There were fireworks at Surrey council Monday night as four councillors voted against the budget, three from the mayor’s own party.
The budget includes no new hires for Surrey RCMP next year, a move that Coun. Jack Hundial, a former Surrey RCMP Staff Sergeant, says could put public safety at risk.
“It’s simple logic,” he says. Surrey’s population is growing faster than the local police force. “What you are doing is increasing that gap between the population-to-police ratio and we already know in Surrey we are well behind that.”
Voting with Hundial against the budget were Brenda Locke, Linda Annis and Stephen Pettigrew.
Coun. Doug Elford voted in favour of the budget, saying as the RCMP transitions to a municipal force, staffing numbers should stay the same for now.
“We’ve taken on some bold initiatives. We’re having a new police force coming in. We’re looking at a transition plan and all this information’s coming to us in the spring,” Elford said.
Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said RCMP “are disappointed that Surrey residents will not be receiving additional police resources next year, as was planned by the previous mayor and council.”
“As I have stated before, the Surrey RCMP could use a significant increase in police and supporting resources in order to keep pace with the city’s growth and to meet legitimate public expectations.”
The budget also postpones construction of the Grandview Heights Community Centre and Cloverdale Ice Complex.
Locke expressed her disappointment at the decision.
“One of the things we ran on was to engage youth, to make sure we have opportunities for youth in Surrey,” she said. “We do not have enough ice surfaces in the city.”
“There was ground broken for that arena, it was promised to children and promised to parents. They deserved the arena.”
Hockey dad Nav Kajla, who has three kids who play hockey in Cloverdale, said he’s disappointed. A shortage of ice is already resulting in early and late-night practice times, impacting kids’ health.
“My kids are going to have to make choices now whether we want to continue playing hockey. Now we have to wake up for 4 a.m. practices, then go to school after.”
Mike Bola, a hockey dad and president of the Cloverdale Community Association, also said he is disappointed.
“I really don’t have any faith in this council right now. I think the next four years will be troublesome and I just want to say to mayor and council, they had better be careful in terms of what they do in Cloverdale, because we’re going to be watching and we’ll certainly protest and stop anything in our way that we don’t want.”
When asked if Monday’s vote reflects divisions among council, Locke said she doesn’t “think the public wanted to see a bunch of yes men or yes women, and they aren’t going to get that with this council.”
Mayor Doug McCallum won’t be commenting until the budget is formally approved at a Wednesday meeting.
— With files from Tanya Beja
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