Cool cash
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The Fraser-Fort George Regional District will be taking in old fridges, freezers and any other major appliances containing ozone-depleting substances at no charge starting in January.
It means the current charge of $22.50 per unit will be waived with the Major Appliance Recycling Roundtable, an agency operating on behalf of producers, covering the handling costs under a oneyear pilot program.
FFGRD waste diversion program
leader Laura Zapotichny said more than 1,500 units were accepted at the Foothills landfill last year and there was an “overwhelming response” when the items were accepted for free during a roundup in September.
“Based on what happened a couple short months ago with one round-up event, I’m really hopeful that people will come and bring us back these appliances now at no charge because everything is being taken care of by this stewardship program.”
The program will apply to much more than fridges and freezers. Zapotichny recited an extensive list of items containing refrigerants and other gases harmful to the planet’s ozone layer: wine coolers, air conditioners, dehumidifiers, washers, dryers, range hoods, ranges, built-in ovens, surface cooking units, dishwashers, food waste disposal units and trash compacters.
“The regional district has accepted most of those products already for no charge as most of our facilities have a metal-recycling bin,” she added. “The bonus in signing on with MARR is that now they cover the cost of recovering the ozone-depleting substance – the freon –out of the chiller unit in it.” — see ‘THERE’S DEFINITELY, page 3
Regional district to waive recycling fee on fridges, freezers
Parking lot crashes peak in December, ICBC says
Citizen staff
As the holiday shopping season officially kicks off this week for Black Friday, drivers are being urged to prioritize safety over finding the perfect parking spot.
About 150,000 crashes happened in or near parking lots last year resulting in 5,400 injuries, according to Insurance Corporation of British Columbia statistics.
A sample of seven malls showed they were the scene of about 200 crashes per lot per year. Most occurred on a Friday or Saturday, and between noon and 3 p.m. and they peaked in December.
“Although some mistakenly believe that driving in parking lots is safer due to lower travel speeds, drivers need to continue practicing their safe driving habits, even while travelling in parking lots,” ICBC said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Parking lots present drivers with unique challenges such as increased congestion and heavy pedestrian activity. The holiday season could add a layer of distraction with people more apt to be preoccupied with their shopping list or finding a parking spot.”
ICBC offered the following safety tips:
• The rules of the road still apply, even on private property: Drivers should know that the law still applies, even in mall parking lots. Avoid cutting diagonally through a lot – travel only in the appropriate lanes. Don’t use your phone while driving, instead, program your navigation or holiday tunes before you start your car.
• Have your car facing out in your parking spot: This position is safest for drivers because it helps you avoid the risk of reversing into a lane with potential blind spots when leaving.
• Park further away, if you can: Instead of circling endlessly to get a spot that’s closest to the mall entrance, pick a spot that’s further away. — see DON’T BLOCK TRAFFIC, page 3
James.
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
Fraser-Fort George Regional District will stop charging
B.C. forestry’s bull-market ride could be over soon
Nelson BENNETT Citizen news service
Until about six months ago, B.C.’s forestry companies were riding a lumber bull market. Record-high lumber prices in the U.S. had muted softwood lumber duties, and B.C. forestry companies were netting record profits. But the party may be over.
A shrinking timber supply, high log prices in B.C. and a sudden drop in lumber prices in the U.S. have created a sudden bear market for B.C. sawmills.
Last week, B.C.’s largest forestry company, West Fraser Timber Co., announced it was cutting a third shift from its sawmills in Quesnel and Fraser Lake, resulting in 135 layoffs.
“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.”
Starting in January, West Fraser will take about 300 million board feet out of production – roughly 13 per cent of West Fraser’s B.C. production.
Almost all other major forestry companies are also cutting production in the fourth quarter, including Conifex Timber, Tolko Industries, Canfor Corp. and Interfor Corp. Tolko announced last month that it would lay off 100 workers at its Quesnel sawmill, and on November 9 Conifex announced that it is temporarily curtailing its production at its Fort St. James sawmill for two weeks, affecting 180 to 200 workers.
Last month, Interfor announced it would reduce production at all three of its B.C. Interior mills, and on November 1, Canfor announced it was curtailing production at all of its B.C. sawmills.
Two weeks ago, Teal Jones Group shut down sawmills for one week – its seventh one-week curtailment this year.
“The lack of availability of logs was the main driver for us taking the downtime,” said Teal Jones CFO Hanif Karmally, adding that the level of raw log exports is a contributing factor.
The recent curtailment announcements came at a time when B.C. forestry companies were announcing hundreds of millions of dollars in acquisitions outside of Canada. 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. And, on November 15, Canfor announced it is investing $580 million to take a 70 per cent stake in a Swedish lumber company.
American lumber prices have fallen by roughly half since May: to just over US$300 per 1,000 board feet from nearly US$600.
The higher lumber prices had muted the impacts of U.S. softwood lumber duties. But now that prices have fallen, companies will be feeling the pinch.
“When you’ve got scarce fibre, which pushes prices for it up, and then you’re paying duties on top of that, and your market price has declined significantly, that puts companies into the bite,” said Susan Yurkovich, president and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries. “And that’s why you’re seeing announcements about curtailments, either temporary or permanent.”
It’s not lower lumber prices in the U.S. so much as high log prices in B.C. that are the biggest problem for companies operating in this province.
“Timber prices in British Columbia are now among the highest in North America,
and that’s a result of too many mills chasing too few trees,” Gorman said.
The mountain pine beetle infestation, which started more than 20 years ago, has been a short-term blessing and a long-term curse for B.C. forestry companies.
A surplus of dead and dying trees meant a timber supply bonanza. But most of that beetle-killed timber has been used, and more recently wildfires have taken a bite out of an already shrinking annual allowable cut (AAC).
Fires in 2017 took 22 per cent out of the AAC for Quesnel and 18 per cent for Williams Lake, for example.
Doug Donaldson, minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations, was unavailable to comment on government policies on the annual allowable cut or log exports. But Gorman said there’s not much the provincial government can do about the problem anyway.
Forestry companies have known for about a decade that a long-term decline in B.C.’s AAC was coming, which explains why so many B.C. companies have been investing in sawmills in the U.S., where there is still an adequate timber supply. The biggest players now own more sawmills in the U.S.
than in Canada. David Elstone, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, which represents logging companies, said sawmill curtailments will affect loggers, depending on how long they last.
“The scary aspect of this whole story is, while the balance sheets have been repaired through the good times for the sawmills… contractors are left with balance sheets that have not grown any fatter. It just means we’re probably going to have a lot less contractors when it comes out the other side here.”
The “other side” could be more than 50 years away.
In 1987, B.C.’s AAC peaked at 90 million cubic metres. The long-term forecast is for an AAC of 58 million cubic metres by 2025. The AAC is expected to return to between 65 million and 70 million cubic feet by around 2075.
Meanwhile, over the next decade, demand for lumber in the U.S. is expected to remain strong, and Canada will continue to be its main supplier, according to a recent report by ForestEdge LLC and Wood Resources International LLC. But Eastern Canada, not B.C., will fill that role.
Logs are stacked at the Interfor sawmill in Grand Forks, B.C., on May 12. Interfor Corp. is one of several companies cutting its production in British Columbia.
Don’t block traffic while waiting for a spot
— from page 1
You’ll avoid a high-traffic area where you’re more likely to crash with another vehicle or hit a pedestrian.
• Slow down and be on alert: Drivers should drive slowly in parking lots to have enough time to react to an unexpected vehicle backing out of their parking spot or an unanticipated pedestrian, especially young children, who may be harder to see.
• Pay attention to the arrows and stop
signs: Many parking lots are quite narrow, restricting certain lanes to a single direction. Pay attention to the signs and markings on the road to avoid getting into a crash.
• Don’t block traffic: Deciding to follow a shopper, then waiting for them to load their car, buckle up and leave, jams up traffic behind you and likely takes you much longer than if you had just found a spot further away. Sitting idle in a lane can leave you vulnerable to a collision,
and you could be blocking other drivers who are trying to leave.
• Let it go: No sense in having a showdown with another driver for a parking spot. Move along, and maybe that good karma will net you something really nice this season.
ICBC representatives will be talking to customers about driving safety and handing out a limited quantity of large, reusable shopping bags at Pine Centre Mall this Friday, from noon to 1 p.m.
Mackenzie youth centre gets grant
Citizen staff
A grant worth $100,000 is headed to The 92, a youth centre in Mackenzie run by Youth For Christ.
The funding comes from the Aviva Community Fund that earmarked $1 million during its 10th anniversary year for ideas that meaningfully impact local communities.
Recently, Youth For Christ was given the former Hope Trinity Church at 92 Centennial Dr. in Mackenzie and the funding will provide the means to do extensive renovations to the building to make it a community youth centre. Youth For Christ Prince George helps young people discover their God-given hope and potential, executive director Stephen Swan said in a news release. “We do this by holistically caring for young people’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs,” Swan said. “We serve over 600 youth in P.G. and Mackenzie every week through our school food programs, youth drop-in centres and
‘There’s definitely a need out there’
— from page 1
The FFGRD will launch an information campaign through its website and local media when the program starts up. “We’re trying to hit all mediums so that people are aware,” Zapotichny said.
Recycling and Environmental Action Planning Society executive director Terri McClymont welcomed the move. She also noted the strong response at Junk in the Trunk and added she hopes it will put a dent in illegal dumping.
“There’s definitely a need out there so that’s great that they’re dropping the fee,” she said.
