British Columbia (BC) announced on June 16th that the city’s police force will retain the RCMP (Federal Police) and plans to transition to its own Surrey Police Service (SPS). announced it will be discontinued.
It was approved in a closed-door vote by the city council on March 15. BC Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said he would review the city’s plan to return to the RCMP and determine if it met the conditions of the state government. The role of the next step is safe and efficient policing,” he said.
The SPS transition was underway under former Mayor Doug McCallum, but Mayor Rock, who was elected in October, insisted on maintaining the RCMP as promised. Currently, both the RCMP and SPS are policing the city.
The BC government advised Surrey to proceed with the SPS transition plan in April. As for the reasons for this, Minister of Public Safety Farnworth cited the fact that the transition process is already underway, and that if the RCMP returns, the RCMP, which has 1,500 vacancies throughout BC, will suffer.