Surrey Police Transitioning Report ready to be sent to Director of Police Services by Wally Oppal

THE voluminous Surrey Policing Transition Report is ready to be sent to the Director of Police Services by Wally Oppal, chair of the joint transition committee for the formation of a Surrey police force, The VOICE has learnt.

On December 23, Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum had announced that members of the Provincial Municipal Policing Transition Study Committee had achieved consensus on the report that had been forwarded to Oppal.

And Oppal told The VOICE the following day that he would go through the whole report “to see whether or not it meets the standards that are required to move on to the next step.”

Now Oppal is about to send the report to the Director of Police Services. He told The VOICE earlier this week: “The purpose of the report is to tell the director what is needed for Surrey to do in order to establish its own police force. That means getting help from the provincial government to establishing a police board, what that board needs to do and who makes up that board and the hiring of a police chief, advertising for a police chief and then doing recruitment for officers and then the collective agreement.”

Oppal, who was attorney general and a BC Court of Appeal judge, added: “We point out to the director and the minister [Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth] this is what will be needed under the Police Act.”

The City has said it looks forward to working with the Province, the federal government and the leadership of the RCMP to ensure a smooth and orderly transition to the Surrey Police Department.

Oppal had told The VOICE last month: “A lot of those questions need to be answered by the Province, but our job is to point out to them these are issues that need to be resolved before the next step is taken.”