Smyth analyzes outcome
It was a wild-and-crazy election night that produced nail-biting finishes, dramatic upsets and a seismic reshaping of the municipal political landscape.
But don’t unbuckle your seatbelts just yet. Two election results in particular could generate even more twists and turns.
In Surrey, the blast-fromthe-past return of 73-year-old Doug McCallum as mayor suddenly throws the city’s $1.65-billion light-rail transit project into doubt.
And in Nanaimo, NDP MLA Leonard Krog’s win will trigger a provincial byelection in which the stakes could not be higher.
For McCallum, the win is sweet redemption for a politician dreaming of a comeback ever since he was voted out of the Surrey mayor’s office in 2005. He won his old job back by promising to replace the city’s RCMP detachment with a new municipal police force and to scrap the unpopular LRT project in favour of a fancier SkyTrain line.
McCallum’s clear message appealed to Surrey voters fed up with unchecked crime and lousy transit services. He was helped by a flat and unfocused campaign from his opponent Tom Gill. And city councillor Bruce Hayne’s mayoralty bid split the vote and allowed McCallum to cruise to victory.
McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition cruised along with him, winning a solid majority on council. With McCallum in control, how quickly will he move to scrap the LRT project?
“Immediately,” he told me, firing back at critics who scoff at the idea of cancelling a project already approved by the federal and provincial governments.
“We’re going to stop the light-rail project completely,” he said.
I give McCallum a decent chance of pulling it off, though he will need co-operation from the province and the feds. And there’s no reason he can’t deliver a new police force too, especially with a focused and determined council behind him.
As for his promise to banish legal marijuana stores from Surrey, I hope he gives that one a re-think. The gangsters he promised to fight would love nothing more than to keep their illegal drug-dealing turf intact.
Over in Nanaimo, meanwhile, Krog’s predictable win now sets up a winner-take-all provincial byelection. If the Liberals steal the seat from the NDP, it would produce a tie in the legislature and an almost certain early election call.
And the stakes are even higher: If a proportional representation voting system is approved in this fall’s referendum, an early election would overrule the result.
With the Liberals firmly opposed to pro-rep, they will fight as hard as possible to win what could arguably be the most crucial byelection in B.C. history.
An amazing municipal election night is done. But stay sharp. It could get even wilder from here.