Abbotsford-Mission.
5 candidates, one seat.

The Stó:lō Nation's website begins with the words "We are Stó:lō, People of the River" and names its territory S'ólh Téméxw. It gives the traditional Stó:lō language as Halq'eméylem. The Stó:lō Service Agency Society says its core administrative area runs from Yale to Langley, and that in 1995 the Nation submitted documents asserting its collective aboriginal rights and title. The society represents 11 First Nations, and Matsqui and Sumas are among them.

The Sumas First Nation, whose people are the Semá:th, says on its website that they have lived with Sumas Mountain, the rivers and the valley since time immemorial. It says its traditional territory lay between the Sumas and Vedder mountains, and that Semá:th Xó:tsa, Sumas Lake, was drained in 1924. BC Geographical Names records that the name Matsqui comes from Halq'eméylem and belongs to a people who lived on the lower Fraser River and at Sumas Lake.

At Hatzic, Xá:ytem (Hatzic Rock) stands at 35087 Lougheed Street in Mission. The Canadian Register of Historic Places says it was designated a national historic site in 1992. The register describes two parts: a sacred Transformer Stone, and an archaeological habitation site that it dates to 5,000 years ago. The site is run by the Xá:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Centre.

The Mission Museum says Father Léon Fouquet of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate travelled up the Fraser River in February 1861 and built a mission there. The settlement was first called St. Mary's Mission. A similarly named religious settlement stood in the Okanagan, so mail for this one was addressed to Mission City. In 1883 the Canadian Pacific Railway requisitioned the land where Father Fouquet had built the Mission. St. Mary's Mission moved uphill to a second site, which is now Fraser River Heritage Park.

The museum says a boys' school was running by 1863, and that the Sisters of Saint Ann opened a girls' school in 1868. It says the Oblate school closed in 1961 and a government-run school opened elsewhere. The residence closed in 1985, which the museum describes as making it one of the last residential schools to close in Canada. The museum adds that by the 20th century, many of the school's methods came from federal government policies that aimed to suppress First Nations cultures.

The Canadian Encyclopedia says the Canadian Pacific Railway line reached Mission in 1885. The Mission Museum says the railway completed a bridge over the Fraser River between 1889 and 1891, and that the land developer James Welton Horne laid out the Townsite of Mission in 1891. BC Geographical Names records that the District of Mission was incorporated on July 14, 1892. Matsqui, on the other bank, was incorporated on November 26, 1892, with 54,145 acres.

BC Geographical Names says Abbotsford was named for Harry Braithwaite Abbott, who served as general superintendent of the railway's Pacific Division from 1886 to 1897. The name first appeared on John Charles Maclure's map on July 9, 1891. The Village of Abbotsford was incorporated on February 22, 1924. In 1969 the Town of Mission City and the District of Mission merged. In 1972 Abbotsford merged with the District of Sumas. On January 1, 1995 the districts of Abbotsford and Matsqui merged to form the City of Abbotsford.

The Abbotsford News reports that the Maclure family found fire-resistant clay in Sumas Mountain in 1904. BC Geographical Names says the brothers John Charles and Fred Soues Maclure set up the brickworks and named the place Clayburn from the words clay and kiln. The Clayburn post office opened on December 1, 1906. The Clayburn Village Museum says the Vancouver Fireclay Company was reorganized in 1909 as Clayburn Company Ltd., and that bricks and other clay products were made in Clayburn from 1905 to 1930.

The museum says the company built the village's houses and supplied fresh water, sewers, sidewalks and streetlights, along with tennis courts, a soccer pitch, a ball diamond and a nine-hole golf course. The Historic Places Days page says the seven brick houses built for the company's managers still stand, and that Abbotsford's brick industry lasted 106 years at three sites until Clayburn Industries shut down in 2011. The Abbotsford News reports that the village was protected as a heritage site in 1996. The church and schoolhouse have been restored and belong to the Clayburn Village Community Society.

The Mission Museum says the railway's bridge over the Fraser River was built from 1889 to 1891, with nine linked wooden spans and a swing span that could be raised to let steamships and barges pass. In 1910 the railway announced a plan to replace the wooden bridge with steel. Local residents asked for vehicle access, and the railway first said no. On July 1, 1927 the bridge opened to all road traffic, so people in Mission and Abbotsford could cross it freely.

On a Sunday morning in July 1955 the bridge collapsed into the river while a family was driving across, and the museum records that no one was hurt. The bridge reopened in October 1956, 16 months later. On July 7, 1973 a new vehicle bridge, the Mission Bridge, opened. It replaced the railway bridge as the road crossing between Mission and Abbotsford. The commission's 2023 report names Highway 11 as part of the district's southern boundary.

A dike is an earth wall that holds back river water. The Mission Museum says that on May 29, 1948 a loudspeaker system in downtown Mission announced that the dike at Nicomen Island had broken. On the morning of June 3, 1948 the pump house at Hatzic exploded into the air and left a gap in the dike 100 feet wide, which widened to 550 feet. By dusk, 12 square miles of Hatzic prairie were under water.

The museum gives the total as 13,135 acres of farmland flooded across Nicomen Island, Deroche, Dewdney, the Dewdney Peninsula, Hatzic and the Mission flats. It says 514 houses were destroyed. More than 30,000 civilian volunteers worked on the flood ground with the Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force. No lives were lost in the Mission region, though ten people died in other parts of the valley. To help farmers restart, the government bought cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and berry plants in the Mission region.

Westminster Abbey's own history page says Benedictines from Mount Angel Abbey took over the direction of the diocesan seminary in 1939, with Father Eugene Medved as the first rector. The community became a full abbey in 1953, and Father Medved was its first elected abbot. The abbey and the seminary moved to Mission on Christmas Eve 1954, after temporary homes in Ladner and Burnaby. Cardinal Basil Hume dedicated the abbey church in 1982.

TransLink says the West Coast Express has run since 1995 between Downtown Vancouver and Mission, on weekdays at peak commuter times. The Mission Museum's timeline records that the District of Mission began a re-branding process in 2021 that included changing its name to the City of Mission.