The 2025 federal election is proving to be quite different from previous ones in Surrey.
Changes in riding boundaries means that some potential voters are now in different ridings. There is also a new riding. For the first time, Surrey will be represented by seven different MPs in Ottawa.
Four of the seats are shared with residents from one other city. The other three are located totally in Surrey.
Let’s start with the newest riding – Langley Township-Fraser Heights. This takes in all of Surrey north of Highway 1, along with much of northern Langley Township. It features two MPs from the last Parliament competing against each other.
Incumbent Conservative MP Tako van Popta, who represented Langley-Aldergrove in the last Parliament, is running against former Cloverdale-Langley City Liberal MP John Aldag. Aldag resigned his seat last year to run provincially for the NDP.
Voters in Fleetwood-Port Kells and Delta (which includes a small portion of Surrey in the Panorama Ridge area) will be electing new MPs. Ken Hardie is not running in Fleetwood-Port Kells after serving 10 years as a Liberal MP and winning three elections. Carla Qualtrough in Delta also served three terms as a Liberal MP and served several years in the cabinet. She too is stepping aside.
In Fleetwood-Port Kells, the new Liberal candidate is Gurbux Saini, a former councillor in Williams Lake who has lived in Surrey for the past nine years. His Conservative opponent is businessman Sukh Pander. This seat was held for many years by Conservative MP Nina Grewal before Hardie won it in 2015.
Delta was also a Conservative seat (and prior to that, Reform and Canadian Alliance) for many years, before Qualtrough’s election. Running for the Liberals is Jill McKnight, former executive director of Delta Chamber of Commerce. The Conservative candidate is Jessy Sahota, a Delta police officer.
Incumbent Liberal MPs Sukh Dhaliwal, in Surrey-Newton, and Randeep Sarai, in Surrey City Centre, are running again. Dhaliwal was first elected in 2006 and has been an MP for 15 years. He also ran for mayor in the 2022 Surrey municipal election.
Sarai has been Surrey City Centre MP since 2015. Their Conservative opponents are Harjit Singh Gill in Surrey-Newton and Rajvir Dhillon in Surrey Centre.
South Surrey-White Rock has been a Conservative stronghold since the last century, with one brief exception. Former White Rock mayor Gordie Hogg won a 2017 byelection as a Liberal, but was unable to hold the seat in 2019. Incumbent Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay is running again. Her Liberal opponent is White Rock city councillor Ernie Klassen.
Voters went to the polls in a December byelection in Cloverdale-Langley City, to fill the seat vacated by Aldag. Tamara Jansen, who represented the riding from 2019 to 2021 for the Conservatives, won about two-thirds of the vote in December.
It was the last of four byelections in 2024 to deliver terrible results for the Liberals, and not long afterwards former prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned.
Jansen has not sat in Parliament since the byelection, as it was prorogued by Trudeau and then dissolved by new Liberal leader Mark Carney, so that this election could take place.Carney was elected Liberal leader on March 9, and dissolved Parliament two weeks later.
Aldag’s former assistant Kyle Latchford is running for the Liberals in Cloverdale-Langley City.
Because of Surrey’s large number of seats and its tendency (prior to 2015) to have numerous swing ridings, party leaders usually campaign here. So far, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is the only one to show up. He held a large rally with about 5,000 in attendance in Port Kells on March 27. Carney made an appearance in Delta on April 8 but has not come to Surrey as of press time.
The NDP has held seats in Surrey in the past, most recently from 2011 to 2015, but has not mounted strong campaigns since then. Many polls thus far indicate that the NDP has the support of less than one voter in 10, and party leader Jagmeet Singh could lose his Burnaby seat. He is asking voters to send some NDP MPs to Ottawa to keep the winning party accountable. It seems unlikely that any such MPs will be elected in Surrey.
This election is more of a two-way race than usual, and it appears most of the Surrey seats will be fairly close contests between the Liberals and Conservatives. Every vote is important.
The election takes place on Monday, April 28 and there are plenty of opportunities to vote in advance. The elections.ca website has all the details.
Frank Bucholtz writes twice monthly on political issues for Black Press Media publications.
