Prince George Citizen December 15, 2018

Kris Kringle lunch

Sam Hamilton, Amanda Stein and Sam Hunt were volunteering at the Child Development Centre Kris

for a chance to win prizes. The

Injunction issued against Unist’ot’en pipeline blockade

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

A B.C. Supreme Court Justice issued an injunction Friday temporarily ordering opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline to allow workers access to a disputed area south of Houston to start work on the $6.2-billion project.

Since 2012, a blockade in the form of a gate has been up across the Morice River bridge – along with a camp beside the bridge –in opposition to the project. The planned 670-kilometre pipeline would send natural gas from a station near Dawson Creek to the fledgling LNG Canada plant near Kitimat.

The blockade was established in the name the Unist’ot’en, a group within the Wet’suwet’en Nation, although Freda Huson and Warner Naziel were named as the defendants in Coastal GasLink’s notice of claim seeking the injunction.

The injunction will come into effect on Monday and remain in place until no later than May 1, 2019. Coastal GasLink had been seeking a permanent injunction but Justice Marguerite Church found the defendants have not had enough time to respond to the company’s notice of claim and

opted for a temporary order.

In a statement, Coastal GasLink, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TransCanada Corp., said it “appreciates the court’s decision” which will allow it to move forward with pre-construction activities. The company also stressed it is only looking for access to the bridge.

“The camp established next to the bridge will remain as is. In fact, we see no reason why the camp cannot continue with its activities. We simply need to use the public bridge to access our pipeline right of way.”

The corridor is located about one kilometre south of the camp “and does not overlap or directly affect the camp, as some reports have claimed,” the company also stressed.

The injunction comes with an enforcement order authorizing the RCMP to uphold the injunction if there is push back.

“The area of the blockade is remote, the number of persons present at the blockade varies, the time for the plaintiff to perform their work is very limited and based on social media posts by the defendant, there is an indication that the defendants and their supports may not obey the interim injunction order,” Church said.

During submissions on Thursday

at the Prince George courthouse, Coastal GasLink lawyer Kevin O’Callaghan said the company had obtained all the necessary permits and authorizations necessary to build the pipeline and in the process had consulted with Indigenous groups along the route, including the office representing the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and the five Wet’suwet’en bands recognized under the Indian Act.

He said Coastal GasLink has also reached benefit agreements with all 20 elected bands along the route, including the five Wet’suwet’en bands. O’Callaghan read in portions of affidavits outlining the tens of millions of dollars at stake for the Wet’suwet’en in the form of contracts to carry out logging, clearing, road building and camp services.

The company had maintained a policy of working around the blockade but with the Oct. 1 decision to go ahead with both the pipeline and the $31-billion LNG Canada project, the court was told it needs to begin pre-construction work in January to avoid delays of as much to a year further along. It was also noted that the blockaders have allowed Canfor access to carry out logging along the Morice Forest Service Road.

— see ‘ANY DELAYS, page 3

Nine-year-old artist designs Christmas greeting cards

Citizen staff

She’s an artistic entrepreneur and she’s nine years old. Maya McCutcheon from Fort St. James kept asking her parents for ‘this and that’ at six years old and when she was told if she wanted ‘this and that’ she’d have to earn her own money, she turned to her artistic talents as a means to an end.

This year, Maya showcased her work to the Prince George & District Community Arts Council (CAC) in the spring and when program manager Lisa Redpath saw some of Maya’s work, she was interested in supporting the young artist.

“It is very charming imagery and in the pile she showed us, there was some Christmas scenery,” Redpath said. The Community Arts Council sends out Christmas cards every year and chooses work from a regional artist to showcase their extraordinary talent, Redpath added.

“Negotiating terms with this nine-year-old business girl was one of the highlights of my year,” she said.” Maya is really building her entrepreneurial skills. I’m smiling right now just thinking about how we struck

our deal. Her parents are great guides for her but she did the negotiating all by herself. She is so inspirational and a real example for other young artists to follow. Really, she is a good example for any age.”

It all started because Maya’s mom Mel said she grew up in a household where everything was not handed to her on a silver platter and she wanted to raise her daughter the same way.

Mel said as a young person she made some budgeting mistakes and had to work her way out of it and she wanted to give Maya the skills so that her daughter didn’t have to learn the hard way.

“She was wanting to buy things and her father and I didn’t want to spoil her rotten and she couldn’t do physical labour or babysit so we tried to get creative in a way that she could earn some money, learn some skills and buy some things herself,” Mel said.

“I started making art when I was six years old,” Maya said. “I started in school.”

Maya said they decided to make greeting cards using images she created. — see ‘IT’S FUN, page 3

Kringle

Five-per-cent tax levy hike presented to city committee

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

City council’s 2019 budget deliberations began this week with staff presenting a proposal to the finance and audit committee that would see a five-per-cent increase to the property tax levy.

A hike that size is not a foregone conclusion, however, as the committee directed staff to develop scenarios for three- and four-percent increases to see how those would affect city services.

“This was the very first meeting of the finance and audit committee for the year so this is the first initial discussions,” committee chair Coun. Garth Frizzell said Friday.

“It did identify what the big cost drivers are going to be, so if there are three- or four-per-cent options, that would mean looking at changes to service levels.”

The scenario presented to the committee calls for a $5.2-million

increase to the levy with $1.5 million of that going to snow control and $1 million to each of road rehabilitation and the Employers Health Tax.

The remaining $1.7 million would account for general increases to items in the existing budget.

Staff is recommending raising the snow control budget to $8.5 million after projecting that spending on the item will finish at $9.7 million for 2018, due largely to the major dump in February.

However, in the name of fully accounting for the true cost of the service, winter sand expenses adding up to $1 million have been transferred from roads to snow control over the last two years.

And, due to the volatility of the amount of snow that can fall from one year to the next, staff is suggesting a reserve be created equal to $2.125 million or 25 per cent of the $8.5 million budget it’s proposing.

As for road rehabilitation, staff

is recommending that budget be increased to $6 million and include bridges, urban lanes and gravel roads.

All three are currently funded through other reserves.

To replace the Medical Services Premium, the Employers Health Tax comes into effect on Jan. 1, and will add up to 1.95 per cent of the city’s total payroll, according to staff. In all, city staff salaries and benefits are set to rise by $2.1 million in 2019.

Overall, city expenses are projected to go up by $7 million while revenue is to go up by $1.8 million of which tax base growth is to account for $1.47 million, leaving a shortfall of $5.2 million.

The 2018 levy stood at $103.7 million.

Along with Frizzell, Mayor Lyn Hall and councillors Frank Everitt and Cori Ramsay sit on the committee, which met Wednesday.

The full report is posted with this story at princegeorgecitizen.com.

Avalanche warning issued

Citizen staff Avalanche Canada has issued a special warning for recreational backcountry users planning to venture into almost all of B.C.’s mountains this weekend.

After a prolonged drought in late November and early December, the province has been hit with a series of storms that have dropped a significant amount of snow. This new snow is not bonding well to the old surface that formed during the drought.

“Our main concern is that we are expecting the weather to clear on Saturday,” the agency’s senior forecaster, James Floyer, said. “After all this rain in the valleys, backcountry users are going to want to hit the alpine but that’s where the danger is great-

est. There’s a very weak layer now buried anywhere between 60 and 150 cm. Any avalanche triggered on that layer will definitely be life threatening.”

The warning was issued for the North Rockies, South and North Columbia and Cariboos, as well as the Lizard Range and Flathead, Purcells, Kootenay Boundary, Sea-to-Sky, South Coast, South Coast Inland and Northwest Coastal.

The warning applies to anyone heading into higher elevation –skiers and boarders leaving ski resort boundaries and snowmobilers riding at or above the treeline.

They’re urged to carry the essential rescue gear – transceiver, probe and shovel – and know how to use it.

Operation Red Nose needs volunteers for New Year’s Eve

Citizen staff

Operation Red Nose Prince George has issued a call for more volunteers to work New Year’s Eve.

Only 16 teams are signed up for that night, which is the busiest of the holiday season.

“That number needs to be at least doubled to meet the demand for rides we expect,” said Andrea Johnson, ORN spokesperson. “It means at least another 48 volunteers are needed, whether they’ve only volunteered with us one night or are former clients.”

The deadline to drop off applications to the Prince George

RCMP is Wed., Dec. 19. The application, which includes a criminal record check, is available online at www.ornpg. ca. Operation Red Nose is organized by the Rotary Club of Prince George – Nechako in partnership with ICBC and the Prince George RCMP. ORN will have 18 teams out on the road tonight to provide safe rides home to party-goers. To get a ride, call 250-9627433 between 9 p.m.-3 a.m. Clients must have a vehicle with valid B.C. license plates. All donations go towards youth and amateur sport organizations in Prince George.

Coast Hotels, labour union reach agreement

Citizen staff Coast Hotels has reached a tentative agreement with its unionized employees. The three-year deal covers 300 employees at hotels in Prince George, Nanaimo and Victoria. The two sides came to an agreement early Friday morning, working with a mediator,

according to a Coast Hotels release.

Further details won’t be released until a formal settlement is in place and the members hold a ratification vote. The hotel chain had issued 72hour lockout notice earlier this week against members of Unite Here Local 40 in Prince George, Victoria and Nanaimo.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

City of Prince George snow removal crews were at work in January 2014. City council will consider a $1.5 million increase to the city’s snow removal budget during the 2019 budget.

‘It’s fun to see how it turns out’

— from page 1

Her preferred medium is watercolour with alcohol.

“Because it’s fun to see how it turns out,” Maya said. Mel said they used a Canadian printing company and made greeting cards. They soon began selling the cards locally at the farmers’ market.

“And the second year I joined the craft fair with more art,” Maya piped in. “The next year it just kept going up and up with more cards and then this year I got magnets, calendars and cards.”

Every year, Maya has a big ticket item on her wish list. Most recently she wanted an above-ground pool that cost $300. Maya bought it and hit a milestone soon after. She’s got $1,000 in her savings account.

“We recently celebrated that,” Mel said. “We don’t know many kids that are thinking that way so it’s neat.”

During the Christmas holidays, Mel and Maya will be exploring a new medium –clay.

Maya wants to make pottery bowls and she wants to use a wheel to make them.

“Because those are the easiest things to make,” Maya said.

As far as making other items to sell, Maya was thinking of making light switch covers and bags.

Maya has a loan from her parents that she has to pay back.

“We were trying to explain to Maya about paying back her costs,” Mel said.

After some trial and error, Maya began paying her parents back as she sold her work, understanding a profit margin and how her profit increases as she prints more products at one time.

For the community arts council project, Maya was able to fund it herself, which means all the profit stays with her.

“So that was really exciting for her,” Mel said. “It was a real learning curve for her and we are so proud to watch her go from super, super shy and nervous and struggling with the math to someone who has to do all the math and talk to her customers.”

This year, Maya was at a two-day craft fair and handled most of it by herself.

“I think she made over $300 profit in those two days and then she went shopping for toys for the toy and food drive and donated $200 to it, so that was pretty cool. We are pleased to see how confident she is now. We’re pretty grateful for all who support Maya.”

The public won’t miss out on investing in the young artist’s endeavours. Maya’s cards are available for purchase at the CAC gift shop along with many other regional artists’ work.

Police seize drugs and guns

Citizen staff

A discovery of drugs during a traffic stop was parlayed into a search warrant Wednesday on two homes that yielded a seizure of more drugs as well as two firearms, according to RCMP. The traffic stop, conducted as part of an ongoing investigation by the detachment’s street crew unit, yielded quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl were found in the vehicle, police said. They followed up by executing search

warrants on homes in the 2200 block of Spruce Street and the 700 block of Johnson Street. From those homes, various amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl, along with drug trafficking paraphernalia, a loaded revolver and a loaded semiautomatic rifle.

The revolver was found to have been stolen from another community, police added.

Three men and one woman were arrested and later released, pending further investigation and charge approval from federal Crown counsel.

‘Any delays... could jeopardize the entire

— from page 1

Coastal GasLink’s pre-construction work includes repairing and upgrading roads and culverts, clearing the corridor of trees and establishing a work camp.

Church said she found the work Coastal GasLink intends for that phase of the project is consistent with the forestry work already being carried out beyond the blockade and noted the work camp will be set up on an existing cutblock. Beyond that, no other work on the pipeline is scheduled for the area until June 2021, she noted.

She also found there is enough prima facie or first-view evidence that actions of the defendants are unlawful and pose irreparable harm to Coastal GasLink to warrant a temporary injunction.

“Given the logistical complexity of the project, any delays to the construction schedule could jeopardize the entire project, posing losses to the plaintiff and the various joint venture participants and contractors in the range of several hundred million dollars,” Church said.

“This would include significant and direct negative financial consequences to the Wet’suwet’en and other Indigenousowned companies who have contracted and subcontracted for some of the project work.

“Delay to or loss of the project could also cause indirect harm, including delayed access for Indigenous bands to financial access and other benefits under agreements with the plaintiff and the province.”

Moreover, if the defendants were eventually found responsible for causing such harm, Church said there is “no real chance” of recovering the loss from them.

Conversely, she found the harm to the defendants of allowing Coastal GasLink

access for the interim would be “relatively minimal.”

Although it’s described on its website as a clan, the court was told the Unist’ot’en is a matrilineal group that spans across three house groups in the Gil_seyhu or Big Frog clan. Huson is a member of the Unist’ot’en and a spokesperson for the Dark House and an elected member of the Witset, one of the Wet’suwet’en Indian Act bands. Along with consulting with each of the bands and the office of the heriditary chiefs, the court was told Coastal GasLink and the provincial government were asked to consult with Dark House separately. Attempts were made through, Dark House’s hereditary chief Warner Naziel and through Huson. But they refused to meet and provided no substantive comments during the permitting process other than to maintain their opposition to the project.

Coastal GasLink has agreed that it did not consult with the Unist’ot’en, saying the group was not identified by the B.C. Environmental Office as a governing Wet’suwet’en body. O’Callaghan had disputed the defendant’s contention that they have not had enough time to provide a proper response, arguing they had known since at least Oct. 1 if not for years that the matter would come to a head.

But Church found they were not compelled to seek legal counsel until a notice of claim had been served. That occurred on Nov. 29, just two weeks before the hearing, and it was not until Friday that Huson and Naziel had secured a lawyer. They were served at a time when Naziel was dealing with a family issue – his mother is in palliative care claim. Accompanying the claim was 17 affidavits amounting to 2,400 pages, it was also noted.

Maya McCutcheon, 9, is a young artist whose Snowman piece will be showcased on Christmas cards sent out and available for purchase for the public from the Prince George & District Community Arts Council.

Cantata Singers, PGSO bringing

Handel’s Messiah to stage tonight

Citizen staff

And 50 years later the Prince George Cantata Singers choir, including two of its founding members, will be performing Handel’s Messiah with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra tonight at 7:30 at Vanier Hall.

Kay Lim, soprano and soloist, and Colin Dix, bass, are the only two members who have sung with the Cantata Singers for all of the last half century.

The choir was founded in 1968 with

British Columbian professor missing in Columbia Canada

Citizen news service

VANCOUVER — Friends and family of a professor from B.C. are asking for help after he disappeared in Colombia last week.

Ramazan Gencay, a professor in economics at Simon Fraser University, was last seen in Medellin, Colombia, where he was attending seminars. Simon Fraser University said it has been in contact with his family and is offering support.

David Lindstrom as the music director and current music director Lyn Vernon will be retiring after tonight’s Messiah performance.

Vice president of the Cantata Singers board and a soprano herself, Valerie Chatterson said there are 84 members of the choir who will be singing during tonight’s performance and she’s excited about it.

