Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The Fraser-Fort George Regional District has no authority to shut down a campground on the north shore of Summit Lake because it’s on treaty land, the defendants in a lawsuit are contending.
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
According to True North Touring, the hit Broadway musical Kinky Boots – featuring songs by pop icon Cyndi Lauper – is coming to CN Centre on March 22. A ticket pre-sale opportunity begins today at 10 a.m. (Use passcode STEPONE).
Kinky Boots projects power – the spiritual power of music and the sensual power of footwear. This hit on stage was also a popular British film based on the book telling the true story of a man who inherits a shoe factory and strikes up an unlikely partnership with a cabaret performer and drag queen.
“Charlie Price reluctantly takes over his father’s business, a shoe factory, and he is looking for a new idea,” said CN Centre manager Glen Mikkelsen, explaining the plot. Charlie meets up, by way of a street fight, with Lola, a drag queen who tips over some dominoes in his brain that transform the business. It sets its focus on sexy footwear, especially the kind that can handle the weight and hip posi-
Glen Mikkelsen issued a challenge, at the grand announcement of the Broadway musical Kinky Boots coming to CN Centre, the building he manages.
“You should Google ‘kinky boots’ at work and see what your boss says,” Mikkelsen suggested, as he tottered in leggy red dominatrix riders. In his blue shorts and sport coat, he was an urban mashup for which there are no words, but there was definitely a focal point. One could not help but stare at his towering footwear and wonder how he could stay aloft.
One also might wonder how he came to have such architectural wonders to wear.
“The internet is a marvelous thing,” he shrugged.
When he knew Kinky Boots was coming to Prince George and needed a proper introduction, he found Model Express, a Vancouver purveyor of everything from hosiery to pasties, lingerie to fantasy footwear. Mikkelsen opted for the thighhigh Seduce 3000 boot.
“I told the merchant I was looking for a Size 10 mens, probably a Size 12 womens, and it had to be able to handle the weight and the walk of a man,” Mikkelsen said. “He
tion of men in high heels.
This hilarious romp earned 13 Tony Award nominations, taking home six of the coveted trophies including the all-important Best Musical as well as Best Score for Lauper.
When it was staged in London, it picked up another set of honours: three Laurence Olivier Awards. It has been a smash in Toronto, Australia, Korea, Chicago, Japan, and scores of other places.
Mikkelsen was in New York City on a family trip when he and his wife Joanne spotted ads for a Broadway show with which they were not familiar. They took a chance on Kinky Boots and it ended up being “one of the most exciting and fun Broadway shows” he had ever seen. When True North Touring called to say they were bringing the show to Canada, CN Centre was quickly penned into the schedule. “It is fun, it is lively, it is uplifting – a wonderful show,” Mikkelsen said. True North Touring is the presentation company behind The Illusionists and Dirty Dancing that previously performed at CN Centre. They are also the production house behind Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles, and have connections to the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose hockey franchises.
said yes, he could do that, so I asked him if he got a lot of requests for boots like these for men and he just said ‘ohhhhhhh yeah.’” It seemed at times, at the Tuesday morning announcement, that a stiff breeze or even a mild surprise might mean Mikkelsen wouldn’t live to see the afternoon. He tread carefully, but still had a fragile stance most of the time.
“It raises the bar of admiration I have for the performers who have to work in high heels,” he said, which called to mind the famous quote by Ginger Rogers when her legendary dance partner Fred Astaire was praised for his smooth skills. She replied with an old Bob Thaves (artist/cartoonist) observation that she did everything he did, but backwards and in high heels. He laughed that thankfully Model Express mailed their merchandise in nondescript brown paper parcels, or he might have had some explaining to do at the office. He still has to expense these beauties for the work boots they are, in their way. “I wanted to wait on that until after today, so everyone would clearly know what they were for,” he said.
They are for something kinky. Get the full long look on March 22. Tickets are on sale now through TicketsNorth.
Citizen staff
— PEEBLES,
In responses recently filed in B.C. Supreme Court in Prince George, Bernard Dale Chingee and Justin Harris Chingee say they are members of the McLeod Lake Indian Band and so are beneficiaries of Treaty No. 8. Moreover, in accordance with a so-called adhesion agreement reached with the federal and provincial governments in 2000, they say any member who prefers to live apart from the band’s reserve lands “has the option to select land in severalty to the extent of 160 acres.”
And they say that in August 2008, the provincial government conveyed the site to them in accordance with the agreement.
In April 2011, they secured the first of two three-year temporary use permits from the FFGRD to operate Loons Haven Resort on a 3.24 hectare (eight acre) site on Caine Creek Road.
The second expired in May 2017 and, according to notices of claim filed against the two on June 26, “there currently exists no permit or approval which would allow any use which is not in compliance with the regional district zoning requirements.”
The FFGRD is seeking court orders to shut down a campground and compel the defendants to remove all buildings, campers and equipment and to remediate the site back to its previous state and, if they fail to do so, authorization for the FFGRD to carry out the work at the defendants’ cost. — see DEFENDANTS, page 3
CALGARY (CP) — Oil and gas producer
Painted Pony Energy Ltd. says its fourthquarter production will drop by up to 20 per cent because of reduced shipping capacity after the explosion of a natural gas pipeline in B.C.
A line in Enbridge Inc.’s T-South pipeline system ruptured on Oct. 9, about 15 kilometres northeast of Prince George, causing a huge fireball.
Repairs were completed at the end of October and service is gradually being
restored – but both the affected line and a smaller parallel line are to operate at a maximum of 80 per cent of normal pressure until safety of the system is assured.
Painted Pony has halted production of about 60 million cubic feet of natural gas because of the pipeline constraints and resulting lower prices.
It forecasts fourth-quarter production of between 303 million and 312 million cubic feet equivalent per day, down from third quarter output of 350 million cfe/d.
The Calgary-based company says gas prices at the Station 2 trading hub above T-South in northeastern B.C. have plunged because of the inability to get all of the gas to market, but the hit to its bottom line is balanced by higher prices at the Sumas/
Huntingdon hub on the border of B.C. and Washington state.
KELOWNA (CP) — A former Kamloops sheriff has been sentenced to one year of house arrest, after a vigilante group caught him attempting to arrange a sexual encounter with someone pretending to be a 14-year-old girl.
A provincial court judge heard that 50-yearold Kevin Johnston was caught up in a sting by Creep Catchers, a group of citizens that attempts to catch alleged sex offenders. The court heard that Johnston believed he was communicating with a girl, when in
fact it was a woman from the group. He was arrested in 2016 and charged with telecommunicating to lure a child under 16, making sexually explicit material available to a child under 16, arranging a sexual offence against a child and breach of trust by a public officer.
Johnston previously pleaded guilty to breach of trust charge and appeared in the Kelowna court Tuesday for sentencing. The remaining charges against him were dropped. At the time of the offence, Johnston was working as a deputy sheriff in Kamloops. He used that position to influence the person he thought to be a teenage girl, B.C. provincial court Judge Michelle Daneliuk said.
— from page 1
However, the defendants claim the FFGRD’s bylaws “constitute an unlawful infringement of treaty entitlement.”
“But for the Bylaws, the Defendant would be free to exercise his treaty entitlement to the Lands as he saw fit, whereas the Bylaws purport to restrict him to only those uses and activities that are zoned for and approved by the Plaintiff’s regulatory processes,” they further allege. “This is a more-than-significant dimunition of the Plaintiff’s treaty entitlement.”
According to a FFGRD staff report presented to directors when the second permit was issued in April 2014, the campground holds 22 double-occupancy campsites for recreational vehicles and tents along with day use and boat launch facilities.
In 1999, band members voted 96 per cent in favour of the adhesion to Treaty No. 8, which itself dates back to 1899. Under the adhesion, the band received close to 20,000 hectares of land and $35 million in cash.
But about two dozen of the 420 band members opted to seek land outside the community-held reserve under a unique provision called “land in severalty.” It allows each member to choose 160 acres of Crown land with the reserve lands in turn reduced by 128 acres for each selection.
The allegations made by both parties have not yet been tested in court. Both the FFGRD’s statements of claim and the responses are posted with this story at pgcitizen.ca
Citizen staff
A combination of the old and new will represent the city on the Fraser-Fort George Regional District board of directors.
Council members voted Tuesday to return Mayor Lyn Hall and Coun. Murry Krause while also electing Coun. Terri McConnachie and Coun. Kyle Sampson to the board for the first time. They will replace Coun. Albert Koehler, who stepped down from council prior to the elections last month, and Coun. Frank Everitt, who will be the primary alternate if any of the four cannot attend a FFGRD meeting.
