Fall fun
morning.
Northern B.C. sawmill workers in strike position
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Some 1,600 workers at 13 northern B.C. sawmills will be in a strike position by Saturday morning – but won’t necessarily take to the picket lines at that time.
Acting on a mandate given in August, the bargaining committee issued 72 hours strike notice on Wednesday after talks remained in a stalemate despite resorting to five days of mediation last week.
Whether workers will act on the notice remained up in the air as of Thursday.
“There could be strike action but at this time there is no strike action planned, I’d really like to get that out to the members,” said United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1-2017 president Brian O’Rourke.
At the request of Conifer, the employers’ bargaining agent, the sides turned to a mediator last
week but little if any progress was made. O’Rourke said the mediator has openings Oct. 12, 13 and 14.
“We were hoping that by issuing our strike notice it may spur the employer to come back to the table and see if we could hammer out a fair deal for the employees,”
O’Rourke said.
But he added that appears doubtful because Interior Forest Labour Relations Association, which represents sawmill owners in the Southern Interior, will begin negotiations with their workers on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week and three of its members also sit on the Conifer bargaining committee.
O’Rourke said Conifer is seeking concessions despite the industry enjoying strong demand for its product thanks to a buoyant U.S. housing market.
The benchmark price for 1,000 board-feet of top-quality west-
There could be strike action but at this time there is no strike action planned, I’d really like to get that out to the members.
— Brian O’Rourke, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1-2017
ern Canadian two-by-fours hit US$540 this past spring, according to the trade publication Madison’s Lumber Reporter, compared with US$315 at the start of 2017. As of Oct. 1, it stood at $396, down from $426 the week before, according to the publication.
Flight from police nets charges for wanted man
Citizen staff
A Prince George man wanted on outstanding warrants faces further charges after allegedly attempting to evade police.
Jesse Juillette, 30, was apprehended last Friday night at a motel near Valemount, about eight hours after he was first seen at 2 p.m. in the 2700 block of Spruce Street in Prince George.
When RCMP tried to pull over the car he was driving, Juillette took off, police said, and a pursuit was quickly called off in the name of public safety.
Several minutes later, his car was seen heading east on First Avenue.
By 5 p.m. RCMP had set up a road block on Highway 16 west of McBride. But not only did Juillette refuse to stop, he nearly ran over an RCMP officer, police said.
But RCMP received a tip he was at the motel and at 10 p.m. police converged on the spot. He was arrested by the Prince George RCMP street crew with help from the Valemount RCMP, McBride RCMP, police dog services, RCMP air services, and the North District RCMP emergency response team.
Juillette was wanted in relation to a Sept. 15 robbery and assault in Prince George along with outstanding warrants out of Williams Lake related to a May 4 break and enter and allegation of dangerous driving. He also continues to face charges from a Jan. 23 armed robbery in Prince George.
As a result of Friday’s incident, provincial Crown counsel has also approved eight more charges against Juillette and he remained in custody as of Thursday.
“As far as wages, they’re not near where we would expect them to be given the high wave they’ve been riding this last year and a half, quarter after quarter reporting how much their net earnings are,” O’Rourke said.
“It would only be fair to share it with the people that made them those earnings.”
He said this is the closest it’s come to a disruption in the forest industry since 1986.
According to a Sept. 19 posting on the local’s website, Conifer is offering annual wage increases ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 per cent over five years.
Conifer also remains steadfast in seeking concessions, according to an Oct. 1 posting, including paying straight time to those working Tuesday-to-Saturday clean-up shifts, paying straight time for working statutory holidays rather than time off on alternate shifts,
extending the probationary period and increasing the employees’ costs for health and welfare benefits.
Some 15 days of bargaining with Conifer have been concluded. The previous five-year contract ended on June 30.
A Conifer representative has said the agency will not be talking to media before a contract has been ratified.
The sides are negotiating on behalf of 13 sawmills: Canfor’s PG Sawmill and Isle Pierre operations as well as its sawmills in Houston and Fort St. John; Lakeland Mills in Prince George; Dunkley Lumber Ltd. south of Hixon; Conifex’s mills in Fort St. James and Mackenzie; Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake; Tolko’s Lakeview Lumber and Soda Creek mills in Williams Lake and Quest Wood in Quesnel; and West Fraser’s Williams Lake planer.
Wednesday broke cold weather record
Vancouver Sun
Environment Canada says B.C. broke 39 cold-weather records Wednesday, including a 68-year-old record in Prince George, as an Arctic front swept across the province.
Matt MacDonald, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says there were 14 daytime records broken, 18 overnight lows smashed and seven new records for the most snowfall on Oct. 3, including a whopping 59 centimetres of snow in Sparwood, east of Fernie.
He says the front whipped down from the north and clashed with moisture from the Pacific Ocean. MacDonald said more records may be broken overnight, but it’s not likely to be as cold as Wednesday.
The record-breaking temperature for cold in B.C. on Wednesday was Clinton, where -14.2 C was recorded, smashing the old mark of -5 set in 2012.
In Prince George, the mercury dipped to a record -12.1 C, breaking the old one of -9.4 set in 1950. It was a bone-chilling -11.6 C compared with the old record of -9.1 set in 2013, in the Puntzi Mountain region in the Central Interior. And the Mackenzie area set a record -8.5 C, breaking -5.5 set in 1990. Even Vancouver saw a record low, though the mercury didn’t go below zero. Environment Canada recorded 1.6 C at YVR on Wednesday, breaking the previous record of 2.8 in 1937.
Other areas that set cold-temperature records were Quesnel (-8.4 C,) Lytton (-1.2,) and Lillooet (-2.9.)
MacDonald said most regions should return to near-seasonal temperatures over the next week, but the overnight lows will remain slightly cooler than normal.
In Vancouver overnight lows are expected to be around 5 C, instead of a seasonal average of around eight.
CITIZEN
Hilda McNeill takes advantage of the sunny weather to do some yardwork as she rakes leaves on Thursday
Expect unpredictable road conditions this long weekend
Citizen staff
Snow, sleet, rain, hail and fog are just some of the challenging fall conditions drivers should be prepared for this Thanksgiving long weekend, according to ICBC.
On average, four people are killed and 650 people are injured in 2,100 crashes in B.C. over Thanksgiving long weekend. For the North Central region, 18 people are injured in 140 crashes.
As of Monday, drivers are required to use winter tires on most B.C. highways including those in northern B.C. Winter tires are labelled with either the mountain/snowflake symbol or the
mud and snow designation (M&S). They must also be in good condition with a minimum tread depth of 3.5 mm. Here are some tips for a safe drive:
• Know your route. Weather is unpredictable and varies greatly at this time of year so check road and weather conditions before your trip at drivebc.ca
• Prepare your vehicle. With summer weather long over in parts of the province, make sure your vehicle’s seasonally prepared. It’s just as important to prepare your vehicle as it is to adjust your speed for the road conditions. Make sure your vehicle’s headlights and taillights are in working order, keep wiper fluid topped up for clearer visibility and don’t
drive with badly worn or under-inflated tires.
• Slow down. Posted speed limits are for ideal road conditions. When driving on snow, ice, slush or in rain or fog, slow down. Allow yourself at least twice the normal braking distance on wet or slippery roads and avoid driving through flooded or washed out roads.
• Take a break from your phone. Let calls go to voicemail and ignore your notifications while driving. If you have to take a call, pull over when it’s safe to do so; stay focused on the road and keep the conversation brief. Make sure you’re focused on driving before re-entering traffic.
Baldy Hughes graffiti removal service deemed a success
Citizen staff
A graffiti removal service run out of Baldy Hughes has earned accolades.
From May 1 to Aug. 31, clients at the therapeutic centre and farm removed graffiti from 34 buildings around the city under a services agreement with the city. About half are located in the downtown and a further half dozen in the Carter light industrial area.
Going out and “literally knocking on doors” and letting people know they could help was a big reason for the number, social planning manager Chris Bone told city council on Monday night. Last year, they relied on responding to reports to the city.
“We had several comments from downtown businesses very pleased with the service provided,” Bone said and added that one of their largest jobs was to repaint an entire side of the Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society building on Second Avenue.
“And to date – I checked recently – it has not been tagged,” she said.
She said Baldy Hughes is paid a “very reasonable” service fee and in turn, it was used to purchase some playground equipment and basketball hoops to give the children of clients a place to play when they pay a visit to the site about 30 kilometres southwest of the city.
“We had a great working relationship with Baldy Hughes. They were responsive and I really hope that we are able to renew this initiative next year,” Bone said.
Mayor Lyn Hall called the initiative a “very successful campaign.”
FortisBC gives break to wildfire evacuees
Citizen staff
FortisBC customers who were forced from their homes by flood or fire will not be charged for energy used while not at home, the company said Thursday.
The 2,623 gas and electric customers who were under evacuation order this past summer will be receiving a bill credit that accounts for the energy they were charged while they were evacuated.
“We always look to find ways to support our customers during difficult times,” said Dawn Mehrer, vice-president of customer service at FortisBC.
On Aug. 1, FortisBC applied to the British Columbia Utilities Commission for approval to make the move and the BCUC gave the OK on Sept. 14.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Bear trap
A live bear trap sits in the middle of Connaught Hill Park on Thursday morning.
