Robin De Souza from the Victoria
$1 a cookie, with all the proceeds
Inquest calls for sobering centre in city
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A coroner’s inquest into the death of a man while in Prince George RCMP custody ended Thursday with a jury calling for establishment of a sobering centre in the city.
The seven person jury found that Jamie Wilford Shanoss, 51, died as a result of acute alcohol poisoning during the early morning of Nov. 21, 2016 and effectively endorsed a suggestion from Prince George RCMP Insp. Shaun Wright.
Testifying on Thursday – he was the last of 18 witnesses to give testimony over the course of the inquest which began Monday – Wright said such centres exist in other communities around the province. He made special note of Surrey, where police can drop off people who are intoxicated but have not committed a criminal offence.
“They can receive proper supervision to return to a point of sobriety where they can depart and care for themselves as opposed to simply being locked essentially with criminals in a police jail,” Wright said.
Wright was the last of 18 witnesses a seven-person jury heard over four days this week for an inquest into the death of Shanoss. The jury began
working early Thursday afternoon on recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.
Although able to walk and talk when he was taken into custody, Shanoss was later found unconscious in the detachment’s drunk tank and could not be revived. A pathologist determined he had a blood-alcohol level of .38 at the time, nearly five times the legal limit for driving.
Wright said police have the authority under the province’s Liquor Control and Licensing Act to take into custody those drunk enough to be a danger to themselves. He said about 20 per cent of the 4,500 or so prisoners housed at the detachment each year are taken in for that reason.
About a half dozen of them spend between 50 and 200 nights a year in cells set aside for public drunkenness.
“And of those six, I would wager that at least three of them in the next 10 years will likely die there because of the amount of time they spend there, which truly isn’t where they should be,” Wright said.
In earlier testimony, the inquest heard Shanoss had shown up at the Ketso Yoh men’s shelter late in the night of Nov. 20, 2016 in a good but disruptive mood. After twice being asked to calm down so others in the shelter could sleep, Shanoss went
out for a walk shortly before midnight.
By then, RCMP had been alerted and he was eventually found sleeping in an entryway at St. Vincent DePaul’s soup kitchen a short distance away. Shanoss woke up when an arresting officer spoke to him and he was described as essentially cooperative when taken into custody.
Wright said the majority of those arrested for drunkenness act like Shanoss, who had been described as friendly and a “nice guy” in earlier testimony. He said police usually ask the person if they have friends or family who could take them but unfortunately, there is a significant number of homeless people in Prince George and the only option they have is the detachment cellblock.
Stationing a nurse at the detachment is unrealistic, according to Wright, because the cells can be empty for hours at a time and having a nurse on call is too much to ask.
The jury addressed its recommendation for a sobering centre to Northern Health.
It also called for more training for the guards who patrol the cells at the detachment.
The inquest had heard the guard on duty at the time failed to carry out enough physical checks that night. Wright said changes are being
made into the way guards are being trained and should be in place within the next month.
At about 2 a.m., the guard discovered Shanoss was not breathing and he was dragged out into the hallway where CPR was performed on him. Noting there were two other people in the cell, Wright said room was needed to work on Shanoss and dragging him was “by far the quickest” way to get him out.
Wright said carrying out Shanoss would not have been practical in part because of the dead weight an unconscious person presents and because “you do not want to manipulate the body anymore than you have to” in case there is a medical condition.
Wright said that while the checks were not as thorough as they should have been, the response once it was realized Shanoss was in distress was “text book” and exactly as he would have expected.
Unless facing a criminal charge, requiring people like Shanoss to provide a breath sample upon arrest is fraught with complications related to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the inquest was told.
Even if one was provided voluntarily, Wright said it might not be practical for someone who is severely intoxicated.
Indecent acts suspect arrested
Citizen staff
Prince George RCMP have arrested a man on suspicion of committing a string of indecent acts near the University of Northern British Columbia.
The detachment’s sex crime unit arrested the man on Thursday as part of an ongoing investigation into reports dating back to July 2017.
RCMP are asking anyone who has been a victim or anyone with further information related to investigation to contact the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300.
Sinkhole work continues
Form work was being done at the site of the sinkhole located at the intersection of Winnipeg Street and Carney Street on Wednesday afternoon.
Province considering wildfirerelated hunting restrictions
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Now that the enormous wildfires of the area are yielding to the autumn weather, including a freak snowstorm last week, residents are taking stock of their scorched earth.
Fires like Shovel Lake, Nadina Lake, Verdun Mountain, and many others drastically altered the landscape in the Lakes District-Omineca regions especially.
Those ecosystems are in disarray and for the ungulate populations of moose, deer, elk and so on, the fire topsy is now followed by hunting season turvy.
Dawn Makarowski, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations & Rural Development, said the provincial government was in the process of assessing the crisscross of hunting estimates made earlier in the year versus the new environmental reality where fires swept wildlife out of their usual habitats.
“It is too soon to say whether hunting
restrictions in wildfire-affected areas near Francois Lake (or other fire-affected communities) will be implemented under the provincial Wildlife Act, however regulations may be considered to reduce the vulnerability of wildlife to hunting,” Makarowski said, and urged those with an interest to frequently monitor the provincial government’s website dedicated to hunting.
According to data from past B.C. wildfires, wildlife populations are not much affected by wildfires. Most animals escape the flames.
“The stress that wildfire puts on populations is a short-term displacement resulting from a brief removal of forage and, potentially, security cover,” Makarowski said.
The long-term effects of a large wildfire can have a positive result for flora and fauna in the affected forest.
Regrowth and renewal are healthy for forests that have experienced a large burn.
“However, there are some concerns that arise in the presence of large-scale
wildfires and wildfire suppression,” Makarowski said. “Specifically, wildfires can create two situations that increase the vulnerability of hunted big game.”
The first potential problem is from fireguards, the wide highways of dirt plowed through the bush along the front lines of a fire to block its advance. The construction of access roads has a smaller but similar effect. It makes it easy for hunters to use vehicles into ungulate areas never before accessible.
The second potential problem is simple line of sight. Fire guards and burn areas are devoid of underbrush. The intended targets are much more exposed to the aiming of bows and rifles.
“Ministry staff assess habitat conditions in wildfire-affected areas in order to determine the extent of habitat loss and to support possible management actions. Wildlife values will be considered and addressed in all wildfire rehabilitation activities, as well as in future timber harvest and silviculture decisions within the burn areas.”
That assessment work is underway.
Mennonite family festival coming soon
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
It’s a new name, but it’s the same traditional offerings at the Mennonite Central Committee’s Family Festival.
You know what that means: treats like borscht, perogies, farmer sausage and pie.
What was once called the Mennonite Fall Fair has undergone some changes, but the food is still the driving force for this charitable event each fall.
“We will be serving lunch all day. The lunch consists of a bowl of borscht, farmer sausage on a bun, a beverage and your choice of pie,” said event liaison Diane Fairservice.
You can also take home the culinary delights. Off-sales are one of the most pivotal parts of this autumn fundraising effort. Home baking will be on offer, as well as local fresh produce and some coming in from the Okanagan, farmer sausage coming from Manitoba, perogies on the way in from Abbotsford, fair trade coffee from Level Grounds, all to stock local freezers for the winter.
“We are all about food and family fun,” said Fairservice. “We will have a children’s carnival set up, they can participate in the activities and earn bucks toward the carnival children’s store. We will have live music. It’s a great time for people of all ages to come together and help an important cause.”
The recipient of the funds generated from the family festival is the Migbare Senay Children & Family Support Organization, an agency focused on developing water resources and food sustainability in Ethiopia.
“The children who’ve been attending Sunday school were given boxes earlier in the year called My Coins Count, and those boxes will be collected at the event, and the kids will weigh all the boxes, there will be a display where they’ll colour in how much their box weighed, and we will announce the total weight at the end of the day. Throughout the year, these kids have been learning about the projects in Ethiopia, so they are learning and they are discovering how they can help.”
The family festival happens Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church (2658 Ospika Blvd.) Admission is free.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Danny Bell plays drums during a show in Canada Games Plaza in 2017. Bell & His Disappointments will being playing a show at the Legion tonight.
Bell playing show tonight
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Local musician, concert promoter and arts advocate Danny Bell has been a collaborator on countless projects. Finally it’s his turn to conduct things of his very own. He’s been behind the scenes and active on the drum kit and assorted other musical contributions for groups like alt-rock band Black Spruce Bog and the current modern folk group Folky Strum Strum.
Now he steps into the role of title character for a new group, Danny Bell & His Disappointments. Their debut album comes out tonight at a CD launch concert. The nine-song album is called Good Timin’ Man. Each tune is written by Bell and features his many musical friends from around the Prince George music scene like Naomi Kavka, Saltwater Hank, Brin Porter, and Amy Blanding.
Feds to examine notwithstanding clause use
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The appropriate use of the Constitution’s contentious notwithstanding clause could soon be examined by a House of Commons committee.
NDP justice critic Murray Rankin says he will formally ask the justice and human rights committee to delve into the issue after the Ontario government invoked the constitutional override in its bid to slash the size of Toronto city council.
Rankin says while his request is prompted by the recent tumult at Queen’s Park.
Bell rang up his reputation on playing drums, but it is his melodic talents that drive this project forward.
He plays accordion and sings for this new project, and his personal talents are supported by some talented bandmates with strong reputations of their own like Jeremy Pahl (mandolin/vocals), Chloe Nakahara (fiddle), Naomi Kavka (cello/vocals), Amy Blanding (vocals), Brin Porter (upright bass), and Harry Tudor (drums). Those are His Disappointments.
For more information on the event, the album, and the artist, visit his website at dannybell.org
The event tonight will have a strong supporting act as well. Saltwater Hank will be opening the evening with some of his original tunes.
Cover charge is $10 to see both concerts. Music starts at 9 p.m. It happens at the Prince George Legion.
LOTTO MAX LOTTO 6/49 BC-49
In the event of a discrepancy between this and the official winning numbers list, the latter shall prevail.
Canada joins effort to clean up old fishing nets
Mia RABSON Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Canada has joined a global alliance trying to rid the world’s oceans of millions of tonnes of old fishing nets.
Canada is the 13th nation to join World Animal Protection’s Global Ghost Gear Initiative, an international alliance of nations, companies, and environment groups started in 2015 to go after one of the most significant contributors to the earth’s plastic problem.
“We’re saying this is a critical issue for us to address,” Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview.
Wilkinson added Canada to the alliance in Halifax this week as the federal government played host to G7 environment, energy and fisheries ministers.
Fishing gear is a far bigger issue to the ocean garbage problem than plastic straws, water bottles and grocery bags, but often flies under the radar as governments and environment groups focus on singleuse plastics that will get more attention from businesses and consumers.
Measurements show fishing nets make up almost half the weight of the
80,000-tonne Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a soupy-mess of broken down bits of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. By size, the patch is bigger than the entire province of Quebec, and is the largest of five such plastic patches in the oceans around the world. In addition to nets, ghost gear spotted in the patch includes crab pots, oyster spacers, ropes, eel traps, crates and baskets. Fishers sometimes purposely abandon the gear, but often it comes loose accidentally and floats away.
Josey Kitson, executive director of World Animal Protection Canada, says the lost gear is one of the biggest hazards for marine life. Research shows 136,000 seals, sea lions and small whales die each year after being tangled in abandoned fishing gear.
“It does what it’s meant to do which is fish,” Kitson said. “It continues to fish indiscriminately catching whales, dolphins, sea turtles, even other fish that it wasn’t meant to catch.”
The gear, mostly made of plastic, can float thousands of kilometres away and exist for hundreds of years.
When safety harms society
The two most abused words in modern society, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue in their illuminating new book The Coddling of the American Mind, are trauma and safety. Not every physical or mental injury is traumatic, nor is every awful experience worthy of a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis. The death of loved ones can be traumatic if they died needlessly and violently, they were young and you witnessed it, but there is nothing traumatic about a 90-year-old grandma dying in her sleep in the care home.
Yet trauma, the authors argue, is now used to describe every painful wound from a broken leg (she won’t ever walk properly again and she’ll have arthritis for the rest of her life!) to finding out a spouse has been having an affair (he can’t sleep, he’s lost all of his confidence and he doesn’t feel like going to work!).
Trauma was a word once reserved for the worst kind of tragedies but now everyone wants their hurt recognized as trauma, regardless of the severity. As a result, Lukianoff and Haidt rightly point out, trauma has been both elevated and diminished. On one hand, everybody hurts and everyone else around them needs to accommodate that suffering. On the other hand, if every-
body hurts, then no one does and legitimate trauma is easily ignored.
