Vancouver-Fraserview

Vancouver-Fraserview occupies the southeastern corner of Vancouver, running from the Fraser River north through the residential neighbourhoods of Killarney, Champlain Heights, and Victoria-Fraserview. The riding is one of the city's most ethnically diverse, home to large Chinese, South Asian, and Filipino communities whose settlement patterns have shaped the local commercial strips, places of worship, and community centres. Single-family homes on quiet streets predominate, though townhouse and low-rise apartment development has increased along arterial corridors.

George Chow won the seat for the NDP in 2017 and was re-elected in 2020. He served as Minister of State for Trade from 2017 to 2022 and was later appointed Minister of Citizens' Services in February 2024, taking on responsibility for the province's initiative to connect every rural, remote, and Indigenous community in British Columbia with high-speed internet by 2027.

Candidates

George Chow (BC NDP) — Chow arrived in Vancouver from Hong Kong in 1965 as a teenager and grew up in the Downtown Eastside, where his father worked as a cook. After earning a mechanical engineering degree from UBC, he built a career spanning more than three decades at BC Hydro, specializing in power generation. He entered politics through municipal service, winning two consecutive terms on Vancouver City Council with Vision Vancouver between 2005 and 2011.

Jag S Sanghera (Conservative Party) — Raised in Prince George, Sanghera attended Langara College before building a career that included home development, management in aviation security, and law enforcement within the security industry. He volunteered as a youth soccer coach with the Killarney and Indo-Canadian Soccer Associations.

Francoise Raunet (BC Green Party) — Raunet is an elementary district support teacher in Vancouver with more than 25 years of experience in education, publishing, and community services. Fluent in French and English with conversational Mandarin, she ran for the BC Greens in Vancouver-Fraserview in 2020 and had previously contested Vancouver-Point Grey in earlier elections.

Local Issues

Seniors' services and community infrastructure remained central concerns in a riding with a growing older population. The Killarney Seniors Centre, completed in 2018, continued to provide recreation, meal programs, and multilingual support services, but the pandemic's lingering effects on social isolation among non-English-speaking seniors had not fully abated. Long-term care facilities in the area faced ongoing staffing challenges, and the province's single-site staffing order — introduced during COVID-19 to prevent workers from spreading infection between homes — had been replaced by broader workforce strategies, including wage enhancements and training incentives, that were still being rolled out during the campaign.

Transit infrastructure frustrations persisted for residents of Killarney and Champlain Heights. The Canada Line provided rapid transit connectivity at some distance from the riding's core neighbourhoods, and bus service along the east-west arterials remained the primary commuting option for many households. The Broadway Subway extension, under construction along the west side of the city, promised eventual improvements to regional connectivity but did not directly serve the riding. Residents continued to argue that southeast Vancouver had been systematically overlooked in transit planning, even as the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension drew attention to the region south of the Fraser.

The NDP government's housing densification agenda had particular resonance in a riding dominated by single-family homes. Bill 44's requirement to allow multiplexes on residential lots was met with mixed reactions in Fraserview's established neighbourhoods, where some homeowners viewed the legislation as a threat to neighbourhood character and property values, while others welcomed the potential for laneway houses and secondary suites to provide housing for extended family members — a common arrangement in the riding's South Asian and Chinese communities. The broader affordability crisis, including rising grocery costs and stagnant real wages, weighed on households in a constituency where many residents worked in frontline service-sector jobs.