Crash closes Hart Highway
Prince
Man sentenced to three years for holdups
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A distinctive set of tire tracks on the getaway car were part of the undoing for a Prince George man sentenced Thursday to three years in jail for a pair of holdups. Less credit for time served prior to sentencing, Jake Travis Wilson, 27, will serve a further 17 months in custody, to be followed by two years probation.
The terms came in the form of a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels after Wilson pleaded guilty to two counts each of robbery and use of an imitation firearm for a Jan. 17 holdup of a gas station and a Jan. 23 holdup of a pizza takeout outlet, both robberies occurring around midnight on those respective days.
Wilson and a co-accused made off with $250 cash, several scratch and win tickets and about 20 packages of cigarettes from the gas station, and $300 to $400 from the pizza outlet.
When RCMP attended the second incident, they noticed something odd about the tire tracks left in the snow by the vehicle used to make the getaway –one of them had a different tread than the other three. They also determined the vehicle was a car with front-wheel drive.
A week later, RCMP were called to a complaint that a 700-block Ahbau Street home could be housing a methampthetamine lab. An odour of nail polish coming from the home was reported. Upon arrival, RCMP came across a car matching the description parked in the driveway with Wilson, co-accused Jesse Luke Juillette, the car’s
There were two employees in the store and, in the process, one said he was punched in the face, leaving him dazed and with a cut over his eye – although he may also have been hit with a pistol – while the other was kicked in the head as he lay on the floor.
owner and driver and one other person inside the vehicle.
Wilson, Juillette and the owner were arrested and taken into custody. Police pressed the owner about the tire tracks and about whether DNA on a cigarette butt also found at the scene of the pizza store robbery would be a match.
At that point, she admitted to being behind the wheel that night but claimed she did not know the two had committed the robbery. No charges were pursued against her.
About midway through his interview with police, Wilson also admitted to participating in not only the holdup of the pizza outlet but the gas station. Juillette, meanwhile, continues to face charges from the second robbery and a trial is set to begin in late-April.
Wilson told police he was high on methamphetamine on both occasions and had committed the crimes to feed a
$100 to $150 per day drug habit.
In the robbery of the gas station, Wilson and an accomplice convinced another man, who was drunk and high on drugs at the time, to coax the attendant to open a side door. Their faces masked, the two burst in behind him, one holding what appeared to be a handgun and demanded cash.
The attendant’s cellphone was smashed to prevent him from quickly calling RCMP. The man who had helped them, meanwhile, remained at the scene, lying on the floor until police arrived.
A week later, two masked men burst into the pizza outlet, both with what appeared to be handguns. There were two employees in the store and, in the process, one said he was punched in the face, leaving him dazed and with a cut over his eye – although he may also have been hit with a pistol – while the other was kicked in the head as he lay on the floor. One continues to have breathing problems linked to the injuries he suffered and the other suffered a split lip that required stitches and had problems eating and breathing in the aftermath. Both have since quit their jobs at the store.
Provincial court judge Susan Mengering accepted the joint submission with reluctance, saying the sentence is on the low end of the scale given the violence. But she also noted that Wilson has no previous criminal record and has expressed remorse.
Wilson was also issued a lifetime firearms prohibition and ordered to provide a DNA sample. He must also take counselling for drug and alcohol addiction if directed by his parole officer.
Lack of funding prompts B.C.’s legal-aid lawyers to plan service withdrawal
Citizen news service
British Columbia’s legal-aid lawyers have voted overwhelmingly to start withdrawing their services next month over lack of funding.
The Association of Legal Aid Lawyers says 97 per cent of 590 members voted for job action to limit or suspend legal aid starting April 1.
Prince George lawyer and ALL director Liam Cooper said lawyers in this region will participate, starting with a refusal to take on new clients and new charges for clients already under contract.
Members could also make their presence known by handing out information to those interested in front of the courthouse, but there will be no picket lines, Cooper said.
“We’re not going to shame or chastise anyone (from going into the courthouse),” he said.
A news release from ALL says the only pay increase legal-aid lawyers have received in 28 years was in 2006 when their hourly rate was boosted by 10 per cent.
The lawyers group also says the average spent per person on legal aid in 1993 was $25.22 and, accounting for inflation, should now amount to about $40.
Instead, data shows 2018 per-capita spending on legal aid has fallen to just under $15, ranking B.C. 10th out of 12 provinces and territories.
Legal-aid lawyers say the funding cut requires immediate government attention.
“As a result of these cuts, vulnerable and marginalized British Columbians are not receiving the legal help they need. Too many people facing difficult family, child protection, immigration and criminal law problems are having to go to court alone,” says the release.
The near-unanimous vote underscores that “lawyers cannot continue doing this extremely difficult work under current conditions.”
The association calls the result “an overwhelming endorsement” from B.C.’s family, criminal, child protection and immigration legal-aid lawyers. — with files from Mark Nielsen, Citizen
Talking politics
Prince George man charged in Kamloops hit and run
Citizen staff
A Prince George man has been charged for allegedly being behind the wheel during a hit and run in Kamloops more than two years ago.
Joshua Joseph Pooli, 29, previously from Kamloops, was arrested Wednesday, RCMP said.
On the morning of Aug. 28, 2016, a woman suffered serious injuries when hit while jogging on West Athabasca Street.
The driver sped away, RCMP said, and while the suspect vehicle was found later the same day near Halston Pass, the driver remained at large.
The vehicle had been stolen earlier that morning, RCMP said.
The suspect’s DNA was found inside of the vehicle but, at the time, it did not match any of the samples within the national DNA data bank.
But recently, the DNA was matched, RCMP said.
Joshua Joseph Pooli, previously from Kamloops, was arrested in Prince George.
“We are very pleased that a suspect has been identified. This is a case where modern police investigative techniques… and patience… has paid off,” Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jodi Shelkie said.
Pooli faces charges of failing to stop at the scene of an accident causing bodily harm, possessing stolen property and dangerous driving causing bodily harm. He was released on $2,000 bail on the same day of his arrest.
Vancouver cracks down on unlicenced rental properties
Laura KANE Citizen news service
Vancouver has seen an “incredibly high” number of property owners getting business licences for short-term rentals but there remain a number of people who are refusing to follow the rules, says the city’s chief licence inspector.
The city brought in rules last September that require people who list rentals on vacation websites such as Airbnb and VRBO to obtain a business licence. At the time, there were some 6,600 illegal listings, Kathryn Holm said Thursday.
Holm said the number of active listings has dropped to 4,720 and some 2,628 business licences have been issued, which she described as better compliance than other cities around the world that have tried to regulate short-term rentals.
“That has been a very promising outcome of our program thus far, to see how many operators in Vancouver are willing and able to comply with our bylaws,” she said.
“What has been continually not necessarily surprising, but interesting, is there are a number of consistently egregious operators that continue to persist to operate despite our legal efforts. We are continuing to focus on those operators and escalate our enforcement action.”
As of March 6, the city had opened more than 2,000 case files and taken enforcement action against 820 suspected unauthorized short-term rentals. Enforcement action can include issuing tickets, injunctions, legal orders and prosecutions.
Three cases have gone through the courts so far. A commercial operator with 35 short-term rental listings at two properties was fined $20,000 for one property and a trial date is set for the second one. Two other operators pleaded guilty to violations and each was fined $2,500 in provincial court.
The city has issued 274 tickets. The fine for each offence is $1,000, but it can drop to $500 if an operator pays within 10 days.
Holm said she did not know how many tickets have been paid, but the city has collected $32,000 in fines, indicating penalties have been collected on between 32 and 64 tickets.
“Our goal really is compliance. That’s ultimately what we’re striv-
ing for. The ticket is one of many tools to get to compliance,” she said.
Holm said the enforcement regime is strong enough.
“It takes time to move forward with these legal actions in court, but ... we are advancing cases through our court system,” she said.
Vancouver’s regulations mean operators must have a business licence, which costs $49 annually, and the licence number must be included in their listings. Operators can only advertise their main residence and must have permission from their landlord or condo board to list a property.
Jens von Bergmann, who founded the data analysis and visualization firm MountainMath and has been analyzing data from Airbnb, said it’s unclear why so many operators are still not complying with the rules.
But he said city legal departments typically try to collect enough evidence to be certain they can win in court.
He said his research indicates that some licence holders are not renting out their primary residences. For example, about 150 are listing more than one entire home in Vancouver on Airbnb, suggesting they are also advertising at least one secondary residence, he said. It’s not known whether some of them are among the 820 being targeted by the city, but von Bergmann questioned why it has not revoked their licences.
“It’s just really bad optics for the city,” he said. “People, understandably, get quite upset about this. It’s like: ‘How come this person is still there?’ ” Vancouver’s rules are aimed at freeing up housing for long-term renters in a tight market. The city’s regulations followed those of other jurisdictions including Portland, Ore., and Quebec. Toronto also introduced short-term rentals but an appeal of the rules has been delayed until August so they are not in effect.
