Prince George Citizen March 20, 2019

Hip hop style

Tallulah Mackereth competes in the 2019 Prince George Dance Festival at Vanier Hall on Tuesday afternoon. The festival runs until Friday.

Woman sentenced for grabbing young boy’s hand, leading him out of store

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

A Prince George woman who was found guilty of assault for grabbing the hand of a six-year-old boy she did not know and nearly leading him out of a local convenience store was sentenced Friday to a further one-and-a-half months in jail.

Corina Lynn Beauchamp, 49, must also serve three years probation upon release, was ordered to provide a DNA sample and issued a 10-year firearms prohibition.

Beauchamp had remained in custody since her arrest for the March 2018 incident. She had also faced a count of abduction but in issuing his verdict in October 2018, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ron Tindale found Crown prosecution had not proved that charge beyond reasonable doubt.

In doing so, he went over an odd set of circumstances that began when the boy, who was with his mother, began talking to the woman although she was a stranger while the two were at a hot chocolate vending machine.

Beauchamp testified she was trying to find the boy’s mother but Tindale did not accept her story. Video evidence showed they walked right past the boy’s mother yet Beauchamp did not ask the woman if the boy was hers, he noted.

When the mother was ready to leave, she looked around and could not see her son. She walked to the front door where she found Beauchamp and the boy. She called her son over and asked Beachamp what she was doing but could not remember the reply.

They went home and, after a conversation with her father, she called police

the next day.

Beauchamp testified she was trying to find the boy’s mother but Tindale did not accept her story. Video evidence showed they walked right past the boy’s mother yet Beauchamp did not ask the woman if the boy was hers, he noted.

However, Tindale also noted Beauchamp let go of the boy’s hand and remained in the store for some time afterwards, despite being banned from the location for previous trouble. Video showed Beachamp walking by the front entrance twice before entering while the clerk was looking the other way.

She also returned to the store after the incident, which Tindale said shows Beauchamp was not following the two.

On that basis, Tindale found Beauchamp not guilty of abduction.

But he found Beauchamp intentionally applied force when she grabbed the boy’s hand without his consent and noted a power imbalance between an adult and a young boy. Beauchamp had no lawful reason to take control of the boy, Tindale said, and found her guilty of assault.

Man jailed for guns, drugs

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A Prince George man was sentenced Tuesday to three years and nine months in jail for a trio of charges related to the discovery of a gun and some drugs.

Less credit for time served prior to sentencing, Dylan Leslie Prince, 23, has a further two-and-a-half years to serve for the May 2018 incident that began when plain clothes RCMP driving an unmarked vehicle drove by a Nation Crescent home linked to the drug trade.

They came across three men moving bags between vehicles with “great urgency,” the court was told. The trunk of one of the vehicles was open and, in plain view, police could see what appeared to be a stock for a rifle.

The three – Prince, Craig Anthony Neidermayer and Ryan John Moore – were arrested and searched.

On Prince, RCMP found an array of drugs, from marijuana and cocaine to heroine, fentanyl and methemphetamine. But the quantities fell short of the threshold for a trafficking charge and Prince eventually pleaded guilty to possessing controlled substances.

The matter did not stop there. On the home’s lawn, about 20 feet away from the vehicles, was a sports bag. Police lacked reasonable cause to search the bag until Prince twice suggested they would be interested in it.

Concerned about what they would find inside, police asked if it held a gun. Prince said yes and police subsequently pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, loaded with four shells. Four more shells were found inside the bag along with masks, balaclavas, gloves, bolt cutters and a pry bar, leading to a charge of possessing break-in instruments.

Prince initially declined to say whose bag it was but eventually took responsibility for its ownership. On that matter, Prince pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing a firearm contrary to an order.

The stock found in the vehicle turned out to be for a pellet gun and the bags they were transferring between vehicles were suitcases in which police found no evidence of criminal activity, the court was told.

Neidermayer and Moore are both well known to the police and were the initial subject of their investigation. But charges against Moore were eventually stayed while Niedermayer was sentenced to time served for breaching a recognizance.

Prince has a history of committing similar offences and in November 2016 he was sentenced to a further nine-and-a-half months in jail after RCMP discovered a cache of weapons in a car he was driving. The court was told Prince was doing well upon his release until he returned to Prince George and fell back in with his old crowd. He plans to stay away from this city upon his release, the court was told. Because the remainder of his latest sentence is greater than two years, it will be served in a federal facility. The charge of possessing break-in instruments was stayed.

The sentence came by way of a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels.

Nominations sought for Healthier You Awards

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

The community is toasting the good health of good health. You can raise a glass, too.

Nominations are flowing in for the Healthier You Awards, the annual set of trophies that honour the people and projects of our region that are making a difference in healthy living.

The nominations close on Friday, so awards coordinator Norm Coyne is urging people to move quickly to spotlight the strong stories of the community.

— see AWARDS, page 3

Barney Bentall, Colin James hitting CN Centre

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Barney Bentall has a lot of directions he can ride in music. He became known in a big way across Canada for his hard-driving rock ‘n’ roll with his band The Legenday Hearts, which fans paralleled with Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp or Tom Petty. Like those three guiding lights, Bentall was able to withstand the changing trends and make relevant new music over a long period of time from the early 1980s up to the late 1990s, and he still has a lot of torque in that engine despite modern changes in the way music success is measured.

A career that long in that industry can only occur if the material is based on quality material. Something To Live For, Crime Against Love, and Do Ya are not similar songs but each was critically acclaimed at their stages of release and each one still sounds pleasing with today’s ears. It’s little wonder, then, that Bentall also played a major role in The High Bar Gang, a collection of B.C. rock, folk, country and pop musicians who formed up to share their mutual love of bluegrass music and traditional folk. Other members of the group include Dave Barber, Kirby Barber, Rob Becker, Wendy Bird, Colin Nairne and Shari Ulrich. They instantly became leading modern voices in the genre of ultra rootsy North Americana and the awards got handed over to prove it.

Bentall also loves some acoustic country and folk music, plus a solo brand of rock ‘n’ roll when his Legendary Hearts project isn’t in the foreground.

The last time he was in Prince George was the summer of 2017, at the concert thrown in Prince George to say thank you to the firefighters who tried their best to save the forests and all the volunteers who helped with the wildfire refugees that had to come here while their homes were in danger. The devastating Elephant Hill blaze came within nine kilometres of Bentall’s own ranch not far from Ashcroft.

Now Bentall is coming back to just rock as a support act for Colin James, but he does love to perform in Prince George as a sort of favourite outside city. This was one of those early places that gave him an audience back in his formative years.

“It’s kinda cool because I have Simon

Kendall playing keyboards, and Simon has been in Doug & The Slugs since Day 1 and the very first time I played P.G. was opening for Doug & The Slugs back in 1980 or something. So that’s a sentimental bonus,”

Bentall said.

You can take from Kendall’s presence that this concert will be focused on Bentall’s rockier side. There will be an emphasis on all his past hits, but don’t be surprised if a few new ones make an appearance too. He is already into the early stages of recording the next solo album. The collaboration musicians are largely the same people who helped him with the The Drifter And The Preacher, his 2017 project.

“I’ve never been an autocratic person in the studio,” he said. “You just bring in a whole bunch of good players. My job is to log the hours and write songs, have 20 or 25 to draw from so you can see which ones of them form a gang, and that starts to form the record, then you go in with great players and just be open to where it’s going to go. Because they are great. The men and women I record with will go ‘why don’t we

do this here at this part?’ or ‘maybe this could be shorter’ and all that stuff, and you embark on that wonderful discovery that is the art of making music.”

He has to be the one to make the final decision when there are multiple options on the table but that’s a pleasure, he said, when the people in the room have supplied the process with a lot of talent. The choice may not be easy but the results will be delicious.

His love of collaboration aside, he said he also contemplates doing a “stripped down album like Springsteen’s Nebraska, or Bon Iver’s first record where he went to the hunting cabin and like a mad science experiment brought along a bunch of instruments and recording gear.”

He has his ranch for that. He hasn’t turned it into a sound lab as yet, but he does go there often from his primary home in the Lower Mainland in order to write.

He likes doing the ever present ranch work as well. It keeps his hands dirty, his boots weathered, his collar blue, and imposes a constantly humbling living condition that clears his composer’s head.

All the gold records and ticket sales fade into the distance when a lifestyle like that is threatened by falls of flame and towers of smoke. He is looking at spring a lot differently these days, knowing that B.C.’s forests and ranchlands are now facing a regular threat of wildfire.

“Everyone’s got their fingers crossed that maybe we’ll have a better season this year,” he said. “The last couple of years, you feel like that is the new normal and that’s disturbing and very unsettling.”

But, as a talented songwriter once penned, “life could be worse, things could get bad, I’m lucky, I guess, to remember what I am.”

Bentall and the Legendary Hearts are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their first album release, so he hinted that maybe some reunion shows are on the horizon, perhaps even a live album of their greatest hits. In the meantime, he’ll be on the Colin James concert bill along with opening act Marty O’Reilly this Saturday at CN Centre. Tickets are on sale now at the arena’s box office or online at TicketsNorth.ca.

HANDOUT PHOTO BY MARK MARYANOVIC

Canadian rocker Barney Bentall will be joining Colin James for a concert at CN Centre on Saturday.

Ticket sale

Glen Mikkelsen, general manager of CN Centre, shows off the hat that ticket staff will be wearing to celebrate Women’s World Curling Championship 2020 Tournament Tickets going on sale for the next six days. The 2020 Women’s Worlds is scheduled for March 14-22 at the CN Centre.

Three vying to be CSTC chief

Citizen staff

Three women are running to be the next chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.

Mina Holmes, Mary Teegee and Kathaleigh George are in the running. Holmes is the CSTC’s reconciliation table coordinator and hails from the Tl’azt’en Nation. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in education and attended the University of British Columbia for a law degree.

If elected, Holmes said she will continue the push for the member First Nations to “have the authority to decide what happens in our territories, and to create programs to build members’ capacity to provide our own services, and make our own decisions.”

Suspicious incident reported to police

Citizen staff

Prince George RCMP have received another report of a man acting suspiciously.

