Doug Leslie, father of Loren Leslie, speaks to the media after the verdict in the Cody Legebokoff murder trial in Sept. 11, 2014. Leslie said he was dumbfounded when he heard his daughter’s killer was moved to a medium-security prison.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Mark
NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Cariboo-Prince George MP
Todd Doherty wants the federal government to take a second look at a Corrections Canada decision to transfer convicted serial killer Cody Legebokoff to a medium security prison.
Doherty said he raised the issue this week in the House of Commons when he “specifically challenged” federal public safety ministry Ralph Goodale to review the transfer, which he said occurred on Jan. 23.
Sentenced in September 2014 to life in prison without eligibility to apply for parole for 25 years for the murders of three women and a teenage girl, Legebokoff had been serving his time in a maximum security facility.
In assessing an innmate’s security level, Corrections Canada considers three main criteria for assessing an inmate’s security level – how the offender will adjust to the institution, the risk of escape and public safety – but Doherty said the agency is also obligated to consider additional factors, particularly the seriousness of the offence.
“I don’t want to run the flag up and set ourselves on fire for political wins,” Doherty said. “This wrong and somebody made a mis-
take. They didn’t do it maliciously, they followed their protocol, I believe, but I believe the protocol is flawed.”
Citing B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett’s sentencing decision on the matter, Doherty said Legebokoff not only committed the murders but was “looking to destroy these four women.”
“He has shown no remorse, he has accepted no responsibility on this and, in Justice Parrett’s words, he should never, ever walk amongst us again.”
The news has not sat well with the families of the four victims –Stacey Stuchenko, 35, Natasha Montgomery, 24, Cynthia Maas,
35, and Loren Leslie, 15.
On her Facebook page, Louanne Montgomery, the mother of Natasha Montgomery, says Legebokoff will take the opportunity to escape and kill again.
“Don’t be fooled,” she says.
Doug Leslie, the father of Loren Leslie, said he was dumbfounded when told the news.
“He should never be out of that little box, ever,” Leslie said.
Only two of the families were notified of the transfer, although victims families are required to register with Corrections Canada to receive notifications.
In an email, Corrections Canada spokesperson Esther Mailhot
declined to speak specifically to Legebokoff’s case, citing privacy law, but said in general inmates are “thoroughly evaluated and placed in facilities that can assure their security and meet their program needs.”
“Rehabilitative efforts, leading to a gradual and controlled release, have proven to be a better way of protecting the public than keeping offenders in maximum security institutions to the end of their sentence, and then releasing them into society without supervision,” Mailhot added.
She said a medium-security institution has the same security safeguards as maximum-security,
but allows for more interaction among offenders.
Legebokoff can begin to apply for parole on Nov. 27, 2035, 25 years after he was first arrested. He will be 45 years old at that time.
Moreover, he will be eligible for day parole after 22 years and, because he was arrested before the Conservative government eliminated the so-called “faint hope” provision, Legebokoff can still apply after 15 years for a reduction in the wait. But the key word in all of this is “eligible.” Legebokoff must still apply for early release and the parole board can still decide to keep him locked up.
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
Crown counsel is seeking five years in prison for a man who stabbed and nearly killed his boyfriend during an argument while the two were driving to Prince George.
Jesse Cote has remained in custody since the March 1, 2018 incident on Highway 97 at Salmon Valley, in which the victim was able to wave down a passing vehicle and get the occupants to call for help. Bleeding profusely from around the ear, the victim was taken to hospital by ambulance. Not
sure he would survive, an RCMP officer accompanied him on the ride and tried to get what information he could while the victim remained conscious.
Because his blood pressure was so low, paramedics had to drill a hole in a leg bone to administer medication and by the time they arrived at University Hospital of Northern B.C., he had lost about two litres of blood.
It appeared he had been stabbed on the side of head just behind the ear but in order to determine the exact spot of the wound, physicians elected to use a CT scan. While inside the
machine, his cartoroid in the side of his neck burst spraying blood around the inside of the machine and he had to go through emergency surgery that saved his life. Cote, meanwhile, had waited in the car at it sat stuck in the snow on the side of the road. Police arrived to find his hands covered in blood. Blood was also found all over his clothes and throughout the car.
The victim told police they had been arguing while driving to Prince George. Things escalated after they had switched seats and the man was stabbed after he had got behind the wheel.
The two had been using drugs over the days before. Cote said he had been using heroin regularly and was in a poor mood that morning after he had consumed methamphetamine and alcohol the night before.
There was also a concern Cote suffers from a form of psychosis. He was on bail for a prior incident that involved the victim and an axe and while he was eventually issued a conditional discharge, Crown argued the incident was similar to the stabbing.
One of the conditions of the bail was that he get a psychological assessment but Cote never
followed up, the court was told. And when giving interviews to a psychologist and the author of a pre-sentence report, Cote often gave contradictory stories about what happened and about his background while often portraying himself as the victim. In relation to the most recent matter, Cote pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. Less credit for time served, Cote faces another 3 1/2 years in custody if provincial court judge Michael Gray agrees with Crown’s arguments. Defence counsel’s submissions will be heard Friday at the courthouse.
Show coming out
60 years after Cash played shows in Prince George
Frank PEEBLES Citizen
staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Sixty years ago this week, during the last week of February 1959, one of the world’s biggest music acts performed in Prince George.
Johnny Cash did a couple of back-to-back performances at the Prince George Civic Centre to throngs of wildly cheering fans.
The Exploration Place posted photos this week of that momentous visit. It was the second time that the city’s main museum commemorated the anniversary of the Johnny Cash visit with a posting of pictures from the archives. To this day, it has a special meaning for local residents and Exploration Place curator Alyssa Tobin-Leier felt it.
“Johnny Cash is a musical icon that has remained a relevant figure in popular culture,” she said.
“Synonymous with country music, he continues to resonate with younger generations and many do not realize he actually performed here. The Exploration Place loves sharing Johnny Cash’s connection to Prince George because of the impact the photos have on the community. Many folks remember watching him perform here and it brings back fond memories for them. Others love reminiscing over his music and sharing memories associated with it.”
That celebrity visit also has meaning for the future of the local performing arts scene. It is coming full-circle with Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Story, a play coming next fall to Theatre Northwest.
TNW’s artistic director Jack Grinhaus did not know it was the 60th year of the Cash concert. He didn’t know, when he let it slip that his theatre company had secured the rights to this popular play, that he was doing so precisely in the anniversary period of that rare brush with stardom.
In many ways, Ring of Fire will be a re-living of that Cash show or a way to get a glimpse of what The Man In Black might have been like
in those prime days. “It’s much more of a musical than it is a play. The music plays a big part in the experience,” said Grinhaus. “It’s a five-actor performance and I can tell you now that we have already booked Curtis Abriel and Amy Blanding to be two of the actors, so Prince George is already well represented within the cast. Curtis and Amy are amazing performers, Prince George loves them, and we are so excited that they can be part of this professional experience.”
Abriel was also a cast member (he portrayed the bass-playing brother of Carl Perkins) in last year’s record breaking play The Million Dollar Quartet that also depicted Johnny Cash along with Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
It was that play that got Grin-
haus thinking about that style of music and that period of western culture. He has a guitar down in his basement, and all those golden-age rock ‘n’ roll tunes started rattling off the walls in his own home, even though country music was never his go-to genre.
“Country hit much later in life, I wasn’t there in my teen years,” he said.
“I’m finding myself caught up now in the older sounds where country blurs with rockabilly and early rock ‘n’ roll, even Merle Haggard and Neil Young, and I got a big boost from Million Dollar Quartet. Now I see the subtleties of that music, and Johnny Cash is definitely all of those other forms of music as much as he is country. I remember when I was 16, Johnny did a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song (Hurt) and that really
caught my attention, but he died so soon after that.”
It was Cash’s birthday that put the icing on the Prince George visit. His birthday is Feb. 26 and since the concerts were on the 23rd and some fan interactions on the 24th, about 50 local members of his fan club arranged for a giant cake to be presented. Cash cut it himself and enjoyed the party.
The two days in P.G. were in between his wrap of the movie Don’t Take Your Guns To Town Son on Feb. 22 that year, and a visit to Alaska for performances there.
“Johnny Cash, often proclaimed teenagers’ biggest idol since rock ‘n’ roll star Elvis Presley was drafted, packed the crowds to Civic Centre capacity last night for two shows of only B.C. performance,” said The Citizen on the front page of the Feb. 24, 1959 edition.
“More than 2,500 mainly teenagers came to see the recording star and his Tennessee Two.
“One of the most popular numbers of the 90-minute show was Cash’s imitation of Elvis Presley style hip-swinging. Reactions range from pure ecstasy to a simple ‘that’s music.’”
To see a theatrical tribute to that music, and the man who made it, book your Theatre Northwest season’s pass for 2019-2020 now at the Theatre Northwest website. There are also tickets still available for the final play of this current season, Meet My Sister, opening on March 28.
To see the city’s biggest photo album of local history, go to the Exploration Place website and look through their Online Exhibits section found under the Collections banner on their homepage.
fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Two of Prince George’s performing arts groups have forged a partnership.
The UNBC Musical Productions Club has been taken under the wing of 25-year-old professional drama company Theatre Northwest. No longer will the student-run amateur group have to squeeze their performances into lecture halls not built for the purposes of live performances. Instead, they now get the benefit of TNW’s full stage and other in-house resources like tech tools and backstage amenities, plus the guidance of tech professionals, director Jack Grinhaus, and general manager Marnie Hamagami.
