B.C. forest companies cut production
Nelson BENNETT Citizen news service
Hundreds of sawmill workers are being laid off in B.C., some of them permanently, despite recent record profits made by B.C. forestry companies, which continue to expand south of the border.
The problem is not lumber prices or softwood lumber tariffs – although lumber prices have fallen in recent months – but rather high log prices and low supplies in British Columbia, a result of the Mountain pine beetle, which ate through roughly half of B.C.’s harvestable timber supply.
All major forestry companies in B.C. have announced curtailments at their B.C. sawmills for the fourth quarter. In the case of West Fraser Timber Co., the curtailments are permanent.
On Nov. 13, West Fraser announced it is permanently shutting down a third shift at two of its mills – one in Quesnel and the other in Fraser Lake. The company said the
decision affects 60 workers in Fraser Lake and 75 in Quesnel.
Effective January, West Fraser will take about 300 million board feet out of production permanently by shutting down third shifts at two sawmills. That’s about 13 per cent of West Fraser’s production in B.C.
“We think the majority of those folks are going to be able to land in other opportunities within our company in our other operations,” James Gorman, vice president of government and corporate relations for West Fraser Timber, told Business in Vancouver. “But at the end of the day, that’s still 135 positions that won’t exist in British Columbia in the forest industry going forward.”
Meanwhile, Conifex Timber Inc., Tolko Industries, Canfor Corp. and Interfor Corp. have also announced temporary curtailments or reduced production at their sawmills in recent weeks.
Tolko announced last month that it was laying off 100 workers at its Quesnel sawmill, and on Nov. 9 Conifex announced that it is temporarily curtailing its production
More homes on market in B.C.
Citizen news service
A slow October for residential real estate sales across the province has led to an overall balanced market and a “much-needed” increase in available homes for sale, according to the latest monthly statistics from the B.C. Real Estate Association.
In total, 6,405 homes traded hands on the MLS last month, which is 26.2 per cent lower than October last year. However, that total is a jump of 14.9 per cent compared with the even slower month of September 2018, as the market picked up some fall activity.
Of the 12 B.C. real estate boards, only B.C. Northern – which takes in the entire northern two-thirds of the province including Prince George and the booming Kitimat – posted a year-over-year increase in home sales last month.
The BCREA said that average home sale price across the province in October was $690,161. That is a decline of 4.1 per cent
from October 2017, but a slight monthover-month increase of 0.6 per cent, or $4,412. Only three boards reported an annual price decline, but as one of them was Greater Vancouver, that pulled down the provincial average sale price.
The BCREA maintained its stance that mortgage “stress testing” introduced this year was to blame for the slowdown in housing demand. “The B.C. housing market continued to grapple with tougher mortgage qualifications in October,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA’s chief economist. “However, more moderate consumer demand has led to a much-needed increase in the supply of homes for sale.”
The total number of homes listed for sale as of the end of October was up nearly 30 per cent year over year to 36,195 units. The BCREA’s report said, “While the B.C. housing market exhibited balanced conditions overall in October, market conditions do vary between regions and by product type.” see NORTHERN B.C., page 3
But at the end of the day, that’s still 135 positions that won’t exist in British Columbia in the forest industry going forward.
— James Gorman West Fraser Timber
at its Fort St. James sawmill for two weeks, which is affecting 180 to 200 workers.
Last month, Interfor announced it would reduce production at all three of its B.C. interior mills, and on Nov. 1, Canfor announced it was curtailing production at all of its B.C. sawmills.
All companies say the curtailments are due to a lack of quality log supply and high log prices.
Meanwhile, Tolko recently announced it is taking a 50 per cent stake in a lumber-
mill in Mississippi, and Canfor announced Nov. 9 that it is buying a sawmill in South Carolina for $110 million.
It’s part of a long-term exodus that has seen B.C. based forestry companies investing in American sawmills, which have access to more timber than in B.C., and a long-term decline in timber in B.C. Gorman said there is little the provincial government can do to address the longterm decline in B.C. timber supply.
“We’ve got a well-documented timber supply shortage,” Gorman said. “And this is about mountain pine beetle. And it’s also about recent wildfire.
“This isn’t about a government policy decision of either the previous government or this government. This is really about a naturally occurring phenomenon that has substantially depleted the timber supply resource and will over the medium-term.”
North American lumber producers had, until recently, been posting record profits, due to a high demand and high prices in the U.S. But lumber prices have been falling for the last six months, Gorman said.
Concussions, mental health injuries fall under new claims cap: ICBC
Sun
Rob SHAW Vancouver
Concussions and mental health problems caused by an automobile crash will be considered a “minor injury” and fall under the new $5,500 cap on pain and suffering, according to new rules set by the provincial government.
Attorney General David Eby signed a cabinet order that declared sprains, strains, aches, cuts, bruises, minor whiplash (including forms called TMJ and WAD), concussions and mental health issues caused by vehicle crashes to be designated minor injuries under new caps that begin April 1, 2019.
The inclusion of concussions and mental health has worried some lawyers and health care practitioners opposed to the cap, who say it can take a long time for symptoms of
brain damage, depression or post-traumatic stress to show and that the long-lasting effects are not minor for those suffering. In response, the Insurance Corp. of B.C. said it has set special rules for concussions and mental health injuries. ICBC will consider them to become major injuries not limited to the $5,500 pain and suffering cap if they persist for more than four months, said the president and CEO, Nicolas Jimenez.
“The advice we got from the medical community is they are trickier to diagnose and trickier to, quite frankly, treat, so we are better to proceed cautiously and put them on a short time frame,” Jimenez said. Other minor injuries – whiplash, sprains, etc. – will only be considered major if they are still problems after 12 months. — see ‘THERE’S, page 2
‘There’s no such thing as a minor concussion...’
— from page 1
ICBC cites medical research that indicates approximately 85 per cent of people with mild concussions fully recover within three months.
Doctors of B.C., which represents physicians, was consulted on the timeline and agrees with ICBC, said president Dr. Eric Cadesky.
“When we look at things like concussions, pain and the emotional consequences of a car accident, four months is a good indicator of whether those conditions are going to improve or not,” he said.
The NDP government passed legislation to set the insurance caps earlier this year in an attempt to save more than $1 billion annually from the cash-strapped public auto insurer, reduce the rising costs of claims and prevent ICBC rate hikes. Broken bones and other more serious injuries do not fall under the $5,500 pain and suffering cap.
B.C. was the last province in Canada to
have a fully tort-based insurance claims system, frequently leading to lengthy and costly court cases. Disputes over the new caps on pain and suffering claims will first go to a new civil resolution tribunal process that’s mainly been used for strata disputes. People can still sue for such things as the cost of future care and loss of wages.
To compensate for the cap, the government has raised significantly raised the fees ICBC pays for medical treatment, and added kinesiology, acupuncture, massage therapy and counselling to the list of approved services. Drivers at fault in a crash will also get full medical care costs, instead of lesser benefits outlined in the old rules.
But B.C.’s Trial Lawyers Association, which has opposed the cap, said the latest details remain troubling. Even with a fourmonth time frame for concussions and mental health, the new regulations set a steep definition of “incapacity” that a person will
need to suffer to be considered as having a major injury, said lawyer Ron Nairne, the incoming president of the association.
That incapacity definition includes being unable to work, go to school or complete the “activities of daily living” defined in the rules as preparing your own meals, managing finances, shopping, using public transportation, cleaning your home and managing your medication.
“That is so narrowly defined that it will be very difficult for people to escape the definition of minor injury based on that particular provision,” said Nairne.
He said it appears government is trying to set rules that “capture the majority of claims” as minor, and concussions along with mental health should be excluded.
“There’s no such thing as a minor concussion because concussions are a form of brain injury,” said Nairne. “The government is doing the exact opposite, and deeming these to minor injuries.”
Other reaction was mixed.
The Physiotherapy Association of B.C. said Tuesday the changes are a positive step because ICBC is expanding the list of treatment providers and fees to enhance psychotherapy recovery.
But ROAD B.C., an organization that represents some other types of health care providers, said the new definition of minor injury is beyond what most British Columbians would consider fair.
One other change in the new rules set by Eby is that government has dropped a proposal to allow motorists to spend an extra $1,300 a year for additional insurance to get a cap of $75,000 on minor injuries.
“It was an idea,” said Jimenez. “But it’s not something that was embraced and put into our policy framework.
“These are really complicated changes, and I think quite frankly we are proceeding on the basis of get the system change in, and we’ll monitor and evaluate as we go.”
Going to ground
MS Society recognizes local woman with volunteer award
Citizen staff
When Prince George resident Sandra Stibrany’s daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she immediately looked for answers to understand her condition.
Instead of going through it on her own, she became an active member of the MS community in Northern B.C. as a volunteer and in doing so had the opportunity to help more people with MS than she could have imagined.
Stibrany, who is a member of the MS Society of Canada’s B.C. and Yukon Division Northern Regional Chapter Council, played a key role in establishing an MS Walk Committee and MS Self Help Group in Prince George.
a cure. We need to remember that volunteering helps enhance the quality of life for people living with MS,” she said. Stibrany was among seven people who were recognized for their exceptional volunteer efforts for the organization on Nov. 3 at the inaugural MS Connect ’18 conference.
This award has confirmed that I’ve had a positive impact on the MS community in Prince George...
Her exceptional leadership skills and handson approach when it comes to volunteering resulted in the society’s decision to choose Stibrany as the recipient of the B.C. and Yukon Division’s 2018 Volunteer Impact in Community Engagement Award.
— Sandra
Stibrany
“This award has confirmed that I’ve had a positive impact on the MS community in Prince George and we now have more volunteers who fundraise and help increase the awareness of MS in the community,” Stibrany added.
MS is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system comprising the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 40 and the unpredictable effects of the disease last for the rest of their lives.
Canada has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the world with 11 Canadians diagnosed with MS every day.
Community forest passes audit
Citizen staff
The McLeod Lake Mackenzie community forest has passed a Forest Practices Board audit. It means the venture, managed by the District of Mackenzie and the McLeod Lake Indian Band, carried out sound forest practices and fully met the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act, said FPB chair Kevin Kriese.
The operators have “been proactive in adopting fire-management stocking standards for stands harvested in the wildland urban interface,” he added. “These standards permit more deciduous trees and fewer coniferous trees when these stands regenerate and will assist in reducing the risk of wildfire to the community of Mackenzie. This is a best practice that deserves recognition.”
The community forest has five operating areas around the town of Mackenzie, from the Parsnip River in the south to Nation Arm on Williston Lake in the north.
The McLeod Lake Mackenzie Community Forest Limited Partnership harvested 108,000 cubic metres of timber between September 2016 and September 2018. The audit examined all operational planning, harvesting, roads, silviculture and wildfire protection activities carried out during the two-year period.
The Forest Practices Board is B.C.’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices.
“I believe in being an active member of my community through the MS Society. I firmly support the mission of the MS Society as we (people affected by MS) need a leader in finding
LOCAL IN BRIEF
Kettle campaign launching
The Salvation Army’s Christmas kettle campaign will start with a splash.
A kickoff event featuring a trio of musical guests – The Bel Canto Choir, Jaymie Walker and Cliff Raphael – will be held Friday at Pine Centre Mall’s centre court from 4 to 6 p.m.
The campaign will run until 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Monday to Saturday, at all four Save-OnFoods, the Real Canadian Superstore, Pine Centre Mall, Walmart, Canadian Tire, the Spruceland Shoppers Drug Mart and London Drugs.
Kettles will also be up at the B.C. Liquor Stores at Pine Centre Mall and Hart Centre starting Saturday, Dec. 1 and at Costco starting Monday, Dec. 10.
With the help of players from the Prince George Cougars, kettle campaign donations will be accepted at all eight Tim Hortons drive-thrus on Friday, Nov. 30, from 6 to 9 a.m.
Other businesses interested in the adopt-a-kettle program can call
The MS Society provides programs and services for people with the ailment and their families, and funds research to help improve the quality of life for people living with MS.
250-596-HOPE for more info. Volunteers to ring the bells at the kettles remain welcome. Register online at www.sapg.ca or call 250596-HOPE (4073).
— Citizen staff
Woman wins 529 Garage bike raffle
Prince George resident Lorrie Taylor was the winner of a Norco Storm mountain bike – the top prize in a raffle in support of the RCMP’s 529 Garage anti-bike-theft program.
Ryan Peel and Lorna Grant each won an ABUS-brand lock.
Everyone who registered their bike with the program this year was eligible for the draw, held Nov. 8 at Cycle World.
John Greentree presented Taylor with the bike.
529 Garage is centred on an app that allows bike owners to alert fellow enthusiasts if their bike goes missing and helps the RCMP recover and identify stolen bikes. As part of the Prince George RCMP’s efforts to fight bike theft and to reunite recovered bikes with their owners, the local detachment partnered with Cycle World to raffle off the Norco Storm mountain bike.
— Citizen staff
$10M added to Red Cross wildfire recovery effort
Citizen staff
The Canadian Red Cross has a further $10 million to put towards helping wildfire victims recover, thanks to the provincial government.
The new funding will go towards repair and reconstruction related to uninsured damages caused by this past summer’s wildfires. It’s in addition to $3.1 million raised through public and province-matched donations to the Red Cross.
Refrigerator and freezer disposal and replacement, alternative heating source supplies, such as firewood, other operational costs such as labour, travel expenses and project equipment and health and wellness supports also qualify.
Recipients must be registered with the Red Cross, which will determine who to help on a case-by-case basis with priority given to those most vulnerable. The help cannot duplicate assistance provided through insurance, government or other agency programs.
“We will... reach out directly to individuals and families already registered with the Red Cross in the weeks ahead,” said Kimberley Nemrava, Red Cross vice-president for B.C. and Yukon.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Ian Hoag with the City of Prince George backfills a linden tree planted on Wednesday. The city is planting 30 trees along Patricia Boulevard, including lindens, hawthorns, oaks and spruce.
Facebook unsafe at any speed
In the spring and summer of 1966, the most talked-about book in North America was Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed, a devastating portrait of American auto manufacturers putting profits over safety.
As a result, the installation and wearing of seatbelts became mandatory, as did numerous other safety features designed to better protect vehicle occupants and pedestrians. Half a century later, there’s no question Nader’s book and government action forcing automakers to take responsibility for the unintended consequences of their products saved tens of thousands of lives.
Up to that point, American automakers were no different from the producers of cigarettes and pesticides. They all spent millions on lawyers and lobbyists in an effort to stop governments from holding them accountable for social harm.
Dial ahead 50 years and now it’s Facebook trying to dodge investigative journalists, probing academics, government regulators and security agencies from accepting blame for the growing number of problems it has caused, from data breaches and spreading extremism through to fostering violence and even genocide.
