Tyler Olsen
@ty_olsen
Followers
8,139
Following
2,736
Media
4,675
Statuses
53,278
Old millennial. Editor/reporter/delivery boy @currentfv . Subscribe:
Chilliwack/Abbotsford
Joined November 2009
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#DARKMOON
• 131345 Tweets
Cataluña
• 111750 Tweets
#FatalTrouble
• 84687 Tweets
चुनाव आयोग
• 74951 Tweets
つばさの党
• 69852 Tweets
Illa
• 68702 Tweets
#Supernova_OutNow
• 66625 Tweets
#MEMORABILIA_OutNow
• 65647 Tweets
Puigdemont
• 56195 Tweets
PS 1
• 55706 Tweets
Teeth
• 52375 Tweets
Lucifer
• 40085 Tweets
家宅捜索
• 37240 Tweets
We Love Daddy Tay🩵
• 30882 Tweets
माधवी लता
• 23823 Tweets
Happy New Week
• 21056 Tweets
Kamuda Tasarruf
• 20445 Tweets
バンドリ
• 18235 Tweets
Lebih KEREN KitaKOMPAK
• 16906 Tweets
ミオしゃ
• 16337 Tweets
作者の顔
• 13668 Tweets
Mehmet Şimşek
• 12662 Tweets
SATs
• 10457 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
STORY: When BC started charging $10 for FOI requests, a handful of cities and public bodies leaped to follow suit. I looked at 86 municipalities, 10 regional districts, and 6 health authorities to see who copied the province's FOI fee.
👇
2
5
20
THREAD! Nine months ago, I was working on a story connected to the Nooksack River and Mt. Baker. I sought an interview with Mitchell Hahn, BC's Inspector of Dikes, about his involvement in the Nooksack River International Task Force. Let's go back and look at the tape.
38
331
800
Vaccines are like winter tires, I'm just realizing.
And requiring vaccines to go to a restaurant is *just like* requiring winter tires to drive on a highway road. It's a great comparison for, say, certain folks in Hope.
22
74
610
2017 summer: unprecedented smoke
2018 summer: smoke worse than 2017
2019 summer: actually good!
2020 summer: pandemic
2021: hottest wave ever
‐------
Of the last five summers, three have had major long term events influenced by climate change.
26
125
527
If you really want to understand all this. Stop scrolling and spend 5-10 minutes reading this feature Grace and I wrote about the historical, geographic and scientific context of this:
35
255
505
this sounds basically like the BC camping problem and the BC hospital bed problem and the BC city park problem and various other BC problems
An underrated part of the problem with B.C. Ferries is that in the last 30 years the province gained an extra 1.5 million people, but the number of sailings and the size of the ships is pretty much what it was in the 1990s
52
74
670
32
78
501
A reminder that our public broadcaster doesn't have any reporters based in the Fraser Valley, a region of 400,000 that is not at all identical to Metro Vancouver.
CBC folks have been doing their best. But it would be better if their bosses paid for reporters who lived here.
13
59
482
The Horgan vacation thing isn't optics. It related to the idea that a leader - be it a boss or otherwise - inspires with the idea that they are "In it together" with those they lead. When that facade collapses, the people who are going through The Thing feel hurt.
18
84
410
Lytton burned down three years ago and not a single home has been fully rebuilt yet.
If you think Canada’s Housing Plan is ambitious, that’s because it is.
We’re going to build almost 4 million new homes by 2031. We’re going to change the way homes are built in Canada. And we’re going to create a new generation of homeowners. Let’s get going.
5K
680
4K
24
108
396
DING! DING! DING!
@ty_olsen
So to be clear, the government which says it's the public's responsibility to inform themselves about the risk of complex geohazards during extreme weather events also prevents any of the government officials working on those files from speaking to the media?
