Today was when all of BC went to the polls to elect their city mayor, council and school turstees.
There was a lot of hype leading up to this election in Surrey. Punjabis here have always complained about how they have never had a ‘voice’ and are under-represented at the city level while having great ‘success’ in provincial and federal politics. As far back as I can remember people used to speak from gurdwara stages about having one of our own at city hall. Candidates would campaign from there every election, and they would lose...
It’s obviously would be nice to have ‘our’ own people in government, but does it really do any good when Punjabis do get elected? The only good thing that’s ever happened is recognition of Punjabi in BC during the NDP/Moe Sihota reign.
This time there were many Punjabis running for council, school trustee and even for mayor. There were more visible minorities than caucasians. Most of them didn’t stand a chance. Tim Gill was the only lucky one who got elected. I’ve never seen the Punjabi media this excited before, it’s being described as a historical event. We’ll just have to wait and see what he does.
The polls opened at 8:00am, I went to vote quite early, at about 8:45pm. This is the first time I’ve seen electronic voting machines being used, it was actually quite impressive. When I was walking back I got a text message from someone saying something like vote for Doug otherwise don’t bother to vote at all.
Our man Doug McCallam lost, no one was more deserving than him to win but not everyone sees all the good he did for Surrey. Negative propaganda is a very powerful weapon even today.
The election results can be viewed here. For more detailed results by each polling station click here. Notice how many votes were wasted.
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