyes of the Molson Oldstylers like it was yesterday.

It was the summer of 1970 and Doig’s Columbus Macs were down 1-0 in their Prince George Lacrosse Association final against the Old Stylers, their most hated rivals. Doig, the Macs’ player/coach and future Prince George Hall of Famer, missed the first game of the best-of-three series to be in Trail with his father who had suffered a heart attack. Fortunately for the Macs, Doig’s dad recovered quickly and he told his son to hurry back to Prince George to help his team win the series.

While the Old Stylers had stacked their roster with talent imported from the Lower

Mainland, the Macs were almost entirely Prince George-bred. Doig, Al Mottishaw and goalie Ed Conway were the only imports. But Conway, the league’s best goalie, was away on holidays in the Yukon. When Doig found that out he got on the phone and convinced Conway to take the next flight back from Whitehorse so he could start Game 2. That’s when Doig hit upon the idea of keeping Conway’s return a secret.

To build the hype, Doig boldly told Citizen sports editor Doug Martin and CJCI radio announcer Don Prentice of his plans to fly in a mystery goaltender for the rest of the playoffs. Playoff fever was at an all-time high in the five-year old league and as fans stood in line to pack the sold-out Coliseum, and

Mikhalchuk signs with KHL Torpedo

Citizen staff

Vladislav Mikhalchuk, the Prince George Cougars’ leading pointgetter in 2018-19, is not returning to the team for his final season of junior eligibility.

He’s turning pro instead.

The 19-year-old import winger from Berarus has signed with the Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod of the Kontinental Hockey League.

In his second season in Prince George since being selected 54th overall by the Cougars in the 2017 Canadian Hockey League import draft, Mikhalchuk scored 25 goals and added 25 assists for a teamhigh 50 points in 68 games. In 128 regular season games he had 389 goals 44 assists and 83 points.

Mikhalchuk will celebrate his 20th birthday on Oct. 16. Had he returned to play for the Cats next season the Cats would have to reserve one of their three 20-year-old overager spots and one of their two European player allotments for Mikhalchuk.

They now have one import spot open ahead of the CHL import draft on June 27. The Cougars hold the 10th overall pick.

everyone was wondering if the Macs would indeed flout the rules by adding a new player to the roster.

Doig’s wife Marion made Conway a vest emblazoned with a bulls-eye target which covered his chest. Conway came out for the pre-game warmup wearing the vest, an old jersey and a ball hat turned sideways under his mask.

“I told him not to go out in his normal stance and he kind of staggered out there and nobody recognized him,” Doig said. “The referee turned to me and said ‘Fred, we told you you can’t fly in a goalie’ and I said, ‘They can protest all they want, I’m playing that goalie right over there.’”

It wasn’t until the lineup card was filled out that the Old Stylers found out who they

were up against. Conway was spectacular in net and led the Macs to two straight wins which gave them the league title. They went on to beat heavily-favoured Vernon for the Interior title, then stunned a home crowd by crushing Nanaimo in two games to win the B.C. senior B championship. The Macs later won the Canadian title by default when Verdun, Que., decided not to make the trip west.

“I’ve been associated with a lot of teams but that group of kids would do anything for you,” Doig said.

“It was all kids that went to school here and if you asked them to go through a wall they would keep going until they got through it.”

Doig’s indelible character was shaped on the lacrosse floor while playing defence for nine seasons with the Victoria Shamrocks senior A team, where he helped them to Mann Cup titles in 1955 and 1956.

Doig was a driving force in the formation of the PGLA, the city’s first lacrosse league, which began as a two-team senior loop in 1966. Before long, there were four local senior teams competing in an interlocking schedule against Armstrong, Vernon and Kamloops. Seeing the need for a steady stream of local talent, he organized the city’s first minor lacrosse league and spent his summers in the late ’60’s teaching young players at his lacrosse school. He officially hung up his stick when the PGLA folded in 1977 but has remained active as a masters player and coach.

Doig is the head of a three-generation family of lacrosse players. His son Brett plays in the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association for the team Fred now coaches, the Ironhorse Pub Bandits. Fred doesn’t like to tell his age but offered up this clue.

“I’m going to play one game next year in the senior B league (for Ironhorse) and then I’ll have been involved in lacrosse over eight decades,” he said.

Fred’s 10-year-old grandson Drew plays minor lacrosse and it looks like he’s inherited his grandpa’s talent.

“The kid’s got some really good moves,” Fred said. “He was the MVP at the Jack Crosby tournament and I was really proud of him.”

An upcoming Citizen article will feature more about Doig and his life and will be published next week in the days leading up to a celebration of his life at the Hart Community Centre on Saturday, June 22 at 1 p.m.

