Burnaby Centre.
4 candidates, one seat.

The City of Burnaby says it is on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Peoples. The Squamish Nation's website says its traditional territory includes parts of present-day cities such as Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster, and that some of its village sites date back 3,000 years. Musqueam's website says its people are traditional hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking people and that its ancestors have lived in the Fraser River estuary, including much of Metro Vancouver, for thousands of years.

The Burnaby Village Museum's resource guide records what is known about the lake in this district. A caption in the guide says a stone knife found near the museum's present site is thousands of years old, and that the Deer Lake area was once an important village site for hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people. The guide says archaeological sites called middens have been found near Deer Lake. It says Indigenous families returned each year to campsites in Burnaby's Central Valley to gather cranberries, hunt game birds and fish for trout and salmon in local creeks and lakes. The guide states that the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking people of Burnaby never ceded title to their ancestral lands.

The Burnaby Village Museum's guide says that before 1892 settlers saw the land as the ground between New Westminster and the rapidly growing City of Vancouver. In 1891 businessmen from the two cities began building an interurban tram line between them. They owned property along the route, and the guide says building the tram encouraged property sales, especially near Deer Lake. The provincial government recognized Burnaby in September 1892, and the City of Burnaby gives 22 September 1892 as the date of its charter. The guide says Burnaby and Deer Lake residents built their homes near Canada Way, originally Douglas Road.

BC Geographical Names records that the name Deer Lake was adopted on 21 April 1936 on map 92G/2, as labelled on BC map 2B of 1914, and that the name appeared in the 1930 BC Gazetteer. The record lists Little Lake as an old name for it.

The Burnaby Art Gallery says that in 1909 Henry and Grace Ceperley bought a strawberry farm on the north shore of Deer Lake, and that their house Fairacres was finished in 1911. Canada's Historic Places says the building of Fairacres changed the Deer Lake area from a farming community into a favoured place for wealthy suburban homes. The museum guide's account of 1914 to 1929 says Deer Lake stayed a mostly British neighbourhood whose residents had cars, radios, telephones, central heating and hobby farms.

The Burnaby Village Museum's guide says the provincial government opened a prison on Crown land next to Deer Lake in 1912, and that the people held there worked on a farm. Heritage Burnaby says the Oakalla Prison Farm stood on 185 acres, was designed to hold 150 men and 50 women, and by the 1950s held well over 1,000 people. It had its own dairy, vegetable gardens and livestock. The guide says executions took place at the prison until 1959, and that the people who served time there included labour activists, members of religious minorities and Indigenous people who refused to obey discriminatory laws.

Heritage Burnaby says that by 1979 the decision had been made to close the farm, and that 64 acres were transferred to Burnaby for Deer Lake Park. Oakalla closed in 1991. Its buildings were demolished to make way for a new housing development and an expansion of the park.

Heritage Burnaby says Deer Lake Park was established in 1949 on the lake's eastern shore. It says the move of the Municipal Hall to the Deer Lake area in the mid-1950s began the plan for an administrative and cultural centre for Burnaby. The City's archive records that the official opening of the hall at 4949 Canada Way was held on 22 June 1956, and that the building cost $625,000.00. Council chose a site in what the archive calls the exact geographic centre of Burnaby. That ended a disagreement between North Burnaby and South Burnaby residents, and the new hall replaced the municipal buildings at Edmonds and Kingsway.

The Burnaby Art Gallery says Benedictine monks bought the Ceperley property in 1939 and added a gymnasium, which later became the James Cowan Theatre. The City acquired the property in 1966, and Heritage Burnaby says Fairacres was dedicated in 1967 to mark Canada's Centennial. The gallery says it began as an association in 1967. Heritage Burnaby lists the Arts Centre, Century Gardens and the Burnaby Art Gallery among the cultural facilities that opened that year. The gallery says the City took over its management in 1998 and restored the outside of Ceperley House, and that the work was finished in 2000.

The museum's guide says Burnaby's population rose from 30,328 in 1941 to 100,157 in 1961, and that new families demanded schools, parks, playgrounds and Burnaby's first hospital. Fraser Health says Burnaby Hospital opened in 1952. Heritage Burnaby records its address as 3935 Kincaid Street, in the Cascade-Schou area. Cascade Heights School, at 4343 Smith Avenue, opened in 1953 and was among the first new elementary schools built in Burnaby during the postwar housing boom. Moscrop Secondary School opened in 1956 with 636 students, and Burnaby Central opened in 1958 with 719 students as the third high school in Burnaby. Heritage Burnaby describes the north-east corner of Garden Village as a typical 1950s subdivision of single family homes.

BCIT's history page lists the BC Vocational School opening in Burnaby in 1960 and the Burnaby Campus being established in 1964 for programs in engineering, health and business. It lists the first graduating class in 1966. Freshet News reports that the Highway 1 freeway through Burnaby opened in 1964. A Heritage Burnaby photograph of the new freeway, dated c. 1964, shows the Willingdon exit.

Heritage Burnaby says the museum, first called Heritage Village, opened from 19 to 21 November 1971 for one weekend and then resumed fuller operation in 1972. It was a project of the Centennial '71 Committee, and the Century Park Museum Association ran it until 1990. The first site covered 4.3 acres. The museum's 50th anniversary page says hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples lived in long-term settlements near Deer Lake, at the present site of the museum.

The museum's history page says the Municipality of Burnaby took over the museum in 1990, and that a new entrance opened that year across Deer Lake Brook. The museum now occupies ten acres at 6501 Deer Lake Avenue. The C.W. Parker Carousel officially opened in 1993 in the new Don Wrigley Pavilion. The City's page on the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts says Hotson Bakker Architects designed it in 1995, that it stands in Deer Lake Park, and that it is named for the painter Jack Shadbolt and his wife Doris Shadbolt, a curator and author. The centre received the Canadian Wood Council Award of Merit in 1996.

BCIT's history page lists an Indigenous Gathering Place established at its Burnaby campus in 2011. The campus is one of the 13 voting places that Elections BC lists in the district for the 2024 provincial election.

Fraser Health reported on 12 March 2026 that a new six-storey health-care pavilion and an expanded support services building at Burnaby Hospital opened to patients on Tuesday, 10 March 2026. The pavilion has 83 beds, mostly in single-patient rooms. It holds a mental-health inpatient unit, maternity and neonatal intensive care units, a medicine unit and outpatient clinics. On 21 September 2026 Fraser Health said the Province is providing $210 million for the next phase, which improves and expands the emergency department and the surgical unit.