More Miracle
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Anew miracle will appear on the Artspace stage this winter.
For the Prince George Community Foundation, it will be a bright spotlight unlike any the local charity has ever had before. The foundation was named this year’s charity of choice by Miracle Theatre, the local professional theatre organization that does an annual production with proceeds directed to a worthy local cause.
The performance this year will be a comedy called Halfway There penned by seminal Canadian playwright Norm Foster.
“It’s the first time it’ll be seen outside of Ontario,” said Anne Laughlin, Miracle Theatre’s producer. The plot centres on a small diner in a small town in Nova Scotia on a global spot that happens to be exactly halfway between the North Pole and the equator. It’s also caught in between its rural realities and the big urban influences that sometimes pass through. It’s always a source of chatter between the diner’s two staff, who lock up at 4 p.m. and sometimes that’s when the fun really begins, depending on who else happens to be in the room
at the time.
Proceeds from
new
play will benefit Prince George Community Foundation
A nationwide casting call is now underway, but two actors have already been confirmed for this production.
Dolores Drake has been to Prince George in the past for performances with Theatre NorthWest, including the onerous Shirley Valentine that kicked off TNW’s inaugural season. She was also seen in past productions of Leading Ladies, Ivor Johnson’s Neighbours, Lend Me A Tenor and The Invisibility Of Eileen.
Linda Carson, meanwhile, isn’t just familiar to local audiences because of past performances at TNW and other venues. She was born and raised in Prince George before going on to a professional career as a writer, actor and other vocations in the performing arts.
The combination of play, actors and Miracle Theatre production is already selling tickets. When the community foundation was established as this year’s recipient, and that well-connected charity made that disclosure internally among its supporters, the sponsorship commitments came rolling in. Some were anonymous, but for example, ScotiaBank has already pledged to buy out one night during the run of performances.
“The project has reached 12 per cent of
This really helps all our fundraising efforts, to be really honest, we have 137 different envelopes.
— Alain LeFebvre
its goal before it has even gone public,” said Price on Tuesday when the grand announcement was made. A corporate sponsorship system has been created in order for commercial supporters to make contributions in exchange for tickets and other benefits. Corporate recognition can be discussed at 250-562-7772 and family/ personal patronage can be discussed at 250563-6937.
The foundation’s president, Alain LeFebvre, said a new account was being created that would get its first infusion of cash from this play. It is called the Children of Prince George and will be dedicated to the case by case needs of local kids, be that a lunch program or bikes or disability aids or whatever might come up as a worthy cause centred on the city’s youngest in need of help.
Pay for city’s senior managers a hot topic at forum
Arthur WILLIAMS Citizen staff
awilliams@pgcitizen.ca
Twelve of the 15 candidates hoping to be elected to city council on Oct. 20 faced off for the first time in front of a standing-room-only crowd at the Prince George Public Library on Tuesday night. Missing from the all-candidates forum, which was co-hosted by CBC and the Prince George Public Library, were council hopefuls Kyle Sampson and Dave Fuller, along with mayoral candidate Willy Enns. Candidates fielded questions voted on by CBC
listeners and posed by members of the audience on issues ranging from backyard chickens to the city’s wage policy for senior managers and how to address poverty and homelessness in the city.
On the issue of compensation and overtime for senior city managers, incumbent Mayor Lyn Hall said the new council will have a chance to review the city’s policies, but the review needs to take into account what similar positions in other communities pay.
“We have to be very vigilant about how we do this,” Hall said. “The market is really dictating what we have to pay for senior managers.” see KRAUSE, page 4
“We had identified some areas of need within our community, and addressing children was one of those areas of need,” said LeFebvre. “We told Ted and Anne about those areas of need and it was their choice to put their focus on children with this very unique fundraising effort.”
“We are raising money in a way that’s a little different than selling raffle tickets or straight sponsorships,” said Price. “We are asking people to go out and have a good time, treat themselves, take in a performance, and that is their donation.”
“This really helps all our fundraising efforts, to be really honest, we have 137 different envelopes,” said LeFebvre. “Our strategic plan did identify that the Prince George Community Foundation needed to raise its profile in the community. This play really does that for us. We didn’t go searching for this, Ted and Anne approached us, but it is so helpful.”
Halfway There will be performed each evening from Feb. 28 to March 20 at Artspace (the upstairs performance area at Books & Company). There will be no performances on Monday nights, but there will be Sunday matinees.
Tickets are $33 each, available in advance at the Books & Company front counter or call 250-563-6637 to charge by phone.
Local father and son killed in collision
Citizen staff
A Prince George father and son were killed Monday afternoon in a three-vehicle collision on Highway 97 just north of Williams Lake.
The victims were Cody Shreve and his son Mason, according to a family friend. Cody Shreve was a youth worker at the Evangelical Free Church in Prince George. Police, who were called to the scene about 20 kilometres north of Williams Lake at 3 p.m., said a southbound pickup truck with a lone driver crossed the centre line and collided with a northbound Toyota with five occupants and then side-swiped another vehicle
that was following the Toyota. Cody Shreve was the driver of the Toyota and Mason Shreve was in the back seat. The other three occupants of the Toyota – mother Leanna and two children – were taken to hospital and have been released, according to the friend. The pickup’s driver was extricated from his vehicle and transported to hospital and the lone driver of the side-swiped vehicle received minor injuries, police said. Impairment did not appear to have been a factor, RCMP said. Anyone with information about this crash is asked to call Cariboo Chilcotin Traffic Services in Williams Lake at 250-392-6211.
Alain LeFebvre, president of the Prince George Community Foundation, left, along with Anne Laughlin and Ted Price from Miracle Theatre of Prince George, announced the theatre’s latest production – Halfway There, by Norm Foster – on Tuesday. Proceeds from the
will
the Prince George Community Foundation.
TNW show doubles viewing pleasure
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
You get two plays in one, at Theatre NorthWest, and “layers” might be the word that leaps most off the stage.
The star of both shows, Anita Majumdar, plays each character and flips the script on typical Canadian theatre narratives. This show looks at first like an everyday play, but it pulls a lot of theatrical levers – mime, comedy, video clip, musical – in its efforts to show a side of Canadian culture almost no one gets to see. No one except Aboriginal Canadians and recent immigrants. The two plays are like headlights driving straight at us out of the darkness of our national middle-of-the-road prejudice.
The two plays are called Fish Eyes and Let Me Borrow That Top. They are mirror images of each other. First, in Fish Eyes, we meet Meena, a Canadian girl who reluctantly excels at the traditional dancing of her family’s home country of India.
Meena’s skills make her the apple of her old-school dance instructor “auntie’s” eye, but it doesn’t score her any points in the harsh glare of high school peer pressure.
That shifts a bit when Meena comes through for her gym class when the teacher assigns them a dance unit. Meena bails out some suburban white girls who insisted they do a Bollywood number, but didn’t know more than the superficial moves. Meena offers a few bashful pointers to score their group big points at the school. It’s enough to get her a morsel of attention from the hot boy she’s
been pining over, a lout named Buddy but he’s loaded in looks. But Buddy is still impossibly, insultingly stuck on the blonde alpha-girl Candice who has been liberally foisting her magazine ver-
sion of Indian culture. Candice. As ambitious as she is shallow; as thoughtless as she is privileged. But get to know her a little and we start to see the cracks in the foundations. She’s the
prototypical American teenaged cheerleader next door, but she has her raw nerves like everyone else. Perhaps it’s that Americanism that hurts so much as a Canadian watching the play. We have built a national profile based on being a culture of tolerance and acceptance and embracing of diversity. Multiculturalism is the bedrock of our society. What we really did was build a national myth. We are that nation we hope to be, aspirationally, but through Candice and Meena we are told right from the source that we are falling far short. Majumdar uses Fish Eyes and Let Me Borrow That Top to let us in on the blatant and acidic imbalance of power still la-la-la led by mainstream culture. And let’s not use that word to obscure the truth – it’s white culture. And when Majumdar portrays a caricature of a blonde teeny-bopper, it’s irony hot off the grill. That is exactly how Canadian society has treated Aboriginal and immigrant people in pop-culture media for the past – what is it now? – 152 years. It sure isn’t because Majumdar can’t write a complex character (to be all honest, Candice ends up surprisingly fleshed out by the end). Meena and even her dance “aunty” are both deliciously round. One is plump with a life yearned for and the other is punctured by the life endured. Through them both we learn also about the cultures of India, Canada and the human truths that entangle us all.
Meena, Candice, aunty – they all have their story arches.
High school teenagers get an arch as well.
Family gets an arch.
Russell on talent search for A Christmas Carol
Citizen staff
Brush up those English accents. It’s time once again for those 18 years and older to audi-
tion for roles as Judy Russell Presents Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Auditions take place on Friday at Enchainement Productions Inc., 3540 Opie Cres.
Two cultures also get a theatrical discussion imbedded in these two scripts.
If it sounds a tad confusing, in all honesty, it sometimes was. I was not able to follow the story at times because of a change of character (usually this was impressively done) I mis-detected, or a line delivered too hastily to properly hear, or a reference I was too slow to grasp. I lost the magic of theatrical connection when that occurred.
Yet, I was consistently drawn in by the tiny nuances of facial expression, turn of phrase, and pingpong games of angst that went on between all the characters. I end up feeling hopeful for them all, but not really liking any of them as friends. That’s a brave thing to do, with a play. Audiences are all too often spoon-fed people we care deeply about. It’s bolder drama to show us everyone’s personality scars.
These collective impressions can only come from a carefully crafted script where humanity is tapped into the plaster of the story like a Renaissance painter making a fresco.
And the dancing! Majumdar doesn’t just write about classical Indian dance, she (as Meena, as aunty, even oddly as Candice) performs it.
It’s a physical play. For about 90 minutes, she is alone on stage, a lot of it pumping and posturing to a beat. I was impressed she was still standing by the final bows. Dancing fatigue only adds to the exhaustion of laying a set of fictional people at the feet of an audience – all by one’s self.
Fish Eyes & Let Me Borrow That Top are on at TNW until Oct. 7.
The show runs Dec. 13-22 at the Prince George Playhouse. To book an audition call 250-563-2902 or email judydance@shawcable.com.
HANDOUT PHOTO
Anita Majumdar is the star of Fish Eyes and Let Me Borrow That Top, now on stage at Theatre NorthWest.
Swanson coming home to be part of Run for the Cure
Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
Three years ago, Viva Swanson had breast cancer for six days, she says. After that, it was all about making sure it would never come back.
