Four years ago, Delta had one of the sleepiest elections in Metro Vancouver: incumbent Mayor George Harvie was re-elected with 75 per cent of the vote, all six elected councillors came from his Achieving for Delta slate and voter turnover was just 29 per cent. 

Four years later, things will be different.

“Being Mayor is not a retirement gig, it’s not a vacation slush fund. We’re here to do serious business,” says Coun. Dylan Kruger, a founder of the new One Delta group that has four incumbent councillors that hopes to unseat Harvie this election.   

“Delta has been governed well, I’d say in many ways, in spite of the many attempts from the mayor to derail that.”

Meanwhile, Harvie seeks re-election, promising stability and leadership, having recruited the two other incumbent councillors and new candidates to run with Achieving for Delta — while also throwing his own side-eye at One Delta.

“I’ve got more to do, and wanted to assemble a good team, a team that was doing it for the right reasons, not for personal interest,” Harvie said. 

“People keep saying to me, ‘Why aren’t you fighting back?’ It’s not my style. I’m going to fight back at the right time, which is when there’s a re-election going on.”

For an often genteel suburban municipality in southwest B.C., it’s harsh rhetoric six months from an election. 

But events that happened two years ago almost guarantee a fierce campaign.

Local removal with regional ramifications

In 2024, with no public warning, Delta council voted to remove Harvie as their representative on Metro Vancouver — thereby stripping him as chair of the regional government — along with a series of measures that removed his ability to act unilaterally on a number of internal issues without council consent. 

Kruger, who says he is still determining whether to be One Delta’s mayoral candidate, says he has no regrets for sidelining Harvie in the aftermath of his international travel expenses for Metro Vancover being made public. 

“Forty-seven-thousand dollars in first-class lie-back seats, at the same time that Metro Vancouver was dealing with really complex challenges. I don’t think that meets taxpayers’ very high expectations for how we manage their funds. I’m proud that I called it out and I would do it again,” he said. 

Harvie also makes no apologies for his actions. 

“I had permission of the board, it was approved by the board, and it was part of the travel. And it’s not first class, it was business class,” he said.

“When they heard that I was thinking of running again for mayor, that’s when it all happened. And [councillors] strategically did this and were trying to remove my influence in the city.”

Will voters choose door number three?

In the midst of the infighting, a different group is hoping that voters will embrace a third party free from the record of the last four years. 

“I think there’s something refreshing about the idea of somebody who’s not a career politician jumping into the ring and saying, ‘Hey, you know what? There might be a different way of looking at this,’” said Melissa Granum, leader of the new Delta First party. 

Granum, who was a leader with the Delta Police Department and executive director of the Surrey Police Board for the first five years of the city’s contentious police transition, believes council hasn’t been able to provide effective governance in the midst of its infighting.

“I’ve experienced this when I was working in the City of Surrey — that when council is fighting, they’re not thinking strategically about the future … and not to what’s in the best interest of the residents.”

Granum says her party will be listening to residents before offering a platform. Meanwhile, Harvie and Kruger’s groups emphasize the same centre-right policy themes of safety, fiscal discipline, and being open for business, though with Harvie emphasizing a slower pace to development and density. 

It means Delta residents will likely face a campaign less about specific issues, and more about leadership and character — something both Harvie and Kruger embrace.

“It’s not a one-man show. And we need to return to that collaborative nature, remind ourselves who we work for, which is not any one individual, it’s the taxpayers. And that’s what’s been missing. Leadership starts at the top,” said Kruger. 

“It’s going to be about who can do the best leadership, who has the experience, who has the ability to make a phone call to the provincial ministers or federal ministers and get a call back,” countered Harvie. 

“And it’s me. And that’s what people are going to have to decide.”