Is entirely blue Surrey the new political centre of B.C.?

Move over Vancouver. Surrey may become the provincial government’s new favourite child.

With the B.C. Conservatives sweeping every seat south of the Fraser River, including all 10 ridings in Surrey, this area of the Lower Mainland is expected to receive more attention from the incoming government.

Much of that new political focus will fall on fast-growing Surrey, which is projected to surpass Vancouver’s population by 2030 to become B.C.’s largest city.

Re-elected Conservative MLA Trevor Halford argued Surrey should be seen as B.C.’s future economic engine, but was often “forgotten” about by the NDP.

“I think that (Surrey) has got the potential to really drive our economy,” said Halford, representing Surrey-White Rock for a third term. “This is an area that I think the NDP had taken for granted for nine years. … People were frustrated at the level of services that they were seeing in Surrey.”

In Vancouver, Conservatives now have four seats — three snatched from the NDP, plus one it won in 2024 — while the other eight ridings were held by the NDP.

Like Halford, newly elected Conservative MLA Garry Thind doesn’t believe Surrey should get special attention at the expense of Vancouver. Rather, he said there should be “balanced” commitments to municipalities throughout the province.

“(Surrey) always got treated as a second-class city by the previous government, and we never got the resources that we were supposed to get,” said Thind, who flipped Surrey-Guildford from orange to blue.

“By having all 10 seats in the favour of the Conservatives, I think we are in a very strong position to get things done for Surrey.”

That includes fighting for infrastructure projects that Thind contends were “neglected” by the NDP.

Conservative political strategist Angelo Isidorou believes Surrey already is the “epicentre of Metro Vancouver” given its fast pace of growth.

But the city’s voters felt “slighted” by the previous NDP government, he said, for three main reasons: Only Vancouver had a children’s hospital, despite the rising number of families in Surrey; Vancouver has had more subway expansions; and the perception that more government funding goes to Vancouver, despite a large number of taxpayers living south of the Fraser.

“Surrey and its residents have felt for some time as though they get the short end of the stick,” Isidorou said.

Just 48 hours before Saturday’s election, NDP leader David Eby had spent the entire day in Surrey, promising “big projects” such as SkyTrain expansions and hospitals.

“Surrey will soon be B.C.’s biggest city, and it’s at the heart of my vision for our province’s future,” Eby said last Thursday.

SFU political scientist Sanjay Jeram noted the NDP and Conservative platforms had similar promises for Surrey, including for transportation, schools and health care.