Film industry going green
VANCOUVER — The movie industry has always been at the forefront of change and the next frontier is making films and TV that are more environmentally sustainable, says producer Clara George.
The issue of greening filmmaking, both on-screen and off, comes into focus during a two-day forum starting Friday at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
B.C. is one of the top three international full-service production centres in North America with more than 65 film studios. Creative BC, the agency supported by the provincial government to help grow the sector, says the industry contributed $3.4 billion to the province’s economy in 2017-18.
George, whose film credits include Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, The Magicians and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, says that type of investment creates a lot of opportunity to be green.
“I make it a priority for my productions.”
George says she and her staff employ numerous sustainable practices, including switching to electricity from diesel generators, using hybrid cars, implementing a print-on-demand system and reducing the consumption of beef on set.
“It’s an active choice that we have to make.”
Martian moons may be planet chunks
WEBER Citizen news service
EDMONTON — New research suggests Mars’ moons were once part of the planet, blasted into space by some cataclysmic collision long ago.
Until now, the most common theory was that Deimos and Phobos were once asteroids, captured into orbit by Mars’ gravitational field.
“They kind of look like asteroids,” said Chris Herd, a planetary geologist at the University of Alberta and a co-author of a new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Still, doubts remained – especially since the red planet’s two moons are so black.
Herd and his colleagues took a new approach.
They analyzed light recorded from one of the moons by the Mars Global Surveyor mission that orbited the planet in 1997. They then compared that analysis with a similar look at a meteorite known to have come from the asteroid belt – the Tagish Lake meteorite from northwestern B.C.
They didn’t look like each other at all.
“It was not a match,” said Herd. “The best match is ground-up basalt, the kind of common rock that Mars is made of.”
The most likely conclusion is that Deimos and Phobos are chunks of rock blown off the surface of the planet, perhaps by a collision with some other heavenly body far back in the history of the solar system.
The theory may help to explain another puzzling feature of a planet that has fascinated skywatchers for centuries.
Mars’ northern hemisphere has a far lower elevation than its southern half.
The difference is large – several kilometres.
Zena Harris, the creative director for the Sustainable Production Forum, says entertainment is a powerful industry to influence cultures, but that must start by keeping track of waste generated.
She wants the TV and film industry to start monitoring how much is thrown away, the amount of water and fuel used and to look at ways of reducing it.
“Reduce use of plastics, and that can be anything from plastic water bottles to plastic cutlery that would be quite a goal, and reduce fuel consumption.”
A number of movies and TV shows have started keeping track of sustainable practices, Harris says.
21st Century Fox says on its website that its X-Files season 10
production managed to divert 81 per cent of its total waste from landfills and by recycling all of the aluminum and steel used in construction.
It saved the company $41,000, the website says.
Season 10 was filmed in 40 locations across B.C., each requiring elaborate set construction, lengthy transportation demands and intensive fuel use, the company says.
Harris says making movies is about creating new worlds and new sets made for those worlds, which opens the door for improved sustainability.
“We’re never going to get rid of a 100 per cent of the set material.”
Harris says much of the wood used in set creation is lauan wood.
“It’s smooth and the industry loves it, however, that wood comes from Southeast Asia, so rainforests are being cut down for that wood.”
If the wood is Forest Stewardship Council certified then it is a better option, she says, adding that anything with an ecolabel is more responsibly managed.
It’s not just behind the scenes that the industry wants to go green but to normalize sustainable behaviour onscreen too.
Harris says incorporating sustainability into the storyline is a “big area” of opportunity.
“When we start to normalize these behaviours it starts to influence the broader culture.”
Cat found with head wrapped in duct tape
Michelle McQUIGGE Citizen news service
An Ontario woman says she’s shocked by the depths of human cruelty after discovering a young cat with duct tape wrapped around its face.
Nicole Paling of Burlington, Ont., says only fortunate chance brought her to the cat’s aid on Tuesday night roughly an hour after it had been dropped off in the parking lot of a local veterinary clinic. Paling says she originally thought someone had left a carrier in the lot by mistake, confusing the clinic for animal control.
But when she looked inside, she says she saw the three-yearold tabby with her head encased in silver duct tape, leaving only enough room for her nose.
A shaken Paling summoned her boyfriend to the clinic, and he spent a painstaking 10 minutes carefully removing the multiple layers of tape that had constricted the cat’s ears and mouth.
The cat has been named Lucky and is making a full recovery, but Paling says she and her boyfriend are still grappling with the shock and horror of the incident.
“We’ve never seen this kind of abuse,” said Paling, founder of the Every Life Matters Cat Rescue in Burlington. “We’re used to seeing sick cats and we’re used to dealing with feral cats, but we’re not used to seeing torture.”
Paling said she had not originally planned to stop by the clinic where she works as a volunteer, but did so shortly after 8:30 on Tuesday night in order to tend to the medical needs of one of her other rescued animals.
Discovering the cat carrier on the curb outside the clinic, she said, brought on a wave of panic and revulsion that left her trembling and barely able to punch in the access code for the building.
Her boyfriend, Brett Norton, came to the scene after receiving Paling’s urgent call for help. In a video shot by Paling, Norton is seen calmly trying to reassure both his girlfriend and the cat
We’re used to seeing sick cats and we’re used to dealing with feral cats, but we’re not used to seeing torture.
— Nicole Paling, Every Life Matters Cat Rescue
while he uses a pocket knife to find an opening in the tape.
Paling said he performed his delicate task under difficult conditions.
“Her ears were folded as well, so he had to do it millimetre by millimetre at some points because he didn’t want to cut her ears,” she said. “We couldn’t see where her eyes were. It felt like forever, but it probably wasn’t more than 10 minutes to get it entirely off her face.”
The next day, while clinic staff examined Lucky, Paling said she combed through video surveillance footage from neighbouring businesses.
She said she believes she has pinpointed a car that pulled into the lot at around 7:25 p.m. and remained for less than five minutes before dropping off the carrier.
Paling said she has been in touch with Halton Regional Police, who have told her they’re investigating the incident. The police force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Paling said hundreds of adoption offers have flooded in for Lucky, who must remain at the clinic for a couple of weeks for more evaluation.
She said the outpouring of support and compassion will hopefully help dull the memory of what the cat endured.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Paling said. “I’m trying to look at her and see her beautiful green eyes and know she will be going to a wonderful home.”
Hina ALAM Citizen news service
Bob
CP FILE PHOTO
Chris Carter, creator of the television show The X-Files, holds a trophy after being presented with the Vancouver International Film Festival Industry Builder Award in Vancouver on Oct. 7, 2016.
GEORGE
Canada joins allies in condemning ‘malicious’ Russian cyberattacks
Mike BLANCHFIELD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Canada joined NATO allies on Thursday in blaming the Russian military for new cyberattacks that targeted the international chemical weapons agency and the investigation into the mysterious 2014 crash of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine.
A statement from Global Affairs Canada said the latest incidents are part of a malicious pattern of behaviour that has included Russia’s 2016 attack on the Canadian headquarters of the World AntiDoping Agency.
Canada and it allies accused Russia’s secret military intelligence unit, the GRU, of a brazen attempt to hack The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in April.
Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld said the attack was disrupted and four Russian intelligence officers were immediately expelled from the Netherlands.
The GRU was also accused of trying to hack the investigation into the 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine.
Canada echoed a cascade of condemnation from Australia, Britain and the Netherlands in accusing Moscow of a series of unprecedented espionage operations in both the physical and digital worlds.
The Global Affairs statement branded the Russian actions as “malicious,” saying Canada has “high confidence that the GRU was responsible” for the attempted attack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Canada serves on the OPCW’s executive council.
“The incidents identified by Canada and our allies, including the GRU’s attempt to undermine the work of the OPCW, underscore the Russian government’s disregard for the rules-based international order, international law and established norms,” the statement said.
“The attempt to compromise the
networks of the OPCW is consistent with Russia’s broader attacks on the independence and professionalism of the personnel of the OPCW.”
The events have a connection to Canada, the statement said, pointing to the 2016 attack on the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency.
Global Affairs said the cyberhacker group Fancy Bear/APT28 pilfered confidential athlete data from the agency’s website and circulated it publicly.
“The Government of Canada assesses with high confidence that the Russian military’s intelligence arm, the GRU, was responsible for this incident.”
U.S. authorities have charged seven GRU officers – including the four caught in The Hague – in an international hacking rampage said to have targeted more than
250 athletes, a Pennsylvaniabased nuclear energy company, a Swiss chemical laboratory and the OPCW.
In Ottawa, Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, said: “I’m told that the FBI has charged seven Russian agents with involvement in this process and that the RCMP are also involved and assisting.”
Moscow has issued a series of denials about the incidents.
The Russian Embassy in Ottawa said in a statement Thursday that the allegations are “fake news” and part of an “anti-Russia witch hunt” by the U.S., Britain and their “willing allies, including Canada.”
“The major goals in this brazen propaganda war are to brainwash and scare” international and domestic audiences and distract from NATO’s own expanding cyber war
activities, the statement said. Russia had interests in the latest cases: the OPCW was investigating reports that a Soviet-made nerve agent had been used against a Russian ex-spy in England, and Russia has been blamed by some for being involved in shooting down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Center said Thursday that four new attacks are associated with the GRU as well as earlier security hacks.
