Noted Indigenous leader Dr. Joseph Gosnell Sr. will be UNBC’s next chancellor.
He will be sworn in at the convocation ceremony in Prince George on May 31.
“It’s a blessing to have this honour conferred on me,” said Gosnell.
“The best thing I can do is encourage young men, women, no matter who they are, to take advantage of education. Go as far as you can and come out of University with degrees behind your name. Once you’ve done that, the world is open to you.”
Gosnell Sr. is a well-respected and distinguished hereditary chief in the Laxts’imilx Laxsgiik (Beaver/Eagle) tribe of the Nisga’a Nation.
He grew up in the communities of Gitwinksihlkw and Gitlaxt’aamiks (also known as New Aiyansh), in the Nass River Valley, about 100 kilometres north of Terrace.
As a young man he worked as a commercial fisherman, carpenter and traditional carver, and would eventually become a band councillor and chief of the Gitlaxt’aamiks Band. He was the first elected president of the Nisga’a Lisims Government and was instrumental in bringing modern medical care, education and resource management to his Nation.
The highlight amongst a long list of notable accomplishments was his role as the lead Nisg a’a representative in negotiations that led to the Nisga’a Treaty signing in 1998. The Nisga’a Treaty was the first modern treaty between a B.C. First Nation, British Columbia and Canada.
For the Nisga’a, the treaty followed the landmark 1973 Supreme Court of Canada Calder Case that set many precedents in Canadian legal history, and led to the establishment of the 1976 Comprehensive Claims Policy to negotiate treaties under then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
“Dr. Gosnell has made tremendous contributions to the lives of Northern British Columbians and indeed people across the country,” said UNBC Board of Governors chair Tracey Wolsey. “To have him agree to serve as our chancellor is a tremendous honour for the UNBC community.”
Gosnell received the Order of British Columbia in 1999, was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001 and promoted to Companion in 2006, and received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.
“Being able to call upon Dr. Gosnell’s lifetime of rich and meaningful experiences is priceless,” said UNBC president and vicechancellor Dr. Daniel Weeks. “His wisdom will support our University community as we strive to foster enthusiastic, respectful
and productive dialogues that enhance relationships between all people.”
Gosnell has received honorary doctorate degrees from UNBC, Royal Roads University, the Open Learning Agency in Burnaby, the BC Institute of Technology and Simon Fraser University. He is also a board member with the Wilp Wilxo’oskwhl Nisga’a Institute, with which UNBC has a federation agreement.
Other notable designations include a humanitarian award from the Canadian Labour Congress in 1999, Newsmaker of the Year from CTV News and CBC Radio, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards in 2000.
A fluent speaker of the Nisga’a language, Gosnell’s hereditary chief name is Sim’oogit Hleek, the most senior name in the House. It means “well-used” or “most useful,” and in the manner that the nation uses his wisdom, strength and knowledge of culture to inform everything they do on the land.
He has been married to Adele Gosnell for 63 years and they are proud parents of seven children, with 18 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren.
UNBC’s chancellor is appointed by the UNBC Board of Governors, after a lengthy process that includes a broad call for nominations, consultation with board members and senators and a formal nomination by the alumni council. The chancellor is the ceremonial head of the university.
Gosnell follows previous chancellors Iona Campagnolo, George Pedersen, Peter Bentley, Alex Michalos, John MacDonald and James Moore.
Bear-proof garbage can pilot project rolls out this month
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
About 300 bear-resistant residential garbage carts are about to be deployed in the Croft Road neighbourhood in the Hart.
The carts will arrive at no cost to households on April 15 and will be at the centre of a pilot project to see how effective they are at deterring the animals from breaking into a container and feeding on its contents.
Certified as bear resistant by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, they are designed to be difficult for bears to open but still easy for humans to deal with. They can be unlocked with one hand and will open when tipped upside down by a garbage truck.
“Bears spend half of their year eating as much as possible before hibernation, which can include eating garbage, fruit, or other available attractants,” said the city’s strategic parks planner Laurie Kosec.
“Prince George has the highest number of bear sightings in B.C., and an average of 35 local bears are destroyed every year as they usually cannot be successfully rehabilitated after they get used to seeking out garbage.”
A bear-resistant bin is about five times the price of a regular, large-sized bin, which is part of the reason the bins are first being tested on a pilot project.
The city worked with the Northern Bear Awareness Society and the B.C. Conservation Service to select an appropriate area to launch the project.
The carts will be set out on the following streets in the Croft neighbourhood: Cook Crescent, Cottonwood Place, Croft Road, Dunbar Place, Erickson Street, Glade Road, Hepting Road, Ingala Drive, Kim Place, Lehman Street, Monterery Road, Oakridge Crescent, Poplar Place, Winslow Drive and Winslow Place.
Bear-resistant bins have been in use at civic facilities, particularly along trails and the river, which are more likely to be frequented by bears.
Households elsewhere in the city are encourage to keep their carts stored away from bears on days when there is no garbage collection in their neighbourhood.
“Bears are waking up early this year due to warmer temperatures and there is not much food available due to the snow cover,” said Kosec.
“Garbage is a prime attractant for bears and carts should be kept in a location that is as inaccessible as possible to bears.”
carts being used in the pilot project are certified bear-resistant by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, and are fully compatible with the automated lift arms used by all city waste collection trucks.
GOSNELL
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN Soloist
Nathan Seifert got outside under the Kiwanas Bowl in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park on Wednesday afternoon.
Forestry contributes $13B to B.C.’s GDP, report says
Nelson BENNETT Glacier Media
Despite the many headwinds that has battered B.C.’s forest sector – pests, fires, duties, shrinking timber supply – it remains an economic “cornerstone,” generating $13 billion in gross domestic province and employing 140,000 British Columbians, nine per cent of whom are First Nations. That’s the conclusion of a new report by PwC.
The report was commissioned by the Council of Forest Industries and released Wednesday as a kickoff to its annual convention in Vancouver.
Forestry generates jobs and economic activity in every corner of the province, but is particularly important to certain regions, like the Cariboo, where forestry accounts
for 22 per cent of the jobs.
“This new study confirms that not only does the forest industry generate significant jobs and economic activity for the province overall, but these benefits can be found in every corner of the province – from Vancouver Island to the Interior, Lower Mainland to the Kootenays, and North Coast, Okanagan and Northeast regions of the province,” COFI president Susan Yurkovich said.
For government, forestry in B.C. generates $1.4 billion in federal taxes annually, $2.6 billion in provincial taxes, and $198 million in municipal taxes.
The study found that 40 per cent of the jobs in B.C.’s forestry sector are in the Lower Mainland and southwest region of B.C.
The PwC study focused on seven regions, some of which specialize in certain types of products. Vancouver Island, for example, is the province’s biggest pulp and paper producer and forestry is its largest resource sector. It produces 30 per cent of the pulp and paper produced in B.C. The ThompsonOakanagan region, meanwhile, has the most plywood and veneer mills, and the North Coast-Nechako region has the most wood pellet production. About nine per cent of the workforce in the forestry sector are First Nations,
who have increased their involvement in the industry in recent decades. There are a number of First Nations business and contractors in the forestry, and a number of tree farm licences are held by First Nations.
“This level of employment is more than in any other resource sector in B.C.,” COFI said in a news release.
For government, forestry in B.C. generates $1.4 billion in federal taxes annually, $2.6 billion in provincial taxes, and $198 million in municipal taxes.
“While this study demonstrates once again that the forest industry continues to be an economic engine for our province, we are also an industry that is facing significant challenges, including rising fibre costs, ongoing trade headwinds and strong global competition,” Yurkovich said.
B.C. political parties see massive drop in donations
Glacier Media
Donations to both the governing B.C. NDP and the Liberals plummeted by about 85 per cent in 2018 after a full year of bans on corporate or unions donations to political parties.
Newly released Elections B.C. records show it was the Liberals that took the hardest hit – but not by much – taking in $1,789,242 in contrast to $12,403,022 in 2017, a plunge of 85.5 per cent. On the other side of the Legislature, the NDP raked in $2,153,881 in donations last year compared to $14,218,279 in 2017, a decline of 84.8 per cent.
The Greens didn’t fare much better, dropping 66.6 per cent from $1,372,983 in 2017 donations to $458,338 last year.
Liberal Party spokeswoman Deanie Wong said it’s common for parties to raise less in non-election years than in election years like 2017.
“That said, our 2018 fundraising numbers reflect the transition to a new model where we raise smaller amounts from a larger base of grassroots supporters,” Wong said.
“So far in 2019, we have dramatically improved our fundraising performance as we mobilize for an election that could happen at any time.”
Green Party spokeswoman Kendra Wong agreed donations would be higher in an election year, adding the party’s numbers have seen the smallest decline since 2016. Less money from special interests in the form of corporate, union, out-of-province and large individual donations means that our politics is more responsive to
people,”Wong said.
“Parties can’t game elections simply by flooding the airwaves with paid advertising. Instead, they need to listen more to voters and respond to their concerns.”
Wong added the Greens stopped accepting corporate and union donations in September 2016.
The NDP did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
The ban on union and corporate donations kicked in as of November 2017.
The new rules also established a set a maximum personal cap on maximum of $1,225 per year.
As the changes continue, parties will receive $2.50 for every vote received in the last election. That funding will drop by $0.25 each year until 2021.
Elections B.C. said the annual report filings need to include: political contributions accepted; assets, liabilities, surplus or deficit as of Dec. 31; total dollar amount of income tax receipts issued; transfers of money, goods, or services received and given; fundraising function information; other income and expenditures; and details of permissible loans and guarantees.
Parties must disclose combined political contributions made to the party and any of its registered constituency associations or candidates where the contributor has made total contributions of more than $250.
A total of 93 organizations’ annual financial reports were required to be filed by April 1.
The British Columbia Conservative Party and the British Columbia People’s Party missed the deadline, Elections BC said.
CITIZEN
Tracy Calogheros, CEO of The Exploration Place, introduces the museum’s newest addition to the Biome Gallery, a Hermann’s tortoise. The life expectancy of the tortoise is about 100 years and it will grow to be about 22 centimetres long. The tortoise does not have a name yet, but the public is encouraged to drop off suggestions. Museum staff will select the winning suggestion.
Police warn of spike in distraction thefts
Citizen staff
Keep an eye on your possessions – there has been a spike in so-called distraction thefts around the city, Prince George RCMP are warning.
The detachment received three reports on Tuesday evening of personal belongings being stolen while the victim was distracted by an accomplice.
One occurred at the Roll-a-Dome where a backpack was stolen and two were from large retail stores where purses went missing.
A woman suspected of carrying out all three thefts was arrested and later released on a promise to appear in the spring, but her partner remains at large and has not yet been identified other than
that he is a man.
“Police would like to remind the public to keep valuables with them at all times when shopping and whenever possible, place the purse strap over your head and across your body,” RCMP said. “This will reduce the chances of being a victim of this type of crime.”
Anyone with information about the thefts is asked to contact the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800222-8477 or online at www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca (English only). You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers. If you provide information that leads to an arrest or recovery of stolen property, you could be eligible for a cash reward.
Food drive collects two tons of food
As well, $500 in cash was donated, all of which will go to the Salvation Army food bank.
Volunteers from United Way, Cariboo Brewhouse, The Fire Pit and Emmaus Place helped out.
Citizen staff
Shoppers donated 4,009 pounds of food when the Campbell’s Help Hunger Disappear campaign was held at local Save-On Foods grocery stores on Saturday.
‘No easy solution’: Gov’t pitches caribou plan in Fort St. John
Alaska Highway News
A wolf cull and a maternity penning program has led to increased birth rates, plummeting death rates, and rising herd populations of southern mountain caribou in the B.C. South Peace. But more needs to be done to fully help stabilize their numbers, including restrictions on industrial development, government officials said at a town hall meeting on Tuesday in Fort St. John.
Officials with both the B.C. and federal governments were in Fort St. John to give the public an overview of two draft agreements to protect vast tracts of caribou habitat, continue the wolf kill, and fund the successful maternity penning program in the region.
A similar meeting is also planned for Prince George on Tuesday at the Civic Centre, starting at 5:30 p.m.
“We got here through the way that we’ve managed the landscape, and we’re reaping the rewards of that management on caribou,” said Darcy Peel, in charge of the province’s caribou recovery program.
“There is no easy solution here. That’s the key we want to get out to people, to understand there’s no solution to caribou recovery that you just flick this switch and everything will be good. This requires a lot of action at the front end, and ongoing commitment to recover caribou in order to keep them on the landscape.”
Caribou numbers in the central group of the southern mountain caribou have dropped from between 800 to 1,000 in the 1990s, to around 230 today – a precipitous decline, biologist Dale Seip said. While a few herds in the region have already been extirpated, the entire population likely would have been by 2020 without predator control and maternal
penning, he said.
“We’ve been studying these caribou since 2002,” Seip said, noting a radio collar program has been tracking herd movements, calving and mortality rates, and population counts.
The wolf cull has killed 476 wolves since the winter of 201415, Seip said. That’s helped drop caribou mortality rates from 14 per cent to five per cent, increased calving rates from 16 per 100 animals to 25, and a 20 per cent increase in herd populations.
That’s been buoyed by a successful maternity pen run by West Moberly and Saulteau, capturing pregnant caribou cows each
March, and penning them through to late July to let the calves grow in a safe environment and giving them a better chance to survive.
However, fragmented habitat conditions and growing moose populations are seeing wolf numbers bounce back each year, Seip said. “Wolf control works, but it comes with a lot of effort and it needs to be ongoing,” he said.
Seasonal caribou and wolf habitat generally don’t overlap – caribou use the rugged interior and high elevations of the mountains in the summer as their calving range, and move out to the alpine edges of the mountains and onto plateaus as they search for food in winter. Wolves live exclusively in the valley bottoms during the winter, sustained largely by moose.
“Caribou are relatively safe as long as a high elevation refuge is in place,” Seip said.
But industrial landscape changes over the decades have flipped the tables, Seip said, making it easier for wolves to climb up into the alpine via roads and corridors in the summer, and leading to more caribou deaths – around 40 per cent of total caribou mortality each year. As industrial activity continues, it replaces old mature forest wellsuited for caribou, with young forest well-suited for moose, deer, and elk, increasing those ungulate populations, as well as wolves.
“We’ve disrupted this natural predator-prey system by having industrial disturbance on the landscape,” Seip said.
Which is a key plank of a draft partnership agreement between B.C., Ottawa, and the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations.
The agreement calls for the establishment of seven zones around Chetwnd and Tumbler Ridge that will see varying levels of new regulatory restrictions placed on industrial development, and new land protections mainly in high elevation habitats. Some of the restrictions to industry access and development would be immediate and permanent through the life of the agreement – 30 years – while others would be interim.
“You could stop all logging and
manager for Canfor, said the company has seen little consultation through the drafting of the agreement, and is currently analyzing its impacts on its mills and operations in the region. The company employs more than 500 in the region, and contributes more than $600 million annually to the economy.
“This could be very substantial,” Antoniazzi said.
Rodger Roy, general manager for West Fraser in Chetwynd, said his company was told by the government to expect job losses in the range of 500 people, which he said would shut down either its operations or Canfor’s. West Fraser has a $24 million annual payroll, and has invested $150 million into its Chetwynd facility in the last decade, and another $34 million into the community.
“This is a very significant issue for us and we absolutely feel left out of this process,” Roy said.
industry today, and it would take decades for the habitat to recover, and you would still need predator control or other management,” Seip said. “We have a variety of management techniques, none are easy and simple to implement. It’s a very difficult question. What’s the best mix of strategies to recover these caribou populations?”