Illegal dumping within the city limits and how the FFGRD can help reduced the problem will be a topic. In passing a motion to that effect in September, council members also agreed to an amendment from Everitt directing staff to also look at the possibility of handling household garbage at the site once the FFGRD’s lease of the site concludes at the end of April next year. Development will remain a theme, Hall said Tuesday, and emphasized working together.
“Each municipality has a stake in how well we do as a region,” he said. “That’s really important for us.”
More appointments and elections are in store when council members meet on Nov. 26. Hall will recommend the chairs of the finance and audit committee and the intergovernmental relations committees, currently held by Coun. Garth Frizzell and Skakun respectively. Council will also vote on who sits on positions on various other committees.
Wayne Clements, a 45-year-old man
Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
If he’s not on the bench supporting the team, he’s trying to enthuse the crowd with his antics.
Wayne Clements, 45, a local man with Down Syndrome, is the assistant coach of the Kelly Road Secondary School senior boy’s volleyball team, coached by Todd Kuc. Wayne is the team’s biggest fan.
The inspiration behind his involvement with the team is J.T. Birkhiem, a Grade 12 student who has been playing volleyball at Kelly Road since Grade 8.
Wayne lives with the Birkhiem family as part of the homeshare program offered by Community Living B.C. and J.T. and Wayne are close.
“It’s good to be on the team,” Wayne said.
“All the boys are pretty cool.”
He became the assistant coach of the team when he kept coming out to the games.
“Wayne was always a very enthusiastic spectator, always getting up and being animated, so one time I invited him to the bench and he never left,” Kuc said. “He’s part of the team and the boys like how animated Wayne gets.”
I just love having Wayne on our team and he always lightens our day.
— Braeden Muise
“J.T. was six years old when Wayne moved in with us and J. T. does everything with him,” J.T.’s mom Stacey said. “It’s really neat.”
When Wayne started attending sporting events to support J.T., it became apparent to everyone that Wayne brought a special kind of enthusiasm with him.
“Everybody at school knows Wayne,” Stacey said. “He’s fantastic.”
Stacey said a lot of the parents of the players are really touched by Wayne’s support of the team.
“Some of the parents get choked up when they see how Wayne is with the boys,” Stacey said. “He does the cutest things out there and he doesn’t even realize how much joy he brings. It’s really heartwarming to watch Wayne with the boys.”
J.T. said it’s always fun having Wayne at the games.
“He’s always doing stuff to make us all
Citizen news service
VICTORIA — The British Columbia government is rolling back speed limits on sections of more than a dozen highways where crashes have climbed since 2014, when the highest speeds in Canada were permitted.
Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said Tuesday a threeyear review of crash data from 33 routes shows the top three factors for increased collisions are driver inattention, road conditions and driving too fast for those conditions.
Serious crashes jumped significantly after speed limits went into effect, said Trevena, citing an “alarming” increase on several routes, including Highway 19 between Parksville and Campbell River, where speed-related accidents jumped by one-third.
Fifteen sections of highway will see speeds cut by 10 km/h.
Stretches of Highway 1 and Highway 5A in the southern Interior were already rolled back in 2016 when crash rates jumped after the speed limit change.
Speeds on sections of 16 routes, including the Coquihalla Highway, won’t be changed because they haven’t shown higher accident rates over the last four years, Trevena said.
Nearly half of all serous accidents over the three years were caused by driver inattention and road conditions, she said.
“The combination of those factors, along with wildlife and people driving too fast for conditions, were responsible for 43 per cent of collisions on B.C. highways.”
RCMP Insp. Tim Walton warned at the news conference police will be boosting enforcement on all corridors where collisions increased to ensure drivers are respecting the new limits.
— see ‘NOBODY, page 4
laugh,” J.T. said. “He dances constantly when we mess up.” Wayne also makes hand gestures offering his opinion on the positive or the negative but it’s all in good fun.
“He always puts a smile on our faces, especially if we’re losing,” J.T. said. Braeden Muise is another member of the team who really gets a kick out of Wayne and his unending enthusiasm.
“I’ve known Wayne since I was in elementary school and he’s always been a great guy,” Braeden, who is neighbours with the Birkhiem family, said. “He always gets us going on the bench with all of his funny dance moves. He cracks me up every time. I just love having Wayne on our team and he always lightens our day. He makes our team that much better.” Stacey commends the boys for their inclusion of Wayne on the team.
“So often many teens are so busy on their phones and just not aware of their surroundings,” Stacey said. “And this group of boys is really kind. They can be remembered for being a big player on the team that made all these points but people will forget that but over time people don’t forget how kind and genuine people are and the boys on this team – that’s what they are – and I’m really proud of them for that.”
Mia RABSON Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Longtime MP Tony Clement has resigned from the Conservative shadow cabinet after he shared explicit sexual images and a video of himself electronically. Clement says the images were sent in the last three weeks and he believed they were going to a “consenting female.”
However he now says the person was trying to extort him and he has asked the RCMP to investigate.
“I recognize now that I have gone down a wrong path and have exercised very poor judgment,” Clement said in a statement Tuesday.
Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer said he has appointed Lisa Raitt to take over for Clement as the justice critic for now.
“While I’m greatly disappointed with Mr. Clement’s actions, I am encouraged that he has decided to seek help and I wish him all the best in doing so,” Scheer said.
The RCMP confirmed it had received information from Clement and was currently investi-
not comment further.
Clement is resigning his committee roles as well, but will stay in the Conservative caucus.
OTTAWA (CP) — French fighter-jet maker Dassault is pulling out of the high-stakes competition to replace Canada’s CF-18s.
Multiple sources tell The Canadian Press that the French government is sending a letter to Canada’s federal procurement department notifying it that Dassault will withdraw from bidding.
Dassault makes the Rafale fighter jet, which was
Clement, 57, has been one of the pillars of the Conservative caucus for more than a decade, and before that was a senior member of the provincial party in Ontario.
He was a cabinet minister for the entirety of Stephen Harper’s near-decade long tenure as prime minister, and was a cabinet minister at the provincial level before that.
He says he is sorry to his family, his party and his constituents for his behaviour.
“I am committed to seeking the help and treatment I need in my personal life to make sure this will not happen again while also continuing to discharge my duties as a Member of Parliament,” he wrote.
Clement was twice a candidate for the federal party leadership and also ran for the provincial Tory leadership in Ontario once. He dropped out of the most recent leadership contest early on and endorsed Maxime Bernier.
Clement is one of the most recognizable MPs as well as one of the heaviest users of social media. He is a frequent poster on Twitter. It has occasionally landed him in trouble before, including when he had to apologize after cursing at a 15-year-old on the platform.
He is married to lawyer and author Lynne Golding.
one of five designs expected to compete for the $19-billion contract to replace the CF-18s.
Sources say Dassault’s decision is because France is not a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, which comprises Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Dassault’s withdrawal leaves U.S. aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing, British firm BAE and Swedish company Saab.
‘Nobody should die on our highways’
— from page 3
Walton said he decided four years ago that he’d wait to respond to the hike in speed limits until the research was completed.
“Slowing down can significantly reduce the impact of any collision and reduce the chances that you’ll be severely injured or killed,” he said, adding that as winter driving conditions approach, Mounties are reminding motorists to obey speed limits, drive sober and free of distractions.
Trevena said there were no statistical increases in accidents after the first year of higher speed limits but the subsequent two years have shown “shocking” jumps, prompting the government to respond to a study released last month showing a link between higher speed limits and crashes leading to injuries and fatalities.
“Nobody should die on our highways,” she said. “It’s horrible, the fact that there have been serious accidents and there have been deaths.”
The study, published in the journal Sustainability, was led by Vancouver General Hospital emergency room physician Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher and road-safety engineers at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia.
The study, funded by the federal government, concluded fatal crashes more than doubled on roads with higher speed limits, affected roads had a 43 per cent increase in total auto-insurance claims and a 30 per cent jump in auto-insurance claims for injuries.
“Other jurisdictions, especially those with harsh winter climates or with highways that traverse mountainous terrain, should learn
from this experience and resist pressure from pro-speed advocates to raise speed limits without due consideration of road safety,” it says.
Gordon Lovegrove, an associate professor at the university’s school of engineering, called the speed-limit increases a “failed experiment.”
However, Ian Tootill, co-founder of the group Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement, said lowering the limit is based on oversimplified data by an irresponsible group of academics and health-care professionals.
“The whole group of people that have input on this, that are in the so-called stakeholders’ group, are all people with a dog in the race,” he said.
Truckers don’t want people driving faster than them and police are writing speed-
Citizen staff
During the last Citizen poll we asked “What are you going to do with your mail-in ballot for the proportional representation referendum?”
The majority of participants said they’d “vote no,” taking 53 per cent and 463 votes. Trailing significantly was “vote yes and select MMP,” with 16 per cent and 142 votes, followed by “vote yes and select RUP,” with 11 per cent and 100 votes.
