Public engagement suggests People want BC Ferries to be reliable, affordable, and integrated with other forms of transit. 

Those emerged as the top three priorities for respondents of the companies’ fall engagement process called Charting the Course. BC Ferries recently published an report on the findings from that process.

Also this year, The BC Federation of Labour and the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives put out a ten year vision and investment plan for transit in BC.

Called Connecting BC, it puts an emphasis on expanding options to get from one community to another across the province. Midcoast Morning checks in on both.

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Nanoose Bay resident Natasha Bob is working to keep a piece of local history alive.

It all started 30 years ago with the discovery and partial excavation of a burial site where a condominium development was planned.

Throughout 1994 archeological work at Craig Bay or Qilxemait, just south of Parksville uncovered the skeletal remains of more than 300 people.

Over that time period the remains of more than 120 people were removed, placed in labelled boxes, and stored on site according to a Masters’ thesis on the subject by Tanja Hoffman. 

By the end of August that year, the Nanoose First Nation chief and elders demanded that development and archeological work on the site cease.

The nation launched a series of legal challenges against the developer and the province, and people took part in demonstrations calling for the excavation of remains to stop.

Eventually the province purchased most of the waterfront property from the developer, and paid for a reburial ceremony. 

Today the site is a heritage park in the midst of Craig Bay.

Natasha Bob lived through these events as a teenager, standing in the path of work trucks and circulating a petition around Nanaimo high schools.

Now she’s recording a series of interviews with others who were around at the time, in order to pass the story of the events on to future generations.

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The largest Vancouver Island based financial services organization is planning to merge with a credit union on the mainland.

Coastal Community Credit Union and BlueShore Financial have announced that they’ve signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a merger to form a combined credit union serving British Columbia’s West Coast and Vancouver Island communities. 

Coastal Community Credit Union is the largest credit union based on the island, with close to eighty five thousand members and over three billion dollars in assets.

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A Buddhist butler mixed up in murder, a decade off grid on a remote island, and the journey to self publishing,

Midcoast Morning explores the experience of some of the many authors living in and around Nanaimo.

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Islands trust Council has approved this year’s budget following a quarterly meeting that took place in Nanaimo last week.

Among this year’s projects is a review of Gabriola Island’s official community plan. Gabriola Island Trustee Tobi Elliot speaks about that project and other issues relating to the community and the Islands Trust.

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Nanaimo has announced the winners of its 2024 culture awards.

The prizes have been bringing awareness to the breadth and variety of cultural activity in Nanaimo since 1998.

This year’s winners include a world champion highland dancer, a member of Canadian Music Hall of Fame band Trooper, and someone who’s brought Banghra to Polish TV audiences and Nanaimo citizens alike.

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The Islands Trust is a special form of government serving gulf islands in the Salish Sea.

It was created by provincial legislation in 1974, with a mandate to preserve and protect the environment and unique amenities of the gulf islands.

Multiple groups have raised concern after the trust released a document following an in-camera meeting in September.

The document said that Trust Council’s view is that the phrase “unique amenities” referred to in its mandate is broad-ranging and that such amenities may include issues such as, but not limited to, housing, livelihoods, infrastructure and tourism.

Ahead of a recent Islands Trust meeting in Nanaimo, the groups Friends of The Gulf Islands and Gulf Islands Alliance raised concerns that such an interpretation could undermine the trust’s mandated focus on environmental protection.

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On Friday, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was in Nanaimo as part of a tour of Vancouver Island.

He visited the CHLY studio, alongside Nanaimo-Ladysmith MP Lisa Marie Barron for a conversation touching on pharmacare legislation, Barron’s recent motion on electoral reform, Harewood Plains, and the next federal election.

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The City of Nanaimo is bringing in bylaws around its electric vehicle(EV) chargers. 

This week city council adopted new bylaws set to come into effect in June first that will see EV drivers pay two and a half cents a minute for the first two hours of charging at city owned stations.

Fees will increase to six cents a minute after two hours, as well as during overnight hours.

The show explores the new bylaws and the experience of driving an EV in Nanaimo in 2024.

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Financial troubles at Vancouver Island University could mean the end of the school’s music programs.

The VIU Senate Planning and Priorities Committee voted to approve a proposal to phase out the University’s bachelor of music program, and cancel a jazz diploma program that was set to launch in September.