“All of us are extremely grateful for the folks at Theatre Northwest and their willingness to go above and beyond to help make this partnership happen” said Veronica Church, president of the UNBC Musical Productions Club. “Jack offering to come together and to help us further develop our productions is really going to make a difference in the quality of show we can offer theatre fans in Prince George. We have been given a great
opportunity to work with experts in theatre, a group that has really been leaders in providing great professional theatre in our community and I know that through our keen club members, and through the support provided by our new partner, we are going to deliver a show that is sure to have people wanting to come back for more.”
That first show is the club’s upcoming presentation of the musical stage version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
“It is so important for arts and cultural organizations in P.G. to work together to help enhance what is offered in the community,” said Hamagami.
“Last season I attended one of the club’s shows at the Canfor Theatre and realized the opportunity to help this club grow by developing a partnership that will help both sides enhance theatre in our community.”
The UNBC Musical Productions Club is a university club comprised of both students and local community actors who have come together to perform in an annual spring production. A core group of dedicated students rehearse in their free time at the university until moving into the theatre on the cusp of each performance. With the time crunch
of a student’s schedule and the demands of a large scale production these eager, young theatre enthusiasts are thrilled to be back on a real stage.
“This group certainly has the passion and experience to put on a great community theatre production,” Hamagami said. “We are helping provide them with a facility, greater technical capabilities, as well as some guidance. I would strongly encourage you to come out and to see what this university club has to offer.”
“We are always looking for opportunities to grow our club and expand what we can offer,” said Church. “This season is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and soon we will be planning for our 2020 season. We welcome new partnerships, club members, sponsors and fans. If you haven’t had the chance to catch one our productions in the past, it’s never too late to try us for the first time – this is not one you’ll want to miss.”
The show runs March 8-10 and March 15-17 at Theatre Northwest.
Tickets are $15 regular and $10 students, available now at Theatre Northwest (charge by phone at 250614-0039, or buy online at www.tickets. theatrenorthwest.com.
Citizen news service
VICTORIA — British Columbia Premier John Horgan is keeping his hands behind his back as the City of Victoria mulls where to pass the political “hot potato” of its Sir John A. Macdonald statue. City council discussed the possibility of donating the statue to the provincial government at a recent budget meeting and directed staff to identify any prohibition on donating it to another entity.
The statue of Canada’s first prime minister and member of Parliament for Victoria from 1878 to 1882 was removed from the steps of Victoria City Hall last August, sparking a national debate about how to acknowledge the wrongs of celebrated historical figures.
Critics said Macdonald’s role at the
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau is set to shuffle the federal cabinet today as he looks to fill the void left by the resignation of Jody Wilson-Raybould, a senior government source confirmed Thursday evening.
The source, speaking to The Canadian Press on condition of anonymity because no official announcement had been made, said the shuffle will be “internal to the existing cabinet,” meaning no new ministers will be brought in.
A small number of ministers will change roles, the source said, primarily so that the Department of Veterans Affairs will have a dedicated minister again.
Wilson-Raybould, who was moved from the justice portfolio to veterans affairs in the last federal cabinet shuffle in mid-January, resigned her post Feb. 12.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has been acting as the minister of veterans affairs since then.
On Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould testified to the House of Commons justice committee that she was pressured by Trudeau, his senior staff and others to halt a criminal prosecution of Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.
RCMP are asking for the public’s help in finding a New Hazelton man wanted on nine outstanding warrants who could be in the Prince George area. Jamie Richard Hilbach, 47, is described as Indigenous, five-foot-11, 198 pounds with brown eyes and black hair that may have been dyed blonde. Hilbach is wanted on counts of escaping lawful custody, breaching an undertaking, three counts of theft and two counts each of breaching probation and driving while prohibited. Anyone who sees Hilbach or has information on where he may be is asked to call RCMP immediately.
“Do not confront Hilbach,” RCMP added. Prince George RCMP can be reached at 250-5613300, anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or go online at www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca. — Citizen staff
Canfor Corp. has closed the deal on acquisition of Swedish lumber producer VIDA Group. The B.C.-based company said Thursday it has completed the purchase of 70 per cent of Vida’s shares for $580 million. The move was first announced in November.
“We are excited to welcome the VIDA team to Canfor and we are looking forward to working with VIDA to develop our business on a global scale,” Canfor president and CEO Don Kayne said in a release.
“We respect VIDA’s team, the quality of the wood products they produce, their strong customer relationships, and most importantly the value of the VIDA brand worldwide.”
VIDA, a privately-held company, has nine sawmills in southern Sweden with an annual production capacity of 1.1 billion board feet. — Citizen staff
head of a government that created the Indian Act and established the residential school system, and his racist comments about Indigenous Peoples, made the statue inappropriate.
“I haven’t played hot potato since elementary school,” Horgan joked with reporters on Thursday. “I haven’t had any conversations with the mayor about Sir John A. Macdonald and if I see her coming I may well run the other way.”
Horgan said the statue is Victoria’s problem to deal with but the province would be happy to help and he’s prepared to speak with Mayor Lisa Helps if she approaches him. Helps said during the budget meeting that council’s direction to staff was about preparing for potential questions ahead of public consultations, not about making a decision
on the future of the statue itself.
“The motion asking staff to do a bit of research is precisely so that we can have a public conversation. One of the things that will likely come up at a public conversation is, ‘Can we donate the statute?’ And we would have to say, ‘Well we don’t know,’” Helps said.
Council also approved up to $10,000 for its relocation, bringing the total bill to $40,000 that staff say will be spent on its removal and relocation as part of the city’s reconciliation efforts.
Coun. Ben Isitt had suggested the provincial government would be a good destination for the statue, given that it has resources dedicated to heritage.
Helps said Victoria will be holding talks in the future, focusing on what the city must learn about reconciliation.
NASA-led Lunar Gateway program to build space station orbiting the moon, serve as base for lunar, deep space missions
Sidhartha BANERJEE Citizen news service
LONGUEUIL, Que. — Canada will be a partner in a NASA-led project to establish an outpost for lunar exploration as part of a revitalized national space program, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday
“Canada is going to the moon,” Trudeau declared as he made the announcement at the Canadian Space Agency in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced last summer it is embarking on the creation of its new Lunar Gateway, a space station that will orbit the moon and serve as a springboard for deep-space missions.
The station, about one-fifth the size of the International Space Station, is expected to be fully functional around 2026 and will serve as mission control for lunar missions.
“The Lunar Gateway will be one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by human beings to date,” Trudeau said.
“Not only will this moon outpost allow for a longterm lunar presence but it will also serve as a launch pad to Mars and beyond.”
The plan calls for a “sustainable lunar architecture” that would allow people and equipment to go back and forth to the moon regularly, NASA says.
Trudeau said the partnership in the Lunar Gateway will be part of a new federal space strategy that will see the government invest $2.05 billion over 24 years. He said the investment will create hundreds of well-paying jobs and contribute $100 million annually to Canada’s gross domestic product thanks to the growing space economy.
“It’s a long-term commitment. It demonstrates we’re in it for the long run,” said Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains. Canada’s key contribution to the Lunar Gateway will be developing a smart robotic system, to be known as Canadarm 3. The mechanism will repair and maintain the outpost.
“Canadarm was essential to the space shuttle, Canadarm 2 built the International Space Station, so it’s only fitting and right that the arm that will repair and maintain the Lunar Gateway will yet again be made in Canada by Canadians,” Trudeau said. He got a first-hand look at some of the technology while touring the agency with daughter Ella-Grace, manipulating a camera fixed to the space station and testing out a rover in an agency lab. He later spoke to high school students in a town hall setting.
Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, speaking from the space station where he’s on a sixmonth mission, said that unlike his current workplace, Gateway will not be able to be operated from the ground. Because of the distance, it will have to be autonomous, relying on robotics and artificial intelligence.
“I’m proud and thrilled that Canada will continue the adventure and join in the next chapter of space exploration,” Saint-Jacques said.
“Gateway will be an outpost where humans can live in lunar orbit, where we will learn to work even more autonomously from mother Earth than we have been doing so far.”
Last November, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine visited Ottawa to make a pitch for Canadian involvement in the moon project. He said at the time that he hoped Canadian expertise in artificial intelligence and robotics could yield a new Canadarm. “If Canadians want to be involved in missions to the surface of the moon with astronauts, we welcome that,” he added.
U.S. ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft said in a statement that Thursday’s announcement marks “the beginning of a new era of U.S.-Canada space co-operation.”
The Gateway project will provide Canadian astronauts time in orbit, said Gilles Leclerc, director general of space exploration for the Canadian Space Agency. He said the arrangement still has to be negotiated, but he expects it will be similar to the agreement governing the space station. In Canada’s case, it provides the robotics and has the right to conduct experiments and send crew to the space station.
Leclerc said it’s an exciting time in space – particularly with commercial human space flight on the horizon. But the Gateway project fits Canada’s space goals.
“The realistic approach is contributing Canadian technologies that’s not going to only get us flights but give benefits in terms of the science and real benefits on Earth,” Leclerc said.
Teresa WRIGHT Citizen news service
OTTAWA — If an Indigenous woman in labour in Winnipeg is being challenged on whether she is fit to parent her newborn, Treasury Board President Jane Philpott says she hopes a new law on Indigenous child welfare will help ensure that mother can keep her baby.
Too many Indigenous children are being placed in foster care, Philpott said.
“I hope anybody that has to do with the care of that mother thinks twice about what the best thing is to do for that child, because the best thing for that child is to be raised with her family, raised in their culture surrounded by their land and their lineage and their loved ones,” the former minister of Indigenous services said.
Philpott delivered an unusual off-the-cuff speech at the announcement of new legislation tabled Thursday in the House of Commons that seeks to affirm the right of Indigenous Peoples to have jurisdiction over child welfare in their communities.
