SURREY, B.C. - Garry Purewal is asking Surrey-Fleetwood voters to do something they have rarely done: send someone other than Jagrup Brar to Victoria. The Conservative Party of BC candidate is a business owner and entrepreneur who began his working life in uniform, serving as a Military Police member with the Canadian Armed Forces.
That military service, his campaign biography says, taught him the discipline, integrity and sense of duty that have guided him since, and gave him a firsthand understanding of public safety and what it takes to keep communities secure. After leaving the military, Purewal built a career in business, owning and managing companies including a property restoration business. Running his own operation, the biography notes, taught him how hard it is to meet a payroll, keep costs down and grow when government makes it more expensive to do business every year.
Purewal’s party page credits him with more than 20 years of experience in business leadership, public service and community involvement. He has also given time to the next generation as a leader in youth sports, and has been active in community advocacy and political engagement, working with neighbours and local organizations on family issues.
His campaign closes on four themes: public safety, responsible government, economic opportunity and effective public policy. Those priorities line up with the Conservative push across Surrey, where the party is arguing that life has become less affordable and streets less safe under the NDP, and that it is time for a change in who represents the city in the legislature.
The math says the riding is within reach. In 2024, NDP incumbent Jagrup Brar, now the province’s Minister of Mining and Critical Minerals, held Surrey-Fleetwood with 9,923 votes (48.6 per cent), while Conservative Avtar Gill took 9,172 (44.9 per cent). A gap of only about 750 votes separated the two parties, in a riding the NDP has held, apart from one term, since 2009.
The contest sets a cabinet minister with two decades in the legislature against a first-time provincial candidate whose pitch is built outside politics entirely: military service, small business ownership and community volunteering. With five candidates on the ballot, including CentreBC, Green and OneBC contenders, the split of the vote matters as much as its direction, and both main campaigns know a few hundred shifting votes decide this seat.
Advance voting in Surrey-Fleetwood runs October 16 to 21, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at Coyote Creek Elementary School (8131 156 Street, open October 16 to 18), Johnston Heights Church (9612 152 Street, open October 16 to 17 and 19 to 21), and Northwood United Church (8855 156 Street, open October 16 to 17 and 19 to 21). General voting day is Saturday, October 24.
Photo: Garry Purewal campaign (Conservative Party of BC, conservativebc.ca)
Sources: conservativebc.ca; Elections BC
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