Bob Mackin News Reporter JASON Tighe Price was sentenced Thursday to 21 years in prison for the 1997 murder of North Vancouver's Kelly Kaler. A B.C, Supreme Court jury convicted 22-vear old Price on Feb. 12 of second degree murder. Jt also recommended Justice Allan Thackray send Price to jail for the maximum 25 years without parole. The jury's recommendation was not binding. Thackray said he was unaware of a jury asking for such a stiff sentence. Crown counsel Ralph Keefer told the court Wednesday dur- ing Price’s sentencing hearing that Thackray should concur with the jury. Keefer said Price showed “callousness and self-indul- gent disregard for human life” when he stabbed Kaler 13 times on March 12, 1997, in the Money Mart at 199 Hastings St. in Vancouver. If jailed for 25 years, Keefer said, Price would be free in bis late 40s “feaving 30 more years of life expectancy than he left his victim.” Defence lawyer Patrick Angly didn’t ask for a precise sen- tence for Price, who didn’t provide a psychiatric examination. However, Angly told ‘Thackray that the maximum sentence should be reserved for the worst crime, committed by the worst lerer handed 21 Vancouver man sentenced in killing of 19-year-old North Vancouver Money Mart teller offender. “In spite of the horrendous nature of the crime and the neg: auve aspects of the character of Mir. Price, there can be worse,” Thackray said Thursday in his reasons for judgment. Thackray told the court during Wednesday's sentencing hearing that it took the jury all of 30 seconds te recommend that Price be given 25 years without parole. “Phe jury was obviously, and properly, aghast at the grue- some nature of the killing,” he said Thursday. Kaler,}9, was befriended by Price while she worked as a teller at Money Mart. Kaler, Thackray said, naiveiy listened to Price’s plans to rob the store. But, according to evidence, Kaler rejected both Price’s scheme and his tnendship. She told one Money Mark co-work- er that she sede that Price was stalking her. Keefer called her a vulnerable woman, genuinely perplexed on how to deal with Price as she worked alone at night in a dan- gerous area of the city. Around 9 p.m. on March 12, 1997, Price came to the store “Veal riday, April 9, 1999 -- North Shore News — 3 ail term and, Thackray said, Kaler made the fatetul mistake of letting him inte the secure erea in the back. Price stole mre than $60,000 in cash and traveilers’ cheques trom the safe arid violently attacked! Kaler. Price fled the store and went on a night-Jong spending spree. He rented a linsousine, bought drugs and hired prostitutes. According to evedence, he told owo friends that he robbed someone and, ‘Thackray said, “raising his hands, said he had used them to rip miat person’s Adam's Apple out.” When he testified, Price claimed he was innocent. He blamed the murder on an inaocent man, Kelly Thody. Thody testitied at the preliminary hearing but couldn’: be found to do the same at the trial. “He blamed a friend for the murder in spite of overwhelm- ing evidence of his own guilt,” Thackray said. “He concocted a stor. that was incapable of belief” Thackray concluded that Price, in his current state of mind, is a risk to re-offend. Price was convicted in 1996 of theft over $5,000 and had three 1995 convictions for robbery and possession of property obtained by crime. He stood at the end of Wednesday’s hearing to deliver a brief apology to Kaler’s family and friends. “I hope you can find peace within yourselves and close this chapter in your lives,” he said, with his back towards the public gallery. F = Burrard meet to address treaty poinis Bob Mackin News Reporter AN agreement-in-prin- ciple could come as early as this fall in treaty negotiations with North Vancouver’s Tsleil- Waututh First Nation. Negotiators for the federal and provincial governments and Tsleil-Waututh met in public Wednesday at) North Vancouver District hall. Federal negotiator Vince Collins said the Nisga’a and Sechelr settlements have cre- ated a snowball effect, heip- ing to speed the process. “There is a sense that this is real,” Collins said. “People are now going to get a sense of what a treaty really looks like.” What the first urban treaty-in-the making looks like is unclear at this point. Tsleil-Waututh is not only talking directly with Victoria and Ortawa, but with federal and provincial Crown corpo- rations, and municipal and regional governments. The Tsleil-Waututh area includes more private property than Crown land. Private property is not on the table in treaty talks. “Ir may not be necessary to satisfy all of their interests in the more traditional ways of either land or cash,” Collins said. Tsleit-Waututh Chief Leonard George said there can