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😈 POLITICAL SPIN DOCTORS

The political spin machine has been working hard in civic and regional politics.

The Metro Vancouver regional government pulled off a classic move on Friday, announcing the ousting of its CAO in what is called the “Friday news dump” - meaning a news release is sent out late on Friday of a long weekend when people are going away and news crews are at their smallest.

The idea is to minimize the coverage of bad news.

Jerry Dobrovolny has been under fire for more than a year due to various issues with Metro Vancouver, including the wildly over-budget North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project.

Now he is gone, but Metro Vancouver isn’t saying what his severance package is, which means it’s a lot. He was already making more than $500,000 a year.

🚨 CANDIDATE DUMPED

The other political news that hit Surrey was that the Conservative Party of Surrey has dumped its newest candidate, bodybuilder Sandy Dosanjh, after her husband Kal, a Vancouver police officer and CEO of a Surrey charity that aims to keep kids out of gangs, was hit with nine criminal charges, including fraud and theft over $5,000.

What was interesting in the news release by the Surrey Conservatives was that the party said it wouldn’t be making any further comments about this - but then, hours later, issued a news release in which they did in fact make more comments about the situation.

The party sent a news release that patted itself on the back because they “acted immediately” to dump Sandy Dosanjh. Then the party tried to drag Mayor Brenda Locke and Doug McCallum into things with vague allegations about their time in office and how the party would “restore public trust” in city hall.

It takes a lot of political spin to dump a candidate because her husband has been criminally charged and somehow connect things to problems at city hall.

For his part, Kal Dosanjh issued a statement through his lawyer, Joven Narwal, proclaiming his innocence.

• “I deny the allegations against me and I look forward to defending myself fully in court,” read a statement. “I have complete confidence in my legal counsel and in the Canadian justice system, and I will allow the evidence and the facts to speak for themselves.”

Narwal also raised concerns about why Kal’s employer, the Vancouver Police Department, was the agency that led the multi-year investigation that led to charges.

Stay tuned for more on this story.

- Chris Campbell

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KPU photo

🎓 Schools

Surrey campuses face more cuts as schools shut out of funding increase

What's driving the news: Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Simon Fraser University are not receiving an increase in their operational grants from the provincial government — both schools have campuses located in Surrey — despite facing significant financial challenges stemming from a drop in international student revenue. 

Budget letters: At the end of July, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills released budget letters to all institutions that includes how much funding they will be receiving and student full-time equivalent targets. A student taking a full course load counts as one FTE, but a student taking a part-time course load would be less than one FTE. 

International cuts: The post-secondary sector overall has been facing unprecedented times after years of chronic underfunding and a reliance on international students paying exorbitant tuition fees to make up the difference.  

Revenue sources: Universities also make revenue from donations, endowments, investments and research grants; however, provincial funding for institutions in 2000 was at 68 per cent and has now fallen to 40 per cent. Schools’ reliance on international students came to an end in 2024, when the federal government began capping the number of international students each province could accept. 

KPU: KPU’s 2026-27 operating grant from the province is $107.27 million, a slight decrease of about $100,000 from the previous year —  it also had the student FTE target at 9,460, a reduction of 52 FTE students.

The proposed budget for the year had projected $113 million from the province, but in a statement to the Citizen, KPU’s interim chief financial officer Carole Laplante wrote that university budget projections included assumptions that funding for unionized employees’ negotiated increases will be provided once collective agreements are ratified. Those agreements are not yet finalized, those funds are not reflected in the budget letter, but once the amount is confirmed those costs will be offset. 

• "The international student enrolment decline has left KPU facing a structural deficit of approximately $35 million by March 2028. To date, KPU’s primary response has been to reduce capacity in program and service areas where demand has fallen," wrote Laplante. 

SFU: SFU did not fare much better with their operating grant this year being $353.96 million and nearly $400,000 less than the previous year. The province also kept the school's FTE target the exact same at 20,534 students. 

In a statement to the Citizen, the university wrote “financial challenges facing the post-secondary sector have impacted SFU and other leading universities, and these pressures are expected to continue into the years ahead. In response, we have strengthened how we plan, allocate and steward our resources to ensure the university remains futureready and responsive. SFU is on solid financial ground. We continue to optimize operations and look for new revenue streams.” 

Staff cuts: Over the past two years, both schools have had to lay off nearly 100 staff due to budget shortfalls. 

