Surrey-White Rock.
6 candidates, one seat.

The Semiahmoo First Nation calls its people the Semiahma. Its website describes a trans-boundary nation with lands in both Canada and the United States, and says its people have lived across Washington state, the Strait of Georgia and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia for thousands of years. The Nation names North Straits Salish as the language that ties it to the Lummi and Nooksack in the United States, and writes that before European settlers arrived its way of life was oriented to the sea. It says the Oregon Treaty of 1846 made it a trans-boundary nation, and that before 1850 its people spent winters at Drayton Harbour, Birch Bay, Crescent Beach and Semiahmoo Bay.

BC Geographical Names says Semiahmoo Bay is named for the Semiahmoo First Nation. The entry quotes Andrew Scott's Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names, which says the word is reported to mean half moon and calls that translation dubious. The Canadian Register of Historic Places adds that the Snohomish and the Semiahmoo used the Crescent Beach area as a fishing camp. The White Rock Museum and Archives writes se’mya’me (Semiahmoo First Nation) in its land acknowledgement, and says the museum stands on the Nation's traditional unceded territory.

The Canadian Register of Historic Places, which draws on the City of Surrey's heritage files, says settlers began farming and logging along the Nicomekl River in the 1860s. Until 1875 the Semiahmoo Trail was the only passable land route between New Westminster and Blaine, Washington. After Surrey was incorporated in 1879, the municipality could pay for local improvements, and a road from Elgin to Crescent Beach was surveyed and cut. The register says James Holt completed it in 1882 and that more work on the road followed from 1910 to 1923. It adds that Crescent Beach became popular as a tourist and beach resort after the Great Northern Railway was completed in 1909.

BC Geographical Names records that Crescent Lodge Post Office opened on 1 May 1907, was renamed Crescent Post Office on 1 April 1909 and became Crescent Beach Post Office on 23 December 1951. The entry says land owners and subdividers chose the name from the crescent shape of Mud Bay, because they disliked the name Blackies Spit, which was then used for the area. The entry adds that the form of the name was changed to Crescent Beach (community) on 24 November 1980.

The White Rock Museum and Archives publishes an excerpt from community historian Lorraine Ellenwood's book Years of Promise 1858-1958. It says homesteaders reached Surrey's seafront near the international boundary as early as 1890, but settlement stayed slow until the Great Northern Railway line was rerouted along the Semiahmoo Bay shoreline in 1909. Canada Customs placed its ports of entry at least one mile from the border, and the excerpt says the customs office at White Rock fixed the place where the community would grow.

In 1910 Henry Thrift, a farmer from Hazelmere, built his home Bella Vista on the hillside facing the sea and subdivided his land. A New Westminster real estate firm marketed the original White Rock townsite the same year. The excerpt notes that the streets of that townsite run at a different angle from the grid used elsewhere in the Lower Mainland, and that by 1912 White Rock had three newspapers and daily bread delivery.

BC Geographical Names says the White Rock Post Office opened on 16 August 1910. The name comes from the large white rock on the beach, which was conspicuous enough to guide passing vessels. The City of White Rock says the Great Northern Railway began service along Semiahmoo Bay in 1909 and that the station was built in 1912. It lists the Campers Special, a three-car train that ran between Vancouver and Blaine from July to October, from 1911 until 1925.

The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names says the Methodist minister William Pascoe Goard chose the name Ocean Park, and that the realtor Henry Thrift may have suggested it first. Goard bought land there in the early 1900s for a church retirement community and a waterfront retreat, and the Ocean Park Syndicate, a group of Lower Mainland Methodists, later held it. The same book says the name Kwomais Point was adopted in 1946. It reports that the historians Philip and Helen Akrigg took the word to mean dog face in the Halkomelem language, while the camp's proprietors preferred to translate it as a place of vision.

The City of Surrey's heritage register lists two buildings from these years. The Crescent Park Annex at 2378 124 Street stands on land that the pioneer Benjamin Stevenson gave in 1916 on condition that it be cleared for a school. The school opened in 1918, and the register says it is the only one-room schoolhouse in Surrey still at its original location. The Ocean Park Community Hall at 1577 128 Street was built in 1925 to serve a place that the register says had grown from a summer resort into an established community.

Three buildings of Camp Alexandra, at 2916 McBride Avenue in Crescent Beach, are on the City of Surrey's heritage register, all entered on 2 November 1998. The Stage House is the earliest and dates from 1918. The Wigwam, a bungalow built as a nursery, followed in 1919. The Lodge was built in 1920 as a dining hall, as part of the Alexandra Orphanage, which the register says was established in 1918.

The register also lists the Church of the Ascension Anglican at 2770 McKenzie Avenue. It was built in 1931 in the Gothic revival style with Tudor influences. The last church service was held in 1972, and the building is now a day care and Montessori school.

The Peace Arch Hospital Foundation says the hospital opened in August 1954 with 50 beds, five doctors and 10 nurses, and that it was built entirely on land that the community donated or bought. White Rock was then part of Surrey. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says White Rock was incorporated as a city on 15 Apr 1957, when it seceded from Surrey, and BC Geographical Names gives the same date.

The City of White Rock says rail service to the town dwindled and then ceased in 1975. In that year the station building was ceded to the city, and it became the home of the White Rock Museum and Archives. The museum is at 14970 Marine Drive. The city says its ticket office has been restored to its 1954 appearance, and railway history is one of the museum's core themes.

The City of White Rock says its pier was built in 1914 and 1915, extends 470 metres into Semiahmoo Bay and was restored in 1977. On 20 December 2018 a windstorm with gusts of 91 kilometres an hour, heavy rain and a heavy tide broke the pier in two. The City says it destroyed a third of the structure and the western wharf and floats. The Province of British Columbia gave $1 million toward the repair, the middle section was rebuilt for $4.3 million, and the pier reopened to the public on 27 August 2019. The official reopening was held on 21 September 2019.

On 10 February 2020 the community group Friends of the Pier presented the City with a cheque for $400,000 toward rebuilding the rest of the structure. The City's pier page now says the remaining two thirds are approaching the end of their service life and need full replacement. It reports that the Government of Canada's Building Communities Strong Fund has approved the project in principle, with a federal contribution of $25,935,000.

Indigenous Services Canada says a long-term drinking water advisory for the Semiahmoo First Nation was set on 13 October 2005 and lifted on 31 March 2021, after the community was connected to the water system of nearby Surrey. The Government of Canada invested more than $15.5 million in the project, and all 40 houses now have safe drinking water. The Tyee reported that the Nation had bought water from the privately owned White Rock Utilities in the 1990s and that its first drinking water advisory was issued in 1996.

Surrey City Council voted on 23 July 2018 to let the Mayor sign a water service agreement and a sanitary sewer service agreement with the Semiahmoo First Nation. The minutes record Chief Harley Chappell telling Council that the servicing agreement process had been under way since the 1970s. The Nation's website gives 24 July 2025 as the date of its Land Code vote. The First Nations Land Management Resource Centre reported on 27 August 2025 that the Nation voted to establish its Land Code, regaining governance over its reserve lands, natural resources and environment.