2
57
318
3
53
372
🔴 STORY: BC's River Forecast Centre has issued an alarming & bleak drought prediction
We are in an 'outlier' season: In many places the snow is gone a month earlier than normal. And it's been so hot and dry, it's hard to predict what will happen next.
30
224
377
Whistler guy takes his own turban and uses it to help save the life of a stabbing victim. Just ethnic diversity helping save a man's life.
cc That Mt Royal guy
h/t
@jonnymac68
7
101
360
This is going to be a rant about some very stupid B.C. highway distance signs.
•
Look at these signs. They are on the same highway in the Fraser Valley. Do you see how stupidy stupid they are?
61
52
355
Remember, always call ahead to ask if the place is full of gangsters.
"Don’t go to that patio if it’s full of a bunch of gangsters," is one former police officer's advice for patrons who may be feeling gun-shy after Metro Vancouver’s rash of shootings in public places.
54
10
37
17
39
318
If you call 8-1-1 right now (like many government websites suggest you should do to get help), you will be told that there is no one to talk to you and to call back some other time. Two years into the pandemic, here we are.
22
63
290
🚨🚨THIS IS A SOME-PERSONAL-NEWS THREAD.
I can now reveal why I left my old job, what I've been working on since New Year's Day, and how I hope to help grow journalism in the Fraser Valley. YOU can skip it by just clicking the link below (and subscribing)
35
78
290
Love a COVID emergency press conference that starts with a 2021 storm/disaster update. Just a great year we're having here.
7
13
277
🚨 BREAKING: This worst-case scenario is starting to become reality. Water is pouring over a large dike separating the bulk of lands currently flooded from the former bed of Sumas Lake. Highway will likely be closed for days.
This U.S. river should be what everyone in the Lower Mainland is watching. When the Nooksack floods, it frequently runs north into Canada and Abbotsford. It has the potential to shut down Highway 1 between Chilliwack & Abbotsford and refill Sumas Lake.
13
59
151
16
153
264
This is a Canada problem
Finally, this investigation took us 4 months, purely because of Canada's archaic culture/policies on access to information. Records that took months to locate in Canada were available with a few clicks in Florida when we needed the US equivalent.
5
80
234
2
26
248
My final email. I said I was going to push hard and that if the province wouldn't allow officials to talk to reporters, I'd point that out in my subsequent story. I didn't QUITE expect it to be in this fashion. But here we are, 8 months later. Would still love that interview.
8
30
245
Your regular reminder that human caused basically means "non-lightning." If a place has no lightning in a certain time period, all fires will be classified as human caused. But "human-caused" is not the same as "idiot-caused." It includes a whole host of industrial activity.
All 46 wildfires on Vancouver Island this year are human caused: Coastal Fire Centre
204
1K
2K
6
46
247
Personal news: At the end of this cursed year, I'll be leaving the Abbotsford News. I'm going into government communi..... HA. No, I'm not doing that.
I'll be doing journalism. And this feed will (repeatedly and annoyingly) ensure you know where to find the stuff in 2021
32
8
245
There is no (good) reason the police needs to say anything about what was in the driver's mind. Especially in the same sentence in which they say the investigation just began.
Also, who hits 4 pedestrians while trying to pass them impatiently?
7
54
232
Have experienced a temperature (as measured by Enviro Canada) variation of 78 C (49 C June 30 to -19 C now) in 6 months this year. Fun.
16
37
233
Our public safety infrastructure is fundamentally set up to deal with local emergencies, not natural disasters. Have seen this over and over and over again this year. Can't possibly handle an earthquake.
⚠️ We are aware that the DriveBC website is experiencing intermittent difficulties. We are seeing an incredible amount of web traffic right now. The servers are overwhelmed trying to keep up with requests. Give it a few minutes and it should come back for you on its own. ⚠️
15
84
294
10
51
231
This is going to be a scary thread. But first, the possibility that follows is very unlikely. You should not worry about it too much. But we live in unprecedented times, so if you live in the area, it's time to now be aware of it.
