Farnworth says Surrey police decision coming Wednesday

The province’s decision on the Surrey police transition will be coming this week, B.C. Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth says.

While Surrey city council has already voted to return to the RCMP, the report it used to back up that decision is still with Farnworth, who will ultimately have the final say.

“I will be announcing a decision on Wednesday. What I can tell you is that there is a tripartite agreement that has been governing the transition to date. The federal government is very much a part of that,” the minister said Monday, after he was asked whether he’s had discussions with the federal government on the direction he plans to take when it comes to policing in Surrey.

“I have spoken with the federal minister … ever since this started, and I will be talking with the federal minister before Wednesday.”

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Farnworth would not elaborate or provide any further details.

The police transition has been a controversial topic for years, after it was first put in motion by former Mayor Doug McCallum.

“In 2018, the Surrey city council voted unanimously to establish their own police force and move away from the RCMP. The reason they did that is that Surrey’s the largest city in Canada without their own police force. Their police force now, the RCMP, is governed from Ottawa, and that’s the reason they wanted to go to their own police force, because they’ll have more control over their police force,” lawyer and former B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal, who was the chair of the police transition taskforce, explained on Monday.

Since then, an election took place, with voters ultimately choosing Brenda Locke as their mayor. Her victory helped her forge ahead with her plan to retain the RCMP, a decision she announced after city councillors held a closed-door meeting in June.

This happened despite the provincial government having recommended the city move ahead with the SPS. B.C. had even promised Surrey $150 million to help with the transition.

“This is a two-step process. The City of Surrey gets to choose their police force but my responsibility is the second part of that process — which is to ensure safe and effective policing in the City of Surrey, in the province. And that the conditions, the requirements that I laid out a number of weeks ago are met,” Farnworth said in June.

“When people call the police they need to be confident that help will arrive. I must be satisfied that the City of Surrey plan will ensure effective and adequate policing is maintained in Surrey and throughout the province. Once staff have been able to review the city’s report, I will be able to determine if the plan achieves this objective.”

Oppal says the B.C. government has to make a decision to determine what the best type of policing is for Surrey, “having regard not only for the interests of Surrey, but also how would a new police force fit in with the overall policing strategy of the province.”

“The solicitor general has already said that the greater challenge of going back to the RCMP is the lack of numbers. There are 800 retirements of the RCMP every year, there are … 1,500 officers short in the province,” he explained.

Future of the RCMP 

When it comes to the federal government’s part in this whole situation, Oppal says it has been “thinking about moving away from contract policing” for a number of years.

“When you have the RCMP, you enter into a contract with the federal government and they provide for you a police force. That’s what they’ve been doing all these years while the RCMP has been there. So that question, that concept of contract policing, is now being discussed as to whether or not it’s an appropriate form of policing, having regard to the fact that we want community-based policing, policing that’s decentralized, and appointed by the cities,” he explained.

Just last week, Canada’s premiers, including B.C. Premier David Eby, called on the federal government to take a clear stand on the future of the RCMP.

At the time, Eby said the number of vacancies within the force was creating challenges.

“We don’t see a clear path from the federal government about filling those vacancies,” he said from Manitoba on Wednesday, July 12.

Read more: Premiers want clarity on future of RCMP from feds

“We have officers that have to work extended shifts, that are increasingly strained and stressed and then going off on leave, making the problem worse.”

Meanwhile, Oppal says he has no doubts the public is impatiently awaiting the final say, adding there’s “a huge appetite in the province and the City of Surrey to settle this matter once and for all.”

-With files from Martin MacMahon, Michael Williams, and Liza Yuzda