Black tie affair
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No deadline given to make creek crossing fish friendly, DFO says
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says it is “actively working” with the City of Prince George to bring a crossing over Haggith Creek up to a fish-bearing standard but has not imposed a deadline to get the work completed.
The statement effectively confirms what engineering director Adam Homes told city council during its March 11 regular meeting when asked if further work is in store because the culvert that was put in place is undersized.
Homes said DFO will eventually want the city to remove the culvert “but we’re saying that for public safety, for the time being that culvert can’t move.”
He added that while the remediation work was being carried out the ground moved again and, in response, more fill was put on top of the culvert.
“That ground needs to consolidate. That could take years and years to happen,” Homes said.
In an emailed response to queries from The Citizen, DFO spokesperson Janine Malikian said the culvert, part of the construc-
tion of a bridge where Willow Cale Road crosses the creek, is perched above the outlet pool by 1.5 to 1.7 metres.
“At this height, the culvert is a full barrier to the passage of any species of fish using the system, and prevents the upstream migration of species utilizing Haggith Creek, including rainbow trout, lake chub, juvenile chinook, and northern pike minnow,” she said.
Replacing the culvert with a larger one is not the only option, she indicated.
“The suitability of a culvert depends on a number of factors, including the ability to pass flows during floods as well as the ability to provide unimpeded passage for all life stages of fish,” she said and added DFO has asked the city to “investigate potential solutions to restore fish passage through the culvert.”
She said habitat within the creek supports a healthy invertebrate population, which in turn provides a food source for fish in the Fraser River.
“Rainbow trout, lake chub, juvenile chinook, and northern pike minnow have been observed to utilize Haggith Creek downstream of the culvert,” Malikian
said. “The total number of fish that may be produced by the system is difficult to accurately predict and is dependent upon a number of factors. However, the habitat that is observed to exist above the culvert is considered to be suitable fish habitat.”
Work on the crossing so far has added up to $6.8 million. Of that, $3.1 million was spent on work carried out from September 2016 to March 2017.
A further $3.7 million was spent on another round after cracks appeared in the new asphalt on the south side of the bridge, indicating unstable ground beneath by early August 2017.
The crossing was closed for a further 10 months
The culprit turned out to be an unstable layer of clay about 20 metres below the surface that was undetected in a geotechnical survey, council was told.
The full $6.8 million will be financed through a five-year loan.
Debt servicing on the first $3.1 million has been incorporated into the 2019 budget while the remaining will be folded into the 2020 budget, delivering an estimated 0.95 per cent increase to the tax levy next year.
Holmes elected Carrier Sekani chief
Citizen staff
Mina Holmes was elected the new Chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council on Thursday. She drew 415 votes to Mary Teegee’s 339 while 14 ballots were cast in favour of Kathaleigh George.
“Thank you everyone for your support and prayers,” Holmes said in a social media posting. “I look forward to working closely with all community members and I believe the strength of our collective communities as we forge forward in a future of possibilities and opportunities.”
Holmes went on to acknowledge Teegee and George.
“It has been an honor to be part a this historic election in CSTC history. You are both amazing women I (look) forward to working with moving forward,” she said. It was the first time three
women ran for the post.
A member of the Tl’azt’en Nation, Holmes has been the CSTC’s reconciliation table coordinator. She takes over from Terry Teegee, who became the regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations last March.
Douglas fir beetle repellent available
Citizen staff
Property owners with Douglas firs in their back yards are being encouraged to pre-order a repellent to battle a beetle that has been plaguing the trees.
Packets of MCH Repellent are being made available through Industrial Forestry Service Ltd. at a cost of $1.60 per tree or $4.80 per tree if it’s large and decadent. IFS is asking the public to preorder their repellent by March 31 to ensure that enough is ordered to meet demand. To guarantee effectiveness, the pods, which are stapled to the trees, must be put up between April 15 and 26.
A large number of large Douglas fir trees within the Prince George municipal boundaries have been showing signs of beetle damage and many others are at increased risk of attack as the infestation has grown within the Prince George timber supply area. The repellent works by sending out a pheromone that tricks beetles into sensing the tree is full and that the food supply is insufficient for additional beetles. To make an order for the repellant, or for more information, contact Michelle Miller, Project Assistant, at mmiller@industrialforestry.ca, or 250-564-4115 local 260.
Sean Farrell, far right, from the Community Arts Council announces the second annual Mayor’s Black and White Ball for the Arts that will be held at the Civic Centre on May 4. The event is
partnership between Prince George Community Arts Council, Theatre Northwest and the Prince George Symphony Orchestra. Joining him were, from left to right, Selen Alpay, Canadian Tire store owner and title sponsor of the event; Linda Rempel, president of the Community Arts Council; Kim Royle, director of the PGSO; Teresa Saunders, general manager of PGSO; Marnie Hamagami, general manager of Theatre Northwest; and Mayor Lyn Hall.
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
City engineer Adam Homes explains the work that was underway to repair the Willow Cale Road Bridge over Haggith Creek in April 2018. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is working with the City of Prince George to bring the crossing into compliance.
Participants make their way up the cutbanks during the 2018 Climb for Cancer. The fundraising event returns on April 27 this year.
Climb for Cancer coming soon
Citizen staff
The Climb for Cancer is just a month away.
The event that sees participants climb the Cutbanks to raise funds for the Kordyban Lodge is set for April 27, from noon to 4 p.m. And in the lead up, those inter-
ested in participating are welcome to sign up and collect pledges, either as individuals, families or teams by going to bit.ly/pgclimbforcancer2019. You can also enroll on the day of the event, which will be based out of the Northern Lights Estate Winery.
Kordyban Lodge provides a
home away from home for people being treated for cancer at the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North in Prince George. For more information on the Climb for Cancer, contact Dave at david.duck@telus.net or 778-3494485 or Doug at doug@northernlightswinery.ca or 250-981-3684.
Votes on sawmill contracts draw mixed results
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The process of ratifying new agreements at northern B.C.’s unionized sawmills has hit some bumps.
United Steelworkers Local 2017 business agent Brian O’Rourke named on Monday nine operations where deals have been ratified and another three where votes remain pending.
That leaves four where workers have rejected ratification. Mills where the contracts have been accepted are Canfor’s Isle Pierre, Polar and Chetwynd operations, Dunkley Lumber, Conifex in Fort St. James, Tolko’s operations at Soda Creek in Williams Lake and Quest Wood in Quesnel and Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake.
Those where the proposed contracts were turned down are Lakeland Mills in Prince George, Canfor in Houston, Tolko’s Lakeview Lumber and and West Fraser’s Williams Lake planer. Ratification votes remain outstanding at Conifex in Mackenzie and Canfor in Fort St. John and Vanderhoof.
Language on alternate shifts appears to be the biggest issue at the sites where workers voted to reject, O’Rourke said.
“The fear that the company’s going to go ahead and implement all of these shifts,” he said. “They may or may not depending on market conditions, but a lot of our operations currently run on alternate shifts whether they be four 10s or three 12s and it seems to be working quite well.”
How statutory holidays are
treated is a related concern. For stats that fall outside their regular work weeks, the members will still have to work the extra day and get the pay rather than get the day off in lieu, “and some people don’t really like that too much,” O’Rourke said. For the mills where the contracts have been accepted, the employers have been notified and the members are in the process of receiving retroactive pay.
The agreements are for five years with wage increases totaling 10.5 per cent over the life of the contracts. Tentative agreements were announced on February 21.
Talks with West Fraser over new contracts for its sawmills in Fraser Lake and 100 Mile House and plywood plants in Quesnel and Williams also remain on the agenda.
Prince George provincial court docket
From Prince George provincial court, May 18-22, 2019:
• David Nelson Gallagher (born 1971) was sentenced to one year probation with a suspended sentence for theft $5,000 or under.
• Kurt Werner Steinhauser (born 1982) was sentenced to 15 days in jail and one year probation for two counts of theft $5,000 or under. Steinhauser was in custody for three days prior to sentencing.
• Lyle Lenard Wayne Harwood (born 1977) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $750 plus a $113 victim surcharge for driving while driver’s licence is suspended under the Motor Vehicle Act.
• Joshua Jeske (born 1984) was sentenced to jail time served and one year probation for being in a dwelling-house without lawful excuse. Jeske had spent 18 days in custody prior to sentencing.
• Leonard John Joseph Jr. (born 1981) was sentenced to six days in jail for causing a disturbance. Joseph Jr. was in custody for 15 days prior to sentencing.
• Desiree June Lunz (born 1994) was sentenced to two years probation with a suspended sentence for dangerous driving, breaching a recognizance or undertaking and two counts of mischief $5,000 or under. Lunz was also prohibited from driving for one year.
• Dustin Jeffrey Olson (born 1991) was sentenced to 27 days in jail for possessing a break-in instrument and breaching probation. Olson was in custody for 12 days prior to sentencing.
• Brandee Kristine Price (born 1983) was prohibited from driving for one year and fined $1,000 for driving while impaired.
• Tracy Dawn Marie Reid (born 1978) was sentenced to one year probation with a suspended sentence for theft $5,000 or under.
• James Edward Wight (born 1975) was sentenced to 76 days in jail for breaching probation. Wight was in custody for seven days prior to sentencing.
• Devin Andrew Jacobs (born 1985) was sentenced to 124 days in jail and one year probation for theft over $5,000, commit-
ted in Vanderhoof. Jacobs was in custody for three days prior to sentencing.
• Justin Bradley Arthur Harrison (born 1995) was sentenced to two years probation with a suspended sentence and ordered to provide a DNA sample for assault causing bodily harm.
• Clayton Tyler Moll (born 1981) was sentenced to 36 days in jail and two years probation and ordered to provide a DNA sample for breaking and entering and committing an indictable offence. Moll was in custody for 56 days prior to sentencing.
