Midcoast Morning

From free buses and the return of rail, to a floating night market and an attack on democracy, VIU students spent a semester simulating the future of the city, taking Nanaimo all the way to 2086. In a political studies course under professor Michael MacKenzie students participated in mock elections, with winners seeking to implement their policy ideas in an AI powered simulation.  The students wer...

Richard Johnson says politics needs the public. In the book Democracy’s Second Act, Johnson writes that citizens no longer see their governments as competent or effective, while governments increasingly doubt the judgment and abilities of their publics. Johnson and co-author Peter MacLeod call for  new institutions to bring ordinary people into the political process in meaningful ways. The Victori...

Now aged 91, a woman who spent decades living at Wildwood Ecoforest is sharing her memories. In 1945, the late Merv Wilkinson began using the land as an ecoforest.0 It’s a type of forestry that strives to protect and or restore an ecosystem, rather than to maximize the commercial value of a forest over a short time frame. Grace Richard was married to Wilkinson for over 30 years and lived on the si...

To mark World Water Day, a UN observance intended to highlight the importance of freshwater, Midcoast Morning spoke with Mike Squire, Manager of Water Resources with the City of Nanaimo, to check in on the state of Nanaimo’s water supply and water infrastructure, the city’s ability to regulate water users, and its expected capacity in the future. Support Midcoast Morning and our Nonprofit Newsroom...

The Hub, a drop in centre for people experiencing homelessness, is set to close at the end of the month. Located on Nicol street, it opened in January of last year. During the day, Island crisis care society runs a drop in centre where people can sit inside, use a bathroom, and connect with various service providers. At night the space transitions to a 20 bed shelter run by Nanaimo Family Life Ass...

The best men’s college basketball teams in the country will gather in Nanaimo next week, as VIU plays host to the CCAA National Championship. The home team will be tipping off on Wednesday, fresh off a victory in the provincial PACWEST final earlier this month. The tournament is the swansong for longtime coach Matt Kuzminski, and 5th year player Kai Leighton, both of whom spoke with Midcoast Morni...

As B.C. gets ready to spring forward one final time, a number of voices are saying the government has ignored the scientific consensus on how to best handle ending time changes. The BC government press release on the adoption of permanent daylight time cited a study from Standford medicine on the impacts of clock changes. The senior author of that study told the CBC that permanent daylight time is...

Snuneymuxw First Nation is calling for investigation and enforcement around two incidents related to the marine environment in the Duke Point area. In a February press release, the nation raised concerns about a January oil spill and environmental impacts related to discharge from a sawmill, which they said dates back 40 years. Midcoast Morning spoke with Snuneymuxw Councillor William Yoachim abou...

The president of the Yellow Point Ecological Society would like to see Nanaimo create a green industrial zone, citing examples from other Canadian communities. Guy Dauncey pitched the idea to Nanaimo City Council, suggesting that The District of Highlands on southern Vancouver Island, as well as Red Deer and Fort McMurray in Alberta all have provisions to create industrial areas with ecology facto...

This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of a Nanaimo festival celebrating French language, culture, and food. The Maple Sugar Festival is celebrating its silver anniversary at the Beban Park Social Centre Friday through Sunday. The event is organized by the Association des Francophones de Nanaimo, Midcoast Morning spoke with Executive Director Camille Veron about the festival and the local francop...

Back in 1999 when Shalema Gantt first came to Nanaimo, she says she didn’t find many black people, and she didn’t hear much about the contributions of black Canadians in the region’s history. When she was given a resource guide on Black pioneers in British Columbia, she was inspired to share what she had learned with others, and started the Nanaimo African Heritage Society .  Now more than 25 year...

Decades of Contributions to Nanaimo’s history, theatre, and music scenes have been recognized as the city announced a trio of Culture Award winners this week. Brian McFadden of the Vancouver Island Military Museum, Leon Potter of the VIU Theatre Department and Luis Poretta of Quadwrangle Productions are this years’ recipients. each of them spoke with Midcoast Morning about their contributions to t...