Like Facebook has in the last 15 years, cars transformed society in the decades af-
ter the Second World War, liberating people to live further away from their workplaces and quickly travel great distances to be with family and friends. When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talks about creating “an open and connected world,” he sounds no different than a Ford or GM or Chrysler executive from the 1950s. They too believed in the incredible social benefits of their products to link people and businesses in distant locations, to make the world smaller, wealthier and happier. They too resented consumer advocates and government overseers demanding costly improvements to increase safety and decrease pollution.
Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies MP Bob Zimmer is one of those politicians demanding accountability from Facebook. Zimmer, the chair of Parliament’s standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics, has joined forces with Damian Collins, the British MP who chairs a similar committee in the U.K. Parliament, to host an international hearing on disinformation and fake news on Nov. 27. They have asked Zuckerberg twice in writing to appear before their committees and have been turned down twice, even as their committee has grown to now include Ireland, Argentina and Australia.
Zimmer has witnessed the destructive potential of Facebook within his own riding.
Othman Hamdan, a Jordanian national, was arrested in Fort St. John in 2015 and charged with fostering terrorism over Facebook, using both his personal account and more than a dozen other accounts.
Hamdan was acquitted of the charges in September 2017 but last month the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada deemed him inadmissible to Canada because he poses a security risk.
As PBS’ Frontline showed in a riveting investigation, The Facebook Dilemma, which aired Oct. 29 and 30, Facebook’s slow response to the individuals, groups and governments using the social media platform to foster extremism is imbedded in the unshakable belief of its founders and employees that technology always equals progress and progress is always good. They simply can’t accept how their digital marvel that has made them incredibly wealthy and powerful is being used for nefarious ends right under their noses.
As the Frontline probe clearly demonstrated, violence in the Middle East, Sri Lanka and the Phillipines started with Facebook posts. Before its work on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia perfected its Facebook efforts at sewing social divi-
ONLINE COMMENTS
Re: Dead inmate’s family wants officers’ names released
The guards were negligent BUT how was a prisoner being transported able to get drugs to overdose/many questions here.
— travhops
Shouldn’t have done contraband and illegal drugs. Then he wouldn’t have OD’d. It’s on him, not the guys doing their job transporting him. He died because of what he did. Always wanting to put the blame on anyone other than the criminal.
— stitchit
Well there it is folks.... the dumbest thing ever said in these comments. Congrats.
— Mike jones how so??? — subscriber101
Re: California living our nightmare
While I fully agree what happened in Paradise can happen here and disaster has been narrowly missed here on several occasions the reality is many people are stubborn, dumb and down right dead set against authority. When a disaster happens and mass evacuations are ordered many people leave their brains in neutral and don’t think clearly. It has been proven time and again
instead of thinking of nessesity in panic situations people have been found carrying dishes,utensils, unfinished meals, wet laundry and even tool kits while leaving important documents, bank credit and debit cards and even basic survival kits behind.
The worst and saddest part is family pets, people have died trying to get pets to go with them and the hardest thing to do is making that desicion to leave them behind.
Many experts recommend if your pet won’t come or hides leave an outside door or window open leave food and water for them away from the structures. If you have minutes or less than an hour to leave give yourself a set time limit to look for pets before you go.
Animals are resilient. — Dearth
Wildfires aren’t new. But our population has grown and spread out so much that you can’t have a wildfire without threatening a human settlement somewhere. — PG_Resident
Especially California. You basically have the entire population of Canada living in an area half the size of B.C.
— Quirky
Re: Trump still better than alternative
“....my choice has been justified by his policies which have seen a reinvigoration of America’s economy.”
Your lack of research is showing. But then that is so Trumplike. I am starting to understand why he is your hero. Obama was president from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.
In 2009 the unemployment peaked at 9.9 per cent, having risen since 2000, when it stood at 3.9 per cent. By the end of Obama’s presidency unemployment stood at 4.7% (end of 2016, his last full year as POTUS). If Obama was a baseball capwearing type of guy, his would be blue with the slogan “I Made America Great Again.”
Trump inherited Obama’s legacy. We have yet to see the true effect of Trump’s legacy of fear, hatred, creation of new enemies of traditional allies and promises to workers in dying industries he cannot keep.
The slogan “Make America Great Again” is typical for a blowhard who promotes himself before the fact and creates fake facts at the drop of a hat.
— Jo G
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
Mailing address: 201-1777 Third Ave. Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7 Office hours: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday General switchboard: 250-562-2441 info@pgcitizen.ca General news: news@pgcitizen.ca Sports inquiries: 250-960-2764 sports@pgcitizen.ca Classifieds advertising: 250-562-6666 cls@pgcitizen.ca
sions, inflating partisan conflict and political and electoral tampering in the Ukraine. And in Myanmar, the recent refugee crisis and genocide was aided by widely shared Facebook posts inciting hatred between Buddhists and Muslims.
If Zuckerberg continues to refuse to appear before international committees investigating his company and Facebook continues to drag its feet on accountability, Zimmer and his colleagues in Canada and elsewhere have numerous means at their disposal to bring Facebook to heel. Passing and enforcing much tougher online privacy laws. Removing the legal protections that don’t hold social media companies responsible for spreading damaging and dangerous content. Significant tax increases on its Canadian revenue.
Facebook can also be shamed into action. Shareholders want their dividends but they also don’t want to see share value eroded by embarrassing damage to the brand.
Zimmer has the opportunity through his committee to build bipartisan support within the House of Commons and international collaboration to push Facebook out of its open and connected utopian ideal and into the real world where likes, posts, shares and consumer data have been weaponized.
Neil Godbout
Editor-in-chief
—
Evaluate PR facts
I’m excited and thankful that I will have a chance to vote on a referendum for electoral reform for B.C. How fortunate we are in this province to be given this opportunity to change a system that many have become alienated with.
If you are unclear on the facts as we know them, the small, white voter’s guide on the referendum questions is a great resource. It is from Elections BC and gives clear, accurate information about the two referendum questions and the voting systems we are being asked to consider. There is no bias, fearmongering or rhetoric, just solid, detailed information that is very helpful in informing us about the issues related to the questions, and what options we may have as voters within our democratic system. How often in our lifetimes are we given a choice and a say in one of the fundamental rights we enjoy as citizens within a democratic society?
I, for one, am sick and tired of the system we have, which enables political parties to rule rather than govern. I reject the pervasive attitude that us constituents are here to serve the ruling party’s agenda. I do not subscribe to the fearmongering I have been hearing and I am not afraid of small minority or fringe groups having a voice. It wasn’t long ago that women (even after we succeeded in being recognized as persons) or folks who hold protection of the environment as a priority value were considered minority or fringe groups and our views disregarded. I was very offended when the Liberal leader, Andrew Wilkinson claimed on TV that somehow us mere common folk are not smart enough to understand what proportional representation is about (I am paraphrasing). That we need a person such as himself to save us from our stupidity.
There has been considerable resources and money spent to try to create fear around this referendum. Some want to keep the present system, which serves their interests, and keep us from considering other systems which allow representatives freedom to work within a more cooperative system of government. Historically, some of the legislation that Canadians are most proud of, such as the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act (1957), the Canada Pension Plan (1965) and the Medical Care Act (1966), were passed during minority governments. Minority governments enable cooperation so that we have a governing body, not a ruling party. I realize that there is always a certain amount of nervousness with what is unknown. For me, there is an enormous amount of fear in what I do know about the current system. This referendum
on electoral reform gives us all the chance to determine how we want our representatives and government to work on our behalf. It’s exciting to be given this opportunity to look at our present system and compare it to others, and to have a say in which one we think might work best for us British Columbians in the future. If we choose to try a proportional representation model, there will be a review of this decision after two elections, and we will again have an opportunity to choose and refine our electoral process. Be aware that opinions are not facts, even when people state them as such. Please, please, evaluate the facts and go vote.
Joanne Archer, Prince George Tax Trudeau’s gas
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “This is not about politics or about the next election” when speaking about his plan to refund the money collected under his proposed carbon tax. Yeah, right! Most residents of eligible provinces will receive more money than they pay, cheques will start to arrive before the 2019 federal election, but it’s not about the next election? Sorry, I don’t buy it. I have to wonder just what he thinks his carbon (dioxide) tax will accomplish. Ostensibly it is to induce us to use less fossil fuel by making it more expensive. Then he cuts us cheques for more than we paid, so we can afford to buy even more of the expensive fossil fuels. Huh? Why not just leave the money in our pockets and save the government the cost of administering the tax and refunds? And what effect would the tax have on climate? What would any action, however draconian, taken by Canada have on climate? Absolutely nothing. With Canada contributing only 1.6 per cent of total global emissions, we could eliminate 100 per cent of our emissions without effect because the major emitters of the world (excluding the U.S.) are increasing their emissions more in one month than our entire annual output, so why bother?
I have to surmise that Trudeau doesn’t actually believe that CO2 emissions have a deleterious effect on climate. Actions speak louder than words. His personal emissions for one family vacation were larger than the average Canadian household for a full year. As prime minister, his government carbon footprint is also massive and unnecessarily so. If he really believed it, he would act like he really believed it. No, it’s all just posturing, “Look at me, I’m a good guy, fighting to save the planet!” What a ridiculous tax plan. Art Betke, Prince George
Display advertising, digital advertising and website inquiries: 250-562-2441 ads@pgcitizen.ca Reader sales and services: 250-562-3301 rss@pgcitizen.ca Letters to the editor: letters@pgcitizen.ca Website: www.pgcitizen.ca Website feedback: digital@glaciermedia.ca
Member of the National Newsmedia Council A division of Glacier Media
Canada’s Conservatives should envy Republicans
In tribal identity – if not necessarily on policy and tactics – modern Canadian conservatism has always been in close communion with its U.S. counterpart.
The performance of the Republican Party in Tuesday’s midterms accordingly demands partisan analysis not just as a U.S. story but as a lesson for conservatives across the continent.
Their loss of the House of Representatives notwithstanding, the Republicans continue to occupy a position that Canadian Conservatives deserve to envy. They control half the legislature, and the party’s capacity to hold the White House seems less tenuous than even a week ago. Part of this is due to institutions unique to the United States, particularly an elected Senate, which offer electoral opportunities not present in Canada. But much is also undeniably due to the GOP’s sheer retail skill at selling itself to a large chunk of the electorate with obvious Canadian analogy.
Republican dominance of the rural United States reflects the GOP’s ongoing success at presenting itself as the party of non-urban culture - the latter end of the country’s “Prius or Pickup” polarization. Such a cultural cleavage is equally present in Canada, which actually has a slightly larger percentage of the population living in urban areas than the United States does, with more than six million Canadians dwelling outside the country’s urban centres. Yet Canada’s Conservatives have not weaponized this fact into a comparative political advantage for themselves.
In 2015, Maclean’s magazine sought to
answer “who won Canada’s rural vote” in that year’s general election. They found that the Conservatives won only 46 per cent of Canada’s rural districts for a total of 70 parliamentary seats, while the left-wing parties took the majority with a combined 82 rural seats. In “rurban” ridings, or rural districts whose boundaries “dip into heavily urban or suburban areas,” the Conservatives lost, six to 12.
Given that their opponent is a prime minister who aggressively exudes the sensibilities of urban progressivism, Canada’s Conservatives should have a natural cultural alliance with those rural areas of Ontario, Atlantic Canada and B.C. that presently vote Liberal or NDP. Yet in practice, the Tory Party’s urbanite leadership seems more interested in pursuing gains in exactly the sort of suburban areas that turned sharply against Republicans last Tuesday.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is no President Donald Trump, and many in his brain trust will no doubt dismiss the GOP’s House loss as the logical revulsion of the United States’ educated middle class toward a vulgar president. Yet as politics becomes more cultural and less transactional, rejecting Conservative politicians is an increasingly nonnegotiable outgrowth of a particular sort of geographic, class and gender identity. A deliberate effort to distance
Midterm results
mixed bag
Canada’s neighbour to the south has always provided quirkiness when it comes to politics. There’s the Electoral College, which essentially turns the presidential ballot into 51 first past the post contests that may, as was the case in 2000 and 2016, lead to a candidate receiving more votes and losing.
There’s also the fact that the House of Representatives is renewed every two years, something Canadians are compelled to do only in the event of minority mandates.
Immediately after Donald Trump’s Electoral College win in 2016, intense criticism was directed at the polling industry. While most surveys had predicted a victory for Hillary Clinton in the popular vote category (including one I designed and conducted myself), waking up to an electoral map where the Republicans unexpectedly controlled several states that were assumed to be in Clinton’s column was flabbergasting.
In the end, the explanation focused on two issues: the absence of last-week data in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where it was assumed that the electorate would not move; and an over-reliance on turnout models that projected a larger proportion of Democratic party voters than what materialized at the polling stations.
Two years ago, Trump’s path to victory was paved in five states: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Barack Obama won all of them as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee in 2008 and 2012. In 2016, all of these states chose Trump over Clinton. This year, these five states held statewide gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections. Research Co. registered the voting intention of residents in the final weekend of the campaign, and the outcome delineates a silver lining for Democratic party supporters in 2020.
Florida has always been a problematic state for Democrats, dating back to the razor-thin margin of defeat for Al Gore versus George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential ballot.
This year, a state that gave Trump a one-point edge over Clinton is providing roughly the same margin to Republican Ron DeSantis in the U.S. Senate race and a statistical tie in the gubernatorial race. Florida was not as kind to Democrats as some had guessed.
In 2016, Michigan was decided by less than a quarter of a percentage point in Trump’s favour. This year, both incumbent U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer comfortably won their races for the Democrats.
In Ohio, which Trump won by eight points in 2016, the verdict was mixed. Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown was easily re-elected, but Republican Mike DeWine is headed to the governor’s mansion.
Special to The Citizen
Pennsylvania, a state Trump carried by less than one point over Clinton, saw one of the strangest gubernatorial campaigns of the season, where Republican challenger Scott Wagner – who made physical threats to incumbent Tom Wolf during a campaign ad – was easily trounced.
The U.S. Senate seat was also safely kept by incumbent Bob Casey Jr. for the Democrats.
Finally, Wisconsin – where Trump also won by less than one per cent – saw an easy re-election for Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and the defeat of former Republican presidential contender and incumbent Gov. Scott Walker at the hands of Democrat Tony Evers.
Florida and Ohio have always been toss-ups – in Senate and presidential contests – and they maintained their status after the midterm election.
Still, two factors explain the sizable drop in support for Republicans in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin when compared with Trump’s numbers in 2016.
First, the midterm elections served as a referendum on the current president. Trump’s emphasis on immigration and the purported threat of “caravans” made little impact on voters located far from the U.S. border with Mexico and accustomed, by now, to his rhetoric.
