Prince George Citizen May 9, 2019

Confident Kings leave for national tournament

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Jason Chu just about missed his ride to the national junior A hockey championship.

Prince George Spruce Kings driver Bobby Huard had the bus in gear about to leave the parking lot at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena heading to Brooks, Alta., Wednesday morning when a frantic Chu rushed up to knock on the door.

The 18-year-old defenceman got there just in time.

Good thing.

The Spruce Kings could require his services next week as they try

to bring home their first national title. They begin play at the fiveteam tournament in Brooks Sunday afternoon against the Oakville Blades, the Central champs from Ontario.

Chu, a BCHL rookie this season, was inserted into the lineup just before the Kings advanced to the Fred Page Cup final against the Vernon Vipers to fill in for injured defenceman Liam Watson-Brawn and played an even more critical role on the blueline when the Kings dropped down to just five defencemen when they lost Jay Keranen to injury in Game 2 of the Doyle Cup series.

The good news is Watson-Brawn and Keranen are healthy again and are expected to play in the national tournament, which gives the healthy Kings a full crew of seven rearguards next week when they take on the best teams in the country.

Watson-Brawn suffered an upper-body injury in Game 2 of the Victoria series and was in street clothes when the Kings won the Fred Page Cup and Doyle Cup. He plans to be wearing his uniform and skates two Sundays from now in Brooks to help carry the National Junior A Cup, if the Kings get that far.

“It’s good to be back,” said Watson-Brawn, as the team loaded up the bus Wednesday for the trek to Calgary, where they’re based for two nights. “I’m going to be a little bit rusty so I just want to make as much of an impact, whatever I can do to have the boys win the cup.”

On Saturday in front of a full house at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, the BCHL-champion Kings captured their second trophy this season, winning the Doyle Cup Pacific regional championship in six games over the Brooks Bandits. They’ll try to complete the championship trifecta in Brooks on Sunday, May 19, at the end of a

Gold miners have eye on Cariboo

Nelson BENNETT Glacier Media

For about a century, starting in the 1860s, the most prolific gold mining region of B.C. was the Cariboo.

The town of Barkerville, which sprung up in the Cariboo gold rush, was once a bustling town of 5,000.

But by the 1950s, gold mining had pretty much dried up in the area, and the town of Barkerville was saved from becoming yet another B.C. mining ghost town only when it was turned into a living museum.

But gold mining in the Cariboo now appears to be set for a sequel with the development of what has promise of becoming a significant gold mining district by Barkerville Gold Mines and Osisko Mining Inc. Mickey Fulp, who publishes the Mercenary Geologist, is betting on Barkerville to be not only B.C.’s next new gold mine but, ultimately, a mining district, with the potential for more than one gold mine.

“They control 67 kilometres of ground on this trend, and most of it’s never been tested,” Fulp said. Under new management, the company has been rebuilding both its reputation and its resource estimates into something a little more reliable than what

they had been under founder and former CEO Frank Callaghan.

— see ‘THE DISTRICT, page 3

nine-day tournament.

Watson-Brawn, a 20-year-old Colgate University recruit from Vancouver, is one of 10 Spruce Kings moving on to college hockey next season and he knew nothing would be better than to add a national title to his hockey resume.

“We believe in each other, our lineup is very deep – even with five D, all of them played very well, said Watson-Brawn. “We work really hard and we’ve put all the preparation in, now it’s our time to shine right now. This is our goal, our dream, and we’re just trying to make it come true.” — see KINGS, page 7

Indigenous court marks a year of healing

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

One of the success stories was on hand when the first anniversary of a legal proceeding aimed at reducing the number of Indigenous people revolving through the criminal justice system was celebrated on Tuesday.

During a midday ceremony, Wesley Mitchell performed a traditional Wet’suwet’en drumming song to give thanks for the launch of the Prince George Indigenous Court. Mitchell credits the process for making sure he has stayed out of trouble after a few too many brushes with the law. Mitchell had pleaded guilty to breaching a recognizance but instead of adding the offence to his criminal record, a judge and a trio of elders saw fit to order him to report back on the steps he was taking towards personal improvement. Many of those steps were things he had already been pursuing – volunteering with various groups like the Prince George Spruce Kings, the Khast’an drummers, attending events at the Fire Pit Cultural Drop-In Centre and taking counselling and going through the Alcoholics Anonymous program. — ‘I HAD NO SPIRIT, page 3

Spruce King Jason Chu just about missed the bus to Brooks, Alta., on Wednesday morning. The team is headed to compete in the RBC Cup.

BARKERVILLE GOLD HANDOUT PHOTO

A worker pouring molten ore at Barkerville Gold’s assay lab in its QR mill south of Barkerville.

Demand strong for new bus service to

Lower Mainland, operator says

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A better-than-expected number of passengers have been flocking to a new bus service between Prince George and Surrey since it took to the road, says its operator.

Williams Lake-based Adventure Charters and Rentals’ operations manager Randy Gertzen said Wednesday a total of 16 people hopped on at various points during the inaugural run to the Lower Mainland on May 2, including nine who made the full trip from Prince George.

Subsequent trips on the 36-seat bus have been “half or a little bit better” and enough to cover the expenses.

“We actually thought we were going to be operating in the red but it’s actually been a bonus that we’ve been able to cover all the fuel, the driver’s wages and stuff and it’s just the start,” Gertzen said.

“But lots of interest. We’ve got tickets booked into June, July already, so it’s very positive looking.”

He said the company will give it a year to decide if it’s worth maintaining.

“To give it an honest try, you have to go a fair length to cover all the bases,” Gertzen said.

The Prince George to Surrey run goes on Mondays and Thursdays, leaving this city at 8:45 and arriving ends at the Scott Road Skytrain station at 7:31 p.m.

The return trips are on Tuesdays and Fridays, departing at 6 a.m. and arriving at 4:37 p.m.

The fare ranges from $65 to $110 one way, depending on how far a client travels and there are 20 stops along the way.

There are also twice-a-week runs between Williams Lake and Kamloops.

Tickets can be bought online and must be purchased in advance so drivers know where they have to stop and where they can just pass through. The company’s website is www.adventurecharters.ca.

Missing man may be in P.G.

Citizen staff

A missing 100 Mile House man may be in Prince George. Shawn Taylor, 42, who was reported missing on Wednesday, may have traveled to this city, North District RCMP said.

He is described as five-footnine, 119 pounds, with brown eyes, red and purple hair and a slim build.

Anyone who sees him is asked to call RCMP and not approach him.

Prince George RCMP can be reached at 250-561-3300.

Crime Stoppers can be reached at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.pgcrimestoppers.

bc.ca (English only). You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers.

TAYLOR

‘I had no spirit and now I have a spirit’

— from page 1

Six months later, Mitchell became a “graduate” and was bestowed with a blanket depicting a First Nations medicine wheel. It’s been so far, so good since then as Mitchell continues to connect with his Indigenous roots.

“I had no spirit and now I have a spirit,” he said.

Mitchell’s case was probably among the simpler ones the court has had to deal with.

On the first Tuesday of each month, a table is placed at the front of the courtroom and a judge steps out from behind the bench to join the elders, as well as Crown and defence lawyers to work out “healing plans” for new offenders and get updates from those who are already on them.

Among the cases they were handling this most recent Tuesday was for a woman who pleaded guilty to shoplifting $630 worth of items from a local thrift store. That happened a year ago, and she followed up in January by lying to an officer when caught smoking crack and then breaching an undertaking.

She ended up at Prince George Regional Correctional Centre for two weeks where she went through withdrawal from heroin, an experience she never wants to go through again.

Normally, Crown counsel would have been seeking a jail sentence but because of the efforts she has taken since then, had agreed to divert the case to Indigenous Court. Those efforts revolved around enrolling in counselling for addiction and trauma and performing various good works in her home community.

During the hearing, it was also learned that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder seven years ago but ongoing struggles with her medication caused her to stop that regimen and take a different route.

Two years ago, she became a “closet user” of illicit drugs as she turned to self medicating and by 2018 she was a “full on” addict and eventually became homeless, using a shopping cart to carry what possessions she had as she moved around Prince George.

While her lawyer helped guide her through her story, she did most of the talking in marked contrast to a regular court proceeding where the defendant is generally limited to providing comments just prior to sentencing.

It made for plenty of tears and baring of her soul.

At one point, she credited the arresting

Wesley Mitchell, a graduate of the Prince George Indigenous Court, and northern regional

and Counselling Association of B.C., Christina Draegen, stand

wrapped in one of the blankets given to the program by graduates.

officer for saving her life while also talking about the anger and confusion she had gone through while growing up and going into her early years as an adult.

Represented by the store’s manager, the victim of her shoplifting offence was in the gallery for the hearing, as was the arresting officer, her family, her probation officer and an elder from her home community. She gave profuse and repeated apologies as they looked on.

The woman said she planned to turn to traditional First Nations medicines to regulate the mood swings that come with being bipolar.

But one of the court’s elders strongly urged her to work with a psychiatrist instead to find the type of medication that will keep her steady while not producing the side effects that kept her from functioning for most of the day.

The elder also said she needed to deter-

‘The district itself has so much promise’

— from page 1

While Callaghan is credited for having assembled numerous claims into one 62-kilometre-long district, he is also credited for triggering a credibility crisis.

Wildly inflated estimates of a 10-million-ounce gold deposit at Barkerville’s Cow Mountain were found to be unsubstantiated, and the company’s shares were halted for more than a year while it scrambled to come up with a new technical report.

The company was saved from ruin by investor Eric Sprott, who provided a $19 million bailout, taking a 41 per cet stake in the company.

Osisko has since become the company’s largest shareholder. Osisko Mining now owns 16 per cent of the company and Osisko Gold Royalties (owns 32 per cent.

J.P. Morgan holds seven per cent.

In recent months, Barkerville has raised more than $80 million, including a recent $20 million bought deal involving Haywood Securities.

The Barkerville-Osisko team has been pumping millions into exploration in the region to prove resource estimates. In 2018, the company processed 150,000 tonnes of ore in test mining, recovering 20,468 ounces of gold, and spent $30 million on drilling.

The company plans to spend another $23.7 million on drilling this year as part of a feasibility study needed for a project description to be filed in support of an environmental certificate application for a new mine.

“So, the biggest drill program in British Columbia,” said Jason Kosec, Barkerville’s vice-president of corporate development.

“They’ve got almost 3.8 million ounces (of gold) in resources,” Fulp said. “That’s pretty big, and it’s going to grow, and they’re very aggressive.”

More than 230,000 metres of drilling is scheduled over the next

two years. “It’s huge,” he said.

“That’s 10 times what anybody else would be doing.”

The initial targets are deposits within a nine-kilometre strip that includes Cow Mountain, Island Mountain, Mosquito and Bonanza Ledge.

Rick Rule, CEO of Sprott US Holdings Inc., recently told BNN Bloomberg that the individual drill results for Bakerville are “excellent” but that he’s still waiting to see how they all tie together into one minable project.

Investors may be waiting for the same thing, because despite the vote of confidence the project has gotten from Osisko, Haywood Securities and J.P. Morgan, the company’s stock has languished between $0.35 and $0.40 per share.

“That notwithstanding, the district itself has so much promise, and the team that are exploring it are of such high quality that, if the market begins to see some predictability in the drill bit, which I haven’t seen myself, the stock could go higher,” Rule said.

In addition to its geology and a management team with a proven track record, Barkerville has road and power access. It even has an existing mill and tailings pond, although it is 110 kilometres away from where the first mine would be built at Cow Mountain.

The plan is to initially truck ore to the company’s QR mill, at 2,500 tonnes per day, and then build a new mill at the new mine site.

“Cow Mountain and Island Mountain will be the first ones to go into big commercial production,” Kosec said. “Then we would build our own mill and ramp production up almost 5,000 tonnes per day.”

Once the company has a new resource estimate, based on its drilling program, it plans to apply for an environmental certificate and mine permit.

“We should have the permit by the end of 2020,” Kosec said.

mine the type of depression she was experiencing and to recognize the triggers that cause her to turn to illicit drugs like heroin.

On that note, the woman said she had been in Prince George twice since being released from custody and has made sure she has been with someone to keep her from going back to those ways.

In the end, she was sentenced to 18 months probation with a conditional discharge – the Citizen does not publish the names of those who receive such sentences. Conditions of her probation include staying away from the store for at least six months.

She must also live up to the terms of her healing plan as set out by the elders. Along with making sure she gets the helps she needs for her mental health issues, she must also host a shaming potlatch in her home community, complete with an invitation to the store’s manager to attend.

Aboriginal people make up five per cent

of

of the province’s population and about 11 per cent of the city’s. But they account for nearly one-quarter of B.C.’s prison population and, according to Christina Draegen, about three-quarters of the inmates at Prince George Regional Correctional Centre.

In her role as the northern regional manager of the Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of B.C., Draegen has been instrumental in getting the court established in Prince George,

“It’s not only an opportunity for our Indigenous people to repair their broken spirits, cultural spirits but also to reconcile with themselves so that they’re in an empowered position to be able to reconcile with the outside world and with community,” she said. The court is open to anyone who selfidentifies as Indigenous (the term used to identify both Aboriginal and Metis). Holding a status card is not a prerequisite.

manager

the Native Courtworker

on the steps of the courthouse on Wednesday. Draegan is

Tax reform debate needed

Our inequity, our demography and our comparable station in the world demand it. But our current statistics, our employment situation and our complacency about our challenges resist it. Our taxes, love them and hate them, need some fixing for our future.

We haven’t taken a profound look at them in decades.

As we lurch toward a federal election, and as we feel the effects of the changing of the guards at provincial and municipal levels, our community’s conversations on taxation are distorted about the central issues of how a smart tax framework creates and sustains societal fairness and competitiveness.

It was easy to witness this distortion in last week’s amended motion at Vancouver city council to shift two per cent – two freaking per cent – of the tax base over three years – three freaking years – to residential from commercial properties. The minor gesture made for major squawking: too much, too little, too late, too many unintended consequences.

Why? Probably because the local tax regime strikes almost all parties as inappropriate in the circumstances.

But it was also easy to witness in the recent provincial tax treatment of housing, whether it involved another layer of charges on more expensive homes, or taxes on second properties in certain communities, or those on an empty dwelling in some cities or foreign-owned ones.

These struck hostile chords and claims of confiscation and class warfare, or enthusiastic and gleeful summoning of vindictiveness about acquired wealth.

Contribution survey, which examined data from 2017, a GDP growth of three per cent that led the G7.

What the study demonstrated, and what others like it have, is the connection between healthy economies and healthy public finances.

And this distortion was too easy to witness in this federal mandate’s ham-fisted handling of tax reforms for small businesses, a pratfall mostly straightened up before it became a fatal piece of political baggage.

Our country needs a civil discourse on how our taxes will ensure we attract capital and talent, how we finance our critical needs of infrastructure and social programming and how we are positioned globally.

Last week, the Business Council of Canada released its sixth annual Total Tax

The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study for the council looked at 83 large Canadian companies and found they contributed $76.8 billion to governments, up $8.5 billion from 2016 and $13 billion from 2015.

That total, the council notes, exceeded what governments spent on benefits for the elderly and for children.

What the study demonstrated, and what others like it have, is the connection between healthy economies and healthy public finances.

What we lack, though, is dialogue to make our economy more prone to this kind of growth through a better tax framework, so we can deal with the critical public policy challenges in an aging society, in disruption from automation and in lifting more Canadians out of poverty.

The answers certainly lie more in economic growth than in tax growth.

In conversation with two of the council’s

YOUR LETTERS

Shipping volumes not the reason for high gas prices

In regards to the concerns expressed by Todd Whitcombe on a political perceived shortfall of refined fuel products from Trans Mountain Pipeline to B.C. and particularly the Lower Mainland, I would refer Whitcombe to the Trans Mountain website and click on the “news” icon at the top of the page.

Scroll down to a news update of May 2, 2019, entitled Update: May 2019 Capacity Announcement for the Trans Mountain Pipeline System.

The article explains what pipeline apportionment is and why it is important. Trans Mountain Pipeline was asked to provide 28 per cent more deliveries of all types of oil and refined products for May 2019.

These requests to provide more shipping volumes than available are not new. Trans Mountain has been over apportionment on a monthly basis for at least the last decade.

When a pipeline is over apportionment, Trans Mountain makes available pipeline capacity based on the volumes of shipper nominations that they receive and are calculated by apportionment using complex National Energy Board rules and tariffs.

Whitcombe’s suggestion that pumping more volume of gasoline through Trans Mountain to accommodate the refinery maintenance shutdowns in Washington State is an oversimplification of complex shipping regulations and tariffs mandated by the National Energy Board.

All shippers that use Trans Mountain Pipeline have rights to access that pipeline. Trans Mountain is working under federal guidelines.

I am not sure where Premier

The Citizen archives put more than 100 years of history at your fingertips: https://bit.ly/2RsjvA0

John Horgan is getting this idea from that gasoline shipments to the Lower Mainland have been cut back in the past several weeks.

