Prince George Airport Authority fire fighter trainee Roger Masse uses the Oshkosh Striker airport fire truck to put out a simulated aircraft fire on Wednesday during training at the airport. This was the first fire for Masse, and it was also the first time the Striker was used to put out a fire since it was acquired in late fall 2018.
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
The power sports has in society is reflected in the power sports had in the life of Gary Samis. It was more than athletics, more than competition, in fact those were almost side-effects in his mind. To him, sports was about how community came together in a shared experience. Now, the Prince George community is coming together to mourn the passing of a popular figure who stood at that intersection.
Gary Samis has always been a fan of sports. He watched them all. He organized pools for some of them. He cheered on his kids and grandkids as they played. He was one of the stalwart volunteers for
the 2015 Canada Winter Games, and won a Legacy Sport Difference Maker Award for those efforts. He was affectionately known as “The Commish” for his total fandom.
And after his retirement, he got himself his dream job with the Prince George Cougars as corporate sales manager. He fatally suffered a massive heart attack on May 13.
“I got lucky, that I had a dad like him,” said his son Ryan, on behalf of Samis’s wife of 44 years, Theresa, daughter Allison, six grandchildren, plus many other relatives and loved ones.
“He was such a nice individual. People obviously give their condolences, but what I’ve noticed is that people are genuinely upset, there are tears, big hugs, and I have experienced death before so
I know a little about how people are in those moments, but this is crazy – the amount of people who knew him and felt affected. I can’t go anywhere without being met by that, and that’s awesome, he
The B.C. Coroners Service has scheduled an inquest for a man who was shot to death in a standoff with RCMP at a remote cabin south of Valemount.
Starting on July 15 at the Prince George courthouse, coroner Donita Kuzma and a jury will hear evidence from witnesses regarding the circumstances surrounding death of John Robert Buehler.
Buehler was killed on Sept. 17, 2014 while his daughter, Shanna, was seriously wounded during a confrontation with RCMP after the two began squatting in a trapper’s cabin near Kinbasket Lake about 120 kilometres south of Valemount.
Described as a victim of a violent and abusive father who had come to believe he was a prophet of God and that the end-time was nearing, Shanna Buehler was sentenced in November 2017 to 18 months probation with a condi-
An armed John Buehler returned and charged towards the cabin, refusing to stop despite rounds of beanbag shots and flash-bang devices.
tional discharge. During her sentencing hearing, the court heard that when the cabin’s owner had shown up to prepare for the trapping season, John Buehler confronted him and said he wasn’t going to leave. RCMP, who had a previous run-in with Buehler, deployed two emergency response teams and a crisis negotiation team but made no headway.
On the evening of his death, the
Buehlers drove about two kilometres away from the cabin on small all-terrain vehicles and an RCMP emergency response team moved in to prevent the two from returning to the cabin.
As they took up positions around the building, the sun set and the site was in total darkness. An armed John Buehler returned and charged towards the cabin, refusing to stop despite rounds of beanbag shots and flash-bang devices. RCMP shot him dead when he attempted to use his rifles on police.
A month after Shanna Buehler was sentenced, the B.C. Prosecution Service said it would not pursue charges against members of the ERT.
The inquest jury will have the opportunity to make recommendations aimed at preventing deaths under similar circumstances. The B.C. Coroners Service is not a fault-finding agency.
would be proud of that. That right there is an accomplishment in his eyes, just to be remembered as a good person. That’s why we’re here. That’s what he was good at –so many people loved him.”
After he retired from his 32-year career with PetroCanada-Suncor, he was getting antsy to do something productive, said Ryan, so he and his friend Ken Goss turned the annual Prince George Cougars golf tournament into a fundraiser event for the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation.
That was seven years ago. The lives and trajectories of families and communities have been forever changed as a result of the effective work Samis poured into that task.
“It is one of the biggest charity golf tournaments in our city’s
history,” said Andy Beesley, vice-president of business for the Prince George Cougars Hockey Club. “It has tallied north of half a million dollars, unbelievably successful, and even though there is much that Gary could crow about, he never once took centre stage over any of it. He preferred to create, to motivate, to build, to manage, but not bask in any of it.” Beesley said his pleasant, affable attitude was no front, no affectation. He spent inordinate amounts of time with Samis and found the decency to be to the man’s core.
“The day-to-day way he approached people, acted as a role model, mentored, advised, helped – all these words that pile up like grains of sand into this mountain,” said Beesley.
— see ‘HE LEFT, page 3
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
A Quesnel man was sentenced Tuesday to 395 days in jail for leading police on a wild and lengthy chase while behind the wheel of a stolen pickup truck.
Eric Roger Johnson, 27, was also sentenced to 18 months probation and issued a twoyear driving prohibition for the February 10 incident that began when Quesnel RCMP got a report that a pickup had gone missing from a parking lot in the community 116 kilometres south of Quesnel. An officer spotted the vehicle on Highway 97 heading north. When the member tried to pull Johnson over, he took off. In the name of public safety, RCMP chose not to pursue him but Prince George and North District RCMP were alerted and an RCMP helicopter was deployed. RCMP tried for a second time to pull Johnson over at Red Rock but without success and he kept on going. With RCMP converg-
ing and the helicopter overhead, Johnson’s ride ended at Ginter’s Field where he tried but failed to flee on foot.
Johnson was driving like an “absolute madman” according to a witness.
“He did a couple 360s and ended up swerving in behind me so I pulled over,” Britt Bruneau told the Citizen at the time. No one was injured but Johnson did collide with a marked RCMP vehicle during the pursuit.
Johnson, who has remained in custody since his arrest for a total of 99 days, was sentenced on four counts.
He received 395 days for dangerous driving, and concurrent terms of 213 days for fleeing police and motor vehicle theft.
He was also convicted of driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08. The probation applies to all the counts and the driving prohibition to all but the theft count. — with files from Frank Peebles
A second Port of Prince Rupert container terminal will quadruple the northern port’s container-handling capacity and position it as Canada’s second-largest port, the Prince Rupert Port Authority said.
Port authority president Shaun Stevenson said recently-concluded master planning has identified property on Kaien Island, south of the existing Fairview Terminal, as the home for a second container terminal to meet increasing demand.
Stevenson said the facility would be immediately adjacent to the Ridley Island coal and grain terminals and near the Alta Gas
propane export terminal.
Stevenson said the land was originally planned to be the first container facility.
“This site has always been on our minds,” Stevenson said.
The new terminal would be able to handle 2.5 million 20-footequivalent units (TEUs) annually.
The expansion potential was identified after plans for a second expansion of Fairview was announced with DP World in 2018.
Fairview’s handling capacity is expected to grow from its current 1.35 million TEUs to 1.8 million by 2022. While he couldn’t confirm who the new terminal’s operator would be, Stevenson said, “We do have a very strong relationship with DP World.”
In August 2017, DP World unveiled a $200 million expansion to raise the Fairview container terminal’s annual capacity to 1.35 million TEUs from 776,412. The Dubai-based company operates more than 78 marine terminals around the world.
The port said both current and future terminal sites are close to supply chain logistics infrastructure. Stevenson said the work is partly a response to increased capacity demand at the port.
Many west coast ports experienced cargo backlog problems in 2018, but Stevenson said Prince Rupert remains mindful of freight velocity.
“We’re not facing the conges-
tions you’re seeing in other ports on the coast,” he said. He said CN’s investments on its line have been a boost for the port.
Stevenson said trade jousting between the U.S. and China has created surges of traffic through the port.
“Certain U.S. products are no longer moving to China,” he said. Moreover, he said, the port remains mindful of retaliatory gestures from Beijing after the arrest of telecommunications giant Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in December after an extradition warrant from Washington.
“We’re very mindful of canola exports – both bulk and container,” Stevenson said.
Prince Rupert is one of North America’s fastest growing container ports. Container traffic jumped 12 per cent, four times Vancouver’s three per cent increase, to 1,036,009 TEUs last year from 926,539 in 2017.
All other Prince Rupert terminals combined saw a 10 per cent increase, with 26.67 million tonnes (MMT) moved, compared with 24.17 MMT in 2017.
Prince Rupert’s potential container terminal traffic received a boost March 27 when the world’s 11th-largest container carrier, ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, announced it had partnered with the 2M Alliance vessel-sharing agreement and added Prince Rupert to its North American trade loop.
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A ban on small-scale open burning will be expanded to cover the entire Prince George Fire Centre jurisdiction starting midday tomorrow, the B.C. Wildfire Service said.
The ban, which had been in place for the Prince George and Stuart Nechako forest districts since May 8, does not apply to campfires provided they’re no large than a half-metre high by a halfmetre wide.
Small-scale or Category 2 open burning is defined as up to two piles no larger than two metres high by two metres wide and stubble or grass burning over
an area less than 0.2 hectares.
Large-scale or Category 3 open burning remains unaffected but continues to require a burn registration number from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.
As of Tuesday, there were no wildfires of note and the fire danger rating stood at moderate for most of the Prince George Fire Centre region. However, Environment Canada is forecasting sun with a high of 29 C for Prince George by Monday.
A similar ban has been in place for the Cariboo Fire Centre since May 10 while one for the Northwest Fire Centre was lifted on May 17.
Anyone found in contravention of an open burning prohibition may be issued a violation ticket for $1,150, required to pay an administrative penalty of $10,000 or, if convicted in court, fined up to $100,000 and/or sentenced to one year in jail. If the contravention causes or contributes to a wildfire, the person responsible may be ordered to pay all firefighting and associated costs.
To report a wildfire or open burning violation, call 1 800 663-5555 toll-free or *5555 on a cellphone.
For the latest information on current wildfire activity, burning restrictions, road closures and air quality advisories, go to www.bcwildfire.ca CITIZEN
— from page 1
“He was one of the most unusual people – in a very positive sense of the word – that I’ve ever worked with. He was so unique. My first thought when he passed away was feeling an immense hole, both personally and knowing what he meant within the whole community. That thought has changed now into a new feeling, and this is part of his essence, and it is feeling the weight of a mountain. He left a mountain as a legacy. He affected so much and so many, and he left us a way forward. We can keep building on that.”
Samis was so impressive to Beesley that in 2016 he offered the golf tournament organizer a job with the team. He said he hired Samis on a basis never seen before, that being Samis could fairly
name his own wage and his own hours, and that would be ok with the team. Beesley may have felt he was obtaining a major asset in the negotiations, landing a whopper free agent, but Ryan said the feeling was just as ebullient at the other end.
“I remember he was so excited about getting that job, because it was a dream, he always wanted to be part of a hockey team at that level, and he loved it every day,” Ryan said. “It had all these synergies, the tournament and the work with the Cougars, and it was pretty cool that he was able to put that icing on the cake, it was a huge part of his life, and a great way to end it.”
The end of Samis’s legacy is nowhere in sight. The dollars that he helped raise and the relationships he helped forge
will bind this community for untold amounts of time in incalculable ways.
The community can formally say goodbye at Samis’s celebration of life service this week. Samis was an active parishioner of Immaculate Conception Parish, serving on both the parish and finance councils. A prayer vigil will be held at Immaculate Conception today at 7 p.m.
The funeral will take place at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Friday at 10 a.m. Burial and reception to follow.
The family would like to extend a thank you “to the excellent care and dedication of the staff at the University Hospital of Northern BC and St. Paul’s, allowing family to properly say goodbye.” In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donations to the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation.
Neil Rahn pressure washes a John Deere 1910G Forwarder at CN Centre on Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the Canada North Resources Expo that takes place there on May 24 and May 25.
College of New Caledonia dental student Brooke Van Daele works on nine-year-old Balraj Ralla on Wednesday morning at CNC’s Dental Clinic during their annual Seal in a Smile program. For the next two weeks students from Harwin Elementary will receive polishes, flouride treatments, preventative sealants and oral health education from 12 dental students. Harwin students were given a gift bag full of oral health aids.
Laura KANE The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — An Indigenous protester opposed to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion interrupted a speech by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a Liberal fundraiser on Wednesday.
Will George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver stood up and called Trudeau a liar and a weak leader.
“Climate leaders don’t build pipelines. So many of our elected leaders in B.C. oppose the pipeline. The mayor of Vancouver got arrested opposing this pipeline,” he said, referring to Kennedy Stewart, who was arrested last year while still a New Democrat MP.
“I’m from Tsleil-Waututh Nation and we say no,” George added.
“Are you going to push this pipeline through?”
Trudeau greeted George by name and thanked him for being a strong voice for his community. As the protester continued to talk over him, Trudeau calmly asked if he could respond before saying his government is protecting the environment, including by bringing in a $1.5-billion plan to protect Canada’s oceans.
“There are strong Indigenous voices like yours, speaking up very strongly against this pipeline and against various projects.
“There are also, however, very strong Indigenous voices speaking up in favour of this project. I know you don’t mean to delegitimize their voices as well,” Trudeau said.
He said there are a broad range of perspectives and his government’s approach has always been to listen to diverse views and try to respond the best way it can.
“We’re never going to get to unanimity,” Trudeau said.
George asked Trudeau to meet with his people and accused the prime minister of only sitting down with groups that want to “sign off” on the project.
“What do you tell your children?” George asked.
“I honour my ancestors, my children, by protecting my lands and waters. You threaten our lands and waters. How dare you bring that through our waters? Those are our spiritual highways. You have no right to do that to us.”
Trudeau said George was welcome to stay if he wanted to listen, but he was eventually ushered out of the Opus Hotel in downtown Vancouver by a manager and an RCMP officer.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the event, singing and chanting anti-pipeline slogans.
Activists drove around the block in a truck with a billboard that read “Trudeau: No pipelines in a climate emergency.”
As George was leaving the event, Trudeau asked him to give his best to those gathered outside, saying their voices are very important to the next election. This isn’t the first time George has spoken out during an event with the prime minister.
In January, he called Trudeau a liar during a town hall meeting in Kamloops.
He was involved in launching a protest “watch house” near the Trans Mountain terminal in Burnaby where he stayed for about a year. He was also arrested while protesting the project on a nearby bridge, he said. Outside the hotel on Wednesday, George said he and another protester paid $250 each to attend the Liberal fundraiser and it was worth it to get inside to voice his concerns.
He said Trudeau didn’t answer any of his questions.
“It is frustrating. There are a lot of emotions when I go into these rooms and address him on such a serious matter,” he said.
George added that he understands why some First Nations support the Trans Mountain pipeline project.
“You’re looking at nations that can’t hunt or gather any more. They have to take these deals,” he said.
Trudeau’s speech was the first of two Liberal fundraising events in Vancouver
The Associated Presss
after he announced that 18 new ships will be built to renew the Canadian Coast Guard fleet at a cost of $15.7 billion. He told the audience at the lunchtime event that climate change is a real and pressing issue and Conservative politicians don’t believe it’s important to take action.
“There is unfortunately still a debate going on as to whether or not we should be fighting climate change. That sort of blows my mind,” he said.
tossed for man held 33
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A 62-yearold man who spent more than half his life in prison for the 1975 murder of a high school classmate had his conviction overturned Wednesday after a case review found Long Island prosecutors had long hid the fact that police looked at another possible suspect.
Other red flags in the case that put Keith Bush behind bars for 33 years included Bush’s claims that detectives used a telephone book to beat a confession out of him and a trial witness who later said she lied about seeing Bush and the victim together.
Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini, who went to court with Bush’s lawyer seeking to have the
The government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline and expansion project for $4.5 billion. Construction was put on hold last August after the Federal Court of Appeal struck down the federal permit for the project.
The project would triple the existing capacity from the Edmonton area to Burnaby, B.C., and increase the number of tankers in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet seven-fold.
conviction overturned, said it’s clear to him that Bush did not kill 14-year-old Sherese Watson. He apologized to Bush on behalf of his office and the law enforcement community.
“I am truly humbled by this decision,” Bush said.
Bush was 17 when Watson’s body was found in a vacant lot in North Bellport. They had attended the same house party a few blocks away, and a witness who testified at Bush’s trial said she had seen them leave together.
That woman later said she lied.
Convicted of murder and attempted sexual abuse, Bush spent 33 years in prison. He was paroled in 2007 and moved in with his mother in Bridgeport, Conn., but has had to register as a sex offender.
The rush to convict Bush, who is black, came at a time when the forces policing and prosecuting crime in Suffolk County were almost exclusively white men and prone to cutting corners. Watson was also black.
