Surrey police transition to cost $235M more than keeping RCMP: report

Keeping the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction in Surrey could end up saving the city’s taxpayers quite a chunk of change, according to a report that will go before council on Monday.

The report, titled Policing Surrey: A Plan to Retain the RCMP as the Police of Jurisdiction in Surrey, was published after council voted in November to ask staff to come up with a plan to keep the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction.

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City staff have now prepared estimates of how much it could cost to either keep the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction in the city compared with maintaining a transition to the municipal Surrey Police Service (SPS).

The analysis projected the SPS would cost taxpayers an additional $31.9 million per year in comparison to the RCMP. Longer term, staff estimated keeping the RCMP in the city would cost about $924.8 million over five years. The SPS would cost an estimated $1.16 billion over the same time period.

Based on the analysis, staff estimate the RCMP could cost $235.4 million less than the SPS over the next five years.

Staff assumed there would be 734 sworn-in officers for either agency, as has been allocated in the city’s policing budget since 2018. The other costs were based on recent annual financial reports for each respective police entity.

Other factors such as federal subsidies for the RCMP, and severance pay if the SPS is disbanded, were also considered.

“This analysis does not contemplate the qualitative aspects of either SPS or RCMP policing services,” the staff report states. “Justification to support the ‘value for money’ received by the City under either police force’s service delivery model is beyond the scope of this financial analysis.”

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Keeping the RCMP in the city has been a key promise for Surrey’s new mayor. Brenda Locke vowed to reverse former mayor Doug McCallum’s transition to a municipal police force.

Since taking over, Locke and council have quickly taken steps to maintain the RCMP as the city’s police of jurisdiction. The report is the result of a motion pushed through by council last month.

Staff are recommending council adopt the report at Monday’s meeting. If the report gets adopted, it will be sent to B.C.’s Solicitor General and Minister of Public Safety, Mike Farnworth on Dec. 15.

The province has the final say on whether Surrey will keep the RCMP, or continue with the transition to the SPS, however, the SPS has suggested it will challenge the city’s figures.

Earlier this fall, the Surrey Police Service released a financial backgrounder suggesting it would cost the city $196 million dollars in unrecoverable costs to halt the transition away from the RCMP.

It has also rejected requests by Surrey City Council to freeze hiring and budgeted spending on the new police force, saying it is not within City Hall’s jurisdiction to do that.