September 3,2025
RED FM News Desk
Surrey City Councillor Linda Annis has announced her bid for mayor, aiming to bring a Surrey First mayor back to City Hall and revive the political legacy that ended with Linda Hepner in 2018.
Annis made her announcement Wednesday at the Civic Hotel in Whalley. The next municipal election is scheduled for Saturday, October 17, 2026—over a year away. A South Surrey resident and executive director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers, Annis plans to launch a full slate of candidates in the coming weeks, finalizing it early next year.
Annis was the only Surrey First candidate elected to council in 2018, a year that saw the longtime slate’s dominance at City Hall break apart. While all six incumbent Surrey First school board trustees were re-elected, voters retired all Surrey First council incumbents still running, as well as former slate members who had split off to form Integrity Now.
If elected, Annis plans to create an advisory panel of all former Surrey mayors, dating back to Bob Bose, who served from 1988 to 1996 before being defeated by McCallum, calling it “great to be inclusive.”
She outlined her election priorities in a “contract with the community,” which include:
- Completing the police transition and establishing a new police training academy in Surrey for the Lower Mainland.
- Conducting a core review of all city programs and expenses to ensure value for money, identify potential savings, and reduce bureaucracy.
- Expanding light rail transit to connect neighbourhoods and complement the new Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line.
- Reducing building permit wait times and accelerating affordable housing development with fewer city hall hurdles and lower costs.
- Implementing a results-driven economic development plan to cut red tape, enhance Surrey’s business reputation, and create local jobs to reduce commuting.
- Growing key sectors such as agriculture and food processing, manufacturing, transportation, logistics, and construction expertise.
- Hiring an independent auditor general, as in other major Canadian cities, to ensure financial transparency and accountability.
- Developing a 20-year plan for additional parks, pools, rinks, and playing fields, with free access for Surrey children and youth.
- Leveraging Surrey’s political influence to secure more funding for transit, healthcare, and education from Victoria and Ottawa.
- Eliminating Surrey’s 400 school portables.
- Creating a community-driven master plan for Cloverdale Fairgrounds as a sports and entertainment hub.
- Building a conference and performing arts centre.
- Increasing community engagement, including a public question period at the start of every council meeting.
- Enhancing transparency at City Hall and council meetings with fewer in-camera sessions.
Annis’s campaign positions her as a candidate focused on transparency, efficiency, and long-term infrastructure and community development for Surrey.
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