Surrey council votes to seek province's approval of plan to retain RCMP

Surrey council has voted to send the province a plan to retain the RCMP as the city's police agency and arrest the in-progress transition to a municipal force.

The report will go to Solicitor General Mike Farnworth later this week for his approval. He will make the final call on whether or not the transition continues or is halted.

"We know that the RCMP are the gold standard when it comes to policing," Mayor Brenda Locke said ahead of the vote.

Locke campaigned in the recent municipal election on a promise to retain the RCMP. She says the savings for Surrey taxpayers would be enormous and the city must stick with the Mounties because it can't afford to make the change.

Monday night's vote follows the release of a draft report prepared for council by city leaders and the RCMP, which claims that stopping the transition to a municipal police force would save taxpayers just over $235 million over the next five years.

The vote could be the beginning of the end for the controversial transition process begun by previous mayor Doug McCallum, and all eyes will be on Farnworth to spell out the future of law enforcement in B.C.'s second-most populous city.

SPS says it was not consulted

The report, called Policing Surrey: A Plan to Retain the RCMP as the Police of Jurisdiction in Surrey, says the estimated cost per officer for each force, with a full complement of 734 officers, would be $249,460 for the Surrey Police Service (SPS) and $205,990 for the RCMP. 

However, the SPS says it was not consulted on the report and outlined a number of concerns in a statement Monday morning.

The municipal force said the report overestimates how many SPS officers would join the Surrey RCMP if the latter was retained. It also contested the report's claim that the SPS would have difficulty hiring more officers, saying it has received more than 2,500 applications in less than two years and has a proven ability to hire both new and experienced officers.

In addition, the SPS says the report doesn't consider more than $100 million in unrecoverable costs invested in getting the force off the ground; that it incorrectly claims the ongoing transition would take another five years; and that its own estimates of annual SPS operating costs are $13.6 million lower than what was presented to council.

"We believe that the many assumptions made in this report have contributed to the city providing an inflated cost to taxpayers to continue with the transition to SPS," said SPS Chief Const. Norm Lipinski.

"... It should be further noted that this amount was previously purported to be $520 million over four years by Surrey Connect during the recent municipal election," Lipinski added, referring to the party led by Locke. 

Despite Locke campaigning on retaining the RCMP and making it clear that putting the brakes on the SPS was her main priority upon taking office in October, Lipinski says he and his team remain committed to serving Surrey until the province makes a final decision.

The Safe Surrey Coalition — the party of former mayor McCallum — also highlighted the discrepancy between the $520 million in savings Locke claimed before she was elected, and the $235 million figure in the report.

The coalition says the city's projections also don't consider the costs of deconstructing the three unions connected to the SPS, which it says could cost around $135 million.

Coun. Doug Elford, a council ally of McCallum and long-time advocate for a municipal force, called the draft an "unbalanced report" Monday night and lamented that there was no matching SPS report "for balance."

He accused Locke of providing "misleading" policing costs information to the public.

"It's very disappointing," Elford said.

SPS not forthcoming with info: Locke

On Tuesday, Locke said the SPS hasn't been forthcoming with information about costs. So, she said analysts used what information had been made publicly, including comments to media.

"Over the past probably a month-and-a-half since I've been elected, we've received more information from the Surrey Police Service than we did in the last four years," she told The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn. 

"They have not been very forthcoming at all to the city of Surrey with costing information."

Locke said the SPS report doesn't take into account things like technology, a training facility and other capital costs. 

In its draft report, the city acknowledges the financial analysis of both policing options is "extremely complex" and was done using currently available information, recognizing limitations and applying assumptions where necessary.

The city's project team is led by RCMP Asst. Commissioner Brian Edwards and Surrey's general manager of community services Terry Waterhouse, with input from consultants Dr. Peter German and Tonia Enger, both former RCMP leaders.

Province should step in: criminologist

Rob Gordon, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, says Surrey council has already made its position clear. He says the people compiling the data on how to proceed seem to only be presenting figures that support retaining the RCMP.

"This is why I have been yelling for the solicitor general to step in and bring some order to this chaos," he said in an interview. "I don't think it's in the interest of the people in Surrey to be carrying on with this."

Gordon says the back and forth between council, RCMP and the SPS is counterproductive to effective policing and an "incredible" waste of time.

In a scenario where the SPS is phased out by the end of 2023, Surrey's report projects a nearly $100 million shortfall in its policing budget for that year — including the 10 per cent subsidy the city would receive from Ottawa for continuing to contract the RCMP.

"Right now, the people of Surrey appear to be paying twice over for second-rate policing," said Gordon.

"The morale among the police officers on both sides ... must be at rock bottom. And that usually reflects itself poorly on the way in which policing is done in the city."

Two councillors who voted to not send the plan forward, Elford and Coun. Mandeep Nagra, appealed personally to the solicitor general to keep the SPS.

"I would like to request our Minister Farnworth to look into the facts. Both sides," Nagra said. "The majority of people in Surrey still want Surrey police to continue."

That comment drew derisive laughter from a few people watching the proceedings. Locke admonished them.

The draft plan on keeping the RCMP is set to be in Farnworth's hands by Dec. 15.

Locke says a prompt decision from Farnworth is essential to prevent any further unnecessary spending by the SPS.