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This weekend saw upwards of a thousand people gather in Nanaimo’s Maffeo Sutton Park as part of the second annual Nanaimo Infusion, an event to encourage American tourists to visit the city and support the local economy.
This year, about half of the groups that registered to attend included a health-care worker with them.
Event organizer Tod Maffin has been working for the past year to help recruit U.S. health-care workers to move to Nanaimo and his work has been paying off with just under 50 of them now living and working in the city.
I spoke with some of the American nurses who are now working in Nanaimo’s busy regional hospital about what their experience has been like here and why they decided to leave their country.
I also spoke with a nurse from New York state who is in the process of getting a job in Nanaimo about what her hopes are for a new future in Canada.
You can read my full story below.
Thank you for reading,
Mick Sweetman
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| Second Nanaimo Infusion attracts hundreds of American health-care workers
| Nanaimo hospital ER now boasts a cohort of U.S. nurses, and more want to join them. |
| Read the full story
| | I support The Discourse because... |
Speak up, say it loud, Save Cable Bay!”
—judimulvaney, on TikTok.
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| I support The Discourse
| | On the Island |
| A stage among the orchards: Cowichan Valley Shakespeare Festival celebrates 15 years | The Cowichan Valley Shakespeare Festival marks 15 years of bringing The Bard’s work to life outdoors and making it approachable for all ages.
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| Read the full story
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| History repeating itself: American health-care workers ‘kick the tires on Canada’ in the Comox Valley
| For more than 50 years, political upheaval south of the border has benefitted the Comox Valley.
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| Read the full story
| | Council corner
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A third night of a public hearing into an application by Nanaimo Forest Products to rezone a forested tract of land adjacent to Cable Bay Trail for industrial use will take place on Thursday, April 30 at 7 p.m. in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium.
The next regular council meeting will take place on Monday, May 4, at 7 p.m. in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium. | |
In other news |
👉 Residents came out for a second public hearing about the rezoning of forested land beside Cable Bay Trail for industrial use last Wednesday, with every single person who spoke against the proposal. CHLY 101.7FM has the story.
👉 An error by a city contractor is the cause of repairs to the new roundabout on Beban Parkway on the south entrance to Beban Park. The original contractor is doing the work at its own expense and it is estimated it will take about a month to complete. Nanaimo News Now has the story.
👉 The search for a new space to operate a day-time drop in centre has hit another dead end with Island Health saying it does not have extra space to host the service at its building at 250 Albert St. The health authority plans to open a wellness and recovery centre in the building this summer, along with the city’s only overdose prevention site. Nanaimo News Now has the story.
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| In Your Words |
“Nanaimo has such promise for tourism. Dump industrial these mills are just dated and don’t have economic foundation like they once did. We need to pivot,” — thatbitchsatanica on TikTok.
Do you have something to say about our coverage or about something in Nanaimo? We accept short (100 words maximum) letters that we may print in an upcoming newsletter. Letters may be edited for length and style. Email nanaimo@thediscourse.ca with "letter to the editor" in the subject line.
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🎉 Keep an eye out for more posts about our reporters' extraordinary work at @thediscourse.ca on Bluesky. You can tap the bell on our profile to get a notification when we post a new story. Follow our journalists and sister publications in the Discourse Community Publishing network by clicking “follow all” in our Bluesky starter pack.
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You can watch our latest video about the proposed rezoning of land beside Cable Bay Trail here:
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