Prince George Citizen March 29, 2019

Still-working realtor celebrates 90th

Kathy NADALIN Special to The Citizen

Prince George developer and commercial property real estate agent Harry Backlin is celebrating his 90th birthday today.

Harry said, “I wanted to take a trip and just go away for my 90th birthday but my friends and family had other ideas for me. They were busy putting together a surprise party for an all-inclusive evening at the Moxies Lounge and since Moxies is a special place for me, I agreed to stay and take in the party.”

Harry was born in 1929 in Sandy Lake, Man. He completed high school and went on to university in Winnipeg because his father wanted him to be a doctor. He attended the University of Manitoba medical program for two years and decided a career as a doctor was not for him.

His father suggested that he should study to be a teacher so he attended the Winnipeg College of Teachers. There were 380 students studying to become teachers and in no time at all the popular Harry was elected as the student body president. He earned his diploma and taught Grades 1 to 8 at his hometown rural school for the next three years. He walked to and from school as the teacher.

His father was a business man, a notary public, an auctioneer, a real estate agent and a member of the local school board. Harry went back to university to be a professor, earned his bachelor of arts degree and went on to law school to become a lawyer.

— see ‘HE IS A LEGEND, page 3

Pump station completion coming none too soon for

Mark NIELSEN

Citizen

staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A final loose end on the project to improve water service to the Hart will soon be tied off, according to the city.

Construction of a new pump station off Vellencher Road will be completed next month, city spokesperson Mike Kellett said, following a year-long delay caused by provincewide supply delays and issues with the equipment.

Completing the project will come none too soon for Tara Bleich and Sandy Thomas.

Both own homes on Vellencher bordering on where the work has been taking place and have had to put up with their share of hardship as a result.

For a year-and-a-half, Bleich said she had been denied access to her workshop facing out onto the alley behind her home. It is where she stores her all-terrain vehicles.

Moreover, Bleich said workers had set up a large generator with spotlights and let it run around the clock. The lights would shine through the window of her daughter’s bedroom and her house would shake from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday to Saturday.

“It was just ridiculous,” she said.

After about four months, the city agreed to move the generator

Vellencher residents

to a spot behind the pump station which muffled the sound.

“But now they have the lights on the building that shine into our house, all night long,” Bleich said.

But perhaps most important, both Thomas and Bleich say cracks have appeared in their homes’ walls and they blame the pounding from the nearby work.

Thomas said she has had to put up with “terrible drafts” coming through her windows during the winter, adding the heavy equipment had been operating less than 20 feet from her home. She also

noticed a leak in her roof in the spring, “which I believe is related to heavy vibrations during the process, as my roof is only 10 years old and has no visible damage.”

The vibration has been so bad that Thomas said a cup fell off a shelf at one point.

When Bleich approached the city about the damage, she was told to file a claim with her insurance company, a move she had been reluctant to make over concern her premiums would go up as a result.

— see ‘THE EXISTING, page 3

UNBC to honour Archibald, Brink

Citizen staff

A renowned Indigenous scholar and a noted Prince George businessperson will received honorary degrees during this year’s University of Northern British Columbia convocation.

Dr. Jo-ann Archibald and John Brink will be presented with Doctor of Laws degrees on May 31.

Archibald, Q’um Q’um Xiiem, is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia and is from the Stó:l and St’at’imc First Nations.

Archibald said she has worked with colleagues at UNBC over the years.

“I was always impressed with the university commitment to Indigenous peoples and their communities,” she said.

“At the same time, I admired and valued the expertise, scholarship, and work of the faculty, staff, and students. This honorary degree makes me feel like a very proud extended family member of UNBC.” Brink is the chief executive officer of Brink Forest Products, the largest secondary wood manufacturing company in Canada and 13th largest forest

company in B.C.

He established the business in 1975 with a lumber re-manufacturing and finger-jointing plant – the first of its type in Canada.

“Arriving in Canada in 1965 at the age of 24, I had a dream of building a sawmill. I had one suitcase, the clothing on my back and $25.47 in my pocket. Most importantly, I had a dream I would never give up on,” Brink said.

“With a positive attitude, relentless passion and undying work ethic, I pushed hard towards my dream and succeeded. Today, nearly 55 years later, I see these exact same characteristics driving UNBC’s vision of becoming Canada’s leading destination university.”

Archibald will receive her honorary degree at the College of Arts, Social and Health Sciences ceremony at 9:30 a.m.

Brink will receive his honorary degree at the College of Science and Management ceremony at 2:30 p.m.

In addition to the ceremonies in Prince George, UNBC is scheduled to hold regional celebrations in Gitwinksihlkw on June 3, Terrace on June 4, Quesnel on June 6 and Fort St. John on June 7.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Construction of a new pump station on Vellencher Road off will be completed next month.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Local real estate agent and developer Harry Backlin turns 90 on Friday.

Meet My Sister brings sibling rivalry to the stage

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Meet my sister, Stella. She’s your sister, too. She is hanging out with our other sister, Blanche, on stage at Theatre Northwest. For the next three weeks, they are the city’s symbolic siblings who are going to push each other’s buttons, natter and nag at each other, and also shine love from here to mom’s house where they are locked outside in a home-based standoff none of us has likely had, yet all of us can probably relate as the family drama unfolds.

Stella and Blanche are much more than conjured characters, even though they are the dominant forces in the play Meet My Sister on now. They might feel a lot like the connections in our own lives because they were transposed from the actual realities of playwright Bonnie Green.

Stella might be portrayed by Stratford actor Linda Prystawska and Blanche might be played by Sharon McFarlane of Toronto, but these sisters could have any of our names.

“Bonnie Green wrote it based on her own mom and sisters and when she began to write she thought it was going to be a serious play, but out poured the comedy and it all came out as this quirky, funny, heartfelt comedy,” said Prystawska during a break Thursday in rehearsals before opening day. She has that understanding because at the beginning of the rehearsal process, Green spent a few days with the cast and crew and was in constant contact with director Sharon Bajer.

Playwrights are not usually so personally invested in the performances of their works, but this is, after all a world premiere shared between Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops who got the first three weeks of the show followed by the same cast and most of the same crew taking on the second half of the run in Prince George.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say I was in a world premiere,” said Prystawska.

“It’s so great that it’s a Canadian script, written by a woman, and has us older actors up here on stage. I love working with other women, love doing female plays, because there has traditionally been a real lack of those. Almost all the great classic parts were written by men and for men, but there is a real change going on and I love being part of that.”

Most often, actors get parts for established plays, usually tired and tested. She relishes this change to be the first sister Stella the world has ever seen, because of all the direction insight she got to soak up as part of the inaugural cast.

It would help the Canadian theatre industry immensely, she said, if playwrights had the chance to workshop their scripts in draft form so they could better polish the dialogue and pacing of the new creation. It might not be known to fans of the stage and

screen arts, but what a writer puts on the page is often off the mark and the only way for a playwright to catch the problems is to see actors speaking the lines in confidential readings and performances, a process called workshopping a play.

Prystawska has a professional fantasy of a workshopping industry that could aid the writing industry, and the ultimate winners would be theatre fans here and around the world if the plays were that much better.

two cities. The three of them have gone from familiar to familial, Prystawska said, “and some of that is because of the subject matter, which just connects to our everyday lives, so when we’re not on stage the conversations we have flow into what’s going on with our own families and our own places in our lives.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say I was in a world premiere. It’s so great that it’s a Canadian script, written by a woman, and has us older actors up here on stage.

— Linda Prystawska

Since they got to be the laboratory for Bonnie Green’s mad science, this cast of three (the lone man in the cast is Julien Arnold in the role of Sly, the boy next door who is now, like the sisters, all grown up) drew much closer than most casts do, especially since they get to perform the play in an extra long run split between the

It was not a perfectly seamless transition from Kamloops to Prince George. Yes, the cast is the same and they know the lines and movements better now than any cast on the cusp of opening night at Theatre Northwest, but no two theatres are the same so the set had to be adjusted for the differences.

“When the set was designed, they knew it was going to be at Western Canada Theatre first and then move into our space, so it was built to be adjusted for our space, but it still

took some hard work to make the adjustments,” said TNW’s production manager John Reilly, who led the build-in of the house mom won’t let the sisters pry her out of even though the new owners are on their way to take possession.

“The rehearsal process was tough,” said Prystawska.

“There is a lot of snappy back-and-forthing and playing off each other, a lot of props being carried around the stage which plays a big part in where you have to be and how you have to move. It’s lots of fun, but it was gruelling at first, with all the technical stuff you had to get into our bodies as well as get the lines into our heads. And because it was a brand new script, there was a lot of experimentation, a lot of collaboration, a lot of back and forth with Bonnie to work out the kinks and get the best sense of meaning. It was more elastic, in a way.”

This hilarious inside laugh about families, sibling dynamics, and Canadian small-town life is on now at Theatre Northwest until April 17.

Tickets can be purchased anytime at the theatre’s website, or go to Books & Company to pick them up in person.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Linda Prystawska plays Stella in Theatre Northwest’s production of Meet My Sister. The play runs until April 17.

‘He is a legend’

— from page 1

Harry said, “I moved to Vancouver in the early 60s, went to work for Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance for an old client of mine and worked as a consultant for businesses who were insured by Omaha.

“I met and married Maybelle Klein in 1973. We moved to Prince George in 1975 because Maybelle had family here. We only intended to stay here for two years. I went into contracting, bought five building lots from the city, hired construction workers and built houses. Maybelle and I decided to stay until we sold the houses. Her sister, a model from Vancouver, moved to Prince George to start her own modeling school so that helped us decide to stay here.

“I sold all the houses and decided to go into real estate. I passed the mandatory real estate exam and went to work for Barry Leboe who owned Century 21 Westside Realty (PG) Ltd. at the time. I worked there for 17 years selling commercial real estate.

“Maybelle decided to go into real estate, got her license and worked for Barbara Monk. That was 44 years ago, I am still here and I have no intentions of moving anywhere else.

“Sadly, Maybelle passed away in 2014.

“It wasn’t long and I realized that the many businesses I consulted for in Vancouver had no presence here in Prince George and I was determined to change that to make Prince George a better, healthier and a proud city. I went into promoting businesses that I felt should be here in Prince George. I knew that the city was hungry and ready for my ideas.

“I started out by meeting with all the builders that met for coffee at the Camelot Restaurant on a regular basis and in fact they still meet there after all these years. I listened to their ideas, questions and concerns and then I acted on it.”

Harry brought in and helped expand many businesses by land assembly to Prince George, such as the B.C. Buildings Corporation, Canadian Tire, Shell Oil, Imperial Oil, Petro Canada, Texaco Oil Canada, Wendy’s Restaurant, Apollo Forest Products, Dunkley Lumber, Cambridge Shopping Centre, Costco, Pacific Western Transportation, Princess Auto, Westbank Projects Corp., Sandman Hotel, Earls Kitchen and Bar, Denny’s Resturant, the White Spot Restaurant and one of his favorites – Moxies Grill and Bar – just to name a few.

