SURREY, B.C. - When voters in Surrey-Fleetwood head to the polls on October 24, one name on the ballot will be very familiar: Tim Binnema, the BC Green Party candidate and a longtime Fleetwood resident who has carried the Green banner in this riding in 2013, 2017 and 2024 – and is back for a fourth run.
Binnema’s message opens with a line that sums up his approach: “I truly believe that leading with a posture of hope can break down the barriers created by fear.” Underneath the tone is a long professional record. An engineering and business leader, he has spent more than 25 years in senior leadership with a British Columbia-based engineering and equipment supply company, where his work focused on pollution-control and energy-optimization systems – helping bring locally developed sustainable technologies to businesses around the world.
His campaign says that career has taken him widely abroad, giving him firsthand exposure to how different communities and industries approach infrastructure, energy and complex technical challenges. He also brings a commitment to lifelong learning, having spent recent years deepening his understanding of Indigenous history and reconciliation.
Binnema’s priorities for Fleetwood are affordability, with “housing first” as a policy; timely access to health care through team-based community health centres; and economic development that benefits everyone, informed by what he calls a planetary boundaries framework. His wider platform, set out by the BC Greens, adds tax fairness and environmental sustainability.
The reason Binnema’s race matters is that Surrey-Fleetwood is far closer than it used to be. In 2024, NDP incumbent Jagrup Brar held the seat with 9,923 votes, or 48.61 per cent, against Conservative Avtar Gill’s 9,170, or 44.92 per cent – a margin of just 753 votes. Binnema took 1,321 votes, or 6.47 per cent. Brar is running again, but Gill is not on the ballot; the Conservative banner is now carried by Garry Purewal, and with CentreBC’s Paul Brar and OneBC’s Carolyn Hofbauer also in the race, the vote will split more ways than it did two years ago.
Binnema has called Fleetwood home since 2000, where he and his wife raised their four children. Now proud grandparents of six, they remain deeply connected to the community, he says, and focused on the kind of future younger generations will inherit. Outside of work, he enjoys walking, cycling and tending his blueberry, raspberry and vegetable garden.
Advance voting in Surrey-Fleetwood runs October 16 to 21, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at Coyote Creek Elementary School, Johnston Heights Church, and Northwood United Church. General voting day is Saturday, October 24.
Photo: BC Green Party (bcgreens.ca)
Sources: bcgreens.ca; Elections BC; Wikipedia; BC Ballot
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