Faced with a letter signed by seven South Asian houses of worship urging him to make a decision on the future of Surrey’s police service, British Columbia's solicitor general affirmed he won’t be rushed.

Mike Farnworth has already spent weeks pouring over a 189-page transition report estimating a new municipal force could cost 11 per cent more than the current budget for the same or slightly fewer officers, and says he’ll take as much time as he needs before giving approval to move forward as the minister responsible for overseeing the process.

"We have to make sure that proper, thorough analysis is going to be done and I've said right from the get-go this is not going to be done to an artificial deadline or because someone says it must be done by this date,” said Farnworth in Victoria. “It's going to be done when the work is done, the analysis is done and it's done properly."

He was responding to a letter penned by seven Sikh Gurdwaras and a Hindu Mandir in Surrey, which read in part: “We are deeply concerned by your position that your decision as solicitor general on this matter ‘won’t be a snap decision,’ which offers an undefined time frame for a city anxious for change.”

“We would like to get the decision done as soon as possible," insisted Bhupinder Hothi, speaking on behalf of the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple.

When Laxmi Narayan Temple president Satish Kumar was asked of the significance of the groups coming together for such a letter, he acknowledged it’s a rare event but that "we are one when the local issue arises together and this is a very important letter."

Hothi and Kumar both expressed frustration over the turnover rate of RCMP officers at the Surrey detachment and the fact the RCMP is primarily a police force in smaller and rural communities, both frequent talking points offered by mayor Doug McCallum, who campaigned on the switch to a municipal force and has been unwavering in the plan. When CTV asked their communications consultant if the mayor had asked them to write the support letter he insisted it was a grassroots movement among the community leaders representing more than 100,000 Surrey congregants.

Kumar says he likes the private policing model because it gets results.

"If you look at Delta, less crime, right? Same thing Vancouver, too—less crime than Surrey," he said.

But those community leaders may not represent everyone. The issue of transitioning to a municipal force has divided Surrey residents and seems to have contributed to a rift on council as well, with a citizens’ group emerging with a petition in support of the RCMP. Though they were denied entry at the city’s official Canada Day event, Ivan Scott says his “Keep the RCMP in Surrey Campaign” signed more than 2,600 new supporters on Monday, bringing the total to more than 8,000--all the signatures are on paper and the campaign is not online.

None of that is swaying Farnworth, who says the transition report lacks detail in certain areas and there are considerations around issues like staffing and information technology that have yet to be ironed out.

"This is a very complex process that requires proper, thorough analysis and that's what's going to be done. And only when that’s done will a decision be made," he said.

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