Surrey city council has voted to keep the RCMP. What happens now?

Surrey appears to be moving toward scrapping a years-long transition to a municipal force, but the details on how and when that might become official are still up in the air.

On Monday, council voted 5-4 in favour of keeping the RCMP in Surrey and ultimately ending the switch to the new municipal police force now known as the Surrey Police Service (SPS).

The move has been in the works since 2018. Millions of dollars and countless hours have been spent on administration, and hundreds of officers have been hired. 

To switch it back will take more than a close vote from city council. 

The local police union has made it clear that those employed by the SPS are largely uninterested in becoming RCMP officers, which means, under a switch, the Surrey RCMP might struggle to hire staff. 

"With Vancouver looking to hire 100 [new police officers], we are at risk of losing some of our best and brightest police officers to Vancouver, and I think every Surrey resident should be concerned about that," Surrey Police Board executive director Melissa Granum told Stephen Quinn, the host of CBC's The Early Edition.

Before the transition can be reversed, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth has said the city and the RCMP must provide reports to the province making a case for axing the SPS and providing a plan to staff the RCMP.

He expects those reports to be filed at the end of November.

"What's important and what my role as Solicitor General is to ensure that there is safe and effective policing, not just in Surrey but provincewide as well," he said. 

"A transition is not like flicking a switch on and off."

The municipal force will also prepare a separate report for Farnworth, according to SPS spokesperson Lisa Eason.

The SPS claims terminating the transition would result in $107 million in sunk costs plus $81.5 million in job termination costs.

The switch to a municipal force has cost the city an estimated $100 million, and about 315 officers and counting have been hired. 

Part of council's discussion on Monday included asking the SPS to stop hiring, but since then, the police board has said it plans to continue bringing on new members.

"The province did direct the board to continue deploying police officers for the month of November," Granum said. 

"So there will be another 35 or so police officers heading out to the front line to take calls for service at the end of November."

Farnworth said the city doesn't have the power to control the SPS's spending, adding that the current plan, which is to switch to the SPS, continues until a new plan is made. 

But Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said council has made it clear that the service is to "pause all new hirings and expenditures pending further council direction."

"In good faith, it is my opinion that they should adhere to that, but you know, they will do what they do."

Some people have suggested a referendum to ensure that Surrey residents are actually in favour of this. While Locke campaigned heavily on her promise to keep the RCMP in Surrey, she won with just 28 per cent of the vote. 

Kash Heed, a former minister of public safety and solicitor general, a former police officer in Metro Vancouver and now a sitting councillor in Richmond, B.C., said it could take four more years for Surrey to transition back to the RCMP — if they can do it at all. 

"I think it's going to be quite difficult for the new mayor to actually put the brakes on this."