A second and extremely important point is that sizable majorities of younger voters and women came out to support Democratic candidates, greatly undermining the chances of older voters allowing the Republicans to coast to victory.
Many of these voters did not show up in 2016. Maybe they thought Trump’s victory would be impossible.
Maybe they were not enthralled by Clinton as a presidential contender.
In any case, women and millennials in the United States chose to have their say this month and have placed the Democratic party in an enviable position.
Whether he tweets it or not, the incumbent president is on the defensive, with a Democratic House of Representatives ready to hinder his every move, and his rivals electing governors and senators in three key states that amount to 48 votes in the Electoral College.
If the next presidential election were held tomorrow and the Democratic nominee – whoever it is – carried every state that went to Clinton in 2016 and took Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from the Trump column, he or she would be president-elect.
Ohio and Florida, while desired, would not be needed in 2020 to make Trump a one-term president.
Mario Canseco is the president of Research Co. and writes an exclusive column for Glacier Media newspapers.
themselves from the White House provided little safety to the suburban Republican legislators who were among Tuesday’s biggest victims. In a climate of culture war, policy remains a powerful motivator, but the stakes are grander – more moral and civilizational. When Trump and Republicans prioritize the importance of judges and immigration in their partisan pleas, they’re asking voters to consider fundamental questions about the character of their country – will it be ordered and predictable, or permissive and experimental? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made no pretense about what side he’s on. Scheer’s Conservatives, forever petrified of seeming nasty or offensive, come off considerably less clear.
Another question for Canadian Conservatives after Tuesday’s aftermath is the degree to which their party’s extraordinarily liberal position on abortion – no regulation under any circumstances – is sustainable, given ongoing Republican success campaigning against the practice. The GOP has not moderated on the life question, with opposition to abortion continuing to be the default for virtually all Republican candidates at the federal level and largely at the state level, too. The incoming Republican Senate may well be the most pro-life ever, given that possible Republican gains in the chamber may rob the party’s two pro-choice outliers – Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine – from holding the balance of power.
Should a Supreme Court with a Republican-approved majority overturn Roe v.
Wade, the United States will enter a new era in which abortion is regulated at the state level with varying degrees of strictness. The ensuing policy discussions will be serious and substantial, and Canadians will participate in them, as is their vicarious habit. Such high-profile reexamination of abortion law will undermine the pretense that has long been used to exclude pro-life conservatives from Canadian political life, however – namely that the abortion debate has been permanently “closed” on prochoice terms.
The most pressing teachable moment for Canada’s Conservatives may come from Democrats, however. The two share a status as their respective countries’ out party, and both have rationalized that fate in similarly self-pitying ways. Just as Democrats are prone to blame all sorts of outside variables for their lack of power – Russia, gerrymandering, the structure of the Senate, etc. –Tory partisans have accumulated their own list of externalities to justify their losses, including a hostile press and expansive theories of foreign-funded political operatives. Absent from both is any concession that their electoral strategies have failed to adapt to changed circumstances, or that the public is rationally unmoved by an unattractive partisan agenda or brand.
Politics is supposedly the realm of life that distinguishes Canada from America. As Trudeau begins his bid for a second term, the Conservatives must decide whether they wish to be complicit in this fate.
J.J. McCullough is a political commentator and cartoonist from Vancouver.
J.J. MCCULLOUGH
Guest Column
MARIO CANSECO
Climate change means we must change
This past Tuesday, I attended a mini-conference on climate change and its impact. It was an interesting event involving government ministers, university presidents and business people in Vancouver.
Within the room, everyone agreed the climate is changing. Not too surprising given the nature of the event and the people involved. Further, well over 90 per cent of the people attended recognize human activity as having a major impact on the world’s climates.
The most obvious manifestation of these changes is extreme weather. Droughts in California are leading to drier forests and massive wildfires which have resulted in multiple deaths already. Flooding on the east coast cost billions of dollars.
Flooding around the world – in countries from India to Japan to Italy – has cost lives and resulted in massive property damage. Hurricanes are stronger and more devastating than at any point in recorded history. One measure which can be used to track this is the total cost of damage. The insurance industry has been tracking the data and using constant 2017 dollars as well as accounting for capital increases, the results show a steadily increasing cost due to hurricanes and extreme weather of all sorts. Heck, we even had a tornado wreaking havoc in our nation’s capital.
industry will generate $5.8 trillion dollars in economic activity by 2050. Being on the leading edge would be environmentally, socially and economically responsible. It makes sense. What would adaptation look like?
Essentially, we have lost any chance of holding temperature rise over the next 80 years to anything under 1.5 C.
Several areas were discussed. The first was the changing nature of the transportation sector. Increased use of autonomous self-driving electric vehicles will have a number of impacts on our cities. For example, a car could conveniently be mutually owned by a group of people or used through a ride share approach. This would mean both fewer cars on the road and fewer parking spots required as cars could either return to their home or move onto the next rider. Parking spaces would no longer be necessary. An estimated 50 per cent reduction could lead to a “greening” of some cities as parking lots could be repurposed.
Whether we like it or not and whether you want to argue human activity is a contributing factor or not, there is little doubt we are in for a period of unprecedented weather in recorded human history.
The question becomes what to do about it?
This was the central issue of the miniconference. The answer presented was adaptation as opposed to mitigation. It was argued we need to start to design our houses, buildings, cities, agriculture, and other components of the human-made environment for a changed environment rather than continue to push for mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases.
Essentially, we have lost any chance of holding temperature rise over the next 80 years to anything under 1.5 C. Indeed, most climate scientists think we will be lucky to keep the temperature rise below 2 C. Some parts of the world will be experiencing even larger temperature changes.
This was an interesting approach. It removes the question of causation from the equation and changes it to a question of adapting to a changing world. Of course, it does leave open the possibility raised by U.S. President Donald Trump – that the world will swing back to the way things were. It’s not going to happen, but the president is not interested in listening.
One of the presenters stressed how Canadian business could be a world leader in adaptation. His calculations suggest the
Electric vehicles would also shift the location of emissions. Or reduce the emissions if generating capacity moves away from coal, oil and gas-based power plants. A home solar panel with battery storage could make charging a low-emission process over the lifetime of the vehicle.
Another alternative would be further investments in mass and rapid transit. Many of our cities were not designed for mass transit but even having to retro-fit a Sky Train-like system can be cost effective when the environment is taken into account. Hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses are gaining considerable traction in large Asian cities. Mexico City has a transit fleet of 35,000 buses. Changing these to zero emission vehicles would have a major impact on air quality, not to mention carbon dioxide emissions.
Changing building codes was another subject discussed as an increase in extreme weather events is leading to more basement flooding and building damage. Modifying building envelopes and increasing the capacity of the surrounding landscape to take rainwater would significantly alter the severity of any event.
This is not just true for housing units. Designing commercial buildings which are better able to withstand flooding is critical. Moving essential services from the basement to the top floor is something many architects are already incorporating in their designs.
Regardless of the cause, the climate is changing. The core message of the meeting was we need to start adapting before it is too late.
Neanderthals faced risks, but so did our ancestors: study
NEW YORK (AP) — Life as a Neanderthal was no picnic, but a new analysis says it was no more dangerous than what our own species faced in ancient times.
That challenges what the authors call the prevailing view of our evolutionary cousins, that they lived risky, stressful lives. Some studies have suggested they had high injury rates, which have been blamed on things like social violence, attacks by carnivores, a hunting style that required getting close to large prey, and the hazards of extensive travel in environments full of snow and ice. While it’s true that their lives were probably riskier than those of people in today’s industrial societies, the vastly different living conditions of those two groups mean comparing them isn’t really appropriate, said Katerina Harvati of the University of Tuebingen in Germany.
A better question is whether Neanderthals faced more danger than our species did when we shared similar environments and comparable lifestyles of mobile hunter-gatherers, she and study co-authors say in a paper
released Wednesday by the journal Nature. To study that, they focused on skull injuries. They reviewed prior studies of fossils from western Eurasia that ranged from about 80,000 to 20,000 years old. In all they assessed data on 295 skull samples from 114 individual Neanderthals, and 541 skull samples from 90 individuals of our own species, Homo sapiens. Injury rates turned out to be about the same in both species. That questions the idea that the behaviour of Neanderthals created particularly high levels of danger, Marta Mirazon Lahr of Cambridge University wrote in an accompanying commentary.
But the new study is not the final word on Neanderthal trauma, she wrote. It didn’t include injuries other than to the skull. And scientists still have plenty of work to do in seeking the likely cause of injuries and evidence of care for the injured, which could give insights into the behaviour of both Neanderthals and ancient members of our species, she wrote.
AP PHOTO
A firefighter battles a blaze along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley, Calif., on Monday.
TODD WHITCOMBE
Relativity
JAMES DOYLE
Kelowna Rockets. The Cougars won 4-3 late in overtime.
Cougars top Rockets in OT
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Whoever found the defibrillator that zapped the Prince George Cougars back to life, the Cougars are offering a reward.
They needed a late-game zap of adrenaline to prevent the Kelowna Rockets from stealing the show Wednesday night at CN Centre.
Josh Maser was the hero for the Cougars with just six seconds left in overtime. He got his stick on a perfectly-timed shot-pass from Jackson Leppard and used that piece of composite material to deflect the puck in past goalie Roman Basran for a 4-3 win.
The Cougars scored the tying goal with just 16.3 seconds left in regulation time, when Vladislav Mikhalchuk connected for the deflection of Cole Moberg’s shot from the point. It was a wild finish to an exciting game that drew just 2,205 onlookers, the third-lowest crowd count of the season at CN Centre.
Having tied the game in the opening minute of the third period when Lane Zablocki put a close-range shot in off the stick of goalie Taylor Gauthier on a 2-on-1 chance, the Rockets took advantage of some sloppy puckhandling behind the net from Gauthier to score the goahead goal while killing a penalty.
Leif Mattson was the aggressor on the forecheck and Gauthier tried to get rid of the puck while standing on the goal-line but put it off the goalpost. Cougars defenceman Joel Lakusta was unable to clear it out of the danger zone and Kyle Topping had nothing but net showing for his ninth goal of the season. That came with about eight minutes left to play.
As it turned out, that was plenty of time for the Cougars (9-8-1-2, third place), who moved four points ahead of the Rockets (8-12-1-0, fourth place) in the WHL B.C.
Division standings.
The Rockets achieved liftoff in a conventional hockey way, scoring the game’s first goal on a rebound. Liam Kindree chipped the puck ahead to right winger Mattson, who let fly a slapper, and the puck kicked out to a waiting Erik Gardiner in the slot and he batted it in for his fourth of the season. That came just 3:20 into the game.
The Cougars got that one back just 36 seconds into the second period. Moberg picked a good time to go deep into the corner after a face-off win in the Kelowna end. The secondyear defenceman saw a sliver of net while standing close to the goal-line and banked the puck in off the skate of goalie Basran. For Moberg, it was his sixth goal this season. The 18-year-old from North Vancouver has four goals and six assists in his last eight games and ranks second in team scoring with 14 points.
Midway through a dominant period for the
Cougars, while on their first power play of the game, 17-year-old Czech import Matej Toman took a pass in the face-off circle and let go a wrist shot that found the mesh to put the Cougars up 2-1. It marked the sixth-straight game the Cats have connected on their power play, which ranked as the worst in the league for the first two months of the season. Most of the action in the middle frame was in the Kelowna end and they kept their coverage tight in their own zone. Gauthier had only a couple of tough saves to make. The Cougars kept their feet moving and forcing the play and were rewarded with quality chances. Basran had to be sharp to keep Lakusta’s shorthanded deflection from going in. Not long after Toman scored, Libor Zabransky was forced to hook Mikhalchuk to deny the Belarusian on a breakaway.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars host the Kamloops Blazers in a weekend set at CN Centre Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The Rockets play Friday in Red Deer and Saturday in Edmonton… NHL Central Scouting released its Players To Watch List and five players dressed for Wednesday’s game are on it, including Gauthier (B prospect, second- or third-round draft candidate), Nolan Foote (A prospect, first-round candidate). Rockets defencemen Kaedan Korcjak and Lassi Thomson (both B prospects) and Basran (C prospect, fourth-seventh round) also made the list… Rockets head coach Adam Foote now sports a 4-2-1-0 record since he took over the team. He took over from Jason Smith Oct. 23 when the Rockets were struggling with a 4-10 start…. Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk, now in his third season, is the longest-tenured coach in the B.C. Division… The Cougars are one of the youngest teams in the WHL, averaging 17.88 years.
Ahac makes NHL Central Scouting list
Citizen staff
If Layton Ahac didn’t already know he was on the NHL’s radar, it’s now official.
The 17-year-old Prince George Spruce Kings defenceman is among a select seven B.C. Hockey League players who made the list as a B prospect (potential second- or third-round pick) on NHL Central Scouting’s Players to Watch List, released Wednesday. Now in his second BCHL season, the
six-foot-three, 195-pound native of North Vancouver has already locked up an NCAA scholarship to attend Ohio State University starting in 2019. In 22 games this season Ahac has 13 assists and ranks sixth in team scoring.
The list also includes forward Alex Newhook of the Victoria Grizzlies, ranked as an A prospect (potential first-rounder). Newhook was the BCHL’s top rookie last season. His Victoria Grizzlies teammate, forward Alexander
Campbell, is listed as a C prospect (fourth-, fifth- or sixth-round pick).
Penticton Vees centre Massimo Rizzo is also on the list as a B prospect. Other C prospects from the BCHL are forward Harrison Blaisdell (Chilliwack Chiefs), forward Alex Svetlikov (Vernon Vipers) and forward Ethan Leyh (Langley Rivermen).
The Spruce Kings will be on the road this weekend for games in Powell River, Alberni Valley and Nanaimo.
Tandy takes top spot at national trials
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
Megan Tandy picked a great time to find her peak form.
The 30-year-old three-time Olympian from Prince George won the Canadian trials last week in Canmore, Alta., and was rewarded with a spot on the senior national team. She will head to Austria early next week for a training camp to prepare for Word Cup races over the next month in Slovenia, Austria and the Czech Republic. Tandy finished second, first and fourth, respectively, in the three national team selection races.
The Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member will form the four-member women’s team for the first leg of the World Cup tour with Megan Bankes of Calgary, Rosanna Crawford of Canmore and Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon.
The Gow brothers of Calgary, Christian and Scott, Nathan Smith of Calgary and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., were named to the male World Cup team coached by Matthias Ahrens and Pavel Lantsov.
Two other Caledonia club members, Sarah Beaudry of Prince George and Emily Dickson of Burns Lake, made the cut for Canada’s IBU Cup team. Emma Lunder of Vernon and Darya Sepandj of Calgary complete the women’s squad. The men’s team consists of Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I., Aidan Millar of Canmore and Adam Runnalls of Calgary. Jeff Lodge will coach the IBU Cup team.
