First Sikh mayor; Barinder Rasode hopes to become Surrey’s

VANCOUVER, In 2005, Dianne Watts became the first woman to be elected mayor of Surrey.

Nine years later, Barinder Rasode is hoping to make some history of her own. Ms. Rasode, a two-term councillor and former member of Ms. Watts’s Surrey First party, is trying to become the multicultural city’s first Sikh mayor.

In fact, Ms. Rasode’s campaign team believes she could be the first Sikh woman mayor in all of North America.

“Being Sikh is a part of who I am. I know that it means a lot to members from the community, especially women, because I’ve done a lot of work on the areas of domestic abuse and work for families. I think that I represent Surrey now and in the future,” she said in an interview.

Ms. Rasode was born in India, although her family moved to the Interior city of Kamloops before her first birthday. She graduated from NorKam Secondary and married at the age of 19, eventually settling in Surrey.

Ms. Rasode attended Simon Fraser University, pursuing a degree in political science and communication. She finished about 30 credits short, however, as she balanced also holding a job and starting a family.

Ms. Rasode counts organizing domestic violence forums and improving community consultation among her accomplishments.

She broke from Surrey First in April, saying it had become too unresponsive to public concerns about crime and excessive city spending. Rivals have accused her of going along with the Surrey First agenda until it suited her political purposes to attack the party.

Ms. Rasode is running for mayor under the One Surrey banner, with seven council candidates at her side. With crime a central issue in the campaign – Ms. Rasode forcefully spoke out about the death of Julie Paskall outside a hockey arena – the party’s list of prospective councillors includes Kal Dosanjh, a veteran police officer.