Next in line with eight per cent and 74 votes was “toss it in the recycling bin,” followed by “keep it until I learn more,” with seven per cent and 65 votes. Trailing was “vote yes and select DMP,” with four per cent and 34 votes.
The total votes cast was 878. Remember this is not a scientific poll.
Next question posted on the Prince George Citizen website is: “The provincial government is revisiting highway speed limits across B.C. What do you think should be done?”
To make your vote count visit www.princegeorgecitizen.com
ing tickets for the profits of municipalities, Tootill said.
“We advocate traffic engineering and enforcement decisions that legalize safe and reasonable actions of the reasonable majority of motorists so they don’t get used as money bags.”
Highways where speed limits will be cut:
• Two stretches of Highway 19 on Vancouver Island.
• Sections of Highway 1 on Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley and into the north Okanagan.
• A portion of Highway 3 outside Princeton.
• Highway 7 from Agassiz to Hope.
• Highway 99, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, from Horseshoe Bay to Pemberton.
• Portions of highways 97A and 97C through the southern Interior.
Giuseppe VALIANTE, Peter RAKOBOWCHUK Citizen news service
MONTREAL — Former Quebec premier Bernard Landry, a sharp-tongued soldier for the independence movement and longtime Parti Quebecois stalwart, died Tuesday at the age of 81.
Landry, premier between 2001 and 2003, dedicated decades of his life to the sovereigntist cause and was part of every significant political battle fought by the PQ since its inception in 1968.
His health had been failing in recent months, and in mid-October he began receiving visits from old friends and political allies at his home in Vercheres, Que.
Landry was at home alongside his family when he died of complications from a pulmonary disease, his personal assistant, Odette Morin, told The Canadian Press.
Political leaders said Landry will be remembered for his strong political convictions, his economic vision for the province and his love of Quebec.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault, a minister in Landry’s government, said he gained insight into the former premier’s character during a 2002 cabinet shuffle. Landry informed him he was being moved from education to health, a move Legault did not relish.
“He said: ‘Francois, it’s your duty!’ ” he recalled. “For him, duty was important.”
Legault said Landry should be remembered as a giant of Quebec politics, on the same stage as former premiers Rene Levesque and Jacques Parizeau.
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said Landry will also be remembered for his vision of Montreal as a technological powerhouse.
As finance minister in the late 1990s under Lucien Bouchard, Landry created a tax credit for the video-game sector, which helped the industry flourish in Quebec. He
also gave tax credits to tech companies to encourage them to move into a neglected section of Old Montreal that has since become one of the hottest real estate markets in the city and a symbol of Montreal’s creativity.
Landry “had Quebec tattooed on his heart,” Plante said. “I’d like to highlight the vision he had for the creative industry, the IT sector, which let Montreal take flight, which helped it stand out internationally.”
Another major accomplishment for Landry was the 2002 landmark deal between the Quebec government and the Crees, known as the Peace of the Brave. The 50-year economic and political agreement was signed to develop part of the province’s James Bay territory in concert with the Cree community.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
paid tribute to Landry without mentioning his commitment to sovereignty. “Mr. Landry was a dedicated leader who played a central role in a defining chapter of Quebec’s history,” Trudeau said in a statement. “He devoted much of his life to making a difference in the lives of Quebecers.”
Landry was born March 9, 1937 in the town of St-Jacques, northeast of Montreal. He practiced law and worked for the Quebec government before taking the plunge into politics.
Landry’s dream of sovereignty first became clear when he was among the original members of the Parti Quebecois to run in the 1970 provincial election – two years after the party was founded by Levesque in 1968.
He was defeated as PQ candidate in 1970 and again in 1973 before finally being
elected in 1976 when the party came to power for the first time.
Landry held many prominent government posts with the PQ, including deputy premier and finance minister.
After Bouchard resigned as premier in January 2001, Landry replaced him as party leader and premier. He would serve two years before being defeated in the April 2003 election by Jean Charest’s Liberals. Charest remembered Landry Tuesday as a tough but respectful adversary who knew the economy like the back of his hand.
“He did a number of things that were important for Quebec, and he gave the sovereigntist movement in Quebec credibility on economic issues,” Charest said.
Landry was seen as a cantankerous figure whose cheeks would occasionally flush with anger while he lashed out at his adversaries. It was at a news conference in January 2001, before he took over as premier, that the rest of Canada became familiar with his abrasive style.
Landry blasted Ottawa for insisting an offer of $18 million in renovation funding for a Quebec City zoo was conditional on the inclusion of English signs and the Canadian flag. Quebec declined the handout, opting to fund the renovations itself.
“We’re not for sale,” Landry told reporters at a Parti Quebecois caucus meeting. “We have no intention of selling ourselves on the street for bits of red rag or any other reason.”
He later sought out reporters to tell them he was merely using colourful imagery to compare federalist offences to matadors’ practice of using red cloth to provoke bulls.
“Bilingualism is provocation – hence the red cloth in front of the bull,” Landry said. “When I spoke of the red rag, I was not speaking of the Canadian flag. I meant the red cloth used in front of a bull to make it charge.” His death is the latest blow for the sovereignty movement’s original generation of leaders, following Parizeau’s in 2015 and former PQ minister Lise Payette’s in September 2018.
Duclos then stood at a podium to share his government’s plans to enshrine into law targets to reduce the rate of poverty in Canada. These targets would see poverty rates lowered 20 per cent from 2015 levels by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2030. The law will also establish the country’s
OTTAWA (CP) — As dozens of low-income Ottawa residents shuffled into a local food bank for a warm meal Tuesday, they were asked to wait quietly, crowded off to the sides of the room until Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos finished using their space to announce the Liberal government’s new anti-poverty law. A mother in a well-worn blue dress holding her baby was among the group. She bounced the baby on her lap as the dapper cabinet minister and his staff made their way around the Parkdale Food Centre food bank.
first official poverty line using the “market basket measure,” which tests whether a family’s income will mean they can afford a set of basic goods and services – something advocacy groups had pushed for in public consultations leading up to this law that has been two years in the making.
It also proposes to create a national advisory council on poverty, which would provide advice to the minister and include
a dedicated adviser on children’s issues and an annual public report on progress made toward the poverty-reduction targets. The new law does not include any new spending for programs meant to help Canada’s poor today. Duclos acknowledged this but pointed to previously announced investments totalling $22 billion since 2015 for low-income families and the middle class.
Back when Lyn Hall was the school board chair, before being elected to city council in 2011 and then mayor in 2014, he and his fellow school trustees were forced to close numerous area schools in response to a rapidly declining population of school-aged children.
A decade later, school board chair Tim Bennett, along with his fellow six trustees (four of them rookies in the job), are now wrestling with the opposite problem of crowded schools filled with students. In 2015, school trustees were told in a report that the projected number of students in School District 57 in the 2018-19 school year would be 11,900. Fast forward to today where the actual number is a bit more than 13,000. That’s a miss of 1,100 students or 10 per cent. Put another way, there are more unexpected students in the local system than in all of Duchess Park Secondary School, which had 1,030 pupils
as of Sept. 30. Duchess Park is the epicentre of the problem. Well over its official capacity of 900 students, administrators, teachers and students have adjusted to “a creative use of space,” according to a staff report, with science classes taught in the theatre and math classes in the art room and the conference room. Other classes, such as band, work experience, fitness and sports have been pushed to either before or after regular class times. A quick and dirty solution to the capacity issues at Duchess Park that has been floated for the past couple years has been moving the French immersion students to PGSS, which has the space to take them, so long as there would also be some shuffling of the elementary feeder schools for Duchess and PGSS.
Bennett is having none of it.
Not only was that option rejected by 60 per cent of the parents of French Immersion students in a survey conducted in May and June of this year, it ignores the capacity issues of other local high schools, particularly College Heights.
Exploring a variety of options costs both time and money with no guarantee the best outcome will be the result.
Bennett is looking for a broader, longer-term solution that incorporates the whole city and outlying areas, as well as the elementary schools, rather than just a solution to the bursting seams at Duchess Park.
That’s smart and commendable but it comes with its own problems.
Exploring a variety of options costs both time and money with no guarantee the best outcome will be the result. Furthermore, this entire situation shows how difficult it is to hit a moving target and how unreliable projecting ahead even just three
As I made my way home down Queensway last weekend, I noticed a large sign stating that the street would be closed at Patricia beginning Nov. 7. I sighed. I felt defeated. I live in the Millar Addition, very close to the intersection in question and the construction that has been going on lately has been a nuisance to say the least. However, I am holding onto one small hope that maybe, just maybe, the municipal overseers will realize that in addition to a new sewer line, what Patricia and Queensway really needs is a crosswalk.
