Cowichan Valley

Bert Chen is the Conservative Party of BC candidate for Cowichan Valley on Elections BC’s accepted nominations list for the 2026 provincial election. A lifelong British Columbian and Vancouver Island small-business owner, he grew up in a rural community where his family ran a gas station and has worked in remote communities across BC and the North, including infrastructure projects with First Nations. He owns a Vancouver Island firm that provides project management and construction services for power plants and other large industrial projects, including clean-power work on Vancouver Island and the BC coast. He has also served as long-time finance director for the Elks of Canada / BC Elks Association, supporting the organization’s charitable work and kids camps. He lives in the Cowichan area and sails out of Maple Bay.

Debra Toporowski (Qwulti’stunaat) is the BC NDP candidate for Cowichan Valley and the sitting MLA, first elected in 2024. A member of the Cowichan Nation, she is a former two-term councillor for the Municipality of North Cowichan and a five-time councillor of Cowichan Tribes—described as the first woman elected to both councils at the same time. The NDP has highlighted her work on Indigenous watersheds and local services, with campaign priorities around housing, health care and affordability in the Cowichan Valley. She is seeking re-election on October 24, 2026.

James Chumsa is the Communist Party of BC candidate for Cowichan Valley, filed with Elections BC for the October 24, 2026 election. He ran federally for the Communist Party of Canada in Nanaimo—Ladysmith in 2019, receiving 104 votes (about 0.14 percent). In a Nanaimo News Bulletin questionnaire that year he said he was born and raised on Vancouver Island, grew up in the Cowichan Valley, and had just finished a B.A. in sociology, with a history minor, at Vancouver Island University. He called that campaign his first. No other provincial or local candidacy turned up in records checked for this profile.

Justin Douglas is the BC Green Party candidate for Cowichan Valley in the 2026 provincial election, as listed on Elections BC’s accepted nominations report. Public biographical detail beyond the nomination filing remains limited at the time of writing.