There is frustration among some community leaders in Surrey, B.C., over yet another delay in a final decision over the future of policing in the city.
It comes after B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth’s long-anticipated report on whether to keep the Surrey RCMP or continue with a transition to the Surrey Police Service (SPS) recommended the city keep the municipal force — but kicked the final decision back to mayor and council.
Farnworth pledged funding to cover excess costs of continuing the transition, saying that keeping the Mounties would cost the city about $72 million.
He said completing the transition would help the province address a shortage of about 1,500 RCMP officers, while keeping the Mounties in Surrey would exacerbate shortages faced by other municipal police departments.
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, however, has indicated she intends to stick to her promise to disband the SPS.
Upkar Singh Tatlay, executive director of the Engaged Communities Canada Society, said residents are hungry for a final decision after five years of debate.
What’s more, he said the polarization of which police force has overwhelmed more important conversations about how to best police a diverse city like Surrey, and questions about mental health, relationships with racialized and marginalized communities or reallocation of resources.
“We’re a city that houses a huge number of youth, we have seniors, we have the highest urban Indigenous population, we have the highest density of Black community members, highest South Asian, Syrian, Afghani and I could go on — so what does policing mean for that kind of community?” he told Global news.
“This whole exercise was a wonderful opportunity for Surrey to capitalize on and do that same kind of work. So while we’re uncovering what kind of policing need, we should also be looking at what does that policing actually look like when it’s delivered, rather than just choosing between thing one and thing two.”
Anita Huberman, president and CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade, said the turmoil over the policing decision has given the city’s image a black eye.
“Certainly the whole situation is embarrassing for the city — it really is a non-decision that we heard from the B.C. government, now we have to wait to see what the mayor and council will deliberate and decide on,” she said.
“I speak in front of provincial, national, international audiences. This topic of the back and forth, the politics of it all, has really impacted the brand of our city. Is Surrey open for business? Is Surrey focused on other livability infrastructure issues, and solving those, or are we only focused on policing?”
Huberman said her organization has supported the retention of the RCMP, and that her instinct was that the city would stick to its guns about keeping the Mounties.
She said Farnworth made a compelling financial case to finish the transition to the SPS, but in doing so, left the city with more unanswered questions.
“What the B.C. government has put on the table does make fiscal sense to move forward with the SPS,” she said.
“We’re building a new police board from the ground up. When will this be operational? How are we going to be funding two police forces, how long will we be doing that? These are still questions from a fiscal perspective that the community still needs to understand.”
Wake Up Surrey organizer Gurpreet Singh Sahota said he was hopeful the province’s recommendation would finally put the debate to rest.
“We need one answer so we can move forward. There are other issues in Surrey. Our roads are not in good condition. There’s a homeless issue. There’s school issues,” he said.
Sahota said he expected RCMP supporters will lobby Locke to scrap the SPS, but that he remained hopeful the mayor would opt to keep the municipal force after reviewing the province’s recommendation.
“People of Surrey will get money so they don’t have to pay more property taxes, they will get their own Surrey Police Service, and Brenda Locke can say to her supporters, ‘OK I tried my best, but now I have to understand what the situation is, because we don’t have enough officers,'” he said.
“I think somehow she knows that it’s not going to happen, and it would be a good political move for her … because this report paved landmines under her feet.”
University of the Fraser Valley political science professor Hamish Telford told Global News he had expected a more definitive decision from the province.
Telford said it was clear to him from the province’s proposal that the government expected Locke to concede the matter, but that Farnworth had left her the option of “not playing ball with them.”
“It really does force her hand, and I think it really comes down to whether or not Brenda Locke and her supporters were making a rational argument about the cost of police services in Surrey, or whether or not it was an emotional attachment to the RCMP,” Telford said.
“If her concerns were purely rational and the province is saying we’ll help cover the costs, then she should be able to concede and get on with negotiating those details and continuing the transition — but if its more of an emotional attachment to the RCMP, and I know people in Canada do have an emotional attachment to the RCMP, then she might try and stick to her guns, so to speak, out of loyalty.”
While Locke said her council had made its decision to keep the RCMP five months ago “and that decision has not changed,” she also told reporters Friday that staff and council would need time to review the province’s final report.
A timeline for that process was not immediately clear.
Tatlay suggested he’d like to see the matter concluded sooner than later so that the community could get down to “brass tacks” about how to actually get the best results from police on the ground.
“Despite the borderline anger at times on this topic, people are ready,” he said. “People are ready for a sound decision so we can get on with the work that needs to be done so we can get good policing in the City of Surrey.”
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