The main purpose of the bill is to stop the over-representation of Indigenous children in foster carea situation that has become so dire in Canada it has been described as a humanitarian crisis.
Currently, Indigenous children account for 52.2 per cent of children in foster care in private homes, according to 2016 census data.
The bill was tabled by Seamus O’Reagan, who took over as Indigenous-services minister from Philpott after last month’s cabinet shuffle. But Philpott’s role in bringing the legislation to life was on the tip of every tongue Thursday.
The legislation had been delayed while the government addressed concerns that it wouldn’t adequately respect Indigenous communities’ sovereignty and authority over their own children.
Thursday, First Nations, Inuit and Metis leaders applauded the new bill as a turning point in Indigenous Peoples’ right to selfdetermination and reconciliation.
The bill, C-92, emphasizes the
need for the child-welfare system to promote more preventative care and support for families instead of apprehending Indigenous children from their mothers.
It outlines factors that have to be taken into consideration when determining the best interests of an Indigenous child, including not only the child’s physical and emotional needs, but also cultural and spiritual upbringing; the child’s own views and preferences; and the importance to the child of an ongoing, positive relationship with his or her family and Indigenous community.
It also will clearly indicate that no Indigenous child will be taken from a family solely due to poverty, lack of housing or the state of the parents’ health.
An order of preference will be established to ensure that if an Indigenous child must be removed from a parent, he or she will go to a family member or an adult who belongs to the same Indigenous community. The bill also stresses that siblings should be kept together when it is in their best interest.
O’Regan called the legislation “historic,” saying the goal is to see fewer Indigenous children taken from their families.
“Fewer children will be apprehended, more children will stay with their families, more children will stay in their communities and that will make for happier, healthier children in this country,” O’Reagan said.
Child welfare legislation was one of the first five calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations said the legislation is an important first step, but he stressed the need to have it passed before Parliament dissolves for the October election.
Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a national organization representing Inuit in Canada, said he was encouraged by the co-operation offered by the Trudeau government to Indigenous communities in crafting this bill.
“This is a major milestone,” Obed said.
VANCOUVER — Five quickthinking boys are being hailed as heroes for rescuing a screaming eight-year-old child dangling from a chairlift at Grouse Mountain ski resort in North Vancouver.
Video obtained by Global News shows a group of boys in action as they grab a piece of orange netting used as fencing and rush beneath the ski lift while a man above clings to the boy as he hangs from the chair.
Twelve-year-old Joshua Ravensbergen said he and his buddies are home schooled and went to Grouse Mountain for a day of skiing when they looked up and noticed a boy in trouble.
“People were there but they were just standing looking at the kid, not knowing what to do,” he said, adding he feared the child would be injured if they didn’t do something to help.
Ravensbergen said one of the boys in the group pointed to a fence and they all rushed to grab it and hold it under the chairlift.
He said the boy appeared to have fallen from the chair moments earlier and was left hanging, but it wasn’t stopped and kept going higher and higher so it was
too late for him to jump to safety.
Samuel North, another in the group of rescuers, said he and his friends regularly ski on the mountain north of Vancouver.
“It was just instinct,” he said of their quick action Wednesday afternoon.
North said the child was on the chairlift was with his parents and three-year-old sister, who the father was also trying to hang on to while struggling to cling to his son. He said another boy, an adult and a ski instructor, who were all part of the same ski group, scrambled to grab on to the netting under the chairlift as they urged the child to kick off his skis and jump.
North said the child’s parents thanked them all afterwards and he seemed a bit shaken up.
Grouse Mountain Resorts spokeswoman Julia Grant said in a statement the boy was uninjured but was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure.
The company’s president will meet privately with the rescuers to express his gratitude and the boys will receive season passes to the mountain, she said.
An investigation is underway in accordance with industry protocol, Grant said.
Joan
BRYDEN Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, wants to give his side of the story in the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Butts wrote the House of Commons justice committee Thursday, requesting he be called as a witness.
His request came one day after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that she faced relentless pressure –and even veiled threats – from Trudeau, senior prime-ministerial aides, Canada’s top public servant and the finance minister’s office to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Butts was among those she accused of inappropriate pressure tactics.
The Liberal-dominated committee announced later that it will invite Butts to appear next Wednesday or soon thereafter and will also recall Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, and Nathalie Drouin, the deputy minister of justice, both of whom testified last week before Wilson-Raybould levelled specific accusations involving them.
Butts said he believes he has evidence that will help the committee get to the bottom of the affair. He added that he will need a short time to receive legal advice and compile relevant documents before testifying.
Trudeau’s longtime friend and most trusted adviser resigned as his principal secretary last week amid the mushrooming controversy over the government’s attempts to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal trial on charges of bribery and corruption related to its bid to secure contracts in Libya.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Butts categorically denied that he or anyone else in Trudeau’s office pressured Wilson-Raybould. He said he was quitting to avoid distracting from the government’s agenda and suggested he wanted to be free to defend himself.
“My reputation is my responsibility and that is for me to defend,” he said in the statement.
On Wednesday, Wilson-Ray-
bould specifically accused Butts and Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, of pushing for an external legal opinion on the option of negotiating a remediation agreement with SNC-Lavalin – a kind of plea bargain that would force the company to pay restitution but avoid the potentially crippling impact of a criminal conviction. In a Dec. 18 meeting, Wilson-Raybould said Butts told her chief of staff, Jessica Prince, that there was “no solution here that does not involve some interference.”
“We believe that it is important that Mr. Butts respond to the account of the meeting of (Dec.) 18th provided by Ms. Jody WilsonRaybould, in addition to the other allegations about him and PMO colleagues mentioned in her testimony,” the committee said in a statement Thursday.
Wilson-Raybould saved her harshest criticism for Wernick, the country’s top civil servant, whom she accused of issuing “veiled threats” during a Dec. 19 conversation that led her to believe she would lose her job as justice minister and attorney general if she did not agree to the prime minister’s desire for a remediation
“We want you to help us get our business ready to sell,” they said. “It’s been three years since we started this business and we are ready to move on.”
“Tell me more,” I said. “Why do you want to sell the business? What are you going to do once you sell this business?”
It turned out that the couple were perpetual entrepreneurs. They both had several businesses before with a varying level of success. This business had met all their projections and was profitable. They figured it was a good time to sell so that they could move on and in their words, start a couple more businesses that would generate income streams that would afford them a lifestyle in their late 50s where they wouldn’t be tied down to the dayto-day operations of the business.
So what’s the problem?
You start a business, it makes some money, you move on and start another. It’s the entrepreneurial way… smart business. Or is it?
The problem with this scenario, familiar to many entrepreneurs, is that in many cases they are leaving money on the table. They have done all the hard work creating and building a business and when it becomes profitable, they sell it, get their seed money out and move on to the next flash in the pan.
agreement to be negotiated with SNC-Lavalin.
Trudeau shuffled Wilson-Raybould to the veterans-affairs post in mid-January. She resigned from cabinet altogether a month later.
Last week, Wernick asserted that the prime minister’s staff conducted themselves to “the highest standards of integrity” and neither they nor he applied improper pressure on her. He predicted, however, that Wilson-Raybould would complain about the Dec. 19 conversation.
“I can tell you, with complete assurance, that my view of those conversations is that they were within the boundaries of what’s lawful and appropriate,” he told the committee. “She may have another view of the conversation but that’s something the ethics commissioner could sort out.” Ethics commissioner Mario Dion initiated an investigation into the matter two weeks ago. And on Thursday, Trudeau argued that Dion is best placed to decide who is telling the truth about the SNCLavalin affair – the prime minister or his former justice minister.
“Canadians need to know that we have an officer of Parliament
Sure, they get their money out and perhaps even a good return on their investment, but they are leaving behind a business that is generating cash because they have gone through the desert and parched season of their business cycle and they are desperate to see some hard cash.
This is the typical hard life of a perpetual entrepreneur. Many spend their lives chasing gold and end up broke because they can’t stay focused long enough to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
I know the feeling. I have had a few businesses which I sold after a few years, only to regret it. I have felt the pull of new ideas shiny objects, and the lure of “easy money.” However, it is never as easy as it seems.
The flaw of the entrepreneur is that many seem to have attention deficit disorder. They jump from idea to idea and never spend enough time to achieve success in any of them. Some entrepreneurs seem to fear success. When a venture starts to become successful they jump ship or even sabotage their success by moving on to another venture.
So do we curb the entrepreneurial spirit in order to achieve success? Occasionally I have clients who need to slow down in their
minds and remain focused on the task at hand, which is their current business. We need to remind them that the grass is not always greener on the other side. Success, it is said, comes through consistency. If we are not consistent enough to show up for our customers or decide to quit when we become bored with our current project, we will never achieve the success that comes with sustained efforts. In many cases, curbing the entrepreneurial spirit is probably a good idea.
A hunter will tell you that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. When it comes to revenue generating businesses, a business in the black is worth 20 in the red.
Ideas for new businesses come easily to many people, but making them profitable is another thing all together.
I encouraged my clients to think of ways they might be able to enjoy the fruits of their labours and benefit from the revenue stream they had already created rather than trying to build something from nothing. Through the brainstorming process, they came to the realization that there was a solution that could give them the best of both worlds. Their solution will not only give them the cash they need now but set them up for their future retirement.
Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award winning business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Fuller has his flaws but can be reached at dave@profityourselfhealthy.com.
who is tasked with a specific role to make sure that in questions where there are disagreements amongst politicians, amongst elected officials, there is an arbiter who is empowered to be like a judge, who is an officer of Parliament, who will make a determination in this issue,” Trudeau said
after an event in Montreal, reiterating that he totally disagrees with Wilson-Raybould’s characterization of events.
But Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer maintained it’s time for the RCMP to investigate possible obstruction of justice by the prime minister. Scheer wrote RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on Thursday, calling for an investigation. He also reiterated his call for Trudeau to resign.
The Conservatives demanded an “emergency” debate on the matter, which took place Thursday night.
The NDP and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called for an independent public inquiry into the affair and demanded that Trudeau fire Wernick.
Over nearly four hours of explosive testimony Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould told the committee there were 10 meetings and 10 phone calls involving 11 people between September and December 2018, all aimed at getting her to “politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney general of Canada.”
In Toronto on Thursday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau denied that his chief of staff, Ben Chin, did anything inappropriate in discussing the SNC-Lavalin case with Wilson-Raybould’s staff.
Mining in B.C. has a long history of being glamourized, romanticized, prioritized and given freedoms to act that no other industry or citizen enjoys.
As a result, incalculable harm has been caused (and continues to be caused) since the province was colonized more than one and a half centuries ago.
Perhaps – as part of its recent Throne Speech commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) – the current B.C. government will finally address the dark side of an industry that has for so long inflicted so much misery and destruction in pursuit of gold and other minerals.
This dark side is a shameful history that we First Nations know only too well, and which government after government, decade after decade, has ignored. Some might have been too easily bought by the promise of mining revenues; others too afraid of the political might of an industry used to always getting what it wants
After so many broken promises and ignored pleas we can hope that positive statements coming from the current B.C. government – and even from some quarters of the mining sector – mean that this time
it will be different. But words minus action equals zero. Action is in the interest of all British Columbians. First Nations have always been on the front lines when the bulldozers move in and the land and waters are faced with ruin. But we all need clean air, clean water, and the diversity of a strong economy that also depends greatly on salmon, tourism and other sustainable sectors: sectors that almighty mining will continue to threaten, unless properly regulated and controlled. So when you hear someone speaking fondly of the glory days of past gold rushes, or waxing lyrical about the future on mining, please pause for a moment and consider the dark side.
The gold rush era of the 1850s and early 1860s brought death from small pox, and land and water destruction to First Nations people along the Fraser River. As thousands of prospectors made their way west, early colonial legislation gave them a right of “free entry” to most lands. There was no acknowledgement of First Nations territories or rights. We paid a high price then, and we continue to pay today, thanks to the legacy of the same mining laws that were established in the 1850s to put mining ahead of virtually all other land uses in B.C. and allow almost anyone to stake a claim almost anywhere.
The current right of free entry ensures that no one has to inform, let alone seek consent, for mining claims staked throughout the province.
This policy has not evolved with environmental and societal norms, and remains in defiance of numerous court victories on First Nations rights.
In many ways this has only gotten easier for those seeking to stake a claim. If you are 18 years old, have $25 to register and a computer, you can stake a claim almost anywhere in B.C.
This is not an exaggeration.
Claims can be staked on private property, First Nations hunting grounds, key tourism areas, important salmon habitat or wildlife management areas.
Mining activities are off-limits only in parks, under buildings, and at certain archeological sites. In other words, less than 20 per cent of the province is off limits to mining exploration.
To show how absurd the system is, I staked a claim on then Liberal minister of energy and mines Bill Bennett’s property near Cranbrook, using B.C.’s online staking laws.
It took only a few minutes, a one-time $25 for a miner’s certificate, and an online claim fee of $104.89.
While I did speak with the Ktunaxa Na-
The history of Canadian citizenship is not particularly lengthy.
For the first 80 years of the country’s existence, people in Canada were considered British subjects.
It was not until 1947 that the terms “Canadian citizen” and “Canadian citizenship” actually carried legal weight.
Over the decades, a series of amendments to the original Canadian Citizenship Act have found solutions for issues such as the status of children born abroad and adopted by Canadian parents, as well as what to do about residents who were born before the act came into force. One issue that has been discussed prominently, but has never been addressed in the form of legislation, is that Canada (like most countries in the Americas) has birthright citizenship. Anyone born within the borders of the country, regardless of the status of his or her parents, automatically becomes a citizen.
Over the past five years, the issue of “birth tourism” has gained attention, particularly in British Columbia.
Existing guidelines allow expectant mothers who are foreign nationals to gain automatic citizenship for their children if they are born in Canadian territory.
There have been reports of unregulated for-profit businesses that have facilitated birth tourism in Canada.
The City of Richmond has been referred to as ground zero when it comes to this practice, with
BY THE NUMBERS
MARIO CANSECO
an average of 382 non-resident births per year since 2016.
This month, Research Co. asked British Columbians about birth tourism.
In the survey, 49 per centof residents say they have followed this issue “very closely” or “moderately closely,” a proportion that understandably increases to 55 per cent among those who live in Metro Vancouver.
British Columbians are not reacting particularly kindly to what they know about birth tourism.
More than four in five (82 per cent) say the practice can be unfairly used to gain access to Canada’s education, health care and social programs, two-thirds (66 per cent) believe it can degrade the value of Canadian citizenship and 63 per cent worry that it can displace locals from hospitals.
Last March, a petition related to birth tourism initiated by Richmond resident Kerry Starchuk caught the attention of StevestonRichmond East MP Joe Peschisolido.
An e-petition was eventually introduced in the House of Commons.
The signatories are looking to compel the federal government to state that it does not support birth tourism, commit resources
to determine its full extent and implement measures to reduce and eliminate it.
The key elements of the e-petition are decidedly popular, with 85 per cent of British Columbians agreeing with the notion of the federal government establishing a committee to investigate the full extent of birth tourism in Canada.
In addition, and by a four-toone ratio, British Columbians think a makeover is warranted.
Only 18 per cent of residents would keep Canada’s current guidelines for birthright citizenship, while almost three in four (73 per cent) believe it is time for the country to consider establishing new regulations.
When the findings are analyzed according to ethnicity, there is little fluctuation.
We continue to see more than seven in 10 British Columbians of European descent (75 per cent) and East Asian descent (71 per cent) concurring about modifying Canada’s birthright citizenship rules.
British Columbians are not saying Canada’s birthright citizenship should be abandoned. They want federal politicians to do what they are elected to do: identify the scope of a problem and fix it, so that equity and fairness is present for all.
When people knowingly take advantage of guidelines that have become antiquated and useless, the only reasonable course of action is to evolve.
Mario Canseco is president of Research Co. and writes a regular column for Glacier Media.
DIRECTOR
tion beforehand, I was not required to give notice to Minister Bennett and now have legal rights and mining interests on his land. Is it any surprise that with such laws comes conflict, confrontation and uncertainty?
This hurts everyone – yes, including the mining sector and those who depend up it. This will not stop until we change the free entry system and the overriding land-use privileges mining enjoys.
Other jurisdictions, Ontario for example, have modified their laws to make them more accountable to the public and responsive to Aboriginal rights. Australia’s Northern Territory have also modernized their laws to require Aboriginal consent prior to a mineral claim being approved.
B.C. needs to ensure that no mining activities are approved without the free, prior, and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities. If the industry and province want to build trust and start reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, they should agree to a reform of these mineral tenure laws to bring them into the 21st century.
Bev Sellars is a former councillor and chief of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake and the former chair of First Nations Women Advocating for Responsible Mining.
‘sorely
Adraft copy of the long-awaited scientific report on fracking for oil and gas raises numerous concerns, but stops short of recommending any curtailment of the process.
The 200-page technical report written by an independent panel was leaked to the Victoria Times Colonist. Energy Minister Michelle Mungall confirmed the document on Tuesday. Her ministry said a final version was submitted a week ago.
It might take several weeks for the ministry to digest the report before it is formally released, Mungall said. If the final report matches the draft, it will call for more study and oversight while not doing what some environmental groups wanted — recommending a moratorium or a public inquiry into the process.
Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, involves forcing fluid down a well into rock formations to fracture them and free up oil or gas reserves. Widely used in northeast B.C., it has been done since the 1950s, and intensified when it was coupled with horizontal-drilling developments in the 1990s.
The draft report cites numerous concerns about shortfalls in the knowledge base about the effects of fracking, mostly to do with water use and disposal.
“From a public-perception perspective, the various activities associated with hydraulic fracturing appear to be unregulated, and this leads to fear and mistrust of the regulators.”
It cited numerous concerns from Indigenous people about the process and frustration with the approval process.
The panel said current regulations might look robust, but there’s not enough information to assess compliance and enforcement.
Although impact on human health was not in the terms of reference, the panel wrote a chapter that said there are significant concerns about the toxicity of the additives in the water used in fracking. “There is general mistrust of the water and people no longer drink from streams.”
The report quoted one expert who told the panel: “We are profoundly ignorant of what is going on.”
The three experts — Diana Allen, Erik Eberhardt and Amanda Bustin — said there is insufficient evidence to assess the health risks from fracking. There are so many unknowns that broad health studies in a region with so few people
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would not be helpful, it said. It recommends limiting exposure and openly acknowledging the various risks. Additives are now publicly disclosed, but the panel suggests more comprehensive listing of ingredients. It also recommends making baseline water testing mandatory before drilling.
The panel rapped the industry for building a series of storage dams for fracking water between 2011 and 2016 that “appear to have escaped the proper regulatory oversight.”
They were big enough to require extensive permitting, but were categorized differently. They were built while the permitting regime was being changed.
The panel found it “disconcerting” that the operator of a 20-metre-high dam was ignorant of some requirements and had no questions about permitting. Some of operators submitted applications retroactively and the government approved them last July.