While Airbnb has sometimes clashed with cities, including New York, when they crack down on short-term rentals, Holm thanked the company for helping enforce Vancouver’s rules by removing listings that do not have a licence number. Several operators have been found to operate 10 or more properties, she said.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Micah Green, a political science and commerce student at UNBC, speaks at the Young and in Politics Panel discussion as part of Politics Week at UNBC. The UNBC Conservatives club, the UNBC Greens, the Political Science Student Association, the Debate Society and the Young New Democrates have come together to create a week full of events that will appeal to people regardless of their background.
Feds eye special skills-training savings account as part of budget, source says
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government’s fourth budget will include measures to help Canadians cover their bills if they choose to head back to school to boost their skills or change careers, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Thursday.
In what will be Morneau’s last fiscal blueprint before this fall’s federal election, the Liberals plan to create a skills-training savings account for adults that’s modelled on one in Singapore, a government source, who was not authorized to speak publicly because the plan is not yet released, told The Canadian Press.
The Singaporean program, launched in 2016, provides every eligible resident over age 25 a $500 credit to use for government-backed training courses. Workers over 40 can receive a subsidy of up to 90 per cent for approved courses.
The program sounds similar to a registered education savings plan (RESP) for mid-career adults, but the government has been warned that people who make less money might not save as officials hope, replicating problems the government has tried to overcome in the RESP program.
At a morning event where Morneau picked up his shoes for Tuesday’s budget – the same ones he wore in 2016, but with some repair work from an femaleowned shop in Toronto’s Kensington Market district – the finance minister talked about how the government is looking for ways to provide workers dedicated time off for skills training and means to cover their expenses while they’re out of the workforce.
Morneau’s council of economic advisers recommended such a program in its final report in late 2017. The group called for the creation of a “Canada Lifelong Learning Fund,” to provide incentives for workers and companies to invest in skills development, as part of $15 billion in spending.
“When you think about going from one career to another career, it’s difficult and that’s something that we’re thinking about in our budget this year,” Morneau said during the event, where he took questions from a gathering of children.
“That’s what we’re going to be thinking about –how we help Canadians to take time off, how do we ensure that they can continue to live their life while they’re taking time off and how do they pay for their training.”
Paul Davidson, the president of Universities Canada, welcomed the idea of personal learning accounts.
“All in all, I think what we’re seeing is a new conversation about skills and talent that looks not only at young people, but people throughout their careers,” said Davidson, whose organization represents 96 Canadian universities. “It looks at not only reskilling people once the market has disrupted them out of a job, but looking at upskilling that people can do while they’re employed. So, those kinds of directions are very, very welcome.”
Since Morneau’s first budget three years ago, the unemployment rate has fallen close to a four-decade low and job creation has outpaced expectations. As well, education levels in Canada are among the
highest in the world.
But the economy is showing signs of cooling.
Top government officials worked for years on ways to help Canadians prepare for a world with fewer lifelong careers and more short-term jobs, a hallmark of the so-called “gig economy.”
Federal officials quietly crafted a strategy, titled Preparing Canadians for the Future, that contains “bold ideas” so public policy doesn’t fall behind the curve, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
The documents say the strategy takes aim at policies and programs to “reflect a diverse labour force,” and looks at ways to close wage gaps and protect the mental well-being of workers, including “the right to disconnect from employer-provided technology.”
Denise Amyot, president and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada, helped advise Singapore’s government on its skills plan a couple of years ago. She wants to see Canada follow suit.
“What I’m hoping now is the government is prepared to act and that the government is prepared to act in a bold way,” Amyot said. “We do not have a choice – all our jobs will change.”
— see related story, page 7
team
The College of New Caledonia Western Canadian Business Awards Competition team –Katrina Rosche, Alyssa Boyce, Chad Whyte and Luke Veeken –took home the best strategic plan award at the 2019 Western Canadian Business Awards Competition in Kelowna, March 8 to 10. WCBC is an annual business competition where students apply their knowledge and skills towards develop strategic solutions in a simulated business scenario.
Jordan PRESS, Andy BLATCHFORD
Snow removal
Crews remove snow from the banks along 15th Avenue on Wednesday in the Millar Addition.
Poetry Walk to stroll through city
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Walk with wild and witty words around the city’s downtown Monday morning.
The Prince George Public Library’s downtown Bob Harkins Branch is the stepping off point for the annual Poetry Walk, where local language artists apply their scribe skills to the city’s core district.
“Let words become landscape and join UNBC creative writing students as they share their poems written about downtown Prince George,” said a statement from the library’s staff. Participants are urged to dress for the weather and feel free to bring a notepad and pencil just in case the travelling performances inspire your own inscriptions.
“The Poetry Walk was originally
conceived by Darcie Smith and Gillian Wigmore (both library staff members) a few years ago,” said Rob Budde, the UNBC professor guiding the exercise.
“In the early versions, they collected local published poems that connected to certain spots downtown and then read those poems on the walk at the locations. This iteration, Darcie suggested my class (a UNBC upper-level poetry creative writing class of 20 students) write new poems about downtown, historical events and/ or their personal connection to certain locations downtown.”
Having so many writers apply themselves to the exercise meant Budde had a huge range of works to pick from and gave the students meaningful motivation for putting their pen to page.
“We will walk downtown reading those poems to anyone who
wants to join us and also writing new responses as we walk,” he said.
It will make for an all-original unique performance event and it will also add literary material that will forever speak for this city. These poems are works of art to the creator but eternal acts of documentation and historical interpretation for readers into the future.
“It is a way to articulate our complex relationship to downtown – our love, hates, and hopes for the place – and a larger poetic connection to this place we call home,” Budde said.
Anyone wishing to tag along and enjoy the performances, word play and creative company is invited along for the free walk that sets off from the library at 10 a.m. It is scheduled to be a leisurely stroll of about one hour.
Don’t let your profits go to waste
Iwas eating breakfast with my son Caleb yesterday and I noticed that he left his crusts on the plate.
“Caleb,” I said, “do you know how many kids in the world would beg for scraps of food like you are wasting there?”
Watching him made me remember my parents’ reminders, about the millions of starving children in China who would love to eat the food I was wasting. My grandmother, having lived through the great depression of 1930s, constantly reminded me that those who “waste not, want not.”
I am still to this day conscious of my waste and consumption.
So how do a few crusts on a plate have anything to do with business you might be asking? Well, what we do at home usually is consistent in other parts of our lives. If we treat our family badly, we are probably treating our staff badly. If we are sloppy at work, we are probably sloppy at home. If we pay attention to things at home, we are probably paying attention to details in our business. If we are careless with our resources at home... you get the picture.
As Canadians, we have had it pretty good for the past few decades. We have managed to ride out the waves of the big economic hits that the U.S. had in 2008 and 2009. We have had house prices climb for 20 years.
Our population has increased across the nation. We have had many sectors of the economy with periods of sustained growth that has have enabled people to have steady jobs, which has in turn fueled small businesses. The government has pumped billions into the economy for capital projects (which still must be repaid by future generations). There has been a low inflation rate for 20 years and this has helped ensure that many businesses have been able to keep control of their costs and remain profitable.
It’s true that there is a large percentage of the small business population where the owners are not living in luxury and aren’t satisfied because they are only marginally profitable or not profitably at all. On the whole, business in Canada has had a pretty good run. There are sectors of the marketplace that have experienced transformational changes due to technology. Overall, the economic stability of the past couple
decades has allowed many business owners to grow fat and many organizations to become complacent. So why, if times are still pretty good, should we consider looking at waste in our organizations? This is like my son saying “Dad why should I worry about a few crusts while we have the whole loaf of bread sitting on the counter?”
It’s not just the concept that there is more where that came from, it’s the realization that the taps to our good life could be turned back at any time.
One only has to consider the record levels of government and personal debt in this country to understand that we can’t continue to live the high life forever.
Sure, the government might start printing more money and inflation could reduce the personal debt/ income levels. Or will it? Increased inflation means increased interest rates as investors need a greater return on their investments to cover their loss due to inflation. This means that interest rates go up, there are more bankruptcies, house prices drop, there is less construction, and the economy starts to shrink as investors pull in their money.
I remember buying my first house in 1989 and paying 14 per cent interest. I have been in African countries with high inflation rates. It’s not a pretty scene. But it’s like telling your kids that wasting food affects kids in other countries.
Sometimes it doesn’t sink in until they see it first hand.
When we think about waste in businesses, there are a number of places that most organizations could typically look at and find savings. In my book Profit Yourself Healthy, I focused a whole chapter on looking at waste in businesses and listed 107 areas of your business that you probably could find savings in.
The biggest areas for most businesses are in the fact that they are not thinking lean.
Lean is a concept originating from Japan but is developed on the concept that businesses can lower expenses and become more profitable with a “just in time” mentality. This means that we look for ways to produce and deliver our products or services as efficiently as possible in order to supply our customers with the highest quality products or services in ways synchronized and systemized to reduce waste.