“I’ll be singing way up in the stratosphere tonight,” Chatterson said of her second Prince George Messiah perfor-

“We are very concerned and hope that he will be found soon. SFU will support the investigation to find professor Gencay in any way that we can,” said Angela Wilson, senior director of media relations, in a statement.

“We have not been contacted by authorities at this time and we do not have further information beyond what has already been publicly shared by his family.

Our hearts go out to his family, friends, colleagues, staff and students during this

mance. Before that she had performed it in high school.

“It’s going to be intimidating right at first but it feels good. There’s exhilaration but it’s hard to describe all the feelings that go into it but every time I successfully manage to hit one of those super-high notes it’s like ‘oh yeah!’”

This performance is a beloved Prince George tradition, featuring the PGSO’s conductor Michael Hall. Tickets for this historic show are still available at www. centralinteriortickets.com.

difficult time.”

His friends and family have turned to social media to get the word out that he’s missing and share their concerns.

His wife Carole Gencay says on Facebook her husband was last seen at a salsa night club on Dec. 6, and she asks anyone with information to contact police.

Gencay says she contacted Global Affairs.

“Global Affairs Canada is aware that a Canadian citizen is missing in Colombia,” said a Global Affairs spokesman.

Michelle McQUIGGE Citizen news service

TORONTO — Law enforcement officials in Canada and beyond will be working to learn lessons about how to best respond to bomb threats after a rash of such incidents this week, the federal public safety minister said Friday.

Ralph Goodale said policing and security experts around the world will be scrutinizing the fallout from the wave of threats, which triggered varying responses from forces in Canada and the United States on Thursday.

The idle threats, delivered via email, touched off everything from quiet divisional-level investigations to full-scale evacuations of public buildings and deployments of specialized explosives investigators.

Police forces said probes into bomb threats are particularly time-consuming and resource-intensive, and Goodale said experts around the world would be looking for ways to limit the toll on those on the front lines.

“The level of international collaboration here is very high – police, security, intelligence across three continents making sure that we examine an incident like this and learn every conceivable lesson from that experience, including response capacity,” Goodale said at an appearance in Toronto.

“We will go to school on all of that.”

Thursday’s wave of bomb threats, which American investigators declared a hoax, swept across communities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

Police departments in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and Winnipeg, as well as Ontario’s provincial force and RCMP detachments in B.C. and Manitoba, investigated multiple threats that all proved groundless.

One busy subway station in downtown Toronto was briefly evacuated as part of the investigation from city police, who said they received at least 10 false calls throughout the day.

In the U.S., hundreds of schools, businesses and government buildings received emails that triggered searches, evacuations and fear. Investigators, however, dismissed the threats as a crude extortion attempt intended to cause disruption and compel recipients into sending money.

Some of the emails had the subject line “Think Twice.” They were sent from a spoofed email address. The sender claimed to have had an associate plant a small bomb in the recipient’s building and that the only way to stop him from setting it off was by making an online payment of $20,000 in Bitcoin currency.

Goodale said experts in three continents have already begun analyzing Thursday’s threats for potential lessons.

For several Canadian police forces, the day’s events highlighted the difficulty of balancing public safety with limited internal resources.

Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne of the Ontario Provincial Police said officers were called to at least 15 cites that fall under its jurisdiction, adding all calls followed the same pattern as the threats detailed by U.S. authorities. She said protocols dictate that a member of a local explosives disposal unit attends any bomb threat from the outset, adding police from local detachments are on hand as well.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Thermostats a hot topic, poll shows

During the last Citizen poll the questions asked was “who controls the thermostat in your house?”

With 37 per cent and 283 votes came the most popular responses of “we have a programmed thermostat so no one needs to touch it.”

“Anybody can turn it up or down when they want,” took a strong second with 29 per cent and a total of 219 votes. Coming in a distant third was “I do and no one touches it or else,” with 17 per cent and 127 votes, “only the adults; kids don’t touch it or else,” came in with 12 per cent and 93 votes while “my partner does and I don’t touch it or else,” trailed with five per cent and 38 votes. There was a total of 760 votes cast during this poll.

Remember this is not a scientific poll. Next up The Citizen asks “what was the biggest local story of 2018?”

To make your vote count visit www.pgcitizen.ca

Canfor extends curtailment

The curtailment of production at Canfor’s B.C. sawmills will continue for another quarter, the company said Friday. It will also be reducing operating hours at some sawmills as the curtailment is extended to the first quarter of 2019. “This decision is due to a continuing decline in lumber prices, in addition to high log costs and log supply constraints,” Canfor said. “The curtailment extension and reduction in operating hours is expected to reduce Canfor’s production output by an additional 55 million board feet in Q1.”

A 10-per-cent curtailment was put in place for the fourth quarter of 2018 in part through extended downtime at Christmas. The sawmills are scheduled to resume production on Jan. 7, the company said Friday. For the week ending Dec. 5, the price of kiln dried two by fours at the Prince George inland container terminal stood at US$354 per thousand board feet, down from US$480 a year ago, according to Madison’s Lumber Reporter.

The Prince George Cantata Singers perform at a concert in 2010. The choir will be performing Handel’s Messiah with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Vanier Hall.

Chinese-Canadians have varying reactions to handling of Huawei case

Amy SMART Citizen news service

VANCOUVER

— As an international story about a Chinese tech executive wanted by the United States began unfolding from a Vancouver courtroom, the phone lines for a local Mandarin-language radio program began lighting up.

AM1320 host Sunny Chan said calls have doubled to his afternoon program after Meng Wanzhou’s arrest Dec. 1 while she was changing flights at the Vancouver airport.

“I cut some of the calls because we don’t have time,” Chan said.

Meng, who is chief financial officer for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, was released on $10 million bail on Tuesday.

She is facing possible extradition to the U.S. over allegations she and her company misled banks about business dealings in Iran.

Meng has denied the allegations in court through her lawyer.

The story has sparked varying reactions within a diverse population that identifies as Chinese-Canadian, ranging from recent immigrants to lifetime Canadian citizens. Some, like the callers to Chan’s program, are passionately critical of Canada’s actions, while others say they fully support the judicial process.

“My feeling is that the Chinese-Canadian community is divided,” said Guo Ding, a commentator and producer at OMNI BC Mandarin News.

“One group of people, they criticize Canada, they say, ‘Well, America is just closely linked,’” he said.

“Another group, they think we have to respect the law because Canada is a country of law.”

Those opinions also tend to fall along regional lines, he said, with those from mainland China supporting Meng and those from Hong Kong or Taiwan supporting her extradition.

Ding said he believes the split is about 5050. Meng is being held on a provisional warrant and the United States has 60 days from the time of her arrest to make an extradition request.

On Chan’s program, eight or nine out of every 10 calls shared the perspective that Canada has erred in its handling of the case, he said.

“Most of them are overwhelmingly supportive of China’s call for Meng to be released,” Chan said.

The general perception is that Meng has been treated poorly, he said.

One called Canada a “fool” for becoming involved in a trade dispute between China and the United States.

Most see the case as politically driven, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he could intervene in the case if it would help reach a trade deal with China.

“I think some are very emotional. Some are very angry,” he said.

Protesters who gathered outside the court holding signs in support of Meng appeared to share that opinion, with one saying Canada is helping the United States do its “dirty work” by arresting her.

Protester Ada Yu, who lives in Vancouver and is originally from China, said the case against Meng appears to be politically motivated.

Yu said Meng’s arrest is a violation of a Chinese citizen’s legal rights.

But Cheuk Kwan, a spokesman for the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, said he believes most Chinese-Canadians are just observing from the sidelines and, if anything, are generally supportive of

Canada’s actions.

“There’s obviously a faction of the Chinese-Canadian community who are in full fledged support of what China’s causes or grievances are, so it’s not surprising they would come out and protest the arrest of Ms. Meng Wanzhou,” Cheuk Kwan said.

“But I would say those are in the minority.”

Kwan questioned whether media coverage of the protesters has amplified their voices in a way that skews how common their perspective is.

“The majority of people are quietly saying ‘Look, this is Canada, we have our sovereignty, we have our judicial process, we’re not going to be bullied by China.”’

As China’s largest tech company, Huawei has become a symbol of national pride for some, so the perception that it is under attack by Western forces has inspired resistance among those factions who believe Meng should not have been detained.

“It rouses up a bit more of a nationalistic kind of fervour.

“This is no different from what happened with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing,” said Kwan, adding that many Chinese-Canadians were divided on whether the Games should be boycotted because of a history of human rights abuses in the country or celebrated as evidence of China’s progress.

On a personal level, he said he believes Canada has reacted entirely appropriately.

“I think Canada has handled it as best as it could, because we believe in the independence of the judiciary. Let the judge worry about whether the Americans have proof or not,” he said.

“We have a treaty with the U.S. we need to respect and if there’s a legitimate request and it’s proven with sufficient proof, then we need to extradite her back to the U.S.”

Steven Shi, senior adviser to the University of British Columbia’s Chinese Students Association, said while he couldn’t speak on behalf of the entire club, the members of its executive have discussed the case.

They generally respect Meng as a strong female business leader and found her arrest “abrupt,” he said.

However, their main concern is that the case might contribute to mounting tensions in a trade war between the United States and China.

“Because quite a few of those students are business students, they are a bit concerned with the treatment this will bring and the possibility of prolonging a trade war between the two countries,” Shi said.

CP PHOTO

Supporters hold signs outside B.C. Supreme Court during the third day of a bail hearing for Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, in Vancouver on Tuesday.

Conservatives prefer symbolism over substance

“Virtue signaling” gets a bad rap, but it’s always been clever politics. Tackling problems is hard; loudly broadcasting support or opposition for some stylized representation of them is easy. Think of U.S. President Donald Trump and “the wall.”

The federal Conservatives have shown considerable skill at practicing this style of politics, constantly signaling hard-line positions on what are basically political metaphors. The hope is this will earn them credibility on issues they’re too timid to confront head-on.

The United Nations’ Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is but the latest example. Officially ratified on Monday, the dense, 34-page document represents a multiyear effort to hammer out a “global consensus on international migration.” It’s mostly aspirational and not binding, but Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is nevertheless strongly against it, calling it a foreign scheme to “erode our sovereign right to manage our borders.”

Why all the fuss? One answer would be Conservatives want credit for taking a tough stance against a high-profile, symbolic embodiment of supposed “open borders” ideology. Then, hopefully, Canada’s sizable electorate of immigration restrictionists will overlook the fact that Scheer’s party isn’t doing much else they want.

The same day the migration compact was ratified, Pew released a sweeping survey of global attitudes on immigration. Canadians were skeptical as ever, with a large majority stating they’d like to see Canada’s immigra-

tion rates capped or lowered. (The rate favouring the capped-or-lowered position, 80 per cent, was higher than the number of Americans saying the same, 73 per cent – a fact to keep in mind the next time you read some paean to “Canadian exceptionalism”).

In other words, an overwhelming majority favours the opposite of what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in October: a steady increase of Canada’s immigration intake over the next three years. The Conservative Party, however, has elected not to complain about the increase, instead suggesting Trudeau’s Liberals are just vaguely bad at managing Canada’s immigration bureaucracy. Trudeau’s immigration minister called it “empty criticism for the sake of criticism.”

If the Tories are being timid, it’s likely because they’d be hypocrites for protesting given they themselves raised Canada’s immigration intake to unpopular heights during their time in power. On a deeper level, however, it’s hard to avoid concluding that the Tories simply don’t believe the public’s opinion on this issue is legitimate. Within the Canadian elite, opinions on immigration tend to be unflinchingly supportive, united in belief that Canada’s immigration system is the most ingenious in the world and the least in need of critical reexamination.

Public dissatisfaction with liberal attitudes toward immigration must therefore be carefully redirected to only the most extreme, stylized representations of it.

The Conservatives’ preoccupation with “irregular border crossings” from the United States is another example. The hassles and costs associated with managing a newly porous border are undeniable. In 2018 alone,

Canadian border authorities intercepted over 17,000 unauthorized asylum seekers originating from America. Equally undeniable, however, is the political calculus.

As with the United Nations migrant pact, constantly highlighting a sensationalistic border crisis that has unfolded under Trudeau’s watch “reads” as a tougher stance on immigration than the Conservatives actually have but voters seem to want.

Synecdoche politics define the Tory approach to other issues, too. In September, the Conservatives demagogued about the federal government’s transfer of convicted child killer Terri-Lynne McClintic, a self-identified Indigenous woman, to an “aboriginal healing lodge.” The situation provided a safe metaphor through which to channel outrage toward Trudeau’s unpopular approach to Indigenous relations more broadly. A June poll by Angus Reid found 66 per cent of Canadians agreeing with the statement that “Indigenous communities should be governed by the same systems and rules as other Canadians” and 53 per cent agreeing that “in modern Canada, Indigenous people should have no special status that other Canadians don’t have.”

Arguing that the healing lodge program was misused is one thing. Reexamining the premises of its existence requires considerably more guts.

Then there was the Tory outrage last spring over the Trudeau government’s decision to refuse grant applications for summer jobs employers that did not explicitly support reproductive rights. It was a move intentionally designed to kneecap pro-life groups who had received such funding in the past.

YOUR LETTERS

Editorial missed point of PR

Re: PR vote a Christmas lump of coal, Neil Godbout editorial, Dec. 11.

Godbout’s editorial, reflecting the fallacious, worn arguments of the no side reminds me that the fight against the forces of darkness is never over.

Where is Harry Potter when we need him?

Godbout starts off assuring me that he is writing an unbiased editorial about the campaign, accusing both sides of inappropriate behaviour. After rapping the knuckles of both sides, he moves into a full frontal assault of the Yes PR side.

He conveniently misses the main point of PR, that it is the only fair electoral system, guaranteeing that the makeup of the legislature will reflect the voting preferences of the voters of B.C.

That’s it. Period.

Will it spur an increase in voter turnout? It might, if voters know that their vote will count towards electing their chosen party.

Will voter representation improve? It will.

Areas that are solid Liberal now, would have NDP and Green reps in government. Conversely, areas that are solid NDP or Green would have Liberal reps.

Will government better reflect the will of the people? Yes.

Much more than in the past, with the governing party representing less than 50 per cent of the voters.

With PR, parties share of the seats will reflect their share of the vote.

Godbout impugns the motive of Weaver and Horgan in promoting PR. He says that it is strictly a power grab.

Is it possible that they only want what is fair?

If the voters of B.C. decide that

they like a Green/NDP coalition better than a B.C. Liberal government, then that is democracy.

The B.C. Liberals have had no trouble accepting power with 40 per cent of the vote and representing only 40 per cent of voters. That is not democracy.

In his coal-throwing, he conveniently fails to mention the many sins of FPTP, any one of which should condemn it to oblivion. In itself, his editorial would not be so egregious if it were not expressed at the same time as the B.C. Liberals and the no campaign are threatening to ignore the wishes of the voters and to call into question the validity of the vote.

That a party hoping to return to power would call into question a legitimate expression of the wishes of the voters is a dangerous slide down a slippery slope to extremism.

Daryl Sturdy Vancouver

LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.

SHAWN CORNELL DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

While eager to gain credit for fighting on their behalf, the Conservatives didn’t really want the pro-lifers to succeed, however. Scheer believes Canada’s current regime of unrestricted legal abortion is the correct one. This position – that “there should be no laws on abortion and women should have the right to this procedure at any time during their pregnancy” – is endorsed by only 39 per cent of Canadians, according to a poll in May. Sixty-one per cent supports more restrictions than presently exist. Scheer calls the issue too “divisive” to confront.