• Andrew Noren Quamme (born 1971) was sentenced to 868 days in jail, issued a 10-year firearms prohibition and ordered to provide a DNA sample for possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm and to zero days in jail for possessing a firearm with an altered serial number, possessing a controlled substance, possessing a firearm without a licence or registration, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and possessing stolen property over $5,000. Quamme was in custody for 150 days prior to sentencing.
• Janessa Cora Alexis (born 1993) was prohibited from driving for two years and fined $1,500 plus a $75 victim surcharge for driving while prohibited under the Motor Vehicle Act and failure or refusal to provide a sample. Alexis was also sentenced to one day in jail for willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer, failing to appear in court and failure or refusal.
• James Edward Martin Smith (born 1961) was sentenced to 60 days in jail for breaking and entering with an intent to commit offence and to 25 days in jail for the same charge from a different matter.
He was also sentenced to one year probation and ordered to provide a DNA sample on the counts and to time served for breaching an undertaking. Smith was in custody for 19 days prior to sentencing.
• Kurtis Riley Sundman (born 1988) was sentenced to 60 days in jail for mischief $5,000 or under.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
NEWS IN BRIEF
Teen faces impaired driving charge
A 17-year-old Prince George resident faces a charge of impaired driving causing bodily harm after the pickup truck she was driving collided with a light pole at the intersection of Highways 16 and 97 early Saturday morning.
Emergency crews were called to the scene of the singlevehicle accident at about 4:15 a.m. Saturday and found three occupants of the truck all with serious injuries, one of whom was in critical condition.
The Prince George RCMP municipal traffic services section is leading the investigation into the accident and is seeking witnesses. Anybody who might have information is asked to call the RCMP at 250-561-3300. Part of the intersection was closed for several hours while police conducted their investigation. The RCMP wish to thank members of the public who stopped to lend their assistance at the scene, especially two off-duty nurses who provided initial medical care to the victims. — Citizen staff
Fire extensively damages duplex
A duplex in the 2100 block of Oak Street suffered about $150,000 in damage when a fire broke out in the home late Friday afternoon – but it could have been worse.
“A fast attack knocked the flames down and stopped the fire from spreading to the other side of the duplex,” Prince George Fire Rescue Asst. Chief Thad Kennedy said. The home’s occupants were able to escape without injury but ambulance personnel checked over two firefighters for heat exhaustion. PGFR was called to the scene at 4:30 p.m. — Citizen staff
Food
drive to
start Friday
The annual Campbell’s Help Hunger Disappear Food Drive is ready to roll at local Save-On supermarkets. Customers will be encouraged to purchase soup and other items identified on a suggestion list whenever they head into one of the stores from March 29 to April 3.
Volunteers from the United Way of Northern B.C. will be handing out bags with the lists to shoppers going into the stores and collecting donations from those who participate on the way out. The proceeds will go the Salvation Army food bank, which served over 2,000 people each month.
Air quality advisories ended
A pair of long-running air quality advisories have come to an end. A dust advisory was called off Saturday and a special air quality advisory on Sunday.
“Elevated pollution levels are no longer expected or have moved out of the area,” officials said. They had been put into play on Wednesday in answer to high amount of particulate in the city’s air caused by a combination of stagnant weather and road dust. — Citizen staff
Climbing camp
Children do some climbing in the Overhang Climbing Gym on Monday morning during their spring break camp. Children in the camp also get to do outdoor exploration, snowshoing, sledding, curling and arts and crafts.
Crash threatens schedule for new coast guard ships
OTTAWA — The Canadian Coast Guard’s hope that its first new fisheries science vessel will finally be delivered this summer could be dashed after the ship crashed on its first test run last week.
Seaspan Shipyards is already two years behind schedule to deliver the CCGS Sir John Franklin, one of three new fisheries science vessels the British Columbia shipbuilder is producing for the federal government.
The Franklin was returning from its first week of sea trials and being piloted by a contractor when it ran into the Ogden Point breakwater near Victoria on Friday, said Seaspan Shipyards vice-president Tim Page.
No one was injured but an initial assessment by Seaspan found the Franklin’s propeller and rudder were damaged, said Page. Photographs from the scene also showed a large dent in the hull on the aft port side above the water line.
Building permits total $11.3M in February
Citizen staff
Building permits for $11.3 million worth of construction were taken out in February, according to a staff report to city council.
At $7.6 million, permits for 10 multiple-family homes, adding up to 44 units, accounted for more than half the count.
As well, 10 permits for commercial alterations adding up to $1.8 million were taken out, as were permits for two single-family homes, adding up to $981,704 and one commercial building, worth $555,000.
The number raised the yearto-date total to $15.8 million, compared to $13.6 by the same point last year.
The shipyard is working to determine the cause of the crash and whether it will further delay delivery of the vessel to the coast guard.
“Because of the damage and our need to look at exactly the extent of the damage to the propeller, the rudder and to hull, sea trials have been suspended and will recommence once repairs have been performed,” Page said Monday.
“We don’t know what potential impact there may be yet to the vessel’s delivery schedule since we have not yet fully assessed the damage.” Any delay could also have a impact on delivery of the other two fishing vessels ships Seaspan is building, as well as an ocean science vessel and a heavy icebreaker for the coast guard and two supply ships for the navy.
The vessels are being largely built in order, meaning a delay on one has the potential to affect the rest. That in turns drives up costs and forces the coast guard and navy to continue
older ships or stop gaps.
The crash is the latest bit of bad news for the Vancouver shipyard and follows recent optimism that it had finally turned the page on years of cost overruns and delays.
The Franklin was originally supposed to be delivered in early 2017, but that was before officials found that there were problems with the ship’s welding and Seaspan was forced to go back and redo some of the work.
With the welding redone – at Seaspan’s expense – and sea trials started, shipyard executives told a Senate committee last week that they expected to deliver the Franklin to the coast guard this summer.
“At this point we’re still pitching for the June delivery,” Page said.
“But we don’t know enough yet about how long it will take us to repair the damage to the rudder and the propeller and the aft portion of the hull. And when we do, we’ll know its impact on schedule.”
Lee BERTHIAUME Citizen news service
Today’s misinformation, tomorrow’s history
ariations on the aphorism
V“history is written by the winners” have been attributed variously to Napoleon Bonaparte, George Orwell and Winston Churchill.
We accept that history, the kind we find in textbooks is, at best, a fairly shaky account of what actually happened. Nevertheless, history, no matter who wrote it, is what we teach in our schools, trusting that legitimate historians used primary sources such as documents and firstperson accounts to substantiate as balanced an account as possible of events long past. In that way, history is, in the best sense, the “news” about yesterday.
We might even be able to rely upon those accounts to contribute some meaning and understanding to the mystery of how we got from back then to now.
But that is changing, as today’s news consumers prefer information presented in small, entertaining bites and delivered with an edgy attitude flavoured by a particular partisan viewpoint or ideological bias. Entire TV news networks, some the technological equivalent of checkout magazines, satisfy that need.
Today’s major news sources have, at least in the eyes of some media critics, become self-serving, inasmuch as journalists need
crises to dramatize new and politicians need, in turn, to urgently appear to be responding to crises – every hour of every day.
Too often, the crises are not really crises but joint fabrications delivered breathlessly every hour of every day via news derived initially from Twitter, Instagram or Facebook claims.
There was a time, not so long ago, when what appeared in the media for public consumption was limited mainly to reports overseen by steely-eyed editors whose job it was to question every assertion of fact laid apprehensively before them by their writers.
Those of us who have been news junkies most of our adult lives will fondly recall the calmly reassuring certainty of an edited and fact-checked report by the great news people of yesteryear – Walter Cronkite, Ben Bradlee, Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Newman – professionals who, every day, were unconsciously writing the existential history of their times, based, as much was humanly possible, on verified fact.
That certainty has been replaced in the minds of the next generation by interactive computer-mediated technologies such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, which deliver “news” accompanied by software programmed to mimic natural human
reactions – liking, commenting, following and “unfollowing” on various social-media platforms.
And it gets worse.
News “tools” are now available to anybody with a keyboard and a determination to get a message – any message – into the public domain.
The unedited disinformation that any individual wants to put out there – immediately and anonymously – then goes “viral,” a phenomenon with which today’s print media cannot compete.
Social media have also become the playground of a whole new class of unfettered bad actors – people such as Jack Posobiec, the Roger Stone protégé who spearheaded the near-deadly Pizzagate disinformation campaign, and Jonathan Lee Riches, who bamboozled the venerable New Yorker magazine with a succession of crackpot stories about current events and celebrities.
In her recently released book Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts, author Jill Abramson warns that while newspapers have been slow to embrace the immediate powers and dangers of the new technologies, it is the public’s increasingly comfortable reliance on social media and cable news with its dependence on punditry and unsubstantiated opinion rather than on reliable reporting
YOUR LETTERS
Allen for mayor
How do we go about running Eric Allen for mayor?
Why, when we have taxpayers like Eric, does this city council find it necessary to hire so-called “experts” who in turn make recommendations which prove to be very costly and ill-advised. One point he makes is one never mentioned when the discussion about the need for a new police station was initially raised. Why was a municipal building with regular, unionized maintenance workers in daily attendance reduced to such a state of decay the building that, less than 50 years old, it had to be levelled? Now the Aquatic Centre of 20 years requires roof replacement? Who chose that roofing material? Why are funds not regularly set aside for routine upkeep/maintenance on an ongoing basis just as we do for our houses?
The Four Seasons Pool is now considered obsolete with failing concrete. Why hasn’t it been kept up? Could it be for the same reason that the interior windows and ceiling are dirty and stained from one year to the next even after being closed for quasi maintenance every year?
