No blueprints, tight timeline: Lots of work in store for head of Surrey’s transition to municipal police

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SURREY (NEWS 1130) – The man in charge of guiding Surrey’s transition from the country’s largest RCMP detachment to a municipal police department admits he has a lot of work ahead of him.

Mayor Doug McCallum has been pushing for a municipal police force to be in place within two years.

Putting it all on paper and coming up with a plan is the first order of business, says Terry Waterhouse, the city’s newly-minted general manager of policing transition Terry Waterhouse.

“I think the complexity is a challenge. It’s a unique endeavor and has not been done a lot.”

He admits there isn’t a blueprint to follow for this kind of thing, pointing out there are really only a handful of international examples to look at.

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The work ahead of Waterhouse includes working out how much the move away from the Mounties is going to cost.

“There’s a lot that goes into it. That’s why part of the people on the transition team will be the finance experts … A lot of it is determined by the type of policing model you have,” Waterhouse said.

“You can’t confirm the budget numbers until we do a little bit more work.”

McCallum has previously estimated the cost at about $133 million, with the city being responsible for 90 per cent.

Waterhouse says he will be able to draw on experience from his previous role as GM of public safety as he works to meet the goal of having the new department established by 2020.

Last week, McCallum said he was “dismayed” at the resistance he’s seeing to the creation of a new police force. In response, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr said statements like McCallum’s “undermine” public trust in policing.

 – With files from Marcella Bernardo and Sasha Lakic

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