It wasn’t all good news when FFGRD directors approved participation in the program during their monthly meeting last week. They also voted for an across-the-board 5.9-per-cent increase to the fees it does charge for handling various types of solid waste.
The hike, which will also come into effect at the start of 2019, means the basic weight-based tipping fee will add up to $90 per tonne, an increase of $5 over the current rate, with higher fees applied to more difficult-to-handle refuse. The per-tonne rate for condemned foods, creosote treated wood, dead animals and offroad truck tires will be $164.90, while for bulky waste, contaminated soils and concrete, it will be $107.20.
For camp waste, food processing waste, gypsum or wallboard, pumpings and wood ash from industrial operations, it will be $90. Asbestos and so-called “international waste” will cost $330.35 per tonne. And the FFGRD will charge $164.90 per unit for vehicle hulks and $11.90 per medium truck tire. However, the cost of dropping off “small loads” of up to 100 kilograms of household garbage will remain at $6, which McClymont said is a good deal.
“That $6 covers a lot,” she said.
“It’s the people handling it once it gets there, it’s the transporting it up to the landfill, it’s the machinery that puts it into the landfill and compacts it, it’s the renting of the space of the landfill, so that $6 is pretty minimal to drop off a truckload of garbage.”
NEWS IN BRIEF
Close race in highway speed poll
During the highway speed limit poll, the Citizen asked “the provincial government is revisiting highway speed limits across B.C. – what do you think should be done?”
With 29 per cent and 334 votes “decrease them because there are too many bad drivers” took a slight lead, while “keep them the same” edged into second place with 26 per cent and 302 votes. Catching the slip stream with 23 per cent and 259 votes was “increase them because everyone already drives 10-20 km/h over the limit anyway,” while grazing the bumper in a tight race was “aren’t there more important things for John Horgan to worry about?” with 22 per cent and 255 votes.
There was a total of 1,150 votes. Remember this is not a scientific poll. Next question to ponder online switches gears a bit and asks “With the federal election less than a year away, who would you like to see as prime minister?”
To make your vote count, go online to: www.princegeorgecitizen.com
Shop fire on Zilkie Road
An unoccupied shop in the 4000 block of Zilkie Road was engulfed in flames when Prince George Fire Rescue responded to the call at about 3:25 a.m. Tuesday.
From two halls, 12 fire fighters were on scene and shuttled water by using two tenders. Crews extinguished the fire but there was extensive damage to the shop.
There is no damage estimate as yet.
Crews remained on scene through the morning to make sure all hot spots were out.
Wandering otter helps itself to ornamental fish pond
support groups.” Volunteers and staff have worked in Mackenzie for years through the church and community partners.
“One of the needs we consistently heard was for a youth centre,” Swan said. “We are so thrilled that with these funds we’ll not only be better able to serve youth through our programs, but we’re also going to open up this facility to other youth-serving organizations in Mackenzie as well and serve the community that way.”
VANCOUVER (CP) — An otter that wandered into a tranquil garden in Vancouver’s Chinatown has been feasting on expensive fish in a pond but a park official hopes it will sniff out some raw chicken in a trap so it can be returned home. The city’s parks director Howard Normann said the otter could have arrived at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden on Sunday from Stanley Park, about three kilometres away. Staff at the garden believe it has gobbled up five to six decorative koi, many of which had been there for decades, Howard said Tuesday. The garden is the only such facility outside of China, featuring a pagoda, a pond, a winding path and plants based on the Ming Dynasty-era tradition. Howard said he saw the otter with a koi at the garden earlier Tuesday, but visitors have also reported spotting the animal on the streets of Chinatown four days earlier.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
An RCMP constable takes notes at the scene of a crash in the Pine Centre Mall parking lot in 2009.
Make a Christmas Wish come true
Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
Making sure no child in Prince George goes without a gift this holiday season, the Christmas Wish Breakfast will take place Dec. 11 from 6 to 10 a.m. at the Kin Centre, providing a hearty meal to participants in exchange for children’s gift donations.
Walking into a winter wonderland at the atrium entrance, guests will be greeted by first responders who will accept all donations.
The
holiday season is a very special time and no child should have to go without a gift at Christmas.
— Valerie Marsh
Taking in a variety of entertainment provided by Judy Russell Presents, including carolers and dancers, guests will then be invited to make their way upstairs to the Kin I lounge where children can visit with Santa and everyone can enjoy a breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, toast, coffee and tea to get their day started off right. Also making an appearance to add to the festivities will be members of the Spruce Kings and Cariboo Cougars hockey teams while two local radio stations will host their shows on site during the event.
Gift donations are accepted for all ages and for those who might be stumped as to what to get for a child, there are some suggestions, including balance bikes, trikes, scooters, building blocks, Play-Doh, musical toys, games, crayons and colouring books, doodle art, puzzles, fashion dolls, skate boards, soccer/basket/footballs, headphones, books, tickets to sporting events or concerts, gift certificates and any electronic devices, which are best suited for the hard-toplease teen.
“The holiday season is a very special time and no child should have to go without a gift at Christmas,” event organizer Valerie Marsh said.
The gifts donated will go to a variety of local non-profit organizations, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Child Development Centre, as well as to those children who must spend their holiday in the pediatric department of the University Hospital of Northern B.C.
Marsh knows there are several organizations in need in the Prince George community and said she invites them to reach out if they’d like a donation.
“Anyone who’d like to be involved or wants to partner with us can contact us so we can try and help out everybody,” Marsh said.
The Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver has hosted a similar event for the last 30 years and that’s where Marsh got the idea.
“Every year I think that is so awesome – what a great idea,” said Marsh, who used to be a single mom.
“So I remember those years and I was never one to ask for help. I always just did what I could and tried to do the best for my kids and I know there’s a lot of people out there that don’t have the capacity, the mental wellness or the family support, so I feel it’s just detrimental for the kids’ health and well being. I want everybody to get something at Christmas.”
Marsh knows she can’t do it alone.
“The community support has been amazing,” she said.
“We’ve been really fortunate and we know already that this is the first annual. We’ll be doing this again.”
To be able to sort and accept ongoing donations for the Christmas Wish Breakfast, Marsh is looking for another sort of gift, a year-round 500 to 1,000 square foot storage facility.
“We’d like to invite everyone to come to the event and donate a children’s gift and enjoy a good meal,” she said.
“It’s going to be great.”
For more information, reach out to Marsh at 250-981-8827.
Getting ready
Local playwright looks to bring life of Mary Walsh Hemingway to stage
Citizen staff
Hemingway was a marvelous writer with many personal demons to overcome.
Mary Welsh Hemingway, of course. She was an author, journalist, war correspondent, world traveller, and her most haunting demon would be husband Ernest who was famously difficult to be around and in the end committed suicide by shotgun, leaving Mary to find him after the blast shook throughout their Idaho home in 1961.
One could say Ernest did some writing as well. His death shook literary culture.
Mary wrote all about it in her autobiography How It Was, published in 1973, a dozen years after her husband’s death. Even in her own story, she was a secondary character to Ernest.
That seemed the lot of anyone to whom he was associated.
It made Prince George writer/publisher Virginia O’Dine angry. She has put Mary’s story to the pen with more fervor than perhaps anyone ever has. The drama of Mary Welsh Hemingway was enough to ignite an entire play. The first public reading of The Fourth Wife takes place Thursday at Artspace.
“Ninety-nine per cent of it is based on truth. I played with the timelines a bit but the material is all true,” O’Dine said.
What writer hasn’t heard of Ernest Hemingway? What writer hasn’t inhaled at least one of his masterpiece novels?
Obviously O’Dine knew of this literary lion, but it was a book about the famed Hotel Ritz that turned her wheels towards this new original play. Ernest stayed at the Paris landmark.
A suite there is named after him, as is
one of the bars.
O’Dine picked up the book in a hurry at a vintage bookstore in North Vancouver as she passed the time through her daughter’s medical appointments. Her daughter is Canadian Olympic snowboarder Meryeta O’Dine, who has sustained some injuries in her career, and like Ernest could overshadow those around her, just by volume of publicity. Her mother’s capabilities with words and language, however, take a back seat to no one, and so O’Dine was sensitive to all the references in first the Ritz book and then more as she examined about how Ernest had four wives and all of them seemed shunted either by him or by history to the sidelines.
“Did you know that Mary Welsh Hemingway was the first woman to ever get a story on the cover of Time magazine?” O’Dine said. “She was a highly respected writer, a highly respected journalist, it’s no wonder Ernest fell for her, but after that it all became about him. It happened to his first three wives, too. In those times, once you married someone, you just became ‘the wife’ so that influenced my title. I think The Fourth Wife says a lot.”
There are very few characters in O’Dine’s play. Other than Mary Welsh Hemingway, there is Valerie, Ernest’s long serving secretary; Ernest’s estranged son Gregory who ended up meeting Valerie at Ernest’s funeral and went on to marry; the family’s Cuban housekeeper Rene; and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
It is a tight cluster, all set in the Hemingway’s villa in Cuba, a place to which they retreated after the sensational funeral in the United States.
“I was intrigued by the stories of the people in his life who were essential to him, his own life, but got such a small place in his life story,” O’Dine said. “The harder I dug, the madder I got because it wasn’t there. It was really hard to find the highlights of their lives because he was so much in the picture, taking all their space. The hard part was not writing them into this storyline, the hard part was finding the source material about who they really were.”
The reading of the script is an exercise in developing the play. In the same way that a standup comedian typically needs to run new jokes past a live audience before confidently adding it to their set, a playwright is never able to perfectly ascertain the effects of a new script until a crowd sits it through.