The agreement calls for small area to be set aside as a “sustainable activity area” where existing tenures in high elevation habitat can continue to proceed. However, a newly established committee would review new tenure applications in the area, said Russ Laroche of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The committee would be comprised of B.C., Ottawa, and First Nations representatives, however, local governments and industry would not have a seat at the table.
The committee would “look at those impact assessments and mitigation plans, take information, and provide a recommendation to decision makers on whether they support the application,” Laroche said.
Other areas are identified for restoration and conservation, including a major expansion of the Klinse-za Provincial Park. An area has been set aside where West Moberly intends to apply for a woodland licence, though officials say they have no plans to use the licence for logging.
The agreement does include provisions that existing infrastructure and projects with an environmental assessment certificate issued before Feb. 1, 2019, would not be affected by resource development moratoriums.
However, the moratoriums are still expected to have a big impact on industry, in particular forestry.
There have yet to be any determinations about the amount of timber supply that will cut from logging companies, though the government ballparks the figure around 300,000 cubic metres. Companies say it will likely be much higher than that.
Franco Antoniazzi, regional
“The minister (Doug Donaldson) made the comment that he would expect, based on that cut, that we wouldn’t see more than half a shift lost in production at one of the mills. Obviously, the minister doesn’t understand the economics, and doesn’t understand it’s not a linear relationship between cut and operations.
“We absolutely need to be involved in an economic discussion, and it can’t be rushed. It has to be taken very carefully, and considered very carefully by the committee.”
The two companies, along with business leaders and local government officials have called for a study to be done on the impacts the agreement will have on the local economy. The government said that work is just beginning, and that the results of the study will be given to the government cabinet.
However, Kathleen Connelly of the Dawson Creek Chamber of Commerce, said a socio-economic study is impossible to complete in the short timeframe between now and when the agreements are expected to be signed and put into force this summer.
“The socio economic impacts to our region could potentially be devastating,” Connelly said.
The federal government last year declared the herds in the South Peace to be facing an imminent threat to their survival and recovery. It’s been pressured to implement an emergency order under the Species At Risk Act that could shut down all industrial activity in the region.
However, government officials say the partnership agreement with West Moberly and Saulteau, as well as a separate agreement between B.C. and Canada would go a long way to avoid that.
Jim Webb, a policy advisor for West Moberly, said his organization is not directly funded by U.S. interests, though he noted the First Nation does belong to a number of international organizations such as the Boreal Leadership Council, which does receive funding from American foundations.
“Our agenda is not driven by those organizations. Our agenda is driven by this ethic of stewardship, and the life of the Dane-zaa,” Webb said. “We want caribou on the landscape the same way we want to continue a way of life partially related to caribou on the landscape.”
Franco Antoniazzi, regional manager for Canfor, speaks at caribou recovery town hall in meeting Fort St. John on Tuesday.
No regrets in SNC-Lavalin affair, Wilson-Raybould, Philpott say
BRYDEN Citizen news service
Joan
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got a first-hand glimpse of the fallout from the SNC-Lavalin affair when he addressed young women staging a mock Parliament in the House of Commons Wednesday: about four dozen of them turned their backs on him while he tried to explain why he had booted Jody WilsonRaybould and Jane Philpott out of the Liberal caucus the day before.
It was a rough start for Trudeau’s efforts to re-establish himself as a feminist and supporter of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
“There’s always going to be a range of opinions we need to listen to,” Trudeau told the women. “But ultimately, diversity ... only works if there is trust and within a team when that trust gets broken, we have to figure out how to move forward.”
“It’s actually easy to stand in a place and cross your arms and stand in a place and say, ‘I’m not budging from my position because I’m right,”’ he added later. “What is actually more difficult is to look for thoughtful compromise.”
However, Trudeau got some unexpected support from Philpott, who spoke a short time later, alongside Wilson-Raybould, outside the Commons.
Asked about the prime minister’s feminist credentials, Philpott said: “I wish him the best. I wish him the opportunity to continue his good work.”
Trudeau informed the two former ministers Tuesday that he won’t allow them to seek re-election as Liberal candidates this fall. Both said Wednesday it’s too soon to say whether their careers in politics are finished or whether they might run as independents or for another party.
“I would like to think that there may be steps, that I could continue in a political role somehow but I don’t know what that will be,” said Philpott, speaking alongside Wilson-Raybould. “It’s too early to say.”
“I need to take some time to reflect,” said Wilson-Raybould.
Wilson-Raybould believes she was moved out of the prestigious justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle as punishment for refusing to intervene to stop the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on bribery charges related to contracts in Libya.
She has testified that she faced relentless pressure last fall from Trudeau, his office, the top public servant and others to override the director of public prosecutions, who had decided not to invite the Montreal
engineering giant to negotiate a remediation agreement, a kind of plea bargain.
Wilson-Raybould quit the cabinet in midFebruary and Philpott followed a few weeks later, saying she had lost confidence in the government’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin file.
On Tuesday, Trudeau called the secret recording “unconscionable,” proof that the ex-minister could no longer be trusted.
“Trust is a two-way street,” Wilson-Raybould shot back Wednesday.
“It is unconscionable not to uphold the rule of law.”
Neither Philpott nor Wilson-Raybould expressed regret for standing up for what they believed was right.
“You have to be able to hold your head high and look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say that the choices you made were the best ones under the circumstances,” said Philpott.
Indigenous women need to be included in discussions to end violence, report says
Amy SMART Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — A group on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside says Indigenous women need to be included in leadership and decision-making positions in governments and other organizations if violence against women is going to stop.
It’s one of 35 key recommendations made in Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The report was released by the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre on Wednesday. Co-author Harsha Walia said that although the report is based on input from 113 Indigenous and 15 non-Indigenous local women, it shouldn’t be considered in isolation.
“Even though this work is located very much in the heart of the Downtown Eastside, we’re very clear that it’s located in the context of colonization across these lands,” Walia said. “Our most pressing recommendation that all 128 collaborators and participants were unanimous on was active Indigenous women’s leadership in all levels of decision making and full Indigenous jurisdiction over Indigenous lands and services and laws.”
Walia said that would mean the full adoption of the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
Other recommendations include safe housing for every single Indigenous women on and off reserve, an end to all child apprehensions, a slew of legislative reform, and the establishment of an Indig-
enous women’s centre on the Downtown Eastside run by and for women.
The 220-page report comes as the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is expected to release its own final report this month. Inquiry chief commissioner Marion Buller had requested a two year extension last year, but the federal government allotted six months. The Vancouver women’s centre has standing in the inquiry and is submitting the report to the inquiry for consideration.
Walia said the report is unprecedented because it is rooted in the experiences of women on the Downtown Eastside, the neighbourhood where serial killer Robert Pickton found many of his victims.
She said the report also looks at a range of issues beyond physical violence: from housing and poverty to policing and child apprehensions.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says the report is “timely,” as it comes the day after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, who is Indigenous, was ejected from the Liberal caucus.
Reconciliation has to come from the grassroots up and not the top down, he said, which is why the recommendations of a report based on contributions from so many women on the Downtown Eastside should be taken seriously.
Several of the report contributors said they don’t know what to expect from the national inquiry, but it’s important for the recommendations to be concrete.
WILSON-RAYBOULD
PHILPOTT
Unethical abuse of power
The eminent biographer, Robert Caro, was quoted in recent days about the effect of power. Does it necessarily corrupt, as the cliché goes? No, he answered, it can actually cleanse. But more importantly, “when you get power, you can do what you want. So power reveals.”
If we transport and apply his quote to the carnage we have witnessed in the last two months concerning the scandalous behaviour in the SNC-Lavalin affair, there is so much to see. Where to start?
There is, most prominently, a prime minister whose expression of power has revealed his disdain in attending to the rule of law and the independence of his attorney general and prosecutorial service. For him, the exercise of power confers supreme value on the pursuit of political successes ahead of principled ones. He professes to do politics differently, but the distinctions have become negligible.
There are – or at least, there were – his top bureaucrat and political aide. Their powers, hardly less substantial or conse-
quential than the prime minister’s, revealed similar traits in bending rules to suit their objectives in the service of a partisan mission to appease a special interest. Theirs is a revealed power of progress through transactions. And there is – or at least, there was – an iconic cabinet minister in the centre of the episode, likely there in the first instance as a political newcomer to demonstrate a more than symbolic commitment to the important undertaking of Indigenous reconciliation, but devalued personally along with that commitment when she would not surrender to the vortex of the prime minister’s power revealed. In her, the revelation of power did not need to produce a cleansing but served to reveal a continuum of wisdom and groundedness.
Jody Wilson-Raybould tasted the flavour of Justin Trudeau’s power and spat it out. But rather than act like the patient teacher of his former career in front of the classroom, his power in the effective principal’s office revealed a petulant impatience with the student minister. When she questioned the quality of the lesson she was being
served, she was first seated in the corner, then expelled from the school.
There also is – and, too, was – another revered cabinet minister who dared echo the concern of a breached boundary. She was summarily dispatched, too, because the revelation of power in Trudeau seemingly countenances no public questions or exhibits of dissent on even one issue among hundreds that must be abided.
So this is where we are today: a brand bloodied, a prime minister who has degraded in two months what took him years to fabricate, and the casualties of arguably four of his most important colleagues. He may believe he has torn the Band-Aid off a wound that will heal in time, but he has neglected the symptoms of internal bleeding in the body politic. And to stretch the analogy, he is bound to be wounded again and again in the time ahead for his pique in power.
Most considerably, the man who professes empathy and compassion on his front stage has been revealed to be cold and above a public apology.
He appears to be reveling in his big reveal.
The unraveling Trump
Far too much media time has been devoted to mulling whether former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, as svelte and vigorous as he has ever been and showing no sign of mental deterioration, is too old to run for president and not nearly enough considering whether U.S. President Donald Trump is. So far this week, Trump – who will be 74 in November 2020 and is “tired,” according to aides –has:
• Falsely declared multiple times that his father was born in Germany. (Fred Trump was born in New York.)
• Declared that wind turbines cause cancer.
• Confused “origins” and “oranges” in asking reporters to look into the “oranges of the Mueller report.”
• Told Republicans to be more “paranoid” about vote-counting. He is increasingly incoherent. At a Republican event on Tuesday, he said: “We’re going into the war with some socialist. It looks like the only non, sort of, heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists, they got to him, our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don’t know him well, I was going to say ‘Welcome to the world Joe, you having a good time?’” Even when attempting to defend himself, he emits spurts of disconnected thoughts.
“Now you look at that (presidential announcement) speech and you see what’s happening and that speech was so tame compared to what is happening now, that trek up is one of the great treacherous treks anywhere, and Mexico has now, because they don’t want the border closed.”
I don’t presume to diagnose him or to render judgment on his health. All of us, however, should evaluate his words and actions.
If you had a relative who spoke this way, you would urge him to get checked out or advise him to slow down (although Trump’s schedule, with its hours of “executive time,” is already lighter than the schedules of many retirees).
Remember that this guy is the commander in chief, holder of the nuclear codes.
Even Republicans realize that his decisions are more erratic and illogical than ever. He doubled down on his intention to invalidate the Affordable Care Act in the courts, then insisted he had a terrific replacement, next said he would assign others to figure out the plan and take a vote before the 2020 election, and finally declared
that they would vote on such a (nonexistent) bill after the 2020 election.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was compelled to stage an intervention and tell him there would be no vote before 2020. (I suppose if the court strikes down Obamacare before that, McConnell would tell 20 million people covered by Obamacare to fend for themselves.)
Trump, even after declaring an “emergency” and robbing the Pentagon budget to pay for a border wall, declares we are at a “breaking point” and wants to close the border.
That comes as news to his aides, who know you can’t close a 3,000-kilometre border, and in saying so risk causing a panic flight to get across before such an order.
Even Trump staffers know that if you could pull it off, closing the border would crash the economy. As to the latter, Trump says he doesn’t care because security is more important than trade. (We’d have neither with his scheme.)
Collectively, we need to stop treating his conduct as normal. Politicians should start saying aloud what we all intuitively understand: Trump is unraveling before our eyes. There is reason to be concerned about how he’ll make it through the rest of his term. Giving him another four years is unimaginable.
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His blind objectives appear to be walking him toward the appeasement of SNC-Lavalin with a deferred prosecution agreement for its frolic in securing Libyan business; if not, he needs to take that matter off the table, because rest assured the dust will not settle otherwise. In booting Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the caucus, and pretending it was the caucus that did so instead of him, Trudeau has set a new and disturbing parliamentary standard for acceptable political discourse in a party – so yes, he is doing political differently. If Theresa May were applying this standard, though, the Brexittorn British Conservatives would be able to hold their caucus meetings in a prison cell. Do not for a moment believe Wilson-Raybould’s recording of the conversation with Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick was any sort of ethical tripwire. The tripwire was the content of the conversation because it laid bare the nature of the power the Trudeau administration wishes to privately wield and could not let us publicly understand. — Kirk LaPointe, Glacier Media
The barometer bees
There’s a good chance you live in a city – or will soon. According to estimates by the United Nations, two out of every three people will live in an urban area by 2050. The environmental impact of such rapid urbanization is a global concern. Traditional methods of monitoring pollution such as soil and air sampling can be expensive and time consuming. We need new tools to track heavy metals and other pollution. So, we came up with a novel approach – honey. It all began with a question.
Julia Common, the chief beekeeper at Hives for Humanity, a Vancouver-based, non-profit organization of urban beekeepers, was asked repeatedly, “how clean is the honey from downtown Vancouver?”
Hives for Humanity manages about 200 hives within Vancouver. They’re on rooftops in the bustling city centre, near city gardens, in residential back yards and on farms in Delta, one of B.C.’s major agricultural hubs. The organization doesn’t only produce honey, they also manage several therapeutic beekeeping programs.
To help answer this question, Dominique Weis, the director of the Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research, measured a suite of trace elements (including lead, titanium and cadmium and others) in some of the honey from Hives for Humanity. The honey was clean, well below the worldwide average for heavy metals like lead.
But when Weis started looking more closely at the data, she realized that the honey carried additional clues about where the metals came from – and could be linked to land use and human activity in the immediate vicinity of the hive.
When honeybees forage for pollen and nectar, they also pick up dust and other small particles, and carry it back to the hive where it is incorporated into the honey and other hive products.
Since bees rarely forage more than two to three kilometres from their hive, the honey provides a chemical snapshot of the environment surrounding the hive. This phenomenon has been exploited in a number of studies to assess not only the levels of certain metals in the environment, but also the effects of pesticides and the environmental impact of nuclear fallout.
Our study showed that honey collected from areas of higher urban density contains elevated levels of metals, including tin, lead, cadmium, copper and zinc. Antimony, for example, is elevated in honey from downtown Vancouver, relative to suburban and rural honey, presumably due to stopand-go traffic, as antimony is a component in vehicle break pads.
Other batches of honey sampled from areas near the shipping port, showed higher levels of vanadium,
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which can be found in heavy fuel oils burned by large engines such as those on cargo ships.
Even though we could find these trace elements in the honey samples, the concentrations were too low to pose any health risk. An adult would have to eat more than 600 grams of Vancouver honey per day to exceed tolerable daily lead intake levels.
We also analysed the different forms of lead, called isotopes, found in the honey to see how land use influenced the type of lead found in the environment. This had been tried only once before, in Australia.
Because each source of lead has a characteristic isotopic composition, this approach is a little like fingerprinting the lead. Honey from industrial or heavily populated sectors of the city has a different lead fingerprint than local, natural lead found, for example, in the rocks from the Garibaldi volcanic belt or sediment from the Fraser River. That means that the lead observed in honey from downtown hives is likely the result of human activities.
Overall, the chemical signature in honey from any sector of the city reflects a combination of the botanical offerings that surround the hive, as well as other pollution sources associated with land use: traffic, shipping, rail yards and agriculture.
