Canada Day events planned
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Canada Day activities can be enjoyed in a number of ways and places.
The multicultural personality of Canada, the foundation of inclusion and cultureblending, is what leads the celebrations at the most popular of the local events for Canada’s birthday. Canada Day In The Park happens at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park with music and dancing at the Kiwanis Bandshell, informational booths and a broad array of international food vendors around the grassy grounds, plenty of wild free-form joy at the playground and Rotaract Waterspray Park, plus endless activities and interests at Exploration Place and the Little Prince railroad rides.
It finishes with a fireworks display at 11 p.m. – all for families, all for free.
North of the city about 30 minutes, you’ll find a more rustic form of national celebration. Historic Huble Homestead hosts Dominion Day each July 1.
Take a trip to the past and celebrate Canada’s birthday the old-fashioned way at the city’s living museum with pioneer farmhouse, barns, general store, post office blacksmith shop, fish drying camp and much more.
Enjoy heritage demonstrations and music throughout the day, and take part in the Dominion Day festivities by joining in pioneer games and races, eating contests, a special Canadian treasure hunt, and crafts.
Join the parade across the site and afterwards enjoy a free piece of birthday cake, then kick back and relax with a hot meal from the barbecue.
Admission by donation (recommended $10 for this event).
For a gold rush dose of pioneering fun, head down to Barkerville on July 1. It’s actually the first place to ever celebrate Dominion Day, and they did it before B.C. was part of the national confederation.
“Just past midnight on July 1, 1868, the Dominion of Canada’s first anniversary, Barkerville citizens launched their own version of a 21 gun salute,” explained Barker-
In 2019, we celebrate much the same way, with a tug of war, funny face contest, greasy pole climb, egg toss, races and lots more.
— Barkerville curatorial staff
ville curatorial staff.
“Cannons were in short supply, so black powder charges were detonated between stacked anvils, providing a loud and raucous start to Canada’s inaugural birthday party. A full slate of activities followed throughout the day and long into the evening, capped off with a fireworks display.
“In 2019, we celebrate much the same way, with a tug of war, funny face contest, greasy pole climb, egg toss, races and lots more. Scotiabank sponsors a giant cake, and the House Hotel hosts an evening of entertainment, dancing and refreshments.”
An even older institution in the area also has a Canada Day celebration.
Founded in 1806 by Simon Fraser, the national historic site of Fort St. James is on the brow of a view of Stuart Lake and wrapped in the ancient arms of Indigenous cultures that still operate in the modern context today.
“Travel back to 1896 when wealth was measured in fur pelts and salmon, the natural bounty bartered by the Carrier First Nations and European fur traders at Fort St. James,” said Parks Canada staff.
“Tour Canada’s largest collection of wooden buildings faithfully restored to the fur trade era. Spend the night in the historic Murray house warmed by a wood stove and memories of the family who lived here more than a century ago.”
The July 1 celebrations start with an 8 a.m. pancake breakfast then on through a slate of activities like a parade, live entertainment, kids crafts, magic show, hoola hoop demonstration, and more.
Conifex selling Fort St. James mill
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Conifex Timber Inc. will be selling its Fort St. James sawmill and related timber rights to Oregon-based Hampton Lumber, the companies said in a statement jointly issued Tuesday.
The deal, worth $39 million plus the market value of finished lumber and log inventory at closing, remains subject to approval by the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations, and Rural Development.
However, Hampton CEO Steve Zika said the company intends to build a new sawmill in Fort St. James.
It will be operated in partnership with area First Nations and community partners, “similar to a successful joint venture we have with the Burns Lake Native Development Corporation in the Burns Lake area,” he added.
Conifex’s existing Fort St. James mill was shut down on May 13. It is not expected to resume normal operations prior
to the closing of the transaction.
“We have known for some time that lumber industry rationalization is inevitable because too little sawlog supply is available to maintain the existing manufacturing base in the Interior region of B.C.,” Conifex chair and CEO Ken Shields said. “The decision we have taken to sell the mill was extremely difficult; however, we are encouraged by Hampton’s plans for the site.
“We believe this transaction supports the province’s objectives for industry rationalization that is mindful of the impacts on people, communities and First Nations.” Conifex will use the proceeds from the sale to retire debt and to provide additional liquidity.
Hampton Lumber operates nine sawmills in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
“While economic conditions are extremely challenging right now for the lumber industry in British Columbia, we believe the long-term outlook for Canadian lumber is promising,” Zika said.
Third Avenue pot shop rejected once again
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
For a second time, an attempt to convince city council to allow a cannabis store to open across from a downtown social agency that works with vulnerable youth has failed.
Nasser Kamani had been seeking to change councillors’ minds on his proposal to open a store in the old Plateau Clothing shop at 1289 Third Ave.
In answer to a rejection issued in April, Kamani proposed Monday to limit the store’s hours to times when the school
at Intersect Youth and Family Services is closed. But the idea failed to win council’s support, in part because Intersect will still be in use outside of school hours.
Largely over concerns about proper process, council also turned down a suggestion by Kamani to grant him a temporary use permit for six months to find a new location before the licence he has secured from the provincial government expires. If granted, it would have come with the proviso that he not use the licence to operate at the Third Avenue spot. — see COUNCIL, page 3
Parachute party
Students use a parachute for one of the games at Sacred Heart school sports day Tuesday morning in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. They held their sports day in the park because the schools outdoor fields are being renovated.
CNC names new president
Citizen staff
CNC has found a new president.
Dennis Johnson will take over the position from Henry Reiser on Oct. 1, the college said Tuesday.
Johnson brings 29 years of experience in the post-secondary sector to CNC and currently in two vice president roles at Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
“CNC’s Board of Governors looks forward to working with Dr. Dennis Johnson and are confident he possesses the expertise to lead the CNC community in equipping postsecondary learners with the necessary skills that are relevant for the future economy,” said CNC board chair Gil Malfair.
Johnson is a former resident and educator in B.C. He holds a Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Saskatchewan, a master’s degree in education, post-secondary studies from Memorial University and a bachelor’s degree in education, adult education from Brock University.
“CNC has been an important pillar in the community for nearly 50 years,” he said.
“I am tremendously honoured to serve as CNC’s next president and I look forward to working closely with the board, the community and building relationships with the students, faculty, and staff at CNC.”
The board appointed a search committee in September 2018 to conduct a search following the announcement that Reiser planned to retire at the end of his term in 2019.
“Dr. Johnson’s wealth of experience in teaching, commitment to supporting student success, and leading faculty and staff will guide him in his role as president,” Malfair said.
Feds spend $275M to support LNG Canada project
Derrick PENNER Vancouver Sun
Ottawa is putting up $275 million in federal support for LNG Canada’s $40-billion liquefied natural gas development in Kitimat as an investment in “cleaner technology” to get Canadian resources to new markets.
The contribution will include $220 million to help LNG Canada buy more energy-efficient gas turbines to power its natural gas liquefaction plant, and $55 million to replace an aging highway bridge in Kitimat on the road that leads to the town’s industrial area.
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau travelled to Kitimat on Monday for the announcement, where he said the project, the largest private-sector investment in the country’s history, would diversify Canada’s trade, grow the economy and create middle-class jobs.
“It’s a vote of confidence in Canada’s resource industry and is good news for Canadians right across the country,” Morneau said in a written statement.
To B.C. Green party leader Andrew Weaver, however, the move is another burst of corporate welfare to subsidize the fossil fuel industry a week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government declared a climate emergency and reapproved the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
“You wonder why Canadians are cynical about the way this government is dealing with the climate crisis,” Weaver said.
Government, however, is betting on being able to earn credit for helping countries displace more carbon-intensive energy with lower greenhouse-gas-emission LNG.
“LNG Canada’s facility will help bring a cleaner Canadian energy source to replace coal in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies,” said Navdeep Bains, the federal minister of innovation, science and economic development, whose Strategic Innovation Fund will put up the $220 million for the high-efficiency turbines.
LNG Canada CEO Andy Calitz said the payment will enable the company to develop “the lowest carbon content LNG for export in the world today.”
LNG Canada’s facility will help bring a cleaner Canadian energy source to replace coal in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
— Minister Navdeep Bains
To Weaver, however, the spending is still a subsidy to what will become B.C.’s single-largest source for carbon dioxide emissions and one of Canada’s biggest, in addition to other tax breaks and support that the industry has received. Renewable energy proponents have leaned on the LNG sector to electrify its process as much as possible to reduce the industry’s greenhouse-gas impacts.
Last fall, when LNG Canada announced its final investment decision, Clean Energy B.C. called on the province to “seize the opportunity to extensively electrify the existing fossil fuel infrastructure as much as possible.”
In a white paper, the organization, which represents B.C.’s private-power producers, argued that electrifying LNG, from drilling natural gas in the northeast to transporting it by pipeline for processing in Kitimat, could reduce total emissions of conventional LNG production by up to 65 per cent.
On Monday, Clean Energy B.C. executive director Martin Mullany said they understand that LNG Canada’s timelines are too short to electrify the process to compress and freeze natural gas. B.C. Hydro wouldn’t have enough time to plan for, submit to an environmental review, then build an additional power transmission line to deliver the amount of electricity such a plant would need, Mullany said. However, he argued there is still time to make sure the upstream natural gas drilling, processing and pipeline are powered by electricity.
JOHNSON
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Demolition ordered for derelict motel
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
City council has ordered in the wrecking ball for a long-abandoned motel.
If the owner of the Willow Inn at 1656 Victoria St. fails to level the site by July 26, the city will do it for him and add the cost to his property taxes under a remedial action council unanimously approved on Monday night.
Also previously known as the Ranch Motel and the Homeland Inn, council pulled the business licence for the spot in 2014 in answer to concerns raised by the Prince George RCMP about drug dealing and other criminal activity.
The owner was given one year to bring the site back into compliance but has failed to take any steps and the property has remained vacant, bylaw services manager Fred Crittendon told council.
A fire broke out in October 2018 and caused significant damage to the 20-unit motel. A notice was subsequently issued to have the site cleaned up but there has been no action.
“Interesting enough, today the property owner did email me saying that he wanted more time to deal with it,” Crittendon said and added the owner has until July 10 to submit a request to have council review its decision.
The remediation action approved by council includes orders to demolish the damaged structure, remove all debris and level the site.
