 | Friday, May 14, 2021
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | City of Surrey — and more importantly the province — show no sign of budging on police transition | | |  | | | There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and a new push to stop Surrey from having an independent police force.
"We've never been given the true facts," said Darlene Bennett on CBC’s On The Coast this week.
"We never had transparency or the true costs of what this is actually going to cost us."
Bennett is the latest in a series of people and organizations that have attempted to change the City of Surrey and the provincial government’s mind about the transition from the RCMP to an independent force.
Over the past two years, there have been a number of motions from councillors asking for further studies or consultation and regular news releases from the National Police Federation and Surrey Board of Trade criticizing the move.
This week, a new campaign began to force a referendum on the issue through provincial legislation, despite those regulations requiring 10 per cent of registered voters in every riding across B.C. to fill out a petition in favour
The organizers hope the province will listen if they can hold one just focused on Surrey.
Arguably, more effort has been put into rallying opposition to the new police force than any other policy in the city.
And it hasn’t changed much.
In recent months, senior staff for the new police service have been hired. Budgets for the upcoming year have been approved. And most crucially, the province hasn’t expressed any public doubt in Surrey’s plan or hinted that it might remove its permission.
That’s not because the provincial government particularly likes Mayor Doug McCallum or feels strongly about the merits of the RCMP versus independent policing.
But it does believe in the principle of democratic legitimacy: McCallum ran on a platform of getting rid of the RCMP, won the election, and Surrey unanimously voted to move to an independent police force 30 months ago. And despite three defections from the Safe Surrey Coalition in 2019, he still commands a majority on council.
To the province, delayed timelines and budgets that aren’t as transparent as opponents would like them to be aren’t seen as disqualifying.
But there could be one ray of hope for those opposed to the police force. This week, Surrey police Chief Norm Lipinski said a full transition away from the RCMP would continue into 2023 — in other words, after the next municipal election.
Which means a party opposed to McCallum could run in the 2022 election on a platform of stopping the transition before it was finished and try to convince the government to support cancelling the change on the same principle of democratic legitimacy.
It would make for an election eerily similar to the last one.
But given the events of the last 15 months, a Groundhog Day election would be anything but surprising. | | |  | | | 1. Vancouver | With no council meetings recently, the focus has been on the city’s proposal to the federal government for the decriminalization of drugs and the split that has occured between Mayor Kennedy Stewart and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. But the next contentious council vote is but a week away, with a proposal to allow social housing buildings of up to 12 storeys in many parts of the city. Expect plenty of speakers.
Read more in the Daily Hive Vancouver | | | | |  | | | 2. One-dose summer | Across the region, cities are figuring out how to navigate this pandemic summer, with many adopting patio and park drinking policies only one or two places embraced last year. But a big question is if things start looking more like Israel and the U.K. over the next two months, how can cities kickstart arts and culture sectors?
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Travel? | Speaking of The Only Thing We Talk About: as long as travel across regions is banned or discouraged, politicians who sidestep those laws or guidelines will face scrutiny. The two most recent examples are a Langford councillor and the Rossland mayor — like all of these controversies, it remains to be seen if voters will care come election time.
Read more | | | | | |  | | | 4. Rental zoning | There hasn’t been much pick up since B.C. allowed rental-only zoning three years ago, but New Westminster hopes that will change after winning a court challenge on the matter — and then winning a different court challenge on its renoviction policies a few weeks later. Meanwhile, Richmond is also looking at a big change in its rental policies.
Read more | | | |  | | | 5. Flags | Pemberton’s attempt to have a resolution at this year’s UBCM on whether B.C.’s flag (and name) should change failed at a regional conference. Further north, Salmon Arm council voted in favour of a new, slightly untraditional flag, showing In two different ways how symbols — even when it’s a design on a piece of cloth — can matter.
Read more in the Kelowna Capital News | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | Check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions, you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