Eric Allen, thank you for your considered, clear thinking in the
face of the reckless decisions currently being made by both our municipal administrators. Marilyn Hinton, Prince George
Hospital info needed
This morning, I fell on some ice. Quite a mess, really, as I fell right on my face. Blood all over. Thankfully a fellow passing by helped me to my feet and to our front door. Name unknown but many thanks to this fellow. Later, I realized that the accident was a tad more serious than I had thought. Pain was helped by some pills but my 72 year old mind knew something was wrong. Knowing that at times emergency has a long wait, I decided to call ahead to determine if such was presently the case, as I had done once before, years ago.
While I was in pain, with the help of some ice packs and pills I was certainly better at home than waiting in the emergency waiting room for hours.
Firstly came the new automated telephone system. My heavens! It seemed to go on forever. Finally I got the hospital switchboard. “May I have emergency –not the nurses or doctors but the front desk clerks, please?” Foolish me. The operator asked if I was inquiring after a patient.
I was not. She then told me she would not put me through. I had to drive over to check the situation out. As stated above, I felt I was better at home than waiting than enduring al ong wait on hospital chairs. I repeated my simple request several times and, like a robot, she repeated her answer again and again. At all times, I was polite if a bit frustrated. Now, no doubt there are times when calls such as mine could overwhelm the clerks in emergency. But given telephone systems it would be very easy to add an eighth option to the present one. “For emergency waiting, please push eight.” A simple tabulation of the number of patients waiting would be easy to set up, perhaps similar to the one used by the XRay department. On the other hand, I doubt that there are many calls like mine. The simply answer would be to connect callers such as me to the clerks in emergency. If they were too busy to take such a call, an automatic computer voice could say, as most service centres do, that “all our staff is too busy to take your call now. Please call back later”. I expected better from our hospital.
Willow Arune, Prince George
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. 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
that is the real problem. Mark O’Connell in his September 2018 New Yorker piece The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media argues that the Enlightenment-era equation of knowledge and power has collapsed under the technology-driven tonnage of 24/7 material, while social media assume no responsibility for the lack of integrity of their content.
So, suddenly, it is not a matter of reminding today’s kids that the history we teach in schools was written by the “winners” and might not, no matter what sources were used, be entirely objective.
Education has become much more a matter of inoculating students against the daily torrent of unsubstantiated opinion and the miasma of misinformation that, rightly or wrongly, will somehow become tomorrow’s history.
It will be an instructive exercise for the next generation’s serious students, certainly those at the post-graduate level, to find their way through the overwhelming amount of puffery and hoopla left as the detritus of today’s “information age,” as they search for something in all this technodriven hullabaloo for something worth representing as an authentic history of our time.
Who wrote it will have become irrelevant.
—
Geoff Johnson, Glacier Media
Liberal budget exposes Tories
Last week, the Minister of Finance Bill Morneau tabled the 2019/20 Budget.
It was met with an unseemly display by the Opposition in which they repeatedly chanted, jeered, and carried on with such vigour that no one could hear the minister speak. The Speaker of the House shut down all of the microphones but it didn’t help.
I say “unseemly” but perhaps “childish” would be a better term. Yes, getting to the bottom of the Jody Wilson-Raybould affair is important but by protesting in the house during the reading of the budget speech, the Opposition did neither themselves nor the public a favour.
If I was leading the Opposition right now, I would stop talking about the whole affair and let it play out on its own. The Liberals seem to be doing a good job of shooting themselves in the foot all by themselves. They don’t really need a hand at this point. Instead, I would use the time devoted to the budget to focus on the budget. It has an interesting take on our finances going forward but perhaps more importantly, it is not the balanced budget we were promised during the last campaign and in the first budget after the election. Essentially, the government is once again putting off the payments for another year. Why is that? And what would the Conservatives, for example, do differently?
After all, the last two times the Conservatives were in power, they ran up the national debt to record levels and in unprecedented fashion. For a party which claims to be fiscally conservative, it is hard to understand how they can be so irresponsible with our money.
Perhaps this is why Minister Morneau’s speech was turned into a tantrum about a completely different issue. It allowed the members of the opposition to avoid providing an alternative vision for our finances. After all, if you can’t beat them with logical sound arguments, maybe a smoke screen is the next best approach.
However, as the Conservatives have yet to provide us with a vision of how they would handle the economy, we are left to speculate based on their previous performance. And in this case the Liberals win, hands down.
The central theme of the budget was “Investing in the Middle Class.” The Liberals argue they have been doing this since day one and it has resulted in well-paying jobs, a stronger and more connected country, and opportunities for our youth and Indigenous people.
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They claim the creation of 900,000 jobs over the past four years – most of which are full time and 54 per cent going to women in the last year alone. Their stewardship has led to the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years. Our economy hasn’t led the world in growth, but that is to be expected as some countries are so far behind and racing to catch up. But within the OECD, we are doing very well and amongst the G7, we are second to the U.S.
If, as pundits often say, “It’s the economy, stupid,” then the Liberals have done their job. They have strengthened the middle-class. They have provided a stronger economy. They have lowered unemployment or increased employment rates. They have engaged in diversification. They have done much for the average Canadian and haven’t really disadvantaged the rich.
To my mind, this is one of the hallmarks defining the different approaches taken by the Liberals and the Conservatives. Under the previous Conservative governments, the approach taken was to give big tax cuts to the wealthy so they will spend their money in a way that it trickles down to the middle class. Give the rich more and everyone else will benefit. Except it doesn’t actually work. Instead, we have a ridiculous situation where the average CEO earns as much money in their first day of work in any given year as their average employee makes in 365 days. How is this allowed to happen? The Conservative argument is wealthy people will give to and provide for those less fortunate. But is this really the case?
The Liberals take a much more direct approach. Instead of providing for the top few earners and hoping the largess will wind its way downward, they are targeting the middle class directly. It is the Henry Ford approach – if you want people to buy your cars, you need to pay your workers well so they can afford them.
The budget does run a deficit, although the $22.8 billion being bandied about is over the next five years. But the deficits are a consequence of previous policy which shed responsibility by providing tax cuts to the top earners thereby limiting revenue. Federal revenue growth is falling behind real growth. That is for another column, though.
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Democrats ask for Mueller files, GOP says ‘Move on’
Mary Clare JALONICK Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — House Democrats pressed the Justice Department Monday to provide the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller even as Republicans gleefully called for them to “move on” from the Russia investigation. U.S. President Donald Trump accused those responsible for launching Mueller’s probe of “treasonous things against our country” and said they “certainly will be looked into.”
Trump said the release of Mueller’s full report “wouldn’t bother me at all,” and Democrats quickly put that statement to the test, demanding that his administration hand over the entire document and not just Sunday’s four-page summary from Attorney General William Barr.
Six House Democratic committee chairmen wrote to Barr that his summary is “not sufficient” and asked to be given Mueller’s full report by April 2. They also want to begin receiving the underlying evidence the same day. The information is “urgently needed by our committees to perform their duties under the Constitution,” they wrote, implying that the information would be subpoenaed if it is not turned over by the deadline.
Barr said in his letter to Congress that Mueller did not find that Trump’s campaign “conspired or co-ordinated” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election – knocking down arguments from Democrats who have long claimed there was evidence of such collusion.
But he also said Mueller reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed the federal investigation, instead setting out “evidence on both sides” of the question and stating that “while this report does not conclude the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Absent a recommendation from Mueller, Barr stepped in and decided there wasn’t sufficient evidence to establish that the president obstructed justice. Democrats said Barr’s judgment is not the final word.
“All I’m interested in is them releasing the full report, the full Mueller report,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Despite Mueller’s refusal to exonerate Trump, his spokesmen and leading congressional Republicans all claimed total vindication for the president anyway. Questioned by reporters, Trump said he welcomed Mueller’s results but complained he had been abused by the investigation occurring at all and taking too long.
“We can never let this happen to another president again,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there that have done some
very evil things, very bad things, I would say treasonous things against our country.”
“Those people will certainly be looked at. I’ve been looking at them for a long time. And I’m saying, why haven’t they been looked at? They lied to Congress. Many of them you know who they are.”
He didn’t name names, but Trump has spent months railing against former Justice Department officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, accusing them of an illegal witch hunt for the purpose of delegitimizing his presidency. He has also falsely claimed that the investigation was based on memos compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, and even blamed former Sen. John McCain, who died last year, for passing the memos to the FBI.
The investigation began months before the FBI saw the dossier – and the FBI already had a copy by the time McCain turned it in.
On Monday, after a series of evening strategy meetings, Democrats vowed to continue their multiple investigations into Trump, perhaps with shifted focus. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who has become a focus of Republicans’ post-Mueller ire, said he is “circumspect about how much
Feds considering Indigenous ownership of Trans Mountain
Citizen news service
CALGARY — Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the government remains committed to putting the Trans Mountain pipeline and its proposed expansion back in private hands as he unveiled four principles for including Indigenous groups in those discussions.
But he says timing and details of the sale of the pipeline depends on when it is “derisked” and therefore can’t be determined until consultations now underway with affected Indigenous groups are completed.
The minister says discussions of potential Indigenous ownership could proceed if the communities would have “meaningful economic participation,” if the deal can proceed in the spirit of reconciliation, and if the resulting entity works to the benefit of all Canadians and on a commercial basis.
Morneau is in Calgary to promote last
Citizen news service
VICTORIA — British Columbia is changing the province’s tax structure for liquefied natural gas projects, aiming to encourage more development through a natural gas tax credit.
Finance Minister Carole James says the change was introduced in legislation today and is meant to bring jobs and other financial benefits to the province through economic partnerships with Indigenous Peoples while also protecting the environment. Under the changes, the government would amend the Income Tax Act to implement the tax credit for LNG development. It would also repeal the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act, which it says created barriers for investment and left the province open to footing the bill for special industry tax and regulatory protections.
In October, LNG Canada announced plans for a $40-billion project in Kitimat.
The government says the tax changes it is making will provide the fiscal framework needed for the project, which is expected to create 10,000 construction jobs and up to 950 permanent jobs in the processing terminal.
week’s federal budget. His next stops are in Vancouver and Edmonton.
