It’s going to cost a quarter more to ride the bus in Nanaimo. April 1 transit fares are going up for the first time in years, following a fare review process.

A single ride will now cost $2.75 and a day pass $5.50

The price of Monthly concession passes for seniors and youth are also going up by $5.

The cost of a standard monthly bus pass remains the same at $65.

There’s also one route that’s decreased in price, the Nanaimo to Cowichan Valley Express route is now $5 dollars, down from $7.50.

Midcoast Morning speaks with the RDN’s Senior Manager of Transportation about the changes.

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The company that built the Nanaimo Bastion could be looking at the end of the line.

The Hudson’s Bay Company is seeking creditor protection and is expected to begin liquidating inventory at stores across Canada in the very near future.

Midcoast Morning explores what’s going on with The Bay now, and the role it played in Nanaimo’s coal mining roots.

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With trout being pumped into local freshwater lakes, and the herring spawn catching the attention of fishers on the saltwater side, Midcoast Morning explores the Nanaimo fishing scene.

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Permitting delays and Cost uncertainty are among the concerns expressed this week by home builders on Vancouver Island.

The Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce gathered contractors and other key players in the construction industry together Tuesday for an Island Housing Solutions Roadmap event at the coast bastion hotel.

Midcoast Morning attended and spoke with members of the Canadian Homebuilders Association.

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Cities, towns, and community organizations across Vancouver Island are increasingly leaving behind X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

This week Ladysmith joined Parksville as some of the latest communities to either shut down or publicly back away from use of the platform.

Midcoast Morning speaks with the town’s communications and engagement specialist who says the decision wasn’t a political one. The program also speaks with Nanaimo’s director of corporate communications to see if it’s looking at stepping away from X.

Plus, Ladysmith has a new mayor

Deena Beeston picked up 854 of 1740 votes cast in a byelection last Saturday. She spoke with Midcoast Morning about the campaign, and what she hopes to accomplish in the role.

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As The City of Nanaimo attempts to deal with unruly conduct during council meetings, a proposed ban on recording has some councillors raising concerns.

Bylaw changes that include bans on photography and audio and video recordings of council meetings passed three readings at a February 24th council meeting, with council voting 7-2 in favour of the changes.

Under the rules, which would still need to be adopted at a later date, photography and recording at a meeting could still be permitted if allowed by the meeting’s chair.

Councillors Hilary Eastmure and Sheryl Armstrong voted against the changes, and expressed concern about their ability to stand up to legal challenges.

At a meeting this past week, Councillor Paul Manly, who originally voted in favour of the changes, said he’s not comfortable with the bylaw as it’s worded and that he would be bringing forward a motion to revisit discussion on the issue at a later date.

Eastmure, Manly, and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog spoke with Midcoast Morning about the issue.

For more local reporting on this story, you can find a February 27 piece in The Discourse from CHLY alumni Mick Sweetman.

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Concerns about a potential loss of representation, and a new implementation plan have caused farmers to make their voices heard at the regional district of Nanaimo so far this year.  

In January, a staff report presented the RDN board with the option of consolidating a number of committees,

One of them was the Agricultural Advisory Committee or AAC, which is made up of members of the farming community and directors on the RDN board. 

That potential loss of the committee caused a number of farmers to reach out and contact the RDN, and local farmer Ben Glassen advocated for the committee and issues affecting his community at a January RDN board meeting.

While a number of other committees were collapsed into the committee of the whole, the AAC was spared.

Part of the AAC’s work is an agricultural area plan, developed in 2012. 

Many items from the plan haven’t been put into practice yet, and this week the RDN adopted a new implementation plan to try and address that.

This week Ben Glassen once again spoke to the RDN board about issues facing local farmers.

Glassen and AAC chair Jessica Stanley spoke with Midcoast Morning about the issues island farmers are facing.

Editor’s note, Glassen is also a volunteer at CHLY, where he hosts a farming themed program called the Tuning Fork.

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The City of Nanaimo is taking another step on the road to replacing its aging public works yard.

Nanaimo city council voted 6 to 3 in favour of a plan to fund more detailed designs for the project.

The city is looking to upgrade facilities on Labieux road by building a new administration building and a new fleet maintenance facility, where it would service vehicles like garbage trucks and snow ploughs.

A plan to borrow up to $90 million to complete the upgrades had to be shelved after an unsuccessful alternative approval process last year. 

The designs are projected to cost $1.8 million, staff say it’s something that will need to be completed no matter how the rest of the project is financed.

Bill Sims, General Manager of Engineering and Public Works with the City of Nanaimo, spoke with Midcoast Morning about the latest developments on the project.

