Skeena—Bulkley Valley

Skeena—Bulkley Valley covers approximately 323,720 square kilometres of northwestern British Columbia—the province's largest federal riding and one of the biggest in Canada. The district stretches from the archipelago of Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) in the Pacific Ocean eastward through the Coast Mountains, along the Skeena and Bulkley river valleys, and into the lakes district of the central interior. With a 2021 population of just 89,689, it is among the most sparsely populated ridings in the country. Major communities include the port city of Prince Rupert (population roughly 12,000), the aluminum-smelting and LNG town of Kitimat, the regional centre of Terrace, the Bulkley Valley town of Smithers, and smaller communities including Burns Lake, Houston, Hazelton, New Hazelton, Stewart, and the villages of Masset and Port Clements on Haida Gwaii.

Candidates

Taylor Bachrach (NDP) Raised in the Bulkley Valley, Bachrach owned a communications business in Smithers before entering municipal politics. He served as a village councillor in Telkwa from 2008 to 2011, then as mayor of Smithers from 2011 to 2019, winning re-election twice. He was first elected to Parliament in 2019 after longtime NDP MP Nathan Cullen chose not to seek re-election, and served as the NDP critic for transport and deputy critic for infrastructure and communities.

Claire Rattee (Conservative) A former Kitimat district councillor from 2014 to 2018, Rattee is a business owner who stepped away from municipal politics to run federally. She contested the riding for the Conservatives in both 2019 and 2021.

Jody Craven (PPC) A long-time Kitimat resident and former Rio Tinto employee, Craven was completing his studies in social work at the time of the election. He previously ran for the People's Party in 2019.

Lakhwinder Jhaj (Liberal) Based in Abbotsford rather than within the riding, Jhaj was the Liberal Party's acclaimed candidate. She visited the riding for the first time on September 14, 2021—five days before polling day—and did not attend the all-candidates debate held in Terrace.

About the Riding

Resource extraction has shaped Skeena—Bulkley Valley's economy and politics for generations. The Rio Tinto aluminum smelter in Kitimat, operating since the 1950s, is one of the riding's largest private employers. Kitimat was also the terminus of the under-construction LNG Canada export facility—a joint venture led by Shell—which represented the single largest private-sector investment in Canadian history at an estimated $40 billion. The project promised thousands of construction and permanent operational jobs but also raised concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, pipeline safety, and impacts on Indigenous territories.

The forestry industry, historically the backbone of the Bulkley Valley and interior lake communities, was under severe strain heading into 2021. The mountain pine beetle epidemic had devastated millions of hectares of lodgepole pine forest across the B.C. interior over the previous two decades, reducing the timber harvest. Mill closures and curtailments in communities like Houston and Burns Lake eliminated hundreds of jobs. The Port of Prince Rupert—Canada's closest major port to Asia—remained an economic bright spot, handling grain, coal, and container traffic, with expansion projects underway to increase capacity.

The riding's Indigenous population is significant and politically influential. The territory encompasses the traditional lands of numerous First Nations, including the Gitxsan, Wet'suwet'en, Haisla, Tsimshian, Haida, and Carrier peoples. Disputes over pipeline routes—particularly the Coastal GasLink pipeline crossing Wet'suwet'en territory—generated national and international attention in 2020 and remained a potent local issue. Health care access, highway safety along remote northern corridors, and the high cost of living in isolated communities were additional concerns that defined the riding's political landscape.