BURST
The 2026 Surrey election is shaping up to be somewhat of a re-do of the one four years ago, with the same three parties going head-to-head-to-head again.
Brenda Locke of Surrey Connect, Doug McCallum of Safe Surrey, and Linda Annis of Surrey First are competing against each other for the mayor’s seat in the second most populous B.C. city.
The policing transition was the main issue in Surrey’s 2022 campaign. This year, two of the three mayoral candidates say public safety is their top priority, while all three describe specific plans to address the issue.
Locke, the incumbent wants voters to choose her again “to continue the progress that the Surrey Connect team has made over the past four years,” her slate website reads.
“I think we’ve proven ourselves, and there are so many great opportunities for Surrey that we want to continue to move forward on,” Locke told Postmedia News.
When asked about her top priorities, Locke named public safety.
“I think maybe that’s what differentiates me. Public safety is not just about police. It’s about police, it’s about our fire service and it’s also about bylaws, and we have made a very concrete commitment to 560 additional personnel inside of the public safety envelope,” Locke said.
“We’ve already started the public safety campus that we’re building in Port Kells that will contribute to all of our public safety personnel, and it will be for drones, for dogs, for ballistics and for other things that we need to use for policing, for police training, for fire training and for bylaws.”
Annis is also running on public safety as her top issue. The two-term councillor said her No. 1 priority is also the top concern of all the residents with whom she’s spoken.
“I’ve knocked, with my Surrey First team, on about 45,000 doors since June and the No. 1 issue that we’re hearing is public safety,” Annis said. “I also do come with a public safety background. I have been the executive director for Crime Stoppers for the Lower Mainland policing region for almost 15 years. So, to me, one of the major issues, certainly in Surrey, is around public safety, and I think I’m very well-suited to understand that file.”
Annis said she will hire 300 police officers, provide police with real-time access to the city’s traffic cameras, install an additional 600 police cameras, and increase the police budget to combat extortion and gang violence.
Citing Surrey’s extortion crisis, which has led to an uptick in shootings in the last couple of years, and gang-related violence, every candidate has a policing plan on their platform as the city hopes to conclude its transition to a municipal force within the next year.
When asked his top three priorities if elected, McCallum didn’t mention public safety. Instead, the former mayor has his sights set on freezing taxes for the next four years, building SkyTrain down King George Boulevard to Newton, and building community centres and pools in every neighbourhood.
McCallum wasn’t available for an interview with Postmedia but answered questions by email.
When asked about his plans for public safety, he said in the email that he “will give our police the resources and the tools. More boots on the ground. A helicopter and drone fleet in the air within 90 days. And zero tolerance for crime in this city, from petty crime to gang crime.
“I built the Surrey Police Service from nothing. And for the past four years, our officers haven’t had the tools to do their job because Brenda Locke cut the SPS budget and played petty politics with public safety.”
Locke’s council approved $47 million less than the amount requested for the police budget earlier this year. While McCallum and others have called this a “cut,” the budget was a $45-million increase over the previous year’s.
Locke said she and her council have given the Surrey police everything.
“I think it’s very evident that we provided the Surrey Police Service with all the resources and then some, including the $250,000 for extortion ,” she said.