The biggest waste areas in most businesses are in the areas of energy, people and inventory. When we don’t have efficiencies between departments; when our ordering is not in sync with customers needs; when our systems don’t ensure that our employees are working efficiently or accountably or when our quality doesn’t meet our expectations each and every time, we have waste.
Waste always has a cost. Usually that cost is monetary. When small businesses report they are only marginally profitable or not profitable at all, they should be considering how they can reduce their waste. If waste equals money then the “waste not, want not” motto should be applied. It might only seem like a few crusts or crumbs but those crumbs add up and before you know it, the savings you have might lead you to be rolling in the dough. Dave Fuller, MBA, is a certified professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy.
Indigenous Guardians receive training in land stewardship at Dechenla in the traditional territory of the Ross River Dena Council, along the border of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon as shown in this undated handout image. More than 40 Indigenous communities in Canada have launched guardian programs, which employ local members to monitor ecosystems and protect sensitive areas and species.
Indigenous guardians alarmed about climate change impacts
Laura KANE Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — Growing up in a small, remote First Nations community in northwestern British Columbia, Jarett Quock found he faced racism and stereotypes from non-Indigenous people whenever he left the reserve.
The treatment took a toll on him, damaging his pride in his Tahltan Nation roots. It was only after he began work as an Indigenous guardian – monitoring the effects of climate change on his territory – that he recovered his confidence.
“Being a guardian has helped me so much on a personal level,” Quock, 31, said.
“Being able to go out there and connect to the land and connect to the people and having that sense of pride when you go home has helped me overcome a lot of obstacles in my life.”
More than 40 Indigenous communities in Canada have launched guardian programs, which employ local members to monitor ecosystems and protect sensitive areas and species. At a national gathering in Vancouver this week, guardians raised alarm about environmental degradation and climate change in their territories.
A massive wildfire swept through Quock’s community of Telegraph Creek last August, destroying 21 homes and damaging many others. Climate change was partly to blame for the rapid spread of the flames through tinder-dry vegetation, said Quock.
“By the middle of July, we had our green leaves already turning brown. It was so hot with no rain,” he said, adding that the fire first broke out near a swamp that
would typically have been moist enough to allow firefighters to contain the blaze. “It shouldn’t have gotten that big.”
Quock helped design the community’s first guardian program, which involved helping conservation officers monitor licensed hunters. He also launched an education program aimed at stopping garbage dumping and unnecessary burning in camps, he said.
The program has since grown from being focused mostly on hunting to more of a land stewardship program, monitoring water quality, protecting caribou and removing problem wildlife, he said.
A major focus is monitoring the effects of climate change, Quock added. In addition to the rapid spread of last summer’s wildfire, he has seen caribou altering their migration routes and dwindling numbers of certain species of animals.
Indigenous communities are often the first to experience the impacts of climate change, said Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations.
“We sustain ourselves off the land, so if there are issues such as declining populations of caribou, moose and what have you, we’re certainly the first to know and also be affected by issues of climate change,” he said.
In northern B.C., a mountain pine beetle outbreak led to forests strewn with dead wood, which along with last summer’s hot and dry conditions helped fuel the worst wildfire season on record in the province, Teegee said.
“It’s quite frightening,” he said.
“I think it really requires action, not only by people that are watching what’s happening on the land,
the guardians, but also by governmental policies and commitment to living up to the Paris climate change accord.”
Environment and Climate Change Canada provided $25 million in the 2017 budget for a four-year Indigenous guardians pilot program to provide communities with greater opportunities to be responsible for stewardship of their traditional lands, waters and ice. The pilot program aims to inform a potential National Indigenous Guardians Network.
“Indigenous communities are deeply connected to the land and understand the importance of acting now to protect Canada’s environment and conserve biodiversity,” said Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in a statement last fall. “The work we do together today will ensure a healthier environment for the generations that follow.”
So far, the ministry has funded 28 projects across Canada, including one in Iqaluit that monitors vessel traffic and its effects on Arctic waters and wildlife, and another in Dease Lake that observes woodland caribou seasonal movements to address climate change concerns.
Indigenous people have always been guardians of their territories, but a more formal movement has been developing over the past 30 years, said Valerie Courtois, a member of the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh in Quebec.
Courtois is also director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which hosted this week’s gathering in Vancouver with the B.C. Assembly of First Nations and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Mountie arrested for alleged indecent acts near all-girls school
Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — An RCMP officer in Vancouver is accused of performing indecent acts while off duty near a private all-girls school in the city.
Vancouver police say the man was arrested Tuesday and has since been released on several conditions. His name has not been released because police
say charges have not yet been approved.
The arrest follows a lengthy sexual misconduct investigation into alleged incidents near York House school on Vancouver’s west side.
Dawn Roberts, an RCMP spokeswoman, confirms in a statement that the suspect is a Mountie.
Roberts says the officer is suspended with pay and an internal code of conduct investigation has been launched.
Law in SNC-Lavalin case rarely makes it to court
Mia RABSON Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The criminal law at the heart of the SNC-Lavalin saga dogging the federal Liberals has led to charges in just seven cases in 20 years, leading some to call for a review of the legislation and additional resources for investigators.
The Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act made it illegal for Canadian companies and individuals to bribe foreign public officials in business transactions.
The most recent report to Parliament on the law, from September 2018, showed that since the law was passed in 1999, charges had been laid against four companies and 15 individuals, stemming from seven investigations.
Of those, three companies pleaded guilty and three people were convicted, while 11 people were either acquitted or had their charges stayed. One person accused in a bribery scheme in India faces a trial later this year.
The case against SNC-Lavalin is the one outstanding charge against a company, and if SNCLavalin goes to trial it will be the first company to do so.
That places Canada at the lower end of enforcement among the 44 signatories of the 1999 Anti-Bribery Convention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canada passed the domestic law after it signed the convention, which is aimed at recruiting richer countries to combat corruption their own citizens and businesses perpetrate in poorer ones.
The OECD raised concerns about lax enforcement efforts in Canada eight years ago and Canada responded with some amendments to the law, but the number of charges and convictions since is small.
Patrick Moulette, the head of the anti-corruption division of the OECD, said the OECD will do another review of Canada’s enforcement of the bribery convention in 2021 so he can’t immediately say if there has been any improvement since the last review in 2011.
Canada reported to the OECD it had 35 ongoing investigations of foreign bribery in 2013. In the six years since then, charges have been laid in connection to four investigations.
Transparency International, which works to fight global corruption, lowered Canada’s
ranking from “moderate enforcement” to “limited enforcement” last year because only one new charge had been laid since 2016. In that case, related to the purchase of an airplane from Thailand, the charge was stayed less than a year later.
Joanna Harrington, a University of Alberta law professor, said the number of charges is not the only indication of how well a law is working, because Canada is assisting other countries to gather evidence and the law is also used to educate and deter the crimes from happening. But nevertheless, she said, it is time to give the whole thing a closer look.
“We’ve had 20 years of it, now’s the time to review it,” she said, noting the original law was passed with just two days of debate.
Investigations under the law are handled by the RCMP, which set up a special division with units in Calgary and Ottawa in 2008. Prosecutions are handled by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
David Taylor, director of communications for Justice Minister David Lametti, said the government has “full confidence” in both to investigate and prosecute cases under the law.
“Canada is committed to fighting corruption and has taken significant steps to deter Canadian companies and persons from paying bribes to foreign public officials in the course of business,” he said. Harrington, however, said a review of the law is needed given the confusion around the use of the law and the addition of remediation agreements to that law last year. They’re a means of heading off a prosecution if a company facing charges owns up to misdeeds, makes reparations, and institutes consequential internal reforms. If it stays clean for a period of time, the charges are dropped.
“The problem we have, as we’re seeing with the SNC-Lavalin case, is we have this 20-year old piece of legislation and last year the government bolted on the remediation agreements, and now we’re not sure how they work together,” she said.
Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his staff tried to get her to change her mind about refusing a remediation agreement for SNCLavalin, which was charged in 2015 with trying to bribe officials in Libya. Trudeau denies any improper influence took place.
VALERIE COURTOIS HANDOUT PHOTO VIA CP
City council mistakes piling up
An unstable, undetected layer of clay is to blame for a nearly $7 million cost overrun on the Haggith Creek bridge. Turns out the political support enjoyed by this city council sits on a similarly unreliable base, if the outcry over the City of Prince George’s drunken sailor spending and borrowing so far this year, while passing the tab onto local residents, is any indication.
How quickly public confidence has eroded in Mayor Lyn Hall, the six incumbent city councillors and the two new faces in Cori Ramsay and Kyle Sampson. Just like a bridge on the Willow Cale Road that opened in March 2017 only to be closed five months later after cracks appeared in the asphalt.
This is what happens when, five months into a new term in office, there is still no action on campaign pledges to review the city’s overtime policy for senior staff.
This is what happens when a 4.5 per cent property tax increase is passed down to residents with little to no apparent on city council’s part to reduce municipal spending.
This is what happens when city council introduces a $32 million omnibus borrowing bill for 11 separate projects, along with
tax increases over the next five fiscal years to cover the debt servicing costs, instead of putting the plan on last October’s election ballot as a referendum question.