Chanting and honking horns could be heard from a large gathering of pro-pipeline picketers across the street from the Fairmont Palliser hotel while Morneau spoke to the Economic Club of Canada.
In his speech, he said Ottawa realizes that resource-dependent provinces like Alberta have different economic challenges than others and vowed to continue to implement measures that encourage confidence and optimism.
“We’ve been very clear that we see the importance of getting our resources to international markets. We’ve also been very clear that the only way these projects can get done is if they’re done in the right way,” he said. “I hope and expect that Albertans will see that we’re comporting ourselves in the way we need to in the face of getting a project done.”
The new tax credit would go in effect on Jan. 1, 2020, to companies that qualify for it. It would be calculated at three per cent of the cost of natural gas and could be used to reduce B.C.’s corporate income tax rate from 12 per cent to nine per cent.
more we will be able to find on issues that he thoroughly investigated,” but said Mueller’s conclusion would not affect his own committee’s counterintelligence probes.
“There may be other corrupt meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russians, there may be other profound financial conflicts of interest that are not mentioned in the Mueller report, and there may be unanswered questions even within what he did examine,” Schiff said.
Democrats also signalled that they will curtail some public focus, at least, from their investigations of Trump and try to keep attention on their policy goals. Schiff postponed an open hearing with Felix Sater, a Russian-born former business adviser to Trump who helped him negotiate an ultimately unsuccessful deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow, while the intelligence committee tries to get a look at Mueller’s report.
Pelosi, meanwhile, was scheduled to hold a press conference Tuesday on health care legislation, Democrats’ top campaign issue.
Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, a member of Democratic leadership, said he has been encouraging colleagues to talk about those policy issues like health care and infrastructure.
“We need to talk about the work we are doing on these really important economic issues that matter in people’s lives,” Cicilline said.
“We’re doing the work, but we need to be more effective about sharing that” and not just responding to questions about corruption and Mueller’s investigation.
Democrats seem more likely to focus on those issues, and their ongoing investigations, than engaging in the talk of impeachment that has been amplified on Pelosi’s left flank. As the release of Mueller’s report loomed, she recently tried to scuttle that talk by saying she’s not for impeachment, for now.
But Mueller’s report hasn’t dissuaded some of Trump’s fiercest critics among the new Democratic lawmakers who helped flip the House from Republican control. By the end of the month, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is still planning to introduce her resolution calling for the Judiciary Committee to investigate grounds for Trump’s impeachment.
Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers called for Congress to move on.
“This is done with,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “It is time for the country to move forward.”
AP PHOTO
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington on Monday. Trump said the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report “wouldn’t bother me at all” as congressional Democrats demanded that the Justice Department hand it over quickly.
PM rejected Wilson-Raybould court recommendation: sources
Jody Wilson-Raybould recommended in 2017 that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nominate a conservative Manitoba judge to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, even though he wasn’t a sitting member of the top court and had been a vocal critic of its activism on Charter of Rights issues, The Canadian Press has learned.
Well-placed sources say the former justice minister’s choice for chief justice was a moment of “significant disagreement” with Trudeau, who has touted the Liberals as “the party of the charter” and whose late father, Pierre Trudeau, spearheaded the drive to enshrine the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution in 1982.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal discussions about a Supreme Court appointment, which are
typically considered highly confidential.
For her part, Wilson-Raybould said Monday “there was no conflict between the PM and myself.”
In an email, she characterized the matter as part of the normal process of appointing a Supreme Court justice, which involves “typically CONFIDENTIAL conversations and communications – back and forths between the PM and the AG (attorney general) on potential candidates for appointment.”
She said she’s “not at liberty to comment” on the “veracity” of what the sources said occurred, adding, “Commentary/reporting in this regard with respect to a SCC appointment(s) could compromise the integrity of the appointments process and potentially sitting justices.”
The PMO refused to comment on the story Monday.
The issue, the sources say, arose after Bev-
erley McLachlin announced in June 2017 her decision to retire that December after 28 years on the high court, including 17 as chief justice.
Her retirement meant the government would have to choose a new chief justice and find another bilingual judge from western or northern Canada to sit on the nine-member bench.
Trudeau created an independent, nonpartisan advisory board, headed by former Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell, to identify qualified candidates to fill the western/northern vacancy and submit a short list of three to five names for consideration.
According to the sources, one of the names on the eventual list was Glenn Joyal, who had been appointed in 2011 by former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper as chief justice of Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench.
Wilson-Raybould then sent the prime minister a 60-plus-page memo, arguing that Joyal should not only be added to the top court but should be named chief justice as well. Only once before in Canadian history – in 1906, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier appointed his justice minister to the top judicial job –has a prime minister chosen a chief justice who was not already sitting on the Supreme Court.
Wilson-Raybould’s pick puzzled Trudeau but he became disturbed after doing some research into Joyal’s views on the charter, the sources said.
Joyal had criticized the judiciary for broadly interpreting charter rights and expanding them to apply to things not explicitly mentioned in the charter or, in his view, intended by provincial premiers when they agreed to enshrine a charter in the Constitution.
‘Cordial’ talk, Trudeau says of meet with ex-minister
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he spoke with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould last week about a way forward after her allegations of political interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
Speaking in Maple Ridge, Trudeau said the two spoke last Monday.
That day, Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, announced he would leave his post before the fall election, citing a loss of trust with the opposition parties after Wilson-Raybould accused him of being among a group of top officials that pushed her to help SNC-Lavalin land a kind of plea deal to avoid criminal prosecution.
And the government later announced that former Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan would look into whether the job of justice minister and attorney general should be split.
Trudeau said he had a “cordial” conversation with Wilson-Raybould where they discussed “next steps,” but he did not elaborate on what that meant.
He also signalled that WilsonRaybould and Jane Philpott will remain in the Liberal caucus despite their outspoken criticism of his government’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.
“I look forward to continuing to engage with both Jody WilsonRaybould and Jane Philpott as they make their way forward,” Trudeau said Monday.
“They have both indicated they look forward to running again as Liberals in the next election and I look forward to continuing to have their strong and thoughtful voices as part of our team.”
The opposition parties will push for a fresh investigation of Wilson-Raybould’s allegations when the ethics committee meets on Tuesday.
On Monday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called on Trudeau to waive cabinet confidentiality for both WilsonRaybould and Philpott so they can testify freely.
“If they really want us to believe that they want the truth to come out, if Justin Trudeau truly has nothing to hide, he will make it official – he will send a letter to Ms. Wilson-Raybould and now Ms. Philpott, allowing them to complete their testimony, to speak freely and openly,” Scheer told reporters in Ottawa on Monday.
It has been roughly one month since Wilson-Raybould detailed allegations that Trudeau and other top government officials repeatedly pressured her to intervene in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin over its business dealings in Libya. She testified she was shuffled to the veterans affairs portfolio because she didn’t agree.
Trudeau denies anything improper occurred.
Philpott breathed new life into the controversy last week in a published interview with Maclean’s magazine where she said there is “much more” to the story that has not been told.
Wilson-Raybould will add more details after promising the justice committee on Friday more evidence and details of her allegations as part of a forthcoming written submission.
Liberal MPs are challenging both former cabinet ministers to have their say publicly and be done with the issue.
Citizen news service
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Cariboo Cats headed to league championship
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Booker Daniel has booked a berth for the Cariboo Cougars in the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League championship.
He scored three goals in a 4-2 win over the Vancouver North East Chiefs Sunday in the third and deciding game of their best-ofthree semifinal series.
Daniel, a 17-year-old centre from Vanderhoof, provided instant relief for a tense group of Cougar supporters in the stands at Kin 1 when he completed his hat trick into an empty net with 40 seconds left.
The Cougars will travel to Abbotsford to face the defending champion Fraser Valley Thunderbirds in the best-of-three championship series which starts Friday.
Ryan Tattle made it a nailbiting finish when he redirected a pass in the slot from linemate Dante Ballarin to make it a onegoal game on a Chiefs’ power play with 4:27 left in the third period.
Ballarin had a great crack at the Cougar net in the final minute just before Daniel ended the suspense but goalie Devin Chapman kicked out his pad to preserve the Cariboo lead. Seconds later, Brendan Pigeon’s alert play along the boards sprung Daniel into the clear for his third goal.
“When they scored that second goal everyone was really nervous but we all just battled through it, stuck to our systems and got it done,” said Daniel.
Daniel started the season in the WHL with the Tri-City Americans but suffered a broken fibula and returned to play 26 games in the season for the Cougars, finishing fourth in team scoring with 17 goals and 38 points.
“I was thinking this would be a grinding game, just hitting, so it worked out,” he said. “I haven’t had a hat trick this season, it’s a good time to have it. They fought hard, they’ve got a lot of character on that team, a lot of good players, but we just came out on top.”
The Cougars got the start they’d been looking for all series and jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Curtis Hammond, who scored the double-overtime winner in Game 2, used his speed to get a step ahead of his check down the right wing boards and let go a low wrist shot that found the net on the far side to open the scoring at 6:33.
Near the midway mark of the period, Cougar defenceman Ethan Floris chipped in a high dump-in into the Chiefs’ zone that defenceman Jackson Murphy-Johnson knocked down with his glove but the puck bounced away from him and rolled into the slot for a streaking Daniel and he made it count.
“Just from (Saturday) night and the energy we had from the overtime win we wanted to make sure we kept momentum s
Cariboo Cougars forward Brett Fudger goes one-on-two against Vancouver North East Chiefs defenders Zachary
and Nicco Camazzola on Sunday morning at Kin 1 during the deciding game of a best-of-three BCMML semifinal series. The Cariboo Cougars defeated the Chiefs 4-2, punching their ticket to the BCMML championship.
that first goal was key for us,” said Cougars head coach Tyler Brough. “We ended up getting it and got some cushion with the second one.”
