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Headline makers and head shakers of 2015

A year in review
lennikov
Mikhail Lennikov with his wife, Irina, and son, Dmitri. Mikhail stayed in church sanctuary avoiding deportation for six years before he reportedly left the country.

New Year’s has arrived – and, for those of us in the newsroom, what better time to pause, reflect and remember all that’s happened in Burnaby in 2015.

When it comes to news headlines, Burnaby is never short of things to write about – from those stories that are very specifically local to those that garner national and even international headlines.

Earlier this month, the Burnaby NOW editorial team sat down to discuss the top stories of the year. Our collection of awards, honours and special mentions include the News Story of the Year, the Newsmaker of the Year, and several other awards, such as our “Who’s on First” and “Keeping Lawyers Busy” awards.

Our choices are obviously subjective. How does one judge the relative merits of the city’s huge housing crisis against the stories that came out of the 2015 federal election? Where do unusual stories, such as the story of rescue dog Anderson Cooper, rank?

We don’t pretend these “awards” can possibly touch on everything important that happened this year – but they do cover many of the highlights.

A big thank you to all of our newsmakers and those who pass on news tips and ideas – we couldn’t do it without you!

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The ‘Where is he now?’ award: Ex-KGB leaves Canada

An ongoing Burnaby story took a dramatic turn when ex-KGB agent Mikhail Lennikov quietly left the country in August.

The Burnaby resident went into sanctuary in a Vancouver church in 2009, and lived there for six years, avoiding deportation. He reportedly flew back to Russia, although no one would confirm this with the NOW. His lawyer said his wife and son were still staying in Canada, and Lennikov may apply to return. Lennikov, once a media darling, has mostly avoided the spotlight in recent years.

He was ordered deported because of his past with the KGB.

 

The 'Who’s on first?' award: Transcript goes viral

The most-read story for the Burnaby NOW this year was not a story. It was a blog post – a transcript, rather – of a conversation between reporter Jennifer Moreau and a communications staffer at Conservative party headquarters.

Meagan Murdoch
Jennifer Moreau’s conversation with
Conservative party communications staffer
Meagan Murdoch went viral during the
election. - screengrab from LinkedIn

The dialogue gave readers a behind-the-scenes look at what many reporters were dealing with during the election.

All across the country, Conservatives were missing from all candidates debates and ignoring media.

When Moreau questioned Tory staffer Meagan Murdoch on this, the conversation quickly spiralled into a journalist’s rendition of Who’s on First? that would have had Abbott and Costello banging their heads against the wall.

The post went quasi viral, especially among political folks, and garnered a lot of chatter on social media and Facebook.

 

 

The ‘I will survive’ award: Recall campaign falls short

Liberal MLA Richard Lee survived a grassroots attempt to oust him from his seat earlier in the year. An ad hoc group started a recall campaign, hoping to boot Lee from his post and trigger a byelection.

The proponents, some of whom were teachers, took issue with Lee, who was Burnaby’s only Liberal at the time. They claimed he wasn’t representing his constituents. Lee kept his comments non-confrontational and talked about respecting the democratic process. The recall failed because the campaigners couldn’t get enough people to sign. That wasn’t entirely surprising, as almost all recall campaigns in the history of the province have failed to garner enough signatures.

 

The 'Voice in the wilderness' award: Lynne Quarmby

Our Voice in the Wilderness award goes to Lynne Quarmby, the Green candidate who ran in Burnaby North-Seymour.

Lynne Quarmby and Elizabeth May 04
Green candidate Lynne Quarmby ran in the new riding of
Burnaby North-Seymour. She brought a strong science-based
voice for the environment to the race. - File photo

The SFU biochemistry professor was a key figure in the Kinder Morgan protests on Burnaby Mountain last year, and she quickly made the move to politics. What didn’t follow, however, was support from some in the anti-pipeline crowd, who opted for the NDP candidate instead, thinking she had a better shot at winning.

Quarmby brought a much needed evidence-based, scientific perspective to the table, and she was a strong voice for protecting the environment. She chose to run with the Greens, the party with the least likely chance of winning, because their policies best matched her principles.

We applaud Quarmby’s principled stand for science and the environment. Quarmby will be a voice to reckon with, no matter what she chooses to do in the future.