And this is what happens when having to borrow another $8.5 million to cover that bridge fiasco and to fix the sinkhole that wouldn’t die at Winnipeg and Massey is met with concern by just two city councillors and “what, me worry?” shrugs from the rest.
Coun. Frank Everitt tried to gloss over the difference between the sinkhole and the bridge as “just an act that happened out there in the ground and we have to live with the results of that.”
That’s an apt description of the sinkhole, caused by aging infrastructure and a legitimate effort to deal with the situation with the cheapest, quickly solution which didn’t work, eventually leading to an unplanned months-long project that eventually cost $1.7 million to fix.
But that description is completely wrong for the bridge project. Well-educated experts were handsomely paid to engineer, design and build a $3 million bridge that would work for decades.
It lasted five months.
Coun. Brian Skakun was left to state the obvious.
“In my opinion, somebody’s got to be held responsible,” he said. “We are held responsible every four years and in this case there is obviously some mistakes made.”
Only Coun. Terri McConnachie agreed, referring to the results as “a debacle” and “simply unacceptable.”
Lawyers have advised the city that it doesn’t have a case to sue either the firm that conducted the geotechnical survey of the work site or the builder of the bridge. That doesn’t mean the city staff overseeing this project can’t be disciplined – up to and including dismissal if the facts warrant – for negligence, incompetence or both for their failure on this project.
To get to that point, however, would require an investigation into what went wrong.
City council has every right to ask for a report with answers and policy recommendations on how to prevent similar fiascos from happening in the future. Not only is there no investigation but in the end, Skakun and McConnachie joined their council colleagues in approving borrowing the money, rather than letting their vote stand with their stern words.
That investigation is essential since the bridge will still cost more money.
An improperly-sized culvert was installed
Oil, gas wells liability looming
Adraft copy of an auditor general’s report estimates there is a $2.8-billion liability in restoration costs from B.C.’s oil and gas wells, thousands of which are now inactive.
It’s technically the responsibility of the industry, but it looks as if taxpayers will be covering a significant part of the tab.
Auditor General Carol Bellringer is scheduled to release an audit of the Oil and Gas Commission’s management of non-operating oil and gas sites today.
A draft copy of the document obtained by the Victoria Times Colonist concludes in part that the commission had “not effectively managed the environmental and financial risks of nonoperating oil and gas sites.”
It states that the commission is taking steps to mitigate the impacts of orphan wells. But funds collected from drilling companies to cover restoration costs of those wells during the three-year period studied were inadequate. Legislation was passed last year to rectify shortfalls in oversight and new measures are in progress. But it will take a significant makeup effort.
The draft audit says there are clear requirements for how to decommission and remediate wells that are no longer active. But there are no triggers to ensure that operators are doing so. So the wells can be shut down for years without being restored.
“Operators are not required to decommission or restore wells, unless the OGC explicitly orders
IN THE FAST LEYNE
LES LEYNE
them to do so to address specific safety or environmental issues on a case-by-case basis.”
The number of inactive wells has almost doubled since 2007, to 7,474. Inactive means they are at least temporarily shut down, but not yet formally decommissioned. Another 3,198 wells are designated as decommissioned but not yet restored.
That’s a total of 10,672 wells that are no longer in service, but have not been restored. Restoring means sealing the well bore with concrete to protect water quality and remediating the site.
Auditors were told by the commission that some operators choose to leave wells in a suspended state indefinitely while continuing to pay surface leases, because it’s cheaper than paying to fully decommission them. The estimated operator liability of all oil and gas wells in B.C. is $2.8 billion, the audit says. The number of restored wells is 4,329.
The industry is expected to cover the cleanup costs under the polluter-pay principle. But the funding mechanism didn’t keep up. The commission collected inadequate funding from operators to cover the cost of restoring orphan wells. It lists the example of Terra Energy, which went bankrupt in 2016, leaving 175 new orphan wells in B.C. Fully restoring them
is estimated to cost $54 million, but the company left only a $952,000 security deposit, the draft report states.
Another company, Quattra Exploration, went bankrupt, leaving an $18-million restoration liability for 75 wells, and no security on hand to cover it, according to the draft copy.
In just the past two years, the number of officially designated orphan wells has increased from 34 to 307, due mostly to the financial downturn in the industry and the gas glut in North America.
The commission took on an additional $33 million in liability and will need up to $104 million more to cover restoration.
Meanwhile, the designated fund to cover those costs – the Orphan Fund – was bringing in $1.5 million a year for the past few years. Recent changes and others to come are expected to raise that level in coming years.
The draft copy is incomplete and subject to change before the final version is released today. But it’s the second independent assessment of the oil and gas industry that raises numerous questions. An independent scientific study of hydraulic fracturing for the energy ministry was also leaked two weeks ago. The panel concluded it could not make any pronouncements on fracking because there is so little data about all the impacts.
Now it appears the auditor general is finding that, although recent changes have been made, those wells could cost the public much more than anyone expected.
that doesn’t meet Department of Fisheries and Oceans standards for a bridge over a fish-bearing waterway.
At any time, DFO could demand the city to close the bridge, dig up that culvert and install another one.
Even if that wasn’t the case, a look at what went wrong is warranted. Based on their annual budgets, a $7 million error in a city project is the equivalent of a $2.5 billion error at the provincial government level and a $14 billion mistake for the federal government.
Finding out what went wrong and how it can be prevented from happening again isn’t a lack of confidence in city administration. It’s the responsible act of a city council that holds itself and its administration accountable for its mistakes and wants to help prevent future councils and administration from making the same errors. Too many mistakes too early in their four-year term from a mayor and council that seem reluctant to demand better of themselves and the bureaucrats has led to rapidly eroding public support, which will cost them for the rest of their mandate.
Like the bridge, these problems can be fixed but taking responsibility and ownership has to start now.
Neil Godbout
Editor-in-chief
—
Northerners, rest of B.C. out of step on resource development projects
Asurvey conducted by Research Co. on behalf of LNG Canada sought to understand the support that exists for resource development projects in British Columbia and Canada.
In the survey, a sizeable majority of British Columbians (71 per cent) express support for resource development projects. In addition, 51 per cent of respondents agree they are “tired of nothing getting built” in British Columbia – a proportion that jumps to 67 per cent among those who reside in northern B.C.
Across the province, seven in 10 residents (70 per cent) foresee a positive economic impact from LNG Canada’s liquefied natural gas export project in Kitimat.
As expected, those who live and work in northern BC (86 per cent) are more likely to anticipate a positive economic impact from LNG Canada’s project, but the numbers are also high for residents located far from the construction site: 67 per cent in Metro Vancouver and 56 per cent in Vancouver Island.
The research also shows that at least three in five Canadians have a positive opinion of four energy sources: wind (80 per cent), hydropower (76 per cent), natural gas (69 per cent) and geothermal (61 per cent). The lowest ranked energy source for Canadians is coal, at 24 per cent.
Discussions about climate change have intensified in recent years, and three in five Canadians (60 per cent) believe Canada has a responsibility to “export natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in other countries.” LNG can displace the use of coal – the lowest ranked energy source in the survey – for power generation, thereby reducing global GHGs.
There are two issues that would make a majority of residents more likely to support resource development projects in British Columbia. The most important characteristic is “ensuring that the impact on the environment is limited.”
Almost three in five residents (57 per cent) say that achieving this goal would make them more likely to support a specific resource development project.
More than half of British Columbians (53 per cent) say they would be more likely to support a resource development project that guarantees “that Canadians will get the first opportunity to work.”
These two broad themes – environmental stewardship and jobs for Canadians – succeed in garnering the backing of many British
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Columbians. A slightly smaller proportion of residents (46 per cent) would be more likely to endorse a resource development project that provided “training and apprenticeship opportunities for young Canadians.”
Two in five British Columbians (40 per cent) would be more likely to support a resource development project that both created “thousands of full-time and part-time jobs” and “contributed billions of dollars in taxes and revenues.”
More than a third of British Columbians (37 per cent say that a project that has “the support of the majority of First Nations in the area that it is located in” would earn their approval.
Finally, when asked about their stance on a project that “specific groups have staged protests against,” the numbers fluctuate wildly.
Only 17 per cent of British Columbians would be more likely to endorse a project on this basis alone, and 22 per cent say the protests would actually make them less supportive.
Two groups stand out in their position: 23 per cent of British Columbians aged 55 and over and 23 per cent of those who reside in northern B.C. say protests would actually make them more supportive of resource development projects.
Residents of northern B.C. are also more likely to express dismay over “nothing getting built in British Columbia” (67 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 51 per cent), more likely to believe that the province’s reputation “is harmed by protests against resource development projects “ (68 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 52 per cent) and more likely to state that the provincial economy “would suffer if we cannot build resource development projects” (74 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 63 per cent).
Unanimity, as a guiding concept for the approval of resource development projects, is practically unattainable.