Blue Jays hit three homers in rout of Orioles

David GINSBURG The Associated Press

BALTIMORE — Lourdes Gurriel Jr. homered to ignite a seven-run sixth inning, Cavan Biggio went deep twice and the Toronto Blue Jays hammered the Baltimore Orioles 12-3 Thursday night.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Danny Jansen had three hits and two RBIs apiece for the Blue Jays, who re-discovered their offence against the woeful Orioles. After scoring eight runs during a five-game skid, Toronto tallied 20 in the final two games of the series.

In this one, the Blue Jays reached a season high in runs and hits (17).

Playing in his 15th major league game, Biggio hit solo shots in the second and seventh innings. He came in batting .146 with one home run and three RBIs. Toronto used seven hits and two walks in the sixth to turn a 2-2 game into a blowout. Gurriel started the onslaught with a drive to centre off Gabriel Ynoa (03), and Freddy Galvis and Jansen added two-run singles before Guerrero and Justin Smoak capped the Blue Jays’ biggest inning of the year with RBI singles.

Marcus Stroman (4-8) was the beneficiary of the offensive display after receiv-

ing only 26 runs of support in his previous 14 starts. The right-hander allowed two runs, one earned, and seven hits over six innings.

The Orioles beat Toronto on Tuesday before dropping two straight – making this the 14th successive series that Baltimore has failed to win (0-13-1) since taking two of three from the White Sox on April 22-24.

Chance Sisco homered and Anthony Santander hit a pair of RBI singles for the Orioles, whose minus-133 run differential is the worst in the majors.

Trainer’s room

Blue Jays: Reliever Elvis Luciano (1-0, 6.51 ERA) was placed on the 10-day injured list with right elbow inflammation. RHP Justin Shafer was recalled from Triple-A Buffalo.

Orioles: Mark Trumbo interrupted his rehab assignment to receive a plateletrich plasma (PRP) injection in his sore right knee. He will be out 7-10 days, and “hopefully back on track after that,” manager Brandon Hyde said. Trumbo has been on the injured list the entire season following knee surgery in September.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

B.C. Sports Hall of Fame member Fred Doig, centre, presents the Fred Doig provincial senior C championship trophy to Westwood Pub Devils captains Dave Bennett, left, and Blake McIntosh in 2014.

MIKHALCHUK

The Canadian Press

actor embraces Handmaid’s Tale role

As he prepared to play a cutthroat commander in the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale, Jonathan Watton of Corner Brook, N.L., heard from the writers that the character was similar to a certain Republican south of the border.

“They said, ‘Look, there’s a particular political person in the States who we’ve thought of and he’s younger, he’s ambitious, politically astute, and in some ways out for himself,”’ Watton said in an interview.

And who was that person?

“Should I say?” the affable Watton said with a laugh. “Well, they modelled him a little bit after Paul Ryan (the former U.S. House Speaker). Not in terms of necessarily where he comes from but just where he slots into that power structure: Politically astute, intelligent and yet just intensely after a goal. That was helpful for me. It just clarified what his motivations are.”

Watton plays American Cmdr. Mathew Calhoun in season 3 of the Emmy-winning dystopian drama, which is shot in Toronto and around southern Ontario. He first appears in episode 3, set to air Sunday, and is in five episodes in total. The series is on Bravo and Crave in Canada.

Season 1 was based on Toronto author Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, while the rest of the series created by Bruce Miller explores what happens after the book ends.

Calhoun is a new commander in the Republic of Gilead, a theocracy in which women are treated as a property of the state and some are forced to bear children to combat an infertility epidemic.

Elisabeth Moss stars as protagonist June (a.k.a. Offred), who continues to defy the power structure along with a resistance movement that stretches into Canada, prompting Calhoun to take a hard line.

“He feels the power structure needs to clamp down, that we need to be stronger here, rule with an iron fist and show no mercy,” said Watton, 41.

Degrassi cast, fans hold reunion

When Nicole Wichinsky first saw Joey Jeremiah in his signature Hawaiian shirt and denim vest, brown locks cascading beneath a wide-brimmed fedora, his impish grin sent her heart aflutter.

For the 12-year-old growing up in New Jersey in the early 1990s, this was more than just a crush, but an introduction to the close-knit, if sometimes overdramatic, social scene of Degrassi Junior High and its senior successor Degrassi High.

“The actors on the show looked like people I knew... And it had real issues that couldn’t be summed up in 27 minutes,” said Wichinsky, now a 38-year-old talent agent in New York City. “Here’s a school, and I feel like I’m a part of it even though I don’t go there.”