 

The 'Ongoing saga' award: Kinder Morgan pipeline hearing delays

The National Energy Board review for the Kinder Morgan pipeline made great strides in 2015 despite some major delays. In the fall of 2014, the company faced mass protests on Burnaby Mountain, which delayed survey work but not for long.

Then the Conservatives appointed one of Kinder Morgan’s consultants to the National Energy Board as a new member. That created a conflict of interest because that oil-industry consultant, Steven Kelly, had worked on a key piece of Kinder Morgan’s submission to the NEB.

The board then ruled to strike all of Kelly’s evidence from the record, and Kinder Morgan had to resubmit the information, which set the hearing back a few months.

The final arguments for intervenors also got pushed to the new year. The NEB’s deadline to make its recommendation on the pipeline is now May 20, 2016.

 

The 'one of these things just doesn't belong here' award: Mayor Derek Corrigan disputes distracted driving ticket

A provincial court judge gave Mayor Derek Corrigan a lesson on items B.C. drivers are and are not allowed to hold in their hands while driving.

A wallet? Yes.

A brick? Um…sure.

A dead cell phone? No.

Corrigan was ticketed for distracted driving in July 2013 after a local Mountie spotted him holding a cell phone while driving past BCIT.

The mayor, a former defence lawyer, disputed the ticket in March, arguing the phone was dead and he might as well have been holding a brick or his wallet.

Justice Brian Burgess was unmoved.

He upheld the penalty, noting that “holding the device in a position in which it may be used” is included in the Motor Vehicle Act’s definition of using an electronic device.

“There is a difference between a cellphone – even a cellphone that has a dead battery – and a wallet or a brick,” Burgess said, “and that is that there is legislation prohibiting a driver from using a cellphone while driving.”

 

The 'test of compassion' award: the Syrian refugee crisis

Refugees from Syria’s bloody civil war have been trickling into Burnaby for years, but it took a photo of toddler Alan Kurdi lying drowned on a Turkish beach to drive the refugee crisis home to Canadians and Burnaby residents.

The tragedy threw the plight of Syrian refugees into the spotlight during the federal election, and Canada is now preparing to welcome 25,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees by the end of February.

refugee
Maywood Elementary School Grade 6 student Barfin Shaikho,
addresses the Burnaby school board. She and her brother
and mother came to Vancouver in April with three other family
members after escaping civil war in Syria two years ago. - File photo

Burnaby’s share will be between 477 and 596. More than half will likely be kids.

Private sponsors have also stepped up, like the Masjid Al-Salaam and Education Centre, which applied to sponsor a refugee family and surpassed its goal of raising $30,000 to make that happen.

The crisis spawned more modest fundraising efforts as well, like the Awaaz Orphan Foundation’s Indian music benefit concert, Marlborough Elementary School’s drum-a-thon and the Burnaby Inter-Cultural Planning Table’s donation drive for Syrian refugee welcome packs.

But the idea of bringing hundreds of refugees into the community stirred controversy as well, with readers voicing concerns about security and the already short supply of affordable rental housing and jobs in Burnaby.

Their housing concerns were echoed by Mayor Derek Corrigan at a local emergency planning conference in November.

“Our vacancy rates are almost zero,” he said. “I don't know where they are going to put people. We can't accommodate the people here who are homeless. It just seems to me putting new refugees in communities that are already stretched for social housing, especially affordable rental housing, doesn't make much sense.”

 

 

The 'species of the year' award

Animals of all kinds grabbed their fair share of the headlines in 2015, but none insinuated itself into our lives and lawns quite like Rhizotrogus majalis, the European chafer beetle. With its succulent grubs, the species continued to wreak devastation in 2015 as crows and raccoons shredded local lawns in search of the tasty morsels. The city eventually jumped in and subsidized two $35 packages of nematodes for each resident to control the beetles – good for 750-square-feet of lawn.

William Murdock
A tasty treat: European chafer beetle grubs
were busy tearing up lawns across Burnaby
this year.  - File photo

Runners up in this category is suborder Serpentes, which made flesh-crawling appearances throughout the city this year, but mostly on Burnaby Mountain. No less than six abandoned pythons were found on the mountain this summer. Meanwhile, seven more abandoned snakes – one boa constrictor and six ball pythons – were found in plastic containers by a woman walking in Forest Glen Park. And in the spring, Burnaby-based Wildlife Rescue Association of B.C. played host to a writhing mass of 400 snakes that had their hibernation in Delta rudely interrupted by work crews upgrading a dike.

