Surrey’s mayor and the province’s solicitor general sat down face to face on Tuesday for the first time since the minister ordered the city to complete its transition to a municipal police force.
Last week, Mike Farnworth directed the city to complete its phase out of the Surrey RCMP in favour of the Surrey Police Service, overruling Mayor Brenda Locke and her council majority.
In making the decision, Farnworth said the city had failed to show it could staff the Mounties back up without jeopardizing public safety elsewhere in the province.
Locke and Farnworth met Tuesday at the government cabinet offices in downtown Vancouver.
“We had a frank discussion that was respectful and I thought it was very productive,” Farnworth told Global News.
“The decision has been made, and I think everyone wants us to move forward and that’s what I hope we can do.”
Locke did not speak to media, but forwarded a statement she read at Surrey city council on Monday raising renewed concerns about public safety and costs to the city’s taxpayers “for years to come.”
“It’s clear to all parties that the switch to the SPS will be very costly,” Locke said.
“The exact figure cannot be determined because there are many expensive unknowns yet to be factored in, such as a new training centre or other new capital-related costs.”
Locke said the city has never received financial projections or change management programs from the Surrey Police Service, and has incurred about $60 million in costs from operating both the municipal force and the RCMP over the last eight months.
The province has pledged $150 million to offset transition costs for the city.
Locke further critiqued Farnworth’s rationale for forcing the transition, arguing he didn’t apply the same standards vis-a-vis staffing to the SPS that he applied to the RCMP.
“It is paramount for the confidence of not only Council, but to the taxpayers of Surrey that the reports and information that the minister used to make his decision on policing in Surrey be made public, including the reports that were made under NDAs, with sensitive and operational information redacted of course,” Locke said.
Locke was elected mayor in the 2022 municipal election on a pledge to scrap the police transition, which was initiated under the administration of the previous mayor Doug McCallum.
In 2018, she was elected to council as a part of McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition, which campaigned heavily on ditching the RCMP for a municipal force. Locke quit McCallum’s party in 2019 citing a lack of transparency and conflict over his approach to the police transition.
The mayor said she also plans to meet in the coming days with Jessica McDonald, the advisor Farnworth has appointed to oversee the completion of the transition.
Linda Annis, who sits on Surrey council with the opposition Surrey First, told Global News it was time for council to stop re-litigating the policing decision and to start focusing on other issues in the city.
“I think the residents are very frustrated. This has gone on far too long with lack of transparency both to costs and how the process is moving forward,” she said.
“The minister has spoken, the minister has said we must move forward, that it’s not the choice of the city any longer. We need to be working as a team to make this happen.”
Annis said the city should now be putting its energy into building up the SPS into the police force the city wants, including consulting with stakeholders and sending Police Chief Norm Lipinski into the community to hear from residents.
An independent financial analysis commissioned by the provincial government determined that keeping the SPS will cost Surrey taxpayers about $30 million more per year than the RCMP.
The Surrey Police Service will need to hire as many more than 100 more officers to meet the city’s baseline needs according to Chief Lipinski.
The force currently has about 230 officers on the front line, but needs about a minimum of 350.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story stated that Linda Annis sits with the Safe Surrey Coalition. In fact, she sits with the Surrey First slate.
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