Six Surrey mayoral candidates attended KSA forum

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On Oct. 4 at the Surrey campus, the Kwantlen Student Association organized a Mayor’s Forum and invited the Surrey mayoral candidates for Kwantlen Polytechnic University students to get a chance to meet them. The forum was moderated by KSA Policy Coordinator Diamond Obera and KPU political science instructor Ross Pink. 

Mayoral candidates Surrey-Newton MP Sukh Dhaliwal with United Surrey, Surrey-Panorama MLA Jinny Sims with Surrey Forward, former MLA and MP Gordie Hogg with Surrey First, Amrit Birring with People’s Council Surrey, and Independents John Wolanski and Pelia Kuldip attended the event. Incumbent Doug McCallum with the Safe Surrey Coalition and Brenda Locke with Surrey Connect were not in attendance. 

Obera gave a land acknowledgement before beginning with pre-submitted questions, which focused on policing and public safety issues in the Surrey community.

“If I am elected, I will make sure that the speedy completion of the [police] transition takes place. And I will teach all my police officers that to serve and protect is our major logo, they will quickly [answer] calls of people … they will work hard, and they will get the best gain possible,” Kuldip said. 

“Full disclosure I signed to keep the RCMP in Surrey some time ago, I was the first person to do it,” Wolanski said. “I was looking at the cost benefit analysis. My position is that we probably merge the two units and get them to get along, but we have to take it to Victoria, the Attorney General should have the oversight of this new police force.” 

“I would say we have much bigger problems than law and order. For instance, higher housing costs,” Birring said. “Media says we have a law and order problem because they do not want you to think about real problems…. Crime is a reflection of our society. When they double your rent, your tuition fees, your gas, your food, people go into drugs, they cannot handle the depression.” 

“For the last four years, we’ve heard the mayor and opposition Brenda Locke fighting over the colour of the uniform and the colour of the police car. When the real issue is public safety,” Sims said. “Our focus is to get the issue back on safety where it belongs … changing the uniform is not going to change the culture that we have, or the violence or gangs or anything else or mental illness.” 

“Public safety is our number one priority. We will make sure that we complete this transition in a very effective, open, and transparent way. People should be able to know how much it would cost and how long it’s going to take,” Dhaliwal said. “We’ll have a traffic police and … we should coordinate how the police are dealing with mental health issues [as well].” 

“The research shows that when you get to a certain level of policing, increasing your policing does not decrease the crime — there’s a certain threshold you have to reach,” Hogg said. “It’s about values, how you raise your children, how you get people involved in the community.” 

The next question was about how candidates plan to build trust between communities and the police. 

“I realize that a lot of our police officers are very ethnically diverse in our city right now. But [we should have] a provincial responsibility that can handle complaints [to ensure] everyone is equal to the law,” Wolanski said. “I don’t see the colour … we all bleed red. I’m colourblind to everything, I just see a massive humanity in this room and that’s the way I do it.” 

“If I become mayor, there will be discipline. People of all races, all the communities will be treated equally. [People] from every community will have equal opportunity to get jobs. I will teach a second language to police officers who don’t speak [a] second language. I will see that all police are better trained,” Kuldip said. 

“Our response needs to reflect the diversity of our population in the kind of percentages that we have in our population. I believe that for City Hall, in government jobs, or an elected official,” Sims said. “The police force needs to receive cultural sensitivity training, not just once but on an ongoing basis. As a population, we need to start having some pretty blunt and honest conversation about policing, its impact, and our role collectively and individually in building safe communities.” 

“We look at our team here, which represents the face of Surrey,” Dhaliwal said. “I have met with people in Surrey, the police union, I have also met with liaison officers in charge and we have to make sure that police are well trained to the sensitive issues that most communities face everyday.” 

“It’s important for every single one of us to stand up for equity to abolish racism. I talked to the police and they only have five reports in the last month. That’s because people are too afraid to report it,” Hogg said. “About three months ago, [it was] estimated there are almost 300 white supremacy groups [in Canada]. That scares me. We have to … control that.” 

“I like to keep my head above my emotions. Sometimes some police officers profile people because police are always outside fighting criminals … they work under high stress [and] sometimes you make a bad judgement call,” Birring said. “[Do] some of them go overboard? Sure, so it’s an individual problem and we need better training and monitor them [sic].” 

