Lake Cowichan councillor juggles election campaign with Canadian rugby call-up
Published 10:06 am Thursday, September 24, 2026
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Lake Cowichan town councillor Aaron Frisby hopes to retain his seat in October’s election while adding to his rugby resume. With his political campaign just underway, Frisby was called to join the Canadian men’s rugby team as a skills coach for a series of test matches in Japan.
The Pacific Nations Cup runs Sept. 5 to 19. Canada played USA on Sept. 19 for third place.
“I was given three days’ notice to join the team in Japan,” he said.
Originally from New Zealand, Frisby joined Velox Valhallians RFC after moving to Victoria in 2004. Since then, his coaching career has spanned more than 20 years, beginning with youth rugby and progressing to men’s and women’s premier level teams.
“Rugby is what originally brought me to Canada 23 years ago, and I moved into coaching when my playing career wrapped up,” Frisby said from Japan. “To be involved in the Canadian Men’s team was always the ultimate goal.”
He coached the Velox Premier Women’s Valkyries to a B.C. provincial championship and subsequently took on player-coach and head-coaching roles with the men’s program. His provincial coaching experience expanded into B.C.’s Next Gen 7s and women’s 15s programs, as well as the Crimson Tide representative program.
Frisby later became head coach of Westshore RFC’s men’s Premier team, while continuing to advance both his political and business affairs in Lake Cowichan.
Following the Pacific Nations Cup, Frisby has been selected to both play with and coach the Canadian men’s touch rugby team at the Asia Pacific Seniors Cup from Oct. 8 to 10, also in Japan.
“I will be staying over here between tournaments, so I will have to juggle the elections online, but I am hoping my efforts over the last four years will go a long way toward gaining the community’s support for another run,” he said. “The last term on council was a challenging one, with most of our time being consumed by staffing replacements and general drama around that, so now that we are seeing a more solid situation around our core staff, I’m actually excited to get to work on the things that matter.”