On Tuesday just before 10 a.m., a man driving a white pickup truck allegedly told a child walking near North Tabor Boulevard and Ospika Boulevard to get into his vehicle.

The child refused, immediately left the area and was able to get to safety, RCMP said.

The suspect matches descriptions from two previous incidents – on Feb. 19 and 25 near

Heritage Elementary School. The man is described as a middle-age Caucasian with short, dark hair and a short, dark beard, about one inch in length, with flecks of grey. The pickup is described as white with four doors with a black tonneau cover over the box, tinted black windows and a silver bumper. The pickup was quite dirty at the time, the RCMP added. Prince George RCMP is asking anyone with information to call the Police at 250-561-3300 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-2228477 (TIPS)

Chopper to land at KRSS as part of course

Citizen staff

An RCMP helicopter will be landing at Kelly Road Secondary School on March 28 – and there will be no need for alarm, according to the school district.

The event is part of a course going on at the school during spring break. The helicopter will be there for a short time. Notifications will be posted on both the school’s and the school district’s websites.

Teegee said she wants to take her years of experience working at every level of government, including international, and put them towards instilling a strong governance structure at CSTC and make sure members can “truly be decision makers within our own territory.”

Additionally, she said there is a need for a community-designed language curriculum for the CSTC communities, and land-based programs “to pass down our cultural teachings to the next generation.” Teegee, from the Takla Lake First Nation, is the executive director at Carrier Sekani Family Services and recently completed a masters of business administration.

Finding a balance between economic development and the socio-cultural aspects of the member communities will also be top of mind, Teegee said. George hails from Takla Landing. She could not be immediately reached for comment.

In-person voting takes place on Thursday at polling stations throughout the CSTC region.

A photo of George wasn’t available.

Awards honour a wide range of wellness services

— from page 1

“It’s super interesting because through the years I’ve seen it expand,” Coyne said. “When we first started it, it was primarily health care focused in the traditional sense of the word but it has evolved into now including fitness and wellness and a broader definition of what health care means, and that all happened organically through the nomination process.

“The awards still keep that traditional health care core, but it has extended beyond that, and every year we get to see amazing things come to light because people in the community made interesting nominations.”

The categories are:

• Health & Wellness Advocate of the Year

• Outstanding Multicultural Contribution

• Health & Wellness Educator of the Year

• Seniors’ Initiative of the Year

• Health & Wellness Provider of the Year

• Research Award

• Youth Initiative of the Year

• Health & Wellness Innovator of the Year

• Lifestyle Transformation Award

• First Nations Initiative of the Year

• Technology In Healthcare

• Workplace Wellness Award

The nomination process is free and easy, said Coyne.

It involves simply going to the www.healthieryouexpo.ca website and filling out a straightforward online form.

“It will take you 15 or 20 minutes to fill everything out, that’s all, it is very easy to understand,” Coyne said.

“It all goes to a panel for review. We reach out to those who get nominated to make sure they agree to stand for nomination, and then it all leads to a gala evening on April 12 where the winners are revealed.”

Coyne said the awards were the creation of local MLA Shir-

ley Bond “who has remained as

excited about the awards this year as she was at the beginning, and that’s because she is amazed right along with the rest of us at the mind-blowing stories that emerge.

Remember, healthcare is a whole sector that doesn’t toot its own horn, everything is done person to person, so the only way these stories ever get told is if people step forward to celebrate someone they know or something they know about. And these are world class stories. Some of the work being done in this area is world renowned, or it sure should be, so these awards are so important for letting the community know what’s going on right here in our own area.”

Coyne urged the public to celebrate the local health, wellness, fitness and nutrition successes, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box with whomever you wish to nominate.

Tickets to attend the gala are also on offer through the same website.

HOLMES TEEGEE

Province preparing for wildfire season

Citizen news service

KAMLOOPS — British Columbia’s forests minister says the province is preparing for the wildfire season with some new strategies and people living near forested areas should also do their part by safeguarding property against potential blazes.

Doug Donaldson says a $101-million budget, up from $64 million last year, will allow for a more comprehensive prescribed burning program and new technology including night vision goggles to help with early detection of fires will be piloted this summer.

He says firefighters will also have more access to computers and iPads in the field and drones will assist with fire mapping and infrared scanning.

Donaldson says a program established last September is expected to fund fuel management work on Crown and private land by helping local governments and First Nations lower wildfire risks.

He says the so-called Community Resiliency Investment Program expands municipalities’ criteria on how they can spend money on planning and urban issues and suggested development bylaws could help them with fire issues.

Donaldson says homeowners can prevent fires from growing by following the national FireSmart program recommendations by removing fuels such as wood piles and noting building material like vinyl siding that can help grow a fire.

“One of the most important things is to make sure, whether you’re under an evacuation order

or not, is to FireSmart your property,” he says.

As someone who lives in a rural area, Donaldson says he pays attention to any combustible materials near his home, ensures there are fire breaks around the house and keeps deciduous or leafy trees that are much less flammable.

Wildfires last year scorched a record-setting 13,500 square kilometres in B.C., up from 12,000 square kilometres in 2017 and forcing 65,000 people from their homes.

About 510 structures were destroyed in the province, including 229 homes.

The B.C. government has declared a state of emergency for the last two seasons.

Various studies have concluded climate change contributes to an increased risk of wildfire.

One paper, published in January in the online journal Earth’s Future, says hot, dry weather caused by greenhouse gas emissions increased the province’s fire risk in 2017 by up to four times.

Last December, the B.C. government introduced a climatechange plan to shift away from fossil fuels and build the economy around reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, industries, vehicles and organic waste, most of which would be diverted from landfills and converted to other products.

The plan, called CleanBC, involves boosting the carbon tax and producing clean hydroelectricity.

It will require all new buildings to be net-zero energy ready by 2023, meaning they could generate enough on-site energy to power their own functions.

for April 16.

Alberta election underway

Dean BENNETT Citizen new service

Alberta’s NDP leader and her main conservative rival wasted no time pointing fingers at each other on the first day of the campaign for an April 16 election.

Premier Rachel Notley called the vote Tuesday in front of cheering supporters at the National Music Centre in Calgary and made it clear from the get-go that the front-burner issue will be Jason Kenney’s integrity.

“Who is going to be premier and who is fit to be premier: That is the choice,” she said as she announced the 28-day campaign.

Hours later, the United Conservative leader made his first official campaign appearance at an Edmonton-area energy services company where he accused Notley of pandering to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and driving the province to “economic stagnation.”

Notley promised to run on job creation and fighting for social and economic equality, but also alluded to what she called Kenney’s opposition to LGBTQ and abortion rights.

“A nasty record of intolerance should have no place in the premier’s office,” Notley said.

She said revelations that Kenney’s leadership campaign team worked with a fellow “kamikaze candidate” to torpedo the chances of his main rival show that he cheated and “then lied about it.”

“Now, is that a premier?” she asked.

“(If) you just can’t bring yourself to vote, and to give your vote, to Jason Kenney... well then, this time, in this election, let’s team up to keep our province moving forward.”

Kenney responded by suggesting a pact between Notley and Trudeau since she became premier in 2015 has resulted in a destructive carbon tax in Alberta, a failure to secure even one pipeline to transport the province’s oil and the loss of billions of dollars in potential business investment.

“This campaign is not about politics. It’s about people,” he said as men wearing hard hats stood in the background. “The people who have been damaged by the ideological, job-killing policies of the NDP government and their alliance with Justin Trudeau.”

Kenney said a United Conservative government would immediately kill the provincial carbon tax and would be “obsessed” with the economy and creating 55,000 new jobs.

He also said his government would be more willing to stand up to Trudeau to get a coastal pipeline completed and would push for a constitutional referendum on equalization if that doesn’t happen “to assert our fight for fairness to the top of the national agenda.”

“We would stop the NDP’s approach of apologizing and surrendering and we would start a new approach of fighting for Alberta.”

Pair wrongfully

Notley’s government wants to continue funding education and health to keep up with population growth, as well as build or retrofit highways, schools, hospitals and health centres.

The NDP wants to see its tax and program incentives survive to help diversify the economy. The party is planning to spend $3.7 billion to lease rail cars to get more oil to market and has introduced a carbon tax.

Notley has criticized Kenney’s promises to cut the corporate income tax rate by one-third while holding the line on spending. She said that would benefit the few at the expense of the many.

“Jason Kenney wants two Albertas – one for the wealthy and one for the rest of us. He wants two Albertas divided over people’s rights.

“I want to continue to build one Alberta.”

Kenney said that’s not the issue at all.

“The key question in this election is which team can get our economy back to work and create jobs?”

Kenney has already said he would cut the carbon tax, reduce corporate taxes, peel back some of the boosts to the minimum wage and cancel employment standards and injury compensation for farmers.

He has promised to cut red tape by one third, which – along with tax reductions – he believes will spur economic growth to balance the budget in four years.

The NDP’s program spending has come at a cost of multibillion-dollar deficits. The debt now approaches $60 billion.

And in the key battleground of Calgary, unemployment remains high.

Notley signalled she would continue to fight for more jobs and her plan will also boost the economy to allow the budget to get out of the red by 2023.

The spring election will be the first for the United Conservatives and their leader Kenney, a federal cabinet minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The UCP was Kenney’s answer to unite the right, and was born out of a merger of the Alberta Tories and what was the Opposition Wildrose Party.

The UCP is dealing with the fallout from a Calgary candidate’s resignation late Monday following allegations that she made comments online about white people losing their homelands and the collapse of Western culture.

Caylan Ford said the comments, published on the website PressProgress, were distortions and not reflective of her views.

“I personally do not believe that Jason Kenney is racist,” Notley said Tuesday.

“But I do believe the UCP as a party has a problem with racism.”

Kenny said he condemned Ford’s remarks and suggestions that his party is racist are “ridiculous.” — With files from Lauren Krugel in Calgary

dismissed from fire department jobs in Vernon, board rules

Andrea PEACOCK Citizen news service

VERNON — An arbitration board says two employees were wrongfully dismissed from their jobs with the fire department in Vernon after a videotape showed them having sexual relations in the fire chief’s office.

The pair were fired two days after the incident in March 2018, but their union grieved the dismissals and proposed four-month suspensions.