The honey paints a comprehensive picture of current trace metal distribution throughout Metro Vancouver. In the future, we can look for variations, as the city grows and changes over the next century. Cities are dynamic and experience constant shifts in land use, population growth, aging infrastructure and climate change (especially coastal cities).
Because honey bees live where humans live, the method could be used anywhere hives exist. This makes it possible for cities around the world to harness the power of the honeybee, even if they lack more traditional environmental monitoring infrastructure.
Urban gardening and urban beekeeping are rising in popularity, which makes projects like these all the more amenable to community participation. The benefit of engaging the community in the scientific process is that everyone gains a deeper appreciation for their environment and local ecology. That, like the honey in Vancouver, is a sweet outcome.
Kate E. Smith is a PhD candidate at UBC, Diane Hanano is a UBC research manager and Dominique Weis is a UBC professor. This article is republished from theconversation.com.
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KATE E. SMITH, DIANE HANANO AND DOMINIQUE WEIS
The day the dinosaurs died!
global devastation! raining glass and molten rock!
Citizen news service
Sixty-six million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into a shallow sea near Mexico. The impact carved out a 150-kilometre-wide crater and flung mountains of earth into space. Earthbound debris fell to the planet in droplets of molten rock and glass.
Ancient fish caught glass blobs in their gills as they swam, gape-mouthed, beneath the strange rain. Large, sloshing waves threw animals onto dry land, then more waves buried them in silt. Scientists working in North Dakota recently dug up fossils of these fish: They died within the first minutes or hours after the asteroid hit, according to a paper published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a discovery that has sparked tremendous excitement among paleontologists.
“You’re going back to the day that the dinosaurs died,” said Timothy Bralower, a Pennsylvania State University paleoceanographer who is studying the impact crater and was not involved with this work. “That’s what this is. This is the day the dinosaurs died.”
Roughly three in four species perished in what’s called the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, also known as the K-Pg event or K-T extinction. The killer asteroid most famously claimed the dinosaurs. But T. rex and Triceratops were joined by hordes of other living things. Freshwater and marine creatures were victims, as were plants and microorganisms, including 93 per cent of plankton. (A lone branch of dinosaurs, the birds, lives on.)
Four decades of research buttresses the asteroid extinction theory, widely embraced as the most plausible explanation for disappearing dinosaurs. In the late 1970s, Luis and Walter Alvarez, a father-son scientist duo at the University of California, Berkeley, examined an unusual geologic layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. The boundary was full of the element iridium, which is rare in Earth’s crust, but not in asteroids. Walter Alvarez is one of the authors of the new study.
The Hell Creek fossils represent “the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found” that sits at the K-Pg boundary, study author Robert DePalma said in a statement.
DePalma, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, began excavating the site
No
Tat North Dakota’s Hell Creek formation in 2013. Since then, DePalma and other paleontologists have found heaps of fossilized sturgeon and paddlefish with glass spheres still in their gills.
They found squid-like animals called ammonites, shark teeth and the remains of predatory aquatic lizards called mosasaurs. They found dead mammals, insects, trees and a triceratops. They found foot-long fossil feathers, dinosaur tracks and prehistoric mammal burrows. They found fossilized tree gunk called amber that had captured the glass spheres, too.
The site has “all the trademark signals from the Chicxulub impact,” Bralower said, including the glass beads and lots of iridium. In the geologic layer just above the fossil deposit, ferns dominate, the signs of a recovering ecosystem. “It’s spellbinding,” he said. In the early 1990s, researchers located the scar left by the asteroid – a crater in
need to get in a lather
here are a number of apocryphal tales about bathing and cleanliness. For example, Cleopatra is said to have bathed in goat’s milk while Queen Elizabeth I only bathed once a month. Louis the XIV is reported to have bathed only once a year to avoid injuring his health.
While some of these stories may be true, our ancestors were not unhygienic.
Recipes for soap date back to ancient times and many other methods for removing dirt were employed. For example, the ancient Greeks coated their bodies in olive oil and then scraped the skin clean using a flat-bladed stick. It is still practiced today.
Soap is actually fairly easy to make and owes its origins to two very unlikely ingredients – the ashes of a fire and animal fat. Most people would be disinclined to spread either on their body by itself but chemical reactions can convert the fat into soap. Historically, soap required “washing soda” which is sodium carbonate. It can be obtained by suspending ash from the combustion of grasses or seaweed in water. The sodium carbonate dissolves and the organic component of the ash can then be removed. Evaporating the water leaves the washing soda as a solid.
The process is labour intensive and time consuming so in the late 1700s, the French offered a prize equivalent to around $500,000 today to anyone who could come up with a better method of making it. The prize was claimed a French chemist, Nicholas LeBlanc. His process involved combining sodium chloride with sulfuric acid at 800 C, generating sodium sulfate. The other product of the reaction was hydrochloric acid which was released in gaseous form. When combined with atmospheric moisture, it formed a particularly strong acid rain.
The second step in making soda was to combine the sodium sulfate with limestone and carbon. The carbonate in the limestone reacts with the sodium while the sulfate, carbon, and calcium from the limestone react to give calcium sulfide and carbon dioxide.
Calcium sulfide dissolves in acid or water releasing hydrogen sulfide, a toxic substance with the
smell of rotten eggs.
Needless to say, the LeBlanc process was not an environmentally friendly industry and had a major impact on its locale. However, the demand for sodium carbonate was so high, whole regions of European countries were given over to its production. It is also a critical ingredient in the production of glass, paper and a number of other industrial products so the LeBlanc process flourished.
In the early 1800s, it was replaced by the much cleaner Solvay process and over time sodium carbonate was replaced by sodium hydroxide as the alkali of choice in most industries. Indeed, sodium hydroxide is still one of the major commodity chemicals produced by industry as it finds its way into everything from polymer production to baking bread.
A significant use for sodium hydroxide remains the production of soap although purists could still capture sodium carbonate from
the Yucatán Peninsula. The impact was named after the nearby Mexican town of Chicxulub. Suggested “kill mechanisms” for the Chicxulub impact abound: it may have poisoned the planet with heavy metals, turned the ocean to acid, shrouded Earth in darkness or ignited global firestorms. Its punch may have triggered volcanoes that spewed like shaken soda cans.
Hell Creek is more than 3,200 kilometres from the Chicxulub crater. But a hail of glass beads, called tektites, rained there within 15 minutes of the impact, said study author Jan Smit, a paleontologist at Vrije University in Amsterdam who also was an early discoverer of iridium at the K-Pg boundary.
The fish, pressed in the mud like flowers in a diary, are remarkably well-preserved. “It’s the equivalent of finding people in life positions buried by ash after Pompeii,” Bralower said.
At the time of the dinosaurs, the Hell
about soap
the ash generated by burning plants.
With either sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate, the next step in making soap is to simply mix the alkali with fat. Fat is a triglyceride consisting of a head group or glycerol unit and three long chain fatty acid. The alkali cleaves the linkage holding the glycerol and acids together. The process is called saponification.
While soap can be made by mixing the two ingredients cold and letting them sit, generally it is easier and quicker to warm the mixture melting the fat. In this state, and with very precise measurement of the quantities of
Creek site was a river valley. The river fed into an inland sea that connected the Arctic Ocean to a prehistoric Gulf of Mexico. After the asteroid struck, seismic waves from a magnitude 10 to 11 earthquake rippled through this sea, according to the study. This caused not a tsunami but what’s known as seiche waves, the back-and-forth sloshes sometimes seen in miniature in a bathtub. These can be symptoms of very distant tremors – such as the seiche waves that churned in Norwegian fjords in 2011 after the giant Tohoku earthquake near Japan. Seiche waves from the inland sea reached 10 metres, drowning the river valley in a pulse of water, gravel and sand. The rain of rocks and glass followed. The tektites dug “small funnels in the sediment laid down by the seiche,” Smit said, “so you know for sure they are coming down when the waves are still running upriver.” This is preservation, in other words, of a fresh hell.
alkali and fat, a useable soap can be obtained. Most soap makers take the process a step further and bring the alkali and fat to a boil in a large pot. The soap layer forms on the surface and can be skimmed off. It must be allowed to cure for a few days but essentially that is all that is required to make soap. The glycerol gives rise to glycerin and this can be added back into the long chain fatty acid component to give a much smoother mixture with a creamy feel. Glycerin has a number of other industrial uses, including the synthesis of nitroglycerin. However, it is the long chain
fatty acids which are the cleaning component of any soap or detergent. In essence, these molecules consist of two regions – a waterloving or hydrophilic acid group and a water-fearing or hydrophobic hydrocarbon tail.
The long chain tail inserts itself into dirt or oils securing the molecule to the surface of any grime while the hydrophilic group is attracted to water. Essentially the fatty acid forms a molecular bridge between water-fearing dirt and the wash water used to sweep it away.
Whether you bath many times a day or just once a year, soap is a major part of our lives.
ROBERT DEPALMA, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS/CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE HANDOUT PHOTO
A tangled mass of fish from the deposit in North Dakota’s Hell Creek formation.
U.S., China resume trade talks
news service
Citizen
The U.S. and China opened a ninth round of talks Wednesday, aiming to further narrow differences in an ongoing trade war that has deepened uncertainty for businesses and investors and cast a pall over the outlook for the global economy.
The latest negotiating session on American soil follows a similar set of talks held last week in Beijing.
Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said “good headway” was made when U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met in the Chinese capital with a delegation headed by Vice Premier Liu He, a confidant of President Xi Jinping.
Kudlow expressed optimism that the parties would narrow the areas of disagreement further this week.
“They’ll be here for three days, maybe more,” he told reporters at a roundtable sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Others said they’ve been encouraged by the tone of the negotiations thus far.
Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, estimated Tuesday that the two sides are 90 per cent of the way to an agreement but cautioned that “the last 10 per cent is the hardest part, the trickiest part.”
At the heart of the dispute are the Trump administration’s allegations that China steals technology and coerces U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets – all part of Beijing’s zeal to overtake U.S. technological dominance.
To pressure China, the United States has imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods. The Chinese have counterpunched by taxing $110 billion in U.S. imports.
Forecasters at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, among others, have downgraded their outlook for the global economy, partly because the U.S.-China rift is damaging trade and causing businesses to slow investment until they know how the dispute will end.
Tensions have eased somewhat since U.S. President Donald Trump and Xi met in Buenos Aires late last year and the administration
ended up suspending its plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports to buy time for negotiations.
Kudlow said the talks are covering a host of issues that the two sides “have never really covered before” and that progress was being made on all fronts – which is the assessment administration officials from Trump on down have been making publicly for weeks.
“We’re not there yet and we hope this week we get closer,” Kudlow said.
Analysts say two major sticking points, in particular, stand in the way of any agreement.
First, Trump wants to preserve at least the 25 per cent tariffs he has imposed on $50 billion in Chinese imports as a way to maintain leverage over Beijing. China wants them lifted. Second, the two sides must develop a mechanism to ensure that China honours any commitments it makes in an agreement. The administration complains that China has repeatedly failed to keep promises it made in previous trade talks.
The Chinese are widely expected to agree to buy substantially more American products –
likely including soybeans and natural gas - to help narrow the United States’ trade deficit in goods and services with China, which hit a record $379 billion last year. America’s trade deficit with China has been one of Trump’s chronic complaints, although many economists say a bilateral trade gap is relatively insignificant. Congressional Democrats and others have warned Trump against reaching any agreement that settles for more U.S. exports to China without also requiring Beijing to adopt serious economic reforms.
“Stand firm,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. “Skip the political photo op and make good on your promise to stand up for American businesses and workers when China takes advantage.”
Christopher Adams, a former China specialist at the Treasury Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative who is a senior adviser at the Covington & Burling law firm, added: “There has to be something substantive on the structural issues. Otherwise, the criticism will be severe.”
Feds leave IPPs be... for now
In Scott Adams’ delightfully nihilistic portrayal of corporate life, our impotent hero Dilbert shares the sketchpad stage with a deeply sarcastic crew of personalities.
I’ve known each of them personally for the past 29 years and not just through the funny pages.
I’m nearly certain Adams has been hiding in the walls, whispering lines to my pointy-haired boss. Some of his more pernicious characters are personified animals, but in the case of the accounting staff, animal-ified humans…ish.
“The “trolls” in accounting live in the dark flame-lit basement, where they grunt curmudgeonly displeasure at people and numbers alike.
Rumour has it that some of these trolls have joined the firm of “Scrooge, Marley and Morneau” and taken up residence in a stately Ottawa office, where they study ways to make life hard for business owners nationwide.
In their recent budget policy, they touched on, but have not yet ruined the concept of the Individual Pension Plan (IPP).
Essentially, an IPP is a way to move money out of a private corporation in a more tax-friendly way, contingent on the company being sufficiently prepared to commit to a pension plan. It’s a way of trying to level the playing field, pension-wise, between you and the guy who worked for a large corporation or a government agency and generated a comfortable pension there.
IPPs are designed for incorporated small business owners, incorporated professionals and senior executives (if the company
RYAN
is prepared to commit to the concept).
Ideally the candidate will be between the ages of 40 and 71, will have been incorporated since 1991 and have T4 income since the date of incorporation. This will create eligible years of past service, like RSSP room but bigger. This allow individuals approaching retirement to compensate for the years when corporate revenue was largely reinvested in the establishment and growth of the business.
The significant advantages of an IPP versus a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) include:
• More retirement savings. IPP contributions for individuals 40 and over will be greater than the maximum allowable RRSP contributions.
• Predictability. Because they are governed by defined benefit (DB) pension funding rules, the outcome is more predictable, which is of course the whole point of a DB pension.
• Tax efficient. All IPP contributions, actuarial and investment management fees paid on a member’s behalf are fully tax-deductible corporately. For the individual, the company IPP contributions are an excellent non-taxable benefit
• Investment growth is tax deferred until withdrawn at retirement.
• Pension income can be split
sooner with a member’s spouse – as soon as payments begin (as opposed to age 65 for RRSPs).
• Greater control of outcomes. Not only is the end benefit prescribed with an IPP, but so is the annual return inside the pension. To the extent the IPP does not attain the 7.5 per cent benchmark, the sponsoring company can make a tax deductible contribution to “bridge the gap” between this prescribed rate and actual performance. It’s a pension fund of one, so the disadvantage of not having pooled resources is made up for with this additional flexibility. Thus, a return of 7.5 per cent, on a tax-assisted basis, is assured. And the top-up to bring your return from say four per cent to 7.5 per cent is not counted against deduction limits.
• Security. The assets held in an IPP may offer potential protection from creditors.
• Past service contributions. An IPP has the ability to make taxdeductible contributions reflecting the member’s service with the company as far back as 1991 or the member’s date of hire.
• Additional contributions at retirement. The Income Tax Act prevents the pre-funding of certain ancillary benefits while business owners are active employees. However, at retirement, these benefits can be fully funded. That means another large tax-deductible contribution can be made at retirement, if desired.
• Retirement options. Typically, when the participant retires, either the company becomes inactive or has been sold, in which case there is no longer an active plan sponsor. Although the participant can choose to receive the pension directly from the IPP,
it is more common to wind up the IPP at retirement and transfer the value to another registered plan such as a Life Income Fund, Locked-in RRSP or an insured annuity.
While an IPP offers several advantages, there are also some hurdles to take into account, including:
• Complexity of the plan. An actuarial valuation is required at the time the IPP is set up, and every three to four years thereafter, depending on the province.
• Reduced RRSP contribution room, and restrictions on contributing to a spousal RRSP once your IPP is established.
• Potential additional contributions may be required if your investment returns are too low, as noted above. Therefore, the corporation needs to be sufficiently flush.
• Ongoing costs. Annual IPP administration fees are higher than those for an RRSP due to the IPP’s complexity. Actuarial evaluations must be conducted in B.C. every three years. And annual fees for this run in the low four-figure range.