She knows this from past projects, most notably her hit stage adaptation of the Robert J. Sawyer novel Rollback.
The full premiere of The Fourth Wife is still about a year away, O’Dine estimated, but this first public interaction was essential to reaching that final draft.
“Community theatre involves the community,” she said. “A writer is just guessing until there’s an audience involved.”
The characters in this reading will be portrayed by Catherine Higgins, Mike Maguire, Jody Newham and Frank Peebles. Production details are being arranged by Pocket Theatre.
Admission is by donation of cash or food, all for local charity.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Artspace (upstairs at Books & Company) with the performance getting underway at 7 p.m.
The dialogue contains some mature language and subject matter.
All cars sold in B.C. to be electric by 2040: gov’t
Citizen news service
VICTORIA — All light-duty cars and trucks sold in British Columbia will be required to be zero-emission vehicles by 2040.
Premier John Horgan said Tuesday legislation to be introduced next spring will be aimed at removing a major source of air pollution and climate change.
The government said the proposed law would set targets of 10 per cent of sales by 2025, 30 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040.
The premier said the government will increase
an incentive program to encourage the purchase of more clean-energy cars by $20 million this year.
In addition, it will expand the fast-charger network to 151 sites.
Horgan said the legislation will be the first major policy commitment of the government’s plan to meet the province’s climate goals.
“As a province, we need to work together to put B.C. on a path that powers our future with clean, renewable energy and reduces air pollution,” he said.
Green party Leader Andrew Weaver said 40 per cent of household emissions in B.C. come from transportation and scientists worldwide have been warning for decades about the importance of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.
“Here in British Columbia, the government has recognized that we have a responsibility to do our part and those who are early adopters are seen as leaders and stand to benefit from the opportunities created by innovation in the new economy.”
Weaver said once people get into an electric vehicle, they never go back.
Clean Energy Canada said in a statement the government’s announcement will make it easier for people to go electric.
The group’s executive director, Merran Smith, said a third of B.C. residents expect their next car to be electric.
“Not only do electric cars help cut pollution and clean up the air we breathe, in B.C. going electric cuts your fuel bill by three-quarters.”
The government said it would be reviewing the incentive program with an eye to expanding it over time, so buying a zero-emission vehicle will become a more affordable option for middle- and low-income residents.
The provincial government has committed more than $71 million to its Clean Energy Vehicle Program since the budget update in September 2017, encouraging residents to purchase green vehicles.
Annette Hamilton fluffs one of the many trees in preparation for the designers to decorate them at the 25th annual Festival of Trees. Hamilton along with Phyllis Anderson, June Chamberland and Adeline Gratton have been a part of the tree crew since the beginning of the group 20 years ago.
Todd Whitcombe explains the science behind every day life in Relativity, every Thursday
B.C. legislature senior officials under investigation
Katie DeROSA Citizen news service
Two senior officers of the B.C. legislature, Clerk of the House Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz, have been suspended pending an “unprecedented” criminal investigation by the RCMP.
The B.C. RCMP say the investigation comes as a result of allegations regarding their administrative duties.
A special prosecutor has been assigned to the case, said Alan Mullen, special adviser to Speaker Darryl Plecas.
Mullen did not give details on the ongoing criminal investigation or how long it has been underway, saying he did not want to jeopardize the RMCP’s work. Mullen said the criminal investigation into two senior legislative officers is “absolutely unprecedented. It’s disturbing.”
No criminal charges have been laid.
In an interview with reporters, James said he was stunned by the investigation.
He said neither he nor Lenz have any idea what the investigation is about. Plecas asked Lenz and James to meet in his office after question period but was unable to give details on the focus of the investigation, he said.
“He looked quite distressed and wasn’t able to convey anything to me,” James said. James said he and Lenz will be seeking legal advice.
“Somebody knows something, and I think out of fairness, both Gary and I should have been informed before we were placed on administrative leave (about) exactly what it involves,” James said. “I think it’s very unfair, very unfortunate and very disappointing. We have no idea what’s going on.” Mullens would not say who decided to forward the allegations to the RCMP.
James and Lenz were escorted from the building by Victoria police officers and will not be allowed to return until the investigation is complete. Their work cellphones were confiscated and they will not have access to government servers, emails or documents.
Lenz is in charge of protective services at the B.C. legislature, which includes MLAs and their constituency offices. He is a former Sidney/North Saanich RCMP officer. James, who has been clerk since 2011, is the top administrative officer for the legislative assembly, responsible for its $70-million annual budget and procedural matters. In an email, RCMP spokeswoman Sgt.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Ford F350 sought in connection to
hit-and-run
TERRACE (CP) — RCMP say they are making progress in the search for the driver involved in a deadly hit-and-run collision with a pedestrian early Sunday along Highway 16 in northwestern British Columbia.
Cpl. Mike Halskov with RCMP Traffic Services says additional experienced investigators have arrived in Terrace to help. He says the suspect vehicle has been narrowed to a 2011 to 2016 Ford F350 pickup with damage to the passenger side, including the mirror. A boat trailer that the pickup may have been towing at the time has also been recovered and police say it has damage consistent with the crash.
Halskov says in a news release that investigators believe the driver was not acting alone when the victim was hit and the suspect or that person’s lawyer is urged to come forward.
The body of a man in his 30s was found in a ditch along Highway 16 just outside Terrace on Sunday, and police have
Janelle Shoihet, said: “The RCMP has an active investigation underway, with respect to allegations pertaining to their administrative duties, and we are not in a position to provide any other details or specifics.
“A thorough investigation is underway and will take the time necessary,” she said.
“Given the nature and the roles of the individuals involved, the RCMP sought the appointment of a special prosecutor.”
In a statement, the B.C. Prosecution Service said that assistant deputy attorney general Peter Juk received a formal request from the RCMP on Sept. 28 that he consider appointing a special prosecutor to provide police with legal advice during the course of their investigation.
Juk decided to appoint a special prosecutor and determined that because of the “potential size and scope of the investigation” that two special prosecutors would be needed.
David Butcher and Brock Martland were appointed special prosecutors on Oct. 1.
A special prosecutor, which is independent from government, is appointed when there is a significant potential for a perceived or real improper influence in prosecutorial decision-making in a given case, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service.
“The paramount consideration is the need to maintain public confidence in the administration of criminal justice,” the agency says.
The special prosecutors will offer legal advice to the RCMP, conduct an independent assessment of any report to crown counsel that may be submitted and deciding on whether charges should be laid. They will provide a written report to the assistant deputy attorney general on their charge assessment and reasons for the decision.
The motion to put the men on administrative leave was read by government house leader and Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth during question period. It passed unanimously.
Farnworth would not comment on the investigation or the reason for the suspension.
Premier John Horgan said he was briefed by Farnworth on the criminal investigation and the special prosecutor on Monday.
“It was shocking, to be sure,” Horgan said.
“I am certainly very concerned that whatever investigation that’s underway is completed as quickly as possible, for the individuals involved but also for our institutions.”
— with files from Louise Dickson
already said he was likely walking on the shoulder facing traffic when he was hit before dawn.
Hells Angel murdered
SURREY (CP) — A man described by homicide investigators as a member of the Hells Angels has been identified as the victim of a suspected targeted slaying in Metro Vancouver.
Cpl. Frank Jang of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the body of 43-year-old Chad Wilson was found Sunday morning in Maple Ridge, where he was living. Jang says Wilson was a member of the Hells Angels and describes the killing of a member of the biker-gang as “unsettling news.” He says detectives will be working with gang enforcement experts to avoid any retaliation. Wilson had a previous criminal conviction in the United States stemming from a shooting in South Dakota in 2006 that injured five affiliate members of a rival motorcycle gang and Jang says officers are looking into his past. Police are also appealing to Wilson’s friends in the Hells Angels to come forward.
Crews pave the road at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Dominion Street on Thursday morning. The intersection, along with the intersection of Sixth Avenue and George Street, reopened on Tuesday. Seventh Avenue remains closed just past the entrance to city hall until further notice to allow additional utility upgrades, the city said in a statement released Tuesday.
LNG, pipeline star in B.C. economic outlook
Randy SHORE Vancouver Sun
Employment will accelerate in B.C.’s north over the next couple of years, with construction of liquefied natural gas infrastructure and pipelines fuelling a boom in jobs and residential and commercial construction, according to the B.C. Regional Economic Outlook report.
Meanwhile, employment growth in Metro Vancouver and southwestern B.C. is predicted to slow to just over one per cent in 2019 and 2020, as labour shortages and a tight housing market continue to be friction points for businesses and workers, respectively.
Overall, economic growth is expected to fall to between 2.5 and three per cent from 3.8 per cent in 2017.
Total employment will spike on the North Coast in 2020, with the construction of the $40-billion LNG Canada export terminal at Kitimat and the 700-kilometre TransCanada Coastal GasLink from Dawson Creek, said Bryan Yu, Central 1 Credit Union’s deputy chief economist. Terminal construction will require up to 7,500 workers at its peak.
“We expect that boom to last until the plant is complete in 2023,” he said. “There will be impacts on housing and jobs along the length of the pipeline, too.”
Related investment will boost nonresidential building permits on the North Coast by about 1,000 per cent by 2020 over the value of permits in 2017, according to Central 1’s new B.C. Regional Economic Outlook report.
The northeast will also benefit from job growth, but in about two to three years’ time when gas drilling and extraction ramp-up to service the Kitimat plant and pipeline.
