Nanaimo News Bulletin

The Vancouver cop, founder, and CEO of Surrey-based KidsPlay Foundation, who is now facing fraud and theft charges, denies all the “allegations” against him. Kal Dosanjh has been with Vancouver Police Department for over 25 years and has served in many roles, including as a senior detective in the financial crimes unit. Charges against Dosanjh were laid on Sept. 3 and the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) chief constable announced more details the following day. In a statem

Journalism is a career that bleeds into every corner of your life — if you let it. With every moment you scroll through social media, there’s another story tip. The same goes for every room you stumble into with a news broadcast playing, every text message you open, every message app alert, and so on. To get away from it all, I tend to either let my phone die or get myself out of cell phone range. To achieve that this summer, we recently ended up in the Similkameen, eager to leave

The number of B.C. Conservative MLAs is getting smaller, as members continue to step down. A party that was elected at 44 seats now has just 28, and theories – and likely bets – on who is next to leave swirl around the media landscape. The party began losing members far before the election of Kerry-Lynne Findlay as leader, but it picked up, with seven MLAs leaving just in August alone, all citing leadership concerns. Findlay was always a divisive choice during the leadership race, de

A commemoration of the fire that destroyed Nanaimo’s last Chinatown on Pine and Hecate Streets will be held on Saturday, Sept. 12. Sherron Soo, chair and founder of the newly formed Nanaimo Chinese Heritage Foundation, said the heritage event will mark the 66th anniversary of the fire, which occurred on Sept. 30, 1960. The city’s third and fourth Chinatowns, located in the Pine and Hecate street area from 1908 until the fire, had a population of approximately 1,200 people at the heig

Fowler Park has spent nearly two decades waiting to become what many Saanich residents wanted it to be. When the district approved a concept plan for the park in 2008, the vision was relatively simple: one tennis court, plenty of open grass and space for the community to enjoy. There was, of course, one glaring omission. Pickleball had not yet become the phenomenon it is today. Now, 18 years after that original plan, Fowler Park is preparing for a very different future. The district will soft la

A Port Alberni fisher threw the sportfishing equivalent of a Hail Mary on the last day of the Port Alberni Salmon Derby, and it paid off. Derek Little hooked a 24.2-pound salmon off Bamfield for the biggest fish of the weekend. “It feels good,” Little told The Scoop on Port Alberni after he picked up his cheque and trophy. “We didn’t know where to go because it’s been tough fishing out there. We were staying down the canal (Alberni Inlet). We just decided to run o

The City of Nanaimo is opening up a second intake of the home energy retrofit financing program. Beginning Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, homeowners can apply for interest-free financing to retrofit their homes with energy-efficient options. Following a successful intake in the spring of 2025 that supported 14 home retrofits to improve home comfort and lower their energy bills, the city is opening the program up again for new applications. The program offers up to $15,000 in interest-free loans to help

Ten-year-old Liam Chang delivered the round of his life on the biggest stage of his young career. The Victoria Golf Club member fired a spectacular four-under-par 66 on Aug. 31 to win the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour (MJT) Mini Tour nationals. Chang topped a 28-player field to win the boys nine-and-10 division by four strokes. He finished the two-day tournament at Tsawwassen Springs with a 36-hole total of 139, putting him safely ahead of Richmond runner-up Robin Lai at 143. The national title di

A director of two Nanaimo choirs is highlighting the benefits of joining, for fun and for health. Fiona Blackburn, artistic director of Malaspina Choir and Island Bel Canto Singers, put out a release, encouraging participation for health benefits. In the release, Blackburn wrote that singing in groups lifts moods and reduces stress, promotes social bonding, improves memory, eases breathing, improves speech, aids in posture and is good for the heart and immune system. She added, singing is a life

An injured hiker was hoisted from the West Coast Trail after a multi-agency rescue response near kilometre 72 on Friday (Sept. 4). The hiker had a suspected lower-limb injury near an area known as the Old Steam Donkey, according to the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad, which said the location meant “a traditional stretcher carry was not an option.” The Old Steam Donkey, near kilometre 72, sits just across the water from Port Renfrew, separated by Port San Juan. Parks Canada’s Visito