When interviewed by Sini’s investigators, a retired detective who worked on the case used a racist term to describe Bush and said “he should have been executed” for Watson’s killing, according to a report filed with the DA’s request to overturn the conviction. Sini called the review and reversal of Bush’s conviction “a window into a very dark aspect of Suffolk County’s history.”
During the investigation of Watson’s death, detectives interviewed John Jones, who said he had stumbled over her body while drunk, but neither police nor prosecutors informed Bush’s lawyers or the judge at his trial about the possible suspect.
The police department’s interest in Jones, who had a long criminal record and died in 2006, finally came to light last year when authorities turned over his police statement in response to a lawsuit seeking case records filed by Bush’s lawyer, Adele Bernhard. Bernhard runs the Post-Conviction Innocence Clinic at New York Law School.
The questions surrounding Bush’s conviction led Sini to order his newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit to conduct a full review of the case.
The unit’s nine-month investigation determined that it was “forensically impossible” for Watson to have been killed in the manner described in Bush’s confession. The investigation also debunked the trial prosecutor’s theory of how the crime unfolded.
Investigators reviewing Bush’s case said that in an interview this year, the detective who took his confession alluded to using coercive tactics.
“All the evidence used to convict Mr. Bush is undermined or simply not true,” Sini said.
“In fact, there’s evidence that goes to his actual innocence. There’s a much more probable suspect, and that’s John Jones.”
Stateside canal death gets settlement
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Council has approved a $175,000 settlement for the estate of a man who died after being electrocuted in an entertainment district canal.
The Oklahoman reports that the council voted Tuesday to settle a claim filed on behalf of the estate of 23-year-old Wesley W. Seeley of Tuttle.
Seeley was killed Sept. 30 when he fell into a canal in the Bricktown entertainment district and grabbed a lamp post to try and pull himself out. His estate alleged the city was negligent. The council approved a $169,650 claim earlier this month filed by 31-yearold Brandon Gann of Arkansas, who was shocked while trying to rescue Seeley. Work to replace the area’s lighting system is planned for next year.
Jonathan LEMIRE, Kevin FREKING
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The curtains in the Cabinet Room were drawn.
The Democrats were waiting. And U.S. President Donald Trump came and went in three minutes, never stopping to sit down or shake hands.
Trump’s angry walkout on Wednesday left behind a shattered bipartisan infrastructure effort and an escalation of tension between the president and the congressional Democrats investigating him.
He barked at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for earlier suggesting he was involved in a “coverup” and headed to the Rose Garden for an impromptu news conference in which he declared that he would not work with Democrats if they continue with their probes.
“I don’t do coverups,” Trump said. “You can’t do it under these circumstances. So get these phoney investigations over with.”
Trump’s anger had built well before he stepped into the Cabinet Room for a follow-up meeting with Democrats about an infrastructure deal that both parties already suspected was on life support.
Long upset by the wave of Democratic investigations into his administration, Trump was incensed by reports Tuesday that some of his closest former aides, including ex-communications director Hope Hicks, for whom the president has long had a soft spot, were being subpoenaed to testify, according to three White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing. The three spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
The president reached a boiling point just a few hours before the meeting when he saw media coverage of Pelosi’s remark. She told reporters after a private meeting with House Democrats that Trump was “engaged in a coverup” even as she tried to temper impeachment talk in her own party. Trump told aides that he would refuse to work with Democrats and, over some advisers’ objections, called for the
Rose Garden news conference.
After the president left the Cabinet Room, Pelosi looked across the table at Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others around the room and described how Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt brought people to the White House to solve infrastructure problems, but this president chose to walk out. The speaker added that she was not surprised Trump bailed, according to three people with knowledge of the exchange who spoke on condi-
tion of anonymity to describe the private moment.
Senior White House counsellor
Kellyanne Conway then whirled to Pelosi and asked if she had “a direct response to the president.”
Pelosi replied: “I’m responding to the president, not staff.”
Moments later, as the room emptied, Conway, miffed that Pelosi chose not to respond directly to her, turned to the speaker and said: “Really great, that’s really pro-woman of you.”
White House reporters were
The Canadian Press HIGH LEVEL, Alta. — The mayor of a northwestern Alberta town says the threat from a powerful wildfire burning three kilometres away has not passed and warns evacuees they could be out longer than expected.
High Level Mayor Crystal McAteer told a news conference Wednesday that firefighting is going well, but everyone is at the mercy of the weather.
“I want to stress the importance to everyone, especially evacuees, that the danger has not passed nor has it diminished,” McAteer said. “We know based on recent experiences of Slave Lake and of Fort McMurray that wildfires are highly unpredictable and can change at any moment.
“I am pleading with everyone to be patient and that the evacuation of High Level will continue into the foreseeable future.”
Nearly 5,000 people cleared out of High Level and nearby First Nations on the long weekend with flames from the out-of-control Chuckegg Creek fire licking at the southern edge of the community, located 750 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
Evacuee Stefanie Brown said she’s more concerned for the safety of those fighting the blaze than she is about the townhouse she left behind.
“If it burns down our stuff, we’ll buy more,” Brown said Wednesday after a 1,300-kilometre drive south to Medicine Hat, Alta., where her mother lives.
The school teacher’s car was gassed up, her devices charged and her bags packed by the time her phone blared Monday with an emergency alert that High Level was being evacuated.
She knew from experience how important it was to be prepared. Brown had to flee Medicine Hat during massive floods in 2013 and forgot to pack key documents and mementoes from her late father. Luckily, her second-floor condo stayed dry.
“The first time I didn’t listen when they told us to get prepared, and then, when it was time to go, I didn’t even know what to put in my car,” she recalled.
This time, Brown, her two children and two dogs piled into her hatchback to make it to safety.
Authorities handled the evacuation well, she added.
“They did it with enough advance notice and time that people didn’t panic.”
Officials said Wednesday they are continuing to prepare the town for any potential shift in winds.
“The High Level area has been experiencing drought-like conditions for quite some time,” said Scott Elliot with Alberta Wildfire.
“The fire has been exhibiting extreme behaviour for multiple days and has made control efforts extremely difficult.”
The good news, Elliot said, is the spread has been away from the community due to the winds.
“This has given us an opportu-
nity to put some preparation and control measures in place in order to manage the threat to the town,” he said.
Officials said they’ve been able to protect power poles to the west and the south and also created a fireguard between the fire and the town.
Winds were expected to shift slightly in the coming days and push smoke from the fires south rather than north.
“The forecast, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be giving us a break,” said Elliot.
“We are not really getting a big blast of
rain that we are going to need.”
If they get a west wind on the fire, he said, it will put the town and other nearby communities at increased risk.
The blaze has now eaten its way through about 920 square kilometres of forest, which is an area bigger than the size of Calgary.
Some 110 firefighters were working to protect structures in High Level and properties in Mackenzie County. Alberta Wildfire had 76 firefighters and 24 helicopters battling the blaze.
summoned for an unscheduled news conference in the Rose Garden, photographers jockeying for position in the moments before the president appeared. A printed sign that read “No Collusion” and “No Obstruction” was hastily posted on the president’s lectern. And Trump held up a printed version of an ABC News graphic depicting the cost and breadth of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, but notably did not highlight its second page – the one that listed the number of indictments Mueller produced.
Speaking at the Capitol a short time later, Pelosi again needled the president by invoking how Trump could not measure up to previous presidents.
“He just took a pass,” Pelosi said. “And it just makes me wonder why he did that. In any event, I pray for the president of the United States and I pray for the United States of America.”
Prospects for the meeting’s success were never high: Neither side wanted to unveil its plan to pay for the ambitious program while the term “Infrastructure Week” drew snickers from White House aides and reporters alike who recalled how other efforts at the initiative inevitably were overshadowed by chaos.
That happened again Wednesday, and as Washington reeled from the Rose Garden spectacle, Trump turned to Twitter to make his sarcastic retort: “Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it!” Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
The watchdogs and other senior officials aren’t exactly straining at their leashes to look into the various complaints about Citizens’ Services Minister Jinny Sims from her former constituency worker.
Kate Gillie raised several objections about Sims’ handling of various issues during the six weeks she worked for the minister early this year, before she was fired.
After that stint, she carpet-bombed numerous offices with complaints about the minister.
At least 11 offices have received communications from her, but there’s not much in the way of a formal investigation.
The only official response made public so far is from Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy. He just admitted in frustration that a loophole in the law prohibits him from doing much of anything.
He posted a public response that highlights the same gap identified after Facebook ignored his recommendations from a recent investigation into its privacy lapses – his office doesn’t have the clout it needs.
Vancouver lawyer Donald Sorochan had written on behalf of Gillie to McEvoy, concentrating on one complaint – improper
use of personal communication modes for government business in order to dodge freedom-of-information requirements.
McEvoy replied to her privately, saying he couldn’t help, but also issued a public response late last week.
He said the minister’s alleged failure to do her duty was not his responsibility to probe, because of a significant shortcoming in the legislation.
So who is responsible?
Why, it’s the minister herself, said McEvoy, highlighting the absurdity.
People would find it surprising “that on the face of it, the current law makes a minister responsible for investigating their own conduct,” he said.
That’s unacceptable, and the law needs to be changed, he urged.
Regardless of whether he has authority to pursue the matter, he said: “I can’t emphasize strongly enough, yet again, that it is extremely poor practice to use personal-communication tools for public business.”
The biggest reaction to Gillie’s complaints was in the legislature, where the opposition jumped on the issue and spent several days demanding answers from Sims.
She said office procedures have been fixed, but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
The varied allegations of hiding from FOI, improper fundraising and questionable vouching for foreigners wanting visas need some kind of review.
But Sorochan outlined the responses the whistleblower has received to date:
The ethics commissioner and conflictof-interest commission said they had no jurisdiction.
There was no response from two other offices.
The lobbyist registrar declined to look into it.
Attorney General David Eby, the government employees union, the NDP caucus and the premier’s office have also been contacted.
The only known response was from the premier’s office, where chief of staff Geoff Meggs looked into it. Sims herself disclosed that last week.
She told the house that after Gillie’s allegations were received, Meggs met with the executive director of the government caucus, who deals with constituency staff.
“The allegations were reviewed and there was no evidence to support them,” she said.
“The matter was dealt with by caucus because that is the right place for it to be dealt with. This is a human-resources
B.C. minimum wage goes from the current $12.65 to $13.85 effective June 1.
Franchise operations such as McDonalds, Wendy’s, A&W, Burger King, Dairy Queen and Tim Hortons will suffer from the new pay rates.
Why?
Owners of these franchise operations cannot increase their menu pricing because the menu pricing is set by the head office corporation outlets of these franchise operations.
This pay raise comes directly out of the bottom-line profit of these franchise owners. The only solution is to send some employees to the unemployment office and reduce hours for other employees.
Also some employees in these franchise operations are already paid higher than minimum wage because of years worked. These employees will also have to be given a pay raise. Some taxpayers voted for a change in government in the last
B.C. provincial election, but the new B.C. NDP minority government does not have any business sense.
Also, all of us as customers to the retail sector will now just have to wait longer at the cash out counters because there will be less cash checkouts open because of the new minimum wage.
The new B.C. government fails to realize that minimum wage pertains to small business.
They also fail to realize that along with the new minimum wage, comes employer paid benefits which amount to 35 per cent.
Add 35 per cent to the wage, this now makes the minimum wage $18.70 per hour, all coming out of the franchisee bottom line profit.
In closing, do not get frustrated when waiting in a line at a cash out counter, as it is not the problem of the retailers.
The longer wait lines were created by the no business sense B.C. NDP minority government. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk, Duncan, B.C.
On June 6, 1944, I arrived by boat on Juno Beach in Normandy, France, with the Canadian Scottish Regiment. My role was in the mortar platoon. On June 17, I was based in a barn, anticipating an attack that never came. I went into a nearby shed to disarm the grenades when one exploded, resulting in the loss of my right arm. When I returned to Canada, I became a member of The War Amps, which was started by amputee veterans returning from the First World War to help each other adapt to their new reality as amputees. Through the years, we have made it a goal to remember and commemorate our fallen comrades and to educate youth about the horrors of war.
In Normandy, many Canadians died or suffered wounds, that they had to carry for the rest of their lives. As we mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, it’s important that we never forget.
Allan Bacon, Toronto
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matter.”
Turn the tables and imagine the NDP in opposition accepting such a flimsy attempt to paper over a problem by the B.C. Liberals. They wouldn’t buy it for a minute. Gillie’s complaints are just unsupported allegations at this point.
But it would take a lot more than Premier Horgan’s chief of staff having a single meeting with a colleague and dismissing them all – according to the minister who is the subject of the complaints – to think that everything is just fine.
Sims has a track record of struggling to comply with information-management law. She had to apologize last year after a similar argument about her practice of forwarding government business from personal devices. (One of the documents she sent was to Meggs.)
And in the few days she has been forced to defend herself again during question period, Sims has blamed staff at the same time she has taken responsibility for any mistakes, contradicted parts of her version of events and, of course, accused the opposition of playing “gotcha” politics and spreading misinformation.
There isn’t much on the record to drive anyone to the conclusion that it’s all just “a human-resources matter.”
— Les Leyne, Glacier Media
After months of discussions, a barrage of statements from watchdog groups and endless social media posts from the interested public, the Government of British Columbia has decided to call a public inquiry into money laundering in the province. Support for this course of action had been extremely high in surveys conducted by Research Co. in June 2018, August 2018 and February 2019, with more than three in four residents believing a public inquiry had to be called.
Earlier this month, after the provincial administration announced that a public inquiry into money laundering would indeed take place, 86 per cent of British Columbians told Research Co. that they “strongly agree” (55 per cent) or “moderately agree” (31 per cent) with the government’s decision.
This leaves very few residents who are currently either opposed to the inquiry (six per cent) or undecided on whether it should happen (seven per cent). Strong majorities of British Columbians of all genders, age groups, regions and political allegiances are satisfied with the fact that the issue of money laundering will be scrutinized widely.
However, as the inquiry heads into its early stages, the public is divided on just what needs to happen after the final report is issued by the expected date of May 2021. A follow-up question shows some of the broad themes that are more significant in the minds of residents.
For more than a third of British Columbians (36 per cent), the most important issue that the inquiry should tackle is “identifying solutions to help reduce the current and future impact of money laundering in the province.”
The focus on solutions is on the minds of a plurality of residents of the province, and is a particularly popular option for women (38 per cent) and those who voted for the BC Liberals in the 2017 provincial election (41 per cent).
The second most important topic, at 30 per cent, is “finding out those responsible (in government and Crown corporations) for allowing money laundering to become such a big problem.”
Putting most of the effort of the public inquiry into the concept of accountability is more widespread among men than women (32 per cent to 28 per cent) and is particularly attractive to British Columbians aged 18 to 34 (33 per cent).
In spite of the political overtones that the inquiry’s findings will un-
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doubtedly take, there is little fluctuation when the accountability option is analyzed by which party residents voted for in 2017: 30 per cent for both BC Liberals and BC New Democratic Party (NDP) voters, and 32 per cent for those who supported the Green Party. Next, only 17 per cent of British Columbians believe it is of paramount significance to “recover ill-gotten gains and assets from people who laundered money in British Columbia.”
This option climbs to 24 per cent among residents aged 55 and over and 25 per cent among those who reside in Northern B.C.
Finally, 11 per cent of British Columbians want to devote more time to “figure out how money laundering became such a big problem.” This may very well be one of the features of the public inquiry, but most residents think it should not be handled as a priority.
There are several explanations for the way in which different demographics are imagining the shape that a public inquiry would take. While practically all groups wish to place an emphasis on solutions, there are some divisions on what to do and how to do it.
Those in the 18-to-34 age group, a generation that has voiced deep despair over the housing market, are more likely to be in the mood to punish public servants than their more settled older counterparts. One in four of those 55 and over are decidedly interested in bringing some of the money back, even if younger residents are more skeptical. Those in the 35-to-54 age group, as has often been the case during this debate, sit somewhere in the middle.
The way in which British Columbians will react to the public inquiry may change as the process begins and more revelations are placed in front of the public. The message right now appears to be: “Looking at the past without planning for the future will be futile.”
Right now, eradicating the practice in its current form and coming up with the proper regulations to make sure that money laundering does not come back, is top of mind for residents. Results are based on an online study conducted from May 16 to 19, 2019, among 800 adults in B.C. Mario Canseco is president of Research Co.