Canada’s Conservatives have long fretted about the electoral consequences of pandering to a repulsive right-wing extreme. If they do not remain more substantially engaged with the large number of Canadians who hold tougher views than themselves on some of the country’s most contentious issues, however, then a whole other problem arises.

During his recent chat with Ben Shapiro, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper described his own standard for identifying the political fringe.

“If I got one or two per cent on the right of me, that’s fine,” he said, “but when you get five per cent or 10 per cent or 20 per cent – or, infamously with Hillary Clinton, 45 to 46 per cent – and you’re calling them fringe, there’s something wrong with you.” Harper’s party now functions mostly to appease Canada’s fringe majority out of realizing just how distant they are from the halls of power.

– J.J. McCullough is a political commentator and cartoonist from Vancouver

Canadians curbing holiday spending

As a complex and challenging 2018 comes to an end, Canadians report little change in their economic status compared with one year ago.

In a nationwide Research Co. survey conducted earlier this month, 27 per cent of Canadians say they are better off financially than they were last year, while 49 per cent say their situation has not changed and 22 per cent acknowledge being worse off now.

The year that is about to end brought municipal elections in several provinces, as well as provincial ballots in the two most populous ones – Ontario and Quebec – that resulted in government changes. In spite of this, the views of Canadians have not gone through extraordinary shifts when it comes to the purchasing power of their households.

A financial momentum score can be created by looking at the proportion of residents who say things are better now and subtracting those who say their situation has worsened. In this analysis, the entire country stands at +5. But there are some regional disparities. Atlantic Canada (at +12) and Manitoba and Saskatchewan (at +10) fare better than other jurisdictions. Alberta (at +4) and Ontario (at +3) are at the bottom.

Every province in the country posted a positive momentum score on personal finances at the end of the year.

This has not always been the case in Canada. In 2008, at the height of the mortgage crisis in the United States, only Albertans were in the black. When oil prices plummeted in 2016, Alberta trailed all other provinces on economic confidence.

It is clear that Canadians are in a better mood when it comes to their personal economic standing, but this is not directly reflected in the budget that they have in mind for holiday spending. Only 11 per cent of Canadians say they are planning to spend more on gifts this year than they did in 2017, and two in five (39 per cent) are going to spend less.

On this question, we see a swing: from a nationwide momentum score of +5 on personal finances to a drastic -28 on whether Canadians will devote more money to gifts during the holiday season.

While 2018 may have been better financially for some Canadian households, the high proportion of

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frugal holiday spenders suggests that there is more uncertainty about the future in the eastern provinces than in the west.

Using the same momentum score metric, we see that three areas have the largest difference between “spending more” and “spending less” on gifts this year: Ontario (-35), Quebec (-29) and Atlantic Canada (also -29). The western provinces fare much better on this analysis, although residents are not particularly extravagant: Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia at -21 and Alberta at -16. Our spending habits during the holidays have changed significantly over the years, with online shopping becoming more prevalent and big box stores being displaced or repurposed in various municipalities.

With this in mind, the survey also looked at the more personal side of gifting, and asked Canadians whether they prefer to receive an item a person chose for them or a gift card they can use at a store or online to get something they can select.

It turns out Canadians are evenly split on this matter, with 48 per cent saying they prefer to receive gifts and 47 per cent saying they favour gift cards.

British Columbians are the most traditional – with 54 per cent saying they prefer an actual item than a gift card during the holidays – followed by Ontarians (50 per cent). In Alberta and Quebec, 51 per cent of residents expressed a preference for a gift card.

There are some generational differences as well. Canadians aged 18 to 34 were evenly divided, but 54 per cent of those aged 55 and over prefer to receive actual items.

While cyberspace has been flooded with articles on traditions that the younger generation has supposedly killed, the holiday season is definitely not on the list. Among all demographics in the survey, residents aged 18 to 34 have the best momentum score on holiday spending (-10, compared to the national average of -28). Baby boomers (at -21) and generation X (at -34) are decidedly grinchier.

Mario Canseco is president of Research Co. and writes a regular column for Glacier Media newspapers.

Shawn Cornell, director of advertising: 250-960-2757 scornell@pgcitizen.ca Reader sales and services: 250-562-3301 rss@pgcitizen.ca Letters to the editor: letters@pgcitizen.ca

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MARIO CANSECO Research Co.

Guest Column

WORKLIFE IN BRIEF

CN reaches tentative deal with mechanics, electricians

MONTREAL (CP) — Canadian National Railway and the union that represents its 2,100 mechanics, electricians and apprentices in Canada say they have reached a tentative collective agreement. No details of the deal are being released until it is presented to members in ratification meetings.

Negotiations began Oct. 5 with Unifor saying that wages, benefits and the contracting out of repair and overhaul work were key issues.

Unifor national president Jerry Dias said the agreement provides “significant gains” for its members. The current contract expires Dec. 31.

Apple strikes deal to produce new Peanuts

content

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Peanuts crew will have a new home on Apple’s streaming service.

Apple has struck a deal with Halifax-based DHX Media to produce new Peanuts content. The global children’s content and brands company will develop and produce original programs for Apple including new series, specials and shorts based on the beloved characters.

Peanuts”was created by Charles M. Schulz in 1950. DHX will produce original short-form STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) content that will be exclusive to Apple, including astronaut Snoopy.

Author advocates for ‘sustainable and worthy work’ in U.S.

William GRIMES Citizen news service

Americans have a few reasons for joy, right? The economy is strong and unemployment is low. Yet as the 2016 presidential election – and daily headlines since – remind us, large swaths of the country are marinating in misery.

High-wage, union-protected jobs have gone the way of the buffalo, replaced by low-wage jobs in health care and the service industry. Lifetime employment and the middle-class life that went with it have given way to short-term contract work and freelance gigs with no paid leave, health-care benefits or pensions. Uncertainty and turmoil reign, the offspring of that unholy trinity: globalization, digitalization and automation.

This is the terrain that Ellen Ruppel Shell, a professor of journalism at Boston University and a correspondent for the Atlantic, stalks in The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. It is a sweeping, snappily written survey that looks unsparingly at what the author calls “our national jobs disorder” – which she characterizes as a constellation of ills that include low wages, stagnant incomes and sick corporate cultures.

The book also takes a critical look at America’s worship of entrepreneurship and high-tech heroes and questions the value of worker retraining and higher education.

There is a lot that’s wrong, and Shell expends a lot of energy looking into it.

She is a lively, engaging writer, with a gift for translating economic abstractions into plain English.

The grim picture Shell paints is

familiar in its outlines, but arresting examples add colour. In laying out her indictment of the economic status quo, Shell pursues some provocative lines of argument, although her appetite for statistics at times can turn manic. The idea of higher education for everyone is not, she argues, the panacea so many people think it is. In many cases, she points out, it does little or nothing to increase earnings and can actually have a negative effect. The bottom 25 per cent of college graduates, she notes, earn no more than high school graduates, and students who have dropped out of college earn even less.

In any case, American education, as Shell describes it, is something of a con game that’s oriented too much toward the needs of employers.

Her bete noire is the notorious skills gap – too many skilled manufacturing positions chasing too few skilled labourers. This, she maintains, is a hoax.

Citing a recent survey of manufacturers conducted by Paul Osterman of MIT and Andrew Weaver of the University of Illinois, she writes, “the problem was not that workers lacked skills but rather that employers could not find enough workers with even the most basic skills willing to take their low-paid jobs.”

All hope is not lost.

In the second half of the book Shell makes an impassioned plea for what she calls “sustainable and worthy work” outside “the vagaries of a fickle global marketplace.” In the tradition of Thomas Carlyle and William Morris, she throws down a challenge: “to sort out and fiercely protect those elements of work that are essential not only to our economy and our democracy but to

our very humanity.”

Traveling the world in seven-league boots, Shell talks to pioneers who are trying to redefine the meaning of work and transform the relationship of businesses to their employees and to the communities around them. She meets, among others, a Finnish sausage maker, a motorcycle designer in Brooklyn and a self-employed broom maker in Kentucky. All have one trait in common, a determination to “get work right.”

To use the old revolutionary slogan, what is to be done?

Shell turns for inspiration to business models like the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry in Cleveland, whose workers own shares in the company and have a voice in how it is run, and the Snellman sausage company in Finland, where workers are encouraged to “invest in themselves” by spending more time with their families or taking company-sponsored language courses. Shell loves small workshops, quirky craftsmen and big public-policy ideas, like a guaranteed income, or cutting the workweek to 21 hours to create a labour shortage that would boost wages. She is, in full flight, utopian. It is hard to see her Kentucky broom maker, however happy he may be in his work, as much more than a human interest story, and the 21-hour week would seem to lie on the far horizon – that distant point where pigs fly.

Shell has written a spirited “dare to dream” book with a tantalizing promise, that “work as it can and should be is well within our reach.” Despite her detours into Neverland, she is persuasive enough to make it seem that it might even be true.

Karla L. MILLER Citizen news service

Q: Almost every year, my office’s holiday party is scheduled to take place the weeknight before my biggest deadline of the year. And, as before, I’m planning on skipping the party. Apparently, this annoys some of my co-workers, who in previous years have sent me all-caps emails urging me to attend.

The thing is, even if I do find the time to make it to the party, I will probably be so preoccupied with the next day’s work that I can’t imagine being very good company. But I’m painfully aware that it looks bad for me not to go. Although I get along well with most everyone, my job requires a great deal of concentration in an open-plan office, and so I’m not always as friendly and approachable as I should be at work.

So do I try to attend and make the best of it, even if my presence doesn’t add much? Or do I just live with my co-workers’ disapproval?

A: Do a cost-benefit analysis and focus on what you personally stand to gain or lose.

First, will it do you harm to go? If attending the party will be harmful to your health – say, you suffer from breakdown-inducing social anxiety or are genuinely too pooped to party – skip it. If attending will prevent you from meeting your deadline, let your boss know you’re not being deliberately antisocial.

If you determine that attending won’t do you harm, the next obvious question is: will it do you good?

First, the more intense the project, the more vital it is to come up for air. Presumably, you would at least be taking a break for dinner. Why not enjoy that dinner on your employer’s dime?

Second, investing an hour of friendly chitchat could pay big dividends in goodwill when you’re back at the grindstone. And don’t fret about being less than scintillating company. Just keep your hands to yourself and your feet out of the punch bowl, and all they’ll remember is that you were there.

Final tally, assuming no hidden costs to your wellbeing: taking a needed break plus getting fed plus building camaraderie equals an hour well spent.

PHOTO

Low-wage work is replacing manufacturing jobs like the ones this Detroit plant once offered.

Board meeting

Terrace’s Jackson Mulder tries to take Tyson Ramsey of the Farr Fabricating Cougars into the boards during the third period of their game Friday morning at Kin 2. The teams met in the opener of the AAA Photography bantam Tier 2 hockey tournament and Terrace skated to a 5-2 victory. Later in the day, the Cougars took on Dawson Creek and settled for a 5-5 tie. The Cats will be back on Kin 2 ice at 9:30 a.m. today against Williams Lake. At 6 p.m., also at Kin 2, they’ll take on Colorado. Games continue on Sunday, with the final scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at Kin 2.

Manz helps Kings edge plucky Eagles

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Dropping the gloves in anger has gone the way of the dinosaur in the B.C. Hockey League. A fight means an early shower for those who partake so you rarely see anybody socking it to ’em.

Except for this time of year.

It’s nearly Christmas and Prince George Spruce Kings centre Dustin Manz is already in the spirit. He made sure the fans who brought their warm clothing donations to the rink at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena for the St. Vincent de Paul Society for the Drop The Gloves and Sock It To ’Em promotion didn’t have to hang onto them for long Friday night.

He caught a hard pass from linemate Ben Brar on the backhand side of his stick blade while parked just outside the Surrey Eagles’ crease, dragged it to his forehand and let go a shot for a 1-0 lead. The power-play goal came 18:47 into the first period and it triggered the tosses from a season-high crowd of 1,335.

The first-overall Spruce Kings are used to having it their way this season against most BCHL opponents and they managed to keep their No. 1 status intact, leaning on Manz and his two-goal performance in a 2-1 squeaker over an injury-delpeted Surrey team that refused to go down quietly. With just 2:15 left on the clock, Manz gave the Kings what they needed to lock away their 24th win in 35 games. He took a pass from defenceman Jay Keranen and let go a hard shot from the slot that caught a piece of the glove of goalie Hayden Missler and bounced over his shoulder into the net.

For Manz, a native of Vanderbilt, Mich., it was his 20th goal of the season and fifth in two games. He notched his second hat trick of the season a week ago in a 5-3 win over Nanaimo.

“Dustin is such a hardworking guy and he doesn’t let anything faze him on the ice,” said Spruce Kings general manager Mike Hawes. “I would bet he’s probably the best power forward in the league right now the way he’s playing and Lake Superior State’s sure got a good one with him.”

The Spruce Kings improved to 24-8-1-2 at the expense of the last-place Eagles, who dropped to 7-25-1-2. That win, coupled with the Chilliwack Chiefs’ 10-5 loss in Coquitlam, left the Spruce Kings three

points ahead of the Chiefs (24-11-0-0), who remained second overall.

The Kings doubled the Eagles in shots, 34-17

“We played well in spurts but there were times when we didn’t play as well as we wanted tonight and we gave up a few too many Grade-A chances in those 17 shots, but give Surrey credit, they battled hard,” said Hawes.

“They were short-staffed, they only had 16 skaters and they played awfully hard for a group that’s depleted. Credit to the guys for buckling down and getting it done in the end.”

Katzalay got his stick on a point shot from Tyler Pang and deflected in past goalie Logan Neaton.

The Eagles were missing leading scorer Tyler Westgard and four other regulars who were either injured or suspended but found a way to tie it with six minutes left. Holden

But thanks to Manz, Neaton did not have to wait long for the celebratory taps and hugs from his teammates as he celebrated his 20th victory of the season.

“Logan’s been steady and we know what we’re getting from him every night,” said Hawes. “When I talked to him early in the season I said I don’t care about any of the stats other than wins and for him to get to 20 this early is very impressive.”

Neither team scored in the second period.

Surrey defenceman Jeremy Smith had the hit of the game, six minutes in when he stuck out his hip to flatten Manz breaking in at full speed along the left wing wall. Smith drew the wrath of the Spruce Kings late in

the period when he went knee-on-knee with Manz as the Kings forward carried the puck into the Eagles’ zone. Manz went down briefly but didn’t miss a shift.

LOOSE PUCKS: Newly-acquired centre

Spencer DenBeste made his BCHL debut with the Spruce Kings and had a couple quality shots on goal. The former Springfield Blue (NAHL) was the pivot on a line with Corey Cunningham and Chong Min Lee… The King called up affiliated defenceman Skyler Cameron from the Burnaby Winter Club prep team. The 16-year-old lined up on the blueline with Nick Bochen, one of seven BWC alumni now on the Prince George roster... The same teams meet again tonight (7 p.m.) at Rolling Mix, the last home game of 2018 for the Spruce Kings. They’ll travel to Surrey to play the Eagles again on Thursday, then play the Rivermen in Langley on Friday. The Kings will reconvene with a three-game road trip Jan. 4-6 that will take them to Merritt, Cowichan Valley and Victoria.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

The Prince George Spruce Kings get assistance from local peewee Tier 1 rep players as they clear the ice of donations during the Kings’ Drop The Gloves and Sock It To ’Em game against the Surrey Eagles on Friday night at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.

Black seventh in world 50m fly

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff

Seventh in the world, and a Canadian record to celebrate.

Haley Black can look back with pride at her performance this week in the 2018 FINA short course (25-metre) world swimming championships in Hangzhou, China – and there’s still more to come.

