G2G PG, the local grandmothers to grandmothers group, danced in a Flash Mob at CNC Thursday afternoon, in preparation for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. There were other similar flash mobs put on across Canada in honour of African grandmothers who are struggling to care for millions of orphaned children with HIV and AIDS. There are roughly 14 million orphaned children by AIDS in Africa. In some countries, up to 60 per cent of these children live in grandmother-headed households. The local grandmothers group, G2G PG, began three years ago with their first fund raiser, The Bring and Buy. Since then they have hosted African grandmothers visits, fashion shows, community sings, gold tournements, film and book launches, bead making and craft workshops, paint nights, guest speakers, flash mobs and potlucks. From all of those events G2G PG has been able to raise $29,000 for African grandmothers.
Prosecutor challenges shooter’s testimony on where he got gun
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
How a man involved in an exchange of gunfire at a drug house came into possession of the shotgun he wielded has become an issue during a sentencing hearing underway at the Prince George courthouse.
Cody Aubrey Lorntsen faces up to six additional months in jail depending on how B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church decides on the matter in relation to a confrontation at a 2000-block Tamarack Street home during the early morning of Oct. 22, 2017. Video presented Thursday shows Lorntsen and three women entering the home through a side door shortly before 6 a.m. and then Lorntsen leaving a bit more than two minutes later. By then, a man had stationed himself at one end of a driveway and the video shows Lorntsen and the man firing at each other – a handful of flashes from muzzles are visible – with Lorntsen’s adversary using a car as cover. Lorntsen, who needed a cane to make his way around the courtroom, was hit in the leg. His dog, which was on a leash the whole time, was shot and killed. Michael Campbell-Alexander faces seven charges, including attempted murder and killing an animal. His case is
I acted fast and I grabbed the gun and held it... and said ‘nobody’s touching me, I wanna just leave.’ And I left out of the house and wasn’t paying attention and that’s when I got shot and panicked.
— Cody Aubrey Lorntsen
in the pre-trial stage. Lorntsen was arrested in Quesnel a bit more than a week after the confrontation and admitted to possessing a shotgun found in the stairwell of the apartment building where he had been found. But during testimony Thursday, he denied bringing it with him into the house.
Rather, he said he spotted the weapon tucked between the arm and a cushion of a couch just as Campbell-Alexander and another man began to confront him. The two had accused him of being a “ratgoof,” and suggested they mess him up, Lorntsen testified. He said he grabbed the shotgun just as
the man had looked at Campbell-Alexander, who in turn left the home through another door.
“I acted fast and I grabbed the gun and held it... and said ‘nobody’s touching me, I wanna just leave,’” he told the court.
“And I left out of the house and wasn’t paying attention and that’s when I got shot and panicked.”
Video from a day before show Lorntsen entering Wholesale Sports to buy a stock with a pistol grip. Lorntsen agreed it was the same stock on the gun he fired but maintained he bought it for someone else after dropping by the home and it just so happened to be the one he found tucked into the couch.
During cross-examination, Crown prosecutor Tyler Bowman challenged the veracity of Lorntsen’s story, saying it was “pretty convenient” and difficult to believe. He suggested Lornsten had hung onto the gun to protect himself because he knew he was at odds with some adversaries.
Lorntsen maintained he was simply lucky to come across a loaded shotgun at the right time.
“The reason why it would be loaded and stuff, because usually in a shack, like everyone would know there would be a one gun by the door,” Lorntsen also said.
“They usually have a door guy at every drug house that I’ve known.”
— see ‘THEY WERE, page 3
Remembrance Day event happening at temporary cenotaph
Citizen staff
The annual Remembrance Day ceremony takes place Sunday at the Prince George Civic Centre beginning at 9:15 a.m.
Following the traditional ceremony the parade to assemble will take place along Canada Games Way to the temporary cenotaph on Seventh Avenue, near the Terry Fox Memorial at 10:45 a.m.
After the outdoor ceremony the parade will turn back up Seventh Avenue, turn right on Quebec Street, left onto Fifth Avenue, left onto Brunswick, back to Ninth Avenue, and turn left onto Games Plaza. The review platform will be at Seventh Avenue, near Brunswick Street. Dominion Street will not be blocked to allow full access/egress for the Prince George Fire Rescue Service.
Parking will be available at the former Days Inn, with access on Quebec Street, Sixth Avenue, or Dominion Street
Parking is also available at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, city hall, and the public library. Pay parking is available at the Coast Hotel and Courtyard by Marriott, accessible parking for those with a registered tag is at the parking lot beside the Four Seasons Pool, closest to the Civic Centre. As always refreshments are available at the Royal Canadian Legion, 1116 Sixth Ave. after the ceremonies.
See Saturday’s Citizen for a special Remembrance Day feature.
Winter is coming
ABOVE: Ducks swim in an ice-free patch of water at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers on Tuesday afternoon.
LEFT: The sun breaks through frost-covered trees along Highway 16.
MPs should consult women about online conduct: Cullen
Kristy KIRKUP Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Women and social-media companies should be brought into a critical discussion about how parliamentarians conduct themselves online, says veteran Skeena–Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen.
Many MPs insist that what they say and do on social media is personal, not part of their professional lives, Cullen said Thursday, but said he simply doesn’t buy it.
Parliamentarians get training that focuses on their day-to-day interactions with other parliamentarians and staff, he said, but it doesn’t include enough material on what appropriate online
behaviour looks like.
“This aspect of liking (online images), trolling, I don’t recall it being talked about,” Cullen said after the socialmedia activity of former cabinet minister and longtime MP Tony Clement came under further scrutiny in Ottawa on Thursday, see story page 10
“It is another layer but it is striking. This is not the first online sexual story that’s happened.”
Speaking with women about patterns they observe and how they feel targeted would be valuable, Cullen said.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram could also help, he added.
“They’re dealing with this as companies and organizations and could be
a part of the conversation as to what they’ve seen,” Cullen said.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer kicked Clement out of the party caucus on Wednesday after revelations that he’d shared sexually explicit images with someone who later tried to extort him for money.
Clement issued an open letter to his Ontario constituents on Thursday to apologize to anyone who felt he crossed “online boundaries” in a way that made them feel uncomfortable, without his knowing. Clement also admitted he engaged in inappropriate exchanges during a time of “personal difficulty and weakness,” and he engaged in acts of infidelity.
Man faces child porn charges
Citizen staff
A Prince George man has been charged with possessing and accessing child pornography, Prince George RCMP said Thursday.
Tyler Evan MacDonald was arrested Oct. 24, after he was identified as the owner of a flash drive alleged to be holding images of child pornography. The item was found and turned into the detachment in June, RCMP said. He was held overnight and released on $1,000 bail.
His next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 14 when he is to elect counsel.
Horgan, Wilkinson face off over PR
Rob SHAW Vancouver Sun
VICTORIA – A much-anticipated debate between B.C. Premier John Horgan and Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson devolved into an extended 30-minute televised argument Thursday evening that political experts say offered voters little useful information.
“I’m glad it was only half an hour,” said University of Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford. “It was not terribly informative in terms of getting more details on any kind of electoral system.
“There was just a lot of yelling over the top at each other which I think people will find irritating and frustrating.”
Horgan and Wilkinson’s debate centred mainly on unanswered questions about the three electoral systems versus the potential for a new voting system to engage disenfranchised British Columbians.
“We’re talking about changing to something that’s more inclusive and representative, or sticking with a system that will produce majority governments with a minority of votes,” Horgan said.
Wilkinson focused much of his time on quizzing Horgan about specific details about the three proposed PR systems. He demanded Horgan tell the public how many MLAs would be elected under each model, as well as how many ridings would be merged and how many votes British Columbians would have on their ballots.
Horgan struggled to explain specific details, because many of the finer points remain undecided until after the referendum is com-
plete and an all-party committee of MLAs – as well as an electoral boundary commission – decide upon the ridings and formats.
“Premier Horgan is advocating a change to three different systems, two of which have never been used anywhere in the world,” said Wilkinson.
“You don’t believe we can be innovative?” asked Horgan.
“This is not a card game where you can write the rules,” replied Wilkinson.
“People want to know before they fill in that ballot how many MLAs will I have, how many votes will I have… tell us how it’s going to work. You are making the suggestion to change the system, you have to explain to people. And I haven’t heard you explain one single feature tonight.”
The mail-in referendum asks voters whether they want to keep the current first-past-the-post electoral system, or change to one of three options of proportional representation.
Ballots must be returned by Nov. 30. As of Thursday, Elections B.C. reported 2.6 per cent of almost 3.3 million registered voters had returned ballots.
Wilkinson argued that the current system has been used for decades safely and is simple to understand. Horgan rejected that argument, saying the province should use this “unique opportunity” to try something new and be comforted that a second referendum will be held two elections later if the selection is unpopular.
“I don’t think we need to keep using the telegraph, lets get modern, lets get hip,” said Horgan, who later in the debate also
accused Wilkinson of not being in touch with the youth vote by saying “if you were woke you would know prop prep is lit.”
The TV format, while short, featured several segments in which the debate simply devolved into both men speaking over each other.
“I think at this point in the evening people are saying if I’m just going to listen to one guy yell overtop of the other guy I’m going to watch Wheel of Fortune,” said Horgan.
Wilkinson appealed to the public to reject the “dog’s breakfast of abbreviations” of PR models on the ballot.
“Mr. Horgan has come along and cherry-picked three different systems out of a possible 16 or 17, he chose the three systems, people are very confused by these three options and we’re asking him tonight to explain,” said Wilkinson.
“I have more confidence in the people of British Columbia clearly than you do Mr. Wilkinson,” replied Horgan, who accused Wilkinson of pushing fear.
“I believe they will be able to work through this.”