Swanson will share her inspiring story on Sunday during the opening ceremony of the CIBC Run for the Cure, which will begin at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park at 9:30 a.m. There is an option to walk or run one or five kilometres.
Swanson grew up in Prince George, graduated from Kelly Road Secondary School and took her nurse training at the College of New Caledonia, graduating in 1989. After working in maternity care for many years, she moved into administration and currently lives in Fort St. John, working in corporate services as a leadership development advisor for Northern Health.
that was completely unrelated,” she added.
Her husband Randy told her that even though it seemed like something small that she should probably get the cyst checked out.
“I was a little bit arrogant in thinking that I’m a nurse and I know my boobs better than anybody,” Swanson said. “In the course of one day – I was at my family doctor at 9 a.m., had my mammogram at 2 p.m., and an ultrasound at 3. The tumour wasn’t glaringly obvious.”
I had this overwhelming sensation that everything was going to be OK.
— Viva Swanson
Swanson still has family living in Prince George and will return Sunday to run the five kilometres for the first time in her life.
She followed the ‘from the couch to five kilometres in 10 weeks’ training program.
“And it tells me that on Sunday I will be able to complete the run without stopping,” Swanson said. Looking back on surviving cancer, she said it was a fluke that she was diagnosed so early.
“We couldn’t feel the tumour, we couldn’t see the tumour during a mammogram, but I had a little cyst
It took the ultrasound technician exploring her armpit area to discover a lymph node that was completely round, which is not normal. They are supposed to be oval or tear-drop shaped, Swanson said.
“She literally dug for about 20 minutes before she found the mass,” she added.
“Half an hour later I had it biopsied and by 4:30 I was back at my doctor’s office with a speculative diagnosis as the radiologist said that the odds of it not being cancer was slim to none.
“So it all happened in a day, which was incredible.”
Swanson said the defining moment, when she realized that this might be something serious, took place as she was lying on the ultrasound bed and was left with her own thoughts for a time.
“I had this sensation of holy cow – is this the first second of the first minute of the first day of the rest of my life? The end of my life? Is this really happening?” Swanson said.
— see RUN, page 4
Giving muscular dystrophy the boot
Firefighters with Prince George Fire Rescue have completed their annual boot campaign, which raises funds for Muscular Dystrophy Canada. Firefighters were on location at the local Rona store on Saturday, and, on Tuesday, Rona matched the funds raised. Rona donated a cheque for $1,400 to Muscular Dystrophy Canada, which brought the total figure to $26,658, the highest ever generated by the campaign.
Bylaw compliance team draws positive review
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
A five-month pilot program that saw a two-person team patrol the city’s downtown on behalf of the bylaw services department appears on its way to becoming a permanent fixture after drawing expressions of support from city council.
Since mid-May, Denton Johnson and Adrian Hebert had worked as bylaw compliance assistants with the aim of enhancing “health, safety and security” to the downtown. Their days typically started at 7 a.m. with a sweep of the downtown looking for people camping out and getting them to clean up after themselves.
But perhaps more important in the opinion of bylaw services manager Fred Crittendon were the people skills they have brought to the job.
“We’d felt that it was just moving people along and clean up after some of the messes that were left,” Crittendon said during a presentation to city council last week.
“But we found very quickly that because of these two staff peoples’ experience and training, they were able to establish a rapport with some of the population downtown on our streets day in and day out.”
Johnson and Hebert both have backgrounds as correctional officers and in addition to bylaw enforcement, they also received training on such topics as conflict resolution, understanding diversity and dealing with the homeless and those with mental health issues.
From mid-May to the end of August, they dealt with more than 571 incidents related to people camping out on public or private property, well up from just 72 over the same period last year. Crittendon attributed the jump to the team going out and searching for campers as opposed to bylaw services acting solely on complaints from the public.
The debris they dealt with amounted to 54 loads taken to the Foothills landfill, adding up to 3,530 kilograms. The majority consisted of soiled mattresses, bike parts, wooden pallets, cloth-
ing, garbage, drug paraphernalia, contaminated cardboard and Styrofoam insulation.
But there were also syringes. Over August, the team picked up over three 19-litre (five-gallon) pails worth and in addition to used needles, they found numerous unopened syringes, still in their boxes.
The count, along with a photo of a pile of needles the team had collected, drew a strong comment from Coun. Brian Skakun regarding Northern Health’s needle exchange program.
“I don’t think there seems to be a needle exchange anymore,” he said. “They just give them out and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of effort to clean them up and to have a five-gallon bucket full, I mean you’ve got to be having several hundred needles in there easily.”
Following on Skakun’s comments, Coun. Murry Krause said the numbers show a need for more affordable and supportive housing.
“It’s often been said, a shelter isn’t a place to live,” Krause added. “And so at the end of the winter, when people have lived in a shelter all winter, they want to live anywhere else.”
As for the term needle exchange, Krause said there has been talk of calling it something else.
“I don’t think it has been onefor-one for a very long time. It’s been a long time since that was considered the modality of delivery.”
Crittendon said one of the team has left for another job but the remaining one is slated to remain on staff until the end of October. But he could be there longer. In response to a comment from Coun. Jillian Merrick, city manager Kathleen Soltis said money will be found within the city budget to keep the position on the city payroll at least until budget discussions roll around.
Mayor Lyn Hall followed up by saying “it’s absolutely a lined item in our budget. There’s no question that the city will have to continue to do this.”
During the last round of budget talks, council approved $52,577 to cover the full costs, wages and benefits for the positions from May 1 to Sept. 1.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Close to 300 people took part in the CIBC Run for the Cure in 2015. This year’s event, which raises funds for the fight against breast cancer, happens on Sunday in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.
Krause says pay policy has been
in place for seven years
— from page 1
Six-term incumbent city councillor Murry Krause said while residents may feel upset about the raises paid to senior city managers, and the overtime paid during the 2017 wildfire crisis, those managers were following a policy which had been set in place by city council seven years prior.
“Senior management did nothing wrong, they complied with the policy,” Krause said. “(At the Union of B.C. Municipalities) we’re constantly hearing from communities about their difficulty in attracting senior managers. It’s not an easy task, and (city manager) Kathleen Soltis has done a champion’s job.”
Not only did city staff respond to an influx of thousands of people evacuated from neighbouring communities, he said, they managed the completion of several other major city projects.
Former two-term city councillor Cameron Stolz, who is seeking to return to council after not being reelected in 2014, said while senior managers receive annual wage increases on par with city unionized staff, there are pay brackets which increase compensation based on experience and seniority. All of those need to be fully reviewed, Stolz said.
In addition, Stolz questioned why city managers were being paid out for overtime rather than using those hours for additional vacation time later in the year – a common practice in the private sector, including his own business.
Political newcomer Christopher Wood said while senior managers are entitled to reasonable cost of living wage increases, the city’s overtime policy is in need of review.
“If our city manager leaves, there are other people who want to come and live in Prince George,” Wood said. “If she is going to leave because she didn’t get a pay raise, was she really loyal to Prince George?”
Incumbent councillor Frank Everitt said the city’s labour policies for senior managers was approved in 2011, and was based on recommendations by the provincial government to bring the city’s policy in line with the province.
While private companies can manage overtime for salaried employees differently, under the city’s policy, “If people are entitled to overtime, they can choose to take it as time or as pay, that’s how our policy works.”
Incumbent councillor Teri McConnachie said the city’s current policies, “reflect the time and space they were made,” and she would look forward to participating in a review.
“This has nothing to do with the quality of work or the attributes of our senior managers,” McConnachie added.
Long-serving incumbent city councillor Brian Skakun said city
council has already taken steps to reduce overtime in future emergencies by hiring an emergency coordinator.
“That person was doing (that work) this summer, and taking the pressure off our senior managers,” Skakun said.
However, he said, city council needs to take a more active role in managing the city’s senior staff and called for quarterly reporting on things like overtime pay for salaried staff.
“We need to base some of the pay on performance,” he added.
A question proposed by the Prince George Public Library asked what the prospective councillors would do to develop more bathrooms in the downtown, and later questions asked councillors to weigh in on issues such as the development of public housing.
On the issue of public bathrooms downtown, political newcomer Viv Fox said the city should look for creative options to allow people downtown the basic human dignity of access to a washroom.
“We’re not going to know if we don’t try,” Fox said. “It might be worth looking at de-comissioned Atco trailers, so people experiencing homelessness can have the basic right to a bathroom facility.”
Fellow newcomer Cori Ramsay said the lack of bathrooms downtown affects people from all walks of life and, “It’s something that we need to focus on regardless of the cost.”
Fox also came out in support of building a long-awaited performing arts centre in the city.
“I think it would be a great asset to Prince George.”
However, incumbent councillor Susan Scott was more cautious on the issue.
“In terms of the performing arts centre, I’m a little reluctant,” Scott said. “I need more information. I need to know, and taxpayers need to know, how it would affect me. I can go to the symphony now. The performing arts centre is still not quite in my reach.”
On the issue of the city’s aging infrastructure, newcomer Paul Serup said the city has five million reasons to reconsider the redevelopment of the Four Seasons Pool downtown, which he viewed as waste of money.
“Whenever faced with these possibly very large expenses, we need to be very prudent with the taxpayers dollars,” Serup said.
And, as for those backyard chickens? Incumbent councilor Garth Frizzell said he would like to give them a limited-time pilot project to see if chickens in residential backyards could work in the city.
“If it doesn’t work for Prince George, than it doesn’t work for Prince George,” Frizzell said.
“But I think it’s worth trying.”
CBC Daybreak associate producer Audrey McKinnon moderated the debate, which was streamed live via Facebook.
UNBC researcher named Banting Fellow
Citizen staff
For the second year in a row, a UNBC post-doctoral researcher has received a prestigious national research award.
Vanessa Sloan Morgan is the recipient of a 2017-18 Banting Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The award provides $70,000 a year for up to two years of research.
Sloan Morgan’s project, entitled Inheritors of the Future: Community-Driven Voices of Youth Contemplating Resource Extraction of Indigenous and Northern Geographies in British Columbia, will examine how youth visions can address the long-term and cumulative impacts of resource extraction on rural and northern communities.
“This project is about highlighting the knowledge and experience that youth bring to the table, and
my role, as I see it, is pulling that out and sharing it in a way driven by youth,” she said. “I want to find avenues that can create the best space in which to have these conversations where youth can have key conversations with decisionmakers and be heard in meaningful ways.