Although a process usually driven by complaints from the public, Crittendon said staff took the initiative.
“We just felt it had been vacant long enough, it is an eyesore and in the middle of downtown,” he said. Crittendon said there have been
instances where the city has ended up owning a property as a result of the owner not only taking on the work but failing to pay back the subsequent bill issued by the city.
Council also issued a cleanup order for an unsightly property at 1451 North Blackburn Road.
Photos show a clutter of vehicles and debris covering the site.
But beyond working towards another order, council was told there is little that can be done to deal with a repeat offender.
“In this situation, the property owner has been in fairly constant contact with our staff,” Crittendon said.
Crittendon said the owner did bring the site back into compliance after a similar order was issued in 2015.
Citizen staff
A quartet of young people have been recognized as youths of the year for their contributions to the community.
Qais Khan, Ashlee Hick, Sylvia Masich and Juri Sudo-Rustad were presented with the award during the “celebration of success” portion of Monday night’s city council meeting.
Khan was admitted into the College Heights leadership class a year early due to his outstanding record of volunteering at school functions.
Soon after, he joined the Rotary Interact Program and made significant contributions to Smiles, a pediatric Pen Pal program, and other Rotary initiatives. His commitment was recognized by
— from page 1
The outcome capped a marathon public hearing that was essentially a replay of the April public hearing.
Significant opposition to the proposed store was expressed by members of the public, largely over the impression it
his peers who elected him Interact Club president in his first year. Khan has also demonstrated academic excellence and is on the principal’s list. Hick has an impressive list of volunteer achievements both in and out of school and is the valedictorian of her graduating class at College Heights Secondary.
She was also recently selected to speak at We Day Vancouver, a celebration of youth empowerment attended by 18,000 people from across the province.
Her speech was about the Independent Anti-bullying and Positive Mental Health (ARK) Program, which she co-founded at CHSS.
Masich has been a dedicated athlete, volunteer and coach for the Prince George Track and Field Club for the past
would leave on the minds of youths attending Intersect. Council did vote in favour Monday of granting a temporary use permit to open a privately-run cannabis store in a spot next to Princess Auto at 3320 Massey Drive although there was some concern
Vancouver Aquarium to stay in Stanley Park
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Aquarium will remain in the city’s Stanley Park for another 35 years under a new agreement it has reached with the parks board.
Lasse Gustavsson, CEO of aquarium operator Ocean Wise, said the agreement provides the foundation for its five-year strategic plan with a focus on conservation and public education. The aquarium has been in the park since 1956. It has been locked in a legal battle over the board’s ban on whales and dolphins at the facility, but Ocean Wise said in a
eight years.
Masich is also particularly committed to the Special Olympics and worked to have Special Olympics athletes included in the regular track and field training program.
Her efforts resulted in three Special Olympic athletes qualifying for the high school track provincial championships.
Sudo-Rustad was recently the youngest person ever elected to the board of the Prince George Community Arts Council and is its first-ever youth advocate. She is an active advocate for youth and the arts in the community, and has won numerous awards for her own art.
She is currently studying on exchange in Japan.
about its proximity to a provincially-run store planned for Pine Centre Mall. Council does have a policy of limiting distances between stores to 1.6 kilometres but it is considered a “soft rule” and it was noted that the stores will be separated by a four-lane arterial road.
statement that it has dropped the legal action. It said the lease agreement confirms a commitment it made last year to no longer display cetaceans.
The organization said it will also continue to invest in research programs, which have contributed to global knowledge of marine wildlife.
“Ocean Wise aspires to become a global ocean conservation organization and wants to inspire people in every corner of the planet to participate in creating healthy oceans, but for most people the ocean is ‘out of sight, out of mind,’” Gustavsson said.
“However, the conversations are very similar to the conversations we had in 2015 and there’s always an excuse and at some point we have to push the envelope and make sure the property gets cleaned up.” Like the motel’s owner, the owner also has until July 10 to ask for a review and until July 26 to clean up the site.
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
A former mixed martial artist’s partner in drugrelated crime has been sentenced.
Priscilla Martha Marie Paquette will spend 112 days in jail for two counts of possessing for the purpose of trafficking from a pair of 2014 RCMP pullovers.
On Nov. 21, she and Ryan Timothy Chiappe were found in possession of what police said was 10 grams of heroin, with an estimated street value of more than $4,000, when stopped in an alleyway off Carney Street.
Four days later, they were found in possession of more than two ounces of methamphetamine and 3.5 grams of cocaine plus drug trafficking paraphernalia and a large sum of cash, according to RCMP, when they were stopped on Ogilvie Street.
In January 2017, Chiappe was sentenced to 30 days in jail for possession for the purpose of trafficking and to five days for possession of a controlled substance as a result of two pullovers.
Once known as Ryan “Ruthless” Chiappe, he carried a 10-8 record as a welterweight mixed martial arts fighter – some of his fights were held in Prince George – but had not had a bout since August 2013, according to websites devoted to the sport.
Born in Prince George but living in the Lower Mainland, he was next in the news when police issued a statement in December 2014 saying he was arrested in relation to the alleged theft of a puppy and possession of two stolen motorbikes. From that incident, he was sentenced in August 2015 to two years probation.
Paquette was also sentenced to 22 days in jail for three counts of trafficking in a controlled substance from three arrests in September 2014. In February 2017, Felisha Adele Marie Paquette was sentenced to three years probation on the counts. Priscilla Paquette had been in custody for 105 days prior to sentencing. She was also issued a 10year firearms prohibition and ordered to provide a DNA sample.
Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips:
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
On Monday city council issued a demolition order for the derelict motel at 1656 Victoria St.
CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE HANDOUT PHOTO
The City of Prince George honoured the 2019 Youths of the Year – Ashlee Hick, Qais Khan and Sylvia Masich, as well as Juri Sudo-Rustad, not pictured – on Monday.
Parking, safety upgrades made at Joffre Lakes
The Canadian Press
PEMBERTON — Better parking and access is expected soon at one of British Columbia’s busiest provincial parks, but visitors unable to find a legal parking stall are being warned to expect ticketing and towing.
The Ministry of Environment says a new action plan will address safety concerns at Joffre Lakes Provincial Park just east of Pemberton. Changes included in the action plan include increasing the size of the parking lot to
accommodate 450 vehicles, and a $10-dollar round-trip shuttle service from Duffey Lake Park to the Joffre Lakes trailhead on summer weekends and long weekends.
Any vehicles parked on the shoulders of Highway 99 will be ticketed and towed.
Two First Nations stewards will also work with park rangers as part of a pilot project with BC Parks to offer information about the region’s natural and cultural values and also to help manage and maintain the Joffre Lakes site.
Mr. PG on display
ABOVE: The Exploration Place curator Alyssa Tobin, right, and assistant curator Chad Hellenius, show off some of the items that will be part of the new Mr. PG exhibit that will be opening on Friday.
LEFT: The Exploration Place curator Alyssa Tobin places some items in a case holding exhibits from the museum’s Mr. PG display.
BELOW: A collection of Mr. PG dolls is seen at The Exploration Place.
Feds to use $60M of carbon tax revenue for green projects to school
Christian PAAS-LANG
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — A portion of the proceeds of the federal carbon tax will go to fund green projects at schools in four provinces, but the fate of the program depends on the co-operation of those provinces’ conservative premiers.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced Tuesday
$60 million of the revenue from the federal price on carbon will be spent on elementary and secondary schools in New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Those four provinces are subject to the national carbon price because they do not have their own carbon-pricing systems that meet federal standards.
The Liberals previously promised 90 per cent of the revenue from the carbon tax is going back to individuals through rebates on their income taxes.
The money announced Tuesday
is part of the remaining 10 per cent, which is to go to schools, hospitals, small businesses and other institutions – which can’t pass on their own carbon-tax expenses through higher prices – to help develop green projects.
“This will improve the learning environment for students, it does right by the planet, and it also helps schools save money that they can reinvest in students,” said McKenna, outside a school in her Ottawa Centre riding.
McKenna said replacing old windows and installing solar panels are possible projects for the roughly 6,000 schools that are eligible for a cut of the $60 million, $41 million of which will go to Ontario. Schools in Saskatchewan are set to receive $12 million, Manitoba schools $5 million, and New Brunswick schools $2 million.
But whether the money will be spent as promised depends on the goodwill of conservative premiers in the four provinces affected.
Education spending is part of provincial jurisdiction.
McKenna said she had sent a letter to those provincial governments informing them of the decision, and emphasized that the federal government doesn’t expect matching funds from the provinces.
Federal infrastructure programs usually require provinces to put up a share of projects’ costs.
“What we need is an agreement that the provinces will work with the school boards so that we can flow this money,” McKenna said.
“We’re hopeful that provinces will recognize this is a good thing.”
The environment minister noted the program resembled one cut by the Progressive Conservative government in Ontario when Premier Doug Ford scrapped its cap-andtrade policy.
Other conservative governments have challenged the constitutionality of the federal carbon price, and Saskatchewan’s case is set to be heard at the Supreme Court late this year. Last week, the government of Alberta also launched a court challenge.
CITIZEN PHOTOS BY JAMES DOYLE
Mother of boy who died of meningitis breaks down testifying at trial
and David Stephan is acting as his own lawyer.
LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — The mother of a toddler who died of bacterial meningitis broke down several times while she testified at her trial Tuesday that she is still haunted by her boy’s death.
Collet Stephan told court that she still counts Ezekiel, who was 19 months old when he died, among her current living children.
“He’s my son,” she said tearfully.
“My role as a stay-at-home mom is to care for my children. It’s my purpose. It’s why I was put on Earth.”
Collet Stephan and her husband, David, are charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life for Ezekiel, who died in March 2012.
The Crown argues the Stephans should have sought medical treatment for the boy sooner. The couple opted instead to treat him with alternative medicines before he stopped breathing.
A jury convicted the couple on the charge in 2016, but the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a second trial last year. It is being heard by a judge without a jury,
Collet Stephan testified that she has vivid memories of some aspects of Ezekiel’s death but has blocked out others.
“It was an extremely traumatic time which no parent should have to go through,” she said.
Stephan was holding her son and listening to his irregular breathing when he first stopped.
“I had patted him on the back and he started breathing again. I carried him to the bedroom and when I laid him on the bed he stopped breathing again.”