There is a sizeable difference in perceptions related to resource development on a geographic basis, and British Columbians who could be the primary beneficiaries of some of these projects are currently upset with the idea of stagnation.
Mario Canseco is president of Research Co.
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BY THE NUMBERS
MARIO CANSECO
Outlook darkens upcoming federal budget
Citizen news serivice
The improved economy is expected to give the Trudeau government more fiscal room than anticipated in next week’s pre-election budget – but a wobbly economic finish to 2018 means conditions could look much different as the October vote approaches.
An abrupt deceleration in economic growth over the final three months of 2018 has dimmed the outlook for this year.
Last week, the Bank of Canada predicted a weaker economic performance through the first half of 2019, compared to its previous forecast of just a short slump. Still, the economy posted solid numbers for much of last year and employment has remained particularly strong.
Some experts predict it’s been enough of a boost to give the Lib-
eral government billions more in fiscal wiggle room.
With extra money, hints of tougher times ahead and an election just months away, the government is expected to use up all that space based on the argument the economy will need stimulative investments.
Scotiabank chief economist Jean-Francois Perrault said larger-than-expected government revenues last year mean Ottawa could have as much as $5 billion more than it had predicted in its November update to dedicate to new pre-election spending, or even tax cuts.
“It’s this really fascinating mix of political challenges with some uncertainty on the economic side,” said Perrault, a former assistant deputy minister under Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
“The Trudeau government is clearly in more difficulty now
(politically) than it was six months ago. They’re probably going to be looking for something on the budgetary side that will increase their chances of being elected.”
CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld also sees the Liberals in a stronger fiscal starting position, but with economic headwinds in the forecast.
“There’s good news and bad news, in a sense, for the fiscal path,” said Shenfeld, who also noted the effects of an approaching election on budget decisions.
“I’m expecting cheques to go out somewhere. Remember that in the last election the party that won was the one party not promising to balance the budget... The recent sluggishness of the economy is just one more reason to expect a budget that sends out some goodies.”
Morneau has said his fourth budget will focus on helping workers get the skills they need and on
Mi’kmaq leading Canada on Aboriginal education
Twenty years ago, only 30 per cent of Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaq students were graduating from high school.
Today, that number stands at 90 per cent – the highest on-reserve graduation rate in the country.
The federal government recognized the province’s Mi’kmaq community for leading the country on Indigenous education on Thursday by signing a new, 10-year education agreement worth $600 million. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said the “amazing success” can be attributed to the 1997 creation of the Mi’kmaq education authority, known as Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey or simply MK.
“When we come together to celebrate the success of MK, we are actually setting an example for the country – and for the world,” Bennett said after signing the funding agreement with 12 jubilant Mi’kmaq leaders.
“After 20 years, you are demonstrating the success that everybody wants from coast to coast to coast ... The Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia are way ahead on how important this is.”
Previous agreements lasted for only five years.
The authority supports local band schools in delivering language immersion and other culturally relevant programs. It also protects and promotes the educational and language rights of the province’s Mi’kmaq people.
The high school graduation rate among First Nation students in Nova Scotia is considerably higher than the national average, which now stands at 36 per cent for students living on reserve.
Chief Leroy Denny, leader of the Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton and chairman of the MK, recalled how he decided to become
a teacher when the authority was established.
As the time, none of the province’s Mi’kmaq First Nations had their own schools. Students had to be bused to other communities.
“It was a dream - a dream that if the Mi’kmaq could control our own education that we could reach levels never believed possible by Canadians,” he told about 100 delegates to a Mi’kmaq education conference.
“We know that our youth will grow into strong, proud Mi’kmaq when they are given the opportunity to learn in an environment that values the strengths of Mi’kmaq language and culture.”
Still, Denny said the MK has plenty of work to do.
“We want a 100-per-cent graduation rate,” he said with a smile, adding that the focus of the authority is revitalizing the Mi’kmaq language.
The Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey reported a high school graduation rate of 89.6 per cent in the 2016-2017 school year, almost on par with the graduation rate for the entire province, which is one of the highest in Canada at 92.3 per cent.
Nova Scotia’s Indigenous population makes up 2.7 per cent of the provinces’s total population, which now stands at around 960,000.
According to federal figures, there are about 3,000 Kindergarten to Grade 12 students studying on-reserve, where the attendance rate is 90.9 per cent.
As well, there are about 600 Indigenous students enrolled in the province’s postsecondary institutions.
“This is the way forward,” Bennett said. “When kids have a secure, personal, cultural identity, they end up with better health, education and economic outcomes. To be proud of who you are, means you have selfesteem, it means you have resilience.”
ensuring seniors feel optimistic about their futures. The government, he added, is looking for ways to make homes more affordable for millennials, while keeping the housing market stable.
The Liberals also intend to use the budget to lay out how they will achieve their two main goals on pharmacare: keeping costs down and ensuring better coverage for everyone.
The budget will also update the country on the state of the federal books, which could prove to be an important ballot-box concern for many voters.
The Liberals’ fiscal record has faced regular criticism from the Opposition and some economists.
In particular, the Conservatives have targeted the Liberals over their decisions to ditch their 2015 election vow to run only modest annual shortfalls and to eliminate the deficit by 2019.
Instead, the Liberals have posted deficits of more than $18 billion in each of the last two years, with no timeline to achieving balance. In November’s update, the government projected annual deficits of $18.1 billion in 2018-19, $19.6 billion in 2019-20 and $18.1 billion in 2020-21.
Morneau has shifted his focus to reducing the net-debt-to-GDP ratio – a way of describing how burdensome debt is, relative to the national economy – each year. TD senior economist Brian DePratto recalls how in past budgets the Liberals have enjoyed “growth dividends” because the economy had outperformed expectations. The extra fiscal room enabled them to use up the space without affecting the debt-to-GDP anchor. This time, however, things are different because the overall economic picture has “clearly degraded,” he said.
Passengers pinched by Boeing ban
Citizen news service
Canada’s largest airline was inundated with calls as travellers scrambled to rebook flights after Ottawa joined dozens of countries in grounding the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft Wednesday.
Calls to Air Canada’s customer service line Wednesday and Thursday prompted a recording that said call volume has temporarily exceeded the company’s capacity to answer or even place callers on hold.
The message cites “unforeseen circumstances,” and directs callers to Air Canada’s website.
Kimberly Yetman Dawson, visiting family in Ontario, said she booked a second return flight to Halifax this Saturday at double the cost due to confusion over whether her original trip – scheduled initially on a Max 8would go ahead.
“I’m hoping that I’ll be compensated or I’ll be credited,” she said. “It’s a schlimazel. It’s up in the air.”
The logjam prompted Air Canada to set up a service line for Max 8 passengers flying in the next 72 hours: 1-833-354-5963.
Air Canada said it will waive cancellation charges and rebooking fees for Max 8 flights within three weeks of the original travel date.
The Montreal-based company has 24 Max 8s that carry between 9,000 and 12,000 passengers daily.
The jets fly popular routes including Vancouver-Calgary and Montreal-Los Angeles as well as to Mexico, the Caribbean and Hawaii, causing headaches for thousands of March break vacationers and travel agents.
Maninder Singh, the owner of InterSky travel agency in Montreal, said the ban will cost him cash as he refunds passengers whose flights have been cancelled.
“Obviously we lose our markup,” he said. “We have to call every single Max 8 customer and check for alternate dates.”
Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the decision to ground the planes was a precautionary move made after a review of the available evidence in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines disaster Sunday that killed all 157 people on board, including 18 Canadians.
WestJet Airlines Ltd., which has 13 Max 8s that fly to destinations in Florida and elsewhere, said 11 domestic flights were cancelled Thursday, impacting 1,200 passengers.
More than three-quarters of those travellers would be rebooked on flights Thursday, with the remainder departing Friday or Saturday, the airline said.
The Calgary-based company has a no-fee cancellation policy for Max 8 flights, though rebooked flights may cost more.
Both airlines say customers will not be compensated for accommodations.
“The first 72 hours is a major shock,” said Mark Gallardo, vice-president of network planning at Air Canada.
“As time progresses we’re going to have a lot more recovery options.”
The airline hopes to hang on to several Embraer E-90 and Airbus A320 planes that were slated to exit the fleet this month, Gallardo said.
Slashing the number of flights and swapping in bigger planes and reserve crews is another strategy, along with rerouting passengers through other airlines, but the options all come at a cost.
More than 40 countries, including the U.S., China and all European Union states, have now grounded or banned the Max 8 from their airspace over safety concerns and possible parallels to an Oct. 29 incident which saw the same type of aircraft plunge into the Java Sea, killing 189 people.
Mary Jane Hiebert, who chairs the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, said the virtual blanket ban on the more than 375 Max 8s in service across the world will snarl up the global flight grid.
“There are connecting flights, there are
alliance partners. So you take an Air Canada plane to a certain destination, you get on a Max 8 with United Airlines or another carrier – except you can’t now.”
