Top Northern Beat stories for 2023
Inner city chaos, emerging from political exile, communities fight back
Happy 2024!
First nod of the new year goes to you, our readers. Thank you for reading our stories and newsletters. We are obsessed with politics and dedicated to delivering insightful analysis and in-depth investigations. But you are the reason we do it.
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Without further ado, I give you Northern Beat highlights from 2023…
Our most-read story of the year, written by Rob Shaw, tracks how community members in BC’s northeast took matters into their own hands after they lost confidence in provincial policies and the criminal justice system.
Dawson Creek residents combat crime ‘crisis’: The eighth time thieves broke into his property, Dwaine Dilworth had had enough. He’d been running Glacier Mobile Glass in Dawson Creek for 14 years, with few thefts. But in the last few months, his company van was stolen, his equipment ransacked, and the fence around his work compound cut eight times.
Another top story from last year chronicles the devastating bureaucratic quagmire of public policy gone wrong. More than two years after a fire razed the Village of Lytton to cinders, not one home has been rebuilt.
Lytton: 840 days, tens of millions spent on archeology, no homes built: “It’s hard to believe a province could spend $30 to $40 million on a recovery process where we have not seen one house or one business rebuilt,”says Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart.
Our most-read stories of all time bear out this trend. Both stories were about communities burdened by ineffective public policy and the vexation of residents bearing the brunt of government inaction.
Occupy Blue River: High-conflict protest, two rules of law: In a filmed incident on Sept. 30, 2019, twin sisters, Amanda Soper and Nicole Manuel, approach two Trans Mountain workers at the gates of the company’s pump station in Blue River. One sister videos while the other verbally attacks in a hail of insults.
Terrace: unchecked crime, a ‘community in crisis’: Cameron Golder was serving a customer in the clothing boutique where she works in downtown Terrace, B.C., when a man passed by the store’s front window. Dressed in dark clothing, he had two black eyes and wore a glove with chains across the knuckles. A stick jutted out of his backpack. “He looked rough,” Golder recalled. She inadvertently made eye contact…
Most-read stories of 2023
With a few exceptions, our top-10 most widely read stories of the year focussed on what Nanaimo mayor Leonard Krog called “the social issue of our times.” Namely the chaos and misery culminating from rampant addiction, mental illness, brain injury, homelessness, drug use and crime in inner cities across BC (and Canada).
Pretending BC is Portugal won’t make it so: The New Democrat government and its top medical health officers have heavily staked their decriminalization gambit on the drug policies of Portugal, Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere, using the European successes as a shield against criticism and proof the experiment will work in B.C. But the comparison is ill-informed and disingenuous.
Municipalities want rules on drug use for safety of all citizens: In many ways, Rebecca Price-Baechle’s daughter is a typical seven-year-old. She goes to elementary school, takes gymnastics and has a family who loves her. Unfortunately, that’s where her daughter and normal diverge.
Scarce mental health care in BC jails perpetuates addiction and crime by Shannon Waters: People with addiction issues who’ve spent time in provincial prisons paint a bleak picture of what it’s like trying to recover while incarcerated. “I’ve done a lot of prison time over the years,” said Harry, a 44-year-old Nanaimo resident…
You’ve gotta have faith to believe in ‘safe supply’: British Columbian and Canadian government elected and senior public health officials are such fervent believers in the gospel of “safer supply,” they preach unproven benefits as truth, embrace self-reporting by drug users as hard scientific evidence, and dismiss warnings from addictions specialists as mere anecdote.
Heartbreak to hope: northern MLA on $1.5 billion addictions plan: BC Liberal Leader Kevin Falcon drew several rounds of applause as he was unveiling his $1.5 billion plan to boost addictions treatment this week. But perhaps nobody was clapping louder than Mike Bernier, who stood off to the side at the press conference in New Westminster Thursday, struggling to keep his emotions in check.
New Blueberry River agreement will ‘affect everything’ in land stewardship: A new ground-breaking agreement between the B.C. government and Blueberry River First Nations will initiate “significant” change in land stewardship and resource development across the province, signalling it’s no longer business as usual, according to agreement signatories.
New Democrats’ split personality on natural resources: B.C.’s New Democrat government spent the past week gingerly tiptoeing its way through the forestry file, trying to say and do as little as possible to avoid being dragged into an issue that divides the governing party internally and which it has largely tried to ignore for the better part of half a decade in power.
Some BC NDP MLAs told of illegal acts more than a year before government cut ties: B.C. Premier David Eby and his ministers were adamant their government severed ties with a Vancouver-based drug user group immediately upon learning it was involved in illicit drug trafficking. Yet several government MLAs, including the province’s Attorney General, were personally briefed on drug user groups’ illegal activities 17 months ago…
Other notable stories from 2023:
Rural health care
The state of our healthcare system also dominated news cycles in 2023 and like in many other sectors, health care for rural residents seemed worse off than their urban counterparts.
Rural health care cruel and unsafe, say critics: Hank Krynen was a tough old cowboy near Williams Lake, who at the age of 90 was still chucking around 50-pound bales of hay to feed his horses. When he got shingles last year, he turned to Cariboo Memorial Hospital for help, a facility his late wife nursed at for four decades. Within a month he was dead…
Long surgery waits, overflowing hospital beds in north: Health workers from B.C.’s North are raising the alarm at staggering over capacity in hospitals, lengthy wait times, burnt out staff and declining conditions for patients. The University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George recently hit 125 per cent over capacity, with the Emergency Room short-staffed and the beds overflowing…
Good news stories
Eby’s support for detox proposal a ray of light in northwest: Premier David Eby lobbed a lifeline to northern residents, committing his government’s support to a First Nations-led, local government-backed detox proposal for Terrace, in what would be an unprecedented first for the northwest region.