“In research literature to date, there hasn’t been much attention on rural youth engagement and decision-making regarding large scale resource extraction,” she added. “But at the same time, youth are knowledgeable and influential, and they are going to be the ones inheriting the decisions that are made today.”
She is the third UNBC postdoctoral researcher to receive the fellowship. Maya Gislason was the first recipient in 2013 and worked with Prof. Margot Parkes. Alison Gerlach received her fellowship in 2017, working with First Nations studies and education professor
Margo Greenwood.
“Post-doctoral research fellows are an important part of our university community, helping to further expand our research capacity in innovative and exciting directions,” said UNBC president Daniel Weeks.
“The work that Dr. Sloan Morgan is pursuing with northern youth from Indigenous and rural areas will not only have an impact on communities in our region but also across the country and around the world.”
UNBC geography associate professor Sarah de Leeuw and health sciences associate professor Parkes will co-supervise Sloan Morgan’s fellowship. Both are also associate professors with the Northern Medical Program, part of UBC’s Faculty of Medicine undergraduate program, delivered in partnership with UNBC. In all, 70 Banting Fellowships were awarded across Canada.
Walker seeking election as school trustee
Citizen staff
Corey Walker is running for School District 57 trustee.
Walker has served as the northern regional coordinator for Autism B.C for almost six years and is an autistic self-advocate who works with families who have been affected by autism as part of the duties in his daily job.
“One of the most common messages I hear from parents is that they’re frustrated with the school system,” Walker said in a Tuesday
media release.
Walker attended public school in the city from Grade 2 through 12 and continued his education at UNBC, earning a bachelor’s degree in English and history. Walker earned his provincial instruction diploma in 2009 from Vancouver Community College.
Walker said if elected he will make sure school is a better place for all students.
Priorities include ensuring all students have equal opportunity to succeed, bringing everyone’s
concerns and ideas forward, continuing to be an anti-bullying champion and working with rural communities to develop longterm plans to keep rural schools open.
Walker has volunteered in public school classrooms where he has seen the areas that need improvement.
“If elected, I will use my experience to support our district’s hard working staff in their efforts to make our school system the best it can be,” Walker concluded.
Sawmill talks go to mediation
Citizen staff
Talks between workers and employers at 13 northern B.C. sawmills and the employers’ bargaining agent have gone to mediation.
The bargaining committee began the process with the Labour Relation Board on Monday, according to a posting on the United Steelworkers Local 1-2017 website.
The local also had some words for Conifer, the agency representing employers, saying it had spent last Monday and Tuesday “continuing to use a common
sense approach in an attempt to avoid a strike” only to be served notice on Wednesday that Conifer had applied to bring in a mediator.
“What is truly concerning is Conifer’s unwavering position that their concessionary agenda must be addressed,” the union continued.
It said Conifer is offering a six-year contract with “pathetic” wage increases ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 per cent and a new hire rate starting at 85 per cent of the job rate.
Conifer is also seeking language that forces workers on alternate
shifts to work their statutory holidays for straight time, a doubling of the probation period for new employees and refusal to allow union representation at meetings that could lead to discipline. And the union said Conifer also wants to shift a series of benefit costs to workers.
In August, 1,509 members, or 93 per cent of those who voted, gave the union’s bargaining committee authority to issue 72-hour strike notice.
A Conifer representative has said the agency will not be talking to media before a contract has been ratified.
Run has raised more than $430 million
— from page 3
Because the process was so seamless and Swanson didn’t have to wait for the ultrasound, the biopsy or diagnosis, it somehow made her feel better about the whole thing.
“I had this overwhelming sensation that everything was going to be OK,” Swanson said.
Historically, Swanson said that whenever a life-altering event was coming up, she would get a sense of foreboding.
“In this case I had nothing like that at all so I was just going with my gut and thought this was just part of the adventure and death and dying never crossed my mind, to be quite honest,” Swanson said.
Swanson said quite literally she had cancer for six days.
“I was diagnosed on Friday, April 10, 2015 and I had my
lumpectomy on April 16 and it was gone,” Swanson said. Follow-up included adjuvant therapy, which includes chemotherapy and radiation to help decrease the risk of the cancer recurring.
“So I had 24 weeks of chemotherapy and four weeks of radiation,” Swanson said. “And it was awesome. I know, that’s wacked, right? Obviously, I hadn’t been taking any hints about slowing life down to smell the roses and apparently the only way I was going to do it was with a big message, which was the diagnosis of breast cancer. I had to take a breath and just be so grateful for my life, my family, my community, for my career and understanding all the blessings and having this diagnosis at this time.” Swanson explained that in this day and age where a breast cancer
diagnosis is not a death sentence, where the protocol has been fine-tuned and survival rate has improved so greatly, it’s a good place to be if you have to get the disease.
“I know people think I’m crazy but I know that I am a better person for the experience,” Swanson said.
One in eight Canadian women is expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Since 1992 the CIBC Run for the Cure has raised more than $430 million for breast cancer research, support programs, health education and advocacy initiatives. Last year’s event raised $17 million and included about 80,000 participants across the nation. For more information or to donate visit www.cancer.ca and click on events to find the Prince George Run for the Cure.
Vanessa Sloan Morgan, a post-doctoral researcher at UNBC, has received the 2017-18 Banting Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Canada aiming for the moon and beyond
Citizen news service
OTTAWA — With an eye on future lunar exploration, Canada’s space agency is calling on companies to present their ideas for everything from moon-rover power systems to innovative mineral prospecting techniques.
The Canadian Space Agency issued the tender this week for projects that will put Canada in position to contribute to future space missions involving human and robotic exploration of the moon.
The idea is to demonstrate technologies at agency headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Que., next year with possible follow-up testing in the Canary Islands in 2020.
Canada is already quietly working with space agencies in Europe, Japan and the United States on the next phases of exploring the final frontier.
As a step toward a mission to Mars, U.S. space agency NASA is spearheading the Lunar Gateway, an outpost that would orbit the moon. Through the Gateway, four astronauts would have access to the moon’s surface for weeks at a time to carry out experiments and exploration.
There is already talk of Canada contributing an advanced moon rover for future missions.
“The next focus for exploration is to move deeper into space, to go to the moon and to Mars,” said Mike Greenley, group president of MDA, a leading space technology firm.
“And so the next series of projects, over the next five to seven years, will be to get back to the moon, and then over the next 12 to 15 years, to move beyond that to Mars.”
Canada has a long history of space involvement dating from the 1962 launch of satellite Alouette I to study the ionosphere. Since 1984, eight Canadian astronauts have taken part in 16 missions, and the Canadarm established the country as a leader in space robotics.
The latest tender allows industry to propose projects including, but not limited to:
• Lunar rover power systems and wheels;
• Rover guidance, navigation and control;
• Communications systems for use on the moon;
• Lunar drilling and sample acquisition;
• Approaches to lunar prospecting.
The agency’s effort to engage industry is an encouraging sign of Canada’s interest in taking part in the next generation of lunar exploration, said Greenley.
As the Lunar Gateway project gets underway, Greenley expects international partners to call on Canada – given its expertise – to contribute artificial intelligencebased robotics to help build and operate the new orbiting station.
There will also be opportunities for Canada to take part in activities on the lunar surface – for instance by designing and building rovers and assisting with space mining, which will be key to extracting needed resources for a budding moon colony, he said.
A coalition of space-sector players including MDA recently launched a campaign – #DontLetGoCanada – to try to raise awareness of the country’s accomplishments in space and the benefits that flow from federal spending and support.
Greenley would like Canada to come up with a comprehensive space strategy to build on areas of traditional strength like robotics, rovers and space medicine.
“These are investments that would be substantial in size, but over a 15-year period or more,” he said. “Canadians are very proud of our participation in space historically. So the support’s there for investment.”
It isn’t clear whether there is commitment at the highest levels of the Canadian government to make “the kinds of investments that are necessary” to take part in the Lunar Gateway and related programs, said Kate Howells, who serves on the federal space advisory board.
Pilot error reason for near disaster
David KOENIG Citizen news service
United States federal safety officials say pilot error was the reason an Air Canada jetliner came within three to six metres of crashing into a plane on the ground last year in San Francisco.
The Air Canada pilots were apparently confused because one of two parallel runways was closed and dark before the late-night incident. The crew was seconds from landing their Airbus A320 jet on a taxiway where other planes loaded with passengers were waiting to take off.
“We could not have gotten literally or figuratively any closer to having a major disaster,” said the safety board’s vice chairman, Bruce Landsberg, during a hearing Tuesday in Washington.
Underscoring the severity of the incident, the NTSB’s top aviation-safety staffer, John DeLisi, said it was the first time the board considered a major investigation for an event in which there were no injuries or damaged planes.
The board said the Air Canada crew mistook the taxiway for a runway because they didn’t adequately review a warning to all pilots about one of the runways being closed for construction. The board cited other mistakes and crew fatigue as contributing factors.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline would review the safety board’s recommendations and has already taken steps
to improve training and procedures.
The two pilots “are being held out of service,” he said.
The safety board recommended the development of technology to warn pilots and air traffic controllers when a landing plane appears to be aimed at a taxiway instead of a runway. It also said the Federal Aviation Administration should consider better lighting and markings to warn pilots about closed runways.
The cockpit voice recorder might have helped investigators better understand how the nearaccident unfolded. However, the recording was taped over because the NTSB wasn’t notified of the incident for nearly two days.
“When we learned of a passenger airliner almost touching down on a taxiway occupied by four other airliners, we elected to launch a full investigation,” DeLisi said.
The July 2017 incident occurred just before midnight – it felt like 3 a.m. to the pilots, who had taken off from Toronto. The safety board recommended that Canada strengthen rules to prevent pilot fatigue.
The safety board’s chairman, Robert Sumwalt, urged the FAA and Canadian officials to adopt the recommendations “so that we do not have to relearn the lessons of this incident at a far greater cost.”
Meanhile, the union representing Air Canada pilots said the NTSB’s findings “underscore the many years of urgent calls by Canada’s pilots for flight crew fatigue rules that are sup-
Kavanaugh classmate has ‘no memory’ of assault
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mark Judge spent decades mining his recollections and writing books and articles full of semi-confessional details about the suburban Maryland prep school he attended with future Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Now, though, Judge’s memory has drawn a blank.
