Advance voting begins Thursday for the provincial byelection in the riding of Surrey South.
The race will be the first major test of Kevin Falcon’s BC Liberal leadership.
Ridings in South Surrey have long been considered safe liberal territory but the BC NDP made significant gains in the last election.
In 2020, BC Liberal Stephanie Cadieux won the riding with 12,970 votes while the BC NDP’s Pauline Greaves finished with 11,794 votes.
Cadieux is stepping down to take a job with the federal government to become Canada’s first chief accessibility officer. She resigned in April.
For the 2022 byelection, the BC Liberals’ candidate is Elenore Sturko, a sergeant on leave with the Surrey RCMP.
Meanwhile, the BC NDP’s Pauline Greaves, a business teacher at Langara’s school of management, is running again.
The three other candidates competing for votes are Libertarian Jason Bax, Conservative Harman Bhangu and Simran Sarai of the BC Green Party.
Advance voting runs from Sept. 1 to Sept. 7, however polling stations will be closed on Labour Day.
The date of the byelection is Sept. 10.
— with files from The Canadian Press.