Prince George Citizen May 30, 2019

Chili showdown, arts bazaar happening Saturday

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

If you’re feeling the heat, it isn’t just the summer sunshine. It’s also the city’s mouth-watering anticipation of chili.

Hundreds of bowls of the stuff will flow like lava from a creative mountain on Saturday. Teams of chili warriors will joust for flavour dominance in the 43rd annual Spring Arts Bazaar. A year of culinary pride is on the line.

“It hasn’t gotten nasty, but we’ve definitely heard some chili smacktalk,” said Lisa Redpath, program manager for the Community Arts Council, the operators and organizers of the annual arts event, with the chili cook-off the central attraction.

“It originally started years ago as a fundraiser for the Prince George

Potters’ Guild,” said Kate Cooke, past-president of the PGPG, the club that makes all the bowls. The bowls are your ticket to eat the chili and vote for your favourite.

“You’d buy chili and get a bowl with it,” said Cooke, explaining the origins more than 40 years ago, “but it morphed into a partnership with the Community Arts Council. It became a competition, and now it is really popular and an important fundraiser for both of our organizations working together. They run the event and its so much bigger now. So many other guilds and artists and artisans have a presence there, but we potters still do the bowls and we have our ‘seconds’ sale which is really popular each year.”

The “seconds” are the pottery items that have visual imperfections or flaws in the construction,

but they are still useable. In fact, many are lovely works of art and/ or an asset to any home, it just didn’t turn out to the potter’s personal standard. These discounted items are also for sale at the Spring Arts Bazaar.

The PGPG will also have information available for their menu of classes coming up. Learn to hand-build with clay, or throwing clay on the wheel, and meet others who also like to make their own clay creations. “I consider it a sport. I have incredible arm muscles thanks to pottery. It can be quite physical, meditative, and incredibly rewarding,” Cooke said. “We have the Coldsnap organizers partnering with us again this year, they provide musicians to the event, which is a big help for the atmosphere,” said Redpath. “We also

have the Downtown Rotary Club onsite with their boat raffle, so our big spring fundraiser is also helping the Rotary Club with their many worthy causes. We have a number of vendors, kids’ activities, face painting, a lot of exposure and interaction for our local arts community and the public.”

Cooke said the Spring Arts Bazaar “helps us support our pottery habit,” and does so for other local artists and artisans as well, and whatever it is that catches your fancy at this festive show and sale “goes to show what all you can do with your hands, and what your local neighbours are capable of,” Cooke added. That includes the cookers of chili. These teams are volunteers that represent local businesses and agencies, all making their own amazing recipes in the hopes

First Nation calls for seat on School District 57 board

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

One of the seats on the School District 57 board of trustees should be reserved for the Lheidli T’enneh, according to a demand made by the local First Nation on Wednesday.

The Lheidli T’enneh is not the only First Nation within the SD57, but it is the geographic and demographic bulk of the district’s aboriginal content.

Lheidli T’enneh Chief Clay Poutney said that as a host for so many Aboriginal students on its territory, that LTFN was duty-bound to be at the table to represent the interests of their own students and the others sharing the area.

“We estimate we have students from 40 First Nations’ within our district,” he said, estimating that one-third of those registered across the region were of Aboriginal descent in some form. “We believe we should have a dedicated trustee among the seven (existing trustees) in order to have a higher influence.”

It would also be fine with the LTFN if their seat were added, making it a table of eight.

School District 57 (SD57) has not had formal talks with the LTFN on this matter, but enough respectful relationship-building has been going on in recent years, said Poutney, that this new demand would not come as a surprise.

“This is just the next logical step,” he said.

SD57’s board chair Tim Bennett could not be reached for comment by deadline but did relay that he would be examining the matter and making comment to-

day. The legal framework for sectioning off a position on the board for the LTFN has many facets to consider, like the process of selecting a candidate for that spot, protecting the democratic right for anyone. Including other LTFN members, to run for the other available seats, and compliance or changes regarding existing provincial legislation that governs the election process.

“If they kick it to the provincial level then we will take it to the provincial level as well,” Poutney said. “Something has to change, and we want to implement that change.”

It is already the case that different areas of the district have their own representative, so a template already exists

in the minds of LTFN governors.

“We are not just stomping our feet saying we want a board member,” said Vincent Joseph, the LTFN’s education coordinator.

“We’ve been thinking this through and building up to it for a long time.”

He said part of that buildup was participating in the ongoing Aboriginal Education Board, but he and Poutney shook their heads over that being an effective voice.

“That isn’t a body that looks at policy, it has no authority to supersede the trustees, it just makes recommendations and hopes for the best,” Poutney said. “A designated person at the trustees’ table would directly represent issues from our point of view. School District 57 does have an open ear, we’ve developed a very good relationship, but this would take it to a more meaningful level.”

The underlying benefit, said Poutney and Joseph, is how representing the interests of LTFN children is also beneficial in representing the interests of nonAboriginal students as well.

This is a shared district, and nothing is more locally relevant than the language and traditions rooted specifically where the community lives, does business and raises their families. The announcement of this demand was made, not by coincidence, at the LTFN’s economic development office in downtown Prince George to symbolize the prosperity of a mutual future in this historically, geographically and sociologically unique place where all roots intertwine with the Lheidli T’enneh.

of winning public flavour favour. They, too, are demonstrating the spirit of the arts.

“This is a milestone year for us, in a way,” said Redpath. “This will be our last year on this site (2880 15th Avenue). We don’t know exactly what the future holds for us, the Spring Arts Bazaar and the chili cookoff will certainly continue, but we will be doing it somewhere else next year so we’re going to make the most out of this last one on this spot.”

The Spring Arts Bazaar runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The chili battle fits in from 11-2. It is free to attend, with plenty to see, do, and purchase on site as you wish, especially if your wish is chili. The entry bowls are $25 each, and come with a ballot to pick the winner as you sample the array of chili choices.

SD 57 board OKs budget

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

The school district budget was given the green light for the present year.

No significant debate among trustees or the public held up its ratification process at Tuesday night’s board of education meeting. The budget sailed through all three required readings in the single sitting.

The result was a balanced budget totalling $172.7 million that maintained last year’s ongoing programs and had enough left over to add some new learning supports.

The budget design was conducted by a committee made up of trustees, district administration staff and relevant stakeholder representatives. It was chaired by longtime trustee Sharel Warrington.

The committee compiled financial data and heard multiple submissions advising on anticipated expenditures and revenues, then cross-referenced those with the district’s rolling five-year strategic plan.

“Committee members suggested 19 possibilities to provide additional resources in support of student learning. A number of those opportunities have been reflected in the 2019-2020 Annual Budget Bylaw,” said a written statement from the school district.

“While the budget provides a sustainable level of service to students, there were funds available to provide additional sustainable resources in support of student learning, with an emphasis on mental health literacy,” said board chair Tim Bennett.

— see PILOT PROJECT, page 3

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Ayla Davidson shows off some of the 500 bowls made by Prince George Potters for the 43rd annual ChiliFest and Spring Arts Bazaar this Saturday in front of Studio 2880.

POUTNEY

Construction to begin next week on new library entrance

Citizen staff

Patrons will need to use the parking-level entrance to access the Bob Harkins branch of the Prince George Public Library as work has started on construction of a new entrance.

Crews have begun preparing the site while actual construction will begin early next week, the city said Wednesday.

The project will also require the partial closure of one of the traffic lanes on a section of Canada Games Way in front of the library.

A complete closure of both lanes will be required periodically during the course of construction.

City council approved a $3.95 million budget for the project in late April. It will involve construction of a two-and-a-half-

storey addition on the north side and a new circulation area. Features will include an elevator with access from both sides providing access from the parking area, plaza level, main floor, and second floor, improved stairs for access from the main lobby to the second floor and windows to maximize natural light and an open atmosphere. All entries will be accessible through sliding glass or push button access and there will be enhanced accessible parking and drop off zone at parking level.

Chernoff Thompson Architects North is the architect and Datoff Bros. Construction the contractor. Both are based in Prince George. The operation is expected to be completed and opened to the public by the spring of 2020.

CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE HANDOUT IMAGE

An artist’s rendition of the new entrance for the Bob Harkins branch of the Prince George Public Library.

Léonie Dutil, 13, from Collège de Lévis in Lévis, Que. and Cohen Milne, 12, from Ecole Lac des Bois use the swings in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park on Wednesday afternoon. The two schools are participating in an exchange funded by Experiences

Canada. A total of 44 students from Lac des Bois went to Quebec in February and 34 students from Lévis are in Prince George this week seeing the sights of the region that included, Ness Lake, Barkerville and Mount Robson.

School district appoints interim superintendent

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff

fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

An interim superintendent has been appointed for School District 57 (SD57) following the recent resignation of threeyear superintendent Marilyn MarquisForster.

The temporary boss will be Rod Allen, said a statement issued by the SD57 elected trustees.

“The Board of Education is excited to welcome Rod to the School District 57

team,” said board chair Tim Bennett.

“He brings incredible experience and expertise to the district and will work with our senior administration team to wrap up the school year and get ready for September.”

Most recently, Allen was superintendent and CEO of School District No. 79 (Cowichan Valley). He held the position for four years before announcing his retirement in April 2019.

“Earlier in his career, Allen served as assistant deputy minster at the Ministry

of Education, where he led education transformation initiatives in B.C.,” said the trustees’ statement.

“Allen worked to shape the provincial curriculum into a more flexible and personalized education system. He was with the ministry for eight years.” Allen has roots in northern B.C., the trustees said.

Before he joined the Ministry of Education, he spent 20 years in the Bulkley Valley, the last three as superintendent of School District No. 54.

Pilot project funded with surplus

— from page 1

“Through use of surplus, the board supported the inclusion of a pilot project aimed specifically at capacity building in schools – providing the appropriate tools to school staff to deal with the daily challenges they face – with a focus on strategies for mental health literacy and learning,” Bennett said.

“Additionally, the board has supported the inclusion in the 2019-2020 budget of a use of surplus for a WiFi refresh project which will see improvements in technology infrastructure across the district.”

The list of new learning supports provided in this year’s school district budget includes:

• District-led mental health literacy rollout to assist with prevention, early recognition, intervention and reduction of stigma associated with mental illness.

• Support for two additional teaching vice principals to provide school-based leadership and support of student learning in rural communities.

• Support for an education assistant mentorship program in the district to ensure staff are appropriately trained and students are receiving the supports they need.

• An increase of aboriginal education workers for each elementary and secondary school.

• An increase of two aboriginal education social workers.

• Addition of two Aboriginal vice principals, one to support Aboriginal language and culture and one to support academic achievement.

• Additional support to the facilities services purchasing department.

• A multi-year commitment to support

Range of jail terms argued for sexual assault

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A B.C. Supreme Court Justice was given a range of 18 months to three years in jail during a sentencing hearing for a man convicted of a brutal sexual assault of a young woman.

Justice Marguerite Church will issue a decision at a later date for Tyler Jordan Roth, 25, after hearing submissions Wednesday from Crown and defence counsels.

The court heard that a grossly intoxicated Roth talked his way into the woman’s home and then used his size and strength to subdue the woman and force himself on her. The attack left her with serious injuries and long-lasting psychological trauma, the court heard.

With Roth asleep on her bed, the woman then contacted some friends to try to force him out of the home. After a considerable struggle, he was pushed out into exceptionally cold winter weather, raising a concern that he was a victim of vigilante justice.

That, combined with a strong certainty the conviction will put his career as a mechanical engineer in doubt, constitutes “collateral consequences” that defence counsel Dave Jenkins Sr. argued should be taken into account.

If Roth is sentenced to 18 months in jail, Jenkins Sr. said a term of probation could follow. Roth, who maintains his innocence, has no criminal record and has been deemed to pose a low to moderate risk to re-offend. Either way, Crown and defence counsels agreed the crime warrants a jail term.

the implementation of a student services-led mental health project that focusses on responses to intervention and positive behaviour support interventions in school and classroom environments, a project aimed specifically at capacity building in schools to focus on strategies for mental health literacy and learning.

• A district-wide WiFi refresh project which will improve the technology infrastructure across the district.

• Continued support for the multi-year acquisition of modular units to replace the aging modular infrastructure in the district.

• Support for ongoing capital projects identified in schools to enhance the learning environment for students.

• Continued support of projects to conserve energy by monitoring and reducing energy consumption.

Convocation preparation

Connor Pritchard from Russell Audio-Visual checks the levels in the Northern Sport Centre on Wednesday afternoon for the 2019 UNBC Convocation ceremonies on Friday.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

‘Surveillance capitalism’ turning kids into ‘voodoo dolls’ Zimmer says

Mike BLANCHFIELD The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The world’s lawmakers have a duty to protect children from being turned into “voodoo dolls” by the “surveillance capitalism” of major high-tech companies, says the Canadian chair of the international grand committee on big data, privacy and democracy.

Conservative MP Bob Zimmer offered that summary as the multinational group of legislators wrapped its third and final day of hearings of Parliament Hill on Wednesday.

The committee is examining the role of internet giants in safeguarding privacy and democratic rights.

Over three days, the MPs have grilled representatives from Facebook, Amazon and other tech titans, and they lamented the fact the household names that head those and other organizations ignored requests to testify.

They were replaced by lower-level officials who, in some cases, declined to answer questions because they said they didn’t have the big-picture knowledge of their celebrity bosses.

Zimmer said the hearings have been useful as he watches his own four children, aged 15 to 21, “getting more and more addicted to these phones.”

“When you see from surveillance capitalism, the whole drive, the whole business model is to keep them glued to that phone despite the bad health that that brings to those children – our kids. It’s all for a buck,” said Zimmer.

“We’re responsible to do something about that. We care about our kids. We don’t want to see them turned into voodoo dolls, to be controlled by the almighty dollar and capitalism.”

Liberal and New Democrat MPs on the committee shared that view in a rare show of domestic political unity. That was evident across international lines as well.

British MP Damian Collins, the committee co-chair, said the hearings have shown how the companies were “unwilling to answer direct questions about how they gather data and how they use it.”

That includes testimony by witnesses who couldn’t explain how Facebook and Amazon interact, or how data from the LinkedIn networking site and Microsoft (which bought it in 2016) are integrated, said Collins.

“I don’t understand why companies are unwilling to talk openly about the tools they put in place. People may consent to use these tools but do they understand the extent of the data they’re sharing when they do,” said Collins.

The privacy implications of one popular online tool came under scrutiny during

Wednesday’s testimony.

A security executive for the internetbrowser company Mozilla said he was shocked by the recordings of his family that were collected and retained by Amazon’s popular Alexa voice-activated interactive speakers.

Alan Davidson, Mozilla’s vice-president of global policy, trust and security, said the Amazon Echo, the hardware that runs the Alexa service, is a wonderful product but when he recently examined what his family had recorded and stored, he found the archive included conversations among his young children. “I was shocked, honestly, and my family was shocked to see these recordings of our young children from years ago that are in the cloud and stored about us. It’s not to say that something was done wrong, or unlawfully,” Davidson said. “But users have no idea – they have no idea this data is out

there and they don’t know how it’s going to be used in the future either.”

Internet companies need to give customers more “granular” consent options for how specific pieces of personal information are collected and used by high-tech companies, said Davidson.

Mark Ryland, a director in the office of the chief information security officer for Amazon Web Services, testified Amazon makes it very clear that consent is part of the Alexa experience, and that customers can delete any collected data if they like.

“Alexa is listening for a keyword – an ‘awake’ word – that alerts the system you want to interact with it in some fashion,” said Ryland.

“There’s a light on the device that tells you it is active and subsequent sound in the room is then streamed to the cloud.”

That stream is then taken through a “language-processing system” that produces a

transcript of the conversation, said Ryland.

“You can see a full list of what you’ve said; you can delete any one of those. Those will immediately get removed from the database,” he said. “I think it’s very clear, the consent is part of the experience.”

The Alexa-gathered information Amazon does store “becomes part of your account information just like if you were buying books on our website and therefore could influence” other things the company might present to a customer “that you might be interested in,” said Ryland.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Ryland said the company will “continue to publicize people’s ability to control their data.”

Asked whether the favours finer options for customer consent, Ryland said: “We’re always looking for customer feedback and how to improve our products, so absolutely we’re always looking to make improvements that meet customer needs.”

Canada signs deal banning commercial fishing in the Arctic

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Canada has ratified an agreement that would prevent commercial fishing in the High Arctic for 16 years.

The deal was initially signed last October by Canada and nine other governments but won’t be enforceable until all parties ratify the agreement.

The governments that have signed the agreement include Norway, the United States, China, Iceland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Denmark, but it has been ratified only by Canada, the European Union, and the Russian Federation.