Black, a 22-year-old Prince George Barracudas Swim Club member who now trains at the Vancouver High Performance Centre, finished seventh Friday in the women’s 50-metre butterfly final.

Black clocked 25.75 seconds, 1.28 seconds behind gold medalist Ranomi Kromowidjojo of The Netherlands, who claimed her 11th career win in the short course world finals. Holly Barratt of Australia won silver and Kelsi Dahlia of the United States was the bronze medalist.

“Overall, I was pretty happy with the way I was able to perform, but I was not able to reach the time I wanted in the final,” Black told CBC Sports. “It was still a cool learning experience and I look forward to more experience in the international swimming pool.”

In the preliminary round, Black broke the Canadian record in the 50m fly with her time of 25.43, which topped the former mark of 25.51 set by Katerine Savard in 2016.

Later Friday, Black teamed up with Ingrid Wilm, Sophie Angus and Aela Janvier to finish 10th in the 4x50-metre medley relay. They covered the 200m course in 1:49.56.

Black is also entered in the 100m butterfly event in Hangzhou. Preliminary heats and semifinals are scheduled for today, with the final set for Sunday.

Gushue, Howard win tiebreakers at curling’s National

CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, N.L. — Hometown skip Brad Gushue has made it into the playoffs the hard way at the National.

Gushue downed Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller 4-1 on Friday night in a tiebreaker draw to set up the quarterfinals at the fourth stop on the Grand Slam of Curling circuit.

Glenn Howard of Penetanguishe, Ont., also needed a tiebreaker to get into the final eight, beating Saskatoon’s Kirk Muyres 4-2.

Scotland’s Bruce Mouat and Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., finished 4-0 for the top two seeds. Mouat will meet Gushue in one quarterfinal while Jacobs faces Howard.

Calgary’s Kevin Koe (3-1) plays Winnipeg’s Jason Gunnlaugson (2-2) and Scotland’s Ross Paterson (2-2) is up against Sweden’s Niklas Edin (3-1) to round out the men’s playoffs that begin today. The women’s side will also need a tiebreaker before starting the playoff round, which will go this morning.

Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson will face American Jamie Sinclair with the winner moving on to play top seed Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, the only skip to finish 4-0.

Ottawa’s Rachel Homan (3-1) and Toronto’s Jacqueline Harrison (2-2) are scheduled in one quarterfinal while Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones (3-1) faces Scotland’s Eve Muirhead (3-1) and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni (3-1) meets Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa in the others (3-1).

The championship draws go Sunday.

Richardson, Olynyk get hot for Miami

Citizen news service

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Josh Richardson and Kamloops product Kelly Olynyk scored 18 points each as the Miami Heat snapped a two-game losing streak with a 100-97 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night.

Tyler Johnson finished with 17 points, while Derrick Jones Jr. added 13 points for Miami, which is in the midst of a six-game road trip.

Mike Conley led Memphis with 22 points, while Jaren Jackson Jr. and Gar-

rett Temple contributed 15 points apiece.

Marc Gasol finished with 14 points, but was 6-for-16 from the field, including missing four of his five shots from beyond the three-point arc as part of Memphis shooting 42 per cent for the game.

The Heat played without veteran Dwyane Wade who was declared out before the game with general soreness.

Memphis was up 76-71 with less than 11 minutes left when the Heat used threepoint shooting to click off a 14-2 run and push the lead to 85-78. Olynyk and Johnson had three-pointers down the stretch.

Keanan St. Rose, a 16-year-old from Prince George, is in Calgary this weekend, competing at the Canadian junior short track speed skating championships.

First-day fall has St. Rose seeking success rest of way

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Keanan St. Rose went for an unceremonious slide Friday at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.

Not the debut the 16-year-old from Prince George had in mind for his first-ever crack at the Canadian junior (under-19) short track speed skating championships.

St. Rose fell in his 1,500-metre qualifying run and his day at the races was done – a disappointment for the former Prince George Blizzard Speed Skating Club member but certainly not a disaster.

The slate will be wiped clean today when he returns to the ice to race in the 500m event, with another chance to show his speed in the 1,000m races set for Sunday. Only the best two results are considered. The threeday event will determine the national junior team (four males, four females) to represent Canada at the world junior short track championships.

The silver lining is you can have a race like that and day like that and it won’t impact your overall standings.

former Blizzard skater Craig Miller will be part of the B.C. short track team at the Canada Games in Red Deer. Miller, who turns 17 on Christmas Day, also made the move to Calgary this year, following in the footsteps of long track specialist Eric Orlowsky, 18, who is in his second year living in the Stampede City. Orlowsky and Blizzard skater Kieran Hanson of Prince George are on B.C.’s long track team for the Games. Lorelei St. Rose coaches her 13-year-old son Ryan in the Grizzly Speed Skating Club in Calgary and also works full time at the Olympic Oval as competitions co-ordinator. She’s the primary organizer of this weekend’s Canadian junior meet.

— Lorelei St. Rose

“His first day wasn’t stellar, to be honest, but the overall is based on two distances so it’s OK that it happened on the first day,” said Lorelei St. Rose, Keanan’s mom and Team B.C. co-coach for the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer. “It’s certainly not what you’re looking for so he’s obviously disappointed. The silver lining is you can have a race like that and day like that and it won’t impact your overall standings.”

St. Rose moved to Calgary with his family in July and joined the Olympic Oval program. He’s the only male B.C. skater to qualify for the Canadian junior championships. Only the top 32 male and top 32 female skaters in Canada are invited. Last year he was ranked 33rd and just missed the cut.

St. Rose, who turns 17 in January, is not forgetting his B.C. roots. In February he and

New

“It just kind of worked out, the lady who was in the position left and they posted it for when I was arriving, so I put my hat in the ring and got the job,” said Lorelei St. Rose, who served as an apprentice short track coach for Team B.C. at the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George. Her husband Auton, a family physician, divides his working time between Prince George and Calgary. Keanan’s rising prominence as a speed skater is what triggered their move to the home of the national speed skating team training centre.

“We were driving all the time and we needed the access and the training environment,” Lorelei St. Rose said. “If the kids don’t get what they need as they move up they fall behind. Keanan trains with a great group, he’s in Stage 2 full time but he’s been training with Stage 3-4 and he’s getting twice as much ice. They go from having 5,000 laps a year to having 10,000 laps a year. We don’t have that access at the club level.”

Lorelei St. Rose and Duane Swan of Prince George will coach B.C.’s team in Red Deer. The short track competition is in the first week of the Games, from Feb. 16-22.

home for Flames estimated to cost up to $600M

Citizen news service

CALGARY — An event centre in Calgary that would also be the new home of the NHL’s Flames is estimated to cost between $550 million and $600 million.

A city council event centre committee was presented that number Friday by the president and chief executive officer of the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation.

“I’m very confident we can deliver a really good building for the citizens of Calgary as well as for Calgary Sports and Entertainment for that number,” Michael Brown told the committee.

“It’s a strong number. It has respectable contingency in it. What’s not included is the cost of land associated with it.”

The city and the Flames are not yet talking on who will pay how much for a building to replace the 35-year-old Saddledome.

“We’re not negotiating at all at this point,” said Coun. Jeff Davison, who chairs the committee. “We’ve had very early days, high-level conversations with the Flames.

“Their expectation is that we bring the vision forward for the entertainment and cultural district and that’s what we’re doing.”

The event centre, with a capacity of roughly 20,000 for sports, would be at the heart of a larger revitalized commercial and residential district east of downtown.

“We believe the city needs a win,” Davison said. “I firmly believe the city needs a great vision and that’s what we’re proposing in this district.”

Council voted in October to try to reengage CSEC, which also owns the WHL’s Hitmen, the CFL’s Stampeders and the NLL’s Roughnecks, in talks.

Negotiations broke off over a year ago when Flames president Ken King called discussions “spectacularly unproductive.”

But the Flames gave CMLC access to work done by an architect, which was in turn reviewed by two large contractors within

the city, according to Brown.

“What Calgary Sports and Entertainment did for us is allow us to get access to some of their design information,” Brown explained.

The vision for the event centre is for it to be multi-purpose with portions that can be sectioned off for art installations and concerts of different types, including Cirque du Soleil, as well as sports.

“You don’t necessarily have to book out the entire building to take advantage of it,” Brown explained.

“If you want to have something in the Saddledome, you’re booking the Saddledome. For a true event centre, you can do many different things with it.”

Before talks broke off, CSEC had offered to put $275-million into a new $500-million arena just north of the Saddledome, and said the city should raise the remaining $225-million through a community revitalization levy.

A CRL allows the city to divert property taxes from new development that would theoretically spring up around a new arena into paying for it.

The city had proposed a three-way split on the cost of a $555-million arena, with the city and the Flames each paying $185-million and the remaining third raised from a surcharge on tickets.

The location on the east side of the downtown came after an $890-million CalgaryNext project pitched by the Flames in 2015. That concept included a hockey arena, football stadium and field house west of downtown.

Flames owners offered $200-million of their own money and proposed a $250-million loan be repaid through a ticket surcharge.

CalgaryNext was put on the back burner when council determined the project would cost as much as $1.8-billion, due to remediation of creosote-soaked soil on site.

Royals rout

Cougars

Citizen staff

The slump continues for the Prince George Cougars.

They dropped another one Friday on their extended Western Hockey League road trip, a 5-1 decision at the hands of the Victoria Royals which extended the Cats’ losing streak to four games.

Five different goal-scorers found the net behind Cougars goalie Isaiah DiLaura.

The Royals (15-13-1-0, third in the B.C. Division) have now won four of the five games in the season series against the Cougars (11-18-1-2), who remained last overall in the Western Conference. They’ve lost eight of their last nine.

The first period brought cause for optimism for the visitors. Rhett Rhinehart snuck a point shot in for his third goal of the season with Josh Maser and Vladislav Mikhalchuk in close vicinity to the Royals net being guarded by 17-year-old rookie Brock Gould.

Second periods continue to haunt the Cougars. They came into the game with a minus-24 goal differential in second periods and that festered on them again Friday. The Royals went to town in the middle frame, outshooting the Cougars 20-7 while outscoring them 2-0.

Dino Kambeitz tied it with an unassisted effort, his fifth of the season, at 14:25. Tarun Fizer gave Victoria the lead at the 15:39 mark on a Royals’ power play, batting in a rebound from a sharp angle after Dante Hannoun shot the puck on DiLaura from the opposite side.

As deflating as that second period was for the Cougars, Kade Oliver offered another punch to the gut when he scored to make it a 3-1 game just 1:18 into the third. Oliver put the brakes on in the face-off circle and let go a shot that went through the legs of DiLaura. Thirty-eight seconds later, Brandon Cutler carried the puck into the Cougars end and cut across the goalmouth, fooling DiLaura with a low shot to the far side of the net. The final dagger was sunk by Danish winger Phillip Schultz, who shovelled in a loose puck left unguarded in the crease 8:23 into the third.

The Cats outshot the Royals 16-6 in the final period and had a 35-34 edge in the game but Gould stood his ground to lock up his third WHL victory.

LOOSE PUCKS: Mikhalchuk was credited for the first goal in Tuesday’s 6-5 loss in Seattle and recorded his first career WHL hat trick… The Cougars head to Langley for a Sunday afternoon (4 p.m.) encounter with the Vancouver Giants, the final game for both teams before the Christmas break.

Oilers defend home ice against Flyers

Citizen news service

EDMONTON — Rogers Place has been a much more lucrative location for the Edmonton Oilers recently.

Connor McDavid had two goals and an assist and Leon Draisaitl had three assists as the Oilers defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 on Friday.

Edmonton goalie Mikko Koskinen made 31 saves to improve to 7-0-0 on home ice this season, while the Oilers have won their last six games at Rogers Place to improve to 10-41 at home.

“You always want to make your own rink a tough building to play in,” Draisaitl said. “We have struggled with that a little bit the seasons before that. We have been really good at home of late and hopefully we can keep that going.”

Alex Chiasson and Adam Larsson also scored for the Oilers (18-12-3), who have won five of their last six and have gone 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.

The Oilers are now 9-2-2 under head coach Ken Hitchcock.

Sean Couturier was credited with Philadelphia’s goal before it was given to Jakub Voracek post-game. The Flyers (12-14-4) have lost

three in a row and six of their last eight.

“We weren’t playing bad hockey, just a couple of mistakes here and there and it’s in the back of the net and you’re chasing again,” said Flyers captain Claude Giroux. “The third period we played great again, but we’re just chasing every game.”

Edmonton got on the board first, with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining in the opening period when Draisaitl fed the puck in front to Chiasson, who beat Flyers goalie Anthony Stolarz for his career-high 14th goal of the season in his 27th game. Chiasson’s previous career high came in the 2013-2014 season over a 79-game span with the Dallas Stars.

The 28-year-old Montreal native won a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals last season, but came to the Oilers on a training camp audition.

“When you win a Cup, it is a little surprising he didn’t have a deal or nothing,” McDavid said. “He came in on a PTO and worked hard and earned a job and has been having a great year. I couldn’t be happier for him, he is a fun guy to play with. He has a knack for scoring and is finding a way to get open.”

The Oilers added to their lead at exactly the same point in the middle period when McDavid banked a shot from behind the net off of

Jets use overtime to beat Blackhawks

CHICAGO (AP) — Mark Scheifele scored twice, including 50 seconds into overtime, and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 on Friday night for their fourth consecutive victory.

Scheifele dug the puck out from behind the net, skated around the side and beat Corey Crawford for his 20th goal of the season. He has four goals and seven assists during a fourgame point streak, including goals in each of the last three games.

(Yoder) 1:55. 6. Victoria, Schultz 6 (Hannoun, Fizer) 8:23. Penalties - Schultz Vic (interference) 6:02; Walford Vic (slashing) 14:20; Moberg Pg (interference) 15:14;

The Blackhawks trailed 3-2 before Erik Gustafsson drove a one-timer from the slot past Laurent Brossoit with just 7.5 seconds remaining in the third. Gustafsson returned to the lineup after missing two games due to an illness.

Patrik Laine and Mathieu Perreault also scored as Winnipeg leapfrogged idle Nashville for the top spot in the Western Conference. Blake Wheeler collected two more assists to run his team-high total to 37, second in the

1. Prince George, Manz 19 (Brar, Bochen) 18:47 Penalties – Miley SUR (high-sticking) 1:26, MacDonald PG (holding) 3:48, Gurney SUR (roughing) 16:53. Second Period No scoring. Penalties – Smith SUR (kneeing), Gurney SUR (roughing), Brar PG (roughing) 14:15. Third Period 2. Surrey, Katzalay 10 (Pang) 13:50 3. Prince George, Manz 20 (Keranen) 17:45 Penalties – Gurney SUR (roughing), Coyle PG (roughing) 4:19. Shots on goal by Surrey 8 3 6 -17 Prince George 13 10 11 -34 Goal – Surrey, Missler (L,4-8-0); Prince George, Neaton (W,20-4-2). Power plays – SUR: 0-1: PG: 1-2. Referees – Nick Panter, Bronson Tazalaar; Linesmen – Brett Burton, Riley Balson. Attendance – 1,335. Scratches – Surrey: F Ty Westgard (lower body), F Corey Clifton (injured), D Brendan Winslow (injured), D Cody Schiavon

Stolarz’s rear for his 18th goal of the season. Just over a minute later, it was 3-0 when Larsson scored his first of the season on a shot from the top of the circle following a give-andgo with Ryan Spooner.

The Flyers broke Koskinen’s shutout bid midway through the third on a Voracek shot that was originally believed to have hit Couturier and caromed into the net. Koskinen came into the game having recorded shutouts in three of his six home starts this season.