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Larissa ZIMBEROFF Bloomberg
Egg whites are universally accepted as a healthy source of protein. But because they come from chickens, one could worry about animal welfare, the environmental damage wrought by industrial poultry and even Salmonella – since the Food and Drug Administration estimates that 79,000 Americans are sickened by tainted eggs every year. Or maybe you’re just a vegetarian. Regardless, the way to solve all of these problems is to just make “eggs” from plants.
The market for such egg alternatives, once a fusty category targeted mostly at institutional bakers and vegans, is officially blowing up. One need only walk the aisles of the recent Natural Products Expo to spot fake egg whites in snacks of all sorts, or look around the grocery store for an uptick in the selection of “eggs” made from any number of ingredients decidedly unrelated to chickens.
But toppling real eggs isn’t going to be easy. Egg whites (the real kind) have long been the protein people refuse to do without because it’s seen as irreplaceable. Egg whites are the most efficient and allergenlight source of protein when compared with rivals such as whey, soy and pea. Moreover, food manufacturers rely on eggs because they add natural protein that’s flavourless and highly soluble.
Cholesterol, pollution and unhappy chickens notwithstanding, how do you replace something with all that going for it?
The first fake scrambled egg to market was VeganEgg, introduced by Follow Your Heart in 2015. That powdered-egg substitute was originally formulated with algae, but the company eventually swapped it out for soy powder. Chief executive officer Bob Goldberg said Follow Your Heart hopes to have a more convenient, liquid version on shelves by the end of this year. According to Nielsen, his product, which is used in Gardein frozen foods and some restaurants, is the No. 1 seller at Whole Foods. Another contender is Spero, a Bay Area-startup that’s making liquid eggs from pumpkin seed protein.
But the dominant player in the non-egg space is Just Inc., a $1 billion enterprise previously known as Hampton Creek.
The company launched its own liquid egg substitute late last year, one made primarily from protein derived from mung beans. The company said it has sold the equivalent of 3 million chicken eggs in the U.S. alone, but there’s still a long way to go: The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that total egg production in the U.S. was more than 8.5 billion in February alone.
CEO Josh Tetrick said the company will go public “at some point” and has signed partnership agreements with major chicken egg suppliers that will manufacture and distribute Just Egg. The companies, he said, will build factory lines separate from where they process real eggs. Tetrick said he plans to expand into Europe later this year and eventually Asia.
Nielsen data show that traditional eggs are still a $7 billion business. Right now, the market for egg substitutes is largely limited to those used as a component in cooking, particularly baking. Until a consumerfriendly alternative is invented – a plantbased egg substitute that can be quickly
used to make scrambled “eggs” or an “egg” sandwich, for example-the real egg market is unlikely to suffer.
Unsurprisingly, finding a popular consumer alternative to real eggs is what many in this sector consider true north. But for now, said Michele Simon, executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association, food service is the key to enacting real change.
“There are ways to quietly replace eggs in the food supply,” said Simon, whose group has grown from 22 company members to 140 since its founding three years ago.
describes the process: “We use the DNA that codes for certain proteins, then we use yeast (like beer or wine). Our yeast is a protein factory. It reads the DNA and churns out the protein.”
Consumer palatability is the hardest piece – an attachment to it coming from an animal. The fact that it doesn’t come from a chicken will alienate a lot of people.
“Most people don’t care as long as their cake is bouncy. You can change up an ingredient and it will be mostly invisible to consumers.”
— Arturo Elizondo, CEO Clara Foods
Clara Foods is doing just that. The San Francisco startup recently closed a Series B for more than $20 million with Ingredion-a major ingredient supplier – as the strategic partner. Part of IndieBio’s synthetic biology accelerator, Clara is coming to market with what it calls “the world’s most soluble protein.”
Arturo Elizondo, the CEO and co-founder,
The company has successfully recreated three different egg proteins (of the 80 that are found in a chicken egg) and plans to launch early next year with its first: a flavorless egg protein that can be used in drinks and food, and an egg protein that foams, which is especially useful in baked goods. Clara Foods hopes to convert manufacturers to its version of egg white proteins, but Elizondo recognizes that’s only half the battle.
“Consumer palatability is the hardest piece – an attachment to it coming from an animal,” he said. “The fact that it doesn’t come from a chicken will alienate a lot of people.”
Still, Elizondo said the success of companies in the beef space, where plant-based products that look and taste like meat are gaining traction, gives him hope.
But shifting consumer habits takes time. Egg Beaters, the leading liquid egg brand on
Last week, we were discussing the essential features of neurons and nerve transmission.
The central concept is neurons are unidirectional with information flowing in one end and out the other.
Neurons transmit signals via electrical pulses which travel down the cellular membrane through the controlled flux of sodium and potassium ions. These electrical pulses are structured in such a way as to ensure the signals only travel in one direction.
The strength of a signal is not controlled by the size of the electrical pulses. That is, a stronger signal doesn’t produce a higher voltage. Rather, it is the rapidity with which the pulses are transmitted which indicates the strength.
A slight touch might generate a half dozen signals per minute whereas a painful squeeze might generate a hundred pulses per second. And even that is a vast oversimplification. Since each neuron is connected to a myriad of other neurons and makes connections to as many others, a lot depends upon how many incoming dendrites are stimulated and how the connections are made.
Consider a simplistic model with a single neuron, say A, which has 100 dendrites. If all of the incoming dendrites on A are connected to a second neuron B, then if B sends signals to A, it could be activating any number from one to 100. The number of dendrites B is able to stimulate depends on the inputs it receives. Last week, we mentioned the axon hillock. Without enough stimulation, the potential will not pass the hillock and B would be silent. Hence, A would hear noth-
ing. Mild stimulation of B might trigger a potential which would stimulate most of the dendrites connecting to A but it would take a strong signal for B to fully connect with A.
Now consider A as it is connects its 100 dendrites to two neurons – say 50 from B and 50 from C – it would require both B and C to fire to generate a strong pulse from A especially if A’s hillock requires at least 60 receiving dendrites in order for a signal to pass.
This structure generates what is called an “and” gate. Stimulation must come from both B and C in order for A to transmit a signal. It is easy to model on a binary basis.
That is, B+C -> A but B, C or neither, generate no response. This is one of the key circuit structures in digital computers.
But in the case of the brain, a neuron can have any number of other neurons sending in signals.
For our neuron A with its 100 receiving dendrites, each one could be connected to a single other neuron. Now it wouldn’t simply be B+C but B+C+D+E+… and so on. In this case, over half of those neurons would need to be simultaneously stimulated in order to activate A.
Any neuron must integrate all of the inputs it receives and only when enough inputs are received will it pass the message along. In human terms, this is like a juicy piece of gossip. If you hear it from one person, you might not repeat it but when you are hearing it from 20 people,
the market with 27.3 per cent market share, said the entire industry is about to pivot.
“The world has changed. Eggs have been viewed as a villain – not good, with lots of cholesterol. That’s how Egg Beaters was created,” said Bob Nolan, senior vice president of demand science at Conagra Brands, its parent company.
“But then, in the last 10 years, it’s no longer a villain but celebrated.”
In addition to launching a whole-egg version of Egg Beaters this summer, Conagra is developing a plant-based liquid egg to be marketed under its Earth Balance brand.
“It’s about consumers wanting more choices and getting alternate forms of protein,” said Darren Seifer, executive director of market research firm NPD Group. “Eighty-six percent of people that use these (plant-based) products also eat meat. They aren’t vegetarian or vegan. It’s about giving choice to consumers.”
Beyond the ick factor, there is one more obstacle ahead for egg substitutes, however. Many of the product’s natural constituents aren’t big fans of processed food. By definition, fake eggs are processed food.
“Consumers want new and healthy foods,” said Peter Rahal, co-founder of protein bar maker Rxbar, which was sold to Kellogg in 2017 for $600 million.
“A lot of times, the ingredient deck might not look healthy or clean. There’s a tension between food science and consumers wanting healthy, heirloom and local.”
you might just begin to think it is fact and pass it along.
The same situation applies for the neurons A connects to next in the chain. Simply put, the more neurons it projects to, the more neurons it can influence but the smaller its average influence on each target neuron. It is a biological trade-off.
Again, in human terms, if you are living isolated with only one other person, you will each have a great deal of influence over one another but living in a city of 10,000, your influence might not be very much at all. We have also only been talking about the case of stimulating the receiving neuron to send a signal. Not every neural interaction is intended to stimulate. Some are inhibitory, shutting down a pathway.
Consider, for example, a three neuron circuit. A connects to both B and C. B pass the signal along while C connects back to A and shuts it down. If neuron A receives enough stimulation, it might transmit a signal to both B and C. B stimulates the next neuron or neurons but C stops the stimulation from A with the result that only a brief burst of activity is registered.
This sort of connection might happen in the case of sharp stabbing pain.
Other variations on inhibition and stimulation allow for more complex circuits and ultimately allows us to control our bodies. RELATIVITY TODD
The initial signal goes through and tells the rest of the brain but the backwards signal from C stops the pain from continuing. Or, at least, it inhibits A from firing again for a short while.
We feel this as anything from a quick twinge to an intense needlelike stabbing.
Citizen
Jill LAWLESS The Associated Press
LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May dug in Wednesday against a relentless push by rivals and former allies to remove her from office as her attempts to lead Britain out of the European Union appeared to be headed for a dead end.
May resisted calls to rip up her tattered Brexit blueprint and end her embattled premiership after her attempt at compromise was rejected by both her own Conservative Party and opposition lawmakers.
But it seemed only a matter of time. Amid a feverish mood as rumours and plots swirled through Parliament, Conservative lawmakers set up a showdown meeting with May for Friday, giving her less than 48 hours to announce she will go or face a renewed attempt to oust her. And a senior Cabinet minister quit with an excoriating letter attacking May’s failure to lead Britain out of the EU and hold her divided government together.
Financial Times.
In the House of Commons, May received a flurry of criticism and hostile questions as she implored lawmakers to support a bill implementing Britain’s departure from the EU that she plans to put to a vote in Parliament in June.
Nearly three years after British voters opted to leave the EU, May said “we need to see Brexit through, to honour the result of the referendum and to deliver the change the British people so clearly demanded.”
If Parliament rejected her deal, she said, “all we have before us is division and deadlock.”
That could serve as a fair summary of Britain’s current situation.
Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom alleged there had been “a complete breakdown of collective responsibility” in government, and said May’s Brexit plan would not “deliver on the referendum result” that saw voters in 2016 opt to leave the EU. Leadsom campaigned to leave the EU in the referendum and was a strong pro-Brexit voice in Cabinet.
Several other senior ministers were report-
About 25 years ago a friend of mine quit his pulp mill job in Prince Rupert.
“This is a dying industry,” he claimed, “and I’m going to get out of it while I’m still young and healthy.”
He then re-trained to a very specific skill set, but never really got a foothold. He continues to struggle now.
Also 25 years ago, a person I know was declaring bankruptcy, having failed in his first attempt to run a logging show. He started over, and eventually built up his reputation as a serious contender in the forest industry.
Today he is one of the most successful in the business, and has made enough money to make most of us blush.
Although things are rapidly changing, there is still a great deal of money to be made in the primary industries British Columbia has always been famous for. Yes, the economy is changing,
edly seeking meetings with May to express unhappiness with her Brexit plan – and possibly urge her to quit. But her spokesman, James Slack, said he was “not aware of any discussions” with Cabinet colleagues.
Lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, a leading Conservative moderate, said the only chance of delivering an orderly Brexit was for May “to go – and without delay.”
“She must announce her resignation after Thursday’s European elections. And the Conservative Party must fast track the leadership process to replace her,” he wrote in the
but it’s important to zig while others zag, to avoid long lineups in front of the latest greatest thing, and to find your own particular niche in an industry that is profitable, but unpopular.
Also 25 years ago, a highlytrained engineer was launching his career. Having always been the smartest kid in the class, he went into aerospace engineering, surely a promising place to work, right?
He could never have predicted what would hit the industry just after he bought that house with a picket fence in Seattle. He was working for Boeing, when 911 happened. The short term hit to the industry was devastating, and caused them to take a careful look at their business structure. This
Lawmakers have already rejected May’s divorce deal with the 27 other EU countries three times, and Britain’s long-scheduled departure date of March 29 passed with the country still in the bloc.
In a last-ditch bid to secure support for her Brexit plan, May on Tuesday announced concessions including a promise to give Parliament a vote on whether to hold a new referendum on Britain’s EU membership – something she has long ruled out.
“I have compromised. Now I ask you to compromise too,” she said.
But there was little sign her plea was being heeded. Pro-EU and pro-Brexit lawmakers have only hardened their positions during months of political trench warfare, and they are in no mood to compromise.
resulted in a massive offshoring of engineering work, which continues today. This highly educated, good man, continues to struggle to recover from this unfortunate setback.
When UBC student Tahir Adatia applied for a summer internship with an investment bank, he was the only philosophy major in a crowd of commerce students.
I told them straight up, I’m not technically gifted,” Adatia said.
“I bring something different.”
In the end, he landed the job. In the age of disruption, different can be good.
In a new RBC report, Bridging the Gap: What Canadians Told us about the Skills Revolution, they followed up on their landmark research paper into the future of work, titled Humans Wanted, by spending a year travelling across the country, engaging with students, educators, business owners and policymakers.
Over the course of those discussions, a number of insights emerged into how the skills revolution is playing out across our country – and the challenges we need to confront.
One of those challenges is that liberal arts programs are in decline – even though demand for their skills is up. They heard from employers that they are increasingly looking for candidates with the soft skills cultivated in the arts and sciences, such as critical thinking and communication – but post-secondary leaders told them enrolment in the Liberal Arts is down by double-digits.
In our tech-obsessed society, public discourse is so hostile to the humanities that young people are turning away from them, according to Patrick Deane, the president at McMaster University.
“Parents, governments and society at large underestimate the critical skills fostered in the humanities – this is a long-term systemic and cultural problem,” Deane said.
Between 2011 and 2017, enrolment in the humanities fell by 17.5 per cent. Over the same period, enrolment increased by 45 per cent in mathematics, computer and information sciences.
These areas of study are seen as a more direct path to a steady job after graduation, the holy grail for young people who grew up in the shadow of the Great Recession.
Students studying arts and
sciences find themselves worrying about where they fit into the future of work.
“Everyone’s scared of not getting a job,” Adatia said.
“You can have a passion but you can’t have a job, that’s the perception.”
But it’s not the reality. While students are increasingly choosing specialized training, employers are looking for well-rounded graduates. According to LinkedIn, the top soft skills employers are having trouble hiring for are creativity, persuasion and collaboration.
“Soft skills are every bit as important as numeracy,” said Steven Murphy, Ontario Tech’s president and vice chancellor.
Adatia, whose philosophy major is complimented by a minor in commerce, found his future employer was willing to help get him up to speed on the technical aspects of the job. The team was excited by the skills he already brought to the table, like the ability to think critically, argue and reason.
Today’s demand for a liberal arts skillset isn’t happening despite automation. It’s happening because of it. As more tasks become automated in the workplace, there is a growing demand for people with the skills to both complement and collaborate with technology.
Employers are looking for technical capacity as a baseline. Those who get hired, like Adatia, are the ones that can demonstrate communication and complex problem solving skills.
There is a growing push for interdisciplinary learning.
While STEM grads need soft skills, humanities programs need to focus on providing digital fluency to their students. Gone are the days when students can be a “master of one.”
The future of work may be changing, but Canada’s youth have the potential, the ambition and power to impact the world around them.
Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member – Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are Mark’s views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See Ryan’s website at: http://dir. rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan
sectors and ongoing concerns about the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 99.12 points at 16,327.35 with the energy, metals and mining, and financial sectors among the weakest.
Energy was the biggest loser on the day, falling 2.67 per cent. Crude oil prices dropped on a U.S. Energy Department weekly report pointing to surging U.S. stockpiles that have rekindled fears of a global supply glut.
The July crude contract was down $1.71 at US$61.42 per barrel and the August natural gas contract fell 8.2 cents to $2.57 per mmBTU. Materials were two per cent lower as copper prices continued to fall.
The June gold contract was up $1.00 at $1,274.20 an ounce but the July copper contract was down 3.7 cents at $2.68 a pound.
