Monday - April 28, 2025 - Feedback wanted for new bus route

🌧 High 12C | Local forecast

Good morning!

It’s finally here. Election Day. If you haven’t voted already, you may be in for some long lines at the polls—and you may want some good reading material to keep you company.

If that’s the case, you can check out some of our recent features you may not have had time to read, such as my two-part series on the life and death of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Langley. Or you can check out Josh’s delightful story on Boston Bar’s Canyon Lanes or Tyler’s massive feature on wildfire suppression. If you want to keep the democratic theme going, you can always read our explainer on how the federal government works.

We’ll be back in your inboxes late tonight with the election results—but you can also follow along after polls close on our live results pages (find those below). Tomorrow, we’ll have a bit more analysis on the election, and then we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming: i.e. all the interesting things you didn’t know you wanted to know about the Fraser Valley.

– Grace

News

Your last-minute federal election guide

Today, millions of Canadians will head to the polls to choose their new Members of Parliament.

In BC, polls open at 7am and close at 7pm. You must vote at your designated polling station. If you don’t know where that is, you can find out in our general election hub. If you haven’t registered already, you will be asked to do that at your polling station.

If you want a refresher on who your local candidates are, you can find those here.

We will be updating our local results pages once polls close. You can follow along live using the links below:

Need to Know

🗳 Stó:lō artist Bonny Graham was elected the new councillor for Hope [Hope Standard]

🚔 An armed man was taken into police custody on Seabird Island, after residents were under a shelter-in-place order for hours Saturday [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

🚒 Eight people escaped an early morning fire in Chilliwack Sunday [Chilliwack Progress]

💊 Pills, home-made weapons, and tattooing equipment were found after a 10-day search of Matsqui Institution [Fraser Valley Today]

🦠 A person who travelled to Chilliwack from Toronto tested positive for measles last week; Fraser Health issued a warning for people who may have been exposed [Chilliwack Progress]

💔 At least 11 people are dead after a man drove an SUV through a crowd at a Filipino community festival in Vancouver Saturday; the 30-year-old has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder [CBC] / Langley MLA and councillor Misty Van Popta was at the festival before the incident, and shared her condolences [Langley Advance Times]

🗳 Election 2025

The federal election takes place today. Find everything you need—including details on where to vote, interviews with candidates, and links to our live results pages—by visiting one of our local election hubs:

Chilliwack & the Eastern Fraser Valley | Abbotsford & Mission | Langley

Polls close in Atlantic Canada at 4:30pm (Pacific Time), which means results from the eastern parts of the country will start rolling in this afternoon. (You can watch those on most national news broadcasters.) BC polls will close at 7pm, and we will be updating our results pages as the count comes in.

The latest

👉 Global News has a ‘last-minute voters’ guide’ to the federal parties, with a cheat sheet on platform promises [Global]

👉 Narratives about election manipulation are on the rise in Canada, even as election processes remain fair and transparent [Maclean’s] / The Vancouver Sun has a breakdown of how, exactly, Elections Canada counts the ballots on election night [Vancouver Sun]

👉 Canada’s fringe parties are still making their presence known, despite their influence waning since the 1980s [CBC]

👉 Liberal leader Mark Carney promised to review Ottawa’s access to information processes [Globe and Mail] / The Canadian Association of Journalists recently awarded the federal government its Code of Silence award for failing to give Indigenous groups access to residential school records [CAJ]

The Agenda

Feedback wanted for Agassiz-Mission transit route

BC Transit and the Fraser Valley Regional District are looking for feedback on a proposed bus route that could finally connect Agassiz and Mission.

The Current reported on the potential route in November. It has been under discussion for more than a decade, and in the fall, FVRD staff started work on the second phase of a feasibility study for the bus route. At the time, staff said buses could hit the road as soon as 2026.

Now, residents are being asked to share their thoughts on the proposed route. The Agassiz-Mission connection would travel along Highway 7, connecting downtown Agassiz with Harrison Mills, Leq’á:mel, Deroche, Dewdney, and the West Coast Express station in Mission.

Public feedback will be used to help determine the future bus schedule, including how often the buses will run and on which days.

Feedback can be submitted online. Paper surveys are available at the Community Recreation and Cultural Centre in Agassiz, the District of Kent municipal office, the Mission Leisure Centre, Village of Harrison Hot Springs office, Welton Common in Mission, and Leq'á:mel First Nation band office.

Correction: Langley baseball diamonds

On Friday, The Current published a story saying Langley was working to add more baseball diamonds to Walnut Grove Community Park to make up for reduced game time in Fort Langley. (You can read the story here.)

While design work is underway for additional diamonds in Walnut Grove, it is not specifically to make up for a lack of game time in Fort Langley. While staff did reduce the number of games taking place in Fort Langley on weekends after resident complaints, council approved a motion on April 7 to bring the number of Fort Langley games back up to four. You can watch that full discussion here.

🤝 Now hiring

• Swim instructor at Canucks Autism Network Society in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission

• Ice person (i.e. Zamboni driver) at the City of Chilliwack

• Campground attendant at the Kilby Historic Site in Harrison Mills

• Library technician at Correctional Service Canada in Abbotsford, Agassiz, and Mission

Hiring in the Fraser Valley? Reply back and let us know!

🗓 Things to do

Pioneer banquet: The MSA Pioneers Association hosts its 87th Anniversary Banquet at Matsqui Hall on Friday, May 2. Doors open at 4:30pm. Tickets are $50. Contact Jean Martens (604-859-4063) or Frank Keis (604-853-1693) for details.

Plant sale: The Fraser Valley Conservancy's annual native plant sale is on now. Purchase a plant online before Sunday and arrange to pick the plants up in Bradner on Saturday, May 10. Details and sales online.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading Fraser Valley Current today ♥️ 

If you found something useful, consider forwarding this newsletter to another local.