Coquitlam-Burke Mountain: an introduction to the big riding with the zigzagging border

It’s a two horse race in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, with former MLA Jodie Wickens running for the B.C. NDP against Stephen Frolek of the the B.C. Conservative Party.

Click here to read the complete candidate questionnaire response from:

NDP candidate Jodie Wickens

Conservative Party candidate Stephen Frolek did not answer the Dispatch questionnaire by press time.

Riding history

The largest geographical riding in the Tri-Cities is roughly bounded by the Pitt and Indian Arm rivers.

After being cobbled together from three other ridings in 2008, Coquitlam-Burke Mountain has swung from Liberal to NDP in recent elections.

Outgoing NDP MLA Fin Donnelly won convincingly in 2020, capturing 54.9 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of Liberal incumbent Joan Isaacs’ 36.2 percent.

Isaacs won the riding dramatically in 2017. In a riding where 23,450 votes were cast, Isaacs finished 87 votes – or 0.37 percent – ahead of Wickens. The outcome marked a reversal from the previous year’s byelection when Wickens bested Isaacs by eight percent.

Support for the Green Party has fluctuated between 5.84 percent in 2013 to Joe Keithley’s 13.5 percent in 2016.

Green Party candidate Adam Bremner-Akins, who is currently running in Port Coquitlam, notched 8.9 percent of the vote in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain in 2020.

With a new school and a rec centre on the way, Burke Mountain is earmarked for substantial development in the near future.

Starting on Lincoln Avenue and heading west, the riding boundary swings north to meet Victoria Drive just west of DeBoville Slough. The boundary continues west along Victoria before heading up Wellington Street, across Mason Avenue and Metcalfe Way just above Coquitlam River Elementary and down Oxford Street.

The southernmost boundary follows Lincoln Avenue to Westwood Street before following the rail line to Mariner Way into Johnson Street and swinging north before looping west on David Avenue.