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. decreased another 10.6 per cent on the day.
The influential financials sector was also down as CIBC shares lost 4.4 per cent after it kicked off quarterly bank results by missing expectations. The gainers on the day were technology, consumer staples and health-care sectors. Concerns about the trade dispute between the U.S. and China spurred on by tough rhetoric from both sides sent North American stock markets lower.
“Investors are continuing to digest a flurry of headlines... where both the U.S. and China have ratcheted up their rhetoric and even assumed a tougher approach,” said Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager for Fiera Capital. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to blacklist as many as five more Chinese tech firms after last week’s ban on Huawei Technologies. That came a day after U.S. markets gained after the Trump administration temporarily eased trade restrictions on the Chinese company. China has also adopted a tough stance on negotiations even though it has more to lose than the U.S., said Bangsund. In New York, the Dow Jones
Stephen WHYNO
The Associated Press
Seeing the famous photo of Bobby Orr scoring the 1970 Stanley Cup-winning goal to beat his St. Louis Blues doesn’t bring back bad memories for Scotty Bowman.
“Not really,” the legendary coach said.
“Because we didn’t have a big opportunity to win that series.” Orr and the big, bad Boston Bruins swept Bowman’s overmatched, expansion-era Blues in that series.
Now 49 years later, Boston is in its third final in nine seasons and St. Louis is back for the first time since 1970, but this Bruins-Blues rematch is a showdown between two of the NHL’s best teams since Jan. 1.
“Now it’s more level,” Bowman said.
“(The Blues) don’t give a lot of room in their end, and of course their goalie’s been lights out.”
Coming off a sweep of Carolina in the Eastern Conference final, the Bruins are favoured in the series that begins Monday in Boston. Goaltender Tuukka Rask is the front-runner to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Brad Marchand is playing some of the best hockey of his career with 18 points in 17 games, and there’s a mix of veterans from the 2011 Stanley Cup-winning team and fresh players eager to get their names etched on the trophy.
“I think as you get older, you appreciate it even more, and you realize how hard it is to get to this point and advance and be thankful and stay in the moment,” centre Patrice Bergeron said.
“But then it’s back to work, and
there’s a lot of work in front of us.”
Unlike in 1970, when the Bruins essentially just had to step on the ice to take the final, these Blues won’t go away. They woke up last in the league on Jan. 3 before winning 30 of their final 45 games to roll into the playoffs, where they beat the Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks.
Craig Berube, who replaced Mike Yeo as Blues coach in November, said teams would rather avoid those tough times. But they’ve made his players stronger.
“We were trying to get on the right track,” Berube said after the Western Conference finalclinching Game 6 victory Tuesday.
“Once we got going in January and February, I knew we had a good hockey team. Once you get in the playoffs, anything can hap-
pen. We’re here and we did. They believed they were going to make the playoffs, and we’re here.”
The Blues are still here in large part because of rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington, whose first start in January coincided with the turnaround. They adopted Laura Branigan’s catchy 1980s pop hit Gloria as their victory song, rallied in the playoffs around young fan Laila Anderson, who has a lifethreatening immune disease, and became the NHL’s latest surprise story.
“The last couple months in the city have been crazy,” star winger Vladimir Tarasenko said. “The support is amazing. They give us a lot of power. Unbelievable.”
St. Louis is the oldest franchise not to win the Stanley Cup, and its drought is the second longest
behind the Toronto Maple Leafs’. The Leafs won the season before the Blues came into the league. To finish this improbable run, the Blues have to go through the Bruins, who finished tied for the second-most points this season.
“They are a hard team to play against, a really skilled team,” Tarasenko said. “But we have a hard team, too. It will be some interesting games.”
Bowman’s first thought about the series was that he couldn’t believe how long the Bruins will have to sit out. Boston will have a week and a half between finishing off Carolina and Game 1, and even St. Louis will go six days without playing.
One benefit for the Bruins is they should get captain Zdeno Chara back for the final after he missed Game 4 against Carolina.
Jimmy GOLEN The Associated Press
BOSTON — It’s been more than three months since the last championship parade in Boston, and the city is getting antsy. Sure, the Red Sox won the World Series last October. And the New England Patriots earned their sixth Super Bowl victory in February. But since then: nothing.
And Boston’s sports fans are counting on the Bruins to end the interminable title drought.
“It definitely lights a fire under you to see the other teams in the city bring home their championships,” defenceman Brandon Carlo said as the team prepared to face the St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup Final.
“We want to be a part of it.”
It wasn’t too long ago that Boston was a sad sack of a sports city, with the Patriots the joke of the NFL and the Red Sox mired in a dynasty of disappointment that would stretch to 86 years. The Celtics won far more than their share, but they endured the longest championship drought in franchise history from 1986-2008.
The Bruins went from Bobby Orr’s two championships in the early 1970s until Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron brought the Cup home in 2011.
If that doesn’t seem like a long time ago, try telling that to the newly spoiled Boston fans who have grown up with the Belichick-
CP FILE PHOTO
The Bruins are at their strongest heading into the Cup final, with a seven-game winning streak that includes a sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Goalie Tuukka Rask has allowed more than two goals just twice in the past 13 games, and he won the last two playoff clinchers with a shutout. Brad Marchand is the leading scorer remaining in the playoffs.
And, with the Celtics done, the Patriots in the off-season and the Red Sox still recovering from their early season championship hangover, the Bruins have the city’s attention.
Coach Bruce Cassidy said he has developed a relationship with the other coaches in town, and he reached out to the Patriots for advice on how to handle the long layoff between series.
The Celtics practice facility is next door to the Bruins’; on the morning of an NBA playoff game, Cassidy wore a Celtics shirt to his media availability.
When he took the podium for Wednesday’s news conference, Cassidy looked at the unusually large crowd and said, “Red Sox off today?” (They’re on the road.)
and-Brady Patriots and a Red Sox franchise that has won as many championships in the past 15 seasons as it did in the previous 100.
“It feels like there’s been a little bit of a gap in there,” said Carlo, a Coloradan who
is 22 years-old, and has only been in the city for three years.
“The way things have gone for Boston, we’re looking to be like the other teams.” And now they have their chance.
The Bruins have also noticed the difference when they’re out and run into fans around town.
“You do see how the city rallies around you,” Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk said.
The Canadian Press
TORONTO
— With his team pulling away in the fourth quarter of a pivotal playoff contest, Nick Nurse was standing by the broadcasters’ table and applauding the previously struggling Raptors bench players that had given Toronto a 99-82 lead in Game 4 of its NBA Eastern Conference final against the Milwaukee Bucks.
That’s when rap superstar and Raptors superfan Drake left his courtside seat to give the Toronto coach a quick shoulder massage.
Nurse tried hard to act like he hadn’t noticed. He claimed on a media conference call on Thursday that he didn’t even know he got it until someone showed him a picture of it.
“I didn’t even feel it. I was so locked into the game,” Nurse said. However, it seems like everyone else watching the game saw it, and of course social media debates were waged. Did Drake cross a boundary with his act of bonhomie, or were his actions an acceptable part of the NBA’s celebritydriven culture?
The move was in blatant disregard of the NBA’s fan conduct policy, which the Raptors faithful at Scotiabank Arena are lectured on via a jumbotron video several times per game.
But Drake is no ordinary fan. Love him or loathe him, he’s an entertainment icon who has used his celebrity to put his hometown on the map.
The Raptors, desperate to harness his star power, even made up a job for him back in 2013, granting him the ceremonial title of “global ambassador.”
What comes with that vague position?
On one hand, he has lent his powerful OVO brand to the team, with his signature black-and-gold colour scheme decorating one of the team’s alternate jerseys – as well as the Scotiabank Arena court during the Raptors’ Drake Night promotions – and his owl logo adorning the team’s practice facility.
On the other, it seems to involve trolling opposing players, hollering at referees and acting as a part-time masseur.
Drake seems to be even more animated in these playoffs, on his feet for most games and taking direct aim at the opposition’s superstars with mocking gestures.
“There’s certainly no place (on the court) for fans and, you know, whatever it is exactly that Drake is for the Toronto Raptors,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters on a conference call
Wednesday.
“You know, to be on the court, there’s boundaries and lines for a reason, and like I said, the league is usually pretty good at being on top of stuff like that.”
Although Drake has not explicitly spoken on the issue, he did like a fan’s comment about all the complaints and then screencaptured the comment and put it on his Instagram story on Wednesday night.
“Sports media needs to accept the simple rule the Miami Hurricanes signed into law back in the 80s: if you don’t want the opposing team to celebrate and dance, prevent them from scoring, winning, or achieving their objective. Get over it and keep it moving.”
Other teams have celebrity fans – the Los Angeles Lakers are the beloved team of actor Jack Nicholson while director Spike Lee has lived and died with the mercurial New York Knicks – but none seem
as polarizing as Drake. Whether his courtside actions are innocuous or obnoxious, they are always a talking point.
A few playoff highlights include:
The lint roller
Even if Drake’s courtside attire at Raptors games often channels high-school gym teacher rather than entertainment icon, he commits to his look. And apparently, that means no lint.
While not one of his more demonstrable antics, cameras caught Drake using a lint roller on his pants during Game 2 of Toronto’s first-round series with Brooklyn in the 2013-14 playoffs.
The clip went viral, and the team gave away Drake branded lint rollers before Game 5. One of the lint rollers was famously sold on eBay for over $55,000 in 2014.
The Cleveland confrontation Game 1 of the 2017-18 Eastern Conference semifinals was a dark time for the Raptors. The team
has just lost their series opener in overtime to bete noire LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers despite leading for much of the game. An agitated Drake had a heated confrontation with Cavaliers centre Kendrick Perkins after the game which included plenty of colourful language from both parties. The NBA reportedly warned Drake to tone down his antics after the incident.
The airplane You could forgive Joel Embiid for enjoying the moment. The star Philadelphia 76ers overcame injuries and a rogue digestive system to drop 33 points on the Raptors in Game 3 of this season’s conference semifinal between the teams.
Embiid engaged in all manner of celebrations throughout his big game, including spreading his arms and running around like an airplane in flight. When Embiid came back down to Earth and the Sixers dropped
Game 5 in Toronto, Drake mocked Embiid with an airplane celebration of his own.
Embiid took the ribbing in stride, telling Drake “I’ll be back for Game 7.”
Going at the Greek Freak Before this East final, Milwaukee radio station 103.7 KISS-FM invoked a moratorium on playing Drake’s hits, calling the rapper a “big smack-talker on the basketball court.” And so far Drake has not disappointed.
When Bucks behemoth Giannis Antetokounmpo fouled out in overtime of Game 3 after being shut down by Raptors superstar Kawhi Leonard, Drake waved a sarcastic goodbye to the MVP candidate as he left the court. Drake was even more animated in Game 4, laughing as Antetokounmpo bricked a free-throw attempt and punctuating his mirth with an exaggerated windmill motion with his arm.
Mark DIDTLER The Associated Press TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton took a step back in his return from arm injuries and won’t play in any rehabilitation games for seven to 10 days because of left calf tightness. Shortststop Didi Gregorius moved ahead toward a mid-June return when he went 1 for 3 with a walk as the designated hitter in an extended spring training game Wednesday after taking one day off due to dehydration.
Stanton hasn’t played for the Yankees since March 31 due to a strained left biceps and then a strained left shoulder. He went 1 for 3 with a home run and two strikeouts for Class A Tampa on Monday night, then was scratched from the lineup Tuesday.
New York said Wednesday he had been returned from his injury rehabilitation assignment.
Gregorius, coming back from Tommy John surgery last Oct. 17, was given an IV after following his first extended spring
training game Monday.
Following an hour of on-field pregame work, he played five innings in mid-90 degree conditions.
“What happened Monday? Dehydrated.
Just got headaches,” Gregorius said.
“Nothing too crazy. Felt good yesterday and today was really good. Everything is 100 per cent good.”
Gregorius injured the elbow while making a throw from left field after a ball bounced off Fenway Park’s Green Monster during
Game 2 of the AL Division Series at Boston on Oct. 6.
Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, sidelined since April 3 by a strained left calf, continued working on his defensive versatility by adding work at second base in addition to shortstop and third base. Tulowitzki could be ready to face pitching by the weekend. Outfield prospect Estevan Florial, who broke his right wrist during spring training, has been added to the active extended spring training roster.
Jake COYLE The Associated Press
CANNES, France — Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio said they forged a “cinematic bond” making Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, while Tarantino bristled at the suggestion at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday that Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate isn’t primary enough in the film.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood made its splashy premiere Tuesday evening at Cannes, 25 years after Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction debuted at the French Riviera festival, where it went on to win the Palme d’Or.
Tarantino’s latest is about an actor (DiCaprio) in TV Westerns and his stunt double (Pitt) in 1960s Los Angeles, set against the backdrop of the Manson family murders.
It’s the first time DiCaprio and Pitt have made a feature together, though the two co-starred in a 2015 short directed by Martin Scorsese. They both suggested it might not be the last.
“There was an incredible ease and comfort getting to work alongside Brad. We kind of grew up in the same generation, got our start around the same time,” said DiCaprio.
“We together forged, hopefully, a great cinematic bond in a film about our industry together.”
Pitt concurred.
“It’s that thing of knowing you’ve got the best-of-the-best on the opposite side of the table holding up the scene with you,” he said.
“I hope we get to do it again.”
The anticipation and glamour of
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood brought a frenzy unlike anything else has to this year’s Cannes. Festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux had desperately sought its inclusion. The film was a late addition after Tarantino was able to finish post-production work in time.
The stakes have been high for Sony Pictures, which gave Tarantino a $95 million budget to make what DiCaprio called “his love letter to the industry.”
On Wednesday, Sony Pictures
chief Tom Rothman sat front row as Tarantino and his cast spoke to reporters.
Tarantino was made a free agent in Hollywood after the downfall of his regular producer, Harvey Weinstein.
The director has previously acknowledged knowing about some of the accusations against Weinstein for years, saying: “I knew enough to do more than I did.”
Tarantino made no mention on Wednesday of Weinstein or the
controversy last year involving Uma Thurman. The actress said an unsafe stunt on Kill Bill left her neck and knees permanently damaged. Tarantino later apologized, calling the incident “the biggest regret of my life.”
He was, though, asked about his feelings toward director Roman Polanski, who was Tate’s husband at the time of the Manson family murders. Played by Rafal Zawierucha, Polanski is seen only sparingly in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
Tarantino previously defended Polanski for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, telling Howard Stern in 2003 that she “wanted to have it.”
On Wednesday, Tarantino said only that he’s a deep admirer of Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. He said he didn’t consult Polanski on the new film.
The tensest moment for Tarantino came when a New York Times reporter asked why an actress as talented as Robbie had relatively few lines in the film. Robbie’s Tate is largely a side narrative in the movie, which focuses on her fictional neighbours (DiCaprio and Pitt).
“I just reject your hypotheses,” Tarantino retorted curtly. Robbie gave a fuller defence, calling her Tate “a ray of light.”
She said Tarantino referred to her character as “the heartbeat of the story.”
“The moments that I got gave the opportunity to honour Sharon,” she said.
“I did feel like I got a lot of time to explore the character even without dialogue, specifically.”
When another reporter asked Tarantino if he ever had any hesitation about turning a real-life tragedy into a movie, he replied, simply: “Um, no.”
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, which opens in U.S. theatres on July 26, has been met with largely good reviews in Cannes, with critics calling it a nostalgic ode to a bygone Hollywood.
Asked if he would have rather made movies in 1969 than now, Tarantino said: “I prefer any time before cellphones.”
The American TV comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine is getting a French-Canadian adaptation that’ll reintroduce its characters with a Quebecois spin, according to reports from industry trades Deadline and the Hollywood Reporter.
The popular network program, which stars former Saturday Night Live comedian Andy Samberg as a New York police detective in Brooklyn’s 99th precinct, will get a makeover under Canadian broadcaster Quebecor’s content division. The revamped version of the series will be produced by ComediHa. Quebec actor Patrick Huard, known for his roles in Bon Cop, Bad Cop and Starbuck, will direct the
series, which heads into production this summer in Quebec City, the reports say.
It’s the first time the single-camera comedy, originally created by writer-producers Dan Goor and Michael Schur, has been reworked for an international market.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine recently wrapped its sixth season on NBC and Citytv in Canada, and has been renewed for next year.
