Surrey police transition funding idea short-sighted: premier

B.C. Premier David Eby is drawing a clear line when it comes to Surrey’s police transition, making it clear where the province’s responsibility ends and the city’s begins.

Eby says ultimately, the B.C. government’s only responsibility is to ensure it’s safe — the city needs to decide who’s going to provide the service.

“Will a police officer show up to that 9-1-1 call? If the answer is yes and it’s a safe plan, the solicitor general can sign off on it. The decision about whether to proceed with a Surrey police department or with RCMP is up to the local council,” he explained Tuesday.

His comments come after Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke suggested looking at using a provincial fund to offset a potentially massive tax increase of 17.5 per cent. The increase was proposed to help cover costs related to stopping the transition that was set in motion by former Mayor Doug McCallum and sticking with the RCMP.

The B.C government says “additional information” is needed before coming to a decision on the future of policing in Surrey. (File photo)

However, Eby suggests the city’s proposal to use an infrastructure fund to offset costs may be a short-sighted decision.

“This is a one-time fund, so if you’re using this fund to fund operational processes in the city, maybe that’s okay for one year but what happens next year?” he said.

“Also, they know that the province is going to be coming to them and saying, ‘we need you to hit certain housing targets, we need you to build housing to support growing communities, the population growth that we’re seeing because we’re in a housing crisis, under the new legislation that we’ve passed’.”

Locke has previously said that a reduction in property tax increases could be made possible if a significant amount of funding came from the province.

“Since the proposed budget was made public two weeks ago, the city has secured nearly $90 million from the province of British Columbia,” she said. “As a result, we are now in a position to revise the budget and bring the overall property tax rate down.”

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke is interviewed in City Hall on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. (CityNews Image)

That money is coming from the Growing Communities Fund. It was announced last month, with the province explaining it will provide $1 billion in new grants to local governments across B.C. to “help build community infrastructure and amenities to meet the demands of unprecedented population growth.”

The province has explained the fund is meant to be used by municipalities to “address their community’s unique infrastructure and amenities demands – such as recreation facilities, parks and water-treatment plants, as well as other community infrastructure.”

Eby says as populations grow, so too does the demand for essential services.

“Local governments are really grappling with that, as is our provincial government, especially around things like healthcare. So this $1 billion Growing Communities Fund is meant to support fast-growing communities across the province and there’s not one community faster growing than the city of Surrey,” he explained.

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“We have asked local governments to use this money to respond to that growth, to respond to the demands that they’re seeing in their community. That’s the same in Surrey as across the province. And the other piece of this is we are putting trust in local governments to use this money to support that growth in their community to make their communities more livable.”

The premier says no matter what Surrey decides, it will “be accountable to the voters” of the city.

-With files from James Paracy and Michael Williams