The Chiefs came close on the power play with about five minutes left in the first period. They nailed the post with a high point shot and seconds later Logan Kurki put the puck off the crossbar. The Chiefs’ power play went to work again in the final minute of the period but the Cougars had the best scoring chance when Connor Fleming stole the puck from Kurki at the Cariboo blueline and raced in on a breakaway. Fleming aimed for the top corner but Logan Terness caught the puck in his trapper with 1.9 seconds left.
The Chiefs had the edge in play in the second period but it didn’t show on the scoreboard and each team scored once. Nicolas Roussel was in the right spot in front to snap in the rebound after Justin Scott fired a shot from the face-off circle, 7:52 into the second.
The Cougars restored their two-goal lead on the power play at the 15:31 mark. Daniel went wide around Scott and let go a shot from the ringette line that found a seam in behind Terness. In the third period the Cougars tightened up defensively, and didn’t show any cracks
until later in the period when the Chiefs’ efforts around the net put the onus on Chapman to bail his team out.
Chapman sat on the bench for the first two games of the series while Xavier Cannon – the BCHMML’s stingiest netminder with 2.02 goals-against average – stood in to face the Chiefs. Chapman joined the Cougars a couple months into the season from the BCHL Salmon Arm Silverbacks. His 2.31 average over 14 games was third-best and together they formed the league’s top tandem, alternating starts on most weekends. So it was no surprise when Brough decided to play Chapman in the critical third game. “It was a tough decision for us, we’ve got two great goalies and either one we feel can win us a game or win us a championship,” said Brough. “For the most part we’re going back and forth here and we can do that with these two guys. They’re supporting each other and it backs us up when we can go with a guy and he stands tall like Devin did here today.”
The Chiefs haven’t had much success in Prince George since 2015, when they beat the Cougars in their own rink for the league championship. Chiefs head coach Jeff Urekar said his team played well enough to win Sunday, the difference was their inability to bury the puck.
“I thought we outplayed them today, I think the pressure, the zone time, the shots and the chances that we got, we definitely created more,” said Urekar. “It came down to a couple of breakdowns and they were able to capitalize on and sometimes that’s the difference. You’ve got to give credit to their goaltender and they were blocking shots out there but I thought we did everything it took to win today, we just didn’t get the bounces.”
The Chiefs outshot the Cougars 32-26. Fraser Valley swept the Okanagan Rockets in the other semifinal series, winning 3-2 in quadruple overtime Friday and 5-1 on Saturday. The Cougars lost three of the four regular-season games to the T-birds.
“They came here last year and beat us in our building (in the final) and we have the opportunity to do that to them,” said Brough. “It’s a hungry group in there and we’re definitely not satisfied. We just went through a war of a series against a good team and they have every right to feel proud of themselves but we’re not done yet.”
The winner of the Cougars-T-birds series will play the Alberta champion in a bestof-three series April 5-7 in Alberta for the right to represent the Pacific region at the Telus Cup national midget championship in Thunder Bay, Ont., April 22-28.
Lamb not taking head coach job with Cougars
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
Mark Lamb won’t be back next season as head coach of the Prince George Cougars. The Cougars intend to hire a head coach which will allow Lamb to focus exclusively on his duties as general manager of the Western Hockey League team. He took the interim job Feb. 6 when Richard Matvichuk was relieved of his duties after nearly
three seasons as head coach.
“That’s not the plan to come back, I’m interim head coach since I took over and that’s still what I am,” said Lamb last week at the team’s awards banquet.
“There’s going to be a search for it, I haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet. Obviously when you’re in a situation like this, people kind of know, so I’ve gotten a lot of resumes already. I just wanted to concentrate on finishing the
year strong and I think that’s what we did.” Lamb was hired as general manager last June to replace Todd Harkins, whose contract was not renewed after four seasons as GM. Prior to joining the Cougars, Lamb spent seven seasons with the Swift Current Broncos as head coach and general manager (2009-2016) and left the following season when he was hired as head coach of
the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, the top farm club of the Arizona Coyotes.
He served seven seasons as an NHL assistant coach with Edmonton and Dallas after a 16-year career in pro hockey as a centre.
The Cougars (19-41-3-5) finished last in the B.C. Division and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
They totalled just 46 points (fifth-lowest in their 25-year
Prince George history) in a 68game season, the first since the league shortened the schedule from 72 games.
Lamb took over while the team was in the midst of a club-record 17-game losing streak, the longest since the team arrived from Victoria in 1994, and they finished the season with two wins, 11 regulation losses, an overtime loss and a shootout loss. — see ‘THERE WILL, page 8
Abenante
Sports
Rush seeking ringette gold in St. Albert
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Ringette has been part of Stephanie Thompson’s life since she was four.
The thrill of competing in a bigstakes tournament doesn’t come around often and it never gets old. Especially when the old gang that makes up the Prince George Rush gets together for a rare opportunity to strut their skills on home ice, like they did a couple weekends ago when they won the 18-plus open A division provincial championship at Kin 1. Their 6-2 win over Kelowna in the final qualified the Rush for the Western Canadian championship which starts Thursday in St. Albert, Alta. Now all playing as adults, a majority of the 16 players who make up the Rush roster have been teammates since they were toddlers.
“It’s a pretty neat feeling, a lot of us have played together for 17 years,” said Thompson, a 24-yearold Rush defenceman.
“We actually don’t ever get to practice together as a team, we just come together for tournaments. We all grew up playing with or against each other and when you get to this (adult) level there’s just not a lot of players so we all pool together. Even though these guys play (on club teams) in Vancouver they still want to play for a northern team because they’re northern girls.”
It’s not all girls on the Rush.
Rory Bird and Cameron Spooner have been Rush regulars representing the northern region at double-A tournaments for at least the past decade and they’re an integral part of the team – two brothers on a team of 14 sisters. Bird, who scored five goals in the provincial final, is in Australia and won’t be playing this week.
and goaltender Megan Spooner.
Holmberg is a former Burnaby resident who moved to Prince George a few years ago.
“There’s a lot of talent on the team, most of us have played double-A and on Team B.C. quite a few times,” said Thompson. “Sydney (Irving) played on the Canada Winter Games team.”
Thompson’s sister Courtney is the oldest player on the team at 32 and she’s showing no slowing down with age.
”She’s our resident lady, but she’s quicker than most of the girls out here,” said Stephanie. Irving, 22, helped B.C. to a sixthplace finish at the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George. This is her fifth year with the 18plus Rush and for the first time in her career she’s playing on the
‘There will be significant changes’
— from page 7
“One of the reasons I did take over was to try to find some answers, try to find some improvements for the organization to find where the needs are moving on and exactly what was wrong and I got a lot of information – working with the coaching staff and just getting to know the kids, it was a lot better for me,” said Lamb, who has three years remaining on his contract.
“When you’re away, event though you’re sitting up top and you’re the GM you know what’s going on but now you can really feel what’s going on, which should be beneficial for the future. (As a coach) you really see the holes in your lineup and where you need to improve.”
Lamb tried to instill more of a shoot-first mentality over the last five weeks of the season to try to take advantage of the team’s physicality in front of the net. To some degree that made the Cougars more competitive, but the shift did not cure their losing ways.
“How you want to play changes with the type of team you have and we were a team that didn’t have as much skill as other teams and we were a big physical team,” said Lamb. “We had to forge our way that way in our identity, getting pucks to the net and scoring hard goals and being a way better team defensively and I thought we made small strides in all those areas.”
Scoring goals was difficult for the Cougars all season. They scored just 152 times in 68 games, a 2.24 average. Only the last-overall Swift Current Broncos (135) scored fewer goals. Josh Maser scored 30 goals, the first Cougar to do so in three seasons. Import winger Vladislav Mikhalchuk led the team in scoring with 25 goals and 50 points and defencemen Cole Moberg (13-27-41) and Ryan Schoettler (4-28-32) did their part to spark the offence, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make the Cougars a playoff contender.
“There will be significant changes and it will all be how (well) these kids summer, you have to take some time off and clear the brain and spend time with your family and if you want to be a Prince George Cougar you’ve got to put in the work,” said Lamb.
There is help on the horizon from the 2003 draft class with the likes of forward Craig Armstrong (Airdrie Xtreme), defenceman Hudson Thornton (Rink Academy) and goalie Tyler Brennan (Rink Academy), as well as forward Tyson Phare (Delta Academy), the Cougars’ 2017 first-round pick, about to make the jump to the WHL.
“You can’t put a lot of pressure on these young 16-year-olds, it’s a hard league to play in, but they’re very good players with a lot of status,” said Lamb. “They’ve been around a bit this year and we’ve seen them and the progression they’ve showed throughout the year is very positive also.”
The Cougars own the second- and fourth-overall in picks in the May bantam draft but as 15-year-olds, no matter who the Cougars draft they will be limited to just five games each next season. Lamb says the team
is well-stocked with draft picks this year and in the next two draft years, which is why they did not make any moves at the January trade deadline.
“We had some players that other teams wanted but to get draft picks back, we have those draft picks, we need real players back if we’re going to be making trades,” he said.
The draft is the Cougars’ lifeblood and Lamb realizes how important it is that he and head scout Bob Simmonds make the right choices May 2 in Red Deer. They’ll have six picks in the first five rounds this year and have seven choices in the first five rounds for 2020, including Portland’s first-rounder.
Matvichuk, after he was fired, said the Cougars are paying the price for the moves they made in the 2016-17 season when they won the B.C. Division and were gearing up for what they thought would be an extended playoff run, which ended in a first-round series loss to Portland. Two seasons ago they traded Justin Almeida, who went on to lead the WHL this season with 78 assists, to Moose Jaw in the deal that brought forward Nikita Popugaev to the Cougars. That deal backfired on the Cougars in October 2017 when Popugaev decided to return to Russia and forego his final two seasons of junior eligibility.
“When you go all-in, like we did two years ago, and you take a look at how many players were drafted in the last five years who aren’t even playing in the WHL, regardless of whether it’s a first-rounder or a seventh-rounder, the development curve wasn’t there,” Matvichuk said.