14
70
229
A Fraser Valley community has started a local program providing air conditioners to residents at a per-capita rate 20 times that of the much-criticized provincial program, at half the per-unit cost, with no paperwork cost barriers.
Story this week in
@currentfv
.
8
90
230
Telling retail workers on December Effing 24th that they are at a non-minimal risk of acquiring Omicron at work is certainly something.
9
30
216
NEW STORY: Engineers predicted the Sumas dike would fail. Then it did.
But the Sumas dike didn't die from individual neglect. It's part of a system that is likely to fail in the face of a major Fraser River flood. Today's big
@currentfv
story
13
110
214
On reaching testing capacity, it isn't something that just is because of Omicron. It is because we didn't spend the last two years significantly ramping up testing capacity. Other places are testing 10x more. Hitting the capacity is a result of choices.
Consider this clearer language: was this tone prominent at Monday’s press conference? Or anytime last week? Did anything about the virus or its fairly predictable trend lines changed?
Instead, we’re saying it on Christmas Eve, when the ferries and road trips have happened.
22
88
484
9
53
213
special place in hell for those who design websites for municipalities and make people use a form to contact people rather than just providing actual email addresses.
9
17
210
Looking through these, it's astonishing how prevalent press releases about crimes in Chinatown or the DTES are before the election, and how they dry up right IMMEDIATELY after.
8
84
200
The fact that a huge % of provincial non-flight transit is dependent on a single private company was a huge problem before Greyhound left and is still a huge problem but nobody really thinks about it or cares because politicians and bureaucrats never ride the bus between towns.
The company involved in a deadly bus crash near Merritt, B.C., over the weekend suspended operations across the province for a second day on Monday.
0
3
3
10
38
201
This is my last day at the Abbotsford News and, in all likelihood, in newspapers. (I'll still be a journalist hereabouts so.) Sorry (I'm not sorry), but I have Things To Say.
18
19
198
NEW STORY: What we learned from the flood:
• Hope needs help
• Hwy 7 can't handle the traffic
• The Nooksack lurks
• Self-organized volunteers were an army unto themselves
• A bit of governmental panic may have saved Barrowtown
• A Tiger dam!
10
52
198
Just talked to Abbotsford-area Liberal MP Jati Sidhu: He said
@Puglaas
is not "a team player," speculated whether her father or somebody else was "pulling the strings."
He said: "The way she's acting, I think she couldn't handle the stress."
#SNCLavalin
#cdnpoli
173
135
174
Cut the barge into pieces; this is the last resort
....
sorry
English Bay Barge will have to be deconstructed for removal: Owner
3
2
5
11
19
192
I asked for the number of births and deaths in each Fraser Health hospital (nothing nefarious suspected, just tracking how health care treatment/population is changing). But apparently that simple request requires an FOI request. Example why fees are bad.
7
27
192
2023. Just people sharing tips on how to be a homeless student on Reddit.
5
60
185
NEW: The COVID death toll for each BC city, revealed.
I obtained community level death figures through April for each city and town through an FOI request. I believe it's the first time this info has been published.
STORY:
In today's
@currentfv
16
90
177
STORY: In 2003, a BC judge declared that health authority board meetings must be open to the public except in limited circumstances. A law exists that says as much So why are all Fraser Health board decisions made in private?
10
83
169
I'm glad we've learned absolutely nothing from wildfire season. Great. Just fucking great.
Reached out to the Ministry of Transportation very early this afternoon for a response to the floods, mud/landslides. It's been nearly 12 hours and still nothing. So many people are being affected and nothing from BC gov't.
#BCStorm
55
98
359
10
42
168
Like having at a server at a restaurant take your order for the steak and nod along, only for them to return to your table 30 minutes later holding a bowl of Kraft Dinner and expecting you to be fine with it.
I once asked for an interview with a minister and three days later (at 9 p.m. at night), I got sent a two line statement. Did I ask for a statement? No, I wanted an interview. I never did get that interview...
