Recording of call shows wide gulf on policing
A 36-minute recorded conversation between B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth and Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke just hours before her council voted a second time to halt a transition to a municipal police force and stick with the RCMP shows in clear terms the gulf that existed between the two sides.
The rare fly-on-the-wall view of their discussion on June 15, 2023 is only possible because the recording was filed as a sworn affidavit by Michael Snoddon, Farnworth's chief of staff, as part of a B.C. Supreme Court judicial review of how Surrey will be policed.
That court hearing of the city's effort to overturn the B.C. government's decision to force the transition to the Surrey Police Service (SPS) is underway this week.
In the meeting 10 months ago, Farnworth is trying to get Locke to put the vote on hold in order to hammer out specific details on how Surrey will meet conditions required to continue the transition. Those conditions had been set by Farnworth seven weeks earlier and included individualized human resource plans for SPS officers to ensure there was not a mass exodus, and a revised city plan that did not prioritize Surrey RCMP re-staffing over other RCMP vacancies in the province.
Locke said there would be a plan, and it would have the support of the RCMP, but the details would be sorted out by staff after the vote.
Farnworth asked Locke to put in place a detailed plan ahead of the vote to show how the conditions would be met, and warned that if they were not he must carry out his statutory obligations to ensure adequate and safe policing throughout the province.
“It is crucial that my ministry staff are able to see the report, so that I am confident that the conditions, the plan, will ensure safe and effective policing. I really think that needs to take place before a vote,” Farnworth told Locke.
“Absolutely Mike, I hear you on that, but the problem is it can't be before the vote,” responded Locke.
Farnworth's deputy minister, Doug Scott, had stressed during the meeting the province's concern was that if there was a return to the RCMP it could result in a collapse of the SPS rapidly and potentially very completely.
“It would cause a crisis, frankly, in policing in Surrey that would have to be backstopped by moving resources in, throughout the province, at a really challenging time, including sending resources outside the province to fight forest fires,” said Scott.
Just a month later, the province concluded the city had failed to meet the requirements to prevent an exodus of SPS officers, or to staff up the Surrey RCMP without pulling RCMP officers from other communities. At the time, the province noted the RCMP continued to experience a critical vacancy problem in B.C. and across Canada.
Last week, Postmedia reported the RCMP in B.C. continues to have a 20-per-cent vacancy rate because of more than 600 unfilled positions and nearly 1,000 officers are on leave.
The tone of the meeting last year was civil, with both Farnworth and Locke acknowledging it was a difficult issue for both of them.
Farnworth told Locke the issue was one of the most challenging he had had to deal with. And he told her he had no personal issue with her. “I don't want you to think that I do. I just want to make that clear,” he said.
Locke said she knew the public wanted them to find a resolution, noting she had had her fill of the issue. “I'm sure you have had your fill. I know Mr. (Premier David) Eby has had more than his fill,” she told Farnworth. The mayor had spoken to Eby earlier that day.
Locke also told Farnworth she had no confidence in the SPS or its police board, telling the minister she believed the board should be replaced with an administrator.
The bitter Surrey police dispute is in its 18th month.
Locke and her majority council have been fighting since their election in the fall of 2022 to keep the RCMP, largely because the force is less expensive.
Under former mayor Doug McCallum, a 2019 transition plan argued Surrey was the largest city in Canada without its own municipal force, which would bring oversight to the local level, rather than Ottawa, and be more responsive to changing conditions and demands, and representative of the community.
The increased cost of the SPS over the RCMP has been estimated by the province at up to $30 million a year, or about 15 per cent more than the RCMP.
Locke and her majority council rejected a $250-million offer from the province to help aid the transition to a new municipal force to replace the RCMP. Shortly after that, the B.C. NDP government set a date of Nov. 29 for the takeover of policing in Surrey and said part of the offered money, $150 million, would be used to move the transition ahead.