I phoned Trans Mountain Pipeline and was assured that present shipping volumes have been maintained in a consistent volume of various petroleum products as required in an overprescribed pipeline.

Premier Jason Kenney has not turned off the taps.

Refinery maintenance shutdowns in Washington State appear to be the high gasoline price problem in B.C.

In 2018 Trans Mountain Pipelines nominated 53 per cent of total capacity to Washington state refineries.

Maybe Washington state needs to stop gouging B.C. They have over half of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline capacity.

Wayne Martineau Fraser Lake

executives – CEO and president Goldy Hyder and policy vice-president Brian Kingston – it’s apparent they worry that these seemingly good times are making us self-satisfied.

We don’t routinely draw the connection between the growth of the economy and the support of social programs.

The distortion in our conversations on taxes propels the myths that any significant review would simply make businesses more profitable at the expense of labour.

Hyder asserts “this isn’t a business versus labour” matter, but one of personal tax rates – “big business is worried more about their employees” – because Canada is not competitively positioned to attract and retain talent with leading-edge skills. In case you haven’t noticed, no one’s election platform appears to be preaching the need for tax reform.

One silver lining of the minority government that polls suggest: it might be easier to collaborate with less partisanship to effect this reform.

“We’re going to continue to make the case that it’s the right move and it should be done post-election,” said Kingston.

— Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, at Glacier Media

School bus seat belts supported

One of many pending issues that may be derailed by the outcome of this year’s federal election is a task force that is currently studying the possibility of having all school buses in Canada fitted with seatbelts.

Discussions about this idea multiplied in October of last year, following a report on the CBC’s investigative program The Fifth Estate, which pointed to a defective Transport Canada 1984 study that claimed children would be safer inside a school bus that was not equipped with seatbelts.

The report’s flaws are now unmistakable. In any case, relying on a document more than three decades old to settle a 21st-century safety issue seems ill-advised. Our vehicles and our roads are different than they were in the year Brian Mulroney became prime minister.

This is one of the reasons for federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau to have ordered the creation of the task force.

Several provincial governments have also started to look into whether school buses should have seatbelts. Parents and school bus drivers are gathering signatures to petition lawmakers – at all levels –to take a serious look into this matter. Canada appears to be lagging when it comes to legislation and action. In the United States, eight jurisdictions – Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas – have made seatbelts mandatory on school buses.

But establishing rules and regulations is only a first step. In some of these American states, the definition of a seatbelt is not clear. Some buses have to rely on lap belts, while others have been equipped with lap-shoulder belts.

Other countries have managed to implement the changes quicker. In Singapore, retractable three-point seatbelts have been mandatory for all new school buses since April 2009, and all other school bus models had to be retrofitted by the end of 2011.

In Scotland, the bill to install seatbelts in all school buses passed

BY THE NUMBERS

in a 102-0 vote in 2017.

Minister Garneau’s task force has plenty to ponder. Regardless of the type of legislation that is considered, bringing an existing fleet in line with new rules will be expensive. America’s National Association for Pupil Transportation has calculated a cost that ranges between US$7,000 and US$11,000 to install seatbelts in a school bus. This is a considerable financial burden for school boards that may already be grappling with budgetary constraints, unless there is some form of government assistance.

British Columbians are decidedly on board with this change, with 88 per cent of respondents to a Research Co. poll voicing support for making seatbelts mandatory for school buses in the province. Agreement with this idea is high across both genders, all age groups and in the five major regions of British Columbia. Practically nine in 10 B.C. residents believe installing seatbelts in school buses is the correct step to take. Our concept of what constitutes safety in a vehicle has been altered dramatically over the past few decades. Child seats and booster seats are the norm in our personal vehicles, but there is no clarity on how children should be protected after they enter a school bus. The federal task force must review many issues before deciding what to do.

In British Columbia, a large proportion of residents would welcome some action. Still, two aspects need to be crystal clear: creating a Canada-wide standard for seatbelts that would spare the country from the patchwork legislation that some American states have and defining the type of financial contributions that will come from the federal government – or provincial governments – to ensure that all pupils in the country are afforded the same level of safety inside a school bus.

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MARIO CANSECO

Earth facing another mass extinction

RELATIVITY

TODD WHITCOMBE

How many different species live on this planet?

You would think this would be an easy question to answer. After all, we have been giving plants and animals names since before recorded history. And for the past couple of hundreds of years biologists and other scientists have been hard at it trying to classify everything under the sun. But it is one of the most difficult questions in biology as there are so many species undiscovered. Just last year, 270 new species of animals and plants were described. We are constantly finding new creatures in places such as deep in the ocean, in steep ravines above raging rivers, caves underground, and the dense tropical forests.

Most new creatures are small in size – for example, 120 new species of wasp and 28 new species of ants – but a few are larger such as the Dinizia jueirana-facao tree which can be 130 feet tall and weigh in at 62 tonnes. There are only 25 individuals of this species of tree known marking it as endangered as well as newly discovered. We are constantly adding to the list of life on the planet and many scientists argue we have barely scratched the surface because we have primarily focused on eukaryotic organisms. These are species with cells having their nucleus and other organelles enclosed by a membrane such as animals and plants. The other major branches of life are the prokaryotes and archaea which lack membrane-bound organelles but easily outnumber the eukaryotes.

While estimates of the total number vary, a 2011 report put the number at 8.7 million plus or minus 1.3 million eukaryotic species on the planet. A 2016 study went a little further and included all forms of life. Based on the total biomass, the authors concluded there are more than one trillion genetically distinct species on Earth with the vast majority being microbial and undescribed. Furthermore, it has been estimated that 99 per cent of all the species which have occupied the Earth are now extinct.

Everything from the towering dinosaurs to stromatolites to trilobites to giant ground sloths have come and gone from the face of the planet.

Extinction is the way of life on Earth and it would be foolhardy to think we are immune to these massive forces.

Indeed, we seem to be doing our best to

hurry up the process. A new report released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns us that one million species of plants and animals face extinction, many within the next few decades, as a result of human activities.

The report distills the findings from approximately 15,000 scientific reports, integrating information from a wide variety of sources, including Indigenous people and traditional agricultural communities.

Representatives from 132 governments met in Paris last week to finalize and approve the document ahead of the UN Convention on Biodiversity next year.

The report is not all about climate change although it does recognize climate change as a contributing factor. Changing climatic conditions stress both animal and plant life, disrupting the food web and diminishing biodiversity.

However, the report mainly focuses on human activities such as agriculture, deforestation, and overfishing which are leading to species loss. About 75 per cent of the land and 66 per cent of the oceans have been significantly altered by human impact driven, in large part, by agriculture and aquatic activities. Crops and livestock presently occupy more than 33 per cent of the land surface and consume 75 per cent of the world’s freshwater supply.

Put another way, the world’s population of lions is now about 40,000 compared to the 600 million house cats while the 900,000 wild African buffalo are vastly out-

numbered by the 1.5 billion domesticated cattle or the 20 billion chickens. Wildlife populations are imperiled and estimated to have halved since 1970 while domesticated animals are taking over the landscape.

While extinction of lions or African buffalo might not have happened yet, the drastic decrease in wild populations are putting an increasing number of species at risk.

All of this puts the world’s biodiversity under threat. Many scholars are now describing the present as the Anthropocene epoch – the time of humanity. We have become the single most dominant force for global ecological change and we are not necessar-

ily a force for good.

The IPBES report makes it clear we face an existential dilemma. While life will go on long past our time, we are heading toward a crisis. Without transformative changes to our approach to agriculture, economics, social and political systems, major biodiversity loss will continue and potentially accelerate during the latter part of this century.

Mass extinction of life on this planet has happened five times that we know about. The geological record contains an unequivocal record each time life has approached the brink. Life has always found a way to rebound. But not all species survive.

AP PHOTO

Alba, the only known albino orangutan in the world, is released by a conservationist of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation inside Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.

CITIZEN

Angus, a five year old English springer spaniel, is trained to detect Clostridium Difficile bacteria in the environment

UHNBC.

Dog disease detectives on the case

Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

A doggie disease detector was sniffing around Prince George’s hospital on Wednesday.

Angus, a five-year-old English springer spaniel is one of the few dogs in North America that can seek and find one of the medical industry’s most troublesome onsite conditions, the Clostridium Difficile (C.Dif) strain of bacteria.

According to American statistics, half a million people contract C.Dif each year and 94 per cent of them got it due to some kind of medical care. This bacteria hangs out in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

“Right now there is no logistically feasible

technology to do with the dogs can do,” said Angus’s handler Teresa Zurberg, who works mostly for Vancouver Coastal Health but travels to other jurisdictions to show what the dogs can do (Angus has a partner, Dodger, who can also do it). “Angus and Dodger are able to identify environmental contamination reservoirs very quickly and accurately.”

This helps medical facilities pinpoint where to clean in the special ways necessary to kill the C.Dif presence.

“It’s fairly common,” said Mindy Thompson, coordinator of housekeeping and laundry services at the University Hospital of Northern BC (UHNBC). “We have cases pretty much all the time at the hospital. It is very hard to get rid of. It takes special cleaners and staff need to take twice as long to

clean those spaces.”

It’s something Zurberg knows firsthand. She is a passionate C.Dif dog handler because she once spent a week in hospital herself after contracting it during unrelated healthcare activities.

“To this day I still have ongoing side effects,” she said, pledging to work with the dogs and health officials “to have people not go through what I went through.”

Angus demonstrated his nose by sniffing out a detoxified dose of C.Dif hidden in a training room at UHNBC. Some tasty treats and some exciting play with his favourite chew toy were all the incentives he needed.

“It’s the same way we train a bomb dog or a drug dog,” said Zurberg, explaining that the dogs are not interested in the materials they are tasked to seek. “He’s learned

that finding that C.Dif odor gets him what he wants. It’s a game of association for the dogs.”

Two more dogs like Angus and Dodger are in training in Vancouver to allow for more of these canine detection resources to help reduce this in-house issue in hospitals everywhere. Having such a concentration of them in B.C. is a close-at-hand option for UHNBC and other facilities within Northern Health.

“We heard about it and we are going to use it as a learning opportunity, find some better ways to improve our practice,” said Thompson.

With the help of B.C.’s smallest healthcare professional, more contractions of C.Dif can be nipped in the bud. It’s a problem Angus and Dodger hope to have licked.

McHappy helpers

Citizen director of advertising Shawn Cornell and Citizen news editor Arthur Williams help raise funds for McHappy Day at the Victoria Street McDonalds on Wednesday. The fundraising event supports the Child Development Centre of Prince George and District and Ronald McDonald House BC and Yukon. In 2018, 87 families from Prince George stayed at Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver while their children received treatment at B.C. Children’s Hospital. One family stayed 273 consecutive nights in 2018.

NEWS IN BRIEF

City hosting open house at wetland

Hudson’s Bay Wetland will be the site of an open house this afternoon to showcase the city’s storm water system and how it connects to local watersheds.

The event runs from 1 to 3 p.m. and is part of B.C. Water Week.

Hudson’s Bay Wetland is known for its diversity of native birds, plants, and wildlife. It also features look-out points and interpretative trails. The entry is located at 2232 Queensway. — Citizen staff

Seal pup is earliest rescue on record

VANCOUVER (CP) — A tiny, premature seal pup is the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre’s first patient of the year. The little creature was found alone near a dock in Prince Rupert, and the May 1 rescue is the earliest on record for the centre.

The naming theme for 2019 seal pups is ocean-themed puns, and staff named the feisty black and

white critter Dwayne ‘The Rockfish’ Johnson – after the former WWE wrestler and movie star. The pup was seen alone all day on Wednesday, and was rescued after he appeared to be struggling to get out of the water. The release says it took “many helping hands” and an “epic journey” to get Dwayne to the recovery centre, and the pup is doing well after getting fluids and nutrition.

B.C. boosts education, enforcement for renters, landlords

VICTORIA (CP) — British Columbia’s government says it’s increasing public education and bolstering enforcement to better protect the rights of both renters and landlords.

The actions mark the first phase of addressing recommendations from a rental housing task force that aimed to improve security and fairness in the province’s often tight market.

The Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry says in a news release that enhanced public education will be supported through new funding to Landlord BC and the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre.

Sports

Kings looking to take national title

— from page 1

The Spruce Kings went 16-1 in the BCHL playoffs and are 20-3 in the postseason after a perfect 15-0 run on home ice.

Since Jan. 25, they’ve put together a 32-4 record and their .870 winning percentage in the playoffs is the highest of any team that has won the Doyle Cup, which dates back to 1985.

“It’s been an amazing experience so far and we know what’s lying ahead of us and we’re all excited for that and looking forward to it,” said Kings goalie Logan Neaton, who played all 23 playoff games and compiled a 1.56 goals-against average and .939 save percentage with three shutouts.

“We’re a really confident group and know what we have to do to be successful. It definitely was good to go down there (to Brooks) and play some games and get used to playing games in that building.”

As the most geographically-isolated team in the BCHL the Kings travel more than most junior A teams and they’ve adopted a roadwarrior mentality that has taken them deeper into the playoffs than any Kings team in the 23-year history of the franchise.

“It’s something that helps us a ton, just to be used to travel and what it takes to be successful on the road,” said Neaton. “It’s something we’ve gotten used to, just with being where we are, something that’s helped us a lot throughout the year.”

Defenceman Max Coyle, at 21 one of the oldest Spruce Kings, is billeted with centre Fin Williams, who just turned 16 on April 21. Coyle’s face hasn’t seen a razor since before the playoffs began in March and his playoff beard is the team’s hands-down winner. Williams was with his Burnaby Winter Club midget team until their season ended in mid-March and he has yet to sprout a whisker.

“It’s not much of a contest, I’ve got a couple years of experience on him but, oh well,” said Coyle. Williams scored his second junior A playoff goal in Game 2 of the Doyle Cup and he’s fit in well playing a much more intense brand of hockey against older and stronger opponents.

“It’s been really cool to be here and learn from the older guys and coaches here and I’m excited to do well at the (national tournament),” said Williams.

“The pace is a lot faster and it took a little bit to get used to that but I’m happy I can be here for a couple games before I play here

College Heights guard Fuller stays with T-wolves

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

From College Heights to UNBC, it’s only a short drive.

For basketball guard Isabel Fuller, it’s more like a quantum leap.

She’s obviously equipped with the skill and determination needed to make that jump from high school ball to U Sports now that it’s confirmed Fuller has been recruited to join the UNBC Timberwolves for the 2019-20 season.

“Ever since I started to watch basketball, coming to watch the games, it has been a dream of mine to play at the university level,” said Fuller, in a T-wolves’ release. “I grew up here, and it is so cool to be able to play with them. I always looked up to them, and it is going to be such a cool experience. I am really excited.”

The 17-year-old Fuller has a history of playing with older, more experienced players, which started in Grade 9 when she made the College Heights Cougars senior team. Growing up in the shadow of the T-wolves’ program, she’s had a chance to train with the team over the past year.

Her audition impressed head coach Sergey Shchepotkin enough that he made the five-foot-10 Fuller an offer that will keep her close to home playing in the Canada West Conference.

“I am really happy and excited to bring Isabel into our program,” said Shchepotkin.

“She has the desire to get better every time she gets on the court, and has a good frame and athleticism to contribute to our team moving forward. She grew up watching the Timberwolves, and now she can bring that passion for the next five years.”

Fuller’s consistent leadership on the court helped the Cougars advance as zone finalist to the provincial tournament in Langley. She’s been part of the Junior Timberwolves development

program for the past seven years and she’s watched enough UNBC games to know the transition to the university level will be the biggest challenge of her basketball career so far.

“The speed is a lot different, and the height,” said the two-time City League all star and double-A zone standout.

“They are all tall and strong. It’s going to be a big adjustment. I really like to push the ball on the fast break. I like to shoot, and get to those baseline shots. I am pretty good at seeing the floor, seeing what is happening in the game, and making plays.

“The girls are so nice and welcoming – they’re really supportive and help me out, and I am so excited to play with them. Coach Sergey is a really good coach. He is so supportive and really knows the game well. It is definitely helping me become a stronger player.

Realizing what it’s like to play at this level. It is different, but really cool.”

The T-wolves are just three-anda-half months away from training camp. Fuller, a mainstay on the honour roll at College Heights, is enrolled in general studies at UNBC.

“Lots of my friends are here, and all my family is here. It is really cool they’ll be able to come out and support,” she said. “When I put the jersey on, it will be actually happening, and I am really excited. I have always wanted to play university ball, and it happening now is super exciting. I am so excited to have the privilege to play with UNBC.”

for a full year next year. I played at the Canada Winter Games with Team B.C. (in March in Red Deer) and that was really big, but nothing like it will be like at this event.”

In the Doyle Cup, the Spruce Kings rode Neaton’s shutout goaltending to a 2-0 win in the opener in Brooks, then lost 3-1 and 4-0 to the Bandits. Prince George won the next three at RMCA, 3-1, 4-1 and 4-2.

