A full timeline of Surrey’s policing saga
Posted July 19, 2023 1:28 pm.
Last Updated July 20, 2023 4:33 pm.
It’s taken years, but we now know the future of policing in Surrey.
B.C. Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth announced Wednesday that the city will have to continue its transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service (SPS).
His decision appears to bring a close to what has been a drawn-out, hotly contested saga that spanned five years and two different mayors.
Here’s how we got to this point:
November 2018
Fresh off an election win giving him his third term as mayor, Doug McCallum put forward a motion at the city council’s first meeting in November 2018 that would see the establishment of a municipal police force in Surrey.
The motion, which was unanimously approved by the newly sworn-in council at the time, aimed to terminate the city’s policing contract with the RCMP and have a city-run force in two years. The termination of the RCMP contract would require provincial approval.
Read More: Surrey’s new council votes unanimously for police force
The transition was estimated to cost about $130 million, of which the city would pay $120 million.
In the weeks following the motion, McCallum made public statements following violent incidents in Surrey, citing them as reasons why a municipal force was needed.
2018-2020
The wheels were in motion for the police transition after those November 2018 meetings. At this point, the city was awaiting formal approval from the province so the next steps could be taken.
In the meantime, a “transition committee” was created to help iron out the details of what the new municipal force would look like.
However, not everyone on the committee appeared to be on the same page. Councillors Linda Annis, Jack Hundial, Steven Pettigrew, and Brenda Locke all voiced concerns over the costs associated with the transition and questioned whether it was in the best interest of taxpayers to continue.
Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum enters Surrey Provincial Court on Tuesday November 1st, 2022. (CityNews Image)
After those councillors voiced their concerns, McCallum formed a new committee on policing that included only councillors who supported the transition.
Residents of Surrey also appeared split on which policing option they favoured when CityNews spoke to locals in 2019.
Winter 2020
Just under two years after the transition plan was put into motion, Farnworth gave the green light on behalf of the province on Feb. 27, 2020.
The decision led to the creation of the Surrey Police Board, which would oversee the city’s new force.
The plan at the time was to have the new agency fully operational in April of 2021 – which was just over a year away.
Just days before widespread lockdowns were to be announced due to the rapid spread of the newly discovered novel coronavirus, the City of Surrey released a report outlining the costs of its new police service.
On March 11, 2020, a 455-page report was released. At the time, it was described by McCallum as “ambitious” but “achievable.”
The report indicated a municipal police service would cost about 11 per cent more than the RCMP did at the time, with a $192.5 million price tag associated with the first year of operation alone.
The analysis also stated that the new police force would have fewer officers than the RCMP did, although it was highlighted that over half of positions within the Mounties were vacant at the time.
Summer 2020
As the summer of 2020 approached, more concrete milestones were reached in the transition process. And with it, came more controversy.
Questions began surfacing around how much the city was spending on the transition, with a $1.6 million cost already associated with the McCallum’s policing committee.
Opposing councillors voiced concerns over the process, continuing to question transparency.
On June 29, 2020, the first seven community members were appointed to form the Surrey Police Board.
The newly-formed body held its first public meeting on Aug. 6, 2020.
Among its first orders of business was formally establishing the highly-anticipated new police agency – the Surrey Police Service.
A Surrey Police Service shoulder patch. (CityNews Image)
McCallum was the chair of the police board and said there would be a focus on recruiting officers from other police agencies across the country.
That drew the ire of the president of the National Police Federation, which oversees some 20,000 RCMP officers in Canada.
Brian Sauvé, federation president and cofounder, said recruitment pools were dwindling, and questioned how Surrey was going to find 800 new officers to be trained in such a short period of time.
Fall 2020
A provincial election was fast approaching in the autumn of 2020, and parties took different approaches around whether the Surrey police transition would be a campaign issue.
In September, then-BC NDP Leader and Premier John Horgan called the policing saga a “hornets’ nest” in an effort to distance himself from the situation.
However, the BC Liberals — now called BC United — took a different approach, promising a referendum would be held on the fate of policing in Surrey if elected.
That garnered the support of a group that was taking shape called “Keep the RCMP in Surrey,” which pledged to keep pushing for a referendum on the matter after the BC Liberals were defeated.
In November, Norm Lipinksi was appointed as the chief of the SPS, moving into that role after having served as the Delta Police chief.
Chief of the Surrey Police Service, Norm Lipinski. (CityNews Image)
Summer 2021
The first few months of 2021 remained relatively quiet in the grand scheme of things for the police transition, something that, in hindsight, could be looked at as the calm before a storm of drama.
In June, Elections BC stated that a binding referendum vote could be held to decide the future of policing in Surrey.
It was in response to a push by a group called Surrey Police Vote Initiative, which was given about four months to get 10 per cent of voters in every B.C. district to sign a petition in support of the vote. The petition didn’t gain enough traction and the push ended in the fall of 2021.
