Safe Surrey Coalition calls for federal probe into alleged foreign interference in upcoming ...

The Safe Surrey Coalition is calling for an immediate federal investigation into alleged foreign interference in the upcoming municipal elections, claiming a network of pages posing as local news outlets in Surrey, Delta, and Vancouver is being operated and funded from India.

At a news conference on July 28, former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum alleged the network consists of at least six pages managed primarily from India and financed in Indian rupees. He claimed Meta's advertising records identify the payer as ACTS at C-DAC Innovation Park in Pune, a facility linked to India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

According to the coalition, the pages have been active for months, publishing local news-style content, graphics, and videos targeting voters in the three cities. McCallum alleged the network has Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke's record on issues such as public safety without clearly disclosing who paid for the advertising.

The coalition argues the activity may violate British Columbia's Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, which prohibits foreign organizations and non-B.C. residents from funding third-party election advertising and requires sponsors to register and disclose their identity.

The Safe Surrey Coalition is calling on CSIS, the RCMP, Elections BC, and the Surrey Police Service to investigate the allegations. It is also urging Meta and TikTok to remove the pages until their ownership, operators, and funding sources are fully disclosed, and is asking the B.C. government to clarify how it is monitoring municipal elections for potential foreign interference.

The coalition says the allegations are supported by records from Meta's public Ad Library and Page Transparency tools, which it says can be independently verified. At the time of the announcement, the allegations had not been independently verified by authorities.