I often walk down the lovely sidewalk along Patricia and follow it until it ends, abruptly, at Queensway. I then cautiously survey the rushing traffic and sprint across it when there is a break, hoping that I won’t miss the bus to UNBC that stops in front of the Four Seasons Pool.
Last winter made this feat especially terrifying after a winter storm left massive snow banks in the middle of Queensway, snow banks that were extremely difficult for one small human to see around. I must mention that there is a crosswalk in the area though I would argue it is misplaced. Furthermore, as previously stated, there is a paved path that leads directly to the location of my proposed crosswalk, yet there is nary a crosswalk to be seen.
Roughly a month ago, after Patricia was made impassable, I once again darted across Queensway, this time to city hall to find out who is in charge of crosswalk installation. My request was logged and I was given a
file number and informed that somebody would follow up with me within a couple of weeks. Despite this, I have yet to hear from anyone from the city regarding the status of my request.
I’ve lived in several cities and a great benefit to living in the core is the fact that walking places is a valid option. However, sadly, I am currently unable to classify my hometown of Prince George as a walkable city since I risk my life trying to walk anywhere. Through the years I’ve witnessed constant efforts of the municipality to revitalize downtown to make it a more enticing place for people to live and work, a fact made more clear recently, as the construction in question is for a condo development that will see many new faces calling downtown home (I must also point out that this development is located directly across the street from the path that mysteriously ends at Queensway).
Now, of course I am biased about this issue, I wouldn’t be writing a letter to the paper if I wasn’t, but I value my life, and I believe I am a reasonable and logical person.
When one takes the above facts into consideration, installing a crosswalk seems like a pretty decent idea doesn’t it? Especially when the road is going to be torn up and blocked off for the next few weeks. Just in time for Christmas come to think of it.
Torie
Beram Prince George
I believe we recently had an example of the PR system right here in B.C. with an expense of over a billion dollars, if that is the cost (I believe I read it in The Citizen) of
the recent construction delay.
Of course I am referring to the Site C construction stoppage and start up again. This unnecessary stoppage will cost us, the B.C. taxpayers, a lot of money.
The NDP and Green leaders had only politics in mind without looking forward what their action would cost us. I find it incredible that our leaders of these two parties were so shortsighted. The construction stoppage did nothing but bring the cost up.
I believe that most people who knew about the construction and how far it was advanced were shocked by the decision of the two parties in question. Both party leaders, Andrew Weaver and John Horgan, must have known the state of Site C. But no, they ignored the situation on the Peace River and played politics. Here I must insert your editorial statement you made on Oct. 31 where you wrote: “Horgan has governed controversy-free for more than a year...”
Sorry to say, I do not agree with your statement as both Horgan and Weaver should have known the situation at the Peace River long before the election.
The PR system gives extreme small political parties a lot of power and of course now in our case here in B.C. the cost of this power will be on the shoulders of the taxpayers, as they are on the hook for the irresponsible decision to stop construction, which in my mind is unforgivable. Over and over I see politicians mishandling our money. They are the worst managers of our taxes. Needless to say I am not in favour of the PR system yet, as we are not mature enough.
Uwe Finger Prince George
years can be when it comes to student numbers.
As Bennett noted in an interview with The Citizen, catchment areas and school capacity were the big issues voters identified to school board candidates during the election.
The previous board of trustees was split over how to respond to the Duchess Park dilemma, with some favouring decisive action based on the information at hand and others opting to wait for more information and a clearer picture before carefully proceeding.
The ever-optimistic Bennett termed the unanticipated higher number of students in the district as a “good news story.”
A good problem to have is still a problem, however, and the choices this new board will have to make soon will be no less challenging than the ones Hall and his colleagues made sitting in the same seats a decade ago.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
This Sunday, the armistice that ended the Great War will reach its 100th anniversary.
As the guns fell silent over the wasteland they had made out of Northern France, there were no spontaneous eruptions of triumph – instead, all sides crawled out of their trenches, and stared at what 52 months of total war had wrought. People were already promising “never again” long before the war ended. As we gather together this weekend, we will renew our vow to that credo.
There is nothing as ubiquitously and uniquely Canadian as our reverence for Nov. 11. Certainly, other nations, particularly our fellow Commonwealth and Mother Britain, have similar ceremonies on the same date. But most also have days of observance for their armed forces or other wars specifically.
founding or contemporary culture inevitably seems to be dated between 1914-18 or thereabouts. It is not hard to trace our dark sense of humour to the absurdity many must have seen in attrition; nor is it hard to see or hear the pain expressed in canvas or poems of the era.
But if I were to hazard a guess, a century from now there will still be people gathering at graves and cenotaphs throughout our country on Nov. 11.
For this Dominion, the Great War, marked by communal mourning on Remembrance Day, has no rival for significance anywhere on our civic calendar.
It’s sometimes said that at Vimy Ridge, Canada became a nation; what is indisputable is that a country as vast as ours gained a universal focus and connection due to four long years of brutal conflict overseas. There are dozens of hospitals that trace their origins to treating the men who came back wounded, and from the smallest village in the North to the largest cities in the South, stone cenotaphs, with the names of the fallen inscribed, stand at the centre of daily life.
The battle honours earned in the First World War are what succeeding generations of men at arms must live up to, and some regiments still carry patches or regalia that can be linked to the decisions taken then. For that matter, every subsequent conflict involving Canadians has been a distant ripple of 1918: on Juno Beach, at Kapyong, throughout the former Yugoslavia, and in Kandahar province, our soldiers have continued fighting their ancestors’ Great War.
There is no space here to begin listing the effects bloody trenches had on our literature, arts, and culture; indeed, Canada is the heir of an unfortunate golden age, as everything that is not from our
So universal and deep is Canada’s reverence for Remembrance Day, that even in our time of mad historical revisionism, the Great War’s narrative remains almost untouched. More successful conflicts have been discredited and entire centuries of activity recast in the worst of possible lights on spurious evidence. But Nov. 11 retains the aura of a medieval holy day among our people, regardless of background – indeed, it is one of our last unifying institutions. The First World War left an indelible mark upon the Canadian soul; even a century later, this is still apparent, giving it a nearly supernatural quality. What remains to be seen is how Nov. 11 will be observed as we cross the threshold far beyond living memory, and what will be emphasized as the repercussions of that conflict continue to affect us over time. Perhaps one day the holiday will be pegged to a particular weekday, regardless of date, for convenience.
But if I were to hazard a guess, a century from now there will still be people gathering at graves and cenotaphs throughout our country on Nov. 11. Some of them will bring items to lay at the site; others might volunteer to stand watch, ancient Lee-Enfields in hand; someone will attempt Last Call and Reveille or puffing a tune on bagpipes; and certainly, a man of the cloth or a revered layman will say a word for the glorious dead and pray for peace on Earth.
In short, Remembrance Day’s endurance is thanks to the human condition, particularly in our country which has so few sacred things left. We mourn, hope, and pray, lest we forget.
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 and handwritten letters will not be published. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759).
Website: www.pgcitizen.ca
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James McCARTEN Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — Democratic candidates buoyed by widespread opposition to Donald Trump seized the balance of power on Capitol Hill, but Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections failed to produce what critics had hoped would be an even more scolding rebuke of the most controversial and divisive president of the modern era.
In their bid to turn 23 seats and claim a majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives, two key races went to the Democrats early: Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock went down to defeat to prosecutor Jennifer Wexton, while Clinton-era cabinet member Donna Shalala toppled television personality Maria Elvira Salazar.
But an important battle in Trump-friendly Kentucky went to the Republicans as incumbent Andy Barr held off a strong challenge from Amy McGrath, a former fighter pilot, putting a dent in Democratic promises of a so-called blue wave.
For weeks, pollsters have been projecting that the Republicans would lose control of the House but maintain control of the Senate, the result being a divided Congress that would untether some of Trump’s most vociferous political challengers.
As the night progressed, it shaped up precisely that way. Projections showed the Democrats poised to turn as many as 35 seats, even as their aspirations of an even more impressive breakthrough gradually faded away.
True to form, both sides declared victory.
“Tomorrow will be a new day in America,” said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
“Tremendous success tonight,” Trump tweeted.
“I’m feeling really good now; this is a good night for Republicans,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.) told Fox News.
In a closely watched governor’s race in Florida, where it’s been nearly 25 years since a Democrat held the job, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum – aspiring to be the state’s first African-American governor – conceded defeat in a taut battle with Republican challenger Ron DeSantis. That state’s Democratic senator, Bill Nelson, also suffered a narrow loss at the hands of Republican opponent Rick Scott, with all signs pointing towards the GOP actually widening its Senate majority as Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill went down to defeat.
In Texas, one of the most closely watched races of the 2018 political season, Republican incumbent and one-time Trump foil Ted Cruz managed to fend off a concerted challenge from the charismatic Beto O’Rourke, whose youthful exuberance and ability to mobilize younger voters made him a national Democratic superstar.