The IBU Cup Tour 1 team will leave for Austria in early December for a training camp and Austrian Cup races. They’ll also race in Italy and will return to Austria for races in late December.
Tandy, who is now based in Germany, where she lives with her son Predo, will be in Prince George this weekend for a three-day visit before she heads back to Europe.
TANDY
BEAUDRY
CITIZEN
Prince George Cougars forward Brendan Boyle carries the puck out of his zone during Wednesday night’s WHL game at CN Centre against the
Cougars claim place in provincial semifinal
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
The College Heights Cougars are on a 9-0 roll and are now just two wins away from the double-A junior varsity provincial football crown.
They took one big step towards that goal Saturday at Masich Place Stadium where they defeated the South Kamloops Titans 33-19 to claw further into the playoff grid than any other northern B.C. team since the North Division was formed in 2016.
“We just made history, in our own hometown, being the first College Heights team to win the junior P.G. Bowl, and now we’re the first team out of the North to make it to semis,” said Cougars running back/linebacker Alex Thanos, who rushed for 101 yards on 23 carries and had one touchdown.
“Everyone was nervous and it was kind of a roller-coaster ride at the beginning and we just had to get those bumps out and it was just a steady climb. It’s just all that work paid off in the end, and this is not over.”
Cougars running back/defensive back Austin Adams was a frequent flier into the end zone. He made four catches for 96 yards and two touchdowns and ran the ball 16 times for 152 yards and two touchdowns. It certainly wasn’t easy for him and his rushing counterpart, gaining all that real estate.
“They’re a good team and they came out fighting from the start and we just had to keep our composure and just give ’er from start to finish,” said Adams. “It helped to have the crowd cheering you on.
“Alex Thanos is such a good player, picking up five or 10 yards every time – he’s six-foot-one, 200 pounds and he was just giving ’er.”
The Titans gave the Cougars more adversity than they encountered in any of their previous eight games. The season started for College Heights in September with preseason wins over Robert Bateman of Abbotsford and Argyle of North Vancouver. The Cougars rolled over their North
Division opponents, winning all four regular-season and a conference semifinal game handily, followed by a 40-14 triumph over the Nechako Valley Vikings in the junior varsity P.G. Bowl.
“I don’t think it’s quite sunk in what they’ve accomplished here, but it’s pretty amazing, pretty special,” said Cougars head coach Grant Erickson. “It was a tough game and we knew that coming in. Nothing against the teams here,
Pistons rally past Raptors
Citizen news service
TORONTO — The Pistons delivered for coach Dwane Casey in his return to Toronto.
But Detroit left it late, rallying from a 19-point deficit to edge the Raptors 106104 Wednesday night on Reggie Bullock’s buzzer-beater before 19,800 at Scotiabank Arena.
Jose Calderon, a former Raptor, inbounded the ball under the Toronto basket with 1.2 seconds left. There was a scrum under the basket and Bullock escaped Pascal Siakam, allowing Calderon to find him alone in the corner of the paint. On the sideline, Casey threw his arms in the air and then pumped his fist as the jubilant Pistons swarmed Bullock.
“They were pulling for me, I appreciate that tremendously,” said Casey, Toronto’s winningest coach. “It’s a players’ league, it’s about the players, it’s not about coaching, it’s about players, but again it’s about human beings. But those human beings, they felt for me.”
“I think it meant a lot to him,” Pistons forward Blake Griffin said of Casey. “I was proud of the way we came back and responded, and yeah, this was for him, for sure.” Toronto (12-3) seemed to have the game in control for the first three quarters but fell behind after a furious fourth-quar-
ter fight-back by Detroit and lost its second straight.
“We just took our foot off the gas a little bit defensively and all of a sudden they’re shooting a couple of wide-open threes and that just sparks them,” said Toronto coach Nick Nurse.
“Bang, bang, a couple of threes go in and then another one goes in and all sudden all that work you’ve done for, for let’s say 34 minutes, is gone quickly because you just took your foot off the gas a little bit.”
Griffin led Detroit (7-6) with 30 points and added 12 rebounds while Andre Drummond had 11 points and 14 rebounds. Reggie Jackson and Stanley Johnson had eight points apiece in the fourth quarter when the Pistons outscored Toronto 29-16.
The 16 points were a season-low for any quarter for the Raptors, who made matters worse by committing eight of their 20 turnovers in the final frame.
Kawhi Leonard had 26 for Toronto while Siakam added 17 and Greg Monroe 14. Kyle Lowry had 14 points and seven assists.
Lowry said after the game the Raptors needed to do a better job communicating on defence.
Toronto shot just 4-for-20 from threepoint range compared to 10-for-33 for Detroit.
ued to grind that out with Alex.” Thanos made five tackles, as did College Heights linemen Hayden Matheson and Spencer Rogers. Adams picked off two passes thrown by Titans quarterback Amaryn Mahal. Cougars linebacker Levi Martin had one QB sack.
The Titans came with the blitz and had Cougars quarterback Jerome Erickson under siege for much of the game. He still managed to complete seven of 18 passes for 102 yards and two touchdowns and had two tosses intercepted.
“They were sending the house so he didn’t have a ton of time back there and the poor kid’s so short that he has trouble seeing over the line and they were containing him so he wasn’t allowed to roll out,” said coach Erickson, Jerome’s dad. “But he hung in there and played a whale of a game.”
The Cougars led 21-7 at the half but it was a one-score game to start the fourth quarter until Erickson and Adams hooked up for a 25-yard TD toss down the middle of the field. Late in the quarter Thanos punched it in from one yard out to create more breathing room for the Cougars.
it’s just we knew they would be a lot tougher competition for us. We had a huge week of practice and you could tell by the type of practices we had that we were dialed in and ready to go and it was just a matter of executing the plays.
“When Austin starts freelancing out there he’s hard to stop. They’re the first team all year that’s been able to stop our sweep to Austin and we found a hole running the ball on the right side and contin-
The Cougars will head to North Vancouver on the Nov. 23-25 weekend to play the Windsor Dukes, who beat the Clarence Fulton Maroons 38-27 in a quarterfinal playoff Saturday. The Dukes finished the regular season 2-2 and are the third-ranked team in the West Division.
The semifinal winners meet in the B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association double-A junior varsity Subway Bowl Dec. 1 at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver.
College Heights, Duchess Park win boys and girls volleyball titles
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
After five local junior A boys volleyball tournaments the College Heights Cougars have yet to lose a set.
They ran their record to a perfect 30-0 Saturday afternoon playing in their own gym in the north central zone championship.
The Cougars topped the Duchess Park Condors, their crosstown rivals, in straight sets, 25-20, 25-16, but it wasn’t easy. The Condors jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first set and were tied with College Heights 1616 at one point in that opening set.
“We’ve had better games than that,” said Cougars head coach Glenn Wong, now in his 30th season coaching volleyball.
The Cougars are a powerhouse, losing just two matches all season, both in the same tournament two weekends ago at the 32-team TRU event in Kamloops. Mennonite Educational Institute of Abbotsford defeated them in the round robin and in the final.
Their two set wins Saturday ran the Cougars’ undefeated north central string to 30 straight sets.
“It’s a scary record to have,” said Wong. “I don’t keep tabs on that but (the Cougars overall season record is) something ridiculous like 36-2-1. I don’t put any weight on that really until zones. You can win all year and then get knocked out of zones.”
No worries about that now. The Cougars will be the top north central seed when they return to the court at the provincial championship in Kamloops, which starts next Thursday.
No all-star teams were picked but the obvious MVP was right-side hitter Jared Ebert, who pounded the Condors into oblivion.
“Jared has come leaps and bounds this year – he serves, he passes, he hits and he blocks, he’s got the complete package,” said Wong.
Cougars middle blocker Emmanuel Adefisayo also dominated at the net, backed by the passing of setter Jimmy Brown. College Heights dressed a mostly Grade 10 lineup with Ian Platzer, Colby Hoy and libero Mitchell Stella also getting plenty of court time, along with Grade 9 power hitter Eli
Woodringh. Theo Halka, Jackson Kolody and Jordan Fulljames gave the Cougars plenty of support coming off the bench.
“We did get off to a good start in that first set and they just pulled away towards the end,” said Condors head coach Jay-Anna Major. “I thought we out-served them and our serve receive was better, but I think their attacking and blocking, their transition game and net play was a lot better. They took over and got better as the match went on.
“They’re pretty much a straight Grade 10 team with a lot of experience,” she added. “Their starting lineup was almost our whole starting Summer Games lineup, so you’ve basically got a regional team that all happen to play at one school. They’re a very strong, very polished team that’s played together a few years and I think they have a good shot at getting a medal at provincials.” Brown, Ebert, Fulljames, Hoy, Platzer and Woodringh all played together on the Cariboo-Northeast zone team at the B.C. Games last summer in Cowichan Valley. Condors Chris Zimmerman, Carson Briere, Caleb Lyons and Haven Dunphy were also part of that team, coached by Major. “You’re going to see these two teams as perennial finalists as seniors, this was a preview of what senior zones will look like in two years,” Wong said.
Duchess Park, a mostly Grade 9 squad, finished fifth at that 32-team TRU tournament two weeks ago and Major likes what she’s seen lately out of her troops.
“We’re happy with how we competed against them throughout the year and how much closer it got as the year went on,” said Major. “We made some adjustments to our game and got a bit more aggressive, which really helped us be able to compete against them.”
The Cedars Christian Eagles defeated the D.P. Todd Trojans for bronze. All four of the top junior A finishers in the north central zone are eligible to compete in the 24-team provincial championship next week. In the junior B boys final, also played Saturday at College Heights,
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Austin Adams of the College Heights Cougars steps out of the reach of South Kamloops Titans defender Xavier Tedford on Saturday afternoon at Masich Place Stadium.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Jared Ebert of the College Heights Cougars, right, and Jacob Hoskins of the Duchess Park Condors battle at the net on Saturday afternoon at College Heights. The teams clashed in the final of the junior boys zone championship tournament.
Condors unbeatable in north
— from page 8
Meanwhile, in Quesnel at the junior A girls championship, the Duchess Park junior girls capped off their perfect season in northern tournaments with a straight-set (25-16, 25-9) gold-medal win Saturday over North Peace of Fort St. John. The Condors won five straight matches on the weekend to run their season record to 29-1. Grade 9 Condor Macyn Unger was the tournament MVP. Her Duchess Park teammates
Karyn Hampe and Emily Bast were selected first-team all stars, while Sophie Martin earned second-team all-star recognition.
The Condors and North Peace qualified for the junior A girls provincial championship in White Rock, which starts next Friday.
• In the latest double-A senior boys provincial rankings released this week by B.C. Boys Volleyball, the College Heights Cougars continue to hold on to second spot, just below George Elliot of Lake Country.
Three other Prince George teams cracked the top 12. The Duchess Park Condors leapfrogged the D.P. Todd Trojans and are now ranked No. 7, while the Trojans dropped to the eighth spot. The Kelly Road Roadrunners are No. 12 on the list.
• Kelly Road will host the double-A boys zone championship this weekend. The triple-A girls zone tournament starts Friday at Dawson Creek, while the double-A girls zone championship is at D.P. Todd.
Cy Young awards handed out
NEW YORK (CP) — After a season marred by narrow defeats, Jacob deGrom became a runaway winner.
The New York Mets ace easily won the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night, a reward for a historically fruitless season in Flushing. The right-hander won just 10 games, the fewest ever by a Cy Young-winning starter.
DeGrom easily beat out Washington’s Max Scherzer, who was seeking a third straight Cy Young and fourth overall. DeGrom got 29 firstplace votes and 207 points from members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Scherzer had the other firstplace vote.
Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays narrowly beat out past winners Justin Verlander and Corey Kluber for his first AL Cy Young after leading the majors with 21 victories.
In his first season after chopping off his distinctive long hair, deGrom cut down hitters from start to finish despite little help from teammates. He had a 1.70 ERA, the lowest in the NL since Zack Greinke’s 1.66 mark in 2015. Yet the 30-year-old right-hander went 10-9, eclipsing the low bar among starters set by Seattle’s Felix Hernandez when he took the award with 13 victories in 2010.
DeGrom allowed three runs or fewer in 29 consecutive starts to close the season, breaking Leslie “King” Cole’s 108-yearold record of 26 such outings. Yet the Mets were 11-18 in those games and 14-18 overall with deGrom on the mound.
University coach serves as backup goalie for Capitals
Judy OWEN Citizen news service
WINNIPEG — Ian and Val McHale got a call from their son Gavin just hours before the Winnipeg Jets hosted the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night.
The excited 31-year-old told his mom to put the phone on speaker so they could hear his news together – he was going to be the emergency backup goaltender for the defending Stanley Cup champion Capitals.
Washington starter Braden Holtby was a late-day scratch with an undisclosed upperbody injury so the Capitals needed someone to back up goalie Pheonix Copley.
“This is his dream come true to go on the surface in an NHL game,” Val said after she and her husband proudly watched their son from the press box get a bit of time in net during the pre-game warmup.
“His first shot in the warmups was Ovechkin. Over his shoulder,” Ian added with a smile. “But it’s OK. A couple of the other people have said that’s the job of a backup, make the players feel good.”
McHale didn’t get into the 3-1 Winnipeg victory, but he had a big smile after the game, especially recalling Ovechkin’s shot.
“Not even close. Not even close,” he said of his attempt to stop it. “I was pretty star struck. It was like, who’s shooting on me now? Probably should have been focusing a little more on the puck.” The six-foot-seven, 200-pound full-time
personal trainer is in his second season as one of the emergency backups available for
NHL games in Winnipeg. He used to play in the Western Hockey League and also with the University of Manitoba Bisons.
He’s currently in his second season as the goalie coach for the Bisons women’s hockey team, which won the national championship last season. He’s also the goalie coach for the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League’s Charleswood Hawks. McHale, who had to sign an amateur tryout contract, met the players before the game and then sat in a seat in the stands beside the exit door to the visitors’ dressing room.
Copley’s mask came off in the first period after a shot by Jets forward Brandon Tanev.
“I was thinking, ‘Get that thing on as fast as you can,’” McHale said. He had been a backup last February when the Jets were hosting Colorado. Jonathan Bernier was injured during the second period and was replaced by Semyon Varlamov to start the third. McHale had to watch that game from the dressing room.
“He was fine in the warmup,” Washington coach Todd Reirden said of McHale. “It was a great opportunity for a local guy. As we’ve seen in the league over the last couple of years, you never know.
“He was great coming into our room and talking to our guys. I liked having him around.”
HANDOUT PHOTO
Members of the Duchess Park Condors junior girls volleyball team gather for a photo after their zone championship victory in Quesnel.
