The province’s nurses union is flagging workplace safety concerns and staffing shortages as they get ready to head to the bargaining table later this year.

The BC Nurses’ Union’s (BCNU) collective agreement with the Health Employer’s Association of BC is set to expire at the end of March.

As the union gets ready to negotiate the next agreement, they’ve been having a series of regional bargaining conferences, including one in Nanaimo.

Midcoast Morning spoke with Kelly Charters, BCNU rep for Nanaimo and the North Island, about the issues nurses are facing locally.

The Vancouver Island Symphony is bringing unfinished, unpublished, and underappreciated works to audiences in Nanaimo and Courtenay this weekend.

The program will feature music from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Charles Ives, and the late Vancouver composer Jocelyn Morlock.

Midcoast Morning speaks with the symphony’s artistic director, and with composer John Korsrud, who was Morlock’s partner.

Upgrades to Nanaimo’s transit service have kicked in this week.

This year will see 8700 more hours of service on Nanaimo routes.

5000 of those hours are on the newly renamed route 1 Nanaimo rapid line, which goes between the Woodgrove Centre and Downtown. 

2700 new service hours are on an intercity route going from the Woodgrove Centre to Parksville and Qualicum Beach.

The other 1000 new hours are part of a restructured route to Lantzville.

Midcoast Morning explores the changes and the tentative plans for next year’s upgrades.