McDavid put the game away with an emptynetter. Both teams will head to Vancouver for their next game, as the Flyers close out a five-game road trip against the Canucks tonight and Edmonton plays them on Sunday.

NOTES: It was the first of two meetings between the two teams this season. The Flyers won both games last year. ... Stolarz got the start in net as a pair of other goalies were unavailable for consideration as Michal Neuvirth returned to Philadelphia for the expected birth of his child and Brian Elliott (lower body) also headed east for a scheduled medical appointment. ... Oilers defenceman Caleb Jones made his NHL debut. He is the younger brother of Columbus defenceman Seth Jones.

league behind Colorado star Mikko Rantanen. The Jets (21-9-2) won for the eighth time in nine games overall as they continue one of their busiest stretches of the season. They were coming off a 5-4 overtime victory at Edmonton on Thursday night, part of a stretch of 12 games in the first 22 days of December. Jonathan Toews scored twice for last-place Chicago (10-19-5), which lost for the ninth time in 10 games. Crawford finished with 38 saves.

CP PHOTO

Edmonton Oilers goalie Mikko Koskinen and Connor McDavid celebrate a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night in Edmonton.

Injury will keep Formenton out of world juniors

Dirk MEISSNER Citizen news service

COLWOOD — Six players were released Friday from Canada’s world junior hockey team roster and one veteran forward was ruled out of the upcoming championship tournament due to injury.

Eleven players have left the team in the past two days, with four cuts Thursday, six more Friday and the announcement that Ottawa Senators draft pick Alex Formenton is injured and not able to play in the tournament which starts Boxing Day in Vancouver.

Formenton, one of only two returning players from last year’s gold-medal team, injured his right leg in a pre-tournament contest Wednesday.

“We’ve done everything medically for assessments and he unfortunately has suffered an injury that is longer term recovery than this tournament,” said national team director Shawn Bullock.

“Unfortunately, Alex won’t be part of our national team program this year.”

Goaltender Matthew Villalta, defencemen Jacob Bernard-Docker, Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Nicolas Beaudin, and forwards Liam Foudy and Isaac Ratcliffe were released late Friday after completing a three-game pre-tournament series against a team of Canadian university hockey players.

Beaudin, from Chateauguay, Que., said he will use the experience to motivate him as his hockey career progresses.

“Team Canada is one of the toughest rosters to get on,” he said. “It’s not easy. It’s just motivation for me.”

Villalta, from Godfrey, Ont., said he was disappointed but will focus on being the best goalie possible.

Canada’s Nick Suzuki takes a shot on net during third-period action against a U Sports university team at the Q Centre in Colwood on Friday. U Sports won the exhibition game 5-1.

“It’s always tough getting cut from a team,” he said. “One game and one week doesn’t define who I am.”

Defencemen Cam Crotty and Calen Addison and forwards Raphael Lavoie and Ty Dellandrea were released Thursday.

Divers move closer to Olympic return

Michael DiPietro and Ian Scott will be Canada’s goalies.

Thirty-four players were invited to the national junior selection camp, and the team must have a roster of 22 players.

Bullock said the team can wait until the tournament is underway

VICTORIA (CP) — Jennifer Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu are one step closer to returning to the Olympic Games. Abel and Citrini-Beaulieu took top spot in women’s three-metre synchro with 301.89 points on Friday at the Canadian diving winter senior nationals.

“We’re proud of our performance but

before declaring its final roster.

“We can start the tournament shorthanded,” he said.

Bullock said team officials have also been in contact with several National Hockey League teams about possible junior-age players being made available for the tour-

there is still a lot to improve,” said Abel, a three-time Olympian who won bronze in 2012.

“One of the big areas we worked on in practice is the quality of our entries. There is also the presentation side where we want to make the dives look effortless.”

Abel and Citrini-Beaulieu paired up after

nament. He said NHL teams have until Dec. 19 to decide whether to return a player to junior. Kris Bennett scored twice as the U Sport all-stars downed the Canadian hopefuls 5-1 on Friday to take two of the three exhibition games.

the 2016 Olympic Games and this was their first competition in six months.

Montreal’s Mia Vallee and Olivia Chamandy were second (286.08).

The winter nationals are part of the qualifying process for the FINA World Championships this summer which in turn are an Olympic qualifying event.

T-birds, Silvertips open to NHL joining Seattle hockey market

Kyle CICERELLA Citizen news service

TORONTO — The Seattle area’s major junior hockey teams aren’t worried about competing for fans with the NHL expansion franchise coming to town.

The real competition in the region has already been going on for years at the local level, and it’s high school football, not the NHL, that Seattle Thunderbirds vicepresident of hockey operations Russ Farwell has on his mind when trying to draw new hockey fans.

“It’s not a small thing but Friday night is high school football in the fall, you have to be aware of that. Football’s big in this region,” Farwell said.

The Thunderbirds and Everett Silvertips play in the Western Hockey League’s U.S. Division and are both within an hour drive of Seattle’s Key Arena, which is set to undergo an $800-million renovation in time for the 2021-22 NHL season.

Seattle goes back at least a decade, and he prepared for it happening when the Thunderbirds moved out of KeyArena in 2009 and went 32 kilometres south to Kent, Wash., to play in the brand new ShoWare Center.

“We’ve been (in Kent) 10 years and (NHL expansion) was a big part of the discussion when they built the building,” said Farwell. “We specifically suggested keeping the building at 6,000 seats... would help insulate us from a real strong negative hit if (expansion) were to happen. It was talked about that long ago.” Rajcic says that with Everett’s location – 185 kilometres south of Vancouver and 320 kilometres north of Portland, Ore. – residents already get pro-team experiences in surrounding areas and it hasn’t affected the Silvertips negatively.

I don’t think any of us can tell you exactly what the impact will be.

— Russ Farwell

Seattle Thunderbirds

Farwell, who has been with the Thunderbirds fulltime since 1995 in various roles, including long-time owner before selling in 2017, was supportive of an NHL team entering the market when it was announced on Dec. 4 by league commissioner Gary Bettman.

He believes there could be many positives that come with an expansion team and that pro and amateur hockey are a different beast for various reasons, most notably the price point.

“For two NHL games you buy season tickets for Thunderbird hockey,” said Farwell.

“What we all face now is the competition for people’s time.”

“The other thing is we have free parking,” he quipped.

Farwell, originally from Peace River, Alta., is optimistic an NHL team in Seattle can help grow the game in the area, saying hockey is still a tough sell at a grassroots level.

“I don’t think any of us can tell you exactly what the impact will be,” Farwell said.

“We all have theories but we really think and hope the increased profile of the sport, which has been next to nothing in this area, will grow the overall base of fans and interest in the game and make up for any fans we would lose.”

Zoran Rajcic, vice president of Consolidated Sports Holdings Inc., which owns the Silvertips, agrees with Farwell.

“I think it’s positive, we’re a niche-oriented sport, even being less than hour from the Canadian border. I think the NHL will really raise the profile of hockey and the visibility of the sport.”

Farwell says talk of an NHL franchise in

“We have fans that go to Vancouver Canucks games that are current season ticket holders and they go down south to the Trail Blazers basketball games in Portland,” said Rajcic.

“We’ve always had relevant sports for people to go to. The NHL, outside of a few markets, you’re looking at $150 a ticket on the low end. You’re getting 10 people into our game for that.”

Four cities are currently supporting both pro and junior hockey teams with some success.

The Edmonton Oil Kings share Rogers Arena with the Oilers and the Calgary Hitmen play in Scotiabank Saddledome with Flames. The Vancouver Giants, playing out of nearby Langley, have the Canucks, while the Ottawa 67’s play within 20 minutes of Canadian Tire Centre, home of the Senators. Junior hockey has been in Seattle since 1977, when the Breakers joined the Western Canada Hockey League, a junior-A league at the time, that eventually became the WHL in 1982.

The club took on the Thunderbirds name in 1985-86 when the organization was purchased by new ownership.

The Silvertips were founded in 2003. Both teams have been able to get respectable numbers into their buildings in recent seasons, with Seattle No. 7 (4,625) and Everett No. 8 (4,617) in attendance this year among the 22 WHL clubs. Rajcic even expects his team’s attendance to increase now that the fall has come and gone.

“We’ve gotten through the worst part with high school football September through November. Sold-out building this weekend for us, we’re just getting to where the season picks up and we don’t have as much competition at the local level.”

on Thursday in Montreal. Fourteen years after

interest in acquiring another major league baseball club.

MLB would work in Montreal, study says

Mayor will seek citizen input on stadium funds

Alexandre GEOFFRION-MCINNIS Citizen news service

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante says she’s thrilled with progress made by a group seeking to bring Major League Baseball back to Montreal but remains cautious about committing public money to the project without first consulting the population.

A group of investors seeking baseball’s return released a market study Thursday concluding the project would be viable and would generate strong interest among fans and the city’s business community.

Plante told reporters Friday she’s glad the project is making progress, commending the energy put in by a group led by Stephen Bronfman, executive chairman of Claridge Inc., and Montreal lawyer and businessman Mitch Garber.

The mayor said the city will be involved, but just how remains to be determined.

“We need to evaluate what kind of participation, how we will collaborate, but so far, so good,” Plante said. “We all agree it would be a great opportunity for Montreal to get back baseball, now we just have to go back at the details, but I’m very enthusiastic.”

Plante said she will stand by her 2017 election promise to consult the public before approving funding for a new stadium, should Bronfman’s group make the request.

“The needs are important in so many other areas, and what we’re seeing elsewhere is there are different business models being developed to get sports teams,” Plante said. “But if it comes to asking Montrealers for money, for example to build a stadium, yes, I will ask Montrealers.”

BASEBALL IN BRIEF

Red Sox-Yankees to open with night game in London

NEW YORK (AP) — The World Series champion Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees will open Major League Baseball’s first series in Britain with a night game and conclude the next day in the afternoon.

MLB said Friday the June 29 game at London’s Olympic Stadium will start at 6:10 p.m. local time and be broadcast in the U.S. by Fox as part of its Saturday Game of the Week coverage. The following day’s game is set for 3:10 p.m. and will be a Sunday Morning Baseball special event for ESPN.

The investors group said a downtown location with public transit access would be essential to a team’s success. Executives surveyed preferred a ballpark with 35,000 seats or less and said “it should have a social atmosphere, a design that fits the local architectural style and be a year-round destination,” the group said.

The Montreal study was done by Conventions, Sports & Leisure International. In addition to interviews with executives and focus groups, an online survey of 13,900 people was conducted.

The results were published the same week the Tampa Bay Rays indicated their project for a new downtown stadium has been abandoned because of a lack of financing and political support. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has said he would like to expand the league to 32 teams from the current 30, but first the situations in Tampa and Oakland need to be resolved.

With the demise of the project for a new stadium in Tampa, a move is not out of the question for the Rays, who have ranked last or second-last in attendance every year since 2011.

The Montreal investors group also includes Couche-Tard founder Alain Bouchard, Eric Boyko, CEO of Stingray Digital Group Inc., and Stephane Cretier, CEO of Garda World.

Chantal Rouleau, the minister responsible for Montreal in Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec government, remained noncommital about any provincial involvement in the project.

On Thursday, a photo of Bronfman meeting with Legault in Montreal was shared on Legault’s Twitter account.

“Baseball is back in the news, and of course we are very attentive to what’s going on,” Rouleau said Friday. “We will have the appropriate discussions in due course.”

Joan Steinbrenner dies at 83

NEW YORK (AP) — Joan Steinbrenner, wife of late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, died Friday. She was 83. The Yankees said she died surrounded by family at her home in Tampa, Fla.

Joan Steinbrenner held the title of Yankees vice chair.

Born Elizabeth Joan Zieg in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, she received a degree in dental hygiene from Ohio State. In 1956, she married George Steinbrenner, who died in 2010.

No Penny, but Seahawks expect Baldwin back

Citizen news service

RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks will be without one of their three running backs Sunday after rookie Rashaad Penny was ruled out with a knee injury. Penny, linebacker K.J. Wright and safety Maurice Alexander were all listed as out Friday. Another trio of key players was listed as questionable for the game in San Francisco, but wide receiver Doug Baldwin, defensive tackle Jarran Reed and safety Bradley McDougald are all expected to play, said coach Pete Carroll.

“I’m healthy to go. I’m going to go. They’re planning for me to play,” said Baldwin, who will face friend and former teammate Richard Sherman for the second time in three weeks.

Baldwin missed Monday’s win over Minnesota with groin and hip issues. He also missed a large chunk of training camp due to a knee injury, two games in September with a separate knee injury and he has played through both groin and hip issues. Seattle’s passing game struggled against the Vikings without him. Russell Wilson

threw for a career-low 72 yards and was 10 of 20 passing. Baldwin said the latest issue with his hip popped up the Friday before Seattle’s first game against the 49ers. He was still able to play two days later and had two catches, including a touchdown.

“This was a combination of stuff so it was like, all right we’ve got to figure it out and get it handled. I couldn’t go (against Minnesota) and we were doing things to try and get me healthy again,” Baldwin said. Carroll said Penny would remain in Seattle to get treatment through the weekend. The team hopes to have a clearer picture of his situation when it begins prep for next week’s game against Kansas City. Penny made it through last Monday’s game against the Vikings but his knee was bothering him later that night.

“He feels pretty good. He just couldn’t get going this week,” Carroll said. “The rest over the weekend and the stuff that they’re doing will probably show us something by Tuesday. By the time we get to practice on Wednesday we’ll have a better feel.”

Karina Benami holds up a Montreal Expos baseball cap at the Jannat Souvenir shop

the team’s last game, there is still

Mom facing deportation hides in church

Citizen news service

Rosa Gutierrez Lopez had already purchased the plane ticket to return to the country she fears.

U.S. federal immigration officials said she had to leave by Dec. 10 – even though her attorney was petitioning a court in Texas for a stay of her deportation order, citing her three U.S.- born children, whom she is raising on her own.

The Fredericksburg, Va., resident couldn’t imagine leaving her 11-year-old daughter and her sons, ages nine and six, the younger of whom has Down syndrome. But the life she envisioned for them was not in Central America, where special-needs resources are scarce and gangs maraud her old neighbourhood.

So Gutierrez Lopez, 40, never boarded the airplane. Instead, she sought sanctuary at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Md.

Advocates say she is the first undocumented immigrant to take refuge at a Washington-area house of worship since a regional network of congregations mobilized in recent years to resist tougher enforcement by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I am going to fight,” said Gutierrez Lopez, who came to the United States in 2005 and is staying in a small apartment on the Cedar Lane campus while her attorneys work to reopen her case. “I feel powerless. But I trust in God for a solution.”

Church leaders laid hands on her at a news conference Wednesday, pledging to protect her for as long as it takes and speaking against what they deem an amoral U.S. immigration system.

“Our faith informs us that this is the right thing to do,” said Omar Angel Perez, lead organizer for the DMV Sanctuary Congregation Network.

The sanctuary movement dates back decades, and is based on the understanding that federal officials will avoid arresting people in “sensitive locations” like churches unless there is a public safety, terrorism or national security threat. The effort expanded in the waning years of the Obama administration, as thousands of largely Central American immigrants were deported after having crossed the border illegally.

After Trump was elected, promising to deport as many as possible of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, the effort grew even more. Today, advocates say, more than 50 houses

of worship across the country are harboring immigrants who face imminent arrest and deportation if they step outside the confines of their refuge. A Virginia woman moved into a Richmond church this summer after she was ordered back to Honduras, where she had been abused by a partner. Two other immigrants are staying at churches in Charlottesville, Va.