It also cited attacks on the World Anti-Doping Agency, Ukrainian transport systems and the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
“We are going to actually make it clear that where Russia acts, we are going to be exposing that action,” said British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who branded Russia’s actions as those of a “pariah state.”
Liberals agree to hike pre-writ spending limit for parties
Joan BRYDEN Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The Trudeau Liberals have agreed to increase the amount of money political parties can spend in the run-up to a federal election – a price they’ve paid to end Conservative stalling of an omnibus bill to reform the country’s election laws.
As part of Bill C-76, the government initially proposed to cap party spending on advertising at $1.5 million during what’s known as the pre-writ period – from June 30 in an election year to the day the election is actually called.
That measure raised the ire of the deep-pocketed Conservatives, who alleged it was aimed at reducing their financial advantage and rigging the election in the Liberals’ favour. They’ve been holding up progress of the bill at the procedure and House affairs committee, where it’s been stalled since June.
The government broke the impasse Thursday by agreeing to increase the pre-writ spending limit to $2 million per party. Conservative members then agreed to allow the committee to proceed to clause-byclause study of the bill.
Democratic Institutions
Minister Karina Gould said she’s hopeful the bill can now be passed by both the House of Commons and Senate by the end of the year – the deadline Elections Canada has said must be met if the bill’s many measures are to be implemented in time for the next election, scheduled for Oct. 21, 2019.
Spending during election campaigns has long been strictly limited but there have never been restrictions on party spending in the run-up to elections. But the advent of a fixed date for federal elections – the third Monday of October, every four years - has effectively turned the pre-writ period into an unregulated Wild West, with parties ramping up their spending weeks or months before the election is actually called.
C-76 would also impose a pre-writ spending limit on advocacy groups or so-called third parties of $10,000 per electoral district, to a maximum of $1 million.
“This would be the first time that we are putting limits on the pre-election period,” Gould said, adding that the dollar amount can be re-evaluated after the 2019 election.
“I think it is important that we have this limit in place... Canadians don’t want to be in a perpetual election cycle.”
Because the bill affects all political parties, Gould said it’s important to work with opposition parties as much as possible to achieve some consensus. However, there’s no guarantee the Conservatives will support the bill, even with Thursday’s concession.
In addition to the change on pre-writ spending, the government is proposing other amendments to beef up measures in the bill aimed at preventing foreign interference in Canadian elections.
When the bill was introduced last spring, the government proposed only to prohibit the use of foreign money by third parties during the pre-writ period and during the official campaign period. It is now proposing a blanket ban on the use of foreign funds at any time for the purpose of supporting or opposing a political party or candidate. It is also proposing another amendment that would require online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, to create a registry of all digital advertisements placed by political parties or third parties during the pre-writ and writ periods of a campaign and to ensure they remain visible to the public for two years.
The bill represents a first stab at grappling with the spectre of social media being abused by bad actors – foreign or domestic – to manipulate elections, exacerbate societal divisions, amplify hate messages or instil distrust in the electoral system.
People inspect the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, on July 17, 2014. Canada joined NATO allies on Thursday in blaming the Russian military for new cyber crimes that targeted the international chemical weapons agency and the investigation into the mysterious 2014 crash of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine.
Canadian planet simulator offers insight into origins of life
Liam CASEY Citizen news service
A small group of Ontario researchers believe they may have solved the origins of life mystery.
The results come from early experiments run in a planet simulator at McMaster University’s new Origins of Life Laboratory, which started running this summer.
The simulator – the centrepiece of the facility – is testing a theory that suggests life on Earth began in warm little ponds after meteorites splashed into them about four billion years ago. The machine recreates those conditions to see whether cellular life can be created and then evolve.
“This is a very big moment,” said Maikel Rheinstadter, a biophysics professor and the lead investigator in the new laboratory.
“There’s nothing else like this machine in the world.”
The warm little ponds theory was first put forth by Charles Darwin, expanded on in the 1990s by Carl Sagan, and further developed by David Deamer, a professor in bioengineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Evidence over the last few years points away from another theory that suggests the building blocks of life came about through vents in the Earth’s crust at the bottom of the ocean.
Rheinstadter and two colleagues – Ralph Pudritz, a theoretical astrophysicist and Yingfu Li, a biochemist – are now putting that theory into action.
“We are very interested in understanding how the first very basic cell formed on the early Earth four billion years ago,” Rheinstadter said. “Nobody knows, but I think that’s what we have: a very solid proposal that this is potentially the mechanism.”
The lab’s work is in its early stages and the planet simulator’s recent results must be replicated, Rheinstadter said, but what researchers have seen so far is promising.
The new planet simulator at the heart of their efforts is about the size of a microwave and can control temperature, humidity, pressure, atmosphere and radiation levels to mimic conditions on Earth at any point in its history. It can also create the conditions of any other planet.
It took years to get the machine built –most companies said they simply couldn’t make it – but a company in Kitchener, Ont., was able to take on the project, Rheinstadter said.
When the machine was operational, the researchers used it to mimic a summer season on early Earth – a volcanic environment that was very hot during the day and cool at night, with the odd day of rain and periodic flooding.
Inside the simulator’s chamber were elements of the “primordial soup” that existed at the time, which includes inorganic salts, clays, lipid molecules and nucleotides at varying concentrations, Rheinstadter said.
the
VICTORIA — Premier John Horgan says the government will do its best to protect children and public safety while making sure demand is met when marijuana becomes legal later this month. Horgan says legalization is new territory for everyone and he expects daily challenges after Oct. 17. The premier says the government will do all it can to meet demand by bringing in as much supply as possible.
There has been concern of a shortage of some strains of marijuana, and Horgan says he can’t stop people from going back to the illegal market but he can ensure the government regulates the industry consistent with its values. Horgan says he expects more retail outlets will be operating shortly after legalization and he expects the first store in Kamloops will be busy.
In the 15 months since the NDP took office, Horgan says his government has “hit the ground running” on the marijuana file. “So we’re doing our level best to meet public need but also assure
The researchers ran the machine for a few weeks through important wet-dry cycles, which drive biochemical reactions, with entire seasons being replicated in days. After a time, they began to see results.
“The molecules started to form cell-like structures and they started to incorporate genetic material just by themselves,” Rheinstadter said. “It’s amazing.”
The researchers say they have shown that they can create what are known as protocells, which aren’t considered alive because the scientists still have to demonstrate that the genetic material in the cells can replicate itself and create proteins. But the results are still significant, they said.
The developments in the lab come after research from Pudritz and graduate student Ben K.D. Pearce last year calculated that meteorites bombarded the Earth and delivered the building blocks of life that then bonded together to become ribonucleic acid – the basis for the genetic code. It’s that very research that the McMaster team is now testing.
“It’s very exciting times,” Pudritz said.
It’s taken years to get the lab and its simulator up and running.
In 2012, Rheinstadter along with Pudritz and Li applied to the Canada Foundation for Innovation, an independent non-profit, for funding for their research.
The team’s proposal to search for the origins of life happened to come at the right time as shortly thereafter NASA began reporting a flurry of discoveries of exoplanets where conditions could exist to support life.
Public interest on the subject surged and the team’s bid for funds to build their simulator was approved.
The $1-million lab also received funding from the provincial government and McMaster, Rheinstadter said.
“We’re really fortunate and we’re now about five years ahead of everyone else in the business,” he said.
Other leaders in the field are now clambering to get involved with the lab, including luminaries from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, Harvard University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, Rheinstadter said.
The lab and its simulator have also been lauded by Deamer, the California professor who has worked on the warm ponds theory.
“It’s marvellous,” Deamer said.
“They’ll be able to do experiments no one else can. They just need the governments to open up their coffers to help pay for more collaborations because laboratories around the world want in on this.”
Deamer called the planet simulator “game changing” and said the cells it has created so far are significant.
“These cells are not alive, but are evolutionary steps toward a living system of molecules,” he said. “It opens up a lot of experimental activities that were literally impossible before.”
Welfare doesn’t work for Indigenous kids, Turpel-Lafond says
Kelly Geraldine MALONE Citizen news service
WINNIPEG — B.C.’s former children’s advocate says the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women needs to hold all governments accountable.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond told the inquiry that its final report will end up collecting dust if recommendations aren’t acted upon. She says people always endorse recommendations when final reports are released, but enthusiasm usually wanes over time. Turpel-Lafond says she conducted numerous investigations into
the child welfare system in B.C. and called it a humanitarian crisis. She told the hearing the current child welfare system is not appropriate for Indigenous children and says it often causes them more harm.
The inquiry is holding hearings in Winnipeg this week focused on child welfare. Turpel-Lafond, the director of the UBC Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, said the disproportionate violence affecting Indigenous women and girls is linked with the child welfare system. From 2001 to 2014, homicide rates for Indigenous women were six times higher than for non-Indigenous women.
CP PHOTO
Professors Maikel Reinstadter, right, and Ralph Pudritz pose for a photo with the planet simulator in the Origins of Life Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., on Wednesday.
Truth never dies
With all of the legitimate criticisms to make of U.S.
President Donald Trump and his administration –and Lord knows, they are legion in number – far too many left-leaning writers and journalists argue with somber faces that he’s out to destroy democracy, the Constitution and mom’s apple pie.
