Doug McCallum (born April 19, 1944) is a Canadian politician who was

mayor of Surrey, British Columbia The following is a list of mayors of Surrey, British Columbia. It includes the mayors of Surrey since 1880. References {{Lists of mayors in British Columbia Lists of mayors of places in British Columbia, Surrey Mayors of Surrey ...

, from 1996 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2022. McCallum was first elected to a seat on

Surrey City Council Surrey City Council is the governing body of the City of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. The council consists of the mayor and eight elected city councilors representing the city as a whole. Municipal elections also select six school trustees. Mu ...

in 1993.(2004).
Mayor Doug McCallum
, Surrey.bc.ca. Retrieved from web.archive.org on November 8, 2010. During this term he served as Chair of the Finance Committee and sat as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Library Board. He was re-elected in the October 20, 2018 local elections in British Columbia. He was defeated in the 2022 election.

Background

McCallum was first elected to

in the 1993 election representing the

Surrey Electors Team Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, a party which included members of the

Social Credit Party of British Columbia The British Columbia Social Credit Party was a conservative political party in British Columbia, Canada. It was the governing party of British Columbia for all but three years between the 1952 provincial election and the 1991 election. For fou ...

. Doug McCallum was elected mayor in the 1996 election. He was seen as having pro-business and pro-development views, and campaigned on enhanced public safety and enacting the

zero-based budgeting Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting method that requires all expenses to be justified and approved in each new budget period. It was developed by Peter Pyhrr in the 1970s. This budgeting method analyzes an organization's needs and costs by ...

model in municipal governance to achieve zero-increase property taxes, which was a misstatement about the purpose of zero-based budgeting, which operates similarly to the planning-programming budgeting system but rather than submitting the previous operating numbers, departments or units submit zeros and councils determine a new figure. He won re-election as Surrey's mayor in the 1999 and 2002 municipal elections. McCallum ran again for a fourth term in the 2005 municipal elections but was soundly defeated by his emergent rival,

Dianne Watts Dianne Lynn Watts (born October 30, 1959) is a former politician in British Columbia, Canada. She won her first federal election campaign in October 2015 to become a federal Member of Parliament for South Surrey—White Rock. In 2017 she resign ...

, a former fellow member of his party, the

. McCallum then sought the Conservative Party nomination for the 2006 Canadian election in the riding on Newton—North Delta, after the incumbent

Gurmant Grewal Gurmant Singh Grewal (born December 21, 1957) is an Indo-Canadian politician and former Conservative Member of Parliament. Gurmant and his wife, Nina Grewal, who represented Fleetwood—Port Kells from 2004 to 2015, were the first married co ...

stepped down. McCallum missed the deadline and instead the Conservatives chose Phil Eidsvik. In 2010, McCallum was hired as CEO of Harness Racing of B.C. After Watts announced she would not seek re-election in 2014, McCallum announced his intention to run for the position in the November 2014 election. Part of his Safe Surrey Coalition campaign included resistance to the city's renovating Newton Athletic Park to recruit the

USL Pro The USL Championship (USLC) is a men's professional soccer league in the second tier of the United States league system. It is organized by the United Soccer League (USL) as its premier league for men above USL League One. Operating under a f ...

team of the

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Vancouver. The Whitecaps compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The MLS ite ...

. McCallum lost to Watts' successor,

Linda Hepner Linda Margaret Hepner (born May 16, 1949) is a Canadian politician, who served as the 36th mayor of Surrey, British Columbia as of the 2014 municipal election. As a member of the Conservative Party of BC, she recently won a seat in 2024 BC pr ...

, coming in second place with 26.97% of the votes. In 2018, McCallum sought to get elected after previous Surrey Mayor, Linda Hepner, said that she wouldn't seek re-election. Surrey First appointed then city councillor Tom Gill to run the Surrey First slate. In McCallum's Manifesto for his Safe Surrey Coalition slate, he pledged to replace Surrey's planned Light Rail Transit system with expanding the already existing SkyTrain network connected to

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

and the rest of the lower mainland. His plan would see the Expo Line extended from

King George station King George is an elevated station on the Expo Line of Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system. The station is located in the south end of the Surrey City Centre district of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, and is one of the outbound ...

to Langley. He also argued that Surrey's RCMP operated by the Canadian federal government is ineffective at combating crime, especially the growing gang problem in North Surrey. He promised to create a new municipal " Surrey Police Force", which would operate off of pre-existing equipment and facilities. On October 20, 2018, McCallum was elected for his fourth term as the mayor of Surrey. In 2020, McCallum gained criticism in the media when he refused to allow Uber drivers to operate in the city of Surrey. McCallum said that the reason for the ban on Uber drivers was done so in order to protect the jobs of the cab drivers working in Surrey. As part of the ban against Uber, any Uber driver that was caught driving within the Surrey city limits while driving a passenger would have to pay $500. On December 12, 2021, McCallum was charged with public mischief because of a parking altercation with people against the Surrey Police Department in which he accused a woman driving a Ford Mustang of rolling over his foot. In November 2022, he was acquitted of the charge. On October 15, 2022, McCallum was defeated in Surrey's mayoral election, and was replaced by incumbent mayor

Brenda Locke Brenda Joy Locke (born 1955) is a Canadian politician who currently serves as the mayor of Surrey, British Columbia. She was elected to the post in 2022 after defeating the incumbent Doug McCallum. She previously served on the Surrey City Coun ...

. Following his defeat, McCallum allegedly returned a city-owned SUV with "significant" damage.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCallum, Doug Living people 1944 births Politicians from Vancouver Mayors of Surrey, British Columbia British Columbia Social Credit Party politicians Conservative Party of Canada politicians 20th-century mayors of places in British Columbia 21st-century mayors of places in British Columbia