Doug McCallum says a Safe Surrey Coalition-led council would restore wards

Surrey mayoral candidate Doug McCallum says he and his Safe Surrey Coalition team would establish a ward electoral system in the city if elected to council on Oct. 17. Wards divide a city into neighbourhoods, each represented by a councillor, much as an MLA or MP represents a riding. Mayors are typically still elected citywide under a ward system.

The system was used in the area from before 1879 until 1957, when the provincial government ended it in favour of the current at-large system. Voters now elect the mayor, councillors and school trustees citywide. McCallum says a city of 730,000 people deserves a council elected by its neighbourhoods.

His plan calls for an independent commission to draw eight neighbourhood wards of similar population size, with each community electing its own councillor. He said this would give every community a place at the table, require councillors to earn support on residents’ doorsteps, and make clear to each resident whom to contact and who is responsible for responding. He also said every big city in the country works this way and Surrey did for 76 years before Victoria ended the system.

McCallum pointed to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg as cities that use wards. Surrey’s six town centres are each the size of “a city on its own,” he said, with different needs and priorities. Under wards, each would have a councillor focused on that community, who lives there, knows the intersections residents complain about and answers for their record at the next election. Residents would have one name and phone number to contact instead of eight councillors responsible to everyone generally and no neighbourhood in particular. Development decisions would include someone elected by the people affected, he said.