- Story by Aisha Chaudhry (Read more by hitting the button below.)

Unsplash photo

🚌 Transit

Surrey candidates urged to support more funding to add shelters at bus stops

Bus benches: It was cheap and easy for volunteers to put benches at five Metro Vancouver bus stops. 

Will municipal candidates from across Metro Vancouver take the hint?

Election: That’s the question being asked by Movement, a Surrey-based group that advocates for transit riders, on the eve of the Oct. 17 civic election.

Sign the pledge: Movement has put together a pledge for Surrey civic candidates to sign of things they will support if elected or re-elected that benefit transit riders.

Gimme shelter: One of those things is to support funding more bus benches and shelters in Surrey. To illustrate how easy and affordable it is to do, Movement added the facilities to three Vancouver stops and two in Richmond on Mitchell Island.

What the data says: TransLink data has found that Surrey is missing a lot of these amenities along the route where the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain is being built.

Municipal issue: Most people don’t realize that TransLink isn’t responsible for bus benches on municipal land – only the land TransLink owns.

• “Most bus stops are the responsibility of the municipality they’re in,” said Denis Agar, executive director of Movement. “That’s why they look different from one city to the next. TransLink only does the shelters for bus stops on their property, usually at bus exchanges and SkyTrain stations. A small amount of bus stops are on provincial property, meaning they are the responsibility of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit.”

Movement wants bus stops to have a basic suite of amenities:

• Shelter

• Bench

• Wheelchair accessibility

• Overhead lighting

• A safe crosswalk nearby

“We don’t have exact figures on which stops meet this standard,” said Agar. “What we do know is that if every stop with over 50 boardings per weekday met this standard, 93% of transit riders would be covered. Based on 2024 data, that’s only 3,210 out of the region’s 8,300-plus active bus stops (39%).”

Shelter = ridership: Adding these amenities would encourage more people to take transit, Agar said, especially in a region that receives so much rain each year.

Which cities are currently doing the best job?

• Burnaby: A report to council in 2024 indicates that they’re installing about one new shelter and bench every week, until 2030.

• Delta also deserves some credit for spending $750,000 this year on sprucing up some of their worst bus stops, especially in industrial areas which are seeing far higher ridership than they have before.

- Story by Chris Campbell

Chris Campbell photo

📨 Election

Chamber hosts candidate events

Independent candidate: The Chamber of Commerce in Cloverdale has set up a series of meet-and-greet events with the major parties running in the Surrey civic election on Oct. 17.

Informal: The events will be informal and people can drop in to meet candidates and ask questions.

Time and place: The events will run from 5 to 7 p.m. at the chamber’s office.

Register first: People are being asked to pre-register for the open houses. This can be done by visiting cloverdalechamber.ca or by emailing info@cloverdalechamber.ca. For more info, visit cloverdalechamber.ca.

The open houses:

• Sept. 9, Imagine Surrey (Mayoral candidate: Mike Starchuk, pictured above)

• Sept. 11, Safe Surrey Coalition (Mayoral candidate: Doug McCallum)

• Sept. 14, Surrey Now (Mayoral candidate: Troy Van Vliet)

• Sept. 15, Surrey Connect (Mayoral candidate: Brenda Locke)

• Sept. 17, Surrey First (Mayoral candidate: Linda Annis)

• Sept. 18, Conservative Party of Surrey (Mayoral candidate: Honveer Singh Randhawa)

• Sept. 21, Surrey+ (Mayoral candidate: Igal Ammons II)

By the numbers: Rent increases

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🚓 Policing

Crash that injured pedestrian now under investigation by police watchdog

Surrey Police Service has notified the Independent Investigations Office following a crash between an SPS police vehicle and a vehicle, that subsequently resulted in a pedestrian being struck.

The pedestrian was transported to hospital with life threatening injuries, and the driver of the other vehicle was transported to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

On Sept. 7, at approximately 2:56 a.m., an SPS police vehicle was involved in a collision with a vehicle in the area of 96 Avenue and King George Boulevard. As a result of the collision, a pedestrian was struck. SPS officers, Surrey Fire Services firefighters, and BCEHS paramedics, attended to assist on scene.

SPS has informed the IIO of the incident and they have asserted jurisdiction.

• “SPS is unable to provide additional information while the IIO’s independent process is taking place,” read a police statement.

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