Cedar Lane senior minister Abhi Janamanchi said the Bethesda congregation had long considered itself a sanctuary but made the decision to offer physical shelter last year. Since Gutierrez Lopez moved in Monday, church volunteers have deployed to supply her with food, toiletries, linens and other basics –and to patrol campus exits.

“This is the way we live into our values and convictions,” Janamachi said. “We are engaging in faithful resistance to unjust laws and inhumane practices.

The church is buying Gutierrez Lopez much needed time, said her attorney, Anibal Romero, who also represents an undocumented woman who works for Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and was the subject of a recent New York Times article.

She was detained while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2005 with her then-boyfriend, and told to appear in immigration court in Texas. But in the process of moving to the East Coast, she

An ongoing story

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, two ordinary hobbits, Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins, are on their way to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring when Sam muses, “I used to think that adventures were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for… but that’s not the way with tales that really mattered. Folks seem to have just landed in them.”

And Sam sums up his inner thoughts, saying, “I wonder what sort of a story we’ve fallen into? Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale as the ones of old. Don’t the great tales never end?”

Years before Tolkien wrote his epic story, another Christian British writer, G.K. Chesterton, wrote,

Clergy Comment

“I had always felt life first as a story; and if there is a story then there is a story-teller.”

At Christmas, the church celebrates the birth of Jesus, that God became flesh. It is a key moment in the biblical story. It is a key moment in world history. Christians celebrate and orient their lives around Jesus – his life, death, resurrection, ascension into heaven and his coming again in the future.

It is that last part – the second coming of Jesus – that often gets overlooked, especially around Christmas. To believe that Jesus

did not understand that she had to confirm the date of the court hearing. When she didn’t show up, a deportation order was issued – a story common to many undocumented migrants.

Gutierrez Lopez moved to Fredericksburg and began working at a restaurant. After her first child was born, she separated from her then-boyfriend. She later gave birth to two sons but is estranged from their fathers.

When she learned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were looking for her in 2014, Gutierrez Lopez said, she found a lawyer, contacted the agency and has since appeared for regular check-ins.

Earlier this year, agents placed a monitoring bracelet on her. In June, they told her she must leave the country by Dec. 10.

Romero filed a motion to stay her removal months ago. It is pending in immigration court in Harlingen, Texas. He said Gutierrez Lopez has a relative who was killed in El Salvador and she believes she could be targeted if she returns – fears that could allow her to seek asylum in the backlogged U.S. immigration courts.

“We believe we have a good case but we are in limbo,” Romero said. “She can’t fight her case in El Salvador and we don’t control what happens in the courts here.”

Gutierrez Lopez said she didn’t

will return means that the story goes on. The story has an end, but it has not come yet. So we find ourselves as part of this ongoing story of redemption – the story that Christians outrageously believe is the true story of the whole world, the story we have landed in and that never ends.

Over the past 10 years, I have had a slow shift in my focus during the Christmas season. I continue to celebrate the incarnation. But more than just looking back to Jesus’s birth, I find myself looking to the future and the promise that Jesus will come again.

When it comes to belief and talk about Jesus’s second coming, the stories that we often hear are of people who make predictions about when it will happen. I have no interest in predicting dates or

sleep in the days leading up to her Monday flight. She tried to hide her anxiety but her children knew something was wrong. Then a friend told her about sanctuary churches. She called Perez, the organizer for the DMV Sanctuary Congregation Network. By Sunday, the group had found a willing partner in Cedar Lane Unitarian.

“We don’t see why she is a priority for deportation,” said Richard Morales, director of Faith In Action’s national immigration campaign, LA RED, which coordinates sanctuary activity across the country. “There is no reason to separate this woman from her children.”

On Monday, Gutierrez Lopez left her children with the family of the pastor of the church she attends in Fredericksburg. She grabbed clothes and her Bible, and was driven to Bethesda.

Church leaders and volunteers had prepared a private room and bathroom to accommodate her and her children, who will visit on weekends but stay in Fredericksburg during the week so they can attend school and the younger son’s therapy appointments.

Gutierrez Lopez plans to work for her keep by working and cleaning in the church. She also plans to make everyone pupusas, traditional Salvadoran stuffed tortillas.

“I don’t know how long I will be here,” she said. “But I feel protected here.”

even guessing if this will happen in my lifetime. So far everyone has been wrong. And as someone recently suggested to me: “What if we are still the early church?”

But in recent years, the church has also seen a revival of some very good, biblically and theologically grounded studies in eschatology, which is the study of last things. In summary, the Christian hope is believers go to heaven when they die. But contrary to popular understanding, heaven is not where we stay.

It is not our permanent home because when Jesus returns there will be a resurrection of the dead, we will be given new bodies (1 Cor. 15), and we will live in a new creation, a union of heaven and earth (Rev. 21). This is not a reincarnation, but it’s better. It’s

Police probing attacks on Jehovah’s Witness worship centres

Citizen news service

At the centre of the investigation into crimes against Jehovah’s Witnesses – including two fires that destroyed worship centres – is a question that has vexed Washington state investigators, the governor and pretty much anyone who has come into contact with the religious denomination.

Who could muster this much destructive rage against a religion full of pacifists?

Last Friday morning, Thurston County authorities responded to a predawn fire in the city of Lacey. But by the time firefighters arrived, it was too late. The blaze had caused the roof to collapse and destroyed the kingdom hall, the name Jehovah’s Witnesses give to their worship centres.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ruled the fire was intentionally set, saying it fit the pattern of the other kingdom hall attacks in the county over the past nine months that have rocked the Jehovah’s Witness community.

No one has been arrested, and the only image of a suspect is surveillance video of a person in a hoodie and coveralls pouring gasoline on the side of a kingdom hall, then sparking a bloom of fire. Authorities don’t know whether that person is the only perpetrator.

The attacks began March 19, with intentionally set fires starting minutes apart, sending fire crews racing from a kingdom hall in Olympia to one in Tumwater. A July 3 fire also targeted the Olympia kingdom hall, this time destroying it. And Aug. 8, someone set a minor fire at a kingdom hall in Yelm.

In the midst of those attacks, on May 15, someone fired a volley of rifle rounds at the Yelm kingdom hall, causing about $10,000 in damage. Police collected nearly three dozen bullets. All the attacks have occurred early in the morning and there are no reports of injuries. Jehovah’s Witness leaders in the area say the attacks are a blow to their community.

“It’s devastating,” Dan Woollett, one of the ministers who helped build the hall in Lacey in 1976, told KING TV. “It does make you sad, but it’s just a building. No matter who we are, no matter what our religious persuasion is, we have to cope with the problems we face.”

a resurrection for a whole new world in which there is no more death, no more pain and where the broken things have ended and all things are made new.

A solid understanding of Christian hope is the best gift we can receive at this time of year. Like Samwise Gamgee,we find ourselves in a master story. And I can’t help but think that if we know the end of the story then it will sure help us navigate through life as we find ourselves somewhere in the middle of that story, somewhere in between the first and second coming of Jesus Christ.

The next chapter of this story is one that I find so hopeful that I will deny myself, pick up my cross and follow Jesus so as to be part of it. I hope you will too.

ANDREW AUKEMA Christian Reformed Church

PHOTO FOR THE WASHINGTON POST BY EVELYN HOCKSTEIN

Rosa Gutierrez, centre, is escorted from a multi-faith vigil and news conference at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Md., on Wednesday.

MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

OTTAWA (CP) —

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index ended another losing week with the market closing at a two-year low Friday on concerns about a slowing Chinese economy that drove oil and natural gas prices lower. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down about one per cent, losing 155.28 points to 14,595.07, after reaching a 2018 intra-day low of 14,567.32.

The market closed at its lowest point since November 2016, shaving one per cent off its value in the week.

North American markets responded to bearish macroeconomic data from China about lower retail sales that suggested the world’s secondlargest economy was still slowing, said Steven Belisle, managing director and senior portfolio manager of Manulife Asset Management Ltd.

“It keeps confirming that the global economy is in a slowing mode which means that it’s not great for earnings, it’s not great for stocks,” he said in an interview.

A slowing Chinese economy would have severe repercussions on demand for commodities, probably requiring the Chinese government to intervene with stimulus.

“The central bank keeps saying they remain accommodative but maybe there’s more that could be done from a government perspective to help kickstart the economy,” Belisle added.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 496.87 points at 24,100.51. The S&P 500 index was down 50.40 points at 2,600.12, while the Nasdaq composite was down 159.67 points at 6,910.66.

Contributing to the Dow’s losses was a 10 per cent drop of Johnson & Johnson shares on a report that the company has known for decades that its raw talc and finished Baby Powder sometimes contained asbestos, but that the company didn’t inform regulators or the public.

The company called the story “false and inflammatory.”

The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.74 cents US compared with an average of 74.86 cents US on Thursday. The TSX sustained a broadbased decline led by the technology sector that fell 4.9 per cent on share losses by Shopify Inc.

The January crude contract was down US$1.38 at US$51.20 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was down 29.7 cents at US$3.83 per mmBTU.

Leaders will take small steps to buttress euro

FRANKFURT — European leaders agreed Friday to press ahead with a limited, common eurozone budget and other steps to strengthen the currency union’s resistance to downturns and crises.

The budget proposal leaves its size undefined and it appeared to fall short of more sweeping ideas pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The European Union leaders said that finance ministers would work out the precise features of the budget and agree on them by June.

Macron has pushed for a large eurozone budget that could support member states that run into economic trouble. That would help close a key vulnerability of euro monetary union, which has one currency but 19 different gov-

ernments. The euro bloc’s weaknesses in adjusting to trouble were exposed during a financial and economic crisis that threatened to break up the currency union in 2010-2012.

The leaders statement Friday after a summit in Brussels said that the eurozone fund would be part of the overall EU budget, suggesting it is likely to be smaller than Macron’s proposal. He has called for several percentage points of gross domestic output but the entire EU budget is only about one per cent of GDP. The leaders’ statement also defines the budget’s purpose as helping making economies more competitive and similar in the way they function and omits mention of stabilizing countries in recession – a key lack for the euro.

Proposals for a central budget have been resisted by Germany, which has been running budget surpluses, and other northern European countries concerned

China suspends tariff hikes on U.S. cars, auto parts

BEIJING (AP) — China announced a 90day suspension on Friday of tariff hikes on U.S. cars, trucks and auto parts following its cease-fire in a trade battle with Washington that threatens global economic growth.

The suspension is China’s first step in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s Dec. 1 agreement to suspend U.S. tariff hikes for a similar 90-day period while the two sides negotiate over American complaints about Beijing’s technology policy and trade surplus.

China has indicated it plans to move ahead with the talks despite strains over the arrest of a Chinese technology executive in Canada to face possible U.S. charges related to a violation of trade sanctions on Iran.

Beijing will suspend a 25 per cent import charge on cars and trucks and a five per cent charge on auto parts, effective Jan. 1, the Finance Ministry announced.

The announcement helped give substance to Trump’s agreement with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, after prolonged uncertainty caused jittery global financial markets to swing wildly.

The Finance Ministry said the tariff suspension would apply to imports worth up to a total of $126 billion, but that would be nearly 10 times the $13 billion of vehicles the U.S. exported to China last year.

China is the world’s biggest auto market

The leaders statement Friday after a summit in Brussels said that the eurozone fund would be part of the overall EU budget, suggesting it is likely to be smaller than Macron’s proposal.

that they will be put on the hook for the troubles of less fiscally disciplined countries.

At a post-summit briefing, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the budget “a good contribution” and said that “we have agreed on significant parts of what Emmanuel Macron proposed... And the French president was certainly very satisfied with that, and so am I.” French officials said the fund was a starting point and the amount could grow gradually.

“If you start by saying I want a trillion-euro budget that does everything, when people are already against the whole idea, then you’ll never get anywhere,”

but most U.S.-branded vehicles sold here are manufactured in Chinese factories. The automaker hit hardest by the Chinese tariff hike was Germany’s BMW AG, which ships SUVs made in a South Carolina factory to China.

The penalties were imposed in response to Trump’s decision to slap 25 per cent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods and a 10 per cent charge on another $200 billion.

The second tariff was due to rise Jan. 1 until Trump agreed to the postponement.

The United States and other trading partners complain Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology in violation of its market-opening obligations. American officials also worry Chinese industry plans that call for state-led creation of global champions in robotics and other fields threaten U.S. industrial leadership.

A spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry, Gao Feng, said Thursday the two sides were in “close contact” but gave no timetable for possible face-to-face negotiations.

Economists say 90 days probably is too little time to resolve conflicts that have bedeviled U.S.-Chinese relations for years. They say Beijing’s goal probably will be to show it is making progress so Trump extends his deadline.

said a French official on customary condition of anonymity. The leaders also approved giving additional financial firepower to the EU’s fund that would help wind up or restructure failed banks. That would depend, however, on shaky banks cleaning up their finances. There was no mention in the statement of progress toward EU-wide deposit insurance, which aims to strengthen the banking system by reassuring depositors their money is safe even if national backstops fall short. The proposal has been resisted by Germany, which has pushed to first ensure that banks purge their finances of hidden losses from bad loans.

David McHUGH Citizen news service

AP PHOTO French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at a media conference during an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

— Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441 to go large

Diplomats to have access to Canadians arrested in China

Mike BLANCHFIELD Citizen news service

OTTAWA — Canadian diplomats will be granted access “shortly” to the second Canadian detained in China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday, as he predicted consequences for Canada’s economy from the U.S.-China trade war.

“We are a country that is deeply supported and engaged in global trade,” Trudeau said. “And when the two largest economies in the world are trying to disrupt global trade, there’s going to be consequences for Canada.”

Trudeau addressed the fate of the entrepreneur Michael Spavor, one of two Canadians arrested in China earlier this week, during a wide-ranging interview with The Canadian Press.

Spavor and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig were taken into custody this week in Beijing, days after the RCMP arrested a top Chinese business leader transiting through Vancouver at the behest of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, to be extradited to the U.S. to face fraud charges.

Earlier Friday, John McCallum, Canada’s ambassador to China, met for the first time with Kovrig, who is on a leave of absence from Global Affairs Canada.

He served as a diplomat in China until 2016 and has been working for the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental agency.

China says he’s been harming its national security.

“We seek consular access, which we’ve gotten already in one of the cases, and are going to have in the second case shortly,” Trudeau said Friday.

“We’re hopeful that it’ll happen soon.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged China on Friday to end the “unlawful detention” of the two Canadians.

“We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly and the detention of these two Canadian citizens in China ought to end,” Pompeo said in Washington, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Pompeo moved to temper an earlier statement by U.S. Donald Trump this week, who mused he might intervene in the Meng case if it helped him get a trade deal with China.

Pompeo said the extradition request for Meng isn’t being used as political leverage in the trade talks with China.

During the interview, Trudeau made it clear that the U.S.-China trade war would have ramifications not only for Canada’s economy, but the world’s.

But the only way for Canada to see its way

through the turbulence is to adhere strictly to the rule of law, and the international institutions that are under threat, Trudeau said.

“It’s not about being nice guys, or good guys. It’s about understanding that the rules that we have established as a global community have kept us in an unparalleled era of peace, stability, prosperity, lifting millions upon millions of people around the world out of poverty,” said Trudeau.

But sometimes, he said, the rules can be improved. That explains Canada’s leadership in trying to reform the World Trade Organization – one of the many global institutions that has been heavily maligned by the Trump administration.

He pointed to a recent meeting Canada hosted of about a dozen like-minded countries to reform the WTO – a meeting to which it did not invite the U.S. or China – as a way to find solutions in “a thoughtful way and not an overly political or nationalistic” one.

