Colwood's clinic operates with salaried physicians delivering care to patients previously without a family doctor. Other Canadian cities have moved into primary care delivery when the Province has been too slow to act, and the City of Colwood is just one example on Vancouver Island.

The clinic model is not the only option worth considering. A year of serious work should also examine contracting through a non-profit operator, partnering with organizations such as the Nanaimo Division of Family Practice and the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation, and supporting the expansion of nurse practitioner capacity with the Nexus primary care clinic.

At the end of the first year, council either has a project to action or a documented case for why the model does not fit Nanaimo. Either way, the roughly 20,000 residents currently without a family doctor get a clearer answer than they have today. On something as fundamental as healthcare, we should strive to elect councillors who will not look the other way when a fifth of our residents face the prospect of waiting in the emergency room for their non-emergent health concerns.

Our regional hospital is the central healthcare facility for the roughly 500,000 people between the Malahat and Port Hardy. The Regional District of Nanaimo is the fifth largest regional district in BC and the only one in the top 5 without a cardiac catheterization lab. Patients travel to Victoria or Vancouver for cardiac procedures that should be available here, and this imposes a significant burden on patients and their families.

Funding is not the obstacle. On December 9, 2025, the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District passed a unanimous motion to fund the full up-front cost of planning, constructing, and equipping the cath lab. The region has put its money on the table and asked the Province to accept it. Council should be a dependable voice in the room beside the doctors, nurses, and health sciences professionals, to fully support healthcare excellence in Nanaimo.

Nurse practitioners are qualified to deliver most of the primary care Nanaimo's unattached patients need, and Nexus is already delivering that care to residents without a family doctor. Council's role is to remove municipal barriers where they exist, to make suitable space available at rates this organization can afford, and to advocate provincially for the funding structure that clinics such as these can rely on over the long term.

The main routes carry the load, and the transit dead zones between them get left behind. A community bus model uses smaller vehicles and shorter loops to bring basic service into those neighbourhoods without the capital cost of extending fixed-route buses. Residents in these dead zones are often the residents least able to organize a car-based alternative, and a community bus network is the cheapest path to reaching them. Smaller vehicles also handle narrowed roadways and traffic circles better than full-size buses. Metro Vancouver already operates this model, and our city can apply the same benefits to improve access for residents while reducing cost and emissions.

Direct, frequent service from the major exchanges (Country Club, Woodgrove, downtown, and Vancouver Island University) to the regional hospital, with target frequencies of fifteen minutes during peak periods and thirty minutes off-peak. The #30, the main bus to the regional hospital, currently operates along a considerably indirect route. For healthcare shift workers on a 7 AM start, for outpatients arriving for appointments, and for family visitors, that schedule does not allow for reliable and predictable travel. The result is that most people are forced to drive, which contributes directly to the shortage of parking on Island Health property and on adjacent city streets.

The capital cost is comparatively small, and the provincial cost-sharing model through BC Transit covers much of the operating expense. The mechanism for change is Nanaimo councillors on the RDN board making this the top operational ask going to BC Transit, and keeping the file moving until the frequencies and the route alignment improve.

Contracted to a community operator, within twelve months of the new council taking office. A downtown bike parking facility costs a small fraction of a single block of arterial road, and it removes the most common reason people give for not biking to work or to events: the very real fear that they will return to find their bike stolen or vandalized. Other Canadian cities have contracted the operation of these facilities to a community not-for-profit organization, which keeps city staff free from day-to-day management and gives the facility a local operator with a stake in its success.

Publicly subsidized, with location and marketing focused on healthcare shift workers though open to all families. The exact number of spaces and the phasing across the four-year term depend on uptake and availability, but the pilot needs to be large enough to be a meaningful test rather than a token gesture.

Where existing providers cannot or will not extend, the pilot can be delivered directly through the Parks, Recreation & Culture department. Both routes are on the table, and the pilot's design should not commit to one before the operator conversations have happened. The incentive is a modest subsidy to willing existing operators, with direct delivery as the alternative.

The locations, the hours, and the marketing focus on healthcare shift workers because that is the workforce Nanaimo's healthcare vision depends on retaining. Any family that meets the eligibility criteria is welcome. A childcare program that fits nursing shifts likely fits a first responder's or a ferry worker's, and the design should not exclude families whose work does not carry the same profile.