Colin Basran
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Colin Basran | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Mayor of Kelowna | |
| In office December 1, 2014 – November 7, 2022 | |
| Preceded by | Walter Gray |
| Succeeded by | Tom Dyas |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 14, 1977 Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada |
| Profession | journalist, realtor, mayor |
Colin G. Basran (born November 14, 1977) is a Canadian politician who served as the mayor of Kelowna, British Columbia from 2014 to 2022.
Basran was first elected to Kelowna City Council as a city councillor in the 2011 municipal election. Basran was elected Mayor in the 2014 British Columbia municipal elections, making Basran the youngest elected mayor of Kelowna. He was also the first Sikh mayor of Kelowna.[1]
He served for two terms, until he was defeated in the 2022 municipal election by Tom Dyas, who won 62.17% of the vote, over Basran's 31.87%.[2]
Mayoralty
During Basran’s time in office, Kelowna’s crime rate grew to become the highest of all Canadian metropolitan areas,[3] and its homelessness population quadrupled.[4]
In 2019, Kelowna's Royal Canadian Mounted Police was found to dismiss 40 percent of sexual assault claims (triple the provincial and national average) after a woman reported that she was raped by three people at age 15. When she reported it to the Kelowna RCMP, she said her file was closed after a cursory investigation, which consisted of the police "simply calling her assailant and asking if he was guilty"[5]
In response to the statistic, Basran defended the RCMP, saying that the assaults were properly investigated.[6]