“It’s not that we’re oozing confidence, we’re going into their rink and we didn’t have that much success in the first three,” cautioned Coyle.

“We definitely didn’t show up with our best performance; yeah we snuck one by them the first night but the second two we probably didn’t show up with 50 per cent of our effort and the way we’re supposed to play, which didn’t really work out in our favour. We came back here and had our fans and kind of just rolled with the momentum.

“That best-of-seven series was definitely huge for confidence and I guess we’ll have to roll with that going to Brooks.”

Winger Corey Cunningham, who turned 18 on May 4, has six goals and assists in the playoffs.

He and winger Craig MacDonald, 18, who played the last three Doyle Cup games, are both Prince George minor hockey products who grew up watching the Kings play, long before they became the only community-owned team in BCHL history to win the championship.

That sense of accomplishment and the pride they feel wearing the crown on their chests was never more apparent than on Saturday when they took their turns parading the Doyle Cup around the ice at RMCA after knocking off the Bandits, the top-ranked team in the country.

“I think it’s awesome, doing this for my hometown and for myself, too,” said Cunningham. “It’s super exciting, I never thought I’d get to be in the spot I’m in now.

“Now we know the rink we’re playing in and who are opponent is. We know what to expect going into the tournament and we have a lot of confidence.”

As Pacific champs, the Spruce Kings have a sweet schedule. They have the first day off to scout all of their opponents in action at Centennial Regional Arena, then play Oakville less than a day after the Blades have to play the AJHL champion Bandits in a Saturday night encounter.

On Monday, Prince George takes on the Ottawa Junior Senators (East), then have a day off Tuesday. The Kings play the Portage Terriers (West) Wednesday and wrap up the round-robin tournament Thursday night against the host Bandits.

The team that tops the roundrobin standings will have its choice of playing in either semifinal, afternoon or evening, on Saturday. The semifinal winners meet in the final, set for 2 p.m. PT Sunday.

All round-robin games will be webcast on hockeycanada.ca.

The semifinals and final will be televised live on TSN.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Spruce Kings board the bus to Brooks Alta. on Wednesday.

Veteran CFL quarterback Ricky Ray retires

Dan RALPH The Canadian Press

TORONTO — For two years, the athlete in Ricky Ray effectively suppressed the practicality of retirement.

This time, Ray’s practical side won out.

The Toronto Argonauts’ veteran quarterback retired Wednesday. The decision wasn’t surprising as the 39-year-old was coming off a season-ending neck injury.

Ray spent 17 seasons in pro football, 16 in the CFL. He won a record four Grey Cups as a starting QB.

“The more I thought about it, physically I just don’t think I can perform at a standard necessary to play anymore,” Ray said during a conference call.

“Every time I had that competitor inside of me saying, ‘Hey you can still do it, there’s a lot left to accomplish. I just had the practical voice in my head saying, ‘Physically you just can’t do it anymore.’

“As an athlete you’re always trying to overcome something or trying to push yourself and think you can do things that maybe even you don’t think you can. This off-season, the practical side of me just kept coming out and saying it was my time to be done with football.”

Ray’s decision capped yet another off-season of reflection for the California native. Prior to the 2017 and 18 campaigns, Ray took time to ponder his football future before deciding to continue playing.

But serious questions regarding Ray’s future arose moments after he left BMO Field on a stretcher with his head immobilized in the third quarter of Toronto’s 41–7 home loss to the Calgary Stampeders on June 23. The six-foot-three, 215-pound Ray eventually returned and attended team meetings but never gained medical clearance to resume playing.

“Once I got that injury and knew I was going to be done (for the season) and started thinking about what was going to happen for my future, I think it just kind of kept getting stronger and stronger,” he said.

Ray has no immediate plans, other than to watch a Toronto home game and visit with Edmonton head coach Jason Maas, a former Eskimos teammate and longtime friend. Ray said coaching might be in his future.

“It could be,” he said. “I just needed a bit of a breather and kind of let my career sink in before I’d dive back into football and get into coaching.

“I’ll probably make that decision over the next year.”

Making the announcement via conference call was hardly befitting a player of Ray’s stature. However, Ray said it was his decision.

“When I called Jim (Argos GM Jim Popp) and told him I was ready to make an announcement, he told me they’d do anything I wanted,” Ray said. “I wanted to come to a

game and bring my family and really didn’t want to make a trip there, do this and then turn around and make another trip.

“For me, getting it done... and putting it behind me a little bit, I felt the best way to do that was with a conference call.”

Ray and his family will attend Toronto’s home opener June 22 versus the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The Argos will formally honour him then.

“Ricky has always led by example, quietly but completely,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said in a statement. “He’s someone who always put his teammates first.

“Calm under pressure, modest in victory, and accountable in defeat, he has been the consummate professional, on and off the field. The CFL has been graced by his play and strengthened by his presence.”

The conference-call format was a bit of a match for Ray’s low-key, humble demeanour.

Ray entered the CFL with little fanfare, earning the nickname of Frito Ray, because he worked as a delivery driver for Frito-Lay chips before attending Edmonton’s camp in 2002. After starting the year third on the depth chart, Ray replaced an injured Maas and promptly led the Eskimos to a Grey Cup berth.

While in Toronto, Ray often rode the GO train from Mississauga, Ont., to either Rogers Centre or BMO Field for Argos games, Afterwards, he’d drive home with his wife and two young daughters.

“I’m going to miss that,” Ray said with a chuckle. “It was just a good, relaxing way to

get into the game.

“I remember when I played in Edmonton, just driving to the games was always stressful with traffic. Just being able to ride the GO train in Toronto, put my headphones on and stare out the window was a time I really enjoyed.”

Ray leaves as one of the CFL’s most prolific passers.

He’s second in career passing percentage (68.16 per cent), behind only Edmonton’s Trevor Harris (70.36). Ray also stands fourth in passing yards (60,736), joining Anthony Calvillo, Damon Allen and Henry Burris as the only players to reach that plateau.

He’s also the all-time passing leader with Edmonton (40,531 yards) and Toronto (20,205).

“You’re an all-time legend,” Popp told Ray on the call. “As much as you’re that, you’re just an absolute humble person, you might be the most humble star I’ve ever been around.

“It’s always sad to see the player on the field leave but the legend will never stop. Your day is coming for the Hall of Fame.”

Ray was a model of consistency to start his CFL career, making at least 16 regularseason starts in seven of his nine years with Edmonton. He led the Eskimos to Grey Cup titles in 2003 and ’05.

Ray spent the ’04 season with the NFL’s New York Jets before returning to Edmonton the following year. He was the Eskimos’ top player four times and the East Division’s outstanding player three times.

Toronto acquired Ray from Edmonton prior to the 2012 season. He paid immediate dividends, leading the Argos past the Calgary Stampeders 35–22 before a Rogers Centre sellout of 53,208 in the 100th Grey Cup game.

There’d be another championship in 2017 but also plenty of injuries. Ray appeared in 72-of-126 regular-season games over seven years in Toronto. On the field, Ray was always stoic and meticulously dissected opposing defences with sharp, pinpoint passes. But he also had another side.

“He’s hilarious,” former Argos running back Brandon Whitaker said of Ray in 2016. “He’s one of the top-five funniest people I’ve ever met.

“You’d never know that because of who he is but when he actually cracks a joke you’re like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding? I can’t believe you said that.”’ Calvillo faced Ray in three Grey Cups, winning in ’02. Calvillo said even early on, Ray’s potential was evident.

“He made a huge splash when he got into the CFL... he really took it by storm,” said Calvillo, now the University of Montreal’s assistant head coach. “Every quarterback has their journey and for him it clicked right away with the great Edmonton Eskimos he was playing with.

“And that’s what was so impressive, just how calm, cool and collected he was and how many big throws he made during his career.”

Calvillo served as Toronto’s quarterback coach in 2018. Although Ray’s season was cut short by injury, Calvillo said Ray served as a role model for younger players to follow.

“I was just so impressed with his vision, which is exactly what I envisioned,” Calvillo said. “It’s a great learning tool for young quarterbacks because they get a chance to see 1) his vision 2) his study habits and 3) and what it really takes to be a consistent quarterback.

“It was exciting because you hear about the hard work every experienced quarterback does and to be part of it and see it was very impressive.” Ray hopes he’ll be always be remembered as a player teammates and fans could believe in.

“When people ask me, ‘Do you have fun playing football?’ I’m not sure fun is the right word,” he said. “Rewarding is more the right word because it’s not fun all the time.

“There’s a lot of hard practices, a lot of injuries, a lot of tough losses, a lot of things that can beat you down a bit. But when you do get on top and do get to win... it’s just so rewarding. That’s what filled me throughout my career, those times of having success with your teammates and team.”

Gymnast Wilson sticks landing on provincial team

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Alia Wilson has never been to Ottawa before.

For the 16-year-old Wilson, there’s no better time to cross a visit to our nation’s capital off her bucket list than the last full week of this month when she takes the spotlight as part of Team B.C. at the Canadian artistic gymnastics championships.

She’s the first Prince George Gymnastics Club member to qualify for nationals since Ashley Werbecky made the cut in 2003 as a 13-year-old novice.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said Wilson.

“I think I’m getting a little bit better with the pressure, just being able to control your moves. I just have to try not to worry about the competition, just focus on what you need to do.”

The longest season of Wilson’s competitive career started in

November and will come to a close May 22-24 in Ottawa when she represents her home province in the 16-and-older Junior Olympic Level 10 class.

“We were hoping for it all year because last year I was the alternate,” said Wilson.

Two weekends ago at the Western Canadian championships in Saskatoon, Wilson captured the silver medal in balance beam and helped B.C. nail down team silver. She ranked second overall after the first day of competition at Westerns but pressure got the better of her on Day 2 and her ranking dropped on the secondlast event of the day when she fell twice during her beam routine.

Still, Wilson finished eighth overall out of 24 and her solid showing provides a boost of confidence heading into the national event. On Saturday, she’ll attend a provincial team camp in Vancouver, their last get-together until the trip to Ottawa.

“Everybody on the provincial team went to Westerns so I already know them,” Wilson said. Beam and uneven bars are Wilson’s favourite events. She says she has to work hardest at her floor exercise and strives for more consistency in her tumbling routines.

“She’s so self-driven,” said PGGC coach Jenn Schwandt, who started working with Wilson when she was five.

“It’s hard to push yourself when you’re the only one in the gym at that level. She wanted to be on Team B.C. for Westerns and got that and she wanted to be on Team B.C. for nationals and got that too. That has driven her to work so hard.

“She’s smart and very kind. She’s becoming a great coach in kinder gym and recreational gymnastics and she also judges.”

Wilson is known for her shy demeanour around the gym at the Prince George Gymnastics Club

and she’s still not all that comfortable speaking publicly about her own accomplishments. Her considerate nature and willingness to help her clubmates improve has made her popular as a role model for the other gymnasts in the club, who measure their own progress by comparing themselves with what she’s able to do. Lina Goto, who has since retired from competing, was the local gymnast Wilson most wanted to emulate as a kid growing up in the gym.

Wilson was the seventh member of the provincial team last year, listed as an alternate for the national championships. The top five finishers at the provincial championship automatically qualify. Determining that sixth spot is a complicated process which requires a thorough breakdown of points accumulated at provincials to find out who most deserves a spot on the team. After hours of tense deliberations at the tournament in Port Coquitlam, Wilson became the obvious choice for the team.

“There were tears of joy all around when we found out she was on the team,” said Schwandt. Schwandt (nee Fendelet) was a Level 10 gymnast herself as a teenager at the Prince George club and can relate to the difficulty of trying to make the provincial team.

“I tried out for Westerns three times and never made it and I know what that heartbreak is like,” said Schwandt. “For her, being so close last year and not making it was heartbreaking. As her coach at nationals I’m just as excited for her as I would have been if I’d made it as an athlete. We are so proud of her.” Wilson is heading into her Grade 12 year next fall at Duchess Park secondary school. The academically-inclined Principal’s List student has ambitions to study medicine and says she will start sending out resumes to NCAA schools to try to use her athletic abilities to attract a scholarship.

CP PHOTO

Toronto Argonauts quarterback Ricky Ray speaks to media at the Argo practice facility in Toronto in 2017. Ray announced his retirement on Wednesday.

Pavelski leads Sharks past Avalanche in Game 7

Josh DUBOW

The Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Captain Joe Pavelski made a triumphant return from a gruesome head injury by posting a goal and an assist in the first period that helped send the San Jose Sharks into the Western Conference final with a 3-2 victory over the Colorado Avalanche in Game 7 on Wednesday night.

Just over two weeks after being helped off the ice while bleeding from his head in a Game 7 win in the first round against Vegas, Pavelski inspired the crowd and carried his team to another Game 7 victory.

He scored the first goal and assisted on Tomas Hertl’s goal as the Sharks advanced to their fourth conference final this decade.

Joonas Donskoi ended a 39-game goal drought, Martin Jones made 14 of his 27 saves in the third period and the Sharks capitalized on a favourable replay review that negated a potential game-tying goal by Colorado in the second period.

San Jose will now play St. Louis in a conference final matchup between two successful teams seeking their first championship. Game 1 is Saturday.

Mikko Rantanen and Tyson Jost scored for the Avalanche, who were trying to make their first conference final since 2002. Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves.

The excitement started early at the Shark Tank with the fans cheering loudly when Pavelski stepped out for warmups for his first game back since his bloody concussion in Game 7 of the first round against Vegas.

There was a deafening roar when Pavelski was announced as a starter and the entire first period became a lovefest for San Jose’s captain in what could be his final home game with the Sharks before he can be a free agent this summer.

Pavelski took less than six minutes to provide more than just inspiration. He deflected Brent

Burns’ point shot past Grubauer for the opening goal of the game and celebrated with an exaggerated fist pump. Pavelski tipped the puck from almost the exact same spot in the faceoff circle where he was knocked out and bleeding from his head after the awkward fall on April 23 against the Golden Knights.

That play led to a major penalty that the Sharks converted into four power-play goals to erase a 3-0 deficit and help carry San Jose into the second round where his teammates vowed to extend the season long enough for Pavelski to

Senior baseball returns Friday to Citizen Field

Citizen staff

Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.

For players on the five teams in this weekend’s Bud Light Classic senior men’s baseball tournament at Citizen Field, Friday can’t come soon enough. They’ve waited since the season ended in September to get the gloves and bats working for them and run the base paths on an outdoor diamond. They’ll get that chance in the two-day tournament.

It all starts Friday at 6 p.m. when the Inland Control & Services Tigers face the DOB Contracting Gladiators, followed by the Queensway Auto World Red Sox-P.G. Surg Med midget Knights matchup at 8 p.m. The Knights are the defending Western Cana-

dian double-A champions.

The tournament resumes Saturday at 10 a.m. when the Northern Traditional Homes Orioles play the winner of the Tigers-Gladiators game. Games are scheduled every two hours Saturday, leading up to the final at 8 p.m.

The Century 21 Prince George Senior Men’s Baseball League season-opener is set for May 22 at Citizen Field when the Red Sox take on the Knights.

The Orioles and Tigers meet on May 23 for the first time since September, when the O’s captured the playoff title with a threegame sweep of the Tigers in the final.

The Gladiators’ first game is May 24 against the Red Sox.

The regular season ends on Aug. 1.

return.

Pavelski then set up Hertl with a pass from behind the net to make it 2-0 midway through the period and drew a penalty that nearly led to a power-play goal later in the period as the Avalanche struggled early.

Colorado lost star Nathan MacKinnon early in the first when his shoulder crashed into the boards, but his return late in the period helped spark the Avalanche. He created a couple of scoring chances and Colorado then converted with MacKinnon on the ice in the closing seconds of the period

when Rantanen deflected a point shot from Samuel Girard with 6.8 seconds remaining in the first.

The Avalanche appeared to tie the game midway through the second when MacKinnon set up Colin Wilson, but Sharks coach Peter DeBoer challenged the play for offside. The play was overturned because captain Gabriel Landeskog was still in the zone as he went off the ice on a line change.

The Sharks then restored the twogoal lead later in the period when Donskoi skated around the net and beat Grubauer high to the short side for his first goal since Jan. 10.

Colorado pushed hard in the third, getting a goal in the first minute from Jost, but the Sharks managed to hold on from there for the win.

Notes: The Sharks won multiple Game 7s in the same post-season for the first time in franchise history. The last team to advance to the conference finals with two Game 7 wins was St. Louis in 2016. The Blues were eliminated by the Sharks... Colorado F Matt Calvert remained sidelined with an upperbody injury. The Avalanche once again dressed seven defencemen and 11 forwards.

Vigneault adds former NHL head coaches Therrien, Yeo to Flyers’ staff

The Canadian Press

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers will have a wealth of head coaching experience on their bench next season, with Mike Yeo and Michel Therrien joining the NHL club as assistants.

New Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault announced Monday that Therrien and Yeo will join returning coaches Ian Laperriere, Kim Dillabaugh and Adam Patterson on his staff.