A camera had been installed in the office several months earlier after David Lind, who was the interim chief at the time, became concerned that someone might be accessing his locked file cabinet, which contained sensitive staffing and budget documents.

A majority of the arbitration board found that while fire captain Brent Bond and dispatcher Cara-Leigh Manahan’s conduct was worthy of “harsh discipline,” the dismissal was an “excessive disciplinary response.”

Bond is to be reinstated effective Feb. 1, with no loss of seniority or benefits.

The board ordered Manahan to be reinstated without loss of seniority or service but since dispatch services for the department have been contracted out, the employer must compensate

her for the severance or any other payment she would have received when her job was terminated. Neither will be compensated for lost wages during the time they were fired.

The Arbitrators Association of B.C. says in its decision released Tuesday that the two employees became close friends in early 2017 and developed a sexual relationship away from work later that year.

“Although Capt. Bond knew the relationship was inappropriate, he did not take any steps to try to have him and Ms. Manahan assigned different shifts,” James Dorsey, chair of the arbitrators association, wrote in the decision.

A disciplinary suspension of five months will also be on Bond’s employment record and he will be demoted to the rank of first class firefighter until Feb. 1, 2022, when he will be reinstated to the rank of captain.

“Key to this consideration ought to be that the grievors have already suffered a heavy penalty,” said Dorsey. “They have undergone embarrassment, dishonour, rumours in the community and destruction of their family life. This is (a) far harsher penalty than could be ordered by an arbitrator.”

The union had applied to have Bond and Manahan remain anonymous, which the board denied.

“There is no exceptional personal privacy circumstances or persuasive labour relations reason in this situation that justifies departing from the open court principle,” said Dorsey.

The decision by the board to reinstate Bond and Manahan was not unanimous.

John McKearney, retired chief of the Vancouver Fire Department, said the activity between Bond and Manahan must be considered cause for termination.

“The conduct was antithetical to Bond’s responsibility as captain and leader of the shift and has created a poison work environment for other females in the hall, and for males,” he wrote.

“His actions were a gross violation of his duty to create a welcoming work environment for all, and especially for women.”

Will Pearce, chief administrative officer for the City of Vernon, said he is disappointed in the decision of the arbitration board.

“It sends entirely the wrong message to fire personnel across the country and to staff of the City of Vernon,” he said. “It is not now and never will be acceptable or ethical for a direct supervisor to engage in a sexual relationship with junior and subordinate staff.” The city is “exploring a range of options” in response to the arbitration decision, Pearce said.

CP PHOTO

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley makes an announcement in Calgary on Tuesday. Notley has called a provincial election

Feds unveil big spending in pre-election budget

Andy BLATCHFORD Citizen news service

OTTAWA — The final budget of the Trudeau government’s mandate will scatter billions in fresh spending – on everything from pharmacare to retraining workers to first-time home buyers – as the Liberals commit to an electoral fight that pits their deficit-spending vision versus the Conservatives’ balanced-books approach.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget Tuesday resembled Liberal economic plans that preceded it: the government will exhaust a big windfall, run near-term deficits of about $20 billion and offer no timeline to return to balance.

Morneau introduced his blueprint Tuesday just before 4 p.m. EST, but his customary budget speech to the House of Commons was delayed by an hour after a series of procedural manoeuvres by the Conservatives.

When Morneau finally started speaking, Tory MPs drowned out most of his address by stomping and shouting.

The Tories were protesting the Liberaldominated justice committee’s decision earlier Tuesday to pull the plug on its probe of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

The document tabled in the Commons showed that a stronger economy last year delivered an unexpected revenue bump that will flood an extra $27.8 billion into the federal treasury over the next six years, compared to government predictions in its November economic update.

With seven months to go before the election, Morneau’s plan will spread around $22.8 billion of that additional cash. The government also said it’s booked another $4 billion in spending since the fall update.

Most of it will be aimed at Canadians’ pocketbooks.

Funding for some of Tuesday’s commitments will only start kicking in after October’s election, giving voters the chance to weigh in on the budget’s contents at the ballot box.

The Liberals’ spending path places them in stark contrast with the Opposition Conservatives, who have called on the government to rein in spending.

“The opposition would like to see us make cuts very rapidly – their idea is balance the budget at any cost,” Morneau told a news conference Tuesday after being asked about his deficits.

“Well, if we had taken that approach in 2015 we would not be where we are today with a better outcome for middle-class Canadians. We’d be in a more difficult spot.”

The measures in Morneau’s fiscal blueprint cover a lot of territory, with a clear

focus on individuals – particularly younger adults – as opposed to businesses.

The plan includes:

• $4.6 billion over five years to help more Canadians afford and access skills training to keep up with the rapidly evolving workforce

• $4.5 billion over five years to improve living conditions for Indigenous Peoples

• $1.8 billion over four years to enhance the guaranteed income supplement for lowincome seniors

• $885 million over five years to make homes more affordable for first-time buyers

• $500 million per year, starting in 202223, to help cover the cost of drugs for rare diseases.

The government will make several large, one-time investments for 2018-19, including $2.2 billion worth of new infrastructure funding and $1 billion towards improving energy efficiency. The budget also pledges to commit up to $3.9 billion in support for supply-managed dairy, egg and poultry farmers affected by recent trade deals with the Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Even with these investments, Ottawa’s

Liberals to create national drug agency

Kristy KIRKUP Citizen news service

OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government is promising a new agency to negotiate prescription drug prices for Canadians to try and drive down costs – a move billed as an “important step” on the path to an eventual national pharmacare plan.

In a sign of just how expensive pharmacare could be, the federal budget tabled Tuesday is also promising to spend $500 million a year, starting in 2022, to subsidize drugs that treat rare diseases.

The Liberal government said it intends to work with provinces, territories and other partners to develop the mandate for the national drug agency, with Health Canada to receive $35 million over four years starting in 2019-2020 to create an office to support the plan.

The budget, the government’s last before this fall’s federal election, also includes plans to create a national formulary – a list of drugs that have been evaluated for both efficacy and costeffectiveness.

The measures in the budget alone will not close the gap for Canadians that require prescription drugs they can’t afford, Morneau warned in his House of Commons speech.

“A publicly funded, universal health care system is a source of pride for Canadians and a source of strength for our country. It is a legacy that we are building on with this budget.”

A central question remains: how the government plans to pay for it.

A universal pharmacare plan does not appear affordable for Canada right now, said Rebekah Young, the director of fiscal and provincial economics for Scotiabank. Adding such a plan to the government’s books without major tax hikes would require stronger growth than Canada sees even in the best of times, she warned.

Provinces do not have a lot of capacity to take on substantial new costs, Young said, noting the parliamentary budget office has estimated the cost of a pharmacare plan at about $20 billion a year.

“The big question then becomes who is going to pay and how much?” she said.

“That will definitely be a key feature of the summer debate when we head into the election.”

The federal New Democrats have promised that if elected, they would follow through on a universal pharmacare plan to respond to dramatic increases in prescription drug costs. Indeed, Tuesday’s budget lacks a sense of urgency on the matter, said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

Absorbing these rising costs is difficult for individual Canadians and their families – and poses challenges to the longterm sustainability of government- and employersponsored drug plans.

— Federal budget document

“Canadians were counting on this Liberal government to meet their basic needs, and sadly, they were let down,” he said in a statement. “We will have the courage to make different choices.”

Canadians spent $33.7 billion on medication in 2018, a staggering increase over 1985, when they spent just $2.6 billion on prescription drugs. People take more drugs to manage more conditions than they used to – living longer, and better, but at considerable expense.

Canada’s current patchwork of drug coverage, which comprises more than 100 public programs and 100,000 private insurance plans, is not well equipped to handle the increasingly expensive drugs now coming to market, the government said in its budget document.

“Absorbing these rising costs is difficult for individual Canadians and their families – and poses challenges to the longterm sustainability of government- and employer-sponsored drug plans.”

The plan in Tuesday’s budget follows interim findings issued by a federal expert panel led by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins on the “building blocks”of pharmacare, including an agency to oversee a national drug plan.

Drug spending in Canada is expected to surpass $50 billion by 2028, the report found.

Dr. Gigi Osler, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said Tuesday she was glad to see some details on the government’s pharmacare vision.

“I think it is the first step towards making it (pharmacare) a reality,” she said.

“Our position is that all Canadians should have access to medically necessary drugs regardless of their ability to pay.”

Hoskins’ advisory council is set to issue a final report on the issue of access to drug coverage this spring, with the findings to be tabled in the House of Commons.

fiscal track promises to be a key issue on the campaign trail.

The annual deficit projections in Tuesday’s budget – which reach as high as $19.8 billion – are less than one percentage point of Canada’s gross domestic product, a modest level when compared internationally.

Still, the Liberals will be forced to explain themselves repeatedly until election day. They came to power in 2015 on a platform that vowed to post annual deficits of no more than $10 billion and to return to balance by 2019. After the 2015 election, the Trudeau government abandoned the promise, arguing more investments were needed to lift Canada’s long-term economic growth. Instead, Morneau has focused on lowering the net debt-to-GDP ratio – a measure of how burdensome the national debt is – each year even as the actual debt has increased.

In his prepared remarks of his budget speech Tuesday, Morneau intended to reassure the House of Commons that the shortfalls will start to shrink.

“We’re going to make these investments to grow our economy for the long term

– while we bring the books back towards balance,” his speech said.

The budget’s planning horizon showed the deficit will shrink to $9.8 billion by 2023-24.

The Conservatives have attacked the Liberals for breaking their deficit promise and have demanded Morneau map out a return to balanced books. They’ve accused the government of borrowing today on the backs of future generations.

Leaders in corporate Canada and some economists have also criticized the Liberal deficits, especially since they’ve come during good economic times when many believe governments should be focused on paying off debt.

A big question is what will become of the Liberal spending plan – and how big the shortfalls will grow – when Canada is hit by the next economic downturn.

The economy has had a good run, but experts say it’s debatable how much of Canada’s recent economic performance has come from Liberal policies and how much has been a result of the stronger U.S. and global economies.

CP PHOTO

Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivers the federal budget in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Voters should decide Trudeau’s fate

One should always be skeptical of any effort to depose a country’s ruler outside the normal process of election. Attempting to alter the democratically chosen course of a country without a vote, though often tempting, is one of those easy answers that usually just makes things worse.