CP PHOTO
T.J. Oshie of the Washington Capitals has some fun with emergency backup goalie Gavin McHale before Wednesday’s game in Winnipeg.
Stan Lee’s superpower: his pen
Citizen news service
Stan Lee was a seminal part of Miya Crummell’s childhood. As a young, black girl and self-professed pop culture geek, she saw Lee was ahead of his time.
“At the time, he wrote Black Panther when segregation was still heavy,” said the 27-year-old New Yorker who credits Lee with influencing her to become a graphic designer and comic book artist. “It was kind of unheard of to have a black lead character, let alone a title character and not just a secondary sidekick kind of thing.”
Lee, the master and creator behind Marvel’s biggest superheroes, died at age 95 on Monday. As fans celebrate his contributions to the pop culture canon, some have also revisited how the Marvel wizard felt that with great comic books came great responsibility. When black people were risking their lives in the 1960s to protest discrimination where they lived and worked, Lee enacted integration with the first mainstream black superhero. Black Panther, along with the X-Men and Luke Cage, are on-screen heroes today. But back then, they were the soldiers in Lee’s battle against real-world foes of racism and xenophobia.
Under Lee’s leadership, Marvel Comics introduced a generation of comic book readers to the African prince who rules a mythical and technologically advanced kingdom, the black ex-con whose brown skin repels bullets and the X-Men, and a group of heroes whose superpowers were as different as their cultural backgrounds. The works and ideas of Lee and the artists behind T’Challa, the Black Panther; Luke Cage, Hero for Hire; and Professor Xavier’s band of merry mutants - groundbreaking during the 1960s and 1970s - have become a cultural force breaking down barriers to inclusion.
Lee had his fingers in all that Marvel produced, but some of the characters and plot lines “came from the artists being inspired by what was happening in the ‘60s,” said freelance writer Alex Simmons. Still, there was some pushback by white comics distributors when it came to black heroes and characters. Some bundles of Marvel Comics were sent back because some distributors weren’t
prepared for the Black Panther and the kingdom of Wakanda developed by artist and co-creator Jack Kirby.
“Stan had to take those risks,” Simmons said. “There was a liberation movement, and I think Marvel became the voice of the people, tied into that rebellious energy and rode with it.”
Lee also spoke to readers directly about the irrationality of hate. In 1968, a tumultuous year that saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Lee wrote one of his most vocal “Stan’s Soapbox” columns calling bigotry and racism “the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.”
“But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun,” Lee wrote.
Marvel’s characters always were at the forefront of how to deal with racial and other forms of discrimination, according to Mikhail Lyubansky, who teaches psychology of race and ethnicity at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign. With the X-Men, many readers saw the mutants, ostracized for their powers, as a commentary on how Americans treated blacks and anyone seen as “the other.”
“The original X-Men were less about race and more about cultural differences,” Lyubansky said. “Black Panther and some of the (Marvel) films took the mantle and ran with the racial issue in ways I think Stan didn’t intend. But they were a great vehicle for it.”
Some of the efforts to break out minority characters haven’t aged well. Marvel characters like the Fu Manchu-esque villain The Mandarin and the Native American athletic hero Wyatt Wingfoot were considered groundbreaking in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but may seem dated and too stereotypical when viewed through a 21st-century lens.
“It’s interesting. Stan Lee kind of takes the credit and the blame, depending on the character,” said William Foster III, who helped establish the East Coast Black Age of
Comics Convention and is an English professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Foster, who started reading Marvel Comics in the 1960s, said even doing something as minor as including people of colour in the background was monumental.
“Stan Lee had the attitude of ‘we’re in New York City. How can we possibly not have black people in New York City?”’ Foster said. Blacks began taking on the roles of heroes and villains. Foster said some characters may have been seen as “tokenism” but that’s sometimes where progress starts.
In 10 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have netted more than $17.6 billion in worldwide grosses. The Black Panther movie pulled in more than $200 million in its debut weekend earlier this year.
Next year, actress Brie Larson will take flight as Captain Marvel.
An animated movie centred on Miles Morales, a half-black and half-Puerto Rican teen who inher-
its the Spider-Man suit, will drop next month. And there continues to be interest around Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim superhero.
“I had a lot of white friends growing up,” said freelance writer Simmons, who is black. “We watched Batman and we also watched The Mod Squad. My personal belief is that if you put the material out in front of folks and they connect with it, they are going to connect with it.”
For many fans and consumers, it’s about the product not the skin colour or sexual orientation of the character, he added.
Crummell, the comic book artist, said she thinks representation for minorities and women in comic books is improving.
“I think now, they’re seeing that everybody reads comics. It’s not a specific group now,” Crummell said. “It’s not just AfricanAmerican people – it’s women, it’s Asians, Hispanic characters now. I would credit Stan Lee with kind of breaking the barrier for that.”
Games of Thrones returning in April
Citizen news service
We finally know exactly when to expect winter to come.
HBO announced Tuesday that their hugely popular series Game of Thrones will premiere in April 2019 for what will be its eighth and final season.
But before you get excited about a new trailer that gives a sneak peek of the drama to come: don’t. The video announcing the premiere timeline is mostly a recap of the entire series so far, accompanied by a voice-over and hashtag (#ForTheThrone) to remind us what this is all about.
Basically, somebody better be sitting on that iron throne when all is said and done.
While HBO always keeps its cards close to the chest, we do know a few things about this final season – which will air 20 months after the last time we saw any new episodes – and can make some educated guesses about what to expect.
The final season will just be six episodes long, which also makes it the series’ shortest. Seasons 1 through 6 of the show each had 10 episodes, while Season 7 had seven episodes.
But the final season will also have longer-than-normal episodes, clocking in at 80 minutes each.
Despite the shorter run, it took 10 months to shoot the eighth season, and each episode cost around $15 million, according to Variety.
Just like Seasons 6 and 7, the show writers don’t have the benefit of drawing upon George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series; the world still awaits the completion of the long-time-coming sixth installment, The Winds of Winter. (Remember when Martin said it’d come out in 2014?)
Entertainment Weekly went on set and revealed some basic plot points: in a callback to the start of the series, we’ll see a procession into Winterfell, but it’ll be with Daenerys and her army as they all hunker down for the threat north of the Wall.
Past Thrones directors have returned to shoot the final season. Season 8 directors include: showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who will direct the series finale; Miguel Sapochnik, who directed the acclaimed The Battle of the Bastards episode; and David Nutter, who directed the devastating Red Wedding episode (The Rains of Castamere).
And get ready to watch more! Martin has said there are five Thrones prequels in development, and HBO has ordered the pilot for one.
“Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour,” HBO said of the forthcoming prequel.
“From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure: it’s not the story we think we know.”
“We’re not done with Westeros yet,” Martin said backstage at the Emmys in September. “We have plenty of story to tell.”
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO
In this Monday, Jan. 29, 2018 file photo, comic book legend Stan Lee, left, creator of the Black Panther superhero, poses with Chadwick Boseman, star of the Black Panther film, at the premiere at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
NASA wants Canadian boots on moon
Trudeau government still pondering space options
Mike BLANCHFIELD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The Trudeau government faced criticism Wednesday for a tepid response to the head of the U.S. space agency saying he wants to see Canadian astronauts walking on the moon in the near future.
Jim Bridenstine, the administrator of he National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said a reconstituted lunar program is the first step toward deeper space exploration, including a mission to Mars.
On a two-day trip to Ottawa, the NASA chief made an impassioned pitch for Canada to continue its decades-long space partnership with the U.S., including by supplying astronauts.
NASA is embarking on the creation of its new Lunar Gateway, a space station it is planning to send into orbit around the moon starting in 2021. The agency wants to create a “sustainable lunar architecture” that would allow people and equipment to go back and forth to the moon regularly, Bridenstine said.
“If Canadians want to be involved in missions to the surface of the moon with astronauts, we welcome that. We want to see that day materialize,” he told a small group of journalists in Ottawa ahead of his keynote speech to the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.
“We think it would be fantastic for the world to see people on the surface of the moon that are not just wearing the American flag, but wearing the flags of other nations.”
The U.S. is seeking broad international support for its new lunar initiative, Bridenstine told the industry conference. He said NASA wants Canada’s expertise in artificial intelligence and robotics, which could include a next-generation Canadarm on the Lunar Gateway and more Canadian technology inside.
Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, a vocal booster of Canada’s AI hubs in Ontario and Quebec, said the government is committed to sustaining its partnership with NASA, but he had no specifics.
The minister said the government is still working on a long-awaited space policy that has many dimensions and will be
NASA’s Jim
during a
made public before next fall’s federal election.
“At this stage, we would not take anything off the table,” Bains told reporters, when on pressed on the possibility of contributing astronauts to moon missions. “We demonstrated very clearly we want to work with NASA. We want to work with other allies as well.”
The head of one leading Canadian space technology firm said he and many other business leaders at the conference were surprised by the government’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for Bridenstine’s ambitious request.
“There was a lot of excitement about the opportunity that was clearly being given to Canada here,” Mike Greenley, the president of MDA, said in an interview. “I’m a little bit concerned about that lack of response.”
MDA makes sensors, robots and compo-
Canmore, Whistler disappointed by vote to end Olympic bid
We demonstrated very clearly we want to work with NASA. We want to work with other allies as well.
— Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains Citizen
CANMORE, Alta. — Leaders in Canmore and Whistler say they are disappointed that Calgarians have rejected a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Canmore Mayor John Borrowman, who has lived in the Alberta mountain town since before the 1988 Calgary Games, and the rest of council had recently voted 6-1 to support another bid as a co-host.
“I am really disappointed, of course, and I really believed in the future benefits of hosting the Games here,” he said Wednesday in an interview.
“The investment would have been well worth it and I really believed that the risk that people were concerned about was manageable.”
The 2026 bid is essentially over after a majority of Calgarians voted “No” in a plebiscite Tuesday.
Calgary city council, which was already nervous and divided over bidding, is expected to officially end the effort on Monday.
In British Columbia, the CEO of Whistler Olympic Park said he’s also disappointed the bid won’t go ahead.
“It’s too bad,” said Roger Soane. “The Olympics has become this very divisive movement and obviously there are many things that play into it, but it’s becoming more political than it is about the sport, which is a little bit disappointing.”
Soane said he would have loved to see the Games come back to Whistler, where some events were held during the Vancouver 2010 Games.
The bid corporation Calgary 2026 had proposed returning to Whistler for skijumping and nordic combined, which is a combination of ski-jumping and crosscountry skiing.
Canmore was the site of Nordic ski events in 1988, and would have held some of those events again as part of a successful bid.
Borrowman said the town also would have built an athlete’s village with 242 units as part of its commitment as a cohost of the Games.
“At the end of the Games, all of those units would have been re-purposed into affordable housing,” he said. “That was a really important piece of the planning for the town of Canmore.
“We’ve been working on trying to address our housing need for 20 years, trying to development housing that’s affordable for people who live and work here.”
Borrowman said those 242 units would have more than doubled the number of units that have been built in the Rocky Mountain town west of Calgary.
“More importantly, it carried some funding from other levels of government... so that made the whole project viable for the town of Canmore.”
nents for satellites.
Greenley said it is possible the government is still considering its options, but given the urgency of the U.S. timetable, that might not be wise.
“The concern would be if we wait too long we can miss the opportunity,” he said. “We best not ponder this too long.”
Greenley said he’d like to see Canadian astronauts on the moon one day, but to get to that stage Canada needs to participate in NASA’s broader lunar program.
Bridenstine said the return to the moon is a stepping stone to a much more ambitious goal: exploration that could include reaching Mars in the next two decades.
“The moon is, in essence, a proving ground for deeper space exploration,” he said.
Marc Garneau, who was the first Canadian to reach outer space in 1984 and is now Canada’s transport minister, told the conference he wants Canada to continue being a “star player” in all fields of the aerospace industry. But he had no new space initiatives to announce.
On Dec. 3, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques will travel to the International Space Station on his first mission.
Canadians among worst contributors to greenhouse gas
OTTAWA (CP) — Canadians produce more greenhouse gas emissions per person than any other G20 economy, according to a new analysis.
Climate Transparency, a coalition of international climate organizations, released its fourth annual review of the climate polices of G20 members Wednesday. The report pointed out that none of them has a plan in place that would actually meet the goals of the Paris climate change agreement.
Leaders of the G20 will gather at the end of the month in Argentina for their annual summit, where climate change will be on the agenda.
Combined, the G20 members represent about 70 per cent of the world’s economy and population. As a group, they are also responsible for more than 80 per cent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Catherine Abreu, executive director of the Climate Action Network Canada, said Canada may only be responsible for two per cent of the total. But she added that two per cent is still a significant contribution when you consider Canada’s size.
Canada is the 38th country in the world by population, boasts the 11th largest economy and is the seventh biggest emitter.
The Climate Transparency analysis says, on average, each Canadian produces 22 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year – which is the highest among all G20 members and nearly three times the G20 average of eight
tonnes per person.
“It’s because of the oil sands and because of transportation,” said Abreu.
“Oil and gas and transportation are the two largest and fastest growing sources of emissions in the country.”
Upstream oil and gas production in Canada emitted 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2016, the most recent year for which emissions statistics are available. It accounts for one out of every seven tonnes emitted in Canada and went up four million tonnes that year.
Road transportation, everything from passenger vehicles to transport trucks, emitted 143 million tonnes, or one in every five tonnes of Canada’s total.
The Paris agreement, which Canada signed in 2015, commits every country in the world to working to keep the planet from warming up more than 2 C compared to pre-industrial times.
The larger goal is to keep it 1.5 C because just 0.5 C warmer would have significant impacts in terms of extreme weather, melting sea ice, rising sea levels and extreme temperatures.
Earlier this fall, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned the average global temperature was already 1 C higher and that it will reach 1.5 C by 2040 unless the world steps up its planned action to cut emissions in a big way.
CP PHOTO
Bridenstine speaks
luncheon reception at the Canadian Aerospace Summit in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Brade was born May 12, 1953. Garry was a long time resident of the Pineview area, owning & operating the Pineview Store from 1996, for 22 years. He passed away peacefully on November 2nd, 2018 at the Barrhead hospital where he was admitted on Oct. 9, 2018. Garry was predeceased by his parents Gus & Lottie Brade, his siblings Grace Disterheft, Leon Brade, Richard Brade and Niece Diane Disterheft. Garry is survived by One sister Janet Thompson, twelve nieces and nephews, and numerous Great Nieces and nephews. There will be a Memorial Tea held in honor of Garry at the Pineview Community Hall, November 25, 2:00 - 4:00pm.