Vancouver Island University faces a deficit of more than 20 million dollars this year, and is aiming to return to balanced budgets by the 2026-27 year.

Music has been a part of the school’s educational offerings since 1969.

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It’s mating season for Eagles on Vancouver Island.

Mike Yip says everybody recognizes the eagle, but not everyone is aware of what the raptors get up to month to month.

The Nanoose Bay based amateur photographer is getting ready to launch A Year of Eagles, a book he’s self publishing next month.

On today’s show we’ll spend more time learning about eagles and other raptors you can find around the island.

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A new hospital, a cardiology program, and more staff are all needed in Nanaimo according to Dr. David Coupland, head of the Nanaimo Medical Staff Engagement Society.

Plus how could the raft of housing announcements we’ve been hearing from the provincial government impact Nanaimo? Kaeley Wiseman who teaches at VIU and works in the non market housing space shares her thoughts.

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Sophia worked at The Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter.

She died late last year from an infection, aged 23.

With her mother’s blessing, the shelter’s Executive Director Paul Manly is sharing Sophia’s story.

In a post to the Unitarian shelter’s Facebook page titled Remembering Sophia, an open letter about the preventable loss of a community champion, Manly provided an account of Sophia’s difficulty accessing healthcare in Nanaimo, and how when she was eventually diagnosed with an infection and immunodeficiency, it was too late.

He visited the CHLY studio to remember Sophia.

Also on the program: CHLY reporter Lauryn Mackenzie gets a preview on L’Association Des Francophones de Nanaimo’s Maple Sugar Festival happening this weekend.

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There’s a cloud of uncertainty hanging over many smaller media outlets around Vancouver Island and beyond.

A federally funded program to support civic journalism in under-served communities is set to expire at the end of next month, and there’s been no definitive answer one way or another about its future.

Called The Local Journalism Initiative or LJI, it provides funds to a number of not for profit organizations representing different segments of the news industry.

For example there’s one for print media, and one for community radio.

Those larger organizations administer the funding, giving money to news outlets to hire journalists.

There are different streams for different types of media, including print, community radio, and community television.

CHLY’s nonprofit newsroom receives Local Journalism Initiative funding for our news updates. Midcoast Morning is funded through a separate program.

The ambiguity around the LJI’s future has left more than 400 journalists across the country unsure whether or not they’ll have jobs come April.

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Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog discusses the cancelled alternative approval process and the future of the public works yard project. Shoppers at Nanaimo’s Superette share memories of the store in the wake of the news that it’s up for sale.

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Nanaimo has shelved an alternative approval process for the second time, after failing to follow the rules set out in provincial legislation.

To try and make sense of the situation, we spoke with Vancouver Island University Political Studies Professor Michael MacKenzie.

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Lunar New Year falls on Saturday February 10th in 2024

An important holiday in the culture of many Asian nations, including China, Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia,

Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the ways it’s being celebrated here in Nanaimo.

We’ll visit the Nanaimo Chinese Cultural Society’s Lunar New Year event, and we’ll hear the favourite traditions of a number of students at VIU.

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Nanaimo’s nailed down five specific proposals it wants to see action on from the province

This week council approved the resolutions the city will bring before the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities.

We’ll be exploring what that means, what the resolutions are, how this all works, and why you should care.

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Housing has been a hot topic around town this week.

The provincial housing minister was in Nanaimo for an announcement, the province announced more funding for rent banks in BC, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation came out with its 2024 rental market report.

We’ll hear from housing minister Ravi Kahlon, and we’ll explore the Nanaimo housing scene with VIU Master of Community Planning professor Mark Holland.

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A pair of Vancouver Island Entrepreneurs have lost their space but not their vision.

Last Mother's day Sabrina Anderson and Whirly Bird launched Stray Coastal Moat Farm market, hoping to create community for island farmers.

They took over the building across from the Nanaimo Airport in Cassidy that’s hosted farm markets in one way or another since the 1970s.

In October, just as they were getting ready to put the finishing touches on their first year, the building was destroyed by fire.

In a recent Instagram post, Anderson and Bird said that their insurance adjuster found that their operations were not responsible.

They also said however that they won’t receive insurance to cover losses such as inventory or equipment.

As the pair take some time to regroup and decide what’s next, they stopped by the CHLY studio to reflect on their season at Stray Moat.

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