Harry said, “The White Spot chain of restaurants was owned by Peter Toigo out of

BACKLIN

Vancouver. I phoned him and said I had the perfect lot on Victoria Street for one of his restaurants, he flew up, looked it over and said, ‘Write it up.’ Right after that I brought in Tim Hortons on the lot next door.”

When Barry Leboe closed his company, Harry worked for Coldwell Banker in real estate and local facilities for the next 15 years. He is now a commercial realtor for Royal LePage.

I spoke to Rod McLeod, the owner and managing broker for Royal LePage and he said, “It is an honor to have Harry on our team here at Royal LePage. When he joined us, I introduced him to the rest of the team and his introduction speech was incredibly well received. Everyone wanted to know all the books that he read throughout his career because they intended to get copies. He highly recommended a book entitled Think and Grow Rich by author Napoleon Hill. He mentors and provides inspiration and encouragement to our team here at Royal LePage.

“His documentation and his notes are amazing. In fact, he is a legend, he is as solid as a rock and it is hard to believe he is 90 years old. We checked the records and to our knowledge he is the oldest Royal LePage real estate agent in all of Canada.”

Harry had one son, Neil (deceased), who was a Gold’s Gym body building medalist and an environmental engineer.

Harry earned the Century 21 Centurion

Award in 1981 for topping sales in the 5 to 7.5 million-dollar category.

He is an accomplished oil painter and paints beautiful wildlife paintings. He completed 75-80 paintings in his spare time. He has since retired his paint brush and no longer paints.

Over the years, Harry has worked as a fundraiser and donated to many good causes. He is always willing to give back to his community.

He is an active 45-year member and a current board member of the St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Harry said, “The highlight of my career was being a founding member of the University of Northern B.C. I wanted to help people get to university because I know what education can do for a person. I am proud to say that I spoke to many people from the north, the east and the west about the benefits of sending their children to our university and now we are seeing many young doctors (and others) graduating and working in our community. All of this is important to me because I started out wanting to be a doctor.

“I was on the planning department committee for the university and I am so proud of all the work that was done to bring UNBC to our city.

“The second highlight of my career has been my accomplishments working with city hall on projects dated as far back as 1975. I have appeared 192 times before seven different mayors including Harold Moffat, Elmer Mercier, John Backhouse, Colin Kinsley, Dan Rogers, Shari Green and Lyn Hall. My message has always been ‘if the city would roll out the carpet to real estate and roll away the red tape the city will succeed due to growth in population and commercial, industrial and business growth to become the true capital of northern B.C.’ It looks to me like the current mayor and city council are hearing that message.

“My motto is ‘grow older along with me –the best is yet to be. This is the last of life for which the first was made, so get out there and enjoy every single day.’

“I would like to leave you with a prayer that I say at the end of each day as I retire for the evening. It goes like this: ‘I pray for a clear conscience and a restful mind so that I can sleep in comfort for being a caring and sharing person.’”

Cheers to 90 years, Harry, and thank you for being one of the many people of Prince George who are the foundation of our community. Happy birthday, my friend.

City sweeping, painting streets

Citizen staff

The process of getting the city’s streets and roads in post-winter shape is underway.

Currently, crews are flushing sidewalks and medians and sweeping operations should begin on-schedule in April, the city said Thursday.

That phase should take several weeks “depending upon factors including weather and the availability of resources.”

Each winter, 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes of sand and fractured rock are deposited on

Prince George’s streets and sidewalks to improve safety and traction on icy surfaces.

The materials that are swept up are stockpiled and then hauled to the Foothills landfill to be used as covering in the operation of that facility.

Once the sweeping is complete, downtown streets will be swept regularly and maintenance sweeping and flushing will occur as required through the fall.

Contracted crews will begin line painting when the temperature of the asphalt is 10 C and above in order for the paint to best adhere

to the pavement. The amount of rain the city receives is also a factor.

The aim is to have all of that work done by early summer. However, if a section of road is scheduled to be repaved later in the year, the city may opt not to repaint the lines and markings until that work is completed.

In 2009, Environment Canada began to restrict certain volatile organic compounds that made roadway paint last longer and the city has not yet found a replacement that will perform as well and last as long.

The hard knocks of opportunity

You have probably never heard of Ron Wayne, but had he not sold his 10 per cent share in Apple Computers one week after it launched, for $1,500, he might now be as famous as his partners Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. He could now possibly be worth $40 billion. But he isn’t. Joe Green was Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate in college. Zuckerberg asked Joe if he wanted to help him with his project called Facebook. Joe was talked out of it by his father. The rest is history. Joe Green’s five per cent stake in that business would have been worth $7 billion today. But it isn’t. Diggs was started in 2004 as a news site. By 2007, it had over 235 million annual visitors to the site. In 2008, Kevin Rose, its founder was offered $80 million for the company but turned it down. Instead in 2012, the company was sold for only $500,000

and broken apart. Rose could have been a millionaire in those days, but he wasn’t.

This week, I was at a ski resort getting the last few runs in of the season and I was reminded by my wife that in 2012 I could have bought a condo for $250,000. Those condos are now worth $600,000. But I didn’t.

Opportunity surrounds us and if you are like most entrepreneurs, you may have had chances to invest in projects, or land, businesses or buildings. You might not have had the opportunities of Wayne or Green but perhaps someone once told you about a hot stock tip to invest in, but you didn’t.

So what holds us back? Sometimes, it’s the money. We don’t think we have enough to put into an investment. Other times, like Green, we are talked out of it by family or friends. Many times we don’t see the value in the opportunity at the time or think that the timing is not right and we will

have a better chance later. Most times we think that the risk is too high so we don’t get involved. Failure to take a chance on an opportunity doesn’t happen just in our business lives either. Think about all the opportunities we have had to make new friends. To take a trip, to get better educated, to fall in love, to spend more time with friends or family, to live on the edge a little, but we didn’t. We can’t spend our lives regretting the decisions we made, crying over spilled milk or lost opportunities. Ultimately no one else cares about how much money we have or how many investments we have if we aren’t nice people. It’s true that often in our society we look up to people who have riches or have made

‘The existing station is an example of aging infrastructure’

— from page 1

However, the insurer can go after the city after paying the homeowner.

Insurance Bureau of Canada spokesperson Vanessa Barrasa said the insurer can “subrogate” the claim, which means making a claim against the party it thinks caused the damage. That’s usually done by filing a statement of claim in court.

“Of course, if the homeowner makes the claim against their own home insurance policy, they will have to pay their deductible and would lose any claims free discount, if applicable,” Barrasa said.

“If the cracks are determined not to be covered by their own home insurance policy, the homeowner would have to take action directly against the city or its contractor.”

The new pump station is part of a larger $9.5-million project to upgrade water service to about 15,000 people in the Hart.

The work was originally expected to cost $4.3 million but in June 2017, city council endorsed a staff recommendation to add a further $5.2 million.

An additional $2.8 million was put towards installing a second watermain along Foothills Boulevard instead of through an existing right-of-way. The original plan was to install a twin water main alongside the existing one but second thoughts were raised over access issues.

That work has been completed. The old watermain will remain in service as a backup should the new one fail. As well, $2.4 million was put towards replacing a booster station that serves about 400 properties in the Hart Highlands-Vellencher area, raising that bill to $3.5 million.

The original plan was to install an emergency power supply in the existing station but it was determined that, at 36 years old, it lacked the capacity to meet standards for firefighting flow.

In answer, the city decided to build a new booster station at a new spot near the Vellencher reservoir. It will feature backup power generation, high capacity pumps and storage for communications equipment.

“The existing station is an example of aging infrastructure that is in need of replacement and modernization,” Kellet said and added the new station will also improve the water quality and the efficiency of the water system.

The cost is being covered out of the city’s water capital expenditure reserve. The project remains under budget, Kellett said.

something from nothing, but why should we be envious of them?

Do you really think that an extra million or even billion dollars is going to make your life that much better? Chances are that if you are not happy now, no amount of money is going to make you happier. If you think about it, you probably know of some people that have “lots” of money but are miserable. It’s not the money that makes us happy. Yes, more money can reduce your stress levels and I write in my book Profit Yourself Healthy how we need money to do exactly that. We need money to pay our bills, keep the banker off our back and hire people to do jobs that reduce our stress levels.

So why do we kick ourselves because we missed out on an opportunity? If we were to invest in every opportunity that was presented to us, there is a good chance we would be broke. Most opportunities, investments, and “hot stock tips” end up losing

money. In fact, 50 per cent of all businesses fail after a couple years.

I believe that if we look at opportunities with an open mind, investigate them as we should, and follow our gut instinct, whether it be in business, or friendships, or chances to improve ourselves, we will make the right decisions.

We are not going to get it right every time. We will bet on some lame horses and make some bad investments as I have and I suspect you may have as well. However, I do know that every day the sun comes up and there will be another opportunity for each of us to make a difference, and to take a chance to make our world a better place. Opportunity continues to knock.

Dave Fuller, MBA, is a certified professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Take the opportunity to email Fuller what you think dave@ profityourselfhealthy.com.

A man walks past the headquarters of SNC-Lavalin in Montreal in November 2014. The company at the centre of a federal scandal threatened to move its headquarters to the U.S. and lay off its Canadian employees if it didn’t get a deal to avoid criminal prosecution, documents show.

SNC-Lavalin threatened to move, lay off Canadian workforce

Jordan PRESS, Christopher REYNOLDS Citizen news service

OTTAWA — SNC-Lavalin warned federal prosecutors last fall about a possible plan to split the company in two, move its offices to the United States and eliminate its Canadian workforce if it didn’t get a deal to avoid criminal prosecution, newly obtained documents show.

The documents, part of a PowerPoint presentation obtained by The Canadian Press, describe something called “Plan B” – what Montreal-based SNC might have to do if it can’t convince the government to grant a so-called remediation agreement to avoid criminal proceedings in a fraud and corruption case related to projects in Libya.

Under that plan, SNC would move its Montreal headquarters and corporate offices in Ontario and Quebec to the U.S. within a year, cutting its workforce to just 3,500 from 8,717, before eventually winding up its Canadian operations.

“The government of Canada needs to weigh the public interest impact of the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin,” the presentation reads.

“We must humbly ask whether the public interest is served to prosecute SNC-Lavalin, and to try to achieve a guilty verdict. Such a decision would effectively lead to the end of SNC-Lavalin as we know it today and has been for more than 100 years.”

Of all the options for the future of the company, the plan in the presentation was the “most obvious” to follow and “well advanced” in terms of planning, say the documents, which the Privy Council Office confirmed receiving late last year.

The company’s board and senior management were prepared to quickly bundle parts of the business that had no role in the Libya case into a new entity, putting the “trio of possibly convicted

entities” into another organization that would operate “on a reduced business level in Canada or heading into eventual wind-up,” they read.

The details appear to contradict public statements by chief executive officer Neil Bruce, who has denied both that the company threatened to move its headquarters, and that the company cited its some 9,000 Canadian jobs as a reason the construction giant should be granted a remediation agreement.

The company walked back the comments days later in a statement, saying a remediation deal was the best path to protect its Canadian workforce.

