Courtenay-Comox.
4 candidates, one seat.

The K’ómoks First Nation describes the Comox Valley as its homeland. Its website says K’ómoks people lived at many places in the territory, among them Salmon River, the Quinsam and Campbell rivers, Quadra Island, Kye Bay, Comox Harbour and its estuary, and Baynes Sound. Its Cultures page says the Nation today consists of several formerly separate tribes. The Sathloot, Sasitla, Ieeksen and Xa’xe are culturally K’ómoks, and each has its own origin story. The Pentlatch had a similar culture but spoke a distinct language, and they also have their own origin story.

The same page says K’ómoks ancestors came to occupy territory from the Salmon River in the north to the Englishman River in the south, including Quadra, Denman and Hornby islands. The BC Treaty Commission describes the traditional territory as the central eastern part of Vancouver Island, extending into Johnstone Strait. BC Geographical Names records that Dr. Robert Brown of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition named the Puntledge River in 1864 after the tribe that lived on its banks, and that Commander Mayne had earlier noted the name Puntluch River.

The K’ómoks timeline records two smallpox epidemics. The first, in 1782, eradicated between 50 and 90 per cent of the Indigenous population of the Coast Salish world. The second, in 1862, killed an estimated half of K’ómoks people and perhaps up to 90 per cent of Pentlatch people, leaving a combined population of fewer than 200.

In 1862 colonists arrived by boat from Victoria, and officials allocated a single reserve to the K’ómoks and Pentlatch at the mouth of the Courtenay River, called Comox IR#1. The Nation says this opened the rest of the territory to settlement, and that the colonists took former village sites and the best farmland in the valley. In 1875 the E&N Railway Act transferred Crown land to the railway company in exchange for building the line up Vancouver Island, which the Nation says removed that land from K’ómoks hands. In 1876 a joint reserve commission merged the K’ómoks tribes with the Pentlatch to create the Comox Indian Band, now the K’ómoks First Nation. It set out reserves at Comox (IR#1), Puntledge (IR#2) and Goose Spit (IR#3), and it refused a request for a reserve on Denman Island.

BC Geographical Names records that European settlement at Comox began in 1862, when settlers from Victoria arrived on HMS Grappler at the request of Governor Douglas. A post office opened at Comox on 1 July 1872. The K’ómoks timeline names the Comox Logging & Railway Company as the largest logging company in the British Empire, cutting in the region from the 1880s to 1940, and it says logging was the main economic driver of the valley from 1860 to 1960. The Courtenay & District Museum places two of the company's camps, Camp 4 and Camp 5, in the area that later became Merville.

BC Geographical Names states that the city of Courtenay was named after Captain George William Conway Courtenay, later a rear admiral, who commanded HMS Constance from 1846 to 1849. The name relates to the neighbouring Courtenay River. The same record says the Courtenay townsite was established in 1891 and its post office opened on 1 July 1893.

The Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway reached Courtenay in 1914. Parks Canada's heritage record for the former station says the building was finished that year and stood at the most northerly point of the E&N line. It was designed by R. A. Bainbridge, divisional engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The record says the railway supported Courtenay's role as the supply and distribution centre for local farming, logging and mining. Parks Canada designated the station on 7 January 1994 under the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act.

The Courtenay & District Museum describes a debate over making Courtenay a city. A Daily Colonist article of 1 May 1914 reported that the proposed municipal area covered 600 acres. Supporters expected that Courtenay would soon have a railway connection and become a distributing and industrial centre. Opponents said the population was too small to manage municipal affairs in hard financial times. BC Geographical Names records that Courtenay was incorporated as a city on 1 January 1915.

After the First World War, Merville became a settlement for returned soldiers. The Courtenay & District Museum says the Comox Logging & Railway Company's Camp 4 stood at the corner of today's Merville Road and the west side of the Island Highway, and that the Soldier Settlement Board took it over after the war. By May 1919 the Land Settlement Board had put up bunkhouses for single men, a cook house, an office, stables and a general store along the highway. By July there were fifty shacks for settler families.

The Prince of Wales visited the Comox Valley on 26 September 1919, and the museum says the importance of Merville as a soldier settlement led to the visit. The Erskine & May sawmill began cutting north of Nurmi Road in 1920 and was destroyed by fire in 1922. BC Geographical Names records that the post office at Black Creek opened on 1 June 1936 and took its name from the adjacent creek. It records Little River as a settlement name adopted on 2 November 1950.

The Comox Air Force Museum says the airfield at Comox opened as a Royal Air Force base in 1942 and was constituted as a Royal Canadian Air Force aerodrome on 1 May 1943. Its timeline shows RCAF Station Comox reopening in 1952, with 407 Squadron activated there that year. The wing is now 19 Wing Comox, based at Canadian Forces Base Comox under the command of 1 Canadian Air Division. The museum lists 407 Squadron, whose Aurora aircraft patrol the Pacific Ocean, 442 Squadron, which carries out search and rescue, and the Canadian Forces School of Search and Rescue among the wing's units.

BC Geographical Names records that the Village of Comox was incorporated on 14 January 1946 and became a town on 1 April 1967.

The K’ómoks First Nation entered the BC treaty negotiations process in 1994. The Province's engagement page lists the Agreement in Principle as signed on 24 March 2012, and the Nation's Cultures page records it as approved and signed by the Nation, Canada and British Columbia in 2012. The BC Treaty Commission adds that the Province and K’ómoks signed an Incremental Treaty Agreement in 2017, and that the parties signed an agreement in 2019 to speed up negotiations. Chief negotiators initialled the treaty on 22 July 2024. K’ómoks members voted on 8 March 2025 to ratify the treaty and the Nation's constitution, and the Province's page says more than half of eligible voters took part and more than half voted yes.

The BC Legislature passed the K’ómoks Treaty Act, Bill 20, on 28 May 2026, after its introduction on 14 April 2026. The Treaty Commission says the next step is ratification by the Parliament of Canada, after which the parties will set an effective date. The Commission gives the Nation 350 members, a figure it marks as an estimate. Once the process is complete, K’ómoks will be the ninth Modern Treaty Nation in British Columbia. In March 2025 the City of Courtenay, the Comox Valley Regional District, the Town of Comox and the Village of Cumberland committed to supporting the Nation's move to self-government.