Doug Elford confirms he has resigned from the Surrey Community Alliance party he formed to run alongside former mayor Doug McCallum in the upcoming civic election.
Elford was president of the newly formed political party that aimed to challenge the reigning Surrey First Party in the Oct. 20 civic election.
A release dated Aug. 11 was sent to media by former SCA campaign managers Gord Savard and Sharon Goldberg, said the party is withdrawing from the municipal election and cited funding as a “major reason” for the decision.
“We had excellent candidates,” the release stated. “In previous campaigns under the old legislation, the old group Surrey Matters already had $30,000 in donations to take care of pre-election expenses like signs, leaflets and office space. This time around we are not even near that amount, to run a reasonable campaign.”
But, a release sent to the Now-Leader by a member of the Surrey Community Alliance, Imtiaz Popat, says Elford’s split caused the “demise” of the party.
The Aug. 12 release stated an emergency meeting of SCA candidates was held last Friday (Aug. 10) to announce Elford’s resignation and that “the campaign was being dissolved.”
Popat said other members of SCA were also approached by McCallum but said they “refused to jump ship because we understand that some of the issues we were raising such (as) gang violence and homelessness were ignored by Doug McCallum when he was mayor.”
“We are not giving up,” Popat added. “We are looking at other options to continue our campaign and we confident we can raise the funds in the coming few weeks to run and effective campaign for City Council and School Board.”
The Now-Leader has contacted Elford for further comment.
Surrey voters head to the polls on Oct. 20.
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