Burnaby signs agreement with Trans Mountain

The City of Burnaby announced that it has signed a “Community Contribution Agreement” with Trans Mountain, effective Sept. 27, 2024. Under the new agreement, the city agrees to cooperate with Trans Mountain on emergency response planning. Trans Mountain will pay Burnaby $5 million a year for the first three years, after which it will pay $300,000 per year for 17 years. 

Under this agreement, Burnaby must “remove all negative public communications about Trans Mountain, its operations, shareholders, and Affiliates from the City’s communications channels, including websites.” 

The Beacon reached out to the City of Burnaby’s public affairs department for more information and clarification regarding the agreement but had not yet heard back from them at the time of publication. 

According to the agreement, the city and Trans Mountain will cooperate on emergency management, including any planned emergency exercises, procedures, and accountabilities. Schedule B, one part of the agreement, outlines the emergency planning commitments of both parties. 

Another section, Schedule C, concerns public communications regarding Trans Mountain. According to Schedule C, the city is required to “create a shared source of information” with Trans Mountain and that both parties “commit to provide one another with advance copies of communications to the public regarding Trans Mountain facilities.” 

This comes shortly after Trans Mountain attempted to stop the city from publishing a video showing possible disaster scenarios at Trans Mountain facilities and an emergency assessment by a third-party consultant. A day before the agreement was signed on Sept. 26, a 3.8-magnitude earthquake hit Vancouver Island and was felt throughout the Lower Mainland. 

According to Schedule B, the city is responsible for all emergency management outside of the Trans Mountain facilities, including wildfires in the vicinity, vehicle fires, high-angle rescue, medical calls, and “notification of off-site incidents that have the potential and/or public perception of having an impact to the safety of Trans Mountain facilities.” The city is also responsible for “extinguishment of fires on site and other non-hydrocarbon type fires” according to the agreement. Trans Mountain is responsible for incidents inside Trans Mountain facilities. 

Schedule C—Information Management and Transparency concerns the communications strategies and public information distribution regarding Trans Mountain and the City of Burnaby. 

“Neither Party nor its staff or consultants shall make, distribute or communicate in any way to any person any negative public communications, whether based on fact or opinion or otherwise, directly or indirectly, related to the other Party, including any communication regarding past disputes. Each Party shall ensure that their staff and consultants comply with this section and, in particular, the preceding sentence,” said the second part of Schedule C. 

The following part of Schedule C requires that the city provide Trans Mountain with any public announcement or press releases it wishes to make in advance, including “those related to public safety.”  

Regarding parks, environment, and beautification, such as treed areas affected by Trans Mountain activities and other issues, the agreement requires that the city cooperate with Trans Mountain on these issues, and it must “provide recognition to Trans Mountain.”

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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