Wichinsky is among hundreds of fans who are making the pilgrimage to a Toronto convention centre for Friday’s kickoff of Degrassi Palooza, a three-day nostalgia fest where the stars of the original series, and the viewers who grew up alongside them, will relive their glory days at the fictional school in the

Cher’s not going to Winnipeg

Cher won’t be turning back time to play Winnipeg after all.

Several weeks after a sudden illness left the pop diva’s fans hanging inside the venue, organizers say plans to reschedule her concert have been scrapped.

Live Nation blames “scheduling difficulties” for making a new date for Here We Go Again at Bell MTS Place impossible.

Originally the promoter had encouraged fans to hold onto their tickets for a rescheduled show.

The cancellation deals another disappointment to about 10,000 fans who were blindsided when Cher cancelled her Winnipeg show last month – nearly an hour after her opening act had finished their set.

Concertgoers were told the 73-year-old singer was stricken by a “sudden short-term illness” that prevented her from performing.

Cher tweeted an apology to fans the following night saying she was “literally (heartbroken),” using a brokenheart emoji.

1980s and ‘90s, according to organizer Pat Mastroianni, who played the dreamy Joey Jeremiah.

“Normally, a high school reunion is tedious, and you really don’t want to go,” Mastroianni, 47, said. “For many of our socially awkward fans ... this is the high school reunion they want to go to.”

At the request of the show’s rights-holders, Mastroianni stresses that the event at the Westin Toronto Airport Hotel is in no way affiliated with the official Degrassi franchise. The 47-year-old celebrity booking agent is self-financing the convention, and broke even a few weeks ago after selling 300 tickets.

The schedule includes a bus tour of the Toronto locations where Degrassi was shot; a trivia contest; a cosplay competition where fans will whip out the hairspray and don their ‘80s finest; and a throwback karaoke and dance party.

Roughly 25 cast and crew members are on the guest list, including Nicole Stoffman, who played queen bee Stephanie Kaye; Amanda Stepto, who defied follicular physics with her fanned-out feathered hairdo as Christine “Spike” Nelson; and Stefan Brogren, who played Archie “Snake” Simpson.

“Anyone who shows any weakness, especially of the more established commanders who we’re starting to look at with questions, like Waterford for example, he thinks they need to step aside and we need to come down hard. He doesn’t think of himself as a bad guy, but he’s definitely in this world a bad guy.”

Cmdr. Waterford is played by Joseph Fiennes, while Yvonne

Strahovski plays his wife, Serena Joy.

The characters have June in their household as a handmaid.

“The tagline this year is ‘Blessed be the fight,”’ said Watton, noting the season shows the resistance taking different “and maybe unexpected forms.”

There’s also “a sense of hope, a sense of agency” for the resistance, he added.

“We see June start to make some strong choices and some difficult ones, of where her loyalties lie and what she’s going to do to take down Gilead.”

Watton’s previous credits include David Cronenberg’s film Maps to the Stars, and the shows Private Eyes, Saving Hope and Murdoch Mysteries, in which he was a series regular as Dr. Darcy Garland.

He was a fan of Atwood’s novel and the series before signing on, and was able to get input directly from series writer Yahlin Chang onset, where the cast was “so welcoming.”

The Handmaid’s Tale has brought his career to a new level, he said, “just because it’s become part of such a conversation critically with the work that goes on in the show, and also culturally it’s just become part of such a conversation that people are having and need to have now.”

The Canadian Press

The Canadian Press

CP PHOTO

Jonathan Watton poses for a portrait in Toronto on Wednesday.

Harold Cedric Moore passed away March 7, 2019 at the age of 92. There will be a celebration of life Saturday, June 15th at 1:00pm, at the Elders Recreation Center, 1692 10th Avenue, Prince George. Lunch to be served at my Dad’s request at 1:30pm. No flowers, no donations.

Fred Doig 1928-2019

it is will great sadness we announce the passing of beloved family member and friend, Fred Doig. Fred is survived by the love of his life, wife Marion. There is be a Celebration of Life June 22/19 at the Hart Community Center, from 1-5pm. In lieu of flowers donations to the PG Hospice House would be greatly appreciated. Hospice House, 1506 Ferry Ave, Prince George, V2L 5H2

Lynn Gail Floyd

Jan 14, 1959 - June 8, 2019

Lynn passed peacefully and is predeceased by her father Victor Lalonde. She is survived by her partner Cecil Gower, mother Theresa Lalonde, daughter Danell (Alan), sons Terrence (Mel) and Coleton, brothers Bart (Sue), Mitch (Marie), Trevor (Carol), sister Drinda (Jim) and her 23 beloved grandchildren. Her extended family Wade, Tara, Darwin, Tanya and Gordie. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the SPCA. Funeral service to be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel on Saturday June 15, 2019 at 1:00pm.