Judge, identified by Christine Blasey Ford as an eyewitness to her claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during a 1980s teen party, has said he has “no memory” of the episode.
Ford, now a college professor in California, claims Judge watched the attack and urged Kavanaugh on. Judge told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week: “I do not recall the party described in Dr. Ford’s letter. More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”
Over much of his adult life, Judge has dived back repeatedly into his memories of Georgetown Preparatory School student life in the early 1980s, and his two memoirs and a cluster of internet essays provide cautionary takes
on his prep school days and boozy weekend rounds as a teenage drinker. Judge’s book Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk surveyed his alcohol-fueled escapades in high school and college, a time of “drinking and smoking and hooking up,” he wrote in a 2015 essay on the Acculturated website.
After Judge was publicly identified by Ford, some former Georgetown Prep classmates sifted through their own memories, trying to reconcile their recollections with Ford’s account.
Those classmates said they could not recall any instances where Kavanaugh acted similarly to Ford’s account. But three classmates, one speaking publicly and the other two speaking anonymously, portrayed Judge as a bullying presence during classes, and at weekend parties where athletes gathered at night to tap kegs of beer and woo girls from nearby schools. The two who requested anonymity did so out of concern that talking publicly about this issue could jeopardize their business and professional relationships within the tight-knit Georgetown Prep community.
ported by science.”
“The government’s proposed rules fall short; they would allow Canadian pilots who begin their duty at 9 p.m. to operate two hours longer than NASA research recommends, and even longer than would be permitted in the United States,” Capt. Matt Hogan, of the Air Canada Pilots Association, said in a statement Tuesday.
The Air Canada crew was cleared to land on 28R, to the right of the closed runway, 28L. According to a preliminary NTSB report, the pilots thought the lighted runway was 28L –not theirs. Despite visual cues such as different lighting on taxiways, they aimed their jet to land to the right of 28R, on a parallel taxiway where the other planes were waiting to take off.
According to the NTSB, the pilots told investigators that they didn’t see planes on the taxiway, but that something did not look right.
A United Airlines pilot in one of the planes warned air traffic controllers about the onrushing Air Canada jet, and pilots on a Philippine Airlines jet switched on their landing lights in an apparent warning manoeuvre.
The Air Canada pilots abandoned the landing and pulled their plane up just in time to avoid catastrophe. An NTSB staff member said Tuesday that they calculated the plane flew three to six metres above the first of the four waiting jetliners, then circled and returned for a safe landing.
Swimming in a sea of lies
Irecently read a Facebook posting about the loss of a friend that was so powerfully written that I checked it with two free online plagiarismcheckers to determine its origin.
I was vaguely embarrassed to do that, but I hoped to find that this fine piece of writing was truly original – an honestly conceived series of thoughts beautifully and refreshingly expressing a meaningful point of view about a significant experience.
In fact, that is exactly what I found the piece to be: unusually truthful in every sense of the word.
Commonly used by universities and publishers, plagiarism-checkers have even led to a newer deceptive practice known as “rogeting” – the practice of plagiarizing by using word substitutions to elude plagiarism-detection software. The term is a reference to Roget’s Thesaurus, which provides synonyms for most words in the English language.
Perhaps plagiarism, while intellectually offensive, is still regarded as a relatively harmless form of deception, but in an increasingly technological age, other forms of deception take on a darker hue.
In an interesting piece of 21st-century research out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD researcher Soroush
Vosoughi wrote that: “I realized that… a good chunk of what I was reading on social media was rumours.”
To separate truth from rumour, propaganda, exaggeration, falsehoods, misinformation, fake news and just plain coldblooded sociopathic lying in your face, Vosoughi and his colleagues used sites devoted to fact-checking, such as factcheck. org, hoax-slayer.com, politifact.com, snopes. org, truthorfiction. com and urbanlegends.about.com.
They found that a disturbing number of public claims and statements from a variety of sources do not stand up to scrutiny.
That could be because, as Sinan Aral, also
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in the journal Science, “We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information.”
So here’s the question for educators, communicators, journalists and even parents: how will this next generation of kids begin to find a pathway for themselves through this maze of distortion and ethical pitfalls devised by the generation behind them?
But the knowledge that those fact-checking and anti-plagiarism options exist and are easily available does not seem to make any difference to those who openly and happily attempt to deceive the rest of us for personal profit or advantage.
We’ve heard many times, especially in political speeches:
“Everyone says” or “everyone thinks.”
According to the New York Times, this has made it hard to tell the difference between “honest recommendation,” “popular sentiment” and “manufactured public opinion.”
In fact, data-mining expert Bing Liu, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, estimates one-third of consumer reviews on the internet are fake.
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre’s 2009 book Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies focuses on the damage done to language by politically-affiliated media folks, cynical
YOUR LETTERS
A solution for discarded needles
The recent discussion regarding discarded needles lacked an alternative solution.
Here is one that might be considered: What comes to mind – with some safety precautions – is something like a bottle return depot.
A small facility in which anyone can take in needles for, say, five cents each. This type of exchange could be portable and set up daily in alleyways and such, out of sight. Education in safe handling would be necessary and “sharps” plastic containers available at this facility for those wishing to gather needles, and perhaps grabbers, the type used by disabled for out of reach items available for a small deposit, returned when the grabber is returned. This type of system would be easy to establish and inexpensive to run. It would also allow for monitoring of use and the present needle delivery system incorporated as well.
Places where needles are presently distributed could serve as gathering places for discarded
needles. With scales and such, physical counting would be eliminated just like banks count money. A pilot project would be inexpensive. Just a thought.
Willow Arune Prince George
Thanks on behalf of Red Dress Society
On behalf of the Prince George Red Dress Society, we would like to take the opportunity to thank the sponsors that have made the third annual campaign possible: The City of Prince George, Hospital Employees Union, North Central Labour Council, Capri Insurance, Kawano Farms, CKPG, Fabricland, Prince George Citizen, Sid Cassidy (sound guy), Khast’an drummers and Kelsy Abraham and Bella Rain. There were many volunteers that helped from the set up to take down, helping with serving the chili, hanging up the dresses amongst the trees and helping with crafting/candle vigil. Because of this amazing community we live in and the sponsorship of local business this campaign was possible.
Your support helped provide a safe space for each individual to that has lost a mother, sister, daughter, aunty and best friend to be their voice. All murdered and missing woman and girls got a voice that day because of your support.
Tammy Meise Prince George
Don’t ban handguns, punish gun crimes
Here we go again. An election is coming and there’s talk about banning handguns. When will they ever learn?
I have a solution. Using a gun in a crime is an automatic five-year prison term and a second offence is life imprisonment. If you kill somebody with a gun, it’s an automatic life sentence in prison and I mean life as in you die in there.
None of this nonsense of good behaviour!
Quit picking on the honest hunters, collectors and hobbyists. With this, I guarantee you almost no crime using guns or handguns.
Warner Bliskis 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 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.
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advertisers, retailers, entertainers and politicians who inundate us with cheap slogans and sound bites, grammatical confusion, ungrounded abstractions, overstatement and blather designed not to tell the truth but to manipulate, evade, or sell a product or point of view.
Incrementally, we become numb to this increasingly deceptive world of “alternative facts” where “truth is not always the truth,” and where “what he/she said is not what he/she meant.”
Inevitably, a constant barrage of deception will blunt our and the next generation’s resistance to habitual lying by all sorts of people about all manner of things.
“That’s just the way it is,” we say, “That’s just how he/she/they talk.”
So here’s the question for educators, communicators, journalists and even parents: how will this next generation of kids begin to find a pathway for themselves through this maze of distortion and ethical pitfalls devised by the generation behind them?
Maybe, by default, that has become the biggest challenge for us, the generation that is allowing itself to be pushed, inch by relentless inch, to the edge of distrust and disbelief about everything we once thought we could rely upon.
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools living in Victoria.
Governor General has opportunity to shine
An Open Letter to Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette: Greetings Governor General and Vice Regal Representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. I understand that a whirlwind blew through Ottawa last weekend, and not just the tornado: Your Excellency was profiled by the National Post in a less than flattering light. In short, it said that Your Excellency lacks the proper charisma for your vocation as our head of state. To be clear, this is not news to me. I have heard such rumours surrounding Your Excellency’s tenure for months. Admittedly, this reflects much worse on the party that made the appointment, which is precisely the expose’s purpose: a year out from when you, as Governor General, will drop the writ, dissolving Parliament, the National Post is attempting to undermine the ruling party. I agree with their purpose, but not with their methods. Your Excellency could still be a wonderful Governor General.
used to be present in Canada – the Nickel Resolution did away with that; and as became clear throughout the late 20th Century, pomp and circumstance changed to accessibility and humanity – how can anyone dismiss Your Excellency’s desire to renovate our oldest office?
It is my honest hope that Your Excellency does not step down early from the Governor Generalship. To that end, I have some free advice. First, the fount of honours, signing bills into law, and hosting receptions at Rideau Hall or elsewhere –these are vital to the integrity of the Dominion.
There is no way around this – the sooner Your Excellency accepts these trials as the lifeblood of the office, the sooner Your Excellency’s passion projects can be properly addressed.
Being the Vice-Regal Representative in Canada cannot be easy; it is quite the opposite of braving the final frontier of space or reaching for our future beyond the stars. It is much more akin to climbing into a time machine and going back centuries, before modern conventions and liberalizations became the norm. For one as ambitious and accomplished as Your Excellency, it must be deeply frustrating to have ancient traditions and protocols restricting every movement.
A meta-fault lies again at the feet of the party that appointed you Governor General. It was Mackenzie King who first brought low the Viceroy Lord Byng in what was a puerile stunt to get around the Governor General’s authority. And ever since we saw fit to take this Vice Regal Office from the aristocratic class and put it in the hands of commoners, it was fated that one day the appointee would take it upon herself to bring the role in line with her own beliefs instead of vice versa.
But unlike many fellow conservatives, monarchists and traditionalists, I do not say for certain that this is a bad thing. Prime ministers used to be knighted – but our second refused to be; peerages
Second, pick an issue and be vocal about it. The past Governors General have brought new ideas or serious problems to the public’s attention, which has spurred action. A great place to do this is through the non-profits that rely on Your Excellency’s patronage; also note that the past Governor Generals developed community foundations across the Canada, and the one before gave the CAF special attention. Clearly there’s plenty of room for advocacy in this role, Your Excellency.
Finally, invert the pejorative “figurehead” and use Your Excellency’s time to reach out to Canadians across our vast land.
