Police officer or physiotherapist? Jessy Sahota and Sikander Kang want Surrey-Serpentine River’s open seat while Surrey waits for its second hospital.

On 12 September 2023, Premier David Eby stood on a field beside the Kwantlen Polytechnic University campus at 5500 180th Street in Cloverdale and broke ground on a second hospital for Surrey. “Surrey has been experiencing tremendous growth and people are struggling to get the health services they need while health care workers are burning out,” he said. It was a good day, and a late one. The province had promised the hospital for 2027 at $1.72 billion. That day it became 2030, at $2.88 billion.¹²

Three years on, the hospital is still targeted to open in 2030.³ The city it is meant to serve has one hospital, Surrey Memorial, with 634 beds for a city of 604,000 people, by the figures Global News reported in 2024. “There just seems to be an acceptance of poor care south of the Fraser.” Dr. Randeep Gill, an emergency physician there, said that year.⁴

West of the construction site, along the Serpentine River that gives it its name, Surrey-Serpentine River is choosing a new MLA. Linda Hepner, the former Surrey mayor who won the seat for the Conservatives in 2024, is not running again: “At this stage in life, I just can’t make the commitment of another four years.” she said in September. The seat is open.⁵⁶

Jessy Sahota

Conservative Party of BC candidate, Surrey-Serpentine River

Work

Police officer; head wrestling coach at Tamanawis Secondary

Community

Coach with the Yo-Bro Yo-Girl Youth Initiative since 2009

First priority

“Improve access to health care for Surrey residents.”

Portrait: Conservative Party of BC

Sikander Kang

BC NDP candidate, Surrey-Serpentine River

Work

Physiotherapist; manages five clinics in the Lower Mainland

Community

Grassroots BC NDP organizer in Surrey; father of two

First priority

“Lower fuel costs and take on the grocery giants.”

Portrait: BC NDP

Two candidates are asking for it. Jessy Sahota, the Conservative, is a police officer who was raised in Surrey and coaches its young wrestlers. Sikander Kang, for the BC NDP, is a physiotherapist who manages five clinics. When CBC News asked residents in 2024 what mattered here, they named health care, affordability and public safety, in that order. Both candidates put health care on their list.⁷

Where Jessy Sahota and Sikander Kang stand, in their own words.

Before the argument, the comparison. The Surrey Now-Leader sent every candidate in the riding the same questionnaire, with the same word limits, and printed the answers as received. Here are the two front-runners side by side.⁸

01 Surrey’s second hospital was promised for 2027, and it is now targeted to open in 2030.

The government gave its reasons: inflation, supply-chain disruptions and a shortage of labour. In fairness, it is building the thing. When it opens, the hospital will add 168 beds and a second emergency department with 55 treatment spaces, and Global News reported the city’s hospital capacity will rise from 634 beds to 802.²⁴

Until then, Surrey waits. Brenda Locke, then the mayor of Surrey, said on the day of the groundbreaking: “The pressure points on Surrey Memorial Hospital are incredible.” In 2024 Dr. Gill told Global News that Surrey Memorial transfers nearly 1,400 patients a year to other hospitals, most of them by ambulance to Royal Columbian in New Westminster.²⁴

In our view, that is the question in front of Surrey-Serpentine River. The hospital is coming. What the riding needs from its next MLA is someone who will treat four more years of waiting as a problem, not as a schedule.

02 Jessy Sahota put health care first, and his record is policing and seventeen years of coaching Surrey’s young wrestlers.

Sahota grew up in Surrey and graduated from Tamanawis Secondary, where he is now head coach of the wrestling team. Since 2009 he has coached young wrestlers with the Yo-Bro Yo-Girl Youth Initiative, a local non-profit, to provincial titles. He won a national wrestling championship at Simon Fraser University, and has competed in jiu-jitsu and kabaddi.⁸⁹

He is a police officer. Running federally in Delta in 2025, he wrote of “my years of public service with the Delta Police Department where I helped people on the worst days of their lives.” His party says the International Association of Chiefs of Police named him one of its 40 under 40 in 2022, the year he also received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Award.⁹¹⁰

His first priority is “Improve access to health care for Surrey residents.” His second and third are public safety and Surrey’s high schools and post-secondary institutions. We should be plain about the limits: beyond those three lines, he has said little in public about how he would do it. His answer on his first 100 days spoke of “essential services, responsible fiscal management and practical solutions,” and we found no other 2026 interview or platform of his own.⁸¹²

In our view, the order matters. In a city that has waited since 2019 for its second hospital, the candidate who put health care at the top of his list, and who has been showing up for Surrey kids on his own time since 2009, has earned a hearing.

03 Sikander Kang is a health professional, and his first priority is his party’s plan on fuel and groceries.

Kang holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physiotherapy, and he built and manages five physiotherapy clinics in the Lower Mainland. His party describes him as a grassroots BC NDP organizer in Surrey. He is married with two young children. This is his first run for office.¹¹

He brings real health-care experience, and he deserves credit for it. His plan for his first 100 days is concrete: “In my first 100 days, I’ll advance our affordability plan to suspend 10 cents per litre of provincial fuel tax, stop gas companies from price gouging, cap grocery giants’ profit margins on essentials, and extend ICBC’s rate freeze for three years.” He would also “support our work to recruit more health workers.”⁸

Those are the BC NDP’s province-wide promises, and many families will welcome them. But health care comes third on his list, behind fuel and ICBC, and his party has governed since 2017, through the delay. In our view, a BC NDP MLA would be asked to defend his own party’s timeline. Surrey-Serpentine River needs a voice that pushes against it.

04 Surrey-Serpentine River was decided by 435 votes in 2024, and 338Canada projects it leaning Conservative.

In 2024 Linda Hepner won the new riding with 9,782 votes to 9,347 for Baltej Singh Dhillon, the NDP candidate: a margin of 435. If 218 of Hepner’s voters had chosen Dhillon instead, the seat would have gone the other way.⁶

338Canada, which turns the published polls into a projection for every riding, rates the seat “CPBC leaning.” Its update of 16 October puts the Conservatives at 48% and the BC NDP at 42%, each with a margin of eight points either way. It is a projection based on polls, not a poll.¹³

Surrey-Serpentine River, projected vote

338Canada, update of 16 October 2026. Bars show the projection; the thin lines show its margin either way.¹³

Jessy Sahota, Conservative

48%

Sikander Kang, BC NDP

42%

0%35%70%

Three others are on the ballot. Todd Holowchak, a business leader and 16-year resident, runs for OneBC, and 338Canada projects him at 4%. Judy Higginbotham, a Surrey city councillor for 25 years, runs for CentreBC, at 3%. Errol Povah, a Navy veteran, runs for the Freedom Party of BC.⁸¹³

In our view, Jessy Sahota is the better choice for Surrey-Serpentine River: he put health care first, and he has a record of service in Surrey to stand on.

05 The hospital on 180th Street is targeted to open in 2030. On 24 October, Surrey-Serpentine River chooses who speaks for it until then.

Advance voting runs from 16 to 21 October, and Final Voting Day is 24 October. Elections BC’s Where to Vote app lists every voting place in the riding.¹⁴

Three years ago a premier picked up a shovel in Cloverdale and announced that Surrey’s second hospital would open three years late. The building is going up. The MLA elected on 24 October will spend most of the next four years waiting for it with everyone else. In our view, that MLA should be the candidate who put health care first, and who will keep asking why Surrey has to wait.

One hospital, still being built. In our view, Surrey-Serpentine River should send Jessy Sahota to Victoria.