She said she pinched his nose and blew into his mouth and he coughed up mucus and fluid and seemed to improve.
They called 911 while driving him to hospital.
The couple have testified that they originally thought Ezekiel had croup and began treating him with natural remedies. Despite a fever and a lack of energy, they saw no reason to take him to the hospital.
“I didn’t see any health concerns warranting him to see the doctor,” she said.
David Stephan testified they
eventually concluded Ezekiel may have contracted viral meningitis. It is less serious and usually clears up on its own, but the bacterial form can be fatal if not treated quickly with antibiotics.
“I recall distinctly that bacterial meningitis wasn’t on the radar,”
David Stephan told Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen during her cross-examination. “If we thought he had a fatal infection, we would have been to the doctor right away.”
He testified that his wife did call a friend at one point who was a nurse and a midwife. The friend mentioned the possibility Ezekiel might have meningitis but she wasn’t sure.
David Stephan told court that he was “100 per cent convinced” that Ezekiel had recovered, until he noticed the child had an odd breathing pattern.
He said the couple continued to treat him with natural remedies, even after he was declared brain dead at the children’s hospital in Calgary.
“We were given no hope whatsoever. We weren’t willing to let go,” he said.
“We would cling onto anything.”
World’s Indigenous speakers gather in Victoria
Brenna OWEN
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — Sto:lo Nation educator Ethel Gardner is confident that the fate of the Coast Salish language Halq’emeylem is looking up, despite its classification as critically endangered by UNESCO.
“The language is alive. It’s definitely reversing the trend towards extinction,” she said. Gardner, who also goes by her First Nation’s name Stelomethet, served as an elder-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, where she wrote her dissertation on the relationship between Halq’emeylem, pronouced halkah-may-lem, and Sto:lo communities of B.C.’s Fraser Valley.
Decades of arduous work to preserve Halq’emeylem is paying off as more people begin to learn the language, she said. Gardner just recently completed the four levels of Halq’emeylem offered at the University of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack.
“I’ve been working hard all my life to understand what happened to the language and to help those who are dedicated to revitalizing it. I hadn’t had time to learn myself,” she said.
There is only one fluent Halq’emeylem speaker, elder Siyamiyateliyot or Elizabeth Phillips, who is with Gardner this week in Victoria for Let the Languages Live, a major international conference focused on advancing the revitalization of global Indigenous languages. Organizers estimate about 1,000 delegates from 20 countries will be at the conference, including those with knowledge of almost all of the Indigenous languages in B.C. Gardner and Phillips are among a small group of Sto:lo language leaders who plan to share their experiences on organizing work-
shops that provided immersion training for Halq’emeylem teachers this past winter.
“Most of the teachers are usually out in the field, in the schools or wherever they’re teaching,” said Gardner. “They’re often the lone expert where they are, without having much opportunity to connect with others. They were elated to come together and share.”
The teachers themselves are still learning, striving for fluency after Canada’s residential school system attempted to silence generations of Indigenous language speakers.
The series of eight workshops gave 15 emerging and experienced Halq’emeylem teachers the opportunity to try different teaching techniques and resources, including podcasting, poetry, multimedia tools, and using gestures to help language learners avoid reverting to their first language.
After the workshops, the language teachers paired up for what Gardner called “mini practicums,” which brought community members together, from small children to elders, so the teachers could practice their new immersion techniques.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Wildfire evacuation alerts issued on Sunshine Coast
SECHELT (CP) — An evacuation alert has been posted for seven properties in Pender Harbour on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast because a wildfire is burning on the hillside above.
The Sunshine Coast Regional District says residents along Cecil Hill Road may be asked to leave with 10 minutes notice and travel to reception centres.
Wildfire information officer Marg Drysdale says the fire is burning in a very dense forested area, but skimmer planes had been able to knock back some of the fire on Tuesday.
The district says residents should prepare by gathering an emergency supply kit with medications, toiletries, clothing and personal and family documents.
Drysdale says the fire started on Monday and is about five hectares in size.
She says the Pender Harbour Fire Department has also set up structure protection on the homes that are threatened.
The district says if residents are required to leave, detailed evacuation instructions will be provided by local emergency personnel.
The drought level for the area in the South Coast Basin has been rated as very dry.
Search on in Burnaby for aggressive bear
BURNABY (CP) — RCMP and conservation officers in Burnaby are searching for what is described as an aggressive black bear. They say the bruin challenged a group of picnickers Monday on Burnaby Mountain and then lunged at a woman trying to shoo the bear away from several backpacks.
The woman ended up with a scratch on her calf and conservation officers say the encounter shows the bear has lost its fear of humans. It will likely be destroyed if it is
captured.
The search is focused on several popular hiking trails around Burnaby Mountain, including the Trans Canada Trail.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service says 15 bears have been destroyed in Metro Vancouver this year after becoming habituated to human food, meaning they could not be safely captured and relocated.
UBC, refrigeration firm fined for ammonia discharge
VANCOUVER (CP) — Environment and Climate Change Canada says the University of British Columbia and a refrigeration company have been handed significant fines for releasing chemicals into a fishbearing stream that joins the Fraser River.
A statement issued by the federal department says the university was fined $1.2 million after being found guilty of three offences linked to a Sept. 12, 2014, flow of ammonia-laden water into a creek near the university’s arena complex.
The statement says the university is appealing the provincial court conviction and the fine imposed at sentencing last Friday. Toronto-based CIMCO Refrigeration was also fined $800,000 after pleading guilty to allowing the ammonia-tainted water to seep into Booming Ground Creek at U.B.C.’s Point Grey campus.
Environment and Climate Change Canada says the ammonia and water mix was left over after repairs to the arena’s refrigeration system.
The statement says about 70 dead fish were found after the discharge, while ammonia levels in the storm drain and ditch leading to the creek would be considered harmful to fish.
The names of both the university and CIMCO have been added to the federal Environmental Offender’s Registry and the university is ordered to conduct five years of electronic monitoring of storm-water quality at the outfall where the release occurred. Fines will be directed to the Government of Canada’s Environmental Damages Fund.
“At one of the sessions the participants didn’t want to stop. They wanted to continue on. My hope is that there will be some funding available for us to set up more community pilots so people don’t have to go to a public school or a university institution to learn Halq’emeylem,” said Gardner.
“Not everybody is interested in getting credits or working towards a degree or becoming a teacher, they just want to learn Halq’emeylem,” she added.
The teacher training workshops were made possible by a nearly $95,000 grant from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, the B.C. Crown Corp. responsible for funding Indigenous language programming and one of the co-hosts of this week’s conference.
Friday marked Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, and the federal government passed the first-ever national First Nations, Inuit and Metis languages Act. It affirms Ottawa’s commitment to providing long-term funding for Indigenous language revitalization, though details about the amounts and timelines for new funding have yet to be released.
Bill GRAVELAND
The Canadian Press
CP FILE PHOTO
David and Collet Stephan arrive at court on March 10, 2016 in Lethbridge, Alta.
CP PHOTO
Indigenous language educator Dr. Ethel Gardner is photographed during the Indigenous Language Conference in Victoria.
The hypocrisy of approving a pipeline
On June 18, the government of Canada declared a national climate emergency. The next day, the same government approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), which will be able to move almost 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to the Port of Burnaby in British Columbia.
If this seems like a contradiction, you are not alone.
To date, Canada is the largest single jurisdiction to have declared a national climate emergency, following nations like Scotland, regions like Catalonia in Spain and cities like Vancouver and San Francisco.
The term climate emergency intentionally evokes a state of emergency — and implies imminent action on the part of the government. Declaring a state of emergency gives governments the powers needed to respond to the emergency, from closing roads or bridges in the case of flooding to calling out the army to manage security threats.
By comparison, the declaration of a climate emergency is far less powerful. While governments may commit to actions when declaring a climate emergency, these actions usually amount to creating plans and engaging with their citizens. Yet this is not what concerned citizens and non-governmental organizations expect in response.
They demand radical action: the dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, commitments to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the end of subsidies to fossil fuel producers and support for the rapid expansion of renewable energy. The TMX approval suggests that radical action is off the table — at least for now.
Governments can take a more pragmatic approach when facing a climate emergency. They can apply a “climate lens” approach to
CP FILE PHOTO
An oil tanker is seen at Kinder Morgan’s Trans-Mountain marine terminal, in Burnaby in 2018.
vet future policy decisions.
A climate lens forces government to address the environmental impacts of their decisions. For example, Infrastructure Canada now uses a climate lens to assess both greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change resilience associated with any new project. Using a climate lens approach, every investment should get you closer to a cleaner future. Does this logic hold up with the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion?
In his announcement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged every dollar in federal revenue derived from the Trans Mountain expansion project to investments in clean energy and green technology. He was, essentially, making more than $500 million a year in taxes available for these types of projects as the pipeline becomes operational, which is expected in 2022.
This level of investment may help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase Canada’s resilience to climate change, allowing the government to safely claim some progress. It remains to be seen, however, if Canadians will accept this offer as a good deal. There are many reasons that Canadians may balk. It is not a particularly large
amount of money; Canadian subsidies to the fossil fuel sector total $3.3 billion annually, almost seven times greater than the government pledge.
It is also not necessarily a competitive offer: the additional carbon emissions from the production of oil to fill the new pipeline are estimated to be between 14-17 million tonnes per year. This means the government is pricing its taxes at the equivalent of about $29 per tonne of carbon, considerably less than the $50 per tonne target price.
Canadians are also highly aware that greening the world’s economy will mean dramatically reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. This doesn’t mean that oil must be completely phased out, particularly in the short term, but carbon constraints, including taxes and regulations will change the way oil is produced and used.
Canadian oil will be subject to significant scrutiny by prospective buyers around the world, who have to meet increasingly stringent carbon rules. The risk of stranded assets in the Canadian oil and gas sector is real and significant: if the country is going to build a pipeline, it should also take steps to ensure that the product that flows through it is what
YOUR LETTERS
A divine creator
Re: Questioning a creator by James Loughery, June 19 Citizen. When we wonder about the origins of the universe, we have to come to the conclusion that since you can’t make something out of nothing, some force that is totally other and outside of creation must have been the original cause of our universe.