Lamb did not disagree.
“He’s right, we have to do a better job of drafting, especially with the situation we’re in, we’ve got lots of picks this year and we have lots of picks next year and the year after,” Lamb said.
same team with her 17-year-old sister Sara.
“It’s pretty cool to have that chemistry between us when we get to play together,” said Sydney Irving.
“It was an all-time high playing here in Canada Winter Games and every time I go to a tournament I see those girls I played with on Team B.C. and when you come back to playing in Prince George you get those chills.”
Prince George will host the Western Canadian championships in March 2020. Irving says it’s important for the Prince George Ringette Association to continue to try to grow the game by bidding for big events like provincials and the Westerns to encourage more young players to join and keep older players participating.
“It gives the younger teams something to look up to, they can come out and see the older teams and people who aren’t in school
anymore still playing the game of ringette,” she Irving. “It all comes down to playing a game we all love to play.”
The Rush finished second in B.C. in 2018 and played in three tournaments this season prior to provincials, starting with fourth-place finish in November in Burnaby. In January they placed second in Richmond, and in February they were third in Kelowna. Before this year, Prince George last hosted provincials in 2014, but the Rush were unable to participate that year because no other teams from the other regions wanted to make the trip north.
The Rush has two games Thursday, starting with Manitoba at 7:15 a.m. PT. Then at 4 p.m. PT, the Rush takes on Saskatchewan. The B.C. champs will be back on the ice Friday at 8:30 a.m. PT against Alberta and at 1:15 p.m. PT against the host team. Playoffs start Saturday morning.
Capitals visit White House minus Connolly, Holtby, Smith-Pelly
Isabelle KHURSHUDYAN Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump sat behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, a red Washington Capitals’ jersey, No. 45, splayed before him and the Stanley Cup to his right. Players, coaches and staff members from the team’s 2018 championship season stood behind him as his guests 10 months after the Capitals first hoisted the chalice and roughly two weeks before the 2019 playoffs start and they try to win it again.
“I just want to wish you a lot of luck,” Trump told the team.
“In Washington, that’s all that they want to talk about. They don’t want to talk about anything else. I can’t get the subject on to anything else, so you’ve got to win quickly because we’ve got to get back to work. But I think you’re going to do really fantastically well.”
The Capitals’ 45-minute tour of the White House was private with no official ceremony before pool reporters were invited to witness the team’s meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. Washington’s low-key final celebration with the Stanley Cup was in stark contrast to its first in the District of Columbia, when players sloppily paraded the chalice around Georgetown in a public display. The visit also comes a day after Attorney General William Barr released a summary of the findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that found no evidence that Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election but reached no conclusion as to whether Trump obstructed justice.
During Monday afternoon’s lighthearted ceremony, Trump marveled at the size of Russian captain Alex Ovechkin’s hands and then listed career accomplishments, adding that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, is “a friend and she’s a tremendous
fan.” He singled out team owner Ted Leonsis - “a man that’s been a great success over his lifetime,” Trump said - American defenseman John Carlson’s 20 points in the playoffs and center Evgeny Kuznetsov’s four-assist game in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, though he struggled with the pronunciation of the latter’s name. In addition to the jersey, the team gave Trump a gold hockey stick, engraved with the president’s name.
After media left, Trump continued to spend time with the team, passing out pens and M&M candies, and he posed for individual pictures with players and staffers. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was also in attendance.
“Thank you very much for having us,” a clean-shaven Ovechkin told Trump in the Oval Office. “It’s huge honor for us to be here and meet you personally. We’re gonna try to do it again. We have same team, experienced team, very good group of guys, and we’re gonna try to do it again.” Canadian goaltender Braden Holtby and forwards Brett Connolly –a former Prince George Cougars player – and Devante Smith-Pelly, who was sent down to the team’s minor-league affiliate last month in a salarycap-clearing move, were the only players who announced that they would not visit the White House with their teammates. Holtby said he’s always believed “the team sticks together,” but this issue is one that “you’re asked to choose what side you’re on.” The Capitals gave players, coaches and staff members from their Stanley Cup-winning team the option to participate or not. Connolly cited his support for Smith-Pelly, who said in June that “the things that (Trump) spews are straight-up racist and sexist,” and Holtby explained his reasoning as wanting to stick to his values.
“My family and myself, we believe in a world where humans are treated with respect regardless of your stature, what you’re born into,” Holtby said Friday.
The Rush roster has two former MVPs from the Western Canadian championships – forward Tara Holmberg
The Prince George Rush pose with their banner after winning the 18-plus open A division provincial championship at Kin 1 earlier this month. The Rush are headed to the Western Canadian championship, which starts on Thursday in St. Albert, Alta.
LAMB
Blue Jackets blank Canucks
Jim MORRIS Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — The scoring slump was over, but the questions remained for PierreLuc Dubois.
Dubois had a goal and an assist as the Columbus Blue Jackets pounded the Vancouver Canucks 5-0 Sunday night to improve their NHL playoff chances.
Dubois was still looking for answers after going 11 games without a point and being goalless in 13.
“I’ve never been in a slump like that probably in my life,” said the Blue Jackets’ firstline centre. “I have been in a slump where I wasn’t playing well, and I wasn’t getting points and didn’t wonder why because I wasn’t playing well.
“But this was a slump where some games I was playing really well and getting chances and just didn’t score. You start off getting frustrated and then it’s like ‘is this a joke, what’s going on?’”
Josh Anderson scored twice and added an assist while goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky returned from injury to stop 21 shots as the Blue Jackets (41-30-4) moved to within two points of the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Columbus also snapped a threegame road winless streak.
Columbus took the ice knowing they had a chance to make up some ground after the Canadiens lost 2-1 to Carolina in overtime.
Ryan Dzingel and Oliver Bjorkstrand also scored for Columbus.
The shutout was the seventh of the season for Bobrovsky, who had missed one game with an upper-body injury. Two of his best saves came in the second period when he stopped Bo Horvat and Markus Granlund on Canuck power plays.
“I felt pretty good,” said Bobrovksy.
“I felt comfortable to play and I thought the guys helped me a lot out there.”
Dubois’s goal made it 2-0 with just 56 seconds gone in the second period. Artemi Panarin picked off a Canuck pass then fed Dubois, who scored on a screened shot.
While Columbus celebrated being a step closer to the playoffs, the Canucks were left trying to explain a step back.
Spruce Kings to face Victoria Grizzlies
Citizen staff
The Victoria Grizzlies are coming to Prince George, and it’s not for a spring vacation.
They’re heading north to try to beat the Spruce Kings as the Kings’ third-round opponent in the best-of-seven B.C. Hockey League Coastal Conference championship which starts Friday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
The Grizzlies finished off the Powell River Kings in Game 7 Monday night in Victoria, winning 6-1 to claim the Island Division championship four games to three.
Marty Westhaver scored two goals, while Carter Berger, Alex Newhook, Nico Somerville and New York Rangers draft pick Riley Hughes each fired singles for Victoria. Neal Samanaski had the goal for Powell River. The Grizzlies scored three times on the power play. Kurtis Chapman notched the win in goal for Victoria, making 27 saves as his team outshot Powell River 46-28.
The Spruce Kings will host the first two games of the series Friday and Saturday at RMCA.
In other BCHL playoff action Monday in Vernon, another Game 7 drama, the Vernon Vipers topped the Trail Smoke Eaters 4-2 Monday to win the series 4-3.
Josh Latta scored twice, including an empty-netter, and Nicholas Cherkowski, Jagger Williamson and Carver Watson also netted the goals for Vernon. Hayden Rowan and Braeden Tuck replied for the Smoke Eaters.
The Smokies started Adam Marcoux in goal and replaced him 5:25 into the second period with Logan Terness, after Watson scored to make it 4-1. Marcoux gave up four goals on 13 shots.
The 16-year-old Terness, a Prince George Cougars’ draft pick, played all three games for the Vancouver North East Chiefs in Prince George this past weekend when they were eliminated by the Cariboo Cougars in a three-game semifinal.
He joined his Smoke Eaters teammates in Vernon for Game 7 and in his first BCHL playoff game stopped all 15 shots he faced.
The Vipers will advance to the Coastal Conference championship series against the Wenatchee Wild.
The Wild wrapped up the other Interior semifinal series in Game 7 Sunday night in Duncan where they defeated the Cowichan Valley Capitals 4-3 in overtime.
The Wild, the highest remaining seed in the Interior, will host the Vipers in the first two games of that best-of-seven series Friday and Saturday.
Vancouver had played a strong game in a 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames Saturday but made costly mistakes and lacked emotion against Columbus.
“That wasn’t our strongest game,” said Horvat. “We knew they were going to come hard. They just kept coming and coming.
“We couldn’t get any traction. We have to be a lot better than that coming down the stretch here.”
The Canucks (32-34-10) trail the Colorado Avalanche by seven points for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with six games remaining.
NCAA favourites lead the way into Sweet 16
Dan GELSTON Citizen news service
Chalk one up for the seeded favourite in the NCAA Tournament.
The biggest upset this March isn’t a wild heave at the horn for a winner from a No. 15 seed or a First Four team somehow weaving into the second weekend – it’s the lack of genuine stunners to shake up the bracket. The top seeds are still at the top of the tourney.
The field has the top three seeds in each round in the Sweet 16 for only the second time (2009) since the bracket expanded in 1985. It’s tied with 2009 for the most top four seeds (14) in the Sweet 16.
Sure, Virginia had to sweat out another tourney opener. And Duke was a tip-in away from being done.
But it’s rare this many single-digit teams still have a shot at cutting down the nets.
Think that’s improbable? Consider this, the NCAA bracket tracker says one perfect bracket remains across all major online bracket games, including Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, Fox, Sports Illustrated and the NCAA’s own contest. It’s the longest streak of correct bracket picks, breaking the reported record of 39 games, which happened in 2017.