Pilots, flight attendants and mechanics are trained to work on specific types of aircraft, which could make staffing and maintaining the replacement aircraft more difficult, Hiebert said.
Andrea Carr-McNeill, director of marketing with The Travel Store in Charlottetown, said the travel agency has been inundated with customer calls over the past 24 hours.
“We’ve got six offices in the Maritimes and we’ve stopped counting; there’s been that many,” she said.
“Patience is a virtue that every one of us needs to have right now.”
Ethiopia calls in French crash experts
Citizen news service
France doesn’t see an unusually large number of aviation disasters, but its plane crash investigators are world famous.
The French air accident investigation authority, known by its French acronym BEA, is now analyzing the flight recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed after takeoff earlier this week, killing 157 people. Ethiopian authorities wanted European investigators to handle the analysis because of its complexity, according to BEA spokesman Sebastien Barthe. They initially asked Germany, which said it didn’t have the necessary capacity to take it on, so then the Ethiopians turned to France, Barthe told The Associated Press. And the BEA said yes.
The French agency has extensive experience in investigating crashes and other incidents involving commercial flights. The
BEA notably helps with investigations in countries without the resources or equipment to analyze the flight recorders, often called the black boxes.
BEA investigators are also often called upon when an Airbus plane has a problem anywhere in the world, because the aviation manufacturer is based in France. This time the plane was a Boeing, whose popular 737 Max 8 model has been grounded or barred from air space in more than 40 countries pending investigation into what caused Sunday’s crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S., where Boeing is based, said it will send three investigators to France to help download and analyze the flight recorders. NTSB investigators have also been sent to Ethiopia to help with the investigation.
Aviation safety experts say it’s standard procedure for the country where a crash occurred to lead the investigation and
decide where the flight data and voice recorders will be analyzed. Smaller countries, like Ethiopia, don’t have the equipment to read damaged recorders, so they get to choose where they want that done. In this case, Ethiopia picked France, but not the U.S., which certified the 737 Max jets.
Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the NTSB, said Ethiopian investigators likely avoided sending the data to the U.S. because its Federal Aviation Administration certified the airworthiness of the Max and has a relationship with manufacturer Boeing. The FAA’s reluctance to ground the planes when most of the world already had done so might also have played a role, Goelz added. “I can’t speak for the Ethiopians,” Goelz said. “I’m sure that was under consideration that the FAA was adamant until they weren’t. I think Ethiopia wanted to choose and investigative part-
ner that clearly didn’t have a dog in the fight.”
Preliminary results may arrive as early as Friday, Goelz said.
The BEA isn’t saying how long it will take to analyze the recorders – which are orange, despite their nickname. One collects data such as the plane’s altitude and airspeed, while the other records the sounds in the cockpit. Analysis typically takes days or weeks, depending on whether the recorders were damaged in the crash.
The French agency insists that its investigations are not aimed at assigning blame but at finding out what went wrong to make recommendations to improve air safety around the world.
Among major crash investigations the BEA has led were the 2015 plunge of a Germanwings jet – whose black boxes revealed that the co-pilot had deliberately slammed the plane into an alpine mountainside after locking the captain out of the cockpit.
Thursday on Canada’s main stock index while American markets were largely flat.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 62.42 points at 16,087.55 after trading as high as 16,144.46 on fairly low volume of 196.6 million shares.
The materials index had the biggest declines at 1.84 per cent after the April gold contract ended down US$14.20 at US$1,295.10 an ounce.
Most sectors were down, with only energy and information technology notching mostly tiny gains.
The continued climb in oil prices, with the April crude contract up 35 cents at US$58.61 per barrel, helped offset the losses from the gold price decline, said Kash Pashootan, CEO and chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel Inc.
“That push and pull is resulting in a neutral outcome.”
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 7.05 points at 25,709.94.
The S&P 500 index was down 2.44 points at 2,808.48, while the Nasdaq composite was down 12.50 points at 7,630.91.
Thursday’s slight declines came after several positive days where gains were helped along by technical factors including the soon to close window for company share buybacks, monthly options expiring, and low volatility, said Pashootan.
“You are seeing meaningful inflows of capital from corporations, buying back their shares and pushing share prices higher.”
He said the recent gains continue to be disconnected from broader economic factors, including new U.S. home sales down more than expected in January.
“We are continuing to witness a disconnect between the optimism that is taking place in the equity markets and what the fundamentals are telling us.”
The markets largely shrugged off a delay in a meeting between the U.S. and China leadership on trade, said Pashootan.
“For the time being you’re seeing China-U.S. talks behave as more the side dish to volatility as opposed to the main course, which is what we saw in 2018,” he explained.
The Canadian dollar averaged 75.04 cents US, unchanged from Wednesday.
The April natural gas contract was up four cents at US$2.86 per mmBTU.
The April gold contract ended down US$14.20 at US$1,295.10 an ounce and the May copper contract was down four cents at US$2.89 a pound.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Adeel Khamisa, left, wife Selma Lalji Khamisa and their three-and-a-half year-old son Adam are seen here in California’s Laguna Beach on Monday. They are three of thousands of Canadians who found their March break vacations upended after Canada joined dozens of other countries in closing its skies to the Boeing 787 Max 8.
Sports
Spruce Kings hit playoff road to Chilliwack
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Muhammad Ali had it down to a sweet science.
The heavyweight champ would go into his rope-a-dope defensive stance and let his opponent burn himself out, then finish with flurry of punches strong enough to escape the ring with a victory.
Kind of like what the Chilliwack Chiefs did to the Langley Rivermen in Game 7 of their first-round BCHL playoff series Sunday in Chilliwack. Outshot 45-21 and outplayed by an even wider margin, the Chiefs beat Langley where it counts, winning 3-2 to complete a remarkable comeback after falling behind 3-0 in the series.
The Chiefs looked dog-tired through extended stretches of their series-clincher. But the Prince George Spruce Kings won’t be using that as a gauge of what to expect when they take on the regular-season champions in Game 1 of their best-of-seven Mainland Division final series tonight in Chilliwack.
The Chiefs have had five days rest and anybody who thinks they aren’t a dangerous threat to the Spruce Kings’ title ambitions is living in a dream world. This is the same Chiefs team that waltzed through the regular season with a BCHL-best 42 wins and a league-low 16 losses which allowed them to finish one point ahead of Prince George in the overall standings.
At stake is a trip to the third round against the Island Division champions, either Victoria or Powell River, and whichever team comes out on top in the Mainland will have home-ice advantage for the rest of the playoffs as long as they keep winning.
The Spruce Kings are better defensively than Chilliwack and boast longer playoff resumes with half the team remaining from their 24-game ride to the BCHL final that stopped three wins short of a championship.
The Chiefs have just five holdovers from last year’s team that won the RBC Cup as national champions – forwards Harrison Blaisdell and Skyler Brind’Amour, defencemen Marcus Tesink and Powell Connor and goalie Daniel Chenard. Chenard bailed them out on a big way in the Langley series, backstopping them to four one-goal wins, including an overtime nailbiter in Game 6.
“They’re a momentum team, (scoring) in
the first and last minutes of periods or in the third for comeback wins or they come back late and win it in OT or scoring in bunches,” said Kings head coach Adam Maglio. “That’s what they did in Game 7 against Langley, they got two real quick ones and a shorthanded goal and the game’s over.
“Their goalie (Chenard) has certainly been very good in many games since he returned and that’s very important in the playoffs. Maybe he wasn’t at his best in the first three games but he was pretty damn good for their four wins there.”
The Spruce Kings dispatched the Coquitlam Express in a five-game series that was much closer than it would appear. The Express threw a few wrinkles in the Kings’ gameplan and came close to extending it to the limit. They took the Kings out of their comfort zone in four of the five games and that might not be such a bad thing for a team that’s trying to win its first-ever BCHL championship.
“It’s good having the extended time off
but it can also hurt a little bit because you’re away from that intensity of playoff games,” Maglio said. “I think having a hard-fought series certainly is going to help us. Coquitlam had that older group that kind of dialed it in in the playoffs. We just have to make sure we don’t fall asleep for the first (period) and we’re ready to play. It’ll take a shift for the guys to get back into it. From what we’ve seen from Chilliwack, they stuck with what they used in the regular season through that Langley series and they’ve stuck to their style of play and haven’t changed much. They have some good offensive players up front, as did Coquitlam. Chilliwack’s younger and maybe has more pace as a forward group and overall with maybe a little more skill. We just have to make sure we don’t fall asleep for the first (period) and we’re ready to play. It’ll take a shift for the guys to get back into it.”
Both teams leaned on the top line for the bulk of their scoring during the season.
For Chilliwack, those go-to guys were Matt
Holmes (28-40-68), Kevin Wall (31-33-64) and Blaisdell (33-25-58). Wall and Blaisdell each have a goal and two assists in seven postseason games but Holmes is still looking for his first point.
“One hundred per cent they’ve got to be better and they know that,” Chiefs head coach and general manager Brian Maloney told the Chilliwack Progress.
