Surrey policing model could be on agenda at Monday's inaugural council meeting

Surrey mayor-elect Doug McCallum has promised that one of the first acts of the new council will be starting the process of dropping the RCMP as Surrey’s police force. 

Surrey's new council will be inaugurated on Monday evening at city hall, and the mayor-elect has promised a vote on leaving the RCMP. Let's see if that motion comes forward on Monday night.

The national police force has provided local policing in Surrey since 1951. It is to be replaced by a municipal force, similar to police forces in Delta, Vancouver and Abbotsford.

The idea is popular with citizens and is one of the reasons McCallum and seven Safe Surrey Coalition members were elected to council. Surrey residents are fed up with crime - in particular gang violence, which includes drive-by shootings and the murder of innocent people. Despite the formation of integrated units such as IHIT (Integrated Homicide investigative Team), which involve both RCMP and municipal police members, these crimes seem to be almost impossible to solve. 

The perpetrators continue to commit more crimes, and the only way they are stopped is when they are killed by rival gang members. Then others step up to take their places. Arrests and cases which make it all the way through the court system seem to be rare.

Research into Lower Mainland gangs has indicated they are quite different from gangs in other parts of Canada. Recruits are not poor people from challenging neighbourhoods. Many members are middle-class, encouraged to consider a gang lifestyle by the perks which are on obvious display. They are often recruited in or near schools.

No matter what uniform is worn by Surrey police, it won’t make much of a dent in such activity. Slowing down gang activity requires a multi-pronged approach. It starts in the home, and parents must be vigilant about what their children are doing, both outside the home and online. Schools play a crucial role, but parents should not expect administrators and teachers to easily identify gang recruiters. Their main job is education, and society already asks a great deal of them.

Programs such as the Wrap program will help make a difference for some young people, but they are underfunded and get little support from the community on an ongoing basis. Access to sports and recreation is also important, and Surrey First mayoral candidate Tom Gill had a good idea in suggesting free entrance to recreation centres for young people. Anything that makes it easier for young people to get involved in sports and recreation is worthy of consideration by the newly-elected council.

Surrey RCMP has generally done an adequate job in policing Surrey, but the detachment has been understaffed for decades. The RCMP management approach has, at times, made things worse. Because the Surrey detachment is so much larger than any other municipal detachment, many of its members are new recruits, straight from Depot in Regina. They gain valuable experience in Surrey, but many then move on to other detachments and the revolving door continues.

The RCMP also call on members from various detachments to perform national policing duties when warranted - for example, at the 2010 Olympics, or when there is a major gathering of world leaders - when RCMP headquarters in Ottawa deems increased security to be necessary. That’s one reason that Surrey taxpayers pay about 90 per cent of the cost of each member - they do not get 100 per cent of their time.

At any given time, a significant number of Surrey RCMP members are on various types of leave - vacations, sick leave, long-term disability or as members of an integrated unit. A small number of these leaves are related to past controversies within the RCMP, such as sexual harassment. However, most types of absences will still occur with a municipal force.

It is ironic that the current Surrey RCMP commanding officer, Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, is a Surrey native. To the best of my knowledge, he is the first Surrey native to ever hold this position.

Many RCMP officers have grown up in Surrey, and many make it back here. This is quite different from when Surrey was first policed by the RCMP. At that time, members were deliberately not posted to their home provinces.

The members with Surrey backgrounds who come here to help police the city do not necessarily stay here. One of the greatest benefits of a municipal force is that most of its members will stay here and really get to know the city, no matter where they are from.

The process of leaving the RCMP and setting up a municipal force will be lengthy. Two years notice is required and provincial permission is also required. There may be a Surrey police force when the next election rolls around in 2022 - or it may still be a work in progress.