Who We Are - And What We Do

In lieu of the Mid Island – Pacific Rim forum scheduled for September 25 and canceled due to insufficient MLA candidate attendance; a questionnaire was sent to the MLA candidates inviting their written response to the questions that would have been asked at the forum.

Between August 12 and September 13, residents were invited to submit questions for their MLA candidates prior to the forum through an online Ideas board, email or social media. Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a question. A selection of the submitted questions was made and the provided to the candidates in advance of the forums to offer them time to prepare their responses. The same questions have been included in the candidate questionnaire.

All candidates were invited to participate by completing the questionnaire by Thursday, October 10. The responses received can been seen by clicking here .

On Saturday, October 19, 2024, there is a Provincial Election in B.C. which provides the RDN and Nanaimo Regional Hospital District (NRHD) Boards unique opportunities to advocate with government officials regarding the remaining healthcare projects and other topics that are important election issues for the region. Between September 26 and October 3, the RDN and NRHD co-hosted three all candidates forums for the Ladysmith - Oceanside, Nanaimo - Lantzville and Nanaimo - Gabriola provincial electoral districts. A forth forum had been planned for the Mid Island - Pacific Rim electoral district but had to be cancelled due to insufficient MLA candidate attendance.

Thank you for participating

Between August 12 and September 13, residents were invited to submit questions for their MLA candidates prior to the forums through an online Ideas board, email or social media. Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a question. A selection of the submitted questions was made and the provided to the candidates in advance of the forums to offer them time to prepare their responses.

Thank you to all residents who took the time to attended one or more of the forums in person. For those who may not have been able to attend in person click here to view the recordings of each event. The videos can also be viewed at youtube.com/@RDNanaimo. We invite you to share the link to the all candidates forum videos with your friends and family.

Mid Island – Pacific Rim Electoral District **Cancelled**

This forum was cancelled due to insufficient MLA candidate attendance. It will not be rescheduled.

Ladysmith - Oceanside Electoral District

MLA Candidates who participated:

• Stephanie Higginson - BC NDP
• Adam Walker - Independent

Nanaimo - Lantzville Electoral District

MLA Candidates who participated:

• George Anderson - BC NDP
• Gwen O'Mahony - BC Conservatives
• Lia Versaevel - BC Green Party

Nanaimo – Gabriola Electoral District

MLA Candidates who participated:

• Sheila Malcolmson - BC NDP
• Dale Parker - BC Conservatives
• Shirley Lambrecht - BC Green Party

If you have questions regarding the forums please email mruddell@rdn.bc.ca.

Do you know what the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District does?

The Nanaimo Regional Hospital District (NRHD) is an independent entity and its sole purpose is to provide capital funding for designated facilities and equipment. The NRHD has its own budget and is governed by a Board of Directors. For more information regarding the NRHD click here.

In April 2022, after consultation with community leaders and medical experts on their healthcare challenges and infrastructure priorities, the NRHD committed to advocate for five key healthcare infrastructure projects: a patient tower, cardiac catheterization lab, high acuity unit and cancer centre at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH) and a long-term care facility in the region. For more information about the NRHD advocacy strategy and the status of the five priority projects click here.

Thank you to everyone that has registered to our Get Involved RDN page by June 16, 2024 and learnt more about what we do as a region. Three randomly selected recipients have been chosen and contacted via the email they provided when registering.

Local Government Awareness Week, May 12 – 18, 2024 is an annual initiative to build public awareness of local government roles and encourage participation in local government processes. This year’s theme is Infrastructure. The RDN invites you to learn who is responsible for different infrastructure in our region throughout the week. Anyone currently signed up on Get Involved RDN or signs up by June 16 will be entered to win one of four great prizes of their choice!

Three names will be randomly drawn after June 16 and the recipient can select one of the following:

• RDN Recreation $100 gift certificate - can be used towards RDN Recreation program registration such as summer camps, swim sessions, arena programs or facility rentals at Oceanside Place Arena in Parksville or Ravensong Aquatic Centre in Qualicum Beach
• Two, one-month passes for RDN Transit for an adult, youth/senior or university student ($80 - $130 value)
• $100 credit on your next RDN utility bill (you must live in one of the seven RDN electoral areas to be eligible for this prize)
• $100 gift certificate for a local restaurant or business

Thanks for wanting to learn more and be engaged with the RDN!

Public Bus Transportation

• The RDN delivers conventional bus and handyDART transportation services throughout our region in partnership with BC Transit, including within member municipalities of the City of Nanaimo, District of Lantzville, the City of Parksville and the Town of Qualicum Beach.
• The RDN delivers 137,800 of service hours over 20 routes from Cedar to Deep Bay and 27,500 hours of handyDART service.
• The RDN fleet consists of 74 buses - 55 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), 4 Community Buses and 15 handyDART buses.
• We have over 3 million boardings annually.

