Friday - Oct. 11, 2024 - Your candidates. Our questions.

Author

Grace Kennedy
October 11, 2024

⛅ High 17C | Your forecast

Good morning!

I hate to break it to you traffic-and-weather-lovers: more than 62% of readers who responded to our poll yesterday have said traffic and weather links should be the first to go if we need to reduce the size of our newsletter. A strong contingent of you said you would simply go online to read the whole newsletter, and that is great to know too! It tells us that what we are putting in here is valuable to you.

Fingers crossed we can get our newsletter size back to normal, so we can keep offering you everything you are used to in The Current. (In the meantime, you can find your forecast at the top of this section.)

-Grace

Programming note: We will not be in your inboxes on Monday because of Thanksgiving. We will see you on Tuesday, after we have all been stuffed with turkey.

Support local journalism by supporting The Current. Become a Current Insider member today and help bring local stories to life.

NEWS

Your candidates. Our questions.

Who are the Fraser Valley’s provincial election candidates? And what would they prioritize if elected to BC’s legislature?

We recently asked candidates about themselves, their personal priorities, and about specific projects and issues—including the Bridal Falls tourism proposals, Fraser Valley transit, and the future of the Agricultural Land Reserve. For some of these, we asked candidates to give simple yes or no answers to let you see who matches your priorities on local issues.

We gave candidates more than a week to respond, and received answers from more than half of the candidates by our deadline. Those candidates included nearly every person running as an independent, all but one of the BC NDP candidates, around half of the BC Green candidates, and two BC Conservatives.

Despite extending the deadline for people who did not respond by nearly a week, only one of the remaining candidates—Francyne Joe, Fraser-Nicola’s BC NDP candidate—submitted after the initial deadline. Most of the BC Conservatives did not respond. Neither did two BC Greens and one independent candidate. (Exactly who didn’t respond can be found in each local questionnaire.)

Notably, many of the candidates who did not respond to our questionnaire have also avoided all-candidates meetings. You will be able to read more about that after the long weekend.

Want to share our stories with a friend? Simply forward this newsletter, or share the link below. (It will work on some, but not all, social media sites.)

Need to Know

💧 Hope’s boil water advisory has been lifted [Hope Standard]

🤝 Harrison Hot Spring’s new mayor and councillor have been officially sworn in [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

🚓 Mission mounties discovered five Sea-Doos taken from around the Lower Mainland at a Pitt Meadows property [Mission Record]

⚖ Three people have been charged with attempted murder after an Abbotsford assault in January of last year [Abbotsford News]

🍓 Langley’s Krause Berry Farms is celebrating 50 years of strawberries with the release of its new cookbook [Langley Advance Times]

🍴 A new restaurant is set to open in a redeveloped building on Wellington Avenue in downtown Chilliwack [CEPCO/Facebook)

🏫 The Francophone school district is suing the province in an attempt to transfer school properties in Abbotsford and elsewhere [Vancouver Sun] / We previously covered an earlier court case in which a judge ruled that French language students in Mission, Chilliwack, and Abbotsford deserved better facilities [FVC]

👉 Staff at Mission Institution seized nearly two pounds of crystal meth, plus SD cards and charging cables [Fraser Valley Today]

💸 Rent in Langley’s Willoughby neighbourhood is roughly on par with parts of Vancouver [TriCity News]

📸 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to Troy, who was the first person to correctly identify this week’s Current Cam as the new Sasquatch Museum in Harrison Hot Springs.

🍳 Eggs are a nutritious powerhouse with 6 grams of protein and only 80 calories in each large egg. Find a new recipe and celebrate World Egg Day by visiting the website.*

*Sponsored

🗳 Election 2024

The BC Election campaign continues until election day on Saturday, Oct. 19. Advance voting is currently underway. Find everything you need to know—including where to vote—by visiting one of our local election hubs:

The latest

👉 Langley-Walnut Grove candidates talked about HandyDART and hospice at a recent all-candidates meeting [Langley Advance Times]

👉 Abbotsford South candidates discussed crime, the economy, and the toxic drug crisis in an all-candidates meeting Wednesday [Abbotsford News]

👉 An Abbotsford West all-candidates meeting saw the NDP and independent candidates debate the drug crisis, vaccines, and crime [Abbotsford News]

👉 All three Fraser-Nicola candidates came together at an all-candidates meeting in Boston Bar to debate climate change and rural advocacy [Hope Standard]

SPONSORED BY THE TYEE

The election stories you won’t find anywhere else

Confused about what’s happening in B.C.? Make sense of the political moment by subscribing to The Run. The Tyee’s award-winning election newsletter is back, aiming its laser focus on the political future of the west coast. Twice weekly this fall we’ll bring you the story behind the headlines, and break down key election themes happening across the province. It’s a free newsletter full of smart voices unpacking key issues, fact-checking politicians and exposing disinformation to clarifying light. Know what’s at stake when you cast your vote by subscribing today to The Run.

🗓 Things to do

Ghost tour: The Fort Langley National Historic Site hosts Grave Tales, an after-dark tour, until Sunday, Oct. 27. Advance booking is required. Details online.

Soccer game: Vancouver FC hosts Valour FC Sunday, Oct. 13 at Willoughby Community Park in Langley. Tickets online.

Scary maze: Maan Farms in Abbotsford hosts what it calls the Scariest Corn Maze in Canada until the end of October. The creepy corn mazes are open Fridays to Sundays, with some Thursdays plus Halloween. Details and tickets online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading Fraser Valley Current today ♥️ 

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

Reply

or to participate.