---
title: "Surrey ward system may need a public vote first, Councillor Doug Elford says"
description: "Mayor-elect Doug McCallum promised to bring back ward elections in Surrey. Councillor Doug Elford told the Surrey Now-Leader the change will probably need a referendum and could take eight years."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/bc/surrey-2026/news/surrey-ward-system-referendum-elford-october-22"
last_updated: "2026-10-23T16:59:04.660Z"
---

Bringing back ward elections in Surrey will probably need a public vote first, and it could take eight years, Councillor [Doug Elford](/bc/surrey-2026/candidates/doug-elford) told the Surrey Now-Leader in a story published on October 22. Under a ward system, each part of the city elects its own councillor.

## The promise

On October 2, during the campaign, [Doug McCallum](/bc/surrey-2026/candidates/doug-mccallum) committed to restoring a ward system, the Now-Leader reports. His plan is for an independent commission to draw eight wards of similar population, so each neighbourhood elects one councillor. McCallum pointed to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg, which elect councillors by ward.

Surrey elects all eight councillors at large today: every voter chooses all of them. The Now-Leader reports that Surrey used wards from before 1879 until 1957, when the provincial government ended them.

## What Elford says now

Elford, a Safe Surrey Coalition councillor, moved a motion on wards in September 2020, when McCallum was last mayor. Council approved it and asked City staff for a report, according to the Now-Leader. Elford said the work stopped while the City moved from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service, and that former mayor [Brenda Locke](/bc/surrey-2026/candidates/brenda-locke) opposed wards. The story does not include a response from Locke.

Elford told the paper he will press council to deal with the question early. He said it will probably have to go to the public for a vote, because he expects the Province to want that. He added that council has to read the law first, and that the change might be eight years away. "It's not a short term thing," he said.

## The new council

The Safe Surrey Coalition holds eight of the nine council seats, according to the City's official declaration of October 21. The ward system is a promise of McCallum and of the coalition's seven councillors, and it is tracked on each of their pages in the [Surrey promise tracker](/bc/surrey-2026/tracker).

The new council holds its first meeting on Monday, November 2.

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](/bc/surrey-2026/sitemap.md) for all pages.