Therrien has spent parts of 12 seasons as an NHL coach, including two stints with the Montreal Canadiens (2000-03 and 2012-17). He coached Pittsburgh in between his tenures in Montreal, leading the Penguins to an appearance in the 2008 Stanley Cup final.

Yeo has coached parts of eight seasons with Minnesota and St. Louis.

“I am excited to add Michel and Mike on our coaching staff to work alongside Ian Laperriere, Kim

Dillabaugh and Adam Patterson,”

Vigneault said in a statement.

“Both men have enjoyed success at all levels throughout their coaching careers, including working together at the NHL level.

Each brings a considerable amount of experience and knowledge to our

AP PHOTO

San Jose Sharks centre Tomas Hertl (48) celebrates after scoring a goal against the Colorado Avalanche during Game 7 of an NHL hockey second-round playoff series in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday.

group, which I have no doubt will help lead our team to immediate success.”

The Flyers hired Vigneault last month to fill their vacant head coaching position, held on an interim basis by Scott Gordon after Dave Hakstol was fired in December.

VIGNEAULT

Arrested Huawei exec seeks stay of extradition

Amy SMART The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — The defence team for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou says it plans to argue that she shouldn’t be extradited to the United States because she hasn’t violated sanctions under Canadian laws and her arrest at Vancouver’s airport was unlawful.

The defence summarized arguments it plans to pursue during a hearing Wednesday at B.C. Supreme Court where key court dates were to be set for the extradition case, which has not yet begun.

Her lawyers allege Meng was the victim of two “abuses of power,” first by Canadian arresting authorities and then by U.S. President Donald Trump, and they plan to make an argument based on “double criminality,” related to different sanction and fraud laws in the United States and Canada.

Scott Fenton, one of Meng’s lawyers, said the defence is seeking further disclosure related to the “unlawful detention, search, interrogation and delayed arrest of Ms. Meng.”

While the Department of Justice has provided the defence with some documentation of the arrest from the RCMP and Canadian Border Services Agency, the defence is seeking audio files and says it needs more time to gather other documents related to the case through freedom of information requests.

It has already gathered 1,742 heavily redacted pages of evidence through requests from RCMP and CBSA, but continues to gather more.

Meng was also subject to “political abuse,” in the form of statements made by Trump, Fenton said. Trump has said he’d intervene in the case if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing.

“It’s our submission that those statements directly in relation to the Meng case are intimidating and corrosive of the rule of law,” Fenton said, adding they should disentitle the U.S. from being able to seek extradition.

John Gibb-Carsley, lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada, asked Justice Heather Holmes to allow the case to proceed as quickly as is fair and possible.

“My concern is delays now may simply compound over time,” he said.

The limited scope of an extradition hearing means the Crown’s disclosure obligations are different from domestic prosecutions, so it’s up to the defence to prove

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is out on bail and remains under partial house arrest after she was detained Dec. 1 at the behest of American authorities, waves as she returns home after attending a court appearance in Vancouver on Wednesday.

they’re entitled to more, he said.

While it’s not yet time to make arguments in the case, he said the focus on sanctions is a “complete red herring.”

“This case is about an alleged misrepresentation made by Ms. Meng to a bank that they relied upon, and in so relying, put their economic interests at risk,” Gibbs-Carsley said.

Benjamin Howes, vice-president of media affairs at Huawei, said outside the courthouse that Meng intends to apply for a stay of the extradition proceedings.

“From the beginning, Huawei has expressed extreme confidence in Ms. Meng’s innocence. We have maintained that her U.S.-ordered arrest was an unlawful abuse of process – one guided by political considerations and tactics, not by the rule of law,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice laid 13 criminal charges, including conspiracy,

fraud and obstruction, against Huawei and Meng, who is the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei. The indictment accuses Huawei and Meng of misrepresenting their ownership of Skycom, a Hong Kongbased subsidiary, between 2007 and 2017 in an effort to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Meng is alleged to have said Huawei and Skycom were separate companies in a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting with an executive of a financial institution, misleading the executive and putting the institution at risk of financial harm and criminal liability.

Howes said the PowerPoint was not misleading, the bank had knowledge of the nature of Skycom’s business in Iran and the bank understood the relationship between Huawei and Skycom.

The actions directed in part by the FBI led to “serious and repeated” violations of

Meng’s rights under the charter, he said. RCMP intentionally delayed the arrest, carrying out an unlawful detention and search against Meng under pretence of a routine border check, he alleged. Her luggage was searched, her cellphone and electronic devices were taken, and she was compelled to reveal her passwords, Howes added.

Mounties said they were unable to respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Howes said double criminality is a core principle of the Canada-U.S. extradition treaty and Canadian extradition, and Meng’s arrest violated that principle.

The allegations against Meng are based on violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, but Canada does not impose sanctions on financial services in relation to Iran, and because of this, the allegation she faces is not a crime in Canada, he said.

Caretaker of Victoria hotel still missing after fire

Dirk MEISSNER The Canadian Press

VICTORIA — Firefighters in Victoria continue to battle a stubborn blaze that tore through a vacant 109-year-old heritage building Monday and forced the closure of nearby city hall, businesses and major downtown traffic routes.

Victoria Fire Chief Paul Bruce said Mike Draeger, the caretaker at the former Plaza Hotel, is missing. Victoria Police want Draeger or anybody who knows of his whereabouts to contact the police.

Bruce said Wednesday the fire is still not out and firefighters continue to look for and extinguish hotspots. He said the cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

“When I see some of the timbers coming out of here this morning, that fire was either burning undetected for a long time or there was rapid spread,” Bruce said at a news conference across the street from the fire scene.

“At this point, I can’t comment on one or the other.”

One wall collapsed and the roof caved in at the height of the fire, while guests at a neighbouring hotel were forced to evacuate because smoke and water were spilling in from next door.

Firefighters were at the top of a fully extended ladder Wednesday spraying water down onto the smoking structure, while heavy equipment operators piled beams,

bricks and twisted metal into a growing mountain of debris near the former hotel.

Fencing kept onlookers at bay, while signs warned “do not enter, collapse zone.”

Bruce said firefighters are still finding hot spots in the building’s below-ground basement which was being used as a storage

area for construction materials, mattresses and old furniture. He said firefighters and engineers are concerned the floor above the basement could collapse from the weight of water being poured on the structure.

City engineering director Fraser Work said crews planned to pull down the top-

floor wall of the building to prevent it from crashing onto nearby Government Street, which has been closed to traffic since the fire was reported. A Mountain Equipment Co-op warehouse outlet, also closed since Monday, is located across the street from the fire scene.

“We’re trying to safeguard the building,” he said. “We’re trying to safeguard the people in the machines and we’re trying to safeguard Government Street so we don’t have a bunch of damage that goes into the Mountain Equipment Co-op building and goes into the right of way.”

Work said engineers have little confidence in the strength of the remaining structure that faces Government Street and the MEC warehouse across the street.

“The next move here is to hook up a cable to the upper floor, the fourth floor and to pull that into the internal part of the structure in order to remove that risk of collapse,” he said.

Work said he could not estimate when the street and surrounding businesses would be open again. Nearby media outlets have been broadcasting from local hotels and other buildings after smoke from the fire forced them from their newsrooms.

Victoria city council’s regular Thursday meeting has been moved from city hall to a the regional district office, one block from the fire scene.

CP PHOTO

Thick smoke can be seen billowing from the former abandoned Plaza Hotel in downtown Victoria on Monday. The caretaker of the vacant hotel is missing.

CP PHOTO

Meghan and Harry name son Archie Harrison

Jill LAWLESS and Danica KIRKA

Associated Press

The

LONDON — Tired but beaming, new parents Meghan and Prince Harry presented their two-day-old son to the world as he slumbered Wednesday and also revealed his name: Archie.

The royal couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since their marriage not quite a year ago, said the full name of the child born seventh in line to the British throne is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

The baby slept peacefully through his carefully orchestrated media moment. His mother, making her first public appearance since giving birth early Monday, called Archie “a dream” who “has the sweetest temperament.”

“He’s really calm,” Meghan said.

Harry quipped: “I wonder who he gets that from.”

Harry and Meghan did not choose an aristocratic title for their son. He is not a prince but could have been given the title Lord before his first name.

Instead he will be known for now as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.

The surname, used by some members of the royal family, was created to recognize the lineage of both Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip.

Unlike many senior royals, Archie only has one middle name. Prince Harry’s full name is Henry Charles Albert David.

The couple did not disclose why they chose his first and middle names – though the meaning of Harrison, “son of Harry,” is probably a clue.

Many in Britain had expected a more traditional royal name, with bookmakers taking many bets on Alexander, Arthur and James.

Archie, a name of Germanic origin with meanings that include genuine, bold and brave, is an increasingly popular baby name in Britain. It was among the top 20 most common boy’s names in 2017, according to the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.

Tourists visiting Windsor Castle, which is nearby the royal residence outside London that Meghan and Harry moved into last month, mulled over the baby’s name. Surprise seemed to be the most common reaction.

“A mouthful for him,” Elizabeth Barker, an Irish tourist, said laughing. “But anyway, I guess, if that’s what they wanted, then it’s the name that they like. You know, nobody has to like it.”

In America, famous Archies, both real and fictional, have included former NFL quarterback Archie Manning, jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp and the red-haired comic book character Archie Andrews.

The baby’s name was announced a few hours after his proud parents posed with him for cameras, helping to satisfy a huge global appetite since their son was born Monday at 5:26 a.m. weighing seven pounds, three ounces.

Standing in the vast, red-carpeted St. George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, Harry cradled the newborn in his arms. The baby lay silently,

swaddled in a white merino wool shawl and wearing a knitted cap. Both were made by English firm G.H. Hurt & Son, which has supplied three generations of royal babies with knitwear.

Meghan declared motherhood to be “magic.”

“It’s pretty amazing,” said the 37-year-old American, formerly known as actress Meghan Markle. “I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.”

Asked who the baby took after, Harry said it was too soon to tell.

“Everyone says that babies change so much over two weeks,” said the 34-year-old prince. “We’re basically monitoring how the changing process happens over this next month really. But his looks are changing every single day, so who knows.”

“We’re just so thrilled to have our

Clooney hopes media will be ‘kinder’ to Meghan the mom

Marcela ISAZA

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — George Clooney is hoping the media will be gentler to Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, after she gave birth to a baby boy.

“I think people should be a little kinder. She’s a young woman who just had a baby, you know?” Clooney told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Clooney is a good friend of Meghan and Prince Harry. He and his lawyer wife Amal attended the royal wedding last year, and Amal was one of the guests at Meghan’s baby shower. Clooney has been outspoken in his defence of Meghan, a former actress and American, who has been the subject of harsh gossip in some

publications. At the premiere of his new Hulu series Catch-22, Clooney said the media scrutiny will likely intensify now that the baby, who was named Archie, has arrived. He conceded that some of that comes with the royal territory.

“If you’re a royal, that’s what you have to do,” he said. “It’s the other versions of it: Going to interview people’s parents, that kind of stuff. It starts to step into a really dark place.”

Besides celebrating upcoming May 17 debut of Catch-22, Clooney was also in a joyous mood because of the release of two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been imprisoned in Myanmar. They were released early Tuesday after more than a year behind bars. They won

the Pulitzer Prize last month for international reporting, along with the AP.

“My wife spent the last year, every day, with (Reuters chief counsel) Gail Gove and with (Reuters editor-in-chief) Stephen Adler, working, as hard as you could work, behind the scenes, to get these guys out,” he said.

“And last night, for my (58th) birthday, at my birthday dinner, those two men walked out,” Clooney continued. “And I have to tell you, I couldn’t be more proud of my wife. I couldn’t be more proud of Reuters and the way they stuck up for journalism.”

He added: “It’s a dangerous time to be a journalist. So, to win one, I’m very proud of my wife. And congratulations to everyone – and the AP.”

own little bundle of joy,” he added.

The couple left the photo call to introduce the baby to his great-grandparents, the queen and Prince Philip. The infant is the eighth great-grandchild of 93-year-old Elizabeth, Britain’s longest reigning monarch. They were joined by Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, who is staying with the couple at their Frogmore Cottage home near the queen’s Windsor Castle residence.

The baby is the first AngloAmerican member of the royal family, and is eligible for U.S. citizenship should his parents want him to have it. He has AfricanAmerican heritage though his biracial mother.

Meghan, the former star of the TV show Suits, married Harry, the ex-soldier younger son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, in

May 2018. An audience of millions around the world watched the spectacular televised wedding ceremony at Windsor Castle, 32 kilometres west of London. Harry is due to return to royal duties Thursday, attending an event in The Hague for the Invictus Games sports competition for injured service personnel and veterans. Harry is likely to make the jaunt to the Netherlands as a day trip so he can get back to his family in Windsor.

Prince William, Harry’s older brother and a father of three, joked Tuesday that he will be glad “to welcome my own brother into the sleep deprivation society that is parenting!” “Obviously thrilled, absolutely thrilled, and obviously looking forward to seeing them in the next few days,” William told reporters.

AP PHOTO

Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, during a photo shoot with their newborn son, in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, Windsor, south England on Wednesday.

AP PHOTO

George Clooney and Amal Clooney arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of Catch-22 at TCL Chinese Theatre on Tuesday.

PATRICIA MAY HOCKLEY, passed away peacefully on April 18th 2019 at the age of 72 years. She is survived by her loving husband John. Memorial Celebration of her life will be held on Saturday May 11 2019 at 2:00pm at St. Giles Presbyterian Church. Tea to follow. Assman’s Funeral Chapel in care of arrangements.

Laurette Morgen August 15, 1926 to May 7, 2019

Laurette passed away with her family at her side. She is survived by her pride and joy and the love of her 6 children: George (Verna) Morgen, Judy (Bob) Edgson, Ann Ferguson, Ken (Sandra) Morgan, Kathy (Jerry) Walsh, Susan Andrist and her 16 grandchildren: 25 great grandchildren, and 1 great great grandchild.

A service will be held for her at Assman’s Saturday, May 11th at 11:00am.

Our heartfelt thanks for the compassionate care and love she’s received for the past 3 years at Jubilee Lodge In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to the Alzheimer’s Society of BC.

Betty Pauline Dornbierer

February 25, 1933

May 3, 2019

It is with profound sadness and relief that we announce the passing of Betty at Hospice House in Prince George at the age of 86 years.

Surrounded by her loving family, her congregation, and her many friends, Betty died peacefully on May 3, 2019 having expressed her last wishes and expressions of love to all those close to her. Betty touched, inspired, and was loved by all who met her during her 86 years and to her end she continued to express her kindness, care, and concern to all that she met including many of her wonderful caregivers who continued to visit her on their days off. Betty was born in Winnipeg, moved to the farm in Wadena, before making her way to Prince George where she met and married Harold.

They enjoyed Prince George raising their three children and after retiring relocated to her beloved Vernon for eighteen years before returning to Prince George with Harold and closer to her daughter and primary caregiver, Lynn and family. Betty is survived by her loving husband of 67 years, Harold, her sons Stu Dornbierer (Barb), Les Dornbierer (Ursula), and daughter Lynn Logan (Rod), her grandchildren, Kendra, Haley, Chad, Katelyn, Carli, Ashton, Adam, and Alexa, and her special great-grandchildren Jayvin, Hayden, Berlyn, Hudson, Bentley, Olivia, and Ryker. She is also survived by her two brothers, Paul and Byron Nelson, and sister Doreen Mutz. The family is grateful to Dr. York, Dr. Ducharme, and her many special caregivers at both Hospital and Hospice. Betty will be memorialized at the Coast Inn of the North at 2:00 PM on Saturday, May 25, 2019. Tea to follow.

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Notice to Society Members

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Currencies

OTTAWA (CP) — These are in-

dicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Wednesday.

Quotations in Canadian funds.

China plans ‘countermeasures’ against U.S. tariffs

Anna FIFIELD, David J. LYNCH

The Washington Post

BEIJING — China warned Wednesday of retaliation if U.S. President Trump goes through with his threat to further raise tariffs on Chinese goods, setting up a potential escalation in a trade war that had seemed just weeks ago to be nearing its end.

The trans-Pacific brinkmanship now spills over to face-to-face negotiations as trade talks resume late Thursday in Washington – just hours before Trump’s latest tariff threats are due to hit $200 billion in Chinese products.

The Chinese warning – issued as China’s vice premier arrived in Washington – signaled that Beijing was prepared to take the same hard-line route as Trump and raise tariffs on American products in response.

“An escalation in trade frictions is not in line with the American or Chinese interests or the interests of the world, and would thus be much to China’s regret,” a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry said in a statement on its website.

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index slightly rebounded from the prior day’s loss on a whiff of hope about the U.S. reaching a trade deal with China and higher oil prices. “China is definitely the biggest story by far,” said Michael Currie, vice-president and investment adviser at TD Wealth. Markets mostly recovered Monday from early losses after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted he’s set to impose 25 per cent tariffs Friday on Chinese imports. But they fell Tuesday after the U.S. accused China of reneging on prior commitments.

