Full inaugural speech: Mayor Doug McCallum to push for UBC Surrey campus | Daily Hive

Full inaugural speech: Mayor Doug McCallum to push for UBC Surrey City Centre campus

Surrey mayor Doug McCallum's inauguration speech on Nov. 2, 2026. (City of Surrey)

The mayor’s chair in Surrey is once again occupied by Doug McCallum, who says his work in the municipal government is far from finished.

McCallum was sworn in for his fifth term during an evening ceremony at Surrey City Hall on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026.

Now 82 years old, his latest political comeback follows earlier stretches as mayor from 1996 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2022, returning him to office after defeating incumbent Brenda Locke in the October 2026 civic election.

In his barn-burning inauguration speech, McCallum vowed to follow through with his Safe Surrey Coalition party’s election-time promises of a four-year property tax freeze and a more welcoming approach to businesses and development. Speaking about the pressures facing working families, tradespeople, seniors, and small business owners, he said his administration would focus on attracting investment, creating local jobs, and getting projects moving.

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Among his commitments highlighted during the address was a 60-day deadline for the City of Surrey to respond to permit applications, with fees waived if the deadline is missed. He also pledged an independent forensic audit of the City’s land deals under former Mayor Brenda Locke, with the findings made public, and a government efficiency commission tasked with reporting within 100 days on how the City spends taxpayers’ money.

McCallum also renewed his push for working with premier-elect Lorne Doerkson’s incoming Conservative provincial government and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal government to build a new children’s and women’s hospital on City-owned land in Newton and an extension of SkyTrain’s Expo Line along King George Boulevard from Surrey City Centre to Newton.

Doerkson’s incoming provincial administration has already promised to fulfill McCallum’s call to build a new children’s and women’s hospital and the Newton SkyTrain extension. McCallum campaigned for the Conservative Party after his civic election victory, during the final days of the provincial election campaign.

City Council is set to begin acting on many of these commitments at its first regular public meeting early next week, with McCallum’s inaugural address setting the stage for a flurry of motions from him and his party’s councillors.

His speech also outlined ambitions to expand manufacturing, science, and innovation in Surrey, and to work with the University of British Columbia (UBC) to get its Surrey City Centre campus built and operating. This is in addition to Simon Fraser University’s growing presence in Surrey City Centre, including the future new medical school building.

As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized in 2021, UBC acquired a three-acre property at 9770 King George Blvd. for the purpose of pursuing a mixed-use development with academic, commercial, and residential space. It later acquired the adjacent two-acre site at 9666 King George Blvd. to expand the potential size of its future Surrey City Centre campus to over five acres. This site is strategically located in very close proximity to SkyTrain’s King George Station and Surrey Memorial Hospital.

In recent years, UBC has established a minor presence within Lark Group’s nearby Health and Technology District office buildings. However, the university has yet to advance this major purpose-built Surrey City Centre campus project first announced in 2021.

Preliminary conceptual artistic rendering of the future UBC Surrey City Centre campus. (Perkins&Will/UBC)

McCallum emphasized connecting new investment with employment opportunities for residents, allowing young people to build careers and raise families in their hometown.

On public safety, the mayor promised more police officers on the streets, along with a helicopter and drone fleet operating within 90 days. He also called for stronger penalties for illegal dumping and more community centres and pools.

“I did not come back to add to the list. I came back to finish the job,” said McCallum.

Joining him on Surrey City Council are Safe Surrey Coalition city councillors Cheney Cloke, Doug Elford, Meera Gill, Suhana Gill, Laurie Guerra, Mandeep Nagra, and Allison Patton, along with Surrey Connect city councillor Harry Bains. Including McCallum, the Safe Surrey Coalition holds eight of the nine seats, giving the returning mayor a commanding majority.

Below is the full transcript of Mayor McCallum’s inauguration speech:

Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum’s inaugural address

We did it! We did it! I actually should say, “You did it!”

Thank you, Surrey. Thank you to the people of this city for your trust.

I have held this office before, and I know exactly what it is. It’s not a title. It is a job, and the people who gave it to me expect it done.

Thank you to my family. Thank you to the volunteers who knocked on the doors and made the calls.

Thank you to everyone who put their name on a ballot this year because it takes courage to run. The campaign is over. From today, there is only one team in this room, and it works for the people of Surrey.

Let me tell you who I was thinking about on election night.

The trucker who leaves Newton at four in the morning and crosses the border before the sun comes up.

The nurse coming off a 12-hour shift at Surrey Memorial.

The electrician, the framer, the drywaller, the people who build the homes this city needs.

The family that runs the corner store in Whalley and the family that farms in Cloverdale.

The senior in South Surrey on a fixed income watching the property tax bill go up every year on the home they paid off decades ago.

The small business owner in Guildford waiting a year for a permit.

The young couple in Fleetwood sitting at the kitchen table wondering if they will ever own a house in this city that they grew up in.

Those are the people who built Surrey.

They get up early, they work hard, they pay their taxes, and they do not ask for much. They ask for a City Hall that is on their side.

For four years, it was not. Taxes went up 30 per cent. Nothing got built. Permits sat on desks for a year, while families paid rent on empty storefronts.

Good projects and good jobs went somewhere else because in Surrey, the answer was always maybe, later, or no.

That ends today. This City Hall is on your side. It is open for business.

Surrey City Hall. (City of Surrey)

So let me speak directly to every employer, every home builder, and every company in Canada and around the world that wants to grow, create good-paying jobs, and be a partner in building this city. Come to Surrey.