These are not political trips or a waste of the public’s money –these are the next best thing to royal tours for the sake of reassuring all citizens they are truly part of one country. Please tell us Your Excellency’s story of struggle, accomplishment and the projects held dear, from the shores of Alert to the Falls of Niagara and everywhere in between.
There is still room for particular talents and tastes in the role of Governor General. I sincerely hope Your Excellency finds that niche, conquering this challenge like many before.
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NATHAN GIEDE
Right of Centre
PAYETTE
Provincial Park in Langford aren’t getting support from their families because officials have locked the gates to the public.
Homeless campers denied support as public locked out, advocate says
LANGFORD — A homeless woman living at a Vancouver Island campground with nearly three dozen others says vulnerable people aren’t getting support from their families because officials have locked the gates to the public.
Chrissy Brett is one of 34 people who moved a week ago to Goldstream Provincial Park in Langford after being ousted from another park in nearby Saanich following a successful court injunction by that city.
Brett, 43, said Tuesday that a pastor who tried to take two disabled people to their regular church service was barred from entering on the weekend. Homeless people must sign in and out of the park, she said.
Couples, seniors on pensions and young people who are underemployed are among those living in the park and they’re counting on each other for support, Brett said.
“I think it is easier to survive when you’re a larger group. It’s easier to cook food, it’s easier for emotional support, it’s easier for organization, it’s easier for safety when people are hating on the homeless.”
Officials have said the park gates were closed due to safety concerns but Brett said that has created unfounded fears among neighbours who haven’t had a chance to get to know them.
Brett said she was renting a home with her two sons, aged 13 and 14, but they were forced to move when the landlord took over the property in the summer of 2017. They lived with family until finding a place that fall but lost the home when she was cut off social services, she said.
“Now that we’re locked down they’re not allowed in,” she said of her sons, who are living with relatives.
Brett said she was among about 115
homeless people who camped for six months at the park in Saanich. From there, the group camped near a ravine for four days before ending up at Goldstream Provincial Park, near Victoria.
Many of the homeless people she originally lived with ended up on the street and are in and out of shelters, Brett said.
She wants Langford Mayor Stewart Young to meet with people living at the park and help them find interim accommodation before modular housing promised by the province is available years from now.
“I would just encourage, not just the mayor, but the premier and the ministers to come to the table and actually talk about creating short-term and long-term solutions for people. I mean, they’ve closed down an entire park.”
Young could not immediately be reached for comment. The Housing Ministry said Young was expected to make a conference call to provincial officials on Tuesday afternoon.
Ashley Mollison of the Alliance Against Displacement said her group has met regularly with those living in the park but is no longer allowed to see them.
“Before people moved to this campground we were running volunteer support and getting people meals. We’ve had a lot of people show up to cook meals, including family members, and they’ve all been turned away at the gate. The park rangers will take the food in to people.”
Mollison said tent cities are shedding a light on the housing crisis.
“This is the tip of the iceberg. What you see in tent cities are the visible homeless and so many more people are sleeping on couches, living in cars, sleeping in overcrowded dwellings and just on the brink of homelessness.”
Gov’t looks to fix public alert system
Lee BERTHIAUME Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Officials behind the country’s system to alert mobile devices about impending natural disasters say there are still several kinks in the system to iron out, even as the alerts are being credited with saving lives just last week.
Mobile alerts went out across the National Capital Region on Friday as a storm slammed into the region and unleashed what Environment Canada now says were six tornadoes – three each in Ottawa and Gatineau, Que.
About 100 alerts have been issued across the country since April 6, when wireless warnings were added to the traditional television and radio messages broadcast by the National Public Alerting System, said Scott Shortliffe of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
Yet while many of those alerts have been successful, Shortliffe said that issues remain, including that only cellphones and wireless devices connected to an LTE network can receive the messages.
The system uses what is called “cellbroadcast technology,” which sends a mes-
sage to all wireless devices within a certain area with local cell towers, rather than sending messages to individual phones.
“The problem that we face is because the system is so complicated and there’s technological change, there are new handsets that enter the market constantly, we see that new problems can crop up,” he said. “Even on a system that’s been working perfectly.”
It’s believed such a problem was behind a three-hour delay in the issuing of an Amber Alert in Saskatchewan last week, while Shortliffe said he has heard from some residents in the National Capital Region who never received a tornado alert on Friday.
“I was thrilled that there were people who gave the system public credit that it saved lives in Dunrobin when the tornado came through,” he said. “But I’m also aware that there are people who are saying: ‘My phone didn’t go off. Why didn’t my phone go off?”’
Another issue identified for the Gatineau tornadoes was that some of the messages broadcast in Quebec were in English only, though Shortliffe said responsibility for the language and content of warnings lies with the provincial or municipal government issuing the alert.
News coverage cut in half in a decade, studies show
Terry PEDWELL Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The number of articles generated by community newspapers in Canada has declined by almost half over the last decade, and many news organizations are trending toward not-for-profit business models to make up for a dramatic decline in advertising revenues, say a pair of new studies released Tuesday.
News coverage of local municipal councils and other democratic institutions fell by more than one-third compared to 10 years ago, said a report from the Public Policy Forum called Mind The Gaps –Quantifying The Decline of News Coverage in Canada.
The study analyzed articles appearing in community papers across five regions of the country.
What was most striking about the findings was that the decline was consistent across almost all 20 communities studied, regardless of size or whether local papers were downsized or closed altogether.
“It’s down whether you lost your paper, you didn’t lose your paper, whether you’re big, small or medium-sized, whether you’re French or English,” said Public Policy Forum president and CEO Ed Greenspon.
“There’s a consistent trend line down, down, down.”
Newspaper editors have put up a valiant effort to fight those trend lines to produce as much so-called “civic” news as possible, trying to protect the core of news that they believe is important to their audiences, said Greenspon.
As a result, civic news coverage, while still in decline, hasn’t dropped off as much as the overall trend, he said.
The decline in the volume of articles coincided with downsizing and closure of newspapers, as well as a drop in advertising and subscription revenues, the report said. Total net advertising revenues among daily and community newspapers across Canada fell from $3.87 billion in 2007 to $2.13 billion in 2016, according to News Media Canada, which touts itself as the voice of the country’s print and digital media industry.
“It’s a bloodbath,” said Greenspon.
During that same period, ad money collected by internet-based media exploded, rising from $1.24 billion to $5.48 billion, NMC reported.
A number of newspaper outlets have responded by transforming their business models – a trend Greenspon predicted
Total net advertising revenues among daily and community newspapers across Canada fell from $3.87 billion in 2007 to $2.13 billion in 2016...
would continue.
A higher-profile example of that move is Montreal’s La Presse newspaper, which announced in July that it was adopting a not-for-profit structure. Previously owned by Power Corporation of Canada, the 130-year-old publication declared full independence from the company, and that it would operate as a “social trust” administered by a former Supreme Court of Canada justice. While it is impossible to know which funding models will eventually halt the bleeding of revenues from news organizations – if at all – there are trends emerging that could hold promise, said another report from the forum, entitled What the Saskatchewan Roughriders Can Teach Canadian Journalism.
The report, which looked at a number of new approaches to paying for journalism, is underpinned by a single theme, said Greenspon.
“People want news that is close to their community and reflects their community,” he explained.
“And that’s the key in the Saskatchewan Roughrider model.”
The Canadian Football League franchise is owned by a cross-section of the community, rather than a single controlling shareholder, the report noted, suggesting that community ownership may prove to be the elusive business model that keeps the struggling newspaper industry alive.
“Whether this is superior to entrepreneurial ownership is certainly open to debate, but it may be the only way to go in some smaller or mid-sized markets,” said the report.
Still, the success of many of the not-forprofit ownership models being tried is predicated on money coming from philanthropic and public sources.
The federal government’s 2018 budget set aside $50 million over five years, starting in fiscal 2018-19, to support local journalism in underserved communities through one or more independent nongovernmental organizations.
B.C. man denied cancer treatment due to condition at homeless shelter
Citizen news service
VICTORIA — Terry Willis says he’s praying for a clean, safe place to live to undergo the cancer treatments he needs after he was denied chemotherapy because he stays in a Victoria homeless shelter.
The 50-year-old is facing his second fight against blood cancer in seven years, but he says his oncologist won’t start chemotherapy treatments because the shelter where he lives in not a suitable recovery environment.
Victoria housing and health advocates say this isn’t an isolated case and that many other vulnerable people living in shelters or on the streets are not getting
the care they need because of their poor living conditions.
Willis, a former warehouse worker who ended up living on the streets after his wife died, says he originally disagreed with the decision to deny him treatment, but now realizes he needs a clean, quiet home to rest.
The Portland Hotel Society, which operates the downtown shelter where Willis lives, says in a statement that it is working with Willis and his doctors to facilitate his treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
The Island Health authority says discussions are underway with the B.C. Cancer Agency, B.C. Housing, and the Portland Hotel Society to get the help that Willis needs.
Camille BAINS Citizen news service
CP FILE PHOTO
Homeless advocate Chrissy Brett says residents living at Goldstream
Southern resident orca J50 and her mother, J16, swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island near Port Renfrew on Aug. 7. Fisheries
Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said safeguards will be needed for the federal government to approve the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline if the National Energy Board review of the project determines the expansion threatens B.C.’s endangered orcas
Protection needed for orcas if pipeline expansion
Mia RABSON Citizen news service
OTTAWA — The federal fisheries minister said Tuesday it will be more difficult for cabinet to give another green light to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion if –or more likely when – the National Energy Board’s new environmental review determines the project is going to harm killer whales.
Jonathan Wilkinson said such a finding wouldn’t mean cabinet will reject the project – but ministers will have to be convinced there are appropriate measures in place to protect the extremely endangered southern resident killer whales.
“Cabinet has to consider that very seriously, but it has to then be convinced that we’ve done the appropriate things to actually more than mitigate the impact of the shipping traffic,” Wilkinson said.
The future of the controversial pipeline is in limbo after the Federal Court of Appeal overturned its approval. In its decision, it cited a lack of proper consultation with Indigenous communities and the fact the National Energy Board failed to properly examine or consider negative environmental impacts of having more oil tankers leaving from Vancouver Harbour.
Last week, Natural Resources
approved, says minister
Minister Amarjeet Sohi ordered the NEB to conduct such a review – and to emphasize risks to the killer whales.
