The rapidly growing region around Cloverdale was a B.C. Liberal stronghold, one constituency flipped to the NDP in 2020, and both are coveted ground in a city with increasing influence in the legislature.
Long waiting times at Surrey Memorial Hospital, the high cost of living and housing prices that have soared out of reach were on the minds of people passing a busy Cloverdale strip mall on a recent sunny afternoon.
“We’re not affected by the housing issues, but we see it all around us,” said Elizabeth King, a resident of Surrey’s Clayton neighbourhood, who was running errands. “We’re very concerned about people that are really struggling to find a decent place to live.”
King is leaning toward voting NDP for the first time in her life, but remains unimpressed generally with candidates “just toeing the line” of their parties.
“I’m not really convinced that either party is really ready to stay abreast of our community challenges right now.”
King’s riding of Surrey-Cloverdale used to be a reliably B.C. Liberal stronghold, held for 12 years by Kevin Falcon, then Stephanie Cadieux, until being flipped in 2020 by the NDP’s Mike Starchuk.
With boundaries redrawn this election, Surrey-Cloverdale and the new Surrey-Serpentine River constituency are key battleground ridings in a city that now carries more political weight.
“Anybody who wins six ridings in Surrey, they will have the government,” said Shinder Purewal, Surrey-based political scientist at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Although Starchuk won Surrey-Cloverdale comfortably in 2020, Purewal thinks its redrawn boundaries give the B.C. Conservatives, who are running high-profile Elenore Sturko, an edge.
Purewal also gives the Conservatives the advantage in Surrey-Serpentine River where former Surrey mayor and longtime councillor Linda Hepner is running against longtime RCMP member and community volunteer Baltej Dhillon.
Like the rest of Surrey, they’re constituencies that have absorbed substantial amounts of suburban growth. Fraser Highway cuts across both, as will the new Surrey-to-Langley SkyTrain extension. And new community plans for the Fleetwood and Clayton neighbourhoods promise even more growth.
Political prognosticating website 338 Canada rates both races as toss-ups, but give an edge to the Tories. Candidates, though, aren’t taking anything for granted.
“It’s close,” said Sturko, from a campaign office off of 64th Avenue. Her team is operating “under the assumption that we’re behind all the time.”
The redrawn boundaries, however, put a corner of the Surrey-South riding Sturko held as a B.C. United MLA into the Surrey-Cloverdale riding and she has name recognition.
The issues that Sturko hears on doorsteps depend a lot on the circumstances of the households. Parents of older teens or young adults are concerned about housing, while those with younger children talk about overcrowding and portables at schools.
“We hear a lot on the doorsteps from people that still don’t have access to a family doctor,” Sturko added.
So Sturko takes the opportunity to “give them our whole platform, if I can,” which includes rewriting funding models, including private options for services and giving patients waiting-time guarantees.
Health care “is only universal if you can access it,” Sturko said.
Starchuk doesn’t think too much about the polling either.
“I was told in 2020 that I didn’t have a chance,” Starchuk said. “It didn’t change my view on what it is that I had to do as a person that’s been elected.”
He’s focused his messaging on the things the NDP government has started, such as breaking ground on a new Cloverdale hospital and making commitments to new schools.
“My four years on city council … there was not one seat that was put into a Surrey school previous to that,” he said, referring to the period from 2014 to 2017, when a B.C. Liberal government was in power.
Across Pacific Highway, in the new Surrey-Serpentine River, Conservative Hepner knows the race is close, but believes her party’s “time for change” messaging is resonating.
Issues of affordability and health care are among the key issues Hepner said she hears on the campaign trail.
“Everybody has (a story about), ‘I had a kid in emergency for 12 hours, I can’t get a specialist appointment,’ ” Hepner said.
She has her own story. She’s been waiting a year for a hip replacement, which means she hasn’t been to as many doorsteps as she would like.
“Chaos and crime” is the third issue people raise, she said.
“And I’m going to put them all together because, quite frankly, I think that the chaos comes from the mentally ill and the addicted that we’ve just let suffer.”
Her NDP opponent, Dhillon, said he has his own profile in Surrey-Serpentine River after 35 years of RCMP service and volunteer work in the increasingly diverse city.
“This is where I believe that I could be a strong voice,” Dhillon said. “Linda Hepner, I’m not sure what she’s done in the last seven years since she retired.”
As a retired Mountie, Dhillon said he has views on how to reach South Asian young men who have been “lost” to gangs and gun violence that he would like to put in place at the provincial level “before I hang up my proverbial spurs.”
On the streets in Cloverdale, however, there are still signs of indecision that suggest campaign messages aren’t landing as strongly as the parties hope.
Ray, a Surrey-Serpentine retiree who declined to give his last name, was still unsure who to vote for. His approach is to vote for the candidate first, then party and “hopefully these people we’ll make the right decision and we’ll change things.”
After listening to the leaders’ radio debate on CKNW, Ray said: “I don’t know there’s a clear path.”
Surrey-Cloverdale resident Rajesh Parashar said he needs to research where the candidates stand on economic issues, health care and schools.
“Usually, after two terms, I would lean for the change,” Parashar said. “Unfortunately, the change is not very visible. I will not vote for anybody just because I want change.”