SNC-Lavalin spokesman Nicolas Ryan confirmed the authenticity Thursday of what he called a “confidential document” that was submitted to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to allow the director of public prosecutions to consider the company’s request for an agreement.

“We have always been transparent with our various stakeholders about the importance of the public interest argument/case for Canada in having a globally competitive SNC-Lavalin as part of Canada, headquartered in Montreal,” Ryan said in a statement.

A remediation agreement remains “the best way to protect and grow the almost 9,000 direct Canadian SNC-Lavalin jobs, as well as thousands of indirect jobs,” the statement continues.

“We have also said that we have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders and employees, and as such is our responsibility to look at all our options available... this does not mean that we have chosen one option or that a decision has been taken on which option we will pursue, simply that there are various possibilities we must consider.”

The presentation, which was delivered by mail to The Canadian Press anonymously and without a return address, also suggests the end of seven-figure donations and sponsorships for various

community causes, hundreds of millions more in lost tax revenues, and the loss of spending on research positions at universities.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has held up the threat of job losses as the main reason he and others pressed former attorney general Jody WilsonRaybould to look into the prosecutor’s decision.

Wilson-Raybould told the Commons justice committee last month she came under “consistent and sustained” pressure – including veiled threats – from Trudeau, his office, the Privy Council Office and Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office to halt the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

The ensuing political fallout has cost Trudeau two cabinet ministers - WilsonRaybould and former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott, who said she had lost confidence in the government’s handling of the affair – as well as one of his top aides, Gerald Butts, and Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, who will leave his post as the top federal civil servant before the fall election.

Bruce and Wernick met on Sept. 18 about the company’s legal troubles.

Notes taken at the meeting, tabled as evidence with the House of Commons justice committee, show that Wernick told Bruce to take the public interest argument to the director of public prosecutions, adding the company “will want to get it right.”

Wernick testified earlier this month that he spoke with Wilson-Raybould the next day where the former attorney general appeared “very firm in her mind” that the prosecutor’s decision to not negotiate a deal with SNC-Lavalin was final. Wernick said Wilson-Raybould told him the only option for the company was to make public interest arguments through its lawyers.

A spokeswoman for the prosecution service said any discussions or documents in the case are confidential.

Fiat Chrysler laying off 1,500 workers

WINDSOR, Ont. — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles says it plans to cut the third shift at its Windsor, Ont., assembly plant later this year at a cost of about 1,500 jobs. The move to end the shift starting Sept. 30 is to “better align production with global demand,” said company spokeswoman LouAnn Gosselin. She said retirement packages will be offered to eligible employees and would work to find positions for others.

“The company will make every effort

to place indefinitely laid off hourly employees in open full-time positions as they become available based on seniority,” she wrote in an email.

Unifor Local 444 president Dave Cassidy said in a statement that the decision was unexpected.

“I was shocked and disappointed that FCA has announced today the elimination of the third shift,” he wrote.

“We will continue to meet with the company on alternatives of new products. We will need the support of all levels of government as we move forward.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

Dress code at B.C. legislature prompts short-sleeve protest

VICTORIA (CP) — A dress code protest at British Columbia’s legislature that prompted some women to roll up their sleeves in solidarity has resulted in the Speaker’s office ordering a review of modern dress expectations at the building. Acting clerk Kate Ryan-Lloyd says Speaker Darryl Plecas directed her to review the legislature’s dress code policy to determine what is considered appropriate business attire for women. She says the current policy dates back to 1980. The review comes after at least seven female journalists and one NDP staff official wore shortsleeved attire today in defiance of the dress code. Several members of the government’s staff said they were approached recently by sergeant-atarms staff and advised it’s against the rules to wear short-sleeved attire in the legislature and were told to cover up.

Acting sergeant-at-arms Randy Ennis said members of his office’s staff have been enforcing a decades-old rule about proper attire at the legislature, but he was planning to meet with the clerk to discuss updating the rules.

Tribunal rules anti-transgender poster campaign discriminatory

VANCOUVER (CP) — A Vancouver trans woman who made a human rights complaint about a poster campaign that called transgenderism an “impossibility” has won her case.

Morgane Oger ran as an NDP candidate in the 2017 British Columbia election.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal says Christian activist William Whatcott resolved to stop her from being elected solely because she is transgender and without researching her platform or policies.

It says Whatcott created and distributed 1,500 flyers calling Oger a “biological male who has renamed himself... after he embraced a transvestite lifestyle.” Whatcott expressed concern about the promotion and growth of “homosexuality and transvestitism” and described being transgender as an “impossibility” that constitutes a sin.

The three-member panel found Whatcott’s conduct violated the Human Rights Code because it was discriminatory and likely to expose Oger and other transgender people to hatred or contempt. It ordered Whatcott to pay Oger $55,000 in costs and compensation.

Panelist Devyn Cousineau writes in the ruling that the discrimination against Oger was severe, intentional and designed to interfere in her participation in political life.

“It drew on the most insidious stereotypes and myths about transgender people and called on the electorate to conclude that Ms. Oger was, by sole virtue of her gender identity, unsuitable for public office,” the decision says.

“I have concluded that the effect of the flyer was to expose Ms. Oger to hatred and contempt. This is unquestionably a serious and damaging form of discrimination.”

Mayor charged with sex assault

PORT MOODY (CP) — The British Columbia Prosecution Service says the mayor of Port Moody has been charged with sexual assault.

The service says in a statement that Robert Vagramov is alleged to have committed the assault in Coquitlam in 2015.

The service says special prosecutor Michael Klein was appointed in December to investigate the allegation because it was considered in the public interest to do so.

Klein approved the charge and Vagramov is to appear in Port Coquitlam provincial court on April 25.

The allegation has not been proven in court and Vagramov could not immediately be reached for comment.

The city’s communications department did not immediately respond to questions about whether he will remain in his position and continue to receive pay.

The plant, which produces the Chrysler Pacifica and its hybrid version, as well as the Dodge Grand Caravan, has about 6,100 employees. FCA announced in late February that it would invest US$4.5 billion in Michigan to build a new assembly plant and upgrade other operations and create 6,500 jobs in the process.

The planned cut in Windsor comes as Ontario’s auto sector is already reeling from General Motors’ plans to end production at its assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., by the end of the year at a loss of about 2,600 unionized workers.

Vagramov was 28 when he was elected mayor last fall after serving one term on council. He made headlines during the campaign when a 2014 video surfaced in which he asks a homeless man to chug a beer with him in exchange for a sandwich.

The appointment of a special prosecutor is intended to avoid any potential for real or perceived improper influence in the administration of justice.

Driver killed, fuel spilled in tanker truck crash

KOOTENAY (CP) — Police say the driver of a tanker truck was killed and a “significant” amount of fuel was spilled in a single-vehicle crash on Wednesday night.

RCMP Cpl. Mike Halskov says the two-tanker truck was carrying gasoline and diesel, and the tankers ruptured as a result of the crash.

RCMP investigators were called to the crash scene on Highway 3 at 8:20 p.m. on Wednesday. Drive BC says the bottom of Kootenay Pass was closed in both directions and is expected to open Friday.

Investigators say they were hampered by the fuel spill in the Salmo River but determined the driver of the vehicle, who was from Alberta, had died. Police say environmental emergency response is assessing the situation and will determine when it is safe for the police to enter the area and resume the investigation.

Interior Health says the incident resulted in fuel contamination in the South Salmo River but there is a low risk to public health.

The agency is asking residents who get their water from the river between the bottom of Kootenay Pass and the Salmo River at the United States border to check their water for any signs of diesel fuel including

or fuel odour. They are also asking people not to use the water for recreational purposes.

Quebec bill bans religious symbols for public workers

Giuseppe

VALIANTE Citizen news service

Quebec’s secularism bill reflects the wishes of the Quebecois nation, the government said after introducing legislation Thursday prohibiting many public sector workers from wearing religious symbols and blocking their ability to challenge the bill over rights violations.

The Coalition Avenir Quebec legislation would affect elementary and high school teachers, Crown prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and judges, among others. Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness

Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said Bill 21 is an affirmation of Quebec’s distinctiveness and its decades-long drive to separate church and state. But the bill directly affects religious minorities such as Muslims and Sikhs, who will be prohibited from openly displaying their faith and working in what the government considers positions of authority. Jolin-Barrette said for the Quebec state to be truly secular, it cannot employ people who exercise authority while wearing religious symbols.

In the face of criticism from civil rights groups and organizations representing religious minorities, the bill declares the law will have effect “notwithstanding” protections in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and “despite” protections in the provincial Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

The federal and Quebec charters protect the freedoms of conscience and religious expression and the right to equality. But they also include provisions allowing governments to pass laws overriding those rights. Jolin-Barrette said the notwithstanding clause has been used more than 100 times in Quebec, and the province is within its power under the Canadian Constitution to use it in this case.

“Quebec is a nation,” he said. “No one contests this reality and our fundamental right to decide our own future and the orientations of our society.”

Speaking to reporters in St. Stephen, N.B., Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the bill opens the door to discrimination.

“I think one of the things that a lot of Quebecers are going to be asking in the coming hours and days is about how this proposed law is actually going to work,” he said.

“And quite frankly, I expect a large number of Quebecers to have some serious questions about that, because Quebecers, like all Canadians, are proud of living in a free and just society, and I don’t think a lot of people feel that in a free society we should be legitimizing discrimination of our citizens based on religion.”

The legislation includes what Premier

Francois Legault on Thursday called a “compromise,” granting an acquired right to people wearing religious symbols who already work in public sector jobs targeted by the legislation. The government also introduced a motion calling for the withdrawal of the crucifix from the provincial legislature once Bill 21 is adopted.

The crucifix has hung above the Speaker’s chair in the national assembly since 1936, and the Legault government said last October it would not remove it because it is an important part of the province’s heritage.

Robert Leckey, dean of McGill University’s law school, said Legault’s compromise is quite limited. Current teachers, according to the bill, can keep their symbols “as long as they exercise the same function within the same school board.”

Leckey said that is “unpleasantly narrow. You can’t be promoted or change school boards and wear a religious symbol.”

Additionally, he said, the sweep of people captured by the bill goes much further than originally anticipated.

However, because of the use of the notwithstanding clause, he sees no obvious avenues to challenge the law in the courts.

Bill 21 aims to fulfil a central Coalition

Avenir Quebec election promise, and Legault has said the initiative is supported by a majority of Quebecers.

The previous Liberal government passed Bill 62 in October 2017, which required public services to be given and received with an uncovered face. That law is being challenged in court on the grounds it discriminates against women wearing the niqab or burka.

Jolin-Barrette’s bill includes a similar provision requiring people to uncover their face when giving or receiving a state service, but unlike the Liberal law, the legislation is shielded from challenge by the notwithstanding clause.

Bill 21 includes specific wording for judges. Leckey said constitutional principles of judicial independence prevent the government from interfering with them “too directly.” The Conseil de la magistrature, which oversees the conduct of provincially appointed judges, will have the final say on how the rules apply to the judiciary.

The bill was strongly denounced by other politicians including NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a practising Sikh who wears a turban, and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante.

