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Whalley’s Kuldip Pelia running for Surrey mayor

He’s Surrey’s sixth mayoral candidate to announce he’s running for the big chair in Oct. 15 election
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Kuldip Pelia. (Submitted photo)

Surrey’s sixth mayoral candidate to announce is Kuldip Pelia, running as an independent in the Oct. 15 civic election.

The Whalley resident will be competing for the job with incumbent Doug McCallum (Safe Surrey Coalition), Brenda Locke (Surrey Connect), Jinny Sims (Surrey Forward), Sukh Dhaliwal (United Surrey), and Gordie Hogg (Surrey First).

“I am very much concerned about the issues faced by Surrey citizens. I have written more emails to mayor, MLAs, MPs, and ministers since 2013 than any other citizen of Surrey,” he says, adding that he has “about 2,000” friends from Surrey on his Facebook account. His bio also says that besides English he also speaks Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, German and “some” Gujarati.

“Being an accounting and finance professional, I can give good advice to city about increasing revenue, and decreasing expenses,” Pelia said.

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If elected, he says, he will work for the “speedy completion” of the Surrey policing transition, and Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension.

“I will approach TransLink to start work on Surrey-White Rock and Scott Road-Highway 10 Skytrain extensions. I’ll also make efforts to increase child-care spaces, and post-secondary spaces in Surrey. I will do whatever it takes to make health services more efficient in Surrey. To increase affordable rental spaces, will be one of my priorities.”

He said while he doesn’t intend to form a slate he hopes to be “coordinating” with other independent council candidates who are “the same way of thinking, like I do.”

Pelia ran unsuccessfully for a Surrey councillor’s seat in 2018.

“If I become mayor in a city like Surrey, then my voice will become more effective,” he told the Now-Leader. “That’s why I’m running for mayor.”

Candidates for office will need to submit their nominations to local election officials between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9.



About the Author: Tom Zytaruk

I write unvarnished opinion columns and unbiased news reports for the Surrey Now-Leader.
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