Donald Mollison
September 9, 1941November 9, 2018
We are deeply saddened to announce the sudden passing of our husband and father Donald Clifton Mollison on November 9, 2018. Don was born in Nipawin Saskatchewan and came to BC as a teenager. Work took Don and his family to many towns throughout the province where he and his family acquired many life long friends. He was predeceased by his parents Clifton and Marjorie Mollison, his sister Peggy Holmgren and her husband Bob, his father in law Gordon Miners and brother in law Aalten Miners. Don is survived by his wife Darlene, Daughter Bella (Norm, Kyle) and son Sean., his mother in law Dorothy Miners and many other family and friends. No service by request.
It is with great sadness that the family of Erna Schien announces her passing on Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 at the age of 89. From Bohemia, Sudetenland, she was born in 1929 in Hennersdorf, Czechoslovakia. Erna moved to Wells, BC in 1956. She will be lovingly remembered by her husband Walter, and by her children, Christina (Richard), Norman (Lynn) and Evelyn (David) and 11 grandchildren. Erna is predeceased by her parents Emil & Marie Hofmann, and sister Rosel. Erna was an avid gardener and cook. Her kindness & wonderful smile would light up a room. She loved socializing with anyone that crossed her path, and adored her grandchildren. Her many favorite sayings will be fondly remembered, “shoot you to the moon” and yes, we all promise to go “langsam um die Ecken rum”. Celebration of life to be held at 11am, Saturday November 17th, 2018 at the Croatian Hall, 8790 Old Cariboo Highway, Prince George, BC.
Ludwig,PeggyJ. October31,2018-November8,2018
Itiswithgreatsorrowthatweshareinthepassingof PeggyJoannLudwig.Shewaslovinglytreasuredby herfamilyandfriends.Wewillmissherinfectious laughandcaringheart.Peggyissurvivedbyher lovinghusbandPaul,childrenEddie(Mimi),Kimi (Dwayne)andKerri(Dan). HeradoringgrandchildrenAlex,Blake,Paige,Noah (fianceTaylor),Trinitee,Eden,Angelika,Felicity (Dallas),Noelle(Kevin),JessicaandJesse. Shewaspre-deceasedbyherparentsAl&Jean Marshall,brotherDavidMarshall,sisterLynnie MarshallandnieceChelseyFiddler. TheCelebrationofLifewillbeatGatewayChurch November17,2018at11am.Donationscanbemade totheCanadianLungAssociationinlieuofflowers.
Mom,November15th 1925-September10th. Dad,June11th1919May6th1991. Mymindstilltalkstoyou andmyheartstilllooksfor you,Mysoulknowsyou areatpeace. Love,Vivian,Dianaand Michael.
TheDistrictofMackenzieiscurrentlyaccepting applicationsforqualifiedFull-timeLifeguard Instructorstojoinouraquaticsteam.Thesepositions areresponsibleforensuringthesafetyand enjoymentofouraquaticcustomers.
LocatedinthescenicNorthernRockyMountains Trench185kmnorthofPrinceGeorge,Mackenzie offerssuperbfourseasonoutdoorrecreation opportunitiesandanexceptionalqualityoflife. Housingcostsareamongthemostaffordableinthe province.Residentsareinvolvedincommunitylife withnumerousserviceorganizations,community clubsandgroupscateringtoavarietyofinterest.The localRecreationCentrewitharena,swimmingpool, fitnesscentre,communityhallandlibraryisviewed asthehubofthecommunity.Alltheseamenities withthesafetyaffordedbysmalltownlivingmakes Mackenzieidealforyoungworkingfamilies.
SuccessfulcandidatesmustholdacurrentNational LifeguardService(NLS)(PoolOption)certificate,be acertifiedRedCrossWaterSafetyInstructor,and haveStandardFirstAid/CPR-C-AED.
Thesuccessfulcandidatesmustbeabletointeract withthepublicinaprofessional,tactfulandpositive manner.Thispositionwillappealtoindividualswho areavailabletoworkeveningsandweekends.The successfulapplicantswillbesubjecttoaPolice InformationCheck.
ThisisaunionizedpositionwithintheCUPE3706 BargainingUnit,offeringanhourlywageof$24.49to $27.27dependingonlevelsofcertification.
Ifyoufeelyouarequalifiedforthispositionyouare invitedtosubmityourresumewithacoverletter indicatingFull-timeLifeguardInstructorCompetition. Pleaseprovidedetailsconcerningworkexperience, education,qualificationsandemploymentreferences to: DistrictofMackenzie Bag340-1MackenzieBlvd. Mackenzie,BC,V0J2C0
Attn:DianeSmith,DirectorofCorporateServices Email:diane@districtofmackenzie.ca
TheDistrictthanksallinterestedapplicantsin advance,howeveronlythoseshort-listedwillbe contacted.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Established Franchise Photography Business Serving Northern B.C for over 35 years
Gross Revenues of $150.000 plus annually from seasonal work Lots of opportunity to expand the business.
Transition support available to the right buyer
Serious Enquiries Only Office 250-596-9199 Cell 250-981-1472
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Established Franchise
Inquires
(250)997-9003 Home (250)997-5538 Cell (250)990-0152
Craig (Cathie) and Marc (Vicki), 10 grandchildren and 2.5 great grandchildren. A Memorial Celebration of his life will be held on Saturday November 17th at 3:00pm at Assman’s Funeral Chapel.
Garry
Obituaries
Canada Post makes new contract offer
Citizen new service
Canada Post has issued what it calls a “time-limited” contract offer to its employees in hopes of ending rotating strikes that have created a historic backlog of undelivered parcels.
The offer Wednesday to members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers came just hours after online sales and auctioning giant eBay called on the federal government to legislate an end to the contract dispute.
The Crown corporation’s four-year offer includes annual two-per-cent wage hikes, plus signing bonuses of up to $1,000 per employee.
The proposal, which the agency said was worth roughly $650 million, also contains new jobsecurity provisions, including for rural and suburban carriers who have complained about precarious employment, and a $10-million health-and-safety fund.
But Canada Post said the offer was only viable if it can be agreed to before the holiday shopping rush. It has imposed a deadline of Nov. 17 for Canadian Union of Postal Workers members to accept the deal.
“This measure is to ensure we can reach a just-in-time resolution and deliver for Canadians ahead of the holiday rush,” the Crown corporation said in an email.
“The time limit is necessary as this offer is only affordable if we
can clear the backlogs caused by the union’s strike activity and effectively deliver the quickly arriving massive Black Friday and Cyber Monday volumes.”
The head of eBay Canada sent a letter to the prime minister late Tuesday, urging him to force an end to the labour dispute.
Andrea Stairs, eBay’s general manager for Canada, also warned that quick action was needed to ensure retailers don’t lose out on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
“I encourage the government to explore all available legislative solutions to alleviate the current situation,” Stairs wrote in the letter, which was also sent to Labour Minister Patty Hajdu and Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough.
Continued rotating strikes at Canada Post will result in significant losses for small and medium-sized businesses across the country, Stairs warned, noting that smaller firms are unable to negotiate lower shipping fees with other delivery services.
While many businesses have adapted as best they can since the strikes began on Oct. 22, Stairs said adjustments online sellers have made so far to avoid delivery disruptions are unsustainable.
“Black Friday and Cyber Monday are critical sales opportunities for Canadian small and micro retailers, particularly those that sell into the U.S. – the largest
consumer market in the world,” she wrote.
“Should the Canada Post service disruptions continue through this key retail moment, these (smaller businesses) will be seriously disadvantaged in competing for U.S. demand.”
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which are annual shopping days known for their deep discounts, fall this year on Nov. 23 and 26.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned last week that his government would look at “all options” to bring the Canada Post labour dispute to an end if there was no significant progress in contract talks. Trudeau did not elaborate on what actions could be taken, although the previous Conservative government passed legislation to end a two-week lockout of postal employees in 2011.
A spokeswoman for Hajdu said Wednesday the government recognizes Canadians and small businesses rely on the postal service, and encouraged corporate and union negotiators to keep talking.
“We urge both parties to reach a deal soon to reduce the impacts to Canadians, businesses, Canada Post and their workers,” Veronique Simard wrote in an email.
Canada Post said Wednesday it was facing an unprecedented backlog of shipments and warned the situation could escalate quickly.
Postal union members picketed in Toronto on Tuesday for the third time in the past two weeks. The latest job action in Toronto was over by Wednesday morning, but the shutdown added to the backlog of items already waiting to be sorted and shipped, said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton.
“We have now surpassed 260 trailers of parcels and packets waiting to be unloaded,” Hamilton wrote in an email, referring to the Gateway parcel processing plant in Toronto.
“The union just took down their pickets but we are backed up beyond anything we’ve ever seen in our history. With Toronto out on strike, we also missed two days of customer pickups, which will likely push that trailer total over 300 today.”
The previous peak for backlogged trailers reached 220 during last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping period, he said.
The union is negotiating contracts for 50,000 of its members in two divisions – urban carriers and rural and suburban workers. It said Tuesday that Canada Post had failed to address key issues, including health and safety, staffing levels and job security.
The two sides have been negotiating for almost a full year, with little success despite the assistance of government-appointed mediators.
Uncertainty clouds trade deal ratification
Citizen news service
Economic uncertainty will linger across North America unless and until a divided Congress approves the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, trade lawyers from both countries predicted Wednesday as newly emboldened Democrats on Capitol Hill vowed not to rubber-stamp the deal.
The agreement is expected to be signed Nov. 30 when leaders from all three countries gather for two days of G20 meetings in Buenos Aires, but it won’t be a high-profile, high-level affair if they remain locked in their standoff over U.S. President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. But that will not be the least of the hurdles facing the deal: the signatures matter less than legislative ratification. And Democrats, who will take a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives in January, are hinting at a go-slow approach.
New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, the presumptive head of the influential Ways and Means trade subcommittee, became the latest Wednesday, telling Bloomberg that Democrats will want better enforcement mechanisms for USMCA’s labour and environmental clauses before signing off on Trump’s showcase trade deal.
All of which means a longer timeline before USMCA comes into effect, a period likely to be marked by market and business instability, said Lawrence Herman, a Toronto-based trade lawyer and public-policy expert.
“As long as it takes for the USMCA to get congressional approval, there will be a fair degree of uncertainty in the markets because market participants will not know whether the NAFTA will continue or not,” Herman told a panel in Washington organized by the Canada-U.S. Law Institute.
Canada might decide to introduce legisla-
tion before then to ratify the deal, but is likely to hold off on bringing that legislation into force until after Congress votes, he added.
And until then, there will remain a fear that Trump, keen to increase the pressure on Congress, could renew his threats to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA, which remains in effect until the new deal comes into effect, he added.
“I deal with stakeholders all the time that are very concerned with the lack of security and confirmed rules of trade in the market. That is a danger, and the market uncertainty that flows from that danger will continue for a number of months, and we will see the impact that has on the markets.”
There is also no clear sense of when Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum exports, imposed on what the federal government considers dubious grounds of national security, will be lifted, said Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s deputy ambassador to the U.S.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
rose as the
of oil ended an unprecedented slump.
The backdrop was a series of geopolitical news from fresh anxiety about the status of the USMCA trade deal, trade talks between the U.S. and China, Italy resubmitting its deficit budget, Brexit negotiations in the UK, the U.S. pledging to hold off on imposing auto tariffs and OPEC seemingly ready to cut oil production.
Meanwhile, U.S. technology stocks were again hit, driven by concerns about Apple Inc. that has spilled over into the rest of the tech space.
The December gold contract was up US$8.70 at US$1,210.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up 2.3 cents at US$2.71 a pound.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 1.34 points to 15,133.12.
The key energy and materials sectors led while health care lost five per cent on a big drop by Canopy Growth Corp. after it missed expectations and lost $330.6 million in the third quarter.
Energy did well after oil prices rose Wednesday for the first time in 13 trading sessions, the longest consecutive days of losses on record.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries initially warned Wednesday that its global demand outlook for 2019 was deteriorating faster than expected.
But later in the day oil prices surged on speculation that OPEC and its allies were going to cut production by more than expected at 1.4 million barrels per day.
That came after Saudi Arabia suggested last weekend that OPEC could increase production at its meeting next month in Vienna, prompting a reaction from U.S. President Donald Trump who tweeted that he hopes that doesn’t happen.
The December crude contract was up 56 cents at US$56.25 per barrel and the December natural gas contract was up 73.6 cents at US$4.84 per mmBTU.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 205.99 points to 25,080.50.
The S&P 500 index was down 20.60 points to 2,701.58, while the
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Striking Canada Post workers keep their hands warm as they picket at the South Central sorting facility in Toronto on Tuesday.
Only family, health, friends matter for one couple
Longtime Prince George residents Roland and Edna (Byman) Rouleau recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
Edna, of Norwegian and Swedish descent, was born in Prince George in 1943. Her parents Erick and Myrtle Byman left Wadena, Sask. and arrived in Prince George by train in 1942 along with their first-born daughter Judy who was only 15 months old at the time.
In the spring of 1943, her parents bought property outside of the city limits, on the south side of Connaught Hill – on the corner of Bowser and Brockville which is now 17th Avenue and Kenwood Street. There was no source of electricity or running water so they had to carry their water from a city tap a block away.
They built a house and moved into their new home in August shortly after Edna was born.
In 1946, her father Erick and Uncle Herman started Byman Brothers Sawmill and horse logged near Six Mile Lake (Tabor Lake) for four years and then sold the company. Her father bought a truck and hauled lumber, bought property and ended up with three rental houses and a new home on Kenwood Street for his family. He prospered and bought 80 acres near Tabor Lake for $500 which was eventually subdivided into six 12 acre lots and later distributed to Edna and her siblings.
Edna said, “My father died in a vehicle accident in 1956; my mother was left to raise five children between the ages of 15 and just eight months old. She managed three rental houses, grew a big garden, sewed our clothes, cooked and canned and kept the
home fires burning all on her own. She was my hero and she was always there for all of us.
“My mother married again in 1961 and my kid sister was born. My stepfather died in a tragic accident in 1993 and sadly my mother passed away in 2007 at the age of 88.”
Edna attended the Connaught school on Queensway Street (until it burned to the ground in 1951), and then went to school at South Fort George – her teacher was Mrs. Fanny Kenney – the school was rebuilt and is now Ron Brent Elementary. She graduated from Prince George Senior Secondary in 1961, attended hair dressing school and then went to work for BC Tel in 1963. She lived in Australia for a year, came back to Prince George and met Roland in 1967 at an adult skating event at the Coliseum. She said, “Roland chased me around the skating rink until I caught him.”
Roland Rouleau was born in Sault St. Marie, Ont. in 1943, graduated from high school in 1962 and joined the Air Force in 1963. He signed up for a fiveyear program but only stayed for three years. He actually wanted to join the Air Force when he was in Grade 10 but his father would not allow it.