Honourable mention goes to Ursus americanus, black bears wandering through Burnaby Lake and Burnaby Mountain neighbourhoods, dining on scraps from un-bear-proof food-scrap bins. With neighbouring Port Moody and Coquitlam offering residents bear-proof bins, conservation officer James Kelly said the spike in Burnaby bear sightings in 2015 was likely the result of no similar program being offered here.

 

 

Animals we have known

Local animal stories came in all shapes and sizes this year.

Caber, a Burnaby-trained trauma assistance dog that works with the Delta Police Department to help soothe victims of crime and make it easier for them to tell their stories, earned our respect.

Our hearts went out to Anderson Cooper, a pup found on the brink of death by starvation in an old farm building in the Fraser Valley before coming to Burnaby-based The Journey Home Dog Rescue.

Six hundred neighbours signed a petition imploring city hall to allow South Burnaby resident Alexandra Lezo to keep her pet pygmy goats Toggy and Andy.

And Buddy the Rottweiler taught us there’s more to some stories than meets the eye.

A neighbour complained the dog had been neglected and cooped up in the cab of a large truck parked by an Edmonds-area apartment for months, but another neighbour said the canine was well cared for.

Buddy’s owner told the NOW the dog lived in the truck because the apartment he had just moved into with his young kids only allowed small dogs. He didn’t want to get rid of Buddy, he said, because the dog had helped him cope with depression after his wife died of cancer a year earlier, leaving him to care for their three children on his own.

 

The 'just let us sleep' award: Western painted turtles uprooted again

Dozens of baby Western painted turtles trying to catch some Zs in their Burnaby Lake nesting beach had their hibernation cut short this fall.

turtles
A Western painted turtle hatchling takes a look around after
being dug from its nesting ground by Burnaby Lake. Volunteers
unearthed the tiny turtles so they can be kept safe while their
nesting beach is rebuilt in November or January. - File photo

It was the second time in as many years that hatchlings at the beach had to be uprooted because of a 2014 coal spill into Silver Creek.

In January 2014, a CN train derailed and spilled coal into the creek, which runs into Burnaby Lake, home to one of the largest known B.C. populations of the Western painted turtle.

The first time the hatchlings had to be dug up was when heavy equipment to clean up the spill was deployed from their nesting grounds.

This year the turtles were scooped out so the beach could be excavated. All the sand was scheduled to be removed and replaced with sand free of contamination.  

The baby turtles are being reared up elsewhere and will be returned to Burnaby Lake in the spring.

 

The 'mea culpa' award: disc golf group apologizes

It’s takes a lot of guts to come forward in the face of a public backlash. But that’s what a group of disc golfers did in November, after a bald eagle got caught up in a disc golf basket and needed to be rescued.

The bird was found on Nov. 13 in Robert Burnaby Park tangled in wire attached to the disc golf basket, also called a tonal.

The eagle was eventually released back into the wild by the Orphaned Wildlife (OWL) Rehabilitation Society.

But the media attention prompted members of the Burnaby Disc Golf Club to take responsibility for putting up the wires and apologize for the incident, even making a donation to the OWL society. 

A member named Chad told the NOW the group never imagined a bird could get caught up in the basket.

"It's horrible, we're all such outdoorsy people and we love animals. We see a lot of them coming around the park. Nobody feels worse for this than us."

 

The 'only princess to visit Burnaby' award: Biz gets royal visit

It’s not often royalty comes to Burnaby, but that was the situation in late October.

The city welcomed Princess Astrid of Belgium, as she was part of a trade delegation from the European country that was visiting Canada.

The princess did a short meet-and-greet at Alpha Technologies, a Burnaby-based technology company specializing in power solutions that has close ties to Belgium.

While Princess Astrid did not grant interviews to media during a 25-minute stop at Alpha on Oct. 27, the minister of economy and foreign trade for the Wallonia region of Belgium Jean-Claude Marcourt told the NOW it was important for the princess to take part in the 300-person strong delegation to support the Belgian companies taking part.

Also at Alpha was a contingent of local Burnaby politicians, including Coun. Pietro Calendino, who had a brief chat with Princess Astrid about their Italian backgrounds.

He called the princess's appearance "exciting" while adding the visit by the Belgian delegation shows the importance and the calibre of businesses in Burnaby.