The hyperbolic title of Michiko Kakutani’s book says it all – The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump.
The book is a quick, entertaining read but its central premise is outright nonsense. Trump wouldn’t know the truth if it bashed him in the face repeatedly with brass knuckles, so how on Earth can he possibly be the death of it?
Far more intelligent, cruel, devious and evil men have tried. Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Benito Mussolini, Muammar Gaddifi, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Francisco Franco, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet and Ferdinand Marcos gave it their best shot.
They were successful in murdering hundreds of millions of people but all their tanks, bombs, guns and concentration
camps couldn’t kill truth.
Trump and his buddies Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are just the latest men to assault truth but they, even with the latest social media tools, are no match for truth’s resilience.
That is the tragic irony of Kakutani’s book. Fibbing (or exaggerating) about the death of truth in an effort to save it is as morally corrupt as American evangelicals supporting an immoral womanizer for president because he’ll appoint good God-fearing justices to the Supreme Court. At the most generous, her book is short-selling truth, the very ideal she seeks to elevate.
Truth is elusive, not only to its attackers but also to its advocates.
Journalism, science, the law, religion, education and art all pursue truth but both the tools and its wielders are imperfect. That doesn’t mean we should stop seeking the truth in our lives but we should accept that truth is tricky and almost always refuses simple, binary true-false understandings.
In a complicated, uncertain world, people demand truth become easier.
When it refuses to accommodate them, they abandon it in favour of subjective truth (what’s true to me) and then they use the internet and social media to find like-mind-
ed people with their own convenient truths about climate change, fluoride, vaccinations, residential schools, the Holocaust and Russian meddling in elections and so on.
It must be true if other people like me also think it’s true, a self-reinforcing argument tied to ego and self-worth, not to truth and understanding.
It’s that logic that allows a white Chicago police officer, on trial this week for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, to dismiss the camera footage of what happened because “the video doesn’t show my perspective.”
Truth cares not for my perspective or your perspective or Trump’s perspective or anyone else’s. Truth is selfish. It cares only for itself and there is no escaping it, no matter how hard we try. Like the Police song goes, truth hits everybody, from its fiercest defenders to its angriest detractors.
The theme for National Newspaper Week this year is Now More Than Ever because truth matters now more than ever. Without truth, there is no love, there is no trust, the ties that bind families and communities and countries and humanity are illusions, morality is in the eye of the beholder and it’s every man and woman for themselves.
Now more than ever, we must stand for
Newspapers, public need each other
The internet isn’t interested in getting it right, or correcting errors, or in telling a story that recognizes the importance in the mundane of community living.
The internet is a thing.
Social media thrives on sensationalism, pulling us into the bottomless pit of scrolling through information.
As well, social media provides an opportunity to magnify each individual voice, or fake bot, to the point of deafening noise.
With all of that, the user now has the tiresome duty to be wary of everything that is provided to them through a power cord.
Newspapers, by their printed nature, create a juried space built on facts, where information is presented for consideration along with the responsibility of being accountable to the reader.
Perhaps it is time for journalists to pack it in.
Let governments operate without liability; for police and judicial proceedings to carry on with no representation to the public; for television, radio and bloggers to bear the weight of investigative reporting.
Let art, sports, travel and literary works remain undiscovered, save for the lucky few who stumbled upon them.
Opinions will no longer have
an equal voice. This image of a defeatist fearsome future is what keeps journalists and news organizations striving for a balanced business model.
Be reminded that newsprint won’t report how long it took you to finish the crossword, or that you turn to the Automotive section before World or Opinion.
It won’t listen in on your conversations, matching keywords to further commodify you, nor will it snoop through your cookies, bookshelves and closets to collect more data about you to report back to the data masters. All that privacy remains yours with print.
It is up to humanity to take back our requirement for truth from those who would delight in our inability to recognize fact from fiction. (A recent Ipsos-Reid poll found 63 per cent of Canadians were unable to distinguish between real news sites and fake news stories.) To recognize journalism as a keystone species to our democracy and representing our communities.
We, as an industry, have been slow to ask for your support.
We are now asking readers who value newspapers to contribute
to rebuilding disintegrating newsrooms through newsstand sales, subscriptions and voluntary subscriptions (donations).
This has been met with resistance; readers have had the privilege of receiving free news for so long it has become an assumed right.
Another way for readers to support newspapers is by supporting our advertisers and actively telling them the ad in the newspaper worked – which directly affirms the business’ choice to spend valuable marketing dollars to communicate with the readers in the newspaper. A win for the reader, a win for the business and a win for newspapers – and a win for the government; competing online ad platforms based outside of Canada (Google, and Facebook in particular) do not pay taxes.
This year, during National Newspaper Week we are asking you to pledge your support in a simple way at www.newspapersmatter.ca
Like anything malnourished, it will take time to rebuild to full strength, though with renewed reader commitments and reliable advertising, our newsrooms can become vibrant again. It’s time to re-evaluate the desire for flash with the need for truth.
Sarah Holmes is the publisher and owner of the Gabriola Sounder newspaper.
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
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truth and stand with those who would defend truth. They’re easy to separate from the frauds.
The champions of truth insist no one –and especially themselves – have all the answers; the betrayers of truth say they – and often they alone – know the whole truth and demean all who disagree.
The champions of truth are happy to be wrong if it brings them closer to the truth; the betrayers of truth seek only information and views to confirm their bias.
The champions of truth know truth can never die; the betrayers of truth claim it’s already dead.
The champions of truth adapt to the truth, no matter how difficult or painful that may be; the betrayers of truth adapt the truth into a lie to make themselves feel better.
The champions of truth invite discussion and dissent; the betrayers of truth fear and attack opposition.
The champions of truth seek to inform and empower everyone; the betrayers of truth seek to harm and discriminate.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” the English poet Keats wrote 200 years ago.
Truer words were never spoken.
—
Editor-in-chief
Neil Godbout
LNG good for B.C. economy, mixed bag for environment
“Implications of a Positive LNG Canada Final Investment Decision,” ran the header on a slideshow background briefing by government officials after the green light.
There are a lot of them.
The briefing was an effort by the government to explain how the NDP’s pronounced skepticism over seven years converted this year to an enthusiastic and successful effort to close the deal on a liquefied natural gas project.
Much weight was put on the new framework the NDP developed soon after taking office. It had all the usual goals, but the key one looks to have been “establishing cost-competitive conditions for the industry.”
Meaning all the B.C. Liberal efforts to set the table for LNG still weren’t attractive enough. The government had to offer more breaks. It was up to the politicians outside the room to thrash out who deserves the most credit. They were fairly generous in sharing it around.
Inside the briefing room, reporters were told that LNG Canada simply wouldn’t have committed without the further enticements offered by the NDP.
The rationale for offering them was exactly the same script the Liberals read from for years. Highwage jobs, new tax revenue, First Nations opportunities, rejuvenation of northern B.C., etc.
So all the previous NDP rhetoric about giving away too much fell by the wayside.
The NDP cut the electricity rate it would charge the industry and exempted the sales tax for construction (it is expected at this point to be recouped over the long haul).
The new government eliminated the LNG income tax and retained a tax credit and made other incentives available.
All in, the new basket of breaks amount to $5.34 billion in forgone revenue over the next generation.
That’s down from the $6-billion estimate costed out in March when it was announced.
So the good news is: B.C. stands to benefit to the tune of $23 billion in net direct government revenue.
The bad news is: it’s not $28 billion.
From an economic perspective, it’s a no-brainer in terms of whether the breaks are worth it.
It’s the greenhouse-gas-emissions arithmetic where the pros and cons of the LNG industry are a lot closer.
The government’s latest esti-
mate is that LNG Canada’s overall proposal, from the northeast gas fields through the pipeline to the Kitimat plant, would produce 3.45 megatonnes a year in emissions.
That qualifies it for the title of “cleanest LNG in the world,” which is a point the industry and government will be dwelling on for years to come.
The problem is that adds to a total provincial output that is supposed to be going down, not up.
B.C.’s emissions are currently about 60 megatonnes a year. The government is committed – on its own and through the Paris Climate Accord – to driving them down to 40 megatonnes in the next 11 years.
So a new plant puts B.C. further behind.
The briefing document said various NDP moves since last fall (such as the carbon tax hike) can remove about seven megatonnes by 2030.
It estimates 17 more megatonnes are required.
The moves to accomplish that will be announced later this fall.
They’ll be a lot more dramatic than anything that’s come before, and they’ll have to go further than they would have, to make room for the LNG plant.
Even while welcoming the announcement, Premier John Horgan noted a significant challenge is coming.
One sidelight in the briefing was the impact in Asia, where all the gas is headed.
Jurisdictions can’t claim credit for emission reductions elsewhere. But the NDP is borrowing the Liberal theme by noting that B.C. gas will replace coal elsewhere, so will net out as a reduction.
It will “help the world reduce GHG emissions,” said the briefing.
“The international dimension should be noted.”
The bar graphs and timelines suggest there isn’t a lot of emission room for an LNG Canada expansion (the project is referred to in briefings as “Phase One”) or a second plant. Unless it’s cleaner than clean.
