Small things, massive impact: How one small city is showing family doctors the love (and getting it in return)
CBC
The Cure is a CBC News series examining strategies provinces and territories are using to tackle the primary care crisis.
When doctors Jacques and Mariska Neuhoff take their two kids to the park in their home in Williams Lake, they can just let their kids play.
And they never forget just how special that is.
They moved to the Interior B.C. community of around 11,000 people five years ago from Pretoria in South Africa. They didn't want their children to have to grow up in gated communities.
"Here we have the freedom and the luxury of roaming free, having our kids play around, riding their bikes outside, visiting neighbors," Said Jacques Neuhoff.
"That's priceless, to be honest."
It wasn't easy getting here.
The couple estimates they spent about three years and around $60,000 on flights and exams before being certified to practise as family doctors and anesthesiologists.
"It's a very long and tough process," said Jacques.
But what awaited them was something special.
"We came into a home with a stocked fridge and a pantry from the community that put it there for us," said Jacques.
The couple said people were knocking on the door every day, bringing dinner and welcoming them to the community.
"So those small things — well, it's small things from someone else's perspective, but a massive impact that it had on us," said Jacques.
Three years ago, local city and health officials decided to formalize and fund that warm welcome the Neuhoff's received and make it part of their recruitment and retention strategy.
Lindsay Scarrow first stepped foot into a thrift store at six years old when her father took her to buy a leather jacket. She fell in love with vintage clothing and hasn't looked back since.
A village in northern Saskatchewan with a population of 327 has been breeding national broomball champions.
School enrolment and rising costs are putting pressure on Alberta schools, but economic uncertainty — including the on-again, off-again U.S. tariffs — prevented the province from spending more on classrooms, says the education minister.
British Columbia is carefully watching the actions of both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) when it comes to managing its power supply, B.C. Premier David Eby says.
The month of Ramadan might get a little easier for hundreds of local families who received food donations from a Hamilton charity this weekend.
Calgary's top bureaucrat is satisfied that a major reorganization had no negative impacts on how the city responded to last summer's catastrophic failure of a key water main.
An African Nova Scotian RCMP staff sergeant who created anti-racism workshops for his employer says he was removed from his position after he raised concerns about intellectual property rights when the initiative he headed was going to be expanded.
Joan Oanes says she was baffled to learn a gift card she had purchased had been drained of all its money.
Some members of the P.E.I. tourism industry are optimistic that tensions between Canada and the United States will bode well for business this year, though others are worried about the impact of political uncertainty.
The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun is calling for the Yukon government to get rid of the non-profit organization running the Whitehorse emergency shelter in the wake of a citizen's death — a demand echoed by the deceased's family.
In something of a political blowout, Mark Carney was elected on Sunday as leader of the Liberal Party and as the next prime minister.
Toronto's plan to create "bubble zones" to block protests outside vulnerable institutions like faith-based schools and places of worship has been delayed indefinitely, CBC Toronto has learned.
Londoners who frequent Ivey Park at the Forks of the Thames were surprised when they came for their daily walks to find more than 100 trees chopped down by the city.