New agreement will unite communities across Simpcw territory: A ground-breaking agreement will soon bind together Simpcw First Nation and four communities across its territory in a shared commitment to work together and build prosperity for everyone in the North Thompson-Robson Valley.
NW communities aim for revenue sharing deal by February: Progress may be painfully slow, and there’s nothing even in writing yet, but Terrace’s mayor says he hasn’t given up hope Premier David Eby will cut a revenue-sharing deal with the province’s cash-strapped northwest municipalities.
Big changes on the energy horizon
BC Utilities chair fired, signalling major changes to energy law: Government abruptly fired the head of the province’s independent energy regulator, signalling even more major changes are coming to provincial energy law.
BC approves Cedar LNG, caps emissions: How do you get a polluting natural resource project through the environmentally-minded government of Premier David Eby? The answer, it turns out, is by appealing to the only thing the Eby administration considers more important than climate change: Indigenous reconciliation.
Underreported story lines
Drugs in trades, highest overdoses for the unemployed by Keith Norbury: By March 6, 2019, Trevor Botkin’s drug addiction had made his life such a mess that the career construction superintendent was planning to end it. “I was waiting for my mom to get up and go to work so I [could] park my Jeep in her garage. And that was going to be the end of my story.”
Parents lost in SOGI crossfire; former education minister speaks out: “We have to talk about what’s age appropriate, and what’s really, truly supposed to be in the classroom,” says former BC Liberal education minister, Mike Bernier.
Worth reading
Eby stance on medical ‘safer supply’ at odds with reality: The BC NDP government firmed its position on hard drugs this month, pledging to only allow medically prescribed ‘safer supply.’ But the new tough stance is at odds with what’s really been going on...
Scientists and fishers battle Green Crab invaders by Tom Davis: A little-known invasive species has been spreading along B.C.’s coast since 1998, and for the most part the invasion has gone undetected. “I have seen more than 10,000 Green crabs pulled out of critical juvenile salmon habitat … in one day using only 40 traps,” said Crysta Stubbs.
Top political story – the unexpected rise of BC Conservatives
Like ’em or leave ‘em, the big surprise of 2023 was the BC Conservatives. After decades in political exile, the party suddenly gained relevancy. In BC’s 2020 election, they won less than two per cent of the popular vote, but are now polling in second place provincially among decided voters.
The biggest factor is probably the surging popularity of Pierre Poilievre and his federal Conservatives. According to polling, a lot of people confuse the two parties. Many British Columbians are also confusing them with the opposition BC United, who lost substantial name recognition when they rebranded from the BC Liberals to the BC United.
But a few other key events also coalesced to fuel the BC Cons’ breakout year.
One little-known influence tracks back to when the former BC Liberals disqualified conservative commentator and filmmaker Aaron Gunn from their 2022 leadership contest. Gunn took his discontent, along with his ‘common sense’ leadership policy platform to the BC Conservatives, essentially reviving the party and renewing its board of directors. Gunn is now the federal Conservative candidate for North Island-Powell River.
Then BC United leader Kevin Falcon kicked northern MLA John Rustad out of caucus, leaving him free to join the newly invigorated BC Cons.
Fired BC Liberal MLA joins BC Conservatives by Geoff Russ: For the first time in over a decade, the Conservative Party of BC has an elected member of the legislature...
Four months later, the BC Cons came out of nowhere to place runner-up in a by-election.
BC conservatives get boost, pundits mixed on political prospects: After the BC Conservatives won an unprecedented 20 per cent of the vote in a Vancouver Island by-election in June, beating both the BC United and the BC Greens for second place, some supporters predict a political sea change…
Then, a second BC United MLA joined the conservatives, elevating the party’s status.
With official status, BC Conservatives aim high for 2024 election: The Conservative Party of BC will enter the fall legislative session with official party status, making it the first time since 1996 that four parties will be recognized in the legislature.“ We’ve already made history!” Rustad declared…
Next are a few intriguing British Columbians with cool jobs.
Interesting people profiles
Road trip pro keeps northern BC highways smooth: Very few people have seen B.C.’s north quite like Cailey Brown. From the smallest backroad to the busiest highway, from Prince Rupert to the border of the Northwest Territories, Brown has driven all the roads in between. In fact, it’s her job.
Poachers’ nemesis: ‘Casper’ in pursuit by Jeff Davies: Tall and lean, fleet of foot, Randy Nelson could sneak through the woods, crawl along riverbanks, and skulk in the shadows for hours, without being seen or heard.
Ellis Ross pushes through a shifting landscape of memory loss: Ellis Ross slides into the chair in his office with a sigh. He’s just spent 15 minutes briefing fellow MLAs on the complexities of Indigenous participation in natural resource projects. But within a few hours, he won’t remember any of it.
Top newsletters
To round out your reading odyssey, try our two most-read newsletters of 2023:
Cinnamon buns, a lost plot, Willem Defoe and Pouce Coupians rock the forum
and
Cowering heroes, not so merry go round, and someone gets lucky in Kamloops.
That catches you up for 2023.
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Thanks for reading and may you all breath a little fire in this year of the Dragon.
Fran
Questions, comments, feedback, contact Fran@NorthernBeat.ca
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