Looking at the magnificent handiwork of this original cause gives us some idea of the magnificence, intelligence, creativity, generosity, orderliness and great love of this force. This is indeed a divine creator. As the works of an artist contain “trademarks” of the artist, so we, as creatures of a creator contain attributes of our creator.
Our creator, in great love gave us free will, a great desire to love and be loved, as well as intelligence and the desire to know truth, a curiosity about the fulfillment of our unique purpose in life
and a longing for happiness. We love beauty and order. Each one of us has an inner instinct or realization of right and wrong.
Thankfully, when we do something we know is wrong, we feel guilt and anxiety and sadness and a wish to put things into order again. After admitting the wrong we have done and trying to resolve the situation, there can be a return to a calmer and even joyful state. However, if we fail to admit our guilt and to do something about it, we can fall deeper into feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety and depression.
Indeed, because we have free will, we can be “badly flawed” as observed by Mr. Loughery. Intuitively we know when we are “out of order” and have caused disorder around us. There must be, and is, a natural law (see Plato 428-348 BCE, Aristotle 384-322 BCE) based on a common good that will guide us in how we must behave if we are to function as a
viable society. When we realize that there is a purposeful order in the universe and that we are the irreplaceable creations of a loving creator, our focus is diverted from our own petty egoism to the part we must play in the actualization of the intentions of our benevolent creator. How could such beauty and truth and magnificence exist without a loving creator?
Diane Fuller Prince George
Need ‘against’ pipeline opinion
I hope since The Citizen has published back-to-back pro TransMountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) Project opinion pieces, that it will diligently seek out and have a serious and expert counter-voice no less prominently on its opinion pages.
I do understand where Herb Conat is coming from – he is from
potential customers will demand. There is a major disconnect between declaring a climate change emergency and approving a major oil pipeline. The government could address this in one of two ways. It could use carbon taxes (not corporate taxes) to support a low-carbon economy. The carbon tax raised more than $2.6 billion in 2018-19, and this will likely grow to more than $5 billion as carbon prices hit $50 per tonne in 2022. If the carbon price attached to every barrel of oil was invested in GHG emission reduction and climate mitigation, this would make a major difference – on par with current government subsidies for the fossil sector.
Another approach would be to ensure that every barrel of oil that goes into the new pipeline meets stringent regulations on greenhouse gas emissions intensity –the amount of carbon dioxide equivalents released in the production of each barrel. Canada introduced the Clean Fuel Standard in 2016 to incentivize the domestic use of low-carbon fuels. A similar policy could regulate the emissions associated with fossil energy production, forcing industry to adapt, yet safeguarding an important economic sector from global change.
Many Canadians are struggling with the federal government’s actions over recent days. It may be that the pro-environment and pro-industry sides are too divided to find common ground.
We need policies that acknowledge the urgency of the climate emergency and work to address the critical issues that have led to this emergency – a solution that works for all.
— Warren Mabee is the director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
YOUR LETTERS
Don’t end a good thing
For quite some time now people have become familiar with a nice gentleman who brings his tiny, white, fluffy Chihuahua to the hospital to visit with patients of every degree. The smiles this tiny sweet dog brings to these patients is heartwarming. She is a teeny little dog full of love and affection.
The gentleman and his dog visited my husband in the hospital shortly before he passed away.
The dog sat on his chest and laid a few kisses on him; of course, my husband couldn’t help but smile and love her back.
While shopping last week, I met the kind gentleman and his wee partner.
After I delivered a big hug to the furry friend, the gentleman told me the hospital was trying to stop him from bringing her to the
a union whose membership will no doubt benefit from Trudeau’s largesse in investing in TMX, at least in the short term. And neither he nor those members will be alive and kicking when the “bill” comes due and the most dire future consequences of a polluted and overheated world environment catch up with those who are but infants or unborn today.
Journalist Kirk Lapointe presumably approaches the question from a more objective stance –notwithstanding his affiliation and one time candidacy on behalf of the conservative Vancouver-based Non-Partisan Association, which got its jollies opposing pretty well any progressive idea in that city. Alas, his common sense is thrown into doubt right off, in the assertion that TMX is “the only way forward.”
Approaching any complex and significant public decision from such a blinkered mind set is always a strong indicator of neither understanding nor presenting a
The smiles this tiny sweet dog brings to these patients is heartwarming. She is a teeny little dog full of love and affection. The gentleman and his dog visited my husband in the hospital...
hospital to visit sick patients. How heartbreaking that news was!
I hope the owner puts up a fight and doesn’t back down. Just their presence in the room when my husband was sick was so comforting and meant so much to my family. He and his teeny tiny friend have my support.
Shirley Ballum Prince George
balanced view. Taking only one of his reasons for this one-sidedness – that it’s a good thing to be “extracting Asian revenue” so as not to be “subservient” to U.S. markets – is not such a slam dunk now as it might have been before the thug People’s Republic of China government started locking Canadians up and imposing utterly unjustified trade restrictions in the wake of the Meng Wanzhou detention. In pushing aside, the very real perils that TMX poses for our magnificent and potentially eternal river and marine environments for supposedly easy money from Asia, we ought to be careful what we are wishing for.
Dear editor, be assured this fight is not over yet, not by a long shot, and, therefore you need to bring to your opinion pages guest experts (and I am not one) who can fully and critically dissect the pro-TMX hype that has already been afforded op-ed prominence. It’s called journalistic balance. Norman Dale, Prince George
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RCMP drones take to sky
Jim BRONSKILL
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The RCMP has assembled a fleet of more than 200 flying drones – eyes in the sky that officers use for everything from international border investigations to protecting VIP visitors, newly disclosed records show.
The compact airborne devices are equipped with tools including video cameras and thermal-image detectors, and the Mounties are looking into more advanced applications that can help generate three-dimensional pictures.
An RCMP privacy assessment of the budding technology says the force is committed to protecting any personal information the drones collect and that officers strive to comply with federal laws. But one privacy expert notes the assessment, recently released under the Access to Information Act, was drafted in 2017 – seven years after the RCMP’s first drone was used in Saskatchewan to help reconstruct traffic collisions.
The RCMP should not have waited the better part of a decade before turning its mind to the privacy effects of “what is obviously a surveillance technology,” said Micheal Vonn of the British Columbia
Civil Liberties Association.
The assessment provides few details about the technical capabilities of the cameras attached to the drones and how the Mounties actually use the images they capture, she added.
There are legitimate policing uses for drones but also potentially invasive ones, such as taking photos of faces or licence plates at public events so they can be electronically run against images in databases, she said.
“Just because it flies doesn’t mean we should worry. Just because it has a camera doesn’t mean we should worry,” Vonn said.
“The question is, what can the camera do?”
The RCMP says it has procured drones – or Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, as the force calls them – from half a dozen manufacturers for investigating crime scenes, search and rescue, monitoring critical incidents, conducting surveillance and even researching rogue drones that try to interfere with police ones.
A court-approved warrant is obtained before using a drone for surveillance purposes, except when emergency circumstances make it impractical, the privacy
assessment says.
While advance notice of drone operation might be provided to the public, people “may or may not be aware” that the device is recording, depending on tactical considerations and safety concerns, the document adds.
Each drone has a memory card that captures images. Once the miniature copter is back on the ground, the card is removed so the images can be transferred to an officer’s workstation. If the drone is being used on a particular case, information deemed to be useful evidence is passed to the lead investigator.
Other information is set aside and kept for a predetermined period before being destroyed.
The drone program is intended to “add value to evidence gathered during an investigation” and should not be relied on as the sole source of evidence, the RCMP cautions.
The assurances provide some comfort, but increasingly police forces are not just investigating crimes but engaging in intelligence gathering, Vonn said.
“There is a lack of clarity about what that looks like in relation to the collection of data and what happens to it.”
Saint-Jacques doing well after space flight
Morgan LOWRIE
The Canadian Press MONTREAL — Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques is doing well as he continues his long journey home after a sixmonth stint aboard the International Space Station, the Canadian Space Agency said Tuesday.
The 49-year-old Quebec native boarded a NASA plane after landing in Kazakhstan late Monday and was expected to arrive in Houston Tuesday after a brief stopover in Scotland.
The agency said Saint-Jacques is in good health despite suffering the effects of a 400-kilometre drop to Earth.
“Despite experiencing typical post-flight symptoms like nausea, he is well,” agency spokeswoman Marie-Andre Malouin wrote in an email.
The married father of three was able to speak with his wife and parents after landing, Malouin added.
Former astronaut Robert Thirsk, who co-hosted a viewing party at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Longueuil, Que., Monday night, said descending from space in the capsule is a shock to the body comparable to a car crash.
“In descending, the force of gravity is strong. It’s like having four people sitting on your chest,” he told the audience, which included members of Saint-Jacques’ family. “It’s hard to breathe, but you have to concentrate to make sure you breathe well and don’t get hurt.”
He added that when the parachute opens before landing, “there is a big movement like a pendulum, left to right, and the landing is a crash like a car accident.”
Thirsk, who spent 188 days on the space station in 2009, said despite the jarring impact, injuries are rare because the seats in the capsule are designed to keep the astronauts protected.
Saint-Jacques, along with NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, returned to Earth
aboard a Soyuz capsule. He gave a thumbs-up as he was carried from the capsule following what NASA described as a “picture perfect” landing at 10:47 p.m. ET.
During a mission that began Dec. 3, Saint-Jacques took part in a six-and-a-half hour spacewalk and set a record for the longest single space flight by a Canadian at 204 days. He also became the first Canadian astronaut to use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to perform a so-called “cosmic catch” to snag a SpaceX cargo capsule.
The engineer, astrophysicist and family doctor also oversaw science experiments and had numerous discussions with children across the country during his mission.
His next few weeks will be spent recovering from the physical challenges of the flight and readapting to life on Earth after months in zero gravity.
Saint-Jacques is expected to spend weeks or months recovering from the after-effects of the flight, which could include blood circulation problems, muscle pains and an elongated spine that will eventually return to normal.
Raffi Kuyumjian, a doctor with the Canadian Space Agency, has said spending six months in space is “a little like having spent six months in bed without moving.”
— With files from Ugo Giguere
Doc who used own sperm to artificially inseminate patients loses license
Paola LORIGGIO The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Ontario’s medical regulator has revoked the licence of an Ottawa fertility doctor who used his own sperm as well as that of the wrong donors to artificially inseminate several women over three decades.
