# Surrey-SkyTrain-Mania | Political Capital Daily

An episode of [Political Capital with Rob Shaw](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1553146808), 21 Oct 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75893932/pcdaily_oct21.mp3

Oct. 21, 2026 BC NDP and Conservative leaders fall over themselves to promise new Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum his SkyTrain to Newton promise. Watch Rob on CHEK TV weeknights. Read more: www.robshawnews.com — Political Capital Daily is presented by: Airbnb Your daily briefing on B.C. politics — from inside the legislature

## Transcript

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[0:56] Speaker 1: and this is Political Capital Daily. Well, good morning. Happy
[1:14] Speaker 1: Wednesday to you. Just a few days left in the
[1:18] Speaker 1: BC election campaign. Three days.
[1:22] Speaker 2: Three.
[1:22] Speaker 1: Oh, my God. Three days.
[1:24] Speaker 2: Oh, we're so close.
[1:26] Speaker 1: Oh, Jillian Oliver here joining me this morning. So close, Jillian.
[1:30] Speaker 1: I apologize if there's extra gravitas, if there's extra bass
[1:34] Speaker 1: listening to me this morning. I've got a combination of
[1:37] Speaker 1: the man cold and the election cold put together. The
[1:41] Speaker 1: man election cold. Which I, and I have 100% confidence
[1:46] Speaker 1: in saying this, is worse than childbirth. So I'm just
[1:49] Speaker 1: going to go ahead and say that out loud to everyone.
[1:51] Speaker 2: I guess congratulations then. Yeah.
[1:56] Speaker 1: It's bad. It's real bad. It's mildly uncomfortable.
[2:00] Speaker 2: Oh, horrible.
[2:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
[2:02] Speaker 3: I know.
[2:04] Speaker 1: Anyways, we'll hopefully get back. in the old saddle and
[2:08] Speaker 1: better for the big election day on Saturday. But in
[2:12] Speaker 1: the meantime, wrapping up the final days of the election
[2:15] Speaker 1: campaign on the docket this morning, this kind of scramble time,
[2:19] Speaker 1: but we do know the Greens are doing a media
[2:21] Speaker 1: availability with their candidate, leader Emily Lowen, candidate Raj Sahota
[2:27] Speaker 1: on leaseholder protections this morning in Victoria, canvassing on Salt
[2:31] Speaker 1: Spring Island. Not quite sure what the Conservatives and NDP
[2:34] Speaker 1: are up to today, but they are pretty much pivoting
[2:37] Speaker 1: in real time in their campaigns. And Jillian, one big
[2:40] Speaker 1: example of that was yesterday, an announcement from the conservatives
[2:44] Speaker 1: that they would follow new Surrey mayor, Doug McCallum's lead
[2:49] Speaker 1: and extend the SkyTrain from Surrey city center to Newton.
[2:55] Speaker 1: And not 30 minutes later, the BC NDP out with
[2:57] Speaker 1: its own press release saying, Hey, you know what? We'd
[3:00] Speaker 1: like to extend the SkyTrain to Newton too. And then
[3:05] Speaker 1: the NDP said, turning around and saying, you haven't costed this, conservatives.
[3:09] Speaker 1: And the conservatives saying, well, you're only putting $ 250 million
[3:14] Speaker 1: aside from your rapid bus promise. You haven't costed it either.
[3:18] Speaker 1: And the two of them fighting over that. But fascinating
[3:21] Speaker 1: to watch them pivoting. It reminded me a little bit
[3:22] Speaker 1: of bridge tolls in the 2017 election campaigns in real time,
[3:26] Speaker 1: unfurling major transportation announcements based on kind of the moment.
[3:32] Speaker 1: And this moment is Doug McCallum and his incredible work
[3:35] Speaker 1: third return to politics in Surrey on a SkyTrain promise
[3:38] Speaker 1: to Newton that he doesn't actually control, and all the
[3:41] Speaker 1: provincial politicians falling in line, Jillian, in record time on
[3:46] Speaker 1: the fly in the election campaign.
