SURREY Police Service (SPS) continues to hire and deploy more police officers leading up to November 29, when SPS will take over policing and law enforcement for Surrey. This week, SPS is deploying nine more experienced police officers, coming from both municipal and RCMP agencies.

In this deployment, six experienced constables and two sergeants will be deployed to the frontline and one constable will join traffic services. In total, 225 SPS officers are deployed into eight different units.

As the policing transition progresses, it will be important for SPS officers of various ranks, including staff sergeants, inspectors and superintendents, to be part of subsequent deployments to provide the leadership and depth of supervision and experience needed to smoothly transition policing to SPS.

In addition, officers with investigative skills and other specialized skill sets will also be important additions to deployments in the coming months. Frontline policing is an important part of policing, but many other sections and units are necessary for a policing service to deliver comprehensive public safety to a community.

“We are moving forward with a specific view to becoming the police of jurisdiction in Surrey this November,” says SPS Chief Constable Norm Lipinski. “These officers and the hundreds that joined SPS before them, want to work for a top tier, progressive, community-based police service and we continue to deliver that to our officers and to the residents of Surrey.”

You can find more information about joining SPS as an experienced officer at www.surreypolice.ca/experienced-officers.

Policing Transition Background:

• In 2018, the City of Surrey decided to transition from the RCMP to its own municipal police service. The Province of BC approved this change, SPS was established in 2020, and work began on the transition from the RCMP to SPS.
• Phase 1 of the transition began in 2021, with a blended SPS-RCMP policing model. SPS officers are regularly integrated into the Surrey RCMP detachment, while RCMP officers are redeployed to other RCMP detachments / units. During this phase, SPS officers work under the operational command of the RCMP, which is the current police of jurisdiction.
• Phase 2 of the transition will begin on November 29, when SPS will become the police of jurisdiction, taking over responsibility for policing and law enforcement in Surrey. The RCMP will provide support to SPS until the transition is complete.
• To date, SPS has hired 367 police officers and 60 civilian employees. SPS is the second largest municipal police agency in BC and will grow to have 860 police officers by the end of 2027 (as per the City of Surrey’s Five-Year Financial Plan), and hundreds of civilian staff.
• More information on Surrey’s policing transition can be found at: www.surreypolice.ca/policing-transition.