The same thing has happened to safety. Not only has “safetyism,” as the writers call it, created a vast, unnecessary bureaucracy of paranoid government sentinels, it has poisoned the minds of both adults and children that they are constantly in imminent danger, despite the fact that most people living in most modern countries are the safest human beings who have ever lived. In places like Canada and the United States, the risk of dying or receiving permanent injuries as the result of infectious disease, crime or an accident in the workplace or in an automobile are ridiculously low compared to other less wealthy countries and compared to ourselves 50 years ago.
diverse forms of bacteria are everywhere and most kids quickly develop a robust immune system, are less likely to acquire a variety of medical conditions later in life, from asthma to intolerance to lactose and gluten.
Trauma was a word once reserved for the worst kind of tragedies but now everyone wants their hurt recognized as trauma, regardless of the severity.
Yet peanut allergies are soaring among young people. As the results of a major study pointed out a few years ago, children are nearly six times more likely to acquire an allergy to peanuts if they weren’t exposed to foods with peanuts in the ingredients during infancy as those kids who were. Other studies have shown that kids who grow up on working farms, where
In other words, the overwhelming focus on safety for kids has made them less safe by making them more prone to illness.
As its title indicates, The Coddling of the American Mind is far more concerned with emotional, psychological and social effects of too much trauma and too much safety, rather than the physical effects.
As a free speech and education advocate (Lukianoff) and an academic (Haidt), the authors are both frustrated and terrified by what is happening on college and university campuses as well as across broader society. Feelings have overcome facts in their view, so if someone feels their pain is trauma and their safety – physical or emotional – has been compromised, those feelings have to be accommodated or the powers that be, from university administrators to police officers to government officials, are accused of insensitivity and discrimination. Even ques-
YOUR LETTERS
Councillor’s comment disheartening
I saw a recent comment on Facebook by our local city councillor, Brian Skakun, where he called the Northern Health AIDS Prevention Program (also known locally as the Needle Exchange) an “absolute disgrace,” in reference to their syringe exchange program and the role he believes it plays in syringes found in the community.
For those who don’t know, Northern Health’s Medical Health Officer Dr. Andrew Gray spoke to the media back in July regarding this same needle exchange, and he confirmed that over 90 per cent of needles given out by Northern Health in Prince George are returned to the needle exchange.
Skakun’s commentary on social media is disheartening to me, as I see an elected official who is fueling the flames of ignorance and intolerance in our community. It is especially worrisome given that our marginalized and vulnerable populations are the ones most affected by the negative discourse. Scientific evidence has repeatedly and irrefutably proven that syringe exchange programs (needle exchanges) are an extremely effective and sustainable way of reducing disease and injury associated with substance use. Syringe exchange programs
I would like to think that as representatives of our entire community, elected officials such as Brian Skakun would check their opinions for accuracy and bias before sharing them with the masses of social media.
have been consistently proven in countless studies to reduce the amount of improperly discarded drug paraphernalia in communities and public spaces, suggesting that Skakun’s claims of “tens of thousands of needles” in alleys in our community is likely exaggerated.
Furthermore, while Skakun has openly and harshly criticized Northern Health’s harm reduction programs, his only publicly proffered solution has been to implement a “one for one” syringe exchange policy. This is a restrictive and antiquated approach that has been proven to increase disease and risky behaviors in individuals who use substances. To implement such a policy would do nothing but harm to those intended to be helped by these programs. As Bram Fischer, South African anti-apartheid lawyer, said, “The glaring injustice is there for all who aren’t blinded by prejudice to see.”
With thoughts of the looming local election not far from my mind, I would like to think that as representatives of our entire community, elected officials such
as Brian Skakun would check their opinions for accuracy and bias before sharing them with the masses of social media. As a public body, we look to our officials to speak authoritatively on community issues, and as a member of this community, it is frightening to see such ill-informed diatribe being so enthusiastically engaged in by my community, led by someone who should speak for all members of his community, not just the ones who share his opinions.
At the end of the day, I know that I can’t open every mind to an alternate perspective, but I have the truth on my side, because “the good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe it” (Neil deGrasse Tyson). If you feel like you need more information on the science part of my argument before you decide your vote in the coming election, I have a degree’s worth of academic research and literature reviews saved in a box in my closet (with no opinions in sight) that I’d be happy to share.
Jordan Harris Prince George
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.
Mailing address: 201-1777 Third Ave. Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7 Office hours: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday
General switchboard: 250-562-2441 info@pgcitizen.ca
General news: news@pgcitizen.ca Sports inquiries: 250-960-2764 sports@pgcitizen.ca
Classifieds advertising: 250-562-6666 cls@pgcitizen.ca
tioning whether those feelings are based in reality, whether that pain really is trauma and safety really is an issue is seen as cruel and heartless.
The authors are particularly alarmed at how these views have tainted public discourse, where exploring serious, important issues like rape and racism are fraught with danger, because someone might be “retraumatized” by the discussion. Equating talking about rape with an actual violent sexual assault is a perfect example of the trivialization of trauma.
Furthermore, talking about these issues is seen as a safety threat to individuals, even though they are free to step away from any conversations that are too difficult to be part of. Like early exposure to peanut butter, exposing everyone – especially young adults – to challenging discussions about issues like rape and racism prepares them for a world where these injustices happen and gives them a starting place of knowledge to help prevent them.
“Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child,” goes the wise old folk saying the authors quote.
By equating all pain as trauma and every potential risk to physical and emotional well-being as a safety issue, we invite more harm to our relationships with one another, to our children and to ourselves.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Govt’s field of dreams is full of gas
The legislature committee conducting hearings on next year’s budget got a brief overview from Finance Minister Carole James on Monday of where all the money is going. Then they flew to Dawson Creek and heard about where a lot of it might be coming from.
It’s the fabled Montney formation gas field under northern B.C., a.k.a. the field of dreams.
The vast deposits include natural gas in volumes that are hard to imagine. The name stems from a hamlet where a well in the 1960s produced the first hint of what was to come. The scope has been redefined many times since then, and each time the estimates have gotten bigger, to the point where it’s considered one of the biggest gas fields in North America, if not the world.
Addressing the all-party committee that is starting hearings on how to spend $50 billion in provincial money next year, Dawson Creek Mayor Dale Bumstead said: “Where’s the money coming from for you guys for health, education, social programs? It’s coming from this resource sector. It’s coming from this resource development.”
Bumstead and other Peace mayors have been promoting the importance of the resource for years. His pitch this week came just days after Premier John Horgan said B.C. is “very, very close” to a deal that would take natural gas development to another level.
That’s the $40-billion LNG Canada project for a big export terminal at Kitimat, using a gas line from the north.
Echoing the word from the premier, Bumstead said: “I know the previous government had worked hard in getting this across the line. We are very close, and this is a huge opportunity.”
The measures he used bring home the size. He said if LNG Canada and two other major plants moved forward, the Montney has enough gas to last 100 years. “For us as a region, a province, a country, to be able to provide that clean energy to the world… How amazing would that be?”
Excitement over natural gas has faded over the years as the price slumped. The existing industry, based entirely on supplying the U.S., brings in a fraction of the provincial revenue it did 10 or
more years ago. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver has repeatedly assured everyone that the economics don’t work, and B.C. has “given away the farm” in failed attempts to make it work.
But the NDP government succumbed this year to the same dream the B.C. Liberals nurtured for years and embraced LNG. That sets up a potential NDPGreen clash that could break the confidence agreement that created the NDP government. The picture will become clearer once the government explains how an emission-heavy LNG industry fits into a climate action plan currently under development that is aimed at drastically reducing those emissions. One clue was provided by another LNG advocate who appeared before the committee.
Byng Giraud represents the Woodfibre LNG plant, being built near Squamish. It’s a fraction of the size of the majors under discussion on the north coast. What makes it “special,” he said, is electricity. The plant site at the end of Howe Sound has easy access to B.C. Hydro lines, so it will run on electricity, not gas, which reduces emissions by 80 per cent and “makes us the lowest-emitting LNG facility in the world.”
That’s the same target Horgan was aiming for in March, when he set the table once again for the industry. He offered to lower the price of electricity for such plants, void the LNG income tax completely, ease the carbon-tax increases for the industry and rejig the provincial sales tax to their benefit.
Needless to say, Giraud was thankful for the moves. He told MLAs that the date of the announcement – March 22 – is “still on my calendar.” (Like Christmas.)
When the $1.5-billion plant comes on stream, it will produce $90 million worth of tax revenue a year. Multiply that exponentially to get the revenue estimate from the Kitimat proposal. Then multiply it by a handful of other plants that could process Montney gas for a century. No wonder the dream refuses to die.
Display advertising, digital advertising and website inquiries: 250-562-2441 ads@pgcitizen.ca Reader sales and services: 250-562-3301 rss@pgcitizen.ca Letters to the editor: letters@pgcitizen.ca
Website: www.pgcitizen.ca
Website feedback: digital@glaciermedia.ca
Member of the National Newsmedia Council A division of Glacier Media
LES LEYNE
In the Fast Leyne
Mackenzie says one in four people in long-term care homes in the province are receiving antipsychotic medications without a supporting diagnosis.
Undiagnosed seniors getting antipsychotics, advocate says
Camille BAINS Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — A quarter of people living in long-term care homes in British Columbia are receiving antipsychotic medication without a supporting diagnosis even though they have lower rates of psychiatric and mood disorders compared with their counterparts elsewhere in Canada, says the province’s advocate for seniors.
Isobel Mackenzie said that while longterm care residents in the province have slightly higher rates of dementia their rates of moderate to severe dementia are lower in comparison so the higher use of antipsychotics is troubling.
“They weren’t on an antipsychotics when they got to a care home and then we put them on an antipsychotic. Why?”
Staffing hours in B.C. are not related to the use of the drugs, Mackenzie said Thursday.
“There is no apparent clinical reason why our residents should be receiving more off label antipsychotics than similar populations in other provinces. In fact, the clinical information supports that it should be less.”
Antipsychotic medication, which is more powerful than antidepressants, is typically prescribed “off label” to treat dementia, schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis but it is not approved to treat those conditions.
Mackenzie said that in the last five years, B.C. has managed to reduce the use of antipsychotics by 22 per cent for undiagnosed seniors but it hasn’t made any gains in the last year.
Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario have done better in decreasing misuse of the drugs and it’s time for B.C. to take more action, she said of data collected from the provinces by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
“The gains we were making were not as significant as those provinces were making, which were starting already from a place of lower prescribing,” Mackenzie said.
Ontario’s rate of prescribing antipsychotics to seniors in long-term care was 30.5 per cent in 2013-14, but decreased by 35.6 per cent in 2017-18, the institute says.
Mackenzie said many seniors are heavy users of multiple medications but as a group are typically excluded from clinical trials.
Elderly people in care homes may not even be capable of providing consent for medications and what may be side effects, including confusion and fatigue, may be wrongly attributed to aging, she said.
However, both prescribing doctors and family members may consider antipsychotics, which can have serious side effects, an answer to non-psychosis issues, Mackenzie said.
“There will be family members who say, ‘My mom’s agitated, do something about it.’ Pressure, pressure, pressure.”
Many residents in care homes would be better off with an adequate assisted-living program and provincial rent subsidies, Mackenzie said.
Leslie Remund, executive director of the 411 Seniors Centre Society, said care homes are a cheaper alternative. But she said better rental policies for seniors would save the government money and a recent raise in a shelter aid program for elderly renters doesn’t provide enough money in highpriced markets.
“We saw about 1,800 individuals last year and one third of those people came to us for housing needs, both precariously housed, at risk of losing their housing or absolute homelessness.”
Other data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information says long-term care homes in B.C. appear to be healthier than the national average, with lower rates of depression, arthritis and heart and circulatory disease.
The agency says B.C. seniors in home care are less frail than those in other provinces but are 16 per cent more likely to have limited or no social engagement compared with the national average.
Feds to eliminate plastic waste from gov’t operations
Michael TUTTON Citizen news service
HALIFAX — Ottawa used the platform of a G7 ministers meeting Thursday to announce it will gradually eliminate most plastic waste from government operations, as corporate leaders spoke of how they’re eager to turn waste into profitable material.
Catherine McKenna said at the Halifax gathering that the federal government will ditch unnecessary plastics throughout its operations.