The LNG terminal announcement has already caused ripples in the local real estate market, including an attempted $1,000-amonth rent increase and a flurry of homebuying, mainly by outside investors, said Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth.
“That (home-buying spree) caught everybody by surprise, no one expected that frenzy, including the realtors,” he said.
To ease the impact of LNG construction on Kitimat’s real estate market, LNG Canada has contracted the oilpatch housing firm Civeo to install enough modular buildings for 4,500 workers, he said.
Civeo will operate a second permanent
Total employment will spike on the North Coast in 2020, with the construction of the $40-billion LNG Canada export terminal at Kitimat and the 700-kilometre TransCanada Coastal GasLink...
camp in Kitimat for 440 workers, and Horizon North will build a temporary camp just outside of town to house another 1,000.
Site preparation at the terminal, camp construction and a new road have already brought considerable benefit to the town of 8,300, said Germuth.
“I can see us being busy here for the next 10 years,” he said.
“Once LNG Canada is ramping down, we hope Chevron’s LNG will be ramping up.”
The Lower Mainland will continue to suffer labour shortages in part due to high housing costs, the report says. Government interventions aimed at cooling the real estate market will lead to modest price reductions in southwestern B.C., but also – unhelpfully – a drop in residential building permits.
“We’ve seen sales slow dramatically as a result of the new federal lending criteria, among other things, but that’s a bit of an outlier” said Yu.
“Industries like technology, TV and film and tourism are all doing quite well.”
Indeed.ca lists more than 38,000 job vacancies in the Vancouver area.
“The labour market will continue to be very tight,” he said.
While job growth is expected to be modest on Vancouver Island, a steady in-flow of retirees from across Canada and young families priced out of Metro will push the median price of a home to nearly $500,000 in 2020, the report says.
“People have been priced out of Vancouver for a number of years and they are looking elsewhere, like Victoria, Nanaimo and Campbell River, where they can find work or set up their own remote working environment,” said Yu.
No room at the mall
In Luke 2:7, Jesus Christ is born in a stable because there is no room at the inn for Joseph and Mary.
Some readers infer that the innkeeper took pity on the expecting mother and offered the only shelter he had available. Others believe the innkeeper must have been cruel and heartless for not finding better accommodation for the couple. Neither side is correct.
The innkeeper in Bethlehem makes no appearance in any of the Gospels. Anyone trying to pass judgment upon the innkeeper is doing so with no information to support their conclusion.
And so it is with the online outrage about the early end of a performance of Christmas carols at Pine Centre Mall on Friday night to kick off the Salvation Army’s Christmas kettle campaign. Efforts to try to tar the mall as intolerant pagans trying to take the Christ out of Christmas don’t match up to what Salvation Army representatives have said about what actually happened.
Nor does it reflect the reality that the Sally Ann kettles are still at the mall, just as they always have been during every holiday season.
Pine Centre Mall, like all shopping malls, is not a public place, despite the misplaced perception they are. It is private property and operates accordingly.
Pine Centre Mall has a long history of
accommodating local community groups with fundraisers, not only with the Salvation Army but with a host of other worthy organizations selling cookies, raffle tickets and what not to support their cause. In exchange, the mall only asks in return that some simple ground rules are followed.
On the other side, the Salvation Army is a Christian church, despite the misplaced perception it is nothing more than a charity offering food and clothing to those in need.
Like all churches, the Salvation Army is serious about sharing the faith loud and proud.
That loud and proud part was probably the biggest source of Friday’s problem.
The first singing group, the Bel Canto Choir, performed with no problems because they sang without amplification.
The second group, however, plugged in electric guitars and mics before starting their set.
“We are partly at fault,” the Salvation Army’s Neil Wilkinson told The Citizen on Saturday afternoon, acknowledging the performers were not supposed to have any kind of amplification during their performances. Wilkinson went on to say Pine Centre staff also informed him of complaints received about the choice of the music, specifically identifying two well-known traditional Christmas hymns Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain.
“That’s when I decided to shut it down,”
Wilkinson said. “The Salvation Army does not bare any ill will. We are very grateful for all our community partnerships. This is the first time we were asked not to sing religious music. The Salvation Army is a spiritual organization. We are Christian and being Christian is part of who we are.”
Something doesn’t add up here.
The mall plays Christmas music all through the holiday season, from the secular Santa songs like Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to the classic Christmas carols Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful. Furthermore, countless community choirs over the years, including the Salvation Army, have performed at the mall, all of them singing the Christmas standards.
If the mall has changed its policy on religious music – which it has every right to – it doesn’t seem to be following its own policy. On the flip side, however, it begs the question of why the mall would allow some groups to sing holiday spirituals but not others.
The most likely culprit was actually volume, an issue Wilkinson himself identified.
In the end, however, to quote a different Luke, not the writer of one of the Gospels but Cool Hand Luke from the movies: “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
When contacted by The Citizen, both the Salvation Army and Pine Centre Mall management stressed that the whole affair was
YOUR LETTERS
Honouring those who are gone, but not forgotten
A year ago we lost our beloved Noah Bear at 22 to an accidental gunshot wound, and three days later we lost precious Miranda at 37 to ovarian cancer. The family just held a potlatch for both. On the drive to the potlatch house, I told my mother I hoped that the potlatch would help, even a little, because the shock and the pain had not dissipated at all. I’d mentioned that I just can’t see getting over this. She said the pain does not wear off. We’d lost dad seven years ago and she told me it took her five years to even begin to deal with his passing. I had told two of my sisters that I was complete with dad’s passing but, this with Noah and Miranda was different, and it was not just their youth or how they passed. I said we will end up walking around with open wounds, but I had told myself that if it was for Noah and Miranda then I was OK with that.
Family friends and relatives from far and wide showed up for the potlatch. The potlatch house was filled to maximum just as Noah’s service filled the Civic Centre a year ago. The joy of seeing all the close friends and
relatives again was uplifting, with more levity than a year ago when the shock and immediacy of the passings were still at hand.
I found myself drawn to the people in the background: the kids playing, the elderly, the people I didn’t know, the workers in the hall. Regardless of what is happening in the potlatch house, they move forward. They rise in the morning to face a new day and put one foot in front of the other, moving inexorably towards the mysteries of tomorrow. It is a wondrous mixing of strong and caring people. The power of the Bah’lats is unwavering; its candles burn constant without flicker.
In one of my conversations with Noah Bear, I’d mentioned that the courts had removed our ability to protect our land. Nowadays they label us terrorists if we put up a blockade and will threaten our band’s funding if our protests go too far; thereby taking milk from our babies and food from our elders. Noah was livid. He said he wanted to recruit our best and brightest Indians to become lawyers. I said it is tough. The judges are compelled to rule against us no matter what political affiliation they are. So Noah wanted to flood the courts with Indian judges.
Noah loved his family, but he dearly loved the disenfranchised
(whom by the way, his mother , Mary, works so hard for) and all his people.
In my niece Miranda’s final days, it took all of her energy to open her eyes to me and mouth “I love you,” then she had to go back to sleep. It is the most important memory through all of this that I will cherish forever. I thank you, “Randow,” for this and I am eternally grateful and honoured to have you as a niece. Your courage and strength carried us all. We thank you so much.
The family would like to thank the Vancouver and Richmond Hospitals, the B.C. Cancer Agency and all the clinics, doctors, specialists, and nurses from Miranda’s team. We would also like to thank everyone from Fort St. James, Prince George, Vancouver and beyond for your generosity in donations to Miranda’s GoFund-Me page. We would like to thank the Go-Fund-Me site itself. I just can’t say enough about Carrier Sekani Family Services for their rock-solid support through our darkest hour. Thank you Warner, Mary, Mable, Meagen, Cindy, Lisa, Helen, and the entire staff from all the offices for your amazing work. Most of all we thank Mary for giving us Noah and Marilyne for Miranda. We love you, Miranda and Noah.
Fabian Teegee, Prince George
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a misunderstanding and neither wanted the incident to jeopardize their ongoing, positive collaboration.
In other words, just like all of our personal and professional relationships, one minor miscommunication hardly warrants dissolving a connection based on years of good will.
While the Salvation Army and the mall are maturely moving on, far too many other individuals are threatening boycotts and other ridiculous overreactions that would punish merchants and employees far more than mall administration. Instead of asking questions and being open to mistakes and misunderstandings, they leapt to self-righteous outrage. So much for peace on Earth, good will towards all.
Or as the adult Christ himself reminds his disciples in the Book of John: “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
This Christmas, let us all try to have some faith in the better angels of our nature, rather than defaulting to the cynical belief that everyone is out to get us and everything is a malicious attack.
Wishing all the best to our friends at the Salvation Army for another successful kettle campaign and our friends at Pine Centre Mall for another successful holiday retail season.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Referendum vote a difficult choice
Iwas faced with a difficult choice on the proportional representation referendum ballot: ultimately, either no or yes, and whatever system could be construed as siding with the enemy of my enemy. Since 2013, long before it was cool to be right-wing and controversial, I have been on a crusade for ideological clarity.
First past the post with centrist parties obstructs that quest but so might giving every sliver of political expression a chance to stymie necessary or annual legislation.
If you go back a couple of generations, you’ll find out that British Columbia had proportional representation, which led to all kinds of political insanity. When the Social Credit Party finally got a majority of seats through this Byzantine system, they disbanded it immediately. That might seem as partisan a move as the ballot and questions of today being offered in the midst of minority rule but clearly, first past the post stabilized our government.
