SURREY, B.C. -- Surrey, a city about 40 minutes from Vancouver, is a key battleground suburb for all three main federal parties. Here are five things to know about ridings there.
- Surrey has seen the highest population growth in B.C. since the election boundaries were last revised. That means, for this election, there are four main ridings for the city's population of about 470,000 people, but parts of Surrey also lie in two additional ridings that spill over into other municipalities.
- The colours of its political landscape are mostly blue and orange. After the 2011 election, the Conservatives controlled two of Surrey's main ridings and the New Democrats won the other two, snatching one from a Liberal. Of the two other ridings that take in parts of Surrey, both went Conservative in 2011.
- Don't count the Liberals out. In 2006, when much of the country was voting Conservative, people in the riding of Newton-North Delta elected a Liberal for the first time in decades. Sukh Dhaliwal lost in 2011 to the NDP, but is running again in the new riding of Surrey-Newton.
- One of the few new stars in the Conservative constellation can be found in Surrey. Former mayor Dianne Watts is running the riding of South Surrey-White Rock, an affluent part of the city where the majority identified as being of "European" origin in the 2011 National Household Survey.
- But ethnic diversity is Surrey's hallmark. There are major immigrant communities in most ridings and close to half the population has a mother tongue other than English, with Punjabi a dominant language. The strong South Asian population is one reason why Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stopped here on his visit to Canada last spring.
