Councillors decry lack of budget debate
Some Surrey councillors say the mayor’s decision to go ahead with a final vote on the city’s controversial $1.3-billion budget without discussion is undemocratic.
However, Mayor Doug McCallum said he believes councillors had plenty of opportunities to debate the budget before final reading, and the real threat to the democratic process came from the raucous crowd that disrupted Monday’s council meeting.
The city’s budget has caused debate both inside and outside of council chambers because of its focus on funding the city’s transition from being policed by the RCMP to setting up its own municipal force by April 1, 2021.
The 2020 budget includes $25.2 million set aside for the Surrey police, plus $700,000 for a transition office. Over the course of the fiveyear financial plan, the city will spend $129.6 million on capital and operating expenses.
As a result of the increased policing costs, there will be no additional officers for the RCMP, no new firefighters, and no new major infrastructure projects.
Next year’s budget calls for a residential property tax increase of 2.9 per cent, or $59 for the average single-family home.
The vote on fourth reading of the budget was preceded by a pair of rallies outside of city hall by people both for and against Surrey setting up its own police force.
Shouting overtook the debate on Monday when councillors were set to vote on the fourth and final reading of the budget bylaws. Only one councillor, Laurie Guerra, was able to speak before the room erupted.
McCallum explained that while he didn’t feel the council members were in any physical danger, the vitriol from the audience was unsettling and prompted him to call recesses during the meeting. When that didn’t work, he said the decision was made to carry on without further discussion.
“The words that they called at our councillors you couldn’t even print in your newspaper. They had foul mouths, they were just unruly, and so we tried to keep the respect in the room. I constantly asked them to please be quiet,” McCallum said, attributing the disruption to the Keep the RCMP in Surrey group.
“I felt that the audience was unsettling. It wasn’t respectful, to a certain degree it was very unsafe. It was certainly verbal abuse to the extreme.”
As chairman, McCallum said he had a number of options for getting the situation under control, such as clearing the chambers and adjourning the meeting to a different day, but recesses had worked in the past and there was limited time before the end of the year to pass the budget.
McCallum said he thought the four councillors who are not part of his coalition exacerbated the problem when they stayed behind during the recesses, egging the audience on with their presence.
“That’s just a gold mine for the audience to keep screaming and cheering and everything else that we weren’t in there, so it just became worse,” he said.
McCallum said he is confident he dealt with the situation in an appropriate manner.
The three independent councillors who left the Safe Surrey Coalition this year and the lone Surrey First councillor said they didn’t feel unsafe at the council table and don’t believe debate should have been curtailed.
Coun. Brenda Locke called what happened “a travesty.”
“It was highly unusual and undemocratic,” Locke said.
The democratic process involves airing different points of view, said Coun. Linda Annis, and because councillors are elected to represent Surrey residents, all of their voices should be heard.
“I think it was an embarrassment. That’s not the way that city government should be run. It should be more orderly, people should be allowed to be heard,” Annis said.
Coun. Jack Hundial said a proper debate would have given councillors a chance to hear each other and maybe change people’s minds, and what happened was “a huge violation” of the procedural bylaw.
“I’ve never seen this application of, quote-unquote, safety concerns ever applied in a municipal council, let alone any other council in this country,” Hundial said. “You’re talking about the municipal budget for the second-largest city in the province of British Columbia. It’s a massive budget, it impacts every single resident and taxpayer in the city of Surrey, and business owners.”
Coun. Steven Pettigrew said that if the public had felt heard, it could have defused the situation.
“I felt the crowd was very much angry and upset, but that could have been dealt with in a proper manner,” he said.
“You don’t deal with those situations by just ignoring it and throwing fuel on the fire.”
The councillors said they will turn to the provincial government for guidance about whether the votes taken at the meeting, which passed the budget, were legitimate and if what happened violated any laws or procedures.
Hundial suggested Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Selina Robinson or Attorney General David Eby could be consulted.
“I think we all need to stand back, pause and consider what steps we need to take,” Annis said.
Robinson was unavailable for comment, but a statement from her ministry said the provincial legislative framework for local governments provides municipalities with “a high degree of independence and autonomy within their jurisdiction.” The ministry said Surrey’s procedure bylaw provides for rules of debate on items like the budget, and referred questions about potential procedure violations to the city.