Actor Patrick Huard is seen during the filming of the movie Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 in 2016. Now Huard will direct a Quebecois version of Brooklyn Nine Nine.
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, brother, uncle, papa and friend after a brave battle with cancer. A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Mackenzie and District Hospital Palliative unit. 8 puzzles, never opened $5 to $10. New Trival Pursuit game. 778-675-4716
GERARD LAVOIE 1948-2019
Donald Robert Leonard May 04, 1955 - May11, 2019
Donny retired 6 months ago from the logging industry hauling logs for over 40 years that was full of shared friendship and many many laughs. He was always there to lend a helping hand no matter what. He finally realized another longtime passion for touring on his motorcycle traveling almost 10,000kms where he had a tragic motorcycle accident in Tonasket, Washington USA. He leaves behind his loving wife, partner, best friend Therese together 45 years, his mother Gertrude Lebrun and her partner Jean-Marie Tremblay, sister Judith-Nicole, brothers Yves (Marie), Bruno (Mona), Remy, and many nieces, nephews and extended family in Ontario. He was predeceased by his father Albert Leonard who left behind his step family Georgette Morin, and children Gerald (Sylvie), Diane (Moreau), Rachel (Norm) McLaughlin. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday May 25th, 2019 at the Blackburn Community Hall at 2 pm. It’s not the destination; it’s the journey. Love Therese
Carol Rachel Elsie Miller Oct 23,1943 - May 14, 2019
It is with extreme sadness that we announce the passing of Carol Miller, beloved wife of Maynard Miller. Survived by Husband Maynard, Daughter Brenda Spencer, Son Rick Miller (Terry) Grand Children Melissa (Kal), Kaitlynn (Brad), Chad (Julie), Nicholle (Devon), Amanda (Braden) And eight great grand children Brother Blaine Stafford (Feerozah), Sister Gail Switzer Sister InLaws, Clarece Dyson, Pat Stafford and Judy Demman And numerous nieces, nephews and friends. Carol was born October 23,1943 in Cadomin Alberta, and her family moved to the Prince George area in 1949. Carol and Maynard met in 1958 and were married September 30, 1961. Carol was a loving wife, mother and homemaker who loved to watch sports live or on two televisions at the same time. Carol loved crocheting for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She also enjoyed the occasional Coors light. Predeceased by parents Roy and Adeline Stafford, Brother Garry Stafford, Nephew Jody Stafford and Brother In-Law Blake Switzer. Carol (Wife, Mom, Grandma, Sister, Sister in-law and Friend) will always be in our hearts, memories and thoughts. Services will be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel Saturday May 25, 2019 at 2:00 pm. Celebration of life to follow at Sandman Signature Hotel.
William Noel Greenley Nov 15, 1919 - May 12, 2019
Bill passed away peacefully at Gateway Care Home and joined his loving wife Margaret at the age of 99. He will greatly missed by his daughters; Loretta Bukmeier; Paulette ( Ken) Ng; Roberta ( Glen) Caston; Son Garry (Saline) Greenley; 10 grandchildren; 10 greatgrandchildren; sister Marie Smith; Sister in laws Anne (George) Young and Alma Gilby. Bill was predeceased by his son; Dennis; his parents; 2 brothers and 4 sisters; son in law Tim Bukmeier. Celebration of life will be held on Saturday May 25, 2019 at Assmans Funeral Chapel at 11:00am.
A special thank you to all the staff at Gateway and Dr. Siegling for all the love and wonderful care that you provided Dad. In lieu of flowers, donations would be gratefully appreciated to the Parkinson’s Society.
Barbara Dudley, mother, grandmother, and good friend passed away peacefully with family by her side on May 14, 2019 at the age of 77. Barb will be forever remembered by her children: David Emms, Lisa Stephenson, and Lesley Dudley. She will also be fondly remembered by her three sisters: Susan Dewhirst, Wendy Adderson, and Joan Cox, and her grandchildren Katelyn and Aiden Box. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Prince George Rotary Hospice House. Her sense of humor and adventure will be sadly missed.
“Manny”
Kayden Bruce Roberts
April 15, 1996 - May 4, 2019
It is with very heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our dearly beloved son, brother, father, nephew, cousin and friend, Kayden Roberts. He is survived by and will be greatly missed by his loving
Son: Warner Crue Wayne Lupul Roberts, Parents: Tanya White, John White, Brothers: Garrett (Christine) Wilgan and Donovan Blaine Roberts. Step-brothers: Brodie (Dani), Ryan (Jusstine), Trace (Paola), and Orrin (Kelsey) White, and brother of the heart
Daniel Fjellner. His maternal Grandmother: Inger Marie Wilgan, as well as many cherished Aunts, Uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and friends. Kayden is pre-deceased by his Father: Lauren Augusteen Roberts, Sister: Kristie Nicole Wilgan, Grandfather’s: Melvin Rene Roberts and Edwin Roy Wilgan, paternal Grandmother: Rosianne Marie Roberts, and Uncle: Bruce Murray Roberts. Funeral Services will be held on Saturday, June 1st , 2019 at 1:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel, 1908 Queensway Street, Prince George, BC. with a Celebration of Life to follow at 10335 Jutland Road.
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THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2019
Revolution, poverty, government oppression, military fear, fascism, abusive classism - Donna Morrison has seen all this and painted from it.
Now she is seeing new forms of social upheaval - climate crisis, mis/information torrent, online over-attention, food and trade insecurity - and she is painting that as well. She takes no advocacy position other than posing questions and opening conversation, all through her artwork.
Her latest show is called Choices: The New Temptation on now at the Studio 2880 Feature Gallery. It’s her exhibition flowing from being the Community Arts Council’s artist-in-residence at the Studio 2880 arts complex.
“It has been an amazing six months. This exhibition marks the halfway point of my residency,” she said. “It’s been really busy. I teach - I have about 30 students - and with a busy painting schedule it gets to be long days.”
It’s going to get even more intense. She is using the opportunity of a year’s free, unfettered studio space to build towards her next international exhibition. It opens this January in Mexico.
“Mexico is my birthplace of colour,” she said. “It is a land of colour, their art is so vibrant, and the Mexican people’s character has colour as well. I had not achieved that state until I spent a year on sojourn there in 1988-89 (following art school). I just rented a condo and painted there for a year and travelled locally from the east coast to the west coast (based in Merida). And from there I moved to Guatemala for three and a half years and saw a place even more impactful with colour but I was more open to it already because of Mexico.”
From there, it was off to other locales like a prolonged stay in South Korea, a couple of visits to Cuba, Berlin, and more. Always, she was in creative mode. She would seek out artists to work with, art projects to be involved with, and opportunities to exhibit her work.
Capturing the human condition led her to see current trade disputes like the America-China impasse, and the onslaught of screens as other forms of culture that people were becoming tribalized into.
“There are all kinds of new thought processes, things to explore, and for me its trying to get to know, or get a new feel, for what it all actually means,” she said. Those are the points on which her current exhibition hinge.
“I haven’t framed them, the works are hung just as they are, the oil paint on oilpaper, so they look like dreams or clouds hanging on the walls,” she explained.
“Once you frame them they can look complete, like facts, but these are not facts, they are just some impressions and ideas about what I’m hearing. We all have different needs in life so we need to have different opinions, too. These paintings are not expressing a set opinion, but I hope they open up new ideas for the viewers and new conversations that will explore these new conditions past generations never had to think about.”
Can we, in our Prince George community and our Canadian culture, sustain ourselves if times get tough? Can we feed ourselves, employ
ourselves, manufacture what we ourselves need? It’s easy to live when times are abundant but Morrison has seen how fragile life can be when a society shifts or a major unexpected event happens. Are we ready for those possibilities?
The answers to those questions are not presented in Choices: The New Temptation but the discussion is opened by the paintings on the Studio 2880 walls. They will hang there like thought bubbles until the show closes on June 6. It is free to drop in and view, whenever the Studio 2880 Gift Shoppe is open for business.
KATHY NADALIN
entenarian Mary (Ray) Westlake was born in 1919. The year 1919 was when dial telephones were introduced by the American Telephone and Telegraph company (AT&T) and the same year that the price of a postage stamp went from two cents to three cents.
Mary, one of six children, was born in Green Brier, Sask. Her father was born in Minnesota in 1892; at the age of 24 he moved to Saskatchewan and married her 18-year-old mother in 1916. When she was nine months old, Mary, her parents and her older brother moved to Fort Fraser, where four more children were born. When she was six years old, they moved south of Fort Fraser to Lily Lake where she grew up and went to school.
She attended a small two room school where she completed Grade 10 and then went to Fort Fraser and completed her grade 12. She graduated from high school, moved to Vancouver with a desire for a nursing career and attended St. Paul’s school of nursing for 10 months until she met Ralph Westlake. Ralph was born in Vancouver in 1913. Mary said, “We fell for each other right off. The war broke out and Ralph joined the army. I had to decide if I wanted to continue with nursing school or get married. Students attending nursing school were not allowed to be married. It was an easy decision so I gave up nursing school and married Ralph. He was called to duty the day after we got married in May of 1941. He came home on a two-week leave in July and returned to Ottawa where he was stationed and I went back to Lily Lake because I was pregnant.
“I got a job working at the post office until my baby Lenore was born in the spring of 1942. Ralph was in the signal corps, a military branch responsible for military communications. When he was dispatched to Victoria as a part of the Pacific Command we moved to Victoria. In 1945 he was sent to Australia and I moved back to Lily Lake a second time.”
The Pacific Command was a formation of the Canadian Army created during the Second World War to strengthen and administer home defense facilities on Canada’s Pacific Coast against a possible Japanese attack.
When Mary returned to her home at Lily Lake, she bought a 60-acre farm, complete with a new barn, for $1,000. When Ralph returned from the war, they built a house on the farm and their
family continued to grow.
Together they had three children; Lenore (Vic) Bowman born in 1942 and deceased in 1997, Ray (Lois) and Doug (Jetta). They have eight grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren and three great great grandchildren.
The young couple farmed at Lily Lake for nine years. The children were taking school by correspondence and in 1956 it was decided that the children needed to attend a proper school so the family moved into town. Their children went on to high school in Vanderhoof.
They ran the Co-op Store in Fort Fraser from 1956-1964 and later Mary cooked at Leo’s Grill. Ralph first worked at the sawmill and then for the forestry department.
In their spare time they took up curling and curled together for the next 40 years. They lived and worked in Fort Fraser for 38 years. When Ralph had a heart attack, he was forced to retire at the age of 67.
They moved to Prince George in 1995 to be closer to medical services and their family. They took up golfing and golfed at the Pine Valley Golf Centre five days a week.
They were married for 63 years when sadly Ralph passed away in 2004 at the
age of 90.
Mary said, “I took up curling at the age of 40 and started golfing at the age of 60. I gave up both curling and golfing at the age of 90. Now I just watch it (and the Canucks hockey games) on TV. I don’t need the volume on to watch it and I catch up on my sleep at the same time.
“I volunteered at the Brunswick Street senior centre until I took up carpet bowling. There are some mighty fine people at that senior centre and at the age of 100 I am still on the carpet bowling team.
“Over the past 100 years I have lived near Lily Lake, Fort Fraser, the coast and Prince George. I have learned a lot of things over the years and I have had some good times and some sad times but I lived through it all.
“I was thrilled when I won a brandnew Vauxhall car in 1960 and a trip to Disneyland in the mid-80s. These might seem like small things but they were great events in my life. Now my joy is my family, my friends and traveling to see the new babies as they arrive.
“My wonderful family recently threw me a huge party when I turned 100. I had so much fun and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the nearly 100
people who came to my party – half of them were relatives – to celebrate this event with me. It is still hard to believe that I am 100.
“My brother Alf, who lives in Vanderhoof and is 86 came to my party. Alf and I are the only two left out of the six of us. My oldest brother Stewart Ray, was also from Vanderhoof. He passed away just two months short of turning 100 years old.
“I saw many changes in this world over my life time and I would say that a memorable one would be the advances in communications. We were thrilled when we listened to the news for the first time over a radio broadcast and then many years later, we actually got a television set and saw and heard the news on TV. It was all so amazing. Now the technology includes stuff that I do not quite understand like cell phones, wireless service and stuff in the clouds. I have no clue about computers so I don’t have one and I don’t miss it.
“I have basically good health, maintained a good sense of humor and I like to have fun. I can tell you for sure that I did not like losing family members or my hearing. I thank the good Lord for hearing aids. Life is good!”
It was made into a major motion picture starring Peter Ustinov, Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher and an all-star supporting cast.
The community has a mortal booking but it’s the highly entertaining kind of brush with murder.
The Nechako Community Theatrics Society (NCTS) presents an old favourite whodunit for their next play, Agatha Christie’s Appointment With Death.
The amateur theatre company’s spokesperson for the play, Laura Bennett, said this was “a thrilling murder mystery set in Jerusalem, 1945. A reworking of her earlier novel, it contains enough plot twists and turns to keep even the best of amateur detectives on their toes.”
This was one of Christie’s best-loved murder mystery stories. It was first published in 1938 and features her longtime protagonist detective Hercule Poirot.
It was made into a television movie as well starring Christina Cole, Tim Curry and Elizabeth McGovern.
It was also a BBC radio play, but it has lived on most substantially in the form of a stage production that is done time after time around the world, thanks to the Samuel French Inc. script publishing house.
It becomes one of the most recognizable scripts the NCTS has ever produced.
“The society members discussed it and agreed they wanted to try something a bit more serious and give our acts a chance to develop a bit more,” said Bennett. “Up to this point we have done comedic things, fairy tales, local productions, things like that, so this was to give a new dimension to our society and our actors.”
The NCTS is a company with a difference in its mandate. It exists to give theatrical opportunities with an emphasis on inclusiveness. All backgrounds of people are welcome and encouraged to join their creative
efforts, which gives a chance for many who normally do not get to perform or work on a stage crew under normal circumstances. Many who do get those chances are also brought in to help mentor these aspiring creators and creates bridge relationships between NCTS and the other performing arts groups of the city.
“It really has stretched them,” said Bennett, watching the Appointment With Death rehearsal process. “We’re seeing some different work from our seasoned actors, and it brought out some others we had never worked with before who approached us to take part. I would say at least a third of the cast is new to us.”
NCTS was fonded in 2012. They were a 2018 nominee in the Lifestyle Transformation category of the Healthier You Awards, recognizing their work in encouraging local actors.
“I really feel that we are meeting our goal of making community theate accessible to a wide variety of people,” Bennett said. “In the past we have had actors as young as six, our oldest was in her 80s, we’ve had partici-
pants from AiMHi, from Project Friendship Society, several English-as-a- second-language actors in the past, so we try to finds space for people to be involved. If they can’t fit into one production, we try to plan ways of involving them in future productions. We are definitely open to whomever wants to come out from all walks of life. We have students, lawyers, teachers, just everyone.” This play is another step, as well, in advancing the crew’s skills. Bennett said each new show is a growth opportunity for their set builders, makeup artists, costume designers, music and choreography participants, and effects technicians. They, too, are gathered from the wide ranging community “and we are having fun with it, as we stretch ourselves. We know this is community theatre. We want it to be good, but we don’t stress about perfection.”
Appointment With Death will be performed at Artspace on May 31, June 1, June 7, and June 8 (all shows starting at 7 p.m.). Tickets are $20 each, available in advance at Books & Co., and at the door the evenings of the events.
97/16 STAFF
Over the last 25 years, Prince George physiotherapist Hilary Crowley has volunteered her time in India where she has helped develop a community-based disability program. She has now published a book about those experiences.
Footsteps to Freedom: Tales of Therapy in Rural India takes the reader into rural India during the height of the polio epidemic. Crowley describes how children progress from crawling in their village to rehabilitation and education to adults leading productive lives. It’s an opportunity to see life through the eyes of
these children and follow their footsteps. A book launch will be held on Wed., May 29 at Art Space above Books and Company, 7 p.m. start. Crowley will show slides from her work in India and give some short readings.
Proceeds from the book will go to the Samuha Overseas Development Association.