The controversy over a picture of two Canadian women in army fatigues at an award ceremony at the Vernon Cadet Camp – shared by one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s top administrators mocking Canada – appears to have originally been posted by a Canadian. Black Press columnist Wilbur Turner (The Turner Files), in an online post, pointed to a content creator called The Pleb for igniting the controversy started when U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared an online post of two C

B.C. shed 5,500 jobs in August, with an even steeper decline in full-time employment, which decreased by 26,000 jobs from July to August. As a result, B.C.’s unemployment rate ticked up 0.3 percentage points to 6.5 per cent, according to the latest Labour Force Survey released by Statistics Canada on Friday, Sept. 4. This is also 0.2 percentage points higher than the same time last year. The addition of 20,600 part-time jobs masked the far greater losses in full-time employment. Nationally

A longtime Vancouver Police Department officer has been charged with multiple counts of fraud, theft, and breach of trust following a comprehensive two-and-a-half-year covert investigation that found 19 victims had lost a total of $3 million. The Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) chief constable announced more details Friday morning (Sept. 4) about the investigation in Vancouver Friday (Sept. 4). Kalwinder (Kal) Singh Dosanjh has been with the Vancouver Police Department for more than

At 75 years old, Ladysmith city councillor Duck Paterson has decided he’s not quite done trying new things. This fall, Paterson will climb behind the wheel of an ambulance in Germany and drive it nearly 2,000 kilometres across Europe and into war-torn Ukraine, where the vehicle will be turned over to Ukrainian forces. The ambulance won’t be carrying patients. Instead, it will be packed with medical supplies, generators and other equipment destined for hospitals and people affected by

The region is hedging toward a database to help connect folks living on streets and in parks with myriad resources. With many lamenting the length of time the work has been underway, Victoria council tasked staff with working alongside BC Housing and the Capital Regional District in hopes of pushing implementation of a Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) to enable use of by-name data to coordinate access to services and housing solutions. The conversation was instigate

While staff craft new bylaws to deal with noise in the city, Victoria is also floating down the path of potentially banning gas-powered leaf blowers and upping fines for noise violations. Faced with conflicting rules, incomplete definitions and noise districts based on land use patterns of the time it was adopted in 2003, after review and public consultation, city staff recommended several shifts in Victoria’s noise bylaw. In general, the new bylaw set to come before council would use dif

After losing the championship to the Victoria Cougars last spring, the Nanaimo Buccaneers will embark on another Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League season. The Bucs begin their 2026/27 campaign Friday, Sept. 4, hosting the Lake Cowichan Kraken at Nanaimo Ice Centre. They made a playoff run last spring, defeating the Campbell River Storm, Comox Valley Glacier Kings, losing the Brent Patterson Memorial Trophy to Victoria 4-1 in the final series. A majority of that team has moved on, with only s

Between Saturday and Tuesday, four vehicle incidents on the Trans-Canada Highway between Sicamous and Revelstoke resulted in more than 15 hours of closures, three fatalities and at least six injured people. The collisions along the mostly-two-lane Highway 1 corridor happened around Three Valley Gap, Back Road near Revelstoke and Arnold Frontage Road near Sicamous. In the 68 hours from 2 p.m. Aug. 29 to 10 a.m. Sept. 1, three of the incidents each saw someone die, as confirmed by BC Emergency Hea

The Brunswick Complex wildfires in the Fraser Canyon area are now being held. According to BC Wildfire Service (BCWS), both the Ainslie Creek and Brunswick Creek wildfires are no longer out of control, or listed as fires of note. Wildfires that are being held are defined by BCWS as those that are “projected, based on fuel and weather conditions and resource availability, to remain within the current perimeter, control line or boundary.” BCWS said current resources will remain on the

Five former B.C. Conservatives are banding together to form a new party ahead of the fall legislative session. Prince George-Valemount MLA Rosalyn Bird, Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus announced Friday (Sept. 4) that they would join Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar and Delta South MLA Ian Paton in forming a new party. Milobar and Paton previously announced their intention to form a new party on Aug. 24 when Paton left the B.C