The NEB has been asked to respond to the government’s request before the end of February with a report and new recommendations on whether the pipeline should be approved and, if so, under what conditions.
Additional consultations with Indigenous groups are expected to be announced shortly.
Many environmental groups watching the process unfold say the NEB will surely determine the addition of about six more oil tankers per week in the Salish Sea as detrimental to the killer whales.
The NEB, they say, noted the risks when it recommended the project go forward in May 2016.
At the time, the NEB approved the project because marine shipping was outside its purview and it deemed the environmental risks posed by the pipeline itself could be mitigated.
On Tuesday, Wilkinson acknowledged the conclusions related to the whales will likely be the same.
But he said the government has already taken steps to mitigate the noise from oil tankers as well
as thousands of other container ships, cruise vessels, ferries and pleasure craft that travel through the whales’ habitat.
Shipping lanes have been moved, speed limits have been voluntarily lowered, he added. The government is also open to doing more, including making it mandatory rather than just voluntary, for boats to slow down in the area.
“It’s not just about addressing TMX,” said Wilkinson, using the abbreviation for the Trans Mountain pipeline. “We’re looking for solutions where economic growth can be done in an environmentally sustainable way.”
A negative impact finding would trigger requirements under the Species at Risk Act, but Wilkinson said that wouldn’t guarantee a pipeline rejection – it would just mean specific protections will have to be ensured.
Misty MacDuffee, a biologist with Rainforest Conservation Foundation on Vancouver Island, said additional noise from just six extra oil tankers each week would raise the possibility of extinction for the Southern resident killer whales to between 15 and 24 per cent. Right now, that risk is less than 10 per cent, she said.
“The Salish Sea cannot get any louder if we have any hope of recovery,” said MacDuffee.
There are now only 74 Southern resident killer whales left in the Salish Sea, an area that surrounds the San Juan Islands in Washington State and the Gulf Islands in B.C. One Southern resident killer whale lives in captivity in Florida.
MacDuffee said since the summer, several news headlines that attracted widespread attention helped boost public support for the iconic species.
The stories included the 17 days that a 20-year-old, grieving whale named Tahlequah spent carrying her dead calf through the water and the unsuccessful attempts to save three-year-old Scarlet.
Although antibiotics were administered with a dart, Scarlet has not been seen now for weeks and is presumed dead.
Scarlet, named because of the red scars she carried after other whales literally pulled her from her mother’s womb during her birth with their teeth, is the 73rd orca to die or go missing in those waters since 1998.
Forty whales have been born and survived in that time period, but the last successful birth was almost three years ago.
Business panel urges Ottawa to focus support
Jordan PRESS Citizen news service
OTTAWA — A government-struck panel of industry experts is urging the Trudeau Liberals to create an Own the Podium-style program to help promising companies one day compete internationally – and to end support to those who might only garner participation ribbons. Own the Podium is a federally funded program that supports elite Canadian athletes and is best known for preparing Team Canada ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, during which Canada took home a record medal haul.
Companies that participated in a series of what the Liberals call “economic strategy tables” recommended the creation of a similar approach for businesses. They said in the report released Tuesday that the federal government “can no longer sprinkle fairy dust and hope our entrepreneurs will succeed.” The report suggests that the government
on high-growth firms
funnel money to firms with the most growth potential so they can scale up operations, while also allowing lower-performing firms to die because it would “free up tax dollars.”
The government’s efforts, it recommended, should target six areas: advanced manufacturing, agri-food, clean technology, health and biosciences, and resources of the future.
The report estimates the right set of policies, including tax conditions that match recent corporate tax rate cuts in the United States, could add $318 billion to the economy by 2030. But the experts warn the government must learn to operate at the speed of business and cut the multiple layers of red tape.
Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains said federal efforts must focus on making regulatory regimes more agile for a shifting landscape – but he warned it will take years for Canadian companies and workers to become more competitive.
“There’s no one silver bullet,” Bains said.
“This is a multi-year effort that is going to require multiple policies, multiple programs.”
Business leaders from a multitude of sectors, advocacy groups and unions have pressed the Liberals to act quickly on the recommendations. The suggestions also include calls for “better coherence” of government funding programs and for a more-uniform education system focused on skills development – a tall task given the variations between provinces and school boards.
A giant of the online world is looking to help the federal government reshape the Canadian education and skills development system to adjust to changing labour force dynamics.
Sabrina Geremia, country director for Google in Canada, said the company has spoken with the Liberals about the need to make sure public and private sector efforts work in tandem, and ensure nervous workers are able to access the help they need today and in the future to take part in a digital economy.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” — Mark Twain Call 250-562-2441 to
after Barrick Gold Corp. announced a deal to buy Randgold Resources.
“We think the Barrick Randgold merger announced yesterday probably woke up some interest in the gold sector,” says Patrick Bernes, a portfolio manager for CIBC Asset Management.
Base metals led the TSX, gaining about one per cent, following by the health-care, gold materials and industrials sectors.
“The bid we’re seeing in base metal stocks likely reflects a bit more comfort that the trade war may not cause too much damage to global growth,” he said in an interview.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 47.82 points at 16,159.50, after hitting a low of 16,159.50 on 237.4 million shares traded.
The consumer discretionary sector led on the downside, driven by autoparts companies Martinrea International, Magna International and Linamar Corp.
Bernes attributed the companies’ share losses to higher commodity prices and ongoing unresolved NAFTA issues. Crude prices rose for a fourthstraight day with the November crude contract rising 36 cents at US$72.44 per barrel, mainly related to tight supply. Data suggests Iranian production is dropping off rapidly and anticipated offsetting purchases from India and China aren’t materializing, Bernes said.
A published report said Indian energy companies are expected to eliminate Iranian imports in November, likely because of pressure from U.S. sanctions, he said. Also, Saudi Arabia appears comfortable with higher oil prices and has been unwilling to fill the production drop off. Canadian energy equities did not benefit from Tuesday’s higher crude price because the country is still having a problem moving the oil, resulting in a widening gap between Western Canada Select and the West Texas Intermediate, Bernes said.
In
Sports
Last kick
Accelerated Sport & Spine Physiotherapy (in green) took on Tamarack Forestry Consulting in the Prince George Soccer Association Women’s Open Division final on Saturday afternoon at North Cariboo Fields. A day of championship games wrapped up the outdoor recreational soccer season.
From Copenhagen, with game
Nature-loving Danish tennis player enjoying northern B.C. lifestyle
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
As a computer science university exchange student from Denmark, Johan Neve could have chosen Montreal or Saskatoon. Instead, he picked Prince George.
For tennis players and tennis fans in the city, that was a fortunate choice.
It’s not every day the 140thranked men’s singles tennis player from a European country comes to north central British Columbia for an extended stay and Neve, a 24-year-old from Copenhagen, is now living in residence at the UNBC campus on Cranbrook Hill. Neve toured around B.C. and Alberta last year in the summer and as a lover of nature walks and landscape photography the lure of living in Prince George for a semester at UNBC proved irresistible.
“I kind of fell in love with the country – the people were so nice, they kind of reminded me of Scandinavian people in general, just so welcoming and good people,” he said.
“The nature in Canada, it’s just so beautiful here. I kind of looked for reason to come back to Canada and it was difficult to find one because it’s expensive and I’m also studying in Denmark. But my own university (Ruskilde) has an exchange program with UNBC and I applied for a spot and got it. I could have studied computer science at my own university but the opportunity of seeing some wildlife and getting an experience out of it, it’s just a matter of getting out of my comfort zone.”
The third-year student has a brain wired for computers and a body built for sports. He plans to play a bit of tennis before the snow flies and says he’d like to try squash and maybe rediscover his talent for gymnastics while he’s living in the city.
Neve plays in one of the top tennis leagues in Copenhagen, a city of two million, and as a sponsored player in his club he teaches the game to adults and kids. He certainly schooled his opponents at the recent Angela Lesniewicz Fall
Leonard hits court for Raptors
Wrap-Up tournament at the Prince George Tennis Club.
Neve lost just eight games in five matches in his run to the singles championship. He beat Ken Stoker of Quesnel 6-0, 6-3 in the semifinals, then swept Thomas Tannert 6-1, 6-0 in the championship match. Neve teamed up with Susie Walker to capture the doubles crown as well.
He played all summer in the second-highest division of club tennis in Denmark and he’s been happy with his game lately.
“Tennis-wise, I’m playing better now than I have ever done,” he said. “I am quite serious about it, just because I love it. I get free training and membership in my own club and I have a great coach who has been coaching over 30 years. We get that for free just by playing matches for my club.”
Neve has played tennis for close to 14 years and got hooked on the game right from the beginning. He
director
climbed through the junior ranks and is now part of a thriving adult league that involves the six clubs in Copenhagen. He’s one of the top four players at his B93 club, near the centre of the city.
“We don’t have the same system in Denmark as you do in Canada and States, where you can play next to your studies (as a schoolsponsored student athlete),” he said.
“Every sport or most of them happen in the individual clubs, so it was difficult for me to find time and also money to play more than I did.
“I guess if I really had been motivated about my tennis I probably could have been better than I am right now, but I just love the sport. That’s why I’m still in it.”
His club has more than 1,500 members, with 19 outdoor courts and four indoor courts. By comparison, the Prince George Tennis Club, which also includes pickleball players, has about 200 members playing on eight outdoor
sports science, carefully wrapped Leonard’s knees in preventative ice. Every camera in the gym captured the moment. In one of the most anticipated season storylines not only in Toronto but across the NBA, the six-foot-seven forward stepped on the court as a
courts. There are no indoor courts in the city.
Neve has been teaching tennis for seven years and he says that’s made him a better player.
“I have learned a few things by teaching others and it also keeps me on the tennis court,” he said. “Even though I have some weeks where I don’t practice my serve I still teach and I don’t forget how to serve.”
He’s played occasionally at the Prince George club with club members and has offered a few pointers but Neve says he doesn’t have much time to play. His course load is heavy this semester. He entered the tournament just so he could play a few games but more so he could meet people and get to know them. Club members appreciate the challenge of playing with and against him and that makes Neve feel good about being around the court.
“I would probably enjoy a stay at UBC or Montreal or Toronto as
Raptor for the first time Tuesday. Leonard was all smiles when he stepped off it.
I guess if I really had been motivated about my tennis I probably could have been better than I am right now, but I just love the sport.
— Johan Neve
much as I do right now but I just find Prince George so much more authentic,” said Neve.