Telford said he thought Horgan came across as positive and optimistic, even if he did struggle to answer Wilkinson’s specific questions.
“I think people who are having reservations of the systems or the options would be hoping for some clearer answers from John Horgan,” said Telford.
“But on the other hand when Wilkinson is insinuating this was all a Machiavellian plot, well John Horgan didn’t look very Machiavellian.”
‘They were probably surprised too’
— from page 1
Lorntsen said he had been on his way out of town when he happened to come across the three women and they asked him where they could buy some methamphetamine. He guided them to the house and when he got there, thought he might be able to score some himself despite a lack of money.
But Bowman contended the video showed Lorntsen “hanging back” as they got to the home with the women knocking on the door and then a window before they were let in, with Lorntsen the third to enter.
Lorntsen disagreed with Bowman’s suggestion the women had
been there before. He said the three had gone to a back room after they had all gone up the stairs and was surprised to come across Campbell-Alexander and the other man.
“They were probably surprised too,” he said.
The video showed Lornsten with a small backpack on his back and carrying a bag in one had and his other hand on the leash leading to his dog. During submissions, defence lawyer Talia Magder argued the bag was too small to hold a shotgun and Bowman disagreed.
After making his escape, Lorntsen said he wrapped his leg with some clothes from his bag and shoved the shotgun down a leg
of his pants. He said he went to a friend’s home but was told to leave so he made his way to Quesnel where he said another friend gave him a bag and some more ammunition before also turning him back out onto the street.
Much of Lornsten’s testimony contradicted the statements he gave to police, Bowman said. Lorntsen contended he was coming down on drugs, was sleeping in the bushes and was reluctant to give police the whole story because he was afraid for his life.
Submissions on sentencing in particular will be given Friday morning.
Church said she hoped to issue a decision in the afternoon.
Feds unveil plan to combat gun violence
Teresa WRIGHT Citizen news service
OTTAWA — As the Liberals begin to roll out spending on a multimillion-dollar plan to combat a rise in gun and gang violence in Canada, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer unveiled his own platform pledge to crack down on gangs, including tougher criminal penalties for gang members.
In duelling news conferences Thursday, the Liberals and Conservatives each tried to paint their own measures to combat guns and gangs as the most effective.
The Trudeau government announced a plan to spend $86 million on expanded intelligence and border-security measures for the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency – part of a five-year, $327-million funding promise made earlier this year to stop criminal gun and gang activities.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said gun violence and organized crime are serious problems in Canada and that the Liberal government’s approach is to focus on prevention, ways for gang members to get out, and enforcement – being “smart on crime” versus soft on crime.
“It takes a multidimensional approach and we all have to pull together as a coherent team,” Goodale said.
“You need the communitybased activity. You need the enhanced police activity. You need the stronger activity at the border. It is a comprehensive, coherent plan, plus you need the backup of legislation like Bill C-71,” he added, referring to the Liberals’ anti-firearms legislation, which is still making its way through Parliament.
Scheer, meanwhile, said he wants more punitive measures against gang members. He wants to impose tougher jail sentences and limit parole and bail opportunities for gang members who are repeat and
violent offenders.
“Conservatives will take action to make it easier for police to target gang members and put them behind bars, where they belong,” Scheer told reporters in Brampton, Ont. “We’re going to put an end to the revolving-door prison system and take these violent thugs off of the streets for good.”
The announcements came hours after a mass shooting in a California bar Wednesday night, in which a gunman killed 12 people and then himself.
Canada has experienced a rash of deadly gun incidents this year, including a mass shooting on Toronto’s Danforth Avenue in July that killed an 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl and injured 13 others.
This has led to calls for Ottawa to ban handguns and assault weapons, including from both Montreal and Toronto city councils.
Federal consultations on a possible ban are ongoing, Blair said, and he expects to deliver a report on the idea by the end of the year. Scheer firmly rejected a handgun ban, saying Thursday it would amount to symbolism over substance.
“It’s lazy government to ask law-abiding people to follow more laws. It’s harder, more challenging to get real criminals off the street,” he said.
CP PHOTO
Premier John Horgan and Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson following the Electoral Reform Debate at Global Television in Burnaby on Thursday.
Thanks a million!
You love us, you really love us. No, not you, reader of the print edition of The Citizen. We already know how much you love us, with your continuing support of a paid daily newspaper in Prince George. This other affection comes from online, where so many people now go in search of news (and love). Through desktop computers and mobile devices, The Citizen’s website recorded 1,168,785 page views in October. That means the stories on our website were read, in whole or part, nearly 1.2 million times.
Those page views came from 558,293 individual visits to our website, meaning that each time someone came to pgcitizen.ca for news, they usually read slightly more than two stories, spending an average of one minute and 21 seconds with each story.
There were 256,399 unique visitors to our website in October, but that really means more than a quarter of a million unique devices.
An individual could read The Citizen on his or her work computer, home computer and smartphone and that would count as three unique visitors. Still, all of those numbers point to The Citizen as Prince George’s
preferred and trusted source of local news.
The 1.2 million page views last month was the first time we crossed one million in almost three years and it was our second highest month ever. In January 2016, we squeaked past one million (1,011,612).
Our other three months higher than a million happened in March, May and July of 2014, with March holding the record at 1,365,568.
Looking back at last month, the municipal election obviously boosted our numbers but there was more interest in our coverage of the ongoing problem with discarded needles, proportional representation and the legalization of marijuana.
The biggest draw was the pipeline explosion north of the city.
In January 2016, there were also some pretty big stories making news. The first Syrian refugee famllies were arriving in Prince George, there were several high-profile court cases and Northern Gateway’s fate was still undecided. It was a tragic month, with the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, plus popular local teacher, coach and athlete Matt Pearce was mourned by his family and many friends. Meanwhile, an avalanche in McBride killed five people.
The biggest single online story that month
generated a wave of outrage just from the headline: “Man jailed for getting 11-yearold pregnant.”
Going back to March 2014, when The Citizen nearly hit 1.4 million page views, the demise of the city’s core services review, a therapy dog that died protecting its family from a bear and a story about a local baby born with a rare skin condition where even the slightest bit of friction caused painful blisters attracted plenty of traffic. People were also demanding inquiries into the deadly Burns Lake sawmill blast and missing and murdered Indigenous women. Sadly, that was the month two well-respected local women – Bea Dezell and Maryanne Arcand – passed away.
The biggest story that month was the sale of the Prince George Cougars. The Citizen’s Ted Clarke broke the story at the beginning of the month and followed it up with several other stories confirming the plans with members of the ownership group before the Brodsky family finally announced the deal.
What those months and those stories show is how much local residents care about accurate, reliable and timely local news.
When people ask us how the newspaper is doing (they often do it in a low, gentle
Drug education, rehab needed
The use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs ceased to be only an urban problem in British Columbia a few years ago. Reports of deaths from drug use have multiplied across the entire province, and the dire state of affairs is also evident in other jurisdictions in North America.
In a recent Research Co. survey, almost two-thirds of British Columbians (64 per cent) describe the situation related to opioid drugs in their community as “a major problem.” Sizable majorities of residents in every region of the province feel this way, from a low of 56 per cent in the Okanagan to a high of 75 per cent in the Fraser Valley. Gone are the days when we could label opioid drugs as a hindrance that affected only certain people in specific areas.
Last March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to tackle the opioid problem and described it as an issue that is “at the top of our preoccupations” within the context of a public health crisis. Across British Columbia, 37 per cent of residents think Trudeau has been “good” in coming up with solutions to deal with the use of prescription and nonprescription opioid drugs, while 42 per cent consider his actions as “bad.”
In July, B.C. Premier John Horgan vowed to do more to deal with the situation after 130 opioid overdoses were reported in a single day. The verdict from the public is a bit more nuanced for Horgan, with 31 per cent of residents rating his actions on this file positively and 30 per cent rating them negatively.
While British Columbians appear befuddled by the performance of political leaders, there is nothing but clarity when it comes to the types of solutions they would like to see implemented to deal with the use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs.
The most popular idea to deal with the problem at hand, supported by 90 per cent of British Columbians, is launching more education and awareness campaigns about drug use.
Over the past few months, the federal government has produced several 30-second spots that delve into issues such as prescriptions, stigma and how to help a person who is experiencing an overdose. There is nothing in particular about discussing drug use with minors, and – aside from a description of what fentanyl is – very little about other opioids that can be obtained illegally.
Another notion that is well regarded by British Columbians is the creation of more spaces for drug rehabilitation, which is supported by 88 per cent of residents. In September, the federal and provincial governments announced a $71.7 million investment in what was described as “innovative treatment options for people with substance abuse disorders.” We will have to wait to see if this investment actually leads to a reduction in drug use and abuse.
Two other ideas are also sup-
ported by majorities of residents.
Almost four in five British Columbians (78 per cent) believe it is time to reduce the prescriptions of opioids by medical professionals, and two-thirds (66 per cent) would like to set up more “harm reduction” strategies, such as legal supervised injection sites. The most contentious concept is the decriminalization of all drugs for personal use. Half of British Columbians (50 per cent) voice opposition to this course of action, while 45 per cent are supportive. As expected, the idea is best regarded in Metro Vancouver, where some government officials have advocated blanket decriminalization for years.