And Republican Mike Braun defeated incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly in a key Senate battle in Indiana, a state Trump carried mightily in 2016.
There were, of course, critical Democratic victories. Retired navy commander Elaine Luria wrested a House seat away from former navy SEAL and first-term congressman Scott Taylor in Virginia’s 2nd district, a region where the president has proven deeply unpopular.
A Democratic House represents a likely threat to Trump’s legislative agenda for the next two years, and provides Democrats subpoena power to investigate the president – his long-elusive tax returns are high on their wish list – or even trigger impeachment proceedings, although that seems unlikely with a Republican Senate.
“If they want to impeach President Trump, I would give them some advice: I’ve been there, done that with (Bill) Clinton, and it didn’t work out well for us,” Graham
said. “I would think twice about it. It will blow up in their face.”
Gubernatorial races were key too, since they determine control of state governments that ultimately decide how electoral districts are redrawn, shaping the path to victory for presidential hopefuls in 2020.
But Tuesday’s elections remain noteworthy for the fact they generated unprecedented interest among voters keen to weigh in on the first two years of a presidency riven by angry anti-immigrant rhetoric, bitter political feuding and pointed personal attacks on the part of Trump himself.
Advance voting broke records for midterm turnouts. Long lineups formed throughout the day in New Hampshire, Georgia, Texas and elsewhere, while other districts reported unprecedented levels of voter interest - Democrat campaign workers at one northern Virginia location cited a 63 per cent spike in interest over previous years.
“Typically, independents and younger voters tend to turn out less in these offterm, midterm congressional years,” said Carleton University politics professor Melissa Haussman.
“This particular year is an exception because of the anti-Trump feeling on the part of a lot of them.”
There are too many fundamental differences between electoral systems and cycles in the U.S. and Canada for this year’s stateside turnout to offer any lessons for anyone hoping to generate similar levels of interest north of the border in 2019, Haussman said.
Turnout, she said, has everything to do with a campaign’s most prominent figures and whether voters who aren’t regular participants in the electoral process are more motivated to take part.
More than 68 per cent of registered voters in Canada turned out to weigh in during the last federal election in 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s youthful, social-media-savvy
campaign and promised re-engagement with Indigenous communities helped to mobilize young and disenfranchised voters – the strongest turnout since 1993.
That year, turnout in Canada exceeded 69 per cent. And in both cases, voters turned up to turf out long-standing Conservative governments – Stephen Harper in 2015 and Kim Campbell, who took over briefly for Brian Mulroney, 22 years earlier.
In the United States, during what’s been
one of the most remarkable political seasons in the country’s modern history, some experts are wondering if the country is in the midst of a historic partisan realignment, one that could have lasting repercussions on the traditional red-blue model.
“Things are pretty good, yet we have all this division and we have this president who’s relatively unpopular, so we have this strange juxtaposition,” said Kent State politics professor Michael Ensley.
Currencies
OTTAWA (CP) — These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Tuesday. Quotations in Canadian funds.
markets today
TORONTO (CP) — Crude oil prices sank to a seven-month low Tuesday on supply increases in the Middle East while North American markets closed higher. The December crude contract was down 89 cents per share at US$62.21 per barrel. That’s the lowest level since April 6. Oil prices have been decreasing in recent sessions on reports that Iran will be allowed to trade oil with eight countries and that Saudi Arabia has been producing more oil than expected, says Dominique Barker, portfolio manager at CIBC Asset Management.
“It’s starting to become a supply story,” she said in an interview. The United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran Monday. Some feared the move would cause oil prices to spike, but U.S. President Donald Trump carved out exemptions for China, Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Greece, Italy and Turkey.
North American markets all closed higher on election day as the prospect of increased gridlock in Washington, D.C., from divided government didn’t seem to phase investors.
Polls have suggested that the Democrats would at least gain control of the House of Representatives, making it more difficult to raise the debt ceiling and reach consensus with the Trump White House.
“That’s obviously something that the market is thinking about but there’s nothing really to do at the moment so it’s just creating a little bit of an overhang,” she said. However, Barker added that markets improved after 18 of the past midterm elections.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 75.01 points to 15,292.71. The health care sector led on gains for many cannabis stocks and Bausch Health Companies Inc., which reported better adjusted earnings. It was followed by utilities and energy. Telecom and industrials led on the downside as shares of Finning International Inc. and Toromont Industries Ltd. fell on slight earnings misses.
“We’ve had some earnings and one lesson is if you’re going to have earnings they better be good,” Barker said, pointing to the performance of these companies shares.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 173.31 points to 25,635.01. The S&P 500 index was up 17.14 points to 2,755.45, while the Nasdaq composite was up 47.11 points at 7,375.96.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.16 cents US compared with an average of 76.36 on Monday.
Organized crime no more interested in legal pot than any other business, gov’t memo says
Jim BRONSKILL The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Federal officials see no reason why organized crime would invest in legal cannabis over any other industry, despite allegations shady money is already tainting the business, an internal government memo says.
Organized crime has dominated the illegal cannabis industry for decades but public-safety and health officials do not see “strong pull factors” for criminal infiltration of the legal business, the memo says. And they appear confident that existing and planned efforts to ensure corporate transparency will reveal any trouble.
The documents, disclosed through the Access to Information Act, show officials from nine federal agencies became seized with the issue early this year after media reports said questionable foreign money was supporting legal marijuana enterprises.
Using offshore bank accounts for investing is not illegal, nor was there evidence such sources were being used by organized crime to profit from the legal cannabis sector, the internal notes say.
The Trudeau government recently legalized recreational cannabis use with the aim of denying criminals hefty profits from the illicit pot trade. The government has overseen licensing of medicinal marijuana suppliers for years. The February memos say the legal industry’s ability to raise capital should be seen
as a positive sign, as long as the money comes from legitimate sources.
“The potential for organized crime to invest in the legal cannabis market through offshore tax havens exists, but does not appear fundamentally different from the potential for such investments in any and all sectors of the economy,” says a memo to the Public Safety Canada deputy minister, the ministry’s senior bureaucrat.
“Given the government’s stated objective to strictly regulate the cannabis industry, there does not appear on the surface to be any strong pull factors for organized crime to invest in this sector, as compared to any other sectors.”
The RCMP had no active high-priority investigation related to organized crime’s suspected financial involvement with licensed pot producers, though the police force continued to monitor the situation, the Feb. 27 memo adds. The French-language CBC’s flagship investigative program, Enquete, reported this month that the government had granted marijuana licences to companies and people with links to the criminal underworld.
Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair said Tuesday he has not seen evidence of any criminal enterprise infiltrating a licensed producer.
“And should I see any evidence of that I am very confident that the RCMP and Health Canada would take all the steps necessary to
protect Canadians,” he said during an appearance at the Senate’s question period.
The government is being “a little bit naive on the issue” of criminal involvement, Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan said in an interview.
Earlier this year, the Liberals cited privacy concerns and other challenges in rejecting a legislative amendment backed by Carignan that would have created a public registry of marijuana-company investors.
Blair said Tuesday the cannabis regulations that did come into effect “provide for significant financial transparency.”
The internal memos also note various federal efforts to screen foreign investments, fight international tax evasion and make it clearer who owns stakes in Canadian corporations.
In addition, federal, provincial and territorial finance ministers have agreed to work together on making ownership data more accessible.
“This will help law enforcement and other authorities know who owns which companies in Canada, including companies who invest in cannabis production,” say the internal government notes.
Carignan said he is skeptical the government is actually peeling back the layers of secrecy.
“This government is talking about transparency but it is one of the most opaque that we have seen.”
James McCARTEN Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — Canada might ratify its new North American trade deal with the United States and Mexico even if the U.S. doesn’t drop its tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says.
In an interview with CNN, portions of which are airing Tuesday as U.S. voters cast ballots in pivotal midterm elections, Trudeau said Canada still wants the tariffs lifted before the new version of NAFTA goes into effect.
“The tariffs on steel and aluminum are a continued frustration,” Trudeau told interviewer Poppy Harlow, who sat down with the prime minister Monday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference in Montreal.
“We would much rather have genuine free trade with the United States so we’re going to continue to work as soon as we can to lift those tariffs, but we’re not at the point of saying that we wouldn’t sign if it wasn’t lifted, although we’re trying to make that case.”
Trump is using national security grounds to justify tariffs of 10 per cent on aluminum
produced outside the U.S. and 25 per cent on steel, and has not lifted his threat to impose a similar 25-per-cent tariff on autos.
At one point, Harlow asked Trudeau whether he trusts U.S. President Donald Trump to honour the terms of the new U.S.Mexico-Canada Agreement, citing what she described as advice from Trudeau’s father – former prime minister Pierre Trudeau – to “trust people.”