• As it falls under pension plan legislation an IPP has locked-in features, meaning emergency access to large lump sums is restricted.
Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See his website at: http://dir.rbcinvestments.com/mark.ryan
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
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global slowdown. The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 15.99 points to 16,279.86 after hitting a year-todate high of 16,337.96. The underlying tone in the marketplace is largely one of optimism, says Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager for Fiera Capital.
The Toronto market closed 18.1 per cent above the low set last December and just 1.7 per cent off last summer’s all-time high. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 39.00 points at 26,218.13. The S&P 500 index was up 6.16 points at 2,873.40 and up for a fifth straight day, while the Nasdaq composite rose 46.86 points at 7,895.55.
Still, the Canadian market underperformed its North American peers largely due to lower prices of oil and gold.
The May crude contract was down 12 cents at US$62.39 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was down 0.7 of a cent at US$2.68 per mmBTU.
The influential energy sector was the weakest on the day, losing 1.3 per cent, on a rise in U.S. oil stockpiles and record crude production in the latest week. Encana Corp. lost 4.7 per cent followed by Crescent Point Energy Corp. Meanwhile, the June gold contract was down 10 cents at US$1,295.30 an ounce and the May copper contract was up 4.3 cents at US$2.95 a pound. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.05 cents US compared with an average of 74.94 cent US on Tuesday.
Consumer discretionary shares improved the most on the TSX, helped by a 5.8-per-cent rise by HBC, followed by utilities, technology and financials.
Financials rose following an increase in rates for 10-year bonds as investors moved from fixed income investments to equities. Until now, fixed income bond yields had fallen aggressively, lending support to fears about global growth. But signs of economic resilience in China and Europe is shifting bond interest rates higher in response.
“Just that call for a resynchronization in global growth, if that does come to fruition, which it’s looking increasingly likely here, that’s going to have positive implications for the more cyclically biased equity markets out there such as the TSX and the emerging markets,” she said.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Tugboats push a container vessel to the dockyard Monday in a port in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province.
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Japan dumps Canada at world men’s championship
Gregory STRONG Citizen news service
LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — Canada’s Kevin Koe was not expecting to run the table at the world men’s curling championship like he did at the Tim Hortons Brier.
The surprise on Wednesday was that his first defeat – a 9-3 loss to Japan’s Yuta Matsumura – came in blowout fashion. The result knocked Koe out of first place and stopped his 24-game winning streak.
“It ended with a bit of an abrupt thud,” Koe said.
“But a loss is a loss. It was never going to go on forever, that’s for sure.” Koe’s last defeat came in the
Alberta playdowns last February.
He rolled to victory at the nationals last month before winning his first six round-robin games at the Enmax Centre.
That momentum was sapped in a hurry by an efficient Japanese side that started strong and didn’t let up.
Koe missed a double takeout attempt in the first end and Japan made an open draw for two.
Koe was forced to a single in the second and Matsumura hit a nose double for five points in the third.
“We were in trouble really all end and didn’t really have a chance to bail,” Koe said.
The teams shook hands after the minimum six ends.
The result momentarily moved Japan into sole possession of first
place at 7-1 after 12 draws.
Switzerland’s Peter De Cruz and defending champion Niklas Edin of Sweden, who did not play in the morning, moved to 7-1 with victories in the afternoon draw for a three-way tie atop the standings.
Canada was alone in fourth at 6-1 heading into its evening draw against the Swedes.
“We just didn’t come out very sharp and they were,” said Canada third B.J. Neufeld.
“They put a lot of pressure on us early. We just couldn’t wriggle out of some bad situations.”
Japan finished at 90 per cent overall while Canada was at 84 per cent. Japan had three players shoot 100 per cent on their hits.
“They just executed so well
today, they weren’t missing,” said Japan coach Bob Ursel. “The skip just made some phenomenal shots for the big end there.”
Neufeld said the team gave up some five-enders on the Grand Slam circuit this season. However, it was the first time in this competition that Canada had given up more than a deuce in a single end.
“It happens,” he said.
“We got into a situation where we were forced to put the game on the line a little bit. We just didn’t make the shots to get out of it.”
Matsumura, the world No. 27, has earned four titles this season, including the Oakville Fall Classic and the Pacific-Asia championship.
He’s making his second appearance at the worlds after finishing
sixth in 2015.
It was his first career meeting against the Calgary-based team.
“We didn’t really get any pressure on them,” Koe said.
“We were kind of chasing all game. It’s tough to take too much out of that game.
“If we play them again, I’m sure it would be a different story.”
Heading into the evening draw, American John Shuster was alone in fifth place at 6-2, Italy’s Joel Retornaz and Bruce Mouat of Scotland were tied in sixth at 4-3, while Jaap Van Dorp of the Netherlands was 3-4. Round-robin play continues through Friday night.
Six teams will make the weekend playoffs and the medal games are set for Sunday.
Abel looks to break record at Canada Cup
Ian GUSTAFSON Citizen news service
CALGARY — Canada’s Jennifer Abel hopes to make another big splash at the world aquatics championships this summer.
The diver continues her preparations for what could be a record-setting international showing this week at the Canada Cup in Calgary.
The 27-year-old from Laval, Que., is tied with diver Alex Despatie and swimmer Ryan Cochrane for most medals (eight) by a Canadian in the history of the world aquatics championships. She hopes to break the tie this summer in South Korea.
“Obviously if I’m on the podium I’ll be extremely happy because we’ll get to secure our spot for myself or in synchro for the (2020) Olympics so I’ll be even more happy for that the being the most decorated on the world stage,” said Abel.
“I’m quite excited to go there.”
The Canada Cup, featuring 132 divers from 20 countries over four days, offers Abel another chance to test herself prior to bigger meets ahead.
She’s also looking ahead to next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, which would mark Abel’s fourth Summer Games appearance.
After winning bronze with Emilie Heymans in synchro in 2012, she just missed the podium twice in 2016 in Rio, finishing fourth in synchro with Pamela Ware and notching the same result individually in the three-metre event.
“What I’ve learned from Rio is I can always set myself up for medals so if I’m there in Tokyo... do each dive as good as I can and to give the best performance ever,” said Abel. Abel said the Canada Cup offers younger divers a chance to learn from veterans of the sport.
“This
CP PHOTO
Canadian skip Kevin Koe sweeps out a rock from Japan as Japanese skip Yuta Matsumura and third Tetsuro Shimizu look on at the Men’s World Curling Championship in Lethbridge, Alta. on Wednesday.
Sports
Henderson hopes to match Post’s Canadian LPGA record
John CHIDLEY-HILL Citizen news service
It’s no secret that Brooke Henderson wants to catch Sandra Post for most wins by a Canadian on the LPGA Tour. Matching Post’s record at this week’s ANA Inspiration – where the Canadian golfing great won twice – would be Henderson’s ideal event to do it.
Henderson, from Smiths Falls, Ont., and Hamilton’s Alena Sharp are the only Canadians in the field at the ANA, the first major of the LPGA Tour’s season, starting Thursday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Post won the event in 1978 and 1979 when it was known as the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle. Post has eight career LPGA wins, one more than Henderson
“Tying Sandra would be amazing. I’m really looking forward to, and excited, that hopefully I will get this eighth win this year and to do it at a major would be incredible,” Henderson, 21, said.
“Especially at ANA where she has won twice.
“I talked to her there before and she’s given me some hints on how to beat the course and hopefully I can put those into action and see what I can do.”
As winner of the Women’s PGA Championship in 2016, Henderson qualified for the ANA Inspiration well before this season began. But her strong start to this year – three top-10 finishes and one top 15 – would also have qualified her.
Sharp qualified as one of the top 20 players on the LPGA’s 2019 money list not already in the field.
“I’m really happy with my start to the season,” said Henderson.
“I feel like I have been in conten-
tion a little bit, I’ve felt the competitive juices flowing. It’s been fun, for sure. I feel like my game is in a good spot, I just think there’s some small things I’m continuing to clean up.”
Another highlight of Henderson’s season has been her prominent role in the LPGA’s Drive On
campaign.
In the campaign’s 45-second introductory video released on March 20, Henderson is seen practising at a driving range and she is the first of several golfers to do a voiceover encouraging girls to overcome adversity and be true to themselves.
“It was pretty amazing to be a part of a film like that, that is so powerful and has so much meaning behind it,” said Henderson.
“I didn’t really realize I was going to be one of the biggest people to kickstart it, but definitely an honour.
“Drive On’s just getting started
and I think it will empower not only women and young girls but I think people of all genders and all ages, helping them to push past negativity and focus on what you’re trying to do and get there.”
Women’s Amateur
• Brigitte Thibault of Rosemere, Que., was the only Canadian in the 72-player field on Wednesday morning as the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur teed off. It is the first all-female elite tournament at the historic course.
Symetra Tour
• Maddie Szeryk of London, Ont., is the highest ranked Canadian competing at the inaugural Windsor Golf Classic in Windsor, Calif., this week. She sits 61st on the Symetra Tour’s official money list. She’ll be joined at the Windsor Golf Club by Hannah Hellyer of Stirling, Ont., as well as Samantha Richdale and Megan Osland of Kelowna, when the tournament tees off on Friday.
PGA Tour
• Monday qualifier Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., is one of six Canadians competing in the Valero Texas Open at TPC San Antonio – AT&T Oaks. Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., Roger Sloan of Merritt, Adam Svensson of Surrey, and Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, round out the contingent vying for a stake in the US$7.5million purse.
John Chidley Hill’s weekly golf notebook is published on Wednesdays.
Habs, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets in hunt for wild-card berths
Joshua CLIPPERTON Citizen news service
The Montreal Canadiens, Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets find themselves in a three-way battle for the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card berths in the waning days of the regular season. Carolina sits in the driver’s seat with 95 points, followed Columbus and Montreal with 94 points each. The Canadian Press takes a look at the final two games for all three teams.
Montreal Canadiens
RECORD: 43-29-8 (94 points)
REMAINING OPPONENTS: Today at the Washington Capitals, Saturday at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs The Canadiens visit Washington knowing they have little room for error. The Capitals hold a three-point lead over the New York Islanders atop the Metropolitan
Division, meaning they still have something to play for with two games left. The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, are locked into the Atlantic Division’s third seed and will start the playoffs in Boston against the Bruins. But even though Saturday is meaningless in the standings for Toronto, the Leafs are expected to start No. 1 goalie Frederik Andersen as he looks to find a rhythm heading into the playoffs. Because the first tiebreaker in the standings is combined regulation and overtime wins – the Canadiens have 41, the Hurricanes have 42 and the Blue Jackets have 44 – Montreal could max out at 98 points and still miss the playoffs, which would be a first. Florida missed out with 96 points last season, while Boston suffered the same fate in 2014-15.
Carolina Hurricanes
RECORD: 44-29-7 (95 points)
REMAINING OPPONENTS: Today at
7:5 p.m. (PDT) SATURDAY, APR. 13
home against the New Jersey Devils, Saturday at the Philadelphia Flyers Carolina has the upper hand in the chase, occupying the first wild-card spot in the East with games against a pair of Metropolitan Division rivals playing out the string.
The Hurricanes are 1-2-0 against New Jersey this season, but did pick up their only victory over the Devils at home back in November. Carolina has had a lot more success against Philadelphia with a perfect 3-0-0 record, including a 5-3 road decision over the Flyers in January and last Saturday’s 5-2 home win. The Hurricanes last made the playoffs in 2008-09, making their nine-year drought the NHL’s longest current stretch of post-season futility.
Columbus Blue Jackets
RECORD: 45-31-4 (94 points)
REMAINING OPPONENTS: Friday at the
New York Rangers, Saturday at the Ottawa Senators Like the Hurricanes, the Blue Jackets control their own destiny against opponents with little to play for. Columbus is 2-0-1 against the Rangers in 2018-19, but two of the teams’ three games went beyond 60 minutes. The Blue Jackets are 2-0-0 versus Ottawa – the team they acquired forwards Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel from ahead of February’s trade deadline. While missing the playoffs would represent a blow for both Montreal and Carolina, Columbus failing to reach the post-season would be a disaster. Apart from the acquisitions of Duchene and Dzingel, who can both become unrestricted free agents this summer, the Blue Jackets went all-in this season by keeping their own pending UFAs in star goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and sniper Artemi Panarin rather than trying to deal the pair at the deadline.
CP PHOTO
Brooke Henderson plays her shot from the 10th tee during the first round of the Kia Classic LPGA golf tournament on March 28 in Carlsbad, Calif.
Vannelli’s new album soars
Citizen news service
Looking for a jazzy follow-up to George Michael’s Kissing a Fool? Try Gino Vannelli’s Gimme Back My Life. It’s one of the standout tracks on Wilderness Road, the 20th album of the Canadian crooner transplanted to Oregon and his first of all original tunes in over a decade.
Gimme Back My Life hits plenty of regretful, yearning notes, as a lover laments the eviction and departure, and asks for another chance – “I packed my bags in such a rush/I forgot to pack my happiness.”
Given an opportunity, it could be a smash.
Since his 1970s hits like I Just Wanna Stop, Vannelli has played with a full house of styles, using his magnificent vocal chops mostly on combinations of pop and jazz, even going through a success-
Huffman, Loughlin appear in court to face college bribery charges
Citizen news service
Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman made court appearances Wednesday on charges they took part in the college bribery scandal that has ensnared dozens of wealthy parents.
The actresses along with Loughlin’s fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, and dozens of others were charged last month in a scheme in which authorities say parents paid an admissions consultant to bribe college coaches and rig test scores to get their children into elite universities.
Huffman, Loughlin and Giannulli, whose Mossimo clothing had long been a Target brand, have not publicly commented on the allegations. They were set to make their first appearances in Boston’s federal court along with other parents charged in the scheme.
Loughlin, who played Aunt Becky on the sitcom Full House in the 1980s and ‘90s, and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 to have their two daughters labeled as recruits to the University of Southern California crew team, even though neither participated in the sport.
The Hallmark Channel – where Loughlin starred in popular holiday movies and the series When Calls the Heart – cut ties with Loughlin a day after her arrest.
Loughlin’s and Giannulli’s daughter, social media star Olivia Jade Giannulli, was dropped from advertising deals with cosmetics retailer Sephora and hair products company TRESemme.
Huffman, the Emmy-winning star of ABC’s Desperate Housewives, is accused of paying $15,000 that she disguised as a charitable donation to cheat on her daughter’s college entrance exam.
Among the other parents in the Boston court Wednesday was Gordon Caplan, former co-chairman of the international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, based in New York.
Caplan is accused of paying $75,000 to get a test supervisor to
correct the answers on his daughter’s ACT exam after she took it.
Caplan’s firm said after his arrest that he has been placed on a leave of absence.
The consultant at the centre of the scheme, Rick Singer, pleaded guilty and is co-operating with investigators.
Former Yale women’s soccer coach Rudy Meredith also pleaded guilty. Several coaches pleaded not guilty, including tennis coach Gordon Ernst who’s accused of getting $2.7 million in bribes to designate at least 12 applicants as recruits to Georgetown.
ful if sometimes unjustly maligned mid-’80s phase of synth-heavy tracks like Black Cars and Wild Horses. Wilderness Road is on the jazz/adult contemporary end of the spectrum, songs written on acoustic guitar though the arrangements lean more on piano and Vannelli’s effective drumming.
Vannelli plays nearly all of the instruments on the album, with contributions mostly on backing vocals.
Wayward Lover gets a new reading, having appeared already on Canto, Vannelli’s 2003 multilanguage album of classical pop.
This time, Vannelli’s performance has more intimacy, but without losing its vocal power.
The Woman Upstairs is a neighbour’s tragic story of domestic abuse, based on Vannelli’s childhood memories.