[3:49] Speaker 2: It's, yeah, I mean, I feel like it's, like, a
[3:53] Speaker 2: thousand times messier than the bridge toll one, because this is, like,
[3:57] Speaker 2: a thousand times messier snap election. It's, like, more politically
[4:03] Speaker 2: motivated infrastructure promises, which is so wild, because I feel
[4:06] Speaker 2: like we were just talking about the Massey Tunnel and
[4:09] Speaker 2: how the, like, hyper-politicization of that infrastructure project has led
[4:13] Speaker 2: to terrible outcomes. planning processes for transportation. TransLink is in
[4:25] Speaker 2: a huge budget crisis. They've been having huge shortfalls, kind
[4:31] Speaker 2: of limping along. The NDP has promised to come up
[4:34] Speaker 2: with a sustainable funding model, but they haven't said how
[4:36] Speaker 2: they're going to do that. The Conservatives have promised not
[4:41] Speaker 2: to raise taxes, and they have not promised to come
[4:43] Speaker 2: up with a I don't think either of them promised
[4:50] Speaker 2: to extend the SkyTrain to UBC, which is, like, a
[4:54] Speaker 2: much more probably urgent and, like, ready project. I think
[4:59] Speaker 2: only the Greens promised that, that municipalities have been lobbying
[5:03] Speaker 2: for for, like, a decade or longer. And so, I mean,
[5:07] Speaker 2: maybe he's cutting the gas tax. Like, it's such a mess.
[5:13] Speaker 2: And just like the Massey, everybody is kind of just
[5:15] Speaker 2: left waiting for, like, responsible governance and some like reasonable
[5:21] Speaker 2: plans so that we can get to where we need
[5:23] Speaker 2: to go.
[5:24] Speaker 1: Well, the SkyTrain line under construction at Langley is massively
[5:27] Speaker 1: over budget. I think it's like $ 6 billion now. So
[5:30] Speaker 1: this is a multi-billion dollar promise for Newton. And no
[5:35] Speaker 1: one knows where that money's coming from. And the capital
[5:38] Speaker 1: budget is under constraint. And as you pointed out, no
[5:40] Speaker 1: one is talking really about raising a bunch of money
[5:43] Speaker 1: in their election campaign. So it's a little... odd, but
[5:47] Speaker 1: I guess Surrey is just so important. I mean, it
[5:51] Speaker 1: is the single most important electoral area in the province that,
[5:55] Speaker 1: you know, these campaigns are willing to make announcements and
[5:57] Speaker 1: figure out how to pay for them later because there's
[5:59] Speaker 1: 10 ridings at play, more than the entire northern half
[6:02] Speaker 1: of BC. In the 2020 election, the NDP held seven
[6:06] Speaker 1: of them and the Liberals held two and the NDP
[6:09] Speaker 1: slipped a little bit and they ended up with four
[6:12] Speaker 1: in 2024 and the Conservatives had six And that is
[6:15] Speaker 1: where we head into this next election with several kind
[6:18] Speaker 1: of battleground swing ridings, like Suri Guilford, where the result
[6:23] Speaker 1: for the NDP was only 22 votes for Gary landslide big. Uh, and, uh,
[6:28] Speaker 1: and even, uh, Suri city center, which was 232 votes. Uh,
[6:32] Speaker 1: so that for Amna Shah. So there are ridings there
[6:35] Speaker 1: that we're going to be watching on election night that
[6:38] Speaker 1: if they fall one way or another are going to
[6:39] Speaker 1: indicate a pretty good chance of that party winning a
[6:42] Speaker 1: majority because flying through Surrey gives you the momentum that
[6:48] Speaker 1: you need on the path to a majority. And I
[6:50] Speaker 1: guess that's why it's easy for parties to come out
[6:53] Speaker 1: and say, we'll build this thing with no money, no budget,
[6:56] Speaker 1: no plan, simply because they look at Doug McCallum and say,
[6:59] Speaker 1: that guy won. This must be a vote getter. We're
[7:02] Speaker 1: going to do whatever we can. And to be fair,
[7:04] Speaker 1: I guess, Doug McCallum came in in 2018 with a
[7:07] Speaker 1: plan to get rid of LRT to Surrey. and demand
[7:13] Speaker 1: that it be SkyTrain. And he bent the NDP to
[7:17] Speaker 1: his will on that because by 2020 in the snap election,
[7:20] Speaker 1: John Horgan had got around to saying, fine, fine, no LRT,
[7:23] Speaker 1: we'll do SkyTrain. This is the second time Doug McCallum
[7:26] Speaker 1: has just sailed in and reset the political agenda right
[7:29] Speaker 1: before a snap election. So it's fascinating to watch, Julian.