MFOOD FOR THOUGHT KELSEY LECKOVIC
ay is the unofficial kickoff to barbeque season for many Canadians and that means hot dogs, hamburgers, kebobs and the start of spring/ summer get-togethers with family and friends. While staying healthy can be a challenge, the tips listed below will help you start the grilling season off on a healthy and nutritious note:
1. Don’t forget to wash your hands
Washing your hands is not only the most effective way to protect yourself from a number of infectious diseases such as influenza and the common cold, it’ll also help to prevent the spread of infectious disease to others. Be sure to wash your hands for at least 15 seconds before and after handling any food and before handling any serving ware. Tip: 15 seconds is the length of time it takes to sing Happy Birthday.
2. Have two sets of barbeque tongs
Having two sets of tongs allows you to use one for handling raw meat, fish and poultry and one for taking cooked food off the grill. This prevents cross contamination between raw and cooked foods and helps prevent food poisoning. If you only have one set of tongs, you can also sanitize them between handling raw and cooked meat.
3. Sanitize as you go!
Sanitizing any surface that has touched raw meat will help to prevent the transfer of bacteria, which can cause food poisoning. Combine one teaspoon of bleach with three cups of water in a labeled spray bottle. Spray sanitizer on your countertops, cutting board, plates, utensils and any other surface that has touched raw meat. Allow the sanitizer to stand briefly before rinsing with lots of clean water and wiping with a clean, dry towel.
4. Cook to a safe temperature
Bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter are killed by heat and by cooking your meat to the recommended internal temperate, you’ll lessen your risk of foodborne illness. Keep in mind that the colour of a meat is not a reliable indicator that it is safe to eat; red meat can turn brown before all the bacteria is killed. For tips on how to use a food thermometer and guidance
Washington Post photo
Meat on the barbecue is fine but throwing some colourful veggies on the grill completes the meal.
on recommended cooking temperatures go to www.canada.ca and search “safe cooking temperatures.”
5. Avoid the danger zone –
Bacteria can grow quickly in food that has been left at room temperature between 4°C to 60°C (40°F to 140°F). Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers within two hours of preparing or removing from the fridge. On hot summer days, that deadline shortens to one hour. This rule also applies to fruit salad, melons, pasta and rice dishes.
6. Limit red and processed meat –
A diet high in red and processed meat has been shown to increase the risk for colon and rectal cancer by promoting the formation of cancer causing compounds. Many processed meats, including hot dogs, also contain nitrates or nitrites, which are additives that give processed meat its colour and flavour. Nitrates or nitrites may form cancercausing compounds in our bodies and should be avoided.
7. Eat the rainbow
Include a variety of colours in your barbeque choices to get a variety of nutrients in your meal. Thread cherry tomatoes, diced orange, green peppers, mushrooms, and red onions on wooden skewers that have been soaked for 30
enough to season eight chicken breasts or thighs.
10. Get creative!
A barbeque doesn’t always have to centre around hamburgers and hot dogs. Plant-based recipes, including the following for grilled lentil zucchini boats, can be an easy and more affordable alternative to red meat.
Grilled Lentil Zucchini Boats
Makes 8 servings
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive or canola oil
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
- 4 medium zucchini
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- ½ cup cooked or canned green lentils, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup fresh or dry breadcrumbs
- ½ cup grated aged Gouda, Parmesan, or crumbled feta
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
1. Pour ¼ cup oil into a small ramekin and add garlic; stir and set aside. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scrape out the insides, leaving about ¼ inch thick zucchini shells. Brush zucchini with garlic oil.
minutes. Grill your kabobs for four to five minutes on medium heat and enjoy!
8. Avoid burnt meat and flare-ups
When meat is cooked at high temperatures and animal fat drips onto the flames of a grill causing flare-ups, compounds are formed that have been found to be mutagenic, meaning these compounds cause changes in DNA and may increase your risk for developing cancer. To reduce your risk, trim visible fat from meat before barbequing to avoid flare-ups, cook smaller meat portions like kebobs, which take less time on the grill or choose wild meat more often than red and processed meat which does not seem to carry the same cancer risk.
9. Choose homemade sauces and rubs
Barbeque sauces and seasonings can be packed with both sugar and sodium and it can be difficult to find commercially prepared options that are lower in both. Making your own sauce or rub is the best way to have a healthy option that suits your tastes. For a low sodium Cajun spice mix, combine 4 tsp. dried oregano, 4 tsp. dried thyme, 4 tsp. garlic powder, 2 tsp. onion powder, 4 tsp. ground black pepper, 2 tsp. paprika, 1 tsp. salt and ½ tsp ground cayenne pepper. This seasoning mix will be
2. Roughly chop the scooped-out zucchini. Pour the rest of the garlic oil into a medium skillet over mediumhigh heat and sauté the onion and chopped zucchini for 3-4 minutes, until soft. Add the lentils and cook until any excess moisture has cooked off. Transfer to a bowl and toss with the breadcrumbs, half the grated cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Preheat your grill to medium-high. Season the zucchini with salt and pepper, then fill each zucchini shell with the mixture. Sprinkle each boat with the remaining cheese and grill for approximately 10 minutes, lowering the lid of your barbeque to allow the cheese to melt. Move the zucchini bowls around on the grill if there are any hot spots. Grill until tender and charred on bottom. Serve immediately.
Nutrition Facts per serving: 110 Calories, 7g Fat, 1g Saturated Fat, 5mg Cholesterol, 9g Carbohydrates, 2g Fibre, 1g Sugar, 4g Protein, 240mg Sodium
Recipe courtesy of www.cookspiration.com
Kelsey Leckovic is a registered dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.
Registration is now open for Sewing For Young Children and for Sewing Camps-Beginners, a pair of fiber art summer programs for youngsters being offered by the costume department at Theatre Northwest. The Sewing For Young Children classes run July 2-5 with options for morning (9 a.m. start) or afternoon (1:30 p.m. start). This class is designed for young children with an interest in learning to sew, ideal ages 8-10 years old. The class consists of 3 hours per day for 4 days.
The Sewing Camps-Beginners program runs July 22-26 afternoons only starting each day at 1:30. The ideal ages are 1015 years (as young as 8 for experienced kids) with no experience necessary. It runs three hours per day, producing a project each day.
Sign up at the Theatre Northwest website.
The Federation of Canadian Artists has a members’ show on display now at the Bob Harkins branch of the PG Public Library. This group exhibition by the
Central Interior Chapter runs through the month of May.
Vanderhoof painter Michael Rees is the subject of the solo exhibition on now at the Rustad Galleria in the Two Rivers Gallery.
Choices: The New Temptation is the art show by Donna Morrison on now at the Studio 2880 Feature Gallery. The show hangs until June 6.
Children Of The Wave, P.G.’s Black Sabbath surf-rock cover band, performs at The Legion on Friday at 9 p.m. featuring musician Britt AM and her full band. Cover is $10 at the door.
Alex Mackenzie is gonna need it so
CrossRoads Brewing takes it to the street on Saturday for the next in their Street Festival Series. Hosted by the PG Canoe & Kayak Club, this is a chance to come meet local enthusiasts of water, where you can sign up kids for day-long, week-long, and summer-long camps (plus biking and fishing opportunities as well - there’s be a bike jumping demo!) in a festival atmosphere in front of the downtown brewhouse from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The evening portion has three live bands - Barbed Wire, Studio 720 and The Dungarees - performing out of doors.
he’s hosting his Wish Me Luck Show on Saturday. The local comedian is heading off on national tour so he’s starting in hometown P.G. at the Prince George Playhouse starting at 7 p.m. He’ll make a contribution to the Hospice Society on his way out of town. Joining Mackenzie that night will be fellow local comics Mike McGuire, Jon White, and Cody Malbeuf. Tickets are $25 at Central Interior Tickets website (all ages welcome, some mature subject matter).
He’s a physician and a musician. Dr. Tom sings, fiddles, and heals. He is a founding member of popular local Celtic band Out Of Alba and that group will gather around him in his final solo concert as a Prince George resident. He is moving on for professional reasons, but wants to leave on some vibrant notes. Last Call - Dr Tom & Out of Alba happens Saturday at Artspace. Tickets are $20 at Books & Company while they last.
Acclaimed local photographer Philomena Hughes leads a one-day cellphone photography workshop on Saturday (also on June 22) at her studio at 423 Dominion Street from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost is $150 (lunch is included). Learn the snapshot potential we hold in our hands in our everyday smartphone devices.
Two Rivers Gallery is where fashion fans and recycling fans can meet on the glamour runway. Saturday at 7:30 p.m. is the Trashion Show - Where Art & Ecology Collide, hosted by the creative team at Adventures In Self-Sufficiency. They said “The Trashion Show is a fashion showcase that invites creators, makers, artists, and design enthusiasts to bring to life unique, creative designs made out of recyclable materials, salvaged finds, or anything that is saved from the landfill.” Tickets are $25.
Get bedazzled with colour as you walk a 5 km course at UNBC, all to raise funds for Prince George Hospice Society. This family-friendly event on Sunday is to walk and celebrate those we have loved. Walkers (individuals, teams and families) circle the university loop and clouds of various colours will be wildly thrown to celebrate life, some of it aimed at the participants. Wear white to show your true colours. Sunglasses for the first 250 to register: $25 per person, $75 for a family of three or more. Register at the EventBrite website.
The 25th Annual Kids Fun Triathlon happens Sunday starting at 9 a.m. at the Aquatic Centre. For kids aged 3-15. Email kostriathlon@gmail.com for information or contact the Stride ‘n’ Glide store to register for the Integris Kids Of Steel & Sprint Triathlon or go to the www. pgkidstri.ca website.
Star music ensemble O Sole Trio comes to the Prince George Playhouse on Sunday for a classical concert event in support of the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and the PG Italian Club. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. Admission is $50 at Central Interior Tickets. This is an encore performance by the U.S.-based vocal and instrumental power group, back by popular demand.
On Sunday, come to Omineca Arts Centre for “Prince George’s first (official) drone day celebration, featuring the weird, the experimental, and the innovative,” said event organizers. See (or rather, hear) Gamma Camera (Doug Koyama) supported by the Brain Porter and Sara Wray Enns. Following this sound performance, the night will close with a dance featuring electronic pulsations by deejay Mr. Vibacious.
Every Monday until May 27 from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, try your hand at a variety of tabletop games. All experience levels welcome. Bring your own decks for MtG, Pokemon or Yu-GiOh. For 13 to 18 yrs. For more information call 250-563-9251 or email ask@pgpl.ca.
The Omineca Arts Centre’s artist-inresidence for the month of May is Joseph Cunningham. He will have personal public interactions May 28-29 from 12-3 p.m.
Kitchener’s folk singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Richard Garvey and special guest act Origami Army perform at Nancy O’s on May 29 at 8:30 p.m. Cover is $10 at the door.
Pints ‘n’ Pedals is a fundraiser on May 29 for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s local chapter. Proceeds go to rebuilding the clubhouse, which burned down last year. The event happens at Trench Brewery (399 2nd Ave) at 7 p.m. with door prizes (featuring a mini-fridge full of beer) and a live comedy performance. Tickets are $20 and there will also be information to sign up for the annual Ride Don’t Hide bike event for mental health awareness coming up June 23.
Beloved local philanthropist and community activist Hilary Crowley makes her debut as an author at Artspace on May 29 from 7-9 p.m. He first book, Footsteps To Freedom, chronicles how she “helped set up a disability program in
South India and taught physiotherapy to village workers during the height of the polio epidemic.” Her Crowley read, show photos, and tell background stories about her aid work.
Singer-songwriter Vanessa Wittstruck is in the spotlight at Northern Lights Estate Winery on May 30. The popular local musician will perform in the bistro from 6-8 p.m.
The Nechako Community Theatrics Society is returning to Artspace on Friday May 31st, Saturday June 1st, Friday June 7th, and Saturday June 8th (all shows starting at 7pm) for a performance of Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie. Tickets are $20 each and available in advance at Books & Co., and at the door.
Kids learn the fundamentals of baking and art in the Art Monkeys Create & Bake pro-D day camp at Studio 2880 on May 31 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s for kids aged 6-11 for $60. Call 250-563-2880 for information or register online at www. studio2880.com.
The Community Arts Council hosts its
ever popular Spring Arts Bazaar on June 1 at the Studio 2880 complex (2880 15th Ave) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. the main feature is the high profile annual chili cookoff. Buy an original PG Potters’ Guild bowl and get a ticket to sample some of the best chili the city has to offer, then vote for your favourite. Artists, performers and a pottery sale abounds.
The District 57 Tapestry Singers complete their school year with a pair of concerts. Circle Of Friends is a show loaded with popular songs and dozens of talented youth voices. Showtimes at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. at St. Michael’s Anglican Church downtown. Tickets $15 (free for ages 5 and younger) available in advance from Studio 2880.
Standup star Derek Edwards comes to the Prince George Playhouse on June 9 on his Alls I’m Saying Tour. This veteran of Just For Laughs and The Debaters is considered to be among the comic elite, as evidenced by the fact that he’s a fourtime nominee, and winner of Best Standup Comic - Canadian Comedy Awards, as well as a multiple Gemini nominee for Best Performance in a Comedy. As Rick Mercer says, “Everyone knows Derek is the funniest man in Canada.” Get seats through the Central Interior Tickets website.
Alban Classical Arts Society presents
an oboe and piano recital on June 9 at 3 p.m. at Trinity United Church (3555 5th Ave). Tickets are $20 at the door.
The Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds holds its annual fiber arts conference from June 12-16 in Prince George. The event features workshops, seminars, a fashion show, exhibits, vendors’ market, awards, and more than 20 highlevel instructors all on site at the Prince George Civic & Convention Centre. Go to the anwgconference2019.com website for more info.
Judas Priest, one of the crunchiest metal bands of the glam era, roars into CN Centre on June 14 along with artful rockers Uriah Heap. Get tickets at the Tickets North website or the CN Centre box office.
Pacific Western Brewery is hosting Ribfest 2019, a three-day barbecue party (June 21-23) with world-class rib cooks from across Canada to tempt the city’s taste buds. They will be joined by complementary local food vendors, talented music acts performing live on-site, and the full power of PWB beer. It’s all free to attend the all-ages daytime portion (pay for the vendor wares you desire), with $5 cover charge for the +19 nighttime portions. All money raised goes to the many charitable causes of the Nechako Rotary Club.
We all face challenges in life, times when we feel like the bottom has fallen out and nothing is making sense.
While it may be tempting to give in to vengeful thoughts and actions, teachings developed in every culture point to the same principles. As we live by these ideals, life finds a way of sorting itself out.
British author James Allen knew a life of hardship. His father lost his factory job, so he left his wife and children behind to go to America and find work. He died shortly after his arrival in New York and James had to find work as a teen. Life gradually improved as he established himself as a writer and it was by expressing his core philosophies that he gained his greatest notoriety.
Allen became known for his book As a Man Thinketh, which is now in the public domain and still widely read. His lesser known 1910 work, Above Life’s Turmoil, beautifully summarizes how we
CHIDIAC
need to live when our worlds are turned upside down. The ideals Allen tells us to embrace are purity, patience, humility, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, fearlessness, knowledge, wisdom, compassion and love.
To be pure means to have utmost respect of ourselves and of others. In essence, it means to actually live by principles, to do what we know is right.
Humility, self-sacrifice and self-reliance can perhaps be looked at together.
Embracing self-reliance we recognize the fact that we do indeed have within us what is needed to overcome any challenge. Self-sacrifice recognizes that it will not be easy and we will have to work
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hard. Humility balances out the other two principles. We do not know everything and it is good to ask for help. We learn from others as we progress and we gratefully accept their support.
To live with fearlessness is simply to move forward in the confidence that all will be well. Fear is perhaps the most destructive emotion. It tells us that we have to get the other before they get us and that what we have can be taken away and never replaced. To live in fearlessness reminds us of the folly of this thinking. Regardless of what happens around us, we always maintain the freedom to choose how we will respond. That is indeed our greatest human power.
Knowledge is valuable because there is always more to learn. We gain greater understanding of the world around us and can thus respond to life more effectively. Wisdom takes this concept even further. We comprehend how to use knowledge to bring about the greatest good, thus bringing joy and meaning into our lives.
Love is greatly misunderstood, but it is perhaps best defined by St. Paul. It is patient and kind. It always rejoices in truth and always hopes. It does not judge and is not self-seeking. Love always perseveres. When we look on ourselves and others in this light, we cannot fail. Our impact will be enduring.