“We’re going to eliminate unnecessary singleuse plastics throughout government operations. So this includes straws, cutlery, packaging, cups, bottles,” McKenna said.
She said Ottawa aims to collect, reuse or recycle at least 75 per cent of its plastic waste by 2030. Meanwhile, the CEOs of a group of large companies said they’ll sign the ocean plastics charter that Canada has been promoting.
The Canadian-led plastic charter’s provisions call for national governments to set standards for increasing the reuse and recycling of plastics rather than trashing them. It also calls for businesses to take responsibility for production methods that eliminate waste – an approach referred to as “extended producer responsibility.”
Five of the seven G7 nations and the European Union signed on to the Charter at the recent G7 leaders summit in Charlevoix, but the United States and Japan still haven’t endorsed it.
In addition, on Thursday a group of companies and non-government groups announced a coalition dedicated to finding ways to use plastic rather than throwing it away.
Unilever Canada, Walmart Canada, Ikea Canada and Loblaw were among firms joining with non-governmental groups to support the Circular Economy Leadership Coalition.
The term circular economy refers to manufacturing processes that involves recycled materials and waste is eliminated or reused elsewhere.
Greektown killer ‘disturbed’ loner
TORONTO — The man who went on a deadly shooting rampage before killing himself in Toronto’s Greektown this summer was an emotionally disturbed loner and did not appear to act out of any particular ideological motivation, police documents released on Thursday indicate.
The redacted documents, drawn up by officers in support of obtaining search warrants, also indicate Faisal Hussain was arrested for shoplifting two days before the incident but was released unconditionally.
The papers go on to say Hussain had three dealings with police as an “emotionally distressed person” in 2010.
In a summarized interview with police, Hussain’s twin brother told investigators his sibling had once robbed a store with a gun and had called police to say he wanted to kill himself.
“For the last couple years, Faisal has had no real friends,” the brother is quoted as saying.
“He started attending the mosque with his father but did not seem that interested in religion.”
On July 22, Hussain, 29, shot and killed Julianna Kozis, 10, and Reese Fallon, 18, on the city’s east-end Danforth Avenue. He also injured 13 others.
In one instance, the documents show, the shooter “stood on top of a woman and shot her four times.”
He then shot himself, the documents show.
The late evening rampage in the popular restaurant and shopping district sparked panic, sending people running for their lives, and triggered outpourings of grief. Some in the area were hailed as heroes for doing what they could to aid the wounded. The attack also prompted questions about what motivated Hussain’s actions and how he got access to a gun.
According to one detective cited in the documents, Hussain’s cellphone was ringing repeatedly when he was found. An officer answered the phone to discover it was Hussain’s parents frantically trying to reach him, the documents show. The officer spoke to them and advised them to go to a police station.
Police used a dog trained to detect explosives when they searched Hussain’s home. What the dog found is partially redacted in the documents, but a white powdery substance – possibly cocaine –was found in a drawer.
The papers also describe several witness statements, including one man who said Hussain walked casually and was smiling as he fired his lethal rounds. The attack only ended after Hussain exchanged fire with two officers and was found dead nearby.
A day after the shooting, Hussain’s parents issued a statement outlining their son’s battle with depression and psychosis.
Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie is photographed at her office in Victoria in 2017.
Colin PERKEL Citizen news service
Gov’t says Rohingya oppression a genocide
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion Thursday to recognize the crimes against the Rohingya as a genocide.
The motion, put forward by Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, also endorsed the findings of a United Nations fact-finding mission outlining how crimes against humanity have been committed by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya and other minorities.
In Washington, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland praised MPs for passing the motion to recognize “this atrocity.” “It is a very important step for Canada to recognize that crimes against the Rohingya constitute a genocide,” she said after emerging from NAFTA talks. Canada is leading an international effort for justice and accountability, Freeland said,
pointing to the $300-million over three years budgeted to support displaced and other vulnerable populations.
She added the crimes against the Rohingya are “tragic” and “horrific.”
Human rights observers praised the declaration as a significant milestone. Ahmed Ramadan, executive director of Burma Task Force – a non-profit organization set up four years ago to advocate specifically for the Rohingya – said the motion was “a major breakthrough for the Rohingya.”
Earlier this week, the UN human rights council released a report on its fact-finding mission on three states in Myanmar.
The extensive report documented the systematic targeting of civilian Rohingya by the military, including mass gang rape, sexual slavery and the razing of hundreds of villages.
Homeless camp allowed to stay in provincial park indefinitely
Dirk MEISSNER Citizen news service
LANGFORD — The camping area of a provincial park near Victoria was closed to the public Thursday as a group of homeless people were allowed to stay indefinitely while the British Columbia government tries to find them alternate housing options.
Environment Ministry spokesman David Karn said the government has not imposed a deadline on the group of about 30 people to leave Goldstream Provincial Park even though a provincial eviction notice was set to be imposed Thursday morning.
Earlier reports by park officials of a 24-hour extension on the eviction notice followed by a possible two week time limit no longer apply to the homeless people who have pitched tents in the park, he said.
“The province has no deadline
in place for their stay at present while outreach workers work with them on supports, including shelter and housing,” Karn said.
Housing Minister Selina Robinson said in a statement the campground was closed to ensure public safety, adding the park isn’t an appropriate place to establish a tent city.
“Our goal is to get people into shelters and longer-term housing,” she said.
Goldstream Park is in Premier John Horgan’s riding of LangfordJuan de Fuca, located 16 kilometres northwest of Victoria. There are 173 campsites at the 477-hectare park and two group sites.
The park is known for its huge 600-year-old Douglas fir trees and western red cedars. The park is also the site of an annual chum salmon spawning run, which draws thousands of visitors to the riverside trails and observation platforms.
The park’s day use area remains open. The approach of Thursday’s morning eviction drew a tense crowd of about 50 local residents and campers to the locked gates of the park’s camping area. Uniformed RCMP officers were also present.
Homeless advocate Ashley Mollison said the extension gives the campers a safe place to stay while they try to find suitable housing.
“This whole week we’ve seen that we’ve been chased by three levels of government and we’ve had five police departments that are chasing homeless people from park to street to now campground,” she said. “This kind of action towards homeless people really escalates anti-homeless hate.”
The same group of campers was ousted from provincially owned land in nearby Saanich earlier this week, just days after a court order forced them out of another park that some had occupied since the spring.
About a half dozen local residents got into verbal exchanges with the campers that were sometimes heated.
Jamie Thomson said he understands the need for housing but was concerned a large group of people were about to make the park their home for an indefinite time because of the impact they could have on “a completely and utterly pristine environment.”
“Let’s find somewhere they can go but let’s find somewhere they can go that can be fixed afterwards,” he said.
Lynne Hiback wiped away tears after explaining she felt she was being treated unfairly because she is homeless.
“I want shelter. I want protection,” she said.
“I want people for us, not against us.”
VANCOUVER — An Oregon man faces charges of dangerous operation of a vehicle and flight from a peace officer after a police chase from the Canadian border into Vancouver. Police say Crown counsel has approved the charges against 21-year-old Colin Patrick Wilson.
Vancouver police say they were notified by Surrey RCMP on Saturday that a man driving a pickup truck with Oregon licence plates allegedly drove through the border without stopping and was speeding towards Vancouver. When officers in Vancouver spotted the truck they attempted to pull it over, but police say the driver didn’t stop and officers pursued.
The chase ended with the truck crashed into a car, resulting in minor injuries for the man driving the car.
CP PHOTO
Housing advocate Bobby Arbess and local resident Darryl Wasilenkoff argue outside Tent City, also known as Camp Namegans, at Goldstream Campground in Langford on Thursday.
SPRUCE KINGS SHUT OUT AT SHOWCASE Page 8
Game on
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
The Prince George Cougars are celebrating their silver anniversary, about to begin their 25th Western Hockey League season. It all starts tonight in Victoria, where they take on the Royals in the first of a two-game set.
Trophies are made of silver and the Cougars over the years have earned some individual hardware but not once in their history has the whole team ever done the winners’ waltz, sharing the spoils as champions.
Mark Lamb is aiming to change that.
Hired this summer as general manager of the Cougars, Lamb watched the Swift Current Broncos hold up the silver chalice known as the Ed Chynoweth Cup last spring as kings of the WHL. That was his team for seven seasons until the pros lured him away to coach an AHL team in Tucson. From 2009-2016, Lamb was the Broncos’ primary mover and shaker – the guy who drafted or traded for many of the players who ended up getting their mitts on the trophy. He had no formal ties to the team when it won the Cup, but he lived close to the rink all last season and made himself available when the Broncos’ brass wanted a second opinion. He was there watching when they beat Lethbridge to end a 25-year championship drought.
Now Lamb has resurfaced in Prince George and he can’t help but feel he’s got some unfinished business as a WHL GM.
The Cougars’ three-year plan to build a championship contender that started with the New Ice Age change in ownership in May 2014 festered into a disastrous firstround meltdown in 2017. Built to win it all that season, the Cougars were a top-10 team nationally until they took a chance on bringing in some high-priced veterans and those trade winds messed with their chemistry.
It became obvious last season, in what was GM Todd Harkins’ final kick at the Cougar can, that the Cats were barely good enough to make the playoffs and the fire sale everybody anticipated did happen. Their sixth trade in nine days, the one that moved defenceman Dennis Cholowski to Portland, was probably the best deal Harkins made in his four-plus seasons at the helm. In return, the Cougars received forward Ilijah Colina, forward Connor Bowie, the Winterhawks’ first- and third-round bantam draft picks in 2020, second-round picks in 2018 and 2019, and a conditional sixth-round choice in 2019.
Nine months later, Colina, 18, is the top-line centre, a smouldering star in the making, playing on a line with versatile 20-year-old RW Josh Curtis and 18-year-old LW Tyson Upper – who turned heads for all the right reasons as the biggest surprise in training camp. The 17-year-old Bowie is big and rambunctious and should emerge as a serviceable winger in his first WHL season.
Harkins and his trades left the Cougars in a position of strength, the kitty well-stocked with high bantam draft picks for this and the next two years. They had eight picks in the first five rounds this year, including first-rounders – F Craig Armstrong and G Tyler Brennan. Next year they will have six picks in the first five rounds, including two first-rounders – one from the Broncos, who could finish near the bottom of the overall standings this season. In 2020 they’ll have seven picks in the first five rounds, including Portland’s first-rounder and one of their own.
“Wherever you work you want to win a championship,” said Lamb. “But before even saying that word there’s so much to do to build and so many different factors. The
Young Prince George Cougars team dropping puck on 25th WHL season
Sander of the Prince
December.
Cougars tries to
Wherever you work you want to win a championship. But before even saying that word there’s so much to do to build and so many different factors.
— Cougars GM Mark Lamb
draft has to be excellent and you have to have a group of real strong players to build around. To do all that you need all kinds of assets. Assets are draft picks and draft picks turn into players that are assets. You need to have players other teams want because when you do think you’re good enough to make some noise, you need to have those assets to fill holes where you think you have needs.
“The draft picks are there and we have to do a good job of turning those assets into good players.”
Goaltending could be a position of strength for years to come in Cougarville.
Taylor Gauthier, who bailed Canada out with a shutout relief performance in the gold-medal game at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in August, is showing no reason to doubt the Cougars made a wise choice when they picked him ninth overall in the 2016 draft.
Now 17, heading into his NHL draft year, this is Gauthier’s team and the Cougars’ fortunes will largely depend on how he fares between the pipes in his sophomore season.
out
Isaiah DiLaura will get a lot more game action than he did last year when there were three goalies around. He’s one of the most popular players among his teammates and has proven he belongs in the WHL, but he will be the backup unless Gauthier falters dramatically.
Brennan, 15, picked 21st overall, was acquired in the Josh Anderson trade from Swift Current. He’s still too young for junior but was arguably the sharpest goalie in training camp, and his big body bodes well for next year.
Freshly back from the Tampa Bay Lightning, 19-year-old LW Jackson Leppard is going to be dynamite in his third WHL season. The eighth-overall bantam pick in the 2015 WHL draft has grown into a six-foottwo, 200-pound man who has already had a few weeks this summer of banging bodies
with the pros. He’s going out of his way to prove the NHL pundits were wrong when they left him undrafted in June and with his booming shot there’s no reason to doubt he’ll improve significantly on his 15-goal, 36-point totals of last season.
