Surrey’s contentious 2020 budget was passed at a public hearing Monday night, but not before Mayor Doug McCallum walked out twice on a raucous crowd of residents who were divided over a $45 million transition process to remove the RCMP for the envisioned Surrey Police Department.
The crowd of about 300 people from two opposing pre-hearing protests outside city hall continuously shouted over one another and members of council to the point that order had been lost despite McCallum’s pleas.
“I think there were different parts that were very rude in there but in the end result council passed the five-year budget,” McCallum told media after the hearing.
“It was a very dangerous and serious situation. The crowd would not be quiet and no one could be heard over it.
“I felt the crowd was basically out of control,” he said.
As such, McCallum called two recesses and walked out on the audience with his Safe Surrey Coalition members following behind him.
Upon returning, as the hearing’s chair McCallum disallowed any further comments from councillors. The budget approval process then proceeded quickly as more screaming ensued and chants of “SPD” and “Surrey police” rivalled those of “Keep the RCMP.”
A foursome of councillors questioned McCallum’s actions – three of his former Safe Surrey Coalition members, Couns. Brenda Locke, Steven Pettigrew and Jack Hundial as well as Surrey First councillor Linda Annis.
At one point Pettigrew stood up and turned his back to McCallum as he proceeded with technical budget bylaw motions and even more heckles rained down from the crowd.
“It was absolutely disappointing to see how this meeting went,” said Locke after the hearing. “Certainly there was … no opportunity for input on any of those budget issues. So that was disappointing; it was difficult for us to sit there; and not a very good sign of democracy, I would say, in the city of Surrey. It’s a real shame for the city.”
“I think what you saw today was a loss of control by the mayor and council, and certainly at a public hearing,” said Hundial, who called for B.C. Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Selina Robinson to investigate procedural unfairness on McCallum’s part.
Asked what McCallum should have done, Hundial said: “We continue to talk to people; we continue to talk to the public, and we stay put and we debate the issues. That’s a democracy and that’s Canada.”
There are differing opinions on whether safety was compromised at the hearing.
“I do not feel unsafe here. We are obliged to do the people’s work and we should have stayed,” said Locke.
Those shouting at or over the foursome, including Locke, were pro-SPD residents, who were nearly entirely South Asian and predominantly men.
The pro-RCMP residents shouting at McCallum and his coalition members were decidedly white and typically older couples.
“As a South Asian councillor in the city of Surrey, this is now causing a racial division in our community, and it does not need to,” acknowledged Hundial, who was also heckled by many South Asian men in the crowd.
“You have community groups clearly defined along some pronounced racial lines and it is very tragic and we certainly need to come together as a community because, let’s face it, violence impacts everyone in the community; it’s not just a South Asian issue; it impacts everyone. But when you start identifying different mandates in different communities, we’re broken as a community,” said Hundial.
Before the hearing anti-crime advocacy group Wake Up Surrey held a pro-Safe Surrey Coalition rally prior to a pro-RCMP and/or anti-budget rally on the other side of the city hall plaza (with a 25-foot Christmas tree dividing the groups).
When asked why the groups were so clearly demarcated along ethnic lines, Wake Up Surrey’s spokesperson Gurpreet Singh Sahota said “the people getting killed in Surrey; most of them are from the South Asian community,” whereas the older crowd supporting the RCMP are mostly retired without kids in school.
At least two people could be heard shouting at the crowd their support for ride-hailing companies, perhaps insinuating the city’s large South Asian taxi lobby – to which McCallum is a forthright supporter – had a role in the rally.
Sahota dismissed the notion: “It’s a wrong comment.”
Sahota did not entirely defend McCallum, suggesting more police officers are needed.
A bone of contention with the budget is a second straight hiring freeze on new RCMP officers while the estimated two-year transition takes place. Sahota suggested the RCMP could lend Surrey officers since new hires tend to be delayed.
On the other side of the Christmas tree, former city councillor Mike Starchuk rallied people against the budget and/or for keeping the RCMP.
Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman said the police transition costs are detrimental considering businesses are facing 5.5 % tax hike for no stated reason.
Mark McRae, president of the Surrey Firefighters Association, said the budget also places a hiring freeze on new firefighters.
Darlene Bennett, whose husband was shot to death in 2018 on their driveway in a case of mistaken identity, pleaded for more police officers and reinstating previously planned capital projects that were stripped by McCallum’s coalition (minus Pettigrew, Locke and Hundial) last year in an effort to reduce debt and maintain low tax increases. This year, the projects were not brought back in order to pay for the police transition and again keep residential tax increases only slightly above inflation.
Bennett said she’s worried teenagers will be raised in Surrey with fewer police liaisons and civic facilities (the RCMP has stated it could need to pull officers from anti-crime programs next year to put more officers on the streets as the city grows by about 1,000 residents per month)
“I’m tired of the lying, the bullying, the theatrics of this political charade,” said Bennett to a crowd of about 150 people.
Meanwhile, after passing the budget, McCallum stripped Locke and Hundial of their roles on the Metro Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»board of directors. Both councillors said the move was not a surprise. McCallum and his coalition councillors Laurie Guerra, Allison Patton, Mandeep Nagra and Doug Elford provided no explanation for the decision. Nagra and Annis are to replace McCallum’s former coalition members.
Guerra was the lone councillor to get in a word about the budget before the crowd turned particularly hostile.
“The Safe Surrey Coalition, which included myself and seven other members of this council, promised that if we were elected, on day one we would replace the RCMP with Surrey’s own city police.
“Surrey, with a population of approximately 550,000, is the only city in Canada of more than 300,000 that does not have its own municipal police.”
Guerra said that in November 2018, “everyone voted unanimously in favour of cancelling the RCMP contract and transitioning to Surrey police.”
The foursome of Locke, Pettigrew, Annis and Hundial have provided similar explanations for why they now oppose the transition: there has been a lack of transparency and the public has had little input. As well, the costs have resulted in cuts to capital projects in order to avoid raising taxes – a key promise of McCallum’s coalition before the October 2018 election.
McCallum was elected with about 40 % of the popular vote in what was a three-way race. His campaign indicated it supported three pillars: A municipal police force, smart development and extending SkyTrain.
