Former Nanaimo city councillor Diane Brennan is being awarded with the Freedom of the City on Monday — an honour that comes with a plaque and free parking for life at city lots and meters.
Brennan, 70, who also served as an Island Health board member, will receive the highest honour the city can bestow at a 7 p.m. council meeting, which can be watched via Nanaimo’s website, nanaimo.ca
“It has sort of taken a while to sink in,” Brennan said Thursday. “I did not expect this. It came right out of the blue.”
A unanimous vote by all council members is required for the award to be approved.
Born and raised in Victoria, Brennan was living in Kitimat with her family in 1976 when a job came up in Nanaimo for her husband, a probation officer.
Brennan calls Nanaimo a beautiful place to live, saying one is never more than 10 minutes from a lake, river or ocean.
“It’s a great place to bring up kids,” said Brennan, mother of four and grandmother to nine.
Brennan, who earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of Victoria, has worked with a number of social organizations through the years.
She was elected to council in 2002, serving until 2008. She returned to council for two terms between 2011 and 2018.
The legal society had trained her to examine issues and to make arguments, and while there, she spent a lot of time on housing issues.
“It was difficult to find accommodation that was clean, safe, and so we were really lobbying for that.
Along with serving as an anti-poverty advocate, Brennan sat on a number of community issues boards for groups trying to help people in difficult circumstances.
She served as a school board trustee for the Nanaimo-Ladysmith district and was a director for the Nanaimo Association of Intervention and Development, previously called the Nanaimo Crisis Centre.
Brennan also sat on an advisory committee to then-minister of social services Joy MacPhail.
While on council, Brennan chaired or belonged to several committees, including the social planning committee and heritage and culture committee, and the protocol agreement working group with the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
Brennan served as deputy chair of the Regional District of Nanaimo, where she sat on the executive committee and chaired both the regional transit committee and regional parks and trails committee.
“For over 40 years, Ms. Brennan has been one of the 100,000 voices committed to making Nanaimo a livable city, full of opportunities for as many people as possible,” Mayor Leonard Krog said in a statement.
“She is a truly compassionate leader in every sense of the word, supporting leadership qualities in others who are then inspired to pursue their dreams, making Nanaimo a better place for all.”
Brennan is the thirty-third person to receive the honour since council began the tradition in 1940.
She will be awarded a medal and a signed, sealed and framed certificate.
She also gets free parking for life, as long as she’s a Nanaimo resident, at city-owned pay parking lots and parkades, at city on-street parking meters, and at the Maffeo Sutton parking lot and the Brechin Boat Ramp.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
