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Former Surrey, B.C., mayor Doug McCallum announced his bid for re-election Monday.
“Surrey, I never stopped working for you,” McCallum said in a news release.
McCallum will lead the Safe Surrey Coalition party in the 2026 municipal election.
“We delivered SkyTrain to Clayton Heights, brought UBC to our city, built Bear Creek Stadium, built the 84th Avenue Road Connector that linked communities, and widened roads across the city, and we did it all while keeping property taxes at historic lows,” he said in the release.
Speaking at his campaign launch, McCallum said he wants to turn Surrey into a “global city,” equal to cities like London or Rio de Janeiro.
“We have, right here in Surrey, all the ingredients some of those global cities don’t even have.”
He added, “It’s got a multicultural outlook. It’s got a huge business centre, Campbell Heights…. And we have a huge, huge agricultural base.”
McCallum served as mayor for three terms between 1996 and 2002 and again from 2018 to 2022, before losing to Brenda Locke, a former B.C. Liberal MLA, by 973 votes.
One of the biggest issues of his previous term was replacing the RCMP with a municipal police force.
On Monday, he promised a “zero tolerance policy on criminal and extortion activity” with expanded policing resources, to purchase a dedicated helicopter for the Surrey Police Service, and to extend the SkyTrain southwards to Newton.
He’s also campaigning on building a new swimming pool in Clayton Heights and introducing a zero per cent property tax increase for four years.
His previous term as mayor was also marked by a lawsuit, after he was accused of lying to police in September 2021 by falsely accusing a political opponent of deliberately running over his foot after she confronted him in a supermarket parking lot.
He was found not guilty of public mischief in 2022.
McCallum will face off in October against at least two opponents, including Locke, the current mayor, and sitting councillor Linda Annis.
