[This Voice Opinion piece was first published on March 21, 2023]
THE Indo-Canadian VOICE carried a column by Surrey Police Service (SPS) Chief Constable Norm Lipinski [back in March] titled “Modern policing for a modern city,” in which he pointed out that currently, 50 per cent of SPS officers identify as a visible minority, including 22 per cent who identify as South Asian.
Lipinski also noted that there are 52 Punjabi-speaking officers and 31 who speak Hindi.
It would be sheer lunacy for the NDP government to disband such a novel police force that is already being admired across North America as a role model in diversity.
The NDP would be shamelessly hypocritical if it ignored the above-mentioned facts as well as the reality that 67.1 per cent of people in Surrey identified as a person of colour in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
(In comparison, only 54.5 per cent of people in Vancouver identified as a person of colour in 2021.)
In fact, getting rid of the SPS at this crucial stage would harm the NDP for sure — and what is worse, it would definitely adversely affect the law and order situation in a city that is the ONLY large city in Canada that does NOT have its own police force.
VOICE Opinion Column