The NCAA says the odds of a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion – so bettors, take the under.
Just imagine if the entrant named “Center Road” in the NCAA’s bracket challenge
had bet the house on a 48-team money line parlay! For any fan who has a shot at entering one of those second-chance pools, take note: “Center Road” has Duke, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky as the Elite Eight. Oh, and if you believe “Center Road” knows more than Dickie V or Sir Charles, roll the dice on Gonzaga to beat Kentucky in the national championship game.
Cinderella will take a rain check to this party, please. The favourites don’t mind if the trend continues for another week.
“Everyone is talking about a Final Four, but I’ve never been to a Sweet 16,” Virginia guard Ty Jerome said.
The Big 12 has kept the conference from perfection. No. 4 seed Kansas State was surprised by UC Irvine (well, a surprise for everyone but “Center Road”) and No. 4 seed Kansas was knocked out by fifth-seeded Auburn, which was actually favoured by sportsbooks over the Jayhawks. While not among the top 16 seeds, sixth-seeded Villanova also lost, guaranteeing a new national champion will be crowned in Minneapolis.
• The 1s: Duke, Virginia, UNC, Gonzaga.
• The 2s: Michigan State, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky.
• The 3s: LSU, Texas Tech, Purdue and Houston.
• The 4s: FSU and Virginia Tech.
Columbus Blue Jackets’ Josh Anderson skates with the puck in front of Vancouver Canucks’ Alex Biega and Tanner Pearson during a game in Vancouver on Sunday.
Bed-in, Give Peace A Chance 50 years ago
Citizen news service
On March 25, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were a few days into their marriage when they invited the news media to join them at their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
An acquaintance of Lennon and “Uno” had said the couple was planning “the century’s most uncensored love-in.” So some journalists showed up thinking they were about to witness a conjugal act between the Beatles megastar and his Japanese bride. When they arrived, however, they found Lennon and Ono in conservative pajamas buttoned all the way up.
“There we were like two angels in bed, with flowers all around us, and peace and love on our heads,” Lennon said later. Why were they there? To protest war (in bed) and preach world peace (by growing out their hair), they said.
At the time, Lennon and Ono had been dogged by negative coverage of their love affair. (Both had been married to other people when they began their relationship, and many people later blamed Ono for the breakup of the Beatles.)
But, Lennon explained, they had decided to harness and redirect that attention for their own purposes.
Lennon and Ono took visitors for 12 hours a day for a week, before continuing their world tour. Next stop: Vienna.
Months later, Lennon and Ono planned to hold a second bed-in in New York, but Lennon was denied entry into the United States because of a drug conviction. So they chose an alternative location.
“We are going to the Bahamas to protest –in bed,” Lennon told Reuters. “I don’t know how long we will stay there. It depends when, and if, the visa is granted.”
They lasted one day, purportedly due to the island country’s heat, and flew to the cool climes of Montreal instead.
There, they holed up at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel for another week.
In Montreal, Lennon and Ono hosted visitors, including poet Allen Ginsberg and civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory.
They also recorded Give Peace a Chance with a crowd of backup singers that included LSD advocate Timothy Leary and the musical comedian Tommy Smothers.
Ono released a video, with footage from both the Amsterdam and Montreal bed-ins, on her YouTube page in 2007.
She also released the full Bed Peace documentary free.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTOS
Above, John Lennon and Yoko Ono talk to a group of reporters and photographers during the Bed-In for Peace at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam in March 1969. Lennon and Ono met with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on Dec. 24, 1969 in Ottawa, as part of their peace crusade.
After the Montreal bed-in, Lennon and Ono continued their campaign for peace by sending world leaders acorns “for peace” and buying full-page ads and billboards with the message, “WAR IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT.”
The Amsterdam Hilton room where the newlyweds stayed is permanently memorialized in its moment in history. You can still rent it, but it’ll cost you between $1,800 and $2,300 US per night.
New video game puts focus on baseball history
Citizen news service
From Babe Ruth’s debut as a pitcher to Jose Bautista’s bat-flip homer, MLB The Show 19 allows you to relive history.
The 2019 edition of PlayStation’s baseball franchise, out Tuesday, is touting its new “Moments” mode as a way to dip into notable memories from baseball’s past – and present – for a quick video-game fix.
“We’re able basically to recreate almost any moment that happened in the past and put it in the game,” said Ramone Russell, community manager and game designer for the Sony San Diego studio title. “What we’re asking... is, ‘Can you do the same thing that he did?”’
“Moments” can range from one at-bat, or an inning, to a series. The mode also challenges the gamer to rewrite history and avoid what happened in real life.
Most other major sports games already offer a chance to relive memorable moments. But baseball’s rich history – and the oneversus-one challenges the game offers – fit such a mode perfectly.
The feature also allows game designers a chance to show off their growing list of legends available to play. They added 30 this year, including Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson, Kerry Wood and Don Mattingly, upping the total to more than 150.
And they can create fantasy moments, like what might happen if Ruth pitched against today’s pitchers?
New “Moments” can be added to MLB The Show by game designers as the season progresses.
“Let’s say Opening Day, Kevin Pillar of the Blue Jays hits for the cycle. Within an hour, we can recreate that moment – his team, the stadium, who he’s playing against – we can put it in the game and have you play it,” Russell said.
Game designers also learned in their research that baseball is regional and that fans tend to tune out after the all-star break if their team is out of contention.
So they came up with another new mode called “March to October,” which allows gamers to play their team’s key moments throughout the season.
Tominac Petar March 10, 1940 Stajnica, Lika, Croatia March 20, 2019 Calgary, Alberta Peacefully with his family by his side, Petar Tominac passed from this life at Foothills Medical Center on March 20, 2019 after a brief illness. Relatives and friends are invited to Prayers at McINNIS & HOLLOWAY Chapel, 2720 Centre St. North Calgary on Friday March 29, at 7pm Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Catholic Church Majka Bozja Bistricka 14675 Deer Ridge Dr. SE Calgary on Saturday March 30, at 11am Graveside Service to follow at Queens Park Mausoleum Reception to follow at Croatian
NICK VITALIANO
November 22, 1955March 16, 2019
With heavy hearts, the family of Nick Vitaliano announce his passing on March 16, 2019 in Williams Lake. Nick is survived by his loving wife of 27 years, Tamara and his children Amber (Rory), Leah (Todd) and Tyler (Chris). Also left to mourn his passing are his favorite and only granddaughter Jenna, his sister Marie, and his brother Peter (Winnie). He is predeceased by his mother, Assunta, father Emilio and his sister Lena. Nick was the youngest of the family and was born in Prince George, where he lived until 1984 before moving to Williams Lake. Spending his career in the lumber industry with Tolko, he was passionate about his work and advocated for his colleagues. Until his decline in health, Nick was an avid fisherman who loved his many fishing trips with his friends and his children.
At heart, he was a family man. His wife, children and granddaughter were his highest priorities and he was incredibly proud of them all. He was loved by many in the community and will be sorely missed by those who knew and loved him. Nick was a strong and determined man which showed until his final days. His family would like to thank the many friends who came and visited with him before his passing. Nick’s family would also like to thank Doctor Werner Engelbrecht, the staff of the Deni House, and the paramedics of the BC Ambulance Service for their help in caring for him. We are forever grateful.
~You will always be in our hearts a loving husband, father, brother, uncle and grandfather~ Please join us on March 30th, 2019 from 1:00pm - 4:00pm, where a Celebration of Life will be held for Nick at the Elks Hall in Williams Lake. A graveside service in Prince George will also be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that a donation be made to the Cariboo Foundation Hospital Trust in his name.
LEDCORCONSTRUCTIONLIMITED PROJECTSUPERINTENDENT
LedcorConstructionLimitediscurrentlylookingto hireaSuperintendentinthePrinceGeorgearea.You areaSuperintendentwithover3yearsoffield operationsexperienceinaleadershipcapacity workingonmulti-disciplinarycommercial constructionprojects.Responsibilitieswillinclude safetyonsiteandensuringcomplianceofallLedcor andWorksafeBCregulations;ensuringthatthe projectsarebuiltaccordingtoplans,specifications, shopdrawings,buildingcodesandthatquality standardsaremaintained;developing,maintaining, anddrivingtheconstructionscheduleinconjunction withtheprojectteam;supervisingfieldemployees, ensuringtheirworkisplanned,performedefficiently, anddocumentsarecompletedaccurately.
Interestedapplicantsarerequestedtoforward resumestoheather.taron@ledcor.com,nophone calls,please.Wethankallapplicantsinadvance,only thoseshortlistedwillbecontacted. www.ledcor.com
LEDCORCONSTRUCTIONLIMITED PROJECTSUPERINTENDENT
LedcorConstructionLimitediscurrentlylookingto hireaSuperintendentinthePrinceGeorgearea.You areaSuperintendentwithover3yearsoffield operationsexperienceinaleadershipcapacity workingonmulti-disciplinarycommercial constructionprojects.Responsibilitieswillinclude safetyonsiteandensuringcomplianceofallLedcor andWorksafeBCregulations;ensuringthatthe projectsarebuiltaccordingtoplans,specifications, shopdrawings,buildingcodesandthatquality standardsaremaintained;developing,maintaining, anddrivingtheconstructionscheduleinconjunction withtheprojectteam;supervisingfieldemployees, ensuringtheirworkisplanned,performedefficiently, anddocumentsarecompletedaccurately.
Interestedapplicantsarerequestedtoforward resumestoheather.taron@ledcor.com,nophone calls,please.Wethankallapplicantsinadvance,only thoseshortlistedwillbecontacted. www.ledcor.com
These are indicative
vided by the
The markets today
Canada’s main stock index resumed where it left off Friday by continuing to fall on lingering concern about global economic
The market was in a “holding pattern” Monday after its worst selloff of the year as investors continued to digest suggestions of a potential global economic slowdown, says Craig Fehr, Canadian markets strategist for Edward Jones.