The briefing officials also said the Site C dam is not being built with the LNG industry in mind. But all that power and much more will be needed for the massive electrification needed to reach the 2030 target.
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LES LEYNE
In the Fast Leyne
SARAH HOLMES Gabriola Sounder
CP FILE PHOTO
Cows graze at a dairy farm in SaintHenri-deTaillon, Que. in September.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged compensation to dairy farmers to make up for the concessions made in the United States-MexicoCanada Agreement.
Dairy farmers to be compensated for losses under new trade deal
mated loss of revenue for Canadian dairy farms from USMCA and previous trade deals at $480 million.
MONTREAL — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says dairy farmers will be compensated for their expected losses under the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, making the pledge directly at a meeting with their representatives on Thursday.
Trudeau met privately with dairy representatives in downtown Montreal amid concerns in the industry that they’re bearing the brunt under the recently concluded free-trade pact.
Canadian dairy farmers stand to lose 3.59 per cent of their market to U.S. producers under the new trade deal, known as USMCA.
“That’s why we’re going to be working with them over the coming weeks and months to figure out exactly what is the compensation they need,” Trudeau said after touring the offices of Montreal company Seville Films.
“How we can ensure not just that they’re OK, but that they continue to have confidence in the future of the dairy sector in Canada.”
The USMCA is the third free-trade agreement in which Canada has agreed to open access to its supply-managed sectors, this time including increased access for eggs, chicken and turkey.
Trudeau didn’t offer a compensation dollar figure, but in a video posted to YouTube, Marcel Groleau, president of Quebec’s farmers’ union, pegged the esti-
Groleau, who was among the group that met with Trudeau, said they stressed the need for a true compensation program that covers farmers’ losses.
He also counselled members not to panic, adding things wouldn’t change overnight for the dairy industry.
“It’s not the time to make decisions while in a state of shock,” Groleau said.
“In the short term, nothing has really changed, and it’s important to take time to get the best solutions possible to ensure supply management continues.”
While touting USMCA as a good deal for Canadians by securing access to its largest trading partner and the largest market in the world, Trudeau acknowledged farmers’ sacrifices.
“They told me they were worried,” Trudeau said of his meeting with milk producers. “They told me they felt they have continued to give through a number of trade deals they’ve signed, and they’re right.”
For example, under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – with 10 countries including Mexico, Japan and Australia – dairy farmers ceded 3.25 per cent of the market.
Dairy Farmers of Canada president Pierre Lampron wasn’t satisfied with what he heard.
“We recognize the symbolism of the gesture of Prime Minister Trudeau in offering to meet with our industry to
The markets today
OTTAWA (CP) — These are indicative
rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Thursday. Quotations in Canadian funds.
TORONTO (CP) — North American markets all lost ground Thursday as U.S. government bond yields hit a sevenyear high on more news confirming the strength of the American economy.
hear our concerns firsthand,” he said in a statement. “However, the absence of details on measures to mitigate the impact of the concessions made within the USMCA, as well as the absence of a vision for the future of our industry at this time, cannot appease the concerns of the dairy farmers.”
Raymond Bachand, Quebec’s chief free-trade negotiator during the recently concluded negotiations, said the number one objective for Quebec was to preserve access to the American market and that was done.
“However, Ottawa has sold a portion of the milk market and it is clear that it hurts when added to European (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) and the TPP deals,” Bachand said on the sidelines of a metallurgical conference.
“This is eight to 10 per cent of the market. Producers are right to be dissatisfied. But it’s not just compensation, but also strategic thinking to see how we make our businesses more competitive.”
Bachand said USMCA compensation would have to come quickly, noting compensation from the TPP deal took an extended period.
“If I tell you that you are going to lose some of your business, you do not want to wait five years to find out what you are going to have as compensation to be able to manage your finances and knowing where you are investing,” Bachand said. — with files from Julien Arsenault in Boucherville, Que.
The move by the 10-year U.S. Treasury yields is a big deal, said Kash Pashootan, CEO and chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel Inc. The level follows clear confirmation by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that interest rates will gradually increase for the foreseeable future.
“The speculation or the doubt that existed before in terms of the frequency of how rates will go up was put to rest yesterday with Fed Chairman Powell’s comments,” Pashootan said in an interview. That assessment comes ahead of an anticipated big beat in today’s jobs report. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 65.38 points to 16,006.67, after hitting a low of 15,928.16 on 252.9 million shares traded. Gold, industrials, telecom and materials ended the day in positive territory. Health care led on the downside, falling about three per cent on a 5.8 per cent drop by Bausch Health Companies Inc.
U.S. not invited to Canadian trade summit
Mike BLANCHFIELD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Canada has not included the United States in an upcoming meeting aimed at saving the international trading system because it doesn’t share the views of the 13 invited countries, says the new Canadian trade minister.
Canada will host senior ministers from 13 “like-minded” countries for a two-day discussion in Ottawa later this month to brainstorm ways to reform the World Trade Organization, said Jim Carr, Canada’s newly appointed international trade diversification minister.
Carr said the group of countries he’s convened ultimately wants to persuade Washington of the continued usefulness of the WTO, but for now the best way forward is without the U.S. in the room.
“We think that the best way to sequence the discussion is to start with like-minded people, and that’s whom we have invited and they’re coming,” Carr said. “Those who believe that a rules-based system is in the interests of the international community will meet to come up with a consensus that we will then move out into nations who might have been more resistant.”
Asked what his message to Americans is in the meantime, Carr replied: “That a rules-based system is good for them too.”
The WTO is one of a long list of international organizations and agreements derided by U.S. President Donald Trump and his protectionist administration.
In the case of the WTO, the U.S. has moved beyond hostile rhetoric and blocked the appointments of new judges to its dispute settlement body, which is threatening to paralyse the organization and prevent it from making decisions.
“The impasse of the appointment of the appellate body members threatens to bring the whole dispute settlement system to a halt,” says an eightpage Canadian discussion paper that has been circulated among the 13 invited countries.
The Canadian Press obtained a copy of the paper, which has not been publicly released. Carr said Canada is keeping an open mind on finding new ways to settle international trade disputes.
“But the main point is, we believe the WTO, reformed and refreshed, is the best way to reestablish a rules-based system.”
Carr said efforts to persuade the Americans to see that point would have been “a lot harder” if Canada hadn’t preserved dispute resolutions mechanisms in the newly renegotiated continental free trade pact, renamed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“You want your major trading partners to admit that you need a dispute settlement mechanism.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told an Edmonton radio station last month that independent dispute resolution mechanisms, which the U.S. wanted to scrap, needed to be preserved because Trump “doesn’t always follow the rules as they’re laid out.”
Canada is inviting Australia, Brazil, Chile, the European Union, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland to two days of talks on the WTO starting Oct. 24 in Ottawa.
Sidhartha BANERJEE Citizen news service
COUGARS SET FOR
Page 10
Spruce Kings top Wild in rematch
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Playoffs in the B.C. Hockey League don’t start until early March.
Try telling that to the Prince George Spruce Kings and Wenatchee Wild.
It’s still only a few weeks into the regular season but both teams brought the same kind of postseason puck intensity they displayed so prominently in the BCHL final last April, a five-game series that ended with the Wild claiming the Fred Page Cup.
In a fast-paced, wildly entertaining rematch of the league finalists Thursday night at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena the Spruce Kings set the tone early, using their speed to unleash a relentless forecheck that eventually wore the Wild down, winning 3-2.
The Spruce Kings dominated the opening period, taking advantage of back-to-back Wenatchee penalties and a lengthy two-man advantage to build up a 10-1 edge in shots. But none of them snuck past Austin Park, the 20-year-old Wild netminder.
It was much the same story in the second period and the Kings got out of it with a two-goal lead. Nolan Welsh got them started, taking a pass in the slot and firing it low to Park’s blocker side after linemate Ben Poisson kicked in his afterburner to win a footrace for a loose puck in the corner. He put the puck right on Welsh’s stick for his third goal of the season, just 23 seconds into the period.
The Wild tied it on their first power play of the game, 2:12 into the second, a skilful setup by Christophe Fillion, who took a cross-ice feed at the crease and faked a shot to force defenceman Liam Watson-Brawn out of position before rifling in a high wrister.
A power-play goal from Dustin Manz late in the period gave the Kings the lead back and WatsonBrawn picked an opportune time to collect his first of the year to put the Kings in front 3-1, 35 seconds before the second intermission.
But the Wild refused to go away quietly and scored 49 seconds into the third period to make it a onegoal game. Wild captain Lucas Sowder carried the puck into the corner and caught Kings goalie Lo-
gan Neaton not hugging the post as he fired off a high backhander from close range that found a sliver of net. That set the stage for a more evenly-played final 20 minutes and a few nailbiting moments for the pro-P.G. crowd of 912 in attendance.
“I thought we really dominated the first period and that set the tone for the rest of the game,” said Kings general manager Mike Hawes. “Give the Wild credit, they did battle back hard in the second and third and made a real good game of it.
“I thought our veteran guys really led the way and we got some timely goals, which you need to defeat good teams. Our defence was the key tonight. Any time you can limit a team like that to 17 shots in a game you know you’re doing something right.”
The Wild had pressure in the final minute with the goalie out and
had one last shot at the tying goal when Chad Sasaki let one go from the point in the dying seconds but defencemen Dylan Anhorn got his foot in the way just before the buzzer.
