Incumbent Doug McCallum Way Behind Several Challengers At 7 Percent Support, Leger Poll Says!

Is this a goodbye or kick out of the door of the mayor’s office in Surrey for incumbent Doug McCallum, aka “Doug Paaji”, and even his Indo-Canadian supporters won’t be able to save him as Surrey is expected to elect a brand new mayor on Saturday (October 15), according to a new poll this week. The Leger poll, done exclusively for Postmedia, says that McCallum is far behind several challengers, and more significantly the new poll also found about half of people in Surrey want to stick with the RCMP for policing. The poll found Brenda Locke was polling ahead of the other candidates at about 25 per cent. Sukh Dhaliwal and Gordie Hogg were polling at 11 per cent, with Jinny Sims at eight per cent and McCallum at seven per cent, followed by Amrit Singh Birring, Kuldip Pelia and John Wolanski at about one per cent each.

By DESIBUZZCanada Staff With News Files

SURREY – Is this a goodbye or kick out of the door of the mayor’s office in Surrey for incumbent Doug McCallum, aka “Doug Paaji”, and even his Indo-Canadian supporters won’t be able to save him as Surrey is expected to elect a brand new mayor on Saturday (October 15), according to a new poll this week.

The Leger poll, done exclusively for Postmedia, says that McCallum is far behind several challengers, and more significantly the new poll also found about half of people in Surrey want to stick with the RCMP for policing.

The new poll shows three-quarters of Surrey voters think it’s time for a change. And not just on city council.

The poll found 51 per cent of Surrey voters want to stick with the RCMP and reverse the gradual transition to a municipal police force that began almost four years ago when McCallum and the Safe Surrey Coalition swept to power.

Policing is just one of several areas where Surrey voters expressed a desire for change, as well as a strong discontentment with the job done by the current mayor and council, in the poll of 503 Surrey residents aged 18-or-over.

Compared to the mayoral approval rate for Metro Vancouver, where 43 per cent of voters approve of the job done by their municipal leader, McCallum’s approval rating is 26 per cent, according to the poll. Surrey council fared little better at 30 per cent.

More than half of voters said they feel things are worse in Surrey than they were four years ago, compared to 35 per cent in Metro Vancouver, while a whopping 76 per cent of voters said they want change on city council, which is 20 percentage points higher than Metro Vancouver.

Poll found the number of undecided voters in Surrey are 36 per cent, which means that the contest is still up for grabs for the top four candidates.

The poll found Brenda Locke was polling ahead of the other candidates at about 25 per cent. Sukh Dhaliwal and Gordie Hogg were polling at 11 per cent, with Jinny Sims at eight per cent and McCallum at seven per cent, followed by Amrit Singh Birring, Kuldip Pelia and John Wolanski at about one per cent each.

The single-digit support for McCallum led experts to predict the incumbent mayor was likely to be voted out on Saturday.

With News Files from Postmedia