Surrey mayor spurns former allies, chooses remaining supporters for police committee

Doug McCallum named himself and last 4 Safe Surrey councillors to interim committee Monday

Image | Surrey mayor Doug McCallum State of the City address

Caption: Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum is pictured near a mocked-up Surrey Police vehicle during his "State of the City" address in May. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The mayor of Surrey has announced his picks for an advisory committee overseeing the city's transition to a municipal police force, spurning a number of councillors who quit his election-era coalition to favour his remaining supporters on council.
Doug McCallum named himself and the last four Safe Surrey councillors — Doug Elford, Laurie Guerra, Mandeep Nagra and Allison Patton — to the new, interim Surrey Police Transition Advisory Committee during the city's routine council meeting Monday night.
The advisory committee replaces the city's previous safety committee as council works to establish an independent Surrey police force in the next two years.
Excluded from the new committee, despite having had a place on the old one, are councillors Linda Annis, Brenda Locke, Jack Hundial and Steven Pettigrew.

Image | MCCALLUM STATE OF CITY

Caption: Establishing a city police force was a key campaign promise for McCallum and the Safe Surrey Coalition. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Ex-Safe Surrey councillors Locke, Hundial and Pettigrew now sit as independents after they quit McCallum's Safe Surrey coalition within months of each other this year. Annis was never part of the alliance, having been elected as the lone Surrey First councillor in October.
On Tuesday, Guerra said she and her fellow Safe Surrey councillors are the ones who have stayed true to the policing promise and platform they were elected upon. Establishing a city police force was a key campaign promise for the Safe Surrey Coalition.
"They [Annis, Locke, Hundial and Pettigrew] have flipped and flopped quite a bit ... it's confusing and disappointed to see people waver back and forth," said Guerra. "The rationale behind why [the three left Safe Surrey] doesn't make any sense to me."
Hundial, a former RCMP officer with 25 years' experience in policing, announced his departure from the mayor's alliance last Thursday. The councillor said he had spent just 30 minutes talking police work with McCallum in the nine months since election night, despite his expertise.
Locke said she was quitting the alliance on June 27 because it was dysfunctional under McCallum's stewardship, particularly when it came to working together on the policing file.
Pettigrew left the mayor's team at the end of May. He also cited infighting over law enforcement.
The city is working to establish its own, municipal police force to replace the existing RCMP by April 1, 2021. The city released its plans for the transition on June 3.
McCallum responded to the councillors' party resignations by saying the majority of "solid and strongly united" council agrees with his approach to fulfilling campaign promises, saying the coalition is "even more focus and energized."