“I remember how I felt when I was young-

OD prevention sites possible at prisons, Correctional Service says

Camille BAINS Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — Canada’s prisoner service is considering opening overdose prevention sites as it expands a needle-exchange program that is now offered at a fifth institution for offenders who inject smuggled drugs.

In a statement, the Correctional Service of Canada says it “is in the early stages of exploring overdose prevention sites as another harmreduction measure option for inmates.”

Proponents say Drumheller Institution in Alberta is being looked at as a potential site, which would allow offenders to use illicit drugs under medical supervision. The correctional service did not respond to inquiries to confirm that.

Jason Godin, president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said he has long lobbied for overdose prevention sites and that one has been proposed for Drumheller.

“At the very least, let’s start opening up (the sites) so we can get away from the needle-inthe-cell thing,” he said, adding supervised drug use would involve health-care professionals at a particular area in a prison instead of guards having to deal with inmates injecting smuggled drugs in their cells.

He said the needle-exchange program, which began last year, should be scrapped because nurses and doctors aren’t available at most institutions after 4 p.m. in case inmates overdose so sites dedicated to prevention make more sense, as long as they are adequately staffed.

“So far, the government hasn’t agreed to giving us 24-hour-a-day health care,” he said.

“They want us to stop drugs from coming in and yet they’re handing them a needle and saying go ahead and use drugs if you want to.”

The correctional service said its needle-exchange program is aimed at preventing the spread of blood-borne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, as well as skin infections from shared equipment as part of other harm-reduction measures including access to peersupport workers and the opioid

Proponents say Drumheller

Institution in Alberta is being looked at as a potential site, which would allow offenders to use illicit drugs under medical supervision.

substitution medications methadone and Suboxone.

The Nova Institution for Women in Truro, N.S., implemented a prisoner needle-exchange program earlier this month after it was introduced last June at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont., and the Atlantic Institution in Renous, N.B. It was expanded to the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in Abbotsford, B.C., and the Edmonton Institution for Women this year.

Godin said at least two security issues have been reported since the needle-exchange program was rolled out, one involving a missing needle and another when an inmate left his injection kit out with the cell door open, potentially allowing unauthorized access to the equipment that could have posed a danger to guards or others.

The correctional service said there was only one incident when an offender did not follow proper procedure and the person was “re-

assessed and counselled,” though it declined to provide details.

“Inmates who participate in the (program) are required to keep their needle kit safely stored in their cells,” it said, adding a lost kit or one with unaccounted-for items as well as unauthorized use of equipment could result in an inmate being disciplined.

The service said 13 inmates have been approved for the needleexchange program at the five institutions but only five people are participating in the program because the remainder were either released or transferred to prisons that have not yet begun offering the service.

Peter Brown, a former offender who served three federal sentences at various institutions in Eastern Canada between 1992 and 1999 for crimes including robbery, said a needle-exchange program as well as overdose prevention sites are essential behind bars because drug use is common.

Brown, 45, said he began using intravenous drugs in 1996 while he was serving time at the Atlantic Institution in Renous and continued until 2014, long after he was released.

“I shared, many, many times, syringes that other people used. I watched guys in there share needles in a group of five or six and sit around using the same syringe, going around in a circle,” he said from Halifax, where he is completing a social services program while serving as a national board member for the Seventh Step Society.

er, when I felt I wasn’t welcome,” Singh said. “And now I think of young people across Quebec who won’t be able to do their dream jobs.” Plante said she is “very concerned” about the law. “The government is entering a slippery slope and going against certain fundamental principles of the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights and freedoms,” she said.

Jolin-Barrette said his government is building on the legacy of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, when the first steps were taken to separate church and state. “The responsibility of the current generation is to appropriate this precious heritage and create a future that inspires those who will follow,” he said.

But Leckey warned that laws governing the public sector have a way of influencing people’s behaviour in private business. Visible minorities already have a harder time finding jobs in Quebec than the white francophone majority, he said, and the bill reinforces the idea that a person can be judged based on their appearance.

“The government is encouraging these kinds of ideas rather trying than trying to root them out,” he said.

CP PHOTO

Quebec Minister of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Simon Jolin-Barrette tables a bill which would ban public sector workers from wearing religious symbols and blocking their ability to challenge the bill over human rights violations on Thursday at the legislature in Quebec City.

An apology, an explanation and heaps of appreciation

First, some heartfelt gratitude. You know you have a special job when people stop you in the mall parking lot, leave phone messages, and send texts and emails, saying they miss your work, hoping everything is OK and wondering when you’ll be back. It’s even more gratifying when your boss is getting the same queries.

So thank you to everyone who’s reached out, telling me how their day isn’t quite the same unless they’ve read my editorial. Sometimes I think you’re an idiot and sometimes I think you’re absolutely right on but you always make me think, one person told me. Even praise that involves being an idiot is both gratifying and humbling.

So here’s the story.

I am not sick nor riddled with disease (that I know of).

I have not been censored by my Glacier Media corporate masters (who have never challenged me on any of my opinions, I must stress), nor has the City of Prince George threatened to pull its advertising unless I start giving city council and senior administration a break. A few people asked me about one or all three of those scenarios

and they are all are completely false.

A longtime editor and a valuable member of The Citizen’s newsroom team left the newspaper early this month to take on a great opportunity. Another valuable writer and editor has been away the last several weeks and expects to be away for a little while longer yet, coping with a nagging illness. As a result, I’ve had to take on many of their responsibilities over the past few weeks, which has left me with little to no time to write a daily editorial.

I apologize for that.

Fortunately, I’m blessed with both a supportive publisher in Colleen Sparrow, an experienced director of advertising in Shawn Cornell, a competent, engaged group of colleagues and, best of all, a driven news team that has stepped up to meet the challenge of publishing a solid daily newspaper, a fun and interesting weekly newspaper and a trustworthy, on-the-ball website, despite being short-staffed.

My absence in this space is certainly not from lack of things to write about.

From Donald Trump and the Mueller report to Justin Trudeau’s issues with Jody Wilson-Raybould, there seem to be no

shortage of national leaders who love the rule of law when it applies to their political opponents but resent the light shining on them and their transgressions.

Provincially, the flip-flop belly-flop give the dog a bone of John Horgan and the NDP on the LNG file has been as politically cynical as the last budget of Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals before their minority government fell. “Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss,” The Who sang in Won’t Get Fooled Again. Ain’t that the truth.

In Prince George, city council is deluding itself if it thinks a handful of determined, organized and mad as hell residents can’t get 5,600 signatures by the end of May to force their $32 million borrowing plan for various infrastructure maintenance projects to a referendum. People will sign for a whole bunch of reasons – from snow removal, multimillion dollar cost overruns on a small bridge across a creek and tax hikes to wages and overtime for senior managers – but they will sign, simply to send the blunt message that this group, freshly elected last October, needs to do better.

And that’s just the politics.

The horrific massacre at a New Zealand mosque is the latest in a continuing surge of

YOUR LETTERS

Fuel prices fury

The price of fuel is out of hand. In the last month, fuel prices have increased by 20 cents a litre with no logical excuse. The prices at the pump are 10 cents less then they were when crude was $140 a barrel.

The price of fuel at that time was 138.9 a litre. Right now, a barrel of crude is just under $60 a barrel.

I am of the opinion that it’s time for the federal government and the provinical and territorial governments legislate a price for fuel. Anyone reading about the economy will see major financial markets are worried that this modest recovery we’re in may stall and we slide into recession. This is not the first for the fuel producers to throw their weight around and raises prices stupidly. Their greediness has got to end and I don’t see them acting responsibly.

Stan New

Prince George

City doing best it can

I am writing to address the recent letters that are critical of city council’s decisions with regards to the new fire hall and new pool. I would like to point out that council was elected by a majority and are making the difficult decisions we elected them to do.

I would also like to point out that if you find yourself at odds with council’s decisions, anybody is free to run for council.

I, for one, do not want our police and firefighters working out of substandard buildings or families swimming in substandard buildings. Your and my tax dollars are not being spent without consideration, the best value and return on the dollar is to replace the fire hall and build a new pool.

The fire hall has not met safety or insurance guidelines for years, putting people’s well being at risk. Four Seasons pool is in a state of disrepair and is used by many people. That new police

station looks great and I’m sure it’s more efficient than the old one. Making repairs on piece of crap buildings is throwing good money after bad. Some citizens have suggested that the current state of these buildings is due to city staff being over paid or that some are unionized. I am proud that we pay our fellow citizens that work for the city a decent wage that they can support themselves and their family on, which in turn is a positive contribution to our city. Anybody in this country is free to join or start a union and negotiate for a decent wage, which is a much better option than throwing stones at others.

I am just like anybody else and loath taxes but I would rather see tax dollars spent on things that return good value for the city and its citizens. This is preferred to the current narrative of a few naysayers implying conspiracy and incompetence, which equates to negative value for our city.

Sean Kealy,

Prince George

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

global violence from white power radicals against Muslims, racial minorities, the LBGTQ community and anyone else who dares question their hatred.

The continued rollout (pun intended) of legal cannabis, resource development project, First Nations reconciliation and the legal aid fiasco are all worthy of further analysis.

Editorials are also a nice place to pay tribute and show appreciation to some amazing residents. I regret not giving Armand Denicola and his family the full respect he deserved at his passing. Jack Grinhaus and his equally talented spouse Lauren Brotman are leaving Theatre Northwest. While this offers Prince George’s professional theatre company the opportunity to bring in some new talent, the departure of Grinhaus and Brotman will be a loss. We should all be grateful for their contributions to the city’s artistic life.

I hope to be back writing regularly on all of those topics and many more on a daily basis in the near future.

Once again, thanks again for making me feel wanted.

Even when I’m the village idiot.

—

Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout

Gigantic flip flop by NDP over LNG

The NDP government introduced a new tax regime Monday that is tailor-made to LNG Canada’s satisfaction.

All the other paperwork is done and work has already started on the natural gas liquefaction plant in the Kitimat region.

Getting the new industry to the starting line took almost 10 years.

The tax changes are the final pieces of the process, Finance Minister Carole James said.

All that’s left for Premier John Horgan’s government to do is weather several weeks of incredulity at the brazen “hypocrisy,” the sheer “stupidity” and the epic amount of backtracking it took to manage such an about-face.

By the time the bill is passed, the cabinet will be wondering if the $40-billion contribution to the economy that is expected will be worth all the abuse.

“They’re going to have to eat a certain amount of crow,” B.C. Liberal MLA Rich Coleman said.

“I look forward to pointing that out to them.”

Coleman spent years as the lead minister on the LNG file, courting investors all over the world and trying to close a deal. Through most of that effort the NDP slammed the Liberals for being overly generous and giving away B.C. resources.

Then they took power and looked at the potential for LNG.

In the space of a few months they became just as enraptured as the B.C. Liberals were.

Opposition critics often have to drop their criticism and change their views once they take over government.

But the NDP went well beyond simply switching from skepticism to favouring the new industry. They have taken several of the key Liberal breaks to which they objected and enhanced them.

