Angry crowd calling for mayor's resignation abruptly ends Surrey council meeting
Angry crowd calling for mayor's resignation abruptly ends Surrey council meeting
SURREY, B.C. -
Tensions at Surrey City Hall have reached a boiling point, after an angry crowd forced the abrupt end of a council meeting.
Several councillors and residents are calling for the mayor’s resignation as his criminal public mischief case makes its way through the court system.
It was an extremely tense and volatile situation Monday night.
Video on social media shows dozens of people in the crowd standing up and yelling in council chambers.
“People in Surrey are fed up, and the mayor is completely tone deaf when it comes to the community and how people are feeling,” wrote Coun. Linda Annis in a news release Monday night.
The meeting was abruptly adjourned after just seven minutes with staff citing safety concerns.
It all began after Couns. Brenda Locke and Jack Hundial read motions demanding Mayor Doug McCallum step down until his criminal trial is over.
Locke is running against McCallum for the mayor’s seat in the upcoming October election.
“The mood was anger and frustration and just really despair for this city. People are tired of this mayor and his behaviour,” said Locke.
Agitated members of the crowd echoed the councillors' sentiments with shouting and chanting.
“There's just a combination of disappointment and people were angered that he continues to ignore the public,” said Hundial.
“You know I didn’t really fear for my safety, you know things can get a little out of hand at times in council, very rambunctious. But you know my recollection of it was that the public wanted some answers."
McCallum is facing a charge of public mischief.
He’s accused of lying to police about a confrontation with a member of the Keep the RCMP in Surrey campaign last September where he claimed a woman drove over his foot. None of the allegations against him have been proven in court.
As a result, he’s also facing an ethics complaint for staying on as chair of the Surrey Police Service.
"I think that people have just had enough,” said Locke.
CTV News has reached out to McCallum’s office for comment and a spokesperson said the mayor will not be commenting.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when it got over water.
Canadians will continue to bundle up in the country's east this weekend as a recent bout of extreme cold persists in much of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. CTVNews.ca looks at the signs and symptoms for frostbite and hypothermia to watch for if exposed to extreme cold.
A cold snap that triggered Environment Canada alerts involving eight provinces and territories extended into a second day on Saturday, shattering several past temperature records and leaving thousands of customers in Atlantic Canada without power.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
Eyes were locked on the skies Saturday as a suspected Chinese spy balloon passed over the U.S. Eastern Seaboard -- where local authorities warned civilians against taking potshots with rifles -- before it was shot down when it drifted over the Atlantic Ocean.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when it got over water.
Alberta's high court is being asked to overturn a review board decision relating to the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party on the grounds the former provincial justice minister interfered.
A spokesperson for the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) says Metrolinx began cutting down historic trees at Osgoode Hall in Toronto on Saturday before the Ontario Superior Court could hear an injunction to prevent their clearing.
Residents from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador are waking up this morning to more extreme cold weather. Emergency officials warned people to seek shelter and monitor for frostbite if they had to be outside overnight, as the temperature across much of Eastern Canada was expected to feel like -40 C to -50 C with the wind chill.
Another property reportedly belonging to a family member of Tony Accurso was the target of an arson attack in Laval early Saturday morning. The Laval fire department responded to a call at 3:22 a.m. about a fire at the building located at 1410 Jaffa Street in the Saint Rose district in the northern part of Laval.
A Quebec university study found that nearly three years of the pandemic have had an effect on the travel habits of Quebecers: even with the partial or complete lifting of restrictions, they increasingly prefer to travel at home. The most recent Cahier des tendances published by the Transat Chair in Tourism at the École des sciences de la gestion de l'UQAM revealed that inflation and health measures hurt many Quebecers.
WINNIPEG -- An Indigenous organization is spearheading efforts to develop a system that could make it easier to flag when a person experiencing homelessness is missing.
Winnipeg police released a new image of a 31-year-old woman who has been missing since early last year on Friday in the hope it may generate new information on her whereabouts.
Prince Albert police and the Saskatchewan Trafficking Response Team seized about $66,000 in cocaine after executing a search warrant on a home in Prince Albert.
Regina will soon have two additional ambulances on the road with a full complement of staff. Now other communities in Saskatchewan are calling for more support.
The first North Atlantic right whale to be entangled in connection to Canada’s lobster fishery in over five years has been successfully rescued by marine mammal rescue responders in the United States.
An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The owner of Radical Gardens, a restaurant in Timmins said she's experienced nineteen robberies over the last eight years; with the most recent one taking place in the early morning hours Friday.