Calls for Justin Trudeau to resign over the ever-worsening Lavscam scandal accordingly deserve to be viewed with deep skepticism – particularly by his strongest partisan foes.

For all the accolades she’s currently enjoying, former attorney general Jody WilsonRaybould’s alleged heroism in Lavscam is really quite minor. According to her own testimony, she simply refused prime ministerial pressure to initiate remediation with the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin, currently facing charges of bribery and fraud. Whatever we think of SNC-Lavalin itself, whether Wilson-Raybould was unambiguously in the right to do this is a complicated question of political accountability.

To what degree should appointed cabinet members of an elected prime minister be permitted to make decisions independent of their boss’s wishes? Since the state’s decision to prosecute or not is often a subjective one, whose subjectivity should rule?

This is a debate liberal American legal

scholars such as Alan Dershowitz have struggled with throughout the Mueller investigation of U.S. President Donald Trump, as a partisan interest – the desire to see Trump suffer at the hands of an open-ended prosecution – must be moderated by respect for America’s democratic hierarchy.

“In Great Britain, Israel and other democracies that respect the rule of law, the director of public prosecution or the attorney general are law enforcement officials who, by law, are independent of the prime minister,” Dershowitz wrote in 2017. “But our constitution makes the attorney general both the chief prosecutor and the chief political adviser to the president on matters of justice and law enforcement.”

The same is true of Canada, where the office of attorney general is fused with that of justice minister. This means Trudeau’s lobbying, and eventual removal of WilsonRaybould for her attempted exercise of British- or Israeli-style prosecutorial sovereignty, may simply represent enforcing the controversial reality of our political system, rather than betraying it.

Again, this says nothing about the severity of charges facing the company, nor the instincts of a prime minister whose first inclination is to spare a powerful Quebec corporation from the consequences of its actions. But as with Democrats salivating over the notion of a Mueller-instigated Trump impeachment, Conservatives in

Canada must weigh whether the creation of an imperial justice department accountable to nobody is a long-term price worth paying for the downfall of a transient political rival. Democrats have similarly been forced to temper their enthusiasm for the mid-tenure downfall of a loathed president with the reality that his successor would mark no material improvement.

What would the dawn of President Mike Pence herald, from a progressive perspective, beyond an untainted 2020 rival with a more disciplined style of right-wing governance? Likewise, all of Trudeau’s possible successors are likely to be stronger electorally, smarter politically and furtherleft philosophically, raising the question of why any Conservative should consider this endgame desirable.

Critics on Trudeau’s left, for their part, have to make peace with the reality that there exists no universe in which the Lavscam story ends with their heroine WilsonRaybould in the prime minister’s chair. A Trudeau resignation would simply trigger a leadership race within the ruling Liberal Party and a solidified norm of Canadian politics – certainly Liberal politics – is that no man or woman may become prime minister unless they are fluent in both French and English. Wilson-Raybould is not – indeed, her lack of French fluency was previously offered as one of many post-hoc rationalizations for her removal .

She may have shattered some glass ceilings as the highest-ranking Indigenous politician in Canadian history, but her party is built on a delicate intersectional coalition in which the need to appease French Canadian interests supersedes all others. The ex-attorney general’s uninterest in sparing Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin from prosecution is already playing worse in the firm’s home province than elsewhere in the country. To believe a party as Quebec-centric as the Liberals is prepared to sacrifice both Lavalin and bilingualism in exchange for disciplining Trudeau is a delusion.

The next Canadian general election is only seven months away. For opponents of Canada’s Liberals, signs point to an uphill battle. Despite Lavscam’s omnipresence in the headlines, there’s ample reason to believe a strong plurality of Canadians will remain loyal to Trudeau’s party and its agenda, brand and policy, regardless of who’s heading it.

The task before Canada’s opposition is to assemble a persuasive case to the contrary –a case not merely against the current prime minister but also against the larger agenda of Canadian liberalism the man and his party represent, and why nothing short of a complete change of government will be sufficient to correct the country’s course. That is democratic accountability. There is no shortcut.

—

J.J. McCullough, Citizen news service

Letters welcome

The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers.

Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca

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 1-844877-1163 for additional information.

My raise going straight to the city’s pocket

Appalled and angry would be the words I use to describe what in going on at city hall. Since I first learned of the $32.2 million proposed loan, I started digging into the finances of the city in preparation of launching a petition and doing everything I can to make sure this does not happen. Something sure stinks over there but from where I’m standing, I really can’t say where it’s coming from.

Is it coming from city council? Yes, but not just there. Is it coming from Dave Dyer who couldn’t seem to adequately answer questions as to why the infamous sinkhole or the disastrous bridge on the Willow Cale road skyrocketed into the millions over-budget? Yes, but it’s still not the only source. Might I also mention we still haven’t heard anything about the PW615 water station off of Foothills that is rumoured to be $3 million over budget. I’m sure we’ll

‘Floodgate of questions’

have to take out another loan for that one, too. I suspect a review from another source is due and not a former city manager. Insert eye roll here. And no, I’m not talking a review where the council says yes that’s lovely and moves on without initiating anything the review suggests. I propose it be someone of the frugal but sensible variety; someone who knows how to make a penny squeal for mercy and get its true value.

Here’s my problem: this year I was excited to receive a three per cent wage increase. Awesome, right? It is, but it’s not going into my pocket unfortunately, it’s going into city council’s pocket. I sure wish I could vote myself a $30,000 wage increase.

Maybe it could help pay for the new taxes rolling out – 4.3 per cent increase this year, plus three per cent next year for the pool and fire hall, plus 2.3 per cent for those

A well-written and informative article by Neil Godbout on city mistakes. The only trouble with the article is it opens a floodgate of questions.

Not wanting to beat a dead horse but the city is borrowing $32 million for 11 projects. So where would the remaining extra over budget $24 million come from to finish this projects?

That would be my guess of overspending needed to finish these projects.

I cannot recall when city planners and project engineers came in on budget on one project, let alone 11. One last question on the Willow Cale bridge mess.

11 capital projects, which ends up as what with that bridge and sink hole loan? A 10 per cent raise in our taxes in the next two years is more than unbelievable. It’s unacceptable.

If I were do a project at my job that ended up costing the company over twice the budget, and since it was already done that they have to pay it with interest, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t hold the key to the pocket book anymore, and rightly so. Where is the responsibility? Where are the consequences?

I attended the March 11 city council meeting and something that sticks out in my mind is the woman pleading with council to reconsider the subdividing of the property right next to hers. She explained how she loved her home and rural property and how they had had to pay extra each year for the city services that were introduced out there. An extra 20

How do we get the name of the company who did the soil sampling for the bridge?

The name of engineering firm that designed the bridge?

The name of company that built the bridge? These companies all got really nice Christmas presents. I can only hope that the money the city donated went to Prince George companies, not some low ball, out of town companies. At least then some of our money went back into the city in wages and supplies.

Chad Johnson

Prince George

What next for the Cougars?

So as most of the Cougar fans knew from the start the problem wasn’t the coaching but Richard Matvichuk took the fall as most

coaches do.

grand a year is nothing to sneeze at, yet they paid it, and were looking forward to the time when it was paid off and they could enjoy their private property at last free of the financial burden of the extra taxes.

Another gentleman provided pictures on one such property that showed how the once private lot became anything but private with a gigantic house looming over a regular home with all of the trees on the property line gone.

When you buy rural property this is what you are trying to avoid, you are looking for the privacy acreage provides; not someone peering through your window from theirs.

I felt the issue to my core, but city council listened and had a few questions for Ian Wells and then seemed to brush off concerns with a statement that said “well, we need more money so tough luck.” Too bad they weren’t so harsh

Perhaps part of the problem has to do with scouting, drafting and past trades?

The players try their best every night but the reality is the team isn’t good enough to go anywhere. Fan support and interest has dropped big time and so if the bleeding doesn’t stop, how long will the New Ice Age group put up with it and does the WHL really want a team in P.G.?

Roland Hill

Prince George

Why are graders still out?

Over the past week, the warm weather and sunshine has melted half of the winter’s buildup of ice and snow on neighbourhood streets.

It’s a little rough driving, but not more

when it came to their spending habits. Maybe we wouldn’t need the measly property taxes from a single property so bad that we could toss one’s happy home ideals out the window without a further thought.

Mr. Wells was equally unconcerned trying to state that 1.2 metres from a property line was more than adequate and that half an acre was still a large chunk of land. It is, if you’re talking within city limits.

Perhaps he and city council should have to pay a cozy extra mortgage a year for 20 years and then get told their fences are getting chopped down and the houses on either side jammed up against their homes. If they complain well, suck it up buttercup.

Maybe they might be willing to understand a little bit more.

Maybe.

than a slight inconvenience. The coming week with expected temperatures in the double digits would likely be enough to melt the rest.

People are again parking on the streets, expecting that snow clearing is done for the season. But today the grader and loader are working my neighbourhood, scraping the remaining ice and slush to the side, and the vehicles parked at the curb are being towed. Note to city council and city management: it isn’t required that you must spend all of the snow clearing budget, especially if Mother Nature is doing the job for free. This seems to be a waste of money, especially for a city strapped for cash.

Am I missing something?

Shawn Cornell, director of advertising: 250-960-2757 scornell@pgcitizen.ca Reader sales and services: 250-562-3301 rss@pgcitizen.ca Letters to the editor: letters@pgcitizen.ca Website: www.pgcitizen.ca

Hannah Wilkins Prince George

Art Betke Prince George

Justice committee ends SNC-Lavalin probe

BLANCHFIELD Citizen news service

Mike

OTTAWA — The Liberal-dominated justice committee pulled the plug Tuesday on its probe of the SNC-Lavalin affair, prompting fresh howls of outrage from the Conservatives and NDP.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of “thumbing his nose” at Canadians. New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh pushed for a public inquiry. The Conservatives compared the Liberals to the rule-of-law-abusing regimes in Venezuela and Russia, which Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called insulting.

