Welcome to Nanaimo This Week, your source of community news and local solutions. Did a friend forward this email to you? Subscribe to this newsletter.

It’s the final days of the provincial election and I have been working hard to get answers from local candidates on the questions you sent in on the issues you care the most about. 

I have answers from the candidates to your questions on health care, homelessness and social supports, affordability, housing and the environment. 

We also have all the information you need on how to cast your ballot in Nanaimo’s guide to the B.C. election.

Voting day is on Saturday, Oct. 19 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and you can find your local voting location by inputting your address into wheretovote.elections.bc.ca.

A reminder that you can vote at any district electoral office or voting place in the province with identification and proof of address, and you don’t need a voter card to vote. That means if you’re out of town, you’re still eligible to vote.

Housing is a major issue for voters in Nanaimo, with single family home prices increasing from $521,600 five years ago to $815,800 in July 2024, according to the MLS Home Price Index. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse

What Nanaimo election candidates are saying about housing

Nanaimo provincial election candidates were asked about how they would protect the environment. Photo courtesy of Mick Sweetman

What Nanaimo election candidates are saying about the environment

Provincial election candidates in the two Nanaimo ridings were asked how they would address affordability, including how they would make food more affordable. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse

What Nanaimo candidates are saying about affordability

Voters in Nanaimo will be part of one of two newly redrawn ridings in the upcoming provincial election: Nanaimo-Gabriola Island and Nanaimo-Lantzville. Find out which one you live in, who is running and where to vote in our new voter’s guide. Screenshot / Elections BC 

Nanaimo’s guide to the B.C. election

I support The Discourse because...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Really appreciate local content or provincial stories that may have an impact on our perceptions. Mick Sweetman is a real asset."

— John A., from our newsletter survey.

On the Island

🌊 If you are looking for election coverage for the Ladysmith-Oceanside electoral district, you can find it in the Cowichan Valley section of our website and check out Cowichan Valley’s guide to the B.C. election. We have published candidates’ answers to readers’ questions on the environment, housing, homelessness and social supports and spoke with experts on involuntary addictions treatment, which has been a hot-button issue in the election.

In other news

👉 BC NDP and Conservative Party leaders were in Nanaimo this week to hype up their commitments to health care in the region, with both promising to build a new cardiac catheterization lab at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital as well as a new patient tower. CHLY 101.7FM has the story.

👉 CHLY’s Midcoast Morning sat down with Nannaimo-Gabriola Island NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson and Nanaimo-Lantzville NDP candidate George Anderson, and Nanaimo-Lantzville Green Party candidate Lia Versavel and Nanaimo-Gabriola Island BC Conservative candidate Dale Parker as part of its series interviewing local candidates.

👉 For the first time, there will be polling stations at Vancouver Island University (VIU) on election day on Oct. 19 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the upper cafeteria building 300. The VIU Students Union has all the details.

Community photo

Fat Bear Week may be over, but a chonky black bear sat across the Stamp River from me when I was there taking photographs of the salmon run on Friday, Oct. 11. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse

See you around town,

— Mick, Shalu and The Discourse team

What did you think of this newsletter?

⭐    ⭐⭐    ⭐⭐⭐    ⭐⭐⭐⭐    ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In case you missed it