Doug McCallum announces new Surrey mayoral bid with zero property tax pledge

Hoping for another term as mayor, Doug McCallum launched his campaign with big promises.

Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum has announced he’s running for the city’s top job once again, this time promising to freeze property taxes for four years if elected.

McCallum has been mayor twice before—from 1996 to 2005, then 2018 to 2022—and has continued weighing in on local politics since being defeated by Mayor Brenda Locke during the last municipal election.

At a news conference, McCallum touted some of the projects approved under his previous tenure, including the city’s SkyTrain extension and Bear Creek Stadium.

“I love this city,” McCallum said. “And I have spent my life fighting to make sure Surrey gets everything it deserves.”

He’s once again leading the Safe Surrey Coalition, alongside incumbent councillors Doug Elford and Mandeep Nagra. McCallum said the rest of the party’s slate will be revealed within the next six weeks.

“It’s equally women and men, it’s representative of young and old,” he added.

McCallum will be turning 82 years old next weekend, which would make him one of the oldest Canadian politicians in office if his campaign is successful.

Political analyst Mario Canseco says McCallum’s age could prevent him from drawing support from younger generations, however, Canseco says the numbers show that in B.C., and especially Surrey, those generations often have very low voter turnout.

“Your voter tends to be older, tends to be a homeowner,” Canseco said.

He says that’s potentially the motivation behind McCallum’s property tax promise.

“McCallum is looking at this from the standpoint I think, of if I say zero per cent, nobody is going to care what year I was born in.”

He says that could put pressure on other candidates to get younger people out to the polls.

“How do we get renters to actually vote in a municipal election? How do we get young people who aren’t paying property taxes to care about politics?”

One of McCallum’s fellow candidates, Linda Annis of Surrey First, is calling his bluff.

“Doug McCallum promised low taxes when he was elected in 2018, but you just need to check with the residents of Surrey, that clearly wasn’t the case,” she told CTV News Monday.

Imagine Surrey candidate Mike Starchuk also chimed in on the matter.

“His zero just means cuts, his zero just means all the things that we’re doing for frontline workers are going to be gone,” said Starchuk.

“Surrey doesn’t need a sequel,” he said.

Apart from the property tax freeze, McCallum has promised a SkyTrain extension to the Newton neighbourhood, a new swimming pool for Clayton Heights, and a “significant expansion” of law enforcement resources to combat crime in the city—including the ongoing issue of violent extortions.

Chief Norm Lipinski of the Surrey Police Service recently revealed authorities have already been seeing a “meaningful decline” in extortion threats since the start of the year.

Asked how the Safe Surrey Coalition would pay for its promises without increasing taxes, McCallum said: “What we’re going to do is certainly look at where we can make savings as a city.”

He also pledged a dedicated helicopter for the SPS—something even the Vancouver Police Department does not currently have—within 90 days of the election.

“We should have a police helicopter, it is very effective up there in the sky watching at night when all these extortion shootings happen, for example,” he said. “They can catch them a lot quicker on the getaway.”

Voters across the province will head to the polls on Oct. 17.