Will PR do so?
Honestly, the question could not come at a worse time for the yes side, if voters bother to look at countries using PR. In Australia, learning the PM’s name is optional, because another will be along anytime thanks to political intrigue and in Europe, the consensus parties of yesteryear are losing out to more radical factions, both left and right, thanks to a minority of votes still granting them a legislative veto. For further reference, look up the Weimar Republic.
We all want our voices to be heard, but at the same time, all citizens rely on expedient and decisive government to ensure their freedom and security.
dian wages for decades, and yet it charges ever more for increasingly mediocre public services. I’m not the target voter, but I’m certain the dissatisfaction I feel for our oligarchs and their apparatchiks is shared by people of different political and cultural backgrounds. Thus, a moral choice faces us. It is unwise to make new policy based on resentment; however, with the simple stroke of a pen, we might be able to disrupt all the nefarious plans of a political class we’ve long deemed wicked and craven. Why such a near occasion of sin is being offered to us in a time of populist unrest is incomprehensible and almost beyond endurance.
Winston Churchill reminds us that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried,” so we ought to be grateful. And truly, we cannot assume that our political stability as a nation, province or town was inevitable or is eternally guaranteed. It must be guarded diligently, as we all just gathered to observe on Remembrance Day.
Indeed, PR brings up all political considerations at once: rights vs. responsibilities, order vs. liberty, the individual vs. the group, and democratic expression vs. state effectiveness.
We all want our voices to be heard, but at the same time, all citizens rely on expedient and decisive government to ensure their freedom and security. In Western civilization’s five-millenia-long struggle over these core questions, there is still room for debate.
That ought to give us pause.
On the other hand, I’m not exaggerating when I say “my enemy.”
I am exhausted with neoliberal centrism: the managerial state has kept me from starving, but it hasn’t managed to increase me-
In this vein, I voted no to PR, despite my deep-seated anger at our rulers and their ineffectual policies. They are indeed the worstexcept for all the others that might harm us if given the chance with just a few votes. And while our current system is flawed, many of these problems could begin to be solved by properly engaging voters with clear policy choices and plain or politically incorrect talk about the serious problems that our society faces. It is likely that this motion will fail and all our fretting will have been for nothing. But our leaders would do well to observe the world around them.
Political upheaval is the new norm, all brought on by voters who feel the social contract has fallen apart, or even become a weapon of the powerful against the weak. Whatever your politics, if you’re in charge, I’d reform before long.
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NATHAN GIEDE
Right of Centre
OTTAWA
Ride-hailing group critical of B.C. model
Amy SMART Citizen news service
The markets today
TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index sustained a triple-digit decline Tuesday as a big drop in oil prices pushed the TSX down more than eight per cent so far in 2018.
“I think today is a clear example of fear just gripping the market and we’re seeing just some indiscriminate selling, all exacerbated by the low volumes through the Thanksgiving week in the United States,” says Craig Jerusalim, portfolio manager at CIBC Asset Management.
Canada’s key energy sector and the financial sector that supports it took hits as oil sank to a one-year low after dropping 6.7 per cent. Trade concerns are also present heading into a meeting later this month between the presidents of China and the U.S. Jerusalim says markets are going through a valuation correction that started with the technology sector as investors are deciding to pay lower multiples given the late stage of the economic expansion and reduced growth outlook.
“It’s an example of technology caught the cold but an entire market got sick and now all the other sectors are following through the downturn that technology had,” he said in an in interview.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 194.01 points at 14,877.00. That’s down 1,332.13 points from the start of the year and 10.3 per cent below the July peak.
The only sector that gained was technology. Losses were led by energy, which dropped 2.9 per cent, followed by industrials, consumer discretionary, and financials.
The January crude contract was down US$3.77 at US$53.43 per barrel and the December natural gas contract was down 17.7 cents at US$4.52 per mmBTU. The decrease was due to concerns about the potential for gluts in oil markets, said Jerusalim. But he expects some stabilization as OPEC meets next month, shale is cutting supply and U.S. President Donald Trump could tighten restrictions on Iran.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 551.80 points or 2.2 per cent to 24,465.64. The S&P 500 index was down 48.84 points to 2,641.89, while the Nasdaq composite was off 119.65 points to 6,908.82.
The Dow and S&P 500 were down about one per cent from the start of the year, while the Nasdaq was just points higher.
VANCOUVER — A coalition of businesses and interest groups advocating for ride-hailing in British Columbia says legislation introduced this week will just create an expanded taxi industry, not the ride-hailing services that customers expect.
At the same time, one academic studying ride-hailing says the regulations proposed in British Columbia aren’t anything the industry hasn’t seen before.
Ian Tostenson of Ridesharing Now for BC said Tuesday the organization’s members are “bewildered” that the future of ride-hailing in the province remains uncertain and the government hasn’t committed to a start date for the service.
The coalition is especially concerned that the Passenger Transportation Board would have power to limit the number of drivers on the road, where they can drive, and also set rates, said Tostenson, who also represents the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association.
“For those who understand ride-sharing, I always see it as an accordion, that the consumer drives how many cars are on the road at any point in time to handle the demand,” he said at a news conference in Vancouver.
“What we heard (Monday) was a system that the transportation board is going to determine how many cars are on the road in any particular area at any particular time, which completely defeats the purpose, we think, of ride-sharing.”
Transportation Minister Claire Trevena introduced the legislation Monday, saying it balances consumer demand and public safety. It proposes to give the Passenger Transportation Board expanded powers to accept applications and set terms and conditions for licences covering taxis and ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, she said. The independent tribunal would also have the authority to set rates and determine the number and coverage areas of the services.
A legislative committee to review and make changes to the system would also be appointed, she added.
Timothy Burr Jr., director of public policy for ride-hailing company Lyft, said the company sees the legislation as a “procedural step forward” but the regulation and rule-making process will come next.
Some of the regulations proposed, such as a requirement that drivers have a class four commercial licence, would limit the company’s ability to deliver “true” ride-hailing by making it onerous for drivers to sign up and comply, he said.
“Class four ignores the reality of how true ride-sharing would work. At Lyft, over 93 per cent of our drivers drive fewer than 20 hours (per week).
“These are folks who are looking for parttime economic opportunities and they want to use Lyft as additional income,” he said.
The company is used to working with legislators and regulators in many jurisdictions and remains committed to working with the B.C.
government to bring the service to the province, he said.
But Shauna Brail, associate professor in urban studies at the University of Toronto, said British Columbia isn’t reinventing the wheel by regulating the industry.
Edmonton was the first Canadian city to regulate ride-hailing in 2016 and now 20 of Canada’s 30 largest cities have some form of regulations governing the operation of the services, she said.
“It’s possible that it’s a combination of a number of features from other jurisdictions that don’t all exist (elsewhere) as one set of regulations, but none of these are particularly brand new,” she said.
In August, New York City voted to cap the number of ride-hailing cars on the road after some studies showed congestion increased after the service was introduced, rather than decreased as expected, she said.
Brail agreed that controlling rates is more in line with the taxi industry than typical ridehailing models. But Toronto charges companies like Uber a set fee per transaction, she said.
After Uber began operating in Edmonton, it temporarily pulled its service while the city developed an insurance plan for drivers and passengers, she said.
While British Columbia has been slow to join the game, Brail said, in some ways it has had the benefit of learning from others’ experience.
“They skipped over ride-hailing 1.0 and they’re at ride-hailing 2.0,” she said.
Bank of Canada considering changes
Andy BLATCHFORD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada is studying whether it should make changes to the framework that has underpinned its policy decisions – such as interest-rate movements – for several decades.
In a speech Tuesday, senior deputy governor Carolyn Wilkins said the current inflationtargeting approach has improved the economic and financial well-being of Canadians since it was established in 1991.
But after a decade in the post-financial-crisis environment, she said it has become clear there are also down sides to the bank’s mandate of helping inflation stay close to its target of two per cent.
“Even a well-functioning monetary-policy framework deserves an open-minded discussion, particularly in the post-crisis world we live in,” Wilkins said in her address to McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy in Montreal.
“There are a couple of challenges facing our framework that mean it may not serve the economic and financial welfare of Canada in the future as well as it has in the past.”
One key issue, she noted, is that interest rates are no longer expected to rise as high as they had been before the crisis, which means there will be less room – or “conventional firepower”
WILKINS
– for the bank to cut rates in an economic downturn. The bank can cut its trend-setting rate as a way to lower the costs of borrowing and stimulate economic activity.
The bank, which has been on a rate-hiking path thanks to the stronger economy, has said it expects its benchmark rate to eventually
settle somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent, about two percentage points lower than where it was in the early 2000s.
Another concern about the current framework, Wilkins said, is that lower rates may entice Canadians and investors to take on excessive risk – leaving the economy exposed to the ups and downs of financial cycles. Long-running low-rate conditions have encouraged Canadian households to amass record levels of debt.
She said the Bank of Canada is conducting research on alternative frameworks, including a higher target for inflation and a more flexible, dual mandate that would extend the bank’s focus to also incorporate labour and other economic indicators.
The work, which is an effort with the federal Finance Department, is underway in the lead-up to the Bank of Canada’s next five-year renewal of its inflation-control agreement with the government.
The next renewal is set for 2021.
