Ace Reporter Ben Parfitt Joins The Tyee

We’re proud to announce that Ben Parfitt is a new member of The Tyee team, joining us as a staff reporter covering forestry and other resource-related issues. His first story in that role is published today.

Ben has decades of journalism experience and a shelf full of prizes, including numerous Western Magazine, Webster and Canadian Science Writers awards plus the two Canadian Association of Journalists awards he says he was “most honoured” to win.

The big impact stories he’s broken over the years are too many to list here. Examples include nailing rogue operators in the hazardous waste industry and exposing risks posed to BC Hydro’s Peace River dams by fracking-induced earthquakes. Skilled at prying loose information via freedom of information requests, Ben obtained government documents revealing the province’s lax approach to flood warning and protection in the aftermath of the massive floods of November 2021. Later he used FOIs to show that the provincial government was inadequately regulating dikes.

Ben authored Forest Follies: Adventures and Misadventures in the Great Canadian Forest and co-authored, with Michael M’Gonigle, Forestopia: A Practical Guide to the New Forest Economy.

Ben was a reporter at the Vancouver Sun before becoming a regular contributor to the Georgia Straight and writing for other magazines. He then served as a resource policy analyst for the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He is no stranger to our pages. His first piece for us appeared in December 2003, one month after we launched, and we’ve hosted his byline 64 times since. During Ben’s stint with the CCPA we were privileged many times to be the first to publish his investigations.

In the spring Ben retired from his CCPA post. Fortunately, his urge to report in the public interest persists. We’re thrilled he chose The Tyee to carry out the next chapter of his impressive career. We asked Ben to share his thoughts about the road ahead. Here’s what he had to say.

The Tyee: Welcome aboard, Ben! What can we expect you to tackle here at The Tyee?

Ben Parfitt: I am really looking forward to taking a deeper dive into all things forestry related. Our once strong forest industry is a shadow of its former self and is contracting at a rapid rate. This in lockstep with huge changes related to climate change — the province continues to burn up — ongoing habitat and species loss and attempts by the provincial government to simultaneously increase First Nations involvement in all resource industries.

I want to do more to chronicle what the consequences will be by looking at everything from the ongoing flight of billions of dollars in investment capital to the southern United States — which seems to be the only growth area for “B.C.” forest companies these days — to the consequences of fire and drought for the future of our forests, and the plight of wildlife species and what it would actually take to start to turn that around.

I also want to delve more into the climate file and the growing threats to water sources and water supplies due to the rapid expansion of the fracking industry in northeast B.C., an industry that is on the cusp of an explosion of development to feed the Coastal GasLink pipeline and future liquefied natural gas production.

So no shortage of pressing stories to pursue! And we have a B.C. election coming in the fall...

In the lead-up to the provincial election and afterwards, I hope to do more to shed light on what is happening in the rural hinterland where most of us don’t live and don’t have much understanding of what is going on.

The election will likely be won in the populous urban southwest corner but the impacts of climate change and resource industry expansion in things like the oil and gas sector, and contraction in things like forestry, are most keenly felt by those on the frontlines in rural and First Nations communities.

Your career is long and investigative journalism isn’t easy. What are the personal rewards that keep you going?

For me, what has been and remains my biggest reward in the work I do is the many amazing people I have met over the years, people who at personal and professional risk entrusted me with information that made some important stories I later told possible. When that happens, it’s a special thing.