Surrey Conservative mayoral candidate suggests possible ban on library materials

A lawyer who lost in the last provincial election by just 22 votes – and who launched an unsuccessful court challenge of that result – is running for the Conservative Party of Surrey as its mayoral candidate.

And one of the first platform announcements by Honveer Singh Randhawa was that he would try to get the SOGI program out of Surrey Schools and possibly remove some materials at local libraries.

Randhawa lost the Surrey-Guildford riding to the BC NDP’s Gerry Begg in 2024 and said $200,000 was spent fighting that result with claims of “irregularities” in the voting – assertions denied by Elections BC.

In announcing his mayoral candidacy, Randhawa said he would form a parent-citizens committee to work with the city and public library officials to “review age-appropriate materials, strengthen transparency” in local libraries. The implication is that certain materials would then be removed.

Randhawa didn’t elaborate on what materials might be objectionable.

Randhawa said he would also work to get rid of SOGI “materials” in Surrey classrooms.

Other platform policies included a promise to instruction city staff to file a motion applying for intervenor status in the appeal of the BC Supreme Court decision in the Cowichan Tribes land case.

The extortion file was also mentioned.

“As Mayor, I will stop the extortion by supporting and fully funding law enforcement,” he said.

The rest of the Conservative slate includes Lita Cabal, Ricky Bajwa, James Yu, Rasinder Kaur, Holly Verchere, and Cheney Cloke.