In August, the provincial government launched a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and retailers in an effort to recover public-health costs associated with an increase in the use of opioids. An overwhelming majority of British Columbians (72 per cent) agree with this decision. There is no political division on the legal-action question, with 81 per cent of BC New Democratic Party voters, 75 per cent of BC Green Party voters and 61 per cent of BC Liberal voters thinking the provincial government is acting appropriately. Solving this problem will not be easy, and the solutions will probably not allow governments to score political points. In spite of this, British Columbians have been clear about what can be accomplished. Educating residents and helping those who want to stop using drugs are paramount, along with reducing our reliance on opioids for ailments and saving lives in safe-injection sites.
voice of concern, as if they’re asking about dear Aunt Mertle who is on life support), we tell them more people are reading us than ever. Audience and readers has never been a problem. The challenge, of course, in the Google and Facebook world, is advertising revenue. While many newspapers have closed, many others are thriving, especially online. In the age of Trump, the Washington Post and the New York Times have seen a huge increase in online traffic and digital subscriptions. Closer to home, The Citizen’s corporate owner, Glacier Media, and our sister publications in B.C. and Western Canada remain profitable due to strong, steady management.
At The Citizen, we continue to adapt and evolve, to serve our readers and advertisers in a variety of formats, from print to online to specialty magazines to special events. And we’ve got more changes in store that we’ll announce this month to give Prince George the news source it deserves. So thanks for the love, readers, in print and online. We appreciate the trust you’ve put in us and we’ll work hard every day to keep earning it.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
NDP catching up to Liberals on lack of transparency
Who’s got the most cavalier attitude toward transparency in government – the B.C. Liberals or the NDP?
The previous government was the odds-on favourite as the correct answer. But the NDP is catching up.
B.C. Liberals’ approach to the rules on documenting and preserving government records vacillated between casual disregard and open contempt.
It culminated in the triple-delete scandal, where premier’s office staff were coached in how to expunge emails permanently (or so they thought).
Over the years that attitude developed, the NDP in Opposition would express outrage about the horrible violations of the sacred principles of freedom of information.
Then they took power, and discovered what a pain it is to follow all those pesky rules.
By last spring, the Liberals in opposition were asking questions about the mass deletion of emails. They had filed requests for routine emails to and from key staff and got back nothing.
Was the new government miraculously running the province without using any form of text communication?
They were messaging, of course. They just weren’t keeping the messages, mostly by using the familiar old dodge of considering them “transitory.”
Even the minister responsible for abiding by FOI law, Citizens’ Services Minister Jinny Sims, was caught deleting and had to apologize.
Premier John Horgan eventually had to apologize for the entire government, and a new round of training was ordered on how to follow the rules. After a generalized promise to do better, the issue faded.
Until this week. Opposition Liberals returned to the theme and dwelled on the continuing absence of any government emails from a briefly appointed special adviser –Maria del Mattia.
Her specialty is communications and messaging advice and she was retained during the transition period, but left little record of her time.
Then she switched to contract work, and asked to have her government email address deleted, preferring to use her private Gmail address.
Her request was speedily approved by a deputy minister. She was no longer a civil servant, but
using private email raises a lot of Opposition suspicion. Her emails were retained – Liberals read from them in highlighting the issue. But some of them illustrate what a murky path the government is on.
“Confidential information is only being shared with me in person, not via email,” she wrote at one point. Wednesday there were more questions about how the former special adviser-turned-contractor communicated the government business she was doing.
Liberals quoted a note she sent in March to a group of communications people about setting up a group email. One of them was using a “bcndp” address. Earlier, she had discussed strategy and recommended forwarding her note to all constituency assistants and “maybe some of those Government Communications and Public Engagement folks that are doing political stuff. ” GCPE staff are normally considered to be handling government program communications, more than “political stuff,” although the line is very elastic.
The point is that all her communications – many of them benign thoughts about leadership and time management – are pinging through an assortment of government and private email users, from her private account.
Sketching out an idea for a tip of the day email, she wrote: “If we think of it as selling our agenda and helping others do the same, we can send it a bit wider and benefit from that word of mouth effect.”
Obviously, her emails still got retained and were produced on demand to the Liberals.
But they say the notes should be sent from an official account, and are crossing political-government lines.
Sims kept treading water on the issue, citing the Liberals’ miserable record on the same never-ending issue.
“We all know that good record management requires that we go through our emails and we delete the transitory emails that gunk up the system.
“The other side has the information they were looking for. There is no other story here.”
That’s what the Liberals used to say.
LES LEYNE
In the Fast Leyne
MARIO CANSECO Glacier Media
Column
NGDB doesn’t have to fish for Canadian fans
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
They have been here before, but just like no two Nitty Gritty Dirt Band albums are ever alike, no two Nitty Gritty Dirt Band concerts are ever alike.
Plus, the treat of the NGDB appearance on the CN Centre stage tonight is that this show is all on their own terms. They were here in the 1990s at the Salmon Valley Music Festival, so they had to fit into an omnibus schedule of acts. They were here again in 2001 opening for Alabama, so they were confined by the first time-slot ahead of the main act.
Tonight, they are the main cheese.
Co-founder Jeff Hanna said they get to pour some things on a little thicker when they play in these parts. Canada has always been one of this band’s best friends. They recorded their 16-song live album Live Two Five on the north side of the border for a reason. As massive as NGDB is in their home country, Canadians had an affinity for their style and material almost from day one.
“We’re grateful for that. Our Canadian fans are among our best. We’re always stoked about coming back up north,” he told The Citizen.
“There were a couple of records that were game changers for us,” he added, as he wondered out loud about why Canada and NGDB were so connected. He remembered their Plain Dirt Fashion album in particular that had a couple of songs on it “that were not singles in the States and in fact weren’t singles in Canada either but they got played a lot on (Canadian) radio. One was Face on the Cutting Room Floor and the other was Cadillac Ranch. Those became these kind of underground hits in Canada and people still respond to them like they were huge.”
Hanna said he liked watching the CMT Canada channel better than the American version because “I always felt it was a little hipper.”
Fishin’ In The Dark was also a mega-hit in Canada, and while it was indeed a No. 1 song on the U.S. country chart as well, it failed to even crack the Top 100 mainstream list in the States. Yet today it stands as a definitive song from that era and many noncountry fans consider it one of the few from the genre they admit to liking. It has become a standard. An automatic favourite. And he points at Canadian fans for getting it right away.
That was when Canada was just getting into the country music broadcasting game, and Hanna said he liked watching the CMT Canada channel better than the American version because “I always felt it was a little hipper. We’d see them playing Blue Rodeo and kd lang a lot, Prairie Oyster – I love that band – so there was something to me just a little cooler about CMT Canada.”
The Canadian attitude about country music –which is only too happy to include the sounds of Corb Lund and Colter Wall and Whitehorse and Lindi Ortega – has always been aligned with the California country sound that spawned NGDB. Hanna and co-founder Jimmie Fadden started the group in the thrust of the jug-bands that plugged in and invented folk-rock in the mid/late 1960s. Jackson Browne was an official member of their band in the earliest days. They played the same venues as John Hammond and Merle Travis and Cream. That was a scene infused with Canada – Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Kate & Anna McGarrigle –Hanna listed all these as influential players for him and the nitty-gritties back in that moment.
Nice
Horse on the rise PAGE 17
It was a place and a time that begat The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead (Hanna detects a lot of this band’s influence on today’s new but underground country acts), The Birds and Gram Parsons among many others. These bands leaned on country but rarely felt the embrace of mainstream Nashville.
There was one group that stood above all the others, for Hanna personally and within the NGDB, and it, too, was densely populated by Canadians.
“The Band, I mean sheesh. The Band was our Beatles,” he said. “They were the shit, for us, and they are still the shit. Amazing. Every one of them in that band.”
He felt an awe and privilege at being able to eventually be friends with Levon Helm of The Band, along with some others from that storied group, and after the hundreds of collaborations the NGDB has done over the years – entire albums worth – that bashfulness has extra power.
Just how influential was The Band on Hanna? He points to his son, now a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. “Jaime is named after Robbie Robertson (whose full name is Jaime Royal Robertson). He was one of my heroes. I don’t really know him; I’ve only met him a couple of times.” Hanna intends to get down to all this nitty gritty one day in book form, when he gets some time off the road.
“I can tell a story. I’ve got a tale to tell, for sure, but it’s hard. It’s like writing a song. I hate the part where I have to actually take out my pen and commit something to the page, but I do have intentions of doing that.”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and opening act Nice Horse play tonight at CN Centre.
AP FILE PHOTO Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band performs at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville, Tenn., in June
2016. Hanna and his bandmates will be on stage tonight at CN Centre.
AP PHOTO
Bo knows hockey
Bo Horvat of the Vancouver Canucks battles for a scoring chance against Boston Bruins goaltender Jaroslav Halak while being checked by defenceman John Moore on Thursday night in Boston. Horvat – with two goals and two assists – helped the Canucks to an 8-5 win.
See story on page 9.
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DONALDSON
Family ties
Donaldson rejoins hockey brethren with Spruce Kings
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Sean Donaldson says he could not have asked for a better B.C. Hockey League team to get traded to, and the feeling is mutual. The Prince George Spruce Kings are glad to have him.
Picked up two weeks ago in a deal that sent 18-year-old winger Lane Sniher and future considerations to the Trail Smoke Eaters, Donaldson joined his new teammates on the road in Langley, not far from his Vancouver home.
For Donaldson, a 17-year-old right winger, it was like rejoining his hockey family. He’s the eighth Burnaby Winter Club alumni to play for the Spruce Kings this season.
“That makes it a lot easier when you come to a new team and you’re already best friends with five or six of the guys,” said Donaldson. “I played with Nick Poisson, Tyler Schleppe and Nick Bochen last year and I know Ben Poisson, Liam Watson-Brawn and Bradley Cooper (as well as Nolan Welsh). They’re all from BWC. It’s a great place to develop and it’s great that a bunch of us ended up here.”
see ‘I COULDN’T, page 8
Five decades and counting
Teaching boxing and life skills an ongoing passion for Sponagle
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
For 52 years, Wayne Sponagle has been training athletes how to put up their dukes.