“They’re young kids, and nobody is going to put more pressure on themselves than them, but they are hockey players and if they want to move forward in hockey they have to learn how to play all the time and be consistent.”
The Kings’ top trio – Ben Brar, Dustin Manz and Patrick Cozzi – has struggled to replicate its torrid regular-season pace. Manz led the team in scoring (33-37-70) and finished fourth in the BCHL scoring race, while Brar (35-26-61) and Cozzi (1444-58) were consistent regular-season point producers.
— see ‘I THINK, page 10
Youth baseball registration system goes online
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Don’t let the snow fool you. Baseball is coming to Prince George faster than a Marcus Stroman fastball.
Prince George Youth Baseball Association (PGYBA) has upgraded its registration system this year so that families can register their kids into the great summer pastime online without having to leave the comfort of their house. Baseball starts in May, on a date dependent on the spring grass, so deadline for registration is March 31.
The deadline is set so teams can be assembled, fields prepared and equipment sorted accordingly. The registration tab on the
PGYBA home page leads parents through the process.
Those interested in coaching (even for part-time or assistant commitments) can also toss their name into that hat via the registration tab.
“It isn’t always at the front of people’s minds, with all of the snow on the ground, that now is the time to think baseball, but that deadline for registration is coming up right away and we do not want families to miss out,” said PGYBA president Carmen Martin.
“We urge people to go to the website as soon as possible.”
For the past few seasons in a row, the league has enjoyed full ranks of about 550 boys and girls, with wait-lists of kids who did not register by deadline and couldn’t
Prince George has a good baseball system. It’s fun at the recreational level and it’s highly competitive at the all-star level.
—Carmen Martin
get slotted onto a team. The level of play at the house level is enjoyable recreation and has led to the emergence of strong rep teams (all play under the black, red and white colours
of the Prince George Knights) including, this past summer, the Western Canadian Midget AA champion squad and the Bantam AA team that won silver at both the B.C. Minor Baseball and the Baseball B.C. provincial tournaments.
“Prince George has a good baseball system. It’s fun at the recreational level and it’s highly competitive at the all-star level,” said Martin. The baseball season is also designed to be family-friendly. It starts when the melt allows but the end date is firm.
The last week for school at the end of June is also the close of baseball, allowing families to have their summer holidays without scheduling conflicts. It only continues into the sum-
mer for the players who emerge as all-stars for the various rep teams travelling to represent the northern region at various tournaments.
PGYBA encourages both boys and girls to take part.
There is plenty of opportunity for families to get involved as volunteers, there is umpire training for youth and adults to develop their officiating skills and take part in that way as well, and it’s the kind of activity families and neighbours can enjoy together in parks and backyards.
Kids aged four and five can take part in the blastball introductory level, with two-year age brackets all the way up to the 15-17 midget level. Prices range from $90 Blastball to $200 for bantam and midget.
Prince George Spruce Kings defenceman Nick Bochen looks to make a play in the slot while being checked by Chilliwack Chiefs defender Max Wutzke at Rolling Mix
Concrete Arena on Feb. 23. The Spruce Kings start their best-of-seven Mainland Division final series tonight in Chilliwack.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Prince George Spruce Kings forward Tyler Schleppe digs along the boards for the puck with Chilliwack Chiefs defender Ethan Bowen at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena in Feb. 23.
Kassel back on top of world cross-country podium
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Nikki Kassel saved her best race for last at the Masters World Cup cross-country championships.
Already a frequent flier to the medal podium in Beitstolen, Norway, having won a gold medal and two silver at the week-long event, Kassel put together another nearperfect race Thursday when she won the women’s 30-kilometre freestyle race.
“The race I was really focusing on was today – the long-distance 30k skate,” said Kassel, in a text message to The Citizen. “I had a fantastic race, winning my (women’s 45-49 year) category by 10 minutes and having the fastest overall women’s time.
“I’m so thankful to Scott Forrest for feeding me Coke every lap and my mom (Carolyn) handing me gels. It was superdeep snow for skating because we had a ton of fresh snow here in Beitstolen but I had fast skis and I was hungry today.” Kassel finished the 30 km course in 1:29:15.7.
The 45-year-old nurse began the championships with a gold-medal performance in the 15 km freestyle and also won silver in the 10 km classic technique race. She finished in 26:43, 49 seconds behind goldmedalist Sandra Wagenfuhr of Switzerland.
In the team relay classic event on Tuesday, Kassel and fellow Canadians Coralie Beauchamp, Jillian Flower and Annie Chenard won silver in the women’s 35-39 year age class race.
In other Prince George results from Beitstolen, 62-year-old Scott Forrest raced to a
Cougars
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
It’s the final weekend of the season for the Prince George Cougars and they would love nothing more than to spoil it for the Kamloops Blazers.
Tonight in Kamloops and Saturday at CN Centre, the Cougars and Blazers will renew their longstanding rivalry in what promises to be a scrap to the finish for both teams. The Cougars (18-40-5-3) have known for weeks they will miss the Western Hockey League playoffs for the second consecutive season but won’t lack for motivation in the two-game set. They want to end what’s been a tough season on a high note and relish the chance to derail the Blazers and their playoff ambitions.
The Blazers (27-32-5-2, fourth in B.C. Division) are just one point behind the Kelowna Rockets (2731-6-2, third in B.C. Division) for the final playoff position in the division. Each team has two games left. The Rockets play the Vancouver Giants tonight in Langley, then meet the first-place Giants in Kelowna on Saturday.
For Mark Lamb, the Cougars interim head coach and general manager, the two weekend games will be one last chance for his returning players to audition for their roles on the team next season. For graduating Cougar 20-year-olds – defenceman Joel Lakusta, centre Josh Curtis and left winger Mike MacLean – this weekend marks the end of their WHL careers.
“It’s the last evaluation in a playoff atmosphere,” said Lamb. “(The Blazers) are fighting for their lives so they’re going to be playing play-
Nikki Kassel of Prince George races to gold in the women’s 30km freestyle race Thursday at the Masters World Cup crosscountry championships in Beitstolen, Norway. Kassel won her 45-49-year-old age category and clocked 1:29.15.7, the fastest overall women’s time.
17th-place finish in the men’s 60-64-year 30 km classic technique race on Wednesday. Forrest completed the course in 1:53.54.4. Olivo Antonlacomi of Italy won gold in 1:36:21.5.
Forrest posted a 24th-place result out of 49 in Sunday’s 10 km classic event. He finished in 31:37, 5:07 off the winning pace
off hockey and that’s a comparable we can use. For them, it’s do or die also, that’s the intensity we’re going to get this weekend.
“They’re a physical team that’s on a roll right now (4-1-1 in the last five games). They have a lot of good players and they’re a good enough team to be in the playoffs. It’s going to be a big challenge.”
So far, the Blazers have dominated the Cougars in the season series, winning six of the seven games. That string of success was snapped Feb. 22 in Kamloops, where the Cats won 2-1 in a shootout to end a club-record 17-game losing streak. The only other point Prince George gained happened Jan. 20 at CN Centre when they lost 3-2 in overtime to Kamloops.
“They’ve really had our number, they’ve been a hard team to play against and they’re a very physical team, which bodes well for ourselves,” said Lamb.
The Cougars are coming off a 5-2 win over the Portland Winterhawks last Saturday, after losing 3-2 to the ‘Hawks the previous night. That win was the first on home ice for Lamb since he assumed the coaching duties Feb. 6, when Richard Matvichuk was fired.
“That’s probably the most complete two games in a row we’ve played,” said Lamb. “We could have had better results, but what I liked about it is we played the same way in the second game, which we did win. The only way you can really sell on what you’re trying to sell (as a coach) is to get the win, which we did.
“Our team felt pretty good about themselves but I’ve seen that happen before too, where we get
of Gianpaolo Englaro of Italy. On Tuesday, Forrest teamed up with Ed Delaplante, Mike Huet and Stuart Hamilton to help Canada finish ninth in the men’s classic relay.
Forrest began the world championships Friday placing 35th in the 15 km classic technique race.
Nikki and Carolyn Kassel, Forrest and
feeling good about a small things, which you want to, but ultimately you’ve got to get on a roll and keep playing well. A win is a win, it doesn’t matter where it is, every time we go and play a game that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The Cougars have a 30-goal scorer for the first time in two seasons. Josh Maser scored his 30th in Saturday’s game against Portland and the just-turned 20-yearold has been the hottest Cougar with 10 goals and 12 points the last 11 games.
“He’s made a lot of steps, he’s got the mentality that he wants to be a good leader and a good player and it’s evident on how he plays,” said Lamb.
“He’s physical, he’s getting to the hard areas and I think his confidence is at a high right now. When you put all those things together you get a player like that. He’s probably wishing the season was longer, as we all do. In a bad situation he’s making the best of it.
“He’s playing well enough to get NHL consideration, that’s for sure, whether he gets drafted or a tryout. Every night you’ve got to bring it because there’s always somebody watching and I tell that to the whole team. In a situation like that, scouts are watching to see your body language on which direction you’re going.”
