Burnaby NOW • Wednesday, November 30, 2011 • A09
Stolen North Van cars resurface in Burnaby
The RCMP want to know why 19 Subarus have been stolen from the streets of North Vancouver, only to reappear a few days later within a six-block radius of Kingsway and Edmonds in Burnaby. So far, 19 late ’90s or early 2000 model Subarus have gone missing – the latest overnight on Nov. 16 – and all but the most recent have been found undamaged in Burnaby. Other than that, there’s no apparent connection. “You got to wonder right?” said Corp. Richard De Jong, spokesman for the North Vancouver RCMP. “It’s going to be interesting once we do catch this person.” The thefts began in January of this year, but police didn’t notice any pattern until several months later, said De Jong. The only damage to the cars is in the ignition area, stemming directly from the
theft, and De Jong said the cars don’t appear to have been used in any other criminal activity, but simply abandoned a few days later. All areas of North Vancouver have seen cars go missing except for Lower Lonsdale, and so far they haven’t found a connection with stolen cars in other municipalities. It’s especially puzzling because Subarus aren’t usually a target of thieves. “The Subaru doesn’t even make the top 10 of the most stolen, so it’s unusual,” De Jong said. “There’s numerous Subarus throughout the North Shore. We have no idea if there’s going to be another targeted vehicle.” De Jong believes someone knows the answers to the riddle, however, and is appealing for help – as well as warning Subaru owners of the possible dangers. Police are also working
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With Janet Routledge, NDP Candidate for Burnaby North
While knocking on doors in Burnaby neighbourhoods, I’ve met very few residents who know that 300,000 barrels of oil is piped through our city every day on its way from Alberta to fill ocean-going tankers in Burrard Inlet. They’re even less likely to know about the proposal to double daily pipeline capacity to 600,000 barrels. A showdown is coming. It will likely be played out on Burnaby streets and many residents will be taken by surprise. I’ll address the implications of courting environmental destruction in order to feed the world’s oil addiction in another column. In this one, I confine myself to the topic of public engagement. I think political leaders have a duty to facilitate community dialogue before important decisions are made.Yet all too often public opinion is sought retroactively, as illustrated by the HST fiasco. When this government does communicate with voters it tends to do so through the intervention of mass media. But does a press conference constitute public engagement? The average citizen must work to keep up with current affairs and the lives of most of the ones I meet on the doorstep are crammed with jobs (sometimes two of them), study, childcare, eldercare, and the daily commute. Is an exhausted working parent who grabs a few minutes to scan the newspaper going to pause on a pipeline story? Probably not, until it also includes words like “leak”,“toxic” or “blockade” in relation to a local intersection. I think we need to explore more personal, proactive and interactive strategies for engaging citizens in the political decisions that affect their daily lives. Look for my column monthly in the Burnaby Now. You can also follow me on Facebook at Elect Janet Routledge in Burnaby North and on Twitter @JanetRoutledge1
with Burnaby RCMP and IMPACT, the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team. “I can only imagine someone has some bragging rights out there in terms of the number of Subarus they’ve stolen from the North Shore, and they’re sharing that with somebody.” As of Nov. 17, the latest stolen Subaru hadn’t been recovered yet, but at least De Jong said they know where to look. “We’ve already been out there,” he said. “It usually takes a day or so to show up.” – Tessa Holloway, Postmedia Network Inc.