Community members in Surrey have mixed feelings about the decision to keep the RCMP and stop the transition to the Surrey Police Service.
Global News attended an event at the Cloverdale Skate Park, held in memory of Jamie Kehoe and Ethan Bespflug. Both were fatally stabbed on Surrey buses, albeit 12 years apart.
Surrey residents at the event shared their thoughts on Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke’s decision.
“I’m pretty excited. The Surrey RCMP has been a pretty big part of our community,“ Christine Tapp said, a Surrey resident. “I do feel like RCMP is the way to go, we have a big force and they’ve been trained.”
Jamie Kehoe’s father, Jason Kehoe, who is one of the organizers of the skateboard event in memory of his son said he is indifferent to the decision but, overall, thinks municipal forces are better for communities.
“I believe that if you are a city officer that is just working directly for your city and not the whole country like RCMP, you will be focused more on problems within the community,” he said.
Another resident said he doesn’t care what police force operates in Surrey as long as policing is being done.
“Honestly, it doesn’t really matter to me as long as police are out there doing their job.” Chadd Sinclair said. “We need more people protecting the streets. Myself … growing up in Surrey I was a victim, I have been jumped twice. The more police, the better off and safer we will be.”
Global News spoke with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about the matter.
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“I was shocked at the lack of transparency that’s been shown by Mayor Locke throughout this process,” said Carson Binda, Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s B.C. director.
“About $8 million a month of taxpayer money is being spent holding two police forces in Surrey and taxpayers have every right to know how and why that money is being spent. We need to know the timeline when this will all be completed.”
Speaking Friday afternoon, Solicitor General and Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said he still needs to see the report from the City of Surrey before the final decision can really be made.
The province has not yet approved the plan voted on and whether it meets the conditions imposed by the province. If the plan is not approved by the province, Farnworth said his responsibility is to provide safe and effective policing in Surrey and across British Columbia.
This is something Binda said is unacceptable as taxpayers are on the hook as it seems the saga is set to continue.
“This has been a political football since day one, being passed back and forth between the solicitor general and the mayor of Surrey,” Binda said. “Taxpayers and police offers have all been left in the lurch by the indecisiveness shown by Mike Farnworth and Brenda Locke. We need some real answers.”
The Surrey Board of Trade, who has supported the RCMP staying in the city from day one, said it’s happy Locke made the decision, but now it’s time to move on and address other issues in the community.
“There are so many pieces of our economy that have been left behind. Surrey is going to be the largest city in B.C., as we are still growing by around 1,200 to 1,400 people a month,” said Anita Huberman, Surrey Board of Trade’s president and CEO.
“We want a renewed economic and jobs plan — we want the community to thrive. We need to remove the politics, focus on the economy and focus on what needs to be done to support those in need, in terms of mental health support, and drug addiction support.”
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In a statement, SPS Chief Norm Lipinski said the service is “extremely disappointed” by the decision ” despite the fact that three years’ worth of financial and human investments have gone into building a local, independent police service for Surrey.”
Lininski added that while they wait for Farnworth’s final decision, SPS officers and staff will continue to serve the residents of Surrey as they have done for the past 18 months.
Despite recent efforts to halt it, the transition to the SPS had been underway for months before Locke’s majority was elected, with more than 400 officers and support staff on the payroll.
The SPS’s plan to eventually hire 734 officers is estimated to cost about $30 million more annually than Surrey’s contract with the RCMP, but severance costs for SPS officers if the force was disbanded would now cost about $72 million.
Locke, who was elected to council in 2018 as a part of former mayor Doug McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition, quit the party in 2019 claiming dysfunction on council and conflict over McCallum’s plan to drop the Surrey RCMP for a municipal police force.
One of her key election promises in 2022 was to scrap that transition.
— with files from Global BC’s Amy Judd.
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