Local News Update

Environment Canada has issued a special weather report for East Vancouver Island, stating that it expects “significant snowfall” to start on Thursday afternoon over the Malahat Highway and Duncan area. The band of snow is then expected to move north and stall over the Nanaimo area tonight and could continue over the Fanny Bay area on Friday. There is still uncertainty regarding expected snowfall a...

Jen Gerson, national commentator and co-founder of The Line , will be speaking at Vancouver Island University on Wednesday, January 10 on “Free speech in the digital age.” Last month, regulations for the Canadian government’s Online News Act , which seeks to regulate tech giants Meta and Google in Canada, were published outlining how the new law would be implemented. While Google reached an agreem...

Starting tomorrow Tuesday, January 9th, MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith Lisa Marie Barron will host mobile office events for those unable to see her at her Nanaimo office.  Barron and her team will be hosting these events in Lanztville, Ladysmith, Gabriola Island, and Cedar. This will allow people in those areas to get assistance with any challenges they may be experiencing with federal services and prog...

Passengers looking for a ride to the Hullo Ferries and Helijet terminals in the Nanaimo Port Authority will have a public transit option starting on Sunday January 7. BC Transit’s #25 Ferry Shuttle will be extending its service to the port three times a day, at 10:35 a.m., 3:17 p.m. and 6:59 p.m. The new route does mean that the bus will no longer be serving Vancouver Island University and to help...

The late Craig Evans, known for his work in sustainability and food security in the Nanaimo community, is being honoured with the Medal of Good Citizenship. This year, 21 people throughout the province are being honoured with the medal, recognizing their generosity, service, and acts of selflessness in their communities.  Evans was a longtime farmer who played pivotal roles in founding the Nanaimo...

Vancouver Island University has reached a deal with its faculty association. The three-year contract will last until March 31, 2025 as faculty have been working without a contract since April 1, 2022. The tentative agreement covers approximately 688 VIU employees who are members of the faculty association. ★ Support this podcast ★

According to the RCMP, shortly after 7 a.m. on Monday, police were called to check on the wellbeing of a man on the 300 block of Tenth Street with serious but non-life threatening injuries who had allegedly been assualted. Paramedics took the man to hospital. The RCMP’s serious crimes unit spent Tuesday executing search warrents at DBL Disposal Services and continues to investigate. Police would n...

Finding love on choppy waters isn’t always that easy, but with Valentine's Day in the next couple of months, there’s a great opportunity to find your forever first mate. Hullo and the Vancouver Island Ferry Company are here to help with that.  Applications are now open for Hullo’s High-Speed Speed Dating event. Hullo, the same company that brought you the 70-minute ferry from downtown Nanaimo stra...

Winter holidays bring good times, celebrations and parties. But winter holidays also bring an increased amount of impaired drivers to the roads. Although it gets said over and over to not drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, MAAD Canada says in British Columbia an average of seven people die at the hands of impaired drivers during the holiday season. It’s during this time that driv...

Nanaimo homeowners are looking at an eight per cent property tax hike after council passed the provisional financial plan.  This will bring property taxes for the average home in Nanaimo to $2,860 next year.  Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog says that the city is growing, putting an increased demand on the city services, and council did what it could to control the tax increase. “I appreciate that nobod...

Construction has started on a new 47 bed housing facility for women and children facing gender-based violence in Nanaimo. The four-storey, wood-frame building will provide 30 self-contained second-stage housing units with their own bathroom and kitchen, as well as 10 rooms with a total of 17 transition beds for short-term stays. Three second-stage housing units and one transition room will be whee...

Finding love on choppy waters isn’t always that easy, but with Valentine's Day in the next couple of months, there’s a great opportunity to find your forever first mate. Hullo and the Vancouver Island Ferry Company are here to help with that.  Applications are now open for Hullo’s High-Speed Speed Dating event. Hullo, the same company that brought you the 70-minute ferry from downtown Nanaimo stra...