[7:33] Speaker 1: I think we'll be spending a lot of time trying
[7:34] Speaker 1: to figure out Surrey on election night. Have you started
[7:39] Speaker 1: wrapping your mind around election night yet? No. All the
[7:42] Speaker 1: different things. We've done a few of these together. It's
[7:45] Speaker 1: always a rush, isn't it? Yeah, no kidding.
[7:48] Speaker 2: No, I got to do some homework on my Surrey ridings.
[7:52] Speaker 2: It's not a place where the greens are super, super competitive,
[7:55] Speaker 2: so I don't know them as well. So I got
[7:57] Speaker 2: to do some homework because I agree that's where all
[8:00] Speaker 2: eyes are going to be counting those votes. We could
[8:04] Speaker 2: be watching those late into the night. We might not
[8:06] Speaker 2: even know on the night of. It's gearing up to
[8:10] Speaker 2: be a chaotic.
[8:11] Speaker 1: One, I think. It is, yeah. And we're going to see,
[8:13] Speaker 1: you know, Surrey as a battleground for Centre BC as well,
[8:17] Speaker 1: because Eleanor Sturco going to run in Surrey South, and
[8:21] Speaker 1: she's up against the Conservatives' Megan Knight, who's the White
[8:23] Speaker 1: Rock mayor. And the two of them are going to
[8:25] Speaker 1: battle it out in this kind of sort of primary.
[8:27] Speaker 1: But at the same time, you've got, you know, the
[8:30] Speaker 1: NDP sitting there possibly benefiting from that split. And what was...
[8:36] Speaker 1: the riding, you know, that had one of the biggest
[8:40] Speaker 1: margins for the Conservatives on paper with Brent Chapman in
[8:44] Speaker 1: 2024 could end up being a split, but maybe even
[8:46] Speaker 1: the NDP pickup. So, like, it's going to be, we're
[8:49] Speaker 1: going to be spending a lot of time trying to
[8:51] Speaker 1: figure out what's happening in Surrey on election night. Okay,
[8:55] Speaker 1: let's just take a quick break. When we come back,
[8:56] Speaker 1: we're going to talk some polling numbers. Well, Political Capital
[9:09] Speaker 1: daily free each and every morning in your pod box,
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[9:39] Speaker 1: to the show. Another poll we should mention here, and
[9:48] Speaker 1: I do wonder every time I mention one if we're
[9:51] Speaker 1: cruising for a bruising on the polling front, perhaps back
[9:53] Speaker 1: to the old 2013 election when all the polls were
[9:56] Speaker 1: somewhat wrong and didn't quite anticipate the outcome of the election.
[10:00] Speaker 1: And we all had a moment of pause on the
[10:04] Speaker 1: pseudoscientific art of polling. But nonetheless, history is destined to
[10:09] Speaker 1: repeat itself. And here we are in 2026 talking about
[10:12] Speaker 1: every poll that comes out. This one by Innovative Research
[10:16] Speaker 1: with a five-point lead for the BC Conservatives, 43% to 38%,
[10:21] Speaker 1: which is a switcheroo position from the start of the
[10:23] Speaker 1: campaign when Innovative had the NDP with a two-point lead
[10:27] Speaker 1: near the end of September, and a marginal lead for
[10:30] Speaker 1: the Conservatives in every region of the province in this poll,
[10:33] Speaker 1: which doesn't quite match up with other polls, but this
[10:36] Speaker 1: was 1,000 people after the TV leaders' debates yesterday. the
[10:40] Speaker 1: 15th to the 19th. Jillian, I don't know if anything
[10:43] Speaker 1: jumped out at you from this or how we fit
[10:44] Speaker 1: these trend lines into the other trend lines and, and, uh,
[10:49] Speaker 1: what you're thinking about these numbers in our final few
[10:51] Speaker 1: days here.
[10:52] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[10:52] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think what stands out to me
[10:55] Speaker 2: is that they're all like pretty tight. Um, you see
[10:59] Speaker 2: some variation in, in the polls, but for the most part,
[11:02] Speaker 2: I think that like, they're all telling us that they're
[11:05] Speaker 2: really close. And I think that, um, because of the
[11:08] Speaker 2: way that the break, the votes break down in individual writings,
[11:11] Speaker 2: it's really hard to sort of like accurately predict an
[11:14] Speaker 2: outcome from that. I wasn't around in 2013 and I'm
[11:17] Speaker 2: not sure if they were just off or, if, if
[11:19] Speaker 2: it was sort of like a.