Other governments are expected to ratify the agreement quickly, said Scott Highleyman of Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group that has monitored the talks.

“The other countries said they’re on their way. There continues to be very positive indications that all of these countries continue to think this is really important to co-operate on.”

Arctic experts have called the treaty a rare example of governments co-operating in advance of a problem, instead of just reacting to it.

The agreement applies to northern waters at least 200 nautical miles away from the shores of any coastal state, which amounts to 2.8 million square kilometres of ocean, about the size of the Mediterranean Sea.

No commercial fishing currently takes place in the High Arctic, but fish stocks are shifting and fishers and scientists have wondered what the northernmost seas on the planet hold.

CP PHOTO

Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Chair Bob Zimmer, centre, and members of the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy listen to a question from media during a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Hotline to help human trafficking victims launches across Canada

Michelle McQUIGGE

The Canadian Press

A national hotline to help victims and survivors of human trafficking is now taking calls, with the organization behind the service saying it hoped the new resource would also fill crucial gaps in public knowledge about the issue.

The multilingual, accessible hotline, an initiative of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, launched at 7 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

The centre’s chief executive officer said the line is meant to serve

as a one-stop shop for everyone from victims seeking help, to tipsters wanting to flag a potential case, to members of the public wanting to learn more about the subject.

“There are still an awful lot of individuals in this country who believe that human trafficking is happening elsewhere,” Barbara Gosse said in an interview. “In actual fact... human trafficking is happening in communities right across this country. And that is a threat to every vulnerable girl, woman, man or boy.”

Gosse said the toll-free hotline will be available 24 hours a day

throughout the year. Call takers will be able to field queries in more than 200 languages, including a number of Indigenous languages. The line will also be accessible to the deaf, hard-of-hearing and nonverbal, Gosse said. An accompanying website has also been designed to be accessible to the blind and visually impaired, she added. Gosse said the line was developed with help from an international company that has helped set up similar services in other countries such as the United States. Some of those lines, she said, have been taking calls for as long as a

decade. In addition to connecting victims and survivors with community resources and enlisting law enforcement on prospective cases, Gosse said the Canadian line will help close a critical knowledge gap by collecting data on the prevalence of human trafficking.

“There is no national data collection mechanism,” she said, noting most statistics on trafficking come from local police forces tallying cases that fall within their jurisdiction.

She said the hotline will allow her centre to gather information on when, where, and how often such cases come to light.

Your signature, 11 times

The folks that won’t sign the Alternative Approval Process petition forms often resort to a series of questions to defend why borrowing more than $32 million to pay for 11 infrastructure projects is a good idea.

Are you against infrastructure spending?

Are you against a roof over civic buildings and traffic lights?

Don’t you know it costs money to have and maintain essential city services?

Don’t you know we have aging infrastructure that needs to be fixed?

Do you want to spend the money now or wait until later when it will cost even more?

The questions are relevant but they miss the point. Worse, they actually deflect from the real issue. There’s no question that hundreds of millions of dollars are going to have to be spent over the next 20 years to replace, repair and maintain essential local infrastructure and the sooner that work starts, the better off everyone will be in both the short and long term. Yet that reality shouldn’t translate into supporting this dog’s breakfast of a borrowing plan being foisted onto local taxpayers.

City council would have local residents believe this proposed spending is only about infrastructure but it’s not. It’s about fiscal responsibility.

It’s about taxation. It’s about debt and the ongoing costs to service that debt.

It’s about open, transparent government.

This mayor and council have talked about fiscal responsibility but their decisions have made most of their talk worthless.

Significant annual increases in property taxes and utilities with no end in sight.

Significant annual increases in the number of employees at the City of Prince George with no end in sight.

Significant annual increases in property taxes for years to come to service those borrowing costs with no end in sight.

Significant increases in the number of senior managers and the wages of those managers over the past five years.

Significant overtime paid to senior city managers during the 2017 Cariboo wildfire evacuations, despite the fact those same city managers already receive two weeks extra holidays per year in lieu of overtime, on top of their regular six weeks holidays.

Did those same managers collect more overtime last summer when wildfire evacuees from west of Prince George came to the city?

The city won’t say.

That information will be inside the Statements of Financial Information that has to be released by the end of next month, never mind that it took Freedom of Information requests last summer to uncover both that the senior administrators received overtime

at all and careful analysis to figure out who got how much.

Let’s not forget the millions of dollars in extra “oopsie” spending needed to fix the problems with the brand-new Willowcale bridge. What is being done to remedy this situation and to avoid a similar problem in the future?

The city won’t say, except to say that it isn’t pursuing cost recovery lawsuits (and, when asked, it refuses to provide the legal justification for that decision).

And all of the proceeding is just background to this latest raging dumpster fire of an idea from senior city staff to borrow more than $32 million to fund 11 projects.

Note the language.

The 11 projects are all, to varying degrees, worthwhile and necessary endeavours.

It’s the borrowing plan that’s ridiculous.

First of all, omnibus bills like this one are the epitome of government cynicism. Lumping in 11 unrelated expenditures, from vehicle and equipment replacement ($2.9 million) to Ron Brent Park redevelopment ($1.7 million), from replacing two culverts on Goose Country Road ($1.1 million) to street light and traffic signal replacement ($5 million), is legislative tomfoolery. It puts people opposed to one or more of those expenditures on the defensive, forcing them to explain how they support some of the initiatives but not others.

This particular omnibus bill is particularly abhorrent because it puts the people behind the Alternative Approval Process at a huge disadvantage. Instead of needing one signature to oppose the borrowing plan, it requires 11 signatures from the same person, one John Henry for each of the 11 projects, and the entire package – 15 double-sided pages – must be returned to city hall to count as one vote against the proposed borrowing.

The political cynicism doesn’t stop there.

Why wasn’t this borrowing plan put forward as a referendum question during last October’s municipal election, when the incumbent mayor and councillors could have campaigned defending the proposal and leave the final decision in the hands of voters, instead of springing it on taxpayers mere months into a four-year term?

The city won’t say. What will the city do to get these essential projects done if enough residents (5,546 or more, to be exact) sign the AAP forms?

The city won’t say. Want some answers from the city on that and a host of other issues?

Want some action, not just talk, about fiscal responsibility from your local government?

The cost is your signature, 11 times.

And you’ve got until 4 p.m. today to get your completed form to city hall. — Editor-in-chief

Neil Godbout

YOUR LETTERS

Signed 11 times

In 1990, we purchased property and in 1993 built a new house on Laurier Crescent near the hospital and Simon Fraser Lodge.

In those 29 years our street has never been paved.

But our taxes have increased annually, well over inflation and utilities have been doubled or more over the years we’ve owned our property.

Last year, city council held a referendum to replace the fire hall and the Four Seasons pool, knowing this year they were going to need another $32 million for another 11 projects and another $5 million for the roof of the Rolling Mix Arena. If the electorate had known all the facts, would they have approved replacing an unnecessary pool?

Your letters welcome. See below for details.

I’ve filled in all 11 forms opposing borrowing more money. City council needs to get a grip on their spending and priorities. How about just the basics like paving Laurier Crescent after 30 years?

Rod Duncan Prince George

Indigenous leaders believe Project Reconciliation will help

Most Canadians are aware Canada’s First Nations face tough obstacles, from poverty to inadequate housing and from lack of access to clean drinking water to a growing youth population that feels left out of the country’s future.

At the same time, the country faces its own challenges, particularly around energy. A decade of gridlock has jammed any reasonable prospect that Canadian oil, a main contributor to the country’s economy, will reach global markets. So Canada is forced to sell its energy products to the U.S. at a deep discount and the country misses out on some $80 million per day in lost opportunity – funds that might have been put toward decarbonization and fighting climate change.

A growing group of Indigenous leaders believes these challenges can be met through Project Reconciliation – the purchase of a majority stake in the TransMountain pipeline and expansion project (TMX) by an Indigenous coalition and the creation of an Indigenous sovereign wealth fund. Most of the income from the pipeline would be channelled into this fund that would be invested, like the commodity export sovereign wealth funds of Norway, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, in a professionally managed diversified portfolio of international financial and real assets for long-term returns to Indigenous communities.

These returns would, in turn, support investments in Indigenous community sustainable infrastructure from adequate housing, healthcare and Indigenous businesses,

to low-carbon energy.

A majority investment by Indigenous communities in TMX is an historic opportunity for us to gain a seat at the table and the ability to ensure the project is built and managed to the highest environmental standards. Equally important, a majority stake gives Indigenous peoples a share in the long-term energy project’s revenue and puts us on a path toward economic self-determination and security and sustainability. It allows us to transform from managers of poverty to managers of wealth.

In short, we see this project as Canada’s pipeline to reconciliation.

Our majority stake would be backed by long-term shipping agreements, so there would be no need for public funds to backstop our purchase nor any risk to investors. And the cost of capital would be low enough that the profits generated through the shares, about $20 billion over TMX’s 50year lifespan, would provide an important source of sustainable Indigenous investment to advance the climate-change agenda and address urgent infrastructure needs in our communities.

Project Reconciliation would give our communities a crucial opportunity to grow our wealth through the long-term, sustainable revenue that TMX and the Indigenous sovereign wealth fund will generate, pro-

viding a new model for how business could be conducted in Canada in the 21st century.

Canadians understand Indigenous reconciliation is a process of fostering mutual respect among Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, sharing responsibility and empowerment, and working to address historic wrongs. Project Reconciliation lines up perfectly with those key goals.

Consider the impact of a successful, properly built Reconciliation Pipeline, operated to the world’s highest environmental standards.

Each year, 20 per cent of our project’s cash flow would be distributed directly to owners – Western Canada’s Indigenous communities – while 80 per cent would go to a professionally managed Indigenous sovereign wealth fund. Returns from this fund would be available to Indigenous communities for reinvestment in other sustainable infrastructure projects like renewable energy, energy-efficient on-reserve housing and other small carbon-footprint, GHG-reducing, climate-friendly initiatives, allowing us to play a positive role in helping meet Canada’s greenhouse gas and climate change commitments.

Leveraging the power of this sovereign wealth fund as a subsidiary of Project Reconciliation, we expect the fund would grow to become an important investment pool, assuming about $180 million per year of distribution from TMX revenues.

That’s why we think the fund provides the missing piece to many discussions about Indigenous reconciliation, and how we advance our Indigenous goals of economic self-determination, financial security, real

poverty elimination and environmental stewardship.

More broadly, we think the approach encourages equality, empowerment, opportunity and shared responsibility over the natural resources of traditional Indigenous lands. In turn, that ensures the highest standards for environmental, climate change, and tanker and marine safety policies.

The purchase would also help the federal government get the export capability it needs for Canadian oil and, as a result, would give Canada’s national economy a significant boost.

Project Reconciliation and the creation of the Indigenous sovereign wealth fund would become indispensible tools to address Indigenous reconciliation, poverty eradication, market access and the climate agenda. When it comes to a safe, secure, well-managed pipeline and a market-funded mechanism to invest in low-carbon, sustainable infrastructure, we think our interests and those of other Canadians are aligned.

Let’s seize this unique opportunity.

Let’s take Canada’s pipeline to reconciliation before the opportunity passes us by. – Delbert Wapass is executive chair, Project Reconciliation, former chief of Thunderchild First Nation and vice chair of the Indian Resource Council. Wallace Fox is Alberta regional director, Project Reconciliation, former chief of Onion Lake Cree Nation and chair of the Indian Resource Council. Shane Gottfriedson is B.C. regional director, Project Reconciliation, former chief of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, former tribal chief, Shuswap Nation and former regional chief of B.C.

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

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

Office hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday

General switchboard: 250-562-2441 info@pgcitizen.ca General news: news@pgcitizen.ca

Sports inquiries: 250-960-2764 sports@pgcitizen.ca Classifieds advertising: 250-562-6666 cls@pgcitizen.ca

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

Website: www.pgcitizen.ca

Website feedback: digital@glaciermedia.ca

Member of the

Baleen key to understanding stress on whale population

Patrick WHITTLE The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine — Whale researchers in New England believe they’ve found a new way to measure the amount of stress felt by whales when they experience traumas such as entanglements in fishing gear, and they say the technique could help protect the massive sea creatures from extinction.

The scientists, with the New England Aquarium in Boston, said the method involves measuring stress hormones by studying baleen, the bristly filter-feeding system in the mouths of the biggest whales on the planet. The baleen serves as a record that shows a spike in stress hormones when whales encounter threats such as a changing climate, ship strikes and entanglements, lead author Rosalind Rolland said.

Scientists can use the data to read the stress levels a whale experiences over the course of many years, somewhat similar to reading the rings on a tree. The data is important because whales experiencing more chronic stress are less likely to reproduce, and they can become more susceptible to disease – a bad combination for populations that are perilously low.

“A whale responding to any type of stressor could be interacting with a ship. It could be fishing gear. It could be environmental changes that stress the whale out,” Rolland said. “This shows the stress hormones are related to what was going on with the whale.”

The group published its research online in the journal Marine Mammal Science in March. The scientists reported the appearance of a whale’s baleen reflects the adrenal glands pumping out stress hormones as

they fight a life-threatening circumstance. By analyzing the baleen after whales die, scientists can learn about spikes in stress hormones.

The scientists performed their work on a baleen plate from a bowhead whale that had been badly entangled in fishing gear.

The whale was killed off Alaska in 2017

by Inuit hunters who found it dragging fishing gear and appearing lethargic. The baleen showed a spike of stress hormones 20 times greater than normal, according to the aquarium.

The research builds on a body of work that shows stress hormones elevate when whales become entangled in fishing gear,

Hormones are the mass media of the body

Two weeks ago, I stated the body is made of trillions of cells communicating with each other through two major pathways.

To recap, the electrical network is the realm of nerves. Electrical impulses move along neurons from one end to the other. The myriad of connection pathways possible from one neuron to the next determines to a large degree how information is interpreted.

The junction between neurons is a region called the synapse, containing a synaptic cleft – a small gap approximately 20 to 40 nanometers across.

There are two different types of synapses. The first is slightly narrower than typical and the electrical signal can leap across much like the spark between two wires. These are high specialized synapses and relatively rare.

The vast majority of synapses rely on chemicals called neurotransmitters to carry information from one neuron to the next – from a sending neuron at the tip of the axon to the dendrites of the receiving neuron.

Neurotransmitters are constructed within the sending neuron and packaged in small vesicles. When an action potential is received, the vesicles meld with the cell membrane and release the chemicals into the cleft. They diffuse across the cleft driven by the concentration gradient – imagine a drop of food colouring dispersing in a glass of water.

It is important to note that the more vesicles which fuse with the membrane, the more neurotransmitter in the cleft.

This has two effects. The first is to ensure a stronger stimulation of the receiving neuron. Each molecule of a neurotransmitter fits into a receptor on the receiving neuron’s surface much like a key turning a lock. Each receptor fires off a signal. The more signals sent, the faster the neuron pulses, and the stronger the signal sent to the axon.

The second effect is to make the signal last longer. More neurotransmitters in a cleft means it takes longer for the concentration to decrease. Imagine a crowd trying to leave the CN Centre by the main doors. The larger the crowd, the longer it is going to take for everyone to get out.

As an added layer, there are dozens of known neurotransmitters which can complicate communication, particularly as they can be mimicked by other molecules. This is the basis of many of the drugs which alter our state of mind. But not all communication between cells is managed by neurons. Endocrinology is the study of hormones and these are chemical compounds with a very different communication system from our nerves.

Hormones are chemical messengers released from specific secretory cells found in various glands. They are secreted in response to specific stimuli which includes signals from neurons. Once they are released into the blood stream, they influence any and every cells which has an appropriate receptor site.

There are key differences between hormonal and neuronal communication.

The first is the extent of communication. Across a single synapse, only two neurons can communicate. Depending upon the number of dendrites a neuron has, it might be able to affect 10,000 other neurons.

Hormones, on the other hand, can easily affect every cell in the body – several trillion. For example, the change in hormones brought on by puberty have a profound effect on all sorts of different systems in the body.

which some scientists estimate kills up to 300,000 whales and dolphins annually.

The aquarium has touted the work as a “significant” breakthrough in the way whales’ stress hormones can be studied. The scientists published an earlier pilot paper on the subject in 2014.

The work on whale baleen is being revealed as fishermen, conservationists and the governments struggle with how to protect marine mammal species in decline due to accidental deaths and climate change, which has made key food sources less available to some whales. The endangered North Atlantic right whale is of particular concern, because its population is so small and is steadily falling – only 411 of the whales are left, down from 480 less than a decade ago. The U.S. lobster fishing industry is bracing for new restrictions this year designed to protect the species.