Fracking uses large volumes of water, although the industry is now recycling and reusing it. The panel said there is considerable uncertainty about assessing the potential impact of proposed water use.
Qualified professionals need to be more involved.
The report said the baseline data and the ongoing monitoring of surface and groundwater are insufficient. Basic information is “sorely lacking.” It also called for more assessment of earthquake risk and better seismic mapping before fracking begins.
The panel, created last March, was asked generally to assess risk. It concluded: “The panel could not quantify risk because there are too few data to assess risk.”
The NDP government promised the scientific review in its 2017 election platform, saying it was needed because there was potential for significant expansion of gas production in the future.
Three days after it was announced last March, Premier John Horgan tabled more favourable terms for the liquefied-natural-gas industry. That resulted in a $40-billion investment commitment by LNG Canada last October.
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Member of
This past weekend, I submitted a letter to the Prince George Citizen. I have written many letters to the paper over the years and have even had some of my writings submitted under the Guest Editorial section. Submitting letters to a newspaper is one of the freedoms of expression we have, however we must exercise this right properly. I did not do so in my last letter. My letter contained secondhand information that was not correct and I did not take the time to validate most of what I wrote. Also, my editing was sorely lacking and simple errors added to the letter being less credible and certainly inaccurate. Lastly, my letter unfairly targeted more than the intended parties, due to it being fueled with far too much emotion and far too little merit. Even the intended targets were undeserving of the way I spoke.
I have a right to question city hall, raises, taxes, and other related issues. I still believe very strongly that city hall could be clearer with its policies, its financial dealings and be more transparent. I do believe I’m not in the minority here and I do believe that we have seen enough city-related issues, to warrant improved communications to its citizenry. While I have a right to question, I have a responsibility to do so in the appropriate way. An emotion-filled rant citing unsubstantiated facts is not the way to do it. My apologies to those who felt insulted by my letter and I formally retract what I
wrote. I am not an editor, or a newspaper, and my words, when they fail, should not cause undue harm. They can however instill negativity and foster the same, especially when they are as muddled and inflammatory as they were.
Mike Maslen, Prince George CBC skit out of line
Watched CBC’s This Hour Has 22 minutes last night. They intentionally fabricated a skit that ended with the yellow vest movement looking like an organization of anti-immigrant racists very likely to placate their boss in Ottawa. For an entity that is totally funded by the taxpayers of Canada, to hold such an insulting disparaging view of Canadians is an example of the corrupt and totally off the point immoral opinion of CBC about citizens who are peacefully demonstrating a very important issue that many Canadians feel very strongly about.
Wanting legal immigration for those who are properly vetted rather than open borders and letting anyone into Canada risking terror or criminal activities as many have already committed serious crimes, such as murder, rape and assaults against Canadians is not wrong. Canadians have the right to rise up and a right to know at what is occurring at our borders and a right to stop it.
Shame on you, CBC. Phil Gatehouse, Prince George
Feb. 27, 2018, will be a date that will be remembered by Canadians for generations. It will go down in history as one of those “where were you when days.”
It was a sad day for Canada.
Regardless of partisan politics, one must always respect the office of the prime minister.
On this day, Canadians from all corners of our nation were shocked to hear the explosive testimony of former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Her story was one of inappropriate, and potentially illegal, pressure brought on her by the highest officials of Justin Trudeau’s government and Trudeau himself – all to let a Liberal-connected corporation off the hook on corruption charges.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony tells the story of a prime minister who allowed his partisan political motivations to overrule his duty to uphold the law, a prime minister who has allowed a systemic culture of corruption to take root in his office.
Andrew Scheer and Canada’s Conservatives are calling on the RCMP to immediately open an investigation into the numerous examples of obstruction of justice that were detailed in the testimony.
Canada should be a country where we are all equal under the law, where nobody – regardless of wealth, status, or political connections – is above the law. I believe we can be that country again.
Todd Doherty, MP Cariboo-Prince George
I was in the room when Jody WilsonRaybould gave her testimony and being that close you could hear the emotion in her voice as she described the sustained and escalating pressure she endured from the prime pinister, the prime minister’s office, the clerk of the privy council, and the office of the finance minister to change her mind and interfere in the SNC-Lavalin criminal case.
The events and conversations laid out by Wilson-Raybould are not only shocking but corrupt and speak to a prime minister who has lost all moral authority to govern.
The prime minister must resign and the RCMP must immediately open an investigation into the examples of obstruction of justice the former attorney general gave in her testimony, as well as those she was unable to speak about.
There are still many unanswered questions.
Unfortunately, the prime minister has forbidden Wilson-Raybould from discussing her resignation from cabinet, the presentation she gave to cabinet after her resignation or discussions she had after being fired as attorney general.
There are also questions surrounding alleged political interference in the criminal case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
I firmly believe that the law should apply equally to everyone, regardless of who you are or where you come from. Canadians deserve answers and not a government that continuously keeps them in the dark while attempting to bend the rule of law to benefit their friends.
Bob Zimmer, MP Prince George-Peace RiverNorthern Rockies
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
I’m sure The Citizen would not consider publishing an outright sexist or racist cartoon, so why did you think it was alright to publish the ageist, derogatory cartoon of Senator Bernie Sanders in Saturday’s edition?
Senator Sanders is only 77 years of age, appears competent and does not use a walking aid. Even if he did have mobility issues, it should not preclude him running for office, after all, FDR governed the country for many years from a wheelchair.
Just because some seniors have grey hair or use mobility aids does not mean they are incompetent, so please don’t promote these images.
The CEO of Encana Corp. says it cut its total workforce by 15 per cent and reduced its ranks of executives by 35 per cent in just over a week after closing its deal to buy U.S. rival Newfield Exploration Co. in mid-February.
The move has put Calgary-based Encana, which reports its results in U.S. dollars, on track to realize its vowed annual savings of $250 million from the acquisition, CEO Doug Suttles said on a conference call on Thursday.
“Eight days – once again, eight days – after closing, we completed reorganizing the combined company,” he said.
“In total, we reduced the executive and senior management roles by 35 per cent and total positions by 15. The senior team of the combined company today is smaller than Encana’s senior team was before the merger.”
The company hasn’t said how many employees were laid off, but in U.S. regulatory filings early last year, Newfield reported having 1,010 employees, almost all in the U.S., while
Encana had 1,160 staff in Canada and 950 in the U.S.
A 15 per cent cut would represent a total of about 470 lost jobs.
The majority of the reductions occurred in the U.S., said spokeswoman Cindy Hassler in an email that confirmed staffing reductions took place in Calgary, Denver and Houston offices. She wouldn’t comment on total numbers or specify how many jobs were lost in Canada.
Suttles said employee cost reductions account for half of the savings – the other half will come by cutting at least $1 million from the cost of each future unconventional well drilled into the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma, formerly owned by Newfield.
When announced in November, Encana said the deal was worth about $5.5 billion in shares, but its stock has since fallen by more than 20 per cent. It also adopted $2.2 billion of Newfield debt.
Encana has adjusted its exploration priorities in the wake of the Newfield acquisition to focus on three basins – the Anadarko, the Montney of Western Canada, and the Permian
of West Texas and New Mexico – because they produce more valuable petroleum liquids and less natural gas than its other prospects.
It said it will focus 75 per cent of its 2019 capital budget of $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion on those three plays.
Encana reported a fourth-quarter profit of US$1.03 billion or $1.08 per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $229 million or 24 cents per share in the last three months of 2017.
Operating earnings for the quarter amounted to $305 million or 32 cents per share, up from an operating profit of $114 million or 12 cents per share a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter was $2.38 billion, up from $1.21 billion.
Total production in the fourth quarter of 2018 was 403,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 335,200 a year ago.
Encana shares rose by 5.2 per cent at $9.52 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange as analyst reports indicated its fourth-quarter results were largely in line with expectations.
Since last year, the U.S. has waged a vigorous diplomatic offensive against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, claiming that any nation deploying its gear in next-generation wireless networks is giving Beijing a conduit for espionage or worse.
But security experts say the U.S. government is likely exaggerating that threat. Not only is the U.S. case short on specifics, they say, it glosses over the fact that the Chinese don’t need secret access to Huawei routers to infiltrate global networks that already have notoriously poor security.
State-sponsored hackers have shown no preference for one manufacturer’s technology over another, these experts say. Kremlin-backed hackers, for instance, adroitly exploit internet routers and other networking equipment made by companies that are not Russian.
If the Chinese want to disrupt global networks, “they will do so regardless of the type of equipment you are using,” said Jan-Peter Kleinhans, a researcher at the Berlin think-tank Neue Verantwortung Stiftung.
One of the most common U.S. fears – that Huawei might install
software “backdoors” in its equipment that Chinese intelligence could use to tap into, eavesdrop on or interrupt data transmissions – strikes some experts as highly unlikely.
Priscilla Moriuchi, who retired from the National Security Agency in 2017 after running its Far East operations, does not believe the Huawei threat is overblown. But she called the odds of the company installing backdoors on behalf of Chinese intelligence “almost zero because of the chance that it would be discovered,” thus exposing Huawei’s complicity.
Moriuchi, now an analyst at the U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said she was not aware of the NSA ever finding Huawei backdoors created for Chinese intelligence but also cautioned that it can be extraordinarily difficult, when backdoors are found, to determine who is behind them.
European allies have been reluctant to embrace a blanket anti-Huawei ban even as U.S. officials continue to cast the world’s No. 1 telecom-equipment maker as little more than an untrustworthy surrogate for Beijing’s intelligence services.