[11:20] Speaker 1: Like an issue of super majority.
[11:22] Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know that he was supposed
[11:25] Speaker 2: to be able to kick a dog and still get elected.
[11:26] Speaker 1: I don't know about the polling.
[11:29] Speaker 2: Um, so I think we're going to be watching and
[11:31] Speaker 2: it's impossible. Anyone who says that they know what's going
[11:33] Speaker 2: to happen, um, doesn't, um, I think that there could
[11:37] Speaker 2: still be like, well, so many signs are showing, telling
[11:40] Speaker 2: us that the, it seems like the conservatives are going
[11:42] Speaker 2: to run away with it or squeak away with it. Um,
[11:45] Speaker 2: There are so many interesting things that can happen where, like,
[11:49] Speaker 2: people feel really angry at EB, but when they get
[11:52] Speaker 2: into the ballot box, they still could, you know, make
[11:55] Speaker 2: a different decision, still think the Conservatives are risky. I
[11:58] Speaker 2: hear a lot of people still talking about that. There's
[12:00] Speaker 2: been a lot of noise, a lot of negative campaigning
[12:02] Speaker 2: in this last week, so I really think it's so
[12:05] Speaker 2: hard to extrapolate from these polls the way that it's
[12:09] Speaker 2: going to go. The most... indicative number however from this
[12:14] Speaker 2: poll because it's such a big one is 65% of
[12:17] Speaker 2: people saying that it's time for a change in government
[12:20] Speaker 2: which is an 8% increase from about a month ago
[12:24] Speaker 2: when the election was called that's really significant and hard
[12:27] Speaker 2: to overcome but again like people still might just decide
[12:32] Speaker 2: like make a lesser of two evils choice but it
[12:36] Speaker 2: would be very shocking to see the NDP have a
[12:41] Speaker 2: bigger majority like they were aiming for with a number.
[12:43] Speaker 1: Like that yeah and the best premier numbers in here
[12:46] Speaker 1: indicating dirksen is rising quite a bit uh at least
[12:50] Speaker 1: since you know.
[12:50] Speaker 2: Yeah flipped it for the first time i think over
[12:53] Speaker 2: eb right 36 to 34.
[12:55] Speaker 1: Got it over at the top there and so that's
[12:56] Speaker 1: an indication at least that maybe the conservatives are successful
[13:00] Speaker 1: in defining dirksen or at least pushing back some of
[13:03] Speaker 1: the ndp's attempts to define him as this kind of
[13:05] Speaker 1: weak leader of a band of crazy yahoos who can't
[13:09] Speaker 1: be trusted and instead he's kind of surviving that so
[13:13] Speaker 1: but you're right like these numbers indicate what people respond
[13:16] Speaker 1: to when they're contacted for an online survey or a
[13:19] Speaker 1: phone poll or they're on a sample panel of some
[13:24] Speaker 1: type but they don't account for the moment of truth
[13:27] Speaker 1: in the ballot box with the stubby pencil where you're
[13:30] Speaker 1: right sometimes people just seize up and default back to
[13:35] Speaker 1: what feels more comfortable or more safe or the best option.
[13:39] Speaker 1: And that's where the change momentum can sometimes evaporate. And
[13:42] Speaker 1: we won't know that until election night as we're sitting
[13:45] Speaker 1: there watching it, trying to figure out what's going on.
[13:48] Speaker 1: But the voters are never wrong, even if they change
[13:51] Speaker 1: their mind at the last minute. And a lot of
[13:54] Speaker 1: this is in the margin of error sometimes too. I mean,
[13:56] Speaker 1: this is five points and there isn't a margin of error,
[13:58] Speaker 1: but usually it's indicating that. So I don't know. Very
[14:03] Speaker 1: interesting times. Anything else you're watching for in our final
[14:06] Speaker 1: few days here? We've got a Political Capital Prime on
[14:10] Speaker 1: Friday that's going to air on check on Saturday right
[14:13] Speaker 1: before the election as well, but it'll be online Friday.
[14:16] Speaker 1: But anything between now and Friday that you're keeping an
[14:19] Speaker 1: eye on?
[14:20] Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of interesting to see where they're
[14:24] Speaker 2: spending their time. That seems like it's been mostly in
[14:29] Speaker 2: the lower mainland. I haven't seen Azibi been on the island.
