Residents of Snuneymuxw reserve lands will be able to vote in City of Nanaimo elections
Residents of Snuneymuxw First Nation’s reserve lands may be able to vote in the upcoming City of Nanaimo elections this fall. A proposed change to the city’s boundaries would include the reserve lands and allow roughly 800 people living there to vote for city councillors and the mayor of Nanaimo.
Currently, residents of the Snuneymuxw reserve lands are only allowed to vote for school district and regional district representatives.
“Snuneymuxw is Nanaimo and Nanaimo is Snuneymuxw,” Snuneymuxw Chief Michael Wyse said at a press conference with Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog on Tuesday.
“However, when boundary lines were arbitrarily drawn on a piece of paper, Snuneymuxw was purposely left out of the municipal boundaries, and only a tiny portion was included in the RDN boundary,” Wyse said. “This history created an unfair and unjust disparity among those residing on Snuneymuxw reserves and those who do not.”
The change of boundaries will include the reserve near downtown Nanaimo as well as the reserve lands by the Nanaimo River, which were excluded from the city boundary during amalgamation in 1975.
“Snuneymuxw members living off reserve have been able to vote in municipal elections and one block over, you can't,” Krog said of residents of the reserve near downtown Nanaimo.
The next step is for Nanaimo city council to choose between using the Alternative Approval Process or holding a referendum on the question of the boundary change at its next meeting on Monday, Feb. 23.
Krog says he thinks the Alternative Approval Process is the most appropriate for this question, because if residents support the boundary change, no action is required.
“The alternate approval process is designed to save money on issues which I think are obvious or important for the city,” Krog said. So for what it's worth, I'm prepared to state today, quite simply, that I will support the alternate approval process.”
Krog also said that the city will engage in public consultations about the change.
“There will be some elements in our community, sadly, as there are in every community in this country, who have attitudes that are, frankly, not Canadian,” Krog said. “But I am also satisfied that the vast majority of the citizens of Nanaimo will see this as a sensible step to correct an historic anomaly.”
The boundary changes will not impact city taxes or water and sewer services, which are already delivered by the city to the reserve lands.
If the proposed changes gain elector assent, then they will go to the province for approval, something Krog hopes will happen before the local elections in the fall.
Finance and audit committee to meet tomorrow
The city’s finance and audit committee will meet on Wednesday morning, starting at 9 a.m., in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium.
On the agenda is a report on options for the timing of the Development Cost Charge Bylaw and the Amenity Cost Charge Bylaw as well as phasing for new police and fire protection facilities.
There will also be reports on updates to the council spending and amenities policy, the Green Municipal Fund and a quarterly budget transfer for various projects.
A special meeting for the advisory committee on accessibility and inclusiveness will be held on Wednesday afternoon, starting at 4:30 p.m.
It will review the committee’s 2025 annual report and hear a presentation on the Maffeo Sutton Park amenity building.
The next city council meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium. | 