Nanaimo is looking at new rules to encourage more affordable housing in the community. The city is in the process of pre-zoning certain corridors for social housing. The exact definitions are still a work in progress, with public consultation  planned to take place towards the end of the month, ahead of the plan coming before city council in the spring. Midcoast Morning spoke with the project mana...

Gabriola Island Trustee Tobi Elliot says concern over the concept of a shoreline buffer zone led a overflowing meeting room as residence turned out. Elliot wrote about the tensions present at that meeting in a post on her Substack , attributing them in part to apprehensions around the potential impact of last year’s supreme court decision around Cowichan title to certain land in Richmond. She spok...

This is an extended podcast edition of our original broadcast. Members of the arts community in the Comox Valley are rallying in the face of the potential suspension of the fine arts program at North Island College. Fine Arts is one of 15 different programs that have been recommended for suspension following a review process, with a final decision expected to come from the school’s board of govern...

This is an extended version of the version that was originally broadcast. As rains once again battered Vancouver Island over the weekend, multiple regions grappled with the risk of flooding. For a period on Monday there were evacuation notices covering parts of Chemainus and a campground in Parksville. UBC professor Younes Alila says that while governments and media outlets are often quick to poin...

This is an extended version of the version that was originally broadcast. Stories of hangings, explosions, and tragedies from Nanaimo’s past have been brought together in a book from lifelong history buff T.W. Paterson. Called Unknown Nanaimo, it focuses on events from the 1850s through to the turn of the 20th century, with much of the material sourced from newspaper accounts from that period. Spe...

We're marking Nanaimo's move from 2025 into 2026, with a focus on transportation. We talked transit and traffic calming with Jamie Rose, the City of Nanaimo’s Manager of Transportation about how things changed in the last year, as well as what's on the radar for the next one. We'll also touch on what some recent council decisions around active transportation projects mean for the city, and we'll h...

Plans to light a section of the E&N Trail next year won’t be going ahead, as funding has been reallocated to other to be determined projects. A section of the trail between Northfield and Rock City roads had been scheduled to receive lighting upgrades in 2026. Instead, around a million dollars of funding will be redirected into other pedestrian and active transportation projects next year.  We...

Local government is willing to front the costs to bring a cardiac catheterization lab to Nanaimo. The Nanaimo Regional Hospital District Board unanimously passed a motion this month resolving to earmark up to 50 million dollars to fund 100% of the cardiac catheterization lab project as part of its funding commitments to that project and a new patient tower. Midcoast Morning spoke with NRHD Board C...

A body tasked with improving our democracy has made dozens of recommendations to the government of BC. The special committee on democratic and electoral reform has put out its first report, after receiving close to a thousand submissions from British Columbians over the summer months. The committee is made up of MLAs from across party lines, and has a two part mandate. This report is all about the...

Humpback whales are returning to the Salish Sea in growing numbers, but between the rising population and the increase in vessel traffic, collisions are also becoming more common. Emma Shuparski is the coordinator for Straightwatch Quadra Island, under Cetus Research and Conservation Society. Christie McMillan is a Senior Habitat Assessment Biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and fif...

A motion about industrial land use divided Nanaimo city council in a narrow 5-4 vote Monday night. On the meeting agenda the motion from Councillor Paul Manly asked staff to prepare a zoning amendment that would have prevented six different industrial scale uses, including certain garbage incineration facilities, chemical plants, petroleum refineries, and Liquefied Natural Gas export facilities. T...

Now in its ninth year, demand for the Woodstove Music and Arts Festival seemingly hit new highs, with organizers saying that the initial round of tickets sold out almost immediately. The non profit community festival took place last weekend across 16 venues in the village ranging from community halls, to the museum, to tattoo parlours and hair salons. In recent years, many summer festivals have fa...

Plans for a data centre in Nanaimo have generated significant attention in recent weeks. The centre is proposed for 2090 East Wellington Road, and the area was rezoned in 2023. A CBC article about data centres and water use published in October made reference to Nanaimo, which has generated renewed interest and concern from members of the public. A data centre is a building that houses computer se...