Chilliwack Mayoral Candidates
Advance voting is scheduled for October 7 and October 14, with General Voting Day on October 17.
The profiles below distinguish between established public records, candidates' own campaign statements, and third-party reporting.
Independent candidate for Mayor
Jason Lum has served on Chilliwack City Council since December 2011, giving him approximately 15 years of municipal government experience heading into this election. He currently serves on the Fraser Valley Regional District and Fraser Valley Regional Hospital District boards and chairs Chilliwack's Transportation Advisory Committee and Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Committee, among other assignments.
His campaign describes him as a longtime Chilliwack resident, small-business owner and father who lives with his family in Yarrow. He has also previously held leadership responsibilities at the Fraser Valley Regional District.
Lum's campaign centres on managing the next stage of Chilliwack's rapid growth. He argues that population growth needs to be accompanied by infrastructure, municipal services, housing choices, and community amenities, rather than by treating development decisions individually.
His campaign theme is “Growing Forward Together.”
Lum has published the most detailed platform of the four mayoral candidates so far. His commitments include:
Lum acknowledges voting for recent municipal budgets that increased property taxes. His position is that tax affordability should remain a significant consideration, but reductions need to be balanced against the costs of policing, fire, infrastructure, and other municipal services.
Lum proposes matching police, fire, and emergency resources to population growth and continuing municipal advocacy to senior governments regarding repeat offenders, mental health services, and addiction treatment.
On homelessness, his published platform calls for combining access to housing, shelter, treatment, and support with maintaining public spaces that are accessible and safe.
Lum is running without an electoral organization and describes himself as an independent. He has publicly argued that municipal politics should remain separate from formal party politics.
Independent candidate for Mayor
Gary Raddysh is a retired teacher at Chilliwack Secondary School, where he taught music. Unlike Lum, he has not previously held elected municipal office.
Raddysh, however, is not new to Chilliwack municipal affairs. He has regularly appeared at City Council financial-plan proceedings to question spending and property-tax increases.
This is the clearest documented theme in Raddysh's public record.
At a December 2024 City Council financial-plan meeting, he argued that low voter turnout weakened the mandate for substantial spending and tax decisions. He advocated freezing taxes and halting new spending, and proposed stronger public support requirements for future financial decisions.
Local reporting describes him as a recurring participant in annual financial-plan discussions who has consistently called for a zero-per-cent property-tax increase.
Compared with Lum, substantially less detailed campaign material from Raddysh is publicly available at this stage. Both the Chilliwack Chamber's election hub and the CivicInfo candidate database list him as a candidate but do not currently identify a campaign website.
That means it would be premature to attribute detailed positions to him on housing, transportation, agriculture, policing or development until he publishes them or discusses them in candidate forums.
Raddysh participated in the September 23 all-candidates forum hosted at Shxwhá:y Village, along with Jason Lum and Farooque Syed.
Upper Fraser Valley News status: Profile incomplete because detailed platform information has not yet been published publicly.
Conservative Electors Association candidate for Mayor
Martina Rosini is the only Chilliwack mayoral candidate running under a registered electoral organization, the Conservative Electors Association. CivicInfo lists the other three mayoral candidates as unaffiliated.
Her candidacy was announced in September. The campaign has emphasized her experience working in government, although publicly available local biographical material remains more limited than for Lum.
Rosini launched her campaign around three principal themes:
lower property taxes, public safety and support for families.
She has said she intends to:
Rosini has directly criticized the magnitude of Chilliwack's recent property tax increases and is campaigning to reduce the tax burden.
Her campaign has made specific claims about cumulative increases and household costs. Those figures are campaign claims and should be independently compared against the City's financial plans and tax-rate data before being presented as established facts.
Rosini is taking a distinctly different position on provincial housing/addiction initiatives. She has said she opposes low-barrier BC Housing drug sites and argues that local government should put greater emphasis on policing, first responders and neighbourhood safety.
That creates a substantive policy difference and homelessness comparison.
Rosini's candidacy also creates a broader governance question for voters: she is running as the candidate of an electoral organization, while Lum, Raddysh and Syed appear on the ballot without one.
That is a factual distinction rather than a measure of suitability; voters can consider whether formal municipal political organizations matter to them.
Independent candidate for Mayor
Farooque Syed is an author and community advocate whose public work has focused particularly on youth gang prevention, drugs and violence.
Syed immigrated to Canada from Pakistan as a young child and grew up in South and East Vancouver. He has publicly described becoming involved in gangs and organized crime when he was younger and later serving time in prison.
He subsequently turned those experiences into prevention and education work.
Syed is the author of Stolen Dreams: How to Help Children Avoid Gangs, Drugs & Violence.
His stated objective is to help parents, teachers, guardians and young people recognize the warning signs of gang recruitment, drug activity and violence, drawing on his own experiences.
The Parkinson Society of British Columbia has also profiled his work and describes him as an author and gang-prevention advocate.
Local reporting says Syed has lived in Chilliwack for several years.
The official candidate database lists no previous elected office for Syed.
As of October 1, a comprehensive campaign platform or campaign website does not appear to be publicly listed through either the CivicInfo candidate database or Chilliwack Chamber election hub.
It would therefore be inappropriate to infer his municipal positions from his work on gangs and youth violence.
We still need direct positions from Syed on subjects including:
Upper Fraser Valley News status: Profile incomplete pending additional campaign/platform material.
The Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce mayoral forum is Tuesday, October 6, from 7–9 p.m. at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. All four registered mayoral candidates have been invited.
That forum should give us considerably more material on Raddysh and Syed and allow us to update all four profiles on identical questions. The Chamber says it also intends to publish candidates' written answers to forum questions after October 7.