LW Josh Maser, 19, is a prototypical power forward with a big body, iron grip and nose for the net. He led the Cougars with 28 goals and was second in points with 49 and proved his durability despite being one of the most physical forwards in the league, playing 71 games. If he can keep improving his skating the pro scouts will be all over him.
The young prospects traded to the Cougars last season have had four months to get used to their new surroundings and they will be better for it. That group includes C Ethan Browne, 17, a tall rangy playmaker who was a first-rounder in Everett in 2016 and he’ll get a chance to use his setup skills on the power play. LW Kjell Kjemhus, 17, followed the Jesse Gabrielle trade route from Regina, and the Kody McDonald deal with Prince Albert gave the Cougars the rights to defencemen Austin Crossley and 17-year-old Rhett Rhinehart, who will both get plenty of ice.
Max Kryski has a velvet touch around the net and should at least double the eight goals he scored last season. Vladimir Mikhalchuk, a 19-year-old from Belarus, had 14 goals and 33 points as a WHL rookie. Czech newcomer Matej Toman, just 17, has slick hockey habits and should reward the faith the Cougars put in him when they chose him fifth overall in the CHL import draft.
— see ‘I THINK, page 8
PHOTO COURTESY OF VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST
Jack
George
keep the puck
of the reach of Victoria’s Jeremy Masella during a game in Victoria last
The Cougars will face the host Royals in their Western Hockey League season-opener tonight.
‘I think people are going to underestimate us’
— from page 7
The forward group also includes six-footseven, 234-pound RW Mike MacLean, C Brendan Boyle, RW Reid Perepeluk, C Liam Ryan and C Mitch Kohner – all in a dogfight to make the Cats’ roster.
Joel Lakusta, 20, made huge strides under Cholowski’s tutelage and was good enough to get asked to pro camps by Calgary and St. Louis. He’s an offensive instigator and the leader of the blueline brigade, along with multi-talented Ryan Schoettler, 19, who shares Lakusta’s ability to lead the rush. They’ll need help shoring up the d-zone from bruisers Cam MacPhee and Crossley, both 19, and 18-year-old sophomores Jack Sander and Cole Moberg.
Tyson Phare, a 16-year-old drafted in the first round as a forward, has looked more at ease since switching to defence a couple days into camp, but with only seven positions he could be the odd man out.
“We’re a young team but I think people are going to underestimate us,” said Lakusta.
“We have a lot of skill, especially the forwards, and we have an entire veteran d-corps coming back, so guys know the league, know the game. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year.” Now with a roster of 27, there won’t be any cuts made to the defence corps until Crossley and Lakusta return from suspensions. Lakusta still has a game left in a three-game sentence for a checking-to-the-
A quick look at the Prince George Cougars
Last season: 24-38-5-5, fifth in B.C. Division, missed playoffs General manager: Mark Lamb (first season) Head coach: Richard Matvichuk (third season); Associate coach: Steve O’Rourke (third season); Goaltender coach: Taylor Dakers (first season).
Key losses: F Jared Bethune (Queens University), F Brogan O’Brien (Carleton University), F Aaron Boyd (Carleton University), G Tavin Grant.
head penalty last March and Crossley will have to sit one game for his knee-on-knee hit on Kamloops winger Orrin Centazzo in Saturday’s preseason finale.
“We’re going to be a hardworking, energetic, fun team to watch,” predicts head coach Richard Matvichuk, now in his third season with the Cougars. “We’re going to pride ourselves on commitment, playing the system, how hard we can play, finishing our checks, and everyone is going to have a role. We’re going to design a role for every player and if they do their roles to the best of their ability, this team’s going to be pretty good.
“Our job is to get back in the playoffs. We get a young group here that we get to mold for the next three or four years to get to where we were two years ago. The communication we have between Mark, Steve (associate coach O’Rourke) and I is just fantastic. We talk about players every day, we talk about systems, and Mark has his input. He’s coached at the highest level, so the more we work together as a group the better we’ll be.”
PROGNOSIS: This will be an interesting group to watch develop. These Cats have an abundance of talented prospects in all positions. With the exception of goalie Gauthier, none is a superstar just yet but some could turn out that way by the time they’re ready to leave junior hockey. As one of the youngest teams in the WHL, they will need time, and just making the playoffs this season is
Cougars don’t deserve.
Noteworthy: The Cougars are heading into Year 25 since the franchise shifted from Victoria. Since 1993-94 the Cats have never made the WHL final. They missed the playoffs 10 times, were eliminated in the first round 10 times, were bounced in the second round once and made the conference final three times (1997, 2000, 2007).
The 20-year-olds: D Joel Lakusta (fourth WHL season), F Josh Curtis (third season), F Mike MacLean (second season).
The imports: Belarusian F Vladislav Mikhalchuk, 19, and Czech F Matej Toman, 17. New faces: Toman (picked fifth overall inn 2018 import draft), MacLean (acquired in a trade Sept. 10 from Seattle), F Tyson Upper, F Connor Bowie.
Key returnees: Curtis, Lakusta, LW Josh Maser, LW Jackson Leppard, C Max Kryski, C Ilijah Colina, D Ryan Schoettler, G Taylor Gauthier.
Watch for: Goalie Gauthier to become one of the WHL’s best. With three seasons of junior eligibility ahead of him he’s already a solid bet to nail down wins the
Did you know: MacLean is a six-footseven, 234-pound giant. Five former Cats who stood six-footfive or taller without skates became NHL’ers – Zdeno Chara 6’9” (Boston); Dustin Byfuglien 6’5” (Winnipeg); Derek Boogaard 6’7” (Minnesota, New York Rangers), Vladimir Mihalik 6’7” (Tampa Bay) and David Koci 6’7” (Chicago, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Colorado). Final thoughts: This is a team on the rise, loaded with young talent at every position. Former GM Todd Harkins did extremely well acquiring high draft picks and promising youngsters in the January fire sale. Lamb as GM adds a former AHL head coach to the fold who had a major hand in building a WHL champion in Swift Current as Broncos’ coach/ GM for seven seasons. These Cats are good enough to make the playoffs and could even pull off a first-round upset if Gauthier remains on Hockey Canada’s radar.
— CLARKE, Citizen staff
the best we can expect. That means, once again, the fans will have to be patient. But the cycle is trending in the right direction and within two or three years the
might have to learn how to dance that
Warriors blank Spruce Kings
Citizen staff
For the first time this B.C. Hockey League season, the Prince George Spruce Kings came out on the wrong end of the score.
On Thursday afternoon in Chilliwack, which is hosting the annual BCHL Showcase, the Kings fell 4-0 to the West Kelowna Warriors. With the result, Prince George slipped to 4-1-0-0 and West Kelowna improved to 2-3-0-0. The Spruce Kings were outshot 36-21, including 15-1 in a scoreless third period.
The Warriors led 1-0 after the first period on a goal by Mike Hardman and broke the game open with three in the middle frame.
Former Cariboo Cougars captain Mason Richey scored 3:37 into the second period and that was followed quickly by another goal from Hardman (assisted by ex-Cariboo
Cat Chase Dubois). West Kelowna’s Max Bulawka, on a power play, also found the back of the Prince George net at 11:20 of the second.
Bradley Cooper started in net for the Spruce Kings but was pulled after Hardman’s second goal and replaced by Logan Neaton, who surrendered the goal to Bulawka but was perfect during the busy third period.
Connor Hopkins got the shutout for the Warriors and was named first star of the game. The Warriors went 1-for-4 with the man advantage, while the Kings were scoreless on one opportunity.
The Spruce Kings will be back on the ice in Chilliwack at 4 p.m. today, with the Penticton Vees as the opponent. The Vees (2-2-0-0) beat the Surrey Eagles (0-5-0-0) by a 4-1 count on Thursday.
Quarterbacks in spotlight as Bombers take on Als
Citizen news service
WINNIPEG — Quarterbacks Matt Nichols and Johnny Manziel have a lot of prove tonight.
Nichols wants to help end the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ four-game losing skid with a victory over Manziel and his Montreal Alouettes, and ensure he doesn’t get pulled at halftime like he did in a 32-27 loss to Saskatchewan on Sept. 8.
Manziel will try to show that he deserves to play more as he gets his third CFL start after recovering from a concussion in August and the flu last week.
Nichols threw three interceptions in the loss to the Roughriders, with two more not counting because of penalties.
Getting yanked was an experience the veteran pivot doesn’t want to repeat and he had a “great” week of practice.
“I don’t know if it lit extra fire, but obviously it was a feeling that I hadn’t had in a long, long time, and one that I definitely don’t want again,” Nichols said after Thursday’s walk-through.
“I’ve always said the past is the past. Sometimes it’s easier to say it and harder to actually have your mind believe it.”
Manziel was traded to Montreal from Hamilton on July 22. He last played on Aug. 11 when he suffered a concussion in a game against Ottawa. The former Heisman Trophy winner backed up Antonio Pipkin the past two weeks, but said last week that he could have played.
“Obviously, I might have let my frustration get the better of me,” Manziel said after arriving in Winnipeg.
“I could have kept that in and kept that as a private matter, but nevertheless I want to play and (am) here to play and I came up here to play. ” Manziel is 0-2 in his starts, completing a total of 27 of 46 pass attempts for 272 yards and four interceptions. The picks were all thrown in his CFL debut, a 50-11 loss to the Tiger-Cats.
Pipkin is 2-2 as a starter. Montreal (3-9) is coming off a loss to the B.C. Lions, a game in which Pipkin threw four interceptions.
Even though Manziel’s NFL career with the Cleveland Browns flamed out and his off-field troubles kept making headlines, he’s feeling pretty good about his comeback.
“Personally, on and off the field, I’ve come a long way from December of 2015 and the last time I was on a football team and walking onto a football field,” he said.
“It’s been an interesting journey. It’s taken a lot to get here, a lot of people here on the outside. Life’s changed a lot for me, but I’m happy with where I’m at and glad to be back to football.”
His reputation of being a talented, mobile quarterback who can burn defences has stuck with the former Texas A&M star, even though his body of CFL work is small.
“There isn’t a lot of film out there, but his reputation precedes himself,” Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill said. “We know he’s capable of extending plays and doing a lot of things with his legs.”
The outcome of tonight’s game could have big implications on Winnipeg’s quest to make the playoffs. The Bombers (5-7) are in fifth place in the West Division behind the B.C. Lions (5-6).
Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea acknowledged a loss might make it “a little more difficult” to qualify for the post-season.
“In all these games we’ve had very good opportunities to change the outcome, but we maybe haven’t made the most of those opportunities,” O’Shea said of the losing streak.
The Bombers are coming off a bye week and Nichols has tried to forget his last game, where he went 10-for-20 for 165 yards, no touchdowns and the three picks before being replaced by Chris Streveler.
“I’ve done a good job this week, especially during bye week... understanding the few mistakes, forgiving yourself, moving on, not allowing those things to be extra weight on you,” Nichols said.
Canadians strong at Autumn Classic
Citizen news service
OAKVILLE, Ont. — Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro delivered a solid performance in their pairs short program Thursday to sit in second place at the Autumn Classic International figure skating competition. World championship bronze medallists Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France held the lead with 73.81 points after their short program. Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Marinaro of Sarnia, Ont., the first skaters to perform, scored 64.73 and Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier of the United States were third at 61.91. The pairs free
skate is scheduled for today.
“We’re still at a point to find out where we can get our marks and build on that,” said Moore-Towers, who finished sixth with her partner at last season’s worlds. “We’re comfortable with the style but our transitions are difficult.”
Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland of Levis, Que., were fifth with a program that featured a solid throw triple loop.
In women’s competition, two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia was first after the short program, Bradie Tennell of the U.S. was second and Mae Berenice Meite of France was third. Alicia Pineault of Varennes, Que., was ninth.
Cougars
elusive trophy tango.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Joel Lakusta turns with the puck and looks up ice during Prince George Cougars training camp. Lakusta will be a leader on defence this season.
Tiger a co-leader at Tour Championship
ATLANTA – The crowd at East Lake was larger and louder than it has been in five years, which was the last time Tiger Woods was at the Tour Championship.
It was no coincidence.
Woods played one of his best rounds of the year in his return to the FedEx Cup finale and caused the biggest cheer of a sun-baked Thursday afternoon by making an eagle putt from just over 25 feet on the par-5 18th for a five-under 65 and a share of the lead with Rickie Fowler.
It was the second time in as many FedEx Cup playoff events that Woods was tied for the 18hole lead. He shot a 62 at Aronimink in the opening round of the BMW Championship two weeks ago on a rain-soaked course that allowed just about everyone to go low.