The city’s longest-serving boxing coach doesn’t do it for the money. He knows it usually costs him more than he’ll ever get back just to keep the doors open at the Spruce Capital Warriors Boxing Club.
For four days a week, from 5:15 to 7:15 p.m., Sponagle comes directly from his fulltime job as an autobody mechanic to teach the sport he grew up loving in New Glasgow, N.S.
He’s the mentor for a group of about 20 boxers aged 14-35. Most come for their nightly workouts to reap the fitness benefits and the confidence that comes with learning how to fight. They might never climb into the ring for a real-life boxing match but under Sponagle’s watch, chances are they’ll leave the gym as better people.
Spruce Capital, a member of Boxing BC, operates out of a basement workspace next to the JYSK furniture store at Brookwood Plaza on Walls Avenue and the club gets that space rent-free courtesy of Brookwood Properties owner Gary Vale, who told Sponagle it’s his gym as long as he wants it.
“People ask me, ‘Why do you keep doing it?’” said Sponagle.
“Kids never cease to amaze me and if there’s any kid who wants to learn the sport of boxing I want to make sure they get the right start.
After a year or two they have the basics, and they tell me, ‘We learn about life, Wayne.’
“Most people have no idea what someone like myself does for their kid and how boxing plays an important part in their life, whether they focus on competing or not.”
Before he moved to Prince George in 1978, Sponagle was the longtime cornerman for his brother Barry, a two-time Canadian bantamweight pro champion in the early ’70s. Wayne started the East-West Boxing Club in Prince George and came over to Spruce Capital when he moved back to the city in 1992 and has been part of the club ever since.
He’s trained the likes of Thomas Speirs, Marcus Hume, Laurie Mann, Allan Bayne, Todd Hatley and his own son George to national and international success and in 2010 was inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame.
Sponagle says he has one young boxer –Brody Beetlestone – showing plenty of promise and drive but he’s seeing fewer and fewer boxers in his gym willing to commit the time, training and travelling it takes to become regulars on the provincial scene, fighting their way to the top so they can take that next step to the national level. In fact, he says he hasn’t
Kids never cease to amaze me and if there’s any kid who wants to learn the sport of boxing I want to make sure they get the right start.
— Wayne Sponagle
seen anyone with that kind of dedication since Speirs and Hume used their Spruce Capital training as a springboard to consecutive years as national contenders and an eventual break into the world of pro boxing.
Some nights there are only three or four bodies lacing up their gloves. Other nights he’ll have 14 or 15 boxers working the speed bags, skipping rope or sparring in the ring.
“It fluctuates – some kids you see them two or three days in a row and then you don’t see them for three weeks,” he said.
“Thomas and Marcus were the last two that really got into it, they got you excited because
of their enthusiasm. For the first time in my life it’s becoming a chore to go to the gym. I’m thinking about my only great-grandchild and spending more time with him.”
Sponagle turns 73 at the end of the month. He had quadruple heart bypass surgery four years ago, just after Speirs and Hume had their last pro fights. Speirs now works as a roofer in Prince George and just bought and renovated his own house and Hume has also found success as a tradesman, now working in Calgary as a bricklayer. Both are hard workers, just like they were in the boxing ring, and Sponagle says there’s no denying the lessons they learned in the ring shaped that work ethic.
“Boxing played such an important role in their lives and it helped them get to where they are,” Sponagle said. “It gave them the tools.”
• The local sporting community is saddened by the news that longtime local boxing coach Betty Clark died Tuesday during emergency surgery. Clark, a Level 5 coach, took over the club after Sponagle left in 1988, when he moved back to Nova Scotia. She renamed it Shaolin Boxing Club and also oversaw Cobra Kickboxing, both based at the Connnaught Youth Centre.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Wayne Sponagle, now 72, gives instructions to one of his Spruce Capital Warriors boxers during a fight card in Prince George in March 2013.
Rough start
New Chicago Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton talks to his players during a timeout in the third period of the team’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday in Chicago. The Hurricanes won 4-3.
Celtics rally, top Suns in OT
PHOENIX (AP) — Kyrie Irving scored 18 of his season-high 39 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, and the Boston Celtics rallied from a 22-point deficit for a 116-109 win over the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night.
Irving scored Boston’s first six points in the extra period, and Marcus Morris finished with 17 against his former teamincluding the tying 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left in regulation off a pass from Irving.
Morris hit from the top of the arc to tie it at 100. Jaylen Brown added 17 points, all after halftime, for the Celtics. Devin Booker paced the Suns (2-9) with a season-high 38 points, and T.J. Warren had 29.
Booker scored 12 points in the fourth quarter but Phoenix couldn’t hold onto a 15-point lead to begin the final period. The Celtics ended a two-game skid, while the Suns have lost nine of 10.
Boston recovered from an ice cold start and won despite shooting 40.2 per cent from the field. The Celtics trailed by double digits for much of the second half.
Suns rookie Deandre Ayton had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Celtics coach Brad Stevens called Ayton a “special talent” when asked about the rookie. “He brings everything to the table you would think a really good player at that position brings,” Stevens said.
Section skaters trying to make national cut
Citizen staff
After months of practice, this is the stepping-stone event for a group of figure skaters from the Northern B.C. Centre for Skating.
If they do well this weekend at the BC/Yukon section championships in Coquitlam, they will move on to the 2019 Canadian Tire Canadian Figure Skating Championships in Saint John, N.B., Jan. 13-20.
Leading the way for the NBCCS is two-time national qualifier Justin Hampole, 17, now in his second season in the junior men’s category. To qualify for nationals he needs a top-three overall finish this weekend.
Skaters in the junior and senior categories have to post topthree section results to advance. Those in the pre-novice or novice categories require top-four section finishes.
The Prince George-based club has two skaters – Ally Norum and Alex Callaway – entered in the juvenile women’s un-
Team OHL dumps Russia
der-14 class, while Jayna Mason is competing this weekend in the pre-novice women’’s under-16 class.
Reece Johnson of the NBCCS is entered in the novice men under-17 competition.
All five skaters are coached by Rory Allen and Andrea Ludditt.
Allen also coaches Mitchell Dunn of the Quesnel Figure Skating Club, competing in the juvenile men’s under-14 class. Johnson and Dunn started cutting the ice Thursday afternoon with their short programs and will finish up with their free skates this morning.
Mason is in the first group of pre-novice women slated to skate their short programs today from 8 to 11:15 a.m., and will follow up with her free program Saturday starting at 8 a.m.
Hampole is on the ice for his short program at 8 p.m., and his free program is scheduled for Saturday at 8:10 p.m. Norum and Callaway are set to compete Sunday from 8 a.m. 11:05 a.m.
SARNIA, Ont. (CP) — Barrett Hayton set up one goal before scoring a highlight-reel one of his own as Team OHL downed Russia 3-1 on Thursday.
Isaac Ratcliffe opened the scoring 4:55 into the game before MacKenzie Entwistle made it 2-0 for the Ontario Hockey League squad on a penalty shot at 18:05 of the first.
Pavel Shen put Russia on the board in the last minute of the first, but OHL netminder Mike DiPietro stopped everything the rest of the way. Hayton, the No. 5 overall pick by Arizona at the 2018 NHL draft, added an insurance goal midway through the second on a one-man rush. The 20-year-old centre crossed the blue line and toe dragged the puck past defenceman Artyom Volkov before deking to the backhand an lifting the it over a sprawled-out Daniil Tarasov in the Russian net.
DiPietro made 18 saves for the win as Tarasov stopped 20 of 23 shots in a losing cause.
The win gives the Canadian Hockey league a 2-1-0 record in the six-game Canada Russia Series after the Western Hockey League team split the first two games in B.C.
Team OHL will host Russia again on Monday in Oshawa. The series wraps up with two games against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League selections on Nov. 13 and 15.
CHL teams have now played to an overall record of 63-23-7 since the series began in 2003.
‘I couldn’t be happier here’
— from page 7
Donaldson comes highly touted, having already locked up an NCAA scholarship with the University of Connecticut in 2020. He earned a reputation as a goal-scorer in his two seasons with the BWC. Last year with the Prep team he scored 36 times and had 30 assists for 66 points in 34 games. The year before that on the BWC Elite 15s he turned in a 20-goal, 37-point season.
“He has a real good knack for the net and that’s what we need, we need guys who can step up offensively and he certainly has that nose to go to areas where the puck goes,” said Spruce Kings head coach Adam Maglio. “I think has a good level of compete, too, and when he’s pushed he takes his game to the next level, so we’ve been happy with him and it will be nice to have him back Saturday.”
The 17-year-old Donaldson played two games in his first week as a Spruce King and spent the following week practicing, then got back on the road for an Interior Division tour that started in Trail. He scored against his old team in a 5-2 win and collected his second goal as a Spruce King the following night in a 4-1 win in Wenatchee, but drew a four-game suspension in that game for high hit into the boards on Wild defenceman Chad Sasaki and hasn’t played since. Donaldson will serve out his sentence when he sits out tonight’s game at Rolling Mix Concrete against the Langley Rivermen. He’ll draw back into the lineup for the rematch against the Rivermen on Saturday.
“I think it was a good start for me and I want to keep building off that, it all starts in the defensive zone for me,” said Donaldson. “I bring energy and compete to my game and I’m a little on the offensive side but I play a 200-foot game.”
He had a goal and four assists and 14 penalty minutes in 13 games with the Smoke Eaters before he requested the trade.
“It just wasn’t the place for me, I kind of felt out of place there so I asked for a trade and we went home for a couple days and I couldn’t be happier here,” he said. “I think we have a group here that’s going to go really deep (in the playoffs), it’s great to win games.”
