Surrey mayoral candidate Doug McCallum has dropped a political bombshell, demanding a federal investigation into alleged foreign election interference in Surrey, Delta and Vancouver.
His Safe Surrey Coalition issued a press release July 28 concerning a “network” of at least six Facebook pages posing as local news in Surrey, Delta and Vancouver being operated out of India, “paid for in Indian rupees, and billed to an entity at a Government of India research facility” which are “aimed at Canadian voters one week into the pre-campaign period for the October 17 election.”
His slate is calling on CSIS, the RCMP, Elections BC and the Surrey Police Service to investigate.
“This is not a Canadian operation. The people running it are in India. The money paying for it is in rupees. The payer named on the advertising is an entity at a research facility of the Government of India,” McCallum alleged.
“This is foreign interference in a Canadian election. Not influence. Not marketing. Interference. Foreign operators, foreign money, aimed at the voters of three Canadian cities, hiding their own location the moment they were caught. Ottawa calls this a national security matter when it happens federally. It is happening in Surrey right now and not one person in authority has said a word.”
The Safe Surrey Coalition is calling on CSIS “to establish who commissioned, funded and directed it, and whether any foreign state entity or its representatives in Canada played any role” and Elections BC to investigate “unregistered third party advertising, missing sponsorship information and prohibited foreign funding, covering the money paid to produce this content as well as to distribute it.”
The slate also want the Surrey Police Service and Surrey Police Board briefed on this “and to coordinate with federal partners,” and for Meta and TikTok to remove these pages immediately pending full disclosure of ownership, operators and funding.”
McCallum says content in this network “amplifies Mayor Brenda Locke, including a public safety post presenting her record on policing, extortion and gang violence entirely in her own framing, pushed to Surrey audiences with no disclosure of who paid to put it there.”
Locke seemed baffled by these claims. “I’m not sure what the deal is,” she told the Now-Leader. “He’s saying there’s foreign interference?”
“Maybe Mr. McCallum and members of his team should come up with a better strategy, maybe they have to have a better platform and maybe they should go knock on some doors because I don’t see what they see here. I don’t know what to say,” Locke said. “If they think there’s something that should be investigated they can go take it to the police, but I don’t see what he’s saying, so.”
Referencing the press release, she said, when she looks at the comment attributed to her – ‘mayor of Surrey says she’s deeply concerned about the ongoing extortion and gang-related violence in the city’ – “yeah, I would’ve said that. I’m not sure what to say. I would have said that, I am deeply concerned.”
“I have no knowledge of this so I have no idea what he’s talking about. He knows obviously something I don’t or maybe he doesn’t know. I have no idea what this is all about,” Locke said.
Third-party sponsors must register with Elections BC as required under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act before advertising and those with $500 or more in advertising expenses must file a full disclosure statement. Organizations of any kind, and individuals who are not residents of British Columbia, are banned outright from funding third party election advertising. Offences carry fines of up to $20,000 for an organization and up to two years imprisonment.