Cariboo-Chilcotin.
3 candidates, one seat.

Several Nations describe parts of this district as their homeland, each in its own words. The Tŝilhqot'in Nation has six communities. The Tŝilhqot'in Stewardship Agreement for 2024 to 2027 is signed by the Province, the Nation and the Tŝilhqot'in National Government, and it lists the six as Xeni Gwet'in First Nations Government, Tsideldel First Nation, Tl'etinqox Government, ʔEsdilagh First Nation, Toosey First Nation and Yunesit'in Government. A 2017 release of the Government of Canada names the same six with their common English names, including Anaham for Tl'etinqox, Stone for Yunesit'in and Nemiah for Xeni Gwet'in. BC Geographical Names records that the name Chilcotin River comes from the Tŝilhqot'in language and gives more than one proposed meaning, including "ochre river people".

Williams Lake First Nation calls its people T'exelcemc and says they are members of the Secwépemc Nation who have lived across Secwepemcul'ecw for over 6500 years. Tsq'escen' First Nation, formerly the Canim Lake Band, says the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation consists of 17 Nations, and it gives its traditional area in the Cariboo as 21,260 square kilometres. Its reserve land lies east of 100 Mile House on the Canim-Hendrix Lake Road. The Skeetchestn Indian Band, at Deadman's Creek near Savona, says its ancestors wintered in pit house villages on both sides of Kamloops Lake before its reserve was established in 1877. The Province lists the Bonaparte Indian Band, west of Cache Creek, as a member of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council.

In the west of the district, Ulkatcho First Nation describes its people as belonging to the Dakelh (Carrier) Nation. Its name refers to the people of the high country. It says its ancestral lands include the Anahim Lake area, the Itcha-Ilgachuz ranges and the Dean River watershed, and that its community is centred in Anahim Lake. The Nation's history page says Ulkatcho Village was a trading and potlatch centre where trails met, with routes to the Fraser River, the Central Coast and the Chilcotin Plateau.

Gold found in the Cariboo led the colony to build a road. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the Cariboo Road, 650 km long between Yale and Barkerville, was begun in 1862 and opened in 1865. Royal Engineers built the hardest sections and private contractors built the rest. Ashcroft became the third starting point of the road, after Yale and Lillooet.

Roadhouses along the route grew into towns. BC Geographical Names records that the first building at what is now Clinton opened on New Year's Day 1861 and was called 47 Mile House. After the Cariboo Wagon Road was completed in 1863, the place was renamed for Henry Pelham Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle, who was Colonial Secretary. The record also notes an Indigenous village called Pil-te-'uk, meaning white earth, on nearby Junction Creek, shown on George Dawson's 1895 survey map. 100 Mile House grew around a roadhouse 100 miles north of Lillooet on the Cariboo Road. Clement Francis Cornwall and Henry Pennant Cornwall started the ranch near Ashcroft in 1862 and named it after their family village in Gloucestershire, England. Cache Creek's post office opened on 4 January 1868, with Charles Augustus Semlin, a future Premier of British Columbia, as postmaster.

Williams Lake takes its name from Chief William of the Sugar Cane reserve. BC Geographical Names gives the earlier Indigenous name as Columetza, meaning the gathering place of the lordly ones, and says the present name was in use by 28 April 1860, when John Telfer received a pre-emption at Williams Lake.

The Prime Minister's statement of 26 March 2018 says that in the spring of 1864 the Tsilhqot'in chiefs led a war party in defence of their homelands against a colonial road crew that wanted to build a road through Tsilhqot'in territory. It says the chiefs were invited under false pretenses to negotiate peace, then arrested and convicted. Five chiefs were hanged on 26 October 1864, and a sixth, Chief Ahan, was hanged later.