After spending years warning people the Liberal government was giving away the farm, they gave away even more farm to finally close the deal.

Liberals will still support the tax changes, because they’re too far down the LNG road to change course now.

But they won’t be able to resist highlighting the vast gulf between what the opposition NDP said and what the government NDP is actually doing.

And when they get tired of reciting all those newly ironic quotes about giveaways, the B.C. Green caucus will take over where the Liberals left off.

Mailing address: 201-1777 Third Ave. Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7

IN THE

Green Leader Andrew Weaver went into rhetorical overdrive Monday after his first look at the legislation.

He said the NDP want to champion themselves as climate-change leaders while at the same time they introduce the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canadian history.

“It’s about cake and eating it too.”

Weaver equated it to professing to care deeply about the opioid crisis while “putting in an order for a massive shipment of cocaine from Colombia.

“This is the kind of stupidity – it doesn’t make sense.”

Weaver said: “To see the NDP take what the Liberals did to a whole new level can only be described as remarkable.”

He said he will be reading all the myriad NDP criticisms from the past into the record and will enjoy doing it.

The NDP’s LNG framework now notes that the Liberal version had impediments and risks to investors.

So the LNG income tax, which was criticized for being too low, is abolished.

The electricity rate for LNG processing is lowered to be compatible with all industrial users. LNG proponents will be exempted from paying PST up front during start-up.

That’s a savings of almost $600 million, but companies will have to make up that amount through performance payments once plants begin operating.

The single toughest contortion the government had to make was in fitting the LNG plant into the stringent new emission-reduction scheme.

There’s room in the plan for LNG Canada, but just barely, recognizing the plan only gets B.C. three-quarters of the way to its target.

And the industry gets an exemption from carbon tax hikes if it can maintain the cleanest possible standards.

Just So You Know: The PDA between B.C. and LNG Canada was released Monday. It stands for Project Development Agreement, but it’s entirely fitting to think of the abbreviation as “public display of affection.”

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Member of the

FAST LEYNE LES LEYNE

Nina Martinez of Atlanta became the world’s first living HIV-positive person to donate an organ on Monday. Martinez, 35, donated a kidney to an HIV-positive stranger, saying she “wanted to make a difference in somebody else’s life” and counter the stigma that too often still surrounds HIV infection.

HIV-positive donor provides kidney for historic transplant

Citizen news service

Surgeons at the Johns Hopkins Hospital have transplanted a kidney from a living HIV-positive donor to an HIV-positive recipient, a medical breakthrough they hope will expand the pool of available organs and help change perceptions of HIV.

The donor, 35-year-old Nina Martinez, and the recipient, who chose to remain anonymous, are recovering in the hospital after Monday’s surgery, doctors said. The recipient no longer needs kidney dialysis for the first time in a year.

The procedure is another step in the evolution of HIV – considered to mean certain death when the AIDS epidemic began in 1981 – and an advance for the 1.1 million people who carry the virus.

Medication now can suppress the infection to undetectable levels in many people, and U.S. President Donald Trump recently vowed to end transmission of it in the United States by 2030.

But stigma still remains.

“Society perceives me, and people like me, as people who bring death,” Martinez said Saturday before the operation. “And I can’t figure out any better way to show that people like me can bring life.”

Martinez, who acquired HIV from a blood transfusion as an infant, appeared at a Hopkins news conference Thursday to announce the surgery, the first of its kind. She said she feels well and is looking forward to training to run in this October’s Marine Corps Marathon in Washington.

“People with HIV today can’t donate blood. But now they’re able to donate a kidney,” said Dorry Segev, a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who led the research team and removed Martinez’s left kidney.

“They have a disease that 30 years ago was a death sentence. Today, they’re so healthy they can give someone else life.”

Surgeons have transplanted 116 organs from deceased HIV-positive donors to recipients with HIV since 2016, when a new law allowing that surgery took effect. Among people without HIV, more than 152,000 kidneys from living donors have been transplanted over the past 30 years, and a few hundred livers from live donors are implanted each year.

More than 113,000 people are on the U.S. waiting list for organ transplants, most of them seeking kidneys. Others are too sick to be listed, or are taken off the list when their disease progresses too far.

Until now, leaving an HIV-positive person with just one kidney was considered too dangerous because the infection and the medications that control it increase the chances of kidney disease.

But a 2017 study of 42,000 people led by Hopkins researchers showed that for some healthy HIV-positive donors, the risk of developing serious kidney disease is not much greater than it is for many HIV-negative people, especially those who engage in behaviors such as smoking.

Martinez’ organ was implanted in the recipient by a separate team of surgeons, the normal procedure in transplantation. The operation was performed by Niraj Desai, an

Biological, not chronological, age determines health

Gabriella BOSTON Citizen news service

“You look young for your age.”

Aside from being flattering, the sentence also highlights the fact that we can inhabit two ages at once: chronological age and biological age. Chronological age dictates the number of birthday candles we blow out every year, while biological age is a measure of our physiological state compared to other people with the same number of annual growth rings.

“It’s not all that helpful to talk about chronological age,” says Laurie ArchbaldPannone, a physician who specializes in geriatrics at the University of Virginia Health System. “It doesn’t tell us how resilient the body is.”

To put it another way: chronological age has very little to do with our actual physical well-being.

For example, a 50-year-old smoker can have the lung capacity of an 80-year-old, says Todd Miller, associate professor in exercise and nutrition sciences at George Washington University.

“In other words, the 50-year-old smoker has the ‘lung age’ of an 80-year-old,” Miller says.

But it’s not just active misuse of the body – such as smoking – that ages us beyond our chronological age. It’s also –perhaps even more commonly – inactivi-

ty, says Miller, whose lab measures health and performance-related markers such as bone density, body composition and max oxygen uptake.

“Many of the things that we consider age-related changes are more related to activity or inactivity as opposed to age,” Miller says. For example, “weight gain is not obligatory with age.”

If age holds only so much of our fate in its grip, that gives us more reason to incorporate healthy habits into our routines. Although age-related changes are inevitable, they “can be mitigated by sleep, exercise, nutrition and stress reduction,” Miller says.

Exactly how much can be mitigated bodywide, he says, is unclear. But in terms of specific markers – such as lung capacity – our habits (healthy or not) can change our biological age by several decades. And just to be clear, biological age is as much about feel and function as it is about looks.

The earlier we start, the better it is. Bone growth is at its prime in childhood and adolescence; and those who train and eat healthily throughout their lives will be stronger at age 70 or 80 than those who take up the healthy habits later. That said, “there is no too old” to start, Miller says.

“You can get positive results even if you start lifting weights at age 80.”

assistant professor of surgery at Hopkins.

The kidney was implanted near the recipient’s pelvis through a six-to-eight inch incision in the abdomen, and the recipient’s kidneys were not removed, as is common practice, Desai said. Kidney recipients can expect 20 to 40 years from a transplanted kidney, Segev said, with those who receive live kidney donations doing a little better than those who get the organs from deceased donors. After that period, the recipient would require another transplant, or go back on dialysis, he said.

Martinez and the recipient will remain on antiretroviral medication indefinitely to control their HIV. Because they may have different strains of the virus and different resistance to HIV medication, doctors must monitor the recipient closely in the months after the donor organ is introduced. The recipient will also take drugs to prevent organ rejection. Those are not expected to significantly interfere with the HIV-suppressing medications.

Martinez is in near-normal physical health. Her viral load is undetectable.

“Her health is excellent. Her HIV is well controlled. Her immune system is essentially normal,” said Christine Durand, an associate professor of medicine at Hopkins and a member of the team that evaluated Martinez.

In 1983, Martinez and her twin sister were born 12 weeks prematurely in San Jose and soon developed anemia. The daughter of a naval officer, Martinez was taken to a military hospital in San Francisco for a blood transfusion in the days before the supply was tested for HIV, and she acquired the infection. She and her family were not aware of it until she was checked before eye surgery at the age of eight.

She was watched in school to ensure she wasn’t a health hazard to other children, she said.

She later learned that one principal asked, “Why are we educating her with public dollars if she’s going to die?”

When a housemate found out she had HIV, he moved out, leaving his belongings behind.

“It gives me great joy to know that I”m putting a story like this out there,” she said. “Because those people need a mental reboot.”

A public health consultant who lives in Atlanta, Martinez was aware of the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, the law allowing the surgery when it was passed in 2013. The next year, she saw an episode of the television show Grey’s Anatomy in which the writers invented a story about a transplant from a live, HIV-positive donor.

When an HIV-positive friend needed a kidney, Martinez grew more serious about the idea and contacted Hopkins to volunteer for the grueling test regimen that enabled her to become the first donor in its clinical trial.

But Martinez’s friend died before she could donate to him.

She believes her choice will ripple down the transplant waiting list.

“When I take this recipient off the list, everyone moves up,” she said, “whether they have HIV or not.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

How stealing trade secrets helped make America great

Citizen news service

The upstart nation was a den of intellectual piracy. One of its top officials urged his countrymen to steal and copy foreign machinery. Across the ocean, a leading industrial power tried in vain to guard its trade secrets from the brash young rival.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rogue nation was the United States. The official endorsing thievery was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. And the main victim was Britain. How times have changed.

Now, the United States accuses China of the very sort of illicit practices that helped America leapfrog European rivals two centuries ago and emerge as an industrial giant.

“The message we are sending to China today is, Do as I say, not as I did,’” said Peter Andreas, professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. “The fact of the matter is that the U.S. was the world’s hotbed of intellectual property theft.”

Having imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods, the Trump administration is trying to force Beijing to abandon what it calls its brass-knuckles drive to exploit American technology to speed its own economic modernization. The administration alleges – and many China watchers agree – that Beijing steals trade secrets and coerces U.S. companies to hand them over as the price of admission to the vast Chinese market.

More than two centuries ago, the young United States, an agrarian backwater lacking in skilled workers, held a different view of other nations’ trade secrets: they were, it seemed, up for grabs. In 2012, having surveyed the sordid history of U.S. industrial espionage, the journal Foreign Policy called America “the China of the 19th century.

“Only after becoming the leading industrial power did it become a champion of intellectual-property protections,” said An-

dreas, author of Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America. Hamilton, determined to transform America into an industrial power, argued in 1791 that the United States needed “to procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe.”

Trouble was, Britain, the world’s technological leader, closely guarded its advantages.

The London government imposed a 200-pound fine (equal to roughly $22,000 today) on anyone who tried to spirit industrial equipment out of Britain – a penalty that escalated to 500 pounds ($55,000) for critically important textile machines, according to research by Doron Ben-Atar, a Fordham University historian and the author of Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power.

For the 18th century United States to build its economic might, highly skilled or knowledgeable people were just as

tempting a target as hardware. In the days before instruction manuals, manufacturers needed workers who knew how to assemble and operate machines acquired from overseas. Wary of the intrusion, Britain officials threatened headhunters with a year in prison for every British worker they recruited to work overseas.