“What my father taught me was to trust Canadians,” Trudeau responded. “It was a way of looking at the electorate as saying you don’t have to dumb it down for them, you don’t have to scare them into this or that – you can actually treat people like intelligent, rational actors and they will rise to the occasion.”
That remark takes on a particular resonance as voters south of the border pack polling stations for midterm elections that are widely considered a referendum on Trump’s first two years in office. Polls suggest a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, with Republicans keeping control of the Senate. Canada is watching the results closely,
Trudeau said, but will work with whatever representatives Americans elect.
“I think this is an historical and very, very important midterm election, and I think there can be important ramifications with either scenario,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in Ottawa Tuesday morning, on his way into a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill.
“There could be consequences in many different areas of our relations with the United States,” he added in French, “if there are changes in control of the houses of Congress.” It remains unclear what a divided Congress could mean for ratification of the USMCA, which isn’t likely to take place in the U.S. until sometime next spring.
“Every leader has the job of sticking up for their own country, and they will do it in their own ways,” Trudeau said in his CNN interview, when pressed on the question of trusting Trump.
“I respect the fact that people have different approaches to it. My approach is to trust Canadians and deal in a way that is direct with other leaders.”
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
Citizen staff
Despite consecutive losses to close out round-robin play, the D.P. Todd Trojans were undeterred.
They saved their best for the playoff round at the Kelly Road Megabowl senior boys volleyball tournament and got what they were after – a tournament title to solidify their top-10 double-A provincial ranking.
Led by tournament MVP Cole Johnston
and all-star Colby Graham, the Trojans swept the Duchess Park Condors in straight sets in the final, winning 26-24, 25-19 to avenge their three-set loss to the Condors in the round robin earlier Saturday.
The Condors, backed by all-stars Isaac Northrup and Dylan Nash, went 4-0 in the round robin and advanced directly to the championship match. The Trojans, ranked sixth in the province, dispatched the host Kelly Road Roadrunners 25-22, 25-19 in a semifinal match. Kelly Road went 3-1 in the
Paul HARRIS Citizen news service
DETROIT — Dylan Larkin
scored the only goal in a shootout to give the Detroit Red Wings a 3-2 comeback win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night.
Justin Abdelkader and Gustav Nyquist scored in regulation for Detroit, which has won four of five. Jimmy Howard stopped 40 shots before denying Elias Pettersson, Nikolay Goldobin and Bo Horvat in the tiebreaker.
Pettersson and defenceman Ben Hutton scored for Vancouver, which had its three-game winning streak snapped. Jacob Markstrom made 28 saves.
Nyquist tied the game 2-2 just 1:37 into the third period. His shot went off Markstrom’s pad and in off the leg of Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher for his second goal.
Abdelkader’s power-play goal put Detroit on the board and made it 2-1 with 6:15 left in the second. He put in a loose puck from the slot for his third of the season.
Hutton’s third goal with 8:39 re-
maining in the middle period gave the Canucks a 2-0 advantage. Hutton beat Howard with a screened wrist shot from the left point.
The Red Wings challenged that the play was offside going into the zone, but the goal was upheld.
Detroit had an apparent goal by Martin Frk reversed on a challenge by Vancouver at 5:36 of the second. Frk took a long pass at the Canucks blue line for a breakaway and beat Markstrom with a slap shot from the right circle. But the Canucks challenged that the play was offside and replays showed Frk was in the Vancouver zone before the puck, and the call was reversed.
Pettersson gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead with 6:21 left in the first period on a slap shot from the top of the left circle off the rush. The rookie centre has 10 goals.
NOTES: Vancouver RW Brock Broeser missed the game with a groin injury. He was replaced in the lineup by LW Brendan Leipsic.... Detroit recalled C Christoffer Ehn from Grand Rapids of
five-team round robin.
In the consolation match Saturday, the Cedars Christian Eagles topped the Prince George Polars 25-23, 25-13.
The other tournament all-stars were: Karl Kibonge of Cedars; Logan Hladchuk of PGSS; and J.T. Laxdal and Caleb Gurney of Kelly Road.
It’s getting down to crunch time in the chase for the two double-A boys provincial berths open to North Central zone teams. The College Heights Cougars have
remained all season in the top three in the provincial rankings and were second in last week’s rankings. They have to be considered favourites to claim one of those berths.
Heading into the weekend, Duchess Park was ranked 10th in the B.C. Boys Volleyball Association top-10 poll and Kelly Road had honourable mention status.
The double-A boys provincial championship will be hosted in Langley, Nov. 28 to Dec. 1.
the American Hockey League. Ehn had an assist in nine games with the Red Wings earlier this season.... The Red Wings were without D Jonathan Ericsson
(undisclosed), forward Andreas Athanasiou (leg), C Frans Nielsen (concussion) and forward Thomas Vanek (lower body) due to injuries.
Gregory STRONG
Citizen news service
TORONTO — The fate of a fifthplace team was not top of mind when the CFL created its crossover rule more than two decades ago. It’s something the league may want to consider for the future. The rule gives a fourth-place team a crossover playoff spot when the club finishes with more points than the third-place team in the other division. It happened again this year when the B.C. Lions (9-9) finished with a better record than the 5-13 Montreal Alouettes, who were third in the East.
However, for the first time in the rule’s history, the Edmonton Eskimos – who were at the bottom of the five-team West at 9-9 – missed the playoffs despite owning a better record than both the Alouettes and the East’s second-place team, the 8-10 Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Unfortunately for the Eskimos, there is no provision for when the five teams in the West have better records than all but the first-place team in the East. As a result, Edmonton will be on the outside
looking in when the post-season kicks off this weekend.
“We will continue to look at this issue and we’re always open to new ideas,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said in an email.
“But the East-West format has deep roots in our league going back decades and there is the potential to enhance it in the years ahead if the dream of a coast-tocoast CFL becomes reality and we add a 10th team in Halifax, providing us with balanced five-team divisions.”
This is the fourth time the crossover has been needed in the last five years.
Since the rule made its debut in 1996, there have been 10 seasons where the West has had five teams and this unique scenario has even been possible. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have had to move back to the East at times to fill vacancies when Ottawa hasn’t had a team in the league.
It can be tough to ensure playoff balance in a nine-team league, especially in a year when one division is far superior to the other. The crossover rule was implemented to try to maximize
meaningful and competitive games down the stretch and to reward the better teams with playoff spots. The crossover team never has advanced to the Grey Cup, though.
“I love the way they’re doing it,” TSN broadcaster and former CFL star Milt Stegall said from Atlanta. “I think the pros outweigh the cons, it adds some intrigue.”
The West Division, led by the 13-5 Calgary Stampeders, did not have a club with a losing record while the four-team East had just one squad – the 11-7 Ottawa Redblacks – finish above the .500 mark. Hamilton, Montreal and the 4-14 Toronto Argonauts were all well behind. The Lions and Eskimos both finished with 18 points, but B.C. won
the season series over Edmonton to secure the final West playoff spot.
Proponents of adding a fifth playoff team out of the West could argue the Redblacks should qualify out of the East and that all five West clubs should be rewarded for their records. In such a scenario, divisional winners could get regular first-round byes but the No. 2 team would host the No. 5 club in the West while the No. 3 team welcomes the fourth-place side. Such a change would also eliminate a regular gripe about the crossover rule: that the fourthplace team has to travel for the division semifinal even if that club owns a better record than its opponent. This year, B.C. has to make the cross-country jaunt to Hamilton to play outdoors at Tim Hortons Field rather than in the cosy confines of B.C. Place. If the Lions win, they likely would return home for a few days before making another long trip to Ontario for the East final against Ottawa. Another option would be to get rid of the divisional playoff structure altogether and simply seed the top six teams at season’s end.
on Friday.
Seeds No. 3 through No. 6 could play off to set up league semifinals against the top two seeds and the winners would advance to the Grey Cup.
The NHL did something similar for a couple years by seeding the top 16 teams for first-round matchups before switching to a divisional playoff structure in 1982. CFL purists often point to the history of the East versus West playdowns as a reason to eschew further change.
However, that tradition was essentially upended when the crossover was introduced. After all, the Vancouver-based Lions are two wins away from being crowned East Division champions. A crossover rule explainer note on the CFL website points out that the format keeps the entire league competitive, rewards the top six teams with playoff berths and is sensitive to the East-West rivalry. But there is no mention of the scenario that the league finds itself in now, where a fifth-place team in the West has a better record than the second-place team in the East. — see ‘I FEEL LIKE, page 10
Jay COHEN Citizen news service
CHICAGO — Joel Quenneville knew the deal. After three Stanley Cup titles and nine playoff appearances with the Chicago Blackhawks, the longtime coach figured this was a big season for him.