The research at the New England Aquarium provides a chilling perspective on human influences on whale health as well as a new scientific tool to help save them, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a biologist with Whale and Dolphin Conservation in Plymouth, Massachusetts who was not involved in the study.

“This study demonstrates that chronic entanglements are not simply restricting a whale’s movements, damaging their tissues or impacting their ability to feed, but are triggering a physiological response that can alter their immune systems, their ability to reproduce, and even their ability to grow,” she said. “We clearly understand that stress is bad for humans, but we also need to understand that stress is not exclusive to humans.”

Cosmonauts perform spacewalk at ISS

A second major difference is their time signature. A neuron fires off signals which might last as long as a millisecond. The effects of hormones can take hours or days to emerge and can last a lifetime. After all, how often do the effects of puberty disappear after a while?

A third major difference is the extent of their actions. Neurons can only stimulate or inhibit the next neuron in line. Hormones can change the activity of a protein, turn on and off biochemical pathways, alter the overall metabolism of a cell, cause cells to grow or to atrophy or divided or even initiate cell death. Consider testosterone which increases muscle mass or progesterone which causes the proliferation of cells in the uterine lining during the luteal phase. Both increase the total number of cells in the body. On the other hand, the thyroid hormone is responsible for the death of the cells in a tadpole’s tail as it metamorphosizes into a frog.

Together neurons and hormones make up the neuroendocrine axis which begins in the hypothalamus and is responsible for regulating both our autonomic nervous system and hormonal systems.

Hormones secrete in the hypothalamus can induce the pituitary gland to release hormonal signals which enter general circulation and can release further hormones. For example, being frightened is not simple a state of mind. It is a state of body as this cascade of hormones results in the release of hormones from the adrenal glands.

The human body is a complex mixture of chemical and electrical interactions which regulate all of the cells which make us, us. RELATIVITY

The Associated Press

MOSCOW — Two Russian crewmembers on the International Space Station ventured into open space Wednesday to conduct scientific research and help maintain the orbiting outpost. Oleg Kononenko and Alexey Ovchinin worked to retrieve scientific experiments intended to study the impact of space flight that were mounted on the space station’s exterior. They also cleaned one of the space station’s windows and performed other maintenance.

The spacewalk was expected to last 6 1/2 hours. It’s the fifth one for Kononenko and the first one for Ovchinin.

Their crewmates – NASA’s Anne McClain, Nick Hague and Christina Koch and David SaintJacques of the Canadian Space Agency – watched their progress from inside the orbiting outpost. Kononenko is set to return to Earth with McClain and Saint-Jacques next month following a 6 1/2-month stint in orbit. Ovchinin will replace him as the station’s commander.

For the spacewalk, the two attached stickers to their spacesuits paying tribute to Alexei Leonov, a legendary Russia cosmonaut who became the first human to walk in space on March 18, 1965. Speaking from the open space, they congratulated Leonov on his 85th birthday, which is coming Thursday.

AP FILE PHOTO

A woman looks at the face of a dead whale at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on May 6. A group of researchers believe studying a whale’s baleen can show the amount of stress and trauma the whale has experienced.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

OTTAWA (CP) — These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency

Judge rules SNC-Lavalin headed to trial on charges of fraud, corruption

Christopher REYNOLDS The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — A Quebec judge has ruled there is enough evidence to send SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to trial on charges of fraud and corruption, surprising few and prompting a further tumble in the beleaguered firm’s share price.

“Given the threshold to be met by the prosecution at the stage of the preliminary inquiry, this outcome was expected,” said SNC-Lavalin chief executive Neil Bruce in a statement.

The company has previously pleaded not guilty and Bruce said that “we will vigorously defend ourselves to get the right outcome and be acquitted.”

The Montreal-based engineering and construction giant is accused of paying $47.7 million in bribes to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011. The company, its construction division and a subsidiary also face one charge each of fraud and corruption for allegedly defrauding various Libyan organizations of $129.8 million.

Judge Claude Leblond’s decision, which is subject to a publication ban, is the latest step in criminal proceedings that began last fall after SNC-Lavalin failed to secure a deferred prosecution agreement, a kind of plea deal that would have seen the firm agree to pay a fine rather than face prosecution.

not a big percentage of what they do,” said Karl Moore, an associate professor at McGill University’s business school.

He said a potential conviction would allow competitors to “make hay” of the company’s situation.

“They would make sure that their potential clients and current clients around the world are aware of it, and go, ‘Even their own government doesn’t trust them,”’ Moore said, echoing concerns from the CEO.

“If the company is convicted, you can’t invoke the defence that this was a bunch of rogue employees,” added Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University’s business school.

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index had its worst day of the year Wednesday as ramped up trade rhetoric stoked fears of an economic slowdown that stood in contrast with the Bank of Canada’s more optimistic outlook. China signalled overnight that it could retaliate against U.S. trade threats by using its dominant position in rare earth minerals to restrict sales used in technology and military equipment. That unnerved investors who fled equities for the safety of fixed income investments like U.S. treasuries. Bond yields hit a 20-month low and the yield curve inverted for a second time this year, historically a sign of a potential recession. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 165.99 points to 16,131.47, just four trading days after its previous worst day of the year.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 221.36 points at 25,126.41. The S&P 500 index was down 19.37 points at 2,783.02, while the Nasdaq composite was down 60.04 points at 7,547.31.

The S&P 500 fell below the 2,800-point threshold, considered the floor from a technical perspective.

The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.00 cents US compared with an average of 74.20 cents US on Tuesday after the Bank of Canada kept its key interest rate on hold at 1.75 per cent.

The July crude contract was down 33 cents at US$58.81 per barrel largely on concerns about lower demand, while the July natural gas contract was up four cents at US$2.62 per mmBTU.

Crude was down 3.5 per cent earlier in the day but largely recovered following the reopening of a pipeline in Cushing, Okla., that endured outages and disruptions due to flooding from heavy rains.

The August gold contract was up US$3.80 at US$1,286.30 an ounce and the July copper contract was down 3.2 cents at US$2.66 a pound.

Over the past four months, SNC-Lavalin has been at the centre of a political controversy following accusations from former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould that top government officials pressured her to overrule federal prosecutors, who had opted not to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement with the company.

“The director of public prosecution has made a decision in that regard,” said prosecutor Richard Roy, asked by reporters whether SNCLavalin could still secure an agreement and sidestep a trial.

Despite the high profile afforded to the case, “SNC-Lavalin will have a fair trial,” he added.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has argued that a criminal trial could trigger the company’s exit to the United States and the loss of

thousands of jobs, a sentiment that was supported by an internal SNC-Lavalin document obtained by The Canadian Press.

“We respect the independence of our judiciary and we’re not going to comment on an ongoing court case, but as I’ve said many times, we’re always going to fight for Canadian jobs in ways that uphold the rules,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday.

SNC-Lavalin warned federal prosecutors last fall about a possible plan to split the company in two, move its offices to the U.S. and chop its Canadian workforce to 3,500 from 8,700 before eventually shuttering its domestic operations if it didn’t get a deal to avoid criminal prosecution.

Experts viewed the ruling as expected, though that didn’t stop SNC shares from falling more than three per cent Wednesday to close at $24.17, a 14-year low capping off a month that opened with disappointing earnings results.

The company’s market valuation has dropped by $1.59 billion, or 27 per cent, over the past 30 days to $4.25 billion. Shares are trading at roughly half their October prices.

A conviction could lead to a ban on federal bidding for up to 10 years.

It could also prompt a ban on bidding for projects backed by the World Bank, “which is

Nearly one-third of SNC-Lavalin’s $9.3 billion in revenues in 2017 came from Canada, down from roughly 60 per cent of revenue in 2014. Analysts estimate that up to one-half of hometurf revenues stem from federal contracts.

Attorney general David Lametti, who declined to comment, could technically extend an offer for a deferred prosecution agreement up until a guilty finding is handed down.

“In the meantime, SNC-Lavalin continues to remain unrestricted in bidding and winning Canadian government funded contracts,” said analyst Derek Spronck of RBC Dominion Securities in a note to investors.

In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, Wilson-Raybould said SNC-Lavalin’s trial “will proceed in the way that it’s supposed to proceed.”

“I’m very comfortable and confident with the approach that I took as the attorney general with respect to SNC and with respect to my role generally throughout the three and a bit years that I was in that position,” said the former attorney general.

The company is due back in court in Montreal on June 7 to choose a trial by jury or by judge alone. Prior to that, it can opt to apply within 30 days to the Superior Court of Quebec to have Wednesday’s lower court decision quashed.

“We are evaluating whether errors at law could justify seeking a judicial review of the decision,” the company said in an email.

Buyers struggling with affordability keep real estate market soft

Ialways find any Canada-wide economic analysis weirdly only semi-useful. We are such a vast geographic space, not particularly homogeneous culturally, economically, or even politically, except when our hockey players are on the international stage, then we breathe as a single organism. So when RBC Economics puts out a report such as the one I am drawing from today, I see a calico cat country and read it by the patch.

It’s true that a good chunk of our real estate value is driven by offshore investors, who in fact might not distinguish Halifax from Spuzzum, but even they, should they invest, will need to drill down to the neighbourhood level before laying down money.

Home resales increased in Canada for the second-straight month in April: the 3.6 per cent month-over-month advance isn’t an ‘all-clear’ signal for the market but strongly suggests that the cyclical bottom has been reached. Activity climbed above year-ago levels for the first time since December 2017.

Prices stabilizing: the Canadawide benchmark price was essentially flat year-over-year, down marginally by 0.3 per cent. This was a smaller decline than in March (-0.5 per cent).

Local market picture remains highly fragmented but April brought more encouraging news: activity picked up in Alberta and Saskatchewan and there were strong indications that the Torontoarea market finally turned a corner. However, the Vancouver-area market isn’t out of the woods yet:

resales fell for a sixth consecutive month and prices are still sliding (the benchmark is down 8.7 per cent since the June 2018 peak). A recovery seems far off at this stage. Time will tell if this spills over in to our market in central B.C.

I can see clearly now.

Clearly is clearly an Orwellian word, but if there’s one thing the April report from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) made “clear,” it is that Canada’s housing market isn’t caught in a downward spiral, mostly.

Showing a second-straight monthly increase in resales and a lessening in the pace of price decline, the report provided evidence that this cycle’s bottom has been reached overall in Canada (head and tail yes, but left flank…?)

The level of activity – at 459,700 units annualized – was still weak last month as local markets across the country continue to adjust to the mortgage stress test and other policy measures adopted in the past couple of years, as well as higher interest rates.

Some markets like Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax are coping quite well but others like Vancouver and Victoria continue to struggle.

The April report brought good news for the Toronto area and markets in Alberta and Saskatchewan where activity picked up noticeably.

A wave of new Toronto listings (up 8.1 per cent month over month) pulled many buyers from the side-lines. Resales surged by 11.2 per cent from March and prices accelerated slightly to a rate of 3.2 per cent on a year-over-year basis. An earlier report from the Toronto Real Estate Board showed surprising strength in the singledetached home segment in April.

Resales rose in Calgary (up 5.2 per cent month over month), Edmonton (up 7.8 per cent), Regina (up 11.6 per cent) and Saskatoon (up 11.5 per cent).

For the most part, these increases took place from low bases. Stillsoft demand and plentiful supply are keeping prices on a downward track in each of these markets.

April didn’t bring an end to Vancouver’s market slump. Resales (down 1.4 per cent month over month) and prices (down 8.5 per cent year over year) fell further. And there’s probably more declines in property values on the way as demand-supply conditions are particularly weak. The sales-to-new listings ratio dropped to a decade low of 0.31 in April. Conditions aren’t quite as soft in Victoria but resale activity continued to trend downward last month, which further reduced upward price pressure. The rate of increase in Victoria’s MLS HPI moderated to 0.7 per cent, down from 13.5 per cent a year ago.

Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax have been among the hotter markets in Canada in the past year.

All three continue to be vibrant at this stage – with sellers in control of pricing – though Montreal experienced a small dip (-1.0 per cent

m/m) in activity in April despite more supply coming to market. Resales continued to rise in both Ottawa (up 2.0 per cent month over month) and Halifax (up 1.7 per cent).

If Canadian real estate has reached its cyclical bottom, this doesn’t imply that it’s about to initiate a rally.

We expect market activity to stay soft in the coming months as buyers continue to deal with affordability issues in key markets, and the stress test and other policy actions taken over the past couple years.

In the coming months, we’ll watch closely the extent to which recent declines in mortgage rates bring relief to buyers and whether first-time home buyers decide to put their plans on hold until more details on the federal government’s First-Time Home Buyer Incentive become available.

On a broader economic note, some analysists express concern about overall household debt levels in Canada – the subject of a future article here.

If not for the offshore component of our real estate business, we might be in more of a pickle than we appear to be now. Even a calico cat has a limited number of lives.

— Mark Ryan is an investment sdvisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his 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. Please consult with a professional advisor.

The SNC-Lavalin headquarters is seen in Montreal earlier this year.

Sports

Blues beat Bruins 3-2 in OT

Jimmy GOLEN

The Associated Press

BOSTON — Carl Gunnarsson

scored on a delayed penalty 3:51 into overtime, Jordan Binnington made 21 saves and the St. Louis Blues beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 on Wednesday night to tie the Stanley Cup Final at a game apiece.

Robert Bortuzzo and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored to help St. Louis win a Cup finals game for the first time in 14 tries in franchise history. It was the first overtime in a Cup final since Game 2 of 2016.

Charlie Coyle and Joakim Nordstrom scored for Boston and Tuukka Rask made 33 saves. The Bruins won 4-2 in Game 1 on Monday night and had won eight straight games.

Game 3 is Saturday night in St. Louis.

Gunnarsson also hit the post behind Rask with about two minutes left in regulation. In the final minute, Boston’s David Pastrnak had a chance off a faceoff, but Binnington turned it away.

“Would have loved to have it in the third, but who cares?” Gunnarson said on the ice moments after his blast past Rask. “It’s great, taking this home.”

After a furious first period that ended in a two-all tie, the teams

went on defence in the second. Despite four penalties, including a high-sticking, blood-drawing double-minor against Boston’s Connor Clifton, neither team was able to score. It stayed tied through a hard-hitting third period, with both teams

failing to convert good scoring chances and avoid overtime.

But after the break, it was all Blues.

Boston did not get off a shot in the overtime, and the Eastern Conference champs struggled to clear it out of their own zone. With

a penalty coming up, the Blues pulled Binnington for an extra skated and maintained possession until they could work it around to Gunnarsson for a rifle into the corner of the net. Gunnarsson also assisted on Bortuzzo’s goal midway through

the first period that deflected off Matt Grzelcyk’s stick past Rask to make it 1-1.

Nordstrom scored just 40 seconds later to give Boston a 2-1 lead, but that lasted less than five minutes before Tarasenko took advantage of a mistake by Brad Marchand and lifted the puck over Rask with a second effort to tie the score again at two.

Bruins defenceman Matt Grzelcyk left with about two minutes left in the first period after taking an elbow to the head from Oskar Sundqvist.

The Bruins did not score on the ensuing power play.

Notes: New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was the pregame banner waver... The Bruins scored a power-play goal for the sixth straight game, the secondlongest post-season streak in franchise history. They have had seven-game streaks three times, most recently in 1999. The 19 power play goals is also the No. 2 in Bruins playoff history, second to the 24 in 1991... The Blues were without forward Robert Thomas, who hasn’t played since a hit from Torey Krug in Game 1. Defenceman Vince Dunn missed his fifth consecutive game... Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy pulled Rask for an offensive zone faceoff with 1.2 seconds left in the second period. Neither team managed a shot.

Unflappable goalie is key to Bruins’ recent success

Jimmy GOLEN The Associated Press

BOSTON — Tuukka Rask first caught coach Bruce Cassidy’s attention as a hotheaded minor leaguer who was throwing milk crates onto the ice when things didn’t go his way.

These days, the Bruins goalie is much more likely to shrug off a mistake than break his stick over a crossbar.

“I just think he’s been real calm for a while now, on and off the ice, really even-keeled,” Cassidy said Tuesday, a day after Boston beat St. Louis 4-2 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

“He’s gotten upset... but he always gets it right back. That’s typically Tuukka.”

The Bruins are close to earning their second NHL title this decade, and Rask is a big reason why. After a so-so regular season that had backup Jaroslav Halak challenging for his job – and many fans calling for the team to make the change – the unflappable Finn has gotten better even when the strain of the playoffs seems to be wearing everyone else down.

He has given up three or more goals just three times this post-season, and he finished off the last two rounds with shutouts that have dropped his goals-against average to 1.85. He is well on his way to becoming the first goalie to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP since 2012.

For a different view of the goalie, Cassidy suggested viewing Rask’s viral hissy fit after losing a 2009 AHL game in a shootout on a goal that he thought hit the crossbar. Rask took his stick to the net like an axe, then flung it across the rink as he skated off; when he got to the tunnel, he found a milk crate that also found its way back to the ice. Rask doesn’t do that anymore. He has matured and he also realized it was fruitless.

“It doesn’t do anything” to lose your tem-

per, he said Tuesday, his arms crossed and his shoulders in what seemed like a permanent shrug.

Instead, he has been able to put mistakes or bad luck behind him, and Cassidy said that was the turning point after St. Louis opened a 2-0 lead in the opener.

“You want to have that to not let games get away from you,” the coach said.

“There’s always, in games every night, where things can get away from you. Typically, you need your goalie to make the next save when it is 2-0.” Rask did that.

And he also made every save after.

“Everybody has to pull their load. That’s the only way you can win,” Rask said.

“Individuals can have performances in certain games and turn the tide, but at the end of the day it’s a team sport and everybody needs to pull along and that’s why we’ve been successful.”

Although Rask won the 2014 Vezina Trophy and is the career leader in save percentage and goals-against average among active goalies, Bruins fans have resisted embracing him.

He was in net when the Bruins blew a 3-0

lead to the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 playoffs, and when the Bruins won it all the next season he was Tim Thomas’ backup. Thomas was gone and Rask was the starter two years later when they went back to the Cup final, but the Bruins lost to the Chicago Blackhawks after Rask allowed two goals in the last 76 seconds of the sixth and clinching game.

The next year, Rask was the league’s top goalie. But the Bruins hadn’t been able to sniff much playoff success again until this year. Although the regular season was one of his worst – his goals-against average was 2.48, his second-highest as a regular – he played in only 46 games. He said the rest is paying off now.

“I think there’s a big difference when you play 45 or 65 games,” he said. “You don’t have that time to get the rest that you kind of want to.”

Rask’s name is already on the Stanley Cup with the 2011 team, and he said the accomplishment is not diminished by the fact that he didn’t appear in the post-season.

“Everybody in the room has a role,” he said.

“I played a lot of games in the regular season and then didn’t play a second in the playoffs. But for us, it didn’t matter if you played or you didn’t play. If you’re a seventh (defenceman), eighth D-man, backup goalie, you were still doing something to contribute. It was great. You need that.”

That’s part of his message to his younger teammates who are in the final for the first time: Don’t waste the opportunity, and don’t forget to enjoy it.

And don’t let your emotions take over.

“On the ice, it’s a game and you just try to keep your nerves as calm as possible, I guess,” he said.

“Experience helps on that.”

Child struck by line drive at Cubs-Astros game

Kristie RIEKEN The Associated Press HOUSTON — A young fan at Wednesday night’s game between the Cubs and Astros was struck by a foul ball hit by Albert Almora Jr., shaking up the Chicago centre fielder.

Almora hit a fourth-inning line drive into the stands down the third base line, where it hit a young girl. He immediately put his hands on his head and took a couple of steps toward the stands. He then fell to his knees near the plate and was consoled by teammate Jason Heyward and manager Joe Maddon.

It took several minutes for Almora, who appeared to be crying, to compose himself and continue the at-bat, and players from both teams also appeared shaken up by the scene.

The girl was picked up by a man who appeared to be with her and he dashed up the stairs not long after she was struck. The Astros did not provide an immediate update on her condition, but a photo taken by The Associated Press showed the girl conscious and crying as she was whisked away and

nearby fans looked on. After the fourth inning, Almora, who still appeared to be upset, approached a security guard in the stands near where the girl was sitting and spoke to the guard before the two embraced. Like all major league stadiums, Minute Maid Park has netting to protect fans from foul balls. But on the third base side in Houston, it only extends to the end of the visiting team’s dugout.

The girl was sitting in what looked to be the third or fourth row about 10 feet past where the netting ends.

Following recommendations from Major League Baseball, by the start of the 2018 season all 30 big league teams had expanded their protective netting to at least the far ends of the dugouts after several fans were injured by foul balls in 2017.

AP PHOTO BY CHARLES KRUPA

St. Louis Blues’ Pat Maroon, left, handles the puck but cannot score past Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask during Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday in Boston.

AP PHOTO BY CHARLES KRUPA

St. Louis Blues’ Sammy Blais (9) crashes into Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask (40), as Bruins’ Brandon Carlo (25) and Blues’ David Perron (57) grapple for the puck during Game 2 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday in Boston.

Toronto Raptors excited about national fan support

Alanna RIZZA

The Canadian Press

TORONTO— The Toronto Rap-

tors are singing the praises of fans across Canada on the eve of the NBA Finals.

Club president Masai Ujiri said Wednesday the team was feeling the love and support of fans everywhere.

“There’s so much excitement, passion, energy, that we’re excited to get started,” he told reporters gathered at Scotiabank Arena, where the Raptors will host the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 Thursday night.

Thousands of fans packed the Jurassic Park outdoor fan area for the deciding game of the Eastern Conference final on Saturday. Then, as the game ended, fans continued the celebration on downtown streets into the wee hours of the morning.

Raptors star Kawhi Leonard, in his first year with the team after being acquired from the San Antonio Spurs last summer, said the fan experience has been an eye-opener.

“Before you come, you know the crowd does come out when you play here on the road,” Leonard said.

“Now I’m here for 41 games during the regular season. You get to live in the city, see how... guys and girls wearing hats, jerseys, how much support is really around the city.”

Leonard said fan support during the playoffs in particular has been striking.

“Now in the playoffs you get to see everybody outside the arena, see how excited they are for the game. See how much support is there too,” he said. “It’s been an exciting year... that’s what pretty much changed for me. Just being able to see it visually.”

Ujiri said the Raptors were not

the only sports team to enjoy the support of Toronto fans.

“It’s such an incredible city, sports city, whether you’re talking about us or the (Maple) Leafs or the Blue Jays or TFC, it’s a great sports city and there’s room for everybody,” he said.

“But it’s incredible how diverse it is and we’re going to continue to grow this and live this in this city... I know this city will win... There’s something about it here

and sports, it comes around. Many cities will win, and Toronto will win too.”

Toronto FC won the Major League Soccer title in 2017, but the other three teams Ujiri mentioned are on championship droughts.

The Raptors have never won the NBA title, the Blue Jays’ last World Series win came in 1993 and the Maple Leafs’ most recent Stanley Cup parade was in 1967.

But many players on the Raptors have been to the Finals in the past. Leonard and Danny Green got there with San Antonio in 2013 and 2014.

Shooting guard Green said what makes Raptors fans unique is that their passion comes from all across Canada, not just Toronto.

“I don’t want San Antonio fans to take this the wrong way, but obviously San Antonio is great –but I didn’t see people jumping on

top of trucks and street lights. The city went crazy and luckily no one got arrested,” said Green. Toronto police have said it’s “impressive” that no one was arrested after Saturday night’s historic game. Videos of the celebrations posted on social media showed Raptors fans running into intersections and dancing on top of streetcars and buses.

About a dozen cities across the country are in the process of setting up their own Jurassic Parks for fans to watch the final games.

Raptors’ forward Chris Boucher told fans to “live their best life” when it comes to celebrating the team.

“Right now it’s the best time for Toronto,” Boucher said.

“People are excited. Fans are having fun and they should keep enjoying that moment.”

They’ll be doing the same thing in Oakland, where Warriors fans are known for being some of the loudest in the league at Oracle Arena, during Games 3 and 4 and, if neccessary Game 6.

In Toronto, Drake will also be rooting for the Raptors on the sidelines – and sometimes from the court. The rapper has become a vocal ambassador for the team – sometimes annoying the team’s opponents.

But the Warriors seemed unfazed by Drake’s antics including coach Steve Kerr, who told reporters Tuesday that he’s “not worried” about Drake.

“I called him on his cell phone earlier,” he said, making a reference to the rapper’s song Hotline Bling.

Warriors forward Jordan Bell also said Drake doesn’t bother him.

“He’s just like a regular fan – but it also just happens to be Drake,” said Bell.

“I don’t think he’s going to affect us.”

Canada’s Bianca Andreescu withdraws from French Open

The Canadian Press

PARIS — Canadian Bianca Andreescu’s return from a two-month injury absence was a short one.

Andreescu withdrew from the French Open on Wednesday ahead of her secondround match against Sofia Kenin due to a recurring right shoulder injury.

“Tough moment for me but after discussing with my coaches, team and doctors, it was the safest decision to make after the shoulder pain I felt during the match,” Andreescu tweeted.

“I will now rest and prepare for the upcoming grass court season.”

Andreescu did not express concern about her shoulder after completing a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 first-round win over Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic on Tuesday. The No. 22 seed from Mississauga, Ont., did say she was “a little bit sore” but wasn’t surprised given that she was off court for several weeks.

“All the nerves are kicking in again,” Andreescu said after her victory.

“But I got treatment and I’m feeling really (good), actually, considering. Shoulder, it’s really good and I’m really pleased. Just got to keep getting treatment and I’ll be good.”

It was her first match since she retired from her fourth-round match at the Miami Open on March 25 with a right shoulder injury.

At the time, the 18-year-old was coming

second-round

a shot to Angelique Kerber during the Miami Open tennis tournament in Miami Gardens, Fla. in March.

off her breakthrough title at Indian Wells. Andreescu was the last remaining Canadian in singles play after Eugenie Bouchard

of Westmount, Que., dropped a 6-2, 6-2 decision to No. 27 seed Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine on Tuesday.

Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., a No. 20 seed, lost his opening match to Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff on Monday. Canada’s Milos Raonic (knee) and Felix Auger-Aliassime (hip abductor) pulled out of the tournament due to injury.

Kenin, a 35th-ranked American, gets a walkover into the third round and will next face either American Serena Williams or Japanese qualifier Karumi Nara. Andreescu also pulled out of the women’s doubles competition with partner Fanny Stollar of Hungary.

Andreescu resumed on-court activities in early May after taking time off to let a small subscapularis muscle tear in her rotator cuff heal. She trained in Spain over the last few weeks and had declared herself pain-free ahead of the second Grand Slam of the tennis season.

Andreescu did not play a warm-up tournament ahead of Roland Garros, instead opting for an extra week of training.

Gabriela Dabrowski is the only Canadian left in doubles play. The Ottawa native is seeded fourth in the women’s draw with China’s Yifan Xu. They were scheduled to play Romania’s Irina Bara and Slovakia’s Dalila Jakupovic on Thursday.

Dabrowski and Croatia’s Mate Pavic are seeded second in the mixed doubles draw. They were set to open against American Kaitlyn Christian and Frederik Nielsen of Denmark.

Bianca Andreescu withdrew from the French Open on Wednesday ahead of her

match against Sofia Kenin due to a recurring right shoulder injury. In the photo Andreescu returns

Basketball fans cheer for the Toronto Raptors before claiming victory over the Philadelphia 76ers outside Maple Leaf Square during the second half of an NBA Eastern Conference semifinal basketball game in Toronto on May 12.

Latest Godzilla movie delivers on brawn but lacks brains

Hau CHU The Washington Post

Despite featuring two of cinema’s biggest stars (literally), Warner Bros.’ budding MonsterVerse – a franchise built around the characters of Godzilla and King Kong – inexplicably hasn’t gotten a lot of fanfare. This, despite the fact that 2014’s Godzilla, a reboot of the classic monster story, earned nearly $530 million at the box office and was generally wellreceived, save for some quibbles about the human story.

Five years later, you might expect the sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, to have addressed those concerns. Does it come out roaring – a balanced mix of fire-breathing action and story that moves you, efficiently, from one kaiju bout to the next?

Unfortunately, Monsters tries a little too hard to correct course from what some saw as its predecessor’s flaws. The movie does not roar, but rather emits only a serviceable yelp.

Gareth Edwards, who directed the 2014 Godzilla, was criticized for waiting too long to reveal the titular Japanese movie monster in that film. In contrast, the new film’s director, Michael Dougherty (Krampus), seems to revel in wreaking havoc in the kaiju sandbox, showing off every last trick and ability possessed by Godzilla and the other classic movie monsters that are reintroduced here. But instead of figuring out a compelling story for the non-skyscraper-sized characters, Dougherty and co-screenwriter Zach Shields seem to be counting on the fact that you’ll take a bathroom break during the exposition and return in time for the next battle.

The premise is this: Monarch, a shadowy cryptozoological agency that studies such ancient, physicsdefying monsters as Godzilla, has discovered that more and more of these creatures, known as titans, exist, and that they are entombed in some of Earth’s farthest reaches.

As as a former Monarch scientist – and the estranged husband of a current one (Vera Farmiga) – Kyle Chandler brings his signature gruff wit and divorced-dad energy to the job of co-parenting a daughter (Millie Bobby Brown) and mourning the loss of a son (whose death is shown in flashback.) Chandler and Farmiga’s inane actions, contrived in service of the plot and nothing else, fall apart under close scrutiny. And Brown is underused – delivering shrieks in the face of the story’s twists and turns, but not much more.

There are also haphazard attempts to weave in the themes of government interference, climate change and East Asian mythology as motivation for some of the characters.

Ken Watanabe, reprising his role as a scientist, is the only returning character who is given anything to chew on here. But any fresh emotional weight that his character carries is undercut by the memory of his comically underwritten role in the 2014 film, in which the actor had little to do except pronounce the name Godzilla in a Japanese accent.

As the film’s subtitle hints, several of these titans – who include such favourites as the flying reptile Rodan and the queen of the monsters, Mothra – emerge ready to square off in a frenzied free-for-all to crown an alpha.

The movie establishes its visual tone early with the awakening of Godzilla’s archenemy Ghidorah, a three headed dragon-like creature who rises from the Antarctic ice. The two kaiju duke it out in a visually rich fight that maintains the pleasingly old-school aesthetic of the original Godzilla’s man-in-a-rubbersuit costuming, giving this CGI beast a very humanlike nature.

For a popcorn movie, all of this might be enough. Despite its plot holes, the film delivers thrilling action in spades. But hardcore devotees of the Godzilla mythology might prefer Japan’s most recent live-action spin on the monster: Shin Godzilla, a 2016 film that balanced a laser-focused Veep-esque story of government buffoonery with jaw-dropping destruction.

Stay tuned for the next entry in the Warner Bros. MonsterVerse: Godzilla vs. King Kong (scheduled for release in March 2020). You can put money on this: The showdown between two figures of movie lore will deliver the visual goods. As to whether the next installment also manages to remind us why those creatures matter in the first place, cross your fingers, but maybe don’t hold your breath.

Two stars. Rated PG-13. Contains sequences of monster action, violence, destruction and some strong language. 131 minutes.

PHOTO BY DANIEL MCFADDEN FOR WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Vera Farmiga, left, and Millie Bobby Brown star in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which hits theatres Friday.

VUKOVIC (PERKOVIC) May 9, 1939 May 24, 2019

Where flowers bloom, hope grows. Gdje cvijece cvjeta, nada raste. Mom died at the age of 80 at home with family by her side. Her youthful and loving spirit will be dearly missed by her husband Vlado, and her children Mira (Fraser), Nada (Lorne), Kathy (Peter), and Tommy (Gina), 10 grandchildren Michael, Kevon (Chelsey), Nathan, Megan, Madison, Meredith, Grace, Stuart, Arianna, Kalina, and 3 great grandchildren Peyton, Alivia, and Emmet.

Mom was born in Antulic Village, Križpolje, Croatia to parents Ivan and Julka Perkovic and was predeceased by her parents and her 7 siblings. She was a busy, hard-working young girl and had the nickname Lolé. In 1966, she immigrated to Prince George with her daughter Mira, to join her husband who had been working in Canada for 4 years and had earned enough to buy their first home on McBride Crescent. 3 more children were born (Nada, Kathy, Tommy) and Mom also fostered a child, Wayne, for several years. Her love of children was unlimited, and she watched over her kids with warmth, pride, and a loyal Croatian fierceness. Her care for children continued with several grandchildren whom she adored. When Mom was not caring for children, you would find her in her garden caring for her beautiful flowers. In her senior years, her favourite place to be was in her yard, enjoying the sunshine, the birds, and her greenhouse. She was a good friend and always welcomed company with a kind and generous heart. Prayer Service on Thursday, May 30, 2019, 6:30 p.m. and Funeral Mass Service on Friday, May 31, 2019, 1:00 p.m., both services at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Prince George. Interment in the Prince George Memorial Park Cemetery. Reception to follow at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, St. Eugene Room.

