8 seats, 1 mayor, 48 candidates: A voter's guide to Surrey's crowded civic ballot
A number of parties are seeking to break Surrey First's dominance on city council
A number of parties are seeking to break Surrey First's dominance on city council
Only one of every six candidates for Surrey city council will be elected on Oct. 20.
Surrey First, which has led the municipality since 2008 (and has been been elected to every seat in the last two elections), was the last party to unveil its full slate of candidates — but a number of independent candidates came forward in the final week before the deadline, for a total of 48 candidates in all.
That's up from 35 in 2014 and 27 in 2011.
Here's a brief look at who has declared. The list will be updated if anyone removes their name from the ballot before the Sept. 21 deadline.
- Surrey First (eight council candidates and one mayoral candidate): Incumbent councillors Vera LeFranc and Mike Starchuk, with newcomers Linda Annis, Narima Dela Cruz, Trevor Halford, Paul Hillsdon, Upkar Tatlay and Raminder Thomas. Current councillor Tom Gill is the candidate for mayor.
- Surrey Integrity Now (five council candidates and one mayoral candidate): Incumbent councillors Dave Woods and Barbara Steele (who switched to Integrity Now this election), along with Avi Dhaliwal, John Gibeau and Rina Gill. Current councillor Bruce Hayne is the candidate for mayor.
- Safe Surrey Coalition (eight council candidates and one mayoral candidate): Doug Elford, Laurie Guerra, Jack Hundial, Mandeep Nagra, Brenda Locke, Allison Patton, Steven Pettigrew and Bableen Rana. Former mayor Doug McCallum is the candidate for mayor.
- Independent Surrey Voters Association (five council candidates): Saira Aujla, Bernie Sheppard, Nasima Nastoh, Asad Syed and Derek Zabel.
- Proudly Surrey (four council candidates and one mayoral candidate): Adam MacGillivray, Parshotam Goel, Felix Kongyuy and Stuart Parker. Pauline Greaves is their candidate for mayor.
- People First Surrey (four council candidates and one mayoral candidate): Maria Foster, Murali Krishnan, Yanni Yu, Paul Rusan and Thampy Rajan. Rajesh Jayaprakash is their candidate for mayor.
- Other: former Vancouver Park Board commissioner Roslyn Cassells is running for council under the "GreenVote" banner, and Deanna Welters is running under the "Progessive Sustainable" banner. Running as indpendents are Neera Agnihotri, Kashmir Besla, Tanvir Bhupal, Brian Calderwood, Neneng Galento, Afshan Kamran, Nicholas Loberg, Kuldip Pelia, Major Singh Rasode, Forrest Smith, Deanna Welters and Becky Zhou.
The city will have advanced voting on Oct. 6, 10, 11 and 13 in six different locations, which can be found here.