“One of the benefits of being here is the university is so small and the city’s small. It’s intimate here to really get to know people and I like that. I don’t think I would have found the same in a big city.”
He’s hoping to see a bear for the first time in its natural habitat before he leaves the city in December.
He likes training at the Northern Sport Centre and said he might check out the Prince George Gymnastics Club. As a young boy he spent a full school year in Denmark training as an acrobatic gymnast.
“I went to a school and we did acrobatics from nine in the morning till four in the evening for one year, so I became pretty good at it,” he said. “Some of the things I learned I haven’t done for quite a while because I missed too much tennis while I did gymnastics.” Neve has agreed to play an exhibition match at the Prince George Tennis Club on Thanksgiving weekend against Kristian Kiland, a 22-year-old Prince George native who finished four years of NAIA college tennis at Doane University in Nebraska and now attends UBC as a masters chemistry student. Kiland started playing on the UBC recreational tennis team last year and is now the 90th-ranked men’s singles player in Canada.
“It sounds like a lot of fun and I’m definitely going to do it and hopefully we can arrange it,” said Neve. “It will be fun to play against No. 90 in Canada.”
“It felt great. Just talking to the guys, I told them I haven’t played a five-on-five since January, the last time I played. It felt great to just run up and down and compete,” he said. Leonard, who was acquired in the blockbuster trade that sent DeMar DeRozan to San Antonio, is coming off a bizarre final season in San Antonio that saw him play just nine games due to a quadriceps injury. He was virtually unseen for the Spurs down the stretch before it ended in a messy divorce. Arriving with the reputation as a man of few words, the two-time NBA defensive player of the year was accommodating with reporters on Tuesday. He had kind words for Nick Nurse, for whom Tuesday was also a day of firsts. — see LEONARD’S, page 10
Johan Neve follows through on a forehand shot during a tennis match in his home city of Copenhagen. Neve is currently living in Prince George, on a student exchange program at UNBC.
Osuna draws ire of Blue Jays fans
Citizen news service
TORONTO — Roberto Osuna and John Gibbons were both integral parts of the Toronto Blue Jays’ runs to the American League Championship Series in 2015 and 2016. Two years after those postseasons and the receptions they get at Rogers Centre could not be more different.
Osuna was loudly booed by the 28,440 at Rogers Centre for every pitch as he closed out the Houston Astros’ 4-1 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday night. His 20th save of the year came hours after Crown attorneys in a Toronto courtroom dropped domestic abuse charges against him.
Prosecutors agreed to close the case after Osuna promised to stay away from the alleged victim – the mother of his child – for one year and continue counselling.
“When I came into the game I was focused on what I had to do, so it didn’t affect me,” said Osuna through a translator. “I’m very happy to see my old teammates again and also to come back to the city where I started my career.
“I just want to thank the fans who have supported me during this time.”
Osuna, formerly the Blue Jays closer, was charged with assault in May. The 23-year-old was suspended without pay for 75 games for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy, and Toronto dealt him to Houston on July 30.
Oilers silence Canucks
Prosecutor Catherine Mullaly said on Tuesday that the complainant, Alejandra Roman Cota, had made it clear she would not return to Toronto to testify against Osuna.
Alex Bregman’s two-run homer gave Houston the lead and the Astros (100-57) held on for the win.
Josh James (2-0) gave up one run on four hits over five innings of work and then Houston’s bullpen shut the door the rest of the way.
Tony Sipp, Collin McHugh, Ryan Pressly, Hector Rondon combined for three innings of scoreless relief before Osuna came in.
Billy McKinney’s solo homer was all the Blue Jays (71-87) could muster for starting pitcher Sam Gaviglio (3-9), who allowed four runs –three earned – on six hits over five innings. He was followed out of the bullpen by Jose Fernandez, Danny Barnes, David Paulino, Mark Leiter, Jr., and Taylor Guerrieri.
EDMONTON (CP) — Ty Rattie had a hat trick and Cam Talbot recorded a shutout as the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Vancouver Canucks 6-0 on Tuesday in pre-season play.
Jesse Puljujarvi also scored a pair of goals and Oscar Klefbom added another for the Oilers who improved to 4-1 in exhibition.
The Canucks are now 1-5.
The Oilers started the scoring seven-and-ahalf minutes into the opening period as Ryan
Every time Gibbons returned to the dugout from a mound visit fans would give him a standing ovation. It’s widely believed that this is Gibbons’ final season in Toronto after earning a 555-541 record over two stints with the ballclub and leading the Blue Jays to the ALCS twice.
“I’m a media darling,” said Gibbons with a wink. “The bad part is that I’ve been going out to the mound a lot the last couple
Nugent-Hopkins fed it ahead to Rattie who beat Vancouver goalie Anders Nilsson. It was Rattie’s fifth goal of the pre-season.
Edmonton made it 2-0 on the power play with just over a minute left in the middle period when Rattie sent a hopeful shot on net that trickled in past Nilsson for his second of the game.
The Oilers extended their lead six minutes into the third period as Connor McDavid sent
of days. Tomorrow we’ve got a bullpen day, so I’ll be out I’m sure a few times.
“I’ve enjoyed it. It’s nice of the fans. I usually walk with my head down, a little embarrassed.”
Bregman got the defending World Series champion Astros on the board quickly, launching a 3-2 pitch from Gaviglio over the leftfield wall, bringing home George Springer for a 2-0 lead.
“Honestly, I’m probably going to head to the hotel, grab some Oakley goggles out of my bag, put them on, and as the Birdman song says ‘start with straight shots and then pop bottles,”’ said Bergman, referring to the rapper Birdman’s 2007 hit song Pop Bottles. McKinney replied for the Blue Jays in the bottom of the third, hitting a solo home run to deep right field with two out. It was McKinney’s sixth home run of his rookie season.
Tyler White tacked another run on for Houston in the sixth when his base hit brought in Marwin Gonzalez and chased Gaviglio from the game. Fernandez came on with runners on first and second and no outs.
Josh Reddick was the next Astro at bat and he hit what should have been an easy fly ball, but Toronto outfielders Jonathan Davis and McKinney collided chasing and the ball bounced away from them.
That loaded the bases for pinch hitter Evan Gattis, whose sacrifice fly allowed Yuli Gurriel to score.
Puljujarvi in on a partial breakaway and he buried the chance. The assist gave McDavid six points in two exhibition games.
Puljujarvi scored his second of the game and fourth of the pre-season of a face-off midway through the final frame. Just over a minute later, Rattie completed the hat trick and picked up his pre-season leading 11th point on a feed from McDavid. Klefbom added another Edmonton goal in the final minute.
Leonard’s new team opens preseason Saturday in Vancouver
from page 9
“He’s open-minded, ready to adjust on the fly,” Leonard said of Nurse, who is running his first training camp as an NBA head coach. “Just a brilliant mind, loves the game of basketball. I’ve got to talk to him more. It’s just my first practice. We’ve got to develop a good relationship.”
The 51-year-old Nurse, whom the Raptors promoted after they fired Dwane Casey on the heels of a disappointingly brief post-season, said Leonard “looked good.”
“You can certainly see his level at times,” Nurse said. “He’s a little rusty out there but you can certainly see his strength, his vision, his ball handling, those kind of things.”
Norm Powell first met the 27-year-old Leonard in his junior year in high school, when he was on a recruiting trip at San Diego State (Powell eventually went to UCLA). Jeremy Castleberry,
Leonard’s good friend who would follow him to San Antonio as part of the Spurs coaching staff and now works for the Raptors, hosted Powell on that trip.
“I met Kawhi and some of the guys on the team, so I’ve known him for a while,” Powell said.
Powell has kept a close eye on Leonard ever since.
“He just evolved his game, I knew that he could really impact the game both sides of the court... he’s a talented individual offensively and defensively, got great intangibles, long arms, big hands, athletic, and he uses them to the best of his abilities,” Powell said.
“I’ve watched him grow, tried to look after him on the defensive side, tried to take some of the things that he does and incorporate them into my game defensively, so I’m excited to be able to learn from him and have him as a teammate.”
Leonard, who led the Spurs to the 2014 NBA title, earning finals MVP honours in the process, looked in great shape and “locked in” on Tuesday, Powell said.
“He made some big plays, still trying to find his rhythm and everything like that, but he looks good, first five-on-five being back.”
His addition makes for a collection of wings that is breathtaking
in its collective athleticism, with Danny Green, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and Powell.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can do a lot of different things, we’ve got a lot of shooters, we’ve got a lot of playmakers, we’ve got a lot of attackers, we’ve got a lot of good guys on the defensive end, so we can just throw many different lineups out there and have us do a bunch of different things,” Powell said. “It’s a good thing to have so many guys who are so versatile and can impact the game in different ways.”
In a league full of so-called basketball junkies, Leonard’s is reputed to be among the biggest, so it was of little surprise he said he relished Tuesday’s challenge of stepping onto the court with new teammates.
“I enjoy a new challenge. It’s a new team for me,” he said. “It’s going to take some time. They did a
great job of letting us move along with the drills pretty quickly, conditioning drills. It was a great practice today. I enjoyed it. Come back (Tuesday night), get some shots up and get ready for Round 2.” Tuesday marked Day 1 of the first training camp without Casey in eight years.
“It was different, (Nurse) has his own things, the way he does them,” Siakam said. “Just little things he does that are different from the past. We all have to circle in the middle. We have to have a perfect circle, different things that he just adds with his own little touch.
“It feels different. Instead of a huddle we do a big circle and everyone looks at each other in the face.” Camp runs through Friday, then the Raptors open the preseason on Saturday against the Portland Trailblazers at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
CP PHOTO
Houston Astros relief pitcher Roberto Osuna celebrates after a 4-1 win against the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday in Toronto.
Cosby gets three to 10 years in jail
Maryclaire DALE, Michael R. SISAK Citizen news service
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — His Hollywood career and good-guy image in ruins, Bill Cosby was led away to prison in handcuffs Tuesday at age 81 for perhaps the rest of his days, sentenced to three to 10 years behind bars for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his gated estate.
The punishment made him the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison and all but completed the dizzying, latein-life fall from grace for the comedian, TV star and breaker of racial barriers.
“It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said.
cused of sexual misconduct more than three decades ago.
Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women of New York, credited Cosby’s accusers with helping pave the way for the #MeToo movement.
“Bill Cosby seeing the inside of a prison cell sends a strong message that predators – no matter who they are, from Hollywood to Wall Street to the Supreme Court – can no longer be protected at the expense of victims,” she said.