A Long Dry Season has a bit of the style of Summertime, though the dangers are present and accounted for, if not named.
There have been long pauses in Vannelli’s career, both from the recording studio and the stage, but his many talents are intact on Wilderness Road.
SONO RECORDING GROUP VIA CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE
This cover image released by SoNo Recording Group shows the cover of Wilderness Road, the newest album by Gino Vannelli.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS
Above, Felicity Huffman arrives with her brother Moore Huffman Jr. at federal court in Boston on Wednesday. Below, Lori Loughlin and her husband, clothing designer Mossimo Giannulli, leave the court after facing charges in a college admissions bribery scandal.
Wayne Brade September 26, 1954March 31, 2019
We regret to inform family and friends about the sudden passing of Wayne after a long battle with COPD. Survived by his loving wife Deanna, sons Jason and Chad, grandchildren, Mom-Gay, brothers Gary and Brett, sister Gail. His big loving heart and sense of humour will be missed immensely by everyone who new him! Celebration of Life to be held April 6th, 2019. Drop in 12:00 - 4:00 pm at 7775 Sabyam Rd, Prince George.
Martin Mynen November 28, 1933March 27, 2019
It is with a heavy heart that we share the sudden passing of Martin Mynen due to a cardiac arrest. Martin was a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, and friend. He was predeceased by his son Marcel, brothers Dick, Jan, Rinus, and sister Karolien. Martin is survived by his beloved wife of nearly 60 years, Marianne; his daughter Simone (Steve Lombardo and daughter Teka) and daughter Mieke (Marcus Haywood), son Dick (Dorothy) and daughterin-law Dina; grandchildren Tonianne (David Okano), Stephanie (Kevin Hautcoeur), Christina (Dave Marchand) and James; greatgrandchild Ripley Okano; nephew Arnt (Diana) Veltum and their children Mick and Ilja, and close relatives in Quesnel. In Holland he will be missed by his sisters Truus and Irma (Henk Veltum) and brother Jos, as well as many nieces, nephews, and friends.
Martin was born the middle child of eight siblings in November 1933 in a small village north of Amsterdam. Despite the chaos, trauma, and hunger during the war years, he and his family survived intact. He spent his childhood playing on the dike in front of the family home and teaching himself to make things, and by the time he was of school age he knew that he wanted to be a cabinet maker. Working with his hands was Martin’s great joy in life, but if you were to ask him what he was most proud and happy about, he would instantly name his wife, Marianne, as the greatest love of his life. Family lore says he knew he wanted to marry her the first time he met her in Grade Two. By the time Martin and Marianne had four children, he knew he was ready for more challenges and adventures, and he took his family to Canada, settling in Prince George in 1969. Here he made his dream of designing and building his own house come true, twice.
In 2010 Martin and Marianne moved to Deep Bay on Vancouver Island, closer to their two daughters, but farther away from Dick and the rest of the family. Here nature continued to bring him great peace and wonder, especially the tall firs and roaring ocean. His favourite bird was the eagle and he envied them their wings; we are sure he now has his own and is soaring.
The family would like to thank the staff at Stanford Seniors Village, especially the care and kindness given to him by the care aides and nurses and recreation staff; he always had a smile and a friendly word for them, and they returned his vibrant zest for life with compassion and affection. His passing has left another deep hole in the family, but we are proud and grateful for all he has given us; we will miss him. There will be no service; the family has a private ceremony planned for later this month. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre.
Mohinder Kaur Sandhu passed away peacefully on March 28, 2019 at the age of 89. Survived by her loving daughters, Balwinder (Pritam) Chahal and Manjit (Rajvir) Mann and son Skattar (Rajwant) Sandhu. Mohinder was also survived by her 11 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. Predeceased by her husband, Jagir Singh Sandhu. Funeral service will be held on Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 10am at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. Prayer service to follow funeral
On March 24, 2019 Bob Townsley (born in Coal Creek, BC August 30, 1932), passed away quietly in his sleep. Immediately after his passing, Lucy Townsley (born in Marynin, Poland February 18, 1937) began to decline and 15 hours later she joined her love in Heaven.
This is Bob and Lucy Townsley’s love story; Bob was the rebel son of a fallen Canadian soldier and a very young mother ill-equipped to cope with the needs of her 3 kids. Lucy, the daughter of an immigrated German coal miner and a stay at home housewife. Many times she refused his advances, until one day she just didn’t. The world was a different place back then and both families had reservations about the pairing. But love persisted and continued to grow. They married in May of 1955. Bob and Lucy lived life the way they chose, surrounded by family and full of love. Although this is tragic and the most monumental loss, this is the story Bob and Lucy wanted; a love so pure and strong that not even death can keep them apart. They leave behind a grieving family but we take comfort in the knowledge that they remain together and are no longer in pain. There was nothing they would not do for their family. Kind hearted people who helped out anyone whenever they could. We grew up in a house full of singing and happiness. Where a quick snack was a sugar bunny, breakfast was a bowl of coco mush, and there was always homemade bread. All seemed to be welcome in their home and their home was constantly full of kids. To some they will be remembered as hero’s, always there to catch any one of us if we fell.
Six and a half decades later; predeceased by their parents Francis and Molly, Ferdinand and Wanda, and by their siblings Bill, Ruth, Gerda, and Anita, they are survived by Lucy’s sister Rose, and all of their descendants.
Bob and Lucy were great parents to 5 children, amazing grandparents to 11 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.
After all these years they still held hands and Bob still told Lucy how beautiful she was.
Bob and Lucy showed us all how strong their love still was. Like Bob has been saying for 30 years; “When the time comes Lucy… let me go first”. And she did.
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NICHOLSON BILLIARDS
THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2019
McGuire all set for his One Man Show
MCKINNON’S ART SHOW FEATURED AT CITY HALL
The sizable and stirring paintings of Audrey McKinnon have reached new heights. They are all the way up on the fifth floor of city hall.
This week the local painter had her works installed for a year-long exhibition in the place where the mayor and city’s senior administration have their offices.
McKinnon is the latest in an annual rotation of Prince George visual artists who get to showcase their work on the fifth floor, as part of the Community Arts Council program called Artnerships that connect artists with businesses for long-term displays.
Mayor Lyn Hall made the connection as part of the cultural side of the 2015 Canada Winter Games. The inaugural artist was Lheidli T’enneh First Nation painter Jennifer Pighin, followed through the years by, in chronological order, Laura Chandler, Cher French, Kat Valcourt and now McKinnon.
“City hall is a place you can really show art off, they have a lot of big spaces, a lot of interesting wall space in interesting rooms, a lot of different people coming and going all the time, they really need art in here, and it’s a place where art really fits,” said McKinnon, who tends to work on large-scale canvases. “So many people who never normally go out looking to see art will now get that exposure. That’s a great use of City Hall.”
Hall has been pleased with the annually refreshed look of the place, and enjoys that different kind of showcase that the city hall’s senior administration spaces can offer an artist.
“I wanted to open up to artists within the community,” he said, knowing the Community Arts Council had the ability to bring forth the city’s best. “We have a lot of traffic on the fifth floor. We wanted the artists in the community to have another place to show what they were doing, show their talents.”
A recent addition has added to that artistic depth in that space. A large array of vintage photographs has been added on the fifth floor, all depicting black and white scenes of Prince George. These are permanent. It draws eyes in interest to the walls shared by the rotating artwork, so even more engagement is possible.
“So it’s an interesting dichotomy of old heritage im ages and right next to it or on the wall over you could have a piece of modern art,” Hall said.
“I came to the space and checked it out. I knew I
wanted to do something impactful,” said McKinnon. “All of these paintings, every single one of them, I did especially for this exhibition.”
It’s her most personal work yet, for the young veteran of the local arts scene. She often works with spraypaint, and she often works on surfaces much larger than herself, so ladders could be considered as much a tool of her artist’s trade as her paintbrush.
And it was the paintbrush that drew forth these new images. Her current home studio (plus winter weather) is a room in the basement, which prevented her from using the spray-cans and wide vistas she is so comfortable with.
The works are still big, by the standards of most commercial artists, but she has to be able to get them in and out of her art room. She said that the restrictions actually made the process more animated for her. Like the
writer who uses the deadline as motivation, she used her studio’s limitations to ignite her creativity.
“I definitely wanted to go large, that was always part of my plan here,” she said. “I got so excited about neon yellow and beige. I know, that’s not something you normally hear, but I think this is a great place to get excited about beige. It’s a colour with unusual depth, more than you’d realize, and I do think that parallels municipal politics. That wasn’t intentional, but it works. What goes on in City Hall can be mistaken for tedious, but it’s all about people’s lives and how we live in our community.”
“Audrey’s work represents a more urban-style art, a youthful look,” said Lisa Redpath who coordinates Artnerships for the Community Arts Council. “I’ve been a fan of Audrey’s for many years, and we were looking for something fresh and in a different direction this year. She was a perfect fit.”
FRANK PEEBLES
97/16 staff
97/16 photo by Brent Braaten Artist Audrey Mckinnon and Mayor Lyn Hall hang her work on the fifth floor of city hall.
SERVICE CENTRAL FOR THE SCOTTS
JSENIORS’ SCENE KATHY NADALIN
ohn Scott, a recipient of the British Columbia Medal of Good Citizenship award, was born in Calgary, Alta in 1943. This prestigious award is bestowed upon individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the wellbeing of their communities through their exceptional long-term volunteer efforts and John certainly fits that description.
John was an apprentice soldier at the age of 16 which made the Canadian army his legal guardian from the age of 16 to the age of 18. He credits that experience for his service-oriented career. When he completed his apprenticeship, he was posted to Winnipeg with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. During his career, he served in various military bases in Canada, Germany and Cyprus.
While he was serving in the army, he happened to drive through Prince George (in 1961) on his way to Dawson Creek. He loved what he saw of the city and hoped to one day return and perhaps make Prince George his home. Little did he know that all of that would come to pass.
John said, “After I was released from military service in 1977, I accepted a job offer in Prince George working for Acme Strap ping and I have been here ever since. I worked for the company as a service representative and worked on the lumber strapping machines for 14 years. My area covered everything from 100 Mile House west to Prince Rupert and everything in northern B.C.
who had CPR training worked on me and saved my life until the fire engines along with medical help showed up at our camp.
“This was a close call. I was diagnosed as having a heart attack caused by blockages and required four stents. Later I was found to have blockages to all five of the major blood vessels to my heart which prompted a five-bypass or quintuple bypass surgery which made all the difference in the world.
“I recovered from the surgery, we sold our 100 acre farm out at Hoodoo Lake and we moved into town.”
“Later I worked for Del Schneider Hydraulics as a technical sales representative followed by sales in the sawmill industry. I worked for P.G. Valve and Fitting selling Swagloc valves and fittings, then Canadian Wallamet Industries, then IKS and finally Camco Industries as a salesman selling saws and knives for the sawmill industry.
“I retired in 2004 due to medical problems. I was only 61 and I was misdiagnosed with lung problems only to learn later that I had some pretty serious heart problems that literally stopped my heart from beating. The first time that my heart stopped beating we were out at Francois Lake and a friend of mine
John’s early retirement allowed him to become an even more active volunteer with the Royal Canadian Legion. He has been a member since 1979.
John met his wife Wilma Wilson in 1962 on a blind date when he was stationed in Winnipeg, Man.
Wilma, who was born in 1943, was working in the purchasing department for Bristol Aero when she met John.
She said, “we got married in 1963 and I followed John in his military career as we were transferred from place to place. When the children started to arrive, I happily became a stay-at-home mom. We had two boys; Steven (deceased) and Glen (Lorna) and with our blended families we have five grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
“When we came to Prince George, I
John and Wilma Scott continue to be active in the community during their retirement years.
Here they are in 2019 and as they were for their wedding in February 1963.
worked on a temporary basis at the College of New Caledonia to a full-time position in the printing department. I printed all the course exams and all the printing requirements for the CNC faculty. I loved the job and the people and after 26 years of service I retired in 2003.”
Wilma served as the secretary on the board at the Legion for many years but her favorite position was membership chairman. As the years went by, she was always available to fill in as needed but has since retired to allow younger members to carry on.
Over the years, John has volunteered for local organizations including the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43, served as the Northern B.C. Representative for the Canadian Army Cadet League and he is a staunch advocate for the Connaught Youth Centre. He is currently the vice president of the Royal Canadian Legion BC/Yukon Command.
He started the Nechako Scout District, served as the district commissioner, the assistant provincial commissioner and was a Scouting Cubmaster for the 15th Cub Scout pack.
John said, “I would like to take
this opportunity to thank Pathfinder Endeavours Ltd. for all the work they did making the renovations for our new Legion premises at 1116 Sixth Ave. Much of their work was donated and they get the credit for the gorgeous bar in the Branch. There were many other volunteers, too numerous to mention them all, who donated both their time and money toward the new Legion. Thank you to each and every one of you. “As young soldiers, we were taught by Second World War veterans and Korean War veterans who had been through a war that we needed to pay back. They were certainly big on teaching us young fellows that we always needed to say thank you for what we received. They always repeated that we should be grateful and pay back. Those veterans did so much for me; if it hadn’t been for them who knows which direction I might have gone.
“My heart is all around the veterans and what the Legion stands for. Unfortunately, our membership is down and we desperately need members and especially younger members. I just want to mention that a person male or female no longer needs a military or a family military background to become a member.”
DUAL SLALOM TEAM EVENT SPAWNS NEW FRIENDSHIPS
For 12 seasons, alpine skiing legend Rob Boyd had the Canadian flag tattooed on his skis.
From 1985-97, Boyd carried the mantle left in the 1970s and early-80s by the Crazy Canucks - Jim Hunter, Dave Irwin, Dave Murray, Steve Podborski and Ken Read - who earned their nickname pushing the limits to the edge of recklessness on the World Cup stage in skiing’s ultimate speed event.
At a young age Boyd conquered his fear of going fast and racing to the verge of disaster on the slopes of the small ski resort his parents owned in Vernon (Tillicum Valley) and used that as a springboard to become a three-time World Cup champion in the downhill event.
Boyd was 16 when he and his family moved to Whistler and by that time he was already on the provincial team and two years later he made the national downhill team and finished in the top-10 at two World Cup events. He cemented his legendary status 30 years ago in February 1989 when he became the first Canadian male ever to win a downhill on home soil at Whistler. After three Olympics and 28 top-15 World Cup finishes, Boyd retired.
At the height of his career, Boyd qualified for six world alpine championships and part of that was competing for Canada in a dual slalom in the Nations Team Event. Each country selects its top racers (male and female) to form teams of six to compete head-to-head in a bracketstyle elimination on a short course in minute-long races. Each win is worth a point and the team with the most points after each round advances to the next round.
Two weekends ago at Purden Ski Resort 60 kilometres east of Prince George, 160 skiers, including Boyd’s 13-year-old son Dylan, got a taste of their own team event when they raced the dual slalom competition at the Teck under-14 provincial alpine championships.
Fun was the name of the game with each of the 32 teams made up of of skiers from different clubs. For that one day, those kids weren’t competing for the zone they lived in or for the club they belong to and they had an absolute blast.
“Rather than doing it by team or zone, this is an opportunity for kids to mix and mingle with kids from the same province who are the same age and we’re seeing more of that,” said Boyd. “(Dylan) had a riot. This removes that (barrier) to try to
level the playing field a bunch more.
“It’s a lot of runs (for the teams that advance through all four rounds) but a really great, fun format - a chance for them to mix and mingle and meet other people from the province. Down the road, if they continue to race, they’ll see them again and again. Great memories, great format and I really love the way Purden poured out for this event, it’s been really great coming up here.”