The discipline committee for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario had ruled earlier today that Dr. Bernard Norman Barwin committed professional misconduct and failed to maintain the standards of the profession.
Lawyers for the college had then asked the committee to revoke Barwin’s licence, saying it was the only appropriate penalty for such a shocking abuse of trust.
The committee revoked Barwin’s licence this afternoon, which means other medical regulators would be alerted should he apply to practise medicine elsewhere.
An uncontested statement of facts read before the committee laid out the cases of more than a dozen patients who say they suffered irreparable harm as a result of Barwin’s actions.
Barwin, 80, who did not attend the hearing, pleaded no contest to the allegations through his lawyer.
A lawyer for the regulator had told the
discipline committee Barwin’s actions traumatized entire families and left them forever altered.
“There is no precedent for the case you have before you at this college,” Carolyn Silver said.
“Dr. Barwin’s patients and their families were the unsuspecting victims of his incomprehensible deception,” which saw him contradict their specific instructions without their knowledge or consent, she said.
Some patients discovered their children were half-siblings, even though they had requested the same donor be used for both, the statement of facts in the case said.
Several men learned the children they had raised were not biologically theirs.
Rebecca Dixon, who waived a publication ban protecting her identity, said she discovered three years ago that Barwin –and not the man who raised her – was her biological father.
“In that moment, my life changed forever,” she told the committee, adding she felt her entire identity was thrown into question.
The news made her feel ashamed and “contaminated,” and strained her family, she said.
Even now, Dixon said she continues to
scan the crowds in Ottawa, looking for people who look like her and who may be her half-siblings.
A woman who can only be identified as Patient M said she learned recently that her teenage daughter was conceived using an unknown donor’s sperm rather than her husband’s. She has not yet broken the news to her daughter, worried the shock would be debilitating at such a “fragile” age, she said.
Patient M said Barwin went out of his way during the procedure to show her the vial of sperm with her husband’s name on it, knowing it contained material from another man.
“I still felt so violated, I felt dirty, almost as if I’d been raped,” she told the committee.
According to the statement of facts, an expert retained by the college to review Barwin’s case found it was unlikely the doctor’s use of his own sperm was accidental.
Barwin’s explanation that contamination must have occurred when he used his own sperm to calibrate a sperm counter is neither plausible nor believable, the expert said in the statement.
“This is a tragic situation in which a sea of avoidable harm was done,” the expert
told the committee.
Barwin had previously been disciplined for artificially inseminating several women with the wrong sperm, admitting to professional misconduct when he appeared before committee in 2013. At the time, Barwin said errors in his practice had left three patients with children whose biological fathers were not the ones they intended.
The committee then suspended him from practising medicine for two months, but Barwin gave up his licence the following year. There was no evidence in that case that Barwin was the biological father of any of his patients’ children, said Silver, the college’s lawyer.
Barwin intentionally concealed what he was doing, she said.
Tuesday’s hearing dealt with fresh allegations against Barwin of incompetence, failing to maintain the standard of practice of the profession and of engaging in dishonourable or unprofessional conduct. He is also facing a proposed class-action lawsuit launched by several of his patients.
The lawsuit alleges more than 50 children were conceived after their mothers were inseminated with the wrong sperm, including 11 with Barwin’s.
CP FILE PHOTO
RCMP Cpl. Doug Green displays a drone outside Depot Division in Regina on April 19, 2018.
OTTAWA
The markets today
TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index posted a triple-digit decline and U.S. markets fell after the Federal Reserve signalled an interest rate cut next month could be smaller than forecast. Markets have risen on anticipation of a potential 50 basis point rate cut but declined Tuesday after central bank officials suggested that cuts may not be certain or as large, says Anish Chopra, managing director with Portfolio Management Corp.
“Market expectations may be a touch ahead on rate cuts,” he said in an interview.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday the economic outlook has become cloudier since early May, with rising uncertainties over trade and global growth causing the central bank to reassess its next move on interest rates. While he didn’t commit to its first rate cut since 2008, James Bullard, head of the Fed’s St. Louis regional bank, said that he believed a quarter-point cut in July would be sufficient as an insurance move against a possible severe economic slowdown.
“They still seem to be saying the U.S. economy is strong, employment is strong, lots of things are going well but if they do cut rates it wouldn’t be as much as the market had anticipated last week,” said Chopra.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 152.19 points to 16,371.28. All 11 major sectors were lower, led by a 3.55 per cent drop by technology as Shopify Inc. lost nine per cent and Blackberry Ltd. was off 2.4 per cent on heavier trading. Materials was dropped 1.3 per cent despite gold prices rising again, to reach its highest level in about six years. The August gold contract was up 50 cents at US$1,418.70 an ounce and the July copper contract was up three cents at US$2.74 a pound. Sherritt International and Yamana Gold Inc. were off 5.3 and 3.3 per cent respectively. The key energy sector lost 0.64 per cent, followed by a 0.55 per cent drop by the heavyweight financial sector.
The August crude contract was down seven cents at US$57.83 per barrel and the August natural gas contract was up 0.2 cents at US$2.29 per mmBTU. Oil prices fell on concerns that an unresolved trade dispute between the U.S. and China will hurt global economic growth.
Trudeau seeks Trump backing in China dispute
Kristy KIRKUP The Canadian Press OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will lean on the power and influence of the mercurial Donald Trump to raise the issue of two detained Canadians during a bilateral meeting with the Chinese president at a G20 summit in Japan this week – something the U.S. president publicly committed to doing at “Justin’s request.”
The summit comes at a critical moment for Trudeau, just months ahead of the October election and as Canada continues to push for the release of the Canadians in China – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Canada is in multiple trade-related disputes with China as well. Tuesday, China suspended imports of Canadian meat on the grounds that its authorities don’t trust Canadian assurances about the quality of its exports (see story, below). That broadened restrictions on Canadian pork. China has also all but banned Canadian canola seeds on the grounds that previous shipments have contained pests. Exporters of peas and soybeans have also had problems.
Canadian ministers and officials have had little luck getting to speak to their opposite numbers in China.
Earlier this month in Normandy, France, Trudeau said he was looking forward to attending the G20 and that the “opportunity to engage with the Chinese president directly is certainly something that we are looking at.”
So far, however, no such meeting has been confirmed by the Prime Minister’s Office. Trudeau’s staff will only say they expect to have information soon on which leaders Trudeau will meet in Osaka, where key themes include the global economy, trade and investment and innovation.
Trump pledged his support during a meeting with Trudeau last Thursday in the Oval Office,
where the two leaders sat together in bright yellow armchairs and the president vowed to bring up the issue in a sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Are you trying to get a meeting?” Trump asked of Trudeau in response to a reporter’s question, to which the prime minister replied: “We’ve got a lot of things to discuss. ”
“Anything I can do to help Canada, I will be doing,” Trump said.
Trudeau needs that assistance.
The detentions of Kovrig and Spavor are largely viewed as retaliation for the December arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, where she awaits extradition to the U.S. to face allegations of fraud in violating Iran sanctions.
David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said it should not come as a surprise that China is not interested in a meeting between its president and the prime minister.
Trump will be Canada’s best shot to address the issue of the detentions, said Mulroney.
“That would be the strongest card that could be played in our interests,” he said.
“It would be an American card played to say... ‘If you want a normal relationship with us, you’ll leave our allies alone.”’
Mulroney said he would also use the G20 to talk to other leaders who face similar challenges with China and are susceptible to its bullying.
“If we can build this sense of shared purpose in pushing back against China, in not allowing ourselves to be isolated like this, that’s a big step forward,” he said.
“It is in America’s interest and it is in the interest of a lot of other countries to see China pull back from hostage diplomacy and bullying... The only way to counter that is through collective action and that is a long, hard slog.”
Christopher Sands, the director of the Center for Canadian Studies at John Hopkins University, said Canada doesn’t play offence very much but he agreed it would be advisable for Canada to talk to other leaders about the detained Canadians.
Beyond asking for Trump’s support, countries like Japan, South Korea and perhaps India might be willing to do the same, Sands said, adding that would only strengthen the U.S. president’s commitment to the cause.
To date, a list of countries including Australia, France, German, Spain, the U.S. and the U.K. have spoken in support of the detained Canadians.
Rohinton Medhora, the president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said he will be watching to see who else Xi meets in one-on-one sessions – called “bilaterals,” or just “bilats,” in diplomatic circles.
“Beyond the Trump bilat, how many other bilats does he grant?” Medhora said. “If it turns out that he has very few others, then I wouldn’t read that much into it. On the other hand, if he has half a dozen and Canada isn’t one of them, then I would read something into that.”
The G20 is an opportunity to show whether Canada is a player or not and its place in the world, Medhora added.
“I would say the pressure (is on), especially going into an election when you have to demonstrate that Canada is better and different than four years ago,” he said.
Conservative foreign-affairs critic Erin O’Toole echoed that point, saying it is critical Canada not let the opportunity afforded by the G20 pass, especially given the upcoming election campaign.
“As of September, the writ will drop,” he said. “This is really the last major time to really shake up and try to stop the spiral of the China relationship.”
China bans all Canadian meat exports
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The Chinese Embassy says it has suspended all Canadian meat exports in a dramatic escalation of its diplomatic dispute with Canada over the December arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.
The latest Chinese move comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to depart Wednesday for the G20 leaders’ summit, where he is expected to rely on U.S. President Donald Trump to raise the plight of two detained Canadians during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The embassy said in a statement to The Canadian Press on Tuesday that this latest move follows the detection of residue from a restricted feed additive called ractopamine by Chinese customs inspectors in a batch of Canadian pork products. The additive has permitted
uses in Canada but is banned in China.
“The subsequent investigation revealed that the official veterinary health certificates attached to the batch of pork exported to China were counterfeit and the number of those forgery certificates was up to 188. The Canadian side believes that this incident is (a) criminal offence,” said the embassy statement.
“These forged certificates were sent to the Chinese regulatory authorities through Canadian official certificate notification channel, which reflects that the Canadian meat export supervision system exists obvious safety loopholes.”
China is therefore taking “urgent preventive measures” to protect Chinese customers and has asked the Canadian government to suspend all meat export certificates, the embassy said.
“We hope the Canadian side would attach
great importance to this incident, complete the investigation as soon as possible and take effective measures to ensure the safety of food exported to China in a more responsible manner.”
