Nanaimo residents are compassionate people. We want someone experiencing addiction to survive an overdose. We want someone in a mental-health crisis to receive help. We want people living on our streets to be treated with dignity. But compassion should also mean asking a harder question: Are we actually helping people get better? For years, governments at...
We talk a lot about affordability in Nanaimo. We talk about attracting workers, training workers and retaining young people. But there is a much more fundamental question we should be asking: Where are the jobs that allow someone to build a life here? Not just jobs. Careers. Six-figure incomes. Jobs that can support a mortgage, raise...
We’ve Forgotten How to Attract Investment In my last email, I talked about growing Nanaimo’s tax base. The idea is simple: when more homes are built, more businesses open, and more people invest in our community, the cost of funding the services we all rely on is shared more broadly. That strengthens our economy and...
Every election, candidates promise to lower taxes. I’m not going to make that promise. The truth is, no councillor can honestly guarantee lower taxes. The cost of maintaining roads, water systems, police, fire protection and parks continues to rise every year. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. What I can promise is to focus on the real reason taxes continue to climb, and that’s because Nanaimo isn’t...
Every election, we’re told City Hall has another new priority. Another strategy. Another consultant. Another study. Another political cause. Meanwhile, the things residents actually expect from local government keep falling behind. People don’t expect City Hall to solve every problem in the world. They expect it to do the job they elected it to do. That...