The real fireworks occurred when Finance Minister Bill Morneau prepared to unveil the Liberals’ pre-election budget later in the day. Trudeau accused the Conservatives of trying to avoid talking about the budget and their own “failed” approach to the economy – one he said was rooted in the 10 years of Tory rule under Stephen Harper.

The prime minister and government House leader Bardish Chagger rhymed off the list of Liberal accomplishments –900,000 new jobs, 300,000 children lifted out of poverty and nine million Canadians paying less income tax.

“The Conservatives still don’t want to talk about jobs, about growth, about investing in Canadians because they’re realizing they have no plan,” Trudeau said.

“They don’t want to admit that their approach has failed so they would rather do anything than talk about the federal budget and the Canadian economy.”

None of it assuaged the anger of the opposition, which reached a boil after Conservative and New Democrat MPs failed to persuade the House of Commons justice committee Tuesday morning to recall former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould so she could shed more light on the simmering SNC-Lavalin controversy.

The Liberal majority on the committee shut down the five-week inquiry during a closed-door meeting that opposition MPs wanted to be open. The Liberal members then tabled a motion calling for the committee to begin a study of the rise of hate crimes in Canada.

“What happened today is absolutely outrageous,” said Conservative committee member Michael Cooper.

“If there was ever evidence needed that Liberal MPs on the justice committee are agents of the prime minister, doing the work of the prime minister to cover up the prime minister’s misdeeds, then one need only look at what happened at this meeting today where the Liberals have shut down the process.”

Scheer said the official Opposition would use “every tool available to us” to hold the government accountable in Parliament, including delaying the budget.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau was to deliver his budget speech at 4 p.m. in the House of Commons, but the Conservatives forced a vote on a motion to allow MPs on the fisheries committee to travel, on which a number of Tory MPs voted both for and against. They then rose, one by one, afterwards for apologize for voting twice, each managing to work in a denunciation of the Liberals’ refusal to recall Wilson-Raybould to the committee.

“Let her speak” was the common refrain. Some points of privilege and points of order followed, eating up more time. Morneau finally started speaking at 5 p.m. but was drowned out by opposition MPs chanting, “Let her speak.”

Commons Speaker Geoff Regan’s calls for order were not heeded.

Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin finds itself at the centre of a national political storm over allegations prime ministerial aides crossed a line in leaning on Wilson-Raybould to help the company avoid criminal prosecution on

First Nation backs B.C.’s plan to require pipeline operator permits

Laura KANE Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — A coastal British Columbia First Nation that experienced a spill of thousands of litres of diesel in its waters is supporting the province’s efforts to create a permitting system for companies transporting hazardous substances.

The B.C. Court of Appeal is hearing a reference case filed by the province that asks whether it can create such a system, which would require companies to file disaster management plans and agree to pay for any damages.

Marilyn Slett, chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, said her community’s experience revealed gaps in federal spill response. The sunken tug Nathan E. Stewart spilled 110,000 litres of diesel fuel near Bella Bella in late 2016.

“The day the spill happened, our people were out there. They were out in their boats, they were there trying to help with any of the recovery. What we noticed is there isn’t room for Indigenous people and Indigenous governance within the spill response regime,” she said.

B.C. concluded its arguments before the Appeal Court on Tuesday. A lawyer representing the province said the proposed changes to its Environmental Management Act won’t allow B.C. to refuse a permit to a pipeline operator without cause.

The governments of Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan have not yet had an opportunity to deliver arguments in court, but they say Ottawa – not provinces – has jurisdiction over inter-provincial projects such as the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Canada says in court documents that the proposed amendments must be struck down because they give the province a “veto” over such projects.

Slett said she believes that if B.C.’s proposed system had been in place when the Nathan E. Stewart sank, the recovery would be further along now. She also hopes the province’s regime, if approved, will incorporate Indigenous knowledge of their territories.

“Our people know our areas. They know the tides. They know the weather patterns,” she said. The Heiltsuk have joined other

First Nations, the B.C. cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, Ecojustice and the Assembly of First Nations in supporting B.C.’s proposal in court.

In court documents, the Assembly of First Nations says the answers to the constitutional questions in the case will have far-reaching consequences for Indigenous Peoples when it comes to natural resources and energy activities on their lands.

“The proposed hazardous substance permits must be interpreted in a way that the rights and authorities of First Nation peoples are recognized, respected and part of the construction process,” it says.

The City of Vancouver says in court documents that local and First Nations governments are on the front lines of emergency response and will suffer the impacts of a heavy oil spill.

“The proposed amendments recognize the important role that emergency preparedness and response planning by local governments and First Nation governments will play in the event of an accidental release of heavy oil and the need to ensure that they are properly resourced to respond,” it says.

Joseph Arvay, a lawyer for B.C., told court on Tuesday the proposed amendments only allow the province to refuse to issue a permit or revoke one in cases where the operator fails to follow conditions imposed upon it.

He added that if the operator finds the conditions too onerous, it can appeal to the independent Environmental Appeal Board, or in the case of Trans Mountain, the National Energy Board.

The energy board has set up a process where Trans Mountain Corp. can argue that a condition is too burdensome and violates the special status of inter-provincial projects, he said.

“The NEB effectively gets the last word... but it’s going to be condition by condition, law by law,”

Arvay told the panel of five judges.

Arvay said the law would be unconstitutional if it declared an absolute prohibition on pipelines in B.C., but the amendments only impose conditions on transboundary projects.

corruption charges.

Liberals on the justice committee wrote to the chairman, fellow Liberal Anthony Housefather, on Monday night to say the committee had done its job and should move on to other business.

“As committee members, we have achieved our objectives with respect to these meetings,” says the letter. “Following the testimony of all witnesses, we believe that all rules and laws were followed. Canadians now have the necessary information to arrive at a conclusion.”

Liberal committee member Randy Boissonault reiterated the contents of the letter following the meeting, saying Tuesday’s session was the 10th in five weeks, amounting to 13 hours of testimony given by 10 witnesses.

“We have heard from many of the key players in this matter,” he said.

The Liberals say the federal ethics commissioner, who has launched a probe of the SNC-Lavalin matter, is best suited to investigate the political controversy.

They also note former justice minister Anne McLellan has been appointed to explore the relationship between the govern-

ment and the minister of justice, who plays a second role as attorney general. While the justice minister is a political player, the attorney general is supposed to make independent, impartial decisions about prosecutions.

But the opposition would have none of it.

Conservative MP Lisa Raitt said the committee should hold town-hall meetings on SNC-Lavalin and hear from Canadians about the affair. And she said Wilson-Raybould should have the right to reply to other witnesses including Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary.

“They’re controlling what is being said, they’re controlling who is being heard from, they’re controlling whether or not we study a topic. This is really egregious and absolutely shameful.”

SNC-Lavalin faces legal trouble over allegations it paid millions of dollars in bribes to obtain government business in Libya. The company unsuccessfully pressed the director of public prosecutions to negotiate a “remediation agreement,” a legal means of holding an organization to account for wrongdoing without a formal finding of guilt.

CP PHOTO

Justice Committee chair Anthony Housefather waits to start an in-camera meeting of the committee in Ottawa, on Tuesday.

Air Canada adjusts in wake of Boeing ban

Citizen news service

Air Canada has decided to remove its grounded Boeing 737 Max 8 jets from service until at least July 1 in order to provide more certainty for passengers that wish to book flights in the coming months.

Canada’s largest airline announced Tuesday that it has taken several steps to adjust since the Max 8s were grounded last week by Transport Canada as part of an international response to the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane.

Among other things, Air Canada said it has substituted different aircraft in its fleet, chartered flights or leased aircraft from Air Transat, suspended some routes temporarily, and adjusted its rebooking policy for affected customers.

Air Canada said its adjusted schedule through to April 30 will cover 98 per cent of its planned flights.

It is also updating its May schedule to re-accommodate customers and optimize its fleet.

“The Boeing 737 Max account-

ed for six per cent of Air Canada’s total flying, but there is a domino effect from removing the 737s from our fleet that impacts the schedule and ultimately will impact some customers,” Air Canada executive vice-president Lucie Guillemette said in a statement.

“To bring certainty to our schedule for our customers when booking and travelling, we are revising our schedule until July and we have taken several steps to continue delivering substantially all of our planned capacity through our global network.”

Among the routes suspended temporarily by Air Canada are flights from Halifax and St. John’s, N.L., to London Heathrow.

Air Canada said it remains committed to these routes and will resume service as soon as possible.

It’s currently re-accommodating customers for those routes over its hubs in Montreal and Toronto.

It’s also re-accommodating customers for its seasonal flights between Vancouver and Hawaii (Kona and Lihue) as well as between Calgary and Palm Springs, Calif.

Air Canada said it will notify customers by email, smart phone app, website and travel agencies if their flight times or numbers change.

Walter Spracklin of RBC Capital Markets says Air Canada’s announcement that it can cover 98 of its fleet is positive “as it demonstrates the limited impact this disruption has on operations and the flexibility of Air Canada’s fleet.”

Airlines around the world have been working to redeploy their fleets since their Max 8s were grounded last week following the deadly crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight that killed all 157 people on board, including 18 Canadians.

Concerns have been raised regarding apparent similarities with a Lion Air flight involving the same aircraft that plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff on Oct. 29, killing all 189 passengers and crew.

WestJet Airlines – Canada’s second-largest scheduled airline after Air Canada – said Tuesday that it had accommodated more than 65,000 passengers that had

been booked on its 13 Boeing 737 Max 8s through to the end of April.

“More than 85 per cent had little to no changes to their flight schedules,” a WestJet spokeswoman said in an email.

“We are closely in contact with Boeing, Transport Canada and other regulators to understand how and when to safely reintroduce the Max aircraft into service.”

Both WestJet and Air Canada have announced, since the Max 8s were grounded, that they are reconsidering their financial estimates for 2019.

Air Canada said Tuesday that it will accelerate the in-take of Airbus A321 aircraft that it recently acquired from Wow Airlines, which announced the four-plane sale in December.

It also said it has chartered one daily flight from Air Transat for the Vancouver-Montreal route until March 31, starting Wednesday.

It has also leased an aircraft from Air Transat for the month of April to operate its MontrealCancun route.

Amazon pulls some anti-vaccine books

Citizen news service

YouTube said it was banning anti-vaccination videos from running online advertisements.

