Surrey taxpayers paying tens of thousands of dollars for lobbyist for RCMP; Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke’s double standards shock Surrey-ites

BOB Mackin of Glacier Media Group has exposed Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke’s shocking double standards in an article that reveals that Surrey City Hall has hired BC Liberal insider Mark Marissen, former husband of former BC premier Christy Clark, to lobby the NDP government to keep the RCMP in Surrey.

Mackin reports that Marissen registered on January 5 to arrange meetings between Surrey officials and counterparts in the office of Premier David Eby and the Solicitor General and Municipal Affairs ministries.

Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth is currently scrutinizing reports to determine whether Surrey RCMP or Surrey Police Service will become the police of jurisdiction for Surrey.

Mackin reveals that “Marissen is also a longtime associate of Shannon Salter, Eby’s deputy minister, cabinet secretary and head of the public service. In 2005, when Paul Martin was prime minister, Marissen was the campaign director for the Liberal Party of Canada in B.C. and Salter in charge of communications.”

Locke and her staff at City Hall refused to provide any information to Mackin who reports that Locke’s communications staffers didn’t answer a reporter’s questions and schedule an interview with her. Instead, the City’s freedom of information (FOI) office sent an email requesting a $10 payment. Public bodies can take 30 business days or longer to provide information to an applicant.

Locke did not respond to a text message or call to her mobile number and a communications staff member sent an email to say that “Mayor Locke will not be commenting.”

Mackin points out that Locke had promised to eliminate the $10 FOI fee imposed by then- mayor Doug McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition council majority.

In a news release, she had said: “The Surrey Connect team sees the fee as a barrier for the public. By eliminating the fee, residents will see we are serious about transparency and good government.”

So how much is the City paying Marissen?

$50,000?

$100,000?

Or …?

Can anyone trust Locke after all this?!

 

THE NDP and its new premier, David Eby, will lose credibility, especially with South Asians, if they reverse the policing transition in Surrey.

Eby should remember that Surrey voters delivered a slap in the face of those who wanted to keep the RCMP in Surrey in the 2020 provincial election when they not only re-elected all six incumbent NDP MLAs – Jinny Sims (Surrey-Panorama), Rachna Singh (Surrey-Green Timbers), Jagrup Brar (Surrey-Fleetwood), Harry Bains (Surrey-Newton), Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley) and Garry Begg (Surrey-Guildford) – but also booted out Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Cloverdale) and replaced him with the NDP’s Mike Starchuk in spite of the BC Liberals and RCMP supporters making the police transition the hot issue in the city in the election.

That made the new BC Liberal Leader Kevin Falcon assure Punjabi journalists at a press meeting that he supported the municipal police transition.

The BC Liberals will surely benefit in Surrey if this NDP government betrays all the Surrey Police Service employees as The VOICE pointed out in an article titled “Will NDP government betray Surrey Police Service employees – just as then-BC Liberal government betrayed health workers?”

Also, as was pointed out in that article, a referendum by pro-RCMP forces that was inspired and paid for by the RCMP’s National Police Federation could not even garner as many votes as McCallum won as mayor!

The Surrey Police Union said it was pleased to see that at least 88% of registered voters in Surrey did not sign it. The National Police Federation paid more than $104,000 of the total of $118,264 that was used to carry out the so-called referendum, better known as the Surrey Police Vote initiative. In other words, the real people forked out just over $14,000, according to financial documents filed to Elections BC.

It is also highly pertinent to note as The VOICE has highlighted time and time again that the Surrey Police Service was established after Doug McCallum of Safe Surrey Coalition won the 2018 municipal election on that mandate with 40 per cent of the total votes cast — as compared to the 28 per cent of the total votes cast for Brenda Locke in 2022 on her pledge to keep the RCMP in Surrey. What is more, Locke of Surrey Connect won by fewer than 1,000 votes! Locke bagged 33,111 votes as compared to McCallum’s 32,338 votes — a difference of only 973 votes.

 

VOICE OPINION COLUMN