North American stock markets initially gained Wednesday after Trump tweeted that China’s vice-premier was coming to the U.S. to “make a deal,” but pulled back by the end of trading. The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 39.65 points to 16,397.40 after hitting an intraday high of 16,451.35. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 2.24 points at 25,967.33. The S&P 500 index was down 4.63 points at 2,879.42, while the Nasdaq composite was down 20.44 points at 7,943.32. Hope of a China trade deal caused bonds and gold to retreat. Five of the 11 major sectors of the TSX rose on the day, led by energy, health care, technology, and industrials. The energy sector gained 1.7 per cent as Crescent Point Energy Corp. rose by 5.2 per cent. It was helped by higher crude oil prices that recovered from Tuesday’s decline and U.S. crude supplies having a largerthan-expected decline for the week. The June crude contract was up 72 cents at US$62.12 per barrel and the June natural gas contract was up 7.3 cents at US$2.61 per mmBTU. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.26 cents US compared with an average of 74.21 cents US on Tuesday. The June gold contract was down US$4.20 at US$1,281.40 an ounce and the July copper contract was down 1.1 cent at US$2.77 a pound. Currie said Toronto’s stock market was also helped by some good corporate results, including Thomson Reuters, Kinross Gold Corp. and Bausch Health Companies Inc.

Some “pretty decent-sized companies all had pretty good reports today,” he said. Companies involved with commodities outside of energy, including uranium miner Cameco and forestry companies like West Fraser Timber and Canfor, were lower.

“But if the U.S. goes ahead with its tariff measures against China, China will have to resort to necessary countermeasures,” the statement added.

Until just days ago, the two sides appeared close to a deal, with Trump saying last month they were forging a “monumental” and “epic” pact.

The Trump administration has been pushing China not just to narrow its trade gap with the United States but also to institute major reforms on matters such as support for state-backed companies and intellectual property rights.

There appeared to be some headway. But then Trump tweeted Sunday that China had attempted to renegotiate the almost-completed deal.

He threatened to increase tariffs

from 10 percent to 25 percent on Friday and to levy a new 25 percent fee on the remaining $325 billion of Chinese imports “shortly” if there is no progress toward a trade deal.

This sudden shift sent Asian financial markets tumbling. Wall Street also has taken a hit. But U.S. investors Wednesday were more sanguine, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing almost unchanged.

Even before the next round of trade talks, the Trump administration was on the offensive.

The U.S. trade representative’s office released a Federal Register notice explaining the potential tariff hike and taking a jab at China.

“In the most recent negotiations, China has chosen to retreat from specific commitments agreed to in earlier rounds,” the notice said.

Trump then sought to explain his assertions of Chinese wobbling in terms of U.S. politics.

“The reason for the China pullback & attempted renegotiation of the Trade Deal is the sincere HOPE that they will be able to “negotiate” with Joe Biden or one of the very weak Democrats, and thereby continue to ripoff the United States...” the president tweeted.

China has responded with reciprocal measures during earlier iterations of the trade war, slapping duty on American soybeans, cars and other products.

There is not much time to avoid a possible new barrage of tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies.

Liu He, the lead Chinese negotiator, is set to meet with his American counterparts, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and

Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer, for talks scheduled to wrap up Friday. Still, Chinese authorities were trying to reassure markets. And China’s state media has now swung into action.

Some state-shaped messages from Beijing were pragmatic –acknowledging that there are “thorny structural differences between China and the United States that are difficult to resolve at the moment.”

But the main tone was one of strength and resilience.

“Tried and tested by the trade war for more than a year, entrepreneurs and ordinary people in China have learned to handle everything with grace and greater ease now,” state news agency Xinhua wrote in a commentary published Wednesday.

Spousal loan strategy can reduce tax bill

Tax increases from current regimes in Canada may have sapped some of the energy from a few of us, but like a Monty Python character, tax planning is not dead yet, and never will be.

The spousal loan strategy, a well-established technique, shifts future investment income from the high-income/higher-taxed spouse to the lower-income/lower taxed.

In order for this to be useful, a fairly rare set of circumstances has to arise, like the story below.

Meet Bill and Patty:

• Business owner, Bill Logdodger earns $215,000 per year, substantially more than his wife, Patty, who makes $50,000 as bookkeeper for the family business.

• Bill recently sold an investment property he owned solely, resulting in a fortuitous $1,000,000 after-tax mid-life bonus.

• His business/employment income had already put Bill in the highest tax bracket, at nearly 50 per cent, before any taxable income arising from income on the recent windfall, if he were to invest it directly.

• Patty’s low income keeps her in a lower tax bracket, presently around 28 per cent, nearly 22 per cent lower than Bill’s.

• If Bill gives the money to Patty, and she invests it, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will claw her investment income back to him, using an anti-avoidance regulation called “attribution.”

So now what?

The concept

Instead of investing it himself, or giving it to his wife, Bill lends the $1,000,000 to Patty. That’s right, he must make an actual loan, complete with formal documentation.

Bill must charge Patty interest of at least the “prescribed rate” set out by CRA. In our low interest rate environment, this means his interest income from Patty will

be very modest, presently two per cent. Bill’s income on the $1,000,000 will be $20,000. Patty then invests the $1,000,000 in her own name, and hopefully earns much more than the loan interest over time.

Any interest income, capital gains or dividend income from this portfolio will be taxed in her name alone, at her much lower marginal rate. She then claims this income, less the loan carrying costs, the $20,000 annual interest.

Crucially, Patty must pay the loan interest to Bill each year by Jan. 30. If the interest payment is late by even one day, those pesky attribution rules will apply for that year, and all subsequent years, sucking the income and related taxes back to Bill.

The CRA-prescribed rate in effect at the time the loan is made is locked-in for as long as the loan is outstanding, regardless of subsequent changes to the rate.

The lower this rate, the greater the tax saving opportunities for Bill and Patty.

Implementing the strategy

As noted above, this strategy only works in a narrow set of circumstances.

The couple needs, a) wide

income differential, b) a large nonregistered account in Bill’s name, and c) an accountant and lawyer to bless the idea.

Of course, the bigger the numbers, the more it’s likely to make sense.

If the assets are not already in cash form, Bill should consider the tax cost of cashing out, which may trigger capital gains (or losses).

Bill could also review his Notice of Assessment to determine if he has capital losses carried forward that could be used to offset any new capital gains realized.

Patty’s loan is backed by a promissory note and a formal written agreement setting out its terms.

She (they) should ideally consult a qualified legal advisor first, although it need not be a complex agreement. The loan papers should be filed away as safely as an arm’s-length loan documentation – or even more safely.

Bill should lend money from an account solely in his name to an account solely in Patty’s name, rather than muddle the paper trail with joint accounts.

Keep it squeaky clean, so it will survive an audit. It’s not like the CRA is our friendly neighbourhood tax coach.

Next, Patty builds a portfolio with the proceeds

Generally, the spousal loan strategy will only be effective if the annual income generated from the portfolio is greater than the interest rate on the loan.

If Bill sells some of his investments at a loss before lending the cash to Patty, they must be mind-

ful of the superficial loss rules. Patty must wait at least 30 days before acquiring the identical securities which triggered Bill’s losses, or the capital loss Bill triggered will drift away in the gust of eastward Ottawa-bound wind. An easy work-around is to replace the loss positions with highly-correlated positions.

Patty can make the interest payments by writing a cheque to Bill or by transferring the funds from her solely-owned account to Bill’s solely-owned account. She should clearly document that the payment is for interest owed on the loan.

Benefits of the strategy

The main benefit here is lowering your family’s overall tax bill by shifting some income from Bill’s 50 per cent tax rate to Patty’s 28 per cent rate. While it might not add up to much in a year, over time it will, if you find yourselves among those lucky enough to qualify.

And if you do, you’ve already won a lottery of sorts, but there’s still no point in paying more tax than you are required to. Mark Ryan is an investment advisor 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.

AP FILE PHOTO

Factory workers watch as a machine uses suction to lift a box containing an air conditioner at a Haier factory in Jiaozhou, China.

Inside Facebook some workers wage a quiet battle

Elizabeth DWOSKIN

The Washington Post

AUSTIN, Texas — The thousands of people who do the bulk of Facebook’s work keeping the site free of suicides, massacres, and other graphic posts are not Facebook employees. As contractors employed by outsourcing firms, these content moderators don’t get Facebook’s cushy six-month maternity leave, aren’t allowed to invite friends or family to the company cafeteria, and earn a starting wage that is just 14 per cent of the median Facebook salary.

But for the last seven months, roughly a dozen moderators in the U.S. have been spearheading a quiet campaign inside the social media giant to air their grievances about poor working conditions and their status as second-class citizens. The contractors, who have not previously spoken publicly about their efforts, are using their access to Facebook Workplace, the social network’s internal communication system, to wage their battle. The moderators, who work for Facebook through their employer, Accenture, have also been having heated conversations with Accenture management over working conditions.

In the posts and conversations, the contractors have protested micromanagement, pay cuts, and inadequate counselling support while doing some of Facebook’s most psychologically-taxing jobs. Thousands of employees have seen or commented on the Workplace messages, according to a Washington Post review of them.

A counsellor in Austin, who is one of five on staff for roughly 450 moderators spread across several offices in the Texas capital, said the job could cause a form of PTSD known as vicarious trauma.

“I mean this non-facetiously: why do we contract out work that’s obviously vital to the health of the company and the products we build?” a full-time Facebook product manager who read one of the letters on Workplace asked his colleagues in a chat thread.

In becoming more vocal, moderators are starting to recognize their centrality to the reputations of some of the world’s wealthiest companies – and expanding a conversation about labour rights to a workforce that has historically operated in the shadows. Facebook, Google-owned YouTube, and Twitter uphold content moderation as a key component in the fight against abuse of their services by actors such as Russian operatives and violent extremists. They have hired thousands of moderators through outsourcing firms in the last couple years, who watch or read traumatic posts about everything from suicides and mass murders to child pornography and need to quickly make a decision about whether to leave them up or take them down based on whether they violate the companies’ policies.

“(Facebook CEO Mark) Zuckerberg talks about us all the time, but then we’re not even on his payroll,” one moderator involved in posting the letters said in an interview.

Tech giants don’t include moderators or other contractors like bus drivers and cafeteria workers in their official headcounts, though all contractors comprise at least 40 per cent of the workforce at companies like Google and Facebook. And until recently, operations involving moderation were so secretive that none of the companies that use these workers disclosed site locations and names of outsourcing firms. That

secrecy, also enforced through strict confidentiality agreements that prevent workers from talking about the job, posting about work locations, or inviting visitors to the office, increases the sense of isolation among moderators – though companies say it is for their own safety because the decisions they make are controversial.

Among Silicon Valley firms, Facebook in particular has recently made efforts to improve conditions for moderators, including guaranteeing access to counseling services for workers worldwide, allowing unlimited “wellness time” where workers can receive counselling, and instructing outsourcing firms not to pressure moderators to meet quotas. (The moderators interviewed by The Post say that in practice, their wellness time is far more restricted and that constant measurement for accuracy is as pressurizing as a quota.) The company employs four psychologists globally who design “resilience” programs for moderator mental health.

“Finding the right balance between content reviewer wellbeing and resiliency, quality, and productivity to ensure that we are getting to reports as quickly as possible for our community that is reporting content or might need help is very challenging at the scale we operate in,” said Facebook spokeswoman Carolyn Glanville. “We are continually working to get this balance right and improving our operations.” Accenture said that it regularly offers content moderators opportunities to advance and wage increases.

“We proactively take input from

our people and use that input to help shape their experience – and we work closely with Facebook to address,” Accenture said. Facebook is under pressure to preserve its reputation among its own workforce as a good place to work, at a time when morale has sagged because of the succession of scandals from misinformation around the U.S. presidential election to its privacy lapses. Some of the letters on Workplace have been posted via full-time Facebook employees who are sympathetic to the issues facing the contract workers.

“When the people shouldering the burden of dealing with the worst things that happen on our platform are treated this poorly it speaks pretty poorly about who we are,” a Facebook employee commented on the internal chat board.

Facebook now employs 15,000 contractor moderators worldwide, the most of any tech company.

About 3,000 of them work side-byside with Facebook employees in the company’s offices.

The moderators in Austin behind the Workplace campaign work on an Accenture-dedicated floor inside a Facebook office with colourful murals and free snacks.

In many ways, such proximity between the contract and full-time workers makes them feel disparities more acutely.

“We live in this Facebook world, but we’re like these weird stepchildren that they kind of claim but don’t really claim,” said a trainer, whose job is to instruct moderators how to make judgment calls in accordance with Facebook’s policies.

“It’s like, we love you, and have lunch, and snacks on us, but please know you are going back to your auntie’s house at the end of the day.”

The moderators requested anonymity to protect their jobs.

(One of their letters was published by Business Insider in February, and other Facebook moderators in a Phoenix office complained to The Verge.) They say they are planning to issue a list of demands in the coming weeks, including for affordable health insurance and opportunities for raises – problematic issues in this rapidly gentrifying city, where Silicon Valley firms have large satellite offices.

In Austin, moderators say the starting wage for moderators is $16.50 an hour; some work side jobs such as driving for Uber to make ends meet. Another moderator said she has had to borrow money from full-time workers to pay her cell phone bill and bus fare. Workers have limited benefits compared to Facebook, where the median salary is roughly $240,000 annually, according to the research firm Equilar.

“I never take a day off,” said a moderator who was involved in posting the letters. She said she works 40 hours a week for Accenture and another 12 doing grocery delivery on weekends, giving her little time for psychological recovery. “I can’t afford it right now.”

Another moderator involved in the letters said she has not received a raise in the more than two years since she started. Accenture said 80 per cent of the content moderation team in Austin received a 12-month wage increase or a raise through a promotion.

Unlike Facebook employees, who are known as FTEs for “fulltime employees,” they cannot invite guests for lunch. They sit separately in the same cafeteria, moderators said, adding that they are not invited to events such as the holiday party. Facebook employees get three weeks paid vacation and unlimited paid sick days. Moderators get two weeks paid time off which can be used for vacation or sick time.

Stefania Pifer, a psychologist who runs the San Francisco-based Workplace Wellness Project, which consults with tech companies on moderator treatment, said that the conflicts were at heart a clash between a call center model

designed for low-cost labour and mechanized tasks and a feeling among workers that the burdens placed on them go well beyond that of a traditional call center employee. She said the changes social media companies were starting to make don’t always trickle down to their outsourcers.

Companies “might provide Zumba and yoga and access to a counsellor,” she said. “But they aren’t thinking about how not being able to get up at any point in the day might be increasing the psychological impact – or how holding people to a rigid number of tickets or accuracy counts could be adding more harm.”

Moderators involved in the posting the letters said that even with access to counselling, the job can take a serious toll on mental health for some people – and the psychological challenges were “harder to stomach” because of micromanagement and low pay. Some workers, for example, said nightmares and paranoid ruminations were a common reaction to the job.

Technically, the Austin contractors workers are employed by Accenture Flex, one of several corporate subsidiaries of Accenture that hire moderators. Accenture says it offers workers unlimited wellness time, including on-demand access to counsellors. Moderators disputed that their wellness time was unlimited, and showed The Washington Post documentation from Accenture management limiting it to 45 minutes a week, or nine minutes a day.

Sometimes it’s hard for them to know where Facebook ends and Accenture begins. When moderators arrive at work, they log into two separate systems, one built by Accenture and the other built by Facebook – though both fastidiously track their productivity and time. They also log into separate Facebook and Accenture email accounts. The systems automatically boot them out if they take a break that lasts more than eight minutes, discouraging long bathroom breaks or chatter in the halls.

Moderators’ gripes began to spill into the open last October, when a Bay Area-based moderator working on child exploitation complained on Workplace that a recent change in vendors had resulted in a pay cut from $25 to $19.37 per hour. (The worker also posted her pay stubs, which were reviewed by The Post.)

“The pride we take in saving victims, children and preventing real world harm doesn’t pay those Bay Area expenses,” the person wrote.

In February, sympathetic fulltime employees posted a complaint on behalf of moderators in Austin, after Accenture managers told them they would no longer be allowed to keep their cell phones at their desks and that break times would be limited to certain hours and had to take place inside the building. In the letter, the authors called the directives “inhumane” and lamented their “secondary status in the hierarchy of the workplace.”

Facebook recently announced plans to begin auditing its vendors. It will soon introduce software that enables moderators to blur out graphic imagery and to play videos without sound, efforts intended to give contractors temporary control over the shocking material that continuously scrolls across their workstations.

In the weeks following the February letter, the moderators posted two subsequent letters, raising new issues, such as cheaper healthcare, opportunity for raises and a request that any new policies be communicated in writing. In recent weeks, moderators have continued to protest on Workplace and in meetings with managers.

“If every content moderator went on strike for 24 hours the company’s stock would tank,” said one of the Austin moderators behind the letters. “Yet they refuse to admit that what we do is part of their core business.”

