Editor:
I read with great interest your blog published on Oct. 25, 2018. I would like to start this letter with an apology. When we first met I did share my frustration over the fact that the newspaper had a dedicated member of staff covering the Trans Mountain pipeline, but no dedicated member to cover other federal issues. I am sorry that I came across as rude. It was certainly not my intention, and I am happy that we have agreed to meet again so that I can apologize in person.
I think my initial concern stems from my experience with the Burnaby NOW prior to the (federal) election. We used to dialogue every week on various federal issues and how they affected Burnaby, but since the election, those conversations have slowed significantly. For more than a year, instead of engaging in a regular community dialogue with the paper on a diverse set of issues, my only regular interaction with the NOW has been with regards to the Trans Mountain pipeline. This is not unique to the paper, it is true for every media interview I have done over the last number of years. My concern is not that this is not an important issue to cover, it is that there are many other pressing federal issues that directly impact our community that are receiving much less coverage or no coverage at all.
Federal issues greatly impact the residents of Burnaby and North Vancouver, whether it be new funding for transportation, a new National Housing Strategy, or the Trans Mountain Pipeline. These decisions have local implications, and it’s important for our constituents to hear about them and provide feedback. As the new editor, I thought this was a great opportunity to request greater coverage on federal issues, but I in no way intended to suggest that you should report less on Trans Mountain. I have spent more than half of my time in office working on this issue, and have a very clear understanding of how important it is to Burnaby and North Vancouver. It was in fact through community engagement and feedback that I was able to draft my initial report to the Trans Mountain panel on behalf of our community.
The idea to rezone the tank farm was drafted as part of a series of ideas that I shared with our community as well as your newspaper in a discussion document. It is a document that is also designed to foster community engagement. It was drafted after the proposal to purchase the project, but prior to the recent court decision. Within the document I propose six potential ideas that could help address some of the concerns that local constituents have raised with me through thousands of meetings and conversations.
With regards to your opinion on the idea of rezoning Burnaby Mountain, I don’t actually believe the idea is ridiculous, and I have requested funding in order to examine what the actual clean up and engineering costs would be for the project. I’ve also met with a group of residents on Burnaby Mountain to see whether or not they would favour such a project. In our last riding-wide newsletter, as well as in numerous other documents distributed to the community, we sent a survey to gauge levels of support, and so far the results have shown that the majority of respondents believe this is something we should at the very least explore.
I prioritize community engagement over all other parts of my job, and it’s one of the reasons that I host so many forums, send so many surveys, and have maintained the best door knocking record in Western Canada. In fact, the first page of the discussion document states: “This document was originally prepared as a discussion document that has been shared with my caucus and cabinet colleagues. I would like to share it with you to get your feedback on what I am working on. Please fill out the survey on the last page of this document if you would like to share your thoughts.”
The ideas in this document include (available in full at TerryBeechMP.ca):
- Turning the Indian Arm into a Marine Protected Area
- Creating a Fish Fund for British Columbia
- Using more local labour for pipeline construction
- Funding Benefit Impact Agreements for those communities most impacted
- Look at rezoning Burnaby Mountain in order to move the tank farm
- Put in place a plan to retire aging pipeline infrastructure.
In addition to this document, I’ve published two other discussion papers on the Trans Mountain pipeline, as well as a comprehensive analysis on how investments made in Burnaby are helping to protect our environment and grow our economy for the middle class. I’ve also recently published a document highlighting 50 of our most impactful investments and projects that I’ve been working on for our community. Out of the more than 100 pages of documents that I’ve published in the last year, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on one page, and I look forward to hearing your opinion on the rest as well. I would invite all members of our community to read these discussion documents at TerryBeechMP.ca/policy and share their opinion in your newspaper and online.
Terry Beech, Member of Parliament
Editor’s note: In regards to Terry Beech’s categorization of how the NOW uses its staff resources, it’s clear that Mr. Beech has no idea of how we deploy our staff because his description is inaccurate. Which makes sense because he doesn’t actually work for the NOW. The fact is, our reporters share the federal portfolio on a range of issues – whether it’s the pipeline or funding announcements. For example, more than one reporter has written about the pipeline and its related court stories since I started at the paper. Another reporter handles federal transportation announcements. Another does federal health-care issues. Another reporter is dedicated to covering federal funding announcements involving businesses, most recently in our Friday edition with the minister of innovation giving money to a Burnaby tech firm. If Mr. Beech had bothered to sit down with me and formally discuss this before criticizing the paper after I had been on the job for a couple of weeks, then I would have cleared up his misconceptions about this. Instead, as I described in my blog, I popped in to introduce myself, was criticized while we were shaking hands, and then I left so our reporter could conduct her interview. I did, however, assure him that we were interested in other federal issues and have carried through on this commitment in the ensuing months, but Mr. Beech has chosen to not include that in his letter. I should make clear that our job is not to “dialogue every week” with one politician. Our resources are far too precious to spend on one person and there are so many more hyper-local stories that need covering. I look forward to meeting with Mr. Beech to discuss this further.
