In response to an article published on June 25 by BIV titled, “Fast-growing Surrey grapples with business issues,” the Surrey Police Board would like to clarify, for the benefit of the public and businesses that operate in Surrey, how police resources are established.
A particular comment in the article—that business owners fear that “the new police [service] will cost more money and employ fewer police officers per capita than the RCMP”—requires correction. Police resources (the number of police officers required) in every village, town and city in British Columbia are established by the provincial government to ensure adequate and effective policing throughout the province. The Surrey Police Board cannot arbitrarily change the authorized strength for the city without approval of city council and the provincial government.
Surrey’s current authorized strength is 785 police officers, regardless of whether it is the RCMP or Surrey Police Service (SPS) policing the city. In fact, Surrey city council approved an increase of 25 police officers per year which resulted in the current number of 785. Once SPS is the police of jurisdiction for the City of Surrey, the Surrey Police Board will work directly with city council to determine whether more police officers are needed into the future. That determination will be made based on the city’s growth as well as city council’s priorities for public safety.
The issue of cost differences between the SPS and the RCMP is one which also requires clarification. All police budgets, from large cities to small towns, are driven by wages. For SPS, approximately 85 per cent of the budget is derived from wages. When the RCMP unionized and undertook collective bargaining, a key focus was creating wage parity with municipal independent police organizations across Canada. The RCMP union—the National Police Federation—has been successful in significantly closing the wage gap, which will reduce the cost difference between the SPS and the RCMP.
SPS’s hiring is aligned to the City of Surrey’s annual police budget which provides funding for 785 police officers in 2024. Simply put, residents and business owners will not see a decrease in the number of police officers in Surrey once the Surrey Police Service assumes police of jurisdiction in the city.
SPS looks forward to serving Surrey residents and business owners as the new police of jurisdiction this November.
—Mike Serr, Surrey Police Board administrator
