Explainer: What Brenda Locke promises Surrey
The former city councillor top priorities are to stop the Surrey Police Service transition and increase government transparency
Former Surrey Councillor Brenda Locke was elected mayor on Oct. 15 by a margin of less than 1,000 votes over former mayor Doug McCallum. Locke promises to bring change to City Hall and reverse some of McCallum’s projects.
Locke’s party, Surrey Connect, will also be represented in four of the eight city councillor positions, giving the party majority voting power.
Her main campaign promise was to halt the transition of the Surrey Police Service (SPS) from the RCMP, a project McCallum had pushed for. This will save Surrey residents $520 million over the next four years, according to Surrey Connect’s website. The money from this cut will be used to fund public services like police and fire departments, as well as community facilities.
SPS officers already hired and trained will have access to a program to help move them into other positions, she told Vancouver Sun.
Transparency in government is another focus on Locke’s platform, and her campaign promises included making budgets for future projects and developments open for the public to see.
Locke’s party also ran on improving the ethics of City Hall. Surrey Connect will instate a new Surrey Ethics Commissioner. The position was not extended after the term of Reece Harding, the most recent Commissioner, ended in July.
Locke does not plan to go through with McCallum’s promise to build a 60,000 person stadium in Surrey, which would have been the largest stadium in Canada. Taxpayers had not been consulted about this decision and the budget could better be used to fund community projects, Locke said in an interview.
She also promised to improve crime prevention programs and resources for youth.
Increasing transit, like buses, is another promise her platform included to accommodate Surrey’s rapid population growth. This includes creating more rapid bus routes, adding to the four buses that opened at the beginning of 2020 under McCallum.
To address the housing crisis in Surrey, Locke plans to implement a “red-tape reduction program” to increase the building permit approval process. She also wanted to improve relations with the provincial and federal governments to access funding for developments in Surrey to meet demand. Her goal is to decrease the backlog of requests and reduce permit wait times.
Locke’s election may mean students will notice changes in developments in the growing city of Surrey, as the population is predicted to pass 600,000 people by the end of 2022.