This felt even better on a dry, tougher East Lake course.
“This was by far better than the 62 at Aronimink,” Woods said. “Conditions were soft there. This, it’s hard to get the ball closer. If you drive the ball in the rough, you know you can’t get the ball close. You just can’t control it.” Fowler, who missed two playoff events recovering from an injury to his right oblique, putted for birdie on all but two holes for his 65 as he tries to avoid ending the season without winning.
Justin Rose, in his debut as the No. 1 player in the world, got up-and-down from the bunker for birdie on the 18th for a 66 and was tied with Gary Woodland. Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy, all of whom will be in France next week for the Ryder Cup, were another shot behind.
Woods already considers this a successful year just by making into the 30-man field at East Lake for the FedEx Cup finale, where everyone has a mathematical shot at capturing the $10 million bonus. He started the season in January after a fourth back surgery that limited him to only 16 PGA Tour events in the previous four seasons.
“To be able to play golf again and to earn my way back to this level is something that I was hoping I would do at the beginning of the year, but I didn’t know,” Woods said. “And I’ve done it?” What would winning mean in this comeback?
“It would enhance the year,” he said.
Woods still has 54 holes remaining. Two weeks ago, he went from a share of the firstround lead to five shots behind on a course where attacking flags on soft greens was the only option for low scoring. Woods and Fowler will be teammates next week at the Ryder Cup.
Smoak stings Rays with walk-off homer
Citizen news service
TORONTO — Sitting in the home dugout at Rogers Centre, Justin Smoak had a front-row seat as his Toronto Blue Jays teammates staged one of the biggest comebacks in team history. And then suddenly it was the veteran slugger’s turn at the plate.
Smoak hit a solo blast to cap off a seven-run ninth inning as Toronto rallied to a 9-8 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night. The comeback tied the largest ninth-inning rally in Blue Jays history, matching their 11-10 win over the Los Angeles Angels on July 30, 2017.
Blue Jays prospect Rowdy Tellez had a tworun homer in the second inning and started Toronto’s ninth-inning comeback with an RBI double to cut Tampa’s lead to 8-3. Catcher
Danny Jansen followed with a three-run blast to bring the Blue Jays to within two runs and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., then had a two-run shot to tie the game with two outs and bring Smoak to the plate.
“You’re sitting there, watching it unfold from the bench,” said Smoak. “Give it to some of these young guys, they’re having really good at bats. It feels like it happened so fast, next thing
Gibbons joked with reporters that Thursday’s massive comeback win was all according to plan.
you know, I was up there.”
Sam Gaviglio earned a no decision after pitching five innings for the Blue Jays (7083), giving up two runs on four hits, striking out four. Jose Fernandez, Jake Petricka, Tim Mayza, Mark Leiter Jr., Joe Biagini and David Paulino all came out of Toronto’s bullpen, with Paulino picking up his first win of the season. Leiter allowed four runs and Biagini gave up one.
Trailing by six runs in the ninth inning, manager John Gibbons subbed in many of the Blue Jays’ top prospects who had been called up from triple-A Buffalo at the start of September when Major League Baseball teams were allowed to expand their roster. Gibbons joked with reporters that Thursday’s massive comeback win was all according to plan.
“It’s really nice because I think Buffalo lost
their last 11 straight,” said Gibbons with a smile. “So they won one tonight.”
Tommy Pham had three hits, including a triple, with two runs batted in as the Rays (8567) had a five-game winning streak snapped. CJ Cron had a three-run single as part of a fiverun seventh inning.
Ryan Stanek started for Tampa Bay, but pitched one-plus inning as part of the Rays ongoing starter-by-committee approach this season. He allowed two runs.
Yonny Chirinos allowed one run and struck out five over 4 2/3 innings pitched. Adam Kolarek, Hunter Wood, Jaime Schultz all pitched scoreless innings of relief. Sergio Romo (3-4) took the loss.
The Rays now sit six games back of the Oakland Athletics for the second wildcard spot in the American League. Oakland crushed the Angels 21-3 earlier in the day and Tampa manager Kevin Cash expects that the A’s big win coupled with his team’s collapse in Toronto spelled the end of their post-season hopes.
“In reality we’re much farther than probably what people are wanting to recognize,” said Cash. “We need a lot of things to go in our favour. Losses like this don’t help.”
WADA lifts suspension of Russian anti-doping agency
(CP) — Athletes, investigators, anti-doping officials and national sport committees all knew that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency’s reinstatement from a doping scandal suspension was likely coming. It didn’t make Thursday’s announcement formalizing the plan any easier to take.
The World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee decided to reinstate the testing program after backtracking on two key conditions:
that Russia accept a report that concluded state involvement in the doping and coverups, and that Russia give access to evidence stored in its discredited Moscow laboratory.
Canada’s Beckie Scott resigned her position on WADA’s compliance review committee after it recommended the RUSADA reinstatement last week. She said Thursday’s decision “wasn’t a big surprise but nevertheless it was disappointing beyond measure.”
“Athletes are held accountable, strictly liable, for breaking the rules,” she told The Canadian Press. “The whole reason for being of WADA is to protect clean athletes and to ensure their rights are upheld and to harmonize the global fight against doping in sport.
“And so one would expect that they would hold signatories to a very high standard. We feel that this was a compromise. It’s very hard to accept.”
Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter Justin Smoak reacts after hitting the game-winning, walk-off home run against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday in Toronto.
Oilers ground Jets, stay perfect in preseason
Citizen news service
EDMONTON — Ty Rattie had two goals and three assists and Connor McDavid added a goal and three helpers as the Edmonton Oilers remained undefeated in preseason play with a 7-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two goals and Jesse Puljujarvi and Milan Lucic also scored for the Oilers, who are 3-0.
Marko Dano, Adam Lowry and Andrew Copp replied for the Jets, who dropped to 1-1 in exhibition action.
Edmonton, which dressed the more veteran lineup, got on the board first with a power-play goal midway through the first when Puljujarvi split the defence and beat Jets goalie Eric Comrie with a backhand shot.
The Oilers made it 2-0 early in the second when McDavid stole a puck and fed it over to Nugent-Hopkins for the one-timer goal.
Winnipeg pulled even with a pair of goals one minute apart, the first coming five minutes into the middle frame as Dano beat Oilers goalie Cam Talbot with a long wrist shot for his second goal of the preseason. Shortly afterwards, Lowry tipped a Copp pass in at the side of the net.
Edmonton moved back in front with seven minutes left in the second as Cooper Marody sent a shot out front that Rattie redirected up high into the net for his third of the preseason.
Rattie then sent McDavid in with a head of speed to score three minutes into the third.
Winnipeg responded with a power-play
SPORTS IN BRIEF
Sprint Car driver killed in crash
YORK HAVEN, Pa. (AP) — Sprint Car driver Greg Hodnett has died after a crash Thursday night at BAPS Motor Speedway. The 49-year-old Hodnett, from Spring Grove, was the World of Outlaws Rookie of the Year in 1993 and went on to win 20 World of Outlaws races. He won the opening night this year at the Knoxville Nationals. “Greg represented the true gentleman competitor in the pit area,” World of Outlaws CEO Brian Carter said. A statement was posted on Hodnett’s racing website, saying: “Please keep (wife) Sherry, the entire Hodnett family, and the Heffner racing team in your thoughts and prayers. Greg was a professional in every sense of the word, and will be desperately missed!”
goal by Copp.
The Oilers got an insurance marker midway through the third when McDavid set up Nugent-Hopkins for his second of the game and added a power-play goal by Lucic with four minutes remaining.
Rattie then got his second goal and fifth
Browns beat Jets for first win since 2016
CLEVELAND (AP) — For the first time in 635 days, the Cleveland Browns found a way to win. Baker Mayfield showed them how.
The No. 1 overall pick replaced injured starter Tyrod Taylor and sparked the Browns, who got two one-yard touchdown runs from Carlos Hyde and beat the New York Jets 21-17 on Thursday night for their first win since Dec. 24, 2016. And so ends Cleveland’s 19-game winless streak, the NFL’s second-longest since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
The Browns (1-1-1) trailed 14-0 in the first half before Mayfield came in for Taylor and led four scoring drives while winning an unexpected matchup against Jets rookie quarterback Sam Darnold. Cleveland passed on taking Darnold in the draft and instead chose Mayfield, the Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma.
point with just over a minute remaining.
The Jets return home to host the Calgary Flames on Saturday, and will then welcome the Oilers for a rematch on Sunday.
Notes: Both Winnipeg goalies had Edmonton connections. Comrie is from the Alberta capital and the younger brother of
Braves move closer to clinching division
ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta Braves moved closer to the playoffs by taking an important win over their closest pursuer. Even better, some players who could play key roles on Atlanta’s post-season roster looked playoff-ready.
Luca Duda’s pinch-hit double drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh, and the Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-3 on Thursday night to move within reach of their first NL East title in five years.
Atlanta leads the second-place Phillies by 6 1/2 games following the opening game of the four-game series. The teams close the season with three games at Philadelphia, but the Phillies need to win at least three of four in Atlanta to retain hope of making the final series meaningful. The Braves have a magic number of four over Philadelphia to clinch their first divi-
former Oiler Mike Comrie. Laurent Brossoit was the Oilers’ backup goalie for most of last season and spent five years in the organization.
Domi-less Habs down Caps
QUEBEC (CP) — The Montreal Canadiens were seeking chemistry as they faced Alexander Ovechkin and the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals at the Videotron Centre in Quebec Thursday night. Losers in their first two preseason outings, the Canadiens got a winning spark from dependable forward Brendan Gallagher and his new linemate Tomas Tatar to earn a 5-2 victory against Washington.
The line contributed five points, including a goal and an assist from Gallagher. Tatar, who was named first star, had kind words for his new linemate.
Gallagher, known for his pugnacious game, was forgiving of another new Habs acquisition, Max Domi. The former Arizona Coyote was suspended for the rest of the pre-season for a sucker punch on Florida defenceman Aaron Ekblad in Wednesday’s game in Montreal.
“He’s going to be a big part of our team going forward. He’s an emotional player. We need him to play like that. It’s not going to change a thing.”
The Canadiens iced a line-up with a defence that boasted about 80 NHL games last year. The Caps brought several of the stars that shone in the Cup run, including Evgeny Kuznetsov, though he was kept off the scoreboard.
sion title since 2013.
Henderson, Boutin handed awards
OTTAWA (CP) — Golfer Brooke Henderson earned another accolade on Thursday night, taking the female summer athlete of the year honour at the Canadian Sports Awards, while short-track speedskating star Kim Boutin earned the winter distinction. Henderson became the first Canadian woman in 45 years to win an LPGA title on home soil with her victory at the CP Women’s Open in Regina last month. The 21-year-old from Smiths Falls, Ont., has seven LPGA victories, one shy of the Canadian record held by Sandra Post. Boutin was a breakout start at the Pyeongchang Games in February, taking home three medals – two bronze and a silver – in short track. She served as Canada’s flag-bearer at the closing ceremony.
CP PHOTO
Edmonton Oilers forwards Milan Lucic, in front of net, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl celebrate a goal against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday in Edmonton.
The north remembers
James McCARTEN Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — Despite the eye-popping figures thrown around in the NAFTA conversation – $2 billion in daily trade, 18 million autos built each year, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. – one number in particular seems to be giving fits to Canada’s negotiating team: 232.
That’s the section of U.S. trade law that lets President Donald Trump use national security as justification to impose crippling tariffs on foreign imports, a sword of Damocles the federal Liberal government desperately wants to blunt.
Sources say Thursday’s talks between Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. trade ambassador Robert Lighthizer were dominated by efforts to secure a commitment from the Americans that a new NAFTA deal would mitigate the risk of such tariffs.
“232 is emerging as the major problem,” said one source close to the talks, speaking freely on condition of anonymity.
Rather than demanding absolute immunity, Canada is working hard to try to make the president’s favourite trade cudgel “more difficult to reach for,” the source said.
For her part, Freeland offered little evidence of momentum Thursday when she emerged from the talks, sticking to her strategy of keeping mum on substantive details and offering only that the two sides were focused on “some tough issues.”
“The atmosphere continues to be constructive, and we continue to work towards a deal, which has always been Canada’s objective,” Freeland said.
“Canada has, from the very beginning, been guided by a single metric, and we continue to be guided by that single metric, and that metric is getting a deal that is good for Canada and good for Canadians. That is our target.”
