Metro\u2019s budget meeting Friday should be cancelled out of \u2018respect\u2019 for voters, McCallum says<\/p>\n
Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, October 28, 2026<\/p>\n
The outgoing Metro Vancouver Board will decide Friday if it will vote on the 2027 budget and five-year financial plan or defer it to a future board meeting.<\/p>\n
Surrey mayor-elect Doug McCallum called for the latter, saying the meeting should be cancelled altogether as voters on October 17 replaced 13 mayors in 21 municipalities and incoming politicians should deal with the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThirteen days after voters replaced 13 mayors, the old board plans to sit down and pass next year\u2019s budget. That is not how you treat voters,\u201d McCallum argued. \u201cI am calling on the board chair and the directors to cancel Friday\u2019s meeting. If something truly cannot wait four weeks, deal with that one item and leave everything else for the board the voters chose. Nothing in 1,190 pages is more urgent than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s is the outgoing board\u2019s final meeting before new councils are sworn in next week. McCallum noted the board\u2019s next regular meeting after Fridays is set for November 27, by which time the new councils are running and will have chosen directors, and that by law the board has until March 31 to adopt its financial plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is about respect for the voters,\u201d McCallum said. \u201cSurrey holds 29 votes on that board, and not one of them should be cast on next year\u2019s budget by anyone other than the directors chosen by the council Surrey elected on October 17.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jillian Glover, Metro\u2019s program manager, media relations and issues management, told the Now-Leader the board will consider other items also during Friday\u2019s meeting. \u201cAt that time, the board could make a decision on whether they will receive items for information or refer it to a future board meeting,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Local Government Act recognizes the continuity of the board and that the board of a regional district can finish what it started.\u201d<\/p>\n
The budget set to be considered Friday stems from a process that began in April involving public consultation and proposes a $17 \u2013 1.9 per cent \u2013 tax increase over last year that is lower than the three per cent target that was proposed.<\/p>\n
Glover noted the budget is typically considered and approved in October to give cities time to develop their own financial plans for next year. \u201cThe timing is consistent with Metro Vancouver\u2019s established budget process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Meantime, during the election campaign McCallum said his Safe Surrey Coalition, if elected with a majority \u2013 which it was \u2013 will \u201cwithdraw from the Metro Vancouver Regional District, remaining connected only for core utility services: water, sewer and waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new Surrey council\u2019s inaugural meeting is Monday, November 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Metro\u2019s budget meeting Friday should be cancelled out of \u2018respect\u2019 for voters, McCallum says Published 12:00 pm Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-949857","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\/949857","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=949857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}