Patricia Ross has 32 years of leadership experience as a councillor with the City of Abbotsford and is also Chair of Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD). In her capacity as Chair of FVRD, she also chairs the Regional and Corporate Services and Intergovernmental Relations committees and serves on the Flood resiliency and Fraser Valley Regional Hospital board. 

Patricia is an Ambassador with the Lead With Civility movement, which promotes respectful conduct toward political colleagues and the public they serve and is committed to doing her best to lead by example. 

This past term, Patricia has served as President of Lower Mainland Local Government Association and board member at Union of BC Municipalities. This has provided her with a good knowledge base of issues as well as excellent relationships with municipal, provincial and federal representatives. 

Patricia’s time serving as chair of the Abbotsford Agricultural Advisory committee has instilled in her a desire to advocate for agriculture and raise awareness of the food security crisis.

Patricia is a Fellow of Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) International, a research and training institute committed to fostering leadership in sustainability worldwide. She graduated from the program in 1998 and has gone on to help train subsequent students and speak at forums locally and internationally regarding sustainability, including being a regular guest lecturer at UFV. It is this LEAD training that provides her with the knowledge to use forward thinking with balanced decision making skills considering the economic, social and environmental impacts. 

Prior to being elected to council, Patricia ran her own successful business providing recycling collection services to businesses and multi-family complexes. For 12 years, she was chair of GroYourBiz Fraser Valley, a mentoring and advisory board for women in business. 

She is also a published author and has worked on several historical books about Abbotsford. Most recently, she was a guest essayist for the book “Lead With Civility; A Handbook for Uncivil Times” written by Diane Kalen-Sukra.

Patricia has been given many awards for her community work, including several from the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce, the Paul Harris award from Abbotsford Rotary club, Soroptimist club, Youth Commission, Queens Jubilee Award and named Abbotsford’s Woman of the Year in 2009 from the Business and Professional Women’s club. She has regularly been voted Abbotsford’s favourite politician since 2018.