“I know that the Solicitor General and the rest of the cabinet in Victoria have no appetite to stop this and pull it back”
“IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”
That was the response from former Solicitor General Kash Heed when The VOICE asked him if the ongoing transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service (SPS) could be reversed at this stage – as Surrey mayoral hopeful Brenda Locke has been claiming.
The SPS now has 352 employees, with 298 sworn police officers and 54 civilians and Surrey-ites, especially the important South Asian community has whole-heartedly welcomed them. In fact, it will be a highly volatile situation if any mayor tries to halt or reverse the ongoing policing transition.
Heed noted: “[The transition] is on its way and Surrey Police Service, whether you like it or you don’t like it, it is going to be an independent municipal police agency. They are well on their way and the Province is not going to pull it back. It will be an irresponsible move if they pulled it back regardless of the political environment that is out there right now.”
Heed added: “Police leaders across the Lower Mainland understand that and are preparing themselves with respect to Surrey having its own standalone independent municipal police agency.”
After high-profile gang and drug enforcement commands with the Vancouver Police Department, Heed was West Vancouver’s Chief Constable for two years before being elected to the BC Legislature in 2009 as the MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview. Immediately after, Heed was appointed to serve as BC’s Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
WHEN The VOICE asked him about the controversy about transition costs. Heed bluntly pointed out: “Yes, the transition is going to be costly at the outset; however, it is going to be transitioned. Matter of fact, if you try to pull it back right now, you will be absolutely wasting excessive dollars, not realising that you have hired well over 200 people that you will have to deal with in some kind of severance pay when you try to pull it back.”
He added: “You got to look at the overall cost of what is taking place. You are better off moving forward, containing cost as much as you can. What has happened is the resistance from the RCMP, resistance from other policy-maker agencies that have cost the taxpayer in Surrey.
“This resistance will now subside and we will start to see a smoother, more efficient process because everyone knows this is now going to be a standalone, independent municipal police agency.”
When The VOICE noted that the Solicitor General could always refuse any request for a reversal of the policing transition, Heed said: “The power for policing lies with the provincial government. If you look at the way the Constitutional Act is in Canada, the responsibility for the policing comes to the Province. The Province takes upon itself to delegate the authority to municipal government. But the Province is overall is in charge of policing within its jurisdiction.”
WHEN The VOICE pointed out that Locke was making the ridiculous suggestion that the SPS officers could just be absorbed into the RCMP or return to their previous police departments, Heed replied: “It will not happen. You’ve got to remember the RCMP is a federal police agency. If in fact you wanted to be a member of the RCMP, there is a process you have to go through to be a member. You’ve got a chief of police, you’ve got deputy chiefs of police, you have superintendents, you have inspectors, you have staff-sergeants, sergeants and constables. You are not going to absorb them within a federal police structure.”
And what about the other police departments?
Heed said: “They are not going to take them back, I can tell you right now. They are not going to take them back because many of them have retired. They were able to take retirement. They will not go back as they have retired from those police agencies, whether you have retired from the RCMP or you’ve retired from a different police agency, you won’t go back as a regular member. You’ve already retired from that agency.”
Heed then noted: “You’ve heard me say that it was a very costly venture, but you are going to waste more of the taxpayers’ dollar now if you try and pull this back. And I know that the Solicitor General and the rest of the cabinet in Victoria have no appetite to stop this and pull it back. … I can tell you it’s not going to happen!”