For decades, the defendant has been able to hide his true self and hide his crimes using his fame and fortune. He’s hidden behind a character created, Dr. Cliff Huxtable.
He quoted from victim Andrea Constand’s statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her “beautiful, young spirit and crushed it.”
— District Attorney Kevin Steele
Cosby declined the opportunity to speak before the sentence came down, and afterward sat laughing and chatting with his defence team. His wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court. Constand smiled broadly upon hearing the punishment and was hugged by others in the courtroom.
In a blistering statement, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said the comic was subjected to the “most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States.”
Among other things, Wyatt said all three of the psychologists who testified against Cosby were “white women who make money off of accusing black men of being sexual predators,” and he accused prosecutors of using a doctored recording of a telephone conversation between Constand’s mother and Cosby.
Cosby’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and ordered him locked up immediately, saying that “he could quite possibly be a danger to the community.”
The comedian – who is legally blind and uses a cane – removed his watch, tie and jacket and walked out in a white dress shirt and red suspenders, his hands cuffed in front of him. He must serve the minimum of three years before becoming eligible for parole.
“For decades, the defendant has been able to hide his true self and hide his crimes using his fame and fortune. He’s hidden behind a character created, Dr. Cliff Huxtable,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said at a news conference, referring to Cosby’s best-known role. But “now, finally, Bill Cosby has been unmasked, and we have seen the real man as he is headed off to prison.”
Constand stood at Steele’s side but shook her head to say she had no comment.
Former model Janice Dickinson, who was among the 60 or so women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and violating them over the past five decades, looked at him in the courtroom and said: “Here’s the last laugh, pal.”
Another accuser in the courtroom, Lili Bernard, said: “There is solace, absolutely. It is his fame and his fortune and his phoney philanthropy that has allowed him to get away with impunity. Maybe this will send a message to other powerful perpetrators that they will be caught and punished.”
The punishment, which also included a $25,000 fine, came at the end of a two-day hearing at which the judge declared Cosby a “sexually violent predator” – a modern-day scarlet letter that subjects him to monthly counselling for the rest of his life and requires that neighbours and schools be notified of his whereabouts.
The comic once known as America’s Dad for his role on the top-rated Cosby Show in the 1980s was convicted in April of violating Constand, Temple University women’s basketball administrator, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. It was the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Constand testified that Cosby gave her what she thought were herbal pills to ease stress, then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized on a couch. Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers branded her a “con artist” who framed the comedian to get a big payday – a $3.4 million settlement she received over a decade ago. Five other accusers took the stand at the trial as part of an effort by prosecutors to portray him as a predator.
Cosby faced anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison. His lawyers asked for house arrest, saying Cosby is too old and vulnerable to do time in prison. Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars, saying he could still pose a threat to women.
The sentencing came as another extraordinary #MeToo drama unfolded on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh stands ac-
Murphy Brown returns this week
Lynn ELBER Citizen news service LOS ANGELES — Last season’s short-lived Roseanne revival blew an air kiss to U.S. President Donald Trump in its debut episode before it reverted to finding laughs in family and working-class woes, not politics. Expect Murphy Brown, another reborn 20th-century sitcom, to be consistently faithful to its own roots. Washington tumult, social issues and the role of journalism will be central when the sitcom starring Candice Bergen as a tough TV reporter returns 9:30 p.m. EDT Thursday on CBS, said creator and executive producer Diane English.
The series is “here to make some noise,” English said in an interview, sketching out a few of topics to be featured in the season’s 13 episodes: “We’re doing an immigration episode, we’re doing a midterm-elections episode. We’re doing a Me Too episode,” she said.
The debut half-hour is “so ambitious and so fearless,” Bergen told a TV critics’ news conference. “During the taping, I turned to Joe (Regalbuto, her costar) at one point and I said, ‘This show has no fear of anyone.”’
to people that are the forgotten and the people who the elites, in quotes, call ‘the flyovers,”’ she said.
An advantage the new series has over the 1988-98 original comes courtesy of technology, with digital recording allowing references to real-world news to be updated close to air, an impossibility in the old era of film.
The judge ruled on Cosby’s “sexually violent predator” status after a psychologist for the state testified that the entertainer appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to have sex with women without their consent.
Steele said Cosby could be sent to Laurel Highlands, a state prison for lower-risk inmates on the other side of the state, about 110 kilometres southeast of Pittsburgh. It serves inmates with special needs and has separate housing units for geriatric prisoners and programs for sex offenders.
In a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday, Constand, 45, said that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt. She said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.
“When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities,” she wrote in her five-page statement. “Now, almost 15 years later, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.”
She also wrote of Cosby: “We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.”
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.
Cosby’s first trial in 2017 ended with a hung jury. He was convicted at a retrial that opened months after the #MeToo movement had taken down such figures as Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein.
In the revival, former network reporter Murphy is now on cable with the frothily titled Murphy in the Morning. Along for the ride at the fictitious CNC news channel are her old “FYI” news magazine colleagues, including Regalbuto’s Frank Fontana, Faith Ford’s Corky Sherwood and Grant Shaud’s Miles Silverberg. Murphy and her colleagues “are trying to present the facts in a straight down the middle way,” English said. “Their show is issue-oriented and facts, with no personal opinion.”
Jake McDorman joins the cast as Murphy’s son, Avery, a reporter at the competing and conservative Wolf – pun intented – news channel. He’s liberal, but his work outside of the Washington beltway “bubble” has given him an appreciation for different views, English said.
“He has paid attention to the people who feel that they were passed over and he’s their voice, to some degree. The way he creates his own show gives a voice
The original Murphy Brown wasn’t shy about intersecting with reality, most notably after the 1992 presidential campaign in which Dan Quayle, vicepresident to George H.W. Bush, lambasted the unmarried Murphy’s pregnancy as a mockery of fatherhood and a Hollywood raspberry to American morality.
The top-rated, Emmy-winning series fired back in an ongoing tiff that generated headlines and fierce debate – this before the advent of social media and its incendiary effect on anything and everything, and before public distrust of journalism became more entrenched.
English, herself a sparing user of online platforms (she enjoys Instagram, but has harsh words for Facebook) said she’s prepared for backlash.
“I am very aware of the fact that we’re in a different world. But as in the old days, we never really censored ourselves in terms of the kinds of stories we would tell and the positions that we would have characters take,” she said. “So, yeah, we’re in a very divisive climate right now, but we’re still going to be the show that we always were.”
That means topical, funny and, importantly, “no vitriol in the scripts,” she said.
AP PHOTO
Bill Cosby is escorted out of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility on Tuesday in Eagleville, Pa. Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for sexual assault.
BERGEN
The family of Louise Marie Backman (nee Blair) announce her passing after a
nieces Karen (Jim) Miller, Donna (Barry) Bepple, nephew Les (Sindi) McDermid, extended family members Daniel, Arlana, Rachael, Stephanie, RJ, Anika, Tate, and cousins in Prince George. Predeceased by parents Joseph and Florence Blair, and brother-in-law Willie McDermid. A celebration of life will be held on Wednesday September 26, at 5:00pm at Elder Citizens Recreation Association, 1692-10th Avenue Prince George, B.C. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the P.G. Hospice Society.
Louise Backman (nee Blair)
It is with great sadness that the family of Louise Backman announces her passing after a brief illness on Wednesday September 19, 2018 at the age of 81 years. She is survived by her husband Ronald, sisters Olive King, Lena (Jack) Dewar, Mary Ann (Bob) Latty, and Florence. Also brothers Adelard (Judi), Albert, Frank (Sharon), David (Doris), 38 nieces and nephews and sister-inlaw Marge Blair. Predeceased by parents Joseph and Florence Blair, sister Shirley, brothers Arthur, Earl and Lewis, two nephews, Lewis Jr. and Leonard, brother-inlaw Peter King, sister-in-laws Florence, Evelyn, Doreen and Marilyn. Louise was born in Nipawin Saskatchewan on April 30, 1937 and was raised in nearby Garrick where her father owned a general store before moving the family to the farm when Louise was five years old. She went to Kelsey school, º mile from the farm then eventually was schooled in Choiceland and Nipawin. When she was 16 years old, Louise moved to Prince George to care for her cousin and his wife’s 6 children. She worked in a 5&10 cent store and later became a Dental Assistant and receptionist for Dr. John McInnis and then for Dr. Neuby. She married Ron on August 31, 1956 and after 2 years they moved to Vancouver where she worked with Dr. Basil Plumb for 5 years as his Dental Assistant. Louise took full advantage of the continuing education courses offered to employees and she later became certified in this field. During this time she also worked a second job cleaning offices at night. Upon returning to Prince George, Louise continued her education which eventually lead to her developing and teaching the Dental Assisting Program at the BC Vocational School which is now the College of New Caledonia. After 28 years she retired from her amazing career as a college instructor. After retiring, Louise had access to the college greenhouse which allowed her to start her seedlings that were then transferred by the flat to their summer cottage on Summit Lake where she grew an amazing array of plants. As years passed and access to the island refuge became a little more difficult, she began the task of downsizing her gardening to the backyard of their home. Another of her passions was entertaining, and her many Prince George friends can attest to her flair for cooking and baking. And during the winter months she took refuge in her craft room making her beautiful Christmas bows and pre-wrapped gift boxes. And finally, Louise loved and was loved by her many Cavalier
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an individual block basis. MLIB requires the successful applicant(s) to complete their harvesting activities by no later than March 31, 2019 and hauling of all decked timber at roadside must be completed by July 1, 2019. The successful applicant(s) will be required to complete all road/block layout, road reconstruction/brushing of existing roads, develop any new block roads, harvest, load, haul, and semi deactivate in-block roads. The applicant will also supply and install, at their cost, all culverts, and bridges over fish streams. The applicant will also be responsible to apply for and obtain, road use permits for all roads
dary. Road side piling is also required. MLIB will be responsible subsequent silviculture obligations. Other
tions of this tender which will be part of, but
• Care for the environment will be of
($50,000.00). This bond will be held by MLIB
Regulations.
• Contiguous
• Every processing facility receiving log deliveries from the area must sample scale in accordance with the BC Scaling Manual.
• The successful applicant(s) scale plan must be approved by MLIB.
• For payment purposes, all logs save and except for reject and deciduous volumes delivered to a primary manufacturing facility are deemed to meet the applicant’s quality specifications. The