Facebook announced it was hiding certain content and turning away ads that contain misinformation about vaccines, and Pinterest said it was blocking “polluted” search terms, memes and pins from particular sites prompting anti-vaccine propaganda, according to news reports.

Amazon has now joined other companies navigating the line between doing business and censoring it, in an age when, experts say, misleading claims about health and science have a real impact on public health.

NBC News recently reported that Amazon was pulling books touting false information about autism “cures” and vaccines. The ecommerce giant confirmed that several books are no longer available but would not release more specific information.

Experts say these companies are being tasked with new and challenging responsibilities.

Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics and head of the division of medical ethics at New

York University School of Medicine, said companies cannot allow themselves to be “vehicles for misinformation contagion.”

“You can certainly post things that oppose vaccination – individuals can speak their minds. But when you have websites that are presenting false information, debunked information or, similarly, books that tout phony cures, I think there is a role for somebody in censorship,” said Caplan, who co-authored a 2017 paper on “the overlooked dangers of anti-vaccination groups’ social media presence.”

Caplan said that it is important for companies to censor such misinformation “because the power of social media, particularly in the vaccine space, is so strong that it’s leading to fear of vaccines, which is leading to epidemics, which is putting people at risk.”

The anti-vaccine movement has been sustained, in part, by fraudulent research from 1998 that purported to show a link between a preservative used in vaccines and autism –despite numerous studies that have provided conclusive evidence that vaccinations do not cause autism.

False anti-vaccine claims continue to sweep the internet, prompting concern from public health experts, lawmakers and from parents

who are not able to get their children vaccinated because of medical conditions and rely on others to do so.

In fact, the World Health Organization has named “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the “Ten threats to global health in 2019”: The reasons why people choose not to vaccinate are complex; a vaccines advisory group to WHO identified complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccines, and lack of confidence are key reasons underlying hesitancy. Health workers, especially those in communities, remain the most trusted advisor and influencer of vaccination decisions, and they must be supported to provide trusted, credible information on vaccines.

Joe Holt, a business ethics professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the problem with businesses being forced to play a censorship role is that most of them, if not all of them, probably never intended to do that. But now, he said, “there’s more and more external pressure for them to do more censoring.”

Over the past couple months, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has been calling on companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon to address anti-vaccine claims on their respective platforms.

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” — Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441 to go large

composite index closed down 63.27 points to 16,188.10 after hitting an intraday high of 16,275.31. The Toronto market fell as the country’s largest railways and the industrial sector overall were hurt by concerns that a trade deal won’t roll back existing tariffs on Chinese imported goods, says Craig Jerusalim, portfolio manager at CIBC Asset Management. A tariff reduction would benefit U.S. consumers but maintaining them would protect U.S. manufacturing, a key focus of U.S. President Donald Trump, he said. “I think the rails are a proxy for global growth and international trade and any time there’s any uncertainty in either of those two factors then the rails are the economic tool for investors to reflect that sentiment,” he said in an interview. The industrials sector was the weakest of the TSX’s 11 major sectors, losing more than one per cent. Canadian Pacific Railway shares were down 2.35 per cent while Montreal-based Canadian National Railway lost almost two per cent.

The key energy sector was the second-worst performer, losing nearly one per cent as crude prices fell from a four-month high set on Monday.

The May contract for West Texas Intermediate was down nine cents at US$59.29 per barrel and the April natural gas contract was up 2.4 cents at $2.87 per mmBTU. The sector was dragged down by a more than nine per cent drop in shares of Northland Power Inc. following a $750-million secondary offering led by CIBC World Markets after the company chairman sold about half of his position following a 20.7 per cent rally this year for stock of the renewable energy company. The market was led by a 1.55 per cent increase by the healthcare sector, driven by gains by marijuana companies such as the Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd.

A slightly weaker U.S. dollar due to trade concerns resulted in a firmer gold prices. The April gold contract was up $5 at US$1,306.50 an ounce and the May copper contract was up 1.4 cents at $2.92 a pound. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.23 cents US, compared with an average of 74.93 cents US on Monday. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

An Air Canada Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft departing for Calgary taxis to a runway at Vancouver International Airport last week.

Spruce Kings sweep Chilliwack

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

For the second consecutive season the Spruce Kings are heading to Round 3 of the B.C. Hockey League playoffs and they did it by completing a sweep over the Chilliwack Chefs – the best team regular-season team in the league.

The Kings capped off the series with a 3-1 win Tuesday night in front of a standing room-only crowd of 1,847 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

They stunned the Chiefs with relentless forechecking, airtight defensive-zone coverage, lightsout goaltending and an opportunistic group of skaters who outscored their opponents 21-3 in the four-game series.

Max Coyle, Chong Min Lee and Dustin Manz, into an open net, took care of the goalscoring for the Kings. Brett Ryalance scored the only Chiefs’ goal, while shorthanded.

“Essentially it came down to we overwhelmed them a bit, right from the drop of the puck in the first game all the way through the fourth victory,” said Kings general manager Mike Hawes. “We have such a hardworking group of

focused young men and we saw it in this series. We had two shutouts in four games, gave up a total of three goals, and that’s accredit to (goalie) Logan Neaton, the Dcorps, the forwards, the coaching staff. They work so hard as a group together, full credit to those guys.”

“To have success in the playoffs, and we learned last year from it, you certainly have to have depth at every position and I think we have that. It really showed through in this series.”

It didn’t take long for the Kings to fire up the offence. They scored on the first shot of the game, a long wrister from just inside the blueline along the right-side wall from Coyle that appeared to get tipped in front by Patrick Cozzi past goalie Daniel Chenard.

Ben Brar forced the turnover with a hit against the end boards and Cozzi and Dustin Manz persisted with their forechecking to send the puck back to Coyle. Lee made it 2-0, 10:28 into the game, taking advantage of the hard work of Kings defenceman Jay Keranan. He stripped the puck away from Brett Willitts just inside the Chilliwack zone and carried it in past the goal line and spun a backhand pass to Lee, who let it go

Essentially it came down to we overwhelmed them a bit, right from the drop of the puck in the first game all the way through the fourth victory.

— Mike Hawes, general manager

right away from the face-off circle for his third of the playoffs.

The Kings had several more high-percentage scoring chances to add to the lead before the break. Nick Bochen grazed the crossbar near the end of the period with the Kings on their second power play of the game.

The Chiefs lost winger Kevin Wall, their second-leading scorer in the regular season, when he got bodied against the boards by Kings centre Ben Poisson. He appeared dazed by the hit and had to be helped off the ice 4:29 into the

game. The Kings dominated the second period but failed to add to their lead. Chenard’s best save came early in the period when he stuck out his glove to rob Lucas Vanroboys from 10 feet away.

The Chiefs spent much of the third period killing penalties, forced to kill off three minors under wilting pressure from the Spruce Kings, who were unable to score. The Chiefs caught a break when Rylance, trying to relieve the pressure on the penalty kill, put a shot into the Kings’ zone from just outside the blueline, The puck hit off the sideboards and kicked out off the lively end boards into the slot and Rylance tracked it down and beat Neaton with his shot to cut the lead to 2-1 with 9:43 left on the clock.

Almost lost in the series win was the stellar play of Neaton. He came into Tuesday’s game with a league-leading 1.33 goals-against average and .941 save percentage.

He didn’t get tested often by the Chiefs in any of the four games but his concentration was unfailing and he had to be sharp to keep the puck out on the rare opportunities Chilliwack had after extended periods of watching his team hold

the puck in the offensive zone.

That goal from Rylance ended a shutout streak that lasted 135 minutes and one second for Neaton. He hadn’t allowed a goal since Wall scored in the second period of the Kings’ 3-2 win Saturday in Game 2 in Chilliwack

The Spruce Kings will have home-ice advantage for the rest of the playoffs, no matter who they face. They will await the Island Division final winner, either the Victoria Grizzlies or Powell River Kings, and will host the first two games of the Coastal Conference championship, Friday, March 29 and Saturday, March 30.

The Grizzlies had a 2-1 series lead and were tied 2-2 with the other Kings of the BCHL heading into overtime Tuesday in Powell River.

In other games Tuesday, the visiting Vernon Vipers beat the Trail Smoke Eaters to cut the Smokies’ series lead to 2-1. Game 4 is tonight in Trail. In the other Interior Conference semifinal, the Cowichan Valley Capitals jumped ahead 2-1 in their best-of-seven series with the Wenatchee Wild after a 5-3 win Tuesday in Duncan. That series resumes tonight on Vancouver Island.

Hausot hauls in top-seven provincial finish at Purden

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

Built like a basketball player, alpine skier Isaac Hausot sometimes takes start gate officials by surprise when he lines up with his ski tips pointed downward.

At five-foot-11 he towers over most kids his age, but he’s learned how to use that high centre of gravity and longer limbs to his advantage when it comes time to race for the Prince George Ski Team.

This past weekend at Purden Ski Resort, Hausot finally got the chance to strut his stuff on his home hill when the Prince George club hosted the BC Alpine Teck under-14 provincial championships.

The three-day event drew 160 skiers from 20 clubs and Hausot was at his best on the first day of competition, finishing seventh out of 80 skiers in the slalom. He clocked 49.82 seconds in his first run and 49.54 in the second for a 1:39.36 total.

They weren’t asking him for ID in the staging area behind the gate but Hausot’s voice has already cracked and it’s easy to mistake the just-turned 14-year-old for somebody at least a couple years his senior.

“Everybody comes up to me and is like, are you U-16 or U-14, they want to know if I’m racing them because I’m so tall it’s kind of intimidating for them,” he said.

Felix Shorter of Whistler won the slalom with a two-run total of 1:32.60. Max Gainey of Apex (1:37.11) and Milan Novak of Whistler (1:37.55) shared the slalom podium with Shorter.

“He’s really fast,” said Hausot, referring to Shorter. “I don’t remember anyone beating him in the last while. He’s pretty crazy. “I was really happy with first run in the morning, I was ninth in the first one and seventh overall, I was happy with that.” Hausot loves the thrill of racing with all the comforts of home close by. With that comes additional pressure as one of the hometown favourites.