The bank will also look at how it can strengthen the options at its disposal when it comes to “unconventional” monetary policy tools, she said. During a crisis, if necessary, the Bank of Canada can provide explicit guidance for the markets ahead of rate decisions, introduce negative interest rates and launch programs such as quantitative easing.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
The Uber logo is seen in front of protesting taxi drivers at the courthouse in Montreal on Feb. 2, 2016. Ridesharing Now for BC says the ride-hailing model proposed in B.C. legislation tabled this week is more of an expanded taxi industry, rather than true ride sharing.
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T-wolves make national list
Citizen staff
For the first time in their seven-year Canada West history, the UNBC Timberwolves are nationally-ranked in women’s basketball.
U Sports – of which Canada West is a part – released its latest rankings on Tuesday and the Timberwolves were No. 10 in the country. So far this season they are a perfect 6-0, their latest victories coming at the Northern Sport Centre on the weekend against the Trinity Western University Spartans (78-77 on Friday and 83-54 on Saturday). The losses were the Spartans’ first of the season.
Three other Canada West teams are directly ahead of the Timberwolves on the national list. Saskatchewan (6-2) is seventh, Calgary (5-3) is eighth and Regina (6-2) is ninth.
Team success goes hand-inhand with individual success, and UNBC guard/forward
Maria Mongomo is an example. Mongomo, a fourth-year player from Las Palmas, Spain, was named Tuesday as Canada West first star of the week.
In the wins against Trinity Western, Mongomo hit for a total of 46 points (17 on Friday, season-high 29 on Saturday), added 20 rebounds (nine the first night, 11 the next), seven assists (three on Friday, four on Saturday) and six steals (one on Friday, five on Saturday). Mongomo now leads Canada West in points per game (average of 23.3) and is top-five in rebounds (fifth at 9.8), steals (fourth at 2.7) and field goal percentage (fifth at 53.5). She also scored her 1,000th career Canada West point over the weekend.
Terrace Kermodes player Trevor Ebeling looks to make
Mac’s tournament on horizon for resilient Cariboo club
Jason PETERS Citizen Sports Editor jpeters@pgcitizen.ca
For the Cariboo Cougars, an invitation to the world-famous Mac’s Midget AAA Hockey Tournament was far from certain. But the club found out last week that, for the 14th consecutive year, it would be on the Mac’s schedule.
The Mac’s starts on Boxing Day in Calgary and runs through Jan. 1. The tournament has been held every year since 1978 and counts some of the biggest names in the game as alumni. Among the players who have suited up in the Mac’s are Sidney Crosby, Jordan Eberle, Zach Parise, Trevor Linden, Mike Modano, Jarome Iginla and current Prince George Cougars general manager Mark Lamb.
This season in the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League, the 15- to 17-year-old Cariboo Cougars started slowly, with a 2-3-2 record through their first seven games. But a 3-2 road win against the Thompson Blazers on Oct. 20 was the beginning of a seven-game winning streak and that string of success cemented their inclusion in the Mac’s.
“Fourteen years in a row is pretty exceptional for northern British Columbia to (be represented at the Mac’s),” said Cougars general manager Trevor Sprague. “It’s a pretty prestigious tournament and it’s prestigious to us because it’s about the best midget teams in the country.”
In their own province, the Cougars have been consistently strong. Most years, they are at or near the top of the standings in the 11team BCHMML. After a Saturday tie (2-2) and a Sunday loss (3-1) in Richmond against the Greater Vancouver Canadians, they currently have a 9-4-3-0 record and are in fifth place.
The gap between them and the first-place Fraser Valley Thunderbirds, however, is just four points. It should also be noted that the Cougars have barely touched home ice so far this season. Twelve of their first 16 games have
been played in opposition rinks.
Given the Cats’ sluggish start to the year and the lack of favours from the league schedule maker, head coach Tyler Brough tips his hat to his players for making sure Mac’s organizers wanted the team in the mix once again.
“I’m not too sure if there are any teams outside of Calgary that have been (in the tournament) 14 years in a row,” he said. “It’s something to be proud of as an organization. For this year’s team, kind of from the outside looking in, we had a bit of a slow start and the last month we’ve had, winning seven in a row really put us into the tournament. It was a team goal and (the players) really battled through and pulled together.”
The Cougars have enjoyed recent success at the Mac’s. They were tournament champions for the first time in 2015 when they defeated the Regina Pat Canadians 2-1 in double overtime in the final. In 2016 and 2017, they made
They were tournament champions for the first time in 2015 when they defeated the Regina Pat Canadians 2-1 in double overtime in the final.
it to the semifinals but lost to the Lloydminster Bobcats and Belarus National Under-17 team respectively. At the 2018 Mac’s, the Cougars finished with a 1-2-1 record and missed the playoffs.
The 2019 Mac’s schedule has not yet been released. Before the Cougars leave for Calgary, they have eight more league games, starting with two this weekend in Nanaimo against the North Island Silvertips. The Cats will finally be back in the comfortable confines of Kin 1 on Dec. 1-2 when they host the Vancouver Northwest Hawks. Then will come Dec. 8-9 games in Langley and Delta against the Valley West Giants and Dec. 15-16 home contests against the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds.
• The Cariboo Cougars minor midget team was in Chase on the weekend and posted a 2-1 record against the Thompson Blazers. The Cougars won 3-2 on Friday, lost 5-2 on Saturday and won 4-3 on Sunday. In the standings, the Cougars are second with a 9-2-1-0 record and the Blazers are fifth at 6-4-1-1.
Next league games for the Cougars are Dec. 7-9 at Kin 1 against the Thunderbirds.
• The Northern Capitals of the B.C. Hockey Female Midget Triple-A League will be back in their skates on Friday at Kin 2 (6 p.m.) for the start of a three-game series against the Thompson Okanagan Lakers. The teams will play again Saturday at 5:45 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m.
The Capitals (4-7-1-0) and Lakers (0-9-1-0) are fourth and fifth in the five team league.
Polars’ season ends with playoff loss at B.C. Place
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Time ran out Saturday on the injury-riddled Prince George Polars football team.
The Polars suffered a season-ending 47-6 loss to the Holy Cross Crusaders of Surrey in a Subway Bowl double-A varsity quarterfinal playoff on the indoor carpet at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver.
The Northern Conference-champion Polars, who relied on quarterback Braden Reed and his scrambling ability that allowed him to score 10 touchdowns in the previous two playoff games, lost a war of attrition to a healthier Crusader squad that had strength in numbers.
Three key senior cogs in the Polars offence were either sidelined or on the limp for Saturday’s game. They lost fullback Gage Ridland to a broken collarbone in the last regular-season game. Gavin Murray, their starting running back and backup quarterback, was on crutches after he went down with a knee injury last weekend early in the Polars’ wild-card playoff win over South Kamloops. Running back Sean Bernard was also hobbled with knee injuries but played Saturday.
“We were right in it, we did well in the first half – our running game wasn’t as good as it normally is but we held them – and
When the other team scores a couple touchdowns, mentally you start checking out and unfortunately that’s what happened.
— Polars head coach Pat Bonnett
at halftime it was 14-6,” said Polars head coach Pat Bonnett.
“The (final) score is not reflective of our ability. It’s more reflective of the fact we were hampered by injuries, we got tired in the second half and because of those factors we kind of tuned out for the last half of the game.”
Reed did his best to carry the team on his back like he did in the previous two games but hurt his ankle in the second quarter with the Polars within a point of the Crusaders. Mark Vohar filled in for Reed’s spot on defence at linebacker. After getting his ankle taped, Reed came back into the game and was able to finish, but his injury limited the Polars’ options on offence. They still managed to rush the ball 200 yards – about half of the total ground gains they averaged
in their games this season.
The Polars scored their only touchdown in the first quarter after Vohar moved the ball 30 yards on a pass from Reed. Reed then ran it in from six yards out and the Polars trailed 7-6. In the second half, Holy Cross had sufficient numbers to keep its offensive and defensive lines separate and stocked with fresh bodies. That and a few big plays weighed against the Polars and turned the game decidedly in the Crusaders’ favour as they reeled off 33 unanswered points.
“I kept telling the guys at halftime ‘We’re in this game, we can compete with these guys and I know we can win,’ but in the second half mentally we just blew it and physically we were just tired,” said Bonnett. “They kept putting out whole units, a different line for offence and defence, and we were just leaving the same guys out on the field and I think that’s what wore us down.
“When the other team scores a couple touchdowns, mentally you start checking out and unfortunately that’s what happened. There were a good half-dozen guys who would have been first-stringers who, for whatever reason, they decided not to continue and the guys tried to recruit them but there were other sports they felt allegiance to. If we had those six or 10 guys, whatever it was, we’d be going back down there (this) week for sure.”
Holy Cross came into Saturday’s game having won four of its five games this season. Jack Laurin, a Grade 11 running back, scored three touchdowns for the Crusaders, who advanced to the semifinal round Saturday against Robert Bateman of Abbotsford. John Barsby faces Vernon the other semifinal Saturday at B.C. Place.
Regardless of the outcome, playing in the home of the B.C. Lions was a thrill for the Polars and while Bonnett felt for his 14 Grade 12 seniors, who wrapped up their high school careers Saturday, the game planted a seed in the younger players. He hopes they will stick with the game long enough to return to the provincial playoffs and get another taste of playing at B.C. Place Stadium.
“There were five guys who went down there as juniors, two Grade 9s and three Grade 10s,” said Bonnett. “Now they can come back to PGSS and tell their teammates for two or three years, ‘It’s fun going down to Vancouver and it’s great going into the stadium and we can compete.’”
In a junior varsity semifinal this afternoon in Kamloops, the North Division-champion College Heights Cougars will take on Windsor of North Vancouver.
