Kristine and Eric Gatland in Surrey, B.C, on Oct. 6. The couple are trying to decide who to vote for in their riding.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
Eric and Kristine Gatland are working hard to figure out who to vote for in their Surrey riding, scrutinizing candidates to give them clues about what B.C.’s political parties are promising on the things that they care about the most.
For the couple, Cloverdale residents for the past 21 years, trying to decide requires navigating a jumble of contradictions among the campaign solutions offered in their community.
They’re worried about the state of health care and of transit and transportation. They’re worried about dense new housing being jammed into their small neighbourhood, Clayton Heights, an area already beset by issues such as parking, illegal rentals, lack of transit and services.
“I get that we need more housing but here I have no say,” said Mr. Gatland, as he carted a bag of groceries out of the local No Frills grocery store.
“There needs to be better prices for housing,” added his wife, Kristine.
Voters like the Gatlands are among a crucial bloc who will decide who forms the next government in B.C. after the Oct. 19 election. With the NDP and the Conservatives running neck and neck in the polls, Surrey’s 10 ridings and its residents’ history of swing voting means the city has been prime battleground turf.
Signage on display in support of Conservative candidate Elenore Sturko, for the riding of Surrey-Cloverdale.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
The municipality is the province’s second-largest and has been one of the fastest-growing in B.C. Both NDP Leader David Eby and his B.C. Conservative counterpart, John Rustad, have made Surrey ridings among their regular stops.
The Conservatives have promised a SkyTrain extension to Newton and better bus service throughout south-of-Fraser cities, where bus use has boomed more than anywhere else in the region after the early pandemic drop. They have also promised to expand the Patullo Bridge to six lanes, though an expansion of the bridge is already under way.
The NDP is trying to remind voters of what the government has started or completed: building a new hospital and cancer centre in Cloverdale; six new schools with more than 8,000 seats since 2017 and 6,500 more already committed; a promise to build rental housing for hospital workers; a reiteration of the 2020 promise to build a medical school attached to Surrey’s Simon Fraser University campus.
Neither party would dream of talking about bringing back tolls. Former NDP premier John Horgan was able to form a minority government in 2017 in part because his party promised to cancel the tolls brought in by the BC Liberals.
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The Liberals’ promise during that campaign to legalize Uber instantly also cost the party seats in Surrey, where many in the city’s sizable South Asian community are involved in the taxi business. The NDP took a much-more cautious approach to the issue, promising to consult with the taxi industry and create a fair playing field. Uber was finally approved in 2020.
Signage on display in support of NDP candidate Baltej Singh Dhillon, for the new riding of Surrey-Serpentine River.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
That year, the NDP won seven of the then-nine ridings there, a record for the party in that area. And, while the NDP’s other high-tide wins in the traditionally conservative areas of the Fraser Valley and of Richmond seem vulnerable to flipping back as the B.C. Conservatives surge, Surrey’s 10 ridings appear up for grabs. Surrey voters have shown in past civic and provincial elections they are less ideological and more focused on who is promising to deliver for them.
It’s not going to be easy in Surrey for the governing New Democrats. Prominent Surrey NDP MLAs Bruce Ralston and Harry Bains aren’t running again, leaving some voters to choose among a raft of little-known newcomers in their former ridings along with several others. And the Conservatives have two strong candidates, current MLA Elenore Sturko in Surrey-Cloverdale and former Surrey mayor Linda Hepner in Surrey-Serpentine.
However, with so many newbies, there are inevitable eruptions over past public comments found through opposition research, like those made by Conservative Surrey-South candidate Brent Chapman who has outraged Muslims over his 10-year-old Facebook comment that Palestinians are “little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs.”
Hamish Telford, a political-science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the Surrey ridings are key to the NDP’s chances. “If they lose the five seats in the valley, they can’t afford to lose in Surrey too,”
He sees the two major parties using sharply different appeals, especially on housing.
“The NDP plan is targeted to young people who want to get into the market,” he said. “The Conservative plan, whether intentionally or not, appeals to owners.”
Prof. Telford said the dominance of people in the trucking, taxi and building industry may also have an impact. Those voters may be swayed with party promises of more construction, a future that promises the need for more supplies (delivered by truck), more houses to build, and more solutions for traffic congestion.
Surrey also has huge numbers of residents working in various levels of health care, especially the home-care sector. And Surrey is a place where crime is a big concern because of years-long gang activity, something that affects many young people and their families.
Neither party seems to be emphasizing the forced move from the RCMP to a municipal police force, ordered by NDP Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth, even though there is still a large disgruntled group of RCMP supporters in the city.
Trevor Bernath doesn’t like any candidate in his riding.
“If I do vote, it will probably be independent.”
Rick Clark is leaning toward his NDP candidate, former firefighter Mike Starchuk, the current MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.
“It’s the lesser of three evils. And I don’t want the guys who will cut the funding in schools and hospitals again.”
Others interviewed at the Surrey Central shopping mall declined to give names, but one noted concerns about the Conservatives’ hard-line position against harm-reduction policies for people addicted to opioids while liking their plans for more treatment options.
Joseph Toebaer said he’s definitely voting Conservative because he feels that the NDP has allowed B.C. to be overwhelmed by new people coming into the country.
“The infrastructure can’t keep up.”
And he doesn’t believe the NDP’s commitments on anything.
“They promise a lot.”
That disappointment over promises is something the Conservatives are working to capitalize on.
“There’s a term for that in the South Asian community here – a lollipop. They promise but never give and Surrey feels like it keeps getting lollipops,” said Azim Jiwani, Mr. Rustad’s chief of staff at the legislature and a campaign strategist. “We think people in Surrey are tired of being treated like second-class citizens.”
At the ground level of the Surrey battles, Kelly Sather, Mr. Starchuk’s campaign manager in Surrey-Cloverdale acknowledges that it’s going to be a tough fight. She was overseeing a roomful of volunteers on laptops on a Sunday morning, many of them Mr. Starchuk’s former firefighter colleagues.
Ms. Sather said the NDP is focusing on issues that it thinks matter to core chunks of those voters, along with the standard improved health care, transit and housing issues.
The party is extolling insurance provider ICBC’s low rates for households with four or five cars in the driveway while the Conservatives are talking about privatizing car insurance; promising to allow people to scatter ashes of loved ones in B.C. waters as a way of supporting cultural practices on funeral rites; and reminding builders about how much construction the NDP is supporting.
“This is more similar to 2017 than 2020. I would say this is an election where every vote in Surrey counts.”