“With the WTO, both China and the U.S. were informed and were engaged second-

arily in that discussion,” Trudeau explained.

“We know we’re going to get to decision points where they have very different views of it.”

Similarly, he said he’s following the rules of international diplomacy when it comes to freeing the Canadians held in China by staying out of it personally. Trudeau said it isn’t in the detainees’ interest for him to personally raise the matter with China’s leaders because if he gets nowhere, all options are lost.

“It’s always easier to keep it from escalating too much by focusing on official-to-official, ambassador-to-ambassador, ministerto-minister, and then once you’ve worked your way through this, you get to a place where it’s leader-to-leader.”

In Washington, the arrests dominated questions Pompeo and Freeland took after a meeting that also included Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The two foreign ministers tried to distance politics from the extradition process that is now in the Canadian courts. Freeland

said Friday’s discussions focused on upholding the rule of law, and ensuring Meng’s right to due process is respected and that the ongoing legal process remains free of politics.

“Canada, in detaining Ms. Meng, was not making a political judgment. In Canada there has been, to this point, no political interference in this issue at all. For Canada, this is a question of living up to our international treaty obligations and following the rule of law,” Freeland said.

“The extradition process is a criminaljustice process. This is not a tool that should be used for politicized ends.”

Friday evening, the non-governmental agency Kovrig was working for at the time of his detention added its voice to those calling for his release.

“Michael’s arrest is unjust. He should be freed immediately,” International Crisis Group CEO Robert Malley said in a statement.

“We will continue to fight for Michael and will not rest until he is released, free, and reunited with his loved ones.”

B.C. fish farms to close, move to protect wild salmon

Terri THEODORE Citizen news service

VICTORIA — All 17 fish farms in British Columbia’s Broughton Archipelago will either be closed or moved in an effort to create a migration path for wild salmon.

The agreement between the federal and provincial governments, First Nations and two fish farm companies, Marine Harvest Canada and Cermaq Canada, was announced Friday with a goal to protect and restore wild salmon.

Opponents to open-net pen fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago have conducted protests and occupations on some of the farms. Experts and First Nations in the area have long complained the farms spread disease, viruses and sea lice, harming the wild juvenile salmon that migrate through the same waters. The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association has said

there is no evidence that farmed salmon negatively impacts wild salmon.

Friday’s agreement was prompted by provincial government guidelines announced in June that meant fish farm operators had to get First Nations’ approval to operate in their territory. The guidelines also said operators needed to satisfy Fisheries and Oceans Canada that their operations didn’t have an adverse impact on the wild stock in the area.

The First Nations included in the agreement are the Namgis, the Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis and Mamalilikulla.

Bob Chamberlin, chief councillor of the Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation, said Indigenous Peoples have long demanded justice for the wild salmon in their territories.

The agreement includes the implementation of new technologies to address risks on the farms, such as sea lice, and steps to restore wild salmon habitat...

“What we’re witnessing today is critical to Canada’s development. We’re seeing a jointly defined government, First Nations process come to shared recommendations.”

The plan is for four farms to close next year, two in 2020 and four more in the two years after that. The agreement says the remaining seven tenures will end unless they have First Nation approval and Department of Fisher-

ies licences.

The agreement includes the implementation of new technologies to address risks on the farms, such as sea lice, and steps to restore wild salmon habitat in the Broughton Archipelago, a collection of islands off northeastern Vancouver Island.

Chamberlin thanked both Cermaq and Marine Harvest for negotiating the agreement.

“What I kept hearing from you time and time again... was a concern for the people who have employment. We had to strike a balance between the needs of our people and the needs of industry, and I believe we have done that expertly.”

Diane Morrison, managing director of Marine Harvest, said the province is changing and that means businesses must evolve.

She said it is an important agreement for its 600 employees, their families and their future.

“Marine Harvest will not be making any changes to staff or contractors because of this agreement, but based on the agreed plan we will be initiating a transition in the Broughton and our operations there will change.”

In a news release, the company said the agreement “will ensure a viable production area is maintained during the transition period and allow for business adjustments to be made... There are no changes to employment anticipated at this time.”

B.C. Premier John Horgan said public confidence in the fish farm industry is critically important, and the agreement includes a plan for oversight of the operations by area First Nations, a template that can be used in other industries across B.C. Horgan said the process has created a sense of goodwill between governments, industry and First Nations.

CP PHOTO

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians detained in China, are shown in these 2018 images taken from video.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside loved by Canadians, survey shows

Citizen news service

A new survey suggests most Canadians have warm feelings for the holiday song “Baby it’s Cold Outside,” despite controversy over its lyrics.

The national poll by Campaign Research found 72 per cent of respondents disagreed with radio stations that pulled the song from airwaves because some listeners found the lyrics upsetting.

Canadians older than 45 were most likely to disagree, with 75 per cent opposed to a ban, while those aged 18 to 24 were most likely to agree, with 26 per cent supporting a ban.

Radio stations owned by Bell Media and Rogers Media pulled the classic duet from playlists earlier this month. Interpretations of Frank Loesser’s 1944 jazz standard often feature a male singer trying to persuade a female singer to stay inside, with lines that include, “Baby, don’t hold out,” “Say, what’s in this drink?” and “The answer is no.”

The CBC temporarily pulled the tune from two holiday playlists,

but restored it within days after audience backlash. Corus Radio stations have kept the song on its playlists.

The online study involved 1,494 randomly selected Canadian adults who are members of Maru/Blue’s online panel Maru Voice Canada. The questions were part of a monthly omnibus study conducted between Dec. 11 and Dec. 13. Participants were given incentives to respond.

Culture expert Robbie MacKay, a lecturer at the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University, says unease around the song reflects growing sensitivities to gender politics in the MeToo era. He’s not surprised that younger people seem most likely to challenge the song’s deeper meaning.

“Especially with millennials, if they’re in post-secondary institutions they’ve been more sensitized recently to the MeToo story and the MeToo idea,” says MacKay, who teaches a course called the Social History of Popular Music.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t believe the song is about consent as much

as public perceptions, given that the object of affection continually makes reference to their reputation.

The song is open to many interpretations, he adds, and should not be evaluated solely by its lyrics.

“One thing that I make clear with my students is, when we are trying to figure out what a song means there’s a whole bunch of different elements of the meaning. Not only do we have lyrics, but we have to listen to the music that accompanies the lyrics to find out whether the music suggests that the lyrics are ironic or whether the lyrics are sincere or whether they’re playful,” MacKay says from Kingston, Ont. Regionally, the poll found support for the ban weakest in Atlantic Canada and Alberta, where more than 80 per cent of residents disagreed.

The panellists were selected to reflect Canada’s age, gender and regional distributions. The results were weighted by education, age, gender, and region, and in Quebec, language.

First World War comes to life in new doc

Citizen news service

Peter Jackson has used digital wizardry to conjure J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth and King Kong’s 1930s New York, but he has now – in perhaps his most acclaimed film – employed all his technical powers to bring to life the Western Front of the First World War.

Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old is the 57-yearold filmmaker’s first documentary. Commissioned by Britain’s Imperial War Museum to coincide with the centenary of the Armistice, Jackson assembled the film from more than 100 hours of footage from the front and 600 hours of audio interviews conducted in the 1960s with surviving British soldiers.

In the course of the five-year project, Jackson restored the heavily damaged, grainy footage, colourized it, stabilized the frame rates (many were only 13 frames per second, and could vary based upon how fast the cameraman was cranking) and transferred the film into 3-D. Along with adding battle sound effects, he even employed expert lip readers to recreate the unheard dialogue.

With the kind of technology usually employed on a big-budget spectacle, the fog of time lifted from the footage, revealing the soldiers anew.

“The people on the film became human beings again. Their humanity jumps out at you,” Jackson said. “Their faces and the subtle way they move and their expressions, you just realize you’re seeing you’re seeing these people for the first time in 100 years.”

They Shall Not Grow Old, which takes its name from the Laurence Binyon poem For the Fallen, has already played in the U.K., where it earned Jackson the best reviews of his career. “The effect is electrifying,” wrote the Guardian. “The faces are unforgettable.”

It is set for North American release on Jan. 11.

For Jackson, it’s the culmination of a passion project, one undertaken in part as a tribute to the New Zealand filmmaker’s grandfather, who fought in the war. The first three years of the project, edited at Jackson’s post-production facility, Park Road Post, weren’t spent cutting anything together but sifting through the material and cleaning it up.

“We were just listening, listening, listening, making notes and finding what this film was going to be,” he says.

Startled by the clearness of the restoration, Jackson opted to impress as little as possible on the film. The only narration is that of the soldiers recounting their experiences; even dates and locations of battles have been withheld to capture the view of the war from those in the trenches.

“They only saw what was right in front of their eyes,” says Jackson.

The recollections of the British soldiers are surprisingly pragmatic and straightforward, lacking any sense of regret or self-pity. “They didn’t want that and they didn’t expect that,” says Jackson. “I don’t think they would really approve of the way we think of the First World War now.”

But the director is also quick to point out that the 120 men interviewed don’t reflect a universal story of the war. These are survivors, many of whom went on to have families and productive lives, looking back decades later. “If we had interviews from the millions of soldiers that were killed, they would tell a different story,” says Jackson.

Clarity has always been elusive in the First World War, a war with puzzling beginnings and staggering loss of life that nevertheless became overshadowed in the popular imagination by the Second World War. But the simple, unclouded lucidity of They Shall Not Grow Old offers a small window into the Great War. Jackson hopes it inspires young people to learn about the war and archivists around the world to make similar restorations of historical film.

It’s also the first worthwhile 3-D film in some time. Jackson, who was at the forefront of the reintroduction of 3-D, still believes it has value despite its cratered popularity.

“People are only losing interest in it because of the quality of the projection, to be honest with you,” he says, predicting that that will change with the advent of laser projection. “Everything that people don’t like about 3-D – and I agree with them, that feeling like you have sunglasses on while watching a film – that all goes away with laser projection.”

So There Shall Not Grow Old is, in some ways, a characteristically Jackson film, with the notable exception that he wasn’t there to shoot any of it. Not that he minded.

“I don’t actually like being on set, particularly. I always regard that as being an arduous chore,” he says. “So in a way I was quite happy to skip over the shooting part of it. The boys on the Western Front a hundred years ago did all the hard work filming it, and I was able to go straight to the part I like the most.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE; HANDOUT PHOTO

This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows a scene from the new documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, directed by Peter Jackson.

Vancouver animators key creators behind Spider-Man movie

Citizen news service

The animation team behind the new movie SpiderMan: Into the Spider-Verse knew it had to be different.

“I think we all knew that the first question we’d be asked out of the gate is why are we making another Spider-Man?” said Joshua Beveridge, head of character animation at Sony Pictures Imageworks, with a laugh.

“We wanted that to be visually obvious, because there’s all kinds of things you can do in animation you can’t do in any other medium.”

After six live-action movies in 15 years featuring the webbed crusader, the team felt the new offering needed to look completely unique. A fresh animation style also suited the story, which centres on Miles Morales, a Brooklyn teen of African-American and Puerto Rican heritage who gets bitten by a radioactive spider.

The animators, largely based in Vancouver, ultimately came up with a creative technique that is drawing praise. They used computer-generated animation to craft an esthetic that looks like a mixture of traditional hand-drawn animation and CG, even figuring out a way to do hand-drawn line work on top of three-dimensional characters.

“We’re just aesthetically combining that mixed-media feel,” he said. “I think a lot of the ingredients we used have existed in other places, but this combination is new.”

Beveridge, 36, is based in Culver City, Calif., but the majority of the 180-person animation team on this film worked out of Vancouver, he said.

“That’s where the muscle and the heart is. That’s where the whole team is. That’s where the movie was actually made,” he said.

Vancouver is booming as a graphics hotspot with about 60 animation and visual effects studios. It helps that the city is diverse, has strong art schools and is an attractive place to live, said Beveridge.

The movie pushes boundaries with its content as well as its style. Based on comic book characters created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli, the film follows Morales as he develops superpowers including camouflage, sticking to objects and incredible hearing.

But when criminal mastermind Kingpin develops a nuclear supercollider that opens up a portal to other universes, different versions of Spider-Man are pulled into Morales’s world. An older Peter Parker appears alongside a number of new spider-heroes, including anime-inspired Peni Parker.

Beveridge said there are dramatic moments in the story that help elevate animated movies as a genre.

“Animation’s always been somewhat relegated to the kiddie table, in feeling like it’s a movie just for kids, and because Spider-Man transcends that expectation – he’s someone that more people are just aware of to begin with – we got to make our performances slightly more mature, and make it even more for everyone.”

The film won rave reviews ahead of its release on Friday. Beveridge said he’s relieved after feeling nervous about how it would be received.

“We knew we were taking risks. We wanted something different and when you’re living with those decisions for so long in secret, you end up having doubts that you’re living with as well,” he said.

“One of the lessons I’m walking away with after completing this project is: In art, if you’re living in fear, that probably means you’re onto something.”

CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE; HANDOUT IMAGES

Two scenes from the new movie Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse are shown above.

Hot mess in Dallas

Father-and-son trip proves everything’s bigger in Texas

Steve MacNAULL Kelowna Daily Courier

In this case, a hot mess is not the condition you left your last girlfriend or boyfriend in upon breakup.

It’s the signature dish at Dallas’ hottest barbecue joint.

Pecan Lodge’s Hot Mess is the most tender and moist, low-and-slow-cooked brisket shredded atop a baked sweet potato. It does, indeed, look a bit of a mess, but man, is it ever tasty.

In fact, all the Texas barbecue at Pecan Lodge is lip-smacking good, from the ribs and sausage to the chicken and sides of collard greens and mac’n’cheese.

The funky, cafeteria-style restaurant in Dallas’ warehouse-turned-hipster Deep Ellum neighbourhood serves you only after you join the long lineup and order from the limited menu.

And when that day’s allotment of barbecue meat is gone, it’s gone.

The no-nonsense formula constantly keeps Pecan Lodge ranked the best barbecue in Dallas.

My son, Alex, and I are visiting this North Texas metropolis for its triple-threat of cuisine – barbecue, Tex-Mex and steak – and back-to-back Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks games.

In fact, Dallas’ good eating, professional sports, JFK history and everything’s-biggerin-Texas swagger is attracting more and more Canadian tourists.

Canucks are the second biggest international tourist market for Dallas, behind only Mexico, and Air Canada has responded with new flights.

Last year, the airline added non-stops to Dallas from both Vancouver and Montreal to supplement the Toronto-Dallas flights Air Canada has been operating for decades.

After jetting from Vancouver is how we find ourselves staying at the landmark Adolphus hotel downtown and then at the Cowboys’ pre-game party outside 80,000seat AT&T Stadium.

We watch the Cowboys Dancers and the Rhythm & Blue Drumline while sipping Miller Lite.

Inside, our cheap seats are in the nosebleeds, but we don’t care.

We get caught up in the excitement of NFL football, helping cheer America’s team to a 29-23 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.

After the game, we make a beeline for Mariano’s Hacienda for Tex-Mex beef tacos and the frozen concoction that helps you hang on.

That’s right, Mariano’s invented the blended margarita machine in 1971.

More food and basketball is on the menu next day.

So, we make our way to Dakota’s Steakhouse for perfectly-done filet mignons and grilled asparagus before the Dallas Mavericks and Orlando Magic tip off at the American Airlines Centre.

Our basketball tickets are as good as our

In fact, Dallas’ good eating, professional sports, JFK history and everything’s-bigger-inTexas swagger is attracting more and more Canadian tourists.

scooters.

a blast zipping around the city on this unique mode of transportation.

football tickets were bad. The seats are so close to the action I can snap pictures of Mavs star DeAndre Jordan both on the court and at the bench.