“I only think we’re in the winning business and we better win,” Quenneville said on the first day of training camp.
Two months later, it was over.
The Blackhawks fired Quenneville on Tuesday, ending a wildly successful run that returned the franchise to the top of the NHL after years of heartache. Chicago has lost five in a row.
“This is certainly a very difficult decision,” general manager Stan Bowman said in a statement. “But I believe it is in the best interests of the Blackhawks organization. We need to maximize each and every opportunity with our playoff goals in mind and create continued growth and development throughout our roster at the same time.
“After much deliberation the last several days, with great respect to what Joel has meant to the Blackhawks, we knew we had to make a change.”
Assistants Kevin Dineen and Ulf Samuelsson also were let go. Jeremy Colliton was hired as the 38th head coach in franchise history, and Barry Smith, 66, moved from Chicago’s front office to the bench as an assistant coach.
Colliton goes from Chicago’s American Hockey League affiliate in Rockford, Ill., to becoming the NHL’s youngest head coach at 33. Blackhawks forward Chris Kunitz, defenceman Duncan Keith and goaltenders Corey Crawford and Cam Ward are older than Colliton, and defenceman Brent Seabrook also is 33.
“All of those associated with Jeremy strongly believe he possesses many of the tools that will make him a successful head coach in this league,” Bowman said. “He has been very impressive as a communicator, a leader, and coach. He knows the Blackhawks system, understands our players and our culture and we believe he gives us the best opportunity to have success and grow as a team.”
The 60-year-old Quenneville had another year left on a three-year contract extension
Joel
he signed in 2016 that pays him $6 million per year, second highest in the NHL behind Mike Babcock in Toronto.
“He’s a good friend, good coach, three Cups. He’s going to go in the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Babcock said Tuesday in Toronto. “I don’t know what else you say about him. If he wants to work, he works.”
Quenneville was the longest-tenured
‘I feel like we’re as good as anybody’
from page 9
“I feel like we’re as good as anybody, I really do,” Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said at his season-ending availability. “I know our record doesn’t necessarily prove that, except that there are two playoffs teams with the same record and a lesser record in the playoffs right now.” South of the border, the NFL has had similar situations where underperforming teams were given playoff spots ahead of clubs with better records.
In 2010, the Seattle Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record and hosted a playoff game against the 11-5 New Orleans Saints while two 10-6 teams missed the postseason. Four years later, the Carolina Panthers took their division crown with a 7-8-1 mark while the
10-6 Philadelphia Eagles missed the playoff cut.
The Canadian university football playoff structure is far from perfect too. A pair of 2-6 teams – Sherbrooke and McGill – actually made the Quebec conference playoffs before being blown out last weekend in the opening round.
Recent history suggests that regular-season records don’t seem to matter that much once the playoffs begin. The Argonauts won the Grey Cup last fall after a 9-9 campaign while the Redblacks took the 2016 title after an 8-9-1 regular season.
This week’s West semifinal pits the 12-6 Saskatchewan Roughriders against the visiting Blue Bombers (10-8). The East and West Finals are set for Nov. 18 and the Grey Cup goes Nov. 25 at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium.
head coach in the NHL and the second coach fired in the past three days after the Los Angeles Kings dismissed John Stevens. “It was pretty shocking this morning, actually. That’s two (NHL coach firings) in (three) days,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said before the Golden Knights faced the Maple Leafs on Tuesday. “Joel Quenneville’s at the top of the coaching pedigree. It’s
too bad. It’s a part of our business and we all understand that, but it’s real tough.”
Whenever Quenneville wants to get back to work, he likely will have plenty of suitors.
The former NHL defenceman has 890 wins in 22 years as a head coach with St. Louis, Colorado and Chicago. Scotty Bowman, Stan’s father and a senior adviser with the Blackhawks, is the only man with more regular-season victories.
Quenneville took over Chicago four games into the 2008-09 season, replacing Denis Savard after the Hall of Famer was let go by former general manager Dale Tallon. What followed was an unprecedented run for one of the NHL’s Original Six franchises.
Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Keith and Seabrook blossomed with Quenneville behind the bench, and the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. They also made it to the conference finals in 2009 and 2014.
“He’s going to be an icon in Chicago for the longest time, the great things he’s done for this organization, winning three Stanley Cups, so that will never be forgotten,” Kane said.
Toews said the players learned of the move Tuesday morning.
“We’ve had some pretty crazy highs and you remember all the good stuff, so it’s tough to see a coach and a friend like Joel go,” the captain said.
The pressure on Quenneville began to ramp up when Chicago was swept by Nashville in the first round of the 2017 playoffs after the Blackhawks finished with the best record in the Western Conference. Then they missed the playoffs entirely last season for the first time in a decade.
After getting off to a 6-2-2 start this year, Chicago’s play deteriorated. The power play, a persistent problem, ranked 27th in the NHL heading into Tuesday. The Blackhawks also are allowing an unseemly 3.73 goals per game.
Quenneville finishes with a 452-249-96 record with Chicago. He also went 76-52 in the playoffs with the Blackhawks for the best record in franchise history.
The dismissal turns up the heat on Bowman, who has made a couple of questionable moves that helped hasten the Blackhawks’ decline. He traded Artemi Panarin to Columbus and Teuvo Teravainen to Carolina in part because of salary-cap issues, and each player has put up big numbers with his new club.
Citizen news service
LOS ANGELES — Veteran centre Tyson Chandler signed with the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, two days after reaching a buyout agreement with the Phoenix Suns.
Chandler will provide needed front-court depth for the Lakers, who have relied on JaVale McGee and undersized forwards to guard big men during their 4-6 start to the season. Rookie centre Moe Wagner still hasn’t made his debut while returning slowly from a knee injury, and Lakers basketball boss Magic Johnson didn’t want to wait any longer to bolster his team’s areas of need.
While the 36-year-old Chandler might not be the dominant defensive player he was in his prime, he could play regular minutes for coach Luke Walton while the Lakers attempt to find a winning groove in their first season with LeBron James.
The Lakers host Minnesota tonight.
“Having observed our roster for the first 10 games of this young season, one of the areas that
Earvin and I discussed with Luke that we desired to upgrade is interior defence and rebounding,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said. “In Tyson Chandler, we addressed that need and so much more. We are excited that Tyson will bring championshiplevel experience that will solidify our veteran leadership and help positively shape our young core.” Chandler has been a standout NBA defender and rebounder for half of his life. He is the latest addition to a core of veteran Lakers newcomers around James including Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, McGee and Michael Beasley, who returned to practice Tuesday after spending a week away due to an undisclosed personal matter.
Chandler is joining his seventh team early in his 18th season in the league. He won a championship ring with Dallas in 2011, and he was the NBA’s defensive player of the year with New York in 2012 before earning an All-Star selection in 2013. He spent the past three seasons with Phoenix, and he averaged 6.5 points and 9.1 rebounds per game last year.
John CARUCCI Citizen news service
NEW YORK — Elton John said he stood by the stage and sobbed at his foundation’s gala last year as Aretha Franklin made her final public performance.
“I was shocked to see how thin she was, and she just smiled her sweet smile at me and said, ‘I didn’t want to let you down,”’ he told The Associated Press on the red carpet Monday night at this year’s party.
John said Franklin “gave us one of the greatest performances of our lifetime.” She died in August at age 76.
From the podium, John also acknowledged Tony Bennett, who was in the audience, as another inspirational singer.
“Artists like that don’t come around that often. They are dying out, and it’s such a shame because there’s no one to replace them,” the 71-year-old John told the crowd.
The gala raised $3.9 million for the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which was launched in 1992.
While the organization has been a leader in the fight against AIDS, the theme of the night at a grand Midtown ballroom was civility toward one another. John said he’s worried about America because “we live in perilous times.” He called on Americans to help all people feel like they belong.
“There should be no difference between the colour of your skin, the religion you choose or your political party. We have to come together and embrace each other,” John said.
From the red carpet, John said civility has gone off the rails over the past couple of years. He’s especially disturbed by attacks on the transgender community.
“That doesn’t sit very well with me. Because people should have any right they want. People who
Citizen news service
NEW YORK — There is now a museum for pizza lovers everywhere that’s popped-up in arguably America’s pizza capital, New York City.
The Museum of Pizza is dedicated to all things cheese and sauce, but there’s more to it than meets the tongue.
“It’s often that the simplest ideas are the best. And we wanted to use pizza’s ubiquitous appeal to get people through the door and looking at art and hearing about history in a different format,” said Alexandra Serio, chief content officer at Nameless Network, the group that baked the Museum of Pizza idea.
“Our approach to this Museum of Pizza is a fine art approach, so we went out to multiple artists contemporary in many mediums, and asked them for their interpretation of pizza,” said Serio. “And what we got back is-it ranges the gambit, let’s just say that. That’s an understatement.”
