Controversy around the future of policing in Surrey, B.C., took centre stage in question period at the B.C. legislature after the city warned of a possible double-digit tax increase this weekend.
The proposed policing-related tax hike comes as the province’s public safety minister says a final decision on whether to approve Surrey’s plan to reverse a transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service is still “a few weeks” away.
Surrey city council voted last year to scrap the city’s transition from the RCMP to a municipal force, but a final provincial decision on the process was delayed earlier this month after the Ministry of Public Safety sought more details from the city and the RCMP about staffing plans.
Over the weekend, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said keeping the RCMP would require overcoming a $116-million transition-related budget shortfall. To meet the gap, the city would need to hike property taxes by 9.5 per cent — on top of an already planned seven per cent increase, for a total tax hike of 17.5 per cent.
The city maintains that continuing with the transition would be even more expensive, while the Surrey Police Service has called for an independent audit of the transition costs.
The Opposition BC Liberals hammered the BC NDP government over the controversy Tuesday, pinning it on the province’s delay in making a final decision on the police transition.
“That would be a record tax hike in the City of Surrey. Every day this minister delays makes the decision on future policing in Surrey, it only serves to increase the anxiety about the costs to Surrey residents,” Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond told the legislature.
“This is a total mess. And the people that are going to have to pay for this government’s incompetence and delays are the people of Surrey.”
Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth told reporters Tuesday that his ministry had only recieved Surrey’s response to its request for more information on Thursday, and that analyzing it would still take several weeks.
“This is not just a box-ticking exercise. This is about ensuring a transition that keeps the Surrey community safe with effective and adequate policing,” Farnworth said.
He said the decision on whether to keep the RCMP in Surrey will have provincewide repercussions, given that the force will need to add another 300 officers to return to its full funded strength.
“How are you going to do that? Where are you going to get those officers from? They don’t just appear out of thin air,” Farnworth said.
“At the same time you have to supply those officers, you have officers going to all the other communities that have RCMP, for example, in different parts of the province, as well as the federal policing, as well as the other provinces, so there is a limited supply of recruits.”
Regardless on the final decision from the province, Surrey taxpayers will be on the hook for the change, Farnworth said.
Comments