‘ENOUGH. IT’S TIME FOR OUR OWN POLICE FORCE’
Incoming mayor determined to replace RCMP with a municipal force, but critics caution a switch would be costly, complex and fail to fix Surrey’s crime problem
Doug McCallum has massive makeover plans for Surrey cops, but critics say the switch from RCMP to a municipal force is too costly and complex
When Doug McCallum is sworn in as the mayor of Surrey on Monday, it won’t be a day reserved exclusively for pomp and ceremony.
The mayor-elect says he will get right down to work as soon as the formalities are over. And Job 1 will be starting the replacement of the longtime Surrey RCMP detachment with a municipal police force.
“The motion is already written, it will be moved and adopted,” McCallum said.
“We will give formal notice to cancel the RCMP contract and start a Surrey police force. The people spoke loud and clear: ‘We want our own police service.’ We will start working on that immediately.”
That loud-and-clear message was delivered by Surrey voters on Oct. 21 when they elected the 73-year-old McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition council slate in a landslide.
The election win returns McCallum to a mayor’s chair he occupied for nine years from 1996 to 2005. He says it’s a chance to finish what he started: an independent municipal police force that he envisioned for years.
“Surrey has outgrown the RCMP,” McCallum said. “People want to feel safe in their communities again, especially after the unacceptable gang activity they’ve witnessed.”
The spasm of gang violence has shaken Surrey neighbourhoods, including the quiet street where 47-year-old hockey coach Paul Bennett was shot dead in his driveway on June 23, in what police called a case of mistaken identity in the city’s gang wars.
“Enough,” McCallum said. “It’s time for our own police force.”
But it’s not going to happen easily. And it’s not going to be cheap. And if you speak to some critics, it’s not going to happen at all.
“Too complicated and too expensive,” said Kash Heed, the former solicitor general and former West Vancouver police chief. “It will be difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of the RCMP.”
McCallum’s determination to prove the naysayers wrong puts the city’s current top cop in a bind.
Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, the commanding officer of the Surrey RCMP detachment, acknowledged McCallum and his new council have every right to replace him and his officers.
The city can opt out of its RCMP contract with two years’ notice, he said.
“Our job is to support the mayor and council and if they decide to go in a different direction, they can do that,” McDonald said. “But I can tell you this: You can’t wave a magic wand and make it happen overnight. It will not be a simple process.”
McDonald, 50, is a 22-year veteran of the RCMP who has commanded the Surrey detachment for two years.
He said winding down a federal police force that has patrolled the streets of Surrey since 1951 will be extremely complicated.
“When you’re talking about 835 police officers, you’re not talking about widgets in a factory that can just be switched out,” he said.
“We’re talking about people who have significant experience in this community and specialized skill sets investigating homicides, sex crimes, internet crimes, traffic vehicle collisions, robberies — you name it.
“Where are you going to find all these new officers? From a human resources perspective alone, it would be an enormous undertaking.”
But McCallum said an independent municipal police force in Surrey will not start from scratch. He estimated that about 60 per cent of the city’s RCMP officers would take jobs with the new police department.
The rest would be new recruits trained by the Justice Institute of B.C., the provincial college that trains officers for municipal forces, McCallum said. And a third source of new Surrey cops would be officers who jump ship from other Lower Mainland police forces.
“A lot of Vancouver Police Department officers would move to the Surrey force because they already live here,” McCallum said. “They would love to be closer to their homes and families. We already have officers from other municipal forces contacting us.”
Having a new Surrey police force pinching officers from other departments could trigger even more problems, McDonald said.
“It could cause a lot of disruption,” said McDonald, who has discussed it with other Lower Mainland police executives.
“I told them, ‘You guys better hope we don’t switch because they’ll be taking all your members.’ That got a lot of groans and eye rolls. It could have a huge impact on other police departments.”
Converting to a municipal force could have a huge affect on some other people, too: Surrey taxpayers.
McCallum admits a municipal force will cost Surrey more money than the city’s RCMP detachment, which has a budget this year of $151 million.
“We will have to pay a little bit more, probably a 10-percent increase in our policing budget,” McCallum said.
Under the RCMP funding formula, the federal government tops up a municipality’s police budget by 10 per cent. That means Surrey would immediately lose a little more than $15 million in federal cash.
That forgone federal loot would have to come from somewhere. But critics say the cost to transition to a municipal force would be much higher than McCallum admits.
