West Vancouver-Sea to Sky

West Vancouver-Sea to Sky follows the dramatic coastline and mountain corridors northwest from the western reaches of West Vancouver through the communities lining Howe Sound — Lions Bay, Furry Creek, Britannia Beach — up the Sea-to-Sky Highway to Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, and the Lil'wat Nation community of Mount Currie. Bowen Island, accessible by ferry from Horseshoe Bay, rounds out a riding whose geography encompasses some of the most spectacular and challenging terrain in southern British Columbia. The riding's economy blends resort tourism centred on Whistler, the outdoor recreation and creative industries of Squamish, the commuter-residential growth of Lions Bay and Bowen Island, and the resource-sector heritage that still shapes communities like Britannia Beach and Pemberton.

Candidates

Jeremy Valeriote (BC Green Party) — A geological engineer by training, Valeriote spent more than a decade working in environmental consulting — including contaminated site remediation, environmental impact assessment, and mine reclamation — before turning to local government and politics. He was elected to the town council of Gibsons in 2014, serving until 2018, and later worked in the mayor's office in Squamish. He had narrowly lost the same riding in 2020, falling just 60 votes short of defeating the incumbent BC Liberal after a judicial recount.

Yuri Fulmer (Conservative Party) — Fulmer was an Australian-born Canadian entrepreneur who founded Fulmer & Company and served as chancellor of Capilano University. He built his business career from a start in the food and hospitality industry into one of the province's recognized entrepreneurial success stories and was a member of the Order of British Columbia. He campaigned on economic development, affordability, and broadening the Conservative coalition.

Jen Ford (BC NDP) — Ford was a municipal councillor for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, first elected in 2014, and served as board chair of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and past-president of the Union of BC Municipalities. She studied Political Science at York University and completed a Graduate Certificate in Change Management from Royal Roads University in 2022. She had served as chair of the Whistler Housing Authority.

Local Issues

Worker and affordable housing remained the most acute crisis across the Sea-to-Sky corridor. In Whistler, the chronic shortage of accommodation for resort and service workers had reached a point where businesses struggled to hire and retain staff because employees could not find anywhere to live. The Whistler Housing Authority managed a waitlist that far exceeded available units, and average rental costs in the resort had climbed beyond the reach of most seasonal and year-round service workers. Squamish, once a resource town, had transformed into one of the fastest-growing communities in British Columbia, with real estate prices driven up by Metro Vancouver buyers and remote workers seeking outdoor-oriented lifestyles. The NDP government's housing density legislation was viewed with cautious optimism in communities that needed more housing but worried about losing their small-town character.

Climate change and environmental protection were central to the riding's identity and politics. The Woodfibre LNG project — a liquefied natural gas facility under construction at a former pulp mill site on Howe Sound southwest of Squamish — remained the most polarizing environmental issue, with opponents citing carbon emissions and risks to the recovering Howe Sound marine ecosystem and supporters pointing to jobs and economic investment. The riding's communities had experienced the consequences of climate change firsthand through the 2021 heat dome, which killed hundreds of people across British Columbia and stressed infrastructure and ecosystems, and the atmospheric river flooding of November 2021, which washed out sections of Highway 99 and isolated communities along the corridor. The 2023 wildfire season, the worst in the province's history, added further urgency to conversations about emergency preparedness, forest management, and climate adaptation.

The three-way race between the Green, Conservative, and NDP candidates made West Vancouver-Sea to Sky one of the most competitive contests in the province. The riding's diverse geography — stretching from the affluent streets of western West Vancouver through resort-dependent Whistler to the agricultural community of Pemberton — created a patchwork of political preferences. Bowen Island and Pemberton leaned toward the Greens, Whistler tilted environmentalist, and West Vancouver had traditionally supported the centre-right. Squamish was the main battleground, and Valeriote's near-victory in 2020 had demonstrated that the Greens could compete for the seat. His candidacy represented the party's best opportunity to win its first mainland seat in the Legislature.