“It was a little bit scary because I really didn’t want mess up, I wanted to finish,”” said Hausot. “It’s always better to be on your home hill because you know the terrain and it gives you a little more courage.”

In speed events like downhills or super-G, Hausot says his size is more of an advantage but slalom courses with all the tight turns favour smaller, quicker skiers.

“You really have to crouch down when you’re going around the gates,” he said.

Shorter set the pace in the giant slalom on Saturday with a two-run time of 1:40.81.

Baptiste Cais of the Black Dogs team from Lake Louise, Alta., won silver (1:43.11) and Reed Kelly of Revelstoke was the bronze medalist (1:43.61). Hausot finished his first GS run in 53.14 and was heading for a top-20 finish when he crashed in his second run. In the team slalom on Sunday his team was eliminated in the first round.

Weather conditions for the three days were ideal but heavy snowfalls Monday and Thursday forced course volunteers to pull up all the snow fencing and gates they’d erected the week before so the course could be repacked.

“The snow was good, it could have been a little bit harder, but it was really good,” said Hausot.

“It was soft (on Sunday) but it was fun.”

Hausot, the U-14 boys zone champion, didn’t make the B.C. team for Canada Games but his clubmate, Charlotte Gibson, 15, was on the team that competed at the Games a few weeks ago in Red Deer, while 15-year-old Melinda Kobasiuk of Prince George was the alternate on the team.

Hausot will be too old for Canada Games in 2023 but says he wants to stick with racing at least until he’s reached the FIS under-18 level.

In other Prince George GS results, Liam Kobasiuk finished 56th (2:06.49) and Jamey Bachand was 60th (2:08.97). In the slalom, Bachand (2:15.16) placed 58th. In the girls’ GS, Andree Brulotte of Prince George put down two solid runs and finished fifth out of 86 entrants, clocking 53.88 and 51.17 for a total of 1:45.05. Zoe Pohl was 34th (I1:53.90) and Gwenyth Bertucci was 63rd (2:09.28). In the race for the GS podium Samantha Lawlor (1:43.93) was a spit-second quicker than her Apex teammate Sienna Blaser and Alexa Brownlie of Whistler, who each posted two-run times of 1:44.86. They both were awarded silver medals. Brownlie captured the slalom title (1:41.50) ahead of silver medalist Erin Husken of Whistler (1:43.91) and thirdplace Molly Raymond of Apex (1:44.65). Pohl placed 20th (1:51.62), Brulotte finished 29th (1:53.83) and Bertucci ended up 57th (2:11.11). They will be among a group of skiers from Prince George competing at the seasonending Whistler Cup events

CITIZEN

Prince George Spruce Kings forward Lucas Vanroboys finesses the puck around the check of Chilliwack Chiefs defender Nathan Kelly on Tuesday night at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena during the fourth game of a best-of-seven series between the two teams.

Bantam provincials

Cloverdale Colts player Marcus Neil Olsen and OMAHA North Zone Kings player Jarred Feist both make a play for the puck during their game in Kin 1 on Tuesday morning during the Bantam Tier 1 provincials being played in Prince George. The teams skated to a 3-3 tie. North Okanagan opened up a 3-0 lead in the first period. Jace Weir scored twice and Layton Feist also had a goal. The Colts answered with second-period goals from Jonathan Soares and Dalton MacGillivray. Marcus Neil Olsen fired the equalizer 30 seconds into the third period. The tie left Cloverdale with a 1-0-1 record. North Okanagan (1-01) also took on the host North Central Bobcats in the late game Tuesday at Kin 1. In the morning game Tuesday the North Vancouver Storm defeated the North East Trackers 6-4. North Vancouver also faced Victoria Racquet Club later on Tuesday. The six-team tournament resumes today at 8 a.m. The final is set for Thursday starting at 7:30 p.m. All games are at Kin 1.

Canada loses twice at world women’s curling championship

Citizen news service

SILKEBORG, Denmark — Canada’s Chelsea Carey has some work to do to make the playoffs at the world women’s curling championship after dropping both of her games on Tuesday.

Scotland’s Sophie Jackson scored one point in an extra end for a 6-5 win over Canada and American Jamie Sinclair followed with a 13-6 victory over the Calgary-based rink.

“Basically one end a game – that’s what’s killed us,” Carey said. Carey, who fell to 3-4, was tied for ninth place after 11 draws. The top six rinks in the 13-team field will make the playoffs.

Carey appeared to be in control against Scotland until Jackson tied the game with a deuce in the eighth end and took a 5-4 lead with a steal of one in the ninth. Canada forced the extra end with one in the 10th, but missed a chance to win when Carey’s last shot was heavy. With the last shot in the 11th, Jackson cleared a Canadian stone off the fourfoot ring to score the winning point.

“We’re just not getting rocks where we need them, when we need them,” said team coach Dan Carey. “I’m not sure what happened. We just didn’t make as many shots in the last half of the game as we needed to. Really it came down to that short run that we missed, and we seemed to struggle from there on.”

That “short run” was a shot the Canadian skip attempted in the seventh end. The runback takeout would have scored four for the Canadians and given them a 7-2 lead but it didn’t curl enough and Carey settled for a single and a 4-2 lead. Jackson tied the game with an eighthend deuce and stole one in the ninth to take her first lead. In the 11th end, Jackson – who’d missed three straight games with a back injury – settled her nerves to make the shot for the win.

In the U.S. game, Carey started strong by scoring three points in the first end. But Sinclair scored five in the sixth end and tacked on four more points in the eighth when Carey missed a long angleraise tap.

“It wasn’t a five ever,” Carey said of the sixth-end turning point. “The end was

TUESDAY, MAR. 26 Lethbridge at Calgary, 7 p.m. (MDT)

THURSDAY, MAR. 28 Lethbridge at Calgary, 7 p.m. (MDT)

SATURDAY, MAR. 30 x-Calgary at Lethbridge, 7 p.m. (MDT)

SUNDAY, MAR. 31 x-Lethbridge at Calgary, 4 p.m. (MDT) TUESDAY, APR. 2 x-Calgary at Lethbridge, 7 p.m. (MDT) WESTERN CONFERENCE

B.C. DIVISION Vancouver (1) vs. Seattle (WC2) FRIDAY’S GAME Seattle at Vancouver, 7:30 p.m. (PDT) SATURDAY’S GAME Seattle at Vancouver, 7 p.m. (PDT)

TUESDAY, MAR. 26 Vancouver at Seattle, 7:05 p.m. (PDT)

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 27 Vancouver at Seattle, 7:05 p.m. (PDT)

FRIDAY, MAR. 29 x-Seattle at Vancouver, 7:05 p.m. (PDT)

SATURDAY, MAR. 30 x-Vancouver at Seattle, 6:05 p.m. (PDT) TUESDAY, APR. 2 x-Seattle at Vancouver, 7 p.m. (PDT) Victoria (2) vs. Kamloops (3)

FRIDAY’S GAME Kamloops at Victoria, 7:05 p.m. (PDT)

SATURDAY’S GAME Kamloops at Victoria, 7:05 p.m. (PDT) Remainder of Schedule, TBD U.S. DIVISION Everett (1) vs. Tri-City (WC2)

FRIDAY’S GAME Tri-City at Everett, 7:35 p.m. (PDT)

SATURDAY’S GAME Tri-City at Everett, 7:05 p.m. (PDT)

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 27 Everett at Tri-City, 7:05 p.m. (PDT) THURSDAY, MAR. 28 Everett at Tri-City, 7:05 p.m. (PDT) SATURDAY, MAR. 30 x-Tri-City

Samson signs with Cougars

Citizen staff

Hockey players usually like signing autographs, it shows they’ve advanced for enough in their careers to achieve a level of fame that draws fan interest.

The autograph Ethan Samson signed this week is one that will likely change his life. The 15-yearold defenceman from North Delta signed a WHL standard player agreement with the Prince George Cougars, the team that drafted him in the third round, 65th overall, in the 2018 bantam draft.

“He’s a well-rounded defenceman with a promising offensive component to his game and still defends very well - we’re thrilled to have him as a Prince George Cougar,” said Bob Simmonds, the Cougars director of scouting.

Samson, who turns 16 on Aug. 23, played this past season for the Delta Hockey Academy Elite 15s in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League and was the team’s highest-scoring defenceman with 17 goals and 24 points in 33 games. In four playoff games he picked up two goals an two assists, leading Delta to a semifinal playoff berth.

“We’re excited to have Ethan in the fold. He’s one of our most improved prospects since training camp,” said Cougars interim head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.

The WHL will stage its draft lottery today to determine the draft order for the six non-playoff teams this season. The Cougars, who finished 19th out of 22 teams, have their own first-round pick and that of the last-overall Swift Current Broncos, which will give the Cats a better chance at picking first overall at the draft May 2 in Red Deer.

Trout, Angels close to signing $432M contract

Ronald BLUM Citizen news service

going fine, we were in pretty good shape for most of it. Maybe it was a two for them. But we just can’t buy a break right now. We’re not playing that bad right now, but we just can’t get anything going our way and it’s frustrating.”

The teams shook hands after eight ends as the Americans improved to 3-4.

“It’s pretty frustrating to end up with a scoreboard like that when the game was really so much closer,” said Canadian women’s team coach Elaine Dagg-Jackson.

“It’s the best start they’ve had and that sixth end just snuck up on them in one shot. And it was tough to get out of it.

“That team you saw win the Scotties three weeks ago – this is the same team, and they can do the same things. It’s just that at the moment, it’s not all coming together for them at the same time.”

In other late results, Russia needed an extra end to get by Finland 9-8, Switzerland topped Latvia 8-5 and China beat Germany 8-6.

China and Russia were in first place at 6-1, followed by South Korea and Sweden at 5-1.

Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels are close to finalizing a $432 million, 12-year contract that would shatter the record for the largest deal in North American sports history, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The deal was disclosed Tuesday by a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been finalized and had not been announced. The contract was likely to be announced by the end of this week, the person said.

Trout’s total would top the new $330 million, 12-year contract between Bryce Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies, and Trout’s $36 million average annual value would surpass pitcher Zack Greinke’s $34.4 million in a six-year deal with Arizona that started in 2016. The contract also would best Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez’s $356 million deal with sports-streaming service DAZN. Progress toward an agreement was first reported by ESPN.