A spokeswoman for Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has yet to comment on the report.
A report in the newspaper Journal de Quebec, which first reported the story, quotes a Montreal-based diplomat with the Chinese consulate-general as saying the ban is temporary. China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor and sentenced another Canadian to death in an apparent attempt to pressure for Meng’s release.
China has also stopped imports of Canadian canola and has suspended export permits for three pork producers.
“Many a small thing has been
AP FILE PHOTO
Staff members stand near the emblem of G20 2019 Japan at the entrance of the press center of G20 meeting in Fukuoka, Japan.
Ujiri confident Raptors can re-sign Leonard
Gregory STRONG
The Canadian Press
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri made his all-in push and it paid off with an NBA title. It will soon be time for Kawhi Leonard to lay his cards on the table.
The future of the soon-to-be free agent was one of the main talking points Tuesday at Ujiri’s seasonending media availability.
Leonard helped anchor the team through the season and raised his level even higher when it mattered most. He delivered one of the strongest playoff performances in recent memory, putting the Raptors on his back at times en route to their first championship.
The long waiting game on his future will soon come to an end. Leonard has to decide whether he’ll return to Toronto or explore options elsewhere.
It’s a decision that will have an immeasurable effect on the franchise and will likely send a wave of other free-agent dominoes tumbling across the league.
“We continued to be us and I know he’ll continue to be him,” Ujiri said.
“I know what we’ve built here, I’m confident. You see how these things go. I think we have to respect him for that decision that he has to make.”
At 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, Leonard can begin negotiating with teams as a free agent. Players can’t officially be signed until July 6, but news often leaks out during the negotiating period.
Leonard is expected to opt out of a US$21.3-million player option next season, part of a deal he signed with San Antonio before being traded to the Raptors last summer.
The Raptors can offer more money and term than other teams because of NBA rules.
Toronto can sign Leonard to a $190-million, five-year deal, about $50 million more than he could make on a four-year deal with another team. It’s also possible he could work out a short-term deal with the Raptors and test free agency again down the road.
Interest is very high in Leonard, who turns 28 on Saturday, since
he’s a superstar forward in his prime and one of the best two-way players in the league.
Ujiri said he had “very good meetings” with Leonard over the last few days, but will keep those conversations private for now.
“For me they’ve been positive,” Ujiri said.
“He challenges me the same way that I challenge him. I think the goal is the same and I appreciate that.”
Ujiri acquired Leonard and Danny Green last summer from the Spurs in a blockbuster deal that included franchise player and fan favourite DeMar DeRozan.
It was part of a significant retooling in the wake of another early playoff exit. Coach of the year Dwane Casey was let go and assistant Nick Nurse was promoted to replace him.
Ujiri was signalling that lasting a round or two in the playoffs wasn’t good enough. He wanted to clear all the hurdles in 2019 and win that elusive conference title and NBA championship.
It was a big gamble since Leonard was signed for just one year
and coming off a significant leg injury. But he proved to be a great fit and showed he was a big-time playoff performer.
Dealing DeRozan – a team cornerstone and great friend of Raptors guard Kyle Lowry – was one of the toughest decisions of Ujiri’s career. Both players took the news hard.
Ujiri, who was in Kenya at the time, said he walked around his hotel for two hours in the middle of the night to “summon up the courage” to break the news to DeRozan.
“When San Antonio came here (this season), I’ve never said this to anybody, but something unbelievable happened,” Ujiri said.
“DeMar came into our locker room. To show you the class human being he is, he came up to me and he hugged me and he asked me how my family was doing.”
The communication with Lowry, meanwhile, had its low points. Ujiri said their comfort level was noticeably off around the trade deadline, so they got together for a long discussion.
“I think I’ll leave that between me and Kyle,” Ujiri said.
“The meeting lasted about two hours and it wasn’t easy. It’s always a difficult meeting when you’re both direct and truthful to each other. Kyle is the same way that I am.
“It’s funny, DeMar always used to say that. But we resolved it.”
Ujiri delivered another whopper at the deadline by landing veteran centre Marc Gasol from Memphis in a multi-player swap that included Jonas Valanciunas.
Gasol soon found himself in a starting lineup that included Leonard, Lowry, Green and Pascal Siakam, the NBA’s most improved player.
The team used a ‘load management’ system to build Leonard up over the campaign.
He quickly showed he could still be an impact player and took his game to a different level in the post-season. Thirty-point games were the norm and Leonard was a force at both ends of the court.
He truly shone in the big moments and delivered time and
time again. His quiet confidence washed over the team and left players feeling strong even after stinging losses.
Leonard would simply take over some games, leaving opposing defences befuddled.
His body was banged up at times but he continued to be a force. The two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors had no answer for him and the Raptors in the final, dropping all three games at Oracle Arena to fall in six games.
It would be difficult for Toronto to make a stronger pitch for Leonard’s return.
Leonard and his advisers have developed a trust with the Raptors. He has a strong rapport with his teammates and was adored by the fanbase. Steady victories kept everyone’s spirits high.
Toronto won the Atlantic Division with a 58-24 record before dispatching Orlando, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and finally Golden State. Leonard was an easy choice as NBA Finals MVP.
He has earned the right to make his choice as a free agent. But things could not have gone much better in Toronto.
“We have to be ourselves and we were ourselves the whole year,” Ujiri said.
“I think he saw that. I think we built a trust there.”
Two other key starters also have decisions to make. Gasol has a player option for next season and Green is an unrestricted free agent.
In addition, Lowry and Serge Ibaka are both entering the final season of their lucrative three-year contracts.
A Leonard return would likely make the Raptors the team to beat in the East. His departure could lead to a number of new starters in the lineup and a significant retooling process.
“Whenever they make up their mind, we’ll be here,” Ujiri said. “I know we’ll be in touch with them. We’ve built a relationship with them where honestly, I texted with Kawhi last night, I talked to his uncle this morning.
“So for us, there’s that trust regardless of wherever it goes. There will be constant communication.”
Hayley Wickenheiser among six to enter Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019
Donna SPENCER
The Canadian Press
Hayley Wickenheiser’s accolades have a hard time keeping up with her.
The Hockey Hall of Fame wasted no time hustling Wickenheiser into its gallery of heroes in her first year of eligibility.
But when board chairman Lanny McDonald phoned her Tuesday to relay the joyful news, Wickenheiser was sequestered doing mandatory medical school course work at the University of Calgary.
“I knew my phone was blowing up. I couldn’t answer it,” Wickenheiser said.
“My first call was back to Lanny.”
The 40-year-old from Shaunavon, Sask., joins players Guy Carbonneau, Vaclav Nedomansky and Sergei Zubov and builders Jim Rutherford and Jerry York in the 2019 class of inductees.
The induction ceremony is Nov. 18 in Toronto.
“Outside of winning an Olympic gold medal, for a personal accomplishment, this is probably the holy grail,” Wickenheiser said.
“You’re with the best players to have ever played the game, male and female. It’s pretty cool.
“Today I had just so many different people reaching out from both the male and female side. It brought back a lot of memories from the different eras of my hockey career.”
Wickenheiser was the only firstyear eligible player to be selected.
The all-time leading scorer on the Canadian women’s hockey team was similarly accelerated into the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Hall of Fame last month.
There were no girls’ teams for her to play for in Calgary over three decades ago.
Wickenheiser tucked her hair up under her helmet and played on boys’ teams. She wasn’t always welcomed by players or their
parents.
“I think it symbolizes where the women’s game has come and also the struggles too,” she said. “Today, I was thinking about all the tough times I had in hockey.
“Nobody will really talk about those things when you go into the Hall of Fame, but those are the things you think about as a player with your family and all the people that helped you through the years.”
During her 23 years playing for Canada, Wickenheiser scored 168 goals and assisted on 211 more in 276 games while winning four Olympic gold medals and seven world championships.
She was captain of national teams that won Olympic gold in 2010, as well as world titles in 2007 and 2012.
She announced her retirement in January, 2017, after playing her last game April 4, 2016, at the women’s world championship. Wickenheiser was a star of female hockey when the emerging game desperately needed one.
She pushed the envelope of what was possible for a female athlete twice playing men’s professional hockey in Europe.
Wickenheiser is currently an assistant director of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs, in addition to her medical studies.
She’s the seventh woman to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Wickenheiser joins former Canadian teammates Angela James, Geraldine Heaney, Danielle Goyette and Jayna Hefford as well as Americans Cammi Granato and Angela Ruggiero.
Carbonneau, a native of SeptIles, Que., was the last captain of a Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup, doing so with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
He won three Selke Awards as the NHL’s top defensive forward and three Stanley Cups – two with Montreal, one with the Dallas Stars. “Just to be on the same list as guys like Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur and Wayne Gretzky, it’s
unbelievable,” Carbonneau said.
“People thought when I did become a defensive player that I sacrificed a lot of offence. I see it the other. It gave me chances.”
Rutherford, from Beeton, Ont., began his management career with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires in 1984.
He then became general manager of the Hartford Whalers for 20 years and won a Stanley Cup in Carolina in 2006 after the franchise moved to Raleigh.
Rutherford has since won two more Stanley Cups as GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“One of the advantages I think for me when I retired as a player, I didn’t try to stay in the NHL,” Rutherford said.
“I went back to the grassroots. I went all the way back to youth hockey for a couple of years and then got the opportunity to manage in the Ontario Hockey League and kind of worked my way up.
“We won the Stanley Cup in Carolina against the odds. We certainly weren’t the odds-on
favourite to win it that year.
“And then I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be hired by Pittsburgh and I already had a great advantage when you come into a team with (Sidney) Crosby and (Evgeni) Malkin and (Kris) Letang.”
Nedomansky played 12 seasons in Bratislava before becoming the first athlete from an Eastern European communist country to defect to North America to pursue a pro hockey career.
The Czech played 252 career NHL games with Detroit, the St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers. He played in the WHA with Toronto and Birmingham before joining the Detroit Red Wings as a 33-year-old rookie in 1977.
“I’m proud to be the first player from a communist country to come and play in North America,” Nedomansky said.
Russia’s Zubov joined the Rangers in 1992 after playing four seasons with the Moscow Red Army. He won a Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994 and another with Dallas in 1999.
“I was eight years old when I travelled with the national team to a tournament in Canada,” Zubov said.
