Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke continues to stand by her read of a recent motion presented by Delta Mayor George Harvie to the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Committee concerning the city’s policing transition, despite Harvie indicating that she’s got it wrong.
Locke has found herself in a political storm after the City of Surrey last week issued a press release with a statement attributed to her that Harvie’s motion, passed unanimously, was to “support Surrey’s decision to retain the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction.”
But Harvie’s explanation to the Now-Leader on Friday indicates that was not the case.
“The purpose of it was we’ve been waiting a long time. This is not only affecting of course Surrey but also affecting other municipalities including Delta insofar as its police operations,” Harvie said of his motion. “The purpose of the motion was to impress upon the premier and the solicitor general to make a decision forthwith. We have no mandate with regards to policing in other jurisdictions other than our own jurisdictions so it was not intended to do anything else other than say we need a resolve to this immediately.”
His motion reads: “That the MVRD Board provide the City of Surrey with a letter of support requesting a provincial decision forthwith on the City’s request to have the RCMP provide policing services for the City of Surrey.”
READ ALSO: Surrey mayor stands by statements as rivals accuse her of issuing ‘false press release’
At the outset of Monday night’s Surrey council meeting Coun. Doug Elford, of the Safe Surrey Coalition, called for Locke to resign, charging she made a “premeditated and false statement” on Harvie’s motion and “intentionally misled the public.
“Metro Vancouver mayors have publicly disagreed with the mayor’s claims,” Elford said. He accused Locke of violating the City of Surrey Council Code of Conduct Bylaw and “violated her oath to carry out her duties with integrity and must resign from her position as mayor of Surrey effective immediately.”
This was met with yelling from the audience in council chambers.
“OK, finished? Great,” Locke replied, and then called the meeting of the regular council to order.
Later on in the meeting, Locke doubled down on her interpretation of the motion.
“It is evident that there are different interpretations and confusion of that motion,” she said. “Mayors in the room heard it from their own perspective. As there was no discussion on the motion it is possible even though the vote was unanimous that there was not consensus in the room.”
“It should also be noted that the Lower Mainland mayors, where the RCMP are the police of jurisdiction,” she said, “submitted a letter to the solicitor general in November 2022 that stated, quote, we continue to support the retention of the RCMP in Surrey, closed quote.”
“It was certainly not my intent to make a misleading statement, I made that in very good faith,” Locke said. “The real issue is how the decision continues to be delayed and is costing Surrey residents $8 million per month. The lengthy silence from the solicitor general is just not adversely impacting Surrey but it is affecting other Lower Mainland communities as well.”
She said there will be an opportunity on April 28 for members of the mayors’ committee “to clarify their position.”
“I would just like to add that it has been disappointing that some of this council prefer to play politics rather than work together in the best interest of Surrey taxpayers.”
At the end of Monday night’s council meeting, Elford presented a notice of motion calling for a press release on the city’s website titled “Statement from the Mayor: Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Committee Unanimously Supports Retaining Surrey RCMP” to be removed because it “misrepresents the position of the Metro Vancouver Regional Districts Mayors’ Committee.” Elford also asked council to instruct city staff to issue “a public correction acknowledging the misrepresentation” and for the city’s ethics commissioner to “conduct an investigation into this matter.”
Notice of motions are generally debated at the next council meeting.
The RCMP has been Surrey’s police of jurisdiction since it took over from the Surrey Police on May 1, 1951, as the result of a plebiscite. Surrey’s is the largest RCMP detachment in all of Canada.
On Nov. 5, 2018, the council of the day, led by mayor Doug McCallum, served notice to the provincial and federal governments that it would end its contract with the RCMP to set up its own force.
Four years and one civic election later, on Nov. 14, 2022, the current council led by Locke decided on a 5-4 vote to maintain the Surrey RCMP as this city’s police of jurisdiction instead of forging ahead with the Surrey Police Service. The city is waiting on Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth to render a decision on the matter.
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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