Frankly Speaking

The SkyTrain system in Surrey will finally expand past King George Station, if the new Surrey council has its way. It voted Monday to scrap plans for LRT and put the money committed to it towards a SkyTrain line along Fraser Highway. Surrey has had no rapid transit extensions since 1994, despite a huge influx in its population since that time. Surrey council’s inaugural meeting Monday night was a very different type of meeting. While the usual formality was still part of the meeting, the most important part of the meeting came after the formal swearing in of council members. Council held a “special regular meeting,” where two motions were passed – one to begin the process of changing from the RCMP to a local Surrey police force, and another to scrap LRT in favour of SkyTrain. Both of these motions are a direct result of Mayor Doug McCallum’s successful campaign with the Safe Surrey Coalition. A new police force and a push for SkyTrain instead of LRT were the coalition’s two ...

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 s...

A community rally at Surrey city hall on June 13 on the issue of gang violence attracted thousands of people. The rally was sparked by the apparent gang slayings of two teenagers, Jaskarn (Jason) Singh Jhutty, 16, and Jaskaran (Jesse) Singh Bhangal, 17.   Their bodies were found in a rural area south of Cloverdale on June 4. Police have no evidence that the two were involved in gangs, and continue to search for the killer or killers. The deaths of the two young men have devastated their families and friends. The large attendance at the Wake Up! rally indicates that many members of the community have been deeply shaken by this tragedy, and they are looking for answers. There is no simple solution, but one of the issues which was raised was the effectiveness of Surrey RCMP in dealing with the numerous instances of gang violence which have become a regular occurrence in Surrey. Gurpreet Singh Sahota, organizer of the rally, said the Surrey RCMP detachment has too few offi...