The winner will advance to the junior varsity Subway Bowl final Dec. 2 against the winner of today’s G.W. Graham-John Barsby semifinal.
a play from behind the net while being chased by Brody Hipkiss of the Fort St. John Flyers on Sunday at Kin 1. The Kermodes and Flyers met in the championship game of the Coast Inn of the North Cougars Midget Tier 2 hockey tournament. The Kermodes won 4-1.
SPRAGUE
Sports Green hits winning bucket in final second
Citizen news service
ORLANDO, Fla. — Danny Green watched helplessly from the paint while Evan Fournier dribbled past and dunked a tying basket with 2.3 seconds left.
Feeding off the confidence of first-year coach Nick Nurse, Green got redemption on the very next play.
Green made a fade-away jumper with less than a second remaining to lift the Toronto Raptors over the Orlando Magic 93-91 on Tuesday night. He caught Kyle Lowry’s inbound pass with 2.3 seconds left, pulled up on the left side of the lane and hit a jumper with 0.5 seconds showing. Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic missed on a 67-foot heave as time expired.
“Most coaches wouldn’t go to a guy who makes a mistake at that point in the game, but Nick has 100 per cent faith in all of us,” Green said. “He continues to encourage us and allows us to play through our mistakes. It was nice to make one after missing quite a few the whole game.”
Kawhi Leonard led Toronto with 18 points, and Pascal Siakam had 15. Serge Ibaka added 14 points and nine rebounds, and Green finished with 13.
Fournier led the Magic with 27 points, 22 of them in the second half when he was about the only offence Orlando could generate. Aaron Gordon had 16 points, and Vucevic had 14 points and 18 rebounds for the Magic, who ended a three-game winning streak.
Both sides struggled offensively much
Venus settles fatal crash lawsuit
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)
— Tennis star Venus Williams has settled a wrongful death lawsuit related to a fatal car crash in Florida, court records show.
Palm Beach County court records show that the case was closed Friday. Terms of the agreement between Williams and the estate of Jerome Barson, 78, weren’t included in the documents.
Palm Beach Gardens police previously cleared both Williams and Barson’s wife, Linda, in the June 9, 2017 crash that fatally injured Barson. A police report said an unidentified third vehicle illegally cut off Williams as she tried to cross a busy six-lane highway near her home, setting off a chain of events that ended with a sedan driven by Linda Barson, 68, slamming into the passenger side of Williams’ SUV.
Jerome Barson died 13 days after the crash, and his wife suffered a broken arm and other injuries. Williams, 38, was not hurt.
Williams has career on-court earnings of about $40 million, her own clothing line and endorsement deals with Ralph Lauren, Kraft foods, Tide detergent and Wilson sporting goods. She also owns a small percentage of the Miami Dolphins. Attorneys for Williams and the Barsons didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
of the game, especially the fourth quarter. Toronto committed eight turnovers in the final period, and Orlando missed 11 straight field-goal attempts during a rough fourminute stretch.
Some of that had to do with the defence.
“Our defence was unbelievable the first 24 minutes and the last 12,” Nurse said. “We were an absolute disaster in the third quar-
ter, but some of that was our offence’s fault.”
The Magic outscored the Raptors 38-26 in the third quarter to wipe out what had been an 18-point deficit. Orlando led 77-75 early in the fourth quarter before missing 11 straight field-goal attempts. Its only points during that time were two free throws from Jonathan Isaac.
“The story of the game was the first six
minutes of the fourth quarter,” Magic coach Steve Clifford said. “We did a good job fighting at the end and that last shot was a difficult shot and he just knocked it in.”
Toronto didn’t take much advantage of the drought. The Raptors could only put together a three-pointer from Green and a layup by Jonas Valanciunas during that stretch to take an 80-77 lead. The teams traded baskets from there until Ibaka drilled a jumper from the top of the key to put Toronto in front 91-89. Toronto led by 18 during a first half when both teams struggled to find or maintain an offensive rhythm. The Raptors made enough shots to jump out to a 40-22 advantage in the middle of the second quarter, as Orlando laboured with under 30 per cent shooting.
Fournier started the second half with a three-pointer, the first of six in the period for the Magic. Another three from Fournier tied it at 59 with 5:05 left, and his free throw gave Orlando a 75-73 lead going into the fourth. Fournier had 14 points in the quarter.
Vucevic getting noticed
Vucevic is averaging 25.5 points and 11.7 rebounds the past six games, including five Orlando victories.
“He’s playing better than I’ve ever seen him play,” Nurse said. “It used to be he’d get 20 and 12 or something and it was like you didn’t even notice or it didn’t matter. But now, it’s in the rhythm of what they’re doing. He’s got this look on his face that says give me the ball and I’m going to score it.” UP NEXT Raptors: Finish a four-game road trip at Atlanta tonight. Magic: Start a six-game Western Conference swing in Denver on Friday night.
NHL coaches dropping like flies
Citizen news service
Following a rare season without any coach firings, NHL teams have been quick to drop the axe in 2018-19.
The decision by the Edmonton Oilers to sack head coach Todd McLellan on Tuesday marked the fourth change behind the bench of the young campaign as struggling clubs look to shake things up.
McLellan joins John Stevens (Los Angeles Kings), Joel Quenneville (Chicago Blackhawks) and Mike Yeo (St. Louis Blues) as coaches handed their walking papers this month. The dismissals of Yeo and McLellan came less than 12 hours apart, with both of their former clubs finding it difficult to gain traction.
The four moves come in stark contrast to the 2017-18 campaign when no coaches were fired in-season for the first time in more than 50 years.
Edmonton general manager Peter Chiarelli said after hiring Ken Hitchcock to replace the deposed McLellan that parity across the NHL – one or two points can be the difference between making or missing the playoffs – is part of the reason for so much movement a quarter of the way into the schedule.
“You win a couple games and you’re back in it,” Chiarelli said. “I just felt it was time.”
“Unfortunate as it is, that’s the way it’s trending,” he continued later. “All of us like parity in the league... the margins are thin and you look for edges.”
St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong echoed those sentiments in explaining his decision to replace Yeo with associate coach Craig Berube on an interim basis a few days before U.S.
Thanksgiving. The holiday south of the border is often viewed as an unofficial measuring stick for teams in the playoff chase.
“Ultimately, it comes back to our record,” Armstrong said. “When (Yeo) came in, he was able to jell the team and we went on a nice run. We won a playoff round. We had a good feeling about ourselves.
“That carried over to the next 25 games of (last) season. Then we hit a rut in December and quite honestly we haven’t gotten out of it.”
Big expectations and GMs starting to feel some heat of their own are common threads in the four coach firings.
Edmonton is led by superstar captain Connor McDavid, but had lost six of seven in regulation heading into Tuesday’s game in San Jose against the Sharks.
While the Oilers missed the playoffs in two of McLellan’s three seasons in charge, he was far from the only one responsible for the franchise’s issues.
For his part, Chiarelli has made a number of questionable personnel decisions – dealing away Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, and signing Milan Lucic among them – that have failed to give McDavid the support he needs.
Armstrong remade the Blues’ forward group this summer by dealing for Ryan O’Reilly and signing Tyler Bozak, Pat Maroon and David Perron in free agency after watching his team miss the playoffs by a point last season.
But St. Louis – which has lost four of five, including consecutive shutout defeats that sealed Yeo’s fate – sits 30th in the overall standings, two points up on last-place Los Angeles. Edmonton, meanwhile, entered Tuesday in 26th.
“I’m not absolving myself of any responsibility with regards to the team and its current performance or the current slump we’re in,” Chiarelli said. “The same goes for players – they shouldn’t be absolving themselves either.”
One difference in Chicago and Los Angeles is at least those teams have enjoyed recent success.
Quenneville won three Stanley Cups in his 10-plus seasons with the Blackhawks, while the Kings won titles in 2012 and 2014, albeit before the promotion of Stevens to head coach.
Salary cap constraints have forced Chicago to repeatedly remake itself around Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith.
“We need to maximize each and every opportunity with our playoff goals in mind and create continued growth and development throughout our roster at the same time,” Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman said in a statement after firing Quenneville.
Los Angeles also still consists of top-end talent with Hart Trophy finalist Anze Kopitar, Norris Trophy-winning defenceman Drew Doughty, as well as forwards Jeff Carter and Ilya Kovalchuk.
But like the Oilers, the Kings haven’t got enough from their supporting cast.
“You look at training camp and you look at the regular season to where we are now,” Los Angeles GM Rob Blake said when Stevens was shown the door. “The expectations have not been met.”
The Oilers and Sharks were tied 3-3 in the third period at The Citizen’s press deadline on Tuesday night.
AP PHOTO Danny Green of the Toronto Raptors, second from right, celebrates his game-winning shot against the Orlando Magic with teammates Pascal Siakam, Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry on Tuesday night in Orlando, Fla.
Lundgren happy to flex acting muscles in Creed II
PHILADELPHIA — Being cast as the villain Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV launched Dolph Lundgren’s acting career. But he had a brainier path if that didn’t work out.
The 61-year-old actor holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering and was on a Fulbright scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when Stallone cast him as Drago for the 1985 Rocky sequel.
Lundgren doesn’t regret trading academia for those red boxing trunks with the gold stripes, though he wishes his character had a few more coherent lines.
“It felt really surreal, and, at the same time, it felt like a big moment for me in my career as a person, because that character started my whole career and it’s been a great thing for me. But it’s also kind of been a negative in one way because the guy was such a monosyllabic guy,” Lundgren said.
