THE Surrey Police Service will NOT stop hiring because they take instructions from the Province and NOT Surrey City Council.
Melissa Granum, Executive Director, Surrey Police Board, told The VOICE that in fact the province instructed the Board to keep on doing what they are doing.
So as reported in a section of the mainstream media that “Surrey council is expected to order the fledging Surrey Police Board to stop hiring officers or taking on additional spending,” will have no effect on the Board.
As The VOICE has reported in the past, the Province will make the final decision on whether the ongoing policing transition will continue.
The fact is that the Surrey Police Service has already reached 43 per cent of its targeted strength — a total of 315 police officers — and any reversal is not as simple as moving them into the RCMP.
As it is, 275 of 293 SPU frontline officers have already signed a pledge containing the following emphatic statement: “I declare that if the Surrey Police Service ceases to exist, I have no intention to apply to nor join any RCMP detachment as my next career move.”
Also, the Province is well aware of the fact that Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke won only 28 per cent of the total vote in the municipal election.
As Councillor Linda Annis put it on Monday: “The fact is 72 per cent of the people who voted in the municipal election did not vote for Brenda Locke, so any suggestion that there is some sort of overwhelming mandate is ridiculous.”
ON Tuesday, Solicitor General and Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth made it clear to media in Victoria that he will be the one to decide the future of policing in Surrey.
He said Surrey City Council doesn’t have any authority to freeze spending, pointing out that the police transitioning plan was already in place and would continue until there was a new plan.
Surrey is supposed to send Farnworth a plan by the end of the month. Farnworth wants a full explanation on how Surrey proposes to halt the transition, the costs involved and how it will deal with the hundreds of officers who signed in good faith to the Surrey Police Service. The RCMP, too, will have to present a plan on how they would restaff Surrey.
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