be innovative remedies. For example, he said: “Cates Park we'll never own because it’s District of North Vancouver parkland. But can we have a learning centre there to teach customs and traditions?” George said the goal for his side is to sign a treaty See Low page § NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge RICK Hansen gave a talk on From Dreams to Reality at Carson Graham school on Wednesday evening. Hansen spoke about what moti- vated him to achieve his impossible dream of covering 40,000 kilometres during his Man In Motion tour. Sarah Woodend Contributing Writer CLOSE to 500 people gathered at Carson Graham Wednesday night to listen to the dreams that made Rick Hansen Canada’s man in motion. As he rolled up the ramp to the stage he laughed, recalling the different prob- lems he has encountered at presentation rooms that were not fully wheelchair accessible. His whole fife has been about taking risks and pushing himself to the limit. He told the audience that no matter how tough things seem you can always find the motivation inside to push yourself harder. “Never forget the power of the dream,” he said. In 1973 at the age of 15, Hansen was an active, carefree teenager who loved sports. Then, on the way home from a day of fishing on Williams Lake he was thrown from the back of a pickup truck. He landed on a tool box and snapped his back. He remembers being helpless, propped against the box waiting for the ambulance to arrive, filled with despair. He woke up in the hospital a paraplegic. He talked about how difficult it was to be confined to a bed after being so involved with sports. But he had to set new goals so he started to focus on the things he could do. He came up against many obstacles while rebuilding his life, but no matter how bad it looked, Hansen always found the strength inside to keep going. Hansen has redefined the word disability. He finished high schoo} as an ath- Iete and went on to be the first student with a disability to graduate in physical education from University of British Columbia. He got his start playing wheelchair basketball at Handsworth and as he looked around the Carson Graham gymnasium he remembered some of those ames. 8 After the accident his coach, Bob Redford, had encouraged him to return to the gym. Hansen was reluctant unt! one day Redford told him to look up the definition of athIcte in the dictionary. There was nothing in the definition saying rolls into town an athlete had to use his legs. The day Terry Fox came in to play on Hansen's Vancouver Cablecars wheel- chair basketball team he was a “skinny little guy” still undergoing chemotherapy. Although Fox wasn’t very strong he had passion and he trained every day to become onc of the best players on the team. “Terry lived every day to the fullest because he knew, just like that, it can be snapped away,” Hansen said. Hansen is proof that you can’t push yourself too hard. On the second day of his Man In Motion tour he was faced with rain and sleet so heavy that he had a flare-up of tendonitis in his elbows and shoulders. He got off the road and sat in his recreation vehicle wondering if he should just quit. Bur he didn’t. He got back on the road and travelled 113 kilometres that day. “Was I ever relieved that I didn’t give up, that I had one more stroke left.” Hansen touched ihe lives of people around the world during his tour and he didn’t let anvthing stop him. He traveled across Canada in mid-winter in a four- wheel drive wheelchair complete with studs and chains for traction. “We took winter and dissected it down to its changes and we were ready,” he said. Two years, two months, ovo days and 40,000 kilometres !rer he wheeled into the parking lot of Oakridge Mall tu end his journey. He had achieved what he thought was the impossible dream. Now he says if he could have that day back in 1973 he wouldn’t change a thing. “Quality of life is about your connectedness to yourself, family and community,” he said. He now lives with his wife Amanda, who he calls his biggest inspiration, and their three girls in Vancouver. “Every day I’m blown away by kids’ potential ... they believe in possibilities,” he said. He encourages everyone to realize their potential. Through UBC, Hansen has set up the Rick Hansen Institute. His purpose now is “to see the day when people with disabilities realize their full potential.” To date he has raised over $100 million for the field of spinal cord injury. There is no question in his mind that the mysteries of the spine will be solved. Hansen’s North Shore visit was arranged by the North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council, a body representing all parent advisory councils from North Vancouver public schools.