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Record year Blues musician Steve Hill performs award-winning style at The Queen’s this weekend. PAGE 12
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VOL. 27, NO. 45
Candidates work to sway city’s undecided voters BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Cultural investment CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Yiming Ding is among Chinese immigrants purchasing businesses in Nanaimo, providing employment for Canadians and a solution to worries over succession for existing business owners who wish to retire, but want to sell their companies and see them continue operating. Ding and his wife Sophia Sun now own the Dog’s Ear T-shirt and Embroidery Company, which has operated in Nanaimo since the 1970s.
I
NEW IMMIGRANTS often struggle with customs.
BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
L
ing Zhang smiled, brown eyes crinkling at the corners as she poured tea into delicate cups in the recently expanded New China restaurant. “Chinese tea,” her husband David Liu said from his seat across the table. “Hot, hot.”
Liu and Zhang are the new co-owners of the central Nanaimo business, taking it over with another family last year through the B.C. Provincial Nominee Program and transforming it from a takeout joint into a restaurant they hope will be known as a place of food and culture. Intricate silk-thread paintings, woven so fine they look like printed posters, hang on the walls and cups, vases and miniatures of Chinese costumes line a wooden case Liu built himself. Eventually he’ll write
Immigration & investment Today we publish the final articles in a series on Chinese investment in Nanaimo. We talked to Chinese entrepreneurs about their challenges culturally, as well as business leaders on issues of racism targeting newcomers in the city.
descriptions so people know what each piece is and what it’s for, he said
through a translator. Liu, a real estate developer who’s also in China’s steel and material trade, and Zhang decided to move to Canada for their daughter, a business student at Toronto’s York University, but it’s the Harbour City they want to make their home for its reasonable size, friendly people and potential to develop, Liu said. The transition to Canadian immigrant entrepreneur hasn’t been without challenges, however, and the couple is not alone. See ‘BUSINESS’ /23
A recent Insights West poll suggests 28 per cent of NanaimoLadysmith riding’s voters are undecided about which box to tick on ballots Monday (Oct. 19). With so many votes potentially up for grabs, local candidates are working to sway those votes into their camps. M a r k MacDonald, Conservative Party candidate, said his strategy is simply showing up for all-candidates’ meetings and doing as much one-on-one contact with voters as possible. “This is my first time through and they say that the number of still-undecideds is really quite high, so you know, it’s just meeting people, answering questions and making sure I’m out there,” MacDonald said. He is also counting on the fact he was in campaign mode since long before the writ dropped. “I’ve put my miles in,” MacDonald said. “I’m on my fourth pair of running shoes. Seriously.”
Polls really don’t count until the people make a decision, said Tim Tessier, Liberal. His campaign is stressing leadership as it enters the campaign’s final week. “We’ve taken some hard stands some people don’t like on things we’ve done in the past, but we’re being honest and we’ve got a sincere and succinct plan based on what Canadians told us,” T e s sier said. “ T h a t ’s w h a t we’re doing in these final weeks and it’s pumping the energy up amongst my team. We didn’t have that two or three months ago, but we’re certainly getting it now.” Sheila Malcolmson, NDP candidate, said Thanksgiving weekend campaigning was intertwined with Island rallies featuring party leader Tom Mulcair to shore up party faithful and draw in people who wouldn’t traditionally vote NDP, followed up with a telephone and door -to-door campaign focusing on seniors, child care and a value-added forest industry. See ‘VOTERS’ /4
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