PHOTO BY WASHINGTON POST

Content moderators work at a Facebook office in Austin, Texas in March.

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019

10-11

Northern FanCon part of busy weekend

QUILTERS WEAVE SPRING SHOW

The pull of spring feels like a kite on a string. The colours and warmth dance and run together, pell mell, and fill us with a pure and simple joy.

The Prince George Quilters’ Guild has lofted their creations into a festival of fabric fun and they bid us to Fly Into Spring together.

The quilters are busy all year round. They are constantly working together to stitch new life into this traditional and functional art form. The group teaches and inspires each other, as members, and they also contribute their skills to a number of local charities.

Every so often they will apply their membership’s considerable force to a major exhibition, and this is one of those years.

“We had one in 2016, and it was our first in 12 or 13 years. This is our first since then,” said Barb Friesen, a longtime member of the guild. “It’s a major undertaking. It takes everybody helping out and it’s all volunteer. As it is we run three volunteer events per month, which is a lot to commit to, and a lot of people will take things home and work on them on their own time, which we really appreciate.”

All this work is done to teach the finer points of the old artisan form. Quilting has an almost endless depth of knowledge. It starts off simply by sewing layers of cloth together into a basic blanket, but the array of fabrics, the array of treads, the array of techniques, and the depth of artistic detail is as infinite as the human imagination.

In order to pass on those skills, the members learn from each other, call in expert help, and have fun together with this functional art form. You learn best by doing, so the guild sets goals for helping charities, providing them with the finished quilts.

“We have about 120 members right now,” said president Theresa Smedley. “It has really expanded in the past few years. There was always a strong interest in quilting, but it seems like in the last few years people have really latched onto it. A lot of communication is going on between quilters and the guild really tries to be an

interchange for that knowledge. It’s like a sisterhood where you can be around likeminded people and learn from each other.”

The membership is a diverse collection of quilters of all levels from brand new to sewing all the way to master crafters at the professional level. It’s the kind of art form that can be a hobby or be a business, and everyone around the table can have fun together regardless of the task.

“I have a thread obsession. To me, thread is like its own art form,” said Friesen, gripping the handles of her long-arm sewing machine.

“I’m all about the fabric,” said Smedley, stroking a silky bolt of cloth like a pet.

“Whatever it is that excites you, you can take it whatever direction you want to go, plain and simple or incredibly complex.

We have some in Prince George who are at that master level and it’s incredible to see

Holding a quilt extravaganza is hard

work for the guild members, but it spotlights those highest level quilters and gives knowledge and encouragement to the ones aspiring to reach whatever their next level might be.

It is also eye candy for the public. Each quilt is a labour of love, and no two quilters ever produce the same quilt even if they are given the same materials and general instructions.

More than 200 quilts will be on display at the upcoming show. They have entitled it Flying Into Spring, with a kite theme, just to give the explosion of colours and fibers one more wow element.

“Some guilds only have their own members in their shows, but we have opened ours up to anybody,” said Friesen. “There are at least 10 quilters’ groups in town, some of them are interlinked with our guild but not all. I’m a member of a couple of different ones. We go to the ones that focus on our areas of interest, or work on

things that fit with our schedule. Everyone likes to share and do volunteer work.”

The guild handed out more than 170 charity quilts last year. The Legion, Council of Seniors, Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation, Meals On Wheels, Aboriginal Infant Program, Association Advocating For Women & Children, Victims’ Services, and many more recipients have gotten quilts to cover laps, spread over beds, go into hampers, or be prizes for raffles.

Smedley said one patient at Hospice House so cherished the quilt donated to his bed that staff could only clean it when he was sleeping because he wouldn’t let it go.

The compelling art form will Fly Into Spring at the Prince George Golf & Curling Club on May 10 and 11.

In addition to the quilts on exhibit, guild members were issued a challenge to create quilted kites, to add visual fun throughout the display area. It’s a challenge the PGQG passed with flying colours.

FRANK PEEBLES

97/16 staff

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten

CEMETERY TV PROJECT EXPLORED

FRANK PEEBLES

97/16 staff

Skye Borgman wasn’t just in Prince George to be a special guest at Northern FanCon.

The director of the hit Netflix truecrime documentary Abducted In Plain Sight was also here for some project development with local writer-director James Douglas. He is the driving force behind the award-winning Dollar Baby drama The Doctor’s Case.

It was all because of Northern FanCon, though, that the two came to be involved in a pending screen production.

The roots of the idea trace all the way back to Denise Crosby, a FanCon alumna, who also attended a fan event that predated the Prince George pop-culture convention. Douglas is also one of the senior managers at Barkerville Historic Town where this precursor event took place. He explained how the origins of the project got sparked.

“When Denise Crosby first came to Barkerville in 2013, she and I got talking one night at the Wells Hotel Pub about historical interpretation and some of the incredible things she’d seen at Barkerville and how she related it to some experiences she’d had at a cemetery in Hawaii where they had a historical interpreter who took people on tours and they would meet these historical characters along the way. She had always been fascinated by it, and she said she thought it would be interesting to try something like that at the Hollywood Forever cemetery where she and her friends had hung out as a kid. We talked about that back and forth a few times even before The Doctor’s Case came up.”

Come up The Doctor’s Case did, though, a couple of years later when Douglas and FanCon founder Norm Coyne were collaborating on some film projects, one of which was a pitch to Stephen King’s Dollar Baby program to make a film adaptation of the King story The Doctor’s Case. The film was indeed made, and when it was, Crosby was one of the leading cast members.

Douglas took the movie around North America for various film festivals. The very first one, where The Doctor’s Case had its official world premiere, was the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival. As Douglas and one of the film’s stars, J.P. Winslow, got off the plane and was looking for a cab to the venue, they got chatting with another airport passerby who, it turns out, was also a director there for the festival. They shared the cab

and they hit it off in conversation.

“We became festival buddies,” said Douglas, and the discussion eventually came up between them about Crosby’s idea to roll cameras on the interesting human interest stories a filmmaker could unearth at cemeteries like Hollywood Forever.

Borgman got the appeal immediately.

A meeting was held in Los Angeles with Coyne, Douglas, Crosby and Borgman and the idea started to take the shape of an action-item.

“Denise and I went there during Day of the Dead,” said Borgman. “There are food trucks everywhere and all these movies they project against a big wall, so you can see these great films while people sit on the lawns on picnic blankets, drinking

wine, the peacocks that are there, this great thing to do in the summer that’s just part of that neighbourhood. Denise was telling me about how she grew up right around the corner and the kids would all go to play at the cemetery and it was just zero fear, it was full of life, in that bizarre way of thinking about it.”

Douglas and Borgman were just getting their filmmaker wings when they first met, but both have had projects that soared in the past year. Borgman sees an especially good fit between this proposed cemetery cinematography and her newfound status, because this series would be nonfiction with dramatization.

“Because of Abducted In Plain Sight I’m meeting so many more people now with the ability to green-light projects,” she

said. “We will have to take it around and see if anyone wants to back it. I can see it happening on so many platforms, a lot of homes we could find for it, for sure.”

Douglas has made a career, in and out of film, of historical interpretation and drawing story out of authentic antiquity. In addition to the historical settings in which The Doctor’s Case was shot, he is also involved in a working project called Wicked Ways With Vamp (also sparked at Northern FanCon) in which cosplay superstar LeeAnna Vamp shows the audience around places with paranormal stories, one of which is in Barkerville. So Douglas, too, has a lot to empirically contribute to a project such as this.

With Crosby also excited about the show, it stands a ghost of a chance.

Written by Linda A. Carson & Directed by Kim Selody

97/16 photo by James Doyle Film director and writer Skye Borgman in Prince George for FanCon.

GREAT VALUE IN POPE’S PREACHINGS

Since taking office in 2013, the world has been calmed by the presence of Pope Francis.

The documentary A Man of His Word notes his lifelong effort to respect each person, regardless of their station in life. Since becoming Pope he has emphasized the importance of giving homes to refugees, challenged traditional Catholic teachings on homosexuality and taken action on the climate crisis.

There is one area of the Pope’s teaching which seems largely misunderstood, however. He speaks of how 20 per cent of the world’s population controls 80 per cent of

LESSONS IN

GERRY CHIDIAC

the wealth and how it is dangerous to hoard material possessions, yet he has inherited the position of leadership for one of the wealthiest institutions in the world.

Francis is definitely in a difficult station, as is any idealistic leader in charge of an institution so steeped in tradition and with an often scandalous past. Yet Francis is aware that behind this wealth and power-laden church lie the teachings Jesus, a man who fully understood what was needed to bring true peace and happiness to each person, and was arguably the most influential individual in human history.

The challenge for Francis is leading according to these ancient ideals in a confused and modern world.

Francis is not a poor man by any stretch of the imagination. It is not poverty that he professes. There is no sanctity in poverty, just as there is nothing inherently evil about wealth. The Pope uses money to serve him in reaching out to the world with a message of peace. He thus travels to far continents, welcomes global leaders and uses the media. When he can, he leaves pretentious wealth behind, wearing simpler clothes than most popes, living in a smaller residence and driving

smaller cars. One can often see him in a motorcade, waving at the crowd from the backseat of an economy car. His motto is, “A simple life is good for us, helping us to better share with those in need.”

While there is no evil in money, one can do evil things with money, and that is where Francis is quite blunt. When speaking to the American Congress, for example, he told the elected officials to stop selling weapons. They do nothing but cause untold suffering around the world. We cannot allow profit to be more important than the well-being of the human family.

This is the essence of the Pope’s message, not only about money but about the meaning of life. Every person is sacred, no matter where they are born, no matter where they go to school, no matter how much money they have. The earth itself is sacred, and it is the role of each and every one of us to help others live to their greatest potential. Those of us who have been given more can have a significant influence, and thus we need to take on greater responsibility in bringing about a better world.

The key to happiness then is to continually ask the question, “Is this lifegiving?” This applies to our actions, our words, our thoughts, and to everything we create. It applies to our interactions with others, our decisions, and even to our political activity. We will never all agree, but if we can respect each other and truly listen, keeping this ideal as our central focus, we will indeed find the

This is the essence of the Pope’s message, not only about money but about the meaning of life. Every person is sacred, no matter where they are born, no matter where they go to school, no matter how much money they have. The earth itself is sacred, and it is the role of each and every one of us to help others live to their greatest potential

best way forward. We also need to remember that being life-giving is not a burden. It brings smiles, laughter, and peace. It is the essence of finding meaning in life, no matter who we are or where we live. It is the joy of our common humanity, a joy to be celebrated. It is the essential message, not only of Pope Francis but of every great teacher and every great leader who ever walked the earth.

— 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

AROUND TOWN

Sewing classes

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 North West. 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 2226 afternoons only starting each day at 1:30. The ideal ages are 10-15 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 North West website.

Art show

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.

Solo exhibit

Tonight is the night Vanderhoof painter Michael Rees opens his solo exhibition at the Rustad Galleria in the Two Rivers Gallery. The public is invited to the free reception at 7 p.m. introducing the artwork and a chance to meet the artist.

Gallery reception

Choices: The New Temptation is the art show by Donna Morrison opening tonight at the Studio 2880 Feature Gallery. A 5 p.m. reception will reveal the artwork and introduce Morrison. The show hangs until June 6.

Cool beans

Theatre North West hosts the children’s play Jack & The Magic Bean tonight and tomorrow. Written by Linda Carson, directed by Kim Selody (both former PG theatre professionals), this is an enthralling new spin on the old story of Jack & The Beanstalk. Showtime is 6 p.m. both nights (get tickets online at the TNW website). Perfect for ages 3-9, fun for any age.

Rock of Ages

Rock Of Ages pumps out the hard rock tunes of the ‘80s in a musical theatre event coming to CN Centre for one night only on Friday. A small-town girl arrives on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood and falls head over heals into the L.A. lifestyle

when she meets a big-city rocker. Rock Of Ages has delighted international audiences for the past 10 years. This is the P.G. debut. Tickets available now at the CN Centre box office or online at the TicketsNorth website. Start believin’ and don’t stop.

Quilters show

On Friday and Saturday, come see the biggest collection of quilts and quilt art of the year, presented by the Prince George Quilters’ Guild at their Fly Into Spring show and sale (this year the quilters will be demonstrating a kite theme). Tickets are $5. It includes vendors with quilting supplies, door prizes, raffles and more all at the Prince George Golf & Curling Club. Times are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

MakerLab

Two Rivers Gallery hosts a Saturday special event called Science OdyssyEnhanced MakerLab from 1-4 p.m. Try 3D doodling, use the laser cutter, try out cyanotypes, see demos and try your hand at the build-it station and more. It’s a free drop-in event for all ages. Call 250-6147800 for more information.

PGSO concert

Art Of The Dance is the final mainstage show of the season for the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, with a very special guest performer. Enjoy Lehar’s Merry Widow Waltz, Brahm’s Hungarian Dances, Marquez’ Danzon No. 2, Smetana’s Three Dance Episodes from Bartered Bride, and Strauss’s On the Beautiful Blue Danube. Also joining for the evening will be the winner of the 2018-2019 Integris Youth Concerto Competition. The show is Saturday at the Prince George Playhouse at 7:30 p.m. Get tickets via the Central Interior Tickets website.

Rap & Rhymes

Omineca Arts Centre is the stage for A Night Of Rap & Rhymes on Saturday at 8 p.m. All welcome, tickets are sliding scale from $10-$20 at the door. Kids are welcome (licensed event). Bring your own poetry for the open mic component. Featured performers are telephone switches, The Brain Porter, theWETuntreatedCEDARshingle and GRIM.

Fundraiser

Saturday is the Save The Lake fundraiser at the Westwood Pub, all money raised goes to purchase a weed harvester for Tabor Lake. Burgers and auction. If you have a business and can donate or help please call David Mothus at 250-961-7664.

Alban series

Alban Classical holds the next in their concert series. Obbligato features classical voice music with clarinet, alto saxophone and piano. Showtime is 3 p.m. on Saturday at Trinity United Church (3555 5th Ave). Admission is $20.

Wheely funny

The Wheely Funny Fundraiser 2 happens May 16 at Theatre North West with local comedian Mike McGuire and friends. The proceeds go to support the Wheelin’ Warriors of the North Ride to Conquer Cancer. Tickets are $25 available at Theatre North West and Books & Company.

WordPlay

The next edition of the poetry-spoken word series WordPlay is entitled A Magical Musical Mash-Up, hosted as always by local writer Erin Bauman, the Panoptical Poet. The event is May 16 at Books & Company starting at 7:30 p.m. “Bring your guitars, ukuleles, oboes, etc. to back up those who are reading,” said Bauman. “If you don’t read or play an instrument you can bring your art supplies and draw, knit, bead, etc. while you listen to melodic poetry.”

Interstellar Jays

Cariboo alt-folk band Interstellar Jays perform a set of shows in the region on the strength of their new album Musasabi Madness. Recorded in the Cottonwood community. It’s an upbeat blend of ska, klezmir, and old tyme fiddle. The closest appearances are May 17 at the Sunset Theatre in Wells and May 18 at the Prince George Legion.

Huble Homestead

May 18 is the first day open for the Historic Huble Homestead farm north of the city. The first event of the year happens immediately, May 19 and 20, with their annual Spring On The Homestead events. Spring is here and that means Huble Homestead Historic Site opens soon! The 2019 season kicks off with Spring on the Homestead May 19 & 20. “The whole family can get outside and learn all about how pioneers prepared for spring,” said Huble’s executive director Krystal Leason. “Participate in the May-pole dance, crafts, scarecrow making, and demonstrations including ice cream and butter making. Enjoy lunch, tours, music, and more” Activities run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Huble Homestead is located 40km north of Prince George, just off Highway 97 on Mitchell Road. For more information call 250-564-7033 or visit hublehomestead.ca.

Scotch night

Theatre North West holds their next Scotch & Social night on May 18. Doors at 2 p.m., first pour at 2:30. Scotch expert Keith Trusler is the special guest on the theme of Best Scotch Under $75. Accordingly, tickets are $75 (at Books & Company or the TNW website) with all proceeds to TNW.

Open gallery

The next Open Gallery event at Two Rivers Gallery is May 19 from 1-4 p.m. Free for members, or $7.50 adults, $3 children, $15 families. Come for some Sunday free-style art-making.

Art of business

On May 21 the Community Arts Council hosts special guests Neil Godbout (editor of The Citizen) and Sean Farrell (executive director of the CAC) for the next Art Of Business workshop, entitled How Good Is Your Hook? Come to Studio 2880 at 6 p.m. to find out about effective news releases, program announcements, and the ways to best get the word out about your arts endeavours (or any endeavour). There is no cost to attend.

Wish Me Luck

Alex Mackenzie is gonna need it so he’s hosting his Wish Me Luck Show on May 25. The local comedian is heading off on national tour so he’s starting in hometown P.G. at the Prince George Playhouse starting at 7 p.m. He’ll make a contribution to the Hospice Society on his way out of town. Joining Mackenzie that night will be fellow local comics Mike McGuire, Jon White, and Cody Malbeuf. Tickets are $25 at Central Interior Tickets website (all ages welcome, some mature subject matter).

