Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum promises 60,000 seat stadium

Incumbent Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum is running on a massive platform — 60,000 seats massive.

In a groundbreaking ceremony for the Cloverdale Sport and Ice Complex on Wednesday, McCallum said his Safe Surrey Coalition party would build a multi-use stadium in the city, the biggest in Canada.

First reported by Global News, McCallum told reporters that no location for the possible stadium has been identified yet.

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However, the Lower Mainland’s BC Place, a similar size stadium that has just over 54,000 seats, had its best attendance in 2015 when 21,290 people went to a BC Lions game. The best-attended game was almost 40 years ago according to CFLdb, in 1986 when 46,637 watched a game.

McCallum’s pledge comes as mayoral candidate Gordie Hogg pledged an extra 300 police officers Tuesday, if his Surrey First party wins the race.

Hogg says he promises to not only hire the new officers, but to get “voters all the facts” about a transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service so “they can make the choice about who should police British Columbia’s second-largest city.”

Surrey-Newton MP Sukh Dhaliwal, Surrey-Panorama MLA Jinny Sims, and City Councillor Brenda Locke are also challenging McCallum for the mayor’s seat.

Voters head to the polls on Saturday, Oct. 15.