Robert Philip Gordon Gable Apr 25,1925 - May 27, 2019

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Robert (Bob) Gable, aged 94, peacefully at the University Hospital of Northern BC. He will be forever remembered and dearly missed by his wife of 71 years Kathleen (Kay); their children Kirk (Kathie), Brock (Mandy), Murray (Suzanne) and Laurel (Wes Penner); grandchildren Emily (Cory), Carla (Adam), Brianna, Nate (Christie), Luke (Erin), Hannah, Danial, Katie, Andrew (Kristina), Eric, Haley, Eric, Jon and Alex and 9 greatgrandchildren. He is predeceased by many family and friends. Bob, a Second World War veteran and the youngest of three children, was born and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy at the young age of 17, boarded the HMCS La Hulloise and went off to war in the north Atlantic. He was one of the last remaining crew members. While on shore leave in 1945 he met Kay who would become his wife and steadfast life companion. They married in 1947 and spent the next 10 years in Edmonton before moving with their young family to Fort St. John in 1958 and then Prince George in 1965. A welder by trade, Bob was indeed a builder of the Canadian economy over his career beginning as an apprentice for Dominion Bridge on a vessel riveting crew in Edmonton, running a welding rig business with brother Don in Fort St. John to support the growth of the oil and gas industry, and then working with pulp mill construction contractors and the Local 170 Welders & Pipefitters Union for the next 40 years in Prince George. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Legion in 1946, and was a member of the Masonic Lodge. Bob and Kay vacationed and traveled together with their children spending summer vacations at Kalamalka Lake along with Kay’s sister and her three children. They spent many wonderful times at their cabins at Charlie Lake and Bednesti Lake; and enjoyed traveling to Nevada in their motorhome to escape the northern winters. Family was always a priority for Bob. For many years Bob kept Appaloosa horses and in his later years he became a decent gardener growing vegetables, herbs and flowers in his backyard garden. A memorial service will be held at 3:00pm on Saturday, June 1st at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 3590 Dufferin Avenue, Prince George with a reception to follow. Interment of ashes will be at a later date in Edmonton.

Svend Aage Andersen

Mar 25, 1931 - May 23, 2019

Svend Andersen passed away peacefully on May 23, 2019, at the age of 88. At his side were his wife, Patricia, and his son and two daughters. Svend was born in Denmark, and in 1959 came to Canada with his first wife, Edith, a son, and a daughter, to pursue a career in forestry. In 1968, Svend and his family, which now included a second daughter, moved from Victoria to Prince George. Here, Svend helped establish the nursery at the Red Rock Research Station. He spent 20 rewarding years at Red Rock, enjoying his work outdoors, and taking pride in his contributions to the tree improvement program. He was recognized as the BC Forest Service expert in tree grafting. Svend was an avid rock-hound, prospector, fly fisherman, weather-watcher, gardener, and blueberry-picker, sharing many of these passions with his children and grandchildren. He was kind, easy-going, patient, and had a wry sense of humour; qualities that were admired and appreciated by all. Svend met Patricia Frank in 1979, and they married in 1982. Together they built a new home and a happy life sharing many trips near and far, and hosting numerous family gatherings full of laughter, and endless games of cards. Despite the many years since he left Denmark, Svend stayed closely connected with family through correspondence, travel and memories. Svend is survived by his wife, Patricia; his children, Torben (Sheila), Jane (Drew), Marianne (Robert); his very special friend, Rick; eight grandchildren, seven great grandchildren, and many other dear family members in Denmark and Canada. He is predeceased by his first wife, Edith, his infant son, John, his parents, Anna and Viggo, his sister, Anny, and his brother, Arne. Svend was an integral part of many lives, and will be sorely missed. There will be no formal service. A gathering for family and friends will be announced at a later date. The family is grateful to the staff of Simon Fraser Lodge for taking such good care of Svend for the last year. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to the Kidney Foundation of Canada or the Canadian Mental Health Association.

April Marie Mason

Passed away May 25, 2019 after a long battle with kidney and liver failure. The daughter of the late Bruce Taylor, gone to join her brothers Lee & Aaron (Hank). She leaves to Celebrate her life husband Greg, sons Taylor and Brody (Kelli), and daughter Cassidy, mother Eileen Taylor, brothers Shane (Adele), Jay (Kerri), Wade (Cindi). Service at Mason Home in Spring lake Alberta June 1, 2019. A get together for family and friends in Prince George to be announced at a later date.

Giani (Johnny) Tomasini

Passed away suddenly on May 23rd, 2019 at his home in Prince George. Born In Prince Rupert on September 25, 1954, John started working at BC Hydro when he was 18 years old, until he found his career at Northwood Pulp Mill where he continued to work for almost four decades. Predeceased by his father Angelo. He is survived by his mother Gemma Tomasini, sister Lora Tomasini, brother Mark Tomasini, nephew Bryce Johnson & niece, Jenna Johnson. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the BC Heart & Stroke Foundation. A service will be held at Assman’s Funeral Home at 10:30 am on June 1, 2019. Reception to follow.

The heavens rejoiced on Saturday morning, May 25, 2019, when Harold Joseph Anderson (Corky), born May 10, 1934, made the transition from earthly realm to heavenly realm. He has gone ahead of his beloved wife, Rosemary Eleanor, son Larry (Marilyn), daughter Laura (Gary Giese), grandchildren: Ryan (Nastasjja) Dahl, Cassidy (Crystal) Dahl, Kirsten (Dwain Funk), Lars Anderson, great granddaughters: Tyler, Charlotte, Navy Dahl, and great grandson Azlan Dahl. Corky was born in Dryden where he met and married Eleanor, April 22, 1957. He worked as a millwright at Dryden Pulp and Paper until 1968 when he packed up his family and horses to move to Olds, Alberta to manage an Arabian Ranch. That didn’t work out well so they had a family vote to move to Prince George in 1972. He and Eleanor found their dream property and they pursued their dream of an Arabian stallion farm. That transitioned and downsized overtime. Corky retired from Northwood in 1997 after being there since 1972. Corky was so full of life right up to the end. He was always so positive and full of fun. He had a smile that could melt your heart. His love for the outdoors was evident in the many pictures of hunting, fishing, and riding horses. When he wasn’t doing those activities he could be found working on a project around his place. He loved to bowl and he loved to dance. Every morning he would put in his earbuds and dance around the floor for exercise and he couldn’t help but to be positive after that. He loved to celebrate with his family as often as possible with good food, good music, and dancing. We know that he is waltzing around Heaven right now with joy overflowing.

We love you Corky, Dad, Grandpa, Great Grandpa. Till we meet again.

We are having a celebration of life for Corky on Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 2 o’clock at the Heartland Baptist Church, luncheon to follow. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Prince George Hospice House. The people that work at that organization are absolutely amazing.

“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.

ZORA

Obituaries

into action that will support students to build skill, enhance their work experience, introduce small business concepts or engage them in community based projects in the City of Prince George.

Each applicant can apply for up to $5,000. You are eligible to apply if you are an Indigenous student, non-profit organizations, industry or union.

For further information please visit www.pgnaeta.bc.ca Deadline to apply is June 3, 2019

Adult & Youth Newspaper Carriers

Needed in the Following areas:

• Hart Area • Driftwood Rd, Dawson Rd, Seton Cres, • Austin Rd.

• Lower College Heights

O’Grady Rd and Park, Brock, Selkirk,

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

• • Upper College Heights

• St Barbara, St Bernadette, Southridge, St Anne Ave, Bernard, St Clare St, St Gerald Pl, Creekside, Stillwater.

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

Responsibleforlocalleadershipandcontract accountability,thisroleleadstheachievementof performanceandqualitystandards,providing oversightfortheentirePrinceGeorgecatchment. Learnmoreandapply:wcgservices.com/careers

THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2019

Podcasts bring radio drama into the 21st century

LOCAL THEATRE GROUP WIN AWARDS

(Strangers on a Glade)

The awards poured in for Prince George dramatists, and another year of community performance came to its version of the fiscal (theatrical) year end.

The annual Central Interior Zone Drama Festival was held in Kersley with four clubs staging performances: Paisley Players (PP of Quesnel), Kersley Players (KP of Kersley), Pocket Theatre (PT of Prince George) and Williams Lake Studio Theatre ( WLST of Williams Lake).

The Pocket Theatre group sent a contingent performing a live radio play version of Treasure Island.

“Our adjudicator, Christopher Weddell, was very supportive, gently critiquing, acknowledging our achievements, and educating every group in the development of our theatre skills,” said Andrea Mallett, a longtime Prince George participant and board member with Theatre BC.

The festival is always the apex of the theatrical year for the amateur casts and crews across the area. It brings together the theatrical community and, with its focused productions and workshops, always sends participants home with more skills and experiences than they had coming in.

It is also a chance to honour the year’s best, and to select one play to move on to the Theatre BC Mainstage competition.

The full results for 2019 are:

Best Backstage Coordination - Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Set Decoration - Michael Diebolt & Lana Johnson of Kersley Players (Strangers on a Glade)

Best Set Design - Jamie Regier of WLST (Cherry Docs)

Best Original Script - Gino de Rose of Paisley Players (Deja Date)

Best Props - Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Most Creative Use of a Boa - Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Makeup - Kersley Players (Strangers on a Glade)

Best Costumes - Kersley Players

Best Sound - Katherine Benny of Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Lights - WLST (Cherry Docs)

Best Young Actor - Niall Caffrey of Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Supporting Actor - Frank Caffrey of Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island )

Best Supporting Actress - Sandra Clermont of Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Actor - Gabriel Zamorano of WLST (Cherry Docs)

Best Actress - Julie-Anne Runge of Kersley Players (Strangers on a Glade)

Best Director - Merla Monroe of WLST (Cherry Docs)

Best Ensemble - Pocket Theatre (Treasure Island)

Best Production - Cherry Docs by Williams Lake Studio Theatre

The performance deemed the Best Production will now carry on to represent the Central Interior Zone at the Theatre BC Mainstage event from July 5-13 in Port Alberni. This event is also open to members of the association to attend for networking, learning and inspiration.

“The Central Interior Zone is still managing to hang in there,” said Mallett, acknowledging that all-volunteer endeavours are never easy to sustain. “We are very lucky to have Williams Lake Studio Theatre as it is a very thriving community theatre. They already have next season planned, and always have new people interested in directing productions. They have a very successful mentoring program in their club.”

Mallett said some other local theatre companies have been joining in on the zone competition in recent years, including a play performed last year by Judy Russell Presents, a company renowned for musical theatre but they made this foray into drama and helped boost the community acting industry in the pro-

This year the newcomer was Paisley Players, there is a children’s theatre group already expressing interest in per-

Frank Caffrey rehearses a scene of Pocket Theatre’s 2017 production of The Weir at Artspace. Caffrey was named best supporting actor at the Central Interior Zone Drama Festival for his role in Pocket Theatre’s production of Treasure Island.

forming at next year’s zone festival, and perhaps more will come forward as well.

The more, said Mallett, the merrier.

“Our adjudicator this year, Christopher Weddell, expressed surprise and admiration at the cooperation and support between all of the groups participating in festival,” she said. “As an educator, he was delighted at the eagerness to learn and develop we all brought to the festival process. It has always been a zone that gathers to celebrate and support the accomplishments of all the clubs who participate in festival.”

One of Prince George’s winners this year, Katherine Benny, concurred with the supportive spirit found at the festival.

“I had an amazing time in Kersley,” said Benny in a social media posting following her trophy. “Still being new to the world of theatre, I felt incredibly welcomed and absolutely honoured to have been awarded Best Sound. Thank you to Allison and Peter (Haley and Maides, codirectors of Treasure Island) for trusting me to design and perform sound effects for our wonderful radio play. Now... let’s do it again.”

DEDICATED VOLUNTEER HAS FULL LIFE

Well know Prince George volunteer Ginny (Johnson) Parsons was born in 1943 in the former coalmining town of Nordegg, Alta.

Ginny said, “I am proud to say that I was a coal miners’ daughter. I went to school in Red Deer, Alta. and got my Grade 12 here in Prince George when I was 52. I worked as a waitress at the A&W and the Chuck Wagon Café and in my spare time I volunteered at the rodeo. I was part of the reserve army in Red Deer from the age of 10 to 23. The reserve army was meant to prepare young people for the regular army.

“When I was 18, I met and married Del Allen; we separated in 1979.”

Ginny arrived in Prince George in 1967 and has been here ever since. She married Don Parsons, in 1989. Don was born in Pine River, Man. in 1930. He worked as an engineer for CN and Via Rail Canada for 45 years. His work career took him from coal powered trains to diesel engines and later he operated the formerly electrified spur line in and out of Tumbler Ridge.

Ginny said, “Don loved the farm at Salmon Valley. I remember when we moved there; at first the kids were unhappy that we moved so far out of town. Eventually we told them that if we moved back to town that there would be no more horses or chickens. That settled everything and they were happy to stay. I was a stay-at-home mom until the kids grew up. I started a neighborhood day care, took in foster children and billeted hockey players. There were many children who passed through our home and I loved all of it.

“I volunteered for Brownies, Girl Guides, Rangers, Pee Wee Baseball for Highglen Elementary and anything else to do with the children.

“Don enjoyed volunteering and together we volunteered at gymkhanas and started the Salmon Valley rodeo as a fund raiser for the Salmon Valley Recreational Centre. Sadly, Don passed away in 1998.”

Ginny has three daughters; Debbie (Dwayne) Thompson lives in Fort Nelson, Tina (David) Shields lives in Salmon Valley and Jody (Brad) Chimera lives in Alberta who in turn gave them six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren who are perfect in every way – which of course they always are.

Ginny worked for School District 57 for 30 years. She started out as a teaching assistant for special needs children, then

went into the custodial division for the next 22 years and worked as a supervisor’s assistant over 275 custodians until she retired in 2003.

Ginny said, “I was proud to receive my retirement bell – a genuine school bell – with my years of service engraved on it. When I retired, I had more time to volunteer and I was happy about that. Now I realize that as a volunteer, if I want vacation days, I would have to go back to work at a paying job to be eligible for vacation days.”

Ginny is nearly a full-time volunteer and has accomplished much for her community over the years. She worked, along with many others, on the Save the Pine Valley Golf Course fund raising projects and she is a volunteer at the Hart Pioneer Centre.

She has been volunteering at the Prince George Council of Seniors since 2003 serving on their board, working the front desk, assisting in their denture program, the Christmas hampers and many of their fund raisers just to name a few.

Ginny and Lola Dawn, the PGCS executive director, are currently working on

Pioneer Day for the next B. C. Northern Exhibition (BCNE). Year after year and at the end of each annual Pioneer Day event they ask one another if they have enough steam to commit for the next year’s event and of course Ginny always responds with a laugh and a high energized and positive confirmation.

It was Ginny’s idea to start a Salmon Valley volunteer fire department. She checked all the facts with an insurance agent to verify the expected house insurance savings if a fire department was nearby. Then she knocked on the doors of her neighbors to see if they wanted it. They did, so Ginny took the required training through the Justice Institute of BC fire protection agency and became a qualified first responder trainer for all volunteer fire departments. She trained junior volunteer fire fighters and was please to see many of them go into a career as a fire fighter.

They did medical call outs and saved many lives over the years and assisted along the highways and byways as needed. Ginny said, “The Salmon Valley volunteer fire department members were

on hand to help out during the Wright Creek flooding that took out the bridge that was the only road access in and out of Salmon Valley. There was a stranded south bound Greyhound bus load of people that we fed and housed over night until another north bound bus could come and pick them up to get them to their destinations. I was proud to be a part of such a great community and all those volunteers. I received many hugs over the years and I can tell you – thank you hugs are always welcomed by a volunteer.”

Ginny is active in her church and volunteers at the Hartland Baptist Church. She said, “My life is full. I value my time with family and friends, I enjoy fishing and a bit of golfing. I am no Tiger Woods by any stretch of the imagination but I have a good time and I love it.

“I have never been a couch potato and I don’t intend to start now. I am proud to do volunteer work – I don’t know of any other way. My reward is that it brings me personal satisfaction and makes my heart feel good. I have a few more miles left in me so I intend to just keep on going.”

97/16 Photo by James Doyle Ginny Parsons is a lifelong volunteer, and has been volunteering with the Prince George Council of Seniors since 2003.

ON COLLECTIVISM AS A SOLUTION TO POLARIZATION

These days we hear a lot about polarization; contrasting groups fighting against each other. Occasionally (too often for my taste) we introduce laws that restrict personal freedoms to favour our collective rights. The problem with that is that each individual is an individual, and not a collective organism; and strains to be free, and live, as they judge correct. This past week I heard a CBC program talking about the “Lost Boys” experiment that took place in the 1950s in an attempt to determine if the boys could be induced to hate each other to the point of violence. We may shudder at the horrifying nature of the research, but we have to remember that our society had just emerged from the unthinkable atrocities of the Second World War. There was a legitimate interest in trying to sort out how an educated society could commit the atrocities of Hitler’s Germany. A bit of further research found, on the

THINKING ALOUD

TRUDY KLASSEN

British Phycological Society website, a bit of an explanation, (paraphrasing significantly): “In the experiment, called “The Robber’s Cave Experiment” the boys could indeed be made to hate each other, but when working toward a common goal, such as solving a water shortage, they were found to make peace with each other. This was used to support the idea of the ‘necessary collectivistic nature’ when studying human relationships.”

