On October 17th, voters across British Columbia will be heading to the ballot boxes, to determine the direction their City Halls take, for the next four years.

Civic Politics is a harder beast to understand, as there isn’t a “Party System”, like there is for the other levels of Politics… Provincial & Federal.  In Municipal elections, there are a lot of options… sometimes the status quo is a good thing, and other times it is not.

Let’s take, for example, the Surrey Municipal Election, and Choosing a Mayor:

As of July 2026, there are six candidates running for Mayor of Surrey.

Two have been Mayor before: Doug McCallum and Brenda Locke.  Both come with TREMENDOUS amounts of political baggage, and a history of promising big, but delivering small.  

One is a current two-term City Councillor: Linda Annis.  Shows up briefly to lots of events for a photo, but rarely speaks up in Council.

Two are political newbies, who have never held office: Troy Van Vliet, and Honveer Singh Randhawa.  Being Mayor of the second-largest and fastest-growing city in BC is not a job that comes with training wheels.

The last candidate is Mike Starchuk of Imagine Surrey.  Mike spent 32 years as a Surrey Firefighter, retiring from the Fire Service as Surrey’s Chief Fire Prevention Officer.  He spent four years as a Surrey City Councillor, and four years as the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.  He has a thoughtful and costed platform, that gives the citizens of Surrey what they need:

• • Safe Streets

• • Faster Commutes

• • Smart Investments

• • Lower Costs

• • Strong Services (with NO cuts to current services!)

The other candidates and their slates are making wild promises (A THIRD Hospital… MORE Skytrain… A DOWNTOWN Arena…) while also promising zero percent tax increases. That Math just doesn’t Math!  If the incumbent candidates can make the dramatic savings required to cover their Billion Dollar projects… why haven’t they already done it?  They are making promises, that the tax-payers can’t afford… or (in some cases) the same promises from four years ago, pretending this time they will ACTUALLY deliver!

Mike Starchuk, and the Imagine Surrey team, when elected, will deliver a forward-looking Surrey.  Projects that make sense for the citizens of Surrey.  Projects that make their everyday lives easier… safer… and more affordable.

Mike Starchuk has assembled his Imagine Surrey candidate team with an eye to reflecting the cultures and diversity of Surrey itself.  He has assembled a team of individuals who have the common goal of spending tax-payer money like it is their own hard-earned dollars.

Mike Starchuk has the political experience, at multiple levels, to start working on Day One, without any learning curve, or training wheels… and he is not encumbered by the petty feuds and lawsuits that some other candidates are burdened by.

In Surrey, the obvious choice for Mayor, is Mike Starchuk, and the Imagine Surrey team.

For more information, and to find out more about Imagine Surrey, please visit https://ImagineSurrey.ca

Municipal politics is the MOST immediate and has the most direct impact on families.  Whether your city is correctly looked after, with the proper priorities, and fiscally-prudent spending, affects you and your family EVERY day, for the next four years.  Make sure you are choosing the best candidate, and not just supporting a broken status quo!

It is ALSO critical to not “break up” the mandate across a bunch of different slates.  When you choose your Mayor candidate, make sure they are supported with the like-minded and similarly-focused Council Candidates, so that Surrey’s Council Chambers are filled with discussions and debates, and not the petty squabbles that have marred and wasted time, for the last eight years!

Mike Starchuk has spent his life on the front lines of Surrey — showing up when things go wrong, standing up for what’s right, and supporting the people who do the hard work that keeps a city running. Raised and educated in Surrey’s Newton area, Mike served 32 years with Surrey Fire Services and retired in 2014 as the city’s Chief Fire Prevention Officer. During his firefighting career, he was also deeply involved in the labour movement — serving as a Local 1271 union officer and was known as a staunch defender of firefighters’ rights — including service as a workers’ compensation advocate whom the IAFF reports helped secure more than $14 million in wages and benefits. Mike’s public service didn’t stop at the station door. He is a founding member of the Surrey Fire Fighters Charitable Society, and he’s been recognized for his many community contributions, including receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the King Charles III Coronation Medal. In elected office, Mike brought forward the same practical, protect-the-public mindset. He served on Surrey City Council chairing multiple committees, and later as MLA for Surrey–Cloverdale. As MLA, he worked on issues that hit working families directly: public safety, health, and the cost of living. Mike served as Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, leading provincewide consultations on how to fund the services and infrastructure people rely on. Now, as Leader and mayoral candidate with Imagine Surrey, Mike is running to deliver a city that’s safer, faster, less congested and more affordable — because for working people, results aren’t theoretical: they’re the difference between getting ahead and falling behind.