The Spruce Kings have done that often this season, compiling a 14-6-0-1 record which leaves them five points behind the first-overall Chilliwack Chiefs (177-0-0), having played three fewer games than the Mainland Division leaders.
Donaldson says his suspension served as a reminder what not to do on the ice in the heat of the moment.
“I was just going in hard and finished my check on the numbers and I learned from it,” he said. “They’re pretty tight on checking from behind so that’s four games. It’s been tough but there’s always some positives from that.
“The coaches said to me I can always work on stuff while they’re playing and get in better shape with extra workouts and you can watch the game and learn. You can sit here and dread on it for two weeks or get better. I’ll be ready for Saturday.”
The Spruce Kings beat the Rivermen 2-1 on Oct. 20 in Langley, the last time the teams met. Prince George also scored a 4-3 win in Langley on Sept. 29.
“They work hard, they’re a hard forechecking team and they finish their hits,” said Maglio. “You have to be on your toes, they try and create turnovers on the forecheck and capitalize on that. They’ve struggled a bit offensively but they have real good goaltending, (Braedon) Fleming’s been really good for them. You have to get bodies in front of him and find loose pucks, he’s been good against us for two years now.”
The Kings have had to adjust their lineup slightly with winger Corey Cunningham out with a concussion he sustained last Saturday in the game against Penticton. The Kings learned winger Spencer Chapman will need hip surgery and is out for the season. Defenceman Brennan Malgunas – out since the start of the season with an undisclosed illness – has been practicing with the Kings.
Tandy nails win at Canadian trials
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
National biathlon team veteran Megan Tandy served notice she’s ready to represent Canada this season on World Cup stage.
The 30-year-old from Prince George won the women’s sprint race at the Canadian team trials Thursday in Canmore, Alta. She finished the 7.5-kilomtetre course in 21 minutes 17.5 seconds. Tandy shot clean in her prone round and missed just one of five targets while standing.
Rosanna Crawford of Canmore was second, 5.7 seconds behind Tandy, while Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon, was third, 21.2 seconds off the pace.
Sarah Beaudry of Prince George, 24, placed fourth, 24.1 behind Tandy, her Caledonia Nordic Ski Club compatriot. Emily Dickson, 21, a Caledonia club member from Burns Lake, was seventh
In Tuesday’s sprint, Tandy ended up second, 22.8 seconds behind Megan Bankes of Calgary. Tandy had one miss in her standing bout. Dickson was sixth.
Beaudry did not race.
In the men’s 10 km sprint Thursday, Nathan Smith won it in 24:02.7 with just one miss in the prone shooting round. Christian Gow of Canmore was second (4.2 seconds behind), Aidan Millar of Canmore was third (35.7).
Matt Neumann of Prince George placed 12th (2:01.1). He missed three of his standing targets. The 30-year-old Neumann finished 16th on Tuesday.
Christian Gow edged his brother Scott on Tuesday, winning by 47.9 seconds.
The trials will determine Canada’s teams for the IBU World Cup, IBU Cup and IBU Junior Cup circuits for the first race segment, starting in late November.
Christian Gow and Crawford are pre-qualified for World Cup spots.
Last winter, Tandy qualified for her third Olympics and was in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where she finished 57th in the sprint, but developed a chest infection and was too sick to race for the rest of the Olympic competition.
She gave up her spot in the individual race to Beaudry, who finished 29th.
AP PHOTO
Horvat leads Canucks past Bruins
Citizen news service
BOSTON — The Vancouver Canucks keep on showing that they are the surprise of the Western Conference.
Bo Horvat had two goals and two assists and the Canucks extended their winning streak to five games with an 8-5 victory over the Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
“There is a lot of resiliency in this room,” Horvat said. “We played a pretty good game in Detroit and after a tough loss like that to come back shows a lot. In preseason, people didn’t think we were going to be that high-scoring of a team, but we keep proving people wrong and that’s what we need to continue to do.”
Canucks 2017 first round pick Elias Pettersson, despite notching an assist, built on his rookie scoring lead, giving him 17 points on the season. He is a big part of the reason the Canucks seemed to have made significant strides to start the season.
Loui Eriksson added two goals and an assist and spurred a five-goal outbust in the second period for Vancouver. Ben Hutton and Erik Gudbranson each had a goal and an assist, and Antoine Roussel and Jake Virtanen added goals for the Canucks, who have scored 26 goals in the last five games.
“I had some puck luck today probably,” Eriksson said. “We know we have some young guys playing, and they are still learning, but they are handling their situations and responding well.”
Jake DeBrusk scored twice, Patrice Bergeron, Matt Grzelcyk and Danton Heinen added goals, and David Krejci finished with three assists for Bruins. Boston lost for the second time at home this season and has dropped three of five overall.
Jaroslav Halak came into the game leading the NHL in save percentage, but was pulled after allowing five goals on 19 shots. His replacement, Tuukka Rask, didn’t do much better, allowing three goals on the first eight shots he faced, including a misplay of a clearing attempt that led to the Canucks’ seventh goal.
mark, Halak allowed another pair of goals 1:30 apart for a 5-3 lead at 14:53.
“Pucks just found a way tonight,” Halak said. “Goalies have to have a short memory, so we need to regroup quickly and get ready for two tough games this weekend.”
Eriksson and Hutton responded for Vancouver by scoring in a 1:26 span, and Vancouver moved ahead 3-2 at the 8:28 mark.
“I was just trying to keep it under 10,” Rask said sarcastically. “Just trying to do damage control as it was kind of a crazy game.” Bergeron gave the Bruins their only lead of the game, 2-1 at 0:36 of the second, when he beat Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom made 23 saves in his sixth start of the season.
After DeBrusk tied it 3-3 at the 11-minute
Fleury, Homan, Gushue qualify for Tour Challenge playoffs
Citizen news service
THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Tracy Fleury of East St. Paul, Man., topped Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay, Ont., 5-3 on Thursday in ninth round-robin draw of the Tour Challenge.
Fleury’s rink of third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish, continued its solid start to climb to a 3-0 record and clinch a playoff spot with one group game remaining Friday against Winnipeg’s Darcy Robertson.
The Tour Challenge is the third event of the Grand Slam of Curling season and features the largest field in the series with 60 teams split into two tiers of action.
Tier 1 includes 15 of the top men’s teams and 15 of the top women’s teams from around the world.
Both Tier 2 divisions are composed of the next 10 teams ranked on the World Curling Tour’s Order of Merit plus five teams from within the event’s region.
Ottawa’s Rachel Homan (3-0) qualified for the playoffs by scoring four in the sixth end to defeat Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., 7-2. Einarson’s squad (3-1) wrapped up round-robin play a day early and had already secured a place in the quarterfinals.
Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones improved to a 2-1 record with a 6-5 victory over American Nina Roth (2-1).
Cory Christensen, also from the United States, stole one in the extra end to edge Edmonton’s Chelsea Carey 8-7. Both teams are still in the mix with 1-2 records.
Defending men’s champion Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., is 3-0 and qualified for the playoffs with a 6-1 win over Jason Gunnlaugson of Morris, Man. Gunnlaugson dropped to 0-3.
Round-robin play wraps up Friday with the top eight teams overall in each division qualifying for Saturday’s quarterfinals. The semifinals are set for Saturday evening with all finals scheduled for Sunday.
“The prior two years I don’t know if we had the resiliency,” Gudbranson said. “A goal goes in, something bad happens and doubt would creep in, but mentally we are much stronger this year.”
Nikolay Goldobin and Markus Granlund each added two assists for the Canucks who swept the season series from Boston.
NOTES: Canucks forward Brock Boeser was sent home to see a specialist regarding his groin injury. ... David Backes returned to the Bruins lineup after missing seven games. ... Boston scored more than three goals for the second time in 10 games. ... Eriksson played from 2013-16 with Boston, racking up 62 goals and 147 points. ... Horvat’s four points tied a career high.
UP NEXT
Canucks: Visit the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
Bruins: Continue homestand Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Big night for Big Ben
Citizen news service
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers aren’t playing like a team missing Le’Veon Bell.
Ben Roethlisberger threw for 328 yards and five touchdowns, James Conner ran for 65 yards and a score before leaving late with a possible concussion and the Steelers pounded the Carolina Panthers 52-21 on Thursday night for their fifth straight victory.
Antonio Brown added eight receptions for 96 yards – including a 53-yard touchdown in the second quarter – to cap an eventful day that began with the star wide receiver being cited for reckless driving after police clocked Brown’s Porsche driving over 100 mph down a busy highway in the northern city suburbs.
While Bell – a three-time Pro Bowl running back who still hasn’t signed his one-year franchise tender – tweeted his thoughts as he watched on television, the Steelers (6-2-1) rolled on without him. Bell has until next Tuesday to sign a contract if he wants to play this season.
The Panthers (6-3) saw their three-game
winning streak come to an abrupt halt in a city where they’ve never won. Carolina fell to 0-4 all-time in Pittsburgh and was never really in it after the Steelers scored 21 points in the game’s first 11 minutes. Cam Newton completed 23 of 29 for 193 yards and a pair of flips to Christian McCaffrey that the second-year running back turned into scores but Newton’s showdown with Roethlisberger never materialized. The Steelers sacked Newton five times and rarely let him get comfortable. • TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Larry Fitzgerald is closing in on another milestone, and it’s an impressive one. The 35-year-old receiver needs to catch just 33 yards worth of passes Sunday at Kansas City to move past Hall of Famer Terrell Owens into second place on the NFL’s all-time yards receiving list. Halfway through his 15th season, Fitzgerald has 15,902 yards receiving, behind Owens’ 15,934 and Jerry Rice’s phenomenal 22,895.
Fitzgerald needs 58 catches to pass Tony Gonzalez for second on the NFL career receptions list. Fitzgerald has 1,268 catches to Gonzalez’s 1,325 and Rice’s 1,549.
