Doug McCallum vows to rebuild horse track and barns at Surrey’s Cloverdale Fairgrounds

Doug McCallum is promising to rebuild the demolished horse barns and racing oval at Surrey’s Cloverdale Fairgrounds, with the goal of bringing harness racing back by fall 2027. The Safe Surrey Coalition mayoral candidate said he would pursue reconstruction and establish a new long-term horseracing lease if elected and his side wins a majority on Surrey City Council. The civic election is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, one week before the provincial election on Saturday, Oct. 24.

“My promise to Cloverdale is simple. The barns go back up, the horses come home, and nobody at City Hall ever bulldozes over this community again without asking it first,” McCallum said. His proposal would reverse the closure of Fraser Downs, which ended nearly five decades of harness racing at the fairgrounds. The announcement did not include a potential cost for rebuilding the facilities.

Operator Great Canadian Entertainment announced the racetrack’s immediate closure in August 2025, after the City of Surrey terminated the lease for the track, horse stables and associated facilities. Great Canadian’s Elements Casino, directly below the racetrack grandstands, was excluded from the lease termination, allowing casino operations to continue. The racecourse’s barns were demolished at the end of 2025. In March 2026, Great Canadian announced an agreement to sell its casino business and fairgrounds lease to SE-MI-AH-MU Development Corporation, a wholly owned company of the Semiahmoo First Nation. In December 2025, Great Canadian had also permanently ended the longstanding horseracing tradition at Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver’s Hastings Park.

McCallum served as Surrey’s mayor from 1996 to 2005 and again from 2018 to 2022, and was a CEO of Harness Racing BC. He accused Brenda Locke and her Surrey Connect party of dismantling an important part of Cloverdale’s identity without consulting the horseracing community. Citing Harness Racing BC, his campaign said the closure affected more than 200 members and between 75 and 100 people who worked at the racetrack each season. The campaign also said more than 6,000 people signed a petition opposing the closure.

Beyond rebuilding the horseracing facilities, McCallum is proposing a bylaw requiring a public vote before any portion of the fairgrounds could be sold or redeveloped. He said the site should continue to serve the Cloverdale Rodeo, Country Fair, Agriplex and horse racing, and pledged to preserve both the fairgrounds and Old Cloverdale’s heritage. He also promised to cancel what he called Locke’s “vanity pet project” for the site. His announcement did not describe Locke’s project. In May 2026, she announced a vision for a new convention centre at the fairgrounds with up to 200,000 sq. ft. of meeting and exhibition space. Previous announcements by Locke also described potential mixed-use development with residential, commercial and entertainment uses, creating a new core for the emerging Cloverdale Town Centre.

Harness racing activities previously based at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds have since found a new home at Desert Park Raceway in Osoyoos in the B.C. Interior.