Talks, as well as the ensuing public narrative, have been dominated by some familiar stumbling blocks, including the disputeresolution mechanism known as Chapter 19, stronger protection for Canadian workers and more U.S. access to Canada’s dairy market, among others.
There have been signs of progress, including word Wednesday that the U.S. had backed off in recent weeks on its desire to limit Canadian and Mexican firms from bidding on lucrative American procurement projects.
Talk of all-night marathon negotiating sessions is also seen as a good sign.
But as some of the more fundamental differences fall away, Sec. 232 has indeed emerged as a major issue, trade watchers say.
“I think the Section 232 issue is very big. Chapter 19 dispute resolution is less important,” said trade lawyer Darrel Pearson, head of the international trade and investment practice at Bennett Jones in Toronto.
That’s because, as Canada’s experience with softwood lumber would suggest, a
Trump’s use of national security clause to impose tariffs a sticking point for Canada in NAFTA talks
means of resolving disputes doesn’t make disputes go away – and Trump’s demonstrated proclivity for shooting first and asking questions later would seem to amplify that issue even more.
Section 232 of the decades-old U.S. Trade Expansion Act allows the president, under certain circumstances, to impose duties recommended by his commerce secretary under the notion that the goods being imported are a threat to national security.
of a vehicle, kill jobs and cause significant harm to the global auto industry.
“I think it is clear that without Section 232 usage being resolved, Canada remains at significant risk,” said Pearson. Canadian negotiators didn’t make the tariffs a major issue at the outset of the talks in order to avoid giving the U.S. too much leverage, he added.
We’re not going to sit there and let Trump put an economic gun to our head anymore.
— Unifor
president Jerry
It was on that basis that the U.S. imposed hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and other nations, and has threatened to do the same on auto imports. The Trudeau government has said it would respond to auto tariffs with its own countermeasures.
Critics warn the potential tariffs of up to 25 per cent, plus retaliatory measures, could add thousands of dollars to the price
of 77.48 cents US compared with an average of 77.24 cents US on Wednesday.
The November crude contract was down 45 cents to US$70.32 per barrel, a day after hitting a two-month high.
The increased loonie came despite some negative headlines about whether NAFTA negotiators can reach a deal by next week’s U.S. deadline and if the U.S. will impose auto tariffs regardless, says Stephen Lingard, portfolio manager at Franklin Multi-Asset Solutions.
“Over the last several weeks it has been a bit of a better tone to global growth but also a better tone to NAFTA,” he said in an interview.
“The reaction that we saw from Congress and from others in the U.S. Administration that they’d be more amendable to a trilateral deal rather than just this bilateral deal suggests that maybe the odds of a NAFTA deal coming into play are higher than they were a few months ago.”
Canada’s main stock index rose as industrials, financials and health-care sectors all closed higher, offsetting a down day for utilities and energy while materials was flat.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 64.83 points to 16,214.75, after hitting an intraday high of 16,225.34 on 259.2 million shares traded.
Cannabis company Canopy Growth Corp. was the day’s best performer, gaining 6.5 per cent, while New Gold led on the downside, closing off nine per cent.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 251.22 points to close at a record high of 26,656.98. The S&P 500 index also hit a record by gaining 22.80 points to 2,930.75, while the Nasdaq composite was up 78.20 points to 8,028.23. The U.S. greenback was less of a safe haven as it lost more ground, tech stocks bounced back and Europe closed up.
Dias
“It may have been a better strategic move to negotiate Section 232 separately, eliminating a Canadian ‘ask’ from the negotiations so as not to add to the U.S. leverage, but the risks of continued threats of 10 or 25 per cent are too large,” Pearson said.
Unifor president Jerry Dias, the head of Canada’s largest private-sector union, also had his sights set Thursday on Section 232, calling it a “deal-breaker” that “doesn’t make a stitch of sense.”
“We’re not going to sit there and let Trump put an economic gun to our head
anymore,” Dias said.
“Here we’re talking about a trade agreement between two countries, but then one of the parties reserves the right to jerk around your economy at any given time? Not a chance.”
Pressure has been mounting on the federal government to get a deal done, including from influential Republican members of Congress keen to spur an agreement before the November midterm elections and before a new, less NAFTA-friendly government takes office in Mexico.
Then there’s the U.S.-Mexico agreement in principle that Trump and outgoing Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto announced last month, to the surprise of the Canadian team.
While many observers, including the federal government itself, are skeptical Congress would approve that deal without Canada, others warn the ticking political clock could change that dynamic. Any deal is widely seen to require congressional approval before Dec. 1 in order to survive the arrival of an incoming Mexican government whose supporters have mixed feelings about the agreement.
Arbitrator favours postal workers in labour dispute
Terry PEDWELL Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Rural and suburban postal workers across Canada celebrated Thursday after an arbitrator ordered Canada Post to pay them more – much more – as part of a long-awaited pay equity decision.
For a majority of the Crown agency’s mostly-female rural and suburban carriers, known as RSMCs, the ruling translates into a 25-per-cent pay hike, plus some increased benefits, Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton said.
Not including benefits, the pay increase amounts to as much as $13,000 annually, retroactive to the beginning of 2016, said Canadian Union of Postal Workers representative Cathy Kennedy.
“We’re very happy with (the ruling),” said Kennedy, who was one of three members of the union’s pay equity committee.
Arbitrator Maureen Flynn issued the ruling to Canada Post and CUPW after the two sides failed to reach an agreement through mediated talks by an Aug. 30 deadline.
The union argued Canada Post’s 8,000 rural carriers – most of whom are women –were being paid substantially less than their
majority-male urban co-workers. About 60 per cent of RSMCs are women.
The chair of Canada Post’s board of directors and interim president and CEO, Jessica McDonald, pledged to move quickly to implement the pay changes and called Flynn’s ruling “thoughtful and detailed.”
“This is an incredibly important ruling for our rural and suburban carriers,” McDonald said in a statement. “Pay equity is a basic human right and therefore pay disparity on the basis of gender is wholly unacceptable for Canada Post.”
In a preliminary 176-page decision issued in May, Flynn largely sided with the union over how Canada Post should calculate compensation rates for its rural workers, calling the corporation’s methodology “not reasonably accurate.” Thursday’s ruling came as CUPW and the post office continued to negotiate new contracts under a Sept. 25 deadline for a strike or lockout, with the aid of a third party. Canada Post indicated late last month that settling the pay-equity dispute could cost the corporation upwards of one-quarter of a billion dollars when it posted a second quarter loss before taxes of $242 million.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland participates in an armchair discussion with journalist Masha Gessen, moderated by Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books & Music, at the Women in the World Summit in Toronto on Sept. 10.
U.S.-China trade war a boon to counterfeiters
Danielle PAQUETTE Citizen news service
When U.S. President Donald Trump threatens China with more tariffs, Lulu thinks of her commission checks and smiles.
It’s a good time to work in the fake-handbag business.
The shadow industry – already a big moneymaker – stands to reap another potential windfall from the trade war, which escalated this week.
Knockoffs of famous brands – Coach, Kate Spade and others – are mostly made in China and arrive at U.S. shores through clandestine channels built to dodge authorities. The authentic purses and their components, also made in China, are shipped through official routes and would face Trump’s proposed new duties of 10 per cent effective next Monday.
This all stacks up in favor of the counterfeit labels at every step of their illicit journey: from factory floors in China to street vendors in cities worldwide.
Shoppers come to Lulu’s cramped stall in Beijing’s seven-floor Silk Market to get replicas of Coach bags at half-price – cheaper for seasoned barterers.
The 32-year-old copycat merchant, who agreed to an interview using only her nickname to stay under the radar, said the goods come from a site in the southern province of Guangdong.
“No middleman” and no taxes, she said.
If prices for brand-name bags swell on international markets because of tariffs, Lulu predicts it can only be good for Chinese knockoffs.
“More people will think: ‘Why not just buy a bag here?’” she said.
The next wave of tariffs target another $200 billion in Chinese imports, including handbags, leather and silk.
This prospect alarms both American fashion designers and global authorities, because U.S. firms already lose billions each year to counterfeiters. Officials also link knockoff sales to organized crime groups that exploit child labour.
“A tariff on a genuine bag is a subsidy for a fake,” said Susan Scafidi, a New York fashion lawyer focused on intellectual property.
The global counterfeit trade for all items, from purses to electronics to software, is worth $461 billion, according to the latest estimate by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is more than the global drug trade.
And more than 85 per cent of the handbag replicas originate in mainland China and Hong Kong.
A fifth of counterfeit seizures worldwide involve American brands.
Middle-income shoppers are particularly vulnerable to cost increases, analysts warn, and could swing to the faux side for their splurges at a time when finding Chinese fakes on the internet has never been easier.
The tags on Lulu’s purses in Beijing say 1,280 yuan, or about $186. She gets a cut of the sales, but would not say how much.
That’s good money in a country where workers on average earn $8,250 annually, according to World Bank data.
A tariff on a genuine bag is a subsidy for a fake.
Another merchant, who declined to provide her name, said that she earns between $730 and $1,200 per month, depending on the appetite for knockoffs.
— Susan Scafidi, fashion lawyer
Most customers won’t spend more than $150 on a knockoff purse, Lulu said.
That includes Lauren Everett, a 29-year-old flight attendant from London, who visited the Silk Market on a recent afternoon to browse the deals.
Normally, she wouldn’t seek out fakes, but if someone there is hawking a near-identical copy of a French tote she likes, and it’s cheaper than the $125 version in stores, “you may as well,” she said.
About 11,265 kilometres away, New York handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff became the most prominent face of the fashion industry’s rising concerns last month.
She testified to the U.S. trade representative in a written statement that Trump’s tariffs would hurt her namesake brand, known for bags with cross-body straps that start at about $150.
New duties on handbags, Minkoff wrote, “will only ennoble the bad actors in the Chinese economy who pose a genuine threat to our business via bad faith registrations of our recognized trademarks.”
Research from economist Vincent Wenxiong Yao supports Minkoff’s fear. When the cost of legitimate goods rises, so does demand for counterfeits, Yao wrote, sparking a “substitution effect.”
Soaring prices are inevitable if businesses have to absorb higher border taxes in the widening trade battle, said Brent Cleaveland, executive director of the Fashion Jewelry and Accessories Trade Association, which represents 225 U.S. companies.
“Any disruption of the supply chain will obviously increase costs, challenge compliance and promote discord,” Cleaveland said.
Warnings from industry groups came weeks after authorities made their largest seizure of fakes at the Port of Newark. In late August, the federal government announced that it had confiscated enough knockoffs from China imitating Coach, Michael Kors and Tory Burch, among other fashion brands, to stuff 22 shipping containers. Authorities estimated that the load represented a loss to U.S. companies of nearly $500,000.
Beijing has pledged over the years to crack down on the fakers, slamming online retail giants such as Alibaba for failing to eradicate replicas on its platforms.
Officials also routinely inspect brick-andmortar stores. But, as the economist Yao points out in his research, they may not take the job too seriously because local vendors rely on the income. Often, he wrote, sellers seem to know precisely when to hide their merchandise. Such appeared to be the case this month at Beijing’s Pearl Market, another counterfeit hot spot.
As hundreds of African delegates visited the capital city in September for an economic summit, merchants said that security had tightened so they did not have their goods on display.
Instead, they led buyers to unmarked apartments down a nearby alley and showed them closets full of knockoff Gucci, Prada, Michael Kors and Louis Vuitton handbags – also from Guangdong, the manufacturing hotbed in the south. Merchants encouraged foreign customers to share their social media usernames with friends back home. They were happy to take international orders.
Luna Lin contributed to this report.
A government worker uses a cutter to slash a counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbag during a ceremonial destruction of counterfeit goods seized by police in Quezon, Philippines in 2011. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates the global counterfeit trade for all types of fake goods is worth $461 billion – more than the global drug trade.
