{"id":819218,"date":"2026-07-22T19:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819218\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T19:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:18:10","slug":"surrey-mayoral-candidate-says-city-will-leave-metro-vancouver-daily-hive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819218\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey mayoral candidate says city will leave Metro Vancouver | Daily Hive"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are now less than three months away from this fall\u2019s municipal election, and a Surrey mayoral candidate is making some bold promises.<\/p>\n

Today, mayoral candidate Doug McCallum, who was previously Surrey\u2019s mayor<\/a>\u00a0before he was defeated by Brenda Locke in 2022, is taking\u00a0another mayoral run this year<\/a> with the Safe Surrey Coalition. Today, he announced a number of new campaign promises.<\/p>\n

His promises include a plan to make food in Surrey more affordable, conduct a forensic audit of City Hall\u2019s land deals, and speed up permitting and cut fees for small businesses.<\/p>\n

He also said that he will pull Surrey out of the Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD).<\/p>\n

\u201cNo studies. No task force. We are getting out,\u201d said McCallum, in a release. \u201cMetro Vancouver is a huge, sprawling bureaucracy that taxes Surrey families and answers to nobody. It is out of control, it is ineffective, and Surrey gets nothing from it but the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he noted that Surrey would stay connected for the core utility services of water, sewer, and waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything else ends. Surrey is big enough to run its own affairs. We will keep our money in Surrey, spend it on Surrey, and answer to the people of Surrey. Nobody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians, media, and the general public have all scrunitzed Metro Vancouver<\/a> in recent years, especially for its handling of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, whose costs ballooned from an initial $700 million to a whopping $3.9 billion.<\/p>\n

It has also been a trend in Surrey politics to go rogue from the 22 other member authorities in the MVRD. In 2025, the current Surrey city council announced that it would remove its municipal jurisdiction from the MVRD\u2019s masterplan about how the region will grow over the next three decades<\/a>. In April of this year, the City of Surrey also filed a petition in the Supreme Court of British Columbia<\/a>, looking to invalidate \u201cInvest Vancouver.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just a few weeks ago, Surrey refused to comply with Metro Vancouver\u2019s stage 3 water restrictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCallum\u2019s other promises<\/p>\n

McCallum said he would improve Surrey\u2019s food affordability plan by protecting local farmland from development, \u201cso the land that feeds Surrey keeps feeding Surrey,\u201d fast-tracking rezoning applications for greenhouses and agri-manufacturing, letting farmers sell directly to residents.<\/p>\n

\"Surrey\"<\/p>\n

Doug McCallum\/ City of Surrey<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery dollar between the farmer and your fridge goes to a middleman. Cut the middleman, and food becomes more affordable. It is that simple,\u201d claimed McCallum. \u201cThis is what a global city does. It grows its own food and sells it to its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release also states that one of his first acts as Mayor would be to \u201cbring in an independent forensic auditor to examine the City\u2019s recent land transactions, and to root out waste, abuse, and fraud across City Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further, McCallum claims that residential building permits would be approved within 60 days and that they will waive business licence fees for the first two years of every new business.<\/p>\n

Confirms full slate of Safe Surrey Coalition candidates<\/p>\n

McCallum introduced the full slate of council candidates for the Safe Surrey Coalition for the upcoming election, which includes former councillors Laurie Guerra and Allison Patton, public administration worker Suhana Gill, community leader Meera Gill, and former Surrey Now-Leader editor Beau Simpson. This is alongside Mandeep Nagra and Doug Elford, whose candidacies were announced in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Safe Surrey Coalition is exactly what its name says. Independents, coming together around one core platform, to achieve results for Surrey,\u201d said McCallum. \u201cExperienced councillors, community builders, a small business owner, a journalist who spent 15 years holding City Hall accountable, and the next generation of Surrey leadership. Every community in this city will see itself in this coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Surrey mayoral candidates include the current mayor Brenda Locke, Troy Van Vliet, and current Surrey City Councillor Linda Annis.<\/p>\n

The municipal election will be held on Oct. 17.<\/p>\n

With files from Kenneth Chan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are now less than three months away from this fall\u2019s municipal election, and a Surrey mayoral candidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-819218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}