Linda Hepner wins Surrey mayoral race
Surrey First candidate led the vote count decisively
Linda Hepner is the new mayor of Surrey, B.C.
The Surrey First candidate led the count decisively all night, pulling ahead of her main challengers, Doug McCallum (Safe Surrey Coalition) and Barinder Rasode (One Surrey).
Hepner spoke to her supporters after being introduced by former mayor Dianne Watts.
"Surrey has spoken loud and clear," Hepner said. "We are not going back, we are going forward."
After thanking her challengers, she acknowledged the members of her party Surrey First, who, she said, would be "going to help me over the next four years."
She closed her speech with thanks for Dianne Watts.
"I want to say a few words about someone who has been more than a friend to me the past nine years," she said.
"We’ve worked hard together. We’ve campaigned together, and through it all we’ve done everything we could to make sure politics came second and Surrey came first."
Hepner's former Surrey First colleague, Rasode, stood with her family as she addressed her supporters. She said she had spoken with Hepner, and congratulated her on her win.
"We have debated, we have disagreed, and we have vowed to build a better Surrey together," Rasode said.
McCallum said he was shocked by the results, which placed him a distant second in the race.
The former mayor — he was the incumbent in 2005 when Watts was first elected — said that despite his huge loss, he did not regret stepping forward to run again.
As of 12.10 a.m. PT on Sunday, the results stood as: Hepner 48,661; McCallum 27,252 and Rasode 21,201.
There were also four independent candidates in the race, John Edwards, Grant Rice, John Wolanski and Bajwa Vikram.