Nanaimo Daily News, October 06, 2015

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NanaimoDailyNews.com

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WHAT’S INSIDEToday’s issue

Students, staff back after killings

Classes do not resume until

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the shooting.

» Nation&World, 13

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Canada, other nations in tentative TPP dealALEXANDER PANETTA THE CANADIAN PRESS

ATLANTA — Twelve nations, including Canada, have reached a tentative deal on a massive Pacific Rim trading bloc billed as the largest-ever deal of its kind, with implications for hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of products and industries, and for long-term relationships between countries on four continents.

After five days of marathon, around-the-clock nego-tiations, a deal was announced Monday to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership — which would start by covering 40 per cent of the world’s economy, with participants predicting it would become the building block for future trade deals.

First, the deal requires political approval.To take effect, it must be ratified by the parliaments

and lawmaking authorities of all 12 member coun-tries. Canada will be the first political testing-ground — the agreement lands smack in the midst of a fed-eral election campaign to decide who will control the Parliament that determines whether it lives or dies.

The drama reached a high point overnight Monday, as a series of delays culminated in an agreement around 5 a.m. on a persistent irritant involving dairy and the future of Canada’s tightly controlled sector.

The Canadian government appears to have assured the long-term entrenchment of the supply-managed sector, which is detested by free-market economists but backed by every major political party, provincial governments, and the domestic dairy lobby.

Canada agreed to 3.25 per cent more foreign imports, a minuscule change compared to what some countries asked for. That means a bit more international products like butter on grocery shelves now 90-per-cent dominated by domestic content. For their loss, Canadian farmers will receive billions in government support under a series of programs over at least 10 years.

The reaction from the auto industry has been more negative.

The government certainly spent less time Monday discussing the results for that sector than it did for dairy. In a briefing, the federal government offered bits of info on autos compared to a six-page press release, an 11-page PowerPoint presentation and two federal ministers talking about dairy.

The Canadian auto-workers’ union called it a dis-astrous deal that could cost Canada 20,000 manu-facturing jobs. Even some of their bosses expressed concern, through industry groups.

There’s a major discrepancy between Canada and the U.S. on tariff-elimination for cheaper Asian parts — with a five-times-faster phase-out north of the border, five years compared with the U.S.’s 25 years. In addition, both countries will see a 17.5-per-cent drop in the amount of regional content required in cars to avoid a tariff, compared with NAFTA.

The proposed agreement reduces or eliminates barriers in a wide range of sectors and could lead to more Canadian exports of pork, beef, Canola, forestry,

minerals, high-tech machinery and a variety of other products.

As one example among hundreds, the beef industry predicts exports to Japan will triple. The 39 per cent current tariff in Japan will become nine per cent over the next few years, and barriers will completely disappear in other areas.

But voters can’t yet see the fine print.The actual text of the deal is under-

going a legal review, and it’s not clear when it will be available. The govern-ment offered no guarantees at a news conference. It simply expressed hope the 12 countries might manage to make it available in the next few days — before voters pick a government Oct. 19.

The reaction was quick and diverse.Some members of Canada’s auto sec-

tor have promoted the pact, but there was consternation Monday from labour

and industry groups. A coalition of Canadian unions called the entire pact a serious blunder — expressing skep-ticism about promised provisions that would guarantee collective-bargaining and prevent child labour.

Even in the dairy sector, reaction was split.

Some farmers practically celebrated.The supply-management system

appears assured for at least another gen-eration, said the head of Dairy Farmers of Canada.

“The TPP is good for Canada,” said Wally Smith.

But there was more opposition in Quebec. A provincial cabinet minister grumbled about the deal, as did the Bloc Quebecois, and did the province’s farm-ing lobby. One small-scale farm group, the Union Paysanne, declared: “Can-adian agriculture just got creamed.”

A worker on the production line at Chrysler’s assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., in

2011. The auto industry is one of the key sectors involved in the negotiations for the

Trans-Pacific Partnership. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

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www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily NEWS 3TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015

BUSINESS

Report to detail state of Vancouver Island economyROBERT BARRON DAILY NEWS

The first-ever annual “State of the Island” economic report will be released later this month in Nanaimo.

The report, being prepared by the MNP accounting firm, will be released during the final luncheon at the ninth annual State of the Island Economic Summit on Oct. 29.

James Byrne, MNP’s regional man-aging partner for the Island, said the report is intended to be a “go-to” resource for anyone doing business and/or considering doing business on Vancouver Island.

George Hanson, president of the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance which is hosting the summit, said the annual event has often had prom-

inent economists presenting reports, but it has always been difficult gath-ering data that deals specifically with Island issues.

He said in the past, presenters com-piled economic information with a provincial and national perspective, and have had to extrapolate what that means to the Island’s economy.

“MNP came to us with a proposal

to prepare an economic report that deals specifically with the Island’s economic issues,” Hanson said.

“It will be thorough and broad based and will deal with a variety of topics important to the Island, including the state of forestry, tour-ism and other industries, as well as the status of employment, tourism and immigration on the Island.”

Hanson said the economic report, which will be presented by Susan Mowbray, a senior economist with MNP, will also be “user friendly” in that it will be easy for people to access its information.

Robert.Barron

@nanaimodailynews.com

250-729-4234

NANAIMO

Hanging red dresses off er a grim reminderJULIE CHADWICK DAILY NEWS

Fluttering in the breeze, a solemn procession of red dresses hung along the Nanaimo Parkway offered a grim reminder of the scores of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada.

Nanaimo’s version of the REDress Project, which took place all across the country yesterday, was initiated by John Barsby drama teacher Tom Rokeby.

On the Facebook page for the event, Rokeby wrote that everyone who felt “frustrated like me that our govern-ment has done nothing to honour these women” was invited to take part in the event.

From coast to coast, participants hung red dresses in trees and fences, along roads and trails, to commemorate 10 years of what is known as the Sis-ters in Spirit March, a national day of remembrance for the Canada’s missing and murdered aboriginal women.

The idea began five years ago when Winnipeg-based Metis artist Jaime Black decided to craft an aesthetic response to the issue and began hanging red dresses in galleries and museums as an installa-tion art project.

Struck by the haunting image, the idea has spread to become a visual rep-resentation of the nearly 1,200 women that have disappeared or been killed in Canada.

“It’s been slowly growing, and I’m not surprised that many people had to turn to social media to get some clarification as to what it was all about,” said Rokeby. “We knew that would happen, and that’s kind of the wonder of social media is that you can actually start a conversa-tion instead of leaving it at whatever point people understood it, or didn’t.”

The local project started when Rokeby and his wife were trying to explain the

situation to their three-year-old daugh-ter and realized they didn’t have a whole lot of answers.

“So the question kind of became, ‘These people are already gone, their families are hurting, What can we do?’ So the idea became taking a moment to remember,’” he added.

Approximately 45 people attended the event on Sunday and many of his stu-dents noticed the dresses on their way in to school on Monday morning, which sparked some interesting conversations in class, said Rokeby.

A Sisters in Spirit memorial vigil was held on Oct. 1 at the Nanaimo campus of Vancouver Island University and on Monday at VIU’s Cowichan Campus. Organizer Sherry McCarthy was unavail-able for comment.

Julie.Chadwick


250-729-4238

Tom Rokeby hangs a red dress near the

Nanaimo Parkway Monday afternoon.

[AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]

thanks for listeningnanaimo!!

By the time election day rolls around on Oct. 19, Canada will have endured the longest — and most expensive —

modern-day election campaign in this country’s history.

The 78-day mara-thon is second only to the election of 1872, which spanned up to 89 days, according to records from the Parliament of Canada website.

The only mod-ern campaign that came close was the long winter campaign in 1979, which saw Pierre Tru-deau return

to 24 Sussex Drive after beating Joe Clark in a 66-day campaign.

Political observers and opposition parties have remarked that the length of this campaign favours the cash-flush Tories, who have recent-ly taken the lead in the polls.

But whoever wins on Oct. 19, this long ground game to win votes has been largely unmatched in national history.

For some candidates, the race to win a coveted seat began even before the writ dropped on Aug. 2.

In Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Green Party Candidate Paul Manly and Conservative Mark MacDonald have been burning shoe soles since January, when each won their nomination.

Liberal candidate Tim Tessier entered the race later this year, as did Sheila Malcolmson, who hopes to capture the new riding for the NDP. The area is currently repre-sented by fellow New Democrat Jean Crowder.

Each candidate admits the length of the campaign is taking its toll.

The Greens were the first cam-paign to set up an office in the riding. Manly said interest in the election is picking up as Oct. 19

nears, adding his campaign will be “ramping up” its canvassing efforts.

He admits he is looking forward to the finish line.

“But I think it’s something every-one who signed up as a candidate knew what they were getting into,” he said. “I’ve been pacing myself really well, making sure I’m tak-ing care of myself physically and emotionally.”

Manly said he is more concerned with voter burnout.

“I think a long campaign is actually more detrimental to the electorate,” he said.

Mark MacDonald said his Con-servative campaign has seen good local support, but acknowledged the length has meant balancing demands on supporters. He said canvassing over a two-month per-iod has been physically exhausting.

“We’ve been very pleased with the number of volunteers we’ve had, but we’ve been very careful we don’t burn them out,” he said.

MacDonald said replacing his signs has been an ongoing task throughout the campaign. A video recently surfaced showing a driver running over one of his signs and vandalism has been an ongoing issue.

“It’s not only expensive it’s really troublesome, because that’s volun-teer time too,” MacDonald said.

Chantel O’Neill, campaign man-ager for NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson, said a natural “ebb and flow” in volunteer numbers is normal. But like MacDonald, she said volunteer burnout is essential to avoid, especially before advance polling stations open on Oct. 9 through to Oct. 12.

This is the first election advanced voting polls will be open four days in a row.

Advance turnout will be “the really important piece” of the cam-paign, O’Neill said.

“More people are voting in

advance,” she said, adding the campaign will spend it’s donations “strategically” as the campaign heads into the final stretch.

Patrick Hrushowy has worked as a campaign man-ager for municipal cam-paigns in Victoria and Cowichan, and has also worked war rooms for the B.C. Liberal Party.

Though not directly involved in any federal campaigns, he has an insider’s view of how campaigns work, and how weeks of additional campaigning can stretch resources.

He says voters should expect a blitz of campaigning as the last two weeks of the campaign approach.

“The first and most obvious thing is one way or another, each cam-paign has limits on their resour-ces,” he said.

Tiring volunteers, finite financial resources and the personal toll on candidates are all factors, but Hru-showy says “a decision has to be made on the ground” as to when to put those resources into full, final gear.

“The vast majority of the public is still not engaged,” he said. “All the players right now are trying to fig-ure out how to shake up the ballot question.”

According to Hrushowy, candi-dates will be focused on consoli-dating whatever support they have, rather than attracting new support.

“Right now, it’s voter identifi-cation,” he said. “No amount of advertising is going to (bring) people out. They’re either going to vote or not at this stage,” Hru-showy said.

Getting people out to vote takes phone calls, emails and canvassing, all of which take volunteers, an increasingly precious commodity.

Hrushowy said a core group of 20 volunteers is considered “quite good” by today’s standards.

“Across the board, all campaigns are experiencing the same thing,” he said. Local campaigns may also turn to phone banks and outside contractors to make contact with potential voters.

David Brodie, a past advisor to former prime minister Paul Mar-tin, said the final few days of the campaign is when candidates will unleash their full resources.

“It’s such a volatile election at this stage,” he said.

“Voters are making up their minds much later in the campaign cycle than they would have previ-ously,” he said, predicting voters will see an “unprecedented level of advertising” right before the election.

Brodie, now a senior vice-presi-dent and general manager at com-munications firm Citizen Relations,said a longer campaign will benefit campaigns adept at raising funds.

But Brodie also said the length of the campaign will give ‘underdogs’ in some races more chances to “make inroads” with the electorate.

Tim Tessier, the Liberal flag-bear-er in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, is count-ing on that.

While the party of Pearson and Trudeau has traditionally placed behind the Conservatives and NDP in this area, he says a longer cam-paign has helped him reach more voters.

“We have generated more inter-est, volunteers and donations in recent weeks than we have in previ-ous months,” he said.

“We’ve never seen that here for the Liberal Party in past elections,” he said.

“People are realizing how import-ant this election is.”

Regardless of who wins this seat, Tessier predicted a healthy turnout.

“I think we’re going to see record voter (numbers) in this riding and beyond,” he said.

Spencer.Anderson


250-729-4255

A marathon sessionOnly the election run-up of 1872 exceeds the current campaign

SpencerAndersonReporting

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 20154 nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily

“The vast majority of the public is still not engaged. All the players right now are trying to figure out how to shake up the ballot question. Right now, it’s voter identification. No amount of advertising is going to (bring) people out.”

Patrick Hrushowy, former campaign manager

Candidate signs in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding ahead of the Oct. 19 federal

election. [AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]

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ELECTION 2015

All-candidates meeting mostly tame aff airThe four seeking to be voted in as MP for Nanaimo had advance notice of questions, often read from notes

SPENCER ANDERSON DAILY NEWS

A forum on aboriginal issues Monday night drew some passion-ate responses from the candidates hoping to represent Nanaimo-Ladys-mith in the next parliament.

The forum, a joint effort by the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre and the Mid-Island Metis Association, featured candidates from the Greens, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats and spanned approximately 90 minutes.

The event was mostly a tame affair. All the candidates had been given advance notice of the questions to be asked and often read from notes. Each had also agreed in advance to avoid direct confrontation with one another. However, passions stirred from each candidate at vari-ous moments in the forum, which focused on issues like early child-hood education, affordable housing and fighting poverty.

Liberal candidate Tim Tessier walked out from behind the table where the candidates sat and began one answer with a personal anecdote.

“I grew up in a house where we struggled,” he said. “My mother at 32 was a mother of seven and sin-gle and on her own. I know what it was like. I have those people in my family. But I also grew up in a time when we could go as young people to Canada Mortgage and Housing, get

incentives to build that first home,” he said adding home affordability had fallen out of reach for many.

Tessier said the Liberals would invest $20 billion in infrastructure and would provide more incentives for the development of housing.

Conservative candidate Mark Mac-Donald stressed economic develop-ment throughout the forum, point-ing to the Tories as sound economic managers and describing the pledges of his opponents as unrealistic spending promises.

Responding to a question on afford-able housing, MacDonald said the Conservatives have committed to $170 million in funding per year to build and renovate housing for First Nations communities. Overall, $2.3 billion would be committed each year for the next four years to affordable housing programs, he said.

The NDP’s Sheila Malcolmson pledged an NDP government would improve relations with First Nations. She said federal investment in affordable housing had fallen 46 per cent per cent over the past 25 years, which she said has put housing agreements in peril.

“It’s a major crisis,” Malcolmson said. “We could lose the affordable housing that we have already . . . .”

Malcolmson said the NDP would enact a housing strategy and commit $2.1 billion for affordable housing.

Throughout the evening, Green candidate Paul Manly stressed his ability to speak and act as an independent voice for the riding.

He called affordable housing “a human right” and said he and other Green MPs would advocate for improved energy efficiency in all forms of housing.

“We know that there’s a crisis for affordable homes and on reserves,” Manly said. “Some people are waiting on 15-year lists to get onto housing on reserve and that’s not acceptable.”

The candidates were all asked for their stances on the recommenda-tions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which listed dozens of recommendations on how to address past wrongs done against First Nations people.

Malcolmson said her party would work with aboriginal leaders to determine which were the most important to act on first, and said an NDP government would sign the UN Declaration of rights of First Nations people.

Manly said his party’s leader Eliza-beth May had brought forward a motion to table to recommendations before parliament and said it was

important for the government to address issues like improving the child welfare system, which he called “abysmal.”

Tessier said his party would also eventually adopt all of the recom-mendations with “unwavering sup-port. I believe reconciliation is not an aboriginal issue, it is a Canadian issue,” he said.

MacDonald defended the Conserv-ative Party’s record on reconciliation with First Nations, adding that the Harper government had put in place the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He also cited the prime minister’s apology in the House of Commons for the residential school system.

Spencer.Anderson


250-729-4255

TESSIER MANLY MALCOLMSON MacDONALD

“A week is a long time in politics.”

The quote is attrib-uted to former British

Prime Minister Howard Wilson and we have to wonder what Mr. Wil-son would have thought about the current Canadian federal election campaign.

Election day is Oct. 19, still an eternity away on the Wilson scale.

But by then, Canadians will have endured the longest — and most expensive — modern-day election campaign in this country’s history.

As we reported, the 78-day marathon is second only to the elec-tion of 1872, which spanned up to 89 days.

The only modern campaign that came close was in 1979, which saw Pierre Trudeau return to 24 Sussex Drive after beating Joe Clark in a 66-day campaign.

Why such a long campaign this time around?

Political observers and opposition parties have remarked that the length of this campaign favours the cash-flush Tories. Stretching out a campaign can help if you have a big war chest.

But regardless of the eventual win-ner, we should all agree the process is too long. How long should voters have to stare at a spate of election signs? How many doors are there to knock on?

How many staged events, chock full of campaign promises, are enough?

For some candidates, the race to win a coveted seat began even before the writ dropped on Aug. 2.

In Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Green Party Candidate Paul Manly and Conservative Mark MacDonald have been burning shoe soles since January, when each won their nomination. Liberal candidate Tim Tessier entered the race later this year, as did Sheila Malcolmson, who hopes to capture the new riding for the NDP.

Even the candidates themselves say the long process is taking a toll, on themselves, voters and volunteers alike.

“I think it’s something everyone who signed up as a candidate knew what they were getting into,” said Manly. “I’ve been pacing myself really well, making sure I’m taking care of myself physically and emotionally.”

But he added: “I think a long cam-paign is actually more detrimental to the electorate.”

Interestingly, many voters are only now becoming interested in the activity, which will only ramp up from here. David Brodie, a past advisor to former prime minister Paul Martin, said the final few days of the campaign is when candidates will unleash their full resources.

“Voters are making up their minds much later in the campaign cycle

than they would have previously,” he said, predicting voters will see an “unprecedented level of advertising” right before the election.

So if you thought things were interesting now, get ready for the barrage that’s coming your way.

There’s an easy solution to all of this — some rules to limit the length of any campaign.

Surely 78 days is too long. And if the real action gets going in the final two weeks, somewhere in the middle, say, 42 days (six weeks) would offer plenty of time.

» We want to hear from you. Send comments on this editorial to [email protected].

Regardless of why, 78-day election campaign is too long

Informationabout usNanaimo Daily News is published by Black Press Ltd., B1, 2575 McCullough Rd., Nanaimo, B.C. V9S 5W5. The Daily News and its predecessor the Daily Free Press have been serving Nanaimo and area since 1874.

Publisher: Andrea Rosato-Taylor250-729-4248

Managing Editor: Philip Wolf250-729-4240

Manager of reader sales & service: Wendy King250-729-4260

The Daily News is a member of the B.C. Press Council.

Editorial comment

The editorials that appear as ‘Our View’ represent the stance of the Nanaimo Daily News. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. If you have comment regarding our position, we invite you to submit a letter to the editor. To discuss the editorial poli-cies of the newspaper, please contact Managing Editor Philip Wolf.

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If talking with the managing editor or publisher does not resolve your complaint about a story we publish, contact the B.C. Press Council. Your written concern, accompanied by documentation, must be sent within 45 days of the article’s publication to: B.C. Press Council, 201 Selby St., Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 2R2. Visit their website at www. bcpresscouncil.org.

Strategic voters give up a chance to take a stand

Anti-Harper groups promoting strategic voting to get rid of the “bad guy” first before considering vast differences in party policies are promoting voting out of fear with no guarantees.

If the Conservatives are re-elected, the surest way of monitoring their power is to diffuse it.

Electing MPs with a global con-sciousness, a track record of integrity and a mandate to work co-operatively across party lines for benefit of Can-adians is a start.

Which MPs are not muzzled to the speak party line; not whipped by top leaders into voting for dictated party decisions after gaining faith from constituents that they will be our representatives in Ottawa?

Who will defend the democratic process by preventing our sovereign-ty from being sold to foreign corpor-ations in secret trade deals made by world political and corporate leaders without consultation with MPs in parliamentary sessions?

The Green Party was the first to question and to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership and its process.

Why aren’t the Conservatives wide-ly promoting any specific benefits of the TPP as part of their election plat-form if it is so good for Canadians?

For climate, health and economic reasons, the divestment in fossil fuels so far in 2015 is reportedly the fastest growing divestment movement in history.

The same reasons encourage the development of clean energy alternatives.

Only the Green Party has taken a heels dug-in stand against future bitumen-carrying pipeline expansion, believing that no pipeline is infallible to the devastation resulting from bitumen spills caused by human error in installation, uncontrollable movement under the earth’s surface, or by the repurposing of pipeline made of materials vulnerable to cor-rosion by this potentially carcinogen-ic and extremely difficult to clean-up material.

Those who plan to vote strategically against their heartfelt instincts and beliefs regardless of differing party platforms are giving up their chance to use their voice to take a stand on contradictory party policies.

Joan CarruthersNanaimo

Community helped the success of FEASTIVAL

On behalf of the Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, I want to thank the community for helping to make this year’s FEASTIVAL a success.

This inaugural event was a huge challenge to organize and it wouldn’t be possible without the assistance of countless people who help make it such a success this year.

We would especially like the thank the following for playing a major

sponsorship role by contributing their time, efforts and sponsorship dollars:

Coastal Community Credit Union, the Nanaimo Daily News, ShawTV, The Wave and the Wolf, VIU Hospitality program, Harbour Living, Vancouver Island Conference Centre, Quality Foods, Chase River Liquor Store, Foodshare Nanaimo, Farmship Growers Co-operative, the celebrity chefs, the vendors, our food trucks and so many more.

We would like to acknowledge the Winner of the Seafood chowder competition for the second year in a row — the Bold Knight Restaurant and also the winner of the people’s choice award.

The competitors were Pirate Chips, Origin at Longwood and Simon Holt — not an easy process for the judg-es, Mayor Bill McKay, Kait Burgan, Shaw TV and Deidre Tansey, Pinch of Ginger.

During the day many people come up to compliment us on how smoothly the event ran confirming this was an incredible way to start a new tradition.

More than 1,200 people toured the booths, tasted, sipped and sampled and left the building with a smile on their faces — and a full tummy.

Kim SmythePresident & CEOGreater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce

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purposes only. Letters must include your

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reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, taste,

legality and for length. Unsigned letters and

letters of more than 300 words will not be

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» YOUR LETTERS // EMAIL: [email protected]

OUR VIEW


Becoming SustainableFacilities Plan Update Public Forums Including Proposed School Closures

For more information, visit the Facilities Plan Update

section on the district website www.sd68.bc.ca.

The Board of Education is currently consulting parents, students and the public about its Facilities Plan Update. During the next several weeks, the Board will be holding public forums to discuss the proposals in the plan. The format of these forums has been designed to encourage dialogue and discussion. At each meeting, there will be a short introductory session; a presentation; a facilitator-led discussion group on topics of importance to each community; and a short closing session.

The meetings scheduled for school zones are as follows:South Zone - Cedar Area Elementary SchoolsTuesday, October 6: 7 to 9 p.m. – North Cedar Intermediate Discussion group topics will include the amalgamation of North Cedar Intermediate and Woodbank Primary schools, with the proposed closure of one of the two schools in June 2016. North Zone - Rutherford ElementaryThursday, October 8: 7 to 9 p.m. – Rutherford Elementary Discussion group topics will include the proposed closure of Rutherford Elementary in June 2017, as well as the future plans to relocate the district’s Skills for Life Program.

Tuesday, October 13: 7 to 9 p.m. - Frank J. Ney Elementary Discussion group topics will include the construction of a new wing at Frank J. Ney Elementary as well as the relocation of students from Rutherford Elementary to Frank J. Ney, McGirr and Randerson Ridge elementary schools.Central Zone - Woodlands SecondaryTuesday, October 20: 7 to 9 p.m. – Woodlands Secondary Discussion group topics include the proposed closure of Woodlands Secondary in June 2016, with the relocation of students into Wellington Secondary and Nanaimo District Secondary schools. District ProgramsTuesday, October 27: 7 to 9 p.m. - Nanaimo District Secondary Discussion group topics will include the relocation of district programs as well as the relocation of the Learn@Home programs (K-7 and 8-12).

The plan proposes significant changes to schools in our district and it is important for the Board of Education to hear parents’ input. We hope that as many parents as possible will attend one of these forums and participate in the discussion groups.

In addition, at any time during the consultation process, individuals and groups can submit written input to the Board of Education by email to [email protected], fax 250 741-5309, or mail to the Board of Education, 395 Wakesiah Avenue, Nanaimo, BC V9R 3K6 by Sunday, November 15, 2015.


REAL ESTATE

Island housing sales up for SeptemberDARRELL BELLAART DAILY NEWS

Housing sales rose six per cent north of the Malahat in September.

Last month, 431 single-family home sales were counted by licensed real estate agents, compared to 405 in September 2014, for a six per cent increase.

The increased activity was concen-trated in communities along High-way 4, which links the Island’s two coasts. Seventy-seven units sold in the Parksville and Qualicum Beach area, a 31 per cent increase from a year ago. In the Port Alberni-west zone, the jump was 70 per cent, with 39 homes sold, up from 23 a year earlier.

In Nanaimo, sales deals closed on 109 properties, a seven-per cent drop from 117 last September.

Two-per cent dips were seen Camp-bell River and the Comox Valley, and

Cowichan Valley saw sales dip the deepest, at 13 per cent.

Parksville agent Margo Hoffman said seniors make up a large por-tion of buyers in that community, and “we always get seniors in September.”

She said there is a noticeable uptick in home purchases after mid-Sep-tember, when summer vacationers go home, and seniors arrive from the Lower Mainland and Alberta. Some are ready to buy after spending sever-al years working with an Island agent toward a purchase.

Lifestyle and affordability are what bring retirees.

“Our prices really are still competi-tive, compared to the mainland,” said Frank Fairly, another area real estate agent. “It’s a desirable place to live, to retire.”

The area is continuously promoted by the business community, which

may explain a decline in inventory drops and a slightly higher resale price, compared to other Island com-munities. In Parksville-Qualicum Beach, the benchmark home price is $377,000, compared to $358,000 in Nanaimo, $340,000 in the Comox Valley, $303,000 in Duncan, $277,000 in Campbell River or $190,000 in Port Alberni.

Cameron Muir, B.C. Real Estate Association chief economist, said sales should remain strong through the year, “fueled by job growth, con-sumer confidence and low interest rates.

“Although we expect a slight down-turn in the housing market in 2016, activity will remain strong,” Muir said.

Darrell.Bellaart


250-729-4235

Housing sales rose six per cent north of the Malahat during the month of

September. [AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]

ELECTION 2015

Tories promise to take additional steps to deal with derelict vesselsDAILY NEWS

The Conservative Party has prom-ised, if re-elected, $1 million in annual funding to help commun-ities remove derelict vessels from harbours.

The fund, which would come into effect in the 2016-17 fiscal year, would cover up to the third of the cost of removing “priority” derelict vessels.

Conservative candidate Mark MacDonald, running under the party’s banner in Nanaimo-Ladys-mith, said his party will also make it a criminal offence to abandon a boat, with jail time and fines of up to $100,000 as penalties.

The funding will speed up the

removal of abandoned vessels, including several in Ladysmith harbour, a Conservative press release says. One such vessel is the Viki Lynne II, which is slowly sinking with an estimated 13,000 litres of oil and solvents still on board.

“Our party has always been committed to protecting Canada from coast to coast to coast,” said MacDonald.

“That’s why we’ll build on our strong record of maritime pro-tection and security and commit new resources to support British Columbia’s coast. The Liberals and NDP claim they’ll spend billions and billions of dollars with money they simply don’t have.”

The issue has been a thorny one for Ladysmith residents. Earlier this summer, residents and public officials organized a protest to demand federal action to address the situation.

The Coast Guard was given the funds to clean up two-thirds of the original 30,000 litres of oil on board, but was stopped in its tracks as the dollars ran out.

The House of Commons voted down a private member’s bill from Nanaimo-Cowichan MP Jean Crowder in April that would have made the Canadian Coast Guard the agency responsible for dealing with abandoned vessels as well as the power to alert the wreck’s owner before it becomes a hazard.

PORT ALBERNI

Stranded students rescuedALBERNI VALLEY TIMES

A group of students from the University of Victoria were stranded on Mount Arrowsmith Sunday, resulting in one of the largest ground operations for the Alber-ni Valley Rescue Squad over its 59-year history.

Twenty people found themselves caught on the mountain near its 1,818-metre summit Sunday after-noon. A call was sent to the Port Alberni RCMP, who alerted the Res-cue Squad shortly before 2 p.m.

Neil Shipley, a search manager with the volunteer-run rescue team, said the hikers had spit into two groups when they alerted police. Eight trekkers were caught

in a spot close to Arrowsmith’s peak, a situation that required a rope team.

“They got themselves into a situa-tion on the mountain in that small crevice where they could neither go up or down anymore,” said Shipley. “Some people were in a better pos-ition to be brought down the hill easily.”

With 22 Rescue Squad members on the mountain — comprising half of the Alberni organization’s volunteers — the stranded hikers were safely led down the mountain in small groups. After a 10-hour operation all of the hikers were back on level ground, ready to return to Victoria at 12:30 a.m., said Shipley.

“They got a little bit cold towards the end of the night,” he said.

Although the operation went efficiently and safely, unpredict-able changes in the weather were a concern at Arrowsmith’s higher elevations.

Shipley said the hikers, many of whom were foreign students, were unfamiliar of the Alberni Valley’s terrain. He advises the public to always prepare for the worst weath-er and geographical conditions that could arise on a trek.

“If you come to a new place to hike you really need to get yourself familiar with the area, the condi-tions and the possible dangers that might be in that particular geog-raphy,” Shipley said.

“We got there and the doctor made it really clear that babies die from this. And my heart sank because I had no idea how bad it was going in. It was brutal.”

Doctors told Caissie Nola was the ninth case of whopping cough recently diagnosed in the Comox Valley.

Caissie knows Nola contracted it after birth, but doesn’t know where or how she got the disease.

According to Island Health, whoop-ing cough is on the active outbreak list at hospitals and long-term care facilities. It causes violent coughing which can last for months. It can spread easily from one person to another.

Dr. Paul Hasselback, the medical health officer for central Vancouver Island, said there have been 280 cases of whooping cough on the Island this year, a significant rise from the between 65 and 145 cases per year that were recorded in previ-ous years.

He said the vast majority of the cases have been south of the Malahat and in southern sections of the Cow-ichan Valley.

Hasselback said while anyone can

get whooping cough, the major con-cern is for infants who are generally more vulnerable to its symptoms mainly because of their smaller sizes and organs.

He said there has been an upswing in cases of whooping cough across North America, but there ‘s no “sin-gle factor” as to why.

“It’s a treatable disease and we encourage people and their families to get involved with the immuniza-tion programs for whooping cough on the Island,” Hasselback said.

According to HealthLinkBC, get-ting the pertussis vaccine can help people avoid the disease, make it less severe and prevent it from spreading to those at risk.

Nola is now four months old, and Caissie said while infants can’t receive the immunization until they are two months old, and she understands there are debates about vaccines, she asks parents to make a true, informed decision, and know all the facts.

For more information about whooping cough, visit healthlinkbc.ca and search pertussis.

—WITH A FILE FROM ROBERT BARRON

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ELECTION 2015

NDP pledges access to funds for BC FerriesDAILY NEWS

A federal NDP government would allow B.C. Ferries to access federal infrastructure funding to reduce ferry costs for passengers, the party’s Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidate prom-ised on Monday.

Sheila Malcolmson said the prov-incial government and the ferry corporation would be able to access the funding to pay for terminals, new vessels and other costs.

Malcolmson said B.C.’s ferry sys-

tem has been starved of funds by the Conservative government and said “skyrocketing” ferry fares and service cuts need to be addressed.

B.C. Ferries received $28.4 million this year from the federal government in operational funding.

The system receives significantly less per capita annual funding than in Atlantic Canada, despite having more ferry users.

And while the province and B.C. Ferries are able to apply for federal infrastructure funding, the Vancouver

Sun reported this year that terminal and ship projects do not meet the eli-gibility criteria for funding.

“The Harper Conservatives have prevented BC Ferries from accessing basic infrastructure funding that would help reduce ferry costs for B.C.,” said Malcolmson. “Tom Mulcair and the NDP will end Harper’s unfair policy that is hurting our coastal communities such as Nanaimo. We will make ferry infrastructure, includ-ing terminals and fleets, an eligible category for federal funding under the

New Building Canada Fund.”“Islanders have had enough of this

neglect from the Conservative govern-ment,” said Malcolmson. “As chair of the Islands Trust Council, I spent six years pushing for improved ferry ser-vice and keeping ferry costs affordable for area residents and tourists. During this election I have heard again and again from people and businesses here that fare hikes are hurting the local economy.”

Malcolmson said Conservative minister and candidate John Duncan

ruled out additional support for the ferry system.

Duncan said the Conservative gov-ernment offered approximately $120 million in tariff relief for two new vessels acquired by BC Ferries and accused the NDP “of trying to change the channel.”

ELECTION 2015

Greens unveil plan for Canada’s waterDAILY NEWS

DUNCAN — Leader Elizabeth May unveiled the Green Party’s plan to defend Canada’s water on Monday.

“Water is life. The Green Party’s vision for our water is clear: keep it, conserve it, and protect it,” said May. “We will defend Canada’s water from bulk exports, create a National Water Policy, and restore Canada’s environmental laws to protect our waterways.

“Thanks to Stephen Harper, of the literally millions of lakes and rivers in Canada, there are now only 162 protected by legislation,” said Paul Manly, candidate for Nanaimo-Ladys-mith. “In a minority parliament, Green MPs will make sure this sad fact is not forgotten but is remedied.”

“Protecting our water is a sacred trust,” said Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi, a former First Nations chief and a candidate in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford.

“It is our responsibility to be good stewards of Canada’s water. As a Green MP, I will support the protec-tion of Shawnigan Lake, advocate for federal funding to raise the local weir to protect fish habitat in the Cowichan River, and defend Saanich Inlet from risky LNG projects. I am ready to take on the important task

of ensuring drinking water is safe on First Nations reserves when I am elected this fall.”

A 2015 Council of Canadians report revealed that there are 169 drinking water advisories in 126 First Nation communities, 35 of those in B.C.

“It is a Canadian embarrassment that the vast majority of boil water advisories are on First Nations com-munities in this country. This is a health issue that must be fixed.”

Manly echoed those concerns, saying: “A safe, secure, and pristine source of drinking water is key to the economic well-being of our com-munities. As a Green MP, I will con-tinue to fight to have privately owned watersheds such as those in Nanaimo and Ladysmith brought under community ownership and control in order to safeguard our drinking water supplies.”

“The Green Party is the only party that will stand up to defend Canada’s coastlines and protect our rivers from reckless pipeline projects that could instantly destroy our fragile water supply,” said May.

RUN FOR THE CURE

Nanaimo raised $119,737 for breast cancer research at the 24th annual Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for

the Cure on Sunday. Above, breast cancer survivors paraded through the crowd after receiving a carnation.

[AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]

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HEALTH

Island sees 280 cases of whooping cough in 2015ERIN HALUSCHAK COMOX VALLEY RECORD

At three weeks old, Nola Defoort began to cough, and at first Courte-nay mom Kaely Caissie didn’t think much of it.

Nola is Caissie’s fourth child, and added she has seen her share of colds

and sniffles.It wasn’t until Nola’s coughing

became laboured when Caissie took her to her doctor’s office, and soon after it got progres-sively worse.

“We went to the hospital for observation. As soon as she was hooked up to monitors it was really apparent that she was really sick. She would turn blue when she was coughing. It was so violent. Her lips would go blue and she would be purple.”

Caissie said Nola’s heart rate would go from 130 beats per minute to 35.

“Everything would slow down; it was horrifying.”

The next morning the family was airlifted to hospital in Vic-toria, as Nola was diagnosed with pertussis, otherwise known as whooping cough.

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NANAIMO NORTH TOWN CENTRE 250-729-8000

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ENVIRONMENT

Vancouver mayor gets state department inviteTHE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER — Vancouver’s mayor is getting a higher profile as a cli-mate crusader with an invitation to discuss the issue with United States Secretary of State John Kerry this week alongside a select handful of global city leaders.

Gregor Robertson was invited to attend the Our Cities, Our Climate initiative in Washington, D.C., to help advise Kerry in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Con-ference in Paris later this year.

Robertson’s environmental advocacy — including his pledge to convert Vancouver to 100 per cent renewable energy — earned him an audience with Pope Francis earlier this year, where he encouraged the Catholic leader to ramp up pressure on nation-al governments for more commit-ment to combat climate change.

Robertson attributed his emergence as a vocal campaigner and inter-nationally recognized point person on climate action in part to a dearth of initiative at the federal level.

“When there’s a void of leadership on climate change and the green economy with the Canadian govern-ment, it’s necessary for mayors and business leaders and community leaders to step up and make sure that Canada is represented,” Robertson said in an interview.

“It’s important, when Canada is being tarnished on the world stage by battling against meaningful climate commitments, that we show leader-ship in our cities.”

Robertson described a stark contrast between Canada’s approach to climate change action compared to that of its

neighbour to the south.“Secretary Kerry will be the key

negotiator in Paris for the U.S. and part of his prep is gathering mayors from his country and leading cities globally and broadening his under-standing and commitment to climate action,” he said. “We’ve seen nothing like that from Canada. That’s a great disappointment.”

Robertson was the only Canadian mayor invited to attend the event, which will involve 19 mayors, 10 of whom are from the U.S.

He described the upcoming meeting as an opportunity both to share best practices and success stories from across the globe, but also to make a united call for leadership at the national level. He anticipated shar-ing the story of Vancouver’s quest to attract investment in green business opportunities, which he described as essential to being able to compete in the global economy.

“Going green is great for business,” said Robertson. “There’s a very compel-ling economic case to adopting renew-ables and eliminating waste . . . and we’re seeing cities pick up the pace.”

Besides Kerry, the Our Cities, Our Climate summit will be headed by the U.N.’s special envoy for cities and climate change: former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The meeting of global mayors will mark the culmination of the event, which is characterized by organizers as a “historic initiative.”

Mayors will participate in two days of site visits, working sessions and a State Department-hosted luncheon, in addition to taking part in discus-sions and meetings with senior U.S. government officials.

ENVIRONMENT

Cougar tranquilized after marauding through streetsTHE CANADIAN PRESS

VICTORIA — It was the perfect Hollywood ending to a guns-drawn pursuit of a cougar bounding across backyards, over fences and through garages in a downtown Victoria neighbourhood steps from British Columbia’s legislature.

Dozens of residents peered over fences or stood on balconies watch-ing the drama as police and conserv-ation officers with dogs ran through alleys and along sidewalks with their pistols drawn as noisy crows led the chase from the sky.

Relieved neighbours and bystanders clapped and cheered after one shot from a tranquilizer rifle immobilized the big cat Monday morning.

About a half dozen officers sur-rounded the cougar as it lay on the grass with a dart in its side, its chest heaving, before it was lifted into the back of a pickup truck and placed in a steel barrel.

“I was hoping they wouldn’t kill it,” said Sonja Edwards, who lives in the James Bay neighbourhood where the cougar was on the loose.

“We decided to tranquilize it because we had a chance to,” said conservation officer Peter Pauwels.

He said he expected the cougar to wake up in a few hours when it would be released back into the wild Monday evening.

“I’m going to try and take it as far away from human civilization as I can get on southern Vancouver Island.”

Pauwels downplayed the intensity of the hunt and the potential danger that the wild, cornered cat posed to the neighbourhood, which includes an elementary school and seniors’ facilities. The pursuit was anything but quiet as police sirens wailed, tracking dogs howled and crows screeched from above.

Vancouver Island is believed to be home to up to 800 cougars.

A B.C. Conservation officer tranquilizes a cougar in the backyard of an

apartment building Monday in James Bay. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

COURTS

Man on trial recalls heavy drug useTHE CANADIAN PRESS

KAMLOOPS — A man accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend says the week leading up to her death was a blur of using crystal meth, cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

Damien Taylor, now 24, told B.C. Supreme Court that an associate brought him and 16-year-old CJ Fowler to Kamloops from Terrace to sell drugs.

Taylor said the associate bought their tickets on a Greyhound bus.

“Me and CJ did lines in the back of the bus and I sold coke to someone on the bus,” Taylor testified Monday.

He is accused of second-degree murder in the death of Fowler on Dec. 5, 2012.

Taylor said the pair also smoked crystal meth en route and once they were Kamloops. He said he was load-

ed up with crystal meth and was told to sell it downtown.

The drug-taking continued at Royal Inland Hospital, Taylor said, adding he was so high he got stuck in a washroom.

An emergency room doctor has testified that Taylor was with Fowler when she came to the hospital in the early hours of Dec. 5, 2012, com-plaining of chest pain from crystal meth use for the second day in a row.

Dr. Williamson told court that a routine pregnancy test before X-rays are taken showed Fowler was preg-nant and that both she and Taylor seemed calm when he delivered the news.

The trial has already heard from Fowler’s stepfather, who said he bought the couple Greyhound bus tickets to Terrace.

Dog walkers found Fowler’s body

near a creek a few hours after she’d left the hospital.

A concrete block was on her chest, and her skull and jaw were smashed.

RCMP in Prince George inter-viewed Taylor as a witness, and court has heard police found a ripped-up Greyhound bus ticket in the toilet of a hotel where he’d stayed.

Mounties also seized a pair of socks in the garbage, with Fowler’s blood on them, and the SD card from her cell phone in his backpack.

Taylor was charged a year later.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell told the 11-person jury that he intends to call a toxicologist who will testify to the effect of drugs.

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OIL & GAS

Panel should have considered whales: LawyerCourt appeal says project would post serious threat to humpbacks and sets a poor precedentTHE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER — A federal panel tasked with reviewing the Northern Gateway pipeline project failed to take into account the serious threat posed by oil spills and increased tank-er traffic to humpback whales, says an environmental lawyer.

ForestEthics Advocacy, Living Oceans Society, Raincoast Conserva-tion Foundation and B.C. Nature are part of a Federal Court of Appeal chal-lenge arguing the government erred in granting approval to Calgary-based Enbridge for the controversial, $7-bil-lion megaproject.

Barry Robinson, a lawyer for three of the four environmental groups, told the court in Vancouver on Mon-

day that the review panel’s failure to consider Canada’s official recovery strategy for humpback whales negated the federal government’s approval.

“The final humpback whale recovery strategy was added to the Species At Risk public registry on Oct. 21, 2013,” said Robinson — that was two months before the panel issued its recommendations. As of that date, the Joint Review Panel was required to take that document into considera-tion, he said.

“They seem not to have understood that obligation,” Robinson said, referring to panel members. In late 2013, the Joint Review Panel — the independent body mandated by the National Energy Board to assess the environmental effects of the project

— recommended that the pipeline project be approved with 209 conditions.

The federal government issued its approval six months later with the same conditions. The proposed, 1,200-kilometre twin pipeline would carry bitumen between the Alberta oilsands to B.C.’s coast for export to foreign markets. Enbridge estimates the project would boost Canada’s GDP by $300 billion over 30 years.

The Federal Appeal Court is con-sidering a total of 18 legal challenges from First Nations, environmental organizations and a labour union during the hearing, which is set to conclude Oct. 8. Raincoast’s Misty MacDuffee said a bump in tanker traffic increases the likelihood of fatal

collisions with whales and underwater noise seriously interferes with feeding and communication.

“The waters between Kitimat and Hecate Strait, where Enbridge wants to put its tankers, are critical feeding grounds,” said MacDuffee, speaking outside the court building in Vancou-ver on Monday.

“As a (species at risk), Canada is obligated to protect habitat that is critical to the survival and recovery of humpback whales.”

The push to have the court overturn the approval goes beyond opposition of this project and could set a pattern for all future pipelines, said lawyer Karen Campbell, co-counsel with Robinson for the environmental groups.

“If they continue with processes that are increasingly geared toward facilitating approval then we’re going to see more and more cases in court,” said Campbell. “We’re hoping that we can stop that by getting a good pre-cedent out of this case.”

Joie Warnock with Unifor, which is expect to argue against the approval later in court, said the labour union does not oppose pipelines but takes issue with a faulty approval process that she describes as “rigged from the beginning.”

“The playing field was never level between the powerful interests between foreign oil companies and those working Canadians who have concerns that need to be addressed,” she said.

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COURTS

Booze fuels ‘gentle’ man to stab his spouse’s sonSHEILA REYNOLDS SURREY NORTH DELTA LEADER

A “colossal” intake of alcohol was to blame for an otherwise “gentle, law-abiding” Surrey man fatally stabbing his spouse’s son nearly three years ago, according to a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

William Engebretsen, 56, was sentenced in the summer to four years jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the November 2012 death of 33-year-old Jeremy McLellan.

Justice Robin Baird’s oral reasons for sentence from July 8 were posted online this week, detailing what hap-pened the night McLellan died.

According to court documents, it was Grey Cup Sunday – Nov. 25, 2012 – and McLellan had dropped by the home of Engebretsen and his common-law partner of 20 years. McLellan was the son of Engebre-tsen’s longtime spouse. Engebretsen had known him since he was 10.

McLellan and his mom were watch-ing TV in the apartment when Enge-bretsen emerged from the bedroom, where he had been drinking most the day and napping. He told the two he wanted to watch the Grey Cup when

one of them answered “if you ask nicely, maybe we’ll do it.” Engebre-tsen went to the kitchen to make a frozen pizza.

Without warning, Engebretsen then went to his bedroom and picked up an “enormous” knife he’d bought at a rummage sale, went back into the living room and stabbed McLel-lan once in the heart. He died about an hour later.

Justice Baird said he had no insight into what was going through Engebretsen’s head or what motiv-ated him, but that the “mystery is compounded” by numerous letters from the killer’s family, friends and employers saying he is a gentle, peace-loving man with no history of violence. Baird did, however, refer to an acrimonious relationship with McLellan that sometimes caused a rift between Engebretsen and his spouse. He did not want McLellan around but his mother did.

That ongoing conflict, fuelled by “extreme” drunkenness, caused McLellan’s mom to lose not only her son that night, but her best friend and marriage. With credit for time already spent in custody, Engebre-tsen has three years, seven months left of his sentence.

NELSON

Pop star Miley Cyrus invited to Kootenays

NELSON STAR

Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mun-gall reached out to pop star Miley Cyrus this week and invited her to tour the habitat of locally endan-gered mountain caribou.

Cyrus made headlines last month when she criticized the B.C. govern-ment’s wolf cull, an extermination program aimed at saving the moun-tain caribou from extinction.

Premier Christy Clark rebuffed the star, saying she would contact her if she needed advice on twerking.

Mungall is hoping to leverage Cyrus’s star power “to better engage and inform the broader public” on what she calls “a very complex issue”. Earlier this week Mungall tweeted Cyrus a letter inviting her to the Sel-kirks to collaborate on solutions that will be beneficial to wolves, caribou and the habitat they share.

“Whether Miley takes me up on my invitation or not, it is important that

we continue to build understanding around this issue,” said Mungall.

“Habitat protection must be the

long-term solution that we are work-ing towards to protect both caribou and wolves.”

MLA wants singer to come to the Selkirks to discuss wolves, caribou

Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall has invited pop star Miley Cyrus to the

Kootenays.

MAPLE RIDGE

Appeal denied in fatal stabbingTHE PROVINCE

A Maple Ridge woman who was convicted in the fatal stabbing of her husband has lost an appeal of her sentence.

Leah Marie Florence was found guilty of the November 2009 second-degree murder of Andrew Milne, who suffered 14 stabs and cuts to his torso, neck and head during an attack in the couple’s basement suite.

Court heard that the couple, who

were residing in Florence’s aunt’s home after being nearly homeless, had had a rocky 15-year marriage and that they’d been drinking on the night of the incident. Florence received the mandatory sentence of life in prison with 12 years of parole ineligibility. On appeal, she sought to reduce the parole ineligibility period to the 10-year minimum, arguing that the judge had failed to properly consider her prospects for rehabilita-tion and her aboriginal background.

ABBOTSFORD

Pot activist convicted on two countsVIKKI HOPES ABBOTSFORD NEWS

Pot activist Tim Felger has been convicted of two offences following his second trial for drug charges laid in Abbotsford in 2009.

Felger was sentenced Sept. 18 in B.C. Supreme Court on one charge of possession for the purpose of traf-ficking and one count of trafficking in marijuana.

Five other trafficking charges were stayed.

Felger was given credit for six months of jail time already served

and will serve no further time. He has also been given a lifetime fire-arms ban.

His co-accused Natasha Healy was given an absolute discharge on one count of trafficking. This means that, although she was found guilty on that charge, she will receive no sentence and the offence will be removed from her criminal record after one year.

The charges were laid when Felger operated his former Da Kine store on Essendene Avenue in Abbotsford.

Felger and Healy were acquitted at

their first trial in 2012. Felger’s law-yer successfully argued that under-cover officers breached his client’s charter rights when they trespassed on the premises by ignoring posted signs that stated “no police offi-cers allowed in the store without a warrant.”

Those officers had purchased marijuana inside the store on five separate days and also observed other people buying pot. They then used that information to obtain a search warrant, which led to Felger’s arrest and charges in May 2009.

POLICE

Man breaks cruiser window; must pay up

PENTICTON WESTERN NEWS

A man who popped the back window out of an Oliver police cruiser will now have to pay back the damages.

Marlon Orlando Wright, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of mischief under $5,000 and one count of breaching recognizance on Sept. 30 in Penticton Prov-incial Court.

Wright was given a suspended sentence by Judge Greg Koturbash with 12 months probation, and was ordered to pay the $442 for the cost of the window and was ordered to pay $100 for each count, for a total of $742 in fines.

Wright has no prior criminal record.“I’m really sorry for what has happened I just really

want to get my life back together,” Wright said.


MIDDLE EAST

In this picture released by the Rased News Network, a Facebook account affiliated with Islamic State militants, which has been authenticated based on its contents

and other AP reporting, people gather around the rubble of building and destroyed vehicles after an airstrike in Al-Bab on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, on Monday.

The Arabic at the bottom reads, ‘The destruction that was caused by airstrikes of the Crusader-Alawite coalition on the town of Al-Bab.’ [RASED NEWS NETWORK VIA AP]

BUSINESS

NATO denounces Russia’s ‘irresponsible behaviour’Instrusions come amid suspicions and mutual distrust between Moscow and the West

SUZAN FRASER AND VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANKARA, Turkey — In a signal of new tensions raised by Moscow’s airstrikes in Syria, NATO denounced Russia on Monday for “irresponsible behaviour” after its warplanes vio-lated Turkish airspace, and Turkey warned that any future aerial intrud-er would be treated like an enemy.

Turkey, a NATO member, men-tioned only one Russian intrusion over the weekend, but the military alliance said a second Russian jet also violated Turkish airspace Sunday.

The intrusions, which come amid zsuspicions and mutual distrust between Moscow and the West over Russia’s action in Syria, highlight the potential for clashes between Russian and allied forces in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria.

Russia sought to play down the incident. Defence Ministry spokes-man Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the jet accidentally entered Turkish airspace for “several seconds” Saturday while returning to its base about 30 kilometres south of the border with Turkey.

He said the violation happened due to poor weather in the area, which forced the pilot to approach the base from the north.

Russia has taken measures “to prevent any such incidents in the future,” he added. The ministry said Russia had nothing to do with the second alleged incursion Sunday.

NATO called Russia’s actions “irresponsible behaviour,” and U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Washington is conferring with Turkish leaders about the airspace violation.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. was “quite con-cerned” by Russia’s action, describing it as a provocation.

“Given the stakes and sensitivity around the Russian military action in that region of the world, I think our concerns are well-founded,” Earnest said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also expressed concern, telling repor-ters during a trip to Chile that the incident could have led to Turkey shooting down the Russian plane, and that Russia has a responsibility to act within international standards.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stol-tenberg said Russian warplanes had committed “unacceptable violations of Turkish airspace.”

“Russia’s actions are not contrib-uting to the security and stability of the region. I call on Russia to fully respect NATO airspace and to avoid escalating tensions with the alli-ance,” he said.

The Kremlin voiced hope that the incident wouldn’t damage its friendly ties with Ankara.

“Bilateral relations with Turkey are quite comprehensive, and they are solidly based on mutual benefits,”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokes-man Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Moscow was looking into the incursion.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Russia had said the plane intruded “by mistake.”

“They said they are respectful of Turkey’s borders and that it would not happen again,” he told Haber Turk television.

But Davutoglu warned that Turkey would enforce its rules of engage-ment in case of intrusions, which call for treating anyone approaching its border from Syria as an enemy.

The Turkish military said a MiG-29 fighter of unknown origin had threatened two Turkish planes Sunday by locking its radar on them for 5 minutes and 40 seconds. The military said the incident occurred while 10 F-16s were patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border.

Konashenkov said the Russian air force doesn’t operate any MiG-29s in Syria. The Syrian air force reportedly has some MiG-29s.

NATO said Russian Su-30 and Su-24 aircraft violated Turkish air-space Saturday and Sunday in the Hatay region.

Canadian Oil Sands target of takeover by SuncorLAUREN KRUGEL THE CANADIAN PRESS

Suncor Energy is looking to grow its position as Canada’s dominant oilsands producer — and take advantage of a prolonged rout in crude prices — with a hostile bid to take over Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest partner in the massive Syncrude mine.

Suncor is offering $4.3 billion in its own stock and would take on about $2.3 billion in COS debt, bringing the total price tag to $6.6 billion.

Suncor and Syncrude have the oldest operations in the oilsands, with side-by-side mines north of Fort McMurray, Alta. COS has a 37 per cent stake in Syncrude and Suncor has a 12 per cent stake, meaning Suncor would own just under half of Syncrude if it successfully gobbles up its target.

Suncor CEO Steve Williams said his company made overtures to COS earlier this year in the hopes of ink-ing a friendly deal, but was rebuffed by its board. The unsolicited offer announced Monday requires that two-thirds of COS stock be tendered to Suncor by Dec. 4.

“Our clear preference was to work together on a co-operative negotiated deal,” Williams said in an interview.

“We approached them twice, once in March, once in April, and were told that there was no interest at that time,” he said.

“So I felt that the only option open to me, because I do think that this is a compelling offer, was then to go directly to shareholders.”

COS said it’s reviewing the Suncor offer with its advisers.

“Shareholders are urged not to take any action or make any decision with regard to the Suncor offer until the board has had an opportunity to fully review the Suncor offer and to make a recommendation as to its merits,” it said in a release.

John Stephenson, CEO of Stephen-son & Co Capital Management, said he doubts Imperial is keen on top-ping Suncor’s offer, and COS share-holders would be wise to take what’s on the table.

During the last oil industry down-turn in 2009, Suncor also went shop-ping, absorbing Petro-Canada in a blockbuster deal.

Stephenson said he’s expecting more deals to follow in the oilpatch, with big and financially strong players picking off their weaker counterparts.

“The bigger will get bigger and the stronger will get stronger.”

“Russia’s actions are not contributing to the security and stability of the region. I call on Russia to fully respect NATO airspace and to avoid escalating tensions with the alliance.”

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary-General

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OREGON SHOOTING

Faculty members return to Umpqua Community College on Monday, in

Roseburg, Ore. [AP PHOTO]

Emotions run high as staff , students return to campus

P. SOLOMON BANDA AND JONATHAN J. COOPER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROSEBURG, Ore. — Students embraced, held hands and wiped away tears Monday as they returned to an Oregon community college for the first time since a gunman killed eight students and a teacher.

Classes do not resume until next week, but some students came to Umpua Community College to pick up belongings they left behind when they fled the shooting Thursday. Others met with professional groups to dis-cuss their trauma and grief.

A memorial was growing on the driveway leading to Snyder Hall, where 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mer-cer executed nine people inside a classroom and wounded nine others. He killed himself after a shootout with police.

“It was hard not to focus on Sny-der Hall,” student Joel Mitchell said. “When we got back, I think a lot of people were probably . . . looking at it, checking it out, seeing what it looked like.”

A group of eight held hands and bowed their heads in prayer in front of the building. Elsewhere, clusters of

people chatted at picnic tables or near buildings.

In a courtyard near the centre of campus, a therapy dog sat on a blanket with its handler. A woman, crouched down, wiped away a tear.

At least one student injured in the shooting was among those who returned Monday, college President Rita Cavin said. She did not identify the student.

Reporters were barred from cam-pus but taken on a brief tour. School officials designated an outdoor amphi-theatre as a makeshift memorial, open only to staff and students for now. Flowers and balloons were positioned on tables, and markers were available for people to write messages on a ban-ner that says, “UCC Strong.”

“I needed to be here,” student Madysen Sanchez said. “I needed to come and see my friends, make sure they’re OK.”

Chaplains who had been on campus said they were both helping with and participating in the healing process.

“I’m going through the grieving pro-cess myself because this has touched everyone in the community,” chaplain Russell Wilson said. “If you don’t know someone that goes here, you know someone that knows someone.”

POLITICS

Bid to delay Niqab ruling rejectedJIM BRONSKILL THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — A new court ruling means a devout Muslim woman who chooses to cover her face now has a chance to become a Canadian and vote in the Oct. 19 federal election.

The Federal Court of Appeal on Monday rejected a government request to put a recent decision in favour of Zunera Ishaq on hold while Ottawa seeks a hearing in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Appeal Justice Johanne Trudel dismissed the government’s appli-cation for a stay of a Sept. 15 deci-sion that affirmed the unlawfulness of a federal rule prohibiting a niqab at a citizenship ceremony.

Ishaq, 29, came to Ontario from Pakistan in 2008. She refused to take part in a citizenship ceremony because she would have to show her face due to a December 2011 policy requiring candidates who wear full or partial face coverings to remove them during recitation of the oath.

The Federal Court of Canada found the rule unlawful in Febru-ary and the Court of Appeal recent-ly upheld the decision.

A three-judge panel ruled from the bench immediately after a hearing, saying they wanted Ishaq to obtain citizenship in time to vote.

On Monday, Trudel said she could not agree to the federal request for a stay of the appeal court’s mid-September ruling.

“I find that the appellant has not demonstrated that refusing his application for stay would result in irreparable harm to the public interest,” she wrote. “This suffices to dispose of the appellant’s motion for stay.”

The issue of face coverings at citizenship ceremonies has become a highly divisive one on the federal election trail, generat-ing sparks in two French-language debates.

The Conservatives argue it is essential — and consistent with national values — to show one’s face at the very moment of becom-ing a Canadian citizen.

Critics of the federal stance note all new citizens must show their face as proof of identity before becoming a Canadian and that the government should not tell them what they can wear during the actual ceremony.

“I find that the appellant has not demonstrated that refusing his application for stay would result in irreparable harm to the public interest. This suffices to dispose of the appellant’s motion for stay.”

Johanne Trudel, Appeal Justice

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 201514 NATION& WORLD

MIDDLE EAST

Attacks rise in West Bank, Arab Jerusalem Israelis kill two suspected Palestinian assailants on weekend, shoot dead two stone-throwing teens Monday

IAN DEITCH AND MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH


JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday that he will use a “strong hand” to quell violent Palestinian protests and deadly attacks, sig-nalling that the current round of violence is bound to escalate at a time when a political solution to the conflict is increasingly distant.

Netanyahu said he has sent thou-sands more soldiers and police to the West Bank and Arab neighbour-hoods of Jerusalem and that “we are allowing our forces to take strong action against those who throw rocks and firebombs.” He said restrictions limiting what security forces can do were being lifted, but did not elaborate.

Netanyahu’s warnings came after a rash of violence that began Thursday when Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in their car near a settlement in the West Bank as their four children watched. Two days later, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death and seriously wounded his wife as they walked in Jerusalem’s Old City, then attacked and killed another Israeli man.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, killed two suspected Palestinian assailants over the weekend and on Monday shot dead two teenage stone-throw-ers, one of them a 13-year-old boy, in West Bank clashes.

In all, eight Palestinians were wounded by live fire and 45 by rub-ber-coated steel pellets in the West Bank and Jerusalem on Monday, the Red Crescent said. The spike in attacks and clashes comes at a time of mounting Palestinian frustration.

After years of diplomatic paralysis, many have lost hope in the chance of setting up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has not offered an alternative to failed negotiations, except to urge the international community to intervene, so far to little avail. President Barack Obama made no mention of the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict in his speech to the UN Gen-eral Assembly last week, an omission noted by the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has repeatedly accused Abbas of inciting the violence and of having no interest in negotiating a peace deal.

Abbas has countered that Netanya-hu is acting in bad faith by promot-ing continued settlement expansion on territory Palestinians claim for their future state.

Tensions have also risen over a major Jerusalem shrine that is sacred to Muslims and Jews and is key to the rival national narratives of the two sides. Many Palestinians believe that Israel is trying to expand a Jewish presence at the site, a claim Netanya-hu has denied. The hilltop compound is revered by Muslims as the spot where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and by Jews as the site of the two Jewish biblical Temples.

Netanyahu pledged an unpreced-ented crackdown, saying police had moved deeper into Arab neighbour-hoods of Jerusalem than in the past.

The military and the Shin Bet security service said Monday that Israeli forces arrested five Palestinian suspects in the killing of the settler couple last week. The U.S. State Department said Monday one of the victims, Eitam Henkin, held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship.

An Israeli border policeman checks papers at the entrance to the Old City in Jerusalem on Sunday. Israeli police barred Palestinians from Jerusalem’s Old City on

Sunday in response to stabbing attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded three others. [AP PHOTO]

INFRASTRUCTURE

Plan to dump sewage in St. Lawrence pannedSIDHARTHA BANERJEE THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL — The City of Montreal is standing by its plan to dump eight billion litres of untreated wastewater into the St. Lawrence River while it does construction work, saying it’s the best alternative.

The one-week sewage dump is to relocate a snow chute on a tunnel that needs to be empty for workers to access it. The project is part of an ongoing plan to raze the downtown Bonaventure Expressway, which runs above it.

Mayor Denis Coderre told reporters Monday he’s confident that city offi-cials have done their due diligence, made sure that drinking water for communities downstream will not be affected and selected the best option in terms of time and cost.

Coderre suspended the plan last week, but experts maintained the temporary diversion of wastewater was the best option.

“After the re-evaluation, I decided

I was satisfied with the answer,” Coderre said.

However, the plan has its detract-ors. More than 58,000 people had signed an online petition as of Mon-day afternoon against the proposed dumping.

The issue also caught the attention of some federal election candidates.

The Conservatives’ Denis Lebel said he is “concerned” about the dis-charge of sewage into the river, add-ing Environment Canada is working with the city to assess the impact.

Coderre said the same type of work was done twice before — in 2003 and 2007 — without issue.

An Environment Canada spokes-person said discussions with city officials are ongoing to gather infor-mation about the potential impact, but the agency was unable to provide with The Canadian Press with an interview.

“The Fisheries Act prohibits unauthorized deposits of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish,” a spokeswoman said in an email. “Under the Wastewater Sys-tems Effluent Regulations, Environ-ment Canada cannot authorize this type of wastewater deposit.”

The provincial Environment Department has approved the plan,

which is expected to start Oct. 18.“We evaluated the situation regard-

ing the impacts on the environment, the impact on the wildlife, the impact on people ... making sure people had clean water,” Environ-ment Minister David Heurtel said in Quebec City.

Federal Green party candidates in Quebec called the decision “ill-ad-vised,” suggesting the city could have done better.

Daniel Green says parsing the work over a longer period instead of pro-ceeding with a one-shot deal in Octo-ber could have lessened the impact, as would having the work done in February, when frigid temperatures would kill off bacteria.

“That’s a lot of waste water to be discharged, in October, in the St. Lawrence River, when you have fish-ermen, duck hunters, surfers, kayak-ers using the water,” Green said.

The Green party is asking Environ-ment Canada to stop the proposed work and Coderre said if that’s the

case, the city would come up with a response after Oct. 18.

The mayor also dismissed concerns raised by a U.S. state senator from New York, Patty Ritchie, who wrote a letter to the International Joint Com-mission — whose mandate it is to protect the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes — to probe Montreal’s plan.

Ritchie said Montreal’s plan to dump “the equivalent of 2,600 Olym-pic-sized swimming pools filled with wastewater” from homes and busi-nesses needs further study.

“While I realize that the dumping will occur in Canadian waters, down-stream from any U.S. communities, I am very concerned by the precedent Montreal is setting for other com-munities along the St. Lawrence and the lakes,” she wrote.

Coderre insists the plan is the right one.

“When you’re factual, when you look at the experts, at the end of the day that was the decision to be taken because it was the only one,” he said.

“While I realize that the dumping will occur in Canadian waters, downstream from any U.S. communities, I am very concerned by the precedent Montreal is setting for other communities along the St. Lawrence and the lakes.”

Patty Ritchie, New York Senator

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SPORT

Canadian Olympic Committee looks at harassment policy after scandalDONNA SPENCER THE CANADIAN PRESS

Rocked by the resignation of its president amid sexual harassment allegations, the Canadian Olympic Committee says its workplace poli-cies should be strengthened to make it easier for complainants to come forward.

Marcel Aubut stepped down after women accused him of harassing behaviour such as sexually charged comments and unwanted touching. It was a stunning development for a man who stamped his big person-ality on the Olympic movement in Canada.

Tricia Smith, who ran against Aubut for the COC’s presidency in 2009, will be interim president until an election is held at a COC board meeting in November.

The new president will finish out Aubut’s term ending in the spring of 2017.

Canada’s summer athletes are entering their final months of prep-aration for the 2016 Summer Olym-pics opening Aug. 5.

Smith was unavailable for com-ment Monday. The former Olympic rower said in a letter to staff and Canada’s sports federations, however, that independent investigators con-ducting a review of internal policies will be asked for recommendations on how to make the process of lodg-ing a complaint less stressful.

“The events of the past week have caused us to consider what more we can do to ensure we have a workplace that is consistent with the ideals and standards of the COC and the Olympic movement,” Smith said in

the letter obtained by The Canadian Press.

“One challenge we have identi-fied for review by our independent experts, is how to ensure any victims of harassment and sexual harass-ment feel fully comfortable coming forward with a complaint, if they are feeling mistreated. We anticipate we will need to improve our processes in this regard.”

A first woman withdrew her com-plaint when Aubut resigned, but the COC’s investigation into other allega-tions of harassment is continuing.

Aubut apologized to “those who may have been offended by my behaviour” in a statement announ-cing his resignation Saturday.

“I realize that my attitude could at times be perceived as questionable by some women and could have caused them to feel uncomfortable,” he said. “I acknowledge this and will adjust my behaviour accordingly.”

Longtime COC board member and International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound said the situa-tion proves the COC’s policies against harassment work, but restoring

confidence within is what the organ-ization needs right now.

“I think it’s probably to do what Tricia started to do, which is to com-municate that this is a real problem, an awkward problem and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Pound said Monday from Switzerland.

“We’re taking steps to make it easier to report on unacceptable conduct,” he added. “Our job is to make sure there’s an atmosphere in our office, with our teams, with our officials, everybody, that you don’t get any kind of harassment, sexual or otherwise.”

Aubut, 67, became a board member of the COC in 2000 and took over as president in 2010. Well-connect-ed politically, the Montreal lawyer aggressively pursued corporate spon-sorships with a goal set in 2012 to raise $100 million within four years.

He moved the heart of the COC’s operations in 2013 into a tony address on Rene-Levesque Boulevard in Montreal.

Aubut escorted IOC president Thomas Bach around Toronto and Montreal in July. At the conclusion of the Pan American Games, Aubut launched a full-court press urging Toronto to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, which the city ultimately declined to do.

Whether the COC chooses another mover-shaker to take over, or goes with more understated leadership, Pound says the Olympic movement in Canada is not irreparably damaged by the scandal.

“The five rings are bigger than Mar-cel Aubut,” Pound said.

GLOBAL POLITICS

UN paper looks to climate deal later this yearSYLVIE CORBET THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS — The United Nations on Monday released a first draft of the negotiating text for the major confer-ence on climate taking place in Paris in December.

The document is a step forward for the talks, slimming down the text from more than 90 pages earlier this year to just 20.

Negotiators from 195 countries are to gather for a new session of talks Oct. 19-23 in Bonn, Germany.

A large number of proposals in the text are in parentheses, meaning theyare still to be negotiated. The docu-ment notably includes a long-term goal for reduction in global green-house gas emissions, but details and deadline remain to be discussed.

The Paris conference on climate is aiming for an ambitious deal to keep the rise in worldwide temperatures since pre-industrial times below 2 degrees Celsius.

The potential agreement would reflect “common but differenti-ated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances”, the draft specifies.

Every five years nations have to be prepared to tighten their commit-ments, he said, and then there’s the problem of enforcing the agreement.

Kids’ blood found on objects in house, Turcotte trial hears

THE CANADIAN PRESS

SAINT-JEROME, Que. — An expert says he believes Guy Turcotte stabbed his children with his right hand while holding them down with the other because his left shirt sleeve had traces of blood.

Francois Julien told the ex-doctor’s trial Monday that Turcotte, who is right-handed, touched a number of items in the home before the blood had time to dry, including a glass and a container of windshield washer.

Turcotte, 43, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3.

Julien, a blood-spatter expert, testi-fied the blood on the washer fluid con-tainer was mostly the young girl’s.

Last week, Julien testified that Olivi-er was likely attacked first and then Anne-Sophie because there was blood on the doorknob of the girl’s room.

Under cross-examination, Julien said he wasn’t able to establish whether Turcotte was injured and bleeding around the time of the slayings, but

maintained he had “no evidence on the scene that another person had bled.”

Defence attorney Pierre Poupart questioned Julien at length about a mysterious, large black spot found on the bed of the accused.

Julien said the colour of the stain was “bizarre” and contained traces of Turcotte’s blood, but he couldn’t say how much.

It was enough to obtain a positive result, Julien said.

Pathologist Andre Bourgault testi-fied Monday that Anne-Sophie’s heart was pierced, while Olivier’s hands had wounds.

“He tried to defend himself between four and seven times,” said Bourgault, who has conducted more than 4,000 autopsies in his career.

He said Olivier was stabbed 27 times and Anne-Sophie 19 times. They had wounds to the stomach, the thorax and on their back.

Turcotte’s trial will be shortened this week as one juror has a medical appointment and another has to attend a funeral for a relative.

Marcel Aubut during the 2013 announcement of the Canadian bobsled team for

the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]


FIRST NATIONS NEWS IN BRIEFThe Canadian Press

◆ CALGARY

Cut methane emissions with current tech: Study

A new report commissioned by an environmental group says Canada’s oil and gas industry could reduce methane emissions by 45 per cent using existing technology.

The study by energy industry research firm ICF International, found that the industry could elim-inate the equivalent of 27 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions at a cost of $2.76 per tonne.

The Environmental Defense Fund says that means that for a theor-etical investment of $726 million, the industry could achieve the same climate benefits as taking every passenger car in Alberta and British Columbia off the road.

The potential reductions are based on projected emission levels in 2020 and are on top of what could be achieved with current regulatory and voluntary actions.

◆ WHITBY, ONT.

Brothers aged 10, 12 among victims of crash

Police say two young brothers were among four people who died after a massive car crash on a major high-way east of Toronto.

Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt says the boys — aged 10 and 12 — died after a 20-vehicle collision on Highway 401 in Whitby, Ont., on Friday night.

Schmidt says a man and a woman travelling in a different car also died in the crash.

Police say the collision occurred when a transport truck driving west-bound crashed into slower moving vehicles approaching a construction site, which caused a chain reaction.

More than a dozen people were injured in the collision and Schmidt says at least four others remain in hospital — one listed in critical condition.

The driver of the truck wasn’t injured.

◆ EDMONTON

Alberta NDP to unveil fi rst budget on Oct. 27

Alberta’s NDP government is to deliver its first budget on Oct. 27, but Finance Minister Joe Ceci isn’t saying if more tax increases or new levies will be included.

“Our budget will outline a plan for jobs and economic growth while sta-bilizing public services. And we will present a path to (budget) balance,” Ceci told reporters at a legislature news conference Monday.

Ceci said the goal is for renewed infrastructure spending while pro-tecting core services, along with a blueprint to balance the budget and create jobs.

“Now is not the time to make things worse, for knee-jerk reactions that would result in firing nurses and teachers during these tough eco-nomic times,” he said.

“The budget will outline our gov-ernment’s plan to stimulate econom-ic growth, diversification and job creation.”

Isolated reserve on Manitoba-Ontario border with no clean water to take its case to the UNCHINTA PUXLEY THE CANADIAN PRESS

WINNIPEG — A reserve cut off from the mainland and under a boil-water advisory for almost two decades is taking its case to the United Nations.

Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, which straddles the Manitoba-Ontario boundary, became isolated a century ago during construction of an aque-duct which carries water to Winni-peg. The reserve has no all-weather road and has been without clean water for 17 years.

A delegation from the reserve is expected to travel to Geneva, Switz-erland, in February to make its case to a United Nations committee on economic, social and cultural rights.

The First Nation is also part of a worldwide investigation by Human Rights Watch. That review is to be

presented to the same UN committee reviewing Canada’s human rights record.

Chief Erwin Redsky said his dele-gation will outline “all the human rights violations we suffer daily,” including a lack of clean water, no freedom of movement and inad-equate health care and education.

“We’re going to tell the world what’s going on in Canada here, specifically to Shoal Lake 40, what’s been going on for 100 years now,” he said.

Since there is no permanent road, people from the reserve risk their lives every winter walking across the ice to get to and from the mainland. Some have died.

The aging ferry that residents rely on in the summer failed to pass government inspection last spring, which prompted the reserve to move out elders and declare a state of emergency. The ferry was patched up, but will need more extensive repairs.

Children who reach high school have to move off the reserve to con-tinue their education. Elders and those who are sick don’t have access

to proper health care since many medical professionals won’t risk get-ting to the reserve, Redsky said.

Many residents leave the commun-ity regularly just to take a shower at community centres in Kenora, Ont.

“Canada is one of the richest coun-tries in the world,” Redsky said. “This should not be happening.”

Residents have been lobbying for years for what they call a permanent Freedom Road into the community. Public support and pressure has been growing among multi-faith groups, social justice activists and the busi-ness community.

Amanda Klasing, with the New-York-based Human Rights Watch, said Shoal Lake 40 is one of four Ontario First Nations that will be studied in depth for her report to the United Nations committee.

RAIL SAFETY

Seven hurt as Amtrak passenger train bound for Vermont derailsRegion near derailment site received 6.35 centimetres of rain on Thursday and Friday

WILSON RING THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NORTHFIELD, Vt. — An Amtrak passenger train headed from Ver-mont to Washington, D.C., on Mon-day hit rocks that had fallen onto the track from a ledge, spilling the locomotive and a passenger car down an embankment, derailing three other cars and injuring seven people, authorities said.

The Vermonter train carrying 98 passengers and four crew mem-bers derailed at around 10:30 a.m. in Northfield, about 30 kilometres southwest of Montpelier.

Officials with the Federal Rail-road Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

“This was a freak of nature,” Ver-mont Gov. Peter Shumlin said at a news conference.

One of those injured was airlifted to a New Hampshire hospital and was being evaluated The six others went to a local hospital with injuries including neck, back and shoulder pains and lightheadedness.

The Federal Railroad Administra-tion said a crew member was serious-ly injured. Four of those hospitalized were released by Monday evening, Amtrak said.

The track where the crash occurred had been part of a $220 million upgrade of New England Central Railroad tracks funded with help from a $50 million federal recovery grant.

“There is no reason to believe there was any negligence on anyone’s part,” Shumlin said.

“We don’t have all the details, but this track was rebuilt. It was a state-of-the-art track. Ledge slides happen.”

The stretch of tracks where the derailment occurred is part of the Genesee and Wyoming Railroad. The region near the derailment site received 6.35 centimetres of rain on Thursday and Friday, according to the American National Weather Service.

State officials said a freight train had passed over the same tracks Sun-day night with no problems.

Officials said there’s no technology that could have alerted the crew to the slide.

“There is not really anything that’s going to detect this kind of thing,” said Dan Delabruere, the rail chief of the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

Numerous derailments around the world have been caused by debris on tracks, many linked to heavy rains that trigger slides or heavy winds that knock down trees.

In 2010, a train in Beijing hit mounds of debris left on the track

following a landslide, killing 19 people.

Company officials confirmed details of the crash but did not immediately provide a comment.

Bob Redmond, of Bay City, Mich-igan, was sitting in the front row of the third car while on a foliage tour when the train derailed. He looked out the window and saw the car that had been ahead of his was now along-side him.

“It was just going the other way, and we started tipping sideways and down we went,” he said.

A first responder, right, examines railroad passenger cars at the scene of an Amtrak passenger train derailment on Monday

in Northfield, Vt. No life-threatening injuries were reported. [STEFAN HARD/BARRE-MONTPELIER TIMES ARGUS VIA AP]

“We’re going to tell the world what’s going on in Canada here, specifically to Shoal Lake 40, what’s been going on for 100 years now.”

Erwin Redsky, Chief of Shoal Lake 40 FN

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MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

Producers wait on OK to sell cannabis oilsNanaimo’s Tilray announced Monday that it has 20 cannabis extract products awaiting federal approval

SHERYL UBELACKER THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO — A number of Can-ada’s medical marijuana growers are poised to release cannabis oils for authorized patients who don’t want to smoke or vapourize the dried herb to relieve their symptoms.

In July, Health Canada gave grow-ers the green light to begin produ-cing the plant-based extracts, which are expected to be approved for sale in the coming months.

About a dozen of the country’s 25 medicinal pot producers have sought expanded licences to pro-duce and market cannabis oils and/or fresh marijuana buds and leaves under the updated federal regula-tions. Among them are Ontario com-panies Tweed and Bedrocan Canada Inc., and Nanaimo’s Tilray.

Tilray announced Monday that it has 20 cannabis extract products awaiting Health Canada approval, including oils in liquid form, gel caps and a topical preparation for certain skin conditions.

“We really felt it was important to let patients and the general public, physicians and researchers know about these products ahead of time,” Philippe Lucas, the company’s vice-president of research and servi-

ces, said from Nanaimo.“We know there’s going to be a lot

of questions about the products, the first time that these kinds of extract products will be legally available in Canada.”

Lucas said some patients and doc-tors aren’t keen about the idea of

having to smoke or vapourize dried marijuana. Cannabis extracts allow the drug to be ingested — and more discreetly.

Patients who have been authorized by their doctors to purchase dried medical marijuana to treat such conditions as chronic pain, multiple

sclerosis symptoms or epilepsy will not need a new prescription to access cannabis oils, he said.

“There’s an equivalency factor that we’ve put into these and so there will be an equivalency, for example, of the number of gel caps or the amount of oil you’re allowed to order, based on your daily and monthly limits.

“So any Canadian who’s authorized to use medical cannabis right now would be able to access these,” said Lucas, noting that the oils will be delivered by mail or courier in the same way the dried herb is currently shipped.

Prices for the oil extracts, he said, should not be substantially higher than the $4 to $14 per gram for the dried products.

Bruce Linton, chairman and CEO of the recently merged Bedrocan and Tweed, said the company initially plans to release two or three can-nabis oil products, which could be scaled up to 10 or more, depending on patient demand.

“There are different types of oils,” Linton said from the Tweed plant in Smiths Falls, Ont., southwest of Ottawa. “The combination of ingredi-ents is expected to have a similar effect in its oil form as it does in its flower form.”

For instance, an oil could include a combination of marijuana strains, while another could be a purified sin-gle strain with a specific effect, such as helping a person with chronic pain to sleep.

“So each of the venues has their own distinct strains, which have their own distinct applications and will become their own distinct oils,” he said of the Bedrocan and Tweed growing facilities.

As well, some oils produced by the various growers will have dif-ferent concentrations of the weed’s main medicinal ingredients: THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psycho-active agent that provides mari-juana’s high, and non-psychoactive CBD (cannabidiol), which is being used by some patients to control seizures.

Lucas of Tilray said some parents have been going through the labor-ious process of making their own cannabis oil from dried marijuana to give to their children with epilepsy or other seizure disorders that are resistant to or poorly controlled by standard pharmaceuticals. Typically these oils come from strains high in CBD.

See CANNABIS, Page 32

A cultivation center in Albion, Ill. Canadian medicinal pot producers are awaiting

approval to sell cannabis oils. [AP PHOTO]


NEWS IN BRIEFThe Associated Press

◆ NEW YORK

Hackers may have stolen data from Trump hotels

Customer credit and debit card numbers may have been stolen at seven Trump hotels, including one in Toronto, after its payment systems were hacked for over a year.

The Trump Hotel Collection said on its website that hackers gained access to its systems between May 2014 and June 2015 at the front desk of those hotels. Hotel restaurants and gift shops were also hacked.

The hotel operator said an investi-gation has not found any evidence of customer’s information being mis-used. The company is offering affect-ed customers a year of free identity theft protection.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is chairman and president of Trump Hotel Collection. Three of his children have executive roles.

◆ WASHINGTON

Final settlement with BP over Gulf of Mexico spill

The Justice Department and five states on Monday announced a $20 billion final settlement of claims arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The deal, once approved by a judge, would resolve all civil claims against BP and end five years of legal fight-ing over a 134-million gallon spill that affected 1,300 miles of shoreline. It also would bind the company to a massive cleanup project in the Gulf Coast area aimed at restoring wild-life, habitat and water quality.

The settlement, filed in federal court in New Orleans, finalizes an agreement first announced in July. The next steps are a 60-day public comment period and court approval.

The company would also be required to pay $8.1 billion in nat-ural resource damages, with funds going toward Gulf restoration pro-jects such as support for coastal wet-land and fish and birds.

◆ LUXEMBOURG

Spain told to come up with new budget plan

The European Union’s executive arm is to warn Spain over its draft budget plans for this year and next.

Pierre Moscovici, the European Commission’s top economy official, said Monday that the plans point to the Spanish government missing fiscal targets by 0.3 percentage point in 2015 and 0.7 percentage points in 2016.

As such, he said the Commission will on Tuesday invite Spain’s cen-tre-right government to make sure the budget plans comply with euro rules.

The eurozone’s top official, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said it was up to the Spanish government to act on the opinion.

In joining the euro currency, countries signed up to a set of rules to keep their budgets within certain parameters. In theory, countries could face sanctions.

NATURAL DISASTERFIRST NATIONS

In this Saturday photo, a doll and clothing lay in the mud as rescue workers continue to search the site of a mudslide in

Cambray, a neighbourhood in the suburb of Santa Catarina Pinula, on the outskirts of Guatemala City. [AP PHOTO]

Inquest to look at deaths of aboriginal youthsTHE CANADIAN PRESS

THUNDER BAY, Ont. — A long-awaited inquest into the deaths of seven aboriginal youths who moved from their remote reserves in northern Ontario to go to high school in Thunder Bay, Ont., opened Monday following a sunrise ceremony.

In an opening statement to the jury, presiding coroner Dr. David Eden warned of a difficult road ahead.

“We are starting on a long path-way,” Eden said. “During that time as we go through this pathway, there will be differences. It’s our job to manage those differences with wis-dom, not with anger.”

The inquest, expected to last until next spring and hear from about 200 witnesses — some will testify more than once — is probing the deaths of Jethro Anderson, 15, Cur-ran Strang, 18, Robyn Harper, 19, Paul Panacheese, 21, Reggie Bushie, 15, Kyle Morrisseau, 17 and Jordan Wabasse, also 15.

All died between 2000 and 2011 while, as Eden put it, trying to advance their lives and the well-be-ing of their communities through education.

Six of them went to Dennis Frank-lin Cromarty High School; the sev-enth attended the Matawa Learning Centre. Both schools specialize in accommodating aboriginals.

Trevor Jukes, counsel to Eden, said the inquest will hear first about Panacheese and Harper, who were found dead in the homes they were staying in. It’s not clear what killed Panacheese, who collapsed at his boarding house.

Harper was found dead of acute alcohol poisoning in the hallway of her boarding home, the morning after going out drinking with friends. She had been in the city just two days.

The other five victims, Jukes said, were found in rivers in and around Thunder Bay. All had drowned. Alco-hol was deemed a contributing factor in four of the deaths.

Lawyer Christa Big Canoe, who speaks for six of the families, said they have been waiting a long time for the inquest to start.

“The families have a lot of ques-tions,” Big Canoe said.

Julian Falconer, lawyer for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation from whose communities the young people came, praised the “bravery and courage” of the families for persevering to ensure the inquest was called.

“All institutions that are implicated in this have to be accountable and have to fix themselves so this never happens again,” Falconer said.

Questions after Guatemala mudslide kills 139 peopleKATHERINE CORCORAN AND SONIA PEREZ


SANTA CATARINA PINULA, Gua-temala — Emergency workers spent a fourth day digging bodies out of a massive mudslide on Monday, watching the death toll rise to 139 as questions mounted about why people were allowed to build homes at the base of a dangerous hillside next to a small river.

Backhoes continued to remove thousands of tons of dirt from the acres-wide mudflow on the outskirts of Guatemala City, with practically no hope of finding anyone alive and increasing difficulties in rescuing whole bodies.

Guatemala’s national Disaster Reduction Commission, known as the Conred, said Monday it had warned about the risk to the Cam-bray neighbourhood since last year, and had recommended that residents be relocated.

The commission has now declared the Cambray area uninhabitable; about 300 people remain missing.

Commission Director Alejandro Maldonado said he had warned Mayor

Tono Coro of the municipality of Santa Catarina Pinula that the river was eating away at the base of the steep hill.

Maldonado said he was waiting for a report from local authorities about what they had done in response to the warning.

Municipal spokesman Manuel Pocasangre said local authorities had warned residents about the dangers, but the inhabitants did not want to leave their homes.

Maldonado acknowledged there are many neighbourhoods like Cambray in and around Guatemala City that are at risk of flooding or mudslides.

“What happened in Cambray is just

a tragic case of what could poten-tially happen throughout the city,” Maldonado said.

Rescue efforts resumed early Monday, but overnight rain made the digging more precarious, said fire department spokesman Julio Sanchez. He said the number of rescuers has been reduced and crews were using heavy machinery to move the mud.

Maldonado said authorities are still committed to recovering the bodies of victims, but stressed “we are not going to risk more lives unnecessarily.”

In the past, some mudslide areas have been left partially unexcavated and declared de-facto graveyards.

On Monday, 187 people waited on cots inside the Salon Municipal, an auditorium the town usually employs for events and parties. Displaced families could find food, medical services, activities for children and psychological services there.

But no one yet was talking about relocation or compensation for losing their homes, most of which remain intact and weren’t hit by the slide.

“What happened in Cambray is just a tragic case of what could potentially happen throughout the city.”

Alejandro Maldonado, Disaster Reduction Commission Director

Snowden says he will return to U.S. and face prison, but has not been off ered plea deal


LONDON — Edward Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and go to jail for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.

The former NSA contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and

faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Snowden told the BBC that he’d “volunteered to go to prison with the government many times,” but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.

He said that “so far they’ve said they won’t torture me, which is a start, I think. But we haven’t gotten much further than that.”

In an interview Monday on the BBC’s Panorama program, Snowden

said he and his lawyers were waiting for U.S. officials “to call us back.”

Earlier this year, former U.S. Attor-ney General Eric Holder said a plea deal with Snowden was a possibility.

Snowden’s revelations about the NSA, Britain’s GCHQ and other intelligence agencies set off an inter-national debate about spies’ powers to monitor personal communica-tions, and about the balance between security and privacy.

Mens & Womens New BalanceMens & Womens New BalanceMens & Womens New BalanceMens & Womens New BalanceStyle# MXWN624 & WXWN624

TIM BOOTH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

With one big punch, Kam Chancellor showed his import-ance to the Seattle Seahawks.

With one little touch, K.J. Wright provided another Monday night con-troversy in the same end zone where the infamous “Fail Mary” took place.

“Now that you look at it, we we’re fortunate,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.

Chancellor knocked the ball free from Detroit wide receiver Calvin Johnson at the 1-yard line when it appeared the Lions were going to take the lead, and Seattle held on for a 13-10 win.

With Detroit on the verge of capping a 91-yard drive with the go-ahead touchdown with less than two minutes remaining, Chancellor came from the side and punched the ball from Johnson’s arm as he was being tackled by Earl Thomas.

It bounded into the end zone where it was guided over the back line by K.J. Wright for a touchback and

Seattle’s ball at the 20.But Wright should have been called

for an illegal bat for hitting the ball out of the end zone, NFL VP of Officiating Dean Blandino told NFL Network. The penalty would have given the ball back to Detroit at the Seattle 1.

No flags were thrown and on the ensuing possession, Russell Wilson found Jermaine Kearse for 50 yards

on third down. With Detroit out of timeouts, the Seahawks (2-2) ran off the final seconds of their second straight win.

“The back judge was on the play and in his judgment he didn’t feel it was an overt act so he didn’t throw the flag,” Blandino said. “In looking at the replays it looked like a bat so the enforcement would be basically we would go back to the spot of the fumble and Detroit would keep the football.”

Wright said he did not know the rule and was purposely guiding the ball over the end line.

“That was definitely the thought process just to get the ball out of bounds and not try to catch it and fumble it and hit my foot and the Lions recover it,” Wright said.

The non-call provided another memorable Monday night moment in Seattle. It was three years ago when replacement officials credited Gold-en Tate with a disputed touchdown reception on the final play in nearly the same spot as Seattle beat Green Bay.

Now it was Tate, playing for Detroit,

on the opposite side of a strange play in the Emerald City. Detroit (0-4) is off to its worst start since it also started 0-4 in 2010.

“What can you do? You’re not going to cry about it that’s for sure,” Detroit coach Jim Caldwell said.

It was an ugly performance by the home team, filled with offensive mis-takes and two fourth-quarter fumbles by Wilson, the second returned 27 yards for a touchdown by Caraun Reid to pull Detroit to 13-10.

But in the end, Seattle’s defence came through.

Starting on their nine with 6:23 remaining, the Lions converted a big third down on Tate’s 22-yard catch-and-run and reached the Seattle 46 with three minutes left on Ameer Abdullah’s nine-yard run. Matthew Stafford then zipped a pass to No. 3 tight end Tim Wright down the seam for 26 yards to the Seattle 20 with 2:30 remaining, placing it in-between Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Chancellor.

The Lions reached the Seattle 11 and on third-and-one, Stafford passed to an open Johnson. As he stretched

for the goal line, Chancellor came across and knocked the ball free.

“I (saw) a lot of brown ball so I attacked it, punched it and made a big play at the end,” Chancellor said. “When I punched it I (saw) it fly out and roll. It took forever. The ball was rolling for a long time.”

Seattle has not allowed an offensive touchdown in the two games since Chancellor ended his holdout. It has forced 18 punts during that stretch.

“Give us an inch and we protected it,” Thomas said. “It just feels so good. I think we just need games like this for us to come together.”

Wilson was forced to be an escape artist as Seattle’s offensive line con-tinued to struggle with protection. Wilson threw for 287 yards and rushed for another 40 yards, but was sacked six times. Wilson’s most memorable play was spinning free of two near sacks and finding Kearse for 34 yards in the second quarter, and then hitting Doug Baldwin on a 24-yard TD on the next play.

“A win is a win but at the same timewe tried to give it to them,” Baldwin said. “We can’t be doing that.”

PUNCHED

OUTSeattle Seahawks strong safety Kam Chancellor

knocks the ball loose from Detroit Lions wide

receiver Calvin Johnson in an NFL game Monday in

Seattle. [AP PHOTO]

Chancellor’s big play allows Seattle to escape with win SPORTS INSIDEToday’s issue

Clippers, Raiders 20

Canucks 21

Lions 22

Blue Jays 23

NHL Preview 24

Scoreboard 25

Rugby World Cup 29

19 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 201520 SPORTS

BCHL JUNIOR FOOTBALL

Chris Dodero starts to catch on as Clippers search for second lineRempal, Brosseau are fi rst, second in points while linemate Hoover leads in goal scoring

SCOTT MCKENZIE DAILY NEWS

When the Nanaimo Clippers began their current three-game winning streak on Wednesday, rookie

Chris Dodero scored an empty-net goal — his first of the year — and head coach Mike Vandekamp pre-dicted it would jump start the wing-er’s offensive production.

Turns out, Vandekamp was right. Dodero, a 19-year-old import from Bloomingdale, Ill., scored the game-winner in the second period of his team’s win 5-2 win over the Ver-non Vipers Saturday night.

This time, he had to score on a goalie.

“It felt really good, but other than that it was just great getting the win,” Dodero said.

Rather than scoring another goal like his first, this one took some offensive prowess and some confidence.

On an odd-man rush with Devin Brosseau open a few steps behind, Dodero opted to take the puck him-self and score a wrap-around goal to put his team ahead 3-2 in the second period against Vernon, a lead they would never relinquish.

“It took definitely a little bit of con-fidence,” he said. “I was struggling for a little bit and getting a little frus-trated but I got the monkey off my back and I felt relieved after that.”

Scoring hasn’t been much of a con-cern for the Clippers.

Twenty-year-old veterans Sheldon Rempal and Devin Brosseau lead the B.C. Hockey League in points with 20 and 17 points, respectively, in nine games. Matt Hoover, their cen-tre, was named as the BCHL’s player of the week Monday, and is fifth in points with 15 and first in goals with nine. But before Saturday, few Clip-pers forwards beyond that top line had been producing much tangible offence.

However, Lucas Finner scored his first of the year on a penalty shot Sat-urday after defenceman Will Reilly got the Clippers on the board early before Dodero’s game-winner.

Corey Renwick also scored his second of the year against Vernon after getting his first Wednesday against the Alberni Valley Bulldogs.

All of a sudden, a second line is coming together with Renwick between Dodero and Zach Court.

“It’s nice to see new faces get some goals,” Vandekamp said. “We’ve been looking for that and hoping for that, so they can feel a little a little bit bet-ter about their contributions, too.”

Brosseau wasn’t worried about the lack of production beyond his own line. With all the player turnover that’s now common in junior hockey rosters, it was to be expected.

“We just try to work hard to con-tribute as much as we can,” said Brosseau, who will play college

hockey at Clarkson University with Rempal next season.

“There’s a lot of new guys in the room so we kind of want to lead the way and let them be comfortable with the way they play. It might take a while, so leaders have to step up and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Dodero and the rest of the Nanaimo lineup could see what the top line

was doing and, like Brosseau, figured the rest of the team would begin to catch on sooner than later.

“They were chipping in really well but it just took some time for the rest of the guys,” he said. “Everyone’s pretty new, but everyone’s starting to chip in now so I think it’s going to be really good. I think the team’s coming together now. Everybody’s starting to click.”

Vandekamp is also noticing the heightened play of Dodero, beyond his scoring two goals in the last three games. As a veteran of two seasons in the United States Hockey League, Dodero was one of the newcomers expected to make up for what the Clippers lost from last year’s team due to graduation and early depar-tures to college.

“He has a nice jump in his game right now and he’s playing well,” Vandekamp said.

“I liked the way he played (Satur-day). He had lots of energy and he’s doing more than just the goal he scored. He’s killing penalties for us, he’s a smart and reliable player for us, so he’s grabbing an extra gear as he gets comfortable here.”

Off to the Interior to play ‘three in three’

After playing three straight games at Frank Crane Arena, the Clippers are now off to the Interior for their

first three-day, three-game road trip of the season.

But it will start off with a familiar opponent as the Clippers begin the trip in Vernon to play the Vipers for the second time in a row on Friday.

The Clippers then take on the Sal-mon Arm Silverbacks the following night before ending the trip Sunday against a Merritt Centennials team they beat 6-0 on Sept. 25.

Vandekamp said taking care of busi-ness in their last three home games was important heading into the road trip.

“That was really important for us,” he said. “We needed to have a good home stand because we have a tough road trip coming on the weekend.

“There’s a good vibe around the team now with a day off and a week to practice. It’s nice to have a little momentum and energy on our side and to see the boys come together a little bit.”

After the road trip, the Clippers play five straight games at home.

The first of which, Oct. 17, will be a special occasion on two fronts as the Clippers play the Wenatchee Wild for the first time ever, and do so on the same night they will be honouring Tony Gardner, their longtime equip-ment manager who died last month.

Scott.McKenzie


250-729-4243

Nanaimo Clippers winger Chris Dodero, 19, scored the game-winning goal in his team’s 5-2 victory over the Vernon Vipers

in a B.C. Hockey League game Saturday at Frank Crane Arena. [SCOTT MCKENZIE/DAILY NEWS]

Raiders endseason 7-3 after win over Valley SCOTT MCKENZIE DAILY NEWS

The Vancouver Island Raiders made it official Saturday, beating the winless Valley Huskers 38-9 and finishing 7-3 on the season — an improvement of two wins from a year ago.

The Raiders also officially locked up second place with that win, and their home playoff game likely set for Satur-day, Oct. 17 with an expected start time of 1 p.m. against the Langley Rams at Caledonia Park.

In a near mean-nothing game against the Huskers, V.I. head coach Jerome Erdman wasn’t happy from what he saw from his team.

“I thought we were a little sloppy,” he said. “There’s a lot of areas that we’re going to have to improve on, and our concentration I don’t think was 100 per cent there.

“I wasn’t really pleased with it.”Raiders quarterback Liam O’Brien

passed for four touchdowns in the win, with no interceptions.

Receiver Dustin Rodriguez caught two of the majors, while Dallas Towle and Dustin Hamm caught the others.

Taylor Flavel also scored a touch-down on the ground, finishing with 70 rushing yards off 10 carries.

Safeties Cole Virtanen and Adam McDonald both has four tackles, as did linebacker Nigel Henry, to lead the Raiders on defence while Doug Thorn-ton picked up his team’s only sack of the game.

While concentration may have been an issue for the Raiders Saturday in Chilliwack, Erdman doesn’t see that as an issue with a playoff game against the defending B.C. Football Conference champions now less than two weeks away.

“I don’t see that being an issue, “he said. “But saying that and doing that are two different things.”

The Raiders will slow things down in practice this week, working on fun-damentals and staying in shape before ramping up next week in preparation for the Rams. Erdman said the Raiders won’t be changing much — they’ve already beat the Rams twice this season.

“If it aint broke, don’t fix it, type of thing,” he said. “We’re just going to have to stick our same game plan of being disciplined, hungry, running to the football and stopping the big play.

“On offence, we’re going to have to tweak some things with our protection and move the quarterback around a little bit and get him to get rid of the ball a little bit quicker. We’ve taken way too many sacks this season, and we’ve got to improve that if we want to go very far at all.”

In the other BCFC playoff game next weekend, the Okanagan Sun host the Kamloops Broncos.

Scott.McKenzie


250-729-4243

Fast Facts: Nanaimo Clippers

◆ Weekend scores

Friday: Coquitlam 2 @ Nanaimo 4

Saturday: Vernon 2 @ Nanaimo 5

◆ Record: 6-3-0-0

◆ Next: Friday @ Vernon

◆ Team Leaders (Goals, Assists, Points)

1. Sheldon Rempal (7-13-20)

2. Devin Brosseau (2-15-17)

3. Matt Hoover (9-6-15)

4. Yanni Kaldis (3-6-9)

5. Corey Renwick (2-4-6)

◆ Island Standings (W-L-T-OTL-Pts)

1. Powell River (7-2-0-0-14)

2. Nanaimo (6-3-0-0-12)

3. Cowichan Valley (4-2-1-1-10)

4. Alberni Valley (2-6-0-0-4)

5. Victoria (1-6-0-1-3)

SOURCE: BCHL

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily SPORTS 21TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015

◆ MARTIAL ARTS

Island Top Team picks up numerous medals

Robert Biernacki and Shane Mal-one of Island Top Team martial arts competed in the North American Grappling Association champion-ships Saturday and returned with three goldmedals.

Malone dominated the purple-belt ‘gi’ division and in the expert ‘nogi’ division, with all wins coming by submission.

Biernacki, a black belt, won gold in the ‘gi’ division.

Although, he did find himself in a tight battle in the championship match.

“I found myself down 4-2 on points with about 30 seconds left and man-aged to set up a jumping triangle choke, which I fought hard to adjust, following Shane’s excellent corner advice, which worked brilliantly as my opponent tapped out with five seconds left in the match,” Biernacki said.

It was Biernacki’s second cham-pionship at the Seattle competiton.

Island Top Team (based out of the Nanaimo Athletic Club) competitors also had successful events in Victoria.

Jer Kornelsen, who just received his blue belt last week, won his ‘gi’ blue belt division, and went on to win the ‘gi’ open division as well. Phil Oweis, a white belt, competed in a nine-man round robin open ‘nogi’ division, and took silver.

◆ JUNIOR B HOCKEY

Buccaneers bounce back to beat Comox Valley 4-3

After a 4-1 loss to the Victoria Cou-gars Thursday at home, the Nanaimo Buccaneers bounced back Saturday to beat the Comox Valley Glacier Kings 4-3 on the road.

The Bucs went up 3-1 in the first period on goals fron Clayton Peace, Nolan Richardson and a powerplay marker from Will McNamara.

Coleman Doney also scored for Nanaimo in the second period to give his team a 4-1 lead.

The Glacier Kings scored twice more, but couldn’t get the tying goal.

Doney finished with a goal and an assist while Nanaimo goalie Alex Orth stopped 27 of the 30 shots he faced for the win.

Comox had goals from Grayden McInnes, Sheldon Brett and Liam Nijhoff.

The second-place Bucs are next in action Thursday when they host the first-place Campbell River Storm at 7:15 p.m. at the Nanaimo Ice Centre.

◆ COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Mariners drop exhibition game to ABA ‘Balloholics’

The Vancouver Island University Mariners men’s basketball team lost 100-92 on Sunday to the Balloholics of the American Basketball Associ-ation in an exhibition game.

The Mariners, who play their home opener Oct. 30 against the Camosun Chargers, next play a doubleheader with Eastern Oregon University on Oct. 16 and 17.

SPORTS BRIEFSCompiled by Daily News

NHL

Canucks follow their own advice, fi nally

Henrik Sedin had heard it all before, so you could pardon the Canucks’ captain, and

just about every veteran in the locker room along with every fan in B.C., for stifling a yawn when the organ-ization solemnly declared it would make room for younger players this season.

“You hear every year about guys coming in and getting a chance but (they) never follow through on that,” Sedin said on a fairly eventful Mon-day for the Canucks. “It’s always the same guys who get sent down.”

Except this year the script changed. This year the Trevor Linden-Jim Ben-ning management tandem lived up to its pledge.

In a move that was crucial to the credibility of the franchise, the Can-ucks shocked this marketplace by opting to keep 19-year-old forward Jake Virtanen, 19-year-old forward Jared McCann and 22-year-old defenceman Ben Hutton on their opening-day roster.

The sum total of NHL experience for those three players is, roughly, zero games — which makes this a risky venture.

But who cares? The Canucks had to do something to shake the trees and, taken collectively, this has the poten-tial to alter the course of a franchise that was struggling to hold its place in the Western Conference and the interest of its following.

“They deserve to be here,” said Lin-den, the team president. “Everyone saw it. We had to make some tough decisions.”

In this case, it’s a happy coinci-dence they were the right decisions.

There might have been safer decisions. There might have been more expedient decisions. But those decisions would have been wrong

because, based on the evidence of training camp, there isn’t a rational person who could argue that Virtan-en, McCann and Hutton didn’t out-perform the competition.

Where they’ll be a month from now is another question for another time but, in the here and now, this is where they deserve to be and it would have been difficult for the organization to say they operate as a meritocracy while dispatching the three kids to other outposts.

The cost, one supposes, is a con-sideration. Frank Corrado has given the Canucks three years of service and was thought to have earned a roster spot this season. But Hutton took that spot away with a superior performance on the blue-line.

As for Linden Vey, rugged veteran Adam Cracknell represented an infinitely better fit as a fourth-liner and McCann was the better player in camp. That Vey cost the organ-ization a second-round draft pick is concerning, but not as concerning as handing him a place in the lineup he

didn’t earn. No, in the end this was pretty simple, but that didn’t make it any less impactful. With Chris Hig-gins sidelined by injury, there will be nights in the early going where all three of the kids will be in the lineup and there will be no place to hide. That means the Canucks will know soon enough if they can handle the relentless demands of playing in the NHL, and Linden said the organiza-tion is prepared for that eventuality.

“If we determine it’s not the right fit after five (games), we’ll make that decision then. Conversely, if they look good at nine games (the “free” look before a contract year is burned) we’ll make that decision.

“But I wouldn’t get too caught up in the nine games. You saw what happened with (heralded Oilers rook-ie Leon) Draisaitl last year.”

Draisaitl played 37 games with the Oilers before he was sent back to the WHL.

So, again, it circles back to the same place, a question of merit. There were other considerations,

most notably a fan base that was clamouring for change, and Linden admitted that was factored into the equation.

But he also said: “You do things for the right reasons,” and that was the more powerful message sent on Mon-day. The Canucks had three young players who brought an energy, a sense of excitement to the team and its fans. They were in a position to start integrating younger players into their lineup. They brought a different look and feel to a group that was starting to grow stale.

All that is true and it can’t be dis-counted. But these moves weren’t made for optics or to appease the faithful. They were made because Vir-tanen, McCann and Hutton earned their places in the lineup.

“They’ve shown up and they look ready,” said Henrik Sedin. “It’s time for them.”

And that’s about time for the Canucks.

[email protected]

Vancouver Canucks rookie Jared McCann, left, and Edmonton Oilers rookie Connor McDavid skate during the first period

of a pre-season NHL game in Vancouver on Saturday. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

Ed Willes

The Province

Young players not just lucky: DesjardinsJOSHUA CLIPPERTON THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER — Jared McCann and Jake Virtanen spent a nervous Sun-day waiting to learn their immediate fate with the Vancouver Canucks.

“It was tough,” said McCann. “We were sitting there watching the baseball game, sweating a little bit. It definitely wasn’t an easy time.”

The 19-year-old forwards could exhale, at least a little, on Monday after being told they will be staying with Canucks to start the season.

“Still trying to soak it in right now,” said Virtanen. “It’s pretty exciting.”

Virtanen, the sixth overall pick in 2014, and McCann, who was taken 18 spots later, had strong performances in training camp and during the exhibition schedule with two goals and two assists each in six games.

Vancouver also decided to keep another rookie, 22-year-old defence-man Ben Hutton, with the big club ahead of Wednesday’s opener in Cal-gary against the Flames.

“You don’t just get lucky,” said Canucks head coach Willie Desjar-dins. “There’s no luck. You get what you deserve ... those guys are ready, they’re good players.”

With veteran winger Chris Higgins out with a broken foot, 30-year-old Adam Cracknell also made the team, likely on the fourth line.

The Canucks still have a bit of wig-gle room with Virtanen and McCann if things don’t work out early in the season. Both are too young to play in the AHL and their only option is being returned to junior, but they won’t have the first year of their entry-level contracts burned until each plays a 10th NHL game.

It’s not something the team is focusing on, but the players are well aware they still have lots to prove.

“It’s in the back of our minds,” said Virtanen. “We still have to make this team and guys are pushing for jobs still.”

Hutton, who could have been sent to the AHL without having to clear waivers, was a relative unknown coming into camp after a strong rookie tournament in mid-Septem-ber. A fifth-round pick back in 2012 who played three years at the Uni-versity of Maine, Hutton showed he belonged on a team that was looking to add some speed and creativity in defence.

“I had no idea I would be here at this point, I’m going to be complete-ly honest,” Hutton with a big grin.

“But I am and I’m happy so I’m just going to keep rolling with it.”

To make room for McCann, Virtan-en, Hutton and Cracknell, the Can-ucks placed forward Linden Vey and defencemen Frank Corrado and Alex Biega on waivers.

Desjardins said cutting Vey and Corrado was especially difficult.

“I feel for those guys. It’s hard. When we wrote up our lineup in the summer both guys were on the team. That’s where we felt they’d be,” said Desjardins. “They didn’t have bad camps, it’s that other people had real good camps.”

The Canucks could lose all three on the waiver wire ahead of assigning them to the AHL, with Corrado and Vey the biggest risks. The 24-year-old Vey had 10 goals and 14 assists in his first full NHL season with the Can-ucks in 2014-15 after being acquired from the Los Angeles Kings for a second-round pick.


CFL

Lions rediscover some fun in their winPass play between Jonathan Jennings, Austin Collie put the icing on the cake in their victory on Saturday

MIKE BEAMISH VANCOUVER SUN

Austin Collie fancies himself as something of a quarterback. Since joining the B.C. Lions this season, the former NFL receiver has been beseeching head coach Jeff Tedford to give him a shot to throw the ball.

On Saturday, he finally got it.With the Lions ahead 33-5 and

scrimmaging from the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 21-yard line following an interception by defensive tackle Mic’hael Brooks, the Lions decided to go with a trick play that had failed miserably in practice.

Quarterback Jon Jennings, who’d already thrown for four touchdowns, broke the huddle. But, in a bow toward the Wildcat formation, centre Jason Foster’s snap went directly to running back Andrew Harris. Harris sprinted left, then pitched the ball to Collie, going right on the reverse.

As calmly as Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, two former teammates he had a chance to study up close, Collie then fired a perfect 21-yard touchdown pass to Jennings, who had drifted into the Roughriders’ secondary.

The play was supposed to have caught the Roughriders by surprise. The fact that they sensed what was happening — two defenders had converged on Jennings — made the accomplishment that much more exacting in its execution.

“Fans always enjoy those kinds of plays. And so do the players,” Tedford

explained Sunday, after reviewing the game film. “When we scored, the linemen were as happy as anybody. It’s fun. We work on them in prac-tice, so why not be successful at it? Austin’s been telling us for weeks. ‘I can throw.’ He made a great throw. Any time we have guys with that type of skill set, we like to see if they can do it. It’s pretty evident that he can.”

Jennings deservedly got most of the plaudits. All the rookie did was

complete 19 of his 25 throws for 364 yards to seven different receivers in the Lions’ 46-20 blowout of the Riders. Not bad for a 23-year-old quarterback making his second pro-fessional start.

Collie, returning to the lineup after missing two games, had just one touch in the game but he made it count. He finished the evening with an astronomical passer rating of 506.3, a completion percentage

of 100 and a career milestone with which to entertain his grandkids one day.

“I’ve done that a little bit before,” explained Collie, who was an All-American wide receiver with the BYU Cougars. “I threw one in college, but it got picked off. That was my first touchdown throw in the pros.”

Indeed, he had attempted a varia-tion of the same play three times in his three-year college career, the first with John Beck, the former Lion, as his quarterback when Collie was a freshman receiver at BYU. It ended up being intercepted by Utah’s Eric Weddle, now a five-time All-Pro free safety with the San Diego Chargers.

As a sophomore and junior (he declared for the NFL draft follow-ing his junior year), Collie also attempted passes that failed to con-nect, though it was not for lack of skill. Coach Bronco Mendenhall even had him practising with the Cougars quarterbacks, but he had much more success as a catcher than as a pitch-er. In 2008, Collie led the nation in reception yards (1,538), per-game average (118.3) and had 11 straight games of least 100 yards, tying him with Michael Crabtree of Texas Tech as the best in the country.

“The funny thing is, in practice, he (Collie) was throwing perfect balls (in rehearsing the pitch-reverse play) and I dropped them every time,” Jen-nings said. “This time it just kind of worked out.”

Not that they will attempt it again,

at least for some time. The surprise element is over. But the fact that the Lions’ offence took a fling on the wildside, veering away from convention and adding a funky twist, had the fans going bonkers. And isn’t that what it’s about? Entertainment?

“You want to have some variety with your offence,” Jennings said. “You’re not trying to be one-dimen-sional. Keeping the run game intact (Andrew Harris had his first 100-yardgame since Aug. 6), getting the ball into (Chris) Rainey’s hands some-times (he had two catches for 57 yards), trying a trick play, it keeps the defences honest. We’ll probably have something else in our back pocket going forward.”

Jennings’ play in his first two starts— six touchdown passes, one Praise Jesus interception on the final play, 645 passing yards, a 6.0-yard rushingaverage — hasn’t just caused the hearts of Lions’ fans to quicken. No one in the organization is more takenby his sudden arrival than Collie, the infrequent thrower.

“He’s (Jennings) phenomenal. The kid can play, for sure,” Collie said. “He’s well beyond his years. He’s a great player, strong arm. He did a wonderful job of making plays, extending plays with his feet.”

Still, whenever the coaches need somebody to throw in a wrinkle, Col-lie wants them to know he can.

They do now.

[email protected]

B.C. Lions quarterback Jonathon Jennings passes against the Saskatchewan

Roughriders’ during a CFL game in Vancouver on Saturday. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

NHLRaffi Torres suspended 41 games for hitSTEPHEN WHYNO THE CANADIAN PRESS

The NHL handed out one of its longest suspensions for on-ice con-duct in league history by banning San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres 41 games for an illegal hit to the head of Anaheim Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg.

Torres is one of the worst head-shot offenders in recent years, since the Department of Player Safety began cracking down on them.

It’s the fifth suspension for Torres. He has also been fined three times and warned twice in 703 games, according to director of player safety Patrick Burke, who narrated the sus-pension video.

Torres had already been suspended for hits to the head of Jordan Eberle (April 2011), Nate Prosser (December 2011), Marian Hossa (April 2012) and Jarret Stoll (2013).

Silfverberg was his latest victim when Torres lined up the Swede dur-ing Saturday night’s pre-season game and drove his left shoulder upwards into his head. Silfverberg left for precautionary reasons but was con-sidered OK.

Torres was almost a full second late on the hit after Silfverberg was stripped of the puck. He will forfeit US$440,860.29 in salary as a result of the suspension.

This suspension is 11 games longer than the one given to Chris Simon in 2007 for stomping on the ankle of Jarkko Ruutu.

Torres’s previous high was 25 games for the hit on Hossa in the 2012 playoffs.

Marty McSorley was banned for a year in 2000 and wound up serving 23 games for his stick to the head of Donald Brashear, while Todd Ber-tuzzi served 20 games for attacking Steve Moore from behind in 2004.

Torres’s suspension flies in the face

of a positive trend for the NHL. Sus-pensions were down 49 per cent last season from 2011-12, the first year Brendan Shanahan was in charge of the Department of Player Safety. That department is now headed by Stephane Quintal.

“The players are getting it,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said last week in his New York office. “We’re paying attention to this.”

Torres is more the exception than the rule when it comes to NHL discipline. Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly credit the league’s rookie symposium along with educational and other videos for the progress.

“You can take a look at a game today and compare it to a game that was played five years ago and you’d see a night and day difference in terms of just the safeness of the environment out on the ice,” Daly said by phone recently. “I think it’s a safer game today than it was five years ago.”

Injuries and suspensions are down, which makes Torres’s infraction stand out even more.

Technically he was not considered a repeat offender because he hadn’t been fined or suspended within the past 18 months. Torres played in only 15 games since being suspended for hitting Stoll.

Zach Kassian sent to rehab without payTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BROSSARD, Que. — Montreal Canadiens forward Zack Kassian has entered a substance abuse program after being involved in a motor vehicle accident.

Kassian, 24, was placed in “Stage Two of the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program,” accord-ing to Monday’s statement from the NHL and NHL Players Association. He is suspended without pay until he is cleared for on-ice competition by the program administrators.

Earlier in the day, Canadiens gen-eral manager Marc Bergevin said Kassian showed a “lack of character” when he was involved in the acci-dent. Kassian broke his nose and left foot in the crash early Sunday morning in Montreal. Two women with him in the vehicle also suffered non-life threatening injuries.

“I don’t have all the information, but it’s disappointing to say the least,” Bergevin said. “I addressed the whole team this morning.

“We are professional and we have to behave like professionals.”

The NHL has suspended Raffi Torres 41 games for an illegal check to the head to

Anaheim Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]


MLB

Blue Jays have a few decisions to make for their 25-man playoff rosterSTEPHEN WHYNO THE CANADIAN PRESS

Since late July the Toronto Blue Jays have shown they can dominate regular-season baseball, going 43-18 down the stretch.

With the post-season here, it’s on the management and coaching staff to construct a 25-man roster that they hope can win first three games out of five in their American League Division Series, then four out of sev-en the rest of the way.

At least 21 spots are accounted for among the starting rotation, bullpen, lineup and key contributors off the bench. Before Game 1 of the ALDS against the Texas Rangers, the Blue Jays have to finalize the last few and beyond that decide on their order of pitchers.

“We have the bulk of it set, just some areas, bench, the last few spots in the pen, things like that,” general manager Alex Anthopoulos said Sat-urday in St. Petersburg, Fla. “Only 25 guys can come with us, or at least can be active, so you’re going to have discussions.”

Anthopoulos said the Blue Jays would likely go with a seven-man bullpen, which, with a four-man rotation, gives them 14 hitters. Assuming utility infielder Cliff Pennington makes it because of his versatility in the field and as a switch-hitter, that leaves two more spots.

Outfielder Ezequiel Carrera appeared in 90 regular-season games and Anthopoulos said he could be used as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner. He’s a good bet along with outfielder Dalton Pompey, who

like the Kansas City Royals’ Jerome Dyson last season could be a speed specialist.

“We’ve got a guy like Dalton here who’s done a good job with speed, trying to steal a base for us,” Antho-poulos said.

Other long shots include infielder Munenori Kawasaki, who can also pinch-run, or even power first base-man Matt Hague, who would be the only true right-handed pinch-hitter available.

In the bullpen, there are six locks: closer Roberto Osuna, right-handers Aaron Sanchez, LaTroy Hawkins,

Mark Lowe and Liam Hendriks and left-hander Brett Cecil. The final job appears to be between righty Ryan Tepera and lefty Aaron Loup, though starter Drew Hutchison might have a chance as a long reliever.

Loup would give the Blue Jays a second lefty, which could be useful in certain situations late in games. But Anthopoulos isn’t concerned if Toronto goes in with just Cecil, par-tially because Loup has hit so many left-handed batters.

“We have guys like LaTroy Hawkins who’s been pretty good against left-handers as well,” Anthopoulos said.

“More so than right/left, it’s who has had more success against what side. If we feel we have seven guys that are all right-handers, but (if) we feel they can get left-handers out, we’ll go with that.”

Tepera struggled in mop-up duty during the Blue Jays’ regular-sea-son-ending 12-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, while Loup — used very sparingly — hasn’t given up an earned run since August. Asked if any reliever tipped the scales in the final series, manager John Gibbons said the club had a pretty good idea going in what it wanted to do.

Toronto Blue Jay Dalton Pompey crosses home plate with the game-tying run past Tampa Rays catcher Rene Rivera during

an American League game in Toronto on Sept. 27. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

Close call in Cy Young race, but MVPs easy to chooseMIKE FITZPATRICK THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Here’s how stacked the NL Cy Young race is: Max Scher-zer struck out 276 batters with a 2.79 ERA and became the first major leaguer in 42 years to throw two no-hitters in one season.

Those credentials might be good enough to challenge Gerrit Cole for fourth place.

In a season filled with pitching performances for the ages, Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke and perennial contender Clayton Kershaw headline one of the deepest Cy Young fields in decades. Over in the American League, playoff-bound lefties Dallas Keuchel and David Price are nip-and-tuck, too.

So with Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson clear-cut MVPs, this time it’s the men on the mound who require that extra-close look as the Baseball Writers’ Association of America picks its major prize winners.

Greinke had a 1.30 ERA on July 25 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and his scoreless streak ended the next day at 45 2/3 innings — longest in the majors since Orel Hershiser’s big league record of 59 in 1988. The right-hander appeared well on his way to National League honours after winning the AL Cy Young Award in 2009 with Kansas City.

Then, incredibly, Arrieta caught up.Finally harnessing his ample

potential, the new Chicago Cubs ace put together perhaps the greatest second half of any pitcher in history. His 0.75 ERA after the All-Star break was the lowest ever, and he won his final 11 decisions to finish 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA, topping the majors in wins.

Arrieta exceeded Greinke (19-3) by 6 1/3 innings and fanned 36 more batters. Kershaw, not to be forgot-ten, led the league in both those categories and compiled a whopping 301 strikeouts to 236 for Arrieta. The Dodgers’ lefty became the first pitch-er to reach 300 since Arizona’s Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2002.

Kershaw wound up 16-7 with a 2.13 ERA.

His teammate, Greinke, led the majors at 1.66 — lowest by a quali-fying pitcher since Greg Maddux’s mark of 1.63 for Atlanta in 1995. That halted an unprecedented run by Kershaw of four consecutive major league ERA titles, a huge reason he won three of the past four NL Cy Young Awards and was selected league MVP last year.

“You look at the numbers and oh my God, they’re right there,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said.

“All three guys. Innings pitched, batting average against, WHIPs, strikeouts.

“I mean it’s like, holy cow.”

MLB sees slight attendance rise


NEW YORK — Major League Base-ball averaged 30,517 fans at games this season, up slightly from the previous two years and the sport’s seventh-highest mark.

The average was up from last year’s 30,454 and was the most since 30,985 in 2012, the commissioner’s office said Monday. The average peaked at 32,785 in 2007, before the Great Recession.

Total attendance was 74.76 million, an increase of 30,000; there were four fewer dates this season.

The Los Angeles Dodgers drew 3.76 million and led in home attend-ance for the third straight season. The New York Yankees drew 3.4 mil-lion and topped the AL for the 13th consecutive year.

The Toronto Blue Jays drew 2.79 million, good for fourth in the AL and eighth in the majors, and averaged 34,504 fans a game. The team says it sold out 20 of its 21 home games.

Nationals fi re manager WilliamsHOWARD FENDRICH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — In describing what he will look for in a manager to replace Matt Williams, Washington Nationals GM Mike Rizzo might have been pointing out exactly what he felt went wrong with the man he hired two years ago and fired Monday.

“Leadership qualities, knowledge of the game, X’s and O’s are all important. Communication in the clubhouse, communication within the coaching staff, is vital,” Rizzo said during a telephone conference call. “Experience is always helpful. It always adds a layer of expertise to anybody’s resume. We feel that where we’re at in our timetable of winning a championship, we certainly would lean toward someone that has some type of managerial experience, espe-cially at the major league level.”

Williams, of course, did not, but he had a history with Rizzo. And while Williams was voted NL Manager of the Year for his rookie season in 2014, he is now out of a job because the Nationals failed to make the playoffs after entering the season with World

Series aspirations.Rizzo delivered the news to Wil-

liams in the Nationals Park manager’s office the morning after Washington finished the regular season barely above .500 at 83-79, seven games behind the New York Mets in the NL East.

“This entire season was a disappoint-ment,” Rizzo said.

“It was not our best year. It wasn’t Matt’s best year. It wasn’t my best year. As an organization, it wasn’t our best year.”

In February, the Nationals exercised

Williams’ 2016 contract option. But he presided over a 2015 season filled with defeats, discord and a dugout dustup between NL MVP front-runner Bryce Harper and teammate Jonathan Papelbon during a game the day after the team was eliminated from playoff contention.

Williams said he had no idea of the extent of the skirmish until much later in the day. Even though he was, of course, in the dugout at the time, Williams said he hadn’t been aware of exactly what happened — including that Papelbon grabbed Harper by the throat. None of his players or coaches told him about it right away, and he said he hadn’t asked to know more.

“Not one single incident was the tip-ping point of making a decision with Matt Williams,” Rizzo said.

The Nationals also said they will not renew the contracts of the seven members of Williams’ staff: bench coach Randy Knorr, pitching coach Steve McCatty, hitting coach Rick Schu, third base coach Bobby Henley, first base coach Tony Tarasco, bullpen coach Matt LeCroy, and defensive co-ordinator Mark Weidemaier.

WILLIAMS

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September 29 - October 7, 2015Schedules are subject to change without notice.

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◆ TENNIS

Bouchard retires from opening match at China Open with dizziness

A teary-eyed Eugenie Bouchard retired from her opening match against Andrea Petkovic at the China Open due to dizziness on Monday, her first match since falling at the U.S. Open last month and suffering a concussion. Bouchard slipped in the locker room after her third-round win against Dominika Cibulkova at the U.S. Open, falling backward and landing on the back of her head. She was forced to withdraw from the tournament, as well as subsequent tournaments in Tokyo and Wuhan. The Canadian was trailing 6-2, 1-1 against Petkovic on Monday when she decided to call it quits.

Petkovic said after the match that Bouchard told her she felt very dizzy and that the effects of the concus-sion tend to “come back when she gets physically very active.”

◆ NHL

From crowded crease, Ramo named Calgary Flames starter for opener

The man who finished last season in the Calgary Flames’ net has been given the nod to start this season.

Flames head coach Bob Hartley named Karri Ramo his opening-day starter, but that settles just one ques-tion about Calgary’s goaltending situation.

The 29-year-old Finn will play Wednesday’s opener at home against the Vancouver Canucks with Jonas Hill-er backing him up. Ramo made 44 saves in Calgary’s final game last spring — a 3-2 overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks in Game 5 of their Western Confer-ence semifinal.

◆ NFL

Dolphins fi re head coach Joe Philbin four games into his fourth season

Joe Philbin was fired Monday four games into his fourth season as coach of the Miami Dolphins, and one day after a flop on an international stage that helped to seal his fate.

Tight ends coach Dan Campbell, who has been with the Dolphins since 2010, was promoted to interim coach. He has no previous head coaching experience.

“I’m not here just to finish the season up,” Campbell said. “That’s not my plan. We’re coming here to win.”

SPORTS BRIEFSCompiled by Daily News

NHL PREVIEW

‘You never know’ might as well be slogan for the seasonFans should expect the unexpected as NHL teams set for opening games

STEPHEN WHYNO THE CANADIAN PRESS

No one thought the Boston Bruins and Los Angeles Kings, the defending Pres-idents’ Trophy and

Stanley Cup winners, would miss the playoffs last season. Cer-tainly not the Bruins and Kings themselves.

Few expected the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames to make the playoffs or the Ottawa Senators to make a late-season run to get in. Yet this is the topsy-turvy world the NHL has become.

“It’s very humbling,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said. “That’s what makes this league so unique and such a very com-petitive league knowing that the year before you could be in the semis, you could be in finals of Stanley Cup and then all of a sudden you are battling for a playoff spot the next season.”

The same is true this NHL season in what could be the most unpredictable in 10 years. Just like 2005-06 there are rules that can change the game and enough roster turnover to make the playoff race and Cup conten-tion wide open.

The defending Cup-champion Chicago Blackhawks have the Patrick Kane situation hanging over them and lost several key contributors as part of another salary-cap crunch. The Eastern

Conference-champion Tampa Bay Lightning look formidable with all their stars back, but with captain Steven Stamkos unsigned beyond this season, there’s a substantial unknown.

Throw in that seven of the 16 playoff teams in 2014-15 didn’t make it the previous year, then strap in because anything can happen before the playoffs even start.

“That’s the beauty of our sport, really,” Stamkos said. “You throw Boston and L.A. into the playoff picture, some people might pick them to win it just because they’re playoff style teams. It’s pretty crazy when you think of it like that.”

Crazy is just how the NHL likes it. Commissioner Gary Bettman rolled off the stats in recent years and said, “Isn’t that awesome?”

“This is what we envisioned,” Bettman said. “You’re seeing suspense, excitement, unpredict-ability. That’s what’s making it entertaining.”

As Kings centre Anze Kopitar pointed out, the regular sea-son “can get quite long.” The 82-game marathon often looks

pointless in light of the playoff sprint, but Los Angeles and Bos-ton learned all too much that it matters. The Blackhawks, who have won the Cup three times in six years, have figured out how to navigate the regular season and still peak in the playoffs. Los Angeles, which won in 2012 and 2014, is now without defence-man Slava Voynov, winger Jus-tin Williams and others, with big Milan Lucic among those replacing them as the Kings try to follow the Blackhawks’ lead.

“Obviously that’s a fine, fine line and it’s very hard to do,” Kopitar said “Even pacing your-self sometimes is not very good because when the playoffs roll around, you can’t pace yourself there.

It’s a fine line, and you just have to balance it as best as you can, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Things worked for the Flames and Jets last season when they got to the playoffs ahead of schedule. That also gives the Connor McDavid-led Edmonton Oilers hope that the same can happen to end their post-season drought.

Said centre Ryan Nugent-Hop-kins: “You see it all the time where teams don’t expect to make the playoffs or don’t even expect to be close and it just happens, whether it’s just the team dynamic, the guys in the room or different things just

come together at the right time.”

Edmonton is still a long shot to get to the playoffs, especially in a brutal West that includes no fewer than five legitimate Cup contenders in the Blackhawks, Kings, Anaheim Ducks, St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild. In the East, the Lightning will be challenged by the New York Ran-gers, Montreal Canadiens, Wash-ington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh added Phil Kessel from the Toronto Maple Leafs to play with either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.

“Hopefully they can’t figure it out, either,” Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews said. “If they do, then we’re all in trouble. But that’s an overdose of skill there.”

Chicago lost a lot of skill by trading Brandon Saad and Pat-rick Sharp and losing Johnny Oduya in free agency. Toews said “we’ve been through worse,” and the influx of young players like Artemi Panarin and Viktor Tikhonov gives reason to believe the Blackhawks can rebound quickly.

“We could surprise a lot of teams this year with some of our speed that we’ve acquired and got into our lineup,” Conn Smythe Trophy-winning defenceman Duncan Keith said. “You never know.”

“You never know” might as well be the slogan for the 2015-16 season.

“That’s the beauty of our sport, really.“

Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay

Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Johnston, center, stands behind Sidney Crosby (87), and Phil Kessel (81) during the first period of an

exhibition NHL hockey game against Carolina Hurricanes in Pittsburgh. [AP PHOTO]

MLBAMERICAN LEAGUEFINAL STANDINGS

EAST DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayy-Toronto 93 69 .574 — — 6-4 L-2 53-28 40-41x-New York 87 75 .537 6 — 3-7 L-3 45-36 42-39Baltimore 81 81 .500 12 5 5-5 W-5 47-31 34-50Tampa Bay 80 82 .494 13 6 6-4 W-2 42-42 38-40Boston 78 84 .481 15 8 6-4 L-4 43-38 35-46

CENTRAL DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayz-Kansas City 95 67 .586 — — 6-4 W-5 51-30 44-37Minnesota 83 79 .512 12 3 5-5 L-3 46-35 37-44Cleveland 81 80 .503 131/2 41/2 6-4 W-3 39-41 42-39Chicago 76 86 .469 19 10 4-6 L-1 40-41 36-45Detroit 74 87 .460 201/2 111/2 4-6 W-1 38-43 36-44

WEST DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayy-Texas 88 74 .543 — — 5-5 W-1 43-38 45-36x-Houston 86 76 .531 2 — 6-4 L-1 53-28 33-48Los Angeles 85 77 .525 3 1 7-3 L-1 49-32 36-45Seattle 76 86 .469 12 10 2-8 W-1 36-45 40-41Oakland 68 94 .420 20 18 4-6 L-1 34-47 34-47x — clinched wild card berth; y — clinched division title; z — clinched league title.

Tampa Bay 12 Baltimore 9 N.Y. Yankees 4Arizona 5 Houston 3Texas 9 L.A. Angels 2

Seattle 3 Oakland 2Cleveland 3 Boston 1Kansas City 6 Minnesota 1Detroit 6 Chicago White Sox 0END OF REGULAR SEASON

Atlanta 6-2 St. Louis 0-0 (DH)Arizona 5 Houston 3Philadelphia 7 Miami 2Colorado 7 San Francisco 3

Chicago Cubs 3 Milwaukee 1N.Y. Mets 1 Washington 0Pittsburgh 4 Cincinnati 0L.A. Dodgers 6 San Diego 3END OF REGULAR SEASON

NATIONAL LEAGUEFINAL STANDINGS

EAST DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayy-New York 90 72 .556 — — 5-5 W-1 49-32 41-40Washington 83 79 .512 7 14 5-5 L-1 46-35 37-44Miami 71 91 .438 19 26 6-4 L-1 41-40 30-51Atlanta 67 95 .414 23 30 6-4 W-3 42-39 25-56Philadelphia 63 99 .389 27 34 6-4 W-1 37-44 26-55

CENTRAL DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayz-St. Louis 100 62 .617 — — 4-6 L-3 55-26 45-36x-Pittsburgh 98 64 .605 2 — 6-4 W-1 53-28 45-36x-Chicago 97 65 .599 3 — 8-2 W-8 49-32 48-33Milwaukee 68 94 .420 32 29 4-6 L-4 34-47 34-47Cincinnati 64 98 .395 36 33 1-9 L-1 34-47 30-51

WEST DIVISION W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home Awayy-Los Angeles 92 70 .568 — — 5-5 W-4 55-26 37-44San Francisco 84 78 .519 8 13 5-5 L-1 47-34 37-44Arizona 79 83 .488 13 18 6-4 W-1 39-42 40-41San Diego 74 88 .457 18 23 3-7 L-3 39-42 35-46Colorado 68 94 .420 24 29 5-5 W-1 36-45 32-49

x — clinched wild card berth; y — clinched division title; z — clinched league title.

AL PLAYOFFSWILD CARD

Houston (Keuchel 20-8) at New York (Tanaka 12-7), 8:08 p.m. (ESPN)

DIVISION(Best-of-5 series)

KANSAS CITY VS. N.Y.-HOUSTON WINNER

New York-Houston winner at Kansas City, 7:37 or 8:07 p.m. (FS1)

NY-Houston winner at KC, 3:45 pm (FS1)

KC at NY-Houston winner, 4:10 pm (MLBN)

x-Kansas City at New York-Houston winner, TBA (FOX or FS1)

x-NY-Houston winner at Kansas City, TBA

TORONTO VS. TEXAS

Texas (Gallardo 13-11) at , 3:37 or 4:07 p.m. (FS1)

Texas (Hamels 7-1) at , 12:45 p.m. (MLBN)

at Texas, 8:10 p.m. (FS1)

x- at Texas (FOX or FS1)

x-Texas at (FOX or FS1)

NL PLAYOFFSWILD CARD

Chicago (Arrieta 22-6) at Pittsburgh (Cole 19-8), 8:08 p.m. (TBS)

DIVISION(Best-of-5 series)

ST. LOUIS VS. PITTSBURGH-CHI. WINNER

Pittsburgh-Chicago winner at St. Louis, 6:45 p.m.

Pittsburgh-Chicago winner at St. Louis, 5:37 p.m.

St. Louis at Pittsburgh-Chicago winner

x-St. Louis at Pittsburgh-Chicago winner

x-Pittsburgh-Chicago winner at St. Louis

LOS ANGELES VS. NEW YORK

New York (deGrom 14-8) at Los Angeles, 9:45 p.m.

New York (Syndergaard 9-7) at Los Angeles, 9:07 p.m.

Los Angeles at New York (Harvey 13-8)

x-Los Angeles at New York

x-New York at Los Angeles

RUNS SCORED

Trout, LA, 104; Machado, Bal, 102; Dozier, Min, 101; Cain, KC, 101; Davis, Bal, 100; Hosmer, KC, 98; Eaton, Chi, 98; .

Davis, Bal, 117;

Trout, LA, .590;

RUNS SCOREDHarper, Was, 118; Pollock, Ari, 111; Goldschmidt, Ari, 103; Fowler, Chi, 102; Carpenter, StL, 101; Granderson, NY, 98; Arenado, Col, 97; Votto, Cin, 95.

Arenado, Col, 130; Goldschmidt, Ari, 110; Rizzo, Chi, 101; Kemp, SD, 100; Harper, Was, 99; Bryant, Chi, 99; Gonzalez, Col, 97.

Harper, Was, .649; Arenado, Col, .575.

REGULAR SEASONMontreal at Toronto, 7 p.m.N.Y. Rangers at Chicago, 8 p.m.Vancouver at Calgary, 10 p.m.San Jose at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

Winnipeg at Boston, 7 p.m.Ottawa at Buffalo, 7 p.m.Philadelphia at Tampa Bay, 7:30 p.m.Edmonton at St. Louis, 8 p.m.Carolina at Nashville, 8 p.m.Pittsburgh at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.Minnesota at Colorado, 9 p.m.

Winnipeg at New Jersey, 7 p.m.N.Y. Rangers at Columbus, 7 p.m.Toronto at Detroit, 7:30 p.m.Chicago at N.Y. Islanders, 7:30 p.m.Arizona at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

Tampa Bay at Buffalo, 1 p.m.Montreal at Boston, 7 p.m.Ottawa at Toronto, 7 p.m.Philadelphia at Florida, 7 p.m.Columbus at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.New Jersey at Washington, 7 p.m.Detroit at Carolina, 7 p.m.Edmonton at Nashville, 7 p.m.St. Louis at Minnesota, 8 p.m.N.Y. Islanders at Chicago, 8:30 p.m.Dallas at Colorado, 9 p.m.Calgary at Vancouver, 10 p.m.Pittsburgh at Arizona, 10 p.m.Anaheim at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.

Montreal at Ottawa, 7 p.m.

Tampa Bay at Boston, 1 p.m.Winnipeg at N.Y. Islanders, 1 p.m.Columbus at Buffalo, 3 p.m.Florida at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.Vancouver at Anaheim, 10 p.m.

Nashville at New Jersey, 7 p.m.Winnipeg at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m.Montreal at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.San Jose at Washington, 7 p.m.Florida at Carolina, 7 p.m.Tampa Bay at Detroit, 7:30 p.m.Edmonton at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.St. Louis at Calgary, 9 p.m.Vancouver at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

BCHLINTERIOR DIVISION

Penticton 8 7 1 0 0 32 14 14Salmon Arm 8 5 1 2 0 35 20 12West Kelowna 8 5 3 0 0 30 29 10Vernon 10 4 5 0 1 71 32 9Merritt 10 4 6 0 0 40 46 8Trail 7 2 5 0 0 21 33 4

ISLAND DIVISION

Powell River 9 7 2 0 0 35 17 14Nanaimo 9 6 3 0 0 35 22 12Cowichan Valley 8 4 2 1 1 28 59 10Alberni Valley 8 2 6 0 0 16 36 4Victoria 8 1 6 0 1 15 28 3

MAINLAND DIVISION

Langley 8 6 2 0 0 31 22 12Wenatchee 7 5 1 1 0 30 15 11Coquitlam 9 4 4 1 0 26 35 9Chilliwack 9 3 3 1 2 32 30 9Surrey 8 2 6 0 0 20 35 4Prince George 8 1 6 0 1 13 37 3

Vernon 4 Victoria 1Langley 4 Cowichan Valley 2Surrey 5 Merritt 4

Coquitlam at West Kelowna, 7 p.m.

Trail at Penticton, 7 p.m.Merritt at Salmon Arm, 7 p.m.

Alberni Valley at Victoria, 7 p.m.

Powell River at Coquitlam, 7 p.m.Victoria at Cowichan Valley, 7 p.m.West Kelowna at Penticton, 7 p.m.Chilliwack at Surrey, 7 p.m.Nanaimo at Vernon, 7 p.m.Wenatchee at Langley, 7:15 p.m.Prince George at Trail, 7:30 p.m.

Prince George at Vernon, 6 p.m.Cowichan Valley at Alberni Valley, 7 p.m.Penticton at Chilliwack, 7 p.m.Nanaimo at Salmon Arm, 7 p.m.Surrey at Victoria, 7 p.m.Powell River at West Kelowna, 7 p.m.Coquitlam at Wenatchee, 7:05 p.m.

Surrey at Cowichan Valley, 2 p.m.Nanaimo at Merritt, 2 p.m.Chilliwack at Langley, 3 p.m.Prince George at Salmon Arm, 3 p.m.Coquitlam at Trail, 3 p.m.Powell River at Wenatchee, 7:05 p.m.

NHLCFLEAST DIVISION

Hamilton 13 8 5 0 430 269 16Ottawa 13 8 5 0 319 338 16Toronto 12 7 5 0 312 348 14Montreal 13 5 8 0 280 282 10

WEST DIVISION

x-Calgary 14 11 3 0 370 290 22x-Edmonton 14 10 4 0 350 261 20B.C. 13 5 8 0 314 365 10Winnipeg 14 4 10 0 269 401 8Saskatchewan 14 2 12 0 342 432 4x — clinched playoff berth.

Toronto at Ottawa (relocated from Toronto), 7:30 p.m.

Saskatchewan at Hamilton, 7:30 p.m.

Edmonton at Calgary, 7 p.m.Winnipeg at B.C., 10 p.m.

Toronto at Montreal, 1 p.m.

NFLAMERICAN CONFERENCEEAST

New England 3 0 0 1.000 119 70N.Y. Jets 3 1 0 .750 95 55Buffalo 2 2 0 .500 110 92Miami 1 3 0 .250 65 101

SOUTH

Indianapolis 2 2 0 .500 72 93Tennessee 1 2 0 .333 89 77Houston 1 3 0 .250 77 108Jacksonville 1 3 0 .250 62 107

NORTH

Cincinnati 4 0 0 1.000 121 77Pittsburgh 2 2 0 .500 96 75Baltimore 1 3 0 .250 93 104Cleveland 1 3 0 .250 85 102

WEST

Denver 4 0 0 1.000 97 69Oakland 2 2 0 .500 97 108San Diego 2 2 0 .500 96 110Kansas City 1 3 0 .250 100 125

NATIONAL CONFERENCEEAST

Dallas 2 2 0 .500 95 101N.Y. Giants 2 2 0 .500 102 82Washington 2 2 0 .500 78 79Philadelphia 1 3 0 .250 78 86

SOUTH

Carolina 4 0 0 1.000 108 71Atlanta 4 0 0 1.000 137 93Tampa Bay 1 3 0 .250 72 117New Orleans 1 3 0 .250 86 104

NORTH

Green Bay 4 0 0 1.000 113 71Minnesota 2 2 0 .500 80 73Chicago 1 3 0 .250 68 125Detroit 0 4 0 .000 66 96

WEST

Arizona 3 1 0 .750 148 73St. Louis 2 2 0 .500 74 89Seattle 2 2 0 .500 87 71San Francisco 1 3 0 .250 48 110

Seattle 13 Detroit 10

N.Y. Giants 24 Buffalo 10Cincinnati 36 Kansas City 21San Diego 30 Cleveland 27Green Bay 17 San Francisco 3New Orleans 26 Dallas 20 (OT)Indianapolis 16 Jacksonville 13 (OT)Carolina 37 Tampa Bay 23St. Louis 24 Arizona 22Atlanta 48 Houston 21Denver 23 Minnesota 20Chicago 22 Oakland 20N.Y. Jets 27 Miami 14Washington 23 Philadelphia 20

New England, Tennessee

Indianapolis at Houston

FOOTBALL SOCCERMLSEASTERN CONFERENCENew York 30 15 9 6 53 38 51D.C. 32 14 12 6 39 40 48New England 32 13 11 8 45 45 47Columbus 32 13 11 8 51 53 47Toronto 31 14 13 4 55 53 46Montreal 30 12 12 6 43 41 42Orlando 32 11 13 8 44 54 41New York City 32 10 15 7 47 53 37Philadelphia 32 9 16 7 40 51 34Chicago 32 8 18 6 42 52 30

WESTERN CONFERENCEx-Los Angeles 32 14 9 9 53 39 51x-Dallas 30 15 10 5 47 38 50Vancouver 31 15 12 4 42 34 49Kansas City 31 13 9 9 46 41 48Seattle 32 14 13 5 40 34 47San Jose 32 12 12 8 39 37 44Portland 31 12 11 8 31 36 44Houston 32 11 13 8 41 45 41Salt Lake 31 11 12 8 37 43 41Colorado 31 8 13 10 30 38 34x — clinched playoff berth.

Dallas 4 Houston 1Colorado 1 Salt Lake 2Seattle 1 Los Angeles 1

Montreal at New York, 7:30 p.m.Dallas at Vancouver, 10 p.m.

Montreal at Colorado, 9 p.m.

New York at Toronto, 7 p.m.Vancouver at Dallas, 9 p.m.Portland at Salt Lake, 9:30 p.m.

New York City at Orlando, 7 p.m.Kansas City at San Jose, 11 p.m.

Columbus at Toronto, 2 p.m.Montreal at New England, 7:30 p.m.Dallas at Salt Lake, 9:30 p.m.

Chicago at D.C., 12 p.m.Seattle at Houston, 1 p.m.Philadelphia at New York, 3 p.m.Portland at Los Angeles, 3 p.m.

ARGENTINAAldosivi 3 Lanus 1

FRANCETours 1 Dijon 0

GREECEAsteras 1 Platanias 1

ITALYTrapani 0 Perugia 0

TENNISATP-WTA

Viktor Troicki, Serbia, def. , 6-4, 6-4.

Andreas Seppi, Italy, 6-2, 6-3.Andreas Haider-Maurer, Austria, def.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (8), Fra., 7-6 (4), 6-2.Lukas Rosol, Czech Republic, def.

Aljaz Bedene, Britain, 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3.Zhang Ze, China, def. Denis Istomin,

Uzbekistan, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.Fabio Fognini, Italy, def. Martin Klizan,

Slovakia, 6-2, 6-1.Jack Sock, U.S., def. Teymuraz

Gabashvili, Russia, 6-4, 6-3.

Belinda Bencic (11), Switzerland, def. Madison Brengle, U.S., 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-3.

Andrea Petkovic (13), Ger., def. ,

6-2, 1-1, retired.Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Croa., def. Irina-

Camelia Begu, Romania, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.Sam Stosur, Australia, def. Monica

Niculescu, Romania, 6-3, 6-2.

Agnieszka Radwanska (4), Poland, def. Mona Barthel, Germ., 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Carla Suarez Navarro (7), Spain, def. Monica Puig, Puerto Rico, 7-6 (1), 6-2.

Madison Keys (14), U.S., def. Kat-eryna Bondarenko, Ukr., 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.

Roberta Vinci (15), Italy, def. Alison Van Uytvanck, Belgium, 6-2, 6-2.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Rus., def. Elina Svitolina (16), Ukr., 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.

Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russia, def. Sloane Stephens, U.S., 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands, U.S., and Elena Vesnina (2), Russia, def.

, and Alicja Rosol-ska, Poland, 7-5, 6-1.

ATP

Tomas Berdych (1), Czech., def. Guill-ermo G-Lopez (4), Spain, 6-3, 7-6 (7).

Kei Nishikori (2), Japan, def. Borna Coric, Croatia, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Tatsuma Ito, Japan, def. Yoshihito Nishioka, Japan, 3-6, 6-0, 7-5.

Jiri Vesely, Czech Republic, def. Yas-utaka Uchiyama, Japan, 6-4, 6-4.

Sam Querrey, U.S., def. Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ukraine, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

WORLD RANKINGSSINGLES

(Through Oct. 5)x-clinched year-end No. 1

London, Nov. 15-221. xq-Novak Djokovic, Serbia, 156452. q-Roger Federer, Switzerland, 94203. q-Andy Murray, Britain, 86404. q-Stan Wawrinka, Switzerland, 60055. Tomas Berdych, Czech Rep., 50006. Kei Nishikori, Japan, 45407. David Ferrer, Spain, 39458. Rafael Nadal, Spain, 3770

10. Gilles Simon, France, 253011. Richard Gasquet, France, 244512. Kevin Anderson, South Africa, 243013. John Isner, U.S., 228014. Marin Cilic, Croatia, 227015. Feliciano Lopez, Spain, 204016. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, France, 1990

18. Ivo Karlovic, Croatia, 162019. Dominic Thiem, Austria, 160020. Bernard Tomic, Australia, 157521. Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgaria, 155522. Roberto Bautista Agut, Spain, 1510

24. Viktor Troicki, Serbia, 149425. Andreas Seppi, Italy, 144026. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Spain, 143027. Jeremy Chardy, France, 136528. Fabio Fognini, Italy, 130029. Tommy Robredo, Spain, 125530. Jack Sock, U.S., 121031. Thomaz Bellucci, Brazil, 120532. Benoit Paire, France, 118733. Philipp Kohlschreiber, Ger., 118534. Nick Kyrgios, Australia, 112535. Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ukraine, 112536. Leonardo Mayer, Argentina, 111537. Pablo Cuevas, Uruguay, 110038. Borna Coric, Croatia, 107639. Adrian Mannarino, France, 105040. Jiri Vesely, Czech Republic, 104241. Fernando Verdasco, Spain, 1020

BETTINGTHE LINES

MLBWILD CARDNATIONAL LEAGUEFAVOURITE LINE UNDERDOG LINEChicago -130 PITSBRGH +120

AMERICAN LEAGUEFAVOURITE LINE UNDERDOG LINEHouston -110 NEW YORK +100

NFL

HOUSTON 2 OFF (OFF) Indianapl.Sunday

TAMPA BAY 31/2 3 (42) JacksonvilBuffalo 3 3 (43) TENNESEBALTIMOR 81/2 61/2 (431/2) ClevelandATLANTA 8 71/2 (471/2) Washing.KANS. CITY 12 9 (46) ChicagoPHILADLPH. 41/2 51/2 (48) N.OrleansGREEN BAY 9 9 (46) St. LouisCINCINATI +2 11/2 (OFF) SeattleArizona 21/2 3 (OFF) DETROITN. England 81/2 71/2 (491/2) DALLASDenver 61/2 51/2 (43) OAKLANDNY GIANTS 7 7 (43) San Fran.Monday

SAN DIEGO 61/2 3 (441/2) Pittsburgh

Updated odds available at Pregame.com

MOVESBASEBALLAMERICAN LEAGUEL.A. ANGELS — Named Billy Eppler general manager.OAKLAND — Promoted Billy Beane to executive VP of baseball operations and David Forst to general manager.

NATIONAL LEAGUEARIZONA — Fired pitching coach Mike Harkey.MILWAUKEE — Announced the contracts of 1st base coach Mike Guerrero, pitching coach Rick Kranitz, bench coach Jerry

-pen coach Lee Tunnell won't be renewed.WASHINGTON — Fired manager Matt Williams, bench coach Randy Knorr, pitch-ing coach Steve McCatty, hitting coach Rick Schu, 3rd base coach Bobby Henley, 1st base coach Tony Tarasco, bullpen

-tor/advance coach Mark Weidemaier.

FOOTBALLNFLCLEVELAND — Signed OL Ronald Patrick to practice squad. Released OL Andrew McDonald from practice squad.DALLAS — Waived LB Keith Smith and DT Ken Bishop.INDIANAPOLIS — Released QB Josh Johnson. Signed CB Shaun Prater.JACKSONVILLE — Placed G Brandon Linder on injured reserve.MIAMI — Fired coach Joe Philbin. Named Dan Campbell interim coach.N.Y. JETS — Signed WR Kenbrell Thomp-kins to practice squad. Released WR-KR Walter Powell from practice squad.WASHINGTON — Signed DE Frank Kearse. Waived LB Terrance Plummer.

Trail to practice squad. Released LB Sage Harold from practice squad.

HOCKEYNHLLEAGUE OFFICE — Suspended San

-ence and an illegal check to the head against Anaheim F Jakob Silfverberg during an Oct. 3 preseason game at Anaheim. Placed Montreal F Zack Kas-sian in Stage 2 of the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program (SABH) of the NHL and NHLPA.NHLPA — Defenseman Mike Weaver announced his retirement.ANAHEIM — Assigned G John Gibson, F Chris Mueller, D Korbinian Holzer,

Kenton Helgesen on injured reserve.ARIZONA — Assigned G Louis Domingue

Released RW Daniel Barczuk, C Cody

Kerbashian from their tryout agreements.BOSTON — Waived F Max Talbot.CALGARY — Waived LW Mason Raymond.CAROLINA — Assigned F Lawson Crouse to Kingston (OHL).COLORADO — Released F Curtis Glen-cross from his pro tryout contract.DALLAS — Loaned F Curtis McKenzie to Texas (AHL).DETROIT — Assigned F Mitch Callahan, F Andy Miele and D Brian Lashoff to Grand Rapids (AHL). Placed D Jakub Kindl on seven-day injured reserve, retroactive to Sept. 29.EDMONTON — Assigned F Leon Drai-

LOS ANGELES — Assigned LW Michael Mersch to Ontario (AHL).MONTREAL — Assigned Fs Charles Hudon and Sven Andrighetto to St.

and D Mark Barberio.PHILADELPHIA — Waived D Andrew McDonald.PITTSBURGH — Waived D Tim Erixon.NEW JERSEY — Signed G Ken Appleby to a 3-year, entry-level contract.PHILADELPHIA — Waived D Andrew MacDonald.SAN JOSE — Assigned D Mirco Mueller, F Nikolay Goldobin and C Melker Karls-son to San Jose (AHL).ST. LOUIS — Signed F Scottie Upshall to a 1-yr contract. Assigned F Magnus

Petteri Lindbohm to Chicago (AHL).TORONTO — Waived D T.J. Brennan, D Andrew Campbell, C Sam Carrick, RW Matt Frattin and C Byron Froese.VANCOUVER — Waived F Linden Vey, D Frank Corrado and D Alex Biega.


SOCCER

A-League seeks to further football’s growth in AustraliaTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SYDNEY, Australia — Australian football’s A-League opens its 11th season Thursday hoping to continue surging audience growth while wrestling with player discontent and financial crises affecting some clubs.

The league set records for live and television audiences last season, furthering its attempt to push foot-ball more deeply into the Australian

sporting mainstream. Its ambition remains to rival the popularity of rugby league, rugby union and Aus-tralian Rules football.

Almost 1.7 million fans attended matches last season — an A-League record — and the 106,000 who went to games in the second round of the season was also a record. At the same time television audiences swelled with more than 5 million viewers tuning into matches, up 23 per cent

on the previous year. More than 440,000 watched the Grand Final between Melbourne Victory and Syd-ney. Meanwhile, Football Federation Australia has been embroiled in a bitter pay dispute with players which led to the cancellation of a tour to the United States by the women’s national team.

A new collective bargaining agree-ment being ratified by the players’ union, Professional Footballers Aus-

tralia, is also a concern for FFA boss David Gallop.

The two parties had agreed to terms for a four-year deal that would take in the national men’s and women’s teams and A-League, but Gallop said Tuesday that the pro-tracted discussions have taken away from the league’s build-up.

He rejected fears the negotiations would prevent the season kicking off.

“The fans would expect that the

games would go ahead in any cir-cumstances and the PFA recognize that as well,” he said.

There is also concern about the relative financial health of some of the league’s 10 teams. While last year’s winner Melbourne Victory, and crosstown rival Melbourne City — backed by the owners of Manchester City — are in rude health, teams at the lower end of the league are struggling.

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 201526 DIVERSIONS

FOR BETTER OR WORSE

GARFIELD

ANDY CAPP

ZITS

CROSSWORD

PLANE TRIP

ACROSS1 The lion’s share5 Red-__ (frankfurters)9 Epic stories14 Scandinavian furniture chain15 Advise strongly16 Higher than17 Fearsome dinosaur, for short18 Astronaut Armstrong19 Namely20 Dieting successfully23 Many mos.24 Castaway’s dwelling25 Hardly ever29 Place to park in a lot31 Prosecutors: Abbr.34 San Antonio landmark35 Boxing match36 Common office plant37 Losing one’s temper40 Trumpet sound41 Falls behind42 Monetary worth43 Thesaurus entry: Abbr.44 Mrs. Harry Truman45 Walk unsteadily46 Historical period47 __ Beta Kappa48 Successes for salespersons57 One more time58 Kitchen or den59 Excess supply60 Paving block61 Vampire novelist Rice62 Clinton’s vice president63 Seasons, as pretzels64 Hive dwellers65 Flow in slowly

DOWN1 Catcher’s glove2 Gumbo vegetable3 Hunt for4 Metered car5 Needing a meal

6 Black-and-white cookies7 Workweek-ending cry8 __-centered (egotistical)9 Didn’t take part in10 Approximately11 Bride’s dress12 Enthusiastic13 Full collections21 Hosiery material22 Snapshot25 Castaways’ escape vehicles26 Bronze or brass

27 Synthetic shirt fabric28 Give off29 Choral performances30 Postpones, with “off”31 Handed out cards32 Have a quarrel33 Scornful look35 Lack of objectivity36 Campus club38 Gather slowly39 Don’t take part in44 Extreme edges45 Main ideas46 Royal decree47 Make a call to48 Science classrooms49 Taj Mahal city50 Hammer target51 Snatch quickly52 Voice-mail sound53 Henhouse products54 Ointment ingredient55 Entice56 Ladder rung

PREVIOUS PUZZLE SOLVED

HAGAR HI AND LOIS

» EVENTS // EMAIL: [email protected]

MONDAY, OCT. 5

6-9 p.m. Japanese Dinner. Learn more about

fermentation this October with StirCooking

School at Riso Restaurant in Lantzville. $75 per

person, or $90 including wine pairing.

7:30 p.m. Port Theatre Spotlight: Guy Mend-

ilow Ensemble. Adults $35, members $25,

students $15. Box Office or

www.porttheatre.com.

TUESDAY, OCT. 6

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Ladysmith Fall Farmer Mar-

ket, where local producers sell their goods

directly to the public, at 49th Parallel Grocery.

7 p.m. On The Dock with Brandon Stone,

Mike Bauche, Young Plantz at The Dinghy

Dock Pub, 8 Pirates Lane, Protection Island.

Advance tickets $20 including return ferry

& from the artists, The Dinghy Dock or

ticketzone.com.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7

6:15- 8:15 p.m. Women of Today night at

Country Club Centre. Demonstrations, fall

fashion previews, complimentary wine tast-

ing, chair massages, silent auction, fun photo

booth, entertainment, sweet and savoury

samplings and much more. Advance tickets

$5 at the info/lottery booth. All proceeds sup-

port Haven Society.

7-9 p.m. Kombucha Workshop at Costin Hall

Kitchen, Lantzville $50/ http://stircooking-

school.ca/event/kombucha-workshop-3/

THURSDAY, OCT. 8

8 p.m. Mark Bunt, Christina Lemmon live at

the Longwood. The Longwood Brew Pub

presents a free, weekly live concert series every

Thursday. 5775 Turner Rd.

FRIDAY, OCT. 9

Noon-4 p.m. Bastion Waterfront Farmers

Market moves to fall hours. Next to the Bastion

7:30 p.m. Jamaican roots reggae legend Clin-

ton Fearon performs a solo acoustic concert

at The Queen’s, tickets: $15 advance at Port

Theatre: 250-754-8550

SATURDAY, OCT. 10

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Weekend studio art tour.

Nanoose Bay Studio Tour Group. Guide at

Parksville tourist information centre or at

www.nanoosestudiotour.com. Through

Monday.

SUNDAY, OCT. 11

10 a.m. to 2 pm. Cedar Farmers Market.

Crow and Gate pub field 2313 Yellowpoint

Rd., Cedar

MONDAY, OCT. 12

Happy Thanksgiving

TUESDAY, OCT. 13

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Ladysmith Fall Farmer Mar-

ket, where local producers sell their goods

directly to the public, at 49th Parallel Grocery.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 14

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mozzarella cheese-making

workshop with Paula Maddison at Costin

Hall Kitchen, Lantzville $65 http://stircooking-

school.ca/event/cheese-making-workshop-

mozzarella-with-paula-maddison/

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily DIVERSIONS 27TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015

HarbourviewVolkswagen

www.harbourviewvw.com

CRYPTOQUOTEWORD FIND

432569871

519784326

876213459

385497612

241658793

967321548

153872964

794136285

628945137 20

15C

iP

lD

ib

Ki

FS

diI

Difficulty Level 10/03

PREVIOUS SUDOKO SOLVED

SUDOKU

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Push

away any hassles by maintaining a

keen sense of humor and a unique

perspective. Your creativity surges,

to the extent that your mind keeps

spinning off on the other party’s

words. Stay as pleasant as possible.

Tonight: Spontaneity provides an

interesting scenario.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You

might need to get some feedback

from a child or loved one about a

personal decision. Remember to

thank this person, but also let him

or her know that you have not

made a decision yet. One-on-one

relating could seem like a hefty task

today! Tonight: Home is your castle.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Your

words tend to be quick and

unexpected. Others often feel as

though you just spew out the first

thought that comes to mind. Your

thought process could be faster

than many people’s. Don’t allow

pressure to build to the extent that

it has recently. Tonight: Speak your

mind.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) You

could discover that someone else

sees a matter in a different light

than you do. The issue, though

it might not be apparent at first,

is about money and/or social

status. Try not to judge this person;

instead, simply relax and listen to

his or her thoughts. Tonight: Order

in.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Your per-

sonality sometimes works like a

steamroller, which allows you to

bypass a lot of problems. A loved

one might be closed down. Give

this person the space he or she

needs, without making it a big deal.

Remain connected to others’ feel-

ings. Tonight: In the limelight.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Slow down. You might want to

reconsider certain conversations.

Everyone puts statements into a

context that he or she knows -- you

included. If you try to gain a new

perspective, you could see a totally

different meaning to someone’s

words. Tonight: Schedule more

time for yourself.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Your

sense of what could be occurring

might be a lot different from reality.

Try to erase certain expectations

from your mind, and go with the

moment -- you will be a lot happier

if you do. Eliminate your filtered

vision as much as you can. Tonight:

Where the crowds are.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Pres-

sure comes from others expecting

so much from you. You might want

to clue them in to the fact that

you are human and can do only

so much. Resist taking on as much

responsibility as you do. Infuse your

life with some fun. Tonight: The

party goes on and on.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

You might want to reconsider

your plans. A last-minute invita-

tion could be very exciting and

different. Your love of adventure

emerges, and demands to be

taken into consideration. Opting

for self-discipline can work only so

long. Tonight: Try to be logical and

steady.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Someone could make an enor-

mous effort to reach out to you.

You appreciate this person’s ges-

tures, and you will let him or her

know. Weigh the pros and cons of

becoming more involved with this

person. You’ll want to have all the

facts before proceeding. Tonight:

Visit over dinner.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You

can’t hold back any longer. You

have a desire to go along with a

group of friends. Let them know,

and you will be a part of what is

going in. A friend might be distant

and jealous, and wishing that he or

she had done the same. Tonight:

Go along with someone else’s

plans.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) You’ll

be overanalyzing a situation and

causing yourself a problem. Let go

of this issue. Someone you look

up to could be in a bad mood. You

might not want to get into a tense

discussion. A loved one might chal-

lenge a wonderful idea. Tonight:

Pace yourself.

YOUR BIRTHDAY (Oct. 6)

This year you walk into a new situ-

ation that could be very exciting.

This matter will be a source of hap-

piness for you. Don’t allow anyone

to undermine your self-confidence.

You have a lot going for you. If you

are single, meeting people hap-

pens with ease, and you seem to

have a good time wherever you go.

Be smart, and don’t rush into some-

thing. If you are attached, the two

of you might have an issue from

the past that needs clearing up.

Once you succeed, you will enjoy

greater closeness. LEO has a way

of breaking through all the charm

and games.

HOROSCOPEby Jacqueline Bigar

BABY BLUES

BC

BLONDIE

The Canadian dollar traded Monday after-

noon at 76.41 cents US, up 0.45 of a cent

from Friday’s close. The Pound Sterling was

worth $1.9829 Cdn, down 1.55 of a cent while the Euro

was worth $1.4635 Cdn, down1.14 of a cent.

Canadian Dollar

➜

Barrel of oil

$46.2

+$0.72

➜Dow Jones

16,776.43

+ 304.06

➜

NASDAQ

4,781.26

+73.48

➜

S&P/TSX

13,552.20

+212.46

➜

SOLUTION: THE SNOW’S FALLING

Saturday’s Cryptoquote: I CAN’T GO BACK TO YESTERDAY BECAUSE I WAS A DIFFERENT PERSON THEN — LEWIS CAROLL

of Lantzville, BC, passed away at the age of 69 on September 30, 2015 with his loving wife of more than 49 years, Marilyn Rae Smith at his side. He was born and raised in Taber, Al-berta and lived for many years in Calgary until he realized his dream and relocated to Van-couver Island in 1991.

Leo was the proud father of his three daughters: Debbie (Gary) Niessen; Sheila Smith; and Leanne (Marcel) Cloutier. His greatest joy was his four grandchildren Ryan, Jenaya, Chanel and Cory who will dearly miss him.

He is survived by his siblings: Bob (Sonia) Smith; and Linda (Tracy) Birch. He is also survived by his sister-in-law Judy who was the loving wife of his deceased brother Wayne.

Leo was a farm boy at heart. In his younger days he enjoyed camping, hunting, fi shing and spending time with family and friends. In his later years his hobby was restoring and showing antique tractors. Leo was a man of many talents. He built beautiful custom homes, was highly skilled at millwork, and could fi x almost anything mechanical.

Leo will be fondly remembered for his sense of humour, willingness to help out friends and family, and generous spirit.

A Celebration of his life will be held on Saturday October 24th

for his family and close friends. We welcome those to stop by the family home in Lantzville from

2:00 pm to 6:00 pm to share memories.

EDWARD “LEO” SMITH

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IN MEMORIAM

In LOVING MEMORY ofRyan Gordon Collins

January 14, 1977 - Oct 6, 2014.

Loved and missed every-day, thanks for giving us so many great memories

to cherish.. Love from, your little

ones Chloe & Nick. Sue, Mom, your brothers and their wives, aunts and

uncles, nieces andnephews.

DEATHS



IN MEMORIAM

In LOVING MEMORY of WAYNE HILL

1946 - 2013.✱Gone but not forgotten

2 years have passed since you have been

gone, we are so thankful to have many treasured memories of you deep

within our hearts...Forever loved &

missed your loving wife Gail xoxo

daughter Khole (Faron) and granddaughter

Brielle xoxo

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RUGBY WORLD CUP

GOLF

Meyer wants Springboks to be humble vs. winless U.S.South Africans have selected a full-strength lineup to play Americans

JOHN PYE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON — Of the four countries in action Wednesday, only two-time cham-pion South Africa has a realistic chance of progressing to the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals.

Don’t expect that to take any heat out of the contests when the Springboks bid to seal top spot in Pool B with a win over the United States at the Olympic stadium and Georgia takes on Namibia in Pool C.

The South Africans have selected a nearly full-strength lineup to play the winless Americans — they aren’t taking any chances after being upended by Japan in the first weekend of the tour-nament, a shocking loss that ranks as the biggest upset ever at the World Cup. Veteran flanker Schalk Burger, a for-mer world player of the year and World Cup champion, is set to equal John Smit’s South Africa record of 17 RWC appearances.

“You have to stay humble and respect every single opponent,” Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer said, reflecting Monday on the main lesson of the tour-nament to date. The U.S. Eagles “have shown they are a world-class team, they’re very difficult to play against, very physical, a lot of big, strong forwards and great runners in midfield.”

The top two teams in each pool advance to the quarterfinals, and there’s a con-solation prize for the teams which place third — automatic qualification for the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

The U.S. Eagles only have a short turn-around between their third and fourth games, so they’re following the lead of some other Tier Two countries by leaving a core group of first-choice players out against the top-tier nation so they can focus on chasing a win in their last game against Japan on Sunday.

The Georgians rested several key players against defending champion New Zealand last Friday, although with

inspirational skipper Mamuka Gorgodze leading the way they gave the All Blacks a torrid time despite the 43-10 score. They’re back to full strength against the last-place Namibians.

Here’s a look at Wednesday’s matches:

SOUTH AFRICA vs. UNITED STATES (3-0 overall, 1-0 in RWC)

Meyer didn’t want to take any risks against the Americans, making only two changes to the starting lineup that beat Scotland 34-16 over the weekend. He didn’t want to gamble on the fitness of some key players, either, so he left veteran lock Victor Matfield, prop Jannie du Plessis and flying winger JP Pietersen out of the 23-man squad for South Afri-ca’s last pool game.

“Victor and Jannie were a 50-50 call but you want to go with guys who are high

per cent fit. To look past this game would be arrogant and we don’t want to do that,” Meyer said.

The South Africans were comprehen-sive 64-15 winners in the last head-to-head at Montpellier in 2007, the year they went on to win the World Cup. Bur-ger and winger Bryan Habana played for the Springboks in that game.

Scrumhalf Fourie du Preez will lead the Springboks for the second time and Morne Steyn to the reserves bench, giv-ing him potentially his first cap for the tournament.

After losing 26-16 to Samoa and 39-16 to Scotland, U.S. coach Mike Tolkin wants to keep most of frontline starters fresh for the Japan match.

South Africa-born scrumhalf Niku Kru-ger will make his World Cup debut in a team led by No. 8 Samu Manoa.

South Africa’s Francois Louw is tackled by Scotland’s David Denton during their

Rugby World Cup Pool B match between Scotland and South Africa at St James’ Park,

Newcastle, England, Saturday. [AP PHOTO]

Canada regrets its missed chancesJEROME PUGMIRE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LEICESTER, England — When Canada’s players eventually fly home from the Rugby World Cup after their last match against Romania, it will be with fond memories of the attacking rugby they played and regrets over the opportunities they failed to take.

On the eve of the Pool D encoun-ter, Canada coach Kieran Crowley reflected on the tournament and one match stood out: the 23-18 loss to Italy, where the Canadians failed to capitalize on a 10-0 lead.

“We watched that video and prob-ably cried all the way through it,” Crowley said Monday. “We had over-laps and chances to score. We didn’t have the game sense to do it.”

Canada played some thrilling rugby against France last week, getting behind the defence and scoring two quick tries in the first half. Canada got to within six points of France after the restart, but then faded, losing 41-18. After the 50-7 defeat to Ireland in their opening match, Crowley underlined how Ireland had punished his team with its superior game management.

But Canada is not to blame for that.In the four years between the 2011

and 2015 World Cups, Canada played three Tier One teams. In the first 12 days of this tournament, the Can-adians played three, exposing their limitations as well as increasing their fatigue.

“We need to play Tier 1 countries, our decision makers (on the field) need to be at a club where they’re given decision-making games. We’ve made a lot of progress at skill level but we haven’t got over the line late-ly to get wins,” Crowley said. “There’s some mini-rugby starting up in Can-ada, but there is progress being made elsewhere as well. Romania have seven professional teams in Bucha-rest and that’s not something we can compete with.”

Veteran lock Jamie Cudmore, who captains Canada in the absence of the injured Tyler Ardron, remembers how he came into rugby late and thinks the game must be developed more at grassroots level in Canada.

“I started quite late, 16 or 17 years old. If you get to the international stage at 23 or 24 and been only playing five or six years that’s not enough,” said Cudmore, a regular for Clermont in France’s elite Top 14 league.

“We need guys in our deci-sion-making areas to be playing high-level competition week in, week out, and then we’ll start knocking over some of the big boys.”

Cudmore will play his 14th World Cup match, moving level with Can-ada record-holder Rod Snow.

Joking about his age, Cudmore says he’s so old “I’ve coached a few of the guys in the squad and that dates me a little bit.”

Scott bids farewell to belly putter DOUG FERGUSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Adam Scott only has three months left before the method used for his long put-ter is banned.

He saw no need to wait.Scott used a conventional putter for a

practice round Monday at the Presidents Cup, and the 35-year-old Australian said this time he won’t be going back. Scott spent the last five weeks practicing with the new putter and a cross-handed grip that feels as comfortable as the long put-ter he had used the last four years.

“I think it was a good time to make a change and spend some time working on it,” Scott said.

“It’s a similar amount of time, actually, when I switched to the long putter, that gap of five weeks between events. It took

shape quickly, and I feel the same will happen with this. It’s kind of refreshing to have to make a forced change because my putting stats are not that impressive this year.”

Scott’s putting has never been a strength, though this season his No. 158 ranking in the key putting statistic was his worst since he last used a convention-al putter in 2010.

Golf’s ruling bodies adopted a new rule effective Jan. 1 that bans the anchored stroke used for longer putters. Scott switched to a long putter in 2011 and won the Masters two years later.

He showed up at Doral at the start of this year using a conventional putter and tied for fourth. But he missed the cut the following week at the Valspar Champion-ship, finished 13 shots out of the lead at

Bay Hill and went back to the long putter.“I didn’t take any time going into that,”

he said. “I just did it with no thought and open mind to see how it went. It went well, really, but maybe I got a little jumpy as I neared the Masters without a little practice and went back. But this is a more permanent move. I think I’ve got to stick with it now and get good at it.”

Other players who won majors with an anchored putting stroke — Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley and Ernie Els — already made the switch. Scott got more attention than the others because his performance in the majors improved shortly after going to a long putter, even though he was ranked out of the top 100 in putting all but one year.

“There was a bit of a letdown and some frustration,” Scott said.

To dream of what might be is a good thing. Martin Luther King had a great dream but only some of his dream has

been realized. The U.S. now has a black President, Jackie Robinson became a great baseball star and a friend of mine became Professor of Medicine at The Harvard Medical School. So, this week marks the 40th year I’ve written this column and I too have a dream. But it’s far from reality.

For 40 years I’ve hoped that by passing along medical information I’ve helped people live a healthier lifestyle and longer life. I believe one of my most important messages is that high doses of vitamin C and lysine can prevent and reverse ath-erosclerosis (hardening of arteries).

Like King, I’ve encountered major opposition. But I’m convinced that several thousand milligrams (mg) of vitamin C and lysine has kept me alive following a severe heart attack 17 years ago. Cardiologists thought at that time, and still do, that I was a damn fool to deny choles-terol-lowering drugs (CLDs). Initial-ly, I worried they might be right, as I had no definite proof that vitamin C would work.

So why take such a gamble? Pri-marily my decision was due to my interview of Dr. Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize winner. He warned that, due to a genetic mutation, humans, unlike animals, lost the ability to manufac-ture vitamin C.

Pauling said we consumed enough vitamin C, one sixth of an orange, to prevent scurvy, but not enough to prevent heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. He knew that Vitamin C is needed in quantity to manufacture collagen, the glue that holds cells together. The lack of large amounts sets the stage for atherosclerosis.

At the time I was also seeing patients on CLDs complaining of sev-eral side-effects. And I believed that interfering with cholesterol metab-olism was a dangerous decision. Besides, pharmaceutical companies were making billions of dollars pro-moting CLDs and I believe they had seduced cardiologists with question-

able science. Some researchers agree with me.

Since that time Dr. Sydney Bush, an English researcher, has reported his dramatic photos to show that high doses of C and Lysine prevent and reverse hardening of arteries. His research convinced me that I made the right decision. Besides, C is a natural remedy that is safe, less expensive and effective. See the photos at www.docgiff.com

Will the medical establishment ever look at this research? Highly unlikely. During the past three years I’ve tried to get medical journals, university health publications and Deans of major medical schools to publish this information without success. Yet, no cardiologist has ever explained why this research is wrong.

So I continue to believe that his-tory will prove that the use of CLDs is an unethical and dangerous med-ical experiment conducted by Big Pharma and the medical profession on millions of unsuspecting people. And that ignoring new research will result in the needless death of untold numbers of people.

But why should I be right and all cardiologists wrong? My answer is, don’t just believe me. Rather, research the Internet and look for complications of CLDs. This shows increased risk of emotional prob-lems, amnesia, cataracts, muscle pain, liver and kidney troubles.

But what should get everyone’s attention, particularly cardiologists, is that those on CLDs have a 25 to 50 per cent risk of Type 2 diabetes. And patients with diabetes have a 50 per cent chance of dying of heart attack. So, in effect, CLDs are caus-ing the very disease they’re supposed to prevent!

I know of no contraindication that prevents high doses of vitamin C (4,000 – 6,000 mg and lysine (3,000 -4,000 milligrams) along with CLDs. These high doses in powder or cap-sules are available in Health Food Stores. But remember, I am not your doctor who must make such medical decisions for you.

So, like Martin Luther King I too can dream that good sense will even-tually prevail. But so far the medical establishment maintains a closed mind on this research.

I would like to thank the many readers who have said they have benefited from the column over the last 40 years.

See website www.docgiff.com.


Dr. W. Gifford-Jones

The Doctor Game

Vitamin C dream still alive four decades on

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

Firms in U.S. ordered to study cleaning of reusable devicesTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — U.S. health authorities are ordering manufac-turers of specialized medical scopes to study how the reusable devices

are cleaned following a series of life-threatening bacterial outbreaks at U.S. hospitals.

The Food and Drug Administration said the three companies must sub-mit plans to study how well hospital

staffers actually follow instructions for disinfecting the scopes between uses.

The agency hopes this information will shed light on a recent spate of infections involving antibiotic-resist-

ant “superbugs” linked to the scopes.The FDA issued the instructions

to Olympus American, Fuji Medical Systems and Hoya Corp.

The FDA came under fire earlier this year after outbreaks at two Los

Angeles hospitals were linked to the duodenoscopes. The specialized fiber-optic scopes are threaded down the throat and stomach to diagnose and treat conditions in the digestive tract.

NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE

Kitasato University Prof. Emeritus Satoshi Omura during a press conference at the university in Tokyo on Monday after

learning he and two other scientists from Ireland and China won the Nobel Prize in medicine. [AP PHOTO]

Trio honoured for work to fi ght tropical illnessesKARL RITTER AND MARIA CHENG THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

STOCKHOLM — The Nobel prize in medicine went Monday to three scientists hailed as “heroes in the truest sense of the word” for saving millions of lives with the creation of the world’s leading malaria-fighting drug and another that has nearly wiped out two devastating tropical diseases.

Tu Youyou — the first-ever Chi-nese medicine laureate — turned to ancient texts to produce artemesinin, a drug that is now the top treatment for malaria. Inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, Tu discovered that a compound from the wormwood plant was highly effective against the malaria parasite, while working on a project for the Chinese military dur-ing the Cultural Revolution.

She will share the about $960,000 award with Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Omura and William Camp-bell, an Irish-born U.S. scientist.

Omura and Campbell created the drug avermectin, whose derivatives have nearly rid the planet of river

blindness and lymphatic filarisis, dis-eases caused by parasitic worms and spread by mosquitoes and flies. They affect millions of people in Africa, Latin America and Asia, leaving suf-ferers blind or disfigured and often unable to work.

The Nobel committee said the winners, who are all in their 80s and made their breakthroughs in the 1970s and ’80s, had given humankind powerful tools: “The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable,” the committee said.

The Carter Center called the three laureates “heroes in the truest sense of the word, saving lives through medicine.”

Campbell, 85, is a research fellow emeritus at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He told the AP he made his main discovery in 1975 while working at pharmaceutical company Merck.

“It was a great team effort,” said Campbell, who now lives in North Andover, Massachusetts. He said the award came as a “huge surprise.”

Omura, 80, is a professor emeritus at Kitasato University in Japan and is from the central prefecture of Yamanashi. He wondered whether he deserved the prize.

“I have learned so much from microorganisms and I have depended on them, so I would much rather give the prize to microorganisms,” Omura told Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Stephen Ward, deputy director of Liverpool School of Tropical Medi-cine, said the prize confirms that Chinese scientists “did fantastic work in the 1960s even when they were effectively ignored by the rest of the world.”

The medicine award was the first Nobel Prize to be announced. The winners of the physics, chemistry and peace prizes are set to be announced later this week. The eco-nomics prize will be announced next Monday. No date has been set yet for the literature prize, but it is expected to be announced on Thursday.

Besides the cash, each winner also gets a diploma and a gold medal at the award ceremony on Dec. 10.

www.nanaimodailynews.com @NanaimoDaily HEALTH 31TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015

PRESERVATION

Many have faith cryonics will give eternityB.C. the only jurisdiction in North America to prohibit marketing of freezing human remains for later revival

SHERYL UBELACKER THE CANADIAN PRESS

When it comes to death, there’s trad-itionally been two forms of eternal rest: going into a coffin or

ending up as ashes inside an urn.But some are embracing a third

way — having their body or brain frozen in liquid nitrogen in the hope of some day being brought back to life, with memories, personality and sense of self intact.

“I believe that my identity is stored inside my physical brain,” says Car-rie Wong, president of the Lifespan Society of British Columbia, an advocacy group that works to pro-mote and protect access to cryonic preservation.

“So if I can somehow preserve that, maybe at a future time technology and medical science will advance to such a point that it may be possible to repair the damage of freezing me in the first place and also what killed me back then,” says the 27-year-old, who concedes such a feat could be hundreds of years in the future.

“It’s not possible now, but nobody can really argue it’s not possible in the future because that’s arguing about what future technology is capable of.”

The notion that a person could be frozen and later “re-animated”

was initially posited in the 1964 book The Prospect of Immortality by American physics teacher and sci-fi writer Robert Ettinger.

The first person to be cryonically preserved was Dr. James Bedford, a 73-year-old California psychology professor, whose body was suspended in liquid nitrogen in 1967 at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scotts-dale, Ariz.

Alcor’s most famous “patient,” as they’re called, is Red Sox baseball legend Ted Williams, whose head was detached from his body and cryopre-served after the slugger’s death at 83 in 2002.

After a person is declared legally dead, the body is cooled in an ice bath and hooked up to a machine to artificially restore blood circulation and breathing, and infused with blood thinners and other medica-tions to protect the brain from lack of oxygen.

Blood and other fluids are later drained from the body and replaced with a cocktail of cryoprotectant chemicals. These antifreeze-like agents are intended to prevent the formation of damaging ice crys-tals in cells, in a process known as vitrification.

The body is then further cooled before being suspended in a tank of liquid nitrogen at a bone-chilling -196 C.

The Cryonics Institute, a non-profit organization founded in 1976 by Ettinger, operates a preservation facility near Detroit, where about 100 pets and 135 humans are suspended in tanks called cryostats.

“The actual cryostats are just giant thermos bottles with liquid nitro-

gen, there’s no electricity to fail,” says president Dennis Kowalski, a 47-year-old Milwaukee firefighter and paramedic who became interested in cryonics in his 20s after reading K. Eric Drexler’s 1986 book The Engines of Creation, about the com-ing era of nanotechnology.

About 1,250 people, including a number of Canadians, are signed

up for CI’s service. Membership costs US$28,000, which is typically paid for through life-insurance policies.

While acknowledging that he and others who intend to be frozen are often “looked at as a bunch of kooks,” Kowalski views cryonics as being like a clinical experiment — and one that beats the alternative.

“I’ll be the first to admit it may not work. And everyone who’s signed up should understand cryonics may not work and there are no guarantees.”

CI doesn’t provide “neuros,” in which only the head and brain are preserved. Even so, bodies are placed in the cryostats upside-down, based

on the theory that if a catastrophe were to threaten the tanks’ viability, “the brain would be the last to go.”

“We place emphasis on the import-ance of the brain because even under today’s crude technology, you prob-ably could clone a human being and replace every single part,” suggests Kowalski.

“But one thing you can’t replace is your mind — which is you — and your mind is somehow encoded in that brain, and that’s what we hope to principally save.”

Christine Gaspar, 42, an emer-gency room nurse from Amar-

anth, Ont., northwest of Toronto, is a CI member and president of the Cryonics Society of Canada, an edu-cational and advocacy organization.

“My parents and my sister are also signed up. It took me about five minutes to convince my father and it took me about 15 years to convince my mother and my sister, but I final-ly got it done.

“I actually cryopreserved my cat two years ago (for a fee of US$5,800),” Gaspar confides. “I know it sounds extraordinary, but if it’s something that you believe in philo-sophically, then you do it for what you love and who you love.”

Gaspar, who along with her family members is opting for whole-body preservation, has no idea what kind of society she may come back to should science discover a way to revive her in the future — and she doesn’t care.

“I can learn. I can adapt.”

Adherents aside, few self-respecting neuroscientists will even touch the topic of cryonics, given its specula-tive nature.

One who does is Ken Hayworth, a senior scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Virginia, who maps neurocircuits, the wiring in the brain where memory is stored at the most fundamental level.

“If there was some way to preserve people so they could get to the future, that would be a nice alterna-tive to death as we know it,” says Hayworth, co-founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation, formed to promote scientific research in the field.

Tim Caulfield, a health law expert at the University of Alberta, says

putting a person’s body on ice in the hopes of future rejuvenation raises all kinds of legal and ethical issues.

“What if the company goes bank-rupt, 10 or 15 or 25 years from now? What happens to those bodies? Who has control over those bodies?”

And if future scientists do thaw out and manage to return their very first human to life, what would be the quality of that life? What if that person ended up cognitively or phys-ically disabled? Could they sue the company?

“The science is very speculative at this point,” insists Caulfield. “That raises some interesting questions about marketing these services to people and having them invest significant portions of their money,

their estate to these projects.“People can do whatever they want

with their money. But they should go in with their eyes open.”

In a bid to protect consumers, B.C. became the only jurisdiction in North America to prohibit the marketing of cryonic services based on the expectation of resuscitation at a future date — a regulation the Lifespan Society is challenging in provincial court.

Wong of Lifespan says the law has had a chilling effect on cryonic-relat-ed services, which her group hopes to help expedite in the future.

Keegan Macintosh, the co-plaintiff in the case that is yet to be heard, believes he has the right to decide what happens to his body after death.

The Vancouver public-speaking and drama instructor sees his reasons for assigning Alcor US$80,000 of life insurance benefits to have his brain cryopreserved as strictly pragmatic.

“It’s as simple as the fact that I love life. For now I don’t foresee a time in the future where I won’t want to wake up for another day,” says Macintosh, though he dismisses the idea that cryonicists are seeking immortality.

“I don’t view the other alternative as having any chance of resulting in some continued life after I’m dead,” he says of burial or cremation.

And although the science of cryon-ics is still in its infancy, Macintosh thinks it’s worth the gamble.

“Maybe the chances aren’t very big, but they’re big enough for me to place my chip there.”

Carrie Wong, president of the Lifespan Society of British Columbia, an advocacy group that works to promote and protect access to cryonic preservation in

Vancouver on Sept. 24. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]

“I’ll be the first to admit it may not work. And everyone who’s signed up should understand cryonics may not work and there are no guarantees.”

Dennis Kowalski, cryonics follower

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Medicinal cannabis oils to soon be allowed by Health CanadaCANNABIS, from Page 17

Jennifer Ayotte of Oshawa, Ont., said having cannabis oil would be a major benefit in treating her 23-year-old daughter Stephanie, who suffers intractable seizures from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Currently Ayotte makes brownies containing dried marijuana that her daughter can eat. One brownie can be divided into many small portions and ingested throughout the day to control her seizures.

The medicinal pot has made a big difference for Stephanie, who had been having up to a dozen seizures a day and had fallen down stairs and broken her leg as a result.

Traditional anticonvulsive drugs either didn’t work or provided little improvement, and they also had side-effects “that were just awful,” said Ayotte, explaining that some made her daughter so psychotic that she tried to jump out of the car on Highway 401 and kicked in

one of the vehicle’s doors.While ingesting marijuana has

reduced Stephanie’s seizures by at least 90 per cent, the high sugar content needed to make them even remotely palatable has led to unwanted weight gain in her daughter, who also has severe cog-nitive impairment.

“So having an oral would be tre-mendous,” her mother said.

“Certainly for us and for other people who are caring for her, it

will make it a lot easier. So when she is out or we’re in a restaurant and she needs to have it, instead of having a brownie, it can be put into the food that she’s eating.”

A Health Canada spokesman said once a grower has received a supplemental licence to produce cannabis oils, the company is per-mitted to get production up and running, but is not yet allowed to sell the products.

“Health Canada officials will con-duct a formal inspection of their facility to determine if the licensed producer meets the requirements for sale,” Sean Upton said by email.

“When all requirements are met, including analytical testing to ensure compliance with the condi-tions of the supplemental licence and the requirements for good production practices under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulation, Health Canada will amend the supplemental licence to include the activity of sale.”

HURRICANE JOAQUIN

Capt. Mark Fedor, right, chief of response for the Coast Guard 7th District, talks

during a news conference as Lt. Commander Gabe Somma, left, listen on Monday at

the Opa-locka Airport in Opa-locka, Fla. [AP PHOTO]

Cargo ship sank with 33 aboard

JASON DEAREN AND JENNIFER KAY


JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The captain of the 240-metre El Faro planned to bypass Hurricane Joaquin, but some kind of mechanical failure left the U.S. container ship with 33 people aboard helplessly — and tragically — adrift in the path of the powerful storm, the vessel’s owners say.

On Monday, four days after the ship vanished, the Coast Guard concluded it sank near the Bahamas in about 4,570 metres of water. One uniden-tified body in a survival suit was recovered, and the search went on for any trace of the other crew members.

Survival suits help mariners float and stay warm. But even with the water temperature at 85 degrees, hypothermia can set in quickly, Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor said.

“These are trained mariners. They know how to abandon ship,” Fedor said. But “those are challenging condi-tions to survive.”

The ship, carrying cars and other products, had 28 crew members from the U.S. and five from Poland.

Coast Guard and Navy planes, heli-copters, cutters and tugboats searched across a 300-square-mile expanse of Atlantic Ocean near Crooked Island in the Bahamas, where the ship was last heard from while on its way from Jack-sonville to Puerto Rico.

A heavily damaged lifeboat from the El Faro was discovered, no one aboard, Fedor said. The ship had two lifeboats capable of holding 43 people each.

“We are still looking for survivors or any sign of life,” he said.

Also spotted were an oil sheen, cargo containers, a partly submerged life raft — the ship carried five rafts, each capable of holding 17 people — life jackets and life rings, authorities said.

Phil Greene, president and CEO of

ship owner Tote Services Inc., said the captain had a plan to sail ahead of the hurricane with room to spare.

Greene said the captain, whose name has not been released, had conferred with the El Faro’s sister ship — which was returning to Jacksonville along a similar route — and determined the weather was good enough to go forward.

“Regrettably he suffered a mechan-ical problem with his main propulsion system, which left him in the path of the storm,” Greene said. “We do not know when his engine problems began to occur, nor the reasons for his engine problems.”

The last message from the ship came Thursday morning, when the captain reported the El Faro was listing slight-ly at 15 degrees in strong winds and heavy seas. Some water had entered through a hatch that popped open.

The captain, who has 20 years’ experience on cargo ships, calmly told company officials the crew was remov-ing the water.

The Coast Guard was unable to fly into the ship’s last known position until Sunday, because of the fierce hurricane winds.

Steven Werse, a ship captain with 31 years’ experience on the seas, said merchant vessels have access to up-to-date weather forecasting and technology that allow them to avoid most storms.

If the El Faro had not lost engine power, he added, it would probably still have been powerful enough to make it through Joaquin.

Vessel had a crew of 28, fi ve from Poland

“We are still looking for survivors or any sign of life.”

Mark Fedor, U.S. Coast Guard captain

“So when she is out or we’re in a restaurant and she needs to have it, instead of having a brownie, it can be put into the food that she’s eating.”

Jennifer Ayotte, mother of Stephanie

Documents

Nanaimo Daily News, October 06, 2015