Vancouver Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher, top right, joins his teammates to celebrate a goal by centre Bo Horvat during the third period of Thursday’s game against the Boston Bruins.
Clement admits to multiple acts of infidelity
Janice DICKSON, Mia RABSON Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Former Conservative MP
Tony Clement has had inappropriate online relationships with more than one woman and went to the police months ago because someone was trying to pay one of the women to offer up intimate details of their exchanges, he admitted Thursday.
When Clement told Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer last week that he had shared explicit images of himself online in October and was being extorted to prevent the images from being released publicly, he insisted it was an isolated incident. It was not.
“During a period of personal difficulty and weakness I engaged in inappropriate exchanges that crossed lines that should never have been crossed,” Clement wrote Thursday in a statement to his constituents in the Ontario riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka.
Scheer looked grim as he was forced to take time away from a policy announcement on crime in Brampton, Ont., to respond to the latest admissions.
“This was a shock to me when I was made aware of the situation,” said Scheer.
Despite knowing for several months that someone had been trying to dig up dirt on him, Clement continued to sit until Tuesday on Parliament’s national-security and intelligence committee. Members have top-secret clearances and can be privy to extremely sensitive information.
Clement is no longer on that committee and the RCMP and the Privy Council Office
Sex offender to live in Vancouver
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in April 2017.
are investigating possible security breaches.
Clement approached Scheer last week to let him know someone was trying to extort him because he’d sent explicit images and a video to someone he thought was a “consenting female.” He also asked the RCMP to investigate.
Thursday, Clement said the most recent extortion attempt was by “foreign actors” but provided nothing to explain why he believed that to be the case.
Clement said he wouldn’t comment beyond what was in his statement. Scheer said he knew no details of the extortion.
Clement resigned as the Conservative justice critic and from his committee assignments Tuesday night. Wednesday morning,
VANCOUER (CP) — Vancouver police have issued a public warning about a high-risk offender moving into the city who was at the centre of a high-profile abduction case in 2011.
Police say Randall Hopley, 53, still poses a risk of significant harm to the safety of young boys.
Hopley has served his entire six-year sentence
Scheer said Clement would remain in the Conservative caucus because he trusted Clement’s claim that he’d committed a single, though terrible, “lapse in judgement.” A few hours later, after more allegations about Clement approaching young women online surfaced on Twitter, Scheer said Clement was no longer welcome in the Conservative caucus.
Scheer said he found out about the information in Clement’s Thursday statement only when he posted it publicly.
Clement wrote on Thursday that he had let himself and everyone who cares about him down. “Pride and vanity got the better of me, and shame held me back from getting back to the path of good,” he wrote.
for breaking into a home in Sparwood, B.C., in September 2011 and abducting a three-year-old boy only to return him four days later physically unharmed.
A National Parole Board decision released to The Canadian Press on Thursday says Hopley continues to be assessed as a high risk for sexual
During a period of personal difficulty and weakness I engaged in inappropriate exchanges that crossed lines that should never have been crossed.
— Tony Clement
“I apologize to the women with whom the exchanges occurred, and I also apologize to anyone else who felt in any way that I crossed online boundaries that made them feel uncomfortable, even without my knowing. I am deeply sorry,” he wrote. He said his constituency office will stay open and he will remain an MP.
Clement has already been reassigned a new seat in the back row of the House of Commons. He is in a small section with three other MPs – former Liberal cabinet minister Hunter Tootoo, former Liberal MP Darshan Kang and former NDP MP Erin Weir – who have also found themselves on the outs with their parties because of allegations of improper behaviour.
Clement was a Conservative party stalwart, a cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s government and twice a candidate for the federal party leadership. He dropped out of the most recent leadership contest early on and endorsed Maxime Bernier. He has also run for the provincial Tory leadership in Ontario, where he was once a cabinet minister.
offending against children.
Hopley pleaded guilty in 2013 to abducting the sleeping boy from a second-floor bedroom in his family’s home.
Hopley will be living in a residential correctional facility, the location of which is confidential. His sentence expires Nov. 12.
Marine kills 12 in shooting rampage
Citizen news service
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Terrified patrons hurled barstools through windows to escape or threw their bodies protectively on top of friends as a U.S. Marine combat veteran killed 12 people at a country music bar in an attack that added Thousand Oaks to the tragic roster of American cities traumatized by mass shootings. Dressed all in black with his hood pulled up, the gunman apparently took his own life as scores of police converged on the Borderline Bar and Grill in Southern California.
The motive for the rampage late Wednesday night was under investigation.
The killer, Ian David Long, 28, was a former machine-gunner and Afghanistan war veteran who was interviewed by police at his home last spring after an episode of agitated behaviour that authorities were told might be post-traumatic stress disorder.
Opening fire with a handgun with an illegal, extra-capacity magazine, Long shot a security guard outside the bar and then went in and took aim at employees and customers, authorities said. He also used a smoke bomb, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The dead included a veteran sheriff’s deputy who rushed in to confront the gunman, as well as a 22-year-old man who planned to join the Army, a freshman at nearby Pepperdine University and a recent Cal Lutheran graduate.
“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said in the parking lot.
“There’s blood everywhere.”
Survivors of the rampage – mostly young people who had gone out for college night at the Borderline, a hangout popular with students from nearby California Lutheran University and other schools –seemed to know what to do, having come of age in an era of activeshooter drills and deadly rampages happening with frequency.
Several of the survivors said they were also at the outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas last year when a gunman in a high-rise hotel killed 58 people.
Many of the estimated 150 patrons at the Borderline dived under tables, ran for exits, broke through windows or hid in the attic and bathrooms, authorities and witnesses said.
“Unfortunately our young people, people at nightclubs, have learned that this may happen, and they think about that,” the sheriff said. “Fortunately it helped save a lot of lives that they fled the scene so rapidly.”
Tony Clement speaks during question period in the House of Commons
Plan to harvest banking info on hold
Andy BLATCHFORD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Statistics Canada’s controversial plan to harvest personal financial data without people’s consent is on hold until an investigation of the legality and intrusiveness of the project is finished, the country’s chief statistician said Thursday.
The federal statistical agency recently caught nine financial institutions off guard by informing them they were required to provide banking information from Canadians in 500,000 households across the country. Canadian law lets Statistics Canada compel public and private institutions, including commercial banks, to turn over data they hold.
The ensuing public outrage has put a spotlight on Canada’s privacy laws, which critics have called outdated and inadequate in an era where privacy fears are deepening
and data is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity.
The concerns have triggered heated political exchanges in the House of Commons, where opposition MPs have accused the government of state surveillance and authoritarianism. Under frequent grilling by the Conservatives, the governing Liberals have insisted the agency will protect Canadians’ privacy while producing important, reliable data.
The uproar has also stirred up serious concerns in the financial institutions that were contacted – and prompted federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien to launch an investigation into the matter.
Facing intensifying public pressure, chief statistician Anil Arora told a Senate committee Thursday that the banking-data project will not proceed until Therrien has finished his work and Canadians’ privacy concerns have been addressed.
“We have not received a single
piece of information yet from any of those financial institutions,” he told the committee, which held a special hearing to explore the issue.
Even so, he said, the data the agency wants would stay secret.
“Who do we share this information with? No one,” Arora said.
A family trait, brought forward
Much of my Ryan ancestral information is only available via the storytelling of ancient (living) Newfoundlanders. Most of the written records were lost to fires, so if some of the tales are a little tallish, chalk it up to Newfy creativity.
Cases in point: As the story goes, one ancestor came over from Ireland as captain of a ship transporting indentured Irish immigrants, sometimes referred to as white slaves. Although their servitude seems to have had legal limits not available to African slaves, on arrival they were chattel in most meaningful respects. Many captains took one of the more desirable females as a mistress, and reportedly my ancestor was not above this. But it turns out he fell in love with her, and they settled in Cape Bretton to raise a family. Around the time Canada became a nation, it is said that a cousin slipped away into the U.S., and eventually joined up with the notorious (Jesse) James gang. “Wild Bill” Ryan purportedly had some of my DNA in his veins as he rode alongside James into Muscle Shoals, Ala., and relieved a local paymaster of about $5,000
in gold, silver and bank notes (about $85,000 value in 2018). In response, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama pasted wanted posters of them throughout the region. Before James could be brought to trial, he was killed by an associate Bob Ford. Meanwhile, my supposed cousin Billy Ryan was caught in Tennessee and sent to prison for 25 years on conviction of an earlier heist.
Fast forward 125 years. I am mild-manneredly sitting in my bank office in Prince Rupert, humming the Care Bears theme song when I get a rather obnoxious phone call from an overly authoritative voice at Revenue Canada (now CRA). He demanded that I release a client’s file information to him because he represented the all-powerful federal government, or words to that effect.
I called our lawyer, who confirmed that we absolutely do not answer to the CRA or any other
body requesting information. We answer to the law and most particularly to our clients. We would not release the information unless either permitted to do so in writing by our client or forced to do so by a court subpoena. Feeling like Wild Bill armed with a menacingly sharp pencil and a legal opinion, I called back the would-be intimidator at CRA, and relayed the message triumphantly. He huffed and puffed, but in the end, couldn’t so much as flutter a piece of paper with all his hot air. And in the end we did not release one single digit from the file to them.
A story in the news over the past few days suggests that Statistics Canada will soon be forcing Canadian banks to release information to them about our clients (see story above). The opposition parties are fighting the idea in Parliament on the principle of privacy, while the feds seem determined to back their statistical file diggers.