Apparently, Muzafar Sherif, the author of the study, believed that a common goal would eliminate self-interested hatred and conflict. He was sympathetic to Marxism. I wish he could have studied

the Old Colony, or Old Order, Mennonites, which by then had established semi-collective communities in Canada and in several South American countries. These communities operate in Marxist, collectivist, fashion, except they are not atheist. (Their nominal “religion” is actually used as the “opiate for the people” in order to keep them under “control.”)

But, I digress. Why didn’t Sherif study those who had actually lived in a collectivist community like the Old Colony Mennonites? Maybe he didn’t know about them, or about their system of governing themselves? Possibly, he tried to, but was rebuffed. Why didn’t, don’t, researchers study actual communities which practice a form of collectivism, and have done so for years? Why do researchers have to resort to trying to simulate a collective environment?

Because they wouldn’t be allowed in to study these actual “collective” com-

munities. That should tell researchers something. Perhaps, to allow an outsider in, would threaten their survival. If an outsider would be let in, I can guarantee you that the methods, rules, and customs, used to sustain the collective nature of their lifestyles would be shocking to anyone used to a decent amount of personal freedom.

If you have thought collectivism may be the answer to the current polarization in the Western World, I would encourage you to study those who have lived it. The books widely read, with beautiful women and pastoral landscapes on their covers, tell romantic tales of those living in these Mennonite (or Amish) communities, and give a decidedly rosy picture of life there. Instead, next time you meet someone with a Mennonite name, ask them their story, or their grandparent’s story. Some may have lost the story about life in these communities, but some will remember.

HEATWAVE FESTIVAL TO SHOWCASE CULTURE

97/16 STAFF

A heatwave is hitting Prince George this sunmmer, but it’s the good kind.

When the Canada 150 celebrations were underway across the nation, Prince

George’s favourite winter music festival, Coldsnap, earned a grant to host an outdoor summertime version they called Heatwave. It was intended at the time to be a

CN is required to clear its rights-of-way from any vegetation that may pose a safety hazard. Vegetation on railway rights-of-way, if left uncontrolled, can contribute to trackside fires and impair proper inspection of track infrastructure.

As such, for safe railway operations, the annual vegetation control program will be carried out on CN rail lines in the province of British Columbia. A certified applicator will be applying herbicides on and around the railway tracks (mainly the graveled area/ballast). All product requirements for setbacks in the vicinity of dwellings, aquatic environments and municipal water supplies will be met.

Having received confirmation of CN’s PMP, we expect that the program will take place from June 1, 2019 to September 15, 2019.

Visit www.cn.ca/vegetation to see the list of cities as well as the updated schedule.

For more information, you may contact the CN Public Inquiry Line at 1-888-888-5909.

one-time event, but thanks to a federal grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage and their Community Support, Multiculturalism, and Anti-Racism Initiatives Program, it will happen again, but in a different form.

Solidly behind this initiative is Tourism Prince George and the City of Prince George. Their combined granting power, joined with the federal contribution, amounted to $75,000.

“On behalf of city council, it is my pleasure to announce Heatwave – Celebrate Cultures,” said Mayor Lyn Hall. “The aim of this event is to highlight Prince George as a welcoming, multicultural, diverse, and inclusive community.”

Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society (IMSS) has partnered with Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, Le Cercle des Canadiens Français de Prince George, and the Prince George Folkfest Society (the organizers of Coldsnap) to enhance and connect a series of preexisting family-friendly community events to create a signature event that celebrates culture.

IMSS executive director Ravi Sexena, said, “We are very pleased to be working

with community partners to enhance and showcase many cultures. There are many ways for cultural associations, groups, families, or individuals to get involved, showcase, and celebrate their culture: with interactive information booths, vending, music, dances, art, food, and even a traditional dress fashion show.”

This annual event will provide free, high-caliber nightly entertainment in Canada Games Plaza to anchor a weekend festival that “promotes cultural understanding, social connectedness, and community pride,” according to the organizers.

The event will be held June 21-23 and will connect National Indigenous Peoples Day, IMSS’ Day of Cultures, and the Saint-Jean Baptiste Day.

There will be daytime events in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park for National Indigenous Peoples Day and all other events will take place in Canada Games Plaza. The Coldsnap organizers will provide entertainment spanning the three evenings and connecting the music to the cultural festivities.

Relay For Life Prince George | June 9 – 10, 2018 Help us celebrate our first year at Exhibition Park

TIME FOR A CIVIL DISCUSSION ABOUT ABORTION

There is perhaps no more contentious topic of discussion in Canada than the abortion issue. Even Canadian lawmakers are hesitant to debate the subject.

As a high school teacher of a class called Social Justice 12, I cannot ignore the topic, and my code of ethics requires that I facilitate legitimate research and respectful discussion, all the while keeping my opinions to myself. What many people forget is that abortion is a social justice issue for people on both sides of the divide. Therefore, when I ask my students to research a topic of their own choosing and present their findings to the class, abortion is a fairly common subject.

I learn a great deal from my students. The most important lesson they’ve taught me is that the issue can actually be discussed respectfully. People can hear opposing views, offer well-reasoned

LESSONS IN LEARNING GERRY CHIDIAC

counter- arguments and learn from each other, even though they may not agree.

The passage of new anti-abortion laws in several American states has brought this topic to the fore. Pro-life advocates believe very strongly that human life begins at conception and that abortion is murder. Their intention, therefore, is to save the lives of unborn children. The question comes, however, as to whether these laws will actually be effective in achieving that goal.

According to research, simply making abortion illegal does not reduce the incidence of abortion. It can, however, increase the incidence of unsafe abor-

ABOUT US

• Colleen Sparrow, publisher and GM

• Neil Godbout, editor-in-chief

• Shawn Cornell, director of advertising

• Call us at: 250-562-2441 or 250-562-3301 •

tions. According to the World Health Organization, these procedures are the third leading cause of maternal deaths. We also need to remember that abortion is not only an issue in the developed world, where abortion rates have actually been dropping.

In the developing world, abortion rates have remained stable, despite restrictive abortion laws in many countries. What then actually does reduce the incidence of abortion? According to research by the Guttmacher Institute, when more is invested in the health of young women, abortion rates drop. With increased government spending on health care for all, abortion rates in the United States in 2014 were roughly half of what they were in 1980.

I recall visiting a centre for pre-natal and post-natal health for women at-risk in my community. Though the people who ran it openly called themselves prochoice, I remarked to myself that I had never seen a place that was more prolife. Women were given support regarding their reproductive health, and they learned what they needed to do to have healthy babies. In addition, they were given support after their children were born, which included everything from getting diapers to receiving job training.

It seems quite ironic that many promoters of anti-abortion legislation in the United States are also supporting cuts to public health care spending. These poli-

cies will likely result in more unplanned pregnancies and could actually make the abortion rate increase.

What then is the solution? Perhaps we need advocates on both sides of the divide to be true to their preferred monikers.

Pro-life supporters need to be pro-life in every aspect of the term. In particular, they need to be in favour of health and social programs which promote the well-being of all. They also need to support foreign policy that provides funding for the education and physical well-being of women in less- developed countries. If they do not, they are simply anti-abortion.

Pro-choice supporters need to be open to questions regarding abortion. Do we really want to allow more boys than girls to be born, as is the case in several countries? Do we want to prevent the births of children with disabilities? If we are going to call our society democratic, we have to allow for these uncomfortable conversations.

We need to talk about abortion. We cannot continue to hurl insults at one another. As my students have taught me, we are quite capable of seeking truth in an objective and respectful manner.

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

A MOSTLY HAPPY CAMPER

We, like every other winter-exhausted family in the region, went camping on the May long weekend. But we almost weren’t able to. Being the first weekend the provincial parks in this area were opened, it was busy to say the least. Forgive me for assuming that you could decide last minute to go camping. Nope. You have to plan your summer in January apparently. Courtesy of the government of BC, you can book your camping adventures online at the beginning of the year – for the entire summer. Decide not to go at the last minute, not to worry, your spot will be saved for you even if you don’t show up. Who cares that we had to drive to two parks with our cranky children in tow (two parks because the first one was completely full). Also, it was raining as it always does for us while camping. My parents headed out early on Friday morning in order to get us all a spot. We should have anticipated there would not be a spot available at Bear Lake and I guess

HOME AGAIN

MEGAN KUKLIS

we should have driven out on Thursday left a tent like everyone else and then come back out on Friday after work. C’est la vie – as my mother would say. As it was, I received increasingly irritated texts from my moth narrating their quest for a camping site.

I was instructed to log into the government site to try and reserve a spot but it was too late and all of the spots were already taken. They made their way to McLeod lake and luckily managed to find the last provincial site in all of Northern BC. It was a delightfully shady spot (because who likes sun) that the last time we parked there, I (my husband) had

forgotten to pack the tent poles. After we unpacked and a cracked open a frosty beverage, the rain started and we all let out a big sigh of relief because this was camping. Camping in the rain is our jam. We played cards, the kids rode bikes and rode to the playground (by themselves, even!) and we all went to bed, tired, happy, wet and cold. By some miracle of northern weather, it cleared up the following day and we enjoyed a beautiful day, a kilometer from the lake, in the shady bush site, hanging out and relaxing with our family.

Years ago, camping was really, really popular and the provincial sites were huge. If you walk around Bear Lake and McLeod Lake sites, you can see a number of deactivated camping spots that, over the past decade, the parks have closed because they were going empty. I guess the economy was better and people were spending their money away from home. Well, Parks BC, open those spots back up, fix the horseshoe pits and charge less for firewood

because gas is outrageously expensive and no one can afford to go anywhere. When I was growing up, there were presentations on local flora and fauna and edible mushrooms and berries and traditional knowledge at amphitheatres around the province. Nightly on weekends, as kids we could go to the presentations, learn something new and meet up with other kids who were camping. There were structured activities, led hikes and bushcraft presentations. It was fun. Can we have that back please? It is unlikely it will happen since the parks are now government-owned but privately-run but I can remain optimist that, at the very least, the horseshoe pits will be fixed and perhaps the trail cleared by the next time I come back. Dear Parks BC (or whatever you are calling yourself these days), please reactive more sites so we don’t all have to compete, Survivorstyle, for the last available camping site. And fix the horseshoe pits. Sincerely, a (mostly) happy camper.

HEALTHY EATING OBSESSION CAN BE SIGN OF MENTAL-HEALTH ISSUES, STUDY SAYS

ADINA BRESGE

The Canadian press

TORONTO — While we should all strive for a balanced diet, York University researchers say the extreme pursuit of healthy eating can be a sign of mental-

health struggles. Jennifer Mills, an associate professor in York’s psychology department, co-wrote a recent paper on orthorexia nervosa, which she describes as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating, published

“Food” For Thought

For years now, we’ve done a pretty fair job in placing a value on our coniferous trees, minerals, oil and gas. Somehow however, we’ve undervalued the rest of our biodiversity. We try to place a value on wilderness tourism – wildlife viewing, guided hunting, resident hunting, camping, fishing etc.… but I think we’re missing the bigger picture.

Think about this for a moment. We as a society place a monetary value on cattle. A rancher ensures his cattle are fed and properly nourished in order to produce more cattle. The public relies upon ranchers to supply good quality beef that they are willing to pay money for. People in the industry have advised me that prime cows, in the 3-4 year old range are worth $2,500 to $3,500 each with the expectancy of producing calves for 7 or 8 years. When beef is sold for market, the average market value is $2.20 per pound and the average cost to process is around $450 to $500 each.

A recent report from 2016 “Provincial Population and Harvest Estimates of Moose in British Columbia” states the average annual provincial moose population is 172,000. If we placed the same value on moose as we have for cattle that would put the provincial moose population value at $430 million. Now we’re talking organic

meat in the truest sense so I think my estimate is extremely conservative.

This same report also states that the annual harvest over the past 30 years has been 10,000 moose each year. Using the beef comparison in processing, the value of protein harvests would be $15 million annually. That’s not counting the hunters’ costs of going hunting. What’s the value of all the other ungulates harvested each year? What about grouse, trout, blue berries, huckleberries, mushrooms etc…?

What is the intrinsic value of our biodiversity?

Office: 102-1023 Central St. West, Prince George, B.C. Phone: (250) 612-4194 Toll Free: 1(866) 612-4194

Mike.Morris.MLA@leg.bc.ca • www.MikeMorrisMLA.bc.ca /MikeMorrisForBC • @MikeMorrisForBC

in the journal Appetite.

In reviewing academic literature on the subject, the authors found that people with a history of eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, perfectionism and other psychological and

behavioural tendencies were at higher risk of developing orthorexia.

“There is nothing wrong with healthy eating. Healthy eating is something we

Continued on page 9

Mike Morris MLA

Prince George-Mackenzie

ADVERTISEMENT

Various vegetables are displayed at the Jean Talon Market in Montreal. Eating well is important, but a new study by York University researchers says the extreme pursuit of healthy eating can be a sign of mental-health problems.

HEALTHY EATING

Continued from page 8

should all aspire to,” Mills said in an interview. “But (we need) to be aware that mental-health difficulties can manifest through food.”

Orthorexia has not been recognized in the standard manual psychiatrists use to diagnose mental disorders, and the York study found research on the subject is limited.

But as so-called clean diets have picked up steam, Mills said there’s been growing interest in medical and research circles about the social and psychological sideeffects of a “pathological” preoccupation with healthy eating.

While there’s overlap between the risk factors for orthorexia and certain eating disorders – such as poor body image, a drive for thinness and dieting – Mills said the conditions differ in key ways, particularly their motivations.

People with a restrictive eating disorder like anorexia will typically reduce their food intake in order to reach a low body weight or change their appearance. But for those with orthorexia, Mills said the focus on food is about quality rather than quantity.

Many people with orthorexia are proud of their bodies, she said, but are decidedly picky about what they put in them. This often involves eliminating certain types of food from their diets, such as sugar, saturated fat, gluten, animal products, artificial flavours and preservatives.

For some, she said, the list of forbidden foods can grow so long that their diet may be lacking in essential nutrients, which in severe cases can lead to health hazards such as anaemia, vitamin deficiencies or excessive weight loss.

But Mills said one of the reasons orthorexia tends to go overlooked, including by medical professionals, is that many people with the condition are physically healthy, even though they may be suffering psychologically.

“When people go to their doctors and say, ‘I eat really healthy,’ the most typical response they’ll get is, ‘That’s great... Keep doing what you’re doing,”’ said Mills.

“But they may be struggling more privately with just this sense that they’re starting to lose control, that this is actually taking away from their life.”

For individuals with orthorexia, eating foods that conflict with their diets is like-

ly to cause extreme guilt or anxiety, said Mills. This distress is usually bound up in perceived risks of disease or physical impairment. But in treating their bodies as temples of health, some may lose sight of their mental welfare, she said. They may spend a lot of time and money planning and preparing meals, and can find it difficult to eat food made by others, Mills said.

Some strict dieters find these sacrifices are worth it given the health benefits, Mills acknowledged. But people with orthorexia may feel their fixation on food is so all-consuming that it interferes with their work, family and social activities, she said.

“When we’re extremely stressed or overwhelmed, we look for ways of coping. And for some people, having very, very tight control over their eating is a way for them to feel like they’re in control, but then the irony is that they’re not,” she said.

“Being healthy mentally means having flexibility, and having time and mental space freed up for other kinds of things, and not having your world revolve around food.”

Mills said one of her research team’s most surprising findings was that orthorexia occurs in relatively equal rates between men and women. This suggests the condition may be less like an eating disorder, which disproportionately affect women and girls, and more like anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder, which are similarly prevalent across genders, she said.

She said diagnosing orthorexia can be slippery, because it isn’t defined by specific eating habits, but rather, a pattern of problematic thoughts and behaviours that detract from a person’s quality of life.

Mills hopes the study increases awareness about orthorexia, a condition she believes is on the rise, fuelled by a culture that prizes healthy eating and wellness among its ultimate virtues.

“It’s all around us: messages about how we should be doing better; we should be eating better; we should be constantly striving to improve ourselves,” she said.

“I think it has a way of encouraging black-and-white thinking about food ... and (that) can make people feel worse about themselves.”

AROUND TOWN

Sewing Camps

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.