“He was a robot.”
This month, Lundgren reprises the role of Drago in Creed II, as much a sequel to the previous
film as it is to Rocky IV. Lundgren remains grateful to Stallone, not only for casting him in the first place, but for bringing him back in a heartier, more substantial role.
“I got a chance to play a guy who was a real person and who has real problems, especially a father-son relationship. When I see fatherson relationships in movies, it always gets me emotional. And I had a chance to be part of that,” Lundgren said.
Back in Rocky IV, Drago kills Apollo Creed in the ring, only to lose to Rocky Balboa. But he loses much more than a match.
In Creed II, we learn he is living in squalor after the embarrassing loss. He is raising his son Viktor, played by Florian Munteanu, to be a boxer and is seeking revenge on Rocky by getting his son to fight the son of the man he killed.
Munteanu said he felt a bond with Lundgren. “It’s an honour to play his son,” he said. “He wanted to create a father-son relationship right from the beginning.”
Lundgren had a unique trajectory that led him to the big screen. He was an engineering student in Melbourne, Australia, when he met actress Grace Jones. While
dating, she took him to New York and introduced to him people like Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson. It didn’t hurt that he was a karate champion when Stallone discovered him.
Since then, he’s had a busy action-movie career, which includes The Expendables trilogy, portraying He-Man in Masters of the Universe, and the upcoming Aquaman. Still, he admits to soul searching when it came to his career path.
“‘Why did I quit MIT? Why didn’t I continue with engineering? Why did I become an actor?’ And it took me a while,” Lundgren said.
Now he’s at peace with his acting decision: “Whether I’m a good guy or a bad guy, it makes them feel something, and it brightens up their lives. That’s kind of what my part in this earth has been, I guess.”
This time around, there wasn’t a lot of action scenes for Lundgren, and he was fine with that. But he did get in shape to play Drago, who he describes as “one of those guys who’s always in shape.”
“No matter how much vodka he drinks, he’s going to go to the gym,” Lundgren said.
Wreck-it Ralph sequel has style, heart
Kristen PAGE-KIRBY Citizen news service
Six years ago, the animated feature Wreck-It Ralph gave us a little girl with a talent for racing cars and a giant man with a gift for smashing buildings. They met and formed a relationship built on mutual respect, admiration and a fondness for fart jokes.
As the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet begins, not much has changed in this relationship. And therein lies the problem – at least for one of them.
The videogame characters Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) spend their days doing their jobs at Litwak’s Arcade, and their evenings hanging out at the bar from the game Root Beer Tapper or racing motorcycles in Tron. Ralph is perfectly happy with this arrangement; Vanellope is restless. Her game, a candysaturated racing game titled Sugar Rush, has become a predictable slog.
When Ralph attempts to spice things up, the game’s controller – a steering wheel – gets broken and the game is unplugged. That means that all of the sugar-based characters have to flee, like so many Red Dye 40-coated refugees. There’s only one replacement wheel left, and it’s on eBay.
So Ralph and Vanellope use the arcade’s newly-installed WiFi network to travel into the internet to win the online auction.
Like in Incredibles 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet illustrates just how far computer animation can advance between one movie and its sequel. (Admittedly, Incredibles 2 had 14 years to improve its game). Now, you can make out the individual threads hanging from Ralph’s shirt sleeves, and the fuzziness of Vanellope’s sweater. But it’s not just on the micro level that the images pack a punch.
The Metropolis-style world of the internet – which features mostly real-life companies, including Snapchat, Google and Pinterest –
Creed II plays it safe, lacks original’s punch
Ann HORNADAY Citizen news service
In the annals of potentially disastrous spinoffs, Creed surely stands as an all-time champion. Directed with finesse and sensitivity by Ryan Coogler – who famously went on to make the blockbuster Black Panther – the 2015 drama had it all: a classically contoured boxing story, a strong emotional core, rich, deeply felt atmosphere and a strikingly good cast led by Michael B. Jordan.
Creed II is a respectable if not revelatory sequel to the sequel, even if it lacks its predecessor’s grace and narrative texture. This installment finds Jordan’s Adonis Creed the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, and getting ready to propose to Bianca (Tessa Thompson), the beautiful neo-soul singer with whom he lives in Philadelphia. Still haunted by the absence of his father Apollo – who met his death at the merciless hands of Ivan “I will break you” Drago in Rocky IV –Adonis barely has time to recover from his championship bout when he’s challenged by Ivan’s son Viktor (Florian Munteanu), a grudge match that possesses all the mythical overtones suggested by the Creed family names.
“It all feels so Shakespearean,” a fight announcer says at one point, and indeed, Creed II, which was directed by Steven Caple Jr. from a script by Sylvester Stallone and Juel Taylor, leans heavily into the larger-than-life dimensions of Adonis’s struggle, even as it pays close attention to the subtleties at play in his domestic life. Taking the protagonists from Philly to Los Angeles and finally to Moscow, Creed II juxtaposes pummeling action sequences with tender scenes between Adonis and the whispervoiced Bianca, as well with as his quietly perceptive mother, played in a lovely, understated performance by Phylicia Rashad. His trainer Rocky Balboa, played by Stallone in a sad-eyed, punchdrunk turn that’s somehow modest and self-serving at the same time, still visits his late wife’s grave, in between delivering slurred sermons to his protege about guts, heart and what’s really worth fighting for.
is a swirling, infinite city that combines a technological sheen with a frenetic pace. It also appears that Ralph and Vanellope have entered a version of the internet where the parental filters are firmly on, as the more adult elements of the web are nowhere to be found.
Co-directed by Phil Johnson and Rich Moore, Ralph Breaks the Internet looks great. But it’s the script (co-written by Johnston and Pamela Ribon) that gives it its heart. Like many buddy-movie series, the first Ralph was about getting the gang together; the second is about what happens when the buddies break apart.
Vanellope finds what feels like a home in a gritty racing game presided over by a lanky driver named Shank (Gal Gadot, in the movie’s one voice performance that falls flat).
Staying there, however, would mean leaving Ralph behind.
Watching her try to balance her own happiness with that of her friend’s feels like a very heartfelt, very real dilemma, thanks to Silverman’s performance, which has only gotten more powerful since the first film. Ralph may get top billing here, but this new story belongs to Vanellope.
Ralph and Vanellope’s growth in the first film was what brought them together. Here, it’s what might force them apart. In Ralph Breaks the Internet, they’re attempting to hold on to one another while also trying to let go, and the film treats that struggle with sensitivity and care (along with some flatulence jokes).
Both characters are so fully realized that, even in these often-silly surroundings, the audience can feel what’s at stake. For Ralph and Vanellope, friendship is anything but a game.
— Three stars out of four
Because Rocky still blames himself for Apollo’s death, and because Viktor has become a stone-cold killer under the tutelage of his own father Ivan (Dolph Lundgren with scowl still intact), Creed II is suffused with grim father-son drama, as well as regrets, recriminations, fierce fighting words and somber determination to vindicate past wrongs, both real and perceived. The movie sags under the weight of it all, with Stallone’s mopey speeches taking on lugubrious repetitiveness, and the plot machinations setting up Adonis as an underdog becoming increasingly painful to watch. But Creed II picks up considerably in the third act, its bluntly efficient training and fight sequences combining with a slew of callbacks, hat-tips and surprise comebacks to create a rousing and thoroughly enjoyable finale. Connoisseurs might miss the deft camera work of Creed cinematographer Maryse Alberti, as well as Coogler’s careful calibration of feeling and tone. But Caple thankfully preserves that movie’s most important element, which is a marvelous cast: Jordan, Thompson, Rashad and Stallone still express the calm, assured chemistry that characterized their first outing together. Jordan is especially impressive as a character whose toughest fight is the embrace of maturity, with all the commitments and responsibilities that entails.
Creed II may not take the franchise into thrilling new territory, but it has ensured that it lives on, bloodied but unbowed.
— 2.5 stars out of four
John CARUCCI Citizen news service
Dolph Lundgren and Florian Munteanu play Ivan and Viktor Drago in Creed II. Lundgren remains grateful to Stallone, not only for casting him in the 1985 film, Rocky IV, but for bringing him back in a more substantial role for Creed II.
JORDAN
WALT DISNEY STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES HANDOUT IMAGE
In Ralph Breaks the Internet video-game bad guy Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly, centre) and fellow misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman, right) venture into the expansive world of the internet, where they meet eBay Elayne (Rebecca Wisocky, left).
LARRY PETER NORBECK
January 24, 1945 - November 16, 2018
With broken hearts we sadly announce the sudden passing of Larry Norbeck. Larry will be dearly missed and remembered by his loving wife and best friend, Joan, daughter Dana (Andy), treasured grandsons, Koewen, Brendyn and Tyrell (Robbin). He was predeceased by his beloved daughter, Leslie in 1986, his parents, Peter and Roberta Norbeck, his mother-in-law, Kathy Melville, father-in-law, Ken Melville Sr. and brotherin-law, Ken Melville. Larry was an avid outdoorsman and competitive shooter. He was a longtime member of the Rod and Gun Club and enjoyed many days hunting and fishing with friends. He treasured many happy days at the Cluculz Lake cabin with his grandsons, swimming, fishing, picking berries, hunting for agates and reading special bedtime stories. Larry worked many years in the oil industry, involved with service stations, driving fuel trucks and running very successful bulk oil agencies for ESSO and Shell Oil. Larry’s main focus was his family, providing for them and always trying to do what was best for them. His children always
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