Riding profile: Surrey-Cloverdale
Marvin Hunt (BC Liberals)
Before being elected as the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale in 2013 and re-elected in 2017, Hunt was elected to Surrey City Council in 1987 and served as the chair of Metro Vancouver’s Board. Hunt currently serves as the official opposition critic on Transportation and Infrastructure and Citizens’ Services.
In the provincial government, he served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, and the official opposition critic on Social Development and Poverty Reduction.
As of the writing of this article, Hunt has no specific platform listed on his page. However, his Twitter has shown that he has expressed support for constructing the Site C dam and eliminating PST. Hunt has also apologized publicly for sharing a racially insensitive cartoon depicting two Indigenous people on Orange Shirt Day and also paid for ads in Light, a Christian magazine that criticized a proposed ban on conversion therapy as an assault on freedom of speech.
Hunt has also supported calling a referendum on the Surrey police transition.
Mike Starchuk (BC NDP)
Before running for Surrey-Cloverdale, Starchuk served as the Chief Fire Prevention Officer with Surrey Fire Services for 32 years before retiring in 2014 to serve as a Surrey City Councillor. Starchuk is the current Partnership in Education program facilitator for the International Association of Firefighters and is one of the founding members of the Surrey Firefighters Charitable Society.
While there is no official platform on his page, Starchuk has expressed support for John Horgan’s plan to build a new hospital in Cloverdale, and invest $1.4 billion into supporting seniors in long-term care homes.
In 2019, Starchuk helped organize the Surrey Speak Up rally to protest Surrey City Council’s five-year budget. The budget was criticized for putting a hiring freeze on firefighters and Surrey RCMP officers, and under investing in recreation centres and ice rinks.
Rebecca Smith (BC Green Party)
Before running for Surrey-Cloverdale with the BC Green Party, Rebecca Smith spent 20 years working for nonprofits and private companies. She has a bachelor of arts degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in Business Administration and is certified in Public Relations and Financial Planning.
She is the former president and current vice-president of the Cloverdale District Chamber of Commerce and the Surrey Hospice Society’s Executive Director. Before that, she was the chair of the Canadian Women’s Voters Congress and was president of BullyFreeBC.
While her page has no official platform, she has run with both the federal and provincial NDP parties, and supported plans for affordable child care, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, improving provincial healthcare, and greater investment in clean energy and technology.
Aisha Rehana Bali (BC Conservatives)
Aisha Rehana Bali currently lives in Cloverdale, and is a supply chain logistics manager for a grocery company. She immigrated to Canada from Fiji, and has lived in Surrey for almost 27 years, supporting local charities and the BC Children’s Hospital.
She also owns and runs an online radio station called Bula Masti Radio, which features local programming and covers community issues and events.