The yield curves in Canada and the United States have inverted, suggested dark clouds ahead.
“It’s not surprising to see the Canadian curve inverted at this stage and I think it’s indicative of the rather unique growth outlook that the Canadian economy faces at the moment,” he said.
Fehr said the concern around the yield curve inverting for the first time in about a decade is warranted since it has been a pretty reliable predictor of the economy.
“It is not a perfect predictor, however, and in fact we’ve seen false positives before in the past where the yield curve did invert and it did not signal an impending recession.”
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 23.47 points at 16,065.86 after hitting an intraday low of 16,021.00
The energy sector fell 1.9 per cent as crude oil prices were sensitive to Chinese data suggesting its economy was slowing.
Crescent Point Energy Corp. was off nearly five per cent, followed by Cenovus Energy Inc, Suncor Energy Inc, Canadian Natural Resources and Encana Corp.
“I think the weakness in oil is probably governing a lot of what we’re seeing from the TSX at the moment,” Fehr said.
The May crude contract was down 22 cents at US$58.82 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was up 0.7 of a cent at US$2.77 per mmBTU. However, materials gained 1.15 per cent as investors turned defensive stocks and safe havens such as gold.
The April gold contract was up US$10.30 at US$1,322.60 an ounce and the May copper contract was up 1.4 cents at US$2.86 a pound.
Yamana Gold Inc., Eldorado Gold and Barrick Gold Corp. led sector’s gains.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 74.52 cents US compared with an average of 74.57 cents US on Friday.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 14.51 points at 25,516.83.
The S&P 500 index was down 2.35 points at 2,798.36, while the Nasdaq composite was down 5.13 points at 7,637.54.
Show time for Apple
Citizen news service
On Monday, Apple announced something altogether different from its typical new products that consumers can touch and feel:
An entertainment service that in some ways resembles Amazon Prime and will include Apple’s own films and television shows with Hollywood stars including Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steven Spielberg.
At an event at its campus in Cupertino, Calif., Apple said it was launching a raft of new services, from news to video games and a credit card. Its biggest initiative is entertainment streaming service Apple TV+, which, in an effort to attract a wider audience than just Apple customers, will be available on smart TVs.
Apple didn’t announce a price for the streaming service or when it will launch.
Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the event, in the Steve Jobs Theater, after a short opening movie that paid homage to Apple’s products, from the iPhone to Siri.
“We’ve also been creating a collection of world class services, and that is what today is all about,”
Cook said.
Cook highlighted what the company has already been doing in the services realm, such as iCloud information storage, and touted the way they work across a myriad of Apple’s devices, all the while keeping users’ information “private and secure,” a line that drew big applause.
Usually, when Apple holds big, splashy press events, it unveils a new product like the iPhone or the MacBook. For years, Apple’s business has centered around the iPhone, but sales of that oncerevolutionary but now commonplace device have slowed. And the entire world of computers has been flipped on its head. Apple has been diversifying beyond hardware, selling iCloud storage to its customers, a $10 a month music streaming service and movies and television shows through iTunes.
But Monday’s anticipated announcement takes that diversification to a whole new level.
First, Cook unveiled a new service called Apple News +, a $10 a month subscription service that will include magazines like Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker. “Quality journalism matters,” Apple said in a short video touting the magazines it would include in the new service.
What Apple didn’t talk about in its presentation is that it had largely failed to convince some of the largest newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, to participate in the service. Though it briefly
featured The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times during the presentation, it more or less focused on magazines.
The Toronto Star, La Presse, CTV and Global News were named as Canadian content suppliers.
Apple Canada says Apple News Plus will cost $12.99 a month, after a free preview month.
Apple also announced Apple Card, which builds on the popularity of its Apple Pay service that allows people to pay for products using their phones and watches. Offering its own credit card, with the backing of Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, allows Apple to cut out some of the middlemen in payment transactions. Apple is offering consumers competitive cash back and no late fees.
Apple Card requires Touch ID or some other form of authentication for payments to reduce fraud, and it said it won’t collect purchase data.
It said Goldman Sachs won’t sell or share data with third parties, which implies Goldman would be able to get some data on users.
Apple didn’t say whether it would pass on late payment information to credit agencies.
As far as Apple’s bottom line is concerned, its announcement of a credit card may one day turn out to be the most significant announcement of the day. It puts Apple one step closer to placing itself in the middle of a large swath of consumer transactions. By combining this with the company’s vast number of customers who carry around its devices, its payments services have the potential of giving Apple a massive, low overhead revenue stream.
Cook said iOS has become the largest gaming platform in the world, with roughly 300,000 games on the platform. With its new gaming subscription service called Apple Arcade, the company says it has created a way to help game developers monetize their games. Apple Arcade appears positioned to compete in some ways with Google’s new “Stadia” service, which was announced last week. Google will sell a game controller that will allow people to pay high quality videogames on any screen, from televisions to tablets, without an expensive gaming PC. Apple Arcade and Google Stadia both still have not named a price.
Apple is expected to invest many billions a year, according to analysts, on making video content to compete in a crowded market that includes Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and Disney. It’s a gamble with no guarantee of success, which signals just how important these new businesses are to Apple.
Last week, as hype around Monday’s event steadily built up in the media, Apple made three hardware announcements, with upgrades to its iMac Pro, iPad Mini and AirPods. There was no news conference devoted to those announcements. It was unusual, because it showed Apple’s hardware taking a back seat to its new services-oriented businesses. Wall Street liked what it saw, rewarding Apple with a stock bump that boosted the company’s market cap above $900 billion. It had fallen below $700 million in January after news of slowing iPhone sales. The real magic in consumer technology is happening less and less inside the devices people carry around and more and more in server farms scattered around the world, where massive amounts of data get processed and then transmitted to gadgets like the Amazon Echo or Google Home. In essence, the gadgets people are excited about buying are becoming vessels for sending and receiving data. And in that area, Apple has fallen behind companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which now pull in significant revenue from selling cloud services, which is a fancy term for data center usage and storage.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard appear on stage during an Apple event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS
Top, Steve Carell, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston appear at the Apple event in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday. Left, Tim Cook waves while onstage with Oprah Winfrey.
Breast implant safety questioned
Citizen news service
U.S. medical authorities are revisiting the safety of breast implants used by millions of American women, the latest review in an ongoing debate about their potential health effects.
An expert panel assembled by the Food and Drug Administration opened a two-day meeting Monday to discuss the latest evidence about the risks of illness and complications with the devices, which have been sold since the mid-1960s.
Breast augmentation is the most popular form of cosmetic surgery in the U.S., with roughly 300,000 women undergoing the procedure each year. Another 100,000 women receive implants for breast reconstruction after cancer surgery.
The panel will hear from researchers, plastic surgeons, patients and manufacturers and then recommend next steps. But for now, the FDA isn’t proposing any new restrictions or warnings. The agency’s longstanding position is that implants are essentially safe as long as women understand they have complications, including scarring, pain, swelling and implant rupture.
The FDA and other regulators around the world have been grappling with how to manage a recently confirmed link to a rare cancer and thousands of unconfirmed claims that the implants can contribute to other chronic ailments.
“It is essential we try to understand breast implant illness,” said Stephanie Manson Brown, an executive with implant maker Allergan.
But she added that there is no medically recognized definition of
U.S. health officials are taking another look at the safety of breast implants, the latest review in a decades-long debate.
the problem or standardized way to diagnose it.
Most confirmed cases of the cancer, known as breast implantassociated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, have involved a particular style of implants with a textured surface, designed to reduce scar tissue and slippage.
Last year, European Union regulators declined to renew approval for textured implants sold by Allergan, citing links to the cancer. That led the company to pull the products from the European market.
But the FDA has said it is unclear if the cancer is solely linked to
textured implants or also involves smooth implants, which make up most of the U.S. market. Lack of data on the total number of implants in use makes it almost impossible to determine how frequently the cancer occurs, the agency notes. The disease is not breast cancer, but a form of cancer that attacks the immune system and usually forms in the scar tissue surrounding implants. It grows slowly and can usually be successfully treated by removing the implants.
Thousands of women have also blamed their implants for a host of chronic ailments, including
rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue and muscle pain. The panel will hear from dozens of women; many of them have called on the agency to place new warnings and restrictions on the implants.
“Don’t ignore us. We are real,” said Holly Davis, of Charleston, South Carolina.
Davis, 60, said she experienced chronic pain, hair loss, rashes and memory loss after receiving silicone gel-filled implants following a double mastectomy in 2002. Davis said she learned her implants had ruptured when they were removed in 2017; her symptoms have since resolved.
She and other patients want the FDA to require manufacturers to give standardized risk disclosure information to all women considering implants.
“We need to know what we’re signing up for – it can’t be a surprise down the road,” Davis said. Also scheduled to appear were researchers who theorize that the silicone from implants can trigger or exacerbate immune system disorders in certain patients. Those arguments have long been dismissed by manufacturers, plastic surgeons and FDA regulators. But earlier this month the FDA appeared to signal a shift in its thinking.
The agency said it would begin studying whether certain materials used in breast implants, metal hips and other devices can trigger health problems in patients.
“We believe the current evidence, although limited, suggests some individuals may be predisposed to develop an immuneinflammatory reaction when exposed to select materials,” the agency said in a statement.
In the U.S., most women choose silicone gel-filled implants, which are considered more natural looking than saline implants. Both types have a silicone shell.
The FDA also appeared to stepup its oversight of breast implant manufacturers ahead of this week’s meeting.
Last week, the FDA sent warning letters to Mentor – a unit of Johnson & Johnson – and a smaller implant maker, Sientra, for failing to enrol or retain enough patients in their long-term studies designed to track safety of the devices. Allergan and the other U.S. manufacturer of breast implants – Ideal Implant – did not receive warnings.
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO