Wednesday, July 31, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
All stitched up Isobel Bourque, 12, works on a small bag sewing project in the intermediate class at Theatre Northwest’s Sewing Camp on Tuesday afternoon. There are daily drop-in sewing classes every morning this week as well at the theatre. Sewing camps of various levels continue through the rest of the summer.
curling championship City looking to ban plastic bags Women’s to be big draw, council told Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
Using plastic bags to carry your purchases out of the store appears to be on its way to becoming a thing of the past in Prince George. City council voted unanimously on Monday night to direct staff to draft a report on how best to “regulate” single-use plastic bags, but in an interview Tuesday, Coun. Murry Krause, the motion’s main proponent, confirmed the intent is to impose a ban. “It’s a bit of a national movement for local governments to be pushing for that just because of what’s happening – the litter around town, responding to the issue of plastics in our waterways and all of the plastics that are ending up our landfills.” A similar attempt by Victoria council ran into a headwind this month when the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned that city’s bylaw in response to an appeal by the Canadian Plastic Bag Association, which represents manufacturers and distributors of plastic shopping bags. The court found the bylaw’s primary purpose was to protect the natural environment rather than to regulate business. As such, the city should have sought provincial approval for the bylaw – something it did not do.
Today’s Weather Hi +17° Low +9° See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Councilor Murry Krause asked about banning the use of plastic bags in Prince George at a council meeting. In that light, Krause said he wanted to make sure Prince George city council had its ducks in a row before proceeding. “I really wanted to make sure that if we were going to put the effort into it and proceed with this, that we had a chance of success,” he said. Both the provincial and federal
LOCAL HOROSCOPE NEWS OPINION A&E HEALTH
1-3 2 4-5 6 7 8
SPORTS COMICS CROSSWORD MONEY CLASSIFIEDS
governments have moved towards bans on single-use plastics but neither level has made a full commitment, in Krause’s opinion. “We’ve got to push to have this agenda moved forward,” he said. “I think if we are just complacent, and just wait, it might not happen.” — see ‘CHANGE NEVER, page 3
9-10 11 11 12 13-16
viewers, the majority of them in China. As for attendance at the games themselves, Morris said 60,000 to 80,000 tickets will be scanned over the course of the tournament based on past experience. About 70 per cent of fans will be from the local area, a further 15 per cent from 100 to 200 kilometres away and the rest from out of country. Fans, officials, players and sponsors will take up 2,500 to 3,000 hotel rooms, each of them spending upwards of $500 in the city, according to estimates derived from an economic impact study. And he said Curling Canada will typically spends about $1 million locally to put on the event.
Contact Us
Newsstand $2.00 incl. tax Home Delivered 95¢/day
Millions of Canadians’ data stolen MONEY 12
www.pgcitizen.ca
As for attendance at the games themselves, Morris said 60,000 to 80,000 tickets will be scanned over the course of the tournament...
Prince George will be front and centre – as in centre ice – when the Women’s World Curling Championships are held at CN Centre next year. Curling Canada events manager Terry Morris was in city council chambers on Monday night to give a presentation on the benefits the event will bring to the city and among them is the number of times the City of Prince George logo will be shown on television. “If you calculate that on each end, 16 rocks will pass over that logo with the camera following it, and within a 10-end game, that’s 160 views you’re going to get per game,” Morris commented. Typically, the host city’s logo is placed near the centre of each of the four sheets put in place for the championships. Set for March 14-22, TSN will provide 50 hours of live coverage over those nine days, while World Curling Television will be good for a further 75 hours. If Canada makes it into the championship game, Morris said TSN’s coverage will draw about six million viewers. WCT, in turn, will reach out to 47 countries and about 86 million
CLASSIFIED: 250-562-6666 READER SALES: 250-562-3301 SWITCHBOARD: 250-562-2441
0
58307
00200
5