Surrey police transition can't be stopped by city alone, board says

The chief of the Surrey Police Service and the board's executive director are both saying Mayor-elect Brenda Locke won’t be able to deliver on her promise to keep the RCMP in the city.

Despite a relatively narrow victory over incumbent Doug McCallum, Locke will be joined at city hall by a slate of four Surrey Connect councillors that will give the party a majority. After she was declared the winner Saturday evening, she reiterated her pledge to stop the already underway transition to a municipal police force.

"First of all, we need to keep the Surrey RCMP right here in Surrey," she said, to loud applause but provided few details on plans to make that happen.

On Sunday, the Surrey Police Service issued a statement reiterating the progress that has already been made on establishing the new force, including the "millions of dollars invested" and the hiring of 350 staff – 150 of whom are officers deployed to work alongside the Mounties.

Chief Const. Norm Lapinski offered his congratulations to the newly elected mayor and council before shifting to address the controversy.

"I firmly believe council will see the benefits that municipal policing brings to Surrey and realize the significant financial and human investments that have been put into making Surrey Police Service a reality,” he wrote.

“In 2020 we received a mandate to create a local police service tailored to Surrey’s public safety needs, and we will continue to move forward in fulfilling that mandate.”

The transition, the statement notes, was not something the city did unilaterally but a move that required senior government's sign-off and which is proceeding "under the direction of all three levels of government"

The Surrey Police Board's executive director made a similar statement, stressing that a civic government can't act alone to put a stop to the process

"Any change to Surrey’s police transition process would be determined by the provincial government," wrote Melissa Granum.

"The board is confident that the smooth transition to a municipal police service in Surrey will continue.”

Replacing the RCMP was one of Doug McCallum's promises when he ran for mayor in 2018. However, Locke and other councillors have spent the last four years voicing their opposition to the transition itself, as well as what they describe as a lack of transparency about the process. 

As mayor, Locke will chair the police board, a duty relinquished by McCallum in June. 

"McCallum, in consultation with the board, decided that he will be absent from meetings of the police board for the next few months," a statement announcing the move said.

 

It did not reference the mayor's pending trial for public mischief, a criminal charge defined as an attempt to intentionally mislead police.