In response, the Canadian Banking Association pushed back along with the opposition parties, and eventually the privacy commissioner got involved. The CBA recently released a statement which includes the following:
“The CBA and its members are encouraged that the Office of
The markets today
TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index lost ground Thursday as a further drop in the price of oil to an eight-month low weighed on the key energy sector. Markets on both sides of the border were softer after a very strong day following the U.S. midterms, says Jayson Moss, research analyst at Franklin Bissett Investment Management.
“What’s weighing particularly on the Canadian market is the fact that we’re seeing oil entering a bear market, down now 21 per cent since the high on Oct. 3, on concerns that the market will be oversupplied and rising U.S. inventories,” he said in an interview.
The December crude contract was down for a ninth straight session, falling by $1 at US$60.67 per barrel. That’s the lowest level since March 8.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 11.96 points to 15,357.47 after hitting a low of 15,293.29 on 414 million shares traded. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 11.12 points to 26,191.42.
The S&P 500 index lost 7.05 points at 2,806.84, while the Nasdaq composite was down 39.87 points at 7,530.88.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.25 cents US compared with an average of 76.36 cents US on Wednesday.
“The individual record is not shared with a minister, with a court, with law enforcement officers, CSIS, you name it – nobody gets access to that individual record.”
Arora defended the “pilot project” as part of Statistics Canada’s efforts to modernize and improve its data-collection efforts, which are meant to help the agency continue providing high-quality information – especially given the rapid expansion of the digital economy. For decades, the agency has provided key data to help guide everything from financial markets to the Bank of Canada to lawmakers drawing up social programs.
The new plan, however, only became public following a recent report by Global News. Even Therrien, whose office was consulted on the project by Statistics Canada, said he had no idea about its scope until “very recently.”
“We were all struck in the recent
the Privacy Commissioner has launched an investigation into Statistics Canada’s data request… The banking sector continues to emphasize the central importance of protecting the privacy and security of customer financial data and personal information.”
And RBC took it a step further with the following tweet:
“RBC protects the privacy of our clients’ info, which we’ll only use for the purposes listed in our client agreements. Before using info for a purpose not listed, we first obtain consent. No customer transaction data or other personal info has been transferred to Stats Canada.”
In the old days, bad guys like Wild Bill used a gun to rob the bank. Today the thieves use a computer (or their position) to try to rob the data bank. The security guard with a gun has been largely replaced by carefully managed systems to protect our clients from data breaches.
Even in my relatively brief time in the industry, I have seen the guns held on site fade in to memory, while the protection of private information has risen to the level of sacred trust. Meanwhile, in the evolution of things, several non-banks have made
news by the amount of data (sought) from a large number of dwellings in a very detailed way,” Therrien told the Senate committee Thursday. “I think that’s what strikes everyone – large segments of the population – as an important part of the issue.”
The investigation, which is expected to last months, will conclude whether Statistics Canada’s plan is lawful or not, he said.
The privacy commissioner also recalled his 2016 recommendation that the law be amended to authorize government agencies to collect data only when necessary, and when the breadth of the information gathered is proportional to the public-policy goals. That would bring Canada’s laws in line with international standards, Therrien added.
Neil Parmenter, who heads the Canadian Bankers Association, said the industry still has many serious concerns about the request and many unanswered questions.
headway in to the money-moving business on the transactional level, and a few of them – Google, Apple, Amazon, – are simultaneously getting rich by knowing the most intimate details about your purchase habits.
Think about that for a minute. This morning, Amazon sent me an email with a remarkably accurate guess as to which book I might want to buy from them next. This is both convenient and freaky at once. As finance and big data converge, customers will need to pay very close attention to these new players’ abilities to protect their personal information from the bad guys – and on their likelihood to use what they know about you ethically in the face of their being both a retailer, and an owner-manager of your personal data.
Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are Ryan’s views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See Ryan’s website at: http://dir. rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan.
MARK RYAN
THERRIEN
Brian George Clark It is with intense sorrow that we announce the passing of Brian George Clark on 01 November, 2018. Brian was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan to George and Jeanet Clark on 13 June 1953. He grew up
his family farm with his 7 brothers and sisters where he
being out on the tractor. He attended Brockville Bible College in Ontario and became an ordained minister. Later in life, he pursued a degree in Sociology at Queen’s University. Brian was a very gentle and kind man, wanting to help those in need. He always put others first before his own needs. He worked hard his whole life, sometimes maintaining 2-3 jobs at a time. He surprised us all when he retired early to become an RV living snowbird. Brian was predeceased by his parents and his brother Wayne. He leaves behind his wife of 15 years, Laurel as well as those who love him and will miss him immensely: his children - Brian Aaron Clark (Hiroko), Heatherleigh Jalbert (Paul), Pattie Mallett (Daniel), Vanessa Desmeules, Jacinda Desmeules, Sarah May Swain (Jakub), SallyAnn Swain (Neil), Holly Hammond (Kristoff), Allison George; his brothers and sisters - Dale, Larry, Joan, David, Glen, Ruth; and his many nieces and nephews. Brian was always so gentle with children and treated them with respect and kindness. He leaves behind many grandchildren who will truly miss his wisdom and kind hearted love.
A special thank you to Prince George Hospice who helped keep him comfortable until the end.
A celebration of his life will be held Monday November 19, 2018 at 11 AM at the Coast Inn of the North, Prince George. In Lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Prince George Hospice Society.
Mary McKinnon May 2, 1919 to Oct 31, 2018
The family of Mary McKinnon, sadly announce that Mary passed away peacefully at the age of 99 on Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at Glenmore Lodge in Kelowna, BC. Mary was predeceased by her husband Robert, (Bob) in 2010; two sisters, and two brothers in Northern Ireland, and sonin-law Lorne Dennison. She is survived by her sister Nellie Gibson, of Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland; daughters Kathleen Dennison, Ann Klapstein (Roy) and Loreen Weatherly (Larry). She will be greatly missed by her six grandchildren, Carol Dennison (Glen), Robert Dennison (Susan), Debbie Anderson (Richard), Richard Anderson (Yashoda), Wendy Weatherly (Michel) and Craig Weatherly. Mary also leaves 10 great grandchildren; Alexis Gaudet, Rylan Gaudet, Andrew Dennison (Carol), Nathan Dennison (Katie), Rebecca Staley, Alison Staley, Sarah Staley, Madhava Anderson, Charlie Dennison and one great-great grandson Owen Dennison. An Irish war bride, Mary came to Canada in 1946, starting out in Tisdale Saskatchewan, then Willow River BC before settling in Prince George on Dogwood Street in 1948 where she and Bob raised their family before relocating to Kelowna in 2002. While living in Prince George, Mary was very involved with St. Giles Presbyterian Church. She is also a lifetime member of the Prince George Figure Skating Club. She was a volunteer accountant for the Canadian Figure Skating Association, and received the “Dogwood Award” in 1984 for meritorious service to figure skating. Mary and Bob were also Prince George Ambassadors, volunteering at the Prince George Airport. The family would like to thank the Glenmore Lodge Staff for their wonderful care for Mary, for the past year and half. Also thanks to the many friends and family who supported us through Mary’s journey. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.firstmemorialfuneralkelowna.com. Arrangement entrusted with First Memorial Funeral Services, Kelowna. 250-762-2299
On Saturday, October 27th, Frank (Francois) Marcel Kerbrat made his final journey home to be with the Lord. The family would like to express their sincere gratitude to Nurse Next Door for the compassionate care they provided during this past year. Frank had just celebrated his 99th birthday on October 21st, and spent his last days at home, with his family. Frank is survived by Joyce, his loving wife of 67 years; 8 children, Roger (Lynne), Karen, Holly (Tony), Geoff (Dorothy), Lauren (Dean), Martin (Shelley), Jeannette (Derek), and Michelle (Brandon); 27 grandchildren, and 29 great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son, Marshall (Lenore), and his grandson, Asher. To his last breath, Frank was a kind hearted, generous, intelligent, good natured, gentle, man of integrity, much loved by his family, his extended church family, and the community whose lives he touched. He lived life to the fullest, enjoying golfing and family vacations until the final year of his life when he reluctantly watched the dust collect on his golf clubs and never gave up hope that he would one day be back out on the fairway. An obituary could never begin to describe Frank’s many wonderful attributes or his innumerable accomplishments spanning almost a full century. Please join us for a celebration of Frank’s long and abundant life; a life well lived... a race well run. This celebration will take place Saturday, November 10th, 6:00 pm at First Baptist Church on Gillette Street. All guests are invited to join us for a reception following, at the church.
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our father, David Malcolm Branton, on October 7, 2018. Dave, as he was known to his family and friends, was born in Craigmyle, Alberta on April 22, 1930. Dave had 7 children. He was predeceased by his eldest, David Harold, in 1976, and his partner Phyllis, of 28 years, in 2004. Dave was also predeceased by his parents, Stanley and Edith and his 3 older brothers, Harold, Stan & Ken. Dave is survived by his loving children Katherine, Dianna, Cheryl, Charlene, Bill(William) and Douglas, 15 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren, and his sister Rose, whom he adored. When Dave was 3 years old his family moved to Armstrong, BC. He also grew up there. As he got older he discovered the north country and he was hooked. Dave packed up his kids and moved to the Yukon for a number of years where he met Phyllis. Dave and Phyllis tried living in Kelowna for a few years before eventually settling in Prince George. Among many of his job titles, running heavy duty equipment, was a favourite. But the job he loved more than any, was in his later years, working at Aberdeen Golf Course in Prince George. Dave took great pride mowing and caring for his greens. Dave spent many years enjoying the outdoor life. A good day was going to his much loved garage sales where he always enjoyed getting a good bargain. He would tell the story for days, if not weeks. He will be greatly missed. We would like to thank all the nurses and staff at Gateway Lodge Complex Care Unit for the many years of care that they gave to our Father. Upon request, there will be no celebration of life.
predeceased by brothers
and Ernie, and is survived by her sister, Dora Friesen(Frank), sisters-in-laws, Patti Royston and Elfrieda Block and 12 nieces and nephews and their families. A celebration of her life will be at 1pm on November 13th at the Bakerview MB Church, Abbotsford, B.C.