In the House of Commons the Prime Minister said: "We confirm without reservation that Chief Lhats'assin, Chief Biyil, Chief Tilaghed, Chief Taqed, Chief Chayses, and Chief Ahan are fully exonerated of any crime or wrongdoing." The statement describes the six as leaders and warriors of the Tsilhqot'in Nation who acted in accordance with their laws and traditions.

The Canadian Pacific Railway reached Ashcroft in 1884, and the Canadian Encyclopedia says the town then served as a major supply centre for the goldfields in the north. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway was incorporated in Vancouver in 1912, and the Clinton and District Historical and Cultural Museum says it reached Clinton in 1916, when the company was bankrupt. In 1918 the government of Premier John Oliver took responsibility for it. The first work train reached Williams Lake on 15 September 1919. The line reached Quesnel in 1921 and Prince George in 1952.

The Government of Canada says the first Williams Lake Stampede, held in 1919, coincided with the building of the railway through the area. Municipal status came later. BC Geographical Names records Williams Lake as a village on 15 March 1929, a town on 15 February 1965 and a city on 5 November 1981. Ashcroft became a village on 27 June 1952, Cache Creek a local district on 25 February 1959, and Clinton a village on 16 July 1963. 100 Mile House became a village on 27 July 1965 and a district municipality on 13 June 1991.

Williams Lake First Nation says St. Joseph's Mission operated as an Indian Residential School between 1886 and 1981. The Catholic Oblates administered it as part of the residential school system set up by the Government of Canada, and it stood near T'exelc, the community core of the First Nation. The Province lists the First Nation's community as 8 km south of Williams Lake.

The First Nation began an investigation of the site in July 2021, using ground penetrating radar, magnetometry and terrestrial LiDAR, along with archival research and 21 survivor interviews. It announced the first phase on 25 January 2022: a survey of 14 hectares found 93 reflections with characteristics indicative of human burials. It announced the second phase on 25 January 2023, which found 66 reflections with characteristics indicative of potential human remains.

A release of the Government of Canada says that on 26 June 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada declared that the Tsilhqot'in have Aboriginal title over 1,750 square kilometres in the interior of British Columbia near Williams Lake. On 27 January 2017 Canada and the Tsilhqot'in Nation signed a Letter of Understanding as a first step towards reconciliation. The Province and the Nation had already agreed the Nenqay Deni Accord, a reconciliation framework agreement dated 11 February 2016.

The current Tŝilhqot'in Stewardship Agreement is dated 1 April 2024 and replaces the earlier stewardship agreements. It sets out how the Province and the Nation take part in decisions about land and resources, and it lists Aboriginal title among the rights recognized and affirmed by section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Province acknowledges in it that Aboriginal Rights exist within the agreement area.

Williams Lake First Nation follows a separate path. The Province lists it at Stage 5 of the British Columbia treaty process, final agreement negotiations, after an Incremental Treaty Agreement in 2016 and an Agreement-in-Principle signed with the Province and Canada in July 2018.

The independent BC Flood and Wildfire Review reports that more than 160 new fires began on 7 July 2017, mostly from lightning, in the Cariboo and Kamloops Fire Centre areas. The Province declared a state of emergency that day and lifted it on 15 September. Across British Columbia the 2017 fires burned 1,216,046 hectares and cost $568,000,000 to fight, and the review puts the number of evacuees at 65,000.

In this district the review lists the Plateau Complex on the Chilcotin Plateau, a group of separate fires that merged into 545,151 hectares and became the largest fire in the province's recorded history. It lists the Hanceville Complex at 241,160 hectares and the Central Cariboo Complex around Williams Lake and Soda Creek at 31,181 hectares. Williams Lake was under an evacuation order from 15 July to 27 July. The Gustafsen fire burned 5,700 hectares just west of 100 Mile House. The Elephant Hill fire, found on 6 July, reached 191,865 hectares between Ashcroft and Highway 24. It burned properties on the Ashcroft Indian Band and in the Boston Flats mobile home park, and the entire village of Cache Creek was evacuated.