“Prince George came out with a bunch of fire,” said Wild associate coach Chris Clark.
“We were just not ready to go,
outshot 10-1 in the first period. We were on our toes for the first two periods. Parkie gave us a chance to win but you’re not going to beat a team that’s the quality of Prince George if you just show up for one period.”
The shots were 30-17 in the Kings’ favour.
“It was a great game right from the word go,” said Hawes. “Those were two real good teams that battled tonight and that’s what this league is about – speed and skill, and we saw that on display tonight.”
The fans certainly got their money’s worth watching 60 minutes of lightning-quick, cleanly-played hockey. About the only disappointment was the fact the Wild play in the Interior Division and won’t be back this season unless the teams meet in the playoffs. We can only hope.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Island
College Heights girls out to tame Ogopogo
Citizen staff
The College Heights Cougars take a two-tournament winning streak into the Ogopogo Classic this weekend in Kelowna. The College Heights senior girls volleyball team will hit kill shots in the 44-team event,
hosted by UBC Okanagan. The Cougars, ranked fifth in the provincial triple-A division, won a Kelly Road tournament last weekend and prior to that topped the field at a Thompson Rivers University gathering in Kamloops.
The Cougars won all of their matches
at Kelly Road in straight sets, including the championship final against the PGSS Polars.
PGSS – which also finished second to College Heights at Thompson Rivers and is ranked sixth in B.C. at the triple-A level – is entered in the Ogopogo Classic as well.
Division-leading Victoria Grizzlies are in town tonight for their one and only visit to Prince George this season. The Grizzlies feature 17-year-old centre Alex Newhook, rated as an A prospect and potential top-three overall pick in the 2019 NHL draft… The Spruce Kings dressed 15-year-old right winger Fin Williams, called up from the Burnaby Winter Club. Williams, a second-round pick of the Swift Current Broncos in the 2018 WHL bantam draft, made his BCHL debut wearing jersey No. 22 on a line with Tyler Schleppe and Layne Sniher. The Kings have tapped the Burnaby pipeline for one-third of their roster. Schleppe, Welsh, Watson-Brawn, Ben and Nick Poisson, Bradley Cooper and Nick Bochen are all Winter Club products… The three stars were: 1. Manz; 2. Brar; 3. Sowder. Anhorn was the Fortis energy player of the game.
Other local teams that will compete are the Duchess Park Condors and D.P. Todd Trojans. Vanderhoof’s Nechako Valley is also in the mix.
Matches start today at 11 a.m. The championship final is scheduled for 3:50 p.m. on Saturday.
California girl adding heat to UNBC offence
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
Given a choice between the skyscrapers of New York City and the mountains and natural beauty of Prince George, Californian Sofia Jones decided to come north of the border to British Columbia to further her soccer career and her studies in math.
For that, the UNBC Timberwolves are eternally grateful.
The 19-year-old from Albany, Calif., carved out a role with the T-wolves, giving the U Sports Canada West conference team an element of speed, tenacity and deadly scoring touch that was sorely needed.
“I was looking to go to somewhere far away and was looking at a school in New York (Queens College) and the school here and I just liked here better, I guess,” said Jones. “I just did a bunch of research on Google. I read a couple articles about what the school offers and everyone was super-positive and I found out the campus is really nice. The students really seemed to like it here and overall it seemed like a place where people were happy.
“It’s been good so far.”
Except for the weather. The forest fires in August that choked the skies with smoke gave way to the fifth coldest September on record
for Prince George. For a California girl used to room temperature outside all year round, that’s taken some getting used to.
“That was definitely the coldest weather,” Jones said. “In San Francisco it doesn’t get very cold at all, ever, and I know it’s going to get a lot colder here. I came up here to see something else. I’ve never lived through a (Canadian) winter. I’m really excited to go sledding and going cross-country skiing would be really cool.”
Jones has thrived in her new environment, emerging as the Twolves’ second-leading scorer with three goals and two assists, tied for 14th in the conference. Her work ethic and desire to become a better player by putting in the time on the practice field has worn off on her teammates and that has the T-wolves squad within striking range of a playoff spot – a bit of a surprise for a young team in rebuilding mode.
Although they have just a single victory, they’ve lost just four of their eight games and their three ties have left them one point behind the UBC Okanagan Heat for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Pacific Division.
Jones competed in soccer and track and field at her high school in Albany, just across the bay from San Francisco, where she specialized in
the 400-metre run and long jump for a couple years before moving on to play soccer for the City College of San Francisco Rams.
Last year, in her first season at the junior college level, she was moved up to striker, having grown up as a fullback, and became a real sniper with the Rams. In 20 games, Jones scored 17 goals and added eight assists and led the Rams to a 15-3-2 season. That gave her plenty of highlights to combine in a video package she sent earlier this year to T-wolves head coach Neil Sedgwick. “She does some great stuff on the field, it’s off the field that we really love what Sofia brings,” said Sedgwick. “She absolutely loves
the game so she’s in here all the time at our (Northern Sport Centre) training centre. She’s the first one to training and encouraging the other girls to get out and practice on their own or with her. She just brings a real focus on development to the program because she wants to get better all the time.
“She does the work and she’s able to step across the front of players with the ball because of her pace. She’s very focused on the team’s efforts and she’s not just a striker who stands up front, she’s one that works both ways. It’s a real pleasure having her here.”
Jones and UNBC forward Paige Payne have shown great chemistry working together on the field which has helped turn Payne into a regular point producer. She leads the team with five goals and seven points in eight games.
“They’re both exciting, kind of soccer junkies,” said Sedgwick. “They watch the game and they’re able to move off of one another, which is key because they have similar movements and understanding from up above what the game looks like. It’s really nice to watch them combine and feed off one another.” With 13 goals in eight games, the T-wolves have already exceeded last year’s entire season total of nine, with six games left.
They have a tall order on their hands this weekend when they host the Grant MacEwan Griffins in a two-game set at Masich Place Stadium tonight (6 p.m. start) and Saturday (6 p.m.).
“We’re definitely hoping to make the playoffs – we’ve had a lot of good opportunities in front of the goal, which is kind of different for the program. We’re having more goals than last year,” said Jones. “There’s more contact and the play is just a lot faster (than her junior college league), you don’t have as much time on the ball. We’ll just continue to try to keep the ball and transition quickly on defence so we’re not making the little mistakes that are costing us goals.”
The Edmonton-based Griffins are cooking at a 5-2-1 pace and have climbed into third place in the Pacific with a chance to solidify a playoff berth this weekend. “We had them twice last year, both 1-nil games and they’ll be tough,” said Sedgwick. “They’re a strong, physical, technical team and well-organized. They are proving to be a much-improved team, one that gets better every time. They’ve taken big steps in the last couple years.”
The UNBC men (4-2-3, fourth in Pacific) are playing Thompson Rivers University Saturday and Sunday in Kamloops.
JONES
CITIZEN
Prince George Spruce Kings forward Michael Conlin makes a nifty move to get around Wenatchee Wild defender Avery Winslow on Thursday night at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
Brewers take NLDS opener in extra inning
Citizen news service
MILWAUKEE — Mike Moustakas scored MVP front-runner Christian Yelich with a two-out single in the 10th inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers bounced back to beat the Colorado Rockies 3-2 Thursday in their NL Division Series opener.
After giving up two runs in the ninth that made it 2-2, the Brewers regrouped and soon celebrated. Making their first post-season appearance since 2011, they won their ninth straight game overall. Yelich hit a two-run homer in the third inning, then opened the 10th with a walk against Adam Ottavino. Yelich advanced to second on a wild pitch and came home on Moustakas’ line drive to right field. After almost winning the Triple Crown this year, Yelich got two
hits, scored twice and stole a base in is playoff debut. Josh Hader and the Brewers allowed just one hit over eight innings in a dominant bullpen game and led 2-0 before Jeremy Jeffress gave up three straight singles to open the ninth. Charlie Blackmon grounded an RBI single shortly after his ground-rule double was overruled on replay review, and Nolan Arenado added a basesloaded sacrifice fly to tie it.
Game 2 is Friday in Milwaukee with Colorado’s Tyler Anderson opposing Jhoulys Chacin, who led Milwaukee with 35 starts this year. He started Monday when the Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs 3-1 in the NL Central tiebreaker at Wrigley Field.
Joakim Soria picked up the win in the opener with a scoreless 10th.
Penguins win goalfest in OT
Citizen news service
PITTSBURGH — Kris Letang scored his second goal 1:20 into overtime to give the Pittsburgh Penguins a 7-6 victory over the Washington Capitals on Thursday. Letang beat goalie Braden Holtby with a slap shot from the point on a power play. Letang finished with three points, tying Hall of Famer Paul Coffey for the most by a defenceman in team history with 440.
Jake Guentzel also scored twice, Evgeni Malkin had a goal and two assists, and Derick Brassard and Jamie Oleksiak added goals in Pittsburgh’s opener. Matt Murray made 30 saves.
T.J. Oshie scored twice for Stanley Cup champion Washington, coming off a 7-0 home victory over Boston on Wednesday night in the Capitals’ opener.
