Running 28 minutes, Midcoast Morning covers local news and current affairs happening in Nanaimo and on the Salish Sea. Midcoast Morning focuses in on one big story per show, interviewing reporters about their stories, as well as those making news and those impacted by it. We also feature the curators and creators in our local arts and culture scene. Midcoast Morning broadcasts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 8:30 A.M.. The podcast edition releases at the same time.
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Lauryn Mackenzie — Host and Producer.
Jesse Woodward — Executive Producer.
Arbie Fru — Technical Assistance.
And other contributors in our news department.
Have a lead on a story? Feedback regarding an episode? Drop us a line. We read all of our emails, and respond when we can.
Brechin Lanes owner Ray Brittain is planning to sell the business that’s been in his family for more than 50 years, citing rising costs and competition from a foreign owned chain worth roughly a billion Canadian dollars.
Midcoast Morning host Joe Pugh paid a visit to Nanaimo’s only 5 pin bowling alley, to learn about it’s past, present, and what remains of its future.
Read MoreThe RDN and BC Transit have a survey open, asking about the impact of a potential fare increase for trips on busses in the city.
And you may have noticed a bunch of new e-bikes around town. The City of Nanaimo has partnered with BCAA’s Evolve E Bike share to launch a bike sharing pilot program.
Read MoreVancouver Island University’s response to a Palestine solidarity encampment on its grounds has drawn criticism from the B.C. Federation of Students, The Vancouver Island University Students Union, and more than a hundred of the school’s faculty and staff.
Read MoreThousands are expected to gather Saturday at a comic convention in Nanaimo that’s paying tribute to the man who founded it.
Curious Comicon is on Saturday at Country Club Mall.
It got started in 2016, when the Nanaimo branch of Curious Comics take Free comic book day, an annual, North America wide event, and expand it into a local convention convention.
With guest artists, a cosplay contest, and various activities.
Curious Comicon Founder Mike Drummond died earlier this year. Midcoast Morning spoke with some of the organizers who are keeping the event going in his memory.
Read MoreAs of May 1, in communities with a population over ten thousand, short term rentals will only be allowed in an owner’s principal residence, or in a secondary suite or accessory dwelling on the same property.
A number of less populated communities, including Gabriola Island and Tofino have opted in to the regulations. In those areas the rules will take effect on November first.
According to data obtained from the website Air DNA earlier this week, there are 999 short term rental listings in Nanaimo.
The city requires short term rental operators to have a licence which costs $165 per year.
A March staff report found that there were fewer than 300 licences for short term rentals in the community.
Midcoast Morning explores the impact of the potential impact of the new rules in our area, and speaks with B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon
Read More175 people lost their lives as a result of their jobs last year in B.C.
Flags at government buildings will be at half mast to mark the occasion. Midcoast Morning hears what else will be happening locally to mark the occasion.
Read MoreWalking around Nanaimo can be a very different experience depending on where you live.
Because of how the city’s developed and amalgamated different areas over the years, the sidewalk network is incomplete.
Members of the South End Community brought concerns around pedestrian safety in their neighbourhood to Nanaimo City Council this week.
Read MoreDowntown Nanaimo is set to welcome a major production for six weeks of shooting.
While Non Disclosure Agreements mean that sources can’t confirm the identity of the production, Susan Gittins has reported on the website Hollywood North Buzz that season 2 of the HBO series The Last Of Us will be filming in Nanaimo
BC’s Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Lana Popham released a statement earlier this month announcing that the series would be filming in British Columbia.
Whatever the production, there will be impacts to the local economy, some temporary road and business closures, and perhaps an ambience around town in the air.
Read MoreThe provincial snowpack is extremely low, according to BC’s Ministry of Water Land and Resource Stewardship. Midcoast Morning explores what that means, and what the situation is on the island vs. the rest of the province.
And with peak tourism season just around the corner, we check in on social enterprise 4VI two years after it made the transition from Tourism Vancouver Island.
Read MoreExploring bad leadership and threats to democracy.
Monday night in at VIU’s Malaspina Theatre, Michael Mackenzie, the university’s Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership will be giving a lecture called “Bad Leaders, Bad Followers: threats to democracy that we don’t talk enough about.”
It’ll be followed by a panel discussion and Question and Answer where Mackenzie will be joined by Angus Reid Institute President Shachi Kurl, former Victoria mayor Lisa Helps, and radio host and former MLA Jas Johal.
It’s part of VIU’s Engaged Citizen Speaker Series and is free for members of the public to attend. MacKenzie and Kurl spoke with Midcoast Morning ahead of the event.
Read MoreIt’s no secret that downtown Nanaimo has developed a certain reputation, according to a recent column appearing in the Nanaimo News Bulletin.
That assertion could be backed up by news headlines with the phrase downtown disorder, or online comments in local Facebook groups, where people express a fear of going downtown.
Midcoast Morning explores perceptions of downtown.
Read MorePublic 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.
Read MoreNanoose 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreIslands 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.
Read MoreNanaimo 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreOn 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.
Read MoreThe 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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