No decision on future of Surrey Police Service until at least the end of the year, as more officers are hired
New Surrey council expected to vote on Nov. 29 in favour of disbanding municipal police force
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The future of the work-in-progress Surrey Police Service will not be clear until at least the end of this year, by which time another 35 officers will have been hired.
On Wednesday, Surrey mayor-elect Brenda Locke said that a corporate report detailing how the service could be disbanded would most likely be presented to city council at its Nov. 29 meeting.
Locke will be sworn in on Nov. 7. She said work was already underway on the report. Her first council meeting as mayor will be on Nov. 14. There are two more council meetings scheduled to end the year, on Dec. 12 and 19.
Locke won the Oct. 15 municipal election on a promise to retain the Surrey RCMP and put a stop to the Surrey Police Service, which was established with provincial government approval by Mayor Doug McCallum — who Locke defeated in the election.
“My plans have not changed and the RCMP will remain the police of jurisdiction now and into the future,” Locke told Postmedia News on Wednesday.
Locke’s Surrey Connect party holds the balance of power on council, so the corporate report will be supported and then passed on to B.C. Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth. He must ultimately either approve the plan and allow the SPS to be disbanded or reject the plan and allow it to go ahead and replace the Surrey RCMP.
Farnworth has said his decision would have a lot of implications and a reversal of the previous council’s decision to create the SPS would cost a significant amount of money.
During Wednesday afternoon’s SPS board meeting, Chief Const. Norm Lipinski said the force would be fully operational by June 1, 2023. He said that the force had so far hired 296 sworn officers and 57 civilian staff. One-hundred-and-fifty-four officers were already working on the front lines, accompanying Surrey Mounties on calls.
Lipinski said 35 more new officers would be added to the force in November.
Acting chair Cheney Cloke said that 50 of the new employees had come to Surrey from other parts of Canada and had relocated their families. The former board chair was McCallum, and if the B.C. government chooses not to back Locke and council, Locke will become the board chair.
Lipinski said that a meeting had been scheduled next week between three levels of government to discuss issues around the police force. He didn’t elaborate.
The SPS board has one more scheduled meeting for 2022, on Nov. 30.
The Surrey Police Union has severance language written into workplace contracts, so if the force is disbanded the workers would be compensated.
Surrey RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brian Edwards hasn’t commented on the proposed transition.
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