What Surrey police's transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service means for residents

Surrey, B.C.'s new municipal police force is in the midst of transitioning from RCMP to the Surrey Police Service — a change that began in 2018, when city council approved a motion to replace the RCMP. 

The city hired the first Chief Constable of the Surrey Police Service, Norm Lipinski, in 2020. A year later, the first group of Surrey Police Service officers hit the streets alongside the Surrey RCMP, and more are being deployed every two months.

But many questions remain about how the transition will continue to work, and what the changes mean for residents. 

Police board executive director Melissa Granum spoke with CBC's On the Coast about what stage the transition is in, and what residents need to know about policing in the community during the process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How many people work for the Surrey Police Service? 

We have approximately 120 police officers working in Surrey operationally, and then we have another 80 officers transitioning into the frontline, plus about 50 civilian staff who are working inside 'the engine.' So that's there to build all of these structures, systems, policies, processes that are required in order for us to become police of jurisdiction. 

Are Surrey Police Service officers working with the existing RCMP right now? 

Yes. The police officers that work for Surrey Police Service (SPS) have been embedded into the Surrey RCMP. 

Who currently responds to the calls? 

Either the RCMP or SPS members will respond to calls depending on who's closest, who's dispatched and the type of call. RCMP is still the police of jurisdiction in the city, so they're the ones making the operational decisions currently. 

Many employers are having a hard time recruiting and retaining workers. How's recruiting going for the police force? 

We are very confident in the level of interest in recruits. At this point, we've not seen any concerns. There's a lot of interest in what's going on in Surrey, and a lot of police officers seem to want to come and help build something new. So we're really taking advantage of that interest. 

What kind of experience do the new Surrey police officers have? 

They come from all ranks. They come from major crimes, they come from patrol, they have traffic experience. Our new recruits are exceptional candidates. Most of them have, at the very least, a bachelor's degree, some life experience. We have a wide variety of ethnicities and genders and we're quite pleased with the broad spectrum of [people] that we're recruiting. 

One of the arguments for the local police force is having officers who live in the city. Is that being prioritized? 

It is — people who live in the city, who grew up in the city, who were raised here, people who want to come and work in Surrey for the duration of their careers. Police officers that apply to Surrey Police Service are applying to come here for their careers and are committing to the city of Surrey. At this point I believe just below 50 per cent of our police officers do live in the city and that doesn't count sort of the near surrounding areas like Delta, Langley, New Westminster and those areas. 

There have been frequent calls for financial transparency when it comes to the Surrey police and the board has been publicly posting reports online. What kind of information will people find there? 

The way the Surrey Police Service transition has been established financially is there's two buckets of money. So there's the first bucket, which is the one-time funding which was established by City Council to build the infrastructure. That's just under $64 million and that is still under the authority of the City of Surrey, but the board does report on that on a monthly basis. 

The second bucket is the police operations bucket. That's what pays for all the police officers to work in the city of Surrey. That's $195 million approximately for the RCMP, the SPS and then the civilian staff. The City of Surrey reports on all of it on a quarterly basis. 

Mayor Doug McCallum has stepped away from his duties as chair of the Police Board until the civic election in October. What kind of impact does his absence have? 

The board is established through cabinet appointments and there's eight board members excluding the mayor's chair. So right now we have all eight board members and we have a rotating chair. The board is operating as it would normally.

The mayor is awaiting trial on Oct. 31 on a charge of public mischief, which is essentially lying to a police officer. How would you describe the mayor's relationship with the police in Surrey? 

As the chair of the board, he has opted to step aside for now and take a planned absence from the board to allow the board to do its job and to allow the space to do its job as well. 

What is the timeline for the full transition?

By May of 2023, we will have 300 police officers in the city of Surrey. The next focus is about what policing jurisdiction will look like and the transition of change of command in Surrey. In the near future, there will be some information made public around what the structure will look like, what the legal mechanisms will look like, and what the dates will look like. Up to this point, I can't give you an exact date.

Will it be before the end of this year? 

It will be before the end of this year. By the end of this year, we should most definitely have a plan in place. But it's a very complex matter. This has never happened before in Canada, so we have to make sure that all parties are comfortable with it. There are a lot of players involved and once that comes to ground, then there will be more information public.