Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum running again
Published 2:00 pm Monday, April 13, 2026
Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum has announced his mayoral candidacy, once again leading the Safe Surrey Coalition slate he built into a civic election. The veteran politician was flanked by his running mates and current councillors Doug Elford and Mandeep Nagra during the reveal on Monday in Crescent Beach.
“Here’s the truth that brought me back,” he said. “Surrey is not finished. Newton is still waiting for its SkyTrain, families in this city are still being squeezed by rising costs; small businesses, the lifeblood of our neighbourhoods, are still drowning in red tape and Surrey is about to become the largest city in British Columbia.”
“Surrey does not need a caretaker,” he said, “it needs a leader with a proven track record who delivers results.”
McCallum said the SSC will field a full state of candidates. “We intend to announce it in the next few weeks or it might be a month away before we do announce them. We have been meeting with them; they have been a super team.
“The enthusiasm in this team I’ve never seen before.”
Hailing from a four-generation Crescent Beach family, McCallum served as Surrey’s mayor from 1996 to 2005, under the now-defunct Surrey Electors Team slate. In 2014, and again in 2018, he led the Safe Surrey Coalition. Mayor Linda Hepner, Watts’ Surrey First slate successor, clipped McCallum’s wings at the polls in 2014, defeating him with 50,782 votes to his 27,982.
Having lost the mayor’s seat to Dianne Watts in 2005, and his attempt to reclaim the big chair in 2014, Surrey voters installed McCallum on Surrey’s civic throne for a fourth term in 2018, albeit after a 13-year hiatus from city politics.
Current mayor Brenda Locke, of Surrey Connect, defeated McCallum for the city’s top job in 2022. The next civic election is October 17, when Locke and McCallum will square off with each other as well as Surrey First’s Linda Annis and Mike Starchuk of Imagine Surrey.
Among campaign promises, McCallum said if he’s elected with a majority on council there will be a “zero-per cent” property tax for four years, SkyTrain will be extended to Newton, more “boots on the ground” police will be hired, and Surrey will get its own police helicopter within 90 days of him taking office.
“Surrey deserves a police service with the tools to win and we are going to give those tools to them.”
Clayton Heights will get a new swimming pool, he added, Ocean Park and Crescent Beach will be designated as “irreplaceable” heritage zones.
“Not everything should be torn down,” he said. “Some things are worth fighting to keep.”
He said his promise for no property tax increases for four years is spurred by families being “stretched,” renters are being “squeezed” and small business owners are “fighting to keep the lights on.”
“And the last thing hard-working Surrey families need is their city government taking more money out of their pockets,” he said. “The economy is uncertain and the cost of living is punishing and the government should feel that too so we are going to freeze that tax rate, keep every dollar where it belongs – in your hands, in your family hands, in your business, and make more money in your pocket.”
Asked how he plans to achieve this while funding his other promises, McCallum said his team will “certainly look at where we can make savings in the city. There is a lot of areas where we can make a lot of savings.
“I’ll give you an example, when I was mayor four years ago we had six general managers, today we have 12, 15, I think it’s too many,” he said. “We have to cut back on some of that.”
That said, he added that union members “are the backbone that makes this city work.
“So we’re going to fully support them. But we are going to look at ways that the city maybe doesn’t have to operate maybe as much as we have in the future,” McCallum said. “We’re going to look at different ways that we can save money. But let me say this to you – when I say we’re going to do it, we are going to do it. I did it when I was mayor three or four terms ago, where we did freeze taxes for a number of years.”