PHOTO BY STEVE MACNAULL Bartender

Brittany Newman brings out our Hot Mess brisket and Peticolas Golden

at Dallas’ top barbecue joint, Pecan Lodge.

PHOTO BY STEVE MACNAULL/PHOTO BY MUSEUM STAFF

ABOVE: Our seats behind the bench at the Dallas Mavericks basketball game were so good we could keep track of Mavs star DeAndre Jordan both on and off the court. BELOW: Travel writer Steve MacNaull, right, and son Alex ham it up in the exact replica of the Oval Office at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas.

At Home

Slam the window on outside noise

Elisabeth LEAMY Citizen news service

When I have insomnia, I hear every car and conversation that passes outside my house. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that when I hear every car and conversation outside my house, I get insomnia. Either way, I’ve been shopping for sounddampening windows since July. In five months of looking, I’ve discovered that sound suppression is not really on the radar of the average window salesman. It’s not their fault; sound ratings for the windows they represent are buried in PDF documents on major manufacturers’ websites, if they are published at all.

There are two systems for rating how effectively something such as a wall or a window stops sound. STC stands for sound transmission class and is used more for measuring higher frequency noises such as voices and barking dogs. OITC stands for outdoor-indoor transmission class and was developed to better measure low-frequency noises such as airplanes and traffic. The higher the STC or OITC rating of a barrier, the better it is at preventing noise from coming into your home.

For example, the walls of a typical midcentury brick colonial might have an STC rating in the mid-50s and an OITC in the low 50s, according to Michael Kerr, an acoustical consultant and owner of Bay Acoustics in Baltimore. By contrast, the walls of a newer house, clad just in siding, might have an STC in the mid-30s and an OITC in the mid-20s. The key is to purchase windows with STC and OITC ratings as close to that of your walls as possible.

It’s easy to find windows with sound ratings in the 20s or 30s, to match walls made of siding. In fact, if you own that type of home, you should be careful not to waste money on windows that are better at blocking sound than your walls.

“I see a lot of clients overdoing it with the windows, and they haven’t thought about the walls at all,” Kerr said. By contrast, for those who own brick or stone houses, it’s difficult – and expensive – to find windows with sound ratings in the 50s, or higher, to match their walls. In that case, Kerr suggests choosing

A bulldog looks out of the window of a home in Santiago, Chile, on Nov. 23. Sound transmission class (STC) measures a window’s resistance to high-frequency noises like dog barking, while outdoorindoor transmission class (OITC) measures resistance to low-frequency noise like traffic.

a window with a sound rating no more than 10 points lower than that of your walls. If your home has lots of glass, you’ll want to go higher than that. If it has little, you can go lower.

For my home, I found myself trying to choose among three window brands with sound ratings within one point of each other.

Kerr told me that the human ear can’t distinguish a one-point difference in sound rating and that the margin of error in acoustical tests is three points, anyway.

His advice: “Choose the window you like the look of, because... these one-point differences are not meaningful.”

Other factors to consider: whether the window unit is well built – if it’s airtight, it will block more sound – and whether the manufacturer backs that up with a good warranty.

You should verify a window’s sound rating by reviewing the acoustical test report performed by a certified lab.

“Don’t take the salesperson’s word for it,” said Casey Mahon, president and CEO of St. Cloud Window in Minnesota, which makes high-end noisereducing windows. “Ask for a copy of the test data. If you’re a window manufacturer and you don’t have a test, you’re a wannabe.”

Kerr and Mahon both said not to bother spending money on new windows unless you can achieve at least a six-point improvement

in sound rating. Of course, that means you would need to know the sound rating of your current windows, which can be elusive information because they weren’t published in the past. To overcome that, you can hire an acoustical consultant to take elaborate measurements in your house.

Consultants often discover noise is coming through a home’s walls, vents or electrical outlets, rather than its windows.

“People usually recoup our costs by not making bad decisions,” Kerr said. If your windows are the problem, there are several ways to achieve better sound ratings with new windows. Here’s a rundown from least to most costly:

Storm windows

If you do not need new windows, adding storm windows is an excellent option for reducing outside noise. Many now open just like any other double-hung window, so they do not have to be removed in the spring, and can be made to precisely match your existing windows. Some manufacturers have started producing inexpensive and effective interior storm windows made of plexiglass that attach using magnets.

Double-pane windows

If you live in an older home, it

could still have single-pane windows. Switching to double-pane windows – two pieces of glass with some air space between them –will almost certainly block more noise.

Thicker glass

Mass is one factor in blocking sound, so choosing dual-pane windows made of thicker glass is the next step up.

Dissimilar glass

You also could choose a dualpane window in which the two panes of glass are of different thicknesses.

One might be one-eighth of an inch thick and the other a quarter of an inch thick. These dissimilar glass panes block different sound frequencies, giving you more noise protection. This option can be affordable –and remarkably effective. For example, both Marvin and Pella make dissimilar glass windows with sound ratings just one point lower than they achieve with laminated glass, a far pricier option.

Laminated glass

Laminated glass has a layer of plastic sandwiched between the two panes of glass, which dampens sound energy traveling through it.

Laminated glass was originally

developed to resist shattering in hurricanes, and ended up doing a good job of blocking sound as well. The downside is that laminated glass can add 15 to 80 per cent to the cost of your new windows, according to window salespeople I spoke with about it.

Triple-pane glass

Triple-pane glass can have either a modest or a major impact on noise coming into your home. If the three panes are close together, they add a bit more mass to block sound. But if the panes are of different thicknesses and there is a large air space between them (more on air space below) they can be effective. Heike Lingertat of Northwest Washington bought deep triple-pane windows to make her house less drafty.

“The side effect was silencing totally what is outside,” she said. “I hardly hear any cars whatsoever.”

Wider air space

A wide air space between panes of glass kills noise by disrupting the sound waves.

If you’re struggling with major noise from something such as a freeway or a flight path, look for windows with an air space of at least two inches. More is better.

“You can get improved noise control with lamination and different thickness panes, but you will never solve airplane noise unless you have a big air space,” Kerr said. Specialty window companies make windows with large air spaces, or you can achieve a wide air space by adding storm windows.

None of these techniques will solve your noise problem unless your new windows are installed correctly.

One contractor told me that he would seal my windows with spray foam, which Kerr said is a terrible idea, because it hardens and conducts sound.

Kerr said the correct material is acoustical caulk, which doesn’t harden.

Finally, the window must fit tightly in the opening in your wall and close tightly, too.

So there you have it. That’s what I’ve learned. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some windows to select.

Weekly consumer columnist Elisabeth Leamy is a 13-time Emmy winner, a 25-year consumer advocate and host of the podcast Easy Money.

AP PHOTO

Erika Sanchez Goodwillie paints a window during the restoration of the Front Parlor at Mount Vernon on Thursday in Mount Vernon, Va. Your choice of windows can have a big effect on how much outside noise enters your home.

September 29, 1995 - December 3, 2018

It is with profound sadness and the heaviest of hearts that we announce the sudden and tragic passing of our son Quentin David Gerald Currie on December 3, 2018.

Quen was born in Kelowna in the fall of 1995. He came into our lives that year, forever enriching the course of our existence, as well as those that were lucky enough to cross his path during his short life journey.

Quen grew up and attended both his elementary and high school years in various areas of British Columbia, touching many lives and impacting others in beautiful and prolific ways.

Quen completed his high school in Prince George and in the course of this time frame, he developed many formative friendships that aided in him choosing to remain in Prince George within his close circle of attachments.

It was here that he met and created a life for himself and his lovely high school sweetheart and long-time girlfriend Bailey (Ofner).

Quen was employed as a Plant Operator at Pinnacle Renewable Energies and was an extremely hard working, well respected coworker and friend. He was also a Safety Champion within the mill and a bright light to those he worked alongside, day and night.

Quen not only appreciated and valued his family and friendships, he loved passionately and relentlessly, giving of himself in unique ways that could lift spirits, illicit unbridled laughter and provide shelter to those he loved, respected and cared for. His voice was that of a baritone, deep and soothing. He loved music, playing guitar, singing quietly, reading, enjoying the wonders of nature; fishing, camping, the snowfall, spending time with his friends and family, travelling and collecting vehicles, just like his Dad. He stood 6 ft 4” at the age of 23, with long locks of warm, brown hair. His large arms had the ability to engulf one; protecting, comforting and containing emotions that had perhaps gone awry. He held such incredible integrity and majesty through his consistent calmness, peacefulness and accepting presence.

Quen is survived by his girlfriend Bailey (Ofner), father Dan (Currie), mother Carene (Belix), brothers Dane and Cass (Currie), appointed brother Kaelan (Botel), sister inlaw Denise (Slade), grandmother Kate (Wolfe), uncles David (Belix), Tony (Ebenal), Mo (Wolfe), Dennis, Ken and John (Currie), Aunts Camille (Ebenal), Linda (Hess), Val (Skamanis) and Gerry (Currie), cousins Jesse, Tyler and Tallis (Ebenal), James, Kaitlin and Ariana (Belix), Vincent and Savannah (Wolfe), Natalie and John (Salazar), Nicole and Adrian (Skamanis), Tanya and Sasha (Currie), and his sweet little niece Skye (Currie), in addition to many additional extended family members. With the passing of our youngest son comes a shift in the balance of the universe as we have known it. There is necessary change and an indescribable sense of loss and emptiness. Quen was and is a star, a brilliant, funny, inquisitive, generous, strong, sensitive and joyous star that was taken far too soon; however he is held close, remaining within our hearts forevermore. Where love is, love remains.

Melinda Nelson It is with the utmost sorrow that we announce the passing of an amazing woman, Melinda Jane Nelson Kent, born in Bangor, Wales September 25, 1953. Died December 11, 2018 at Prince George Hospice House with her partner Kathy Rinaldi, and friend Jackie were by her side. Melinda was predeceased by her father Edward (Ted), mother Margaret (Peggy), brother Jeremy and half sister Valerie. Survived by half sister Rosemary, niece Yvonne, nephew Graham. Valerie’s sons Simon, Jonathan, Jacob. Cousin Margaret (Duncan), their daughters Kate and Jenny. Many other relatives in England. Many thanks to the doctors that assisted Melinda on the journey. Dr’s Ducharmne, York, Riome-York, Roberts, Wilson and the caring nurses and staff of the Cancer Agency and the PG Hospice House. There are not enough words to say how many lives Melinda touched. No service by request. A celebration of her extraordinary life to be announced in the spring. In lieu of flowers please make donations to Prince George Hospice Society in her memory.

Lori Gay Tidsbury

August 7, 1957 to December 9, 2018

With heavy hearts and lots of tears our beautiful Lori joined her son in Heaven on December 9, 2018 at 9:30 AM. She fought a long and hard battle against pancreatic cancer. Lori’s heart of gold, radiant smile, contagious laugh, and love of life will never be forgotten and will forever be held in our hearts. She loved her family, friends, her puppies, and a good glass of white wine. Lori is survived by her loving husband Rod Tidsbury, children Brandon Koch, Jennifer (Koch)Walker and Avery Walker, Shane and Candace Tidsbury, grandchildren Alia and Aiyla Walker, Jack and Willie Tidsbury, parents Gwen and Ed Labas, Ross Marra Senior, siblings Scott and Mary-Ann Norgren, Ross Marra and Carol McLelan, Craig and Corinne Labas, Lauren Labas and David Siebenga, nieces & nephews Michael and Chelsea Norgren, Jordan and Eric Labas, Alex and Max Marra. Our hearts would like to convey a heartfelt thank you to all the doctors and nurses at the B.C. Cancer Agency and Prince George Hospice.

In addition, we would like to thank all friends and family for all of your love and support.

In lieu of flowers please donate to B.C. Cancer Agency and Prince George Hospice Society in Lori’s name. Please save the date: Celebration of Life will be held here in Prince George on August 3, 2019. We all know how she loves sunshine and warm weather. Information to follow.

Donald Alexander Ross

Passed away peacefully on December 10th, 2018. He was born on January 15th, 1923 in Hanna, Alberta, and spent his formative years in Victoria, B.C. before enlisting and fighting in Europe in World War II.

Don was predeceased by his loving wife of 65 years, Rosemary, in 2015, whom he met and married in Victoria, B.C.. Don is survived by his four children, Cathy (Tom), Leslie (Shawn), Laurel (Mike) and Stuart (Naomi), as well as his eleven beloved grandchildren, Ross, Devon (Kyle) and Megan (Paul), Madeleine and Ian, Katherine, Claire, Alex and Colin, and Paige and Jack, and four greatgrandchildren, Roslyn and Calum, Owen and Ryan. After an accomplished career at B.C. Hydro, Don and Rosemary enjoyed many years of retirement at their home at Ness Lake. Don continued his contribution to the community of Prince George, serving as an executive at Camp Trapping in the late 1980s. He was a 40 plus year member of the Yellowhead Rotary Club, where he served in numerous executive capacities, including President. Don embraced life in northern B.C. and loved spending time hunting, fishing, boating and cross-country skiing with friends and family. He never lost his appreciation for coastal seafood, especially oysters and crab, and enjoyed a good local rainbow trout when available. Don had a quick wit, evident throughout his life to all who enjoyed time with him over a game of crib or a puzzle, as well as those to whom he regularly sent emails right up until his passing. He relished in the give-and-take of good friendly discussions about politics or news of the day. His sense of humour and good times with friends and family will be an enduring memory. He rewarded all who knew him with his attention to the individual, their family, and making all welcome in his home at Ness Lake and

ZIMMARO

December 23, 1927December 4, 2018

Gloria Zimmaro, 90, died quietly on December 4, 2018. She was predeceased by her husband Jimmy. She is survived by her three daughters Toni (Vic), Erin (Alasdair) and Tracy (Dean), her two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her sisters, Rosemarie and Vivian. Thank-you to the staff at Rainbow Lodge for the kind and compassionate care given in the past four years. The celebration of life will be held in the spring.

ROSS

WILLIAM (Bill) LARRY

Bill passed away December 13th, 2018 at the age of 70yrs. Born January 6th, 1948 in New Westminster, B.C., he was predeceased by his loving Mary (who always caught the bigger fish), parents Percy Albert Ross and Carolina Ross. He will be forever remembered by his brother Kenneth Ross (Holly), nephew Randy Ross (Michie), nieces Christine McArthur (Dan), Coralee Woodruffe, their families, and many relatives and friends. No service by request. Donations to a hospice house in lieu of flowers.

Margaret Christina Mary Westerhout “Peggy” Born in Winnipeg, MB - Passed away December 9, 2018 in Prince George, BC

Margaret has gone on to join her father and mother, along with her three brothers and one sister. Also her loving daughter Heather, grandson Joel and granddaughter Robin. Margaret is survived by her husband of 46 years, Johannes “Hans”, Westerhout and their sons Stephen and Donald Lamoureux with their six grandchildren and eleven great grandkids and one great great grandson. Peggy’s home was her castle and cooking and baking were her forte. Her butter tarts were famous and were sought after by many. No matter how many would show, she would always have enough and all meals would be served on a regular time. Her mottos would be that no one would leave hungry and that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Her greatest strength would be the kids. she would gather kids and support their development and commit to them on a long term basis. Her love for family would be endless. The entire family wishes to extend a heartfelt gratitude to Dr. McLeod for her selfless emotional, compassionate and caring support for the entire family. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Covenant House or the local Salvation Army food bank would be appreciated. No Service by request. A memorial gathering will take place in the future.

GLORIA