Any city is made up of an array of stories, and there were a lot of them in Nanaimo this year, as there are every year.
When choosing the stories of the year for 2023, we in the News Bulletin’s newsroom leaned toward some of the ongoing or recurring topics that dominated headlines over weeks and months. We whittled down our list to focus on five stories: the deadliest year yet in the drug overdose crisis, outcry over crime in the wake of a shooting at a homeless encampment, city council’s decision to accelerate a move away from natural gas, the city’s attempts to gain approval for a public works yard rebuild, and the long-awaited launch of a fast foot ferry.
There were plenty of other stories that could have made the list. The city’s highest-profile crime case in recent years finally reached its conclusion as Steven Bacon was handed a life sentence for the murder of teen Makayla Chang; Vancouver Island University’s repeated deficits started to catch up with the institution; court proceedings between B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Office and the Hells Angels ended and made way for the demolition of the Nanaimo clubhouse; the Coastal Renaissance ferry’s breakdown dragged into many months of repairs; the city and region pressed ahead on a new downtown transit exchange; a hotel opened next to the conference centre, at long last. Of course, there were topics with provincial and national scale that were felt in Nanaimo, things like the housing crisis and measures to address it, and inflation and affordability challenges.
Some of this year’s stories of the year carried over from last year and will continue into the new year. Some might be stories of the year next year, too. Whatever the case, there’s a certainty, in a city this size, that stories that we can’t foresee will become top of mind at some point. We look forward to reporting on them as they happen.
To all readers, we wish you a happy new year.
Nanaimo experienced worst year of drug crisis
The overdose crisis in B.C. gets worse every year and shows no signs of slowing down.
According to the B.C. Coroners Service, since the crisis was declared a public health emergency in 2016, the province has seen roughly 13,500 deaths related to unregulated drug use. In that time, Nanaimo alone has seen more than 400 deaths – 96 of which occurred in the first 10 months of 2023, resulting in the deadliest-ever year for drug poisonings. Before this year, 2022 had been the deadliest with 78 overdose deaths.
According to the regional health authority, Island Health, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, B.C. Emergency Health Services attended 964 illicit drug poisonings in Nanaimo, bumping up the city’s rate for overdoses to 906 per 100,000 people – more than double Island Health’s average of 428 per 100,000.
During a City of Nanaimo governance and priorities meeting on Dec. 11, Dr. Shannon Waters, medical health officer, said the data presented in Island Health’s report was “complex and devastating.”
Since January, Island Health has issued five drug poisoning and overdose advisories for Nanaimo; one in January, two in February, one in April and one in November. Each advisory remained in effect for a week and encouraged users to visit the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mid Island overdose prevention service site at 250 Albert St. which provides a drug-checking service.
In January, a peer-run overdose prevention site run by the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users on Nicol Street, however, was deemed a nuisance property by the City of Nanaimo due to disturbances and noise complaints. Following the shut down, NANDU chose to end its overdose prevention services in early February. According to Ann Livingston, NANDU volunteer, the service had supported more than 200 people daily with “just enough funds to cover basic rental materials costs and small stipends to volunteers.”
“The budget for running an overdose prevention site is close to a million dollars a year … we covered a gap that obviously existed because we became a place that drug users came to and it was drug users ensuring that other drug users didn’t die,” Livingston said.
As the crisis worsens, advocates are becoming more exhausted with barriers and societal stigma, emphasizing that these deaths are not just statistics but lost loved ones.
On International Overdose Awareness Day, Aug. 31, the Nanaimo Community Action Team, along with other community advocacy groups, hosted an event at Maffeo Sutton Park and urged government action.
At the event, chairperson of the community action team, Sarah Lovegrove, said people who use drugs and their allies have been resilient as they continue to see friends, families and neighbours die.
“We are continuously demoralized, stripped of our humanity, demonized, stolen from, and tokenized only when it is useful to prove engagement,” she said. “The ongoing war for pitiful amounts of funding diverts our attention, focusing on infighting and blaming one another, rather than bringing our energy to the task of taking on the systems that are killing us.”
Andrew Paul, a member of Gitga’at First Nation, shared a story at the event about his friends and family’s experience with drugs and alcohol, and also had a message to politicians.
“Your actions in the last five years has proved to us …that your words don’t align with your actions, and it’s just nothing but lip service,” he said. “I’m glad you got up here and shared what you had to share, but I’m here to share the truth about what’s really going on. And if that offends some of you government officials, good. I’m glad to give you something to work on when you leave here.”
