Former Surrey Mayor critical of public consultation on new municipal police force

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Without seeing the city’s plans to transition to a police force, will public consultation be truly meaningful?

It’s a question posed by former Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, who says taxpayers are being left out of the equation when it comes to ditching the RCMP.

“It’s important the general public have all the information especially if they are going through a proper consultation process. Because if can’t have an opinion or make a decision on anything if you’re missing part of the information,” she says. “It’s crucial that the cost analysis is done, the analysis in terms of what it is that they are trying to fix and also making sure there are several voices. The public, the business community and the private sector.”

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Watts insists without these details, there’s no way the public can make informed decisions on a new force.

“Undertaking any consultation process, all the information needs to be on the table to make informed decisions. If there’s reports absent from that process then the general public is being short changed.”

She says she’s surprised consultation is going ahead, when even the Mayor and council haven’t had a glimpse of the report outlining plans to scrap RCMP.

“They need to start the consultation process after council have seen that report. If they’re got any questions, if they need staff to come back with additional information. So that there’s a process. The process needs to be the elected officials view all the information, they make an assessment,” Watts says. “If they need more information, it comes back to council. Once everyone is satisfied on council, then it would go to the general public with all that information intact. That’s the proper process for open transparency.”

Watts says when it comes to an issue that could reshape the way Surrey deals with law enforcement, it’s a decision that can’t be rushed and that taxpayers can’t be left out of.

“When you make a change that fundamentally affects the lives of people in Surrey, and at the end of the day taxpayers are paying the bill, the process can’t be rushed.You can’t begin consultation without information, and that information council hasn’t even seen yet.”