Love also allows us to see with compassion. We make mistakes, and so do others. Embracing this concept leads to
Love also allows us to see with compassion. We make mistakes, and so do others. Embracing this concept leads to profound forgiveness, which is perhaps the highest ideal a human being can obtain.
profound forgiveness, which is perhaps the highest ideal a human being can obtain.
These principles presented by Allen may seem unrealistic, but as I study people who triumphed over insurmountable difficulties, I see how central they were to their thoughts. It does not take much effort to find them in the writings of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl or Rwandan Genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza or Nelson Mandela or any other person who has tapped into the greatness which lies in all of us.
Yes, we will face challenges in life, and there is little we can do about what happens around us. What we do control is the way we respond, and that more than anything will determine our success. The path is clear. We need only take it. Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com
In the April 24th edition of The Citizen, there was article about the Saskatchewan firefighters and locals building fireguards. It reminded me of last year when rural residents were roundly criticized for ignoring evacuation orders and we heard so many of them chose to ignore the orders because they knew their livelihoods were at risk and didn’t feel their buildings and livestock would be a priority for the trained firefighters. They saw the risk to themselves as manageable and made the decision because they felt they knew the local terrain and roads well enough to stay safe.
Respect for local “lore,” experience, and knowledge, would go a long way to improving public trust when disasters strike. When the gap between the general public and the hired expert gets too large, we have poor cooperation and the costs of governance goes up.
We new Canadians are very good at ignoring historical, local anecdotal, knowledge. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, the practice became: “We know better than the people who were here first. We have science. They have only tales.”
What folly.
An example of local knowledge was explained in an article two years ago. A BC Interior Indigenous people’s tradition had been their “firemaker” went out each spring to set fires. I found that story very intriguing because a friend had just told me that the way to find the best wild
berry patches was to go to areas a fire had gone through seven years earlier. It is possible that the forests were managed with fires? Will we ever know? Or will we insist because the stories are not written down, they cannot possibly be verified? I am hopeful for change. A quick search yielded this quote from an online article on PLOS BLOGs by Jeff Atkins on the Australian “legend” of birds spreading wildfires: “….the use of indigenous ecological knowledge, the idea that the people who are from a place, know that place, and have intrinsically valuable insight, is (thankfully) becoming a more robust practice... Pairing strong empirical methods with the valuation of indigenous knowledge is a powerful tool that will help us better understand our world and has proven invaluable to researchers and policy makers.”
People know stuff. You don’t need a certificate to know stuff. Parents teach stuff to their kids. In a dream world, professionals would be taught how to glean the valuable knowledge of locals affected by whatever problem needs solving. This would go a long way to improving governance and compliance.
In a normal situation, interruptions to your day can be irritating or frustrating. There is so much to do in a day that when a speed bump hits, it can throw you off. Our world is go, go, go: school, work, home, homework, dinner, swim lessons, dance, music lessons, playtime, outside time, reading practice, writing practice, family movies, game night. The pace of life is relentless and exhausting. Every once in a while, something will happen which will force you to stop and just be. In my case, this came as a text from my daughter’s teacher letting me know that after an entire morning of uncharacteristic weeping, my daughter had fallen asleep in class and could I perhaps pick her up to sleep at home. I had spent the morning in meetings at work and run-
HOME AGAIN
MEGAN KUKLIS
ning around trying to stay on top of things and falling desperately behind because it is a busy time of year. I had a lot of work to do at work but I immediately agreed to go and get my daughter.
When I got to her classroom, she was still asleep in a little timeout tent and I had to wake her and we went home together, just the two of us. She ate her lunch in the car and since I neglected making my own lunch, I ate her leftovers because I’m a par-
ent and that’s what we do.
A testament to how she was feeling, she climbed into her bed without complaining and fell asleep for four hours. In the time between my daughter falling asleep and my son coming home, I was alone for two hours in the quiet of my own house.
I did not check my email. I wrote a little and did not worry about work. Instead, I watched a little TV and snuggled into the couch with a warm magic bag and enjoyed a forced interruption to my regular routine.
The internet is full of unhelpful memes aimed at “helping” moms remember to take time for themselves. The idea of “self-care” is a silly phrase that is functionally meaningless. Self-care to a working parent, or any parent really, is advertised
as taking a bubble bath or having a glass of wine at the end of a long day. Somehow, the magic of warm water and booze will make everything better and magically restore your energy for the rest of a busy week.
It doesn’t.
What does help though is a moment or two alone in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, with your youngest child in a deep restorative sleep in the room next to yours. Sometimes, an unplanned disruption is the best gift to help you slow down and recover the balance that is so sorely needed in our lives today.
Enjoy your own disruptions and remember to take care of yourselves in whatever way works for you.
Be kind.
FRANK PEEBLES
97/16 staff
The end of the school year always ends on a musical note whenever the District 57 Tapestry Singers are around.
The area’s premier school-based choir will perform their grand finale concert on June 1 with a pair of performances entitled Circle Of Friends.
Song selections during the shows will range from traditional to contemporary. Familiar melodies on the slate include The Garton Mother’s Lullaby, Chim Chim Cher-ee, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, By the Rivers of Babylon, A Thousand Years,
and Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive. Lesserknown songs such as Windy Nights, Ban Ban, Caliban, Banjo Pickin’ Girl and Circle Of Friends will also be given the spotlight. The District 57 Tapestry Singers are comprised of a junior and a senior choir. The program is led by founder and artistic director Carolyn Duerksen and backed by accompanist Maureen Nielsen on piano. During Circle Of Friends, both choirs will take their turns entertaining the audience and demonstrating their musical growth. They will be aided by special guests Barb Parker, Curtis Abriel, Jose Delgado-Guevara, Flora Camuzet and Rob Hannigan.
Several selections feature choreography by senior choir singer Ellie Prendergast and are complemented by the talents of local dancer/educator Kristen Helfrich.
The Junior Tapestry Singers range from Grades 4-7 and are formed by 24 students from School District 57. The Senior Tapestry Singers, 26 of them, are in Grades 8-12.
As a program, the juniors are celebrating their sixth season, while the seniors are in their 12th.
During the past dozen years, the Senior Tapestry Singers have collaborated four times with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra. Both the junior and senior
choral groups were recognized for their excellence at the recent Prince George Music Festival, where they were recommended to the provincial level of competition. The Senior Tapestry Singers also received a provincial recommendation at the Vancouver Kiwanis Music Festival.
Circle Of Friends will be performed June 1 at 1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at St. Michael’s Anglican Church located downtown at 1505 Fifth Avenue.
Tickets for Circle of Friends are $15 and available at Studio 2880 (2880 15th Avenue). Kids aged five and under can watch and listen for free.
POST
The day after 9-year-old Shailyn Ryan learned how to do the Heimlich maneuver at a Home Alone kids safety class in her Massachusetts town, she looked up and saw her friend turning blue.
It was during lunch in the cafeteria on May 1 at Marguerite Peaslee Elementary School in Northborough when Shailyn suddenly felt a hand grip her left shoulder.
Her good friend and soccer teammate, Keira Silvia, 8, held a hand to her own throat and her face rapidly turned red, then blue. Keira was unable to speak, but Shailyn knew she was choking.
Shailyn leaped from her seat, stood behind Keira, tipped her friend slightly forward, then wrapped her arms around her waist. Making a fist with one hand and grasping it with her other hand above Keira’s navel, she then pressed as hard as she could into her abdomen, pushing upward as though she was trying to lift her up. Just as she had learned to do 16 hours earlier. Almost immediately, a hot dog piece that Keira had been choking on popped up from her throat. It happened so quickly that cafeteria workers and most of the kids in the lunchroom didn’t even notice.
“I didn’t really think about it - I just did it,” said Shailyn, who is now being hailed as a hero in Northborough, population 15,033, about an hour’s drive from Boston. “I wasn’t scared, but I knew that I had to do something fast, so I did.” And she did it just right.
Keira was back playing soccer and football with her friends the very next day.
“She’s awesome, a really good friend,” said Keira, who like Shailyn, is in the third grade. Then Keira explained how it happened.
“I swallowed too much of my hot dog and I was choking and couldn’t breathe - it was scary,” she said. “After Shailyn helped me, I cried and I hugged her. And yeah, I told her ‘thank you.’”
Parents of the girls, school administrators and
Washington Post photo courtesy of Jill Barnhardt
Third grader Shailyn Ryan, right, performed the Heimlich maneuver on her friend Keira Silvia, left, the day after learning how to do it.
teachers in Northborough now have a message they’d like others to hear: children are capable of much more than they’re often given credit for.
“It’s important to teach lifesaving skills to children and adults of all ages,” said Allie Lane, a director at the Northborough Recreation Center where Shailyn signed up for a two-hour evening safety class geared toward kids ages 9 to 11.
“Shailyn was able to take what she’d learned the night before and apply it to real life,” Lane said.
Keira’s mother, Noel Silvia, still marvels at the timing of it all.
“It really is incredible how it all happened - that Shailyn had just learned how to do the Heimlich maneuver and happened to be sitting near Keira the next day when she started choking,” Silvia said.
She called Shailyn “an angel who likely saved my daughter’s life.”
“Shailyn didn’t hesitate, she remembered what she’d been taught and she calmly did it,”
said Silvia, 47.
Shailyn, an only child, said she signed up for the Home Alone safety class at her local recreation centre because she’d always wanted to learn first aid skills, phone etiquette and other tasks that might come in handy when she is old enough to babysit.
At the class, she and several other children also watched a safety video and practiced doing the Heimlich maneuver on each other.
“She came home that night and talked about everything she’d learned - the Heimlich, making snacks when she’s home alone and first aid, like how to get a bee’s stinger out of your arm,” said Shailyn’s mother, Laurie Ryan.
Laurie Ryan was shocked to get a phone call from the school nurse at lunchtime the next day.
“She told me, ‘Shailyn’s fine, so don’t worry. She’s a hero,’” Ryan recalled. “When she said that Shailyn had given Keira the Heimlich maneuver, I was in awe.”
“One, I couldn’t believe what had happened,” she said. “And two, I was stunned that Shailyn was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. I felt incredibly proud. She kept her cool.”
A few days after the incident, Shailyn was honored at a school assembly and given a certificate of recognition by principal Jill Barnhardt.
“We’re very proud of both Shailyn and Keira for their actions during this situation,” Barnhardt said. “Shailyn’s calm response to her friend’s distress was immediate and effective.” Shailyn was also thrilled to get a personal tour of her neighborhood’s fire department since she now dreams of becoming an ambulance paramedic.
“That would be cool, or working in a hospital,” she said. “I want to save more lives.”
Keira also has plans for herself: “I never want to eat another hot dog again.”
It makes me sad to think of those who have left 12-step programs because of misunderstanding, anger, rage or denial. I read/hear all these reasons and many are legitimate to me. It is not the steps which fail but rather, the fallible humans who interpret the program. We are after all, in 12 step rooms because we know we are unwell. The literature clearly says we are not saints but oftentimes I/we forget this vital fact. Some in the rooms think the program belongs only to them. There have been (and are) attempts, through language and judgment to keep others out. Some in the rooms state you cannot share your experience (or do not belong or are not in recovery) if you take any mind/ mood-altering drug, yet with psychotic disorders, mind-altering medications are prescribed, ones which target the mind for hallucinations and delusions. In depression and bipolar disorder, mood-altering meds are given to alter depressive or high moods. These medications do not cause euphoria and you most certainly
won’t find anyone working the streets, selling their body to get more Prozac for their disease of addiction.
There are those also who say you are not in recovery if you take methadone or suboxone, when some hold stable jobs, are not conducting crime, selling their body or hurting others (plus are not dying, the most important point in recovery today). This is particularly annoying, when after I hear such words, I see this person who made these misguided (often judgmental) statements, go outside and vape or light a cigarette and inhale their nicotine drugs.
The program clearly states our problem is of a spiritual malady and that drug/ alcohol use is a symptom of that. Yet many leave the program because of the
G-O-D word; it is a common complaint and perhaps a reflection of their reaction to the fallible people who mistakenly tout religion in the rooms.
I need to critically evaluate all of what I hear and not allow another’s misunderstanding of the program to drive me back out (as I know that is my addiction talking to me). This is why I write all of the above, to encourage you, if and when you enter the rooms, to not allow your addiction to drive you out, through our own, often fallible human mistakes.
I believe 12 steps work for any life problem that ails us. Just the other day, I found a 12-step group named Clutters Anonymous. I chuckled at first then realized how life threatening and disrupting hoarding can be, and oftentimes it begins innocuously through clutter (just like addiction does, with that first drink I took as a teen).
Thus I am wanting to present the program to you, for all of what ails us. It is a design for living. You can take what works and leave the rest. It won’t hurt
but rather, if you take a leap of faith, it will change your life in ways you could never imagine. You cannot even dream what the incredible outcomes will be. I have to stop typing due to word limits and will later present my interpretation of the first step for all those in the world with regular life issues (anger, pain, resentment, stress, grudges, jealousy, insecurity, anxiety, fear, loathing, judgment, etc).
The 12 steps work for everyone, not just those with an addictive disorder. I believe that if everyone worked it, the world would most certainly change. It is even something that can be taught to our children because it will ease any angst they might feel about the world they live in today, particularly those with social media and bullying or any other life stressors they might experience today.
– Questions for Ann? Send your submissions (anonymously, if you choose) to columns@pgcitizen.ca and we’ll pass them along.
Parents should always be supportive and helpful no matter what their kids choose to do with their lives, or at least that’s my understanding of parenthood. People make different decisions. Those decisions sometimes make their parents proud, sometimes
worried, and sometimes disappointed. Looking at my life and my decisions, I usually ask myself how my parents are feeling about me and my life.
My mom used to spend hours and hours of her day in the kitchen for cooking meals. My dad would be in the
NAHID TAHERI
middle of the living room and spent hours and hours of his evening reading books. I was little and I was so in love with the food my mom cooked. She was and still is an amazing cook. I was little and I couldn’t read and write yet, but I loved to just lay down beside my dad and watch him reading. Between staying in the kitchen or the living room, I always had a very difficult decision to make as a kid.
My dad always wanted us to study hard, go to university and find a wellpaying job. He wanted us to be perfect in his own way. My mom always wanted us – my sister and I – to be a great cook like her, know sewing, know all the cleaning techniques, know how to take care of plants, to keep our closets neat and tidy. She wanted us to be perfect in her own way. Here comes the difficult decision again: between my mom’s preferred lifestyle and my dad’s, I was so confused that I did not think I could have a little bit of everything and make them both happy and proud of myself.
My sister was painting, she was reading poems and memorizing them, sometimes she was writing poems herself. My sister had too many friends, unlike me. When she was hanging out with her friends, I used to imagine my bed as a boat. I was all alone with myself in an ocean and I had to find a way to survive. My friend was my white and green stuffed panda!
My sister went to university, as my father liked, but she got married very soon and then became a mother herself. We were sharing a bedroom in my parents’ house. When she left, I just felt lonelier in my imaginary ocean.
My brother is the only boy in our family. Traditional families in my home country like and value boys more than girls. My mom is kind of traditional. Not
that I am jealous of him, but sometimes when I was younger, I wished I was a boy. My brother started working when he finished high school. He decided not to go to university. He is successful at what he is doing, but that is not what my dad wanted. I never could relate to my brother very much. It seems we belong to two different worlds. He is more religious than me and the rest of us. From having endless and pointless discussions about everything, I slowly came to this understanding that he sees things differently. I started to learn that being siblings does not mean we have to think in the same way and live the same life. I’ve always been a very good student. That was making my dad happy. As soon as I learned our own alphabet and became capable of reading and writing, he registered me for an after-school class to learn English. He was bright and I should thank him to force me learning and practicing English from a very young age.
But did he see me living somewhere so far from them? Absolutely not! That was not his wish and I was not dreaming about living somewhere else until my twenties. Yes, I wanted to go to university, not just because of my father but because I wanted to grow, gain experience, and learn new things, and going to a university was the only option at the time.
Attending university changed a lot of things in my life.
I met my husband; in fact, he was my classmate. I decided – or I should say we got married and decided – to leave our home country. I did not become the woman my mom wanted. I did not know how to cook until I got married. I don’t know how to use the beast called the sewing machine and I am not always in the mood for cleaning and doing laundry as she was doing it every single day. Maybe I am the woman my dad wanted – a hard-working, confident one. Nowadays, however, I am asking myself: am I the woman I wanted to be?