Lenae Silva, a co-founder of the Open Heart Collaborative and a heroin user for 18 years, said she and other advocates and community workers are feeling burnout.
“We do this work because we have to,” she said.
Shooting at encampment intensified crime concerns
A shooting near a homeless encampment that left a local business owner in critical condition and rattled Nanaimo residents helped facilitate conversations about how the city can improve the safety of its citizens while the country is in the midst of a growing drug and mental health crisis.
On March 12, business owner Clint Smith and others went to an encampment along the Millstone River, near Terminal Avenue, to recover allegedly stolen items they thought were in the camp. An altercation broke out and Smith was shot.
Two people were taken into custody after the shooting, and one man, Craig Truckle, was charged with pointing a firearm without lawful excuse, though the charges against him were eventually dropped.
Less than a week after the shooting, on March 16, an estimated 300 people attended a rally at Pearson Park, hosted by the Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association, demanding more support from the provincial and federal governments, and expressing sympathy to those impacted by crime and substance abuse issues in their community.
“We’re seeing recidivism where people are again offending, often times also committing violent crimes,” said Elenore Sturko, the B.C. United Party’s critic for mental health, at the rally. “We have urged this government to take action by giving direction to Crown counsel to make sure that they are ensuring it’s always in the public interest to ask for either strict bail conditions or to be looking for individuals who pose a risk to public safety to be held in custody.”
B.C. Premier David Eby held a press conference in Nanaimo on April 12, announcing the creation of 12 teams of police, prosecutors, and probation officers dedicated to targeting repeat violent offenders, one of which is based in Nanaimo, and began full service in May.
“We’ve witnessed the tragic fallout from repeat violent offending in Nanaimo far too many times,” said Mayor Leonard Krog in a news release from the province. “I’m optimistic that these new initiatives will be the building blocks which will hold criminals accountable and prevent crimes from happening in the first place.”
A man was left in critical condition on June 14 after a shooting at the same encampment along the river. Two people were detained at the scene and a gun was recovered.
On June 20, residents of the Newcastle neighbourhood held a rally near the encampment, calling on the city and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, which owns the land, to take action and remove the “dangerous, armed and entrenched” encampment.
At the beginning of August, bylaw and community safety officers spent three days cleaning out the camp, which housed as many as 30 to 40 people and extended over 300 metres along the bluff between Terminal Avenue and the Millstone River.
Six months after the strategy to target repeat offenders was announced by the province, 39 offenders from Nanaimo were prioritized for investigation after being referred by probation officers and police officers.
Hullo ferries arrived to greet Nanaimo-Vancouver travellers
The maiden voyage may have been delayed, but Nanaimo travellers were happy to greet Hullo when the fast foot-passenger ferry service started this year.
The Vancouver Island Ferry Company revealed the Hullo branding in April. Vessels were initially scheduled to set sail from Nanaimo to Vancouver beginning Aug. 14, but strong winds the night before caused a power outage leading to first-day cancellations and postponing departure until Aug. 16.
Speaking to the media after a return sailing from Vancouver the first day, Rupesh Amin, Hullo co-founder, said the decision to cancel allowed the company to make adjustments.
“It was just giving ourselves some time to be thoughtful and methodical in terms of going over all of our systems, our procedures, our processes, and making [minor mechanical] tweaks and adjustments where we needed to make sure that the team was ready to properly manoeuvre and sail the vessels,” he said.
In addition, Hullo was ready to take measures to ensure customers regained confidence, he said.
“I think it’s really just building up that trust through demonstrating to everyone that we have safety and reliability at the forefront of our minds, we’re never going to do anything that jeopardizes that,” Amin said. “And we will demonstrate through the service and the consistency of the service and reliability of the service that we’re here to stay.”
People sailing on Day 1 seemed impressed.
“It was smooth, clean, fast, surprisingly fast, we were booking along,” Nanaimo resident Garth Ross said. “Great views of both Vancouver and Nanaimo, good first impression.”
The first month’s sailing schedule was scaled back, but as the summer and fall progressed, trip frequency increased and there were extra late-night sailings added for special events such as concerts and Vancouver Canucks games.
Hullo also made good on a promise in late October, launching complimentary daily shuttle bus service, with a 20-person vehicle transporting passengers to the downtown Nanaimo bus exchange between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.
City zeroed in on natural gas limitations
Home energy choices became a topic of conversation city-wide as Nanaimo city council voted to accelerate adopting the province’s zero carbon step code, which will effectively eliminate natural gas as a main heat source in new home construction.
Council’s 5-4 vote on Aug. 28 moved the target to eliminate natural gas from new builds to July 1, 2024, six years ahead of the provincewide schedule of 2030.
