‘Are they trying to hide something?’ Surrey councillor slams Christmas release of police transition reports

It looks like there will be no Christmas break in the debate over the City of Surrey’s transition to a municipal police force.

Surrey Coun. Brenda Locke is slamming Mayor Doug McCallum over the timing of two key reports on the transition away from the RCMP, which were turned in two days before Christmas.

One of those reports will go to former attorney general and judge Wally Oppal, who chairs a joint municipal-provincial committee on the change, and will govern the next steps in the transition process.

But Locke says another report, with the “raw data” on public consultation on the switch, was also released on Dec. 23 — about six months after the consultations were completed — and says it was buried on the city’s website.

“Any time government releases a report the day before Christmas, it begs the question: are they trying to hide something?” said Locke.

“The concern I have with that is that on June 24, the mayor came out and said that 93 per cent of the public wanted to see the police transition from the RCMP to a Surrey Police Department. The raw data does not support that statement.”

2:14 Oppal says McCallum’s Surrey police transition timeline is incorrect

According to the consultation report, about six per cent of respondents said they were worried about moving away from the RCMP, while another 1.5 per cent expressed concerns over funding transparency for the new force and one per cent worried the city couldn’t afford it.

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Locke argued that many of the individual responses in the survey were critical of the transition, suggesting more people have concerns about the switch than the mayor claims. She further argued that McCallum came up with the 93 per cent figure because the specific questions in the consultation were too open-ended.

The online survey asked people to rank policing priorities (like reducing gang activity), and express agreement or disagreement with a series of statements.

Statements that drew strong approval included: “It’s time that Surrey had a police department that is locally led” (90 per cent), “I believe our police department should prioritize its efforts based on what is important to Surrey citizens” (92 per cent), and “being able to respond quickly to emerging issues (the opioid crisis, crime trends) is important for our police service” (93 per cent).

Locke also raised concerns that the consultation process was not scientific and could have been abused, and that people could have filled it out more than once.

“Anybody could have filled out the survey, even if they didn’t live in Surrey,” she said.

“It’s actually quite an embarrassment, in my opinion, of a report of consultation of citizens’ wishes.”

Locke says Surrey should not rush into the transition, and should instead work towards funding more boots on the ground immediately.

Global News has requested comment from Mayor McCallum.

2:00 Province takes over Surrey police plan