In Surrey’s policing dispute, the political equation may matter more than the legal one

It’s been 84 years.

OK, technically it’s been five years, two weeks and two days since Surrey council voted to pull out of their contract with the RCMP and create their own police force, beginning a process that continues to this day. 

But it sometimes feels like a lot longer, especially on days like Monday, when Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke announced the city would be expanding its legal action against the province in an attempt to keep the RCMP, and threatened further action in order to end the Surrey Police Service. 

“[We] will do everything within reason to stop it,” she said. 

“This government does not have the right to run roughshod on every local government that doesn't bend to their will.”

Except, technically, they mostly do. 

“Municipalities don’t really have any powers in the Constitution,” said University of Victoria political science assistant professor Justin Leifso.

“It feels like this is the sort of thing that makes sense for a local government to do because they've seen provinces do similar things, and perhaps it is cathartic … but I think it does speak to a fundamental misunderstanding that lots of folks in Canada have.” 

Section 92 of Canada’s Constitution says “in each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to matters of Subjects net hereinafter enumerated,” and then lists “Municipal Institutions in the Province” as one of them. 
 
Surrey’s argument hinges on the idea that B.C. has contravened its own legislation — specifically the Community Charter and Police Act — and Leifso said courts have ruled against provinces in the past on such disputes. 

But if that happened, Leifso thinks the province could just change their own internal laws again — an opinion seconded by University of B.C. political scientist Gerald Baier. 

“The effort to try and argue against provincial sort of sovereignty over municipal institutions is a really challenging one,” he said.

“The province is truly in the driver’s seat in all of these instances.”

But there is more than the Constitution at play, as witnessed by Locke saying “NDP tax” or “NDP police service” seven separate times at her press conference on Monday. 

“I think she’s trying to raise the stakes for the provincial government,” said Baier.

“It’s in her interest to raise it … as a reminder that these are the same voters who you’re going to come to in a year or so asking for their support in an election.”

A provincial election might be a year away, but a municipal budget is mere weeks away. Locke’s actions set up both the question of how much more property taxes will be raised to fund two police services stuck in paralysis, and whether Surrey will open a further dispute with the province if council rejects the SPS funding request, as she hinted they might. 

Five years, two weeks, and two days.

And likely many more to go.