Cookman,PatriciaJ.E. September21,1937-November4,2018 PatwenttobewiththeLordonNovember4th,2018. Sheleavesbehindherhusbandof56years,Art Cookman;hersonsBlake(Corina)Cookman,and MarkCookman;herlittlesweethearts,grandsons Daniel,EvanandMatthew;herbrotherPhil(Marj) AndersonandsistersJoan(Melvin)Spies,and Meredith(Russ)Barrett;numerousniecesand nephews;aswellascountlessfriendsandfriendsof friendsthatsheverymuchconsideredanextension ofherfamily. The family of Erna Block is saddened to announce her passing on October 30th, 2018, after suffering a
Donna Lynn Murray, age 56, passed away peacefully on October 26, 2018 at the Prince George Hospice House. She was born October 8, 1962 in New Westminster, B.C. to Evelyn (Briggs) Layton and Donald Murray. She attended Thomas Kidd Elementary, Hugh McRoberts Secondary School, and Matthew McNair Senior High School. Following her love for real estate, she worked as an appraiser for B.C. Assessment in Prince George, B.C. She loved the country and was drawn to horses from a very early age. Donna lived life to the fullest and drew to her a very large and diverse group of friends. She is survived by her mother, Evelyn Layton and her husband, Dave Layton; her father, Donald Murray; two sisters, Sandy Mykyte and Lynda Fernyhough; a half-sister Kathy Garcia; two stepsiblings, Cherri Chalifour and Mike Layton; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. Family, friends and others are invited to celebrate Donna’s life at the Langley Golf & Banquet Center located at 21550 - 44th Ave., Langley, B.C. on Sunday Nov. 18, 2018 from 1pm - 4pm. A second celebration of Donna’s life will be held at the Courtyard Marriott located at 900 Brunswick Street, Prince George, B.C., on Sunday Nov. 25, 2018 from 3pm - 5:30pm.
Nice Horse is perhaps the most unlikely country band in Canadian history, if you assess each band member and how they came together. The four are Katie Rox on banjo and guitar, Tara McLeod on electric guitar, Brandi Sidoryk on bass and Krista Wodelet on drums. All of them sing exceptionally well.
Together Nice Horse is bashing the national airwaves with sizzling party anthems like Pony Up and Jim, Jack, Johnnie & Jose. Their initial offering is an album called There Goes The Neighborhood. The overall atmosphere of this package is getting comparisons to Brett Kissell and Washboard Union (perhaps a result of their main producer, Jeff Dalziel, also being their producer), but you can also feel lines tied back to the likes of Farmer’s Daughter, Alabama, Roseanne Cash, The Gatlin Brothers and The Zac Brown Band.
McLeod is the lead guitar player in famed Ontario metal band Kittie. She was listed as a “guitar player to know” by Guitar World Magazine, while Guitar Player Magazine did a feature breaking down her gear preferences and playing style.
Rox is the founding vocalist in Goth-pop band Jakalope with techno-metal star Dave Ogilvie of Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails Fame. She also sang backup for Mandy Moore and had a duo with Simple Plan guitarist Sébastien Lefebvre.
Sidoryk was trained as an opera singer, French horn player, she was in the navy (which has a band), and simultaneously had two quirky Vancouver indie bands going at once – Beekeeper and Sidney York.
Which brings us to Wodelet, who was the other half of Sidney York. They were getting plenty of pop culture attention with tunes like Cold In Here, Weapons-Grade Love, Weird For You and Electrolove. With Sidoryk’s French horn and Wodelet’s bassoon, how could an indie-pop band fail, right?
Wodelet said they just performed a Sidney York show the other day at a fundraiser. It was the first time they’d done that material in about four years. They powered down their previous projects when they and their buddy Rox started songwriting and attending industry functions together as mutual support. Eventually, it became chronic and somehow, it became country. Wodelet said that despite
their metal, techno, Gothic, geek-rock, operatic and classical backgrounds, there was a lot of agriculture in the family upbringings of some Nice Horse members, and without trying at it, the rich soils of Alberta yielded this flourishing new band.
“If, 10 years ago, someone had said to me ‘you’re going to be the drummer in a country band’ I’d be like ummmmm, what?,” said Wodelet, laughing. “I did start my musical career in classical music. I was into rock and pop, mostly, growing up, but what I did myself was classical. That’s what I went to school for. Actually, I have more degrees than I need, as an orchestral bassoon player.”
She joked, but not really a joke, that her parents are finally starting to see the value in all that schooling.
She and Sidoryk actually attended the University of Toronto’s music school at the same time but somehow never met. They were introduced when Sidoryk was working as a WestJet flight attendant, met Wodelet’s sister who was also in that job, and the introductions got made because of the family music connection.
Wodelet did meet someone else at university, though, who would indirectly play a role in all of this.
Canadian bassoon star Nadina
Mackie Jackson is a prof at U of T, she’s a renowned presence on the Canadian symphony orchestra scene, has a flair for blue hair and fantastical performances, and also does a duet project with folk legend Valdy. She was born and raised in Francois Lake and Prince George.
Wodelet nearly melted when she heard that her university mentor was from this area.
“I’m really glad you brought her up. When I started playing in Sidney York, and started doing kooky things like getting a pickup installed in my horn and running it through guitar effects pedals, Nadina was one of the few classical players who looked at me and went ‘that’s really cool, and you have something to offer’ instead of thinking ‘you obviously aren’t a serious bassoonist.’ When I started crossing genres, there were many in the orchestral world who didn’t think that was right. That was an attitude I encountered among quite a few people I knew in the classical world. Nadina was never one of those people. As you can tell from her career, she has done incredibly very well making music a little left of centre and a little out of the ordinary, and she really embraced what I was doing. In fact, she had me out to Toronto, flew me there, to be part of the Bassoon Days events she was putting on at the university, and give a master class to the students. I don’t think anybody else would have done
that. I am so grateful to her for that. I can’t tell you how excited I am that I got to talk about her, I just admire her so much.”
Crooked story straight, the Nice Horse members managed to find each other and nurture the seeds of their first music project all in the last three years or so.
This was not the forte of any of them, yet producer Dalziel (along with another producer who knows something about bending genres, a guy named Bob Rock) insisted that he was going to buck the trend for rookie ensembles like theirs. It might be surprising to the casual fan, but the first albums of new bands are often recorded using session players in the studio. The band learns the songs after the fact so they can perform on the road.
Dalziel and Rock knew these players were consummate musicians. No other players could capture their unique musical personality. No, they were the only ones who could track the original recordings.
Before they had a presence outside of their base town of Calgary, their substantial reputations confluenced in the ears of another Canadian music industry giant who dealt them another important card in the Nice Horse game.
“We booked our first tour opening for Tom Cochrane. Uh oh. Suddenly we had to wonder, did we just make a big mistake?” Wodelet wondered.
Or did Tom Cochrane? But the hall-of-famer is famous for strategically selecting opening acts. He gave big votes of his confidence, over the years, to acts like Amanda Marshall, the Grapes Of Wrath, the Northern Pikes and most recently Meghan Patrick who picked up the CCMA trophy for Female Vocalist of the Year only a year after she shared a cross-Canada tour with the legendary Red Rider.
“He took a chance on us, and we are very grateful to him for it. At the time, we did not have a lot of performing under our belt as a group. We didn’t have a lot of stuff online. We were so young as a band. And he let us come on the road with them, and he and his whole band and crew were so nice to us. Not only was it our first stadium tour, it was our first tour period. In retrospect, he was really one of the big influences in the foundation of the band because he did take that first chance on us. We would probably be in a much different place right now if he hadn’t.”
The place they are in now is opening for another mega-act from the world of country rock. Nice Horse opens for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band tonight at CN Centre.
Canadian arts executive dies
MONTREAL (CP) — Francois Macerola, a “visionary” arts executive who was a champion for Canadian cinema and headed major cultural institutions including Telefilm Canada, has died.
“Today, with the death of Mr. Francois Macerola, Canada’s cultural milieu lost a long-standing ally and leader who possessed a unique vision and an innate gift for communications,” Christa Dickenson, Telefilm’s executive director, said Thursday in a statement.
The Montreal-born Macerola was a leader in various arts disciplines in Quebec throughout his career, which he began as a lawyer.
At Telefilm Canada, he was executive director from 1995 to 2001, and chair of the board from 2001 to 2002.
He also had top jobs at the National Film Board of Canada, Place des Arts, Cirque du Soleil, and the Societe de developpement des entreprises culturelles du Quebec, among others.
Macerola helped expand Canadian cinema’s presence at festivals and markets around the world, and spearheaded “a remarkable increase in co-production activity,” said Telefilm.
He helped set up the Canada Feature Film Fund and forge the first partnership between Telefilm and the private sector through the Canadian Television Fund, now
the Canada Media Fund.
“Throughout his career, Francois Macerola established himself as a visionary, builder, skilled strategist and leader with a talent for bringing people together,” Dickenson said. “He was energetic, affable and open – he saw the big picture – and working with him was a stimulating experience.”
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the NFB were among those who shared tributes on social media Thursday.
“Sending out our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Francois Macerola, a man who made an indelible mark on Quebec’s cultural sector,” the academy posted on Twitter.
HANDOUT PHOTO BY HEATHER POLLOCK
Nice Horse, featuring Katie Rox, Tara McLeod, Brandi Sidoryk and Krista Wodelet will open for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band tonight at CN Centre.
