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Don’t forget to turn your clock back one hour this Sunday

Saturday, November 3, 2018 | Your community newspaper since 1916 CITIZEN EXCLUSIVE

Russell Peters bringing tour to CN Centre Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca Russell Peters listens to the legends. His comedy career was just wobbling to a newborn standstill when he encountered one of the all-time greats. George Carlin gave him some career advice, Peters heeded it, and in a matter of only a few years he had gone from reinvented suburban record deejay to international superstar of the stage. Peters is indisputably one of the world’s most successful standup comics, with sellouts from Air Canada Centre in hometown Toronto to Madison Square Garden in New York City to O2 Arena in London. It makes a gig in Prince George seem a little off-course, but Peters told The Citizen that in Canada he likes to mix the markets, and it was Prince George’s turn. “What better place to be than Prince George, Alberta,” he said, chuckling. You laugh, I said, but I’ve been there to hear a star performer walk on our local stage and proclaim “Hello Medicine Hat” to the uncharmed audience. Peters moved the phone a little from his mouth and barked to some fictitious helper in the background. “Get me booked in Medicine Hat immediately. Me and Prince George have a score to settle,” he said. I asked him if this was turning into new material. He said he did not block of composition time to come up with new material. “This is how I write,” he said of the directionless banter. “It just falls off the trees. Jokes hit me on the head like falling coconuts – jokonuts, if you will.” It’s a simplification for sure. His bestselling shows like Outsourced, Notorious, Almost Famous, The Green Card Tour and mega-seller Red White & Brown certainly take careful crafting and plenty of rehearsal. It doesn’t fall far from the aforementioned palm tree, though, in that it’s all rooted in Peters’ own life. Nothing seems sacred,

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Russell Peters is pictured in Toronto on March 29. Peters will perform at CN Centre on Monday. behind his closed personal doors. He pokes fun at his family, he pokes fun at his own ethnicity as an Indo-Canadian, and then extrapolates out to pull the legs of every colour and creed on the planet. I told him of Prince George comedian Jon White’s personal rule about never making fun of traits that can’t be changed, so no grinding on someone’s nationality or sexual identity or physical traits. But haircuts? Clothes? Political views? Religion?

“Religion you sorta can, because you can always change that, if you wanted to,” Peters jumped in. “And I have gay friends I make fun of, but in a loving way. Because you know what it is? It’s about the intent. The thing is, if you read a transcript of my act you would say ‘this man is a horrible human being’ but it’s about the tones and the inflections and the intent in the words. But if you just read the words you’d say ‘this guy is a piece of human garbage.’”

That’s the art of comic delivery. It’s about where your personal power is placed when you pull the trigger on punchlines. Sometimes it comes out badly. Peters was lambasted for an off-the-cuff remark he made while hosting the Juno Awards broadcast one year. But he’s been applauded for demonstrating how an ethnic or gender joke can actually be made, keeping in mind it doesn’t minimize or degrade. — see ‘I SPEAK CHILD, page 3

Crashed bus filled with sawmill workers Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca The bus that went off Highway 97 north of Prince George late Thursday afternoon was carrying employees working at Canfor’s Polar Sawmill in Bear Lake, the company has confirmed. B.C. Emergency Health Services said 16 of the 32 people who were on the bus were transported to hospital. Four were taken by ambulance with three of them suffering from life-threatening injuries and one in severe condition. Another bus was brought in to transport the remaining 12 who were in stable condition. Those 12 were discharged by 10 p.m., Canfor spokesperson Michelle Wright said. Among them was Brad Foster. According to his posting on Facebook, he was knocked around in what he called the “worst ride of my life.” “When we took a 30-foot jump off the highway I tried to hold onto the armrests but we hit so hard I ended up kissing the roof of

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A bus carrying employees from Canfor’s Polar Sawmill in Bear Lake went off the road on Thursday. the bus with my ass before being slammed into the drivers seat, where the windshield used to be,” he said. “On top of the driver and another guy.”

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Foster said he suffered severe bruising to his leg and a bump to his elbow and noted he was outside the windshield by the time the bus had stopped.

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“I think there were five people ejected from the bus, the guy in front of me went through the windshield and was about eight feet in front of the bus when it stopped.... he walked away! “A few people with worse injuries than mine, some looked pretty severe.” Emergency personnel were called to the scene at Mitchell Road, near Huble Homestead about 20 kilometres north of the city, at about 3:45 p.m. RCMP said no other vehicles were involved in the crash. A combination of rain and snow had fallen in the area for most of the day and while the cause remained under investigation, RCMP said weather conditions at the time may have been a factor. The highway was reopened to single-lane, alternating traffic by 7:30 p.m. and completely reopened by 1 a.m., according to DriveBC. Wright said Friday the sawmill was up and running. “Fridays are always maintenance days and that work is proceeding as normal today,” she said.

PM issues apology to First Nation

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Duchess Park still above capacity Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff A handful of stopgap measures are being deployed to ease the pressure at Duchess Park Secondary School where the number of students attending the school remains significantly above its capacity. As of Sept. 30, enrollment was 1,030 and although the count is 25 fewer than at the same point last year, it’s still above the capacity of 900 students as listed by the Ministry of Education, according to a staff report to school board trustees. The report was included in the agenda package for the board’s Oct. 30 meeting. The newly-elected school board will be sworn in this Tuesday. Steps to deal with the excess have included a “creative use of space” such as establishing a mobile biology lab in the school’s theatre. — see ‘THE SPACE, page 3

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