B.C.’S second largest city is creating history as the Surrey Police Service gradually takes over from the Surrey RCMP.

Surrey is the only large city in Canada that does not have its own police force – but that is now ending phase by phase. And as you can see from the story “Surrey Police Service officers respond to over 1,000 calls since deployment,” the transition is going professionally and smoothly in spite of every attempt to sabotage it by some undemocratic elements.

The new police force was one of the three major policies that Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition won the last municipal election on. There was no hidden agenda there.

Last week, I was informed that Surrey Connect — a municipal party formed by Safe Surrey Coalition defectors Branda Locke and Jack Hundial who have used every tactic on earth to sabotage the SPS – had once again stooped to spreading slander against SPS supporters.

In one of their propaganda pieces on their Facebook page, they carried a news item from The VOICE of April 2 titled, “RCMP Poodles of Surrey Council Keep Whimpering,” to allege that their opponents are “paying for ads to compare Brenda Locke to a dog”!

Locke and Hundial must surely be getting increasingly desperate as they see all their attempts to sabotage the SPS come to naught.

Or perhaps, they need to learn some English. According to one dictionary, poodle is “a person or organization who is overly willing to obey another.”

If they didn’t know the meaning of this word, they are not fit to be Councillors.

If they did know its meaning, that means they deliberately distorted this fact or brazenly lied to gain sympathy – a dirty tactic, indeed!

Or maybe, they believe that their supporters are ignorant people or those who can easily be manipulated.

“Paying for ads”?

Desperate slander, again. (And we can sue them for that anytime we want). Could Locke and Hundial show us where that money is?

Just how low can these two stoop?!

Perhaps they got confused because of the money that the Surrey RCMP officers’ union has been paying for ads in some media outlets that have been deliberately distorting facts about the police transitioning and attacking all supporters of the SPS.

Please remember that the RCMP’s National Police Federation paid more than $104,000 of the total of $118,264 that was used to carry out the recent fraud referendum, better known as the Surrey Police Vote initiative that failed miserably.

Many RCMP officers have been fooled into believing that the RCMP will stay in Surrey somehow and more and more of them are now realizing that that is not true. They are getting increasingly frustrated at their senior officers and their union, we are told.

Even Surrey Councillor Linda Annis — who is far more respected that Locke and Hundial will ever be and who was the only non-Safe Surrey Coalition Councillor to be elected — realizes that the SPS is here to stay. There is just no way that the Province will stop the transitioning process at this stage even if another Council in the future would request that.

Last August, Annis slammed Locke for her stupidity.

She said in a press statement: “Brenda Locke’s knee-jerk promise to bring the police transition to a “screeching halt” have left Surrey residents and taxpayers confused and nervous about the volatility and costs associated with public safety in BC’s second largest city.”

Annis added: “Brenda Locke’s ‘screeching halt’ approach to police transition doesn’t take into account the untold millions that have been spent to date and the millions more that will be spent over the next 12 months.” Annis said that this “sort of arbitrary decision-making” by Locke “makes taxpayers nervous for their wallets and the safety of our city, when we should always be completely transparent with our residents.”

Annis said: “Brenda Locke says she wants to bring things to a screeching halt, which is a big red flag for me and every other taxpayer. Frankly, we need to take ego and politics out of the policing equation and give our citizens the facts and figures and confidence they need to make good decisions going forward.”

Annis went on to give her own version about policing costs. She added: “Brenda Locke wants to shut it all down immediately. I think Surrey deserves better, and it starts by knowing the facts, and parking emotions, ego and politics on the sidelines.”

And, by the way, the fraud referendum inspired and paid for by the RCMP’s National Police Federation could not even garner as many votes as McCallum won as mayor!