Going behind the headlines to get the whole story

Jun 2, 2018 | 5:00 AM

HEADLINES are a good way of finding out if we want to read a news story. But the news story itself is filtered by the writer based on his or her idea of which facts are worth knowing about.

Three news stories this week have some interesting background to them that either isn’t obvious or hasn’t been explored.

The week began with the oil “spill” at the Trans Mountain station in Darfield north of Barriere. It was reported that a spill of 100 litres had taken place on Sunday. It was more like a leak, but we like to think about oil in terms of spills, as if it always splashes onto the ground from some container.

Kinder Morgan calls it “a release.” A lot of people were indignant that it was reported at all, many comparing it to the amount of fuel it would take to fill up their vehicles with fuel.

Look, any time Kinder Morgan oil hits the ground, it’s news. Would the public prefer not being informed, or being given an opportunity to choose whether they read it?

Anyway, some people wondered whether it could really have been only 100 litres, and speculation began that the media had mistakenly dropped a zero. Surely, 1,000 litres would make more sense.

So, I asked a few questions. There was no missing zero. The number of 100 litres was reported by Kinder Morgan to the Ministry of the Environment. It is, an MOE spokesman explained to me, simply indicative that it was a very small spill. “They have to put a number on it.”

Kinder Morgan has not said publicly how much oil was involved, 100 litres, a thousand, whatever. The company tells me the amount won’t be stated until an investigation is finished.

When will that be? No answer on that. When I know, you’ll know.

Story number two involves a private member’s bill sponsored by Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Cathy McLeod. As is often pointed out, private member’s bills get the bum’s rush more often than not.

This one was no exception, shot down at second reading on Wednesday by a vote of 80 to 206 in the House of Commons. The bill would have protected landlords from damage to properties caused by the legal growing of medical marijuana.

The reasons the bill got nowhere are more political than practical. My reading of it is that the Liberals and NDP just didn’t see the point of it, didn’t understand it, confused it with the recreational marijuana issue, or just weren’t interested in supporting a bill by a Conservative.

McLeod got a minor amount of ink in the media back home for her troubles, but the background to the bill is a clinic in what MPs do while they’re away from the riding in Ottawa.

The bill came about after a visit to McLeod’s office by landlord Darryl Spencer early last year. Spencer had found that a tenant was growing 60 legal pot plants in his rented house. His house insurance was cancelled because of risk of damage. Spencer had to pay his tenant to leave.

His story was covered by Rosa Marchitelli on the CBC’s Go Public program but the remediation work cost him thousands of dollars.

Point is, a constituent came to her with a problem that no doubt affects a lot of people, and she took it all the way to the halls of Parliament trying to find a solution through legislation. A lot of work done by MPs never gets attention, because it’s not obvious behind the headlines.

The third example involves the announcement, as the B.C. Legislature was on the eve of taking a break, of details of the referendum on proposed changes to how we elect MLAs.

BC Hansard always provides some fascinating insights into these sorts of political stories.

In this case, the opposition Liberals threw verbal punches at the NDP government for a couple of days while Premier John Horgan and Attorney General David Eby ducked and weaved. Their battles confirm that the referendum is now as much about the way the ballot is worded as it is about the pros and cons of electoral systems.

The Liberals used Question Period to make their point that the NDP promised a simple yes-no question on the ballot, and didn’t deliver. The NDP’s answer is that the first question on the ballot is simple.

In a sense, they’re both right. Half the ballot is simple. The debates provide an understanding of that divide more than the news stories can, and are worth reading for anyone wanting to go deeper than the headlines.