Surrey is about to become the largest city in British Columbia. We have the land. We have the workforce.

We have a million people on the way, and every one of them needs a job, a home, a doctor, and a place to take their kids on Saturday.

When you bring a major project to this city, one that creates good-paying jobs for Surrey residents, the question at this City Hall is not whether we want it. We want it.

The question is not yes or no. The answer is yes!

The only question we’re going to ask you is this: What is the fastest path to getting shovels in the ground and Surrey residents on the payroll?

Under this administration, permits will be answered in 60 days. If City Hall misses that deadline, your fees are waived. That is how you get the local economy going. Not with a study, with a signature.

Here is my promise to the working people of this city.

Every major project that comes to Surrey will be built by Surrey workers and will employ Surrey residents. The new women and children’s hospital we are going to build in Newton will put thousands of people to work building it and thousands more to work inside it. SkyTrain down King George Boulevard to Newton will be built by the trades who live along it.

The pools and community centres we build in Newton, City Centre, Clayton Heights, and Cloverdale will be built by the people whose kids will swim in them.

Employers do not come to a city to sit still. They come to build things and hire people. And when they build things in Surrey, the good-paying jobs and the pay cheques stay in Surrey.

And let me tell you where this is going. Under my leadership, we are going to unleash the local economy. Surrey is going to become an economic powerhouse not just in British Columbia, but in Canada.

We are going to lead in manufacturing, in science, in innovation, with the kind of good-paying jobs that let our young people build a career and raise a family in the city they grew up in.

A city that leads in science and innovation needs a university. So I will work with UBC to get its Surrey campus built and open right here so that our young people can get a world-class education without leaving home, and so that the employers who come here find the talent they need waiting for them.

Preliminary conceptual artistic rendering of the future UBC Surrey City Centre campus. (Perkins&Will/UBC)

And while we are growing this economy, we are going to leave your money where it belongs: in your pocket.

Property taxes will be frozen at zero per cent for four years. Not one per cent, not two, zero.

Because when a family is choosing between its grocery bill and the hydro bill, City Hall should not be the one adding a third bill to that pile.

And one of my first acts as mayor will be to have an independent forensic audit of the City’s land deals with the findings made public. The people of this City paid for those deals. They are going to find out what they paid for.

Now you did not elect me to talk. You elected me to get things done!

So here is what this Council is going to do to get done.

A new women’s and children’s hospital in Newton. A real one with emergency room, surgery, intensive care, maternity care, and a children’s intensive care unit, so no mother and no family in this city is ever again told to drive to Vancouver for care. The City owns the land. Our approvals will be fast-tracked.

And I will be in Victoria and in Ottawa with the plans in my hand the same way I was for SkyTrain in 2018. We will deliver SkyTrain down King George Boulevard to Newton.

They said Surrey would never get a SkyTrain. It is being built right now through Fleetwood, Clayton Heights, and Cloverdale because I went and got billions of dollars for it. Newton is next.

surrey sprinter skytrain green timbers station construction august 2026 f

Surrey Sprinter specialized gantry crane machine approaching Green Timbers Station on the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, as seen in August 2026. (Government of B.C.)

Our police service with the tools to keep your family safe, more officers on the street, and a helicopter and a drone fleet in the air within 90 days.

A community centre and a pool in every community that does not have one.

Some of this starts at your very first Council meeting.

At that meeting, this Council will pass the motion to freeze property taxes at zero per cent for four years. We will pass the motion to move forward with the building of the new women’s and children’s hospital in Newton, and we will pass the motion to move forward with the SkyTrain extension down King George Boulevard to Newton.

At the same meeting, we will bring in zero tolerance for illegal dumping, with real penalties for the people who treat our neighbourhoods like a landfill.

And we will create a commission on government efficiency reporting within 100 days on where every dollar of your money goes.

And within six months, the promise I made to the residents of Ocean Park, Crescent Beach, Rosemary Heights, Fraser Heights, and Cloverdale will be in motion because the promise I made at your doorstep is a promise kept in this chamber.

And for the first time in a long time, Surrey will not be doing this alone.

I want to congratulate the Premier-designate Lorne Doerkson and the incoming provincial government on their election. The Premier-designate has made a commitment to a new women’s and children’s hospital in Surrey and a SkyTrain to Newton. So have I.

The land is in Newton, the City owns it, and our approvals will be fast-tracked. I look forward to sitting down with him and getting to work on the hospital, on SkyTrain down King George Boulevard to Newton, and on giving your police the tools to keep Surrey safe.

When the largest city, the government of the province, and the Government of Canada all want the same things, those things will get built.

Surrey is ready. We have partners in Victoria and Ottawa who are ready too.

I have spent my life building this city. SkyTrain, Bear Creek Stadium, 84th Avenue Connector. 46 capital projects. I did not come back to add to the list. I came back to finish the job.

So to the trucker, the nurse, the tradesperson, the shop owner, the farmer, the young family at the kitchen table trying to make ends meet, the City Hall works for you now.

Your taxes are frozen, your community projects get built, your jobs stay here.

And to every employer and every partner who wants to build something in Surrey and hire Surrey people to do it, the answer is yes. Bring your plans, bring your jobs, bring your shovels.

Surrey’s best days are still ahead of all of us, and we will get there together. Thank you for the honour of serving you!

doug mccallum safe surrey coalition hospital f

Doug McCallum announcing his proposal on Sept. 21, 2026, to enable a new hospital on City of Surrey-owned land at 6965 King George Blvd. in Newton. (Safe Surrey Coalition)

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