Even though city staff explained that secondary heating from devices such as gas fireplaces would still be permitted, speakers on both sides of the debate at the meeting suggested that the highest level of the zero carbon step code will ultimately eliminate the use of natural gas for space and water heating in new builds.
The zero carbon step code was added to the B.C. Building Code in the spring and will require all new buildings in the province to be zero carbon – by eliminating carbon-based fuels for energy and heating – by 2030. The zero carbon step code standard also gives B.C. municipalities authority over controlling pollution from new construction, which includes setting earlier zero carbon deadlines.
Buildings accounted for 31 per cent, or about 500,000 tonnes, of Nanaimo’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2017, according to city figures. Moving to the highest level of zero carbon performance in 2024 is seen as a step toward Nanaimo’s effort to lower community-wide emissions by 50-58 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030 and from 94-107 per cent below 2010 levels by 2050.
Nanaimo’s rapid growth makes it tough to cut emissions if new construction adds emission sources faster than they can be removed from existing building stock, but a greater proportion of buildings are curbing emissions, due largely to city building bylaws and incentives to lower carbon output and incorporate low-emission energy sources in new buildings. Ting Pan, the city’s manager of sustainability, said large buildings now mostly use electricity for space and hot water heating, though small structures, such as new single-family homes, still include natural gas in their energy supply mix.
“The city has a very ambitious climate target,” Pan said. “We’re trying to cut our emissions by more than half by 2030, in less than seven years.”
In September the Canadian Energy Centre, an Alberta-based publicly funded provincial corporation created to defend and promote the fossil fuel industry, launched a campaign that urged industry supporters to flood Nanaimo city council with letters in an effort to press council to reverse its vote. As of Sept. 21 the campaign, which appeared to be the first launched by the CEC against a municipal government, generated close to 2,400 letters, according to Canada’s National Observer. Nanaimo Coun. Paul Manly said Alberta, Fortis B.C. and the fossil fuel lobby had stepped beyond climate denial and greenwashing and into the realm of bullying and political intimidation.
“Where does the province of Alberta get off launching a campaign like this?” Manly said. “It’s outrageous. It’s inappropriate. I just honestly haven’t seen this done before.”
Coun. Ben Geselbrecht said limiting natural gas in new buildings and retrofitting it out of old buildings is a small part of what needs to be done to have any chance of meeting emissions-reduction targets.
“You can make houses as efficient as you want, but if you’re using natural gas to heat them, you’re never going to lower emissions,” he said.
Nanaimo city council adopted a building bylaw amendment at its Oct. 16 meeting, once again by a 5-4 vote, mandating new homes must meet the zero carbon step code’s highest-level requirement starting July 1.
Public works yard approved, but will need to be approved one more time
Nanaimo residents don’t often think about the inner workings of the city – where their water comes from and where their sewage goes, for example – but public works had a high profile in 2023.
That’s because the Nanaimo Operations Centre became a significant and ongoing news story over the past 12 months. The project planning for the public works yard rebuild on Labieux Road started three years ago, but the latest price tag of $48.5 million for Phase 1 was outlined for city council in the spring. That sum primarily covers a fleet maintenance facility, but also foundational work, stormwater management, fuel conversion at the fire training centre next door, and a pathway at Beban Park instead of a sidewalk in front of the works yard. It also includes contingencies for cost overruns and inflation.
Later in the spring, council asked staff to set up an alternative approval process in the fall to gain voter consent for long-term borrowing.
“It really is way past time that the people who do a lot of the grotty, tough work in tough conditions – called out in emergencies, etc. – have a decent, safe, secure place to work,” said Mayor Leonard Krog at the time.
The AAP was held in October and November, and once it was finished the city reported that 3,035 residents registered their opposition to the plan, short of the 7,799 (10 per cent of voters) needed to either halt the plan or necessitate a referendum.
That wasn’t the end of it, though, as city staff was advised soon after that a legislative error had been made regarding the notice of the alternative-approval process. So early this month, the project was back at the council table, where mayor and council needed to once again approve sending it to AAP, which they voted to do.
The city will now hold another alternative approval process from Jan. 18 until Feb. 20.
“We acknowledge the administrative oversight in the timing of the notification for the Nanaimo Operations Centre alternative approval process,” said Sheila Gurrie, the city’s director of legislative services, in a press release. “To ensure a fair and transparent process, the city will run the AAP again, providing citizens with an opportunity to voice their opinions on this project.”
-files from the Local Journalism Initiative