The challenges we need to address

Nanaimo has been discovered as a desirable place to live with a good quality of life and moderate climate and as a result the city is one of the fastest growing urban regions in Canada. Our region attracts a mix of retirees, remote workers, families and professionals with new residents arriving mainly from the lower mainland and Alberta but also from Ontario and other eastern provinces. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadians the right to mobility and to live where they want to in Canada. We can’t stop more people moving to the region which means that our key challenge is properly managing the growth we are experiencing. 

 

Nanaimo has a challenging hilly geography and has had challenging growth patterns. The City of Nanaimo is 91 square kms. It is 25 kms long and 10 kms wide at the widest point. The city started in what is now the downtown core and in 1975, six unorganized communities amalgamated with the City of Nanaimo included Wellington, Harewood, Chase River, Northfield, Departure Bay, and Protection Island. During the 1980’s and 90’s the city's business sector spread with a series of malls constructed along highway 19. This undermined the central business district of the downtown core. The city also spread along the waterfront with suburban development replacing rural areas. The amalgamations and suburban sprawl means that our basic infrastructure is spread out and now aging and in need of replacement. As more areas experience infill, the capacity of our roads, sewers and water infrastructure becomes more stretched. More neighborhoods are requesting safe active transportation such as sidewalks and bike lanes. Our hospital, built in 1963, is overcrowded and needs expansion. Our parks and recreation facilities are heavily used. Climate change and the threat of wildfires and more severe storms requires planning to mitigate the impacts on our community.

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Affordability and Managing Growth

My focus on City Council has been to manage growth by creating and expanding the necessary infrastructure to handle that rapid growth including: increased affordable housing, expanding the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH), updating and creating new recreational facilities, expanding water, sewer, roads and active transportation to meet the needs of densification and expanding our system of parks and green spaces. My goal is to ensure that we do not inadvertently destroy the quality of life we enjoy through unplanned and unchecked growth. We also need to encourage growth in clean industries and businesses to ensure that young people who grew up in Nanaimo can remain here with well paid fulfilling jobs.

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Health Care Infrastructure

• I will continue to work with the province to improve health services through a major expansion of the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital including a new patient tower, and new wards for expanded cardiac care and psychiatric care. The Cancer Centre currently under construction and the new long-term care home expected to start construction in Lantzville are a result of the advocacy of the Nanaimo Regional Hospital Board (all RDN directors sit on the Hospital board). 

• Improvements and upgrades to NRGH will improve working conditions and attract new doctors and health care workers to the city.

• Continue to support projects in the hospital district to ensure access to specialists and general practitioners.

 

Planning for Growth

• Maintaining the urban containment boundary to protect agricultural and rural lands and avoid urban sprawl.

• Continuing to implement the Official Community Plan of increasing Nanaimo’s residential density around a series of secondary urban cores that incorporate commercial, office, education and recreation spaces. 

• Continue building connections between urban cores with public transportation and active transportation corridors. 

• Continue to achieve increased residential density by encouraging the development of secondary suites, laneway housing, townhouses and small multi-family dwellings (missing middle housing).

• Maintaining and expanding core infrastructure to accommodate growth.

 

Affordable Housing

• Continue to partner with senior levels of government on funding for affordable housing, including workforce housing, supportive housing, low-income housing and cooperative housing.

• Work with the non-profit sector, the coop sector and the private sector on alternative models for affordable housing development and explore the creation of a development corporation for community ownership of affordable housing.

• Speed up the process for development and building permits. Work with the development community to continue to improve processes and approval times.

• Continue to incentivize the construction of affordable housing. Council has already pre-zoned thousands of parcels across the city for affordable housing which will speed up the process for building non-market housing.

• Continue to purchase properties in the city using the affordable housing reserve fund for non-profit, supportive and cooperative housing.

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 A Strong Local Economy

• Create the conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises to thrive. SMEs are the engine of the local economy and are able to pivot and fill gaps when international supply chains are disrupted.

• Ensure affordability for the local workforce through the creation of affordable workforce housing in different parts of the community.

• Encourage the growth of clean non-polluting industries in the marine and blue economy sectors, the cleantech and biotech sectors and advanced manufacturing and industrial technology sectors.

• Develop a master plan for the expansion of the Port of Nanaimo and the associated industrial lands in partnership with the Nanaimo Port Authority, Snuneymuxw First Nation, major land-owners and the business sector. 

• Work with senior levels of government, the Island Corridor Foundation and First Nations to revitalize the E&N rail corridor. Add light rapid transit and multimodal connections in urban areas. Advocate for freight transportation between the Port of Nanaimo at Duke Point and urban destinations both north and south of Nanaimo to decrease truck traffic on roads and highways.

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Public Safety

• Continue to lobby senior levels of government for financial support, criminal justice reform, expanded public health and harm reduction services, and additional treatment facilities.

• Continue to support combined health, housing and community safety responses to the city’s current challenges. Continue the collaborative approach that includes health care workers, outreach workers, community safety officers and the RCMP to effectively address mental health, addiction, social disorder, and repeat offenders.

