Every business owner in Surrey opens the same envelope every spring. The property tax bill. You don’t get to negotiate it. You don’t get to see the work behind it. You pay it, and you pass on what you can to customers who are already stretched.
I’ve opened that envelope for 34 years. I built Lifewise Financial Group in Newton from nothing into a company that supports hundreds of representatives and their families across Canada. I served as a director of the Surrey Board of Trade. I know what a budget looks like when someone has to live inside it, and I know what one looks like when nobody does.
Surrey’s looks like the second kind.
This summer, council agreed in principle to a $360-million arena downtown, on land it acquired by trading away three City-owned properties in closed meetings. The City says the project will generate $2.4 billion in economic benefits over 10 years. I’ve read a lot of projections. No lender I’ve ever sat across from would let a 10-year forecast pay a four-year bill.
That’s the pattern. The same parties have run City Hall for decades. They announce first and cost later, and the difference lands in your envelope.
Mike Starchuk and the Imagine Surrey team are running on a Contract for a Better Surrey. Lower costs is the part I’m carrying, because it’s the part I’ve spent my career on.
The commitment fits on a business card. Property taxes rise no faster than inflation, every year, for four years. Not “we’ll try.” A ceiling.
Inside that ceiling we pay for the things families actually use: recreation fees cut in half for seniors and select programs free for them, paid for by reallocating spending and cutting waste, not by a surprise in your envelope. And we build the arena on cheaper land in a better spot, which is where a good share of the room comes from.
How do you hold a City to a ceiling? The same way a board holds a CEO. You publish the number before the year starts. You publish the actuals when it ends. You don’t do $360-million deals in a closed room. A council that has to show its work spends differently. I’ve watched it happen inside companies. It works.
I’ve heard the objection. Inflation is a tight box, and a growing city has real needs. True. It’s also exactly why the box matters. Growth is a reason to prioritize, not a reason to stop counting. Surrey is about to be the biggest city in BC. It can’t get there by being the most expensive one to do business in.
To the business owner opening next spring’s envelope, I’d say this. You already run your company this way. You decide what you need, you find the money, and you don’t sign what you haven’t read. Expect the same from the people who send you the bill.
I came to Canada with a suitcase. Newton gave me a business, two children, and grandchildren who call this place home. I’m running because the city that gave me all that deserves a council that can count.
On October 17, vote for Mike Starchuk and the Imagine Surrey team, and let’s give Surrey a City Hall that lives on a budget.
Perminder Chohan, founder of Lifewise Financial Group and a former director of the Surrey Board of Trade, is an Imagine Surrey candidate for Surrey City Council.