Learn more about RDN Transit at rdn.bc.ca/regional-transit.

Roads and Bridges

• Municipalities build and maintain roads and bridges within their boundaries.
• The Province of BC, through the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, builds and maintains highways and all other roads, including in electoral areas in regional districts. Learn more here:
• Regional districts are not responsible for any aspect of road building or maintenance within their boundaries.
  • Learn more here: rdn.bc.ca/services-by-others.
• Under transfer agreements, Transport Canada has ownership of airports but leases out their management, operation and development to bodies known as airport authorities or commissions. The RDN is home to the Nanaimo Airport, Qualicum Beach Airport and Nanaimo Harbour Water Aerodrome (operated by the Nanaimo Port Authority).
  

Ports

• In the RDN, the Port of Nanaimo is one of 17 Canada Port Authorities (CPA) in the country established under the Canada Marine Act (CMA). CPAs are federally incorporated, autonomous, non-share corporations that operate independently from the federal government but within the rules of the CMA.

Photo: Port of Nanaimo

Photo: Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre

Wastewater, liquid waste and sewage are terms for used water and the wastes that it carries. These are terms for what is flushed down the toilet or washed down the drain in residential and commercial buildings. It must be treated before it is released into another body of water.

Pollution Control Centres

• The RDN owns and operates four pollution control centres that treat wastewater that is collected from approximately 134,756 commercial and residential properties:
  1. Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre (104,000)
  2. French Creek Pollution Control Centre (29,000)
  3. Nanoose Bay Pollution Control Centre (1,700)
  4. Duke Point Pollution Control Centre (56 plus BC Ferries)
• In the City of Nanaimo, the District of Lantzville, the City of Parksville and the Town of Qualicum Beach, and on Snuneymuxw First Nation lands, the collection of wastewater from residential and commercial properties is done by those communities. The wastewater collected by these communities drains into the RDN’s system. The RDN trunk sewer transports the wastewater by gravity, or with pump stations, to a pollution control centre for treatment.

Sewer Service Areas

• In Electoral Areas A (Cedar) E (Nanoose Bay) and G (French Creek), the RDN operates six sewer service areas and services a total of 3,220 residential and commercial connections:
  • Surfside Sanitary Sewer Service Area (26)
  • French Creek Sewer Service Area (2012)
  • Barclay Crescent Sewer Service Area (244)
  • Fairwinds Sanitary Sewer Service Area (796)
  • Pacific Shores Sanitary Sewer Service Area (15)
  • Cedar Sewer Service Area (128)
    • These sewer service areas are outside city limits and comprise over 20 km of gravity sewer collection mains.
    • The sewer collection systems discharge wastewater into a trunk sewer system that transports the wastewater to pollution control centres for treatment.

Photo: Connecting to an RDN sewer service

Pump Stations

• To transport wastewater to our pollution control centres for treatment, the RDN operates 22 pump stations. The RDN also has one pump station to transport treated effluent from the Nanoose Bay Pollution Control Centre to the outfall.

Learn more about wastewater services here: rdn.bc.ca/wastewater-services.

Photo: Departure Bay Pump Station

Asset Management

On Wednesday, May 15, B.C. is recognizing Asset Management Awareness Day during Local Government Awareness Week, and so is the RDN. This day highlights the importance of asset management best practices and sustainable service delivery by local governments.

To provide community services cost-effectively and sustainably now and into the future, the RDN is looking for ways to improve the management of the critical assets that supply these services. Asset management - inventorying a community’s existing assets, determining the current state of those assets, and preparing and implementing a plan to maintain or replace those assets - allows the RDN to make informed decisions regarding a community’s assets and finances.

Infrastructure Assets

Many of the services we provide—including water and wastewater, waste removal, transportation, and environmental services—depend, in large part, on engineered infrastructure assets. These assets include pipes, buses, heavy equipment and buildings.

Photo: Heavy equipment at the Regional Landfill, Cedar

Natural Assets

Another class of assets also exists - natural assets. Natural assets are ecosystem features such as lakes, wetlands, green spaces and trees that provide, or could be restored to provide, services just like the other engineered assets.

Photo: Spider Lake, Electoral Area H

Infrastructure and Asset Management

Across Canada and the world, the importance of sustainable infrastructure is being raised. Infrastructure is how governments deliver services to their residents. Local governments are responsible for maintaining an enormous quantity and variety of assets, ranging from major infrastructure such as hundreds of kilometers of water pipes and utilities to items as small as the computers and telephones used by staff to provide services to the community.

