Briefly: NDP-preferred officers to patrol Whalley and Newton at first, due to workforce shortage. Scheduled to fully replace Mounties by 2026.
Bob Mackin
The countdown is on to Nov. 29, when the Surrey Police Service (SPS) is scheduled to assume command from the Surrey RCMP.
But it will not be as simple as the NDP government said it would be.
Surrey Police Service patch (SPS/X)
In April, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth set the last Friday of November as the first day that the municipal police force would be in charge in the province’s second city.
However, according to internal email seen by theBreaker.news, it turns out that SPS officers will not be policing the entire city.
On Nov. 29, SPS will take over all patrol and frontline policing in Whalley and Newton. SPS needs to hire more officers to expand city-wide.
The RCMP will support SPS under its provincial role, but not as the Surrey RCMP, because the RCMP will not report to a municipal force. Internally, Surrey Police Board officials are calling it an “RCMP support unit.”
Just 10 weeks before the provincial election officially began, City of Surrey accepted the province’s $250 million deal to enable the transition, which is supposed to be complete by 2026. The deal included confidentiality provisions.
The March term sheet, seen by theBreaker.news, required Surrey to take all necessary steps to complete the full transition to the SPS, plus “cease all public relations campaigns and activities against the transition.”
If Surrey could not follow the terms of the deal and keep the secrets, the province threatened to tear up the agreement and send Surrey the bill.
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