Beanie Feldstein reaches over a table to place her hand in Kaitlyn Dever’s.
“A quick handhold,” Feldstein playfully announces while discussing how she and her co-star bonded in the nine-ish weeks they spent working on the new high school comedy Booksmart. They lived together for the entirety of that period, rehearsing trickier lines over morning pancakes and snuggling up to watch Gilmore Girls at night.
On this late April day, Feldstein, 25, wears a vibrant floral print and block heels that make her feet hurt. Dever, 22, is a bit moodier in her mannerisms and attire, sporting a tiger-striped sweater dress and heeled Doc Martens. They both complement and compliment one another - not unlike their characters, BFFs Molly (Feldstein) and Amy (Dever).
Booksmart carries the studious friends through their last day of high school, when they discover that, contrary to what they long believed to be true, hard partying didn’t prevent their classmates from also getting into Ivies (or from landing a job in Silicon Valley, in one kid’s case). Panicked by the thought of having missed out and determined to prove how fun they can be, Molly persuades Amy to set out for a wild night on the eve of their graduation: “I’m going to experience a seminal fun anecdote!” Molly declares.
The film, directed by first-timer Olivia Wilde, is the latest quick-witted project to use friendship as a means to explore the complex emotions of teenage girls. Molly and Amy join the protagonists of several films released in the past few years, among them The Edge of Seventeen and Lady Bird (in which Feldstein also stars), in straying from established high school archetypes. These girls are bold yet vulnerable, awkward yet self-assured. Never the punchlines, they’re treated with genuine interest and a refreshing honesty more often reserved for their male counterparts.
“I feel like in a lot of films, they wouldn’t allow space for two of these characters to exist,” Feldstein says, “let alone be the centre of the film.” “Or even just one,” Dever adds. “It’s crazy, but it’s really rare for me - or both of us, being young women - to be sent comedic scripts to lead. It just doesn’t happen.”
Though it centres on nerdy high schoolers, Booksmart lacks the classic glassesoff, hair-down transformation - the only makeover here took place behind the scenes. Wilde recruited Katie Silberman to overhaul a script by Susanna Fogel, who had reworked another that writ-
ing partners Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins drafted a decade ago. (All four women are credited on the film.)
It wasn’t until 2015 that Wilde got her hands on Fogel’s version, she says over the phone, adding that she loved the core idea of “two smart women who are unabashedly brilliant” but wanted to direct a version that spoke significantly to “this young generation.”
Molly and Amy wound up as socially conscious Gen Zers who stage impromptu dance parties before driving to their Los Angeles high school in a car decorated with “Resist” and “Elizabeth Warren 2020” bumper stickers. They have bright futures ahead of them at Yale and Columbia, respectively - “where the culture is,” as Lady Bird would cry - and worked tirelessly to get there. Feldstein refers to them as “unapologetic feminists” who are “confident in their intelligence.” They know there’s always room for growth, but they don’t start out wanting to change. Both actresses join Wilde and Silberman in expressing the view that a film like theirs might not have been as viable back in 2009, when the original script
was written. Now, because of everything that has unfolded over the past three years, Silberman says over the phone, a wave of bravery and strength has pushed dynamic young women into the limelight more than ever.
“In a lot of ways, it felt like the industry needed to catch up to a story about young, smart women who were multidimensional,” she says. “Now that it’s ‘OK’ for women to be smart, it’s something that everyone feels comfortable with, what else are they?”
Molly and Amy are funny and supportive, exhibited by their frequent compliment battles (which are exactly what they sound like). They’re sex positive, as we learn from an exceedingly frank conversation about Amy’s masturbation habits.
But they can also be naive. Among Silberman’s additions to the script was the plot’s catalyst, a scene in which Molly discovers that in writing off her classmates who drink and have sex, she misjudged those who she assumed had been judging her. She learns about their respective bright futures
while confronting three of them in the bathroom after overhearing them poke fun at her intense personality - lighthearted criticism Feldstein considers somewhat valid, given that Molly “ostracizes people” instead of letting them in, and subtly revolutionary because, in another film, they might have unfairly targeted her appearance.
“All these assumptions we make are unraveled,” Wilde says. Silberman adds that she and Wilde wanted to make sure Booksmart didn’t have any villains, but instead characters whom Molly and Amy simply “misunderstood in the beginning.”
The actresses’ mutual appreciation mirrors the dynamic that anchors Booksmart, which has earned numerous comparisons since its premiere at South by Southwest to 2007’s Superbad, starring Michael Cera and Jonah Hill, who happens to be Feldstein’s older brother. Wilde and Silberman cite Dazed and Confused, another story that takes place over one crazy night, as inspiration for their film, as well as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Clueless.
A running joke in Game of Thrones has Peter Dinklage’s character, Tyrion, repeatedly butchering the Valyrian language, despite his best efforts.
It’s a simple gag on its face, but there’s a deeper layer. The language Tyrion is garbling actually exists. There is a Valyrian grammar, a dictionary containing thousands of words, and even separate dialects for the various Valyrian-descended cultures that exist in the show. After eight seasons, High Valyrian, Low Valyrian and the separate language of Dothraki are as well developed as the character of Tyrion himself.
Any number of fan-created guides and online dictionaries can teach them to you, but their true developer is a linguist named David J. Peterson, whom HBO hired out of an online community of amateur language inventors - invigorating an art that only a few years ago was so obscure many of its practitioners assumed they were the only people in the world doing it. Some in this community - they call themselves “conlangers,” for language constructors - have spent nearly their entire lives developing a personal language, to the point they might think in it, pray in it, dream in it.
Peterson’s original inspiration: he was irritated by a scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when he was a teenager in the 1990s. Like most movies that are supposed to have fictional languages, Star Wars just uses random gibberish instead. Princess Leia uses the two made-up words, yaté and yotó, to refer to, variously: a Wookie; a bounty; a thermal detonator; and 50,000 space credits. Yaté yaté yotó yotó.
“If you ask the people who work on Star Wars, they think it’s a big joke,” Peterson said. “They don’t care at all. And fans are spending hours and hours analyzing that garbage.”
He felt he could do better - and so began devoting his free time to making up languages that had their own coherent grammars, phonologies (or sound systems) and even imaginary cultural influences. His hobby coincided with his formal study of linguistics, and in the late 1990s it led him to an Internet message board - a small but active community of people from around the world who were doing exactly the same thing as he was.
This community’s body of work includes what must be some of the stranger creative endeavors of the modern age. A former California DMV worker, for instance, spent years developing a language called Ithkuil that he says can convey something as complex and abstract as a cubist painting in half a dozen words. The grammar is so complicated that it can take 15 minutes or more to figure out how to conjugate and pronounce a single sentence, so it’s not exactly marketable.
But conlangers did occasionally penetrate the broader culture. They trace their history to the 12th century, when the Benedictine nun Hildegard of Bingen created a “lingua ignota” for divine communication. Nineteenth century idealists created international languages they hoped would unite the world, though only Esperanto is spoken
by more than a handful of people today.
The most famous proto-conlanger was the author J.R.R. Tolkien, who invented a deeply structured Elvish language for his Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s, including Elvish songs and poetry. His passion features in the new biopic Tolkien. Since then, pop culture has occasionally dabbled in the art - notably Star Trek’s Klingon
language, and Avatar’s Na’vi.
The novelist George R.R. Martin scattered a few Valyrian and Dothraki sentences throughout his fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice. So when HBO adapted the books into a TV show, the network sought out Peterson to deconstruct those snippets and develop them into working languages, which now reside on a 600-page
document owned by HBO, and in the imaginations of thousands of fanssome of whom learn High Valyrian on the app Duolingo.
And Peterson has done what seemed unimaginable even 10 years ago: make a career out of inventing languages, consulting for Penny Dreadful, The 100, Into the Badlands and other shows.
ELLIE KRIEGER
The Washington Post
I was noodling vegetables using a knife and a peeler long before spiralizers came on the scene or pre-cut zoodles could be found in the grocery store, and I am thrilled that they are so popular now.
But while vegetable noodles can give you a pasta-like effect in many dishes, for me they will never take the place of actual pasta with its comforting al dente heartiness. Luckily, they don’t need to, because pasta and vegetable noodles are not the either-or proposition some would lead you to believe they are. They happen to work wonders together, as this sumptuous spring pasta dish so elegantly proves.
In it, asparagus stalks are shaved with a vegetable peeler into thin strips. The asparagus “noodles” and the trimmed spears are cooked until firm-tender in a lemon, garlic and white wine reduction.
The saucy mixture is then tossed with crabmeat, tarragon, parsley and just-cooked whole-grain fettuccine or spaghetti. The final dish is fragrant with fresh herbs, has a light brightness from the citrus, is generously heaped with crab and studded with the green asparagus tips.
The asparagus noodles mingle seamlessly with the ribbons of pasta, amplifying the overall portion and filling your bowl while a relatively modest amount of pasta is used. Together, they make for a tremendously satisfying and healthfully balanced spring meal.
4 to 6 servings INGREDIENTS
1 bunch (about 12 ounces) thick
asparagus
12 ounces dried whole-wheat fettuccine (may substitute dried whole-grain spaghetti)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 1 cup dry white wine
1 cup seafood stock
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest and 3 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more as needed
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound lump crabmeat, drained and picked over to remove any bits of cartilage
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish
STEPS
Cut off the asparagus tips (reserving them); then, using a sharp vegetable peeler, and holding each spear by its woody ends against a cutting board, peel the stalks into long, thin strips. Discard the woody ends. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the pasta and cook according to the package directions, until al dente. Drain and return the pasta to the pot.
Meanwhile, add 2 tablespoons of the oil and the garlic to a large, deep skillet over medium heat; cook for about 5
minutes, stirring, until the garlic is lightly golden, being careful not to let it burn. Add the wine (be careful, it will sputter at first) and the stock; bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for about 5 minutes, until the liquid has reduced by about half.
Add the asparagus tips and strips, the lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Let the mixture start to bubble again, then cook for about 2 minutes, just until the asparagus is crisp-tender. Stir in the crabmeat and cook for about 1 minute, just long enough for it to warm through.
Add the asparagus-crab mixture to the cooked pasta in the pot, along with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, the tarragon and parsley. Toss gently to incorporate. Taste and season lightly with more salt, if needed. Garnish with more parsley and serve warm.
Nutrition/Per serving:
470 calories, 21 g protein, 45 g carbohydrates, 22 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 70 mg cholesterol, 590 mg sodium, 7 g dietary fiber, 2 g sugar
A mid-cycle refresh to the 2019 Honda Pilot provides the manufacturer an opportunity to give the mid-sized SUV a host of changes, inside and out.
Mid-cycle for Honda usually means at the two-year mark (as their vehicles typically have a four-year cycle).
Due to the cost, many manufacturers try to stretch it out longer, but not Honda. The obvious advantage to having more frequent updates is obvious — people like to know the vehicle they buy has all the technological improvements in regard to safety, economy and (increasingly) electronic integration.
The three-row Honda Pilot comes in six trim levels with seven- or eight-passenger seating. It starts at $41,290 for an LX. I drove a Touring model, with a list price of $52,690.
A new grille and rear are the most visible changes to the 2019 vehicle. While the older design looked attractive enough in my eyes, some criticized it as too similar to the Honda Odyssey, the company’s minivan.
Nothing causes a manufacturer to cringe more than people saying their vehicle looks like a minivan these days — even if it isn’t true.
The new visage is meant to be more toughlooking, all the way to painting pieces of plastic trim at the bottom of the front and rear bumper silver. Why? Because it looks as if the vehicle possesses a steel skid plate — a desirable piece of equipment for the off-road crowd.
Don’t blame Honda too much — they’re not the first manufacturer to use visual sleight of hand to sell vehicles.
Under the hood, the engine remains the same — a 3.5-litre V-6 producing 280
horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque. Power runs through a nine-speed automatic transmission to an all-wheel-drive system (lesser models get a six-speed auto).
Honda says it has addressed customer concerns about the performance of the transmission. It reworked the unit mechanically as well as electronically to make it smoother.
It says it has also tweaked the engine stop/ start system, reducing the delay in restarting once a person lifts their foot off the brake.
They left the V-6 engine unchanged — which is good, as it is a good match for the mid-sized SUV. It gives ample power even when fully loaded, and can tow 1,588 kilograms (up to 2,268 kg with an accessory towing package).
If fuel economy is on top of your of mind, you will want to engage the green Econ button to the left of the steering wheel.
When engaged, the Pilot will optimizes throttle response, transmission, cruise control and air conditioning settings for maximum economy. Not the best for merging on the highway or travelling up the Coquihalla, but otherwise a wise idea to leave the vehicle in.
The engine also boasts a variable cylinder management system, which deactivates a bank of cylinders under certain driving conditions.
Fuel economy is rated at 12.4 litres per 100 km in the city and 9.3 on the highway.
The Pilot is equipped with Honda Sensing, a suite of safety equipment. My tester was equipped with forward collision warning, collision-mitigation braking, lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, road-departure mitigation, adaptive cruise control, blindspot information and rear-cross-traffic alert.
All but the last two features are standard on all Pilots. The last two are available only
on the Touring and Black Edition models.
The cabin has also undergone some changes and additions. As much as it desires to distance itself from its minivan brethren, it has nevertheless adopted CabinTalk, a feature that allows the front-row occupants to address (scold, threaten, plead) second-row occupants as with an intercom. The feature mutes music and even pauses videos being played so that you can get heard.
Most rear passengers will certainly appreciate the in-flight entertainment equipment as well — a 10.2-inch screen from the roof, wireless headphones, Blu-ray player, a remote and embedded streaming media apps. f they prefer their phones or iPads instead, there are power outlets, as well.
Manual side screens reduce light pollution
and enhance the experience.
The front of the cabin has undergone a few changes, the most notable being the change of the volume control from a slider to a regular knob — hallelujah. There is also wireless charging for your cell phone.
The Touring model can be ordered with seven- or eight-passenger seating. My tester had the latter, which features sliding and reclining captain’s chairs. The third row can be accessed easily but, like most three-row SUVs, adults will sit with their knees around their ears. Small children, on the other hand, will find it spacious.
The Touring trim now gives you hands-free rear tailgate operation.
The 2019 Honda Pilot isn’t all-new, but improved in almost every department.
The issue of baby-boomers leaving the workforce is a challenge for a number of industries in this country – and the automobile industry is no different. In the next ten years, it is anticipated the sector will need over 20,000 new hires in B.C. to fill anticipated job openings, whether those be in management, sales or automotive trades and technology.
On a national level, the Canadian Auto Dealer Association is promoting industry opportunities through a website – carsandjobs.com – that provides information on job opportunities in communities across the country. The New Car Dealers Association of BC complements these efforts by creating awareness of career pathways that are available to young people along with highlighting education grants available for those wishing
to pursue a career in the automotive industry. While the challenge is one that exists across the spectrum of jobs in the sector, it is particularly pressing with respect to mechanics and technicians. In the short term, that largely means having the required workforce levels to address the needs of vehicles with combustion engines. But an increasing requirement is the skilled technicians who can tend to the complex and highly sophisticated maintenance and repairs associated with new vehicles, especially battery electric, plug-in hybrid and
fuel cell electric (hydrogen) vehicles.
As I prepare this column, our association is in the development stage of a strategy to establish how we can better attract young people to the profession, how we might improve education and training opportunities, and how we might ultimately lay the groundwork for industry, dealers, government and training institutions to forge a path forward in a collaborative manner.
A dealership may be successful in selling cars and trucks but needless to say, they also need to be able to access staff who are trained in the technical requirements necessary to meet the increasingly complex technical nature of automobiles.
Meaningful change is not going to occur overnight and there is no single solution. However, we know the discussion must begin
by exploring how to engage youth about the exciting and well-paying career opportunities that exist within our industry, explore if more introductory training opportunities in the K-12 system are part of the solution, and examine if there are synergies that can be created between dealerships and training institutions in the form of co-ops or internships. Beyond everything else, we hope that the development of a strategy will serve as a positive catalyst for change. The work continues – but if it leads to the creation of a talent pool, creates greater certainty and flexibility for dealerships and the industry, and creates meaningful career opportunities for young people – it is well worth the effort.
— Blair Qualey is president and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of BC. You can email him at bqualey@newcardealers.ca.