Well Fed Painters

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.

Rees’s Pieces

Vanderhoof painter Michael Rees is the subject of the solo exhibition on now at the Rustad Galleria in the Two Rivers Gallery.

Morrison Temptations

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.

Wittstruck ‘n’ Wine

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.

Tuning Out Hunger

A collection of local musicians have banded together to sing for everyone’s supper. Tunes For Tummies is a fundraiser on May 31 at 6 p.m. to raise cash and contributions for St. Vincent de Paul Society, which provides food and other supports to those in struggle.

The event happens at the Columbus

Community Centre. Tickets are $40 for a roast beef dinner, door prizes, shuttle bus service, door prizes, and the musical talents of Mike Amos, Steve Head, Scott LaPointe, Brock Patch, Brin Porter, John Rogers, Dale Steeves and Vocal Group (featuring Andries, Annie, Ebby, Eric, Jennifer and Sophie). Email tunesfortummies@gmail.com to buy tickets, or call Laura at 250-640-0000 or Mary at 250-617-8747.

Agatha’s Appointment

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.

Baking Kids

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.

Blackberry Wood

Bohemian party band Blackberry Wood comes back to PG for another raucous musical event. The theatrically flamboyant carnival ensemble will be at Nancy O’s on May 31.

The Ebbs Flow

Local power-folk act The Ebbs performs at Trench Brewing & Distilling on May 31 starting at 8 p.m. Singer-songwriters Joe Shea (Trundled), solo artist William Kuklis, and fiddle virtuoso Finn Scott-Neff have joined forces to push their original songs into uncharted territories.

Chili Cookoff

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.

Tapestry Singers

The District 57 Tapestry Singers complete their school year with a pair of concerts on June 1. 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.

Shoot, Sketch

Photographer Philomena Hughes and painter Christina Watts lead a two-part arts excursion each Monday morning through the month of June. Meet up at 6:15 a.m. (a different location each week) and apply the skills of the two differing artists to your own creations made on the spot. Call 250-564-5083 or drop in to Ridge Side Art downtown to sign up for the series.

Sjohall Returns

Prince George singer-songwriter Vicky Sjohall has moved to Vancouver, but she is triumphantly returning on June 4 for a

Continued on page 12

Citizen file photo Chili gets ladled into a bowl on Saturday at the Community Arts Council’s Spring Arts Bazaar and Chili Cookoff at Studio 2880 in 2016. The event returns this year on June 1.

AROUND TOWN

Derek Edwards

solo show at Nancy O’s. Admission is $8 at the door. Concert organizers said Sjohall “brings a combination of memorable cover songs & intimate original music, with soaring vocals and stories of love and life.

Vicky has toured the world with her pop band Cherrybomb, and now continues to perform and create with many musical projects. Her energy is infectious.”

Jaided

Affable local recording artist

Genevieve Jaide performs some of her material and hosts an open mic night at Trench Brewing & Distilling on June 7. Catch some of her infectious folk-pop and add some music of your own.

Showtime is 7 p.m.

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.

O yes! Oboe!

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.

Tying In Weavers

The Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds holds its annual fiber arts conference from June 11-16 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.

Diamonds And Rust

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.

Canada Laughs

The Canada Comedy Jam is coming to Prince George on June 15 at Sonar Comedy & Nightclub.

Canada Comedy Jam regulars Andrew Verge, Velina Taskov, and Matt Baker are hitting Sonar Comedy Club for a hilarious showcase event. You’ve got two chances to get in on the funny before they head east on their Canada wide tour.

WordPlay Changeup

Erin Bauman, known affectionately as the Panoptical Poet, has been the

stalwart host of the semi-regular WordPlay spoken word series held at Books & Company. Her next will be her last. New host Marc Sinclair will be on hand for introductions. Bauman said Sinclair “will carry on the WordPlay tradition while adding his own wonderful literary flare. Join me, the Panoptical Poet, one more time on Thursday June 20th to help me celebrate the ups, downs, and inbetweens of my time at WordPlay.” The poetry and prose takes voice at 7:30 p.m.

Ribfest

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.

Homemade Funny

Prince George’s Funniest Person With A Day-Job comes back to the Sonar Comedy & Nightclub stage on July 5. If you have the material, come out for the big reveal. Limited number of spots available. Contact Sonar to sign up.

PROGRAM OFFERS FREE BUS RIDES FOR GRADS

FRANK PEEBLES 97/16 staff

Prince George high school graduates will get a safe ride on the bus during this time of celebration in their lives.

Prince George and 69 other B.C. communities are taking part in the GradPASS program. It gives the new grads two days in June of their choice to ride the bus for free. The flexibility is aimed at ensuring the students can get the lift they need whenever their school happens to celebrate their Grade 12 accomplishment.

“BC Transit is pleased to congratulate the graduating class of 2019 for reaching an important milestone in their lives,” said Erinn Pinkerton, BC Transit President and Chief Executive Officer. “Graduating high school is a great accomplishment for all students. BC Transit would like to remind graduates of the importance of choosing transit as a safe and reliable transportation option when celebrating their achievement.”

GradPASS was first introduced in Vancouver in 1988 to encourage safe transportation options during prom season for recent graduates.

The Victoria Regional Transit System

adopted the program in 1990, with other communities following suit over the years.

“Grad season can be a busy and exciting time for high school graduates, and GradPASS provides them with access to a free and safe transportation option,” said Claire Trevena, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. “Thank you to BC Transit for another year of GradPASS, and to the more than 70 local governments in B.C. and the Victoria Regional Transit Commission for their support of this increasingly popular program.”

To use their GradPASS, graduates only need to scratch off their two chosen travel days (does not need to be consecutive) and show the card to their bus driver at the time of boarding.

GradPASS cards will be distributed to local schools in late May.

For information on BC Transit schedules, routes and service alerts in your community, please visit bctransit.com, and select your local transit system.

Accounting Skills You Need for Your Business to

If terms like depreciation, cash flow, balance sheets, and, worst of all, budgets, make you flinch, this workshop is perfect for you!

Financial management doesn’t have to be scary! We can show you how.

May 31 & June 7, 2019 | 8:30-4:30 | $329

To register call 250 561 5801 or go online cnc.bc.ca/ce

Now that a majority of North Americans have listened to a podcast, it’s fair to say the medium has gone mainstream. Within a surge of new shows catering to all kinds of listeners, there’s been a wave of fictional audio dramas that breathe

new life into a format first popularized by the radio dramas of the 1930s. Today, podcasts offer similar serialized storytelling with creative flair and growing budgets. Some shows are even getting picked up for screen adaptations. Gimlet’s Homecoming got the Amazon Prime treatment with Julia Roberts, while mystery thriller Limetown is being

turned into a Facebook series starring Jessica Biel. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Like the podcast world in general, there’s more audio fiction than one person can consume, but here are a variety of shows that deserve a time slot in your dishwashing playlist:

The Horror of Dolores Roach

Adapted from the play Empanada Loca, by Aaron Mark, the podcast includes captivating performances by Tony nominees Daphne Rubin-Vega and Bobby Cannavale. After Dolores (Rubin-Vega) is released from prison, she wanders the streets of a now-gentrified New York, disoriented by the drastic transformation of her former neighborhood, which is now overrun by spandex-clad women sipping green smoothies. Reminiscent of Sweeney Todd, the story turns sharply into an unhinged tale of survival that’s so gripping Blumhouse Television recently acquired the rights of the Gimlet production for a TV show.

Alba Salix, Royal Physician

Alba Salix is a comedy built on fairy tales and bad attitudes. Set in a kingdom with an abundance of fantastical characters, creators Eli McIlveen and Sean Howard ambitiously and gradually build an extraordinary, transporting world. We follow the life of the royal family’s head witch, Alba Salix, along with an accidentprone fairy and sardonic ex-monk.

Fruit

From the mind of Issa Rae, creator of HBO’s Insecure, comes the story of a black football player navigating his sexuality in the hypermasculine arena of professional sports. Rae was inspired by “hearing stories about football players who couldn’t come out,” she told the Guardian in 2016, and Fruit does feel realistic. When the NFL’s first openly gay player, Michael Sam, kissed his boyfriend on national television in 2014, he sent the sports world into a frenzy. Rae’s compelling story effortlessly unfolds, practically guaranteeing a binge.

Adventures in New America

An audio drama list would not be complete without at least one show from the Night Vale Presents crew, who put audio dramas on the map with Welcome to Night Vale. Adventures is a more complex production, with the same creepy approach. The show is a fun romp in a dystopian future where Tetchy Terrorist Vampire Zombies from space endanger New York – and occasionally break out in song. A cranky man diagnosed with cancer and a friendly sociopath make an unlikely duo who take on the space zombies in what the creators call “the first sci-fi, Afrofuturistic, political satire, buddy comedy.”

The Truth

Radiotopia’s The Truth is an audio short story series. Each episode creates a new world, complete with brilliant voice acting and captivating writing. Start with Everybody SCREAM!!! for the inner monologues of a highly competitive spin class or Meet Cute, about what could have been after a great first date immediately precedes a premature death. Don’t miss The Off Season, which takes inspiration from the Me Too movement and tells the suspenseful story of a popular news host sent to an isolated home in the Hamptons after a deluge of sexual misconduct allegations.

We’re Alive

This horror show will get your heart pumping and send you scrambling for the next episode. Initially envisioned for television by military veteran Kc Wayland, the show follows a handful of survivors, some with varying degrees of military expertise, as they attempt to defend an L.A. apartment building against a swarm of zombies. In this post-apocalyptic world, zombies are fast-moving and, maybe most terrifying of all, intelligent. We’re Alive is masterfully written and action-packed with sound design that will make you jump out of your seat.

Harven is an audio producer based in the Washington, D.C., where she works on podcasts such as Force for Hire and DC Diary.

QUEBEC BECKONS THOSE ON BICYCLES

CALVIN WOODWARD

MONTREAL - In Montreal each spring, an epic bicycle festival demonstrates how 25,000 people can let the good times roll without bumping into each other too much.

In Quebec City and its hinterlands, cyclists plunge into a history shaped by French explorers, the Roman Catholic Church, aboriginal culture and British conquest. In Charlevoix, an island provides a perfect loop for lovers of quiet roads and eye-candy vistas of mountains you don’t have to climb.

Then there is the south shore of the St. Lawrence, where the panorama of river, sea, sky and flowers defines the magic of bicycling in Quebec in ways that words cannot.

Those treats are mostly thanks to Route Verte, Quebec’s gift to the cycling world. It’s a vast network of trails and bike-friendly byways that is about to get another growth spurt. Quebec’s “green way stitches together wild places, pristine villages and a few buzzy cities in a rich, French-flavoured tableau.

It’s the masterwork of Velo Quebec, the bicycling association and Route Verte’s steward.

Since 2013, I’ve gone to Quebec each year, often several times a year, to sample more segments of the network and return to the best. Sprawling over 5,300 kilometres, Route Verte is a handful to get to know, requiring more time than most people have and more legs than are under me. And the network will be undergoing its largest expansion in a decade with 900 more kilometres.

Within my geographic range of experience – Montreal east to the Gaspesie region and the Eastern Townships north to a lake trail lined with wild blueberries – there are plenty of great tours. Here are some:

MONTREAL BIKE FESTIVAL & RAIL TRAIL

Montreal’s cycling culture turns into a rolling party at the Go Bike Montreal Festival, anchored by two family-friendly rides that close downtown streets to traffic and take over the city-island. The premier event, Tour de l’lle on June 2, typically draws 25,000 people on bicycles and countless more cheering them on from neighbourhoods along the 50-kilometre route. Music, dance and acrobatics (Quebec, home to Cirque du Soleil, specializes in the circus arts) are part of the mix.

Before the Sunday ride comes Tour la Nuit , which launches some 10,000 cyclists at sunset May 31. This year, the cyclists will circle inside Montreal’s Olympic Stadium for the first time since “Chariots of Fire” greeted their arrival in the 1980s. “It’s the wow moment for Tour La Nuit,” says Joelle Sevigny of Velo Quebec. Nearby, the offroad P’tit Train du Nord rail trail runs 230 km between the

Montreal outskirts and Mont-Laurier on Route Verte No. 2. About half paved, half smooth crushed stone, the “little train of the north” trail offers well-spaced amenities, intriguing inns and a shuttle service.

THE

BLUEBERRY TRAIL

Veloroute des Bleuets circles Lac SaintJean, a lake so big it resembles the sea. In late summer it makes good on its promise of wild blueberries for trailside scavenging. The lake circuit runs for 256 km on trails, quiet roads, village pathways and occasional paved shoulders. Signed as Route Verte No. 8, it meets the standards that are the hallmark of all designated routes in the network: Inns with Route Verte accreditation must offer healthy food choices, safe storage for bikes and tools while campgrounds must make room for cyclists even if full.

The route perfectly suits self-supported touring. But it’s also part of Velo Quebec’s summer extravaganza this year, the Grand Tour, a week of fully supported cycling.

QUEBEC CITY & RAIL TRAIL

Quebec’s historic capital, like Montreal, has extensive bicycle paths for commuters and several of prime interest to visitors. Starting at the ferry terminal, the Promenade Samuel de Champlain

path going west borders the riverfront for 12 kilometres, looping onto a narrow walkway on the bridge crossing the St. Lawrence and joining with another trail in Levis. The Levis trail offers a spectacular view of Quebec City and a chance to return on the ferry, closing a 30-kilometre loop. Nature is nearby. The JacquesCartier trail runs more than 80 km on stone dust through forest and meadow.

THE RIVER/SEA

This is where I always go back to, no matter where else I go.

On Route Verte No. 1, spread over more than 2,000 km cyclists can go along the south shore of the St. Lawrence for a week or more, seeing the river widen going eastward into the wild beauty of the Gaspe Peninsula until the far shore disappears and the sea, somewhere, begins.

My hotspot is a day ride from the river road at Notre-Dame-du-Portage to Kamouraska and back, about 70 km in all. In this wide panorama, the sky seems always etched with drama, as stormy sheets of rain and shafts of sun sweep over the mountains on the other side, the river churns in hues of brown and blue, and mist half swallows islands. The Kamouraska canola fields make for a brilliant yellow carpet and village homes

– a kind of folk art in themselves – are lined with gardens. Sunsets are routinely extraordinary.

ISLE-AUX-COUDRES

In the mountainous Charlevoix region, cycling tours are for huffing-puffing people but there’s an exception: a jewel of an island 15 minutes by car from Baie-Saint-Paul, an art and tourist hub. Isle-aux-Coudres is reached by a free car ferry. The road hugging the shore is 27 km and the scenery is stunning.

ESTRIADE

A web of bike trails and designated cycling routes connects cities, farmlands, vineyards and towns in the verdant Eastern Townships. Among the trails, Estriade goes for 100 km offroad, mostly paved and bordered by dozens of sculptures by international artists along a section.

The townships are a region of lakes, Victorian homes, orchards, covered bridges and resorts, maintaining a patina of England over a decidedly FrenchCanadian culture.

IF YOU GO:

Full planning resources for cyclists at routeverte.com and check tourism sites for the regions you’re visiting via quebecoriginal.com

The Associated Press

AP photo Quebec City’s iconic Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac dominates the city skyline from the ferry crossing the St. Lawrence River. Riverfront bicycle trails on both sides offer easy cycling and striking views.

How

words

What Makes It Science Fiction?

Read about each of these books. Then check o the reasons each one is considered a science ction book.

From the Earth to the Moon

By Jules Verne

In this book, written in 1865, three men build a giant cannon called the Columbiad to launch themselves to the moon in a bullet-shaped capsule. Jules Verne called the Columbiad a “spaceship.” Some people say that this was the first time in history that the word spaceship was used.

This book is science ction because it:

Takes place in the future. Takes place in another world. Features technology that didn’t exist when this book was written.

Has alien creatures.

Zita the Spacegirl

By Ben Hatke

efore people actually went to outer space, they went there with their imaginations. Authors wrote about what they thought space and space travel was like. These books are called science ction. Science ction books are often about the future, or they take place on other worlds. These books often feature machines and tools that didn’t exist when the book was written. And sometimes there are interesting alien creatures!

Use the Decoder Ring to discover the name of this terrific book by Jon Scieszka, which is available at your local library. Find the letter on the outer ring, then replace it with the letter on the inner ring.

A kid scientist and inventor is determined to win the Midville Science Prize. With the help of his robots Klink and Klank, he designs an amazing flying bike. It sounds like a sure winner of the Science Prize until his rival T. Edison steals his plans. It’s science facts, fun and adventure.

In this 2011 book, an earthling named Zita is transported to a mysterious planet after her friend is kidnapped by an alien. She leaps to the rescue but has to deal with humanoid chickens, angry robots, weird creatures with tentacles, a friendly giant mouse, and the impending destruction of the planet she’s standing on. Wow!