 

The ‘they should learn to play nice' award – The city vs. the Burnaby firefighters’ union

Can’t we all just get along?

Seems impossible not to utter these words when talking about the ongoing feud between the City of Burnaby and the union that represents its 281 firefighters.

firefighters
More than 60 Burnaby firefighters staged a silent
sit-in at a city council meeting in September to
send the message: they want a new contract. - File photo

The two sides have been going at it since after the 2014 civic election, which is when the union claims the city backed out of a verbal agreement it had with the firefighters for a new contract. Since then, the firefighters union, led by Rob Lamoureux, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 323, has been adamant it wants a deal now.

The local has been without a contract since 2011. The union says the city is to blame for the delay, alleging council and the mayor in particular are behind the delay.

But the city denies this.

When asked about the squabble, Coun. Paul McDonell said bargaining is a two-way street.

“… we’ve reached an impasse, and they went to mediation, and the mediator was unable to break the deadlock and suggested we go to arbitration,” he told the NOW.

The disagreement culminated with a sit-in at a September city council meeting by more than 60 firefighters.

The city and firefighters’ union are scheduled for arbitration in the summer of 2016. Lamoureux expects that by the time they sit down with the arbitrator, he’ll likely just slap them with the same deal neighbouring municipalities have been getting – a 2.5 per cent wage increase each year over four years.

But really, only time will tell – time that almost seems wasted on the bickering pair.

 

The ‘shootiest month’ award – Bullets were flying in March

March was a busy month for investigators with the province’s police watchdog – especially those working cases in Burnaby.

shooting
On March 29, a suspect in a fatal stabbing died
in hospital after he was shot by police outside a
home on 14th Avenue where the alleged killing took place. - File photo

Burnaby RCMP was thrust into the spotlight following three police-involved shootings in one month, including one fatality. Investigators with the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. were dispatched to the city each time to investigate whether or not the officers committed a crime.

The first incident took place in the early hours of March 1, when Burnaby Mounties were dispatched to the 7-Eleven at Canada Way and Edmonds Street. One suspects suffered a serious injury, believed to be from a bullet fired by police.

Nineteen days later, another man was shot by officers outside of an apartment on Salish Court.

The third incident, on March 29, saw Mounties shoot the suspect in a fatal stabbing on 14th Avenue near Willard Street.

So far, the office’s chief civilian director has yet to publish his findings on any of the incidents in March.

 

The ‘insult to injury’ award – Jaywalker hit by a car, fined

If a trip to the hospital wasn’t enough to teach a Vancouver man about the dangers of jaywalking, a $109 fine should do the trick.

Burnaby RCMP issued the 38-year-old a violation ticket for failing to cross in a crosswalk.

The man was hit by a car while crossing Kingsway near Smith Avenue. He suffered only non-life-threatening injuries, but the collision came less than a week after a 78-year-old Burnaby man was killed jaywalking across busy Willingdon Avenue.

“I think the message is to use crosswalks,” Burnaby RCMP Cpl. Daniela Panesar told the NOW. “Use the crosswalk. Take that extra minute to go for the crosswalk.”

 

The 'precarious parenting' award – Bird-brained child rearing

This award goes to a persistent pair of pigeons who perch on a fourth-floor window ledge at Burnaby Hospital every year and try to raise a family.

Mark Dickeson, Burnaby Hospital, pigeon
Burnaby Hospital surgeon Dr. Mark Dickeson pauses
during a busy day to check on a pigeon nesting on a
ledge off the fourth-floor surgical ward. - File photo

To the delight of all the patients, visitors and staff who pass by on the other side of the window, the conjugal couple nests, lays eggs and nurtures its hatchlings. For surgeon Mark Dickeson, however, the annual spectacle has a dark side. More than once, he’s seen evidence of crows ravaging the nest of its vulnerable young. “They call it a murder of crows – there’s a reason for it,” he told the NOW in March.

Runner up in this category is another pair of bird-brained parents who decided to start their family on the roof of a 22-storey Burnaby highrise. The Wildlife Rescue Association was called in to help relocate mom, dad and their five goslings to a nearby pond. It's not unusual for the association to get calls about geese and ducks in trouble in the spring, spokesperson Yolanda Brooks told the NOW.

"They go somewhere they think is safe,” she said, “but then they get stuck and they're exposed with all the other birds flying and attacking them, and they can't get the goslings down and need help.”