Burnaby Now March 18 2015

Page 1

NEWS 3

City says no to six-lot plan

WEDNESDAY MARCH 18, 2015

ARTS 9

COMMUNITY 20

TrojanWomen on stage

Transplant Trot returns

There’s more at Burnabynow.com

LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS

No numbers, no payment City wants to know how much it cost RCMP to police pipeline protests By Jennifer Moreau

jmoreau@burnabynow.com

UNDER SUSPICION Tim Takaro stands in front of the trail marker he photographed on Burnaby Mountain, with the Kinder Morgan tank farm in the background. The SFU professor was contacted by RCMP after he was spotted taking pictures near the tank farm. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

Pics land prof in trouble

‘The worst part is they called my daughter... I find it really weird, kind of spooky and intimidating, By Jennifer Moreau

jmoreau@burnabynow.com

A SFU professor is wondering why police are investigating him for taking pictures near the Burnaby Mountain tank farm. According to Tim Takaro, a New Westminster resident and health sciences professor at SFU, was having lunch with his family last week, when his daughter’s cell phone rang, and the man on the other end was looking for Takaro. “He identifies himself as the Burnaby RCMP and he asked me if I was involved in any incidents,” he said. “I didn’t know anything he was talking about.” The officer told Takaro there would be no criminal charges, but Takaro had no idea he

was under investigation in the first place. “He said, there’s no criminal charges, kind of out of the blue,”Takaro said. The officer also informed Takaro that police knew he had been on Burnaby Mountain protesting the pipeline. On March 6,Takaro was visiting Global TV to give an interview on the Port Metro Vancouver fire. He then drove up the hill to Kinder Morgan’s tank farm and walked along a nearby trail. “I took a picture of my phone with the trail signs, and behind it is the guard station (for the Kinder Morgan tank farm),” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it, except the guy came out of the guard booth and said, ‘You can’t take pictures here.’ I said, ‘OK, fine,’ and walked down the trail.”

Takaro suspects the guard took down his licence plate number and that’s how police tracked him down. “The worst part is they called my daughter,”Takaro said. “I find it really weird, kind of spooky and intimidating.” Takaro said his daughter does not pay for her cell phone, but he’s unsure if it’s registered in his name or his wife’s. Takaro, who is a participant in the NEB’s Kinder Morgan pipeline hearing, also said he sees a connection to Bill-C51, the Conservative government’s latest attempt to fight terrorism. “I do think there’s intimidation going on on the part of access to Kinder Morgan, and I think the new bill, C-51, that the Harper government is trying to ram through, this so called anti-terrorist bill, is very intimidating for people who are protesting these new large infrastructure projects that are

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The Burnaby RCMP has no plans to release information about the policing bill for the Burnaby Mountain Kinder Morgan protests last fall, and local Mayor Derek Corrigan has no plans to pay. The NOW has been asking the Burnaby RMCP for the final costs since last November, following the 10-day standoff between protesters, police and Kinder Morgan crews conducting survey work on Burnaby Mountain. “I don’t have the information.We will not be releasing it,” said Burnaby RCMP spokesperson Staff Sgt. Maj. John Buis last Thursday. “We are talking about potentially hundreds of police officers from various sections throughout the Lower Mainland, and Vancouver Island and the Interior, and trying to put all that together with an accurate figure.” Buis could not comment on the rationale behind the decision to withhold the information. Meanwhile, Corrigan said he hasn’t received any final costs for the bill.The city has reached out to the NEB and the provincial government, requesting help with the costs, but no deals have been made. Kinder Morgan has not received any city correspondence on the matter, but the company is open to discussing the issue, according to spokesperson Lisa Clement. Corrigan also said council recently received a letter from Attorney General Suzanne Anton stating the province will not help with the policing bill. According to Corrigan, the city has also reached out to the RCMP’s E-Division, which he said ordered the extra police on Burnaby Mountain, but there’s been no response so far. “It may be that many of them don’t want to talk about the costs, because they are simply going to eat those costs,” Corrigan said. “If they are, then the only

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