LDS Breaks Ground on Vancouver Island's First Temple for 4,000 Members

Q: When will the public get their rare chance to step inside this sacred temple before it permanently closes to non-members?

There is no date yet for the public to go inside the Victoria British Columbia Temple. What has been announced is that, as with other Latter-day Saint temples, a public open house will be held after construction is finished and before the temple is dedicated. Church statements and local reporting say that this open house will allow people of all faiths and backgrounds to tour the building, but no schedule has been released because the temple’s completion date is still unknown. The project only broke ground on Aug. 22, 2026, in Langford. Church officials have said construction completion has not yet been announced, though one local report said the church is aiming for completion in roughly two to three years. If that timeline holds, the open house would likely come shortly before dedication, potentially in the late 2020s, but that remains unofficial. After the dedication, the temple will no longer be open to the general public and entry will be reserved for worthy members of the Church.

3 articles · Updated · Times Colonist · Aug 22

Hundreds gathered Saturday in Langford for the groundbreaking of Vancouver Island’s first LDS temple, launching one of the region’s biggest religious construction projects in decades.
The 11,400-square-foot, 250-seat temple on a 4.7-acre Mantle Heights site is intended to spare about 4,000 Island members regular ferry trips to the Mainland for temple worship.
Construction crews and geotechnical engineers are due on site Monday, with the iron-framed, granite-and-marble-clad project expected to take nearly three years; Langford approved it in 2024.
The temple will be British Columbia’s second after Langley’s 2010 opening, and church officials said a public open house will be held before dedication even though the completed temple is reserved for LDS members.
The project caps a long Island LDS presence dating to 1875 and comes as the church reports 17.9 million members worldwide, including 211,000 in Canada.