Chilliwack—Hope

Chilliwack—Hope stretches from the eastern Fraser Valley community of Chilliwack northeast through the Fraser Canyon to Boston Bar, covering approximately 6,535 square kilometres of mountain valleys, river floodplains, and rugged canyon terrain. Chilliwack, with a population exceeding 90,000, is the riding's dominant population centre and one of the fastest-growing cities in British Columbia. Hope (population roughly 6,000) sits at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers and serves as the gateway to the province's interior highway system. Other communities within the riding include Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs (excluded from the riding proper), Cultus Lake, Yale, and Boston Bar.

The riding sits on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Stó:lō Coast Salish peoples. More than ten First Nations share borders with the City of Chilliwack, including Cheam, Skwah, Skowkale, Tzeachten, Yakweakwioose, Soowahlie, and Squiala. According to census data, the riding's population is approximately 86% European-origin and 9.2% Indigenous, with English spoken by 87.8% of residents. Roughly 55.5% identify as Christian, while 42% report no religious affiliation.

Candidates

Mark Strahl (Conservative) Born in Chilliwack in 1978, Strahl is the son of the late Chuck Strahl, a former Conservative MP and federal cabinet minister. Both of his grandfathers served in the Canadian Armed Forces—one in the Royal Canadian Air Force, the other in the Royal Canadian Navy. First elected in 2011 in the former Chilliwack–Fraser Canyon riding, Strahl served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and as British Columbia caucus chair under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He later served as the Conservative Party's Chief Opposition Whip from 2017 to 2020. He and his wife Lisa live in Chilliwack, where they are raising their son.

DJ Pohl (NDP) A 30-year resident of Chilliwack, Pohl graduated from the University of the Fraser Valley with a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice in 2009 and has worked for the BC Prosecution Service since 2008. She served as president of the Fraser Valley Labour Council and chaired the Chilliwack Restorative Justice board of directors. An active member of the BCGEU union, she also volunteered as campaign manager for a successful Chilliwack school trustee candidate in early 2021.

Kelly Velonis (Liberal) A lifelong Chilliwack resident, Velonis managed programs for at-risk youth as program manager for the YMCA in the Fraser Valley before serving as executive director of the Chilliwack and District Seniors Resource Society. She ran as the Liberal candidate in the riding in both 2019 and 2021.

Rob Bogunovic (PPC) Bogunovic stood as the People's Party of Canada candidate, advancing the party's platform on individual liberty, fiscal restraint, and opposition to pandemic-era mandates.

About the Riding

Chilliwack's economy is rooted in agriculture, with the surrounding Fraser Valley producing dairy, poultry, berries, and vegetables on fertile floodplain soils. The city is also a regional service centre for the eastern Fraser Valley, with retail, health care, and education—including the University of the Fraser Valley—providing a growing share of employment. Military history runs deep: the former Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack operated for decades before closing in 1997, and the site has since been redeveloped for educational and residential use.

The Fraser Canyon portion of the riding is sparsely populated but historically significant. Yale, once a boomtown of 20,000 during the 1858 Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, is now a hamlet. The canyon's steep walls carry the Trans-Canada Highway, the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National rail lines, and high-voltage transmission corridors—all of which are vulnerable to the landslides and flooding that periodically sever the province's east–west transportation links. The November 2021 atmospheric river event caused devastating mudslides and washouts along Highway 1 through the canyon, isolating communities and disrupting national supply chains for weeks.

The riding's social challenges include a severe opioid crisis that has hit Chilliwack and Hope hard, with overdose deaths rising sharply in the years leading up to the 2021 election. Homelessness and inadequate mental health services were prominent campaign issues, particularly in downtown Chilliwack. The large Indigenous population across the riding—spread among more than a dozen reserves and communities—faces disparities in housing, clean water access, and health outcomes that featured in candidates' platforms. Flood risk management, given the valley's low-lying agricultural land and the canyon's geological instability, remains a persistent infrastructure concern.