B.C. tells Surrey not to go back to the RCMP. But the mayor is ...

VANCOUVER—The controversy over the future of Canada’s largest RCMP detachment appears to be stuck in neutral after a recommendation from the provincial government was shrugged off by the mayor of Surrey, B.C.

In a surprise blow to the Mounties, the B.C. government urged the City of Surrey to keep its fledgling municipal police force, rejecting a plan from civic leaders that would have seen the community go back to the RCMP for policing services.

But Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke quickly rebuffed the province’s non-binding recommendation, leaving little room to argue that progress has been made on the issue.

Surrey is a city of an estimated 600,000 people that is part of Metro Vancouver.

Mike Farnworth, minister of public safety and solicitor general, said Friday that moving ahead with the transition to the Surrey Police Service is the safest option, since it would avoid further strain on acute understaffing at the RCMP.

“͞Everyone deserves to be safe in their community and all British Columbians deserve secure, stable policing they can count on,” he said in a statement. “͞The people of Surrey are very frustrated by years of uncertainty over this debate, but we must move forward without reducing police presence when we need it the most.”

There are about 1,500 RCMP vacancies throughout the province. Reverting to the Surrey RCMP would exacerbate challenges faced by municipalities and Indigenous communities by increasing demand for officers and aggravate public-safety concerns, according to a report by B.C.’s director of police services.

The recommendation came five months after Mayor Locke and city council submitted their plan to the province, and after the SPS said it had already spent millions on setting up the service, including hiring hundreds of staff and deploying officers to front-line service.

After a close race last year, Locke was elected on a promise to reverse the transition to the Surrey Police Service, which was established in 2020 under former mayor Doug McCallum’s “Safe Surrey Coalition.”

On Friday, in a response to the provincial recommendation, Locke said, “Surrey made their decision … So far, I haven’t seen anything that would change our mind.”

Locke called the provincial report “half-baked” due to its heavy redactions.

She said the money the province has offered changes nothing, reaffirming council doesn’t have confidence in the SPS.

Locke added she hadn’t been able to look over the report in detail. The mayor also took a swipe at Farnworth.

“The past four years have been wrought with challenges, with lack of due diligence on the behalf of the city of Surrey, for sure, and on behalf of the solicitor general,” she said. “They don’t want the public to know that they never did do their due diligence in the first place.”

Locke accused the province and previous council of not conducting feasibility and impact studies before deciding to start a municipal service.

B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety and the Attorney General told the Star it would “review the full report” with the city “when they are ready to do so,” citing confidential information about police operations that preclude releasing the report publicly.

B.C.’s recommendation was a break from precedent, as the provincial government generally does not reject major decisions of local governments.

While the City of Surrey is not legally bound to follow the province’s recommendation, if it chooses to retain the RCMP it must meet mandatory conditions. Those include working with a government-appointed adviser, and submitting revised staffing plans that do not “prioritize Surrey RCMP re-staffing over B.C. RCMP vacancies and resourcing needs.”

SPS Chief Const. Norm Lipinski released a statement Friday calling the recommendation “considered” and “evidence-based.”

Lipinski said the city has a rare opportunity to change the way policing in the city is conducted, taking a jab at the RCMP over years-long concerns about its practices.

“Across Canada, citizens have made it clear that they want to see policing done differently — with more compassion and trauma-informed practice, and less reliance on use of force,” the statement reads. “At SPS we are seeking to go beyond the status quo of policing as we find new approaches and solutions to public safety.”

Lipinski said he welcomed the chance to work with the city council and mayor.

On Friday afternoon, Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald thanked Farnworth for his recognition of the RCMP’s work and said the force is committed to working with the current SPS members in the city.

“I will not politicize this decision,” McDonald said. “The RCMP will respect and await direction on the way forward.”

McDonald urged rank and file RCMP members to “not be distracted” by the controversy and know they are appreciated by the public.

Robert Gordon, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, said the province’s position is likely to be disappointing to the RCMP, because it could be seen as a lack of faith that the force can resolve key issues, including understaffing.

He said the years-long debate is a reflection of growing scrutiny of the role of the RCMP in regional policing in Canada.

“The argument for regional police services is that communities will have a better say over how things are done on the street level,” Gordon told the Star. “At the moment, RCMP resources are perceived by critics as applied in a somewhat haphazard manner.”

Because of the numerous RCMP vacancies in the province, Gordon said that if ultimately displaced, Surrey RCMP members would “have no trouble relocating,” but they may find the option less than ideal because it would likely require moving to rural areas.

Meanwhile the National Police Federation, the union representing RCMP officers, was more blunt. President Brian Sauvé said the controversy stems from politics.

“We fully support Mayor Brenda Locke’s confirmation that the City of Surrey will retain the Surrey RCMP, which is entirely consistent with the wishes of a majority of Surrey voters,” Sauvé said. “This has never been about public safety, but rather a political project started by a former mayor run amok and now exacerbated by the province, costing all B.C. residents millions of dollars.”

The union said the Surrey detachment has adopted national and international best practices when it comes to policing.

The city of Surrey had said that retaining the RCMP would save taxpayers more than $235 million in the next five years, citing a municipal report estimating the full transition to SPS would cost $1.16 billion, while retaining the Surrey RCMP would cost $924.8M over five years.

Farnworth’s ministry said it commissioned an independent financial analysis of the submissions that found the SPS ͛plan to staff 734 officers would cost about $30 million more per year than the RCMP.

But the analysis also confirmed the costs of severance from disbanding the SPS and reverting to the RCMP would cost the City of Surrey about $72 million.

“We are willing to work with Surrey on those costs so they are not borne by the City of Surrey and city residents,” Farnworth said in a public event discussing the government’s recommendations.

Farnworth did not offer an estimate of how long the transition is expected to take. “If it takes five years, the (transition) could cost $150 million.”

These developments are likely being closely watched by other municipalities in Canada. Before Surrey, the last time a local government made the shift away from the RCMP was in 2000, in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.

Under B.C.’s Police Act, a municipality with a population of more than 5,000 has the authority to provide its policing and law enforcement by means of establishing its own municipal police department.

Former Surrey mayor McCallum had argued that it was “long overdue” for a city the size of Surrey to have its own police force “where accountability begins and stays within our city.” Surrey’s population was 518,467 as of the 2017 census, and the city estimated the population would have risen to 603,970 by December 2022.

In Metro Vancouver, Surrey has a reputation for being a hotbed of crime, which Surrey RCMP have repeatedly said was undeserved, citing the skewing effect of high-profile crimes when there have actually been consistent declines in crime over the past 10 years.

Last April, an all-party committee of B.C. MLAs called on the province to get rid of the RCMP in the province altogether and replace it with a provincial police force.

In its report, the committee said the move would bolster governance and accountability for police actions.

“The committee’s vision for policing and public safety includes: ensuring equitable access to police and public safety services with consistent oversight, governance, training, and policies,” it said.