Yet they couldn’t stop the brain drain, which the U.S. government actively encouraged. In 1791, Hamilton authorized the Treasury to pay $48 to subsidize the living expenses of an English weaver who pledged to deliver to the U.S. a copycat version of a British spinning machine. One key defection was Samuel Slater of Derbyshire, who had apprenticed under a leading British industrialist. Figuring his prospects were brighter across the Atlantic, Slater disguised himself as a farmer, boarded a ship to the United States, signed on with a business owner in Rhode Island

and replanted Britain’s cuttingedge cotton-spinning technology on American soil. In the United States, he was sometimes called “the father of the American Industrial Revolution.”

Back in Britain, he was accorded a rather different nickname: “Slater the Traitor.”

Perhaps the most impressive heist was orchestrated in the early 1800s by Francis Cabot Lowell, the Massachusetts industrialist.

During a tour of England and Scotland, Lowell had visited British textile factories and managed to memorize their design and inner workings.

On the voyage back to America, Lowell’s ship was stopped and searched by British officials who had been tipped off that he might have stolen industrial designs. They found nothing; the secrets were all in Lowell’s head.

He would go on to establish a textile-producing empire in Massachusetts.

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

after recovering from falling to its lowest point since early January. The loonie traded at an average of 74.55 cents US on Wednesday. The loonie was hurt by weaker commodity prices, says Anish Chopra, managing director with Portfolio Management Corp. Crude oil prices mostly recovered morning losses after U.S. President Donald Trump called for OPEC to raise supply.

“Very important that OPEC increase the flow of Oil. World Markets are fragile, price of Oil getting too high. Thank you!” Trump tweeted.

The May crude contract was down 11 cents at US$59.30 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was down 0.7 of a cent at US$2.71 per mmBTU.

Precious metals prices also dropped with the June gold contract losing US$21.60 at US$1,295.30 an ounce. The May copper contract was up 0.95 of a cent at US$2.87 a pound.

“A U.S. president asking OPEC to increase production would generally be negative for crude oil prices so that would have an impact on the Canadian dollar and so would gold being down, and even silver’s down a little bit too,” Chopra said.

North American markets all rose with the S&P/TSX composite index closing up 22.96 points to 16,155.49, reversing Wednesday’s losses, after hitting an intraday high of 16,173.19.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 91.87 points at 25,717.46. The S&P 500 index was up 10.07 points at 2,815.44, while the Nasdaq composite was up 25.79 points at 7,669.17. The Toronto market was helped by gains in the technology, industrials and consumer discretionary sectors.

Materials were the weakest, followed by utilities and health care.

Centerra Gold Inc. and Eldorado Gold led mining share decreases while cannabis stocks moved lower led by a 19 per cent drop by CannTrust Holdings after it missed analyst forecasts in its fourth quarter. A report confirming a slowdown of the U.S. economy in the fourth-quarter had limited impact because the data is old considering second-quarter results are forthcoming.

“But I think it’s certainly validated investor concerns at the end of last year when markets had gone down quite a bit... and now you’ve got confirmation that it certainly did slow,” added Chopra.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE HANDOUT PHOTO

This undated image shows Samuel Slater’s spinning frame that is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington staged an exhibit called Alexander Hamilton: Soldier, Secretary, Icon, in 2018. Hamilton is widely credited with transforming America into an industrial power.

Sports

What’s new with the Cougars?

Young earns promotion to double-A Smokies

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

By his own admission, Prince George’s Jared Young says he met his expectations this spring as a Chicago Cubs prospect. That’s being modest.

Young’s first major league baseball experience was nothing short of spectacular. It started with his first at-bat Feb. 25 against the San Diego Padres, when he took an 0-1 breaking ball offered by Ger Hayes over the wall for a two-run home run.

Three days later, Young did it again, turning on a Sam Lewis pitch with a line drive that went for a three-run shot against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

All told, the 23-year-old from Prince George played in 16 Cactus League games for Chicago and performed well enough to earn a promotion to the Cubs’ double-A affiliate in Knoxville, Tenn. Young will start the season next week with the Tennessee Smokies.

“It’s a pretty sweet honour,” said Young. “I guess it shows that the organization is really seeing the strides I’ve made over the last couple years and it’s going to be be lot of fun. At every level ahead you go, the game seems to get a bit cleaner and that’s what I’m anticipating and I’m pretty excited.

“It was a good spring and I’m very pleased with the way I went about my business and how things turned out and that’s where I want to be. I reached my expectations I guess you could say and that’s something I’ll always put on myself is a high expectation for work ethic and production.”

Drafted in the 15th round by Chicago in 2017 out of Old Dominion University in Virginia, Young started his pro career that year with the Eugene Emeralds. He moved up to the Class-A South Bend Cubs last year and was promoted at midseason to the Class-A advanced Myrtle Beach Pelicans. He was the Cubs’ choice as their minor league player of year in 2018, hitting .300 with 16 home runs and 76 RBI.

Young arrived at the Cubs’ spring training base in Mesa, Ariz., and immediately turned heads with his bat, hitting .240 with a .560 slugging average, .296 on-base percentage and .856 OPS. In 25 at-bats he clubbed two home runs, two doubles, had six RBI and scored five runs.

Defensively, Young played error-free baseball. In 19 innings over five games at first base, he had 16 chances and 15 put-

In this screenshot taken from the Chicago Cubs-Cleveland Indians Cactus League game on March 22 in Goodyear, Ariz., Jared Young of the Cubs awaits a pitch from two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber of the Indians. Young, a 23-year-old Prince George native, was assigned Thursday to the Tennessee Smokies, the Cubs’ double-A affiliate in Knoxville.

outs, helping turn one double play. He also played six games in the outfield, mostly the left side, and in 26 innings had two chances and two putouts.

“I was still a minor-leaguer in minor league camp but when they have home games some of the big-leaguers don’t play the whole time, maybe five innings or so, so they send over minor-leaguers to play the last four innings and I was fortunate enough to be in (16) games, so I got a pretty good taste of what it looks like,” said Young.

“That was definitely one of the cooler experiences in my life. It seemed like it came at me pretty fast and life kind of humbles you and the end was a little tough.

I’m assuming that’s what it’s like in the big leagues. You’re not going to hit home runs every at-bat, but it was a blast. (My early success) made it easier when they called me back because some of the guys knew

who I was and I wasn’t just a another minor leaguer. It was pretty incredible.”

One of the highlights of March for Young came in a game against Seattle when he got to play against Ichiro Suzuki. The Mariners outfielder announced his retirement in Tokyo last week right after the Mariners opened the season against Oakland.

Driving in baserunners who draw multimillion-dollar salaries on a team that won the World Series three seasons ago gave Young a sense of belonging and brought into clearer focus his ultimate dream to make it as an everyday major league player.

“It’s very refreshing to know that you might not be that far away,” he said. “Just to be on the same field as them is very rewarding. I looked at it as a blessing.

“It’s the best organization in sports, I’d like to think. They treat us like royalty and it was definitely fun to be part of. Everything

was insane up there but definitely meeting Joe Maddon and Brian Butterfield, the manager and the third-base coach, that was a highlight for me. Those guys are baseball legends.”

Young left a positive impression on Maddon and in a March 28 article posted on the Chicago Tribune website he raved about Young and 2018 draft pick Cole Roederer, who also hit a home run in his first career exhibition game.

“Some of the best swings in camp have been from (Roederer) and Jared Young,” said Maddon. “Our young lefties technically have really good swings and approaches. “They’re not afraid. These two kids are really interesting.”

Young and the Smokies open their 140game Southern League schedule at home next Thursday against the Mississippi Braves.

Grizzlies-Spruce Kings set for Game 1 tonight

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

Nolan Welsh is king of the Prince George Spruce Kings when it comes to B.C. Hockey League playoff experience.

That started two seasons ago when he broke into the league as a rookie winger with the Victoria Grizzlies, a team that went 16 games and three rounds deep into the playoffs in 2017.

Traded to Prince George that summer, Welsh was with the Spruce Kings every step of the way as they advanced to the Fred Page Cup league final, a 24-game stretch that ended in a five-game series loss to the Wenatchee Wild. Add in the nine postseason contests he played for the Kings in the first two rounds this year and that gives the 19-year-old Whistler native a 49-game playoff resume.

Now Welsh has a chance to make the Grizzlies rue the day that deal was made. He and the Spruce Kings will take on the Grizzlies in the best-of-seven Coastal Conference final series which starts tonight (7 p.m.) at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

“It’s real exciting, it’s just a chance to see where you were on that team and know you’re on the better team now, which would be awesome to prove,” said Welsh.

“I’ve been in a few different (playoff) runs now and this one definitely is special. I really think we have the team to do it this year.”

Welsh followed the path of his older brother Tyler to Victoria and played 52 regular season games in his rookie year. The Kings acquired his rights in a future considerations trade a month before the 2017-18 season began and he jumped at the chance to play for a team loaded with his former Burnaby Winter Club teammates.

He scored five goals and 20 points in 43 games this season and has emerged as one of the Kings’ top two-way forwards, averaging nearly a point per game in the playoffs with a goal

and seven assists. Welsh plays the right side on a line with centre Lucas Vanroboys and left winger Corey Cunningham, which has provided some third-line scoring punch.

The Grizzlies-Spruce Kings series pits the most explosive offence in the BCHL (Victoria led the league with 161 goals in 58 games, averaging 3.98 per game) against the stingiest defence (Prince George allowed 120 goals in the season, a 2.06 average).

“It seems we’re two very different teams,” said Welsh. “We’re a very structured defensive team and they are very offensive. They loop around and look for the odd-man rushes and we kind of stay and look for the right opportunities. We have a really good defensive corps and that goes up through our lineup from the

goalie to the forwards. We all do our assignments well and play on the right side of the puck and it’s been working so far.”

The Kings scored 181 regularseason goals (3.12 average) and had a plus-60 goal differential, while the Grizzlies were plus40, giving up 169 goals (2.91 average). In 11 playoff games the Grizzlies have scored a leaguehigh 50 goals and have allowed 27 for a plus-23 differential –same as the Spruce Kings. In their nine games they scored 36 times and gave up a league-low 13 goals.

The Grizzlies endured a physically-demanding sevengame series with Powell River which wrapped up Monday, after opening the playoffs with a fourgame sweep of Alberni Valley. The Spruce Kings needed just

five games to finish off Coquitlam in the first round, then won all four games in the second round against Chilliwack. The Grizzlies are hoping the 10-day break between series has left the Spruce Kings a little rusty.

The Kings will be playing close attention to league MVP Alex Newhook. The 18-year-old centre won the BCHL scoring race wiith 38 goals and 64 assists for 102 points in 53 games and the St. John’s Nfld., native has kept up the pace in the playoffs, leading the Grizzlies with nine goals and 18 points in 11 games.

Newhook’s linemates are Alexander Campbell, the BCHL’s rookie of the year (21-46-67 in the regular season) and New York Rangers draft pick Riley Hughes (24-34-58), who ranks third in playoff scoring, just behind Ne-

whook, with 17 points.

“We’ve had a great season and obviously those guys work extremely hard and they’re super-talented and they’ve helped raise the level of the guys around them to make everybody a better hockey player,” said Craig Didmon, the Grizzlies head coach and general manager.