Photo workshop

Acclaimed local photographer Philomena Hughes leads a one-day cellphone photography workshop on May 25 (also on June 22) at her studio at 423 Dominion Street from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost is $150 (lunch is included). Learn the snapshot potential we hold in our hands in our everyday smartphone devices.

Trashion show

Two Rivers Gallery is where fashion fans and recycling fans can meet on the glamour runway. May 25 at 7:30 p.m. is the Trashion Show - Where Art & Ecology Collide, hosted by the creative team at Adventures In Self-Sufficiency. They said “The Trashion Show is a fashion showcase that invites creators, makers, artists, and design enthusiasts to bring to life unique, creative designs made out of recyclable materials, salvaged finds, or anything that is saved from the landfill.” Tickets are $25

SHOULDERS TO THE WHEEL

Mary and Charles Jago immersed themselves into Prince George SENIORS’

Former president of the University of Northern British Columbia, Charles Jago was born in St. Catharines, Ont. in 1943. He married Mary McDonagh in 1966. He actually knew Mary in high school and they both laughed and said, “We knew each other during our high school years and didn’t really like one another.”

Here is how it unfolded. A friend of both Charles and Mary set them up on a date. Charles replied that he knew her from school, she didn’t seem like his type but that he would agree to the date. Mary also agreed to the date, thinking she would not have a good time but that she would do it for her friend. Both Charles and Mary agreed that the evening went off without a hitch and they really enjoyed each other’s company. The date was the beginning of a beautiful 53 years of marriage. Mary was born in Welland, Ont. in 1943. After high school, she earned a diploma in nursing at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing in Toronto, attended McMaster University in Hamilton, and completed a diploma in enterostomal therapy from the Cleveland Clinic in 1985. An enterostomal therapist is a specialist nurse trained in the area of ostomy, wound and incontinence management. She had a wide range of experience within her nursing specialty that included hospital and community nursing, teaching at the Mohawk Community College in Hamilton, Ont., research and related administrative experience. She gave a series of lectures to nurses and surgeons, was a guest speaker at major conferences and

published articles in the Canadian Association of Enterostomal Therapy Journal.

Prior to 1985, she worked as a medical/ surgical, orthopedic and pediatric nurse as well as a supervisor in charge of a facility for severely mentally handicapped children. Just before moving to Prince George, she worked as a case manager for the Middlesex London Home Care Program in London, Ont.

Charles obtained a Bachelor of Arts in honors English and history from Western University. He was the gold medalist from Huron College and the recipient of a Commonwealth scholarship for graduate studies in Britain. He graduated with a PhD in history from Cambridge University in 1969. He held his first academic position at Georgian College of Applied Arts and Technology in 1969, and joined the Department of History at McMaster University in 1970 attaining the rank of professor in 1987. He chaired the McMaster Board/Senate Committee on long range planning from 1978-81 and the Department of History from 1982-87.

In 1987, Charles was appointed Principal of Huron University College at Western University thereby returning to his alma mater.

His next big advancement would be serving as president of the University of Northern British Columbia, an exciting new university taking shape in Prince George, a university he knew about through the long-term friendship that Mary

Continued on page 7

97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Charles and Mary Jago in their Prince George home.

PRESENTING

PLATINUM

FRIEND SET UP FIRST DATE

Continued from page 6

and Charles had developed with Iona Campagnolo earlier in their McMaster years. In 1995, she informed him that UNBC was seeking a president. His name went forward and the appointment was made.

Campagnolo was the founding chancellor of UNBC and served in the position from 1992-98. Jago could not have had a better friend and mentor to introduce him to northern B.C. She received an honorary degree from UNBC in 1999.

Charles became the second president of UNBC and, in the process, Mary became a university president’s wife. She learned her new role from her experience at Huron College and from the other university president wives involved with the Association of University and Colleges of Canada. She was told that she had to mentally prepare for the role and that it was a husband and wife job. The ladies laid out all the rules and expectations of a successful president’s wife. There were traditions of how to dress, how to present one’s self, how to entertain, when to entertain and basically never to go out in public with out being coiffed, manicured and welldressed.

Charles began his presidency in October 1995 by driving across country to their new home. Within two weeks of their arrival, they headed to the Nass

Continued on page 8

Handout photo Charles and Mary Jago in the Muskokas in 1965.

MARY DEVOTED TO VOLUNTEERING

Continued

Valley to attend a pole raising event. Mary said, “That was my introduction to the Nisga’a Nation and the culture of First Nations people. We had to cross a river on a rope bridge for the ceremony celebrating the opening of their new bridge. It was all so totally amazing and I loved it.

“When we settled in our home in Prince George, Linda Steadman (wife of Tom, the Canadian Tire owner) and I eventually took up the equestrian sport of dressage. I am still learning. I am now the owner of a Haflinger pony for driving and a Trakhehner gelding for dressage. At age 76, they fulfill my need for physical and mental challenge.”

As the UNBC president’s wife, as Charles explains, “Mary did her own catering and in fact, at one convocation, served a baked salmon that I caught on a fishing trip She catered extensively for social gatherings at our home, including university athletes, graduates, scholarship winners, community leaders, the Board of Governors, faculty and staff and many dignitaries. She studied and learned all the protocols for each event. I am proud to say that she was the university’s welcoming presence in our home and did many great things behind the scenes. She was poised and professional through it all”. It all sounds easy but it wasn’t always easy for Mary. As Charles says, “I was

Handout photo Mary Jago with her horse Taseko and trainer Jodie Kennedy riding.

‘IT WAS MY DREAM JOB’

Continued from page 8

away from home nearly every weeknight and most weekends. At the age of 52, she had to leave her profession, family and friends for a job of my choosing many miles away. We can still laugh and say that when our kids grew up, we left home.”

Charles and Mary have three sons: Charles David, a lawyer in New Westminster, Johnathon Noel, an osteopath in Barrie, Ont., and Christopher Paul, an exploration geologist at the Mount Milligan Mine northwest of Prince George. They have four grandchildren: Charles JiWon, Hunter, Pia and Jules.

“We are proud of them all, including daughters-in-law Eun Hye, Aidyl and Maria.”

During his presidency, Charles led major campus expansions in terms of academic programs, enrolments, endowments and new buildings. It was his foresight that enabled significant growth of the university, both in Prince George and other regions of northern B.C. Charles always saw UNBC as belonging to all the people of the north. Among his major achievements were the creation of the UBC Northern Medical Program at UNBC and the planning and construction of the

Northern Sports Centre, subsequently named in his honour. The university more than doubled in physical size during his presidency, remaining true to its original architectural beauty.

Charles has served on numerous boards. Locally he served on the board for Initiatives Prince George, the Two Rivers Art Gallery, Theatre Northwest, various provincial boards, Canfor Pulp Products Inc., Sinclar Forest Products Inc., the Northern Health Authority, the Fraser Basin Council, Northern BC United Way, the Canada West Foundation and the Academic Health Science Network of B.C., just to name a few.

He played an initiating role in the establishment of a full-service Cancer Treatment Centre in Northern B.C.

Subsequently he served as advisor to the Canadian Cancer Society in a campaign that raised over $12 million to establish a cancer lodge for patients receiving cancer treatment at the centre.

He is the recipient of the Queen’s Silver and Diamond Jubilee Medals, the Order of Canada and in 2013 he was installed as a member of the Order of British Columbia in recognition of his service to the province.

Charles joined UNBC in the institution’s second full year of operations and served as president of

UNBC from 1995 to 2006. He returned to serve again as the president of UNBC from July 2008 to June 2009. He has since retired with the distinguished title of professor emeritus.

He played an initiating role in the establishment of a full-service Cancer Treatment Centre in Northern B.C.  Subsequently he served as advisor to the Canadian Cancer Society in a campaign that raised over $12 million to establish a cancer lodge for patients receiving cancer treatment at the centre.

Mary gave back to her community through her volunteer work. She volunteered as the Regional Director for the B.C. Women’s Hospital and Healthcare Foundation, for the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, the Festival of Trees, zone leader for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and volunteered as a researcher for the UNBC pilot project on Type 2 Diabetes.

She was appointed as a medical member of the Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security Review Tribunal for British Columbia by the Governor General in Council.

She served on the board of directors for the Prince George Community Foundation, chaired and served on the grants committee and chaired their silent auction fund raiser at the Citizen of the Year banquet.

While Charles was busy managing the university from the inside, Mary involved herself as the development chair for the David Douglas Botanical Garden Society. Her final major project was to help raise funds for the creation of a botanical display garden at the UNBC detention pond site complete with a magnificent bridge and a water feature to enhance the beauty of the entire project.

Charles concluded by saying, “Mary’s personal expectations as the wife of the president of UNBC were of the highest order and required many hours of her attention to fulfill. I cannot thank her enough for that. It was my dream job to have a chance to shape a new university. The job has been my vocation, hobby and life.

“Prince George is a remarkable place and when people decide to do something here, they put their shoulder to the wheel and they do it. My wife Mary is tops on that list.”

NORTHERN FANCON FUN

PHOTOS BY JAMES DOYLE

Kristina Erickson shows off her White Walker from Game of Thrones cosplay on Friday at CN Centre.

Professional cosplay couple Lauren and Ethan Brandt from Thousand Faces Cosplay show off their Tiny Tina, left, and Psycho from Borderlands on Saturday at CN Centre.

Professional cosplayer Andy Rae shows off her Lilith cosplay from the video game Borderlands 2 on Friday night at CN Centre on the opening night of Northern FanCon.

Lauren Brandt, one half of professional cosplay couple Thousand Faces Cosplay, strikes a pose in her Harley Quinn cosplay on Friday.

Professional cosplayer Ainsley Bircher of Pigtails & Powertools shows off her Jane of Proudmore cosplay from World of Warcraft on Saturday at CN Centre

Diana Kiester shows off her Raphtalia cosplay from The Rising of the Shield Hero on Saturday at CN Centre.

Andrew, left, and Barb Bevan show off their steampunk inspired cosplay on Saturday at Kin 1.

Andrew Randall as Siegfried, left, and Garret Gautheir as Schlup the Orc from World of Warcraft pose in their cosplay Saturday at CN Centre.

Anika Kurisu, 4, shows off her Wonder Woman cosplay while Samantha Kurisu, 2, shows off her Rey from Star Wars cosplay on Sunday at Kin 1.

Teri Forster shows off their Queen of Hearts cosplay from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland on Saturday at CN Centre.

Eight-year-old Duncan Kelly-Norlander shows off his Ghostbusters cosplay on Saturday at CN Centre.

Deanne MacKay shows off their Sylavanas Windrunner cosplay from World of Warcraft on Saturday at CN Centre.

Dylan Sankey shows of his modified Helghast cosplay from the video game Killzone on Friday.

Jodie Isaac shows off her Mercy cosplay from the video game Overwatch on Friday at CN Centre.

WE COULD USE MORE GG

Our beleaguered prime minister found himself viewed in a less than favourable light in front of the cameras while filling sandbags (for 15 minutes) for flood mitigation in Ottawa. Yes, he was wrong to tell a volunteer that he should listen to him, and then call him unneighbourly and unfriendly, but besides that, there are other optics problems that have to be considered. As Neil Godbout wrote very well in the April 30 edition of the Citizen, how a politician can show support for disaster victims is a difficult thing to get right.

The temptations are too great to do grandstanding and politicking. Using the disaster to showcase one of his primary campaign platform issues around climate change, makes his efforts to support the flood victims appear politically motivated, even if it wasn’t. Disasters are not a time for politics, they are a time when the policies, character, and governance capabilities of elected officials are evident by how well everything works. The time for partisan politics is after, when things return to normal and danger has passed.

If only we could have someone from government who was non-partisan, of no party affiliation, who could represent the good will of all Canadians toward those suffering, so that we could avoid these difficulties. Someone who could represent us without being charged with politicking at the people’s expense. Someone who could encourage the volunteers by bringing the media’s attention to their

THINKING ALOUD

TRUDY KLASSEN

hard work. Someone to bring publicity to the issue without being accused of seeking out the camera for their own political gain. Someone who can bring Canadians together in times of trouble.

Wait, we actually do. Our Queen’s representative, the Governor General. We have had Governor Generals since Confederation. Currently, our Governor General is former astronaut Julie Payette. Officially, her roles include carrying out constitutional duties, serving as commander-in-chief, representing Canada at home and abroad, encouraging excellence, and bringing Canadians together.

That sounds strikingly like who needs to show up to disasters. Let our elected officials, like the PM, meet with local government officials to work out the kinks in how to best help them. Let our Governor General represent us to bring media attention and a bit of encouragement to exhausted volunteers. I am not a huge fan of this Governor General, as she has not been as discreet as she should be, but nevertheless, she represents me, you, us all.

Before I finished this column, I took a quick look at the GG’s schedule. It looks quite low key; handing out medals, a trip

CP photo

Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, left, and Mayor Sonia Paulus visit the flood zone last Thursday in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Que.

to Rwanda, and such. I went to the official website and found she was in New Brunswick and Ottawa to visit flooded areas. No media reports on her visit, though. Too bad. She is us, whether Conservative, Liberal, PPC, or Green, and I would like to see more of her, and less of our PM, in these situations.

Oh, one more thing!

Guess who taught me to love the monarchy? My mother, who sometimes said the solutions to problems are right under our nose.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, and to all who have moms!

WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME

Every year around my birthday, I like to take stock of my life and what has happened the previous year and what I am grateful for. I find the timing of my birthday more useful that the false optimism of the New Year wherein I enthusiastically pledge to lose weight, write more often, file my columns early and clean up my basement.

My birthday is in early May and (most) of the snow has melted and the winter blahs are starting to dry up in the spring sunshine. It’s a nice month for a birthday – for me, not for my husband because he gets the joy of buying me a gift for my birthday and then turning around and buying another one for Mother’s Day. I usually am quite spoiled in May.

I am very grateful for the life that I have here and for the people in my city. I am grateful for new opportunities and for a space in which to reach out to my community. I am exceedingly grateful to live in the north and to be close to my family and friends. There is one thing that makes living in Prince George wonderful and strange: I can’t go anywhere without running into someone I went to high school with.

If I am just running out to the store on the weekend on a lazy Sunday with unwashed hair, wearing ill-fitting jogging pants, you can guarantee that I will run into someone that I have not seen in twenty years. Usually, the people that I run into when I am looking my worst, are the ones look great and don’t look like they’ve given up entirely.

I always thought that I would be one

of those people that would remember everyone’s first and last name from high school, years later. As it turns out, I’m not. Instead, I tend to make awkward eye contact with familiar-looking people and internally debate whether or not I approach them and say, “Did we go to high school together?”

When you live in a community like Prince George or any one of our neighbouring northern towns, every person is connected through one or two degrees. Guys I went to school with ended up working at one of the mills with my dad or brother, girls I went to school with ended up having kids at the same time as we did and now our kids go to school or dance together.

I was in a meeting at work and I looked out in a room full of professionals and catch sight of a friend of a friend who I haven’t seen in two decades. “Oh, hey!” I said, ungracefully, interrupting myself in the middle of the meeting.

This is a normal occurrence in northern life. Everyone knows everyone and if they don’t know you, they probably know your dad. I am thankful for this life and for another year in this community that is a bit like Cheers – everyone knows your name, or your parents, or at least, your face seems familiar.

Cunning, baffling and powerful, this is addiction to us. It manifests through various forms – shopping, gambling, sex, food and drugs – even aggressive driving can become addicting to us. Anger especially can change our unconscious state (which usually is fear or some other form of pain). Addiction is defined as continued behaviour/use despite adverse consequences. Many of us live in denial or are unconscious about our state of being.

I am comprised of genetic material that comes from my parents, their parents and grandparents to the beginning of time. The knowledge and experience of my ancestors past lies in my DNA; I believe exercise (especially yoga) releases their wisdom into my physical form. Exercise releases nutrition (blood/oxygen) into my lungs and my heart and circulates feel good chemicals through my brain and my soul. Scientists say this is dopamine, I laugh thinking how funny is that – dope that is mine, dope a mine!

I am an addict and a funny one at that!

Prince George is surrounded each summer by music festivals that bring a national and international presence to our region. One of the longest and liveliest is the Robson Valley Music Festival held in Dunster (about two and a half hours east of P.G.).

This year the showcase runs Aug. 16-18. The lineup of performers includes My Son The Hurricane, Annie Sumi, DJ Shub,

After exercise (yoga), I then meditate, which is particularly hard. Meditation is exercise for my mental mind; the brain is an organ which requires focused discipline, especially for addicts whose neural pathways have been hijacked by drugs. Meditation allows me to listen to the whisperings of the universal energy which guides all the world. I quiet my thoughts to hear the DNA conversation of my ancestors past, to show me the way that I should now live my life. They say in the program that inside every man, woman and child is the fundamental knowledge of God. Now, I am not religious, but rather, a spiritual person. Religious people fear hell while spiritual people have been there and back. There is an immense body of DNA, genetic material/wisdom

entrapped in my soul and I believe it is the program which allows me access to it. The god of my understanding is that of my past, of my parents and grandparents’ gift to my life.