The top U.S. diplomat for cybersecurity policy, Robert Strayer, says Huawei is obliged to heed
Chinese Communist Party orders by a 2017 intelligence law that “compels their citizens and their companies to participate in intelligence activities.”
Strayer provided no specifics when pressed by reporters Tuesday as to how Huawei gear might pose more of a security threat than other manufacturers’ switches, routers and wireless base stations. The diplomat spoke at Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest wireless trade show, in Barcelona, Spain. The American rhetoric has included threats.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in a TV interview last week any use of Huawei equipment could jeopardize U.S. intelligence sharing and might even be a reason to locate military bases elsewhere. The remarks may have been targeted at NATO allies including Poland and the Czech Republic where Huawei has made significant inroads. Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, overtook Sweden’s LM Ericsson in 2017 as the lead company in the market for wireless and internet switching gear. It says it supplies 45 of the world’s top 50 phone companies and has contracts with 30 carriers to test so-called
“Many a small
fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless technology.
U.S. companies are not serious competitors in this market, having pulled back over the years. Huawei’s major rivals are European –Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia.
The U.S. has provided no evidence of China planting espionage backdoors in Huawei equipment despite as 2012 congressional report that led the U.S. government and top domestic wireless carriers to ban it and other Chinese manufacturers from their networks.
“The backdrop for this is essentially the rise of China as a tech power in a variety of domains” said Paul Triolo, tech lead at the Eurasia Group risk analysis consultancy. Now, he said, “there is a big campaign to paint Huawei as an irresponsible actor.”
In January, U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against Huawei and one of its top executives, alleging the company stole trade secrets and lied to banks about embargo-busting company dealings with Iran.
Canada earlier arrested that Huawei executive – who is also the daughter of the company’s founder – at U.S. behest; she is currently awaiting extradition to the U.S.
down 75.29 points to 15,999.01, marking the largest single-day drop since Jan. 22. Despite the decline, the market is up 11.7 per cent so far in 2019 and just 3.4 per cent off its alltime high.
A sudden end to a meeting between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea, congressional testimony by U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and mixed messages about trade talks between the U.S. and China prompted an investor chill, says Allan Small, senior investment adviser at HollisWealth.
The market’s tone was positive earlier in the day following the release of strong GDP data in the U.S. But it softened as investors felt no urgency to buy, he said.
“I think you had a lot more reason to buy at the beginning of the year coming off the downturn of last year,” he said in an interview.
“And so I just think that here we are, a stone’s throw away from alltime highs on all major indexes in North America really... people are wondering what it’s going to take this market to the next level and I think people are struggling with that right now.”
The Toronto market’s decline was led by financials and materials sectors, which together account for nearly half of the composite index.
Financials fell after disappointing quarterly results from CIBC and TD Bank.
Small said the overall tone of bank results this quarter has been weak, albeit expected, on challenges from their capital markets and wealth management operations.
“I think a lot of individual investors are looking to the banks now and saying is there still money to be made on these stocks and I think they’re finding it difficult to find a catalyst.“
The health-care sector gained 1.2 per cent on gains by several large cannabis producers including Canopy Growth Corp.
The key energy sector was down even though the price of crude rose.
The April crude contract was up 28 cents at US$57.22
The
Best-of-seven BCHL series starts tonight for Spruce Kings, Express
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Max Coyle wasn’t around last year to share in the Prince George Spruce Kings’ playoff success.
He was back home in Ontario bolstering the blueline of the Listowel Cyclones in a 25-game run to the Sutherland Cup Ontario junior B championship.
The Spruce Kings weren’t quite so lucky. After 24 playoff games their B.C. Hockey League title hopes were scuttled by the Wenatchee Wild in a five-game league championship series.
When Coyle joined the Spruce Kings last summer he was already well-seasoned with a lengthy playoff resume. The Cyclones were a Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League powerhouse as Cherrey Cup MidWestern Conference champions his last two seasons with the team.
Now with the BCHL playoffs about to begin, playing on a Spruce Kings team that has so far lived up to the hype as serious contenders for a junior A crown, Coyle has no reason to doubt he won’t soon be feeling that postseason surge that only winning hockey can replicate.
The Spruce Kings set new season club records for wins (39) and points (84) and came up just one point shy of the Chilliwack Chiefs in the chase for the regular-season title. The Kings completed the 58-game schedule game winning 13 of their last 14 games and have won nine straight on home ice heading into tonight’s Game 1 of their Mainland Division best-of-seven semifinal series against the Coquitlam Express.
“Obviously it’s feeling good, there’s a whole new morality in that room right now,” said Coyle, a 21-year-old from Tilsonburg, Ont. “You have a lot of older guys but you also have a lot of younger guys like Layton Ahac, who are pretty mature. You don’t think he’s an ‘01, he looks like 20 or 21 years old. Our younger guys act like a bunch of older guys, they’re pretty mature, and that’s going to help us in the long run.
“We’re healthy and in shape and we had a pretty good roll going into playoffs, which is the next goal. Everyone wants to come first in the regular season but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. The next three months is the real deal for us.”
The Kings learned how to win in the playoffs last year and head coach Adam Maglio expects his team will lean on that experience to get them past the Express in the series.
“It’s a big asset for the guys here, they kind of understand the grind of the playoffs and how there will be peaks and valleys
Three Prince George Spruce Kings have been selected to the B.C. Hockey League all-star, all-rookie teams.
Goaltender Logan Neaton and defenceman Layton Ahac made the second allstar team, while defenceman Nick Bochen was chosen for the all-rookie team.
Neaton, a 19-year-old from Brighton, Mich., joined the Spruce Kings this season from the Fairbanks Ice Dogs of the NAHL and quickly rose to the top of the charts with a league-leading 1.92 goals-against average and five shutouts. His .914 save percentage was third-best
within series,” said Maglio. “We saw all sorts of different series last year, which gives you experience in how to handle the highs and handle the lows. That’s the Number 1 thing in playoffs, it’s a mentality to play consistent hockey night to night no matter what happens in the end result.”
The Express scored more goals (209) than the Kings (181) in the regular season but finished 22 points behind Prince George.
The big difference was defence. The Kings were the stingiest team in the BCHL, allowing just 120 goals, while Coquitlam gave up 198. Having won six of the eight games head-to-head in the regular season the betting crowd is siding with the Kings in the best-of-seven series. What happened in the past means nothing to Coyle.
“We can be favourites all we want but is we lose four hockey games we’re done and if we win four we’re moving on,” said Coyle. Kings right winger Patrick Cozzi can sense the excitement building around the team. The difference this time around is all 11 returning players from last year know what it takes to win in the playoffs. Those veterans survived two tough seven-game series in the first two rounds just to advance out of the Mainland Division.
“I think we have a really good chance to
in the BCHL and the UMass-Lowell recruit set a Spruce Kings season record for wins by a goalie in a season with 32.
Ahac joined the Spruce Kings two seasons ago as 16-year-old from West Vancouver Academy and quickly established himself as a steady defensive-minded defenceman with above-average speed and well-honed instincts. In 53 regular season games and had four goals and 28 assists for 32 points.
Ahac signed a scholarship commitment to attend Ohio State University next season.
He’s listed as a B prospect for the NHL draft in June in Vancouver, likely to be
go all the way again and win it this time,” said Cozzi, a native of Greenlawn, N.Y.
“Everyone’s excited and it’s going to be a great crowd and great game (tonight). We definitely have the best fans in the league and it’s going to be a lot of fun to play in front of them.”
Playing on the top scoring line with centre Dustin Manz and left winger Ben Brar, the 20-year-old Cozzi averaged a point per game while playing all 58 games. He and Manz have played together since they arrived in the summer of 2017 and they’ve been a dynamic duo throughout their two seasons in BCHL.
“He’s such a good player goalscorer, works hard, and he’s so good in the corners and I just try to get him the puck as much as possible because I know every time he’s going to bury and I’m looking forward to playing with him in the playoffs,” said Cozzi.
Manz reached the 70-point plateau this year and was fourth in the BCHL scoring race and Brar led the team with 35 goals and had 61 points.
“Ben is such a good player as well, super smart and really good defensively and he puts the puck in the net too,” added Cozzi.
“It’s nice to play with two goalscorers, they make my life easy.”
picked in the second-to-fifth round. Bochen, a 17-year-old product of the Burnaby Winter Club midget prep academy program, had a breakthrough rookie season, after joining the Spruce Kings last year in the playoffs.
He scored eight goals and added 30 assists to lead all Kings’ defencemen in scoring with 38 points.
Bochen, a native of Vancouver, has committed to the University of Michigan for the 2020-21 season.
For the complete list of BCHL all-star and all-rookie teams, see page 10. — Ted
As fast and as effective as they are in the offensive end, that line has set the tone for the rest of the forwards with their tenacious defensive attributes and Cozzi expects that will continue in the playoffs.
“We just have to play our game and backcheck and track really hard, pick up the guys in the d-zone and try to play in their d-zone as much as possible and tire them out,” said Cozzi.
“It’s going to be a priority for us to defend first and that will lead to offence for us. We just have to keep playing hard. Their defence like to be really active and we just have to be physical against all those guys and we’ll be fine. We want to be the hardest team to play against every night.”
While the Express didn’t exactly end up on a hot streak, winning eight of their last 22 games, Coquitlam head coach Jason Fortier says his team is ready with a plan he expects will take the Spruce Kings by surprise.
