Midcoast Morning

As Canada’s time hosting the FIFA world cup comes to a close, Nanaimo is hosting some of B.C.’s youth soccer talent. The Provincial A-Cup championship is on now through Sunday, July 12 in the Harbour City, featuring 40 teams from across the province, including 11 from Vancouver Island. Midcoast Morning spoke with organizers, players, and referees on the first day of competition about the tournamen...

Barry Lyseng says he’s been advocating for pedestrian improvements on Hammond Bay road for 27 years. Lyseng is chair of the Linley Valley-Stephenson Point Neighbourhood Association. He’s hopeful that plans to replace several kilometres of sewer pipe along the road starting early next year will bring improvements to the pedestrian experience. Hammond Bay features several stretches with minimal spac...

The City of Nanaimo is in the process of creating a tenant protection bylaw, but staff are recommending against some of the enhanced protections offered by bylaws in other B.C. communities. Staff are recommending a bylaw that would apply to redevelopments of buildings with four or more rental units. It is expected to offer displaced tenants four months of rent, as well as moving expenses. Some com...

A new exhibit at the Harbourfront Library in Nanaimo brings attention to the privatisation of much of the land on southeastern Vancouver Island. Called The Great Vancouver Island Land Grab , it’s about the granting of land in exchange for construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway. In the 1880s, more than 800 thousand hectares of land were given to the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway company...

The repair café movement has returned to Nanaimo. Volunteers came together Saturday May 30 to look at more than 100 household items in need of a fix. The event at St Andrew’s Church in the Old City Quarter featured tables for small appliances, electronics, furniture, jewellery, bike repairs and more. It was the second repair cafe held in Nanaimo this year, with a third planned for June 13th. There...

A plan to shape the future of the Woodgrove Area is now complete and has made its way before Nanaimo City Council. Project Manager Kasia Biegun of the City of Nanaimo’s planning department spoke with CHLY about what’s envisioned for the area through 2046. Support Midcoast Morning and our Nonprofit Newsroom with a monthly sustaining donation of $5 to $10 a month. Podcast Photo: Woodgrove Area Plan...

A recent Nanaimo press conference saw the leader of BC’s Green Party joined by a community advocate Kathryn Barnwell, and Nanaimo City Councillors Paul Manly and Hilary Eastmure in a call for more stringent regulation of the data centre industry provincially and federally. Midcoast Morning speaks with Martin Karsten, a University of Waterloo computer science professor, to walk through some questio...

Three groups made a pitch this week for a new organization to coordinate bringing affordable housing to Nanaimo. At a governance and priorities committee meeting, Nanaimo City Council received an ask to fund a Nanaimo Housing Collective. One of the group’s behind the pitch is the Nanaimo Prosperity Corporation, which is the city’s economic development agency. There is also involvement from the Hou...

The CEO of Nanaimo Forest Products says that while nothing is decided yet, he expects it to be months before a rezoning application for lands in the southeastern part of Nanaimo makes it back before city council. After three sessions of a public hearing lasting more than ten hours and featuring more than a hundred first time speakers, Nanaimo City Council has sent an application to rezone around 7...

A public hearing around the potential rezoning of lands near Cable Bay Trail is set to continue into a third session this week. With Nanaimo receiving more than 900 written submissions about the proposal, and more than 100 people speaking to the matter in person or over the phone so far, there has been significant community interest in the matter. Midcoast Morning spoke with Mark Holland, a regist...

A public hearing on the potential rezoning of lands near Cable Bay trail packed the Vancouver Island Conference Centre Thursday April 16th, and is set to continue this week. Around 68 people spoke to the matter, with 24 of them calling into the hearing, with council also receiving 907 written submissions. At issue is a rezoning bylaw. It would see close to 75 hectares of land near the southeastern...

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...