“I had a chance to walk into the Hall of Fame. Back then, I couldn’t even think of, dream of, that one day I would have a chance to be part of it.
“It’s truly special. You realize you’ve done something in your life that you can be proud of.”
York is the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 men’s hockey with over 1,000 victories. He’s navigated Boston College to four national titles in 26 seasons there.
York coached current and former NHL players such as Johnny Gaudreau, Brooks Orpik, Brian Gionta and Patrick Eaves.
“They seem to make you a better coach when you have those players,” York said.
“Never once did I think I’d go in (the Hall) in any category whatsoever. Just really surprised.”
CP FILE PHOTO
Kawhi Leonard stands on stage during the 2019 Toronto Raptors Championship parade in Toronto on June 17.
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Hayley Wickenheiser poses for a portrait in Calgary, Alta. in 2017. She is one of six athletes who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this year.
Canucks development camp competitive, physical for prospects
Gemma KARSTENS-SMITH
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — With a year’s experience, Tyler Madden knew what to expect coming into the Vancouver Canucks development camp this week.
But the knowledge didn’t make fitness testing any easier.
“You can prepare for that thing as much as you want but that bike will kick the crap out of you,” the 19-year-old centre said with a smile Tuesday.
Madden is one of 26 Canucks prospects at this year’s camp in Vancouver, where each athlete is looking to leave an impression on coaches before a roster is set for September’s formal training camps.
He attended last year’s camp and a lot has changed since.
Madden, drafted 68th overall by Vancouver in 2018, started college at Northeastern University, where he put up 12 goals and 16 assists last season, and played for Team USA at the world junior hockey championships last winter.
While it’s been a special year, it’s been challenging, too.
“I knew going there that (NCAA hockey) would be a tougher game and stuff,” Madden said.
“But it was a lot harder than people may think and the transition is big. But I was able to do that and kind of conquer that.”
Will Lockwood had to conquer an injury in order to get to camp. Surgery on a separated shoulder kept the right-winger from participating last year.
The injury has been “a little frustrating,” the 21-year-old admitted.
“I try to make the most out of it, take it day by day,” he said.
“Doing therapy for your shoulder isn’t the most fun thing in the world. But I had a great support system with me and made the most out of it.”
Lockwood came into development camp in great shape both physically and mentally, said Ryan Johnson, the Canucks senior director of player development.
“Obviously it’s been an arduous time over a couple year period there with the shoulder injury and the recovery time. But it says so much about the kid that he’s stuck with it,” he said.
“You can tell there’s a maturity not just physically, he’s come a long way.”
Lockwood spent last season playing at the University of Michigan, where he tallied 31 points in 26 games.
He’s committed to going back to school this fall and said playing a senior year for the Wolverines is best for his future.
“I think it will give me a chance to develop a little bit more, develop into the player I want to become. And Vancouver fully supports that. And I couldn’t be more grateful
for that,” said Lockwood, who’s been named captain of next year’s Michigan team.
Still, the 64th overall pick from the 2016 draft said he’s dedicated to playing for the Canucks once his collegiate career is done.
“It’s kind of come to a point where I owe them a little bit. So I’m working on developing my game and the end plan is coming to Vancouver,” he said.
When Lockwood does make it to Vancou-
ver, he’ll be in good company. His former teammate, defenceman Quinn Hughes, officially joining the team in March after the NCAA season ended.
“Quinn’s kind of paved the way a little bit, coming from U of M as well,” Lockwood said.
“There’s no question that he’s going to do great, he’s such a great talent. But he’s been a good friend of mine when we were playing together and to see him do it is amazing.”
Other prospects at this year’s camp are more recent additions to the Canucks franchise.
Vancouver picked Swedish forward Nils Hoglander 40th overall in Saturday’s draft. On Tuesday, the 18-year-old was grinding his way through drills in a Canucks jersey. Johnson said Vancouver’s scouts had been hoping they’d be able to scoop up Hoglander, who had 14 points in the Swedish hockey league last season.
“Everything he does with pace and jump and excitement. He’s always got a smile on his face. You can tell he loves the game and he’s got a special skill set,” Johnson said.
The teen’s explosiveness and great hands don’t hurt either, he added.
“For me, he’s got a good mix of the speed and the compete and the skill level, and that’s something we really need here in Vancouver,” Johnson said.
After the draft, the Canucks posted a video of some of Hoglander’s intense workout regimes. But the teen said his training isn’t all serious.
“Of course I work hard in the summer but I also do the fun things with the stick and with the unicycle and that stuff,” he said. Hoglander said he learned to ride a onewheeled vehicle as a kid.
“It’s fun to do and also good for hockey,” he said.
One prospect who isn’t at this week’s camp is Vasily Podkolzin, who the Canucks picked 10th overall at last week’s draft.
The 18-year-old Russian forward couldn’t partake because he has two years left on his KHL contract.
Hockey coaches always want to work with their players right after the draft, but the staff in Vancouver know Podkolzin will be well taken care of overseas, Johnson said.
“Obviously he’s an elite player and someone we just have to monitor from afar and watch his development,” he said.
NHL’s 2019-20 schedule includes outdoor game in Regina
The Canadian Press
NEW YORK — A Vancouver Canucks 50th anniversary celebration, the annual Hockey Day in Canada and an outdoor game in Regina mark Canadian highlights on the 2019-20 NHL schedule.
The 1,271-game schedule, released Tuesday, includes the Heritage Classic between the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 26 at Mosaic Stadium in Regina.
It marks the first Heritage Classic – a series of outdoor games held in Canada introduced in 2003 – that will be played in a Canadian city without an NHL team.
The Canucks will play their home opener against the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 9, exactly 49 years after the franchise’s first NHL regularseason game, also versus L.A. Hockey Day in Canada on Feb. 8 features all seven Canadian teams in action. The Rogers television broadcast will be based out of Yel-
CP FILE PHOTO
Los Angeles Kings’ Drew Doughty (8) skates with the puck while being checked by Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson (40) during an NHL hockey game in Vancouver on March 28. The Kings and Canucks will go up against each other for the Canuck’s home opener on Oct. 9.
The Jets host the Ottawa Senators in an afternoon game to kick off the day.
The Montreal Canadiens entertain the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Edmonton Oilers host the Nashville Predators in early
evening games. The final game features the Canucks home to the Flames. The season begins Oct. 2 with
four games, including the Maple Leafs home to the Senators and the Canucks facing the visiting Oilers. Other special events include:
• The Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers squaring off Oct. 4 in Prague, Czech Republic.
• The Buffalo Sabres facing the Tampa Bay Lightning in two games on Nov. 8 and 9 in Stockholm, Sweden.
• The Winter Classic between the host Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators on Jan. 1 at the Cotton Bowl.
• The all-star game on Jan. 26 in St. Louis.
• An outdoor game between the Colorado Avalanche and Kings on Feb. 15 at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colo. The season concludes April 4 with 15 games, including a LeafsCanadiens game in Toronto and a Battle of Alberta between the Oilers and Flames in Calgary.
United States Tyler Madden (9) celebrates his goal during IIHF world junior hockey action against Finland, in Victoria on Dec. 31, 2018. Madden is attending the Canucks development camp this week.
Steamy romance novelist Judith Krantz dies at 91
Stefanie DAZIO, Sandy COHEN
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Writer Judith Krantz, whose million-selling novels such as Scruples and Princess Daisy engrossed readers worldwide with their steamy tales of the rich and beautiful, died Saturday at her Bel-Air home. She was 91.
Krantz’s son Tony Krantz, a TV executive, confirmed her death by natural causes on Sunday afternoon. He said he’d hoped to re-create the Scruples miniseries before she died but it is still in the works.
“She had this rare combination of commercial and creative,” he said.
Krantz wrote for Cosmopolitan and Ladies Home Journal magazines before discovering, at age 50, the talent for fiction that made her rich and famous like the characters she created.
Her first novel – Scruples in 1978 – became a bestseller, as did the nine books that followed. Krantz’s books have been translated into 52 languages and sold more than 85 million copies worldwide.
They inspired a series of hit miniseries with the help of her husband, film and television producer Steve Krantz.
“I always ask myself if what I’m writing will satisfy a reader who’s in a plane that can’t land because of fog, or who’s recovering from an operation in a hospital or who has to escape to a more delightful world for whatever reason,” Krantz said in 1990.
“That is the test.”
While her work was decidedly less than highbrow, Krantz made no apologies for the steamy novels with titles like Princess Daisy, Mistral’s Daughter, Lovers, I’ll Take Manhattan and The Jewels of Tessa Kent.
“I write the best books I know how,” she once said.
“I can’t write any better than this.”
She filled her stories with delicious details about her characters’ lavish lifestyles – designer clothes, luxurious estates – and enviable romances. And she spared no specifics when it came to sex.
“If you’re going to write a good erotic scene, you have to go into details,” Krantz told the Los Angeles Times in 1990.
“I don’t believe in thunder and lightning and fireworks exploding. I think people want to know what’s happening.”
So appealing were her sensational stories of high-powered heroines that each novel was reimagined for television as an episodic miniseries. Steve Krantz, a millionaire in his own right through such productions as the animated film Fritz the Cat, helped translate his wife’s work for TV.
The author was also famous for living a glamorous life that paralleled that of her characters.
Her home in Los Angeles’ exclusive Bel Air community featured a soundproof writing room flanked by an immaculately kept garden.
In her closet were many of the same designer-label clothes the characters in her books wore.
The eldest of three children, Krantz was born Judith Bluma Tarcher in 1928 in New York City. Her father owned an advertising agency, and her mother worked as an attorney.
Her brother, publisher Jeremy Tarcher, married the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis.
Growing up, Krantz was a precocious student at New York’s exclusive Birch Wathen school, once describing herself as the youngest, smartest and shortest girl in her class.
After skipping two grades, she enrolled at Wellesley College at age 16.
She was also by her own account an indifferent college student. She said she only enrolled at Wellesley “to date, read and graduate” and claimed to have set a record for her dorm by once dating 13
different men on 13 consecutive evenings.
“I got only one A-plus, and that was in English 101,” she told The Boston Globe in 1982.
“I had a B-minus average in English, my major, and made C’s and C-minuses in everything else. But I didn’t come here to get good marks.”
When she could earn no better than a B in a short story class, she decided she wasn’t good enough to write fiction.
