Surrey murder victim’s widow pushes for referendum on city’s police transition

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – While many people may assume there’s no turning back on Surrey’s transition to a new police force, the widow of a murder victim is making one final push to keep the RCMP by applying to Elections BC for a referendum.

In a 2018 case that horrified the Lower Mainland, nurse and beloved minor hockey coach Paul Bennett was gunned down in Cloverdale in a case of mistaken identity. His widow, Darlene, wants people in Surrey to have a direct vote on replacing the RCMP.

“My husband deserves justice one day,” Darlene Bennett told NEWS 1130.

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“I have no problem with the RCMP. They’ve always been very professional. They’ve told me what I can and cannot know and why. I don’t want that compromised. I don’t want his case to fall through the cracks. I want justice for him in the end and I want answers for my family,” she said.

But Bennett insists it goes beyond her husband’s case, which remains unsolved. She says there is public support for a referendum, pointing to a petition last year from the Keep the RCMP in Surrey campaign which collected tens of thousands of signatures.

“People want a voice in this,” Bennett insisted. “They want to be heard. I think there’s going to be a lot of talk about this. I think people want this. They want to have a referendum. They’ve been asking it for a while.”

She says there are still unanswered questions about the move to a municipal police force.

“We don’t know, really, what we’re getting,” she said. “There’s still a lot of discrepancy between the amount of members from what we currently have to what we’re getting with the [Surrey Police Force]. It’s the lack of transparency, the lack of facts. I want to understand it and nothing has been put out about it. I can’t have faith and hope in something when I don’t even know what I’m getting.”

Bringing in a municipal force was an election pledge for Mayor Doug McCallum, but critics argue he downplayed the real costs of making that change.

We have asked Mayor McCallum and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth for comment on this story but did not hear back in time for publication.

When asked about the referendum application, Farnworth said the police transition was approved by the Surrey council, and those opposed to the plan should take that up with that level of government.

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