WearelookingforanexperiencedManagerto overseevariousdivisionaloperationsatourplantin PrinceGeorge,BConatemporary/contractbasisto coverincreasedworkloadsforaperiodrangingfrom 6-12monthswiththepossibilityofrenewal.You’ll assistinguaranteeingthatmanufacturingremainsa smoothandefficientprocessbymonitoring employeesandorganizingworkflowsinvarious departmentssuchaswarehousing/logistics,bottling, maintenance,andpackaging. 604-421-2119dheffelfinger@pwbrewing.com
MARY BLOOM February 9, 1936September 3, 2018
With profound sadness we announce the passing of our beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She passed away peacefully surrounded by family. Mary is survived by her loving husband of 60 years, Ronald. In addition, her four children: Allison (Bart), Dana, Jason (Julie) and Carter (Diane), seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She is also survived by her sister Annie Flowerday. She was predeceased by her parents Matthew & Nettie Hrychuk, her siblings Helen, Matt, Bert, Walter, Steve and dear sister-in-law Helen Rogers. A Celebration of Life will be held September 22, 2018 at 12:00pm at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 3590 Dufferin Ave, Prince George, BC.
“Wherever a beautiful soul has been, there is a trail of beautiful memories”
Israel Prabhudass was born in Trinidad, West Indies on September 21st, 1928. As a young adult Israel married Eleanor and they had two children, Ingrid and Wayne. Israel immigrated to Canada in 1956 where he finished high school and worked for the city of Edmonton Parks Department. He went on to attend SAIT in Calgary, taking automotive technology. He then apprenticed and worked as a motor mechanic for 12 years. Israel went to Naramata to attend a Christian Leadership Training School. There he received an honours diploma and was asked by the United Church of Canada to take over a church in Genelle BC as a student minister. Later Israel would build and dedicate a new church in Genelle. In this same timeframe Israel felt he was being called to Christian Ministry, so he returned to Edmonton and began at St Stephens College where he subsequently received a theology degree. After Divination he worked at East Kooteney Presbyterian in Castlegar for two years. There he was instrumental in building and dedicating a new church in Salmo BC, while teaching Automotive Technology at the Nelson vocational school. Israel then moved to lead the Cariboo Presbyterian work in 100 Mile House. While in 100 Mile he built a 35 unit Seniors Housing Complex for which he was awarded Citizen of the Year. This remained one of his proudest achievements. Finding a passion for seniors he also spearheaded an initiative in Valemount to build a Seniors Complex there as well. At this time Israel took a leave of absence from Ministry and became a counsellor for the John Howard Society in Nanaimo. While in Nanaimo he gained a diploma in Social Work at the University of Victoria while also working to introduce a volunteer program fro youth in trouble with the law. Ministry was always close to Israel’s heart. So when the United Church in Fort St James called, he went to work as a worker pastor in that community, where he again worked on establishing another Seniors complex in that community. While in fort St James he worked as a substitute teacher, as a guard for the local RCMP Detachment, as well as working in a local sawmill. He also served two terms as a trustee for School District 56. As a School District Trustee Israel said “ Education is a powerful weapon, combined with love, to change the world.” After retirement Israel moved to Prince George. and enrolled at UNBC, where he became the oldest graduate in the history program. He was nominated for the Order of BC by his friends, and was the first recipient of the UNBC Alumnus Award. He was an avid fisherman, hiker, golfer, runner and he cycled in two BC Seniors games. Israel attended a Bible Study with his good friends; Keven, Steve, Dan, Jamie and Rolf for the past fifteen years. In his last months on earth, Israel’s mind became particularly sharp. His life was very intentional, focusing on his hope in Christ. Israel was absolutely confident in his salvation and passed away peacefully. Well done good and faithful servant.
Israel’s funeral will be September 29th at 11:00 am at First Baptist Church. Reception to follow.
RONALD BROWNE Passed away September 9, 2018 at the age of 76. Ron is survived by his loving wife Maxine, sons Chris and Scott, brother David and family, sister Thiry and family. Ron was employed at School District 57 as a plumber for many years. He will be sorely missed by family and friends.
Rest in Peace No service by request
Jean (Forbes) Bellis (Grandma Jean) Dec 14, 1929 - Aug 21, 2018
Our beautiful mom passed on to glory. Although we rejoice in knowing this, she will be greatly missed by all, her memory will stay deep in our hearts forever. Jean has been reunited with her husband Len, her sister Joyce and many other family members and friends. Jean leaves behind 3 children Christine (Brian) Kenna, Karen (Byron) Schlitt, and Steve (Gayle) Bellis as well as 7 grandchildren Michael (Erin), Miranda (Bryan), Tanya (Marko), Jonathan (Kendra), Natasha, Daniel, Eric and 5 great grandchildren Zachary, Paige, Gavin, Hunter and Brynn. A memorial of her life will be held Saturday the 22st of September at 11:30am with a lunch to follow at Gateway Christian Ministries 2055 20th Avenue Prince George BC.
“Life is good, Eternal Life is better” Mom’s moto
WILLIAM (BILL)
GEORGE BURDEN
October 27, 1934September 2, 2018
It is with the deepest sorrow that we announce the passing of our dad, Bill Burden. Bill passed peacefully with his family by his side. Bill was predeceased by his beautiful wife, Loreta, two granddaughters: Kaylee and Shaylee, his parents: Lucille and Ernest and his two brothers: Ronald and Robert.
Bill is survived by his three daughters: Marni Wheatley (Ron), Michele “Micki” Downie (Curtis), Dee Burden (Chuck) Seven Grandchildren: Kyle, Cody, Alisha (Dustin), Jory, Nathan, Bert and Andrew Seven great grandchildren: Rylee, Bailee, Gloria, William, Kayden, Maiya and Alivia.
Bill is also survived by his sister Ruth Choquette and his loyal nephew Kim (Annalise) Choquette as well as many other family members and friends.
Bill was born in Prince George in 1934 where he remained until his passing. Dad and Mom wintered in Yuma, Arizona for over 20 years.
Dad’s main passions were golfing, playing pool, crib and going to the casino. His other passion was owning and operating Hub City Motors and Equipment Limited. Bill became involved with Hub City Motors in 1957 where he started out pumping gas then moved between the different departments and finally ownership. Bill was proud of his staff and always made sure they were taken care of.
Dad’s hard work and dedication made Hub City Volkswagon the icon that it is today. Nothing was more important to Dad than family and friends. Those who knew him will remember his kind heart, gentle spirit and generous nature.
Bill’s family would like to thank Dr. Preston, Dr. Da Costa and all the wonderful nurses in the FMU, his care aides and home nurses.
A Celebration of Life will be held on September 22, 2018 at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel (900 Brunswick Street, Prince George) from 1:00pm - 4:00pm. Please bring your stories and memories. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Hospice House or SPCA would be appreciated.
He had a nature you could not help loving, and a heart that was purer than gold And to those who knew and loved him, his memory will never grow cold.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Established Franchise Tax Preparation BusinessMackenzieservicing and McLeod Lake area for over 30 years.
Gross Revenues of $85,000 to $90,000 Annually and Potential to expand revenues in a growing economy. Transition support available for the right buyer.
Serious Inquires Only Office (250)997-9003 Home
George William Greenlees
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, uncle and extraordinary friend to many. George passed peacefully Sept. 17, 2018 with his loving family by his side to be reunited with Freda, his best friend and devoted wife of 68 years. Born April 26, 1929 in Thorhild, Alberta. George devoted his life to family, friends and hard work. He will always be remembered for his cheerful, kind and loving ways. Survived by his four children: Roy, Susan (Merv), Glen (Irene), Judy (Alex), brothers Art and Chuck, sister Margret Brewer and many nieces, nephews, grandchildren and great grandchildren. George lives on in his beautifully crafted burl bowls and canes. Friends and family are invited to drop in to 11515 Aljean Rd. between noon & 4pm on Oct.6th, 2018 for a Celebration of Life for both George and Freda.
Sullivan Nina Doreen August 31, 2018. On this day, it was time for Doreen to answer her heavenly call. Her Lord and Savior blessed her with wings and guided her back to her heavenly home, where she was welcomed by her husband Glenn and sons Merrill and Mark and her mother and father and niece Liza. Although departed, she is never gone. Her inspiration and love will always live on. Doreen is survived by 5 children, Maureen (Jim) Klassen, Melodie Woytowich, Crystal Sullivan, Shawn (Kim) Sullivan, Glenda Sullivan (Andre). Left to cherish her memory are 15 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren, her brothers and sisters; Bruce (Lorraine), Grant, Glen, Evelyn (Dave), Georgina and Lois (Evan). Born in Trochu, Alberta, March 28, 1935, Doreen was a Lifetime Member of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43. A dedicated member of the Legion, Doreen spent countless hours volunteering her expertise and time with Bursary and Scholarship Applications, catering, Remembrance Day Contest and Poppy Campaign. She also was a member of the executive committee. We would like to than Dr. Khan and Brianne (receptionist) for the wonderful care they gave our mom over the years. Thank you also goes to; Dr Singh,, Dr. Din, Dr. Saif, Dr. Spooner; the nurses in emergency especially (Lorenzo and Katie and HAU nurses (Laine); mom’s care aides; Karen, Cecile, Colleen, Pearl, Terry and Sarah and Jame and Teri of Medichair. A Celebration of Life will be held Tuesday, Sept 25, 2018 at 1:00pm, Lakewood Alliance Church, 4401 5th Ave, Prince George, BC. Light lunch to follow at the church.
and
Marjorie Anna Tucker (nee Collins) passed away peacefully at home September 17, 2018, with her husband Dale by her side. Her sudden passing ended her brave battle with cancer. Marj will be remembered for her love of life, always finding humour, even in adverse situations. Her famous
much loved giggle will
Left to mourn Marj’s passing is her husband of 45 years, Dale; sons Kory and Nathan (Chrystal); her precious grandchildren Benjamin, Kaius and Paxton; sister Verna (Rod Amos), brothers Curtis and Darwin (Talena) Collins; inlaws Barry & Dolores Tucker, Brenda and Ken Warn.
RE:
Dear
•
Block
ACRE
on McPhee & Cheif Lake Rd. $50,000 250-5645290 9 3/4 ACRES within city limits, West, 9265 Reynolds Rd, $180,000. 250-964-9796 BUILDING Lot 8091 Flamingo Rd. 80’X135’ with city sewer & water. Allows mobiles as well. $85,000. 563-6985, 981-1950 CITY serviced lot. McTavish at Aberdeen. 93’x95’. 981-5950 or stop by 2249 McTavish for info. HART Area, 400’ frontage X 100’ deep, serviced $300,000. 250-565-4888 LARGE Res. lot, serviced, green belt on back, Oak Ridge Cres, Hart hwy. $89,900 obo 250-562-3886 LOT for Duplex, 4-plex or apartment/condo. Fully zoned. Ready for permit. Near Multiplex & Walmart. 250-961-6786 Recreational Property Cluculz; Meier Rd, 11.26
An applicant is not required to bid on all blocks. MLIB will evaluate bids received on an individual block basis. MLIB requires the successful applicant(s) to complete their harvesting activities by no later than March 31, 2019 and hauling of all decked timber at roadside must be completed by July 1, 2019.
The successful applicant(s) will be required to complete all road/block layout, road reconstruction/brushing of existing roads, develop any new block roads, harvest, load, haul, and semi deactivate in-block roads. The applicant will also supply and install, at their cost, all culverts, and bridges over fish streams. The applicant will also be responsible to apply for and obtain, road use permits for all roads required outside the McLeod Lake East Treaty 8 boundary. Road side piling is also required. MLIB will be responsible subsequent silviculture obligations. Other conditions of this tender which will be part of, but not limited to, the final contract are:
• Care for the environment will be of high priority and must be observed.
• A performance bond is to be posted by the successful applicant(s)
Into the pot you go
Maura JUDKIS Citizen news service
Lobsters in one Maine restaurant go out in a blaze of glory once they hit the pot. The owner of a lobster joint is sedating her crustaceans with marijuana smoke before cooking them – granting them, she says, a blissfully humane death.
Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, told the Portland Press Herald that she had been looking for a way to reduce the suffering of her signature menu item. She experimented with blowing marijuana smoke into a tank with one lobster, Roscoe (basically, she hot-boxed him). When Gill then removed Roscoe’s claw bands and returned him to a tank with the other lobsters, she says, he was less aggressive. Gill has a medical marijuana license.
She plans to offer this cooking method as an option for customers who want their lobsters to be baked before they’re boiled. But that doesn’t mean customers will get stoned from their dinner.
“THC breaks down completely by 392 degrees, therefore we will use both steam as well as a heat process that will expose the meat to 420-degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carry-over effect,” Gill told the Press Herald. So where some see a humane death for the lobster, others see a waste of perfectly good weed.