Alex Ovechkin had his second of the season and 609th overall, passing Dino Ciccarelli for 18th on the NHL list. Brooks Orpik, Jakub Vrana and John Carlson also scored.
Malkin scored 2:45 into the third period, putting Pittsburgh ahead by two, but Oshie tied it at 6-6 with goals 21 seconds apart.
• Patrick Kane scored in overtime as the Chicago Blackhawks spoiled the Ottawa Senators’ home opener with a 4-3 win Thursday.
Alex DeBrincat, Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook also had goals for Chicago (1-0-0), while Cam Ward stopped 22 shots. Maxime Lajoie scored in his NHL debut, while Colin White and Zack Smith also had singles for the Sens (0-0-1) as Craig Anderson made 37 saves.
Giants casting long shadows among best in WHL
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
If the Prince George Cougars are looking for a measuring stick to determine how close they are to being among the best in the WHL’s B.C. Division, their next two games against the Vancouver Giants could provide that gauge.
The Giants are off to a roaring 4-1-0-0 start, their latest victims being the Kelowna Rockets, who lost 5-0 to the Giants Wednesday in Kelowna.
Now into the third week of the season, the Giants are tied for first in the division with the Victoria Royals (4-0-0-0) and rank fourth overall in the WHL but the youthfully exuberant Cougars (2-2-0-1), one of the youngest teams in the WHL, are only three points behind.
The Cougars learned this week their sophomore goalie Taylor Gauthier is ranked by NHL Central Scouting as a B prospect for next year’s draft, considered likely to be chosen in the second or third-round.
on the Giants’ list of scoring leaders. Cougars centre Ethan Browne (2-2-4) and defenceman Ryan Schoettler (2-2-4) lead the Cougars in scoring, each having played five games.
The Giants have had numerous injuries to deal with, mostly to their defence, losing Matt Barbaris, Bailey Dhaliwal, and Joel Sexsmith. All are out with upper-body injuries. Barbaris is listed as indefinite, Dhaliwal is sidelined for a month and Sexsmith is day-to-day. They also lost forward Aiden Barfoot with an upper-body ache. To take up the slack on the blueline, the Giants picked up Ryan Pouliot on waivers from Swift Current and acquired Ty Ettinger in a trade from Brandon.
The 17-year-old from Calgary has played in all five games for the Cougars so far, compiling a 2.95 goals-against average and .899 save percentage.
The Cougars picked Gauthier 10th overall in the 2016 WHL bantam draft. In August, he played for Canada in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup international tournament and was flawless in a relief appearance in the gold medal game against Sweden, making 16 saves to earn the win and the championship.
The Giants have been solid in net. Trent Miner made 21 saves for his first WHL shutout Wednesday in Kelowna. The 17-year-old from Brandon played nine games as a rookie for the Giants last season. David Tendeck, 19, an Arizona Coyotes sixth-round pick in 2018, has played four games this year and sports a 1.98 goals-against average and .927 save percentage.
The Giants have been getting steady production from James Malm, a Valley West Hawks major midget graduate from Langley, now in his third season with the Giants. He has a league-leading seven goals as well as an assist in eight games this season, coming off a 19-goal, 66-point season last year.
Brayden Watts (2-2-4), Davis Koch (1-3-4) and defenceman Dylan Plouffe (0-4-4) are next in line
The Cougars will be without 19-year-old D Cameron MacPhee (upper body) and 16-year-old D Tyson Phare (upper body).
The Cats head out on a Central Division tour next week with games Friday at Medicine Hat, Saturday at Lethbridge and Sunday at Kootenay.
LOOSE PUCKS: Former Cougars defenceman Dennis Cholowski scored his first big-league goal in his NHL debut with the Detroit Red Wings Thursday night in Columbus against the Blue Jackets. Cholowski’s goal, 7:46 into the second period, tied the game 1-1... Brandon Manning, a former Spruce King defenceman and Prince George native, played his first game for the Chicago Blackhawks Thursday in Ottawa against the Senators. Manning, 28, signed as a free agent with Chicago over the summer after four seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. He was paired with Hawks veteran Brent Seabrook... Kelowna has been awarded the 2020 Memorial Cup, beating out competing bids from Kamloops and Lethbridge, Alta. The last time Kelowna hosted Canada’s major junior hockey championship was in 2004, when the Rockets won it on home ice. Vancouver was the most recent B.C. city to host the event, in 2007, and the host Giants won it that year... The Lethbridge Hurricanes, last year’s WHL semifinalists, acquired former Cariboo Cougar forward Ty Kolle Friday from the Portland Winterhawks. The Hurricanes gave up a fifth-round bantam pick in 2019 to get the rights to the 18-yearold from Kamloops... The Yellowhead Rotary Club has organized a Thanksgiving food drive and will be collecting donations of non-perishable food items at tonight’s game.
Minor midget Cougars put on their game faces
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
They’re in a new league with a new name but expectations remain high for the Cariboo Cougars minor midget hockey team.
They plan on winning often in the B.C. Hockey Minor Midget League.
Formerly known as the Coast Inn of the North Tier 1 midget Cougars, the team of now strictly 15-year-old players (born in 2003) is part of a new branch set up by B.C. Hockey as a more cost-efficient and local alternative to private hockey academies that have sprung up in the province over the past decade.
Six of the players on the minor midget team are from Prince George, moving up from the bantam ranks last season, including goalie Kenny Gerow and forwards Jaydon Merritt, Kellan Brienen, Nicolas Braaten, Landon Ingham and Tyler Lalikeas.
The other 13 are from a vast catchment area of northern B.C. and the Yukon Territory. The forward group also includes Cole
Cowan (Whitehorse), Colton Thon (Quesnel), Ashton Underhill (Whtehorse), Dawson Riley (Quesnel), Hunter Brown (Fort St. John) and Samuel Chabot (Williams Lake). On defence are Brody Johnston (Vanderhoof), Lee Livingstone (Quesnel), Wyatt Millner (Fort St. John), Owen Palfreyman (Whitehorse), Deegan Tremaine (Fort St. John) and Nick Wright (Wiliams Lake). Palfreyman has been added to the Calgary Hitmen’s 50-player protected list, while Brown was chosen by the Red Deer Rebels in the seventh round of the 2018 WHL draft. Johnston has been playing up with the Cariboo Cougars major midget team the past two weeks. Gerow of Prince George is sharing the goaltending duties with Dawson Smith of
Whitehorse, but Smith is hurt, so Jackson Powers of Smithers will be with the team until Smith’s knee has healed from arthroscopic surgery.
Head coach Brian Toll figures the Cougars will be quite offensive-minded and should emerge as a top-tier team in the 10-team league.
“Our top two forward lines are really quite strong – they’re big boys, they’re strong and fast, and I’d say overall I probably have a more talented team than my midget Tier 1 team last year,” said Toll, who coached the Tier 1 midget Cougars to the provincial silver medal in March.
“Lots of these kids are on the radar of Western League teams. We’ll go with seven defenceman and 10 forwards this year, so every game is going to be a bit of a competition for icetime.”
The Cougars are in Coquitlam tonight to play the Vancouver Northeast Chiefs in the first of a three-game series. They meet the Chiefs Saturday at 12:15 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m.
All told, the Cougars will play a 30-game
schedule on 10 weekends throughout the fall and winter. They’ll host the South Island Royals in their first home series, Oct. 19-21 at Kin 1. To fill in some of the gaps in the schedule the Cougars are entered in four tournaments, starting with the Thompson Blazers’ tournament in Merritt, Oct. 12-14. They’re also booked for the Richmond International tournament over Christmas, and will face academy teams at events in Delta in January and in Edmonton in February.
All of the players attend Prince George Secondary School and work with Renzo Berra and Justin Fillion in the hockey program at PGSS. In addition to their team practices with Toll and his assistants, Ryan Howse and Chase Astorino and former WHL Cougar goalie Ty Edmonds, they’re on the ice for 75-minute skill sessions three times per week. They also work in the gym twice a week with Prince George Cougars strength and conditioning coach Kris Russell. Cara Roberts, owner of Active Body Nutrition, provides food counselling for the players.
A&E
IN BRIEF
Evans hangs up Captain’s shield
NEW YORK (AP) — Chris Evans has wrapped his final performance as Captain America. Evans on Thursday tweeted that his last shooting day on Avengers 4 was an “emotional day.” The 37-year-old actor thanked his colleagues and fans for his eight years as Captain American, saying it “has been an honour.”
Evans first joined the Marvel cast in 2010. He has starred in three Captain America films, including 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, as well as numerous team-up films.
The actor previously suggested he would soon depart the role. Earlier this year, Evans told The New York Times that wanted to “get off the train before they push you off.”
Avengers 4 is slated to open in May next year.
Falling light cover stops show
MAITLAND, N.S. (CP) — The lead singer for one of Toronto’s best-known rock bands was nearly hit by a falling light cover during a Nova Scotia gig. Travis Good of The Sadies was singing at a show in Maitland, N.S., Sunday when a light cover fell, hit his microphone stand and shattered on the ground.
The near-miss was caught on a video posted by Kyle McDonald, with the band abruptly stopping the performance in disbelief amid shouts from audience members.
The country rock band was performing at the High Tides Arts and Community Centre, an old church converted into a events facility. McDonald, a sound technician and friend of the band, said the light cover fell near the end of the set, and there was a “strange vibe” in the room afterwards. Nobody was seriously hurt.