The goal of asset management is to achieve sustainable service delivery. This is done by delivering current and future community services to residents in a socially, economically and environmentally responsible way while not compromising the level of service provided.

Our residents and businesses depend on these services. It is easy to forget all the infrastructure needed to deliver water to a tap or take sewage away for treatment – until something goes wrong. Effective asset management involves identifying the life span of our assets, planning the asset upgrades or replacements needed to avoid disruption of service and creating a long-term financial strategy to pay for it. The longer assets age, the more challenging and expensive it becomes to maintain them. And just like with your car or home, these assets may fail much earlier than expected if they are not regularly maintained.

Some of the RDN’s larger assets include:

• The Regional Landfill in Cedar
• The Transfer Station on Church Road in Parksville
• The Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre
• More than 2,072 hectares of regional parks and trails
• Ravensong Aquatic Centre in Qualicum Beach
• Oceanside Place Arena in Parksville

Photo: Oceanside Place Arena

Photo: RDN water supply connection

Drinking Water

• The RDN operates nine water service areas (WSA) in electoral areas and maintains the infrastructure to deliver water to approximately 3,100 households in those communities. The water sources for each community are from groundwater wells, surface waters or a combination of both.
• The remaining electoral area residents get their water from private wells or they use a private water supply company.
• Residents who use private wells are responsible for their upkeep.
• Residents who use a private water supply company must provide their own water tank (cistern).
• Municipalities supply drinking water to their residents.

Learn more about water services in the RDN at rdn.bc.ca/water-and-utility-services.

Photo: Melrose Terrace water supply reservoir

Drinking Water and Watershed Protection

Did you know? In support of providing water to RDN residents in the nine Water Service Areas (WSA), our Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Program (DWWP) is a regional service tasked with helping to protect the region’s water resources. Through the DWWP program, we are working to learn more about water in the region (Water Information and Science), use this information to make better land use decisions (Water-centric Planning and Policy Support), and help communities protect the environment (Water Awareness and Stewardship).

Learn more at rdn.bc.ca/drinking-water-and-watershed-protection.

Photo: DWWP Wetland Workshop

We have many great partners, especially our four member municipalities. We want to share with you how you can learn more, get involved and have your say with them too during Local Government Awareness Week! Our Regional Board includes locally elected municipal council members from our municipal partners. They meet regularly with our Electoral Area Directors and work together to help provide services to the entire region. Learn more about our member municipalities at:

City of Nanaimo nanaimo.ca/ or getinvolvednanaimo.ca/

District of Lantzville lantzville.ca/

City of Parksville parksville.ca/ or letstalkparksville.ca/

Town of Qualicum Beach qualicumbeach.com/

The RDN has many ways you can find us online, stay connected, or access our services easier and from wherever you are:

• Sign up to receive emergency alerts and service alerts directly via text, phone or email by registering at Voyent Alert at rdn.bc.ca/emergency-alerts
• Pick which notifications you would like to receive – employment opportunities, bid opportunities, news releases, public notices and service alerts by signing up to receive a direct email at rdn.bc.ca/subscribe
• Submit a building online permit application at cv.rdn.bc.ca/NanaimoPortal; you can also see our approximate current building permit wait time at rdn.bc.ca/building-inspection-services
• Sign up for RDN curbside collection day reminders and service alerts by email, phone call or app notifications at rdn.bc.ca/curbside
• Learn how you can take action on climate change, about rebates and more at rdn.bc.ca/action-on-climate-change
• Let’s all try our best to use water with care. Learn water conservation tips and apply for water sustainability rebates at rdn.bc.ca/team-watersmart
• Check out REC Connect your online recreation resource for ways to stay active and connected at www.getinolved.rdn.ca/rec-connect
• Ever wonder how your tax dollars are spent at a regional level? For questions about the budget process and to learn more, visit and register at getinvolved.rdn.ca/rdn-budget-talks
• Enjoy one of our 12 regional parks, over 200 community parks or 78 kms of trails by checking out our Parks & Trails finder at rdn.bc.ca/find-a-park
• Are you an RDN Transit rider? For the latest transit detours, service alerts and trip planning visit rdn.bc.ca/regional-transit
• Have a land use question about a property in the RDN? Send it to us by email to askplanning@rdn.bc.ca. You can also provide your input on at getinvolved.rdn.ca/rdn-planning for all current developments in the RDN Electoral Areas (except EA B).
• Link and register your utility account at rdn.bc.ca/payments to set up electronic billing, view your transaction history online and pay by credit card (2.5 per cent surcharge applies)
• We have a many interactive webmaps to find information on, learn more at rdn.bc.ca/gis-mapping
• All projects that we are looking for feedback on can be found at getinvolved.rdn.ca/ where you can learn more, have your say and be heard.