Mayoral candidates Barinder Rasode, Doug McCallum and Linda Hepner each has a vision for the post-Dianne Watts era.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
Voters in British Columbia's second-largest city are electing councillors and a mayor this weekend, and some say the campaign in Surrey will provide a dry run for next year's federal election in one of the most competitive political battlegrounds in the country.
A number of high-profile political operators with federal links, expected to have some role in the 2015 federal election, have been working on local campaigns.
In some respects, Surrey is like a microcosm of Canada. The city of about 500,000 people is both very urban and also rural. It is ethnically diverse. The six Surrey-area ridings are now split between the Conservatives and the NDP, but Liberals have been previously elected in Surrey. It's an area where all three of the major parties hope to either hold onto or pick up seats.
Mark Marissen, a former national campaign co-chair for the federal Liberals, is working on the mayoral campaign of Surrey Councillor Barinder Rasode, which is also supported by former Conservative senator Gerry St. Germain.
Dimitri Soudas, a former communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, arrived in B.C. last week to direct election-day operations for former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum, who is trying to regain his former job. According to campaign spokesman Jonathan Ross, a federal Liberal, Mr. Soudas has known Mr. McCallum for several years. "He has been paying attention to the race from the east," said Mr. Ross, who noted Mr. Soudas is volunteering his services.
Departing Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, who will be running for the federal Conservatives in South Surrey-White Rock in October, says some federal parties may be looking to the municipal election this weekend to get a sense of who is voting and the issues motivating them.
Ms. Watts said other cities across Canada that have municipal elections are probably being subjected to similar study ahead of the federal election. "This is probably what's going on in many cities across the country when you've got the municipal election right before the federal election," she said in an interview.
Some observers said the outcome of the Toronto municipal election last month held lessons for federal leaders Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau as they prepare to sell their parties to Toronto-area voters. Certainly, other municipal campaigns in British Columbia have drawn operatives from other levels of government, such as Dimitri Pantazopoulos, a former B.C. Liberal campaign strategist with federal Conservative ties, who is working for the Non-Partisan Association in Vancouver.
The campaigns of each of the leading municipal slates and mayoral candidates in Surrey are peppered with partisans from the Conservatives, the Liberals and NDP. But operatives interviewed by The Globe reject the notion that they're in it for some kind of dry run for next year.
Mr. Marissen laughed at the suggestion. "It's always funny. People think that you're doing one thing for something else. This is about getting Barinder Rasode elected as mayor. That's it," said Mr. Marissen, who noted he is volunteering his services.
"People involved in politics are usually involved at the municipal, provincial and federal level because they enjoy it."
Still, the B.C. municipal elections will be the last major ones before the next federal election, and strategists from all parties will likely be trying to gain insights from the results.
In Surrey, the key issue has been crime, with the leading mayoral candidates touting various plans for fighting it after voters reacted to incidents such as the fatal beating of a hockey mom outside a city arena last year, and the more recent fatal attack on a 17-year-old girl walking home one night.
Crime is likely to be an issue in the 2015 federal election as well, and tacticians will try to learn from what resonates with voters.
Political scientist Patrick Smith of Simon Fraser University is skeptical of the denials. "It's disingenuous. We can understand why they don't want to have a high profile in local politics," said the academic at Simon Fraser University.
"But they're doing this very consciously, possibly for short-term local advantage, but there may be longer-term advantage."