“I would assume we’ll be a tough opponent for any team we play, we’ve had ups and downs throughout the year and we’ve been striving to focus on playing a full 60 and grabbing a little bit more defensive responsibility from our guys,” said Fortier. — see ‘OUR GUYS, page 10
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Joel Lakusta had an entirely different script for his Prince George Cougars to follow in his final WHL season. Somehow, the story of his 20-year-old season with the Cats unraveled and the ending has turned out more tragic than triumphant. Wednesday’s 7-1 loss to the Spokane Chiefs at CN Centre officially extinguished the Cougars’ playoff hopes. Now sitting last overall in the Western Conference the Cougars (17-37-5-3) have just six games left, including a two-game set against the Victoria Royals tonight and Saturday in Victoria.
Having won only one of their last 21 games, the Cougars have just 42 points and are on track to post their lowest point total since 2009-10, when they went 12-56-0-1 and totaled an all-time worst 28 points since the team arrived from Victoria in 1994.
Injuries and illness have crept into the Cougars’ camp and they were missing four regulars out of the lineup in Wednesday’s game, which forced them to have to rely on some of their younger players to try to get the job done. That was a contributing factor in the lopsided loss to the Chiefs, their 12th straight on home ice, and the injury situation is not going to improve with defenceman Cole Moberg and centre Ethan Browne out with upper-body injuries and defenceman Ryan Schoettler (flu) a questionable starter tonight.
The Cats are also missing centre Ilijah Colina, who returned to his home in North Delta a month ago to attend to a personal matter.
“Obviously being shorthanded is not a situation you want to be in but I think later on in the game (Wednesday) when guys started embracing the icetime more they came into their role and these next six games here, guys just have to enjoy it,” said Lakusta, an assistant captain.
“Being 20, it goes so fast and I’m just telling everyone to have fun. Hockey is sup-
‘Our
— from page 9
posed to be fun and when it stops being fun that’s when you should stop playing, in my opinion. I just encourage everyone to enjoy their last few weeks here.
“I think it’s good, especially where we are, to throw the younger guys into those situations to embrace it for next year. You can tell guys are a step behind, not knowing where to go, especially with the new system here, but it should be a lot better in games to come and years to come.”
The players have had a few weeks to get used to the strategies interim head coach
Mark Lamb has set out for them since he
took over Feb. 6 from the fired Richard Matvichuk. Lakusta was hurt for the first two weeks of the transition period and returned to action Feb. 18 for the Everett series.
“It’s nice to have a change in Prince George,” he said. “I respect Richard and everything he did and can’t thank him enough for what he’s given me but Mark has a different point of view on things and I’m excited to see where it’s going to take us.”
Lakusta missed three weeks with a concussion and has struggled to find his stride offensively in his fourth WHL season. Coming off a nine-goal, 42-point season last year
he has five goals and 23 points in 2018-19. He was sidelined the last time the Cougars played Victoria two weeks ago at CN Centre and the Sherwood Park, Alta., native was looking forward to his last extended roadtrip this weekend.
“Victoria’s a beautiful city, especially this time of year, and I enjoy playing there so it should be a fun weekend,” he said. The Cougars will host the Portland Winterhawks in a two-game series next weekend at CN Centre, then finish the season with a home-and-home series with Kamloops, March 15-16.
“We’ve played numerous systems this year and modified our game many times and our message here was never about regular season, we were always about trying to get better so we could flip and change and make different plays for the playoffs when it’s needed and I think we’ve done it,” Fortier added.
“This is the first time all year we’ve prepared for one team and I’m excited to see how we perform.”
Fortier was impressed with the Spruce Kings’ work ethic the last time the teams met in Prince George (a 6-1 Kings’ win Jan. 26) and he expects that will resume with even more intensity in the series.
“Turnovers are costly against a team like them, they’re well-structured, wellcoached,” said Fortier.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll have no problem admitting the truth, I think that team in the regular season was the hardest-working team in the BCHL. The regular season’s over. The challenge is up to our guys to match and even rise above their work ethic and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
The Express have tried to foster creativity on the attack and possess some dangerous forwards in Regan Kimens (20-35-55), Ty Westgard (15-37-52), Joshua Wildauer (2526-51) and Alex DiPaulo (16-32-48). The Spruce Kings also have to be aware of the playmaking capabilities of defencemen Pito Walton (8-28-36) and Jordan Schulting (332-35). They’ve been two constants in what has been an injury-plagued season for the Express defence corps.
“You’re hoping guys are getting better and their IQ’s are improving and a lot of our battles this year have actually not been on skill, not been on positioning, a lot of the battles we’’ve had have just been lack of effort at times,” said Fortier.
“If I’m Prince George, that’s what I’d be talking about, trying to break our spirit and our will, play hard, play fast – we’re not going want to keep up with them. That’s on these kids as individuals if they want to make that choice.”
Collectively, the Kings’ core defencemen – Coyle, Layton Ahac, Dylan Anhorn, Nick Bochen, Liam Watson-Brawn, Jay Keranen – are as good as they come in the BCHL, but
FRIDAY, MAR. 8
at Langley, 7:15 p.m.
SUNDAY, MAR. 10 Langley at Chilliwack, 7 p.m. Prince George (2) vs. Coquitlam (3)
FRIDAY’S GAME Coquitlam at Prince George, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 2 Coquitlam at Prince George, 7 p.m.
MONDAY, MAR. 4 Prince George at Coquitlam, 7:15 p.m.
TUESDAY, MAR 5 Prince George at Coquitlam, 7:15 p.m.
THURSDAY, MAR. 7 Coquitlam at Prince George, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 9 Prince George at Coquitlam, 3 p.m.
MONDAY, MAR. 11 Coquitlam at Prince George, 7 p.m.
INTERIOR DIVISION Penticton (1) vs. Cowichan Valley (WC)
THURSDAY’S GAME Cowichan Valley at Penticton, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 2 Cowichan Valley at Penticton, 6 p.m.
TUESDAY, MAR 5 Penticton at Cowichan Valley, 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, MAR. 6 Penticton at Cowichan Valley, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 9 x-Cowichan Valley at Penticton, 6 p.m.
MONDAY, MAR. 11
x-Penticton at Cowichan Valley, 7 p.m.
MONDAY, MAR. 11 x-Cowichan Valley at Penticton, 7 p.m.
Merritt (2) vs. Trail (7)
FRIDAY’S GAME Trail at Merritt, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 2 Trail at Merritt, 7 p.m.
TUESDAY, MAR. 5 Merritt at Trail, 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, MAR. 6 Merritt at Trail, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY, MAR. 8 Trail at Merritt, 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MAR. 9 Merritt at Trail, 7 p.m.
MONDAY, MAR. 11 Trail at Merritt, 12 p.m. Wenatchee (3) vs. West Kelowna (6) SATURDAY, MAR. 2 West Kelowna at Wenatchee, 7:05 p.m. SUNDAY, MAR. 3 West Kelowna at Wenatchee, 6 p.m.
MAR. 5
SATURDAY,
WEDNESDAY,
FRIDAY,
it’s not just their blueliners that make the team so difficult to score against.
“Our guys do a good job as five-man units on the ice and I think that’s why we’re good defensively,” said Maglio.
“We do have good goaltending, of course, but our defensive play comes as five. We work well at being in good spots and not cheating the game and that’s what’s helped us be a successful team. We want our guys to leave the program learning how to pay a good team game because that’s how you need to play at the higher levels.”
Logan Neaton has given the Spruce Kings championship-calibre goaltending ever since he arrived in September from Fairbanks of the NAHL. The 20-year-old Michigan native led the BCHL with a 1.92 goals-against average and five shutouts and his .914 save percentage was third-best. His 32 wins established a new Spruce Kings’ season record.
The Express have two ‘99-born netminders in Clay Stevenson and Kolby Matthews. Matthews (3.01 GAA, .900 save percentage) put up slightly better numbers than Stevenson (3.36 GAA, .889 save percent-
age) but Fortier wasn’t tipping his hand over who will get the start in net tonight. Discipline is key in the playoffs and the Spruce Kings hope to maintain a trend they started last year. They were the secondleast penalized team in the league in 2017-18 and were tops in that department this season, averaging just 9.24 minutes of sinbin time per game.
The Express had the fifth-fewest amount of penalty time, averaging 11.03 minutes. That doesn’t mean the series won’t be a physical war of attrition. After all, this is the playoffs.
“Our guys are pretty versatile, they can play any kind of game and if they come out hitting, we like that, we fed off that,” said Maglio. “If they’re not hitting we need to make sure we’re really physical. Sometimes if a team’s not as physical those are games that kind of lull us to sleep and if we’re not getting hit we need to make sure we’re leaning on this team hard physically.”
PREDICTION: Defence wins in the playoffs and home ice is an advantage. Those two elements give Prince George the edge. Kings in six.
Citizen news service
When a loose door handle sent then-ballet performer Mavis Staines toppling down a flight of stairs in an accident that would cut short her rising career, she thought her time in the spotlight was over.
Little did she know, that dream-crushing fall would launch her on a path towards becoming one of the country’s pre-eminent dance figures as the artistic director of Canada’s National Ballet School for the past three decades.
In a strange twist of fortune, Staines believes that ill-fated turn of the handle is at least in part to thank as she receives a $25,000 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award recognizing a lifetime of artistic achievement.
“Sometimes, what seems like the worst catastrophe in your life opens doors that wouldn’t open otherwise,” Staines said in an interview before Thursday’s awards reveal.
“Had it not been for the accident, I would not be sitting where I am today after 30 years of realizing dreams that really matter to me.”
Staines may not be as big a name as some of her fellow 2019 laureates, such as political satirist Rick Mercer or actress Sandra Oh. But in cultural circles, her behind-thescenes efforts to democratize dance for Canadians have elevated her to sage status at home and on the international stage.
Hailing from Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Staines graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School in 1972, where she danced as a first soloist before joining the
Dutch National Ballet.