• Enhance the new Community Safety Officer program with additional trauma informer training and partnerships with outreach workers.

• Continue to work with BC Housing on the housing first model but focus on temporary housing in smaller projects dispersed in the community where groups of 10-12 unhoused people can stay in a supported environment with access to washrooms, showers, laundry and cooking facilities.

• Ensure that some supportive housing facilities are recovery oriented for people in recovery and people who need support but are not in active addiction or who  have never had substance abuse challenges.

• Advocate for criminal justice reform to improve public safety based on models that have proven successful in other jurisdictions. There are  models that have reduced criminality and drug use, diverting repeat offenders with mental health and addiction issues to treatment programs.

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Community Resilience and Sustainability

• Continue to implement and expand the current city action plans to mitigate the effects of climate change

• Continue to ensure emergency responders and auxiliary teams are well equipped and prepared for climate-related disasters including wildfires, flash floods and extreme storms.

• Continue to plan for improved infrastructure for walking and cycling. 

• Continue to expand public transit services in the city and create a hub and spoke system connecting neighbourhood urban cores with major transit corridors and minor routes with smaller buses connecting outlying areas. Focus on low carbon and zero-emission public transit. Continue to encourage transit use by making it more affordable and expanding the free youth pass system for seniors and people living on fixed low incomes.

• Continue to work towards zero waste and a circular economy and the goal of 90% diversion of waste from the landfill.

• Retrofit existing city infrastructure to ensure energy efficiency. Expand energy efficiency programs and incentives for homeowners, rental units and businesses.

• Protect green space in and around the city including ecologically sensitive areas such as the Nanaimo River, Cable Bay, Linley Valley and Harwood Plains.

• Protect the quality of life we enjoy and which attracts people and businesses to the region by maintaining the natural infrastructure, and continuing to expand the city’s parks and recreation infrastructure. Work to ensure that a growing population has access to green space and amenities across the city. 

• Continue to support local arts, culture, recreation and sports organizations and expand related facilities..

• Maintaining the urban tree canopy to counteract the urban heat island effect, address climate change and protect biodiversity.

• Continue to increase the city's renewable electricity production by adding solar panels to new civic buildings and during roof replacements. Create additional micro hydro-electric production in our water system and explore the use of geothermal in abandoned mines (similar to the VIU geothermal system).

• Continue to encourage  the introduction of solar systems on private residential, business and industrial properties.

• Improve local food security by creating the conditions for local urban agriculture to thrive including community gardens and food forests in local parks. 

• Develop One Port Drive to include a mix of business, retail and residential spaces. Work towards a vision of the downtown waterfront section of One Port Drive which includes a public amphitheatre and performance space, a cultural centre with galleries, cafes, restaurants and retail outlets to attract both tourists and residents.

• Work on extending the waterfront walkway to Departure Bay.

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Good Governance

• Good governance requires cooperation and respectful dialogue, with residents, city staff, and between council members. I pledge to work respectfully and collaboratively with everyone who is elected to the next council, with all staff members and with all residents of Nanaimo.

• I pledge to continue to listen to all residents of Nanaimo and carefully consider competing interests in the decision making process while keeping property taxes reasonable.

• I will continue to ensure transparency and accountability for both council deliberations and decisions.

  • Adhere to the Local Government Act and the Council Procedure bylaw.

  • Ensure that In-camera discussions are only for matters mandated under the Local Government Act including matters related to land, labour and legal negotiations and that council rises and reports on all in-camera decisions as soon as legally possible.

• Explore options for participatory budgeting so residents can propose and prioritize the ‘want to have’ projects in the community.

• Continue to allow residents to make presentations to City Council for residential re-zoning decisions in cases where public hearings have been banned by the provincial government.

• Use site specific zoning for contentious industrial projects such as data centres and polluting industries such as garbage incinerators to ensure that there is a public process including studies, staff reports, public hearings and a democratic vote by council.​

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Inter-Governmental Relations and Advocacy

 

Snuneymuxw

• For the past four years I have served on the Protocol Agreement Working Group, a joint committee of the City of Nanaimo Mayor and Council and Snuneymuxw Chief and Council. If I am re-elected, I will continue to cultivate a strong relationship between the City of Nanaimo and the Snuneymuxw First Nation based on cooperation, collaboration and mutual respect. I will ensure that the Sarlequun Treaty of 1854 between the Crown and the Snuneymuxw First Nation is respected.

 

Provincial and Federal Relations and Advocacy

• I will continue to work with senior levels of government on complex cross-jurisdictional issues including affordable housing, expansion of the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and addressing the mental health, addiction and homelessness crisis.

• Advocate for evidence-based solutions to the addiction and mental health crisis, including universal mental health care, increasing the number of available treatment beds, building more supportive housing and funding programs that help people improve their life.

• Advocate to the Federal government in partnership with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for a new fiscal framework. Municipal governments are responsible for 60% of the infrastructure in Canada but only receive approximately 10% of the total tax revenue. We need to move away from grant based models of funding from senior levels of government to predictable revenue tied to economic and population growth.