The forum moved to questions written by members of the audience for individual candidates. The first question was for Sims about her plans to ensure improvement to municipal infrastructure. 

“We need to make sure we involve the public back in the business of City Hall, so that everybody is welcome … I would engage more of our youth, both directly and indirectly, in advising City Hall to set up a special counsel to hear from them. And make sure that the procurement processes are fair,” Sims said. 

Hogg was asked how he plans to address the complex issue of youth crime and youth gangs. 

Hogg said we need to engage meaningfully as citizens and create an environment where people feel valued. 

“With people who have committed offences, in terms of crime, we need to be able to provide an empathetic response to them and their ability to respond to that,” he said. “I propose we use bracelets that you could save as somebody’s domestic violence and it’s going to bar [them] from going back to their spouse.”

A question for Kuldip asked how we can make the police respond faster to 911 calls in Surrey. 

“We need more police officers, increase them, and make them conscious of their duty so that whenever a call comes, they immediately respond to it,” Kuldip said.  

An audience member, who felt there is a racial profiling issue in Surrey, asked Dhaliwal how he would address it. 

“I’m very well aware of racial issues around the police. As mayor, I will make sure, as I’m already making sure, I meet with the police team because I have to complete that transition. And this has to be a diverse course and sensitive to any community,” Dhaliwal said. 

Wolanski was asked how he would address the economic disparities between the different communities in Surrey. 

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a certain ethnic group as long as you have authority, I find you sometimes have to get around that. We’re talking racism all the time, but 24 per cent of the homeless population in Metro Vancouver are seniors,” Wolanski said. 

According to British Columbia’s most recent data of almost 9,000 people experiencing homelessness, 21 per cent were seniors, 55 years and older. 

“It doesn’t matter what race you are. We need income supports from the top, the money from the top. You take money from the top, put a little on the bottom and everybody’s happy,” he said. 

The question for Birring asked how he would address social services for families with vulnerable children. 

“We need to allocate [a] budget to support everyone. I don’t know the details of whether it’s because of health [or] financial issues or racial background, but it’s the society’s responsibility to take everyone along,” Birring said. “And that’s regardless of colour, it’s always [the] government’s responsibility to give everyone equal opportunity and support them.” 

The forum ended with closing remarks from candidates, who each had two minutes to speak. 

“Thank god I’m not a politician, I’m a social activist. I’ve been writing a lot of posts on Facebook that are simultaneous,” Kuldip said. 

“We have potential professionals that work and want to [teach] whenever we get funding…. They said instead of LRT we have to create SkyTrain … but [the] regional government does not give their part of additional funding until the elections came.”  

“A lot of things have been tossed around in this election, big private money projects, and things like that, but what we have to do is get back necessities. We got to house people, feed people, educate people, so we can pay for all of this stuff,” Wolanski said. “Let’s all get along, provide the necessities of life, and then we can work on the perks…. It’s the senior levels, they’ll have to handle this.” 

“I’ve been a social justice activist all my life and every political position I’ve held [was] helping to make improvements,” Sims said. 

“You have a job as voters to do your homework, vote for a person who can not only get elected, but has the strength and experience to bring about real change…. This election is not for the main seat or council seats, it’s about the soul of Surrey.” 

“When it comes to Surrey, to bring the integrity and the City Hall back to ordinary Surrey government, United Surrey is the way to go,” Dhaliwal said. “I have professional experience … we will work with other orders of government to bring the things that we need to Surrey… [we] will make sure that we have the housing supply.” 

“What I think is important is there’s a link and a synchronicity between the messenger and the message. If somebody tells you they want to do something about affordability, you better look at what they’ve done, what their life experience is, what their values are, and how they reflected those,” Hogg said. 

“It’s a lived experience that is so important in terms of informing policy direction. Now having had that lived experience allows you to be somewhat immune to the realities of what happens within a political context.” 

“I have been thinking about why some countries are poor and some are rich … some people are rich, but average people [are] poor, and in better countries there is much lesser corruption like in Canada. So human corruption is the root cause of every problem,” Birring said. 

Pink thanked the candidates for coming to the discussion, and students had the opportunity to meet with candidates afterwards. 

Election day is on Oct. 15, and Surrey has 52 different locations open from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm for residents to vote at. Residents will be able to vote for one mayoral candidate, eight council candidates, and six school board trustee candidates.