Feature Articles

June 7, 2012

Hon. Keith Ashfield
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Minister:

The federal government is responsible for keeping Canadians safe on our coasts. The recent decision to close down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station is an abdication of this responsibility and poses significant risk to British Columbians.

Coquitlam Now, 7 September 2011
By Fin Donnelly

This week, students are heading back to school at a cost.

After 25 years of federal cuts to education, the share of university operating budgets funded by tuition fees has more than doubled, leaving the average B.C. university graduate with a debt of $27,000.

Students today face the highest tuition fees in history, a cost that, for many, places post-secondary education out of reach.

Gone are the days when a student could work over the summer and finance their education with the proceeds.

He has swam with the salmon down the Fraser River twice. Now federal MP Fin Donnelly has drafted a bill to move B.C.’s salmon farming industry towards a closed containment system.

The NDP Mp for New Westminster-Coquitlam and Port Moody says Bill C-518 would help protect wild salmon, as well as kick start fish farming technologies that would make Canada a world leader.

When Donnelly became fisheries critic, last year, he made a motion to bring experts on how aqua culture in fish farms was affecting wild salmon.

John Bermingham, The Province

There was real cause for celebration Sunday, B.C. Rivers Day, with 34 million sockeye salmon returning to the Fraser -- the biggest numbers since 1913.

But river conservationist Mark Angelo, who founded the annual B.C. event -- now in its 30th year -- that's grown into World Rivers Day, said the huge sockeye run must be tempered by concerns for the health of the province's rivers system.

By Fin Donnelly, Coquitlam NOW September 24, 2010

Have you noticed the amount of road construction in our area lately? It seems you can't go anywhere without running into some kind of road construction project. That's your tax dollars at work, much of it from the so-called "stimulus" funding.

Now ask yourself why a $574-million funding gap still exists for the well overdue $1.4-billion Evergreen Line, the number one transportation infrastructure project in the Lower Mainland. Why hasn't the federal government dedicated any of this stimulus money to fund the gap?

By Jennifer McFee, Coquitlam NOW September 24, 2010 7:03 AM

A group of Parkland Elementary students spoke out against pesticide pollution last spring, and their environmental call is still reverberating in the Canada's Parliament.

Last April, the Grade 4 class took a strong stance against cosmetic pesticides. They crafted containers of all-natural slug bait and pesticide-free weed killer to distribute to leaders at each level of government. Every package came with a personalized letter urging politicians to ban pesticides across the country.

Political foes back off as police and supporters press their arguments

By Alfie Lau, The Record; with files from Postmedia Network Inc. September 21, 2010

It looks like the long-gun registry will live for another day.

The big debate about the gun registry comes as Parliament reconvened in Ottawa on Monday, and one of the first things to deal with was Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill to kill the gun registry.

From New Westminster News Leader

Published: September 21, 2010 9:00 AM
Updated: September 21, 2010 9:15 AM

Local MP Fin Donnelly is back in Ottawa this week with the Evergreen transit line at the top of his wish list. The New Westminster-Coquitlam-Port Moody MP says he will be calling on the federal government to help fund the Evergreen line during the fall session of Parliament, which started last week.