Who should fill Delta North’s open seat, and build the homes it was promised: Monica Mohan or Todd Schierling?

Within hours of Premier David Eby calling the snap election in September, Ravi Kahlon announced that he was done. He had held Delta North for the BC NDP since 2017, and he had been Minister of Health for just over a month.¹² His farewell listed what he was proudest of, and housing was near the top:

Delta North is an open seat for the first time since he won it. The NDP has nominated Todd Schierling, the president of the BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Association. The Conservative candidate is Monica Mohan, a North Delta lawyer.³⁴⁵ In our view, the question for this riding is whether to hand the seat to the party whose record Kahlon is walking away from.

Where they stand, in their own words and records

Monica MohanConservative

Todd SchierlingBC NDP

Why they are running

Her party biography: “Monica is committed to access to justice, meaningful community engagement, and ensuring that people feel heard and understood when navigating public institutions and systems.”⁵

“We need to stand up for Canadian jobs, protect the services people rely on and keep investing in our communities.”⁴

Safety and service

Civilian roles with the Vancouver Police Department and the Guelph Police Service; victim advocate and sexual assault counsellor.⁵

A Surrey firefighter since 1996 and now a captain; president of the BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Association; the BC First Responders Mental Health Committee.⁶

Families

Stood with her leader for the Conservative plan for children: a phone ban in schools, more school meals and a $500 activity credit.⁷

Helped launch a girls’ basketball tournament that has given more than $125,000 in bursaries. His page: “Todd Schierling, David Eby and the BC NDP will stand up for families, protect people and the services they count on, and build a stronger economy and province, so that everyone can build a good life.”⁶

Housing

We found no statement from her on housing.

His page lists “Bringing housing costs down – not giving control back to speculators” among the NDP’s priorities.⁶

01 Ravi Kahlon ran housing for two and a half years, and counted homes his government never built.

Kahlon was the province’s housing minister from December 2022 to July 2025.² He inherited a promise the NDP had made in 2017 and printed six times in its platform, in words like these: “Build 114,000 rental and co-op homes.”⁸

In April 2023, The Tyee looked at how the government was keeping score. Almost half of the 74,668 units it claimed had been added were, in its own term, “policy created” rather than newly built. More than 20,000 were homes it estimated the speculation and vacancy tax had pushed onto the market. Kahlon said that was always the plan:⁸

He projected 108,000 homes “open or under active construction, by 2027.”⁸ In our view, a home under construction is not a home, and a tax that moves an existing condo onto the rental market does not build anything. The promise was to build. The young people Kahlon says he was helping to build their lives in North Delta were promised homes, not a new way of counting them.

02 Lobbyists registered 373 contacts with Ravi Kahlon. Not one came from a recreation or access group.

We went through the B.C. Lobbyists Registry for every NDP MLA earlier in this campaign. Kahlon had 373 registered lobbying contacts and 93 meetings arranged, the sixth-most of the 48 NDP MLAs. More than half, 202, came from business, development, farming and tourism. Six came from the forest industry. From the groups that speak for hunters, anglers, riders and hikers, there were none.⁹

Kahlon spent more than a year as the government’s parliamentary secretary for forests, lands and rural development.² In our view, the lobbying record shows who had his ear in the years after, and it was the development industry, not the people who use B.C.’s backcountry.

03 The NDP has picked a union president to replace him. The Conservatives have picked a North Delta lawyer.

Todd Schierling has been a firefighter with Surrey Fire Service since 1996 and is now a suppression fire captain. He is president of the BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Association, and he has sat on the executive council of the BC Federation of Labour and the board of trustees of the Municipal Pension Plan. He helped start a basketball tournament that has raised more than $125,000 in bursaries for young women.⁴ That is real service. His case for the job, in the party’s release, was about Washington:

Monica Mohan is a practising lawyer who lives in North Delta. She was born and raised in Vancouver in an immigrant family with roots in India and Fiji, and she speaks Punjabi and Hindi. Before law she worked in civilian roles with the Vancouver Police Department and the Guelph Police Service, and she has worked as a victim advocate and sexual assault counsellor.⁵

Monica Mohan

Conservative Party of BC candidate, Delta North

Lives

North Delta

Work

Practising lawyer in British Columbia

Before law

Civilian roles with the Vancouver Police Department and the Guelph Police Service

Service

Victim advocate and sexual assault counsellor; the Minnesota Justice Foundation’s Outstanding Volunteer Service Award

Languages

English, Punjabi and Hindi

Portrait: Conservative Party of BC

Her party’s biography puts her case in a sentence:

On 18 October she stood with Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson in Delta as he announced the party’s plan for children: a full ban on phones in schools, more school meals in high-need communities and a $500 tax credit for sports, music and camps. “Too many kids start the school day hungry.” Doerkson said.⁷

Her public record is short: her biography and her party’s plan. We found no interview or questionnaire in her own words. In our view, that is a reason to go and hear her, not a reason to keep a seat with the party that measured its housing promise by what it could count rather than what it built.

04 338Canada leans Delta North to the NDP by four points, and Monica Mohan is the only challenger within reach.

338Canada, which turns the published polls into a projection for every riding, leans Delta North to the NDP. Its update of 16 October puts the BC NDP at 50% and the Conservatives at 46%, each with a margin of eight points either way.¹⁰

Delta North, projected vote

338Canada, update of 16 October 2026. Bars show the projection; the thin lines show its margin either way.¹⁰

Todd Schierling, BC NDP

50%

Monica Mohan, Conservative

46%

CentreBC

4%

0%30%60%

The two projections overlap well within their margins, and 338Canada gives the Conservatives about a three-in-ten chance. The CentreBC candidate is projected at 4%.¹⁰

In 2024, with Kahlon on the ballot, the NDP held the riding by 2,607 votes over the Conservative candidate, Raj Veauli, 52.7% to 40.2%. If about 1,300 of those voters had chosen the Conservative instead, the seat would have changed hands. This time Kahlon is not on the ballot.¹¹ The NDP has held Delta North since 2017.¹²

In our view, if you want Delta North to stop being an NDP seat, Monica Mohan is the vote.

05 Ravi Kahlon says he helped young people build their lives here. On 24 October, they get the next say.

Advance voting runs until 21 October, and Final Voting Day is 24 October. Elections BC’s Where to Vote app lists every advance voting place and every voting place in the riding.¹³

Kahlon left saying he had increased housing supply “so young people can build their lives in the communities they love.”¹ The homes his government counted included homes it never built. In our view, the young families of North Delta should judge that record for themselves, and they have a North Delta candidate in Monica Mohan who has spent her working life helping people be heard.

The promise was to build. On 24 October, North Delta gets to say whether it was kept.