It was the 53-year-old Boyd’s first visit to Prince George and to Purden and conditions were pretty much ideal after 50 centimetres of new snow the week before the race. Although there was a lot of snow to pack the day before the racing started, sunshine and warm temperatures all weekend put smiles on the faces of everybody connected with the three-day competition, which included individual slalom and giant slalom events.
Team No. 31 (Alex Waldrum and Alexa Brownlie of Whistler Mountain, Addyson Kuss and Tessa Wang of Grouse Mountain and Reed Kelly of Revelstoke) won the team event, edging Team No. 13 (Noah Fischer of Grouse, Joy Attalla of Fernie, Noah Paltinger of Revelstoke, Heidi Schenk of Whistler and Aquinna O’Grady of Kimberley) for top spot on the podium
Team No. 32 (Forrest Sevoy of Whistler, Alessandra Cicilese of Blackdogs - Lake Louise, Noah Smith of Grouse, Amelia D’Andrea of Smithers, Manu Gandhi of Cypress and Jacqueline Smith of Whistler) won the bronze-medal duel over Team No. 27 (Jamey Bachand of Prince George, Marek Krampl of Red Mountain, Claire Richardson of Vernon, Raleigh Robertson of Whitewater and Marlo Parkhill of Whistler).
“My team was really fun, it was an awesome team,” said the 13-year-old Krampl. “We were from all around the province and everybody was fun to talk to. I got to meet new people and new friends. We got fourth. We just tried hard and knew we could win it and just did it. Anybody could win it, it’s who wants it the best.”
In each round, each skier raced both courses so all the finalists took 10 runs on the dual slalom course, which kept the two snowmobiles busy hauling them back up the hill on a rope tow. It was a tiring day for Gandhi but well worth it.
“It’s really fun, it’s fast-paced and really exciting, it’s a lot of nerves,” said Gandhi, who finished sixth in the GS. “It’s 20 gates, all-in. You get to know new people, it’s a good time. I didn’t know my teammates before this, it’s a good event. Purden has been a really good host, the tracks here are awesome.”
Al Bull, coach of the Whitewater team from Nelson, loves the team concept and would like to see the same format used at future provincial championships. Bull coached the Kootenay team last year at B.C. Winter Games and knows how those kids have stayed in touch with each other through social media channels. He figures those same electronic ties will bind kids who didn’t know each other before they became teammates at provincials in the team slalom.
“It really brings out a different level of competition in them and it’s really cool to see, they pulled off a great event here,” said Bull.
“They try to make the teams as fair as possible, based on (individual times in) Friday’s slalom. For the kids that make it all the way, it’s an endurance race for sure.”
Cordelia Hultman of Grouse Mountain Ski Club, right, takes on another racer in the dual slalom team event at the Teck under-14 provincial alpine skiing championships two Sundays ago at Purden Mountain Ski Resort.
Rob Boyd
ODD COUPLE SIZZLE ON SCREEN
FRANK PEEBLES
97/16 staff
The ingredients they have to go out and find, but then the tastes become refined.
Moosemeat & Marmalade is a television show that bundles up for the wilderness, loads the gun, baits the hook, sets the snare, combs the flora, and patiently gathers the natural bounty humans have depended on since cave cuisine.
The show also sharpens the knife, opens the spice rack, heats the saucepan, and sets the table for a genteel meal fit for high society.
Those two worlds could collide and crumble in the hands of haughty hunters and chauvinist chefs, but when you have Art Napoleon and Dan Hayes pulling the trigger, it is a sumptuous meal for the mind.
Both hosts live in Victoria where they met accidentally but almost immediately understood they were different feathers from the same bird.
Napoleon is originally from Moberly Lake north of Prince George where he grew up in close touch with the land and his Cree and Dane Zaa heritage. He was chief of the Salteau First Nation and now has a master’s degree in language revitalization from the University of Victoria. He came to national attention first as a celebrated musician, has a natural comedic delivery to his showmanship and made the transition to television hosting when he met classically trained British chef Hayes, who was trained by the legendary Rick Stein at England’s prestigious Poisonnerie de l’Avenue restaurant. Hayes also spend time growing up in Ibiza, Spain, before moving to the world’s most British city outside of England where he co-owns (with wife Micayla) The London Chef cooking school, cafe and caterer. That latter profession is what brought British Hayes in touch with our Salteau Napoleon.
“Art already had something in the pipeline, developing a show with (television producer) Hilary Pryor at May Street Productions, and at the same time my catering company got the contract to do the food for (children’s show) Tiga Talk and Art happened to be one of the characters in Tiga Talk. Art and I started chatting in the lineup as he was getting his food, I was serving, and we very briefly talked about hunting as kids, growing up hunting, while Hilary was standing behind him and overheard this great big Cree and this white guy chatting about those bizarre similarities, and lots of differences, obviously. So Art and I did a screen test, took the concept of the show they were working on, and put me into it, and it became a bigger thing. It took off. I think I’m right in saying, now, that it’s in nine countries.”
“He knows the tricks of the trade,” said Napoleon of his oddcouple co-host. “I’m
impressed by any chef who knows the scientific aspects of what happens when you put this with that, the terminology, I pick up so much just by cooking with him. I’m starting to understand the culinary world a little more because I was always just a short-order cook, a home cook, and a bush cook in firefighting camps where everything was done on gas stoves or wood fires. That’s really more my specialty, but now I want to see what can be created by using wild game and wild plants using new ways. I can now make a mean moose curry, a moose nose taco, mixing other styles with our traditional ingredients.”
So Hayes, although the apparent socialite, was actually a hunter back in his European childhood, and Napoleon, the apparent bushman, was actually versed in cooking. They trade off on primary strengths, but both hold some grasp on the other’s essence.
They needle each other on camera, and make fun of their supposed shortcomings, but the banter is good-natured fun and always comes around to a mutual respect by the end of each episode. Hayes might complain about the howling frigid air as they trudge out on the tundra to shoot an Arctic hare, while Napoleon laughs it off as child’s play, but both put in the work to track the quarry and Hayes is the one to shoot their prey.
In the same episode, Hayes makes fun of Napoleon’s use of canned mushroom soup as an ingredient in the hare dish they co-create back in the kitchen but Napoleon explains that it is a staple of rural
pantries and commonly used in home cooking on First Nations reserves. Hayes reluctantly admits, in the end, it tastes excellent, and Napoleon takes advice on ways to make a wholesome meal around the main hare dish.
“I can’t say it has changed me as a chef, is the honest truth, but I have learned a huge amount from Art,” said Hayes. “Words can’t explain what I’ve learned from Art in terms of what one can eat walking through a forest. His knowledge about plants and shoots and moss and twigs and bits he insists in sticking in my mouth - he hasn’t made me sick yet, I’ll give him that, nor has he made me high as a kite on hallucinogens. And I’ve also learned a lot about the spiritual side of foods from Art. Now, I’ve always been a hunter. I grew up hunting and fishing, it’s a big part of my life and continues to be, and I have immense respect for what I kill, but I still don’t have a spiritual connection to it, and I’m not sure I ever will, but I can claim that I’m starting to understand the spiritual connection.”
The show has advanced public knowledge on both sides of the skillet: the healthy and delicious possibilities of a local at-hand diet, and also how worldly preparation techniques are immensely helpful and much easier than you might think.
The show also explains that Indigenous traditions can be easily applied as well, and that meat is not only healthy but also part of an ecosystem balance involving humans.
“We all know how easy it is to plant carrots in Iqaluit, eh,” Napoleon deadpans. Moosemeat & Marmalade also has a side-series of mini documentaries on the topics of food security, the implications of genetically modified food sources, cumulative impacts of industrialized food production, and other societal food topics.
The appendage series is called Food For Thought, there are four episodes (each centred on a direction) and has already won awards for the duo.
It’s the first example of the additional material Hayes and Napoleon could potentially have in their sights as Moosemeat & Marmalade rolls out its fourth season on APTN in Canada, plus other networks internationally. They have also added episodes in other parts of the world to their extensive Canadian travels.
“My favourite part still is and always will be the going out and filming,” said Napoleon. “It’s going out, engaging with communities, meeting people, it always feels like an adventure being out on the road with the crew. I live for it.”
Hayes keeps hoping Napoleon will bring him back to this area to visit family and go out into the Moberly Lake backcountry to explore for foraged food and cultural connection.
Napoleon will be in Lheidli T’enneh territory in Prince George as the musical guest and master of ceremonies for the Fourth Annual Ying’hentzit First Nations Art Gala on April 27 at the new Uda dune Baiyah Community Centre. This is a fundraiser for Carrier Sekani Family Services.
Breakfast with Rex Murphy
May 7, 2019 | Prince George, BC | 7:00 AM - 8:45 AM
97/16 handout photo Dan Hayes and Art Napoleon star in the APTN television show Moosemeat & Marmelade.
SUPER DRINKS NOT THAT SUPER
While superfoods have been popular for awhile, super drinks are a relatively new trend. Juice fasts, the Master Cleanse and other liquid diets have become more popular over the past decade as celebrities preach their benefits as detoxifying agents, capable of inducing rapid weight loss.
While many foods and fluids are promoted as having similar extraordinary benefits, one common denominator between most is that those benefits are often overstated and any evidentiary support, no matter how weak, is exaggerated to show clear connections. Since I clarified the health benefits and nutritional content of some common superfoods several weeks ago, it seems only appropriate to do the same for a few of the trendiest super drinks as well:
1. Kombucha
Kombucha is a slightly-sweet, slightlyacidic beverage made by fermenting tea, sugar, yeast and bacteria. The popularity of this fermented tea is driven by the claims of it being a probiotic-packed beverage with a multitude of health benefits, but the evidence to support these claims is limited at best.
The composition of kombucha can vary based on the ingredients used and
the fermentation, so not all brands are created equal. Kombucha is a source of probiotics, but contains a variety of strains in varying amounts, so you may not be consuming the strain that is specific to the digestive results you want, in an amount that would be beneficial.
Although there have been a host of animal studies examining the health benefits of kombucha, there have been no studies involving human subjects since 2003. Since kombucha is a fairly expensive drink, it’s up to the consumer to determine if that added expense is worth it, given that there is no scientific evidence to support any therapeutic claims regarding kombucha.
Kombucha can be part of a healthy diet, but more research is needed to determine its biological effects in humans. As well, it is not recommended for pregnant and lactating women, and may be unsafe for people who are immunecompromised, such as those with HIV/ AIDS and cancer, so it should be avoided in these populations.
2. Warm lemon water
Warm lemon water apparently paves the way for losing weight faster by flushing out toxins and balancing pH levels in the body.
When looking at detox claims, it’s important to remember that the human body has kidneys, a liver, skin and a pair of lungs that detoxify and remove waste products. There is a lack of evidence to prove that any food can cleanse your body of toxins.
In reference to the second claim, the
Powerful Ways to Market
idea of balancing pH levels in the body through food seems to have come from the idea that chronic disease can grow and thrive in an overly acidic or alkaline environment. At best, there are inconsistent results from low quality studies showing any connection between chronic disease and the pH level of the human body. Also, while dietary intake can influence urine pH levels, blood pH is not influenced to move outside the normal range. The body has mechanisms, including involving the kidneys and lungs, to maintain blood pH within a narrow range; lemon juice is not needed for this purpose.
3. Coconut water
Coconut water is heavily marketed as a natural alternative to traditional sports drinks, mostly due to its electrolyte content (sodium and potassium). Coconut water also contains carbohydrates, fat, protein and small amounts of several micronutrients and has been shown to be an effective water for hydrating the human body. Coconut water is generally lower in calories, carbohydrates and sodium than most sports drinks, but much higher in potassium, so if you struggle with high potassium levels, coconut water may not be for you.
In rehydration trials, fluid retention and percent rehydration (this reflects how well body weight and hydration level is restored) were similar between sports drinks and coconut water, but better than with plain water, due to greater urine output with plain water. Other studies have found similar rehydration
rates with coconut water, sports drinks and plain water. Since brands of coconut water and sports drinks will vary in terms of nutrient content, I can’t say that both would be equally beneficial for rehydrating after exercise. It’s best to evaluate these drinks on an individual basis. If you’re buying a drink (sports drink, coconut water or other) for the purpose of rehydrating after exercise, look for the following: water as the first ingredient, 4-8 grams of carbohydrates per 100ml, 45-70mg of sodium per 100ml, and 8-20mg of potassium per 100ml.
4. Matcha
Matcha is a powdered green tea that has, like many superfoods, grown in popularity because of its antioxidant content. While matcha is a source of antioxidants, including Vitamin K, many companies have taken advantage of it’s image as a health food. Matcha is now being added to everything from chocolate to cookies and cakes in an effort to capitalize on a trend and potentially increase the healthiness-factor of a product. If you enjoy the taste of matcha and appreciate the additional antioxidants, it may be for you, but the best way to get a wide variety of antioxidants in your diet is by eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and not simply relying on one product.
Kelsey Leckovic is a registered dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.
This week in history from the Prince George Citizen archives
Le Cercle des Canadiens Français de Prince George Presents
USE YOUR GIFTS
Festival d’hiver Winter Festival
Merci à tous nos commanditaires!
Thank you to all of our sponsors!
Or / Gold
Argent / Silver
éveline Bergeron - Fédération des Francophones de la C.-B. - Schmitz, Anderson & Nielsen, CPA - YMCA
Bronze
Boston Pizza - Spruceland
Tim Hortons
MedPure Natural
Pharmacy
Downtown PG
Studio R Hair Salon
Shoppers Drug Mart
Shhhh... Home & Gift
Western Financial Group
Tupperware
Claire et Gary Green
Renée Trépanier
Chantal Marquis
France Lapointe
AfterGlo et Epicure
Linda Waldner
Amis du Festival / Friends of the Festival
4imprint
The Copper Pig
Silver Icing*
Véronique Hadikin
Louise Magnus
Sylvie St. Pierre
Suzanne Lefebvre
Jennifer Côté
Larry et Florence Boe
Nechako Lanes
Ave Maria Books & Company Elira
IDA Pharmacy
Napa Auto Parts
Speedee
Surplus Herby’s
Northern Lights
Estate Winery
Cali Nail
LESSONS IN LEARNING
GERRY CHIDIAC
As we go through life we are given many pieces of advice. Those which are most truthful tend to survive the test of time, and the best advice brings enduring happiness and a sense of peace.
At an orientation social before I began my first assignment as a young teacher, I sang a song for an appreciative crowd. I had the audience roaring in laughter as I did my own unique rendition of the 1966 Troggs hit Wild Thing. If you dare to search my name and the title of the song on YouTube, you will get an idea of the performance they saw.
More significant than the song was the reaction of Bishop Fergus O’Grady, the man I had left Toronto to work for.
O’Grady has been rightly called one of the primary builders of Prince George and northern B.C. He seemed to recognize something in me because he took the time that evening to give me a piece of advice I’ve never forgotten.
He said simply, “that was really great. You have a gift. Make sure you use it for good.”
I knew that he wasn’t talking about my musical talent because it was sorely lacking. I had moved Prince George to teach, and his statement meant a great deal to me as I struggled through the demands of my first years in the profession. I knew I had a gift, and that it needed to be used to make a positive difference in the lives of others.
As I worked for O’Grady, I realized that he had a very unique impact on people. Everyone smiled when he walked into the room. He not only used his position of leadership to do good, but he also empowered everyone around him. We recognized that there was indeed something special in
Save-on-Foods
Stokes
Jerome’s Bistro
Booster Juice
China Cup
Joey’s Seafood
Restaurant
Wasabi Sushi
Everything Foam
Si nous avons oublié qulqu/un, sachez que votre aide a été autant appréciée et nous nous excusons pour cette omission. If we forgot anyone, you must know that your help has been appreciated as well as we apologize for this oversight.
