A B.C Supreme Court judge says the province has the right to order the City of Surrey to transition from the RCMP to a municipal police force, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth announced Thursday.
Justice Kevin Loo dismissed Mayor Brenda Locke’s bid to halt the transition — a key promise of her 2022 municipal election campaign — after nearly two years of feuding with the B.C. government over the future of policing in the province’s second largest and fastest growing municipality.
Farnworth said the safety of Surrey residents has been at the centre of the province’s efforts to push forward the transition to the Surrey Police Service (SPS), the municipal force initiated by Locke’s predecessor Doug McCallum.
“People in Surrey want this to be over,” Farnworth said in a statement Thursday. “I am hopeful that today’s ruling is the time to come together to complete the transition to the Surrey Police Service.”
‘Very much in our favour’
The City of Surrey wanted a judicial review of Farnworth’s decision last summer ordering the transition to go ahead. The city also wanted the judge to void changes to B.C.’s Police Act designed to facilitate the move away from the RCMP.
As part of its arguments, the city claimed the public safety minister was thwarting the will of voters who elected Locke on a promise to keep the RCMP.
In response, the province said the transition is already underway, with hundreds of SPS officers gradually moving into roles previously occupied by Mounties.
The province feared a return to the RCMP could throw Surrey into a policing void if newly hired municipal officers left en masse once it became clear their jobs are doomed, and that pulling RCMP officers from other jurisdictions to fill the gaps would create problems elsewhere.
The province also argued the amendments to the Police Act that literally made it the law for Surrey to have a police force rendered the questions raised in the city’s legal challenge moot.
A copy of Loo’s judgment was not immediately available, but Farnworth said the judge sided with the province on all counts.
“It’s pretty clear in terms of the arguments the city brought in this judicial review, and the judge dismissed them,” he told reporters.
“It was very much in our favour.”
CBC has contacted Locke, Surrey RCMP and SPS for comment.
More to come.