After her accident, Staines said she intended to attend university, but between her shattered wrist and the back-to-back deaths of her parents, she felt unmoored. Ballet had always provided a sense of stability, so she decided to return to her alma mater to enroll in the teacher training program.
Staines had found her calling: Even now, the 64-year-old still teaches dance two
Andre Previn, the pianist, composer and conductor whose broad reach took in the worlds of Hollywood, jazz and classical music, always rejecting suggestions that his bop ‘n’ blues moonlighting lessened his stature, died Thursday. He was 89.
His manager Linda Petrikova said Previn passed away in his Manhattan home.
His ex-wife Mia Farrow tweeted Thursday, “See you in the Morning beloved Friend. May you rest in glorious symphonies.”
Previn was a child prodigy whose family fled Nazi Germany. As a teenager, he found work as a composer and arranger in the musical sweatshops of Hollywood, mostly at MGM, winning four Oscars for his orchstrations of such stylish musicals as 1964’s My Fair Lady.
Previn then abandoned Hollywood for a career as a classical conductor.
He was named musical director of the Houston Symphony in 1967, and went on to lead such renowned orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Royal Philharmonic.
In 1998, his opera based on A Streetcar Named Desire premiered at the San Francisco Opera. Through his career, Previn continued to dip in and out of the jazz world. “I don’t ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical,” he once said. “It’s all music.”
Arguably, no one ever performed at so high a level in so many different genres of contemporary music. But Previn’s versatility came at a price.
“Music critics have made it quite clear,” he once said, “that any composer who ever contributed a four-bar jingle to a film was to be referred to as a ‘Hollywood composer’ from then on, even if the rest of his output were to consist solely of liturgical organ sonatas.”
Previn became as close to a household name as anyone in his field – his fame burnished by his propensity for popping up in the gossip columns.
He married five times, including glittering collaborations with Farrow and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.
He was among those in Hollywood who early on experimented with LSD, and his memoir of his movie-studio days, No Minor Chords, contained juicy revelations about everyone from Lenny Bruce to Ava Gardner.
The Korean orphan he and Farrow adopted, Soon-Yi, became the centre of a tabloid scandal when she became involved with Farrow’s then-boyfriend, Woody Allen, and eventually married him.
Previn never even heard jazz until he was a teenager.
Born in 1929 into a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin, he was sent to eminent teachers to study classical music as his gifts became apparent.
But the family was forced to flee Germany in 1938, moving briefly to Paris before travelling to the United States.
“I was purely classically trained,” Previn recalled.
“And then when I was a kid in Los Angeles, someone gave me a record of (pianist) Art Tatum playing Sweet Lorraine. I was astonished and bewitched by it.”
One of his father’s cousins worked as a musical director at Universal Studios, and Previn soon latched on at MGM.
While much of his Hollywood labours were spent on lesser films (Challenge to Lassie, for one), the work gave him “a thorough schooling in the practical aspects
hours per day.
“It is the time in the studio with the students that I think is probably the most consistent and important daily lesson in my life,” said Staines. “I attribute so much of what I learn and have been able to put into place to how the students inspire me.”
In her tenure as artistic director at Canada’s National Ballet School, Staines has implemented these lessons to empower professional and amateur dancers alike.
Ballet has long been rooted in hierarchical pedagogy that Staines said can serve to “infantilize” dancers by treating them as vessels for instructed movement rather than artists with their own ideas to express.
Staines shifted the school towards “student-centred” education, which aims to nurture not just dancers’ bodies, but their minds and wellness.
“I think when people are united through an impassioned sense of purpose, as people find their voice and work to build a community, it actually does bring out the best in each individual,” she said.
A list of her former students suggests there may wisdom to this approach.
They include leaders in the dance community such as Karen Kain, the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada; Ballet BC artistic director Emily Molnar; David Nixon, the artistic director of the Northern Ballet in Leeds, U.K. and Harvard University dance director Jill Johnson.
Others have gone onto to thriving careers on the stage, including National Ballet of Canada dancers Jillian Vanstone, Guillaume Cote, Elena Lobsanova and Siphesihle November.
of music making,” he once told
The Washington Post. He said it allowed him to “stand up in front of an orchestra of superlative players” and hone his conducting skills.
Hollywood also accorded Previn fame. He was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won four.
Besides My Fair Lady, his Oscarwinning orchestrations included Gigi (1958), Porgy and Bess (1959) and Irma La Douce (1963).
After leaving Hollywood, Previn also turned away from jazz, partly because he feared it would diminish his credibility among classical musicians.
“I must say it probably crossed my mind. It’s a cowardly confession... But the other thing is that once I quit Hollywood in ‘65, I really needed to get going as a classical conductor. I was very determined and ambitious and worked very hard.”
Jazz continued to exert an irresistible attraction, though. In 1995, after conducting every major orchestra in Europe, Previn returned to pop, recording an album of jazz treatments of songs from Show Boat, and an album of Jerome Kern songs with soprano Sylvia McNair.
“I missed some of my jazz musician friends very much and the atmosphere,” he said. “I always liked improvising. During the time that I didn’t play jazz, I always listened to it.”
Previn and Farrow, his third wife, had three children and adopted three others during their high-profile union.
After Soon-Yi’s affair with Allen became known in the early 1990s, Farrow bitterly criticized the filmmaker for initiating a relationship with the young woman when he had been a father figure to her for years.
Allen and others countered that he had hardly known Soon-Yi while she was growing up and that Previn was not just a father figure, but her father.
“I would cheerfully run him over with a steamroller,” Previn said of Allen, who eventually adopted two children with Soon-Yi.
While she was training soon-to-be ballet stars, Staines was simultaneously working to open up what had long been perceived as a stuffy art form to all Canadians with community programs and classes to help them find their dancing feet.
In receiving a lifetime artistic achievement award, Staines feels that all those who have shared in her devotion to dance over the years are also being celebrated, as well as the country as a whole.
“This honour has reinforced my pride in being Canadian,” she said. “I feel like I’ve won the nationality lottery.”
Also among the 2019 laureates are Montreal-born concert pianist Louise Bessette; Colm Feore, a veteran actor of Canadian screen and stage productions; Lorraine Pintal, artistic director and general manager of Montreal’s Theatre du Nouveau Monde and former This Hour Has 22 Minutes comedian Mercer.
Killing Eve star Oh is receiving the National Arts Centre Award for extraordinary work by an artist in the past performance year.
Montreal arts patron E. Noel Spinelli is also being recognized with the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Voluntarism in the Performing Arts.
Two Indigenous filmmakers, Alanis Obomsawin of Abenaki Nation and Mi’kmaq Gop Bartibogue of eastern New Brunswick, have also been inducted into a mentorship program aimed at fostering mid-career artists.
This year’s honourees will be feted at two events in Ottawa, culminating in a gala at the National Arts Centre on April 27.
Cade Timothy Belanger
It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that the family of Cade Timothy Belanger, announce his passing. Cade was born in Prince George BC in 1966 and passed unexpectedly in Victoria, BC, 2019. Cade is survived by his parents Allen and Rita, his two sisters Alana and Celynne, his niece Kailah and nephew Lucas. Cade is fondly remembered by many friends and relatives who will deeply miss his infectious smile and kind heart.
A limb has fallen from the family tree. I keep hearing a voice, “Grieve not for me”. Remember the best times, the laughter, the song. The good life I lived while I was strong. Continue my heritage, I’m counting on you Keep smiling and surely the light will shine through. My mind is at ease, my soul is at rest. Remembering all, I truly was blessed. Continue traditions, no matter how small. Go on with your life, don’t worry at all. I will miss you all dearly, so keep up your chin. Until the day comes when we’re together again.
BILL MERO December 16, 1929February 21, 2019
It is with deep sadness that we announce the unexpected passing of Bill Mero at the Rotary Hospice House, Prince George on Thursday, Feb. 21 2019.
Bill is survived by Margaret, his wife of 68 years, children Liane (Bill) Kimmie, Bill (Barb) Mero, Becky (Dale) Hoskyn, John (Rosalyn) Mero, Alana Mero, Bob Mero, Andrina (Gerry) Wessel, Melinda (Richard) Davis, Myra Mero (Cameron McIntyre), sister Barbara Billette of Windsor ON, 17 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren.
Bill is also survived by many nieces and nephews and many close family friends Bill was predeceased by his infant son, Mickey (1962), daughter Dawn (2014), greatgrandson Zack Lawlor (2008) plus his parents Bill and Bertha Mero, sister Charmaine Hiebert, brother Rod Mero all in Ontario.
Bill was born in Tecumseh ON, met Margaret in Quesnel in 1949, after a brief sojourn in Ontario the family returned to BC where they’ve lived ever since. Bill worked for Weldwood of Canada and later West Fraser Mills before starting his retirement in 1983.
Bill and Margaret have enjoyed many overseas journeys since then, making friends wherever they stopped, enjoying all the world has to offer in cuisine, experiences, and friendships. Favourite destinations included Australia and lately Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Bill’s Funeral Mass will be held 2:00 pm Saturday, March 2 at Christ Our Saviour Church, 4514 Austin Rd West, Prince George BC with a tea to follow.
There will also be a Memorial Service followed by a tea on Saturday, May 18 also at the Christ Our Saviour Church at 2:00 pm so all family and friends unable to attend his Funeral Mass can come to say goodbye. Donations in Bill’s memory may be made to the Rotary Hospice House, 3089 Clapperton St Prince George BC V2L 5N4.
Act: Notice of
Take notice that Jacinda van der Merwe
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record. For information, contact the Freedom of Information Advisor at FLNRORD’s Office in the Omineca Region of British Columbia.
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