Addiction is of a spiritual nature, it says that clearly in the program – a spiritual malady. I once thought my issues were only about drinking, then I believed it was only about stinking thinking – alcoholic and drug thinking which brought me back to the addictive disease. Now, after several decades in the program I know it is a spiritual malady which only can be helped through a higher power, one which I choose to call God (and believe you me, I easily can have several issues with God).

The 12 steps were formed by two men, an alcoholic doctor and stock broker. Even the Rockafeller family was involved from the start, not because of drinking but because they could see how powerful the program could be.

The 12 steps are for everyone, even (and especially) non addicts. I think any person

can benefit from this simple, life-changing program. It works for all types of issues –even those in Alanon (or Alateen), those who are not addicts.

The 12 steps are merely an outline which derives wisdom from several great thinkers including Carl Jung, Emmet Fox and the Oxford Group. The Oxford group wrote about a spiritual malady which impacts us all and one which manifests through suffering and pain. From this foundation, the 12 steps were formed.

To me today, recovery is not about not using, it is a total revision of the way that I live. The 12 steps offer a new freedom, a new way of life. They provide direction, comfort and peace of mind; something which I once found in drugs, but soon discovered was just a big lie. Now the program provides this to me – a powerful, free way of living, one which everyone deserves, including you.

– Questions for Ann? Send your submissions (anonymously, if you choose) to columns@ pgcitizen.ca and we’ll pass them along.

Red Path Dancers, Cozy, Fanfare, Cocojafro, Namgar, Meiwa, Mngwa, Dodgy Mountain Men, Jody Peck, Sarah Burton, The New Customs, Danny Bell & His Disappointments, Saltwater Hank, Interstellar Jays, Party On High Street, The Giving Shapes, The Dirrty Show, Electric Audrey 2, Gustavo The Impossibilist, Naomi Shore, Jesaja Class, Zonnis, Under The Rocks, Samson’s Delilah, Athabasca Barnburner, Simbiyez, Wilson, Mary Matheson, Logan and Nathan, This Way North, Nice Verdes,

Pico’s Puppet Palace, Navaz, Jim & Penny Malmberg, Captain Thunderpants, and host Robson Valley band Mamaguroove.

More acts may yet be added, according to festival organizers.

There are opportunities to volunteer to make this yet another artistic success. Those who contribute time to key jobs will receive attendance perks. Email rvmfvolunteer@gmail.com for information about that.

There are openings for vendors of food,

art or artisan creations, and other wares. Any merchant or pop-up service provider must apply by May 30 to get a spot inside the festival site. Email russpurvis@gmail. com for more information.

There are camping options and other accommodations in the close-by area of the festival. McBride and Valemount are towns near the event.

Tickets are on sale now only via the Robson Valley Music Festival website (those 13 year or younger may attend free of charge).

SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW

struggling musician.

LOS ANGELES – Pass the popcorn, the summer movie season is here and all the spectacle and air-conditioned respite it offers audiences. Summer at the movies has long been synonymous with blockbusters and franchises that are easy to spend a few hours with. For the most part, 2019 is no different.

You want superheroes? You’ve got “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and “Dark Phoenix” on the horizon. Or sequels? There’s “Toy Story 4,” “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum,” “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” and even a “Fast & Furious” spin-off, “Hobbs & Shaw.” How about a reboot with a casting twist? Look no further than the “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” update “The Hustle,” with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, or “Men In Black: International,” with Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth. Biopics? “Rocketman” is coming and “Brian Banks” too. A literary adaptation? There’s ”The Sun Is Also a Star“ and ”Where’d You Go Bernadette?“ Or a remake of an animated classic? Disney has you covered with two: ”Aladdin“ and “The Lion King.”

But there is also a world of original films that will add fresh stories, unique perspectives, depth and diversity to the mix. And they’re not all indies either. Some studios are making big gestures, with original horrors, comedies and major releases from auteurs: Quentin Tarantino has his 1969 Manson-era Los Angeles film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which Sony will release; and Danny Boyle has “Yesterday,” coming from Universal.

“Yesterday,” while a fresh conceit, does have a big recognizable selling point: It’s about the music of The Beatles and what happens when everyone in the world forgets that they ever existed – except one

Boyle laughed that the songs are “both the enabler and the destroyer. Because if you get them wrong, it’s terrible, there’s nothing worse. If you get them right, it gives you an advantage.”

He even made the bold choice to cast a relatively unknown actor in the lead role.

“Any studio is going to prefer one of the leading men if you can get it,” Boyle said. “But there’s a natural inhibitor here: They’ve got to be able to play Beatles songs.”

The one who stood out in a sea of “Yesterday” auditions was Himesh Patel, who Boyle said made them sound new.

“It’s not cheap making a Beatles movie. The Beatles songs cost money. But (the studio) saw the audition and they bought into him,” Boyle said. “He’s a lovely discovery. He has a modern sense of humour.”

It’s not the only big original movie coming out this summer featuring a South Asian lead, either. There›s the Bruce Springsteen-soundtracked film “Blinded by the Light,” from “Bend It Like Beckham” director Gurinder Chadha , the Uber driver who gets in over his head comedy “Stuber,” with Kumail Nanjiani, and Mindy Kaling’s “Late Night,” in which she plays a diversity hire on a late night talk show writing staff.

There’s also diversity in the independent realm with two notable and highly personal visions manifested in Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” with Awkwafina, and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” both A24 releases.

Wang’s semi-autobiographical film about a Chinese-American family who decides to keep their Chinese grandmother’s terminal illness from her, was a breakout at the Sundance Film Festival.

“To have an entire film of Asian faces and then have it predominantly be not

English language, but to still have it be American financed and distributed and marketed as a US production is not the usual,” Wang said.

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” is another exciting discovery from newcomer Jimmie Fails who wrote and stars in this story about gentrification and loving a home that’s no longer yours.

“I love that company,” Fails said of A24. “They give young, new voices a platform.”

Another outfit taking gambles on new stories is Annapurna, which backed Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut “Booksmart,” a sure-to-be breakout about two high school overachievers and devoted good girls who decide to go to a party one night.

Focus Features is releasing Jim Jarmusch’s star-studded zombie-comedy, “The Dead Don’t Die,” with Bill Murray and Adam Driver, and Neon has “Wild Rose,” about an Irish mother of two youngsters, recently released from prison, who dreams of being a country music star.

Some found luck with Netflix, like Amy Poehler with “Wine Country,” which is based on a real trip she took with Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch and others. In the film, the group of friends gets together in Napa to celebrate a 50th birthday.

“There are just not enough representations of long female relationships,” Poehler said. “We’re obsessed with the beginnings and endings of things and there’s so much to tell in the middle.”

The film will be getting a limited theatrical run, too, but she likes that audiences will have the option to watch it with wine and then just roll into bed if they want.

“The summer can be a land of opportunity for films that offer an antidote to the overwhelming onslaught of blockbusters that are the stock in trade of the industry›s biggest season,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.

Of course it’s usually the franchises that earn the most. Last summer the top five films were all sequels and accounted for over 40 per cent of the overall summer box office. The last time a non-animated original topped the summer box office was in 1998 with “Saving Private Ryan.” And this year needs all the help it can get, even with the “Avengers: Endgame” boost, the year is still down 13.3% . But the originals have a chance to provide upside. There’s rarely the kind of grassroots-level buzz as when something truly fresh comes along.

“Last summer was a great example of how original and fresh concepts were big drivers during the summer months with ‹The Meg,› ‹Crazy Rich Asians,› ‹Book Club,› ‹Tag› as well as the documentary ‹Won›t You Be My Neighbour?’ all performing better than expected at the box office,” noted Dergarabedian.

And it’s something that creators and studios are fighting to preserve.

“People like original content and are excited when there are good original movies. I think they also like big franchises but I think there’s room for both,” said Seth Rogen, who produced two original films this summer with “Long Shot” and the sixth graders go wild film “Good Boys.” ”Studios have an appetite for both.“

Plus, Boyle hopes that even with all the possibilities on television and streaming that there’s still specialness to going to the theatres to see something new.

“Television is endless time, in a way,” Boyle said. “But movies, you go and you give two hours of your time to one thing, and you’re not going to be distracted. You sit there and you go, take me somewhere and transform me. It’s wonderful to be able to do that. The spotlight is so much more precious.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sony/Columbia Pictures via AP photo

Chris Hemsworth, and Tessa Thompson star in Men in Black: International.

Disney via AP photo Zazu, voiced by John Oliver, and Simba, voiced by JD McCrary appear in The Lion King.

Silly Sheep

It is not uncommon for a sheep to simply abandon its lamb. Farmers often have to bottle-feed lambs.

Help the little lost sheep find the farmer with the bottle.

Use the numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Make the top row of eggs equal 6

Make the sum of the middle row of eggs equal 16

Make the sum of the bottom row equal 17

Underwater Moms

Which animal would you like to be your mom?

Motherhood means different things to different animals. Read about how these animal mothers care, or don’t care for their young. Which animal mother would you like to have?

Donkey Devotion

A donkey’s mother may be the most devoted of all. They will not let any other animal come between them and their babies. Even if a curious, little kitten comes close, a donkey mom will chase it away.

Strange Re ection

Find the differences between the mother donkey and its foal and their reflection in the pond.

Standards Link: Visual Discrimination: Finding similarities and differences in common objects.

Sometimes a goat will abandon its kid. Usually a farmer does not have to bottle-feed the little critter because another nanny goat will step in and adopt it. Adoptions can also be seen in the chicken coop. Some hens will sit on any eggs that happen to be around.

survive.

Frogs and fish moms generally lay their eggs and forget about them. Fortunately, once the eggs hatch, the tiny tadpoles and baby fish can survive on their own. In fact, one of the predators they have to watch out for is their own mom! Find 8 things in the pond that don’t belong.

Mom Adjectives

Look through today’s newspaper for adjectives that describe each of the animal mothers mentioned on today’s Kid Scoop page.

Standards Link: English Language: Conventions: Grammar; identify adjectives.

Are you an eagle-eyed reader? Read the article below and circle the six errors you find. Then rewrite the article correctly on the lines below the article.

The wolf spidur is a caring mom. While most spiders wrap their eggs in a silken pouch and leaf them behind, this mom carries her egg sac on her back. She carry it everywhere she goes. If it fall off, the wolf spider mom puts it back on. And once her eggs hatch, she takes care of the little crawlers and let’s them ride on her back until they are reddy for life on their own.

he mother Surinam toad cares for her eggs in one of the strangest ways. As the mother toad lays eggs, the male toad presses them one by one into the soft skin on the mother’s back. After a while, each egg sinks into a little pocket that forms on the mother’s back. Then a covering of skin grows over the pocket. The baby toads hatch and develop in these little pockets. A few weeks later, the mother rubs her back and the little toads swim free.

What did the mother Surinam toad say to her kids? Unscramble the answer:

Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page? FARMER EGGS DONKEY MOMS SHEEP FROGS BOTTLE TADPOLES FISH LAMB POND CHICKEN CHASE HATCH

The temperature of an alligator’s nest determines if a baby alligator will hatch as a girl or a boy.

than 86°F: All girls

and

All About Mom

Write about a special day or a special experience you had with your mom (or another special lady in your life).

© 2019 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 35, No. 22

USE BROILER TO FIRE UP COOKING

BECKY KRYSTAL

The Washington Post

A few months ago, my son started to go through a Play-Doh phase. In a desperate attempt to keep at least some of it out of our area rug, I grabbed the broiler pan as a makeshift work surface. It helped. Sort of.

You might say that sounds like the move of someone who rarely uses the broiler. Except I do use it. And I use it a lot. I like it so much that the smaller broiler pan is usually insufficient for what I’m cooking, so I prefer to use a larger baking sheet instead.

Even without a broiler pan, it’s still worth it to make use of this standard oven feature. As chemistry professor and food science writer Robert Wolke has explained, baking cooks food by exposing it to hot air. “Broiling cooks food almost entirely by infrared radiation,” an electromagnetic energy emitted by something very hot. “The heat source, whether a red-hot electric element or a line of gas flames, doesn’t touch the food; it bathes it in intense infrared radiation, which gets absorbed in the top layer of the food, heats it to 600-700 degrees, and sears and browns it quickly.”

If this sounds similar to grilling, that’s because it is. Wolke goes on to explain that grilling is, in fact, a form of broiling. Whether you want to replicate that outdoor-cooked appearance and flavor or not, here are tips for making the most of your broiler. Get to know it. Did you ever go on that getting-to-know-you first date with your broiler? Even if you skipped ahead to cooking with it, the time is always right to get a better idea of how it operates. First, figure out if it runs hot or cold (or fast or slow). Try this test from Cook’s Illustrated: Heat the broiler to high (ignore the low setting even when you’re cooking for real) and place a piece of white bread underneath. After a minute, the bread should emerge golden. If it’s burned, your broiler runs hot, and you may need to reduce a recipe’s cook time by a minute or two; pale, and the element runs cool, so try extending the cook time. Hold on to that loaf of bread for the next test Cook’s suggests: Line a baking sheet with fresh slices of bread and broil them until all the pieces are browned (some may burn, which is okay as long as nothing is smoking). Pull out the sheet and look at the browning pattern to figure out where the hot and cool spots are. You can even keep a photo nearby to remind yourself how to arrange or rotate your food

every time you want to broil.

Most recipes will also give you a range of how far the food should be placed from the broiler element (our typical range is 4 to 6 inches). Now would also be a good time to track down your oven manual and see what it recommends. If you have an electric broiler, Cook’s advises finding the zone where that infrared radiation is most evenly distributed. Do tests by placing a parchment-lined baking sheet on racks positioned at varying distances from the broiler, refreshing with a new piece of paper each time (more below on why you usually want to avoid parchment in the broiler). You’ll know you’ve hit the right spot when the browning covers the whole width of the parchment rather than just concentrated spots.

Broil the right foods. “Broiling is a good cooking method for tender meats, poultry and fish, because it’s a dry, high-temperature, short-time method,” according to Wolke. “Less tender meats generally need long, moist cooking. Beef steaks and other red meats are a natural, while pork, chicken and fish have to be watched carefully to prevent drying out.” Better Homes & Gardens has an impressively comprehensive guide to broiling any kind of food you can think of, and I highly recommend you check it out. When it comes to meat, thinner is typically better. I especially like broiling for the way it can imitate grilling, especially when it comes to kebabs. Broiling skewered marinated chicken, as in my Simple Butter Chicken recipe, is a no-brainer. Broiling can do wonders for vegetables, too. When I grew impatient with

how long roasting slices of eggplant took for my No-Fry Eggplant Parmesan, I broiled the eggplant instead and was thrilled with the super-silky result. Smoky salsa made under the broiler? Yes, please.

In the category of less obvious foods to broil: Don’t forget about fruit, whose sugars caramelize wonderfully under the intense heat, as long as you pull them out before they burn. And pizza! After working on recipes for our Voraciously pizza package, I am a believer in the power of the broiler to help you get close to the kind of crust you’d achieve in a wood-fired oven.

Keep certain things out of the broiler. Almost every time I mention tempered glass cookware (a.k.a. Pyrex), I hear from someone about exploding glass. In this case, the warning is warranted: It definitely does not belong under the broiler. In addition to your broiler pan or metal sheet pan, cookware made from ceramic, porcelain and cast-iron (regular or enameled) is a safer bet. And that parchment paper? Fine for a quick test, as above, but since it can hold up only to temperatures around 450 degrees, you don’t want to expose it to broiler heat

for any longer, or else you risk it burning and disintegrating or, worse, catching on fire. Because of its quick cooking power, broiling is not the best idea for thick or large cuts of meat, which can scorch on the outside before the inside is done. In other words, probably best to save the whole chicken for roasting (or at least legit grilling, where you can take advantage of indirect heat). Be careful with anything extremely fatty or oily, too, which can make for a smoking - or flaming - mess. If anything has splattered, it’s a good idea to wipe down the oven with a damp cloth after it’s cooled to a safe temperature. Be vigilant and smart. The speed and intensity of broiling is great, but it also means that food can go from perfectly browned to burned in a matter of seconds. So don’t walk away. Keep your oven light on and look through the window. You can even keep an eye on the food with the oven door ajar, which is what some people recommend with an electric oven to ensure the broiler doesn’t cycle off. Rotate and flip your food as necessary.

If you’re cooking something that’s going to render a lot of fat, consider using that broiler pan so the fat can drain. Otherwise, your food will steam in the fat rather than brown and crisp. If you line the top half of the broiler pan with foil, be sure to poke holes for the fat to drip through. A wire rack set in a sturdy baking sheet (lined with foil, if you like) works well, too.