Perry breaks silence with Traces
Pablo GORONDI Citizen news service
Steve Perry, Traces (Fantasy Records)
Steve Perry has been away for quite a while but he’s never really been gone.
From the unforgettable use of Don’t Stop Believin’ on the last Sopranos episode to the way his former band found a new, sound-alike singer on the internet and, last year, Journey’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Perry and his prolonged absence have been often on our minds.
Traces is Perry’s first solo album since 1994 and, cliched as it may sound, it really is a very personal work with some songs that would have sounded out of place on a Journey record. Made in part to fulfil a promise to his partner who succumbed to breast cancer in 2012, Traces is dominated by ballads in many guises by someone whose quasi-operatic voice made him one of their most memorable interpreters.
Launching with the first single, No Erasin’, immediately injects Traces with nostalgia through an updated recreation of a teenage love with an unerringly precise opening line – “I know it’s been a long time comin.’” Perry has said the song was meant to evoke a high school reunion and – along with We’re Still Here and Sun Shines Gray – it’s the one that most resembles a Journey track.
In The Rain is the album’s tour de force but sans any bombast, one of Perry’s most emotional vocals supported by a restrained piano-and-strings arrangement emphasizing its anguish: “You got me even though you’re gone.”
Former rap mogul gets 28-year prison sentence
Andrew DALTON Citizen news service
LOS ANGELES — Marion “Suge” Knight was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for mowing down and killing a Compton businessman in a case that completed the former rap music mogul’s downfall from his heyday as one of the biggest – and most feared – names in the music industry.
Knight will now likely live out most, if not the rest, of his life in a California prison. He showed no emotion in court Thursday as relatives of Terry Carter, the man he killed, described their loved one as a devoted family man and peacemaker.
Carter was killed after Knight and one of his longtime rivals, Cle “Bone” Sloan, started fighting outside a Compton burger stand in January 2015. Knight was upset about his portrayal in an N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, which Sloan was serving as a consultant on. Knight clipped Sloan with his pickup truck, seriously injuring him, before speeding through the parking lot and running over Carter and fleeing.
While Carter’s relatives said they hoped Knight’s lengthy sentence will bring them peace, many had no kind words for the Death Row Records co-founder, who they criticized for showing a complete lack of remorse.
Carter’s daughter Crystal called Knight a “low-life thug,” “career criminal” and “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”
“I ask that you sentence this unrepentant, remorseless, cold, callous menace to society to the maximum of 28 years,” she told a judge.
Before Thursday’s hearing, Knight had already agreed to his lengthy prison term by pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter and avoiding a trial on murder and attempted murder charges that could have resulted in a life sentence if he was convicted. The sentencing ended a nearly four year court saga that included frequent outbursts by Knight, 53, who also collapsed in court during one appearance and shuffled his defence team 16 times.
touch
is transformed into a heart-
Nearly two dozen of Carter’s relatives packed the courtroom Thursday.
Carter’s daughter, Nekaya Carter, said she hopes that the end of the courtroom saga can bring her some peace.
Knight has been in decline for decades.
“I wanted justice for my dad and now we’ve finally got it, kind of,” she said. She then addressed Knight directly despite the judge’s instructions not to. “My dad can finally rest in peace while you live out the rest of your life in prison.”
At his pinnacle in the mid-1990s, he was putting out wildly popular records that are now considered classics from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur.
Between the restrictions of the three-strikes law and the time Knight has already served, he’ll likely spend roughly 20 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole.
Knight has been in decline for decades. At his pinnacle in the mid-1990s, he was putting out wildly popular records that are now considered classics from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. Shakur was in Knight’s car when he was killed in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas in 1996. He later lost his stake in Death Row Records due in bankruptcy proceedings.
His sister, Jessica Carter, told Los Angeles Superior Court Ronald Coen, “He was so much more than the person the defendant killed with his truck.”
There have been disputed accounts of why Carter had been at the scene, but his family said he often acted as a community mediator and peacemaker.
“This wasn’t no cat who went after nobody,” Carter’s brother-inlaw Damu Visha said in court. “He helped people.”
The death was captured on surveillance video, and family members described their anguish in having to see it repeatedly, and chastised the media for showing it so often.
Coen appeared moved by the family’s words and offered his own condolences.
“If it hasn’t been said by anyone else,” Coen said, “let me tell you, that my heart goes out to you.”
Most victim’s family members spoke of the need to forgive Knight for their own peace of mind.
“I hope and I pray that we find forgiveness,” Terry Carter’s cousin Patricia Hawkins said. “But it won’t be today.”
KNIGHT
On Easy To Love, Perry’s lead vocals have just a
of Rod Stewart’s gruffness while his backing vocals are satin smooth and George Harrison’s I Need You
felt soul ballad. Breaking his long silence in such a memorable way, Traces shows that for Perry retuning to music was about much more than keeping his word.
FANTASY RECORDS VIA AP
Traces is Steve Perry’s first solo work since 1994.
DOUGLAS WILLIAM WIPFLI
July 31, 1939October 3, 2018
With great sadness we say goodbye. He will be missed. He has died peacefully. Doug will always be remembered for his warm smile and kind heart. A Celebration of Life is scheduled October 6, 2018 at Spruce Capital Seniors Center, 3701 Rainbow Dr from 1:003:00pm. Pastor Jeff Hallmark will officiate. Come and help us celebrate.
Jacob Albert Corba December 12, 1959August 15, 2018
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Jacob or, as he was know to everyone, Jack. Jack was predeceased by his parents Albert and Henderina and brother-in-law Jonathon. He will be greatly missed by his spouse Dawn, brother John (Lesley) and sister Joanne (Dean). Sisters-inlaw Maxine (John) and Dianne and brothersin-law Thane (Lisa) and Adam (Joeleane). Nieces Judy (Jim), Amber (Sean), Tabitha, Amanda, Andrea, Chandler (Mike), Madison and Tinayah. Nephews Brent (Karen), Devan, Josh and Tristan and great nieces Olive, Mabel, Audrey, Skyler, Brea, Alexis, Rayla, Isabelle as well as other numerous relatives and friends. Jack was born in North Vancouver where he made lifelong friends as a member of the Scouts and Rovers and enjoyed skiing and hiking. In his early 20’s Jack started working for BC Rail and later transferred to Prince George, BC and continued working for the railroad after the company transitioned to CN. Jack was well liked and was known for his sense of humor and easy going manner. Jack retired in 2017 after 35 years with the railroad. He and Dawn enjoyed camping and fishing and walks with their dogs and time spent together reading books and watching movies. We would like to thank his doctors for whom he had great respect; Dr. Sola, Dr. Miller and Dr. Wan, Seth and Kim and all of the nurses and staff at UHNBC and Hospice House who treated him with such kindness and compassion. Services will be held at a later date yet to be disclosed.
It is with a heavy heart and loving thoughts, we announce the passing of our mother, Shelley Marie Brizan, January 17th 1961, at 57 years of age. A strong and independent woman, she can finally rest and be at ease, alongside her daughter Brandi.
Shelley will be lovingly remembered by her sons Richard and Stephen alongside her close friends and family.
We will be hosting a Celebration of Life on Saturday, October 6th, at the Marriott Hotel at 1:30pm. In lieu of flowers please consider donations to the SPCA and the Children’s Hospital.
We are sad to announce the passing of long time resident, Sharon Dorothy (Belsham) Gordon: born in Prince George July 31, 1948, died PG Hospice Oct 1, 2018.
She loved quilting, Bridge, golf, and the Blue Jays; but, most of all she loved her husband of 52 years, Merl, her children Lance (Susanne) and Leanne (Todd Abrahams) and 5 beautiful grandchildren Kayla, Melissa, James and in Australia Jayvin and Kylie. She leaves behind her brothers Brian (Trish), George and Derek (Kathy Richardson) Belsham as well as many extended family, in-laws and friends, whom she also dearly loved. Sharon will be missed by all. We would like to thank Dr. Inban Reddy and his palliative care team, the cancer clinic, and all the wonderful angels at Hospice. A memorial will be announced at a later date.
We remember Allyson Westlund (Maxwell), born April 12, 1949. Allyson passed peacefully on Sept 23, 2018 after a brief battle with cancer. She was predeceased by parents Larry Maxwell and Leslie Kinloch. She will forever be in the hearts of her husband Wayne, son Christopher, (Ali) and her grandchildren Nora, Maxwell and Oliver. She will also be sadly missed by her sisters Gail, Carla (Jim) and Lorene, niece Heather and nephews Jamie and Matthew. Allyson was born and raised in Prince George and was passionate about her teaching career of more than 30 years. She spent her retirement years travelling to Mexico in the winter months with her husband Wayne. Her love for gardening bloomed annually in her yard and brightened up the neighbourhood. She created many memories with her grandchildren, taking them on trips to Mexico, enjoying their sporting events and filling their hearts with love. Her amazing energy, strength and smile will shine brightly and inspire all that loved her. She will be dearly missed. A heartfelt thank-you to all the wonderful caregivers, and to Gayle Kroetsch, Allyson’s life-long best friend for her love, care and support. At her request, there will not be a funeral service. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Prince George Hospice House.
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