Nanaimo city council voted 8-1 on Monday to not build affordable housing on any portion of the Five Acres Farm at 933 Park Ave. The city bought the land in 2019 to both protect the farm from development as well as a site for housing on part of the property. Nanaimo Foodshare currently operates a community garden on the property and the former farmhouse is rented by tenants, but the plan is to demo...

Nanaimo City Council on Monday voted to amend the service agreement for the Downtown Vandalism Relief Grant program. Businesses in the downtown area will now be able to apply more than twice a year and receive up to $2,500 per incident up to a maximum of $5,000 per year. This money may also include up to 50 per cent of the cost of installation of security and preventative measures to a maximum of...

Nanaimo City Council voted on Wednesday to increase the budget for the free shower program at Caledonia Park. Christy Wood, social planner for the City of Nanaimo, presented a report with five recommendations to council to review the current shower services and to provide options to expand, maintain or transition the current system. This comes after a regular council meeting in March 2023, when th...

Transit workers in Comox and Campbell River went on strike Friday morning citing wages as the key reason for the job action. While this shuts down public transportation for tens of thousands of people, the union and employer agreed to keep operating the HandyDART buses for people with disabilities. Unifor Western Regional Director Gavin McGarrigle says the three major stumbling blocks are the rate...

A new mural at the Nanaimo Aquatic Center showcases communities coming together and transitioning hate to hope.  The British Columbia's Office of the Human Rights Commissioner showcased the mural on Thursday. This mural is one of four that were made around the province in response to the report from the Human Rights Commissioner titled “From Hate to Hope”. The report comes out of an inquiry into t...

Two additional city-funded warming centres will be opening in Nanaimo this month, one at the old Nanaimo Bakery on Bowen and Merrideth road operated by the Island Crisis Care Soceity, and the other at an old fire hall at 5 Victoria Road operated by the 7-10 Club. All together, the three warming centres will provide a place for 138 people to seek shelter from the elements this winter.  Risebridge’s...

A pond near Qualicum Beach Elementary is getting a new name after a local teacher wrote to the town council informing them that the students voted to name it Salamander Pond. Ashley Kuramoto is an outdoor education specialist at the school who often takes her class to the pond but never knew its name. Eventually she called the town to try and get to the bottom of it and was told it was Contaminant...

Santa Claus was spotted flying over Nanaimo early Tuesday morning, but left his sleigh at home instead opting for a flight in an air ambulance helicopter that landed at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Santa was there to visit sick children in the hospital’s paediatric unit as well as five other hospitals on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. This is the 19th year that BC Emergency Health...

Recent figures show illicit drug poisonings attended by the BC Emergency Health Services in Nanaimo are more than double the per capita rate when compared to other communities within  Island Health. In a presentation to Nanaimo City Council on Monday, Dr. Shannon Waters, current interim Medical Health Officer for the Nanaimo area, along with some of her colleagues, spoke about the current rise in...

The Nanaimo Art Gallery is currently looking for a new place to call home. During a city council meeting on December 4th, the art gallery presented an update on the “Future Gallery” project’s next steps.  The project directly follows a feasibility study completed with the gallery, Nordicity and Iredale Architecture in 2022. Currently housed in an old bank building which was built in the 1960s, the...

Nanaimo’s Jewish community marked the first night of ​​Chanukah with the lighting of a giant Menorah at Maffeo Sutton Park.  Organized by Chabad of Nanaimo the event attracted hundreds of people to mark the start of the holiday celebrating the triumph of light over darkness.  Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov says that the public celebration of ​​Chanukah is important for the community.  “The holiday is all ab...

Island Health is ramping up its Covid and Influenza vaccine campaign with free walk-in clinics for children between six months and 11 years of age. Dr. Charuka Maheswaran, a public health resident physican at Island Health, says that it is especially important that children get their flu shot this year. “Last year, we saw more children hospitalized with influenza than usual and we don't want that...

Vancouver Island Univerisity gathered to remember the worst act of violent misogyny in Canadian history. It has been over 30 years since the École Polytechnique Montreal massacre that took the lives of 14 women on December 6th 1989.  The day is a part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign which begins November 25, the International Day for Elimination of Violence Agains...