“They’re very driven and committed to be professional hockey players and that commitment has kid of worn off.”

Three other Grizzlies have averaged a point per game or better in the playoffs, including Marty Westhaver (8-6-14), Cameron Thompson (3-8-11) and defenceman Carter Berger (5-10-15). Berger, Jeremie Bucheler, Nico Somerville and Kenny Johnson have sparked the offence from the blueline all season.

Twenty-year-old Cole Noble and Brady MacDonald are the Grizzlies’ shutdown specialists on the back end.

Other Victoria players to watch are forwards Kyle McGrath and Stephen Konroyd, McGrath joined the Griz in a deadline trade from the St. John’s Caps in Newfoundland and put up nine points in 11 games to finish the season. Konroyd is the 18-year-old son of former NHL defenceman Steve Konroyd. Victoria captain Ryan Nolan, a forward, will serve two more games of a three-game suspension for his third hit-to-thehead penalty this season. Kurtis Chapman has played every playoff game in net for Victoria. The 21-year-old from Airdie, Alta., is in his second BCHL season, joining the team after helping the Portage Terriers win the Manitoba Junior Hockey League championship in 2017. Chapman made 55 saves in a 4-3 win over the Spruce Kings in Prince George, Oct. 5. In the only other meeting between the teams this season, Jan. 6 in Victoria at the end of a three-game, threeday roadtrip, the Spruce Kings outshot the Grizzlies 41-29 but lost 3-0. — see ‘THEY’RE A, page 10

Prince George Spruce Kings forward Nolan Welsh looks to make a play during a game in 2017 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. Welsh is one of the Spruce Kings’ playoff veterans who will be looking to lead the team to victory over the Victoria Grizzlies.

Valley near Whistler.

Dickson on target at biathlon nationals

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Emily Dickson has struck gold for the second time in two races at the Canadian/North American biathlon championships at Callaghan Valley near Whistler.

The 21-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member from Burns Lake won the junior women’s individual race Thursday morning, finishing the 12.5-kilometre course in 35:46.0 with just two misses in four shooting rounds. Fresh from competing in Europe on the IBU Cup circuit, Dickson crossed the finish 4:11.1 ahead of her B.C. teammate, silver medalist Larissa Black of Squamish, who missed three targets.

Dickson also won Wednesday’s sprint, with just one miss and a time of 20:45.8 in the 7.5 km event.

She will be the jackrabbit for the rest of the junior women’s field in

Saturday’s pursuit and will have a 1:37.7 head start when she starts the race. That gap was the margin of victory for Dickson in the sprint ahead of second-place Zoe Pekos of Ontario.

In other Caledonia club results, women’s sprint winner Sarah Beaudry of Prince George was fourth in Thursday’s individual race. Beaudry, a 24-year-old who competed all season on the BMW World Cup stage, had six missed targets and ended up 2:58.4 behind her national teammate, Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, who set the pace in the individual event.

Moser clocked 35:26.1 with two misses on the range. Megan Bankes of Calgary (+2:25.9, 2+1+1+1) won silver and Emma Lunder of Vernon (+2:43.2, 2+1+2+1) claimed bronze. In the men’s 15 km individual race, Christian Gow of Canmore (37:38.7, 1+0+0+0) edged Nathan Smith of Calgary (+6.8, 0+0+1+0) for top spot on the

podium. Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T. (+36.5, 0+1+0+0) took bronze. Smith was the sprint winner Wednesday and will leave the start gate for Saturday’s pursuit 19.6 seconds ahead of Scott Gow of Canmore, the silver medalist in the sprint.

Other Caledonia sprint results from the Wednesday afternoon session were as follows: Senior girls – 5. Brynn Witwicki (+1:25.0, 2+1), 12. Lia Huggett (+27:32.9, 3+0); Senior boys – 5. Nicholas Veeken (+1:21.3, 1+0), 15. Damian Georgyev (+3:42.3, 1+4), 19. Liam Connon (+4:04.7, 1+4), 37. Quinn Neil (+6:39.6, 2+5); Masters men - 12. Alan Witwicki (+10:11.2, 1+4).

Thursday’s afternoon individual event results for the younger age groups were not available on the championships website. The event wraps up Sunday with team relays.

Pearson scores for Canucks in shootout

Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — Tanner Pearson scored in the fourth round of the shootout and the Vancouver Canucks kept their faint playoff hopes alive Thursday night with a 3-2 win over the L.A. Kings.

Brock Boeser and Alex Edler scored in regulation for the Canucks (33-35-10), who are seven points behind Colorado for the second wild-card spot in the West with four games to play.

Quinn Hughes, selected seventh overall by Vancouver in 2018, earned an assist in his NHL debut. Austin Wagner and Adrian Kempe put up goals for the Kings (28-41-8).

Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko made 37 saves in regulation and Jonathan Quick stopped 36-of-38 shots for L.A.

The win snapped a three-game losing skid for the Canucks.

L.A. opened the scoring 12:56 into the first period after Wagner poked the puck at Demko from the side of the net.

The goalie flattened out in his crease but couldn’t contain the rebound. Instead, it popped out to a waiting Wagner who chipped the puck up, off the crossbar and in.

‘They’re a really good team’

— from page 9 Victoria (36-18-0-4) finished first in the Island Division, eight points back of the Spruce Kings (39-13-1-5), who finished second in the Mainland Division, one point behind the first-overall Chiefs.

Both teams have an abundance of playoff experience. Half the Kings’ roster went all the way to the BCHL final last year. The Grizzlies have four holdovers –Westhaver, Somerville, Berger and Thompson – who were with the team for the 2017 playoffs and they have 10 players who were around for a 12-game stretch that ended with a fivegame second-round series to Powell River last season.

The Spruce Kings outscored Chilliwack 21-3, shutting down a Chiefs’ offence that ranked as the fifth most productive in the season. They are counting on a similar defence-first approach to limit the Grizzlies’ goalscorers.

“If we play the right way I think our style of game suits up well against teams that are a little more freewheeling like Victoria,” said Kings head coach Adam Maglio.

“I certainly think we need to stick to our structure because if we shy away from that they will expose you if you’re not on good spots on the ice.”

The Kings’ top scoring line –Patrick Cozzi-Dustin Manz-Ben Brar has done its job generating offence, amply supported by captain Ben Poisson, who leads the team in playoff scoring (8-5-13).

Poisson and his brother Nicholas (3-3-6) and Chong Min Lee (3-47) have spread the scoring load around, taking pressure off the Manz line as gamebreakers. Defencemen Layton Ahac (3-4-7), Dylan Anhorn (2-4-6) and Max Coyle (2-4-6) are getting their share of points as well.

Almost lost in the two series wins was the consistency shown by Kings goalie Logan Neaton, who sports a league-best 1.29 goals-against average with two shutouts in the playoffs. His .940 save percentage ranks secondbest in the BCHL.

“They do have a good d-corps and their goalie has played very well this season so it’s a big challenge for sure,” said Didmon.

“You have to come up with the optimism that you can compete in their barn and we’re going to have two cracks at it and we’re going to give a great effort (tonight) and hope for good results.

“Similar to (the Spruce Kings), we’ve shown great character to battle through some adversity

If we can limit their opportunities we’ll have a

We just have

to our plan. — Layton Ahac

and when times were tough we’ve found a way to get ourselves out of trouble. We have a lot of veterans on this team, guys who have been to the semifinals, and the fact they’re getting another crack at it, they’re excited.” Ahac, an Ohio State recruit, and Newhook are both highlytouted NHL prospects expected to go in the earlier rounds in the June draft in Vancouver. For one of them, this playoff series will be their last chance for them to showcase their talents for a BCHL crowd before they move on to their respective college teams. The Kings know Newhook’s capabilities and Ahac says they will be ready with a plan to limit the damage he can cause.

“He’s incredibly fast and smart, every shift he plays he’s a threat –incredible offensive ability – and he’ll be a tough player to play against but if we play the right way we can do it,” said Ahac.

“They’re a really good team, they’re opportunistic and if we overshoot they score on their chances. If we can limit their opportunities we’ll have a ton of success. We just have to stick to our plan. We play with a lot of structure, we take care of our own end and play the right way, we play physical, we play hard and we play fast. They played Game 7 Monday and it was a physical series too and think we’re at a huge advantage going into the series.”

As of Thursday afternoon only a handful of seats remained unsold for Friday’s game and a sellout crowd is also expected for Game 2 on Saturday at RMCA. Long bus trips are in store for both teams if this series goes the distance.

The Grizzlies will host Game 3 and 4 Monday and Tuesday. Game 5 would be played next Thursday in Prince George, with Game 6, if necessary, to follow on Saturday, April 6 in Victoria. Game 7 would be played Monday, April 8 in Prince George. Prediction: The Spruce Kings have the best defence and have enough firepower to keep pace. They’ll win this one in seven.

HANDOUT PHOTO

Emily Dickson of Burns Lake competes in Thursday’s junior women’s individual race at the Canadian/ North American biathlon championships at Callaghan

Burns goes country in new documentary

Citizen news service

At 5 a.m. on a cold Sunday morning in Nashville, Tenn., filmmaker Ken Burns climbed aboard a spacious, rumbling tour bus that that would become his home on wheels for the next four days, as well as a rolling advertisement for his upcoming PBS documentary Country Music.

He joked that if he had to pick a country song to kick of this promotional tour, it might be Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.

“We don’t have the big budgets that the premium cables or the streaming services do to promote a film,” said Burns, who brought along his two longtime co-producers, Dayton Duncan and Julie Dunfey, as well as Ketch Secor of the Grammy-winning string band Old Crow Medicine Show. “It’s like country music: you don’t get above your raisin’. You get out into the country and meet people in little towns and you talk to them.”

Much like a touring musician, Burns preached the gospel of country music along the route. He was interviewed by local media outlets, showed clips from the film and soaked up the local music history at places like Sun Studio in Memphis and the Birthplace of Country Music in Bristol, Va. The eight-part, 16-hour long film will air Sept. 15-18 and Sept. 22-25.

As the bus chugged along Interstate 40, Secor brought out a fiddle once owned by Roy Acuff for an impromptu performance of Wabash Cannonball with one of the film’s apprentice editors, Rebecca Branson Jones, on banjo.

Burns wrapped up the bus trip at the so-called Mother Church of Country Music, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, on Wednesday with a concert featuring many of the film’s featured artists including Rosanne Cash, Dierks Bentley, Rodney Crowell, Rhiannon Giddens, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam and more. Burns hosted the show, which chronicled the evolution from hillbilly music to one of the nation’s most popular genres that spans radio, TV and film. Burns and his production company, Florentine Films, are known for chronicling wide-ranging topics like the Civil War, base-

ball and the National Parks.

“Many of our stories help illuminate things that are essential to understanding who Americans are,” said Duncan, who also wrote a companion book for the film. “And nothing does that better than country music.”

They conducted over 100 interviews with artists like Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, Jack White, Elvis Costello and many more.

Twenty of the film’s interview subjects have since died, including Merle Haggard, Ralph Stanley, Little Jimmy Dickens and more. All

Def Leppard looking forward to hall of fame induction

Citizen news service

Joe Elliott has no problem addressing huge crowds at concerts.