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet

By Eleanor Cameron

This book, written in 1954, follows two boys who respond to a newspaper advertisement looking for a homebuilt spaceship. They build one out of tin and scrap wood and bring it to the advertiser. He makes a few modifications, gives them special fuel, and tells them they must visit the mushroom planet. They must have a mascot to be successful, he warns, so they grab a chicken and blast off into space!

This book is science ction because it: Takes place in the future. Takes place in another world. Features technology that didn’t exist when this book was written. Has alien creatures.

This book is science ction because it: Takes place in the future. Takes place in another world. Features technology that didn’t exist when this book was written. Has alien creatures. Giggle

To reveal the punchline to this riddle, fill in the blanks using the letters found on this robot’s

Some things that were imagined by people years ago are real today. Look through the newspaper with an older family member. Ask your family member if they can find anything in the paper that was not invented when they were children. Can you imagine that?

Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page?

Libraries aren’t just places where you can get books. They’re resources for community and cultural events, you can get movies, magazines, access to computers, audio books and much more. Someone who holds a library card gets all these privileges. And best of all—it’s FREE!

How do you get a library card? Just visit your local library with a parent. The library will have them fill out a permission form and that’s all you do! Standards Link: Reading Comprehension: Follow written directions.

Tell other kids about a book you think they should read this summer. Have fun describing the book, but don’t give away the ending.

© 2019 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 35, No. 25

many

can you make with the letters in the word SPACESHIP?

REEVES

TRAVIS M. ANDREWS The Washington Post

Ahh, the comeback.

Hollywood blogs and gossip rags are filled with stories of actors making these supposed things. Everyone from Matthew McConaughey to Tom Cruise to Robert Downey Jr. have had their late-stage careers described by some modified version of the word “renaissance.” But there’s a slight difference with Keanu Reeves. McConaughey graduated from breezy rom-coms to gritty character acting in projects like Mud, Killer Joe and True Detective. Cruise overcame his unflattering public persona as an ardent Scientologist to earn the reputation of the hardest-working man in Hollywood, pushing himself to the limit to be our premier action star (forgoing the tough Oscar-bait films of his youth). Downey walked the path of sobriety and kick-started the biggest film franchise in Hollywood history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all the superhero movies it entailed.

Reeves, on the other hand, just continued doing the things for which he was always excelled. There was no big controversy. No tarring and feathering by an outraged internet mob. No public descent into addiction. Just a string of forgettable movies that slowly faded his star. Until now.

The reason? John Wick. Last weekend, the 54-year-old’s latest film, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, debuted at No. 1 at the box office. The third installation in the hard-R, kung fu-inspired action series, in which he plays the titular character, began in 2014 and made the once-beloved actor relevant – and lucrative – again (Parabellum pulled in $57 million in its first few days).

Reeves nabbed his breakout role in 1986′s disturbing River’s Edge, which is about a group of teenagers dealing with the aftermath of their friend killing his girlfriend. His performance led to a series of hits, cracking open the gates of stardom. Soon, Reeves was starring in many of the most popular films of the late 1980s and early 1990s, spanning genres from comedy (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Parenthood) to drama (My Own Private Idaho and Dangerous Liaisons) to action (Point Break).

By the time he became the face of Speed with Sandra Bullock in 1994, Reeves was a bona fide star and an unstoppable force in Hollywood. But his stardom achieved supernova in 1999 with the beginning of The Matrix trilogy. The idea of him ever needing a Keanussance might have seemed insane.

However, things started to slowly change.

He played in a series of forgettable indie movies (Thumbsucker and Ellie Parker), some well-received ones (A Scanner Darkly), some silly rom-coms (the muchmaligned The Lake House) and a few big swings that mostly missed (Constantine). Then came the internet.

Stills of Reeves’s films – and even candid shots of him – were turned into memes. While the sudden “memefication” of everything, particularly all things Hollywood, proved to be a particular boon to some actors (they helped distill Jeff Goldblum’s quirkiness in a way that delighted fans, for example), memes about Reeves often positioned him at least partially as the butt of the joke. His facial expressions, which

Summit Entertainment handout photo by Niko Tavernise Keanu Reeves stars at John Wick in Jown Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The John Wick series has thrust Reeves back into the limelight as an action star.

generally run the gamut between bewildered and stoic, were played for laughs.

There was a still of a shocked Reeves from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure that became known as Conspiracy Keanu. It was usually accompanied by text exploring fake conspiracies so ridiculous that they’re funny. One reads, “What if the CIA invented dinosaurs to discourage time travel?”

Another, called Sad Keanu, came from a paparazzi shot of a sorrowful-looking Reeves sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich. People often Photoshopped him out of the shot and into other absurd situations, such as sitting on the edge of a cliff or on the McDonald’s golden arches.

While these images proliferated, Reeves starred in another large-budget film, 2013′s 47 Ronin, but it was a box-office bomb. Mostly, though, he focused on personal projects, such as his directorial debut, the Chinese-American martial arts film Man of Tai Chi. He also released the “grown-up picture book” Ode to Happiness, produced the documentary Side by Side and continued his various philanthropic efforts.

The result was that the largely out-ofsight actor was supplanted by the meme in the cultural consciousnesses.

The memes didn’t really bother Reeves personally, though they might have changed how a younger generation viewed him. As Alex Pappademas wrote in GQ last month: “He regards his own meme-ification from a disinterested distance. Actually participating further in the process is not for him, but he’s also not judging anybody who does play along. ‘People doing dances, people doing mannequin stuff or whatever – those people, they look like they’re having fun and doing some cool (stuff),’ he says politely. To actively seek further meme-ification – hey, it’s Sadder Keanu –wouldn’t feel like a creative act, he doesn’t think.”

But the John Wick series transformed him into an action star once again.

The franchise is predicated on a simple but absurd story. It follows Wick, the world’s best assassin in a universe full of them; they operate out of a global chain of hotels called The Continental The first film opens with Wick in retirement, having finally gotten out to marry a woman with

pencils, books and his own bare hands. The result is pure, beautiful, balletic action.

Now Reeves’ late-night press tour appearances, rather than memes of him sadly eating a sandwich, are going viral. A clip of Reeves stunning Stephen Colbert and his audience on The Late Show earlier this month became social media’s topic of the week.

After a generally humourous conversation about the actor’s new action thriller, Colbert asked his long-haired guest, “What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?”

The question, clearly meant to be a setup for a clever quip, saw Reeves lean back, take a deep breath and think as a somber look spread across his face.

whom he fell in love. But now he’s a widower, and he receives one last parting gift: a puppy. Not long after receiving the furball, though, a Russian mobster kills the dog in a petty act of insolence, forcing the principled Wick out of retirement. After that – and for three movies now –he kills everyone who tries to do him in (which is a lot of people) with anything at his disposal, from guns and swords to

“I know that the ones who love us will miss us,” he finally responded, silencing the host, who smiled in appreciation. Reeves’s thoughtful answer was clipped and passed around the internet for days after as fans watched the sweet moment in preparation for his ultraviolent movie. And if we had to bet, there are likely many more sweet moments to come, as we’re not done with that bloody world just yet. The third John Wick film sets up a clear cliffhanger that begs for a fourth, and its expanded universe will spread to television with the upcoming Starz series The Continental.

All of which is to say: Keanu Reeves is back, baby. But then again, he never really went anywhere.

I’ve never met a noodle I didn’t like, but the rice noodles in pad thai I love the most.

First, there’s that texture: Springy but pliable, and soft but not mushy. Then, the sauce that coats them: salty, sour and sweet. The combination is hard to top. For those reasons and more, pad thai is a popular takeout staple. In our house, especially when we’re eating with a group, it’s part of every order from our favorite local spot. But having made this recipe several times, I can tell you that – surprise! – there is no magical power imparted by the plastic carryout container. You, yes YOU, can make pad thai that tastes exactly like what you’d get from a restaurant. (Pad thai only came into being as a Thai national dish in the 1930s, even though it shares a lot in common with Chinese cuisine. It remains more of a street food than a home-cooked staple there.)

Given how popular her Spicy Lemongrass Soup (Tom Yum Gai) was with readers, I naturally turned to chef-owner Nongkran Daks of Thai Basil in Chantilly, Va. Daks rode her pad thai recipe to fame in 2009, when she beat chef and TV host Bobby Flay in a battle on his goodnatured Throwdown series. Flay didn’t do himself any favors by using (gasp) mint and soy sauce in his version, though you’d still be hard-pressed to find a better rendition than Daks’s.

Daks, a Thai native, has stayed true to the spirit of the original, using such ingredients as dried shrimp, preserved radish and palm sugar. We also added tiny

matchsticks of bright red pressed tofu, which is also typical. All those will probably require a trip to an Asian market or an online purchase. If the specialty Asian ingredients are hard to come by, fear not. We tested the recipe without them, substituting brown sugar for the palm sugar, too. While the flavor wasn’t quite as well-rounded in savory depth, it was still good, and probably loads better than a lot of what you find in to-go boxes. I do, however, suggest you spring for tamarind concentrate, or three tablespoons of tamarind pulp soaked in warm water for 20 minutes and then strained. (Tamarind is available at Indian markets, if that’s

more convenient.) The tamarind not only lends the dish its appealing color, but its unmistakable tart and sweet base.

Shrimp, eggs, bean sprouts and roasted peanuts are all classic ingredients that fill out the dish in flavor and heft. If your friends and family are anything like my co-workers, you’ll be fighting them off for every last bite. We liked serving the pad thai on a giant platter for maximum visual impact, but if you feel like something is still missing compared to your standard restaurant order, I’m sure you’ve got a few carryout containers hanging around.

PAD THAI WITH SHRIMP

Active: 45 minutes | Total: 1 hour 45 minutes

2-3 servings

This easier-than-you-think recipe is a ringer for the Thai takeout staple. With chewy rice noodles folded into a sweettart sauce, it’s an irresistible dish that also happens to be easy to adapt to your taste. The recipe comes from chef-restaurateur Nongkran Daks, who famously beat the marquee chef of Throwdown With Bobby Flay in a 2009 pad thai battle.

You may find that this recipe is spicier than your typical pad thai. Feel free to reduce or omit the amount of crushed red pepper flakes.

MAKE AHEAD:

You will have leftover pad thai sauce, which Daks recommends making a day in advance. It can be refrigerated or frozen for up to several months. The rice noodles need to soak in cold water at room temperature for an hour. Where to Buy: Preserved radish, dried shrimp and pressed tofu are available at Asian markets. So is tamarind concentrate, although some well-stocked grocery stores (and Indian markets) carry it, too. If you don’t find the ready-made tamarind concentrate, you can make your own tamarind juice by soaking 3 tablespoons of compressed tamarind pulp in 1 cup of warm water for 20 minutes and then straining.

INGREDIENTS

For the sauce

1 cup tamarind concentrate (may substitute juice made from tamarind pulp)

1 cup palm sugar (may substitute light brown sugar)

1 cup water

1/2 cup fish sauce

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

For the dish

4 ounces medium-width dried rice

noodles (about 1/8 inch)

4 to 5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

8 fresh or frozen/defrosted shrimp (21to 25-count), deveined; peeled, if desired

1 tablespoon dried shrimp, finely chopped (optional)

1 tablespoon sweet preserved radish

3 1/2 ounces pressed tofu, sliced thin into 1/2-inch-long pieces (optional)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons finely chopped roasted unsalted peanuts (about 1/2 ounce) 1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions or garlic chives

2 cups fresh bean sprouts, rinsed and drained

Lime wedges, for serving STEPS

For the sauce: Combine the tamarind concentrate, palm sugar, water, fish sauce and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for about one hour, until the mixture is syrupy and darker in colour. As it reduces, you may need to further reduce the heat to low to prevent it from scorching.

Meanwhile, start the noodles for the dish: Place them in a bowl and cover with cold water; soak for one hour (at room temperature).

Heat four tablespoons of the oil in a 12inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry just until golden brown. Add the fresh/defrosted shrimp, stirring constantly until they are opaque and just cooked through, for one to two minutes. Transfer to a plate (the garlic stays in the pan).

Drain the noodles well, then add them to the same skillet you used to cook the shrimp. They will try to stick together, so separate them as you stir, adding a splash or two of water. Then add five tablespoons of the pad thai sauce, stirring until everything is thoroughly incorporated. The noodles should be soft and moist. Add the dried shrimp, if using, the preserved radish and the pressed tofu, if using. Return the cooked shrimp to the skillet and toss to incorporate.

Use a spatula to clear a space at the center of the pan for frying the eggs. If the pan seems dry, add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Pour in the eggs, then use the spatula to cover them with the noodles in the pan. Once the eggs are set, stir the noodles until everything is well mixed. This should result in cooked bits of eggs, both whites and yolk, throughout the noodle mixture.

Add the crushed red pepper flakes (to taste), peanuts, scallions or garlic chives and half the bean sprouts. Toss to incorporate and just heat through, then transfer to a platter. Serve right away, with the remaining bean sprouts and the lime wedges.

VARIATIONS:

If you prefer pork, substitute one cup of thinly sliced lean meat for the shrimp. For a vegetarian version, substitute soy sauce for the fish sauce, and use 1/2 cup diced tofu instead of the shrimp. Nutrition (based on three servings) | Calories: 530; Total Fat: 26 g; Cholesterol: 220 mg; Sodium: 1610 mg; Carbohydrates: 20 g; Dietary Fiber: 3 g; Sugars: 16 g; Protein: 17 g.

(Adapted

from Nongkran Daks, chefowner of Thai Basil in Chantilly, Va.)

Washington Post photo by Stacy Zarin Goldberg

Pad thai is a staple of Thai takeout menus, but making pad thai with shrimp at home isn’t difficult.

WARM WEATHER BRINGS DIFFERENT RISKS FOR DRIVERS

Welcome to the time of year that many British Columbians eagerly await; sunny, warm conditions that translate into beach weather and enjoyment of the great outdoors. However, the onset of great weather also brings some inherent cautions.

It’s no secret that forest fires have become an increasing cause for alarm in many areas of the province. Yet, each year many of these blazes are the result of carelessness in one form or another, including drivers who toss cigarette butts from their vehicle windows. Everyone needs to be conscious of the fire hazard and apply common sense.

The second caution is one that drivers, particularly those who are parents of young children or pet-owners – need to observe and be responsive to. Each spring and summer, medical professionals and first responders warn drivers about the dangers associated with leaving a small child or pet in a parked vehicle. Yet, each year we read media reports that illustrate the tragic outcomes that can often result.

The first and only rule is simply to never leave your child or pet unattended in a vehicle during warm

weather, period – even for a few minutes. The heat inside a vehicle can quickly become dangerous or fatal, even when the windows are cracked open.

Unfortunately, there are instances when a child is left unattended for no other reason than their presence has slipped the mind of a parent who may be overwhelmed, distracted or exhausted. People often assume that because something is important, it will stay top of mind, but that isn’t always the case. Consider the number of times you might drive to a specific destination but don’t recall every aspect of the journey. It’s muscle memory that at least in part has guided your journey, and many of the functions were simply instinctive.

Police and safety advocates suggest parents develop routines that will help. This may include leaving a personal item you may require at your next stop — like a purse, brief case

or cell phone next to the child as an additional reminder. Likewise, it may involve texting the other parent to confirm drop-off.

A number of vehicles now have technology in place to remind drivers that a rear door was opened prior to a trip. The Hyundai Santa Fe goes one step further and includes technology that continues to monitor the rear seat for motion after the vehicle is parked and all doors are locked. Subaru has announced that coming in 2020, all Ascent trims will come a with a new rear seat reminder to assist in preventing a child or a pet from accidentally being locked and trapped in the vehicle.

Maps are examples of apps that connect to a vehicle’s radio and once the engine stops, the driver receives an alert.

Unfortunately, there are instances when a child is left unattended for no other reason than their presence has slipped the mind of a parent who may be overwhelmed, distracted or exhausted.

Apps have also been developed to remind parents that a child may be in the back seat after a vehicle has come to a stop. Using Bluetooth technology, Precious Cargo, Kars4Kids and Google

Car seat manufacturers are also getting involved and in some cases, offering built-in alarm functions thanks to innovative chest clips that alerts parents if the vehicle has turned off or if the driver’s cell phone has left the vehicle, but the child is still clipped in. As a parent, establish a specific routine, do your research and examine the latest technology that may provide an added level of security because nothing is more important than the health and safety of your loved-ones. For the latest information on careers in automotive, visit: https:// carsandjobs.com/.

— Blair Qualey is president and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of BC. You can email him at bqualey@newcardealers.ca.