Surrey stalls on funds for crime prevention society
Opposing councillor casts doubt on claim decision is about safety concerns
The head of a non-profit that operates a youth volunteer crime prevention program in Surrey says the refusal this week by the city's mayor and council to guarantee its funding will have long-term repercussions for the community.
Mani Fallon, the volunteer president of the Surrey Crime Prevention Society, said the group has already been forced to cut back on its number of community safety patrols since its 2023 municipal grant ran out in December.
“We have a queue of more than a hundred youth who are waiting for training so they can join our program, but they're going to have to wait longer, maybe until after they graduate high school, before they get to volunteer with us for their future careers.”
The society trains and deploys around 500 volunteers to observe, record and report suspicious activity in Surrey. Its community safety patrols are involved in graffiti cleanup and initiatives to get motorists to slow down. Since 1982, it has relied on annual municipal grants of about $300,000 to operate its $600,000 budget.
A five-to-four vote this week dominated by Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke and her council majority had delayed the decision on whether or not to grant it funding for at least another month.
The decision comes as Locke and the Surrey Connect party continue their years-long fight to try to thwart the transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service.
Coun. Pardeep Kooner, of Locke's Surrey Connect party, authored the motion, which included denying community grants for Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers and Lookout Society, as part of the city's approval of its 2024 budget.
Kooner said the funding denial is the result of safety concerns that a few councillors, including herself, have about the Crime Prevention Society.
“Residents, and even committee members, have raised questions about the safety of those youth working in the program, such as, `Why are these kids not supervised?' ”
“It's been $4.6 million that the city has given this organization over the years. We want to ensure the best possible use of taxpayer dollars.”
The non-profit society first caught wind that its funding could be at risk in late November when a city council-appointed public safety committee consisting of four civilians and two councillor chairs threatened to deny it a community grant if at least half of the society's volunteers did not work under the direction of the police of jurisdiction, which is the Surrey RCMP.
Committee chair Coun. Rob Stutt of the Surrey Connect party says the safety of the society's volunteers was top of mind when the committee required the society to work under the management of police to receive funding in 2024.
“We want to make sure that their use is effective and the police could say which areas could use some attention,” Stutt told Postmedia on Thursday.
“We want to make sure that these young people — you know, they might get courses and lectures and things — but you know, driving around at 2 a.m. doing patrols, that their good work does not turn into something unfortunate if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Coun. Doug Elford, an opposing Safe Surrey Coalition party member, disagrees that the city council's vote to deny funding for the crime prevention society boils down to safety concerns.
“We have an organization that's been established for 40 years with these youth out and about all the time and very little issues in regards to safety,” Elford told Postmedia.
“This organization and its volunteers do really good work and have functioned in conjunction with police for many years now. I don't think it's a matter of safety, but what I will say is that I think when Surrey Police Services serves as the police of jurisdiction I think there will be much better relationships formed between organizations like this and city council.”
Fallon told Postmedia that the society's youth volunteers are accompanied by staff “at all times” while conducting public safety patrols, carrying radios with them and adhering to strict safety protocols.
The president said that the non-profit recently paused safety patrols in White Rock immediately after random stabbing attacks appeared to target South Asian males in the neighbourhood in recent weeks.
“We are on it,” Fallon said. “We've been doing this for four decades, why now is safety being questioned?”
The president said the crime prevention society is the only one of its kind in Canada, which has seen a bulk of its volunteers — currently more than 700 — go on to work in public service or law enforcement, corrections, border services or as bylaw officers.
Fallon said the non-profit relies on cross-agency collaborations with public service agencies such as ICBC and Metro Vancouver Transit Police to carry out its crime prevention programs.
“This year alone, our volunteers have reported two stolen vehicles to police, as well as multiple fires and overdoses to emergency services,” Fallon said.
“Last summer we had officers from Brampton (Peel Regional) police fly down to learn from us. If other Canadian police agencies are trying to replicate what we have, why is our city trying to take us down?”
While B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth announced Tuesday that the Surrey Police Services will officially take over on Nov. 29, 2024, Locke is continuing to await the results of a judicial review of the province's moves to move forward with the transition.