Merci a tous les bénévoles qui ont contribué au succès du Festival d’Hiver FRANCOFUN 2019! Nous avons été comblés par vos talents et votre dévouement. C’est un rendez-vous l’en prochain pour le 35e Festival d’Hiver FRANCOFUN!
Le Cercle des Canadiens Français thank you to all our volunteers for your help in making the 2019 FRANCOFUN Winter Festival such a success!
See you next year for the 35th edition of the FRANCOFUN Winter Festival!
each one of us, and we were inspired to do our greatest good.
Though he died in 1998, O’Grady’s influence continues to have a significant impact on my happiness, not only in my profession but in every aspect of life.
There are two key components to his lesson. The first is to recognize and celebrate one’s giftedness. We are all unique. Some are good with people, some are good with numbers. Some are great teachers, some are wonderful artists, some are gifted builders and some are talented in business. Some abilities we are aware of and some we have yet to discover. It doesn’t matter what the gift is, as long as it brings us joy. The other point is that we need to use our talents to do good. When we do so, we make our world better, we empower and serve our neighbours, and we can go to sleep peacefully each night knowing that we have made a positive difference in the world. This may be reward in itself, but it is also true that when we do good for others, good things tend to happen in our own lives as well.
As I’ve moved forward in my career, I’ve realized how important it is for me to be like O’Grady. My students certainly need to know that they are gifted and that they have a positive contribution to make. It doesn’t stop there, however. This is something that everyone I encounter needs to be reminded of, whether they be colleagues new to the profession, school administrators, custodians or cooks. Something powerful happens when we speak these truths to one another.
We are all born with a unique and inherent capacity to do good. There is also great peace and satisfaction in knowing that despite the troubles around us, we have done our best brightening the lives of others, even if it just involves singing a ridiculous rendition of Wild Thing.
Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com
QUESTION YOUR POLITICS
THINKING ALOUD TRUDY KLASSEN
I had the pleasure of attending the final event at UNBC’s political week, which was called What Conservatives (and everyone else) Gets Wrong. Politicly-minded students Micah Green of the UNBC Conservatives and Mackenzie Kerr of the UNBC Greens were the main organizers.
Representatives from the Greens, Liberals, NDP and Conservatives were asked to share what they think their party gets wrong. Each representative shared quite honestly and I could tell that they had spent quite a bit of time thinking about what their party gets wrong. This was so refreshing, because so often in our public discourse we argue for our tribe, our worldview, and don’t think critically about what we get wrong.
I will share two points each person felt their party(ies) gets wrong:
Charles Scott speaking about right-of centre parties:
1. the conservative’s faith in social stability leading to social mobility doesn’t take into account that people are products of their heritage.
2. current B.C. Liberal vision is perfect for a campaign in the 1980s.
Tracy Calagharos on the federal Liberals:
1. she gamely admitted that she thinks the federal Liberals are a party waiting for people to die before it can be renewed because it is so rooted in old school politics.
2. their sanctimonious attitude of believing they are the natural governing party of Canada.
Jillian Merrick on the Green Party:
1. thinking everyone would agree if only they were smarter.
2. at risk of being an urban party
Trent Derrick on the NDP:
1. leaves little room for individuals
2. its secularism is a disappointing drift from its foundations in Christianity.
The ability to think critically about our own worldview is desperately needed, especially in a multicultural, secular society like ours and each of the speakers did a good job. I applaud each of the speakers, as they each obviously cared about their party’s impact on the world around them.
You can access a video of this event at UNBC Conservatives Facebook page and I encourage you to watch it. Your next coffee with friends, and possibly even your foes, will be enlivened and encouraging, especially if you bring some humility to the table, like these brave speakers did.
Comedy night
Mike McGuire is surrounded by women. The jokes could abound from that point alone, but each one of these funny females will bring their own tickle trunk full of laughs, and headliner McGuire is at the main mic for a reason. Mike McGuire’s One Man Show happens Saturday at Artspace along with undercard comedians Cindy Klassen, Monita Ranu, Neelam Pahal, Kylie Lweis Holt and MC Virginia O’Dine. Showtime is 8 p.m., tickets are $15 available in advance at Books & Company.
Legion show
Canadian singer-songwriter Billie Zizi is coming to P.G. She will headline a show at The Legion on Saturday, along with special musical guest Amy Blanding and friends. Zizi is from Edmonton, bringing a “contemporary R’n’B melody, adding a certain avant-jazz vibe with her guitar forays to create a sound as accessible as it is experimental.”
Showtime is 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Studio 2880 exhibit
Painter Darin Corbiere will open his new exhibition at the Studio 2880 Feature Gallery on April 11 starting with a reception from 5-7 p.m. Entitled Seeing Things In A Different Light: Changing Perspectives, this special presentation of the Community Arts Council will run until May 9.
Healthier You Awards
The annual social calendar highlight Healthier You Awards are coming to the Ramada Ballroom on April 12. Tickets are $60 for this award show and dinner gala recognizing excellence in healthcare, fitness and multiculturalism in Northern BC hosted by MLA Shirley Bond in partnership with the Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society and the Prince George Citizen media team. Attendance purchase available on the eventbrite website.
Rock concert
Local classic rock band Bralorne will perform a free show at Books & Company on April 12 starting at 7 p.m. Create and bake
Kids can learn fundamental art skills with some of the city’s local artisans, then bake some special treats with some of the city’s culinary artists at Art Monkeys Create & Bake on April 12 (a school Pro-D day) from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Studio 2880 (located at 2880 15th Avenue). It’s for kids 6-11 for $60 per child. Reserve spaces by calling 250-563-2880 or go online to www.studio2880.com.
Bob Blumer back
Celebrity gastronaut Bob Blumer is coming back to Prince George for an interactive evening of food and exciting culinary competition. April 17 is the night of the second PG Chef Challenge With Bob Blumer, held at the Black Clover Banquet Hall with cocktails at 6 p.m. and the first course served at 6:30. Five of Prince George’s top restaurants face off in a multi course dinner to raise money for Prince George Hospice Society.
The competitors are Ryan Cyre from White Goose Bistro, Brian Quarmby of Birch & Boar Butchery, Jagdish Gill from Karahi King, Kelly MacKenzie from Cimo Mediterranean Grill, and Jim Demarce from The Twisted Cork. Each chef will present their original dish as a course for the meal which will be concluded with an original dessert from none other than Bob Blumer himself.
Tickets are $100 and only 100 tickets will be sold. Reservations can be made via email to dyanne@unltd.me.
Little art show
The Best Damn Little Art Show Ever is coming up May 3 from 7-9 p.m. at Groop Gallery downtown (1127 3rd Ave.). This is the annual 6x6 art show and auction, where the artists are a mix of brand new and well established and all creations limited to six inches in any direction. It is a fundraiser and a great way to showcase the local arts scene.
Tickets are $10 to attend, and participants are encouraged to bid, bid, bid. Adcance tickets can be purchased at Studio 2880
Black and white ball
The Mayor’s Black & White Ball For The Arts happens May 4 at the Prince George Civic Centre, with cocktails at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7. Attire is formal with a black and white colour theme. Purchase your tickets at the Theatre NorthWest website. All money raised isshared between Theatre NorthWest, the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and the Community Arts Council.
Teen Tabletop Meet Up
Every Monday until May 27 from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, try your hand at a variety of tabletop games. All experience levels welcome. Bring your own decks for MtG, Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. For 13 to 18 yrs. For more information call 250-563-9251 or email ask@pgpl.ca.
Wheelchair Rugby
Every Tuesday until May 28 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the College of New Caledonia , 3330 22 Ave., wheelchair rugby program runs weekly. No experience is necessary and all equipment including sports wheelchairs are available. Everyone welcome. BC Wheelchair Sports annual membership is $10. In this full-contact sport, athletes play in tank-like wheelchairs and hit each others’ chairs in an attempt to carry a ball across the line. For more information call 250-649-9501 or email Northern@bcwheelchairsports. com.
Tea n’ Beads n’ Bannock
Wednesdays from 7 to 10 p.m. at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., there is a community beading circle hosted by Lynette La Fontaine, a Metis artist who blends traditional art and teachings with contemporary flair in the form of acrylic paintings and beadwork. Learn by watching, asking and doing. This is not a class, but a place to bring beading projects and sit together to inspire, connect and learn from one another. Anyone with an interest is welcome. Admission is by donation. For more information visit www.ominecaartscentre.com.
97/16 file photo
Bob Blumer hosted the Iron Ore chef challenge in Prince George in 2015. He returns to Prince George on April 17 for the PG Chef Challenge.
April is Dental Health Month
The health of teeth and gums can impact other parts of the body
The importance of maintaining clean teeth and healthy gums goes beyond having fresh breath and a white smile. Many people are surprised to discover that oral hygiene plays an integral role in overall health.
Research indicates that oral health mirrors the condition of the body as a whole. Also, regular dental visits can alert dentists about overall health and pinpoint if a person is at a risk for chronic disease. An oral health check-up also may be the first indication of a potential health issue not yet evident to a general medical doctor.
Heart disease
According to the Academy of General Dentistry, there is a distinct relationship between periodontal
disease and conditions such as heart disease and stroke. Joint teams at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, found that people with bleeding gums from poor dental hygiene could have an increased risk of heart disease. Bacteria from the mouth is able to enter the bloodstream when bleeding gums are present. That bacteria can stick to platelets and subsequently form blood clots. This interrupts the flow of blood to the heart and may trigger a heart attack. Brushing and flossing twice daily and rinsing with mouthwash can remove bacteria and keep gums healthy.
Facial pain
Regular dental visits can alert dentists about overall health and pinpoint if a person is at a risk for chronic disease.
In 2007, the Harvard School of Public Health reported a link between gum disease and pancreatic cancer. In the ongoing study, 51,000 men were followed and data was collected beginning in 1986. The Harvard researchers found that men with a history of gum disease had a 64 percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer compared with men who had never had gum disease. The greatest risk for pancreatic cancer among this group was in men with recent tooth loss. However, the study was unable to find links between other types of oral health problems, such as tooth decay, and pancreatic cancer.
alzHeimer’s disease
The Office of the Surgeon General says infections of the gums that support the teeth can lead to facial and oral pain. Gingivitis, which is an early stage of gum disease, as well as advanced gum disease, affects more than 75 percent of the American population.
Dental decay can lead to its own share of pain.
Maintaining a healthy mouth can fend off decay and infections, thereby preventing pain. pancreatic cancer
Various health ailments, including poor oral health, have been linked to a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. In 2010, after reviewing 20 years’ worth of data, researchers from New York University concluded that there is a link between gum inflammation and Alzheimer’s disease. Followup studies from researchers at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom compared brain samples from 10 living patients with Alzheimer’s to samples from 10 people who did not have the disease. Data indicated that a bacterium “ Porphyromonas gingivalis “ was present in the Alzheimer’s brain samples but not in the samples from the brains of people who did not have Alzheimer’s. P. gingivalis is usually associated with chronic gum disease. As a result of the study, experts think that the bacteria can move via nerves in the roots of teeth that connect directly with the brain or through bleeding gums.
These health conditions are just a sampling of the relationship between oral health and overall health. Additional connections also have been made and continue to be studied.
HIGH-FUNCTIONING ADDICTS ARE REAL
omnipresent angst which is soothed only by use. It is powerful, wonderful and the only way to even slightly OK.
ASK AN ADDICT
Dear Ann: Did you ever use while at work?
I read your question and was shocked at the tsunami of shame that I felt. Even after all these years I continue to feel intensely horrible about this. I am loath to admit that yes, I used while at work. I want to crawl under a table; whither and die – I do not wish to disclose this terrible truth. However, this is the icy reality I re-live, I can never escape what I have done. Without recovery, these shameful feelings would most certainly drive me back to my drink.
No one knew I was an addict; I felt afraid to disclose because I was always ashamed. To compensate for being an addict, I overachieved and tried very hard to do well. I excelled at my work and consistently received outstanding performance reviews. I was a top honours student (in university that is; I barely passed high school). I discovered pot at 14 years old and smoked it five times a day. The only time I felt accepted by others was when I was high; it seemed people liked me better that way.
I felt insecure and was bullied when young. At 12 years of age, my family moved to a new city. I promised myself then, that I would never be made fun of, ever again. I pretended to be confident and self assured; I did everything I could to be popular with kids. Alcohol and pot became my best allies. Using was the only time I felt comfortable with others. Alcoholics, addicts, we feel different from you.
Even before our first use we knew something was wrong. Until that magical first drink/drug, we feel we do not fit in. There is a subtle yet
I completed nine years of post-secondary education while using and during this, received accolades, recognition and always top honours – including a coveted University President’s Scholarship Award.
Despite all this success, I felt completely a fraud.
Only alcohol and drugs, not academic achievements nor sterling reviews provided me any confidence or ease.
No matter how well I did, I believed I was horrible, evil, an immoral person.
No one knew my sordid secret. Even in rehab, while sitting amongst other professionals in recovery (doctors, lawyers and RCMP) I was frequently told “Ann, no matter what you say, I can never believe you’re an addict. You just don’t look like one!”
I suppose addicts need two heads, neon signs and bloody needles stuck in their arms.
I completed graduate work while popping over the counter (easy to buy) Tylenol 1: 10 to 12 tablets, 4 times a day. Acetaminophen can be toxic to the liver. For ten years, I consumed over 12,000 mg/ day (max recommended daily dose is 4,000 mg). To offset the caffeine in these pills, I swallowed 10 Gravol each night, to help me to sleep.
I hate myself for doing this.
Even though I know addiction is a medical illness and not something I chose, I still believe I am somehow at fault.
I am evil and horrible and feel toxic shame.
Without recovery, these feelings drive me to use. I need more drugs for relief but shortly after, find only pain. With more pain, I use more drugs which then in return, causes more pain.
This excruciating cycle seems never ending.
Until I find recovery, I know no other way out.
WINTER TIRE REGULATIONS EXTENDED
Drivers are reminded that winter tire regulations have been extended to April 30 on many highways - including almost all throughout northern B.C. - to account for early spring snowfall.
The restriction ends on Sunday for only a few routes in southern B.C., the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said.
In the rest of B.C., vehicles must be equipped with tires with the mountain/ snowflake or mud and snow (M + S) symbol when travelling on designated routes.
They must also be in good condition and have a minimum tread depth of 3.5 millimetres.
“For rural highways and mountain passes, tires with the mountain/snowflake symbol provide the best traction and handling,” the ministry said.
Here are some further tips for travelling in winter driving conditions:
- Check the weather forecast and adjust travel times to more favourable conditions, or choose alternative routes.
- For current road conditions, check DriveBC before leaving, as well as the nearly 800 highway webcam views available at more than 400 locations throughout B.C.
- Wear comfortable clothing that does not restrict movement while driving, but bring warm clothing (winter boots, coat, gloves and hat) in case getting out of the vehicle is required.
- Have an emergency plan and ensure the vehicle is equipped with a windshield scraper and snow brush, food and water, a first-aid kit and other emergency supplies.
- If stuck or stranded, do not panic. Stay with the vehicle for safety and warmth and if a cellphone is available, call for roadside assistance. If there is an emergency, call 911.
FRANK PEEBLES 97/16 staff
The daylight and nighttime have reached their equilibrium. This, more than setting clocks ahead an hour, dictates our natural flows of life. The balance of day and night (it occurred on March 20) has been observed by various global cultures of eons, usually as a time to party.
In honour of this annual natural event, the city’s anachronist club is gathering for the Cold Keep Spring Equinox Celebration.
“This particular event is in it’s first year,” said Mike McPherson, the seneschal (president) of the Shire of Cold Keep, the Prince George chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a cast and crew of enthusiasts dedicated to recreating the best of the Middle Ages.
The event is centred on a set of workshops for people curious about the Middle Ages and the ways modern people can have olden days fun with that lifestyle.
