THE Surrey Police Service put it so felicitously in one of its reports to the government last year: “Three hundred and seventy-five employees applied for and accepted SPS positions in good faith, knowing that the Province had carefully considered and evaluated Surrey’s proposal to transition to a municipal police service.”

Just look at just the first four points that the Surrey Police Service mentioned in its report to the government in its rationale:

1. The transition has been underway for four years with the last two years placing SPS officers on the frontline. Reversing the transition would be time consuming, complicated, and costly.
2. SPS has hired 375 employees. Reversing the transition would require terminating their employment. Many officers are from outside British Columbia. These officers moved their families to Surrey in good faith, incurred debt, and started a new chapter in their lives.
3. Two unions have been formed: Surrey Police Union (SPU) and Surrey Police Inspectors’ Association (SPIA). Reversing the transition would require dissolving both unions.
4. The SPB employs 23 exempt civilian employees who are not members of CUPE 402. Reversing the transition would require that the SPB be dissolved, resulting in these employees being terminated.

Also, 275 of 293 SPU frontline officers 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.”

It is highly pertinent to note as The VOICE had 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.

THE VOICE consistently highlighted these facts over the past four years:

1. Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum and seven of his Safe Surrey Coalition members (including Brenda Locke and former RCMP officer Jack Hundial) won the election fair and square four years ago on the pledge that they would form a Surrey police force to replace the RCMP. In fact, all the eight new Councillors, including the lone one (Linda Annis) from Surrey First, voted to ditch the RCMP at the very first Council meeting.
2. Among the tactics that the pro-RCMP forces started resorting to was the call for a referendum on the change in policing. However, legally, only the City could authorize such a referendum – not the Province or the federal government. So they finally organized a joke of a referendum. The result? The referendum 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.
3. Meanwhile, Surrey voters delivered a slap in the face of those who want 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.
4. As The VOICE wrote on November 21: “Indeed, McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition would have won the municipal election but for the RCMP harassment of charging McCallum with public mischief – whereas the RCMP did nothing to charge their supporters with criminal harassment as they heaped abuse on McCallum, his SSC councillors and supporters day and night.” The judge ruled in McCallum’s favour. Interestingly, a retired RCMP sergeant wrote this before the verdict: “I also find it amazing that the RCMP thought it would be prudent, or ethical, to investigate this matter, knowing that the alleged victim of public mischief was in fact part of a group that was funded by the RCMP union.” He added: “Knowing what we know about the affect of bias and prejudice on the investigative process, would it have been wise to have another police agency investigate this?”

EARLIER, this month, The VOICE carried a column by Surrey Police Service (SPS) Chief Constable Norm Lipinski 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.

The reality is 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.)

Also, Surrey is the ONLY large city in Canada that does NOT have its own police force.

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