He took his boot camp training in St. Jean, Que. along with 5,000 other soldiers and made friends with Dave Brown and Wayne McDonald from B.C. After he completed boot camp,
he was sent to Camp Borden in Barry, Ont. and ended up in Moose Jaw, Sask. for one year. In late 1964, he decided to go to Vancouver with his friend Dave and then to Quesnel where he worked for Wayne’s father setting chokers in the bush.
He quit that job and went to work for Modern Electric in Quesnel. In 1965, he was working in Prince George for S. Herbert and Son contracting wiring the Inn of the North during its initial construction.
He worked 100 hours a week, saved his money and went to Vancouver and successfully got his commercial pilot’s license. He returned to Prince George broke – but happy – with his recently acquired pilot’s license. He went back to his old job and was sent to wire a new school under construction in McBride.
He worked long hours, saved his money and bought a J3 float plane. He landed a job with Thunderbird Airline working in the Arctic from June to August flying a 206 float plane.
Roland said, “When I arrived back home in August of 1968 Edna told me that we were getting married. That was 50 years ago this November. I was nervous at the time but I have been very happy about her announcement ever since.
“From 1969-71 I worked as a commercial bush pilot out of Mackenzie as they flooded Williston Lake for the purpose of creating the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River. It was my job to fly in the fallers, timber cruisers and the bulldozer and boat operators for companies like Findlay Forest Products, Alexander Forest Products and the BC Forestry. I delivered
the mail into Fort Ware by plane on skis or floats as needed.
“When I finished that contract, I quit commercial flying and went back to Prince George. In 1972, Clarence Calyniuk, Bill Reid, Art Lawrence and I bought out S. Herbert & Son Electrical Wiring Contractors and changed the name of the company to Camac Electric Ltd. People said we were crazy but it worked out OK.
“Eventually Bill Reid bought the rest of us out and Clarence and I formed a partnership and started ACRO Electric in 1980.
“Time went by and in 1983 I went out on my own and formed Edland Enterprise Services, a company that I still own and operate today.
“In 1984, my partner Roger Blagborne and I built a power plant from scratch and started the Robson Valley Power Corporation at Ptarmigan Creek which is just past Dome Creek. We became an independent power producer (IPP) and sold power to BC Hydro for 20 years. I eventually sold my shares in the power plant and took over the power plant service maintenance contract.”
When the children started to arrive, Edna became a stay-athome mom and like her mother she enjoyed knitting, gardening and sewing and in fact she made her own wedding dress.
Edna and Roland had four sons; Brent (Drazenka), Lance (Diana), Doug (Adele) and Tron (Jenifer) who in turn gave them eight grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
Edna and Roland have always given back to their community. Edna volunteered with anything to do with their children. Their boys were involved with free-
style skiing competitions and she volunteered as needed. As a family they enjoyed travelling, skiing, slow pitch ball, camping, dancing and playing music.
Edna has been a member of the Prince George Sons of Norway Rondane Lodge for the past 53 years and the president of their Ladies Auxiliary for more than 20 years. She volunteers with their fundraisers which enables the group to donate to five different local charities.
Roland and Edna have both served as directors for the Old Time Fiddlers for many years and continue to be involved through their music.
Roland volunteered with the search and rescue team with his Piper Cherokee 6 plane for 20 years, aiding people who were in distress or imminent danger.
Roland and Edna concluded by saying, “During the past 50 years life has been good to us. Life in general is not always an easy road but with compromises along the way you can smooth out the bumps. We have had a lot of fun, we are social people and we are not afraid to get involved.
“Life is pretty short when you think about it and we often compare it to the six-foot spruce tree we planted in our front yard. The tree is now over 40 feet tall and has a history all of its own; it has a bend in it from being knocked into by a Cat but it continued to grow. After a while we just did not notice how fast it grew and how fast time went by. Now we look at the tree and count our blessings and try to live every day to its fullest. Just enjoy your life, your good health, your friends and your family because nothing else matters.”
Kathy NadaliN
Seniors’ Scene
Citizen photo by
Roland and Edna Rouleau, longtime Prince George residents, recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
Fraser Lake’s video a message to ailing co-worker
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
When Fraser Lake’s community paramedic, Sharon Unger, was stricken
with cancer, her emergency services colleagues from across the 911 spectrum got together to give her a little boost of the spirits. It was a five-minute video, just a short little vignette, but it is causing a large
stir across the province as their goofy gift goes viral.
The little show is a faux music video set to the song The Power Of Love by Huey Lewis & The News.
The paramedics, firefighters, RCMP and other healthcare professionals of the Fraser Lake-Nechako Valley area came together to ham it up for the camera.
“It took us about two months,” said Kenneth Cao, a primary care paramedic for BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) in Fraser Lake. “The difficulty was filming people when they weren’t on shift or working at their day-job. Half the crew has other jobs. We ended up just texting each other ‘hey, I have a few free minutes, let’s film’ or ‘we’re off now, can we do some filming?’ And then it took me about a week of editing.”
Each scene has one of the participating emergency responders mouthing the synched lyrics while wearing comical costumes, doing little dance routines, and other funny antics all over the small town west of Prince George.
“When we got together it was more of a party than anything,” said Cao. “Somebody brought chili one time. All of us couldn’t get together at one time so clips were sent in from Kamloops and Oliver. We had (fellow paramedic) Catherine Scott’s daughter Jade (in Grade 5) and her friend Darwin Harder teaching us how to dance.
“They taught us well, but we didn’t always learn well. We tried our best. It really made people laugh, which was good.”
The process of filming was a curiosity for the people of Fraser Lake, who would see and hear about the guerilla film shoots. Cao said the whole town was behind the project in spirit.
Word also got out to the BCEHS organization. When the video passed 56,000 views, it was clearly catching a broader
wave of interest than the little greeting card it was intended to be.
“We have a provincial service – almost 4,000 paramedics are a part of BCEHS – and this brought Sharon’s story to light for so many people who had never met her,” said Fatima Siddiqui, a communications officer with the provincial ambulance service. “It was very well received. She is an amazing person, she actually trained Kenneth and got him to move to Fraser Lake from Vancouver. This was a very special act of love from her friends.”
Unger is still off work as she recovers from a successful treatment campaign. Her feedback to the video creators was resounding gratitude.
“The whole emergency department that took part are truly amazing,” Unger said. “The video was extremely touching. I cried and I laughed. It made me want to fight twice as hard to get back to the crew and our patients.
“So I will fight the fight and in the meantime, Fraser Lake is extremely blessed to have this crew looking out for them.”
The crew involved from Station 763 included Cathy Harder, Joe Jenkinson, Fanny Kuffer, Isabel Smith, Andrew Schulz, Dakota Stone, Tomas Schulz, Michael Lee and others who weren’t credited but nonetheless wanted the best for their friend Sharon.
She wants to use the whole experience as a positive stepping stone in her career, as she zeroes in on a return to work.
“I think I will be a better paramedic having gone through this,” she said. “I have a much better understanding what cancer patients go through. And it’s not just cancer patients.
“I feel I will be able to relate to other patients better, therefore my care of them will be more directed to their needs.”
Fraser Lake’s emergency and health services community came together to create a video to cheer up a co-worker recovering from cancer treatment.
Nove Voce offers popular Grinch classic
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff
fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Maybe the Grinch stole Christmas in the story they perform each year, but there’s a lot of good cheer in Nove Voce’s world these days.
The Prince George choir just received a gift from across the ocean that no green curmudgeon could ever sneak out of their stocking.
Thanks to their second place win in the 2018 National Music Festival earlier this year, they qualified to apply for the Grand Prix of Nations at the European Choir Games in Gothenberg, Sweden.
Choir director Robin Norman was just informed that they had been accepted into that rare showcase.
“Sweden is an incredible opportunity,” said Norman.
That competition will be August 3-10 in 2019. They will compete in the Folk A Capella and Chamber Choirs categories.
Local audiences can see them much sooner and closer than that. Almost like a holiday celebration of their international spotlight, the group gets to perform their most popular show, their annual presentation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
“Richard Bjarnason will be joining Nove Voce to read the original story as the choir performs songs from the cartoon and movie,” said Norman. “We have some wonderfully, awful Grinchy costumes made by Pat Jorgensen, great music based on the Dr. Seuss cartoon and even our own dog Max. Come on out and enjoy your favorite Grinch Songs like You’re a Mean One Mister Grinch, Where are you Christmas and Welcome Christmas. The show is a half-
hour long, so it is perfect for audiences of all ages.”
Nove Voce performs the Grinch sing-along story each year and it is always a standing-
room-only audience.
To accommodate the popular demand, they have added more shows this year and even an extra special event of another kind.
The first set of performances will be lined up on Dec. 1 (10 a.m., 11 a.m., 12 noon, 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.) in Room 208 of the Civic Centre. All tick-
ets are $5, cash only, available at the door.
If you can’t get in to see any of those performances, there is one other chance. On Dec. 8 the choir will sing again in their special Trim Up The Tree concert at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church. Showtime is 7 p.m. that night.
“The first half of the concert will feature new Christmas classics like White Winter Hymnal
“we have some wonderfully, awful grinchy costumes made by pat Jorgensen, great music based on the Dr. Seuss cartoon.”
— Robin Norman, choir director
and Solstice Song alongside Christmas favorites like Little Drummer Boy and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” said Norman. “The second half will feature a full Grinch reading for all ages.”
The Nove Voce (pronounced NO-vay VO-chay) choir is comprised of 26 voices and often include special guests when they perform, as is the case on Dec. 8.
“We will have a very special guest join us for the first half Cantore Alegre – Prince George’s newest ensemble directed by Noves Voce’s own Kathy Pereira,” said Norman.” Tickets for Trim Up The Tree are on sale now at Books & Company for $20 for adults and $10 for children under 12.
While there, you can also pick up a true gift from the choir to the community: a Nove Voce calendar for 2019.
handout photo
clockwise from centre top is nove Voce’s Robin norman, Kathy pereira, erin watkins, Lisa Stairs, Hailey Smith, Laura parmar, Lea Rodgers, and carol Dean with zarrah Holvick as the grinch. the show is presented five times on Dec. 1 at the civic centre and on Dec. 8 at Our Saviour’s Lutheran church.
Spartacus: the history, the book, the movie
The story of Spartacus has become known throughout the world.
Spartacus was from Thrace, now the northeastern part of Greece, and born in the early part of the first century BC. After deserting from the Roman Legions, he was captured and sold as a slave. Given his strength and fighting prowess, he was sent to a training school for gladiators near Naples. At some time during the training, Spartacus led the other gladiators in a revolt
against their owner, captured sufficient arms and armour for his small band, and encamped on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. As other slaves joined up, he, along with two others, were elected leaders.
In what historians call the Third Servile War, Spartacus defeated a Roman Army sent to put down the revolt. Another army was sent out from Rome and it too was defeated. Word
of the revolt spread and other slaves and peasants flocked to join. All in all, Spartacus’ army swelled to an estimated 70,000. After a winter pause, the Romans sent another army to end the revolt. After an initial success, they too were defeated and Spartacus turned his army north, towards Rome itself.
The threat to Rome was real. Forty thousand troops were mustered to fend off the rebels. Part of this force was defeated but Spartacus was forced to turn south. When he and his army arrived in southern Italy he decided to start a further revolt in Sicily and made a bargain with some local pirates to move part of his force to the island.
The pirates took his money but refused to sail. The rebel force was now trapped – the Roman army on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. Mobility was gone, the rebels under siege.
Suffice to say, the army of slaves and peasants was not up to this kind of warfare. One group after another fled. Finally, Spartacus launched an attack and was soundly defeated. He was killed in the final battle. Those captured and not killed – over 6,000 of them – were crucified along the Appian Way, the road that led to Rome.
The story of Spartacus is contained in several Roman histories written at the time and has long been used as a tale of rising against oppression.
Howard Fast was a successful American novelist. Starting in 1933, he produced many wonderful historical novels, most based on American history.
Conceived in Liberty, The Last Frontier, Citizen Tom Paine, and Freedom Road were only a few of the well-written and very popular Fast books. But Fast had been a self-acknowledged member of the Communist Party in the U.S. and was summoned to testify before Senator Joe McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1950.
Asked to name those who contributed to a fund for orphans of parents who died in the Spanish Civil War, he refused.
Fast was sentenced to three months in prison for contempt of court and blacklisted by publishers.
That meant even though his books had been very patriotic and popular, no publisher would dare publish any book written by him as the Red Scare swept America. It was a time of witch-hunts and civil rights abuse.
To express any politically left-wing thought was to risk termination from any job, public or private, with little chance of getting another. McCarthy made Hollywood a special target for his many accusations.
In his later autobiography Being Red, Fast wrote of his experiences during these dark days. Again and again publishers would refuse to even consider any book or even any article written by him. As a way of expressing his turmoil in
what he hoped would be a manner acceptable notwithstanding the blacklist, he seized upon the tale of Spartacus. He “brooded” about the book while serving his prison sentence, writing it after his release. Denied a passport, he could not visit Italy and had to rely on travel books on the country to describe where the
Upon release, the film Spartacus drew big audiences but was also picketed by those who regarded it yet another “Red” movie from communist Hollywood.
events took place. It was submitted to publisher after publisher. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, had told publishers not to print anything written by Fast no matter how good it might be.
While many editors praised the book privately, none would dare to publish a book written by a blacklisted author. Nor would any bookstore dare to sell such a book even if it was published. The blacklist was a powerful force in the early 1950s.
Although funds were tight, Fast and his wife were determined that his new novel would reach the public.
They had a flyer prepared and distributed that by mail or in any place that would permit them – bookstores, coffee shops, drug stores, five and dimes, anywhere. The book was offered for $2.50 and would be mailed to any purchaser directly by Fast.
Five thousand copies were privately published and sales went through the roof. In short order, the book was reprinted seven times in four months as sales soared. Each was marked PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, BOX 171 PLANTARIUM STATION, NEW YORK CITY.
It was not until 1958 when Crown Publishers would take
the book to the general public.
One of those who bought a copy was the actor Kirk Douglas (the father of Michael Douglas). Knowing how difficult it would be to produce, Douglas personally bought the screen rights from Fast and hired Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted screenwriter, to write the screenplay. Like Fast, the screenwriter had served time in jail for his views and had been forced to write under assumed names to survive (he had written the screenplay for the film Exodus under an assumed name).
Douglas insisted that he be given full credit for the movie. In those troubled times that was risky. No studio would consider distributing the film until Douglas presented Universal with signed contracts with major film actors of the times – Curtis, Ustinov, Simmons, Olivier, and Laughton – each of whom had agreed to perform in the film at some considerable risk. A blacklisted composer, Alex North, was hired to develop the soundtrack music using an odd assortment of ancient instruments. The movie opened on Oct. 7, 1960.
