Surrey Police Service makes its case to province as decision on policing transition looms

The Surrey Police Service (SPS) submitted a pair of reports to the province Thursday making its case for continuing on with the city’s contentious police transition.

Surrey city council voted earlier this month to send its own request and plan to reverse the transition away from the RCMP as police of jurisdiction to Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth.

Mayor Brenda Locke campaigned heavily on keeping the RCMP during this fall’s municipal election.

Farnworth’s ministry will have the final say on whether the city scraps the transition or continues to move forward with it.

Both reports were submitted to B.C.’s Policing and Security Branch. The first is a 155-page detailed report on the transition’s progress and the SPS’ operational status, and will not be made public.

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“We of course did not have an opportunity to appear before council and explain our situation as far as the progress to date of the Surrey Police Service,” SPS Chief Norm Lipinski told Global News.

“So we summarized the comprehensive report and put it into a 25-page document so the public can have a look at what we’ve done, how far we’ve come, and what we stand for.”

The SPS’ public summary report argues that the department has already recruited 375 staff, and that four years into the transition “work is well underway and nearing completion for the Surrey SPS to become (police of jurisdiction).”

The report argues the SPS could take over as the primary police force by next summer, and that reversing the transition will be both difficult and costly.

The 375 employees will need to be fired, while their two unions — the Surrey Police Union and Surrey Police Inspectors’ Association — will need to be dissolved. That dissolution will likely involve grievances and legal costs, it argues.

The report also argues that the SPS is the only municipal police force in the country that isn’t facing recruitment problems. The department has received an estimated 2,500 applications, it said, showing it can grow with the city.

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The SPS officers already on the payroll have said they do not wish to work for the RCMP, the report argues. It further argues that completing the transition would actually be a net policing benefit to B.C., by freeing up hundreds of Mounties to work elsewhere in the province.

The report also lays out the SPS’ financial case once again.

Sunk costs by the end of the year will have reached $107 million it argues, while additional costs including severance for fired employees would bring the total loss to $202.1 million

In its own report calling for the transition to be reversed, the Surrey city council argued scrapping the SPS would save the city an estimated $235 million over five years.

That’s a figure the SPS disputes, arguing the actual additional cost over five years would be under $100 million.

“Our costing is $18.9 million per year more, we feel it’s a value proposition, that is to say, that it is an investment in policing in Surrey,” Lipinski said.

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“There are many benefits to a municipal police service — the biggest one is local accountability. I report to a police board, and the police board is appointed by the province. They set the policy, they set the finances, and they set the strategic direction. They get their information from the community.”

The province has set a deadline of Thursday for the Surrey RCMP to submit its own report regarding the future of policing in the city.

Farnworth is expected to make a final decision about the police transition early next year.