Located on the street level of Brooklyn’s William Vale hotel, the museum is an expansive, one-floor space that houses a wide variety of art, from giant photographs to sculptures to large installations that engulf visitors. And the pop-up museum, also known as “MoPi,” has already drawn a lot of interest-more than 6,000 people came through the doors when they opened this month.
Another instantly recognizable attribute of the space is the bright colours that are weaved throughout the exhibits-perfect for taking social media-ready pictures.
“Honestly, I thought it would be like more of a museum like at the beginning, with the pizza boxes and it kinda tells you when it was developed and stuff like that,” said Nene Raye, visiting from New Jersey. “Then I was kinda hoping they had something artsy in it because I love taking pictures. So this is a mashup of everything-so you get a little bit of education and then some fun, which I love.”
want to be transgender should have their own rights,” John said.
David Furnish, John’s husband, drew a similarity to the discrimination in the early day of the AIDS epidemic.
“We like everybody to be treated with kindness and compassion,” he said. “You have to bring everybody along for the ride.”
John’s global humanitarian efforts help raise money for innovative AIDS prevention programs and campaigns to end stigma, as well as providing treatment, care and support services for people
living with the disease. He’s proud of the organization’s humble beginnings.
“We started off on the kitchen table in Atlanta, and we’ve grown to where we are today. We’ve raised over $430 million worldwide. We’ve been responsible with matching funds worldwide over a billion dollars. That’s pretty amazing for a small organization like us. And we’ve survived,” John said from the carpet
“Our motto is, no one gets left behind,” he said. “If you leave people behind, you’re never
TORONTO (CP) — Political satirist Rick Mercer has a new book and “a bunch” of projects in the works, but a run for office doesn’t seem likely.
“I’m less interested in politics now than I ever have been in my entire life,” the St. John’s native, who lives in Toronto, said in an interview for the newly published book Rick Mercer Final Report.
“I used to think about it, but I think if you’re an armchair expert in baseball or hockey, you
gonna win.”
The evening was hosted by CBS
This Morning co-host Gayle King. Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, was the guest speaker. He made a passionate plea to reach out to people in places you have traditionally avoided.
The evening’s honorees included the Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker, Joe McMillan of the real estate investment firm DDG and philanthropist Patricia Hearst.
The granddaughter of publish-
always think, ‘Well, what if they called me up and asked me to be the general manager?”’
The Canadian comedian was often asked about his political aspirations throughout his career on the weekly CBC satirical news series Rick Mercer Report, which ended its 15-season run last April. Now that the self-described political junkie has the time to devote to such considerations, it seems his mind is on other things
Jeff AYERS Citizen news service
Dark Sacred Night (Little, Brown and Co.), by Michael Connelly Los Angeles Police Department detective Renee Ballard was introduced in Michael Connelly’s popular The Late Show. She was given the graveyard shift after reporting her former partner for harassment, and she doesn’t let the poor assignment distract her from her duty.
One late evening she sees someone going through old file cabinets and confronts him.
He tells her his name is Harry Bosch and he’s working on a particular cold case he wants to solve involving the murder of a 15-year-old runaway. Even though he’s retired from the LAPD, he’s working for the San Fernando police department as a reserve officer tackling unsolved crimes. After Bosch tells Ballard the details, she informs Bosch that he needs to leave since they could both get into trouble. After he leaves, she realizes her curiosity has been piqued and now she wants to uncover the girl’s killer as well.
Ballard offers to assist in the investigation and even helps take off hours to go through old notes written by the officers who originally tried to solve the murder. She and Bosch soon become hesitant partners. They will have to work together to build trust,
but obstacles in both the cold case and current investigations will quickly put their relationship to the test.
Readers know that when they pick up a Michael Connelly novel they will get a compelling and well-written dive into the world of crime and law enforcement. The cases that Ballard and Bosch tackle would be enough to recommend this story, but what makes Connelly so much better than most crime fiction writers is that his police detectives are human and real. The combination is quality.
ing magnate William Randolph Hearst, she is known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army. Hearst spoke briefly on the red carpet.
“This is really the only organization that right now I would do this for. Because I do prefer to just be behind the scenes. This isn’t a big ego moment for me. This is something very special, and that’s why I agreed to be honoured,” Hearst said. The night closed with a performance by Sheryl Crow.
than what’s defined him for so many years.
“For the first time in my life, I don’t have an immediate plan,” said Mercer, who co-created and was previously a resident performer on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
“Now I can consider doing things that I couldn’t have considered before. Just the other day I said, ‘Maybe I’ll write a play again.’ It’s been 25 years since I said that out loud, so who knows.”
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Shirley Foster Howell
Dec 29, 1936 - Nov 4th 2018
Our beloved mother, Shirley, passed away peacefully on November 4, 2018 at the age of 81 years old. Survived by twin brother Roy (Betty), children: Paula, Lloyd (Heather) and Shari, seven grandchildren and 8.5 great grandchildren. Service will be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel on Thursday, November 8th at 1:30 pm.
Bruce Victor Swan Nov 2 1945 - Oct 30 2018
It is with heavy hearts that, we the family of Bruce Victor Swan, announce his passing after a brief illness. Bruce was born in Vancouver and moved to Prince George in 1969. A 33 year member of the Prince George Fire Department; he retired in 2005 as Assistant Fire Chief. An avid fisherman, hunter, member of the Ridgeriders ATV club and the Overdrives car club, he enjoyed all aspects of the outdoors. Bruce is survived by his wife, Wanda, daughters Christina of Bermuda and Shaylen Bresett (Mike) of Chestermere, Alberta. He is also survived by his sister Judi Klick (Bill) of Salmon Arm, British Columbia and nieces Gayle and Lisa. He was predeceased by his parents, Edith and Vernon Swan. A Celebration of Life will be held at the Columbus Community Hall located at 7201 Domano Blvd., Thursday, November 8th, 2018. Doors open at 11:00 am, service will commence at 11:30 am. Refreshments and light lunch will follow.
Jean Irene Leeson Apr 30,1939 - Nov 2, 2018 --------79Years------------
It is with heavy hearts the family of Jean Leeson announces her passing. After a week long battle of surgical complications, Jean passed away with family present in the I.C.U. of UHNBC. Jean is survived by her loving husband of 57 years Frank Leeson, Carla Power (daughter) and husband Warren Power, Heather Moffat (daughter), and grand children Frankie McMillan, Megan & Cody Teichroeb, and Ryan Moffat. Predeceased by her parents; Arthur and Ernestine Hawley, brothers; Fred Laing, Alex Laing, sisters; Millie Deschamps, Rose Trombley, grand-daughter Brittany Jean McMillan and son-in-law Blain McMillan. Jeans laugh was contagious and a warm hand squeeze was always in order when you met her. The door was always open at the Leeson House and what brought the most joy to Jean, was insisting you stay for a wonderful home cooked meal. Her most loved dishes being cinnamon buns, bread, pies, and cabbage rolls. Jean worked at PGSS in the cafeteria for many years and later at Beaverly Elementary until her retirement. Her hobby was cleaning, hard work, and was always there for her friends and family in need. The void she has left behind will not be filled. In loving memory of our wife, mother, granny, and loyal friend.
A celebration of life will be held Friday Nov 9 2018 at 10:00am at Columbus Community Hall 7201 Domano Blvd
The family would like to thank the staff on 3 South, in particular RN Nicole and Dr Lokanathan, she could feel your love and compassion.
FOUCHER,CARMENN.
TheFoucher’s/Kipping’s/LeFebvre’swanttothankso manypeople,forallthesupportandlovethatwe receivedwhileourmother/grandmother/sister/aunt/ cousin,CarmenNoellaGraceFoucher,wasgallantly fightingherbattlewithcancerandfinallysuccumbed onAugust31st,withherprideandjoysbyher bedside.
Duringthistimewecreatedastrongerbondand created/renewedfriendships.Friends/familywere generouswithensuringwewerewellfed,knowing wewerethoughtofbythemanybeautifulsympathy cardsandthemanybeautifulbouquetsofflowers. Wehaveahugevoidinourfamilybutweare promisingamongstourfamilytocontinuethe closenessthatCarmenworkedsohardatachieving. Wedidonelastthingforourmotherwhichwasthe tributetripweplannedwithher.Wetookherto Toronto,Montreal,TroisRiviere,Batiscan,andVieux Quebec.Iencourageyoutovisitmymothers websitewhereyoucanseeherlifefrombeginningto end(carmenfoucher.ca).Wealsohavecreateda LegacyFundinhonourofourparentsandallthe informationisonherwebsite.Fromallofher childrenandgrandchildrenwethankyoufromthe bottomofourhearts.
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