Meet The Surrey Mayor-Elect Doug Mccallum And His South Asian Team Members

Former city mayor Doug McCallum made a stunning comeback in Surrey Saturday night and created arguably the biggest stir of election night in B.C.

Defeating Surrey First’s Tom Gill and succeeding Linda Hepner, the longtime mayor was re-elected as the leader of the City of Surrey. McCallum had been mayor of Surrey for nine years until he was knocked off by Dianne Watts and her upstart Surrey First party in 2005.

During his winner’s speech, McCallum said Surrey voters “have sent a message to the rest of the province.”

A remarkable comeback for Doug McCallum. Watch his full victory speech #SurreyVotes #Elxn2018 pic.twitter.com/zxYwp6LtW8

— CBC British Columbia (@cbcnewsbc) October 21, 2018

The lone Surrey First-backed councillor elected is Linda Annis.

At the city council’s first meeting next month, the seven Safe Surrey Coalition councillors will be Brenda Locke (who placed first with 40,388 votes), Doug Elford (38,997 votes), Laurie Guerra (33,887), Jack Singh Hundial (33,705), Allison Patton (33,036), Steven Pettigrew (30,749) and Mandeep Nagra (30,048).

Newly-elected Surrey mayor Doug McCallum says he's confident he can replace the RCMP with a municipal police force and replace ground light rapid transit with SkyTrain, despite skepticism from critics

McCallum ran on a platform that included scrapping the at-grade Surrey-Newton-Guilford LRT plan to instead build a SkyTrain expansion from the King George station that would run to Langley.

The existing LRT agreement between the parties, including the province and TransLink’s Mayors’ Council, is based on Surrey’s transportation plan.

Vancouver’s mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart also has softened his support for a move Doug McCallum, saying he won’t do anything to jeopardize a planned subway for his own city.

Both the Broadway line, which is to run east-west in Vancouver, and two approved light-rapid transit lines in Surrey are part of a plan agreed to by municipal leaders in the region, many of whom did not seek re-election.

TransLink has stated about $50 million has already been spent on the light rail project.

“South of the Fraser rapid transit is a priority for TransLink and we are looking forward to working with the new mayor and new council in Surrey, as well as the Mayors’ Council to achieve this,” TransLink wrote in a statement.

The Mayor-elect says the city of Surrey can simply give two years’ notice to opt out of the current RCMP policing contract but believes both parties can agree in ending it earlier.