A somber election night for Starchuk and the Imagine Surrey slate

The evening began with high hopes and cautious optimism for Mike Starchuk and his Imagine Surrey slate. Supporters gathered at Maharaja’s Fine Dinning Hall in Newton early in the evening, smiling and excited. As Surrey’s civic election results began to come in, the mood turned sombre, reflecting the disappointment of Starchuk and his team. Starchuk finished third in the mayoral race, and council candidate Narima Dela Cruz placed 19th in council voting.

Before the votes came in, Starchuk asked all the Imagine Surrey candidates, who had gathered in a back room at Maharaja’s, to share something good that had happened to them that day. The mood was light and hopeful. He told the Cloverdale Reporter he felt better than he had during the previous two elections he lost. Surrey’s results took a while to come in; when the mayoral tallies appeared on TV, the evening’s buoyant mood gave way to despondent faces and questions about what went wrong.

“This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen,” Starchuk said. “But at the end of the night, with the lights turned on, and you start looking around and you’re thinking what the hell am I doing here—thank you Surrey.” At the podium, he praised his fellow candidates, campaign team and volunteers. His speech mixed humour with raw emotion as he addressed the loss. “It was an amazing campaign … we’ve fallen short of our goals and the victory didn’t come to the campaign,” he said. “It’s one of the toughest things. I’m standing here, because, there’s part of me, my soul’s been ripped out. But I’ve had this incredible journey. I’m sorry.”

Starchuk said his team did not lack passion or determination, and that he believed it had run a good campaign over the past 10 months. “I’d like to think we’ve established some ground for the next round that’s coming,” he said. He added that nobody on his team put personal interests ahead of the slate or its platform, and thanked them for that.

Starchuk said he had spent a career in the fire services and had served for a time as a city councillor and an MLA. He said people often have to take the high road to get where they want to be, before adding that he was about to say something that would take them far off it. Looking glum, he accused mayoral race winner Doug McCallum of not being around during the 2026 campaign and urged voters to hold the new mayor accountable. “You can’t hide from the public when you’re the mayor … you have to hold him accountable for the next four years,” he said.

Starchuk described how his Imagine Surrey slate came together, calling its members very strong, progressive people and saying he was proud of them. He said he knew the election landscape in Surrey was changing because his team heard a lot of dissatisfaction with the incumbent mayor while knocking on doors. But he did not expect that dissatisfaction to result in a McCallum victory. “What we didn’t see was the other part that was there. We discounted that,” he said.

Before finishing, Starchuk thanked his family. After acknowledging their support, he paused, briefly unable to speak, and looked around the room at Maharaja’s as he appeared to reflect on the result. He then sharply criticized both Locke’s and McCallum’s handling of the Cloverdale Fairgrounds issue, including the loss of the 5/8th oval and the barns. He also pointed to the loss of jobs for track workers. “When Cloverdale lost its racetrack, it was like somebody had taken a sword and drove it right through my chest,” he said. After multiple slates made election promises about the Fairgrounds, Starchuk said he hoped something beneficial to the community would happen there.

As he considered his political future after the loss, Starchuk said, “I think this pony is done.” He said he had been out fighting, scrimping and doing all those things for what he considered “the small people.”