“We’ve got instructors coming in to teach on a variety of topics,” McPherson said. The instructors will be holding character to enhance the anachronist experience. The class list includes:
- Introduction to the SCA with Mistress Thorey
- Seaxes (Viking-age knives) with Oli
- Arrow making with Guillaume
- Period Pigments with Duchess Helene
- Heraldry of names and devices with Master Vlad
- Herbalism with Mistress Thorey
Other classes are expected to be added, and there will be demonstrations of combat, armour and weapons, so McPherson said the club expects there will be narry a drop of boredom spilt.
“We’ll also have a potluck feast at the April event and then spend the evening hanging out and enjoying each others’ company,” he said. “The Shire of Cold Keep has been active in the Prince George area for more than 20 years, and we typically run two events and a couple of demos each year. After our April event we will be at Northern FanCon where it is our hope to bring a medieval village to life to give the Con goers a taste of some of what we do for fun.”
There is also the club’s champion’s tournaments coming up in July at a site near Clucultz Lake. The Cold Keep Spring Equinox Celebration is a good time to come ask questions about that highly anticipated annual event.
The spring fling takes place April 13 at Knox United Church, one of the city’s oldest buildings downtown. It happens from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Cost is $15 regular, $10 for club members, and free for anyone 18 and younger if they are accompanied by an adult.
RESCUE DOG DIES SAVING ADOPTED FAMILY
They say the first life Zero saved was his own.
He was a month old and alone on the side of a Texas highway. The abandoned Great Pyrenees puppy limped on a broken ankle. That’s how Laura Martinez and her family found their dog, nearly three years ago.
The vet told them Zero didn’t have a chance and advised the family to put him down immediately. But they couldn’t do it. Martinez’s children were already attached — plus, they all thought they spotted something special in the young animal. Today, Martinez says that decision is the reason she’s alive.
“We were meant to find him,” she said. “And what he did was what he was meant to do. That’s the only thought making it any better.”
Of course, she didn’t know any of that when they brought Zero to his new home, well before a gunman opened fire at a child’s birthday party and forever changed their family. All they knew back then was that their new pet needed their help.
The kids named him Zero, after Jack Skellington’s spooky ghost dog in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. So sick in his young age, he was spectral — yet fiercely loyal. But later, after Zero clawed his way back to health, more at peace with the world of the living than that of the dead, the family began calling him something else: “Zero the hero.”
It’s Martinez who likes to say that Zero saved his own life. But really, it was her
– and her large family – who rescued him when he needed it most. A few years later, Zero did the same for them.
On March 10, Martinez’s daughter was celebrating her 12th birthday. Their house was full of youngsters, more than a dozen, ages 5 to 15, and the mood was
jovial. Out front, Martinez was grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, Zero lounging at her feet, and her stepdaughter and two sons mingled beside her. Yet, when a longtime family friend pulled up to her driveway, she expected trouble.
Martinez had confronted the young man, 17-year-old Javian Castaneda, the day before, telling him she suspected that he had broken into her house and stolen cash and some jewelry. Police said Castaneda and the family started arguing in the driveway. Martinez asked him to leave, but he lunged at her and hit her in the face, she said. One of her sons started to fight back, but Castaneda pulled out a gun.
“None of us knew he had a gun,” Martinez said, recounting the years Castaneda played on her sons’ football teams and slept over at her house.
By Martinez’s count, Castaneda fired at least nine times. His first shot hit the
garage door. At the crack, Zero sprung at Castaneda. Martinez, momentarily stunned, watched her dog jump.
“How did you know to do that?” she remembered thinking at the time. Then, Martinez said, Castaneda shot Zero in the chest. He kept firing, hitting one of Martinez’s sons in the foot. Zero got back up and leaped at Castaneda again, biting at his arm.
“Zero just did it instinctively,” Martinez said. “I guess he just knew that when that thing hit him, it hurt.”
Castaneda shot Zero in the ear, she said, then hit her stepdaughter twice in the back. Zero pounced a final time before taking another bullet in the stomach. Martinez ran toward her dog and Castaneda shot her in the leg and fled.
“I can honestly tell you there’s no way we would be here without Zero,” Martinez said. “The reason why all our wounds are below the waist is because every time Zero jumped up... it kept him from being able to aim.”
Days later, the Harris County Sheriff’s Department arrested Castaneda and charged him with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He is in jail with a $90,000 bond. Martinez, her stepdaughter, and her son are all home recovering from their wounds.
After the shooting, another of Martinez’s sons and a neighbor took Zero, who then appeared paralyzed, to the vet. Martinez said she wanted to accompany them but had to be rushed to the hospital for treatment of her own injuries. This time, the family had no choice. They put him down that day.
Now, Martinez is tallying the costs, the time she’ll miss at work. She’s raising money to try to cover the damage. And her family is reeling from Hurricane Harvey, which flooded their home a year and a half ago. The kitchen cabinets still need replacing.
But the biggest loss, she said, will always be Zero - who won’t be lying under her feet, or snuggling next to her in bed, or waiting for her to get out of the shower.
Instead, he’s memorialized in their front yard, with signs that remind the family and the world of a dog who has earned his nickname more than once: “Zero our hero.”
97/16 news service handout photo Zero, a Great Pyrenees, was shot and killed while defending his family from a gunman who opened fire at a birthday party.
MCGUIRE THE MAN AT THE MIKE FOR SATURDAY COMEDY SHOW
FRANK PEEBLES
97/16 staff
Some of the city’s best up-and-coming comedians are mixed with some of the city’s most established comedians, and Mike McGuire will be there, too.
McGuire is not like the others, you see. He is the outlier. The exception. The punchline, even.
There are six comedians on the marquee for this extravaganza April 6. Yet it is called Mike McGuire: One Man Show. How could this be when the billing also has Cindy Klassen, Kylie Lewis Holt, Neelam Pahal, Monita Ranu and the evening’s emcee is Virginia O’Dine? One man show? It’s a head-scratcher.
O’Dine and Klassen have been on so many comedy stages around the city over the years that audiences are quite familiar with them by now. They are known comedyties (yes, that’s a play on words).
The other three on the undercard are lesser known but that’s changing by the week. They are taking advantage of the all too few opportunities to work their material at open mic events, opening act positions, amateur nights and so forth. Each of them is new, but has experience at places like Sonar, Nancy O’s and Nelly’s Pub.
“I was a class clown in school, I saw some standup, and I always felt I could do this, but I was really a lot more reserved,” said Ranu. “I would joke around with my friends but I never wanted to be the centre of attention, until some things happened and I had some breakthroughs in my life, and I suddenly saw myself going for it.”
Now she has five stage appearances under her belt (and counting quickly) and she hosts a radio show called Laugh Lounge on CFIS-93.1.
Holt also started out in comedy from a reluctant beginning in Toronto where she attended a show at Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club “and I saw a couple of comics who didn’t do very well, and they got booed and I thought nope, that’s not anything I want to sign up for, I want no part of that” but as the years went by and her personality developed a fierce, outspoken streak, it almost naturally led her to a microphone. Before long she was opening for comedy star Brent Butt.
For Pahal, the relationship with comedy has been on-again, off-again. She kicked butt at an amateur competition, and did some more of these entry-level shows, but she was also a university student so she had to concentrate on studies more than new material. But the stage kept calling so she would binge-joke.
“I was doing every weekend for awhile, there, and I was definitely burning out.
Something had to go,” she said. “But I am done school right now. I start my master’s program in a year and a half, so all I have to do for that time period is work and comedy. I could see myself taking standup a lot farther, I could see myself touring, and I really love it, that’s what keeps driving me to do it, so we will see what happens with this window of time I have.”
All three of them point – literally, they pointed right at him – at McGuire as a reason they are approaching comedy with new confidence. As perhaps the single most experienced and consistent standup artist in town, he has been careful to use his veteran status for the benefit of newcomers.
“I’ve always been open about just yelling at people, so I think I’ve come a long way because Mike was honest with me right to my face, but respectfully, about how I had all this energy but no real substance,” said Holt. “I needed more punch line payoff,
not just glitz and glam and roarrrrrrrr. If I have Mike giving me pointers and feedback, then yes, I think I could do comedy as a profession, but definitely I’m going to keep doing it just for my own fun.”
“It changes for me,” said Ranu. “I always think of it as a hobby, but then I see how my act has been developing, and comparing that to other people, and admitting how I feel about it, I love it, and I can see the possibilities, I know it is out there as an option for me, but for now I’m happy to have it as a hobby.”
In case, it was still flying under the radar, the show is called Mike McGuire: One Man Show because he is the only act in this event with outdoor plumbing.
“I often come up with the name of the show before I even have the material for it,” he said. “I had the title One Man Show pop into my head, and once I was conscious about the way that could be a play on words, and turned that over in my
Opening Reception
mind a bit, it became really clear to me that this city has a really strong contingent of women doing comedy. Women probably comprise 40 or 50 per cent of the regular standup performers in Prince George, as they should, because it is 2019, so it just unfolded from there.”
The comedians in the area have some social media chat rooms they frequent for peer communication, so McGuire tossed the idea out into those streams. “Within an hour I had everyone,” he said. “I texted Virginia directly, because she is the most experienced and has a lot of recognition for her funny work, and Monita was the first to respond that she was in on this, and it just tumbled together in a flash.”
McGuire and the five female comedians in the One Man Show take the stage at Artspace on Saturday (doors at 7 p.m., jokes at 8). Tickets are $15 in advance at Books & Company or at the door while supplies last.
97/16 file photo
Local comedian Mike McGuire will be headlining the One Man Show on Saturday at Art Space.
ROLLED JOINTS FOR ACHING JOINTS
The group of white-haired folks - some pushing walkers, others using canes - arrive right on time at the gates of Laguna Woods Village, an upscale retirement community in the picturesque hills that frame this Southern California suburb a few kilometres from Disneyland.
There they board a bus for a quick trip to a building that, save for the green Red Cross-style sign in the window, resembles a trendy coffee bar. The people, mostly in their 70s and 80s, pass the next several hours enjoying a light lunch, playing a few games of bingo and selecting their next month’s supply of cannabis-infused products.
“It’s like the ultimate senior experience,” laughs 76-year-old retired beauty products distributor Ron Atkin as he sits down to watch the bingo at the back of the Bud and Bloom marijuana dispensary in Santa Ana. Most states now have legal medical marijuana, and 10 of them, including California, allow anyone 21 or older to use pot recreationally. The federal government still outlaws the drug even as acceptance increases. The 2018 General Social Survey, an annual sampling of Americans’ views, found a record 61 per cent back legalization, and those 65 and older are increasingly supportive.
Indeed, many industry officials say the fastest-growing segment of their customer base is people like Atkin - aging baby boomers or even those a little older who are seeking to treat the aches and sleeplessness and other maladies of old age with the same herb that many of them once passed around
at parties.
“I would say the average age of our customers is around 60, maybe even a little older,” said Kelty Richardson, a registered nurse with the Halos Health clinic in
Boulder, Colorado, which provides medical examinations and sells physician-recommended cannabis through its online store. Its medical director, Dr. Joseph Cohen, conducts “Cannabis 101” seminars at the
nearby Balfour Senior Living community for residents who want to know which strains are best for easing arthritic pain or improving sleep.
Relatively little scientific study has verified
97/16 news service photo
A group of seniors from Laguna Woods Village consult with sales associates at Bud and Bloom cannabis dispensary in Santa Ana, Calif. The seniors boarded a bus for the pot shop and spent hours choosing from a variety of cannabis-infused products, including candies, drinks and weed.
MORE SENIORS USING MARIJUANA
the benefits of marijuana for specific problems. There’s evidence pot can relieve chronic pain in adults, according to a 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, but the study also concluded that the lack of scientific information poses a risk to public health.
At Bud and Bloom, winners of the bingo games take home new vape pens, but Atkin isn’t really there for that. He’s been coming regularly for two years to buy cannabisinfused chocolate bars and sublingual drops to treat his painful spinal stenosis since the prescription opiates he had been taking quit working.
It was “desperation” that brought him here, he said, adding that his doctors didn’t suggest he try medical marijuana. But they didn’t discourage him either.
The dispensary is filled with the 50 people from the bus as they peruse counters and coolers containing everything from gel caps to drops to cannabis-infused drinks, not to mention plenty of old-fashioned weed.
Adele Frascella, leaning on her cane, purchases a package of gummy candies she says helps keep her arthritic pain at bay.
“I don’t like to take an opioid,” said Frascella, 70.
Fashionably dressed with sparkling silver earrings, Frascella confirms with a smile that she was a pot smoker in her younger days.
“I used to do it when I was like 18, 19, 20,” she said. “And then I had a baby, got married and stopped.”
She took it up again a few years ago, even investing in a “volcano,” a pricey, high-tech version of the old-fashioned bong that
Gizmodo calls “the ultimate stoner gadget.” But these days, like many other seniors, she prefers edibles to smoking.
Renee Lee, another baby boomer who smoked as a youth, got back into it more than a dozen years ago after the clinical psychologist underwent brain surgery and other medical procedures that she said had her taking “10 meds a day, four times a day.”
“And I wasn’t getting any better,” she said, adding that she asked her doctors if she might try medical marijuana as a last resort. They said go ahead and she found it ended
her pain.
In 2012, she founded the Rossmoor Medical Marijuana Club in her upscale San Francisco Bay Area retirement community.
“We started with 20 people, and we kept it really quiet for about a year and a half,” she said, noting that although California legalized medical cannabis in 1996, it was still seen in some quarters as an outlaw drug.
Her group has since grown to more than 1,000 members and puts on regular events, including lectures by pro-cannabis doctors and nurses.
People Lee’s age – 65 and over - are the fastest-growing segment of the marijuanausing population, said Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and aging at the University of California, Los Angeles. He believes more studies on the drug’s effects on older people are needed. And while it may improve quality of life by relieving pain, anxiety and other problems, he said, careless, unsupervised use can cause trouble.
“We know that cannabis can cause side effects, particularly in older people,” he said. “They can get dizzy. It can even impair memory if the dose is too high or new ingredients are wrong. And dizziness can lead to falls, which can be quite serious.”
Richardson said Colorado saw an uptick in hospital visits by older users soon after the state legalized cannabis in 2012. The problem, he said, was often caused by novices downing too many edibles.
That’s a lesson Dick Watts, 75, learned the hard way. The retired New Jersey roofing contractor who keeps a winter home at Laguna Woods Village began having trouble sleeping through the night as he got into his 70s. He attended a seniors’ seminar where he learned marijuana might help, so he got a cannabis-infused candy bar. He immediately ate the whole thing.
“Man, that was nearly lethal,” recalled Watts, laughing.
Now when he has trouble sleeping he takes just a small sliver of candy before bed. He said he wakes up clear-headed and refreshed.
“And I have it up on a shelf so my grandkids can’t get to it,” Watts said.
97/16 news service photo
Adele Frascella, left, and Donna Miller chat in a free shuttle bus on the way back to their retirement community after visiting Bud and Bloom cannabis dispensary in Santa Ana, Calif.
Can you solve the riddle created by Kid Scoop mascot Woodword?
How many smailes can you find on this page? tricky riddle!
Share these optical illusions with a family member!
Wise Eyes
There are two Y’s in the grid below. Can you find both in under 30 seconds?
This is called the Hermann Grid Illusion. As you concentrate on the grid, you can see black dots. Try to count them. When you do, you’ll see that all the dots are white.
Circle all the money amounts you can find in the newspaper in one minute. Now tally the amounts you found. How much do they add up to?
Find the words in the puzzle. How many of them can you find on this page?
What’s Your Angle?
Do you see triangles here? Look again. There are no real triangles here – only three V shapes outlined in black and three white shapes that indent the circles.
Write down all your favorite jokes and riddles and read them
