Surrey city councillor says she’s been ‘left out’ of police transition report
Posted April 9, 2019 8:14 pm.
Last Updated April 9, 2019 9:39 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – A Surrey city councillor is sounding the alarm over plans to scrap the local RCMP for a municipal police force.
Linda Annis, the lone opposition councillor, says she’s being left out of the city’s report on a police force, despite that report heading to the province this month.
“Changing from the RCMP to Surrey Police will be one of the very biggest decisions that we will make probably in our lifetime,” she says. “We need to make sure we’ve got it right.”
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Annis says she hasn’t been consulted. “I don’t know what’s in the report. We’ve not seen anything and we won’t see anything until just before the report goes to Victoria.”
She says it’s extremely troubling, considering the lack of public consultation with the project. “I think it’s of huge concern. We were all elected to represent the people of Surrey. We need to keep them informed.”
And Annis says she’s not the only one being frozen out.
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She says three other councillors have also been kept in the dark when it comes to the cost of the project.
“I’ve not been privy to any of the information, nor have a few of my other councillors, Jack Hundial or Brenda Locke, or Steven Pettigrew.”
The lack of public consultation surrounding the policing transition has also prompted Cindy Dalglish to take action. She lives in Surrey, and is urging other residents to write to the Premier and Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth with their thoughts.
“They should not allow the city to move forward on this without that public consultation,” she says. “I’m asking them to kind of put his feet to the fire and say ‘I’m not doing this without that public consultation.'”
While Mayor Doug McCallum has said the report will be revealed to the public before being sent to the province, Dalglish says that’s not good enough.
