After years of bitter political wrangling, the new municipal Surrey Police Service (SPS) has taken command of the city which shares its name.
The SPS replaced the Surrey RCMP as the municipality’s police of jurisdiction at 12:00 a.m. Friday morning.
“It’s the culmination of years of effort and coordination and collaborating and in many cases an unprecedented level of work and certainly in my career of policing over 25 years I’ve never seen anything like it,” SPS spokesperson S/Sgt. Lindsay Houghton said.
At a press conference Friday, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, who was elected on a campaign to stop the transition, acknowledged the process was “not a smooth path,” and thanked the RCMP for its decades of service in the city.
“Today is somewhat of an emotional day,” she said.
“While many of us worked hard to maintain the RCMP and will be sad to see them go, there is no doubt that today is also a significant day for our future in Surrey.”
Locke accused her predecessor, former mayor Doug McCallum, of leaving the city without a plan or the financial resources to pay for the transition. She said a deal between the province and the city to cover financial impacts was “the best possible outcome.”
The provincial government has pledged to cover $150 million in transition costs, $30 million per year, to 2029. The province is promising up to another $100 million, $20 million per year, if Surrey Police Services salary costs top what RCMP wages would have been between 2029 and 2034.
The SPS says it has signed policing agreements with B.C. and the Lower Mainland’s integrated units, including the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.
The new municipal force, which is still not fully staffed, will handle calls in Surrey Districts 1 and 2, which cover Whalley, the city centre and Newton, to start.
The RCMP will continue to attend calls in Districts 2, 4, and 5, representing Guildford, Fleetwood, Cloverdale, Port Kells and South Surrey for the time being.
RCMP Chief Supt. Wendy Mehat, who leads the Surrey Provincial Operations Support Unit tasked with managing Mounties in the city through the transition, said in a statement that her officers will also run investigative services for most of the city to begin.
“These officers will maintain the responsibility for serious crimes, criminal collision investigations, drug and gang enforcement investigations,” she said.
“Hundreds of Surrey RCMP members will remain in the city, deployed now as members of the Provincial Operations Support Unit.”
Mehat said the RCMP will work closely with the SPS over the two years the transition is anticipated to take to ensure community safety.
B.C. Public Safety Minister Gary Begg called it a “historic day.”
“This is a landmark achievement and significant milestone in Canadian policing, as it represents a key marker in the largest police transition of its kind in the country,” he said in a statement.
“No matter the uniform, I know that every officer puts their lives on the line day in and day out to keep people and businesses safe.”
McCallum and his council, which included Locke, initiated the police transition in 2018.
“It’s a community-type policing working in the community, and by working in the community, the community starts to … feel a lot safer and they trust them a lot more so they let them know what’s happening in their community so they can get a proactive approach,” McCallum told Global News.
Locke defeated McCallum in the 2022 municipal election by Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, after campaigning heavily on scrapping the transition.
That led to a multi-year political and legal showdown with the provincial government, which ultimately ended with the province ordering the city to complete the transition.
The transition is expected to be fully complete sometime in 2027.