1
6
40
2
13
168
It's bad form to brag. It's worse form to not always-be-self-promoting so:
@currentfv
is a finalist for a Jack Webster Award for feature/enterprise reporting for this story. Published the day after the Sumas dike broke, it's our most-read story ever.
11
13
170
Meanwhile, I asked for an interview with Whatcom County's point person on the issue. After a comms person forwarded my email to the right guy It took LITERALLY 60 seconds to set up.
1
21
164
Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the fire that burned down Lytton. Over the last two years, neither the BC Premier nor the Prime Minister has actually visited the townsite. Neither will be in town tomorrow.
9
76
160
In this seemingly worst-case scenario, all that red is water that is three metres deep or more. This could potentially be worse than that, given how high the Fraser is at the present.
7
86
161
BREAKING: The Province of BC sat on urgent requests for help for days, the Fraser Valley Regional District says in this release. One was a request for help protecting Othello Road. By the time the request was finally approved, the road to a key tourist attraction was washed away
8
98
160
NEW: B.C.'s Ministry of Health says disclosing the number of COVID-19 cases in cities over a 14-day period would threaten public safety.
(That's what the "s.19" on the top of all that black means. The s.22(1) means they say it would also be an unreasonable invasion of privacy)
28
70
157
More of this please. Admitting doubt, uncertainty and imperfection builds trust.
Q: What did BCCDC go back and forth on guidelines?
Dr. Henry: To be frank, my staff are tired and we are also being affected by lots of people being sick right now. It was an administrative error. It was my responsibility to communicate better and I'll do that in the future.
7
6
46
6
12
155
It doesn't seem like a stretch to suggest that BC maybe didn't learn from its mistakes *because* it is so invested in the notion that it deserves credit for early success. Improving requires a level of self-awareness we really haven't seen. (Plus more outside pressure.)
@Garossino
I mean, I made this argument like 7,000 times in the first year of the pandemic, but in the last six months B.C. has been objectively *worse* than Ontario and Quebec, by a decently wide margin, in part we didn't learn from our shortcomings and adapt in the same way they did.
19
28
288
10
23
155
Remember folks: the best thinking is short-term thinking. The shorter, the better.
Canada's worst wildfire season just goes to show that carbon taxes aren't doing much of anything.
53
40
249
4
25
154
Imagine if tonight Vanvouver residents were told: "There will be no 9-1-1 for 8 hours tonight. Good luck! Hopefully you don't have a heartattack, fire, or other emergency."
A temporary planned outage from Saturday at 10 pm to 6 am Sunday will affect Telus service in Boston Bar, Fraser Acres, Yale and Spuzzum. TV, internet, landline and wireless services will be offline including 911 service.
7
15
7
15
49
150
I’m humbled* to be nominated for a National Newspaper Award. You can read the story here, though you'll have to be a newsletter subscriber (see what I did there?)
*This is what everyone says but it's a lie: praise is, by definition, not humbling
25
18
155
This U.S. river should be what everyone in the Lower Mainland is watching. When the Nooksack floods, it frequently runs north into Canada and Abbotsford. It has the potential to shut down Highway 1 between Chilliwack & Abbotsford and refill Sumas Lake.
13
59
151
One in 20 Abbotsford residents have now tested positive for COVID over the past year. I can't say how many have died without filing another freedom of information request and waiting a month because BC.
6
50
146
This is *monumentally* bad.
It's far worse than Facebook pulling news, which actually removes a disincentive to create social media crap.
On a news-gathering basis, it's horrible since most publs have useless search functions so the best way to find old stories is via google.
BREAKING: Google announces it will pull news from Google Search and other platforms over the Online News Act. It’s also killing existing deals with publishers:
147
319
647
12
52
150
Anyways, while you're here, subscribe to the
@currentfv
newsletter for Monday's story on the dikes that (don't) protect the Fraser Valley
5
21
147
Lytton residents protesting. Many wearing small cardboard signs with the number 840 - the number of days since the village burned.
