New B.C. election candidates announced for Surrey-White Rock
Published 9:30 am Friday, October 2, 2026
Four candidates have announced their intention to run in the riding of Surrey-White Rock in the upcoming provincial election.
Along with incumbent Conservative MLA Trevor Halford, the BC NDP has announced former White Rock mayor Darryl Walker as its candidate for the Oct. 24 election, while Christine Kinnie has filed as the candidate for the BC Green Party with Elections BC, with former Surrey journalist Kevin Diakiw announcing his intention to run as an independent.
Halford defeated Walker in the 2024 civic election, winning with 52.3 per cent of the vote, 1,969 votes ahead of Walker, who drew 45.3 per cent of the riding’s votes.
Halford said he hopes to continue the work he’s accomplished over the past several years.
“I want to continue that on. But we also need to stand up against the NDP government that has trampled on the rights of not only this province, but this community,” he said. “The fact that we are having a general election in the middle of a civic election shows me that this NDP government, this premier, has no respect for the people that have put their names forward to run for municipal office.”
Walker, in a release issued by the BC NDP Thursday, shared some of his reasons for running with the NDP.
“As mayor of White Rock, I saw how government decisions affect people’s daily lives. As a union leader, I spent years standing up for working people,” Walker said. “I’m running with the BC NDP to help build affordable homes, strengthen public healthcare and protect the services families count on.”
Diakiw, an award-winning journalist who turned to addiction and recovery work after leaving journalism in 2017, is now a local business owner who was named a “Hero of the Homeless” by the Surrey Homelessness and Housing Society in 2017 for his reporting that helped residents understand homelessness and the people affected by it.
“For more than 20 years, my job was to ask how government decisions affected people in Surrey,” Diakiw said in a release. “In recovery work, I’ve seen those same systems from the ground: mental health, addiction, treatment and recovery.”
Addiction and recovery reform will be a central focus of his campaign, he shared, as well as emergency-room wait times and family-doctor access, public safety, housing and affordability.
“I’ve spent much of my life listening to people in Surrey and White Rock,” Diakiw said. “I’m running as an Independent because I answer to the people of Surrey–White Rock, not a party.”
Kinnie, a South Surrey local who works in the Surrey School District, has deep roots in the community, where her great-grandparents lived on a small farm in Ocean Park, and her grandparents lived in White Rock.
“I’m running for the BC Greens because the people of Surrey-White Rock deserve representation that reflects their values, not the interests of corporations or the ultra-wealthy,” Kinnie shared. “The BC Greens believe in independent representation. We don’t have a party whip, which means our MLAs are free to exercise their own judgment and vote according to their values and the needs of their constituents. We represent the people we serve, not a party line.”
She noted the BC Greens have consistently defended DRIPA as written, opposing efforts to weaken or repeal it.
As of Friday morning (Oct. 2), no candidate was listed in Surrey-White Rock for the CentreBC Party.