Doug McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition wins a supermajority on Surrey council

Doug McCallum is returning to Surrey City Hall after defeating incumbent mayor Brenda Locke of Surrey Connect in the 2026 civic election. Preliminary results show McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition winning seven of the eight councillor seats. Including McCallum’s mayoral seat, the party will hold eight of the nine seats on Surrey City Council. The only councillor elected outside the coalition is Surrey Connect’s Harry Bains, who received 31,362 votes, the most of any council candidate.

The result reverses the 2022 council makeup, when Safe Surrey Coalition won just two councillor seats, while Locke and four Surrey Connect councillors held a majority. Surrey First had the other two seats. This time, Surrey Connect is reduced to one seat, and Surrey First, a dominant force in Surrey municipal politics from 2008 to 2018, has been shut out of council for the next four years.

The eight successful council candidates, ranked by preliminary vote totals, are Harry Bains (Surrey Connect), 31,362; Doug Elford (Safe Surrey Coalition), 30,833; Meera Gill (Safe Surrey Coalition), 29,883; Mandeep Singh Nagra (Safe Surrey Coalition), 29,692; Suhana Gill (Safe Surrey Coalition), 27,820; Allison Patton (Safe Surrey Coalition), 27,132; Laurie Guerra (Safe Surrey Coalition), 26,554; and Cheney Cloke (Safe Surrey Coalition), 26,324. The race for the final council seat was particularly close: Cloke placed eighth, just 232 votes ahead of Surrey First incumbent Mike Bose, who received 26,092. Three other Surrey Connect incumbents finished further down the standings: Gordon Hepner with 23,821 votes, Pardeep Kooner with 22,915 and Rob Stutt with 21,822.

McCallum, 82, previously served as Surrey’s mayor from 1996 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2022, when Locke defeated him by just 973 votes. The latest election returns him to office for a fifth term as mayor of Metro Vancouver’s second-most populous city. He received 42,741 votes to Locke’s 30,886. The results give his party a substantial cushion for passing council decisions. After the 2018 civic election, McCallum had the backing of four Safe Surrey Coalition councillors.

McCallum and Safe Surrey Coalition campaigned on no property tax increases for four years; extending SkyTrain’s Expo Line along King George Boulevard from Surrey City Centre to Newton; and expanding Surrey Police Service staffing and resources to combat crime and extortion. They also promised a dedicated police helicopter and drone fleet within 90 days, new aquatic centres in Clayton Heights and Surrey City Centre, a community centre with a pool in Newton, and a full restoration of the horse-racing facilities at Cloverdale Fairgrounds. Locke’s administration closed and demolished those facilities.

Other commitments included approving residential building permits within 60 days or waiving the permit fees; waiving business licence fees for new businesses during their first two years; advocating for the provincial government to build a new hospital on City-owned land in Newton; and creating a Surrey Centre development zone with City fees eliminated and faster approvals. The party also pledged heritage protection for Crescent Beach and Ocean Park, an independent audit of the City’s recent land transactions, and withdrawal of Surrey’s municipal government from Metro Vancouver Regional District while retaining shared water, sewer and waste services.

The neighbouring Township of Langley and City of Langley also saw a major political shift, with both incumbent mayors replaced. In the separate Surrey School Board trustee race, Surrey First Education won five of the six trustee seats. The board has seven seats in total, with the remaining seat elected separately by White Rock residents, so the five wins give the party a supermajority on the full board. All vote totals are preliminary and subject to confirmation in the official election results.