3
48
144
Mission BC mayor:
To those protesting drag performances in our area, know this:
Performing in drag isn’t new.
It isn’t unwholesome or grooming or pornography.
It’s about freedom of expression.
If it’s not your thing, you don’t have to go.
Live & let live.
227
79
553
4
15
146
When you tell people they can gather, they will gather. They may not read the fine print. This should surprise no one.
When exponential growth takes place for three months, as it has for variants and little is done to halt it, it will continue. This should surprise no one.
4
33
141
🚨SCOOP: Today I finally received local numbers for the COVID-19 deaths. Because I had to file an FOI request, they're only as of Dec. 11. But they're surprising.
🚨Surrey was NOT the hardest hit city, in terms of COVID-19 deaths. Vancouver had twice as many.
11
81
144
It's not just that this year's snowpack has been much smaller than normal. It's also melting waaaaaaaay earlier than normal.
The BC River Forecast Centre highlights this graph, which shows snow at Brenda Mine will be gone within days, farrrr earlier than ever recorded.
12
68
145
Corcoran using a historical tragedy to double-down on his climate change idiocy is exactly what this discussion doesn't need right now. The same report he quotes says climate change will dramatically increase risk of flood. Maybe read a goddamn study
Terence Corcoran: A human mistake — Why the B.C. floods are not a climate change issue
25
78
170
8
36
141
Every single level of government has made journalism harder today than it was three years ago.
Feds: C-18
Provincial: FOI fees
Cities: Following province to institute FOI fees.
And all these folks would pay lip service to the importance of journalism. It's a sham.
There is a fundamental Canadian cultural complacency we need to break, here. It's not just going to work itself out if we all go along to get along.
The government does not mean well.
Stop complying.
49
216
778
5
42
141
Sunday flood thread:
Huntingdon neighbourhood evacuated overnight; Nooksack forecast improves a bit. Will be updating this story here throughout the day.
8
46
143
STORY: I agonized over the writing of this story.
It's long, but if you want to know why an American river devastated a Canadian farming community (and why it may do so again), you need to understand what it means to be the Nooksack River.
8
42
142
Trying to find how best to describe a person from the Lower Mainland declaring off-hand that Lytton shouldn't be rebuilt.
And remember: many homes lost in 2021 belonged to Indigenous ppl, and Indigenous ppl have lived in area for thousands of years.
9
10
137
STORY: The Lytton rebuild has thus far been a monumental failure. This is why.
15
79
139
For Nova Scotia fire novices, you can use NASA's FIRMS database to monitor fire progress.
Keep in mind the data will be a little behind, depending when the satellite passed last...
#Halifaxfire
#Tantallon
#TantallonFire
Find it here:
5
55
136
The "wear a mask, if you choose" messaging is the clearest example of how governments will say something that means nothing just to say something.
Hard to think of any less useful public health advice out there.
Today's advice is to get vaccinated, wash your hands, wear a mask (or not!) and have a big heart
26
24
221
7
22
135
Forgive me, but it's clear now: We are 13 bloody months into this and nobody in government with the power (or willingness) to change has learned shit about the fact that you can't persuade people without giving them more than the bare minimum of info.
In the middle of a third wave, with record high cases, with variants circulating fairly widely in the community, B.C. is not providing new data on variants, or new numbers on hospitalizations.
I'm at a loss.
63
151
637
9
37
133
It should be noted: It looks very possible that not only will Barry Neufeld lose, but that he will be replaced by Teri Westerby, who is trans and whose election signs feature him wearing a rainbow bow-tie.
4
19
133
With all due respect to the writer, who is doing his best, Maclean's should not be flying in someone from Toronto to write about how BC is "learning to live with wildfires." There are writers here who, you know, have first-hand experience.
