Surrey Election Results: Brenda Locke unseated by former mayor Doug McCallum

Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum, who campaigned on a promise to freeze property taxes over four years, unseated incumbent Brenda Locke Saturday night.

With all 164 polls reporting, McCallum nabbed 31.9 per cent of the vote, followed by Locke with 23 per cent.

“Surrey voters have definitely spoken and this was not the result we counted on,” Locke said to a solemn crowd, conceding defeat to McCallum just before 10 p.m.

Locke went on to congratulate McCallum. When asked by reporters if she will run again in the future, Locke said, “Never say never.”

McCallum entered a raucous banquet hall just after 10 p.m.

“We will address affordability, we will address your safety, and we will address your infrastructure,” he said.

“I love Surrey. That’s why I ran. … But I even love the people of Surrey more. Together we’re going to build a great city that our families will live in, have jobs, go to sports, enjoy each other, work together to make one of the best global cities in the world.”

McCallum drew big applause when he said he planned to appoint Mandeep Nagra as his deputy mayor. The energy in the room remained high even as many began to trail out.

Other candidates were not able to close the gap, with Mike Starchuk finishing with 12.9 per cent and Linda Annis at 12.39 per cent. Annis did prove to be a popular councillor, having served two terms since 2018. In the 2022 election, Annis gained more votes than any other candidate running for mayor or council.

McCallum was also able to get back in control this election, with nearly his entire slate achieving victory. The lone council candidate not on Safe Surrey that will be on McCallum’s council is incumbent Harry Bains from Locke’s team. Bains received the highest amount of votes of any other candidate.

The remaining balance will be filled with incumbents Doug Elford and Mandeep Nagra, former councillors Allison Patton and Laurie Guerra and newcomers Meera Gill, Suhana Gill and Cheney Cloke.

McCallum was expected to take journalists’ questions after his victory speech, but left almost immediately.

Elford, meanwhile, said he and the party didn’t know what to expect going into election night.

“It was a little surprising that we got such a landslide in,” Elford told Postmedia.

“Obviously, they wanted a change, and we saw the numbers up going up. The percentages are up a lot more than they historically have been, so that means people are motivated to come out, which means that I believe that they wanted change, and they spoke with their votes. I thought we had a chance but the polls were all over the place.”

Recent polling, including a Leger poll conducted for Postmedia News conducted between Sept. 23 and 30 suggested a desire for change at city hall. But at the same time, its results suggested Locke would comfortably receive a second term.

During Surrey’s advance voting, a total of 52,600 votes were cast, about 15 per cent of Surrey’s total registered voters. This represented a 47 per cent increase from the 2022 election, when 35,701 advance votes were cast.