“Just in time for my 50th birthday, I discovered that I could write fiction. My husband had urged me to try fiction for 15 years before I did,” she was quoted in a profile on Wellesley’s website in 2001.
“I believed that if I couldn’t write ‘literature,’ I shouldn’t write at all.
“Now, I would say to young women, do something you have a true feeling for, no matter how little talent you may believe you have,” she added.
“Let no masterwork be your goal – a modest goal may lead you further than you dream.”
Krantz had met her husband through her high school friend Barbara Walters, who introduced the two in 1953. They married the following year.
“I fell in love with him the minute I saw him,” she once said.
Her husband died in 2007 at age 83. The couple had two sons, Tony and Nick, a stockbroker, and two grandchildren.
Krantz’s family requested that donations be given to the Library Foundation of Los Angeles in lieu of flowers.
Her memoir, Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl, was published in 2001 and it reflected on her penchant for telling sex-drenched tales about the pretty and the privileged.
“In my opinion, there are two things women will always be interested in – sex and shopping,” she said in 1994.
“And if they’re not, they’ve left out a large part of the fun in life.”
Jackson tributes flow on 10th death anniversary
Andrew DALTON
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson’s estate paid tribute to his artistry and charity Tuesday as fans make final preparations for gatherings to celebrate his memory on the 10th anniversary of the King of Pop’s death.
“Ten years ago today, the world lost a gifted artist and extraordinary humanitarian,” the Jackson estate said in a statement to The Associated Press.
“A decade later, Michael Jackson is still with us, his influence embedded in dance, fashion, art and music of the moment. He is more important than ever.”
The estate has doggedly worked to protect and enhance Jackson’s legacy, a task made more challenging this year when two men accused Jackson of molesting them as boys in the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, sparking new scrutiny of years-old claims that Jackson preyed on children. Jackson was acquitted of abuse allegations in 2005 and always vehemently denied such allegations, and the estate and his family angrily refuted the men’s claims when the documentary was released in March, noting the men had at one time been among Jackson’s biggest defenders and one testified on his behalf at his criminal trial.
The estate is using the anniversary of Jackson’s death to celebrate and accentuate Jackson’s vast humanitarian work. It called on fans to honour Jackson’s memory by engaging in charitable acts “whether it’s planting a tree, volunteering at a shelter, cleaning up a public space or helping someone who is lost find their way... This is how we honour Michael,” the statement read.
Fans plan to gather at Jackson’s last home in the Holmby Hills neighbourhood of Los Angeles, where the singer received a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol on the afternoon of June 25, 2019 from his doctor. Jackson was declared dead at a hospital at age 50.
They also plan a vigil at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where Jackson was laid to rest two months later.
Some planned to gather around Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One group of fans planned a Hollywood rally Tuesday to declare his innocence of molestation allegations.
Co-executors John Branca and John McClain, both major figures in Jackson’s career when he was alive, have taken his badly debt-ridden estate and grossed over $1.3 billion through various Jackson-related projects in the past decade, including the film This Is It, a pair of Cirque du Soleil
shows and the sale of Jackson assets that included The Beatles catalogue.
Jackson left everything to his mother, his children and charity in his will.
The singer’s father, Joe, died last year and is buried in the same cemetery as his son, but Michael’s 89-year-old mother, five brothers, three sisters and three kids remain alive and well 10 years later.
The death of Jackson was a massive cultural phenomenon, bringing an outpouring of public affection and revival of his songs and largely erasing the taint that remained after his criminal trial, despite his acquittal.
It was one of the earliest instances of mass mourning on social media that would soon become common, and a massive worldwide audience both on TV and online watched his July 27, 2009 public memorial that included touching tributes from family and celebrities.
AP FILE PHOTO
Author Judith Krantz poses for a photo as she embarked on a non-stop talking tour of America to promote her new book in 1986. Krantz died Saturday at her Bel-Air home of natural causes at the age of 91.
AP PHOTO BY CHRIS PIZZELLO
Yasuyo Kaneko of Japan holds Michael Jackson action figures outside the late pop star’s final resting place in Holly Terrace at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Tuesday.
Italo Maletta
CRAIG(HOFF),DebraA. February22,1957-June5,2019
OurVikingShield-Maidenhaspassed.Debbiewillbe greatlymissedbyherfamilyandmanyfriends, specificallyherdaughter,MickalaSanchez(Alan); step-daughter,SamanthaLundblom(Jim); grandkids,Mila,Christopher,Tristan,andGrace;her siblings,LynnWright,KarenMcIver,KathyMorgan, andCaseyHoff;andherniece,SianHoff.Shewill alsobefondlyrememberedasthe’funaunt,who alwaysgavethecoolestpresents’byhermanynieces andnephews.
Debbiewasblessedwithmanygreatfriendsoverthe years,andthefamilywouldliketoexpressspecial acknowledgmentsandgratitudetowardsherlife-long friends,WendyMcPhee,DebTownsend,andBrenda Little-Spearman.
DebbiewasborninPrinceGeorge,BC,theyoungest offivechildrentoMollieJacksonandWilliamHoff. Bornfeistyandwithapassionforstandingupfor whatshebelievedin,shecarriedherstrengthand beliefsthroughoutherlifeandcareer.Movingto WilliamsLake,BC,sheworkedasanadministrator withForestry,theProbationOffice,andthenstarted her35-yearcareerattheBCGovernmentEmployees Union(BCGEU).ShemetandmarriedGregoryCraig (Trapper),andtheyhadonedaughtertogether.After manyyearsoflivingintheCaribouChilcotin,Debbie andherfamilymovedtoVictoria.
Debbielivedherlifetothefullestandlovedmany things.Shewasapoetandwrotehundredsof beautifulpoems,shelovedtomakecolourfulquilts, andeachyearcounteddownthedaystoherannual fishingtripwithhersisterandbrotheratTsaytaLake. Debbielivedafulllifeinhershorttimewithusand travelledtotheplacesshehadalwaysdreamedof seeing.Shewalkedalongthevolcanicbeachesand manywaterfallsofherancestralhomelandofIceland, andwanderedtheancientsitesofEasterIsland. Debbieswaminthewarm,clearbluewatersofthe SouthPacific,sailedaroundCapeHorn,andplayed withthepenguinsintheFalklandIslands.Shestood inaweattheHermitageMuseuminSt.Petersburg andlunchedinAmsterdamwithhergranddaughter, Mila.Debbiewasalwaysgratefulfortheplacesshe sawandinspiredthosearoundhertoexperience moreoftheworld.
Debbiewasapowerfulperson,andshestoodup whatshebelieved.Hernaturalbornadvocacymeant thatshespentalotoftimedoingthingsforothers andhelpingthoseinneed.Shededicatedmanyhours makingquiltsforoverseaorphanagesandvictimsof theFortMcMurryfireandmakingtoquesandmitts fortheVictoriaWomen’sTransitionHouse.
Debbiewasdiagnosedwithlungcancer,andaftera valiantbattlefightingthediseaseandreturningto workattheBCGEU,shewasdevastatedtodiscover thecancerhadreturnedandspread.Debbiestillhad alotoflifetolive,andasshefacedthesamedisease thattookhermother,sheexpressedhergratitudein livinginacountrywhereshecouldnowmakea choicethathermotherdidnothave.Debbiepassed awayonJune5,2019,adaythatshechosetopass, surroundedbylove.
Thefamilywouldliketoextendtheirgratitude towardsthearmyofdoctorsandnursesattheBC CancerClinic,Hospice,PalliativeCare,andtheMAID program.Youallhelpedherimmenselythroughthe processandwearesogratefulforallthatyoudo.
Asourdearlovedoneandpoetwouldappreciate, Debbie,"Mayflightsofangelssingtheetothyrest."Shakespeare,Hamlet.
With sadness we announce the passing of Italo Maletta, born February 2, 1932, devoted husband, father, nonno, uncle and brother. He passed away peacefully on June 21, 2019, with his family at his side. Italo is survived by his loving wife, Pierina (Pellegrino) and children: Nino (Lindsey), Rosa (Marcel) and Valeria (Randy). Predeceased by his parents and loving sister Eva (Vince Fuoco), survived by his loving sister Maria (James Denicola) brother Armando (Josephine).
Nonno was blessed with 5 grandsons and 2 granddaughters. Along with numerous nieces and nephews.
Nonno received all the love, respect and honour, which he was so deserving of, from all of his grandchildren, children and wife.
Italo retired at the age of 57 from CNR where he worked hard to provide for his family.
During his retirement, he took pride in his gardening and wine making, sharing his bounty with all his friends. He always gave more than he received in life.
Nonno found true joy in life with his grandchildren. His love and devotion were shared with the family, who are grateful for all the years they were able to spend with him.
Italo received amazing medical support throughout his fight from Dr. Asquith, Dr. Carter, Dr. Powell and the staff at both the cancer clinic and Hospice House. Service will be held Friday June 28th, 2019 at 11:00 am at St. Mary’s Parish. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Prince George Hospice Society in Italo’s name would be greatly appreciated. 3089 Clapperton Street, Prince George, BC V2L 5N4.
In Loving Memory of John William “Bill” Cameron September 11, 1925April 29, 2019
John William Cameron of the Gemstone Care Centre in Kamloops, British Columbia passed away peacefully at the age of 93. Bill was born on September 11, 1925 in the Cameron Settlement in Nova Scotia.
Bill is survived by his loving wife Lola, children Anne (John), Donna (Harvey), Gordon (Lorraine), Wanda (Sheldon), Kevin (Carol) and sister Rhoda. He will be missed by numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren as well as many nieces and nephews.
Bill was predeceased by his brothers Howard and Ken and son Dougal.
There will be a Celebration of Life for Bill on August 17, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. In the Barriere Seniors Centre. MaryAnn Shewchuk to Officiate. Light refreshments will be served and later a family gathering at Anne & John’s house.
Condolences may be sent to the family at DrakeCremation.com
or 250-672-1999
Notices
The Citizen Office will be closed Friday, June 28, 2019 as we prepare to relocate to our new office. Please be aware that the deadline for ALL Classified Ads, including Obituaries, for both June 29 and July 2 will be 10:00am June 28 - no exceptions.
We are sorry for the inconvenience and look forward to serving you at our new location, 505 4th Avenue, beginning at 9:00am on July 2.
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