Chefs and scientists have long pondered the question of whether lobsters feel pain. Experiments have shown that crustaceans are responsive to stimuli that cause pain, such as heat, but it is unclear whether this is a reflex or a pain response from their nervous systems. It’s also unclear whether cannabis has the same pain-relieving effect on lobsters that it has on humans.
“We can’t prove pain in any animal species,” Robert Elwood, a professor emeritus of animal behaviour at Queen’s University Belfast, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “You can only do studies, and if they’re consistent with the idea of pain, you begin to think perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s what we call the precautionary principle, and (it) gives them some protection in case they do feel pain.”
Other researchers disagree.
“They can sense their environment,” Bob
Maine restaurant sedates lobsters with marijuana smoke
Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, told The Washington Post in January, “but they probably don’t have the ability to process pain.”
In New Zealand, as well as in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, it is illegal to cook lobsters by boiling them alive. Earlier this year, Switzerland passed a law that live lobsters must be stunned before they can be cooked live.
Back to Charlotte’s Legendary Stoned Lobsters. The news launched a thousand weed jokes on Twitter, including this one from Morning Air Show (@WXBQ_MAS):
“Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine is getting their lobsters high off marijuana smoke before
Experiments have shown that crustaceans are responsive to stimuli that cause pain, such as heat, but it is unclear whether this is a reflex or a pain response from their nervous systems.
killing and cooking them. They believe it to be more humane than the traditional methods. I wonder if they smoke sea weed??”
But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is not laughing. The vegan advocacy group, which once tried to erect a gravestone for lobsters killed in a truck crash, is opposed to boiling lobsters alive under any circumstances.
Regina
LAS VEGAS — A glass bong taller than a giraffe. Huggable faux marijuana buds. A pool full of foam weed nuggets.
Las Vegas’s newest attraction – and Instagram backdrop – is a museum celebrating all things cannabis.
Nobody was allowed to light up at Cannabition when it opened Thursday because of a Nevada ban on public consumption of marijuana, but visitors could learn about the drug as they snapped photos.
It’s a made-for-social-media museum where every exhibit has lights meant to ensure people take selfies worthy of the no-filter hashtag.
The facility – whose founder says he has a goal of de-stigmatizing marijuana use – will likely land among the talking points officials and others use to try to draw gambling-resistant millennials to Sin City. It will welcome its first visitors almost 15 months after adults in Nevada began buying recreational marijuana legally, with sales far exceeding state projections.
This museum in Las Vegas’ downtown entertainment district is not the Smithsonian of marijuana, but it has some educational components.
“Our goal when people come out of this is that they don’t fear the cannabis industry if they are not believers in the industry,” founder J.J. Walker told The Associated Press. “Cannabition is not about just serving people that like marijuana, it’s about serving the masses that want to learn about cannabis and or just have fun and go do a cool art experience.” Guests will wander through 12 installations with rooms like “seed,” where people can lie down in a bed shaped like a marijuana seed, and “grow,” which features artificial plants in sizes ranging from inches to feet tall placed under bright lights to represent an
indoor cannabis grow facility. Photo ops are also available under a glow-in-thedark tree, next to a giant marijuana leaf meant to represent an edible gummy and by a seven-metre-tall glass bong that’s dubbed “Bongzilla” and billed as the world’s largest. There is a space with taller-than-you faux buds representing different strains and another room with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s famous “Red Shark” Chevrolet Caprice. This museum in Las Vegas’ downtown entertainment district is not the Smithsonian of marijuana, but it has some educational components. Guests get an introduction from museum guides and some graphics on walls explain how concentrates are made and the differences between indica and sativa cannabis strains. Museums always evolve with the times to remain relevant, and audience engagement is an important goal for the facilities today, said Gwen Chanzit, director of museum studies in art history at the University of Denver. For those who remember very traditional, no-photography-allowed museums, she said, “that ship has sailed.”
“Once cellphones became ubiquitous, the culture of museum visiting changed,” Chanzit said.
Many of the facility’s exhibits are sponsored by cannabis companies, with their logos prominently displayed. It is common for museums to receive the support of corporations and to place their logo on a wall.
Only adults 21 and older will be allowed at Cannabition. The tour is designed to last up to an hour. Walker, the founder, has invited reality TV stars, models and other influencers to Las Vegas for the weekend with the charge of spreading the word about the facility.
“It is highly unlikely that getting a lobster high would make a lick of difference when it comes to the full-blown agony of being boiled or steamed alive,” PETA said in a statement to Marijuana Moment. As for Roscoe the stoned lobster: to thank him for his service to all lobsterkind, Gill released him into the ocean, which must have been pretty trippy for him.
India bans instant divorce by Muslim men
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s government on Wednesday approved an ordinance to implement a top court ruling striking down the Muslim practice that allows men to instantly divorce.
The government decision came after it failed to get approval of Parliament a year after the court ruled that the practice of triple “talaq” violated the constitutional rights of Muslim women.
Most of the 170 million Muslims in India are Sunnis governed by the Muslim Personal Law for family matters and disputes. The laws include allowing men to divorce by simply uttering the Arabic word “talaq,” or divorce, three times – and not necessarily consecutively, but at any time, and by any medium, including telephone, text message or social media post.
The government will have another six months to get Parliament’s approval for the ordinance to become law. But in the meantime, suspects can be prosecuted using the ordinance.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that nearly 22
countries, including neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, have banned the practice and appealed to the opposition to approve the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill. India’s Muslim Law Board had told the court that while they considered the practice wrong, they opposed any court intervention and asked that the matter be left to the community. But several progressive Muslim activists decried the law board’s position.
After the Supreme Court verdict, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government introduced a bill criminalizing the practice and it was approved in December by the lower house of Parliament, where his party commands a majority. But it couldn’t get the approval of the upper house, where the opposition controls the majority of seats.
The main opposition Congress party is opposing a three-year prison sentence for the offenders and wants a parliamentary committee to discuss the issue to reach a consensus. It favours a lesser sentence.
Lobsters await their fate in a seafood-restaurant tank.
GARCIA CANO Citizen news service
AP PHOTO
A seven-metre-tall bong is a centrepiece at the Cannabition cannabis museum in Las Vegas.
bong and huggable buds part of marijuana museum
Former editor feels he made right call on Ghomeshi essay
Citizen news service
A former editor at the New York Review of Books says he stands by his decision to publish a controversial essay written by disgraced former radio host Jian Ghomeshi.
Ian Buruma told Vrij Nederland, a Dutch magazine, that he lost his job after an intense backlash to the article from social media and magazine advertisers.
“It is rather ironic: as editor of The New York Review of Books I published a theme issue about #MeToo offenders who had not been convicted in a court of law but by social media,” the Dutch native said to Vrij. “And now I myself am publicly pilloried.”
Last week, the magazine published Ghomeshi’s essay, titled Reflections from a Hashtag, where he wrote he had “deep remorse” for the way he treated people, but said the accusations from the women were inaccurate.
Ghomeshi was acquitted in March 2016 of four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking involving three women and later signed a peace bond after apologizing to a fourth woman that saw another count of sexual assault withdrawn.
The essay sparked an online backlash from those who said the former CBC radio host should
not have been given such a prestigious platform to write an unchallenged first-person piece. Critics complained that the piece wasn’t properly fact-checked and was self-serving to a man trying to rehabilitate his image.
On Wednesday, the magazine added an editorial note clarifying several details about the allegations against Ghomeshi, how they emerged and the legal proceedings that followed.
Buruma says he was not fired from the prestigious literary magazine, but felt forced to resign after he was told by his publisher that university publishers who advertise in the Review of Books were threatening a boycott.
“They are afraid of the reactions on the campuses, where this is an inflammatory topic,” Buruma said to Vrij.
“Because of this, I feel forced to resign – in fact it is a capitulation to social media and university presses.”
He admits he didn’t gauge the forces of the #MeToo movement.
“I still stand behind my decision to publish,” Buruma says. “I expected that there would (be) intense reactions, but I hoped that it would open a discussion about what to do with people who behaved badly, but who were acquitted in a court of law.”
Cosby’s sentence could be prison, jail, probation
Maryclaire DALE Citizen news service
PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby could be sent to prison next week for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 in what became the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Cosby is due in court Monday for a two-day sentencing hearing that follows his conviction in the spring on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault.
The judge’s options are broad, because the state guideline range of about one to four years spans the gamut from a prison term to a jail stint to house arrest or probation. The maximum term is 10 years per count.
Lawyers for the 81-year-old, legally blind Cosby will no doubt stress his age, health problems, legacy and philanthropy as they plead to keep him at home, while prosecutors hope to call other accusers to paint Cosby as a sexual predator deserving of prison. Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill may aim straight for the heart of the guidelines to blunt public criticism from both sides and avoid being overturned on appeal, legal experts said.
“If you give a sentence in the middle, almost no one can complain,” said Daniel Filler, dean of Drexel University’s Kline School of Law, who studies sex assault issues. “And because the case has mitigating factors and aggravating factors, that’s the most likely outcome.”
Cosby should learn his fate by Tuesday.
The sentence
Jurors convicted Cosby of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand without consent, while she was impaired and after incapacitating her. Though each count carries a 10-year maximum sentence, O’Neill will likely merge them since all three stem from the same encounter, in effect weighing only one charge, legal experts say.
State guidelines call for a base 22- to 36-month sentence. The judge can add up to a year for aggravating factors – such as the 60-some other accusers, Cosby’s denials and lack of remorse, and even his defence team’s repeated attacks on the judge and prosecutor. Then O’Neill could deduct up to a year for mitigating factors – Cosby’s age, health and perhaps even the $3.4 million he paid to settle Constand’s related lawsuit.
Prison, jail or house arrest?
If Cosby gets even a day more than two years, he’ll enter the state prison system, with a first stop at SCI Phoenix, a new $400 million, 3,830-bed prison in suburban Philadelphia where staff would assess his physical, medical and security needs. Cosby could end up in a long-term medical care unit there or elsewhere. If he’s deemed at risk because of his celebrity or as a risk to others, he’d be held in solitary confinement, spending most of the day alone in his cell. Otherwise, he’d likely share a two-person cell, leaving for meals, exercise, counselling and other activities. He’d be free to bring a personal tablet for music or games but wouldn’t have internet access,
State guidelines call for a base 22- to 36-month sentence. The judge can add up to a year for aggravating factors...
corrections spokeswoman Amy Worden said.
If Cosby gets two years or less, he’d likely go to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in nearby Eagleville, a 2,080-bed site that also has a medical unit. Or O’Neill could give him less than a year and let him serve some or all of the time on home confinement, typically with an ankle monitor or probation.
The key question, if Cosby gets time, is whether O’Neill lets him stay home while he appeals his conviction. The violent nature of the crime works against him, but Cosby’s age might work in his favour.
“You don’t want your client to go to prison and find out that (in) those twilight years of their life they shouldn’t have had to spend there in the first place,” said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson.
The accusers
More than 60 other women accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct during his 50-year show business career. O’Neill allowed five of them to testify at trial, while others came to watch the court proceedings. District Attorney Kevin Steele wants some of them to speak at the sentencing.
O’Neill on Wednesday ruled out the testimony of most of the other accusers, other than the five trial witnesses. But whether any of them testify, he already knows their stories well after presiding at both trials and several intense pretrial hearings over their “prior bad act” testimony.
“The judge knows a ton about Mr. Cosby whether or not the D.A. puts on a single witness,” Filler said.
The judge
O’Neill, who is married and has three adult sons, took the bench in 2002. He has watched the Cosby team’s attacks on the court system intensify, and grow more personal, as the stakes grew.
When the first trial ended in a deadlock in June 2017, the defence attacked the judge and prosecutor from the courthouse steps. In court in April, moments after his conviction, Cosby called Steele an expletive and said he was “sick of him.”
Then, just this week, Camille Cosby filed a state ethics complaint against O’Neill, invoking a long-ago romance to allege he had a bias in the case. She has called him “arrogant,” “unethical” and “corrupt.”
Lawyer Samuel Stretton, who often represents Pennsylvania judges in disciplinary hearings, called O’Neill an even-keeled professional who “understands human nature.” He doesn’t think the attacks will influence the sentence but said Cosby’s lack of remorse might.
“Obviously, if no one is repenting, that’s a factor to consider. And if they’re so unrepentant they’re name calling, blaming anyone but themselves,” that’s a problem, Stretton said.
AP PHOTO
Bill Cosby, centre, leaves the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., on April 26, 2018. Cosby is due in court Monday for a two-day sentencing hearing that follows his conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault.
