When Surrey voters go to the polls in the coming October municipal election, they will do so without knowing incumbent mayor Doug McCallum’s legal fate.
A court date has been set for McCallum’s trial on a charge of public mischief, for Oct. 31, two weeks after the Oct. 15 vote. The trial is scheduled to last seven days.
The charge stems from allegations McCallum made in September that someone ran over his foot in a Save-On-Foods parking lot during a dispute with a group opposing the city’s transition to a municipal police force.
In a interview with Global News two days after the incident, McCallum alleged the driver, “clipped my knee and my bottom leg and ran over my foot at the same time and then took off.”
The mayor told Global News he finished his shopping, then went to Peace Arch Hospital, where he said he was X-rayed and told the soft tissue in his foot was “very badly bruised.”
McCallum has declined all comment on the case while it is before the courts.
The mayor will be defended by Richard Peck, the high-profile lawyer who handled Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case.
Under the Criminal Code of Canada, public mischief includes “making a false statement that accuses some other person of having committed an offence.”