In July, then-city councillor Locke announced that she would be running for mayor in the 2022 civic election. Her main campaign promise was to halt the SPS transition and keep the RCMP in Surrey.
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke. (CityNews Image)
In August, the SPS announced that some of its first officers in uniform would be hitting the streets that November, working alongside the RCMP.
McCallum’s public mischief charge
While not directly affecting the police transition, McCallum, who was mayor at the time, found himself in legal trouble seemingly as a result of the tension the saga had created.
In September 2021, McCallum claimed that someone with a pro-RCMP group had assaulted him in the parking lot of a grocery store, alleging his foot had been run over.
That December, the Surrey mayor was charged with public mischief in connection with the parking lot incident.
McCallum pleaded not guilty and appeared in court in October of 2022. After a week-long trial, he was found not guilty of public mischief.
In 2023, it was revealed that his legal battle cost Surrey taxpayers over $316,000.
Spring 2022
In April of last year, the SPS began training some of its new recruits. Fourteen new officers began training to become certified municipal constables, set to be rolled out the following year. The recruits were chosen from over 500 applicants.
The SPS had been allotted 27 total spots in the Justice Institute of BC Police Academy for training.
The following month, tensions surrounding the transition appeared to boil over. A May 30 council meeting lasted just seven minutes before it was cut short after numerous members of the public demanded McCallum resign after he was charged with public mischief.
The next meeting in June saw the public forced to sit outside of the council chambers in response to the chaos that erupted two weeks earlier.
Fall/winter 2022
As people across B.C. hit the polls to vote for their next mayors and councils, all eyes were on Surrey on Oct. 15. 2022. By a narrow margin, Brenda Locke defeated Doug McCallum to take over the mayor’s seat, along with a majority from her political party on council.
In her victory speech, Locke was quick to promise that she would be halting the SPS transition in an effort to keep the RCMP.
The day after the election, Locke doubled down on her comments, saying that she had already begun having conversations with city staff on how to move forward in stopping the transition.
Despite the new mayor’s comments, the SPS said that it would continue its rollout until instructed otherwise. The SPS union also stated that its members would not be joining the RCMP.
Similar to what had been done just four years prior, the newly sworn-in council passed a motion that would see the City of Surrey pause the police transition and keep the Mounties in town.
The next meeting in late November saw council approve a report that outlined the framework needed to keep the RCMP.
As the holidays neared, the SPS wrote a letter to the province pleading its case to continue its rollout, outlining how there were already 375 staff members hired.
The day after the SPS letter, the Surrey RCMP responded, saying the up-and-coming police agency had “crossed an absolute line” when it questioned the Mounties’ adequacy and effectiveness in policing.
Winter 2023
The pre-Christmas squabbling between police services appeared to be an appetizer to what led to months of back and forth between all parties involved.
On Jan. 26, 2023, the City of Surrey, the Surrey RCMP, and the SPS were all asked to submit reports to the B.C. government for review, with Farnworth saying that more information was needed to make a decision.
A few weeks later, on Feb. 20, 2023, the SPS called for an audit of the City of Surrey’s finances, saying they were inflated.
This came as the city was in the midst of preparing its budget, which was set to include a 17.5 per cent tax hike, over half of which was associated with policing costs.
The tension also made its way to the B.C. legislature. On Feb. 23, MLAs broke into a heated debate over the future of policing in Surrey, with Farnworth being criticized for dragging out the decision.
Spring 2023 – now
Farnworth had established that the province’s decision on the Surrey police transition would be made in the spring of this year.
On April 5, 2023, Locke suggested in a statement that the Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Committee “unanimously supports retaining the RCMP.” The mayor’s comments were criticized for being “misleading.”
On April 17, 2023, Locke apologized during a council meeting for making a “misleading statement” on the matter.
A week and a half later, the long-awaited provincial decision was made. After a third-party review of each of the reports submitted in the winter, Farnworth recommended that the SPS transition continue. Along with the recommendation, the province also offered $150 million to help alleviate the transition costs for taxpayers.
B.C. Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth announced on July 19, 2023, that Surrey was to move forward with the municipal force and away from the RCMP. (Liza Yuzda, CityNews)
The decision was once again sent back to city council. On June 2, Farnworth wrote an open letter to the city demanding that decision be made. He said that half of the councillors had not signed a non-disclosure agreement to view the documents used to make the decision.
Two weeks later, after a late-evening, closed-door council meeting, the majority of Surrey city council went against the province’s recommendation and voted to keep the RCMP.
Three days after that, Farnworth made a statement demanding the city send him the documents used to inform its decision.
Giving the city only a few hours, the solicitor general said if the city’s report wasn’t sent, a decision would be made for them.
A few hours later that same day, Locke held a news conference where she addressed the province’s demand. She said the city would send the report but accused Farnworth of being a bully and misogynist.
On Wednesday, Farnworth laid down his final decision, requiring the City of Surrey to continue its transition to the SPS.
