Burnaby-New Westminster.
3 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, and that each Nation has its own history and its own traditional territory covering the city fully or in part. The Burnaby Village Museum adds that several Indigenous communities surround Burnaby today, and it names the Qayqayt among them.

New Westminster has its own record. BC Geographical Names says the place held the Coast Salish village of Sxwaymelh, and it repeats a 1925 account from Tsawwassen Chief Harry Joe, who linked the name to salmon that disappear and reappear in the water near this seasonal camp. New Westminster Schools writes that in the 19th century a village called Qayqayt, pronounced Ka-kite, stood along what is now Front Street. The same page says a smallpox epidemic killed many First Peoples in 1904, that the McKenna McBride Commission closed the New Westminster Indian Reserve in 1916, and that Chief Larrabee applied for Indian status in 1994 and revived the Qayqayt band. New Westminster Schools' territorial acknowledgement names the Qayqayt First Nation and all Coast Salish peoples as the peoples on whose traditional and unceded territories the school district works. The B.C. government lists the Qayqayt First Nation in New Westminster with 20 members and says it takes no part in the B.C. treaty process.

The Burnaby Village Museum's guide says that in 1891 businessmen from Vancouver and New Westminster began building an electric tram between their cities. They owned land along the route and encouraged local landowners to form a government, and the City of Burnaby gives 22 September 1892 as the date of its charter. Heritage Burnaby holds a photograph of the first council in 1892 on the steps of Sample's Boarding House at 6850 Beresford Street, near Griffiths Avenue and Kingsway, with Charles R. Shaw as reeve.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that Henry Valentine Edmonds, born in Dublin in 1837, reached British Columbia in April 1862, held land in Port Moody, Vancouver, Burnaby and on Lulu Island, and was mayor of New Westminster for part of 1883. It calls Edmonds Street and the Edmonds transit station reminders of his work as a suburban land promoter. Heritage Burnaby says the neighbourhood grew because it sat on the early interurban line, and that Burnaby's first municipal hall was built in 1899 at Kingsway and Edmonds, near the tram line and the population centre of South Burnaby. A brick hall replaced it in 1911. A photograph that the archive dates to 1910 shows a tram passing the triangular Edmonds Block at Edmonds Street and Kingsway, and one dated 1912 shows that the block held a store, a doctor's office and a post office. The archive's record for Kingsway carries the date 1913 and says the highway between New Westminster and Vancouver was among the public works of 1911 and 1912.

BC Geographical Names records that Colonel R.C. Moody chose the site of New Westminster in February 1859, that a royal proclamation of 5 May 1859 gave it the name New Westminster, and that it was the capital of the Colony of British Columbia from 1859 to 1868. The city was incorporated on 16 July 1860.

The City's park history says Moody Park was the first park created after incorporation. On 20 April 1863 the council moved that a space of not less than 20 acres be reserved and called Moody Square, in honour of the founder of the city. Voters passed a $10,000 bylaw in 1889 to improve it, and it served as a golf course and a shooting range before the province conveyed it to the City in 1908. The Kiwanis Club gave the park a community hall, dedicated on 23 August 1938, and raised $45,000 for the outdoor pool that opened on 30 June 1949. The New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club opened its clubhouse and lawns next to Eighth Street on 20 May 1950, paid for by the sale of its old lawn at Dublin Street and Tenth Street. Century House, a seniors' centre built for British Columbia's centennial, was opened by Princess Margaret on 23 July 1958. The park now covers 23.78 acres at Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, and a new outdoor pool replaced the Kiwanis Pool on 18 July 2009.

Heritage New West, a heritage society, says New Westminster faced a housing crisis when the Second World War ended in May 1945. The City owned a large parcel bounded by Tenth Avenue on the north, Eighth Avenue on the south, Richmond Street on the east and First Street on the west, and the council turned it into a subdivision named Victory Heights. Sales opened on 1 October 1945 for 30 days and were limited to returning veterans, at 40 per cent of the assessed land value. All 53 original lots sold, and the City released another 92 the next year on the same terms. Buyers had to use the land at once to build homes.

Connaught Heights has a different past. Canada's Historic Places says the neighbourhood was District Lot 172 until it joined New Westminster in 1965, and that most of its houses date from the 1930s. The house at 2033 Marine Way, built in 1918, is recorded as the fourth-oldest in the neighbourhood. The City opened Connaught Heights Park in 1976 on a former power line corridor, between London Street and Ninth Avenue at 22nd Street. The register calls it the only formal park in the neighbourhood.

The Burnaby Village Museum's guide says passenger service on the interurban trams stopped during the 1950s, and that residents who had commuted by tram began to travel by bus and car. It lists the bowling alley called the Westminster Rollerway on Edmonds Street and the Gai Paree nightclub on Kingsway among the amusements of those years. Heritage Burnaby says Burnaby's municipal hall moved from Kingsway and Edmonds in the early 1950s. The 1911 hall was renovated as a police building in 1956 and demolished in 1970, and the site later became Edmonds House, a seniors' residence. A plot plan for the Middlegate Shopping Centre went before a Burnaby council committee on 7 March 1960.

Heritage Burnaby records that the Stride Avenue area filled in during the early 1950s, that building had slowed by 1970, that duplexes became common between 1970 and 1980, and that by the late 1980s the area was part of the Edmonds Town Centre South plan. A 1980 survey found that 25% of the homes in the Edmonds neighbourhood were built before 1930. TransLink says SkyTrain opened on 11 December 1985 with eight days of free rides and began charging fares on 3 January 1986. The City of Burnaby says it adopted the Edmonds Town Centre Community Plan in 1994.

Byrne Creek runs through a ravine park in south-east Burnaby before it reaches the Fraser River. A spill in 1998 killed more than 5,000 fish, along with beavers and other creatures, according to a Discover Salmon feature on the creek. Freshet News reports that the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers formed in 1999, and the feature says the group counts insects and fish, measures the water, and releases chum fry and coho smolts into the creek each year. A mural project called Fish on Fences produced 1,300 wooden fish made by school children and residents.

Heritage Burnaby records that Byrne Creek Secondary School opened in 2005 at 7777 18th Street for grades 8 through 12. It was built for as many as 1,200 students, and by 2009 plans were ready to raise that to 1,500. Elections BC lists it as Byrne Creek Community School, one of the district's voting places in 2024.

Heritage Burnaby holds photographs from November 2002 showing the Middlegate Mall parking lot on Kingsway, taken for a newspaper story about plans to redevelop the mall. Between 2003 and 2004 an excavator was working at the north end of the Middlegate Shopping Centre property, the future site of the Highgate Village development. The Edmonds Community Centre and Fred Randall Pool at 7433 Edmonds Street held its grand opening in the summer of 2013. Construction Canada reported on 27 September 2013 that CEI Architecture designed the $32-million centre, which has 8,825 square metres of floor space, a six-lane 25-metre pool and a leisure pool with a lazy river.

On 15 June 2023 the City of Burnaby invited residents to give opinions on new community plans for Edmonds, Royal Oak and Cascade Heights, with online surveys open until 31 July 2023. The City says it is revising the 1994 Edmonds Town Centre plan because priorities have shifted on transport, land use, housing needs, population growth and climate action. On the New Westminster side, the provincial Pattullo Bridge Replacement project said that all four lanes of the stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge would open on the morning of Saturday, 14 February 2026, and that the Pattullo Bridge would then close to traffic for removal. Access to the new bridge runs along McBride Boulevard and the new Royal Avenue on-ramp.