Maser (30-12-42) is three points behind team scoring leader Vladislav Mikhalchuk (22-2345), who snapped a nine-game pointless streak with a goal and an assist Saturday. Saturday’s game is the Cougars’ Fan Appreciation Night. The Cats will hold their annual awards banquet Sunday morning at the Civic Centre.
Barb Kane, all of Prince George, are entered in the Birkebeiner on Saturday, a 54 km classic technique event from Rena to Lillehammer while carrying a 3.5-kilogram backpack. The traditional race is symbolic of a winter trip made in 1206 by Norwegian loyalists to save Hakon Hakkonsson, the one-year-old heir to the throne of Norway.
‘I think we’re going to be fine’
— from page 9
Through five playoff games, Brar has two goals and an assist, Manz has one goal and Cozzi is still seeking his first point. Being so closely-watched by the Rivermen was a learning experience for that forward unit.
“Our line has kind of struggled a bit and we haven’t got the chances we wanted and haven’t scored but I think we ended the series on a good note and I think we’ll start scoring again,” said Manz, whose parents from Michigan will be in Chilliwack for the first two games of the series tonight and Saturday.
“I have to pick it up and start scoring a little more to help the team out.”
Kings captain Ben Poisson, who centres a line with his brother Nick and Chong Min Lee, has been a man possessed in the playoffs with three goals and seven points in five games, while maintaining an intimidating physical presence. Lee has also shown his offensive touch (2-3-5), as has former Cowichan Valley Capital centre Lucas Vanroboys (1-4-5) and defenceman Layton Ahac (2-2-4). The Kings have three scoring lines which makes it difficult to key on them.
Cole Donhauser, who had two goals in Game 7, and Brind’Amour each have five points in the playoffs for the Chiefs. Jacques Bouquot, who scored all three Chiliwack goals in their Game 6 win, and Brett Willits, with two goals and an assist, have picked up the slack.
Over the course of the 58game season the Chiefs got in the habit of quick transitions and scored more goals (209) than the Spruce Kings (181). But Prince George had the best goal
differential in the league (+60) largely because defence has been their strength. They were the stingiest team in the BCHL, allowing 120 goals, as compared with the Chiefs, who gave up 169.
Kings defenceman Jay Keranen remembers how tough it was dispatching the Chiefs last year in a seven-game openinground series and he knows his team will have to be at its best to repeat as Mainland Division champions. He and the rest of the Kings are looking forward to feeding off the big crowds in Prospera Centre expected the next two games.
“They’re a bit less physical this year and a little more skilled, at least that’s what we saw in the regular season so I can expect something like that, but it’s going to be a fun series,” said Kings defenceman Jay Keranen.
“Obviously we wanted home ice for the playoffs but we play well in their rink so it’s exciting. In playoffs last year, you start to build a hatred for the team and it’s going to carry on here. It’s going to be a battle.”
Maglio and his assistant Alex Evin have preached a defencefirst strategy. That commitment to protecting their own net, from the forwards on down, combined with their consistent work habits, bodes well for the Spruce Kings.
“I think we’re going to be fine, we’ve had a lot of rest and all the guys are fired up to play and we always play good in their rink too,” said Manz. “They’ve got a lot of high-power offence but defensively they’re not the best and we know that.” Prediction: Spruce Kings in six games.
7 p.m.
GAME Prince George at Chilliwack, 7 p.m. MONDAY, MAR. 18 Chilliwack at Prince George, 7 p.m. TUESDAY, MAR. 19 Chilliwack at Prince George, 7 p.m.
THURSDAY, MAR. 21 x-Prince George at Chilliwack, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 23 x-Chilliwack at Prince George, 7 p.m. MONDAY, MAR. 25 x-Prince George at Chilliwack, 7 p.m.
INTERIOR DIVISION Wenatchee (3) vs. Cowichan Valley (WC) FRIDAY’S GAME Cowichan Valley at Wenatchee, 7:05 p.m. SATURDAY’S GAME Cowichan Valley at Wenatchee,
Trump loses Apprentice lawsuit ruling
Citizen news service
A former contestant on The Apprentice who accused U.S. President Donald Trump of unwanted kissing and groping can move forward with her defamation lawsuit against him, a state appeals court ruled Thursday, raising the prospect that a sitting president could be called for questioning.
A panel of judges on the Supreme Court Appellate Division said in their ruling, in a case brought by Summer Zervos, that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require trials in state court to be delayed until the president is out of office.
Citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two decades ago in a case involving alleged sexual misconduct by President Bill Clinton, a majority of judges on the panel said presidents can be sued in state courts over things they did that aren’t related to their official duties.
“The current sitting president attempts to shield himself from consequences for his alleged unofficial misconduct by relying upon the constitutional protection of the presidency,” the judges said in an opinion written by Justice Dianne T. Renwick. “We reject defendant President Trump’s argument that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prevents a New York State court – and every other state court in the country – from exercising its authority under its state constitution. Instead, we find that the Supremacy Clause was never intended to deprive a state court of its authority to decide cases and controversies under the state’s constitution.”
The decision, which increases the pros-
After initially refusing, Netflix has agreed to remove images of the 2013 Lac-Megantic disaster from its blockbuster film, Bird Box.
“Netflix and the filmmakers of Bird Box have decided to replace the clip,” a spokesman for the streaming company said in an email. “We’re sorry for any pain caused to the Lac-Megantic community.”
People in the Quebec town and across the province were shocked after learning in January that footage from the derailment and explosion that killed 47 people was used in the drama starring Sandra Bullock.
Demands that the brief scene be removed came from politicians at all levels, including Lac-Megantic Mayor Julie Morin.
Morin said she is satisfied with Netflix’s decision. “Yes, there was a delay, but I think in the end, what’s more important for me, is that we have a solution to this situation we felt was important to settle,” she said.
Quebec Culture Minister Nathalie Roy wrote to the company Jan. 18 calling for it to take out footage of the burning town. The company apologized and promised to do better, but until now it had refused to edit the film.
Three months later, Netflix has decided to change course. Morin said the film industry needs to reconsider its use of stock footage. “I think it’s important for the industry to reflect on this,” she said. “It appears that has happened in this case.”
In a written statement, Roy said “the gesture was long sought by Quebecers.”
The House of Commons adopted a motion Jan. 29 demanding Netflix remove the images and compensate the town. The NDP’s
pect that Trump could have to sit for sworn questioning in the lawsuit, was not unanimous.
Two of the five justices on the panel, Peter Tom and Angela M. Mazzarelli, said in a dissent, written by Mazzarelli, that subjecting the president to a state trial court’s jurisdiction “interferes with his ability to carry out his constitutional duty of executing the laws of the United States.”
Pierre Nantel introduced the motion with the support of Conservative MP Luc Berthold. Nantel said Thursday that the incident shows it is time for streaming services to be subject to “our laws and the jurisdiction of the CRTC.”
Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said he is pleased that Netflix has changed its tune.
“My heart goes out to the people of Lac-Megantic. I perfectly understand their dismay at the use of footage of the tragedy,” he said in
Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said he planned to appeal to New York’s highest court.
“We believe that the well-reasoned dissenting opinion by two of the five justices, citing the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Clinton v. Jones case, is correct in concluding that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution bars state courts from hearing cases against the president while he
an emailed statement. “The company has taken the good decision by stepping back and removing this footage from its movie.”
The Canadian Press learned that the footage will be removed from the film within the next two weeks.
Producers of the Netflix science fiction series Travelers, which used footage of the derailment to depict a nuclear attack, agreed in January to remove it from the episode in question.
or she is in office,” he wrote. Zervos was among over a dozen women who came forward during Trump’s 2016 campaign with allegations of sexual misconduct years earlier.
He called the women “liars” trying to harm his campaign with “100 per cent fabricated” stories, and he retweeted a message specifically calling Zervos’ claim “a hoax.” He also issued a statement denying it.
Trump’s lawyers have said the case shouldn’t go forward while he is in office. They also say his remarks were opinions that he had a free-speech right to express in the course of a heated campaign.
Zervos’ lawyers said Trump’s words were factual falsehoods that subjected her to threats and cost her business at her Southern California restaurant.
Zervos appeared on The Apprentice in 2006, when Trump was the reality show’s host. She says he made the unwanted advances the next year during get-togethers she hoped would yield career advice.
She says she didn’t go public with her allegations for almost a decade because she admired Trump as a businessman and thought he had had just a couple of episodes of bad behaviour with her. Both Trump and Zervos are Republicans. Her resolve to stay quiet changed, she said, after an Access Hollywood recording emerged in October 2016 of Trump boasting about groping women.
Zervos is seeking a retraction, an apology, and compensatory and punitive damages. Her lawyer, Mariann Wang, said in an emailed statements she was pleased the judges had ruled that Trump was “not above the law.”
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Summer Zervos leaves New York state appellate court in New York last October. A New York appeals court has ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t immune from a defamation lawsuit filed by the former Apprentice contestant who accused him of unwanted kissing and groping.
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