Surrey Election Results: Brenda Locke’s priority is to rollback police transition as she unseats Doug McCallum as mayor
Surrey #Surrey
Surrey will move forward with a new mayor whose top priority is to rollback the police transition and return to the RCMP.
Brenda Locke held off an eleventh-hour challenge from incumbent Doug McCallum to become mayor-elect in B.C.’s second-largest city with 28 per cent of the vote, just 973 more votes than her opponent. McCallum placed second with 27.3 per cent of the votes and Gordie Hogg third with 21 per cent.
At one point Saturday night, long after victory and concession speeches had been delivered, Locke was ahead by less than 600 votes.
She will take four of her Surrey Connect councillors with her to city hall in Harry Bains, Gordon Hepner, Rob Stutt and Pardeep Kooner. Also elected to council was Surrey First incumbent Linda Annis, who took the most council votes, and newcomer Mike Bose, as well as Safe Surrey Coalition incumbents Doug Elford and Mandeep Nagra.
In her victory speech, Locke said Surrey had voted for change.
“You said you wanted a very big change and boy did you ever get it. … A big change for public safety, for ethics, for development and for transportation in our city. A big change.”
“Surrey rocks,” Locke told the crowd.
“But still, we have work to do and we have our work cut out for us … first of all we have to keep the Surrey RCMP right here in Surrey,” she said to cheers and whistles.
Locke, who was first elected as a councillor with McCallum before breaking from his Safe Surrey Coalition, has vowed to retain the RCMP and reverse the transition to a municipal police force. Over her four years on council, she became one of McCallum’s harshest critics.
In his concession speech McCallum congratulated Locke and thanked voters.
“They made that decision tonight and I respect it because I respect the residents of our great city,” he said.
“As I stand here tonight, I do have a bit of a smile on my face because I’ve worked hard for the city for many years.
“Maybe it’s time for me to finally put my feet up a little bit and enjoy life.”
Asked what he thought about Locke’s promise to reverse the police transition, McCallum said that decision was not up to his opponent, but would lie with the provincial government.
“I’m not sure she can,” he said.
McCallum said he didn’t know how much the policing issue had impacted the vote.
“There is a very vocal segment of the population that is against the changeover …”
“I don’t know whether it had a big effect or not.”
With a field of strong candidates for mayor, Surrey voters hoping for change had many options, including Locke and Hogg, as well as Jinny Sims, who was fourth with 12.5 per cent of the vote, and Sukh Dhaliwal, who was fifth with 8.1 per cent.
That led experts to shy away from predicting a front-runner, although polling showed Locke with a slight lead in the week before the election.
The policing issue, as well as concerns about housing affordability, property tax rates, and government transparency, featured prominently in the election campaign.
McCallum, who was also Surrey’s mayor from 1996 to 2005, returned to office in 2018 with a landslide 17,000 votes over Surrey First candidate Tom Gill. Seven of his Safe Surrey Coalition also won seats.
The party offered bold proposals — doing away with RCMP for a municipal police force and cancelling the green-lit LRT in favour of SkyTrain. McCallum stuck to his promises during his four-year term, but not without significant controversy.
Three of his Safe Surrey councillors left the party over issues related to transparency and the police transition, including Locke.
McCallum also faces a charge of public mischief after accusing a woman of running over his foot with a car in a grocery store parking lot. His trial is expected to begin later this month.
During the campaign, the now-outgoing mayor promised to build a 60,000-seat stadium and complete the police transition. But a second term was not in the cards.
On election night, Locke said speaking to the province about reversing the transition will be among her first order of business.
In an earlier interview, she downplayed the difficulty in returning to the RCMP.
“To call it a reversal is really a misnomer,” she said. “The transition hasn’t gotten off the ground. The Surrey Police Service has had a failure to launch.”
Locke said her biggest concern is for the SPS officers who have already been hired. But she said any capital expenditures, such as cars and computers, could be integrated into the RCMP. She was also confident the province would allow the change.
“I have long known that this (transition) would sink or swim based on this election and what Surrey has to say,” she said.
While there will be change at city hall, Surrey First retained its place on the school board that runs B.C.’s largest school district.
All six incumbent school trustees, members of the Surrey First Education slate, were re-elected.
Follow our election live blog here and more coverage of these municipalities:
• Vancouver
• Surrey
• Burnaby
• Richmond
• New Westminster
• North Vancouver and West Vancouver
• Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody
• Langley
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