Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum’s promise to take the city out of some regional services will likely be a complicated process and may not end up saving taxpayers much money, according to a Postmedia analysis and interviews with experts.

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McCallum has said he wants the city to withdraw from the regional governing authority, except for certain “core services,” namely water, sewer and waste management.

According to a Metro Vancouver fact sheet, the average homeowner in the region paid $875 for Metro services in 2025. Most of that amount — $781 — went to water, sewer and waste services. About $63 went towards maintaining regional parks, of which there are two in Surrey. Assuming Surrey residents have to continue helping pay for those parks, the average Surrey taxpayer would only save about $31 a year, based on Metro figures, which works out to $2.58 a month.

“I think that’s a very correct reading of it. I mean most of the cost is in those hard services of waste, water and sewer,” said Ken Cameron, the former head of policy and planning at the regional district.

“I think it’s not going to save very much money and I think the principle behind it all, it seems to me, is: Does the city of Surrey want to be a partner in the governance of the region?”

Cameron said if the city has issues with how the region is being run — such as how costs related to the North Shore sewage plant skyrocketed from $700 million to $3.86 billion — “the solution is to sit down around that table and figure out how to do it better, rather than picking up your marbles and going home.”

A motion to remove Surrey from Metro Vancouver was scheduled to be voted on Monday night at the first regular council meeting since last month’s municipal elections. Also on the agenda were motions related to other promises made by McCallum during the campaign, including buying a helicopter and drone fleet to the Surrey police within the three months and committing to freezing property tax increases for four years.

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McCallum was not made available for an interview on Monday. Metro Vancouver did not respond to Postmedia’s request for comment before deadline.

The mayor’s plan to withdraw from the regional district is not as simple as passing a motion, said UBC political scientist Stewart Prest.

“There are multiple boards across Metro Vancouver and membership is not universal. But all the major cities are on all the main boards. So for Surrey to pull out, even if it were successful in doing so, it creates a significant hole in governance of the region.”

Cameron said the process would likely be a lengthy legal one, with the city first applying to the district to seek removal of some services and passing a municipal bylaw. The province would likely need to be involved, he added.

When Cameron was part of Metro Vancouver, then called Greater Vancouver Regional District, he said there was always talk about municipalities wanting to leave the regional district, but none did.

“I worked for the region for 25 years or so, and it was very much a municipal federation. This system is set up to benefit municipalities and should be amenable, particularly to the largest- or second-largest municipality. If there’s a problem with it, then they have a lot of leverage within the system to address the issues,” he said.

Andy Yan, the City program director at Simon Fraser University, also questioned whether Surrey would actually be saving money in the long-term by withdrawing from Metro.

“The thing about why you go into regional government and regional services is the fact that there are certain services and infrastructures that are actually more expensive when you do it alone,” Yan said. “The scales of economy that you can do as a region are precisely why you work as a region as opposed to an individual municipality or even or even just a smaller group of municipalities.”

Regional governance has been in place for many decades in B.C., meaning other services, such as transportation, could also be impacted if Surrey city successfully withdraws from Metro, Yan said.

“It’s not only about Surrey by itself, but it’s about its relationships to other parts of the region, and, of course, folks will talk about Vancouver, but this also includes connections between Surrey and Richmond, Surrey and Langley,” he said.

Cameron agreed, saying the city could potentially be at risk of not receiving funding for McCallum’s plan to extend SkyTrain services to Newton.

“TransLink was set up at the behest of the regional district through negotiations between the regional district and the province, and that set up their requirements that translates to providing services within the context of regional growth management planning, air quality plans and economic development. So I think there would be a question that could be raised as to whether a particular initiative, such as a SkyTrain extension, fits within the regional growth management plan or not,” Cameron said.

With files from David Carrigg 

smoman@postmedia.com