And as we've been hearing litigation over the surrey policing
transition has swung in the province's favor. ABC Supreme
Court judge has dismissed Mayor Brenda Locke's attempt to stop
the transition to the surrey police service. The decision
was announced yesterday by public safety minister Mike Farnworth.
The city argued the minister was impeding the will of
surrey voters since they elected Mayor Locke on her promise
to keep the RC MP. However, the judge
ruled that the province's authority over the city with respect
to policing remains valid. Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke responded
to the announcement yesterday. Of course, we respect
the decision of the court. There's no, um
there's no questioning that um moving forward, there are
lots of decisions to make. And I again,
I can only say we only just received the,
the uh decision hours ago. There's a lot for
us to uh to fully understand and look at,
but certainly it still comes back to the cost,
the cost and the tax burden to our residents.
It's extraordinary. Uh and we are very, very
concerned and we will continue to be very concerned about
that. And so moving forward, that will be
uh what we will be putting forward to council and
council will be making those decisions together. And joining
us today is a lawyer and former RC MP,
Deputy Commissioner Peter German. He has been retained by
the city of Surrey to advise them on the matter
of the municipal force transition. Good morning Peter.
Nice to speak with you again. Yeah, good
morning, Amy. Nice to see you. So
, um BC Supreme Court Justice Kevin Liu threw out
the city's arguments and its demands. Will you advise
the city to appeal? Well, there are the
city has its own lawyers dealing with the litigation and
they will be and have sought those lawyers advice on
what to do. Should there be an appeal or
not? A clearly Surrey will not appeal if the
lawyers recommend not going down that road, if they
feel that the decision is definitive, but that remains
to be seen. It's, it's not a lengthy
decision but it's a fair size decision. So it
has to be analyzed and it did just come down
yesterday, right? Um Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth
said about the judicial review quote, the people of
Surrey want this over and this decision certainly indicates that
the transition will continue to the Surrey police service.
The province seems to think that this is the end
of the matter. Can the people of Surrey expect
to just put this behind them now? Well,
I think the people of Surrey were hoping that with
the last election, this thing would be over.
And certainly after the last election, you know,
we submitted a plan. Um and uh the plan
as far as we were concerned was, uh,
was a good one and it allowed for a transition
back to the RC MP or to maintain the RC
MP. Um Yeah, this, this simply endorses
um I, if we accept the, the ruling
, it essentially says, yes, the minister can
order Surrey to transition and yes, the legislature can
legislate. I, I mean, we know already
province, the municipalities are creatures of provinces. So
they have pretty broad powers and that's really what this
speaks to, but it doesn't talk about the,
how, how are you going to do it?
And that is the bedeviling thing that has been going
on for years now. Um We still only have
something in the area of 200 Surrey police service officers
working in a detachment of approximately 800 a resources,
so 600 RCMP. So the Surrey police service has
a long hill to climb yet. And there are
all sorts of agreements that have to be put in
place. Things like can the RCMP work for the
police board? No, they can't. They have
a union also. So there are a whole lot
of moving parts. The legal decision doesn't deal with
any of that. Hm. Um Mayor Brenda Locke
said during a press conference yesterday that this court challenge
has revealed, um, quote, she said huge
holes in, in the transition. Could you describe
what some just further describe what some of those holes
might be? Yeah, I think the big one
that she's probably referring to and it's in her material
is um the number of resources that a municipal department
requires in order to do the job. Municipal policing
model generally is different from the RCMP policing model as
simple as one person per car in the RCMP model
, two persons per car in the municipal model.
Now, that's simplifying it. But generally speaking,
if you look at what's referred to as the cop
to pop ratios in this province, you will find
that municipal policing tends to be higher per capita cost
. And that's largely because there are more resources required
for that model. Um So we now have found
out through the litigation that there was a report done
by Deloitte and that estimated that over 900 resources would
be required that corresponds to something in the area of
75 million additional dollars per year rather than the estimate
that we'd previously been provided of about 30 million.
So the costs keep mushrooming and largely because of the
just the nature of the policing model. And yet
we still don't have a plan from the Surrey Police
Board or the police service, how they're going to
do it. But we now know uh uh some
of the things that were being discussed behind the scenes
that has come out through the litigation. Hm.
Uh Belock also said, um, quote, Premier
Eb told us we had the right to choose and
then he decided somewhere along the line that it was
no longer our right to choose. Um, you
know, is that sort of a moot point by
now? Well, I, I think from Mayor
Locke's perspective, uh, it's not a moot point
because, uh, I think she will tell you
as she has that the, the election was pretty
definitive. Um The, the, the candidates supporting
the RC MP were really had the majority of votes
. Um And in a normal course of um behavior
, uh policing is left to the municipality. So
what the province has done in this case is quite
unusual to step in and say you shall have this
type of policing that, that is unusual. It
hasn't happened in this province. Generally speaking, municipalities
have been allowed to either contract with the RC MP
uh through the province or create their own stand alone
department here, it's being dictated that is different.
What, um I guess implications do you think then
this, this ruling will have for, for future
municipalities, you know, if they find them in
themselves in a similar situation? Well, one of
the problems with um starting or with, with a
transition involving uh Surrey is you're taking on the largest
RCB detachment in the country somehow. You are saying
, I, we can, you know, and
if you're, if you're the surrey police service,
we will somehow come up with 900 resources. It's
not easy to find 900 police be a lot simpler
if this was a department uh that you're trying to
replace a department or swap out a department of 20
people or 30 individuals. This is quite different.
You're talking 800 trained people able to, I work
in an extremely busy community. Um And, and
that, so the challenge is, is a,
is a difficult one. Yesterday, we also heard
from the Safe Story Coalition and they're calling for mayor
Locke to resign because quote, she has squandered over
$100 million of taxpayer money by unnecessarily operating to police
forces and dragging out the transition. What is your
response to that? Well, I mean, right
from the beginning, the mayor has made it very
clear. We just want one police force. She
just wants and the majority of council just want to
stay with the RCP. They're more concerned about health
care, education, portable classrooms, all of those
issues. They don't want to spend all sorts of
time and money in a, in a transition that
they didn't ask for and no one has, has
provided a rationale from a public safety perspective that would
justify this transition. That's never been, that's never
been heard, never been done. So like,
why are we doing this? Why aren't we spending
our money elsewhere? That's what she will say.
Fair. But if the goal is to just have
one police force in the province has, has come
in time and time again and said it will be
the Surrey police service. Why not just say fine
, this is what we're accepting and we will,
we will put the, you know, it's an
enormous amount of time and energy that has been spent
fighting this ongoing issue. So at a certain point
is it perhaps not wise to just say, ok
, we're going with Surrey Police Services. I mean
, this is almost a rhetorical argument because it's going
to, it'll quickly go in circles in that.
Uh If, if mayor lack were simply to say
, ok, we'll do it. That's where the
costs are going to come in because she will be
supporting two police forces for probably, you know,
5, 10 years. Um be so simple if
you just kept what you have. But yes,
the the province is essentially forcing Surrey to maintain two
police forces until such time as Surrey police service has
enough resources to take over from the RC MP.
And that's a long way down the road. We
will have to leave it there, Mr German.
Thank you so much for joining us once again.
Yeah, you're most welcome, Amy. Thank you
. Take care of that was Peter German. He
is the city of Surrey's legal advisor on the policing 00:09:56.840 --> transition.