In choosing to return to its colonial style policing model, the Surrey council is demonstrating “failure to launch”. Initially, and until recently, the issue was said to be about money, i.e. retaining the RCMP would be a cost savings for the city and a lowering of the tax burden on citizens. The Province offered a substantial amount of money (around 150,000,000 dollars) to ease the transition to another police force as originally promised by former mayor Doug McCallum. The new council, headed by Mayor Brenda Locke (not Brenda Luckie, the former head of the RCMP) was elected to return to the old model. Hence one has to admit that democracy, in a confusing way, has played a role in the whole fiasco.
McCallum was elected, in large part, by promising a local police force that would replace the sexist, racist, and incompetent national police force of Canada. A police force with a long history of enforcing racist laws against indigenous peoples and facilitating the kidnapping of thousands of indigenous children. McCallum himself proved to be an abrasive politician who, while following through on his promise, alienated other counselors and some constituents.
What has happened here? Almost as soon as McCallum made his proposals known, a large group of senior citizens, mired in the past glories of Sergeant Preston, began a campaign to retain the RCMP, distributing leaflets at subways and other meeting places. Nothing illegitimate in their desires or methodologies, even if the goal was wrongheaded. But I wonder who was really behind the campaign if not the RCMP itself, which would stand to lose control of BC’s largest city and take a publicity hit? People were made to believe they wouldn’t be safe under the new force. Can somebody tell me why the RCMP would provide a greater level of safety to a frightened citizenry when it had already failed to do so?
In the end, the decision is going to cost the Surrey taxpayers a great deal more than the transition. The Province has been clear that it will not pick up costs for things such as severance pay (72 million dollars) for the police who were hired to staff the new force. The most important question remains unanswered: Which force would provide better policing? Could anything be worse than the RCMP?