Oil updates

A simple, easy to navigate website WestridgeUpdate.ca has been set up to provide the latest from the parties involved on the oil spill.

Slick

The oil spill is getting a lot of quick attention from all levels of government.

Mayor Derek Corrigan has been an effective local leader in the first days of what will be a lengthy cleanup process. The town hall was a good move to get the details out to the impacted residents.

Federal environment minister John Baird was quick to the scene, inspecting the area from a boat.

BREAKING NEWS: Oil Spill

Burnaby has an oil spill on its hands. Oil was spilling into Burrard Inlet. Expect it to be the lead story on local newscasts on a day when civic labour strife should have been the lead story.

The grass is always Evergreener

This morning in a vortex of Coquitlam politics Burquitlam MLA Harry Bloy and his former colleagues CKNW guest host Christy Clark and Coquitlam councillor Richard Stewart were all on the air discussing the merits of the Evergreen Line versus the Suzanne Anton backed Broadway/UBC Line.

With Clark as the mediator Bloy and Stewart championed the Coquitlam's been next for two decades point of view for the town centre hub while the ambitious Vancouver councillor Anton made the case for transit growth in the core city.

Both lines would likely connect into the Millennium Line, increasing transit flow along the north Burnaby SkyTrain route which is already showing ridership growth due to a construction boom near the line. After city and suburb fight it out, expect Burnaby to gain transit riders no matter who wins.

Kermode, the Olympic Spirit Bear?

News is slow at the end of the Olympic meetings so the Vancouver Sun is reporting the 2010 mascots are field-tested and ready for launch.

Chances are the Olympic mascot will not be a 201-metre long lopsided budget book named Furlong. And unless VANOC goes with the underdog (or -squirrel as the case may be) and picks the Hoary Marmot, risking the possibly ridicule of people who mispronounce "Hoary," things are looking good for another BC creature. The odds on favourite for the Olympic mascot is the Spirit Bear. Given it sounds like there will be two mascots (perhaps in the tradition of the 1988 Calgary Olympics), the naming contests should allow British Columbians an opportunity to express their creativity.

A little bit of Ottawa in Burnaby

It looks like federal Industry Minister Maxime Bernier's Burnaby-Douglas Conservative fundraiser is not the only Conservative event in Burnaby this month. It appears that at least one federal announcement appears to be on tap at one of the Burnaby-Douglas post-secondary institutions in the next few weeks.

Could the Tories be making a move for the north Burnaby NDP stronghold in the next election?