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The work of Black Canadian poets George Elliot Clarke, Dionne Brand, M Nourbese Philip, and Wayde Compton, as well as rapper K’naan, is in the spotlight in a new book from VIU professor Paul Watkins.

Called Soundin’ Canaan, in the book, Watkins takes what he describes as a DJ approach to analyzing works of Black Canadian poetry as forms of social, ethical, and political expression.

Watkins paid a visit to the CHLY studio to speak about the work.

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It was a banner year for the Vancouver Island Marmot.

There were more marmots recorded in the wild than at any time since their population started being tracked in the 1980s.

The wild marmot population is mainly centered around two areas, Strathcona Park and Nanaimo Lakes.

The Marmot Recovery foundation is a non profit founded in 1999 with the goal of restoring the wild population of the Vancouver Island Marmot, their work includes captive breeding programs and habitat restoration efforts.

The organization’s executive director and head veterinarian joined Midcoast Morning to break down the latest on B.C.’s only endemic mammal species.

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Community members are gathering downtown this afternoon to honour the lives of of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

The No More Stolen Sisters March begins at Diana Krall Plaza at 3:30.

Starting in 1992 memorial marches have been held in communities across the country each year on February 14th.

The event originated as a memorial march for Cheryl Anne Joe, a mother of three from Sechelt who was murdered that year in Vancouver.

Leah Vaisanen is organizing the march in Nanaimo.

Monique May is organizing a march this Sunday in Victoria. She’ll also be in attendance Friday in Nanaimo.

Both of them spoke with Midcoast Morning about the march, and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

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University of Vermont professor Kim Coleman is hitting the mountain biking trails of Vancouver Island.

But she’s not here on vacation.

Coleman is visiting Vancouver Island University for the spring semester as a Fulbright Canada Research Chair.

She’s studying how communities manage outdoor recreation, comparing examples on the island with some she’s studied back in New England.

Coleman visited the CHLY studio to talk about how communities change when mountain biking goes

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Christine Meutzner says when she’s driving around Nanaimo, she sees all the buildings that have come and gone throughout the years.

After close to 30 years at the Nanaimo Archives, Meutzner is heading into retirement.

The archives are a non-profit society dedicated to acquiring, preserving and providing public access to the historical records of the Nanaimo region.

Members of the public can do on site research by appointment at their building located at 60 Wharf Street.

Meutzner stopped by the CHLY studio to share some stories from the city’s past.

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Ladysmith’s acting mayor says in her opinion, an increasing lack of civility online is the community’s greatest challenge.

Voters in Ladysmith are getting set to elect a new mayor in a by-election March 1. There are currently five candidates in the race to replace Aaron Stone, who stepped down last year to take a role as CEO of the South Island Prosperity Partnership, an economic development alliance serving the greater Victoria region.

Tricia McKay has been serving as acting Mayor in the interim, Midcoast Morning spoke with her about the political context in the community ahead of the by-election

In addition to issues with how she feels online discourse has evolved in the last number of years, McKay also cited challenges getting new commercial space, housing, and healthcare in Ladysmith.

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The BC Road Show made a stop in Cedar, looking to get more young people interested in careers operating heavy equipment.

The roadshow is a trailer that contains simulators for various pieces of heavy equipment. It visits schools in the province in an effort to promote pathways into the construction industry.

Industry groups say there’s a shortage of labour in the construction right now. Midcoast Morning examines a local pathway into heavy equipment operation.

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The community on Gabriola Island is mapping out how it will move through the next 25 years.

Attempts to address Impacts from climate change, an aging population and a lack of diversity of housing options need to take into account environmental concerns specific to gulf islands.

Gabriola is in the midst of the first major revision to its official community plan since 1997.

Trustee Tobi Elliot spoke with Midcoast Morning about the planning process.

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Incubators for the neo natal unit and a new laser used to treat prostate cancer, are among equipment purchases enabled by fundraising from the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation.

The foundation announced this week it had exceeded its 1.5 million dollar goal for a recent fundraiser by over $600,000.

CEO Barney Ellis-Perry spoke with Midcoast Morning about how funding for new hospital equipment purchases works, and urologist Dr. Will Carlson shared information on one of the new pieces of equipment.

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The owners of a downtown Nanaimo staple are stepping into retirement after more than three decades in the Old City Quarter.

Eric and Sandy McLean have announced the sale of McLean’s Specialty Foods to a quartet of local entrepreneurs.

The shop, known for its selection of cheeses and specialty foods from around the world, opened in 1992.

Eric McLean visited the CHLY studio to reflect on 33 years in business.

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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.

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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.

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