Surrey school trustee wins re-election; MLA victory could trigger by-election

School trustee candidate Gary Thind urged voters not to vote for him in Surrey’s Oct. 17 civic election. He was listed on the ballot as an incumbent with Surrey First Education, but the latest count put him second in the vote totals. The headline says he was re-elected; the story provides the latest ranking but no final result.

Thind is also the Conservative Party candidate in Surrey-Guildford in the current B.C. election. If he wins both elections, a by-election could be triggered for his school trustee seat. Earlier this week, Thind said he had entered the school board race intending to serve another full four-year term. He said David Eby and the NDP called a provincial election two years early, leaving his name on the trustee ballot because the Sept. 18 withdrawal deadline had passed. He called the move “cynical” and “opportunistic” and said he was not seeking re-election.

On civic election day, Oct. 17, the Surrey First Education website still listed Thind as “seeking re-election as a Trustee with the Surrey School Board.”

The Surrey-Guildford riding is currently represented by BC NDP’s Garry Begg. Begg won the seat in 2024 by a razor-thin margin over Conservative challenger Honveer Singh Randhawa, who is now running for Surrey mayor.

B.C.’s Eligibility to Hold Public Office Act says a member of the Legislative Assembly is disqualified from holding local elected office. It also says that if someone holding local elected office becomes an MLA, the person is conclusively deemed to have resigned that office on the date the writ of election was issued for the electoral district in which they were elected, despite the legislation governing the local office.