It’s with deep sadness that we announce the sudden passing of Lawrence Haydey. June 4, 1939 - June 7, 2019. Predeceased by wife Helen, children Debbie and Keith. Survived by Louise Brown (Barry), Dale (Valerie), Rod (Lorraine), siblings, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Born in Manning Alberta in 1939 Lawrence spent most of his years in the Dawson Creek, Peace Region working in Road Construction. After retirement he spent time with his children living in Prince George and Ottawa. Lawrence (Larry) leaves behind lots of extended family members and many long time friends.

On his 80th birthday Lawrence took a serious fall and succumbed to his injuries on June 7th surrounded by his family.

Special thanks to Norm and Shelley for their hospitality to Dad and their quick action after his accident. Thank you also to the caring nurses and doctors at PGRH. A gathering of family and friends will be announced at a later date.

Jean Welsh Harris

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Jean Harris on June 8, 2019. She will be dearly missed by her brother Tom (Macaria) and her great nieces and nephews Kelsey, Kyle, Jonathan, Kyrsten, Dylan and Ian. Jean was predeceased by her loving husband Peter, parents James and Jean, sister-in-law Anne, niece Heather and nephew Jimmy.

Jean was born on November 17, 1933 in Braeface, Stirlingshire Scotland and moved to Prince George in 1967. Jean worked at Northern Health for over 30 years and was a long time dedicated member of The Eastern Star and past Worthy Matron.

Jean would always go above and beyond for her family and friends. They meant the world to her and she had no problem expressing that. She was a truly amazing person who was full of love with a beautiful soul. She leaves us with incredible memories and will be dearly missed.

A service will be held on June 17th at 1 pm at St. Giles Presbyterian Church with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Alzheimer’s Society or to a charity of choice.

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Fred Doig 1928-2019

it is will great sadness we announce the passing of beloved family member and friend, Fred Doig. Fred is survived by the love of his life, wife Marion. There is be a Celebration of Life June 22/19 at the Hart Community Center, from 1-5pm. In lieu of flowers donations to the PG Hospice House would be greatly appreciated. Hospice House, 1506 Ferry Ave, Prince George, V2L 5H2

Lynn Gail Floyd

Jan 14, 1959 - June 8, 2019

Lynn passed peacefully and is predeceased by her father Victor Lalonde. She is survived by her partner Cecil Gower, mother Theresa Lalonde, daughter Danell (Alan), sons Terrence (Mel) and Coleton, brothers Bart (Sue), Mitch (Marie), Trevor (Carol), sister Drinda (Jim) and her 23 beloved grandchildren. Her extended family Wade, Tara, Darwin, Tanya and Gordie. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the SPCA. Funeral service to be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel on Saturday June 15, 2019 at 1:00pm.

It’s with deep sadness that we announce the sudden passing of Lawrence Haydey. June 4, 1939 - June 7, 2019. Predeceased by wife Helen, children Debbie and Keith. Survived by Louise Brown (Barry), Dale (Valerie), Rod (Lorraine), siblings, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Born in Manning Alberta in 1939 Lawrence spent most of his years in the Dawson Creek, Peace Region working in Road Construction. After retirement he spent time with his children living in Prince George and Ottawa. Lawrence (Larry) leaves behind lots of extended family members and many long time friends. On his 80th birthday Lawrence took a serious fall and succumbed to his injuries on June 7th surrounded by his family.

Special thanks to Norm and Shelley for their hospitality to Dad and their quick action after his accident. Thank you also to the caring nurses and doctors at PGRH. A gathering of family and friends will be announced at a later date.

Jean Welsh Harris

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Jean Harris on June 8, 2019. She will be dearly missed by her brother Tom (Macaria) and her great nieces and nephews Kelsey, Kyle, Jonathan, Kyrsten, Dylan and Ian. Jean was predeceased by her loving husband Peter, parents James and Jean, sister-in-law Anne, niece Heather and nephew Jimmy.

Jean was born on November 17, 1933 in Braeface, Stirlingshire Scotland and moved to Prince George in 1967. Jean worked at Northern Health for over 30 years and was a long time dedicated member of The Eastern Star and past Worthy Matron.

Jean would always go above and beyond for her family and friends. They meant the world to her and she had no problem expressing that. She was a truly amazing person who was full of love with a beautiful soul. She leaves us with incredible memories and will be dearly missed. A service will be held on June 17th at 1 pm at St. Giles Presbyterian Church with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Alzheimer’s Society or to a charity of choice.

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Harold Cedric Moore passed away March 7, 2019 at the age of 92. There will be a celebration of life Saturday, June 15th at 1:00pm,

to be served at

request at 1:30pm. No flowers, no