Upon release, the film Spartacus drew big audiences but was also picketed by those who regarded it as yet another “Red” movie from Communist Hollywood. Then president-elect J. F. Kennedy crossed a picket line to see the picture (of course, many of those manning the picket lines thought Kennedy was a Communist too).
At the Oscars, Spartacus received six nominations and won four. In following years, the original film was reissued with substantial additional scenes that had been cut from the released version. When Crown Publishers reissued the book and Universal released the movie, blacklisting was effectively over. The movie is even today rated amongst the best ever made, the book remains in publication, and a TV series, an animated version, a sequel (Son of Spartacus), and a ballet by Khachaturian have followed.
Miro Sorvino urges #MeToo to do more
John CaruCCi Citizen news service
NEW YORK — Mira Sorvino believes the key to eradicating sexual misconduct lies more in preventative education than in “naming and shaming” the perpetrators.
The Oscar-winning actress was one of the first to come forward with allegations of abuse against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, and her resilience has not wavered.
Sorvino still struggles with the ordeal, though she’s found solace as a prominent voice in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. She sees some progress over the past year, including recent bills passed in California. But Sorvino wants to see more education, and she thinks that should start in school at an early age.
willow arune
Sidebars to History
in this 2017 file photo, Kirk Douglas is seen during a party celebrating his 100th birthday in Los angeles. Douglas took on the starring role in Spartacus during a tumultuous time in Hollywood.
Freezer meals can be healthy option
Choosing a quick, convenient meal option does not have to mean driving to your nearest grocery store and picking up a frozen pizza or TV dinner. Frozen meals, pre-made at home, can be a healthier option, saving you time and money.
There’s no doubt it takes time and planning to batch cook and freeze meals. Coming up with a strategy to make it happen can be the difference between having healthy, balanced meals on a regular basis and becoming best friends with your pizza delivery guy.
Try cooking and freezing extra food when preparing meals on weekends. Cooking a few extra servings could mean your lunches for the week are already made.
To defrost food quickly, freeze in batches equivalent to what you would use in one sitting. Be sure to label each batch with the date and how many portions are in the container.
Knowing how to freeze food is essential to ensuring your meals last as long as possible and are safe to be eaten. Hot food needs to be cooled to room temperature; once it has stopped steaming, refrigerate or freeze.
To cool food quickly, place in an uncovered, shallow dish or divide into smaller portions.
All cooked foods should be refrigerated or frozen within two hours of preparation.
Food for Thought
Kelsey lecKovic
Placing food that is too hot in the fridge or freezer could bring down the temperature of that appliance and lead to faster spoilage. Your freezer should be set, and maintained, at -18C. Allow space between items in your fridge or freezer to promote the movement of cool air throughout.
When you’ve taken the time and energy to prepare freezer meals, it can be disheartening when freezer burn gets the best of them. Freezer burn can occur when food has not been wrapped properly or has been frozen for too long; this can result in white or greyish-brown spots, making your food dry and less flavourful. Although less appetizing, freezer burnt foods are still safe to eat; you can cut away the parts that are burnt and eat the rest.
To prevent freezer burn, you’ll need to stop air from coming into contact with your frozen food.
Use heavy foil, freezer bags or containers designed for freezing food and be sure to squeeze the air out of your freezer bags before sealing. When freezing liquids, be sure to leave headroom, or space at the top of the container, to allow for expansion during freezing.
Preparation is key when it comes to having healthy frozen meals on hand. By having a staple list of meals that freeze well and can be prepared in big batches, you’ll set the groundwork for weeks of quick meals.
Those staple recipes can also allow you to create a wide variety of options, simply by subbing in a few different ingredients.
For example, a basic vegetable soup recipe can transform into chicken or rice soup with the addition of an extra ingredient.
You don’t have to compromise on quality by freezing meals as well. By knowing what foods freeze well, you’ll have reheated meals that match the quality of their freshly made counterparts. Health Canada has recommended freezing times for a long list of foods.
Follow these time frames to ensure the original taste and texture of your meals are maintained.
Once you’ve prepared, cooled, packaged, labeled and frozen your meals it’s important to take the right steps when defrosting, to reduce your risk of food poisoning. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
• Defrost frozen leftovers in the refrigerator or in the microwave on the defrost setting.
• Defrost meals completely before cooking/reheating.
• Once leftovers have been defrosted, eat them right away, do not re-freeze them. Throw away any part that’s not consumed.
meals.
For more freezer meal tips and ideas go to www.unlockfood.ca and search Simple Steps to Freeze Food Right.
Limelight Quest encore showcases talent
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
The limelight has spilled a little wider than the BCNE this year. Each summer the BC Northern Exhibition hosts the grand finale of the annual Limelight Quest singing competition. The winner always receives opportunities for public performances, but new this year is a full variety concert at Artspace with a group
of the most prominent voices in the singing event.
Limelight Quest All-Star Showcase 2018 fires up the mic on Saturday, hosted by Erika Callewaert, one of the Limelight Quest directors.
“I decided to do this event to give the winners of the 2018 Limelight Quest Competition another performance opportunity in town,” said Callewaert.
“One of the main reasons Dawn Boudreau (founder and principal director) changed the name
Autism BC to host workshop in P.G.
Citizen staff
Autism BC will be hosting a workshop aimed at parents waiting to get their children assessed to determine whether they have the condition on Dec.
1. It will be a pilot version of a workshop Autism BC will roll out throughout the province in 2019 and, thanks to support from the City of Prince George, the registration fee is $10 per family.
To be held at the Pacific Autism Family Spoke: Prince George at 1811 Victoria St., the workshop will last three hours and be facilitate by Michele Shilvock, a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst. Participants to complete a short survey after the workshop, entitled “Waiting for Assessment.”
The wait time for an as -
sessment now stands at 55 weeks, up from 29 weeks 2 1/2 years ago, according to AutismBC.
Parents can register for the workshop through the events section at www.autismbc.ca.
from (its original name) PG Idol to Limelight Quest is because it’s more than just an idol competition. As a music teacher in town I’m here to help young singers get started on their music journey and a big part of that is being able to perform on stage as much as possible.”
The showcase will bring back to the stage this year’s grand prize winner Grace Hoksbergen, runner up Mesa Passey, third place finisher Arilynne Barks, fourth place Katie Hogan as well
as 2017 bronze medalist Fizza Rashid.
“The main reason for this event is to continue giving these lovely singers opportunities that they wouldn’t normally have to pursue their music,” said Callewaert. “We also get to see what they’ve been up to since they placed in the finals back in August.”
Each singer will have a 20 minute set starting at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $15 available at the door.
– Kelsey Leckovic is a registered dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.
countless people are opting for cook-now-eat-later meal planning and filling their freezer with complete
It is clear that more unites us than divides us
November 9 marked 80 years since Kristallnacht, loosely translated as “The Night of the Broken Glass.”
On this horrendous night, rampaging Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues, homes and other properties in what was then German territory. There were also many deaths
Lessons in Learning
Gerry ChidiaC
and arrests of innocent people in this predecessor of the Holocaust. It would be nice to believe that this
was an isolated incident in another time and place, but it was not.
Anti-Semitism was rampant in the world, and many even saw Kristallnacht as just another pogrom, yet another attack on Jewish people, and went on living their lives.
Many others recognized Kristallnacht as a statement that the Nazis did not want Jews living in Germany (which by then included Austria as well), and tried to leave.
The journey of the MS St. Louis also illustrates the global sentiment of the time. A ship of over 900 German-Jewish refugees left Hamburg on May 13, 1939, but was refused entry into Cuba, the United States and Canada. In the end, the ship sailed back to Europe where the passengers were admitted to Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom. After their new countries were overrun, many eventually died in Nazi death camps.
The MS St. Louis was not an isolated incident in Canada. The government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was clearly hostile to Jewish immigration and maintained a “none is too many” policy.
At times like these it is easy to lose hope.
Fortunately, vast numbers of people are standing strong for universal respect, and Trudeau is not the only world leader who reminds us, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Addressing the Bundestag (German Parliament) on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, German President FrankWalter Steinmeier stated, “We need to take action any time another person’s dignity is violated... We cannot allow a situation where some people claim once again to be the sole voice of the ‘true people’ and marginalize others.”
perhaps the greatest honour we can give to those who suffer under racism and other crimes against hmainty is to stand together, listen to their voices and learn from our mistakes.
A few days later, with world leaders gathered to commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War, French President Emmanuel Macron stated, “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of it. By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values.”
Though immigration policies loosened after the war, it was not until Nov. 7 of this year that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally apologized on behalf of the Canadian government for its racist actions.
And this was only days after antiSemitism had reared its ugly head yet again. On Oct. 27 the deadliest attack on an American Jewish community took place in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
Eleven people attending religious services were killed by a middle-aged white American gunman.
In the United States anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise in recent years, as have attacks on immigrants, minorities and other religious groups. This has unfortunately been a trend in other parts of the world as well.
Perhaps the greatest honour we can give to those who suffer under racism and other crimes against humanity is to stand together, listen to their voices and learn from our mistakes.
The truth they speak can be threatened, but history always brings it to the surface as the moral universe bends toward justice.
Indeed, if we have learned anything in the last century it is that there is infinitely more that unites us than divides us. We share a common bond of human dignity. Those who have been our greatest moral leaders recognize our oneness, and call upon all of us to do what we know is right.
– 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
Science and magic explain life’s mysteries
My favourite pastime as a parent is to use language or concepts above my children’s comprehension as answers to their questions. If one of my kids ask about a plot point in a movie they are watching, let’s say, “why are Cinderella’s step-sisters so mean?”
I would typically answer something along the lines of: “that’s because they are indoctrinated into the patriarchy, sweetie. Would you like some more popcorn?”
They are used to me doing this and their responses are typically, “OK, mom,” and they go back to watching the show. It amuses me to do this and I am improving their vocabularies at the same time. This can backfire because as they are getting older, they are beginning to understand my nonsense.
We were driving in the minivan a few months ago and I think that the kids were asking their dad if he could drive faster (we were going to Nana and Papa’s and they were in a hurry).
My husband was explaining that there are rules on the road and that we can only go a maximum speed of the posted
Home Again
Megan kuklIs
limit. My son said that he wished we could get places faster (like Nana’s and his Grammie’s in Langley) and I joked and said maybe we could go through an intergalactic rift in the space-time continuum.
My husband and I laughed (because we’re dorks) and my son said, stonefaced, without missing a beat, “Portals aren’t real, mom.”
My husband and I looked at each other, surprised, and I turned to my son to ask him about his certainty. He looked me right in the eye and said, “They’re not real.” I turned back around, put into my place by a seven-year old.
My second favourite pastime as a parent to answer any question they have one of two ways: science or magic.
“Why is the sky blue, mom?”
“Science.”
“How does this lava lamp work?
“Science.”
“How do you know so much about
Omineca Arts Centre to host new craft fair
Citizen staff
The Omineca Arts Centre is seeking vendors for its upcoming holiday market.
The craft fair will be held on Dec. 8 at the centre’s new location at 369 Victoria St. between Margo’s Cafe and Exit Gaming Room.
Omineca’s last holiday market featured pottery, copper jewelry, wood-
work, Tahltan cookbooks, vintage clothing, felted art, handmade soaps, and more.
Artisans are invited to come forward with their most imaginative and innovative giftware – the most important thing is that the work be handmade in this region. Special priority will be given to artisans of Indigenous ancestry. For more information, contact tuckerj@unbc.ca.
everything, mom?”
“Magic… and books.”
I have recently learned that it is just as hard to explain why Harry Potter can do magic as it is to explain what a church is.
“Why does Harry Potter have a wand?”
“Because he is a wizard.”
“What’s a wizard?”
“Someone who can do magic.”
“Can I do magic?”
“Maybe when you’re older.”
“Can you do magic?”
“Yes.”
Driving home the other day, we were stopped at the light at Fifth Avenue and
Central Street and my son points out the window and asks me if that is where the Queen lives.
“No. That’s the Sikh temple.”
“What’s a temple?”
“Like a church for Sikh people.”
“What’s a church?”
“The buildings with the crosses on top.”
“I thought the crosses were for dead people in cemeteries.”
“Well they are, and for churches.”
“What do people do in churches?”
“Well some people believe…” I started to sweat. “Science.” I said, definitively. “And magic.”
The Grinch tops the box office
top of the box office as it is this November.
Seldom is the disparity between “fun” and “good” quite so heavily represented at the
Over the weekend, big, colourful characters with rich histories proved popular – even though none of the top five movies at the domestic box
office currently scores even as high as 60 on Metacritic.com, based on averages of professional reviews.
Universal/Illumination’s Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch won the weekend with a $66 million debut, despite the mixed-atbest reviews (reflected by a 50 on Metacritic and 55 per cent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes). From the public, though, Grinch received an A-minus CinemaScore and a 69 per cent “liked it” audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grinch was followed at the weekend box office by Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody ($30.9 million; 49 on Metacritic), continuing its success following a $51.1 million opening weekend; Paramount’s new Overlord ($10.1 million; 58 on Meracritic); Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms ($9.6 million; 39 on Metacritic); and Sony’s new Dragon Tattoo movie The Girl in the Spider’s Web ($8.02 million; 44 on Metacritic), according to studio estimates Sunday. Of those films, only Nutcracker received below a 50 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
And all five films received at least a B on CinemaScore, which polls opening-night audiences. On the global stage, this trend continues. The critically drubbed Venom (35 on Metacritic; 29 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) opened in China over the weekend to a massive $102 million – the secondbiggest superhero debut ever in that market and the fifth-biggest opening for an import film, according to Variety.
Sony’s Venom has now grossed $673.5 million worldwide – already making it the seventh biggest movie of the year, as it hurtles past Disney/ Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp ($622.5 million).
Five of the year’s eight biggest movies of the year are led by Marvel comic-book characters.
With Friday’s opening of the critically lauded Widows, the box office should soon begin to see more overlap between what audiences and critics praise.
But for now, winning performances by kinetic actors like Tom Hardy (Venom) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) continue to draw filmgoing throngs to the freewheelingly “fun.”
Bring and Buy
The Prince George Grandmothers to Grandmothers (PG G2G)non-profit group is hosting their fourth annual Bring and Buy Sale on Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Trinity United Church, 3555 Fifth Ave.
People are invited to bring a treasure and take another home. Also available for sale is baked goods, G2G signature beads and free trade coffee or tea. Live entertainment is provided by the Prince George ukelele group. Proceeds for the fundraiser goes to the Stephen Lewis Foundation that supports grandmothers in Africa who are raising their grandchildren.
Michael Cavna Citizen news service
Benedict cumberbatch voices the grinch, seen with his loyal dog Max.