3
15
133
NEW STORY/THREAD:
Monday Fraser Valley flood thread. But will start with this: my story on the volcano feeding the floods, the Nooksack's three forks, why snow is good, rain is bad, and a grad student's suddenly urgent thesis
3
58
134
STORY: After a prison guard caught COVID at work and died, the federal government tried repeatedly to avoid having to pay his family compensation.
@JotiGrewal_
in today's
@currentfv
2
50
129
Here's Highway 11 in Abbotsford. I'm no expert, but I've circled the bit that seems like the problem to me.
@City_Abbotsford
can use this one too at tomorrow's press conference if it helps simplify the matter. (Photo from Abbotsford Police.)
26
36
128
Good news: So far Barrowtown is still in operation. Officials now talking about no "imminent" risk.
4
28
129
STORY: Newly unredacted FOI documents reveal the exasperation of those tasked with telling the BC government every year that its schools are 'deteriorating' and that it spends far too little on maintenance.
#bced
9
55
124
The Minister of BC's Bad Weather passing things over to the This Goddamn Pandemic Won't End Officer.
0
15
127
Not enough people are saying that the museum should be in Vancouver and I rarely say more things should be in Vancouver but: the museum should be in Vancouver, a place where the majority of British Columbians actually go.
BC's NDP government will start demolishing the Royal BC Museum just months before the next provincial election in 2024 — preventing its opponents from being able to halt the controversial $1b project.
My latest in
@DailyHiveVan
-
0
24
35
35
17
121
Imagine, for a second, the message that will be sent at 4pm tomorrow when millions of people in Ontario and BC turn on their TVs and see Rogers Arena at capacity, legally. That message is devastating to all the efforts to get people to go along with restrictions.
While I don't support the growing state of nihilism and sense of 'whatever, I'll do what I want now,' I absolutely understand it.
3
9
46
6
35
125
Tomorrow
@currentfv
:
Lytton's remote location has complicated rebuilding attempts. But the arrival of a non-profit with a volunteer army and - crucially - the ability to temporarily house those volunteers could mark a turning point.
The Mennonites are coming.
9
23
123
The station is right here: Much of that area to the south is actually at sea level. The pump station is needed to keep Sumas Lake from re-forming. The Fraser is, like, many feet above sea level there. If the Fraser starts to pour south, it's going to get very deep, very quick.
8
74
121
The next day I got a carefully worded response from the province. And told that the Inspector of Dikes was "not available" for an interview.
2
20
121
It doesn't help that many people would kill for a holiday somewhere that wasn't choked with smoke or fire right now, even if they had to take a work call or two.
3
12
119
Bunch of responses making excuses by pointing to Canada and non-southwest BC's lack of density, while not acknowledging
1) many areas had better transit when they were less dense.
2) transit is a factor in where ppl choose to live.
It's worth watching BBC's "Race Across the World" just to see British people utterly bewildered by BC having such minimal to non-existent public transit.
84
474
2K
10
19
121
The gif and one final tweet: People are filling sandbags in western Chilliwack to then ferry across to Barrowtown. So many people turned out after word spread on social media that people are urging people to stop coming. Good night
5
38
119
There are no Fraser Valley MLAs on this committee. (Chilliwack has two NDP MLAs, Abbotsford/Mission has one.)
Committee to respond to aftermath of this storm formed - headed by Premier
@jjhorgan
, Vice Chair
@mikefarnworthbc
along with
@lanapopham
@Rob_Fleming
@MurrayRankinNDP
@Josie_Osborne
@selinarobinson
@BowinnMa
#bcpoli
@CityNewsVAN
2
8
6
8
29
119
Annnnd, b/c the coastal hivemind is so dominant: the idea that The Job is putting out some fires is totally ignorant of the scale. This emergency *requires* a cross-ministry response. You have an evacuee crisis. A transportation crisis. A health/smoke crisis. And the fires.
6
16
117