[14:31] Speaker 2: The Greens are back on the island trying to lock
[14:34] Speaker 2: down Emily Lowen's riding. She was campaigning with Mayor-elect Pete
[14:38] Speaker 2: Fry yesterday there. knocking doors in Sydney. And then she'll
[14:43] Speaker 2: be in Victoria today. So I don't know, are the
[14:45] Speaker 2: NDP around on the island tomorrow?
[14:47] Speaker 1: I don't know, but Lauren Dirksen was on the island
[14:50] Speaker 1: yesterday in Sooke, Victoria and Langford. I sat down with
[14:55] Speaker 1: them for an interview that we had on check, offered
[14:59] Speaker 1: that up to EB when he's in town. And the
[15:01] Speaker 1: response back was, no, that's good. If you want to
[15:03] Speaker 1: talk to him, you can come to Vancouver. So I
[15:05] Speaker 1: don't think we'll be doing that anytime soon. So it's
[15:08] Speaker 1: kind of like, No, no.
[15:10] Speaker 2: He heard about your man cold.
[15:12] Speaker 1: That's right. No, thank you. I'm not getting that man cold.
[15:15] Speaker 1: Sneeze all over him at the start of the interview.
[15:18] Speaker 1: And yeah, it was interesting though, that both EB and
[15:22] Speaker 1: Dirksen had been in Kelowna in the last 24 hours
[15:25] Speaker 1: at the start of the week. And they're obviously fighting
[15:28] Speaker 1: out over kind of Kelowna center and the idea there that,
[15:33] Speaker 1: you know, there could be something afoot in a place
[15:36] Speaker 1: that the NDP could actually maybe even win. So that's
[15:39] Speaker 1: an interesting one because that sort of newish riding in
[15:44] Speaker 1: 2024 has Christina Lohan against, who's the incumbent for the conservatives,
[15:48] Speaker 1: against the NDP's Loyal Wooldridge. And there's significant attention from
[15:53] Speaker 1: both leaders on that with the NDP hoping. There's not
[15:56] Speaker 1: a lot of ridings you can point to in the
[15:58] Speaker 1: province right now. And I was thinking about this today
[15:59] Speaker 1: where you could be like, okay, the NDP want to
[16:02] Speaker 1: win that. Like maybe a handful in the lower mainland
[16:05] Speaker 1: and maybe they think they could flip Courtney Comox back.
[16:09] Speaker 1: but Kelowna center is an NDP want to win this
[16:12] Speaker 1: badly riding. And I guess their path to a bigger
[16:14] Speaker 1: majority is going to need to flip ridings like that.
[16:17] Speaker 1: And that's why EB is up there, uh, so much and,
[16:20] Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. And I think your
[16:22] Speaker 1: neck of the woods, like, uh, Nelson Creston, which is
[16:25] Speaker 1: now Kootenai central is one where the conservatives kind of
[16:28] Speaker 1: want to flip it on their path to, uh, to
[16:30] Speaker 1: a majority too.
[16:31] Speaker 3: So yeah, they leapfrogged the greens there last time, which
[16:34] Speaker 3: really surprised me. Um, And yeah, I think there'll be,
[16:38] Speaker 3: I've been hearing from a lot of people up there
[16:40] Speaker 3: that there's sort of like change in the air up there.
[16:42] Speaker 1: And the Greens got like 10% of the vote last time.
[16:45] Speaker 1: So if they're still back and pull away from the NDP,
[16:48] Speaker 1: that 10%, that could be a consequential vote split in
[16:52] Speaker 1: that riding as well. So lots of ones like that
[16:55] Speaker 1: where we're going to be watching to see, but oh, these,
[16:59] Speaker 1: these final few hours of the campaign, very interesting stuff. Jillian,
[17:02] Speaker 1: thank you so much for getting up and being part
[17:04] Speaker 1: of the show so early.
[17:06] Speaker 3: No problem.
[17:06] Speaker 2: See you Friday.
[17:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see you Friday and we'll see all of
[17:09] Speaker 1: you tomorrow on Political Capital Daily and throughout the week
[17:12] Speaker 1: as we head into the election, Political Capital Prime, the
[17:15] Speaker 1: double shot on Friday and maybe even a podcast Saturday
[17:18] Speaker 1: morning with Jeff Frayer. It's going to be a busy week.
[17:21] Speaker 1: We'll see you then.

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