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VICTORIA — B.C.’s Public Security Minister Mike Farnworth tried laborious to create the impression Wednesday that the long-running debate over policing providers in Surrey had reached the tip of the road.

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“This choice is the ultimate choice,” he informed reporters in Victoria.

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He had given Surrey two possibilities to make the case for going again to the RCMP.

Each instances town “failed” to influence him.

Now he was invoking his energy below the Police Act to order Surrey to get on with implementing the stand-alone Surrey Police Service (SPS).

“Transferring ahead with the SPS is the one path ahead to guard the security of the individuals of Surrey and throughout B.C.,” mentioned Farnworth. “The town’s plan to return is simply not protected. It places individuals in danger.”

He gave Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke advance discover of his choice, and conceded that “she’s not glad.”

However he has each confidence the choice can stand up to a authorized problem, being “made in full accordance with the authorities I’ve below the Act.”

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May Surrey discover different methods to stall the transition, by withholding cooperation or refusing to fund the brand new police pressure?

Not going, replied Farnworth.

“The Police Act units out duties and authorized necessities that native governments must comply with in the case of policing,” he informed reporters. “I absolutely anticipate the elected authorities in Surrey will comply with the regulation.”

It may take as a lot as three years earlier than the transition is full, which means it may prolong into the subsequent civic election yr.

Farnworth is hoping that the Surrey mayor and council will flip the web page and concentrate on implementation lengthy earlier than that.

To that finish, he reiterated the promise of $150 million in transition funding, a quasi-bribe that’s the envy of just about each different municipality in B.C.

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The federal government has additionally appointed a strategic adviser for implementation of the transition.

She is Jessica McDonald, a former deputy minister, head of the general public service, and Crown company CEO below the B.C. Liberal authorities.

“I feel she’ll do a terrific job,” mentioned Farnworth. “She is somebody who understands how authorities works.”

I’ll say she is aware of how authorities works.

One in every of John Horgan’s first and most self-satisfying actions when he grew to become premier was to fireplace McDonald as CEO and president of B.C. Hydro at a price of tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} in severance.

The New Democrats thought McDonald wasn’t match to run the most important Crown company within the province.

However apparently she’s simply the correct particular person to calm the troubled waters in Surrey.

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Farnworth struggled Wednesday to comprise hypothesis that the choice on policing providers in Surrey was the primary act in a long-term part out of the RCMP because the supplier of contract policing providers in B.C.

The notion was impressed by a remark from Premier David Eby throughout the annual convention of the premiers in Winnipeg final week.

The premiers referred to as on the federal authorities to make clear its intentions for the way forward for the RCMP.  Eby joined the decision with a remark that observers inevitably linked to this week’s pending choice on policing providers in Surrey.

“We have to know which route the federal authorities goes with contract policing as a result of the present system will not be sustainable in B.C.”

The remark additionally harkened again to final yr’s report from an all-party committee of the legislature on reforming the Police Act in B.C.

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The committee referred to as for the institution of a brand new provincial police service as a substitute for the RCMP “to handle inconsistencies and enhance native accountability, responsiveness, and choice making.”

This week, the Toronto Star’s Ottawa bureau chief Tonda MacCharles reported that the federal authorities was already taking a look at phasing out the RCMP as a supplier of “front-line day-to-day policing” on contracts to B.C. and different provinces.

When Farnworth was requested about such hypothesis throughout Wednesday’s information convention, he discounted the importance.

“These discussions are on the market,” Farnworth conceded. “However that’s not what this choice is all about. That is about Surrey, and public security in that group and throughout the province.”

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Whereas the general public security minister tried to restrict the day’s dialogue to policing in Surrey, Premier David Eby added to the hypothesis a few provincial police pressure throughout a information convention of his personal.

“If we’re to maneuver to a provincial police pressure in British Columbia, if we’re going to go in that route, we have to begin that planning now,” he mentioned in response to a query from Katie DeRosa of Postmedia.

“Our contract policing is up within the early 2030s. If we’re going to transition to a provincial police pressure and municipalities are going to transition to municipal forces, that work has to start out now.

“So, there’s actually no time to waste. We’d like a powerful federal associate to be clear about the place we’re going, and sadly, we haven’t seen that but.”

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For now, the transition could also be confined to Surrey, as Farnworth suggests.

However the premier is already considering forward to the not-so-distant day when B.C. could have to switch the RCMP with a provincial police pressure of its personal.

vpalmer@postmedia.com

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