Trout would set a baseball record for career earnings at about $513 million, surpassing the roughly $448 million Alex Rodriguez took in with Seattle, Texas and the New York Yankees from 1994-2017. Whether Trout’s deal is the largest in the world for a team athlete is difficult to determine. Forbes estimated Lionel Messi earned $84 million from Barcelona in 2017-18 and Cristiano Ronaldo $61 million from Real Madrid, but precise details of their contracts are not known.

Trout’s deal would include a signing bonus and supersede the $144.5 million, six-year contract that had been set to pay him $33.25 million in each of the next two seasons.

Little Mermaid left huge legacy

Citizen news service

It’s not uncommon for people to just look at Jodi Benson and burst into tears.

Sometimes they hyperventilate or scream. But mostly they break down and start sobbing. Benson will hold them, heaving in her arms, and pat their back gently.

Benson isn’t a household name but for many she’s an intimate part of their childhood. She supplied the singing and speaking voice of Ariel, the heroine of the 1989 animated Disney hit The Little Mermaid, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Benson says she will sometimes watch as the stunned movie’s fans virtually go back in time in front of her. “It triggers a memory for them,” she says.

“They remember who they were with when they saw the movie the first time. Maybe that sibling is no longer with them, that grandparent is no longer with them. It reminds them of a relationship that had been broken with a parent. So they have all sorts of emotions that go on.”

The Little Mermaid has changed a lot of lives, not least of which is Benson’s, who has continued to perform Ariel virtually every weekend in concerts as well as on film in the Wreck-It Ralph franchise.

The Little Mermaid also had a big role in making Disney into an animation juggernaut and reviving the art form. Many believe we’d never have Anna and Elsa from Frozen without first having Ariel.

“Disney was starting to get into a groove that would continue, but I feel like a lot of that started with A Little Mermaid,” says Ron Clements, who co-wrote and co-directed the film.

Benson was a rising Broadway star when Ariel came into her orbit. She had been in a short-lived musical Smile when Howard Ashman, the musical’s lyricist and story writer, invited the out-of-work cast to audition for his next project, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Producers wanted the singing and speaking voice to be supplied by the same actress. So Benson, a lyric soprano, sang the signature Part of Your World on a reel-toreel tape and was handed a few of pages of dialogue.

“I ran into the ladies’ room,” she recalls “and waited for everybody to get out of the stalls and started talking to the mirror, sort of trying to come up with what would she sound like at 16.”

Benson, it turned out, was a master mimic. She had spent countless hours in her room as a child with her guitar, singing along to records by Barbra Streisand, Carole King, James Taylor as well as Marvin Hamlisch’s A Chorus Line.

“I would start to just sing like them. But it wasn’t like I was trying to be them. It’s just that’s what I heard. And so that’s just what

you do. You just sound like what you been listening to,” she says.

A year or so after auditioning for Ariel, she got the call that she’d won the role. “I completely forgot that I had auditioned,” she says. Back then, voiceover work wasn’t very glamorous and big celebrities wouldn’t consider it.

“It wasn’t a good job. Doing voiceovers was what you would do when your career was on the back half, when it was tanking,” says Benson. She thought Ariel would be a notch on her resume. It was not.

“Things just changed overnight,” she says. Propelled by such Alan Menken songs as Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl, the film won two Grammys and earned three Academy Award nominations. It was critically acclaimed, with Roger Ebert calling it a “jolly and inventive animated fantasy,” and would go to earn $211 million worldwide. Parents of children with learning disabilities have told Benson their child’s first words were from the film.

A live-action remake is in the works, featuring new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created Hamilton. He loved the 1989 animated film so much its partly the reason he named his first child Sebastian – the mermaid’s crab friend.

It was the kind of hit that Clements and his animators at Disney had long been hoping for. He had started at Disney in 1974 and was part of a new generation of artists trying to change the notion that animation was just for kids.

Clements had pitched a two-page treatment of the musical to then-studio head Michael Eisner and was given the green light. For Clements and his partner, John Musker, the stakes were high: it was the first fairy tale Disney had done for some three decades.

Over the past 30 years, Ariel has become the bridge between classic princesses

Boushie film to open Hot Docs festival

Citizen news service

A film examining the case of a young Indigenous man who was killed on a farm in rural Saskatchewan will open this year’s Hot Docs festival in Toronto.

Organizers say Tasha Hubbard’s nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up will make its world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which runs April 25 to May 5.

A news release says the documentary “looks at inequity and racism in the Canadian legal system” after the case of Colten Boushie.

The 22-year-old member of the Red Pheasant First Nation died from a gunshot to the back of his head after entering a rural farm property with his friends near Biggar, Sask., in August 2016.

Last year a jury acquitted farmer Gerald Stanley of second-degree murder after he testified his gun went off accidentally when he was trying to scare off young people who drove onto his property.

The verdict gained international attention and sparked rallies across the country.

Hubbard’s film “weaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker’s own adoption, the stark history of colonialism on the Prairies, and a transformative vision of a future where Indigenous children can live safely on their homelands,” the National Film Board of Canada, which co-produced the doc, said in a statement.

The NFB said it’s the first film by an Indigenous filmmaker to open Hot Docs, which revealed its full lineup on Tuesday. In Cree, “nipawistamasowin” translates to “we (small group) will stand up for others (big group),” a spokeswoman said.

Other Canadian films making their world premiere at this year’s festival include Phillip Pike’s Our Dance of Revolution, about Toronto’s black LGBTQ community.

Prey by Matt Gallagher is about a sexual-abuse survivor pursuing justice in a case against the Catholic church in Toronto. Also having its world premiere is Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies by Oscar-nominated Toronto

Debbie Baptiste, mother of Colten Boushie, holds a

of her son during a press conference in Ottawa last year.

filmmaker Larry Weinstein, which looks at the history of the art of persuasion.

The festival’s Focus On program will feature Canadian filmmaker Julia Ivanova and her retrospective titles as well as the world premiere of her new film My Dads, My Moms and Me. A total of 234 films and 18 interdisciplinary projects are in the festival. Previously announced docs in the lineup include Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.

The Canadian singer-songwriter will also attend the festival. Other guests set to attend include artist, activist and director Ai Weiwei (The Rest); biochemist Jennifer Doudna (Human Nature); New Brunswick-born Willie O’Ree, who was the first black player to skate in the NHL (Willie); and whistleblower Deane Berg along with Dr. Daniel Cramer and Dr. Ami Zota (Toxic Beauty). Organizers say the films hail from 56 countries, with 54 per cent of the directors being women.

like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and modern ones like Mulan and Merida. And Benson has become the official Ariel ambassador, tapped to do sequels, video games and shorts, in addition to voicing other characters like Barbie in the Toy Story franchise. Her arms are always open to fans and she’s now welcoming the fourth generation to The Little Mermaid.

“It doesn’t feel like a job. It just feels like a way of life more than more than anything else,” she says. “You have this multigenerational moment that families can share together. And I get to be a small piece of the puzzle of their story.”

CITIZEN

Above, Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel from the Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid, right, is proud to talk to fans about the film meant to them, 30 years after it was first released.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

photo

Carol Repetowski passed away peacefully in PG Rotary Hospice House March 8, 2019. Carol is survived by her children: Sheryl (Terry), Scott (Barbara) and Paul; grandchildren: Ann-Marie, Jacob and Luke Metcalfe. Predeceased by her husband Peter. Memorial Service to be held from Hixon Lighthouse Community Church on Saturday March 23 at 1:00pm.

Kenneth Charles Whitely

On Wednesday, March 13th/2019, Kenneth Charles Whitely, husband to Beverly, father to Denise & Kevin, passed away at the age of 74. Ken was born November 19, 1944 in Vancouver, BC, to Ralph and Isabel (Lyons) Whitely. After completing his service as a Trooper in the Canadian Military, he met and married Bev, and moved to Prince George, where he worked for the Waste Water Treatment Plant from 1977-2005. He was an avid reader and had an extensive vinyl collection, dating back to the 1950s. He was always ready with a cheeky joke or a quick witted comment. He is survived by his wife (married 1972) as well as his two children, Denise (Kyle), Kevin, his two grandchildren, Elyse and Huxley, as well as his sister Mavis. No service will be held at the request of the departed. Love you forever, miss you always.

Bargy,ViciRoseAnn January18,1946-March15,2019 BornJanuary18,1946,inFortStJohn,BC.Passed awayMarch15,2019,inPrinceGeorge,BC. Momhasgonetobewithourdad.It’swithheavy heartswesaygoodbyetoamostlovingdevoted mom,grandmother,andgreatgrandmother.Alady thatcouldnurtureanyplaceintoabeautifulgardenof loveandbeauty,itshowedineverythingshetouched. Viciissurvivedbyherdaughters,FayeBargy,Mandy (Harold)Matte,andWendyBargy(Gary);son,Brian (Sheri)Bargy;grandchildren,Lindsey(Will)Royrock, RyanFolz(Alyssa),ShaunBargy,AlyssaMatte (Braden),Cathleen(Kyle)Pesserl,BrianMatte(Tess), andBrandonMcKnight(Katy);and12greatgrandchildren.Predeceasedbyhusband,Lloyd Bargy;parents,JackandElsaLamarr;sister,Jean Weatheral;grandsons,JustinMcKnightandMathew Matte;andgreat-grandson,JakobPesserl. SpecialthankstoDr.ElGendiforherdedicationand lovingcaregiventoMom.LastlythePGRotary HospiceHouseforalltheloveandsupportgivento Mom. AcelebrationoflifewillbeheldonMarch23,2019, at1:00pmattheWestsideFamilyFellowshipChurch, 3791Highway16West,PrinceGeorge.Inmemoryof Vici,donationstothePGRotaryHospiceHouse wouldbegreatlyappreciated.

anddrivingtheconstructionscheduleinconjunction withtheprojectteam;supervisingfieldemployees, ensuringtheirworkisplanned,performedefficiently, anddocumentsarecompletedaccurately. Interestedapplicantsarerequestedtoforward resumestoheather.taron@ledcor.com,nophone calls,please.Wethankallapplicantsinadvance,only thoseshortlistedwillbecontacted. www.ledcor.com