SURREY, B.C. - When voters in Surrey South head to the polls on October 24, the most familiar name on the ballot will belong to a candidate carrying a brand new banner: Elenore Sturko, the sitting MLA and leader of CentreBC, the centrist party asking voters to choose the middle of B.C. politics.
Before politics, Sturko spent 13 years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the RCMP, Canada’s national police force), rising to the rank of staff sergeant. She served as a frontline officer, rode with the RCMP Musical Ride, and from 2018 was stationed in Surrey as a spokesperson for the Surrey RCMP. She also served as a reservist with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Sturko entered the legislature in a September 2022 by-election, winning Surrey South for the BC Liberal Party. In June 2024 she crossed the floor to the BC Conservatives, and that October she won Surrey-Cloverdale with 10,268 votes, defeating BC NDP incumbent Mike Starchuk by 586 votes. Her time with the Conservatives ended on September 22, 2025, when she was removed from caucus and began sitting as an independent MLA.
On September 18, 2026, Sturko joined CentreBC alongside seven other former Conservative MLAs. Four days later, when those seven returned to the Conservative Party, Sturko stayed, and became CentreBC’s leader. She told CBC she could not trust the Conservatives, and would rather stand as an incumbent in a party she believes will hold to its values. She has described CentreBC as “a fiscally prudent, socially responsible party,” and the party campaigns on affordability, safety and opportunity.
Surrey South is where Sturko was first elected and where she still lives, and she has said she wanted to campaign from her home base this time. The riding has no incumbent on the 2026 ballot: Brent Chapman won it for the Conservatives in 2024 with 13,056 votes, 3,920 ahead of the NDP’s Haroon Ghaffar, but Chapman has since left the Conservatives for OneBC and does not appear on Elections BC’s final candidate list. Sturko faces Conservative candidate Megan Knight, the NDP’s Parik Tahlan, Green candidate Bill McConnell and unaffiliated candidate Denis R Hurtubise.
Sturko lives in Surrey with her spouse, Melissa, and their three teenage children.
Advance voting in Surrey South runs October 16 to 21, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at Ta’talu Elementary School on all six days, Gracepoint Community Church on October 16 and October 19 to 21, and Pacific Heights Elementary School and Semiahmoo Trail Elementary School on October 17 and 18. General voting day is Saturday, October 24.
Photo: CentreBC (centrebc.ca)
Sources: centrebc.ca; Elections BC; StudioX News; BC Ballot; Wikipedia (Elenore Sturko); CBC News; Business Examiner
Advertisements