“I estimate their policing budget would have to double,” said Brian Sauvé, founder of the National Police Federation, which is trying to unionize RCMP members.
Sauvé said a municipal police force in Surrey would quickly unionize and seek parity with other municipal police departments on wages, benefits and working conditions.
Unionized municipal cops earn about 15-per-cent more than non-union RCMP, he said. And municipal union contracts typically have strict staffing rules that require two officers to a patrol car, while RCMP officers hit the streets alone.
“They are going to need hundreds of additional officers,” Sauvé predicted. “It will not be cheap.”
The cost differential is a glaring one. Vancouver residents currently pay $422 each every year for their municipal police. Surrey residents pay just $272 each for the RCMP.
“We are the best bang for your buck,” insisted McDonald, who fiercely defends the Mounties’ service to the people of Surrey.
“Look at the proactive programs we provide. The community involvement. The quality of investigations we conduct. And our crime trends are decreasing, notwithstanding the gang challenges we have.”
But McCallum said Surrey residents want better police services, a more visible police presence on the street and the local accountability and oversight that comes with a municipal force.
Won’t all that cost a lot more than a 10-per-cent budget hike?
“It might not even be that much more,” he said. “Don’t forget that we own the RCMP’s equipment. We own the main detachment building and five community police stations. The 300 civilian support staff are all direct municipal employees.
“None of that would cost us any more money.”
Critics are not convinced.
Cost has played a role in other local policing decisions.
In 2016, Richmond decided against a municipal police force because it would have been too expensive. The city stayed with its RCMP detachment instead.
In 2011, Esquimalt wanted to bring in the RCMP to replace a local police detachment provided on contract by the neighbouring Victoria Police Department. Supporters of the plan argued the Mounties could provide better service for less money, but the idea was nixed by the then-Liberal provincial government.
Shirley Bond, then the solicitor general, ordered the two municipalities to work together to improve policing rather than switch to the RCMP.
“It’s actually really sad what Surrey is doing,” said Rob Gordon, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University.
“It’s a Band-Aid solution to a crime problem. There’s not a shred of evidence that a municipal police service will have any more or less impact than the RCMP. But it will definitely cost a lot of time, money and energy to prove it.”
McDonald echoes the warning, saying another huge and expensive challenge will be transitioning from the Mounties’ complicated management systems.
“Of course, we have electronic file management systems. But we also have an old paper filing system that is still stored here,” he said. “You would need a painstaking transition process around access to data, classified information from confidential informers and undercover operations. You would have to protect and safeguard ongoing investigations and evidence that’s been collected.
“It would be incredibly complex, time-consuming and expensive.”
Mike Farnworth, the NDP solicitor general, reminded McCallum that the provincial government gets the final say on any police switchover in Surrey.
“It’s not as simple as passing a motion at the first city council meeting,” Farnworth said. “They would have to show me a plan detailing how this will all work.”
Liberal MLA Mike Morris, a former RCMP officer and the opposition critic for public safety at the legislature, said McCallum should think twice.
“It doesn’t matter what shoulder patch you wear. Policing is the same whether it’s a municipal force or an RCMP detachment,” Morris said, adding McCallum should consider giving the RCMP a budget increase instead.
“If they resourced the RCMP to the same level that they would resource an independent force, they would probably get superior results.”
But Morris’s boss, Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson, said the province should work with McCallum.
“Doug McCallum has a clear mandate from the people of Surrey,” Wilkinson said. “The provincial government needs to wake up and listen to that.”
McCallum said he’s not worried about a lack of co-operation from the provincial and federal governments, especially when both ruling parties (the NDP in Victoria and the Liberals in Ottawa) are desperate to keep seats in Surrey.
“There’s a federal election next year and the provincial government is hanging on by just one or two seats,” he said.
He adds with a smile: “Our timing is excellent. They need to work with us.”
As McCallum prepares to launch his policing makeover, Surrey’s RCMP boss said some of his people are finding it tough.
“It’s hard for our officers not to take this personally,” McDonald said. “It’s like their service level or their commitment to the task is being criticized. It’s a challenge to morale.
“The public support has been fantastic, though. We are getting lots of positive letters, emails and social-media support.
“Our members do a great job and they have broad shoulders. We’re ready to deal with whatever comes, and our dedication to public safety and security will not waver one iota.”