But when his band Def Leppard gets inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Friday, it’s the speech that will make him uneasy.

“Getting up and going ‘How’s everybody doing? Are we ready to rock?’ is a lot easier than standing there, for God knows how long, trying to acknowledge and hope to God you haven’t forgot anybody –people that go back all the way to the beginning of the band, which is 40-odd years ago. So, no pressure,” Elliott joked.

Def Leppard – whose hits include Pour Some Sugar on Me, Love Bites, Foolin’ and Animal –enters the Rock Hall as a first-time nominee. They join a class that includes Roxy Music, Stevie Nicks, Janet Jackson, The Zombies, The Cure and Radiohead.

Def Leppard had been eligible to join rock gods such as Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley in the hall since 2005, but Elliott credited fans for creating a headwind during voting late last year.

The top five artists make up a special fan ballot that’s tallied along with other ballots that are submitted by industry officials, music writers and selected artists.

“We got this huge fan vote, which then really kind of turned

our heads as well. Because what it was then, it wasn’t just this faceless committee deciding who was cool enough and it was not good enough – it was the fans,” said Elliott. “And we’d been told the last six years whoever won the fan vote was, you know, inducted. We kind of figured if we win it, we’ll probably get in and here we are.”

The band will be inducted by Queen’s Brian May.

Elliott said Def Leppard and Queen have a history dating back to 1981, and said May has always been a “go-to guy” for the band.

“We first met him in Europe. We were opening for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, and I think Queen was recording Hot Space in Munich, maybe. And he came

in and said ‘Hi!’ and we were like just blown away. In 1983 we happened to be at the L.A. Forum and Brian was in town and he asked if he could come and jam with us, and we were like, ‘Are you kidding? Of course you can!”

Elliott shared how the band celebrated when they learned they were inducted.

“We were on tour in the U.K. and we were on a day off in a fantastic castle hotel on the outskirts of Glasgow in Scotland,” he said. “We decided we’d have dinner to celebrate it. So, we had this huge castle to ourselves. There’s nobody else in the dining room. We just sat at this big table, a couple bottles of bubbly and we just cheered each other. That’s it.”

their recorded interviews will be donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.

Their team looked through 100,000 photographs and 700 hours of archival footage and there are 600 music cues in the film. Legacy Records will also release a comprehensive music set to accompany the film’s airing.

“This is one of the most complicated films we’ve ever had to wrestle because we knew we couldn’t tell every story. We’re not an encyclopedia,” Burns said.

The film starts with the earliest recordings of country music in Bristol by producer Ralph Peer, who saw the commercial viability of artists like Jimmie Rodgers with his songs like In the Jailhouse Now and the first family of country music, the Carter Family. From there, each chapter features larger-than-life personalities, including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Parton, Kristofferson and ending with the era of Garth Brooks.

“We knew we were going to deal with these large, compelling personalities, people who brought themselves up out of poverty, people of enormous creative gifts,” Burns said.

The film also shows how country music has reflected the social, economic and cultural movements within America as the genre grew and adapted, from Lynn singing about reproductive rights in The Pill, to Charley Pride addressing racism as a black country musician and the outlaw country artists in the ‘70s responding to the counterculture movement.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO

Filmmaker Ken Burns poses in the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

Joe Elliott performs in 2012 with Def Leppard in Los Angeles.

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

Vivian Campbell, Phil Collen, Rick Savage, Joe Elliott and Rick Allen of Def Leppard in 2012.

Allan Russell Anderson

Went to be with his Dad on March 18, 2019 at the age of 67 years. Survived by his loving Mother Emily Anderson. Brother Alex (Heather) of Prince George, 2 Sisters, Marlene (Wayne) and Betty (Lyle) both of Prince George. Nephews, Wade (Tammy) Sharpe, Cole (Shallyn) Anderson. Nieces, Alana (Bob) Leclerc, Brittney (Mark) Edgson, Erin (Brodie) Norn. Great Nieces and Nephews, Kianna, Alex, Makenna, Kael, Alysa, Presley, Colbie, Avery, Cooper & Brett and many more relatives and friends. He was predeceased by his father Alexander Anderson. Allan was an exceptional son, brother, uncle & friend, thought of only his family and how he could help others. Allan was born and raised in Prince George and spent many years playing hockey and baseball. Fishing was Allans passion and he spent much time fishing with his brother Alex, his dad, nephews and friends. Allan was a wonderful uncle and was always interested in what his nephews and nieces were doing spending many weekends watching his nephews hockey games. There will be no service at his request. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Prince George Rotary Hospice House.

LEA,BrendaEleanora September15,1956-March26,2019 BrendawasbornSeptember15th,1956,andpassed awaypeacefullyinhersleeponMarch26,2019. BrendahadalongbattlewithAlzheimer’sthatshe foughtalongsideherbestfriend/husband,David (Dave),andwassobravelyfought. WithBrenda’sundyingfaithinGod,shehasgoneto meetourLordandSaviorinHeaven.Weknowshe wasgreetedatthegatebyallthosewhohavegone beforeher.Weweresoblessedtohaveherinour livesforthetimeshewashereonearth.

Inherpassing,sheleavesbehindherhusband,David S.Lea;daughters,AmandaLeaandTriniaLea;and heronlyson,DavidS.T.Lea.Brendawas predeceasedbyherfather,AdolfWronski,andher adoringmother,NellieWronski,aswellasherloving parents-in-law,TedandMargaretLea.

"I’llseeyouagain,thisisnotwhereitends.I’llcarry youwithme."

ACelebrationofLifewillbeplannedatalaterdate. AnydonationsshouldbesenttotheSPCA,asBrenda lovedallanimals.

Robin Gelsinger passed away March 25, after a brief battle with Pancreatic Cancer. Predeceased by both parents, Edwin & Helen Luce of Mafeking, MB. and eldest son Curt, she is survived by husband Larry, son Myron (Crystal) and two grandchildren Chelsa and Kevin, all of Prince George. Private family service to be held Saturday, March 30 at Fraserview Crematorium Chapel. In lieu of cards and flowers, donations may be made to Prince George Hospice Society or your local Red Cross.

SALLY ADOLPH was reunited with her son Gordon Adolph Sr. on March 25th 2019 at the age of 73 years. Sally is survived by her daughter; Nicole (Gord) Jobson and son Gordon Adolph Jr. She will be remembered by her 13 grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren, 5 brothers and 3 sisters. Sally was predeceased by her parents Sam & Euphrasia George and 4 brothers. Funeral services will be held on Saturday March 30 2019 at 2:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel with Eleanor Nooski officiating. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Family Resource Centre.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

BUD NIELSEN June 14, 1949March 6, 2019

Bud was born in Prince George and passed away peacefully in Fort St James after a long battle with heart failure. Bud had his wife Sherry and children - Ken, Linda,and James with him. He is survived by his brother Peter. There will be no funeral at his request, but a Celebration of Life will be held Saturday March 30.2019 at the Nak’albun Elementary School at 1180 Lakeshore Drive, in Fort St. James BC. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Heart & Stroke Foundation of BC/BC Children’s Hospital - Cardiology Research.

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Simon Fraser,Trent, Fairmont, Guelph, Gladstone,Hartford, Harvard, Imperial, Kingsley, Jean De Brebeuf Cres, Loyola, Latrobe, LeicesterPl, Princeton Cres, Prince Edward Cres, Newcastle, Melbourne, Loedel, Marine Pl, Hough Pl, Guerrier Pl, Sarah Pl, Lancaster, Lemoyne,

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Vautour, Joseph Alyre “Al” - Age 79 of Tatamagouche, N.S. and formerly of Prince George and Quesnel, passed away March 22, 2019 at home. Born in Blacks Harbour, N.B., June 18, 1939, he was a son of the late William J. and Madeline M. (Robichaud) Vautour. Al led an adventurous life, starting when leaving home at age 13 to join a circus and eventually riding the trains west until he reached British Columbia. He worked mostly in construction and eventually spending more than 30 years with Hydro Mechanical Ltd. In Prince George until his retirement. He was a hardworking man who started his day at 5 a.m. and got home in the early evening, never refusing when called in after hours or working away from home. Al and Pearl moved to Nova Scotia shortly after retiring and liked going for long drives to find a new restaurant on Friday “date night”, take pictures or visit with family in Cape Breton. Al liked good food, especially Pea Soup and was a devoted Vancouver Canucks fan. Al is survived by his wife, Pearl (Matheson); son, Herb (Sianne) and their daughter, Alencia; daughters, Collette (Wayne) Vautour and her children, Jesse, Monica, Shannon and Catlin; Madeline (Cory) Crane and her children, Haley and Sonia; Roxanne Baker, and her children; step-daughters, Paulette (Wade) Jackson and daughters, Kathleen and Alicia (Kirsten); Laura (Thane) Patriquin and children, Sarah, Thomas (Courtney) and Mark; 11 great grandchildren; sister, Gladys Sweet; nieces and nephews and many, many friends. Besides his parents, he was predeceased by son, Raymond; brothers, Wilfred, Raymond, Louis, Arthur and Eldric; sister, Eileen Bonnell. A time to celebrate Al’s life will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 30th in Coulter’s Funeral Home, 48 Riverside Drive, Tatamagouche. No funeral service to be held. Interment will be at a later date. Memorial donations to Lillian Fraser Memorial Hospital Foundation or a charity of one’s choice would be appreciated. Online condolences can be sent to the family by visiting the funeral home website at: www.mmcfunerals.com

AMELIA PETERSON - passed away peacefully in her home on Monday March 25, 2019. Amelia was born and raised in Prince George the daughter of the late Louis and Teresina Zimmaro. She is predeceased by her parents, sister Mary and brother Jim. Amelia is survived by her loving husband Neil and several nieces and nephews. Prayers will be said on Thursday March 28th 2019 at 7:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. Funeral Mass will be held on Friday March 29th, 2019 at 11:00am at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Rotary Hospice House.

LedcorConstructionLimitediscurrentlylookingto hireaSuperintendentinthePrinceGeorgearea.You areaSuperintendentwithover3yearsoffield operationsexperienceinaleadershipcapacity workingonmulti-disciplinarycommercial constructionprojects.Responsibilitieswillinclude safetyonsiteandensuringcomplianceofallLedcor andWorksafeBCregulations;ensuringthatthe projectsarebuiltaccordingtoplans,specifications, shopdrawings,buildingcodesandthatquality standardsaremaintained;developing,maintaining, anddrivingtheconstructionscheduleinconjunction withtheprojectteam;supervisingfieldemployees, ensuringtheirworkisplanned,performedefficiently, anddocumentsarecompletedaccurately. Interestedapplicantsarerequestedtoforward resumestoheather.taron@ledcor.com,nophone calls,please.Wethankallapplicantsinadvance,only thoseshortlistedwillbecontacted. www.ledcor.com

• • Central • Pineview • Domano Full Time and Temporary Routes Available. Contact for Details 250-562-3301 or rss@pgcitizen.ca