Two Surrey councillors say the city’s reluctance to release a fulsome report on public input gathered about a plan to establish a municipal police force is “obstructionist” and an example of a lack of transparency at city hall.
The city, under Mayor Doug McCallum, is in the midst of planning for an end to its policing contract with the RCMP and the establishment of a Surrey Police Department, which it hopes to have up and running by April 1, 2021.
Surrey submitted a policing transition report, prepared by the cities of Surrey and Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Department, to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General in the spring.
The report provided an overview of what Surrey’s force is expected to look like, including staffing numbers and costs.
After receiving and considering the report, the province struck a joint project team led by former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal to do more research and analysis. On Monday, the city announced that the committee had completed its report and submitted it to Oppal.
As part of the planning process, a “citizen engagement strategy” was carried out over five weeks in May and June — the transition report was submitted halfway through consultation — and involved 23 events held across the city, plus a survey that was available online and at those events. More than 11,000 surveys were completed.
According to a city corporate report, the engagement was not meant to gauge support for council’s motion to end its contract with the RCMP and proceed with forming its own municipal force, but to inform people about the rationale and the transition process, get information about “issues that matter to them,” build a sense of ownership and pride in the new force, and create confidence in the transition process and the future force.
In June, the city released a corporate report that summarized the survey results, and trumpeted “overwhelming citizen support” for a municipal department.
Coun. Brenda Locke, one of three councillors who left McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition this year, said she didn’t trust the results and quickly asked city staff for more information, including the raw survey data.
Getting that additional information was a longer and more difficult process than it needed to be, she said.
Locke made multiple requests and in late September, after almost three months, received a report that was stamped “Confidential.” A week later Coun. Jack Hundial, who had also requested the additional information, received the same report. Both say it tells a different story than the initial corporate report.
In an email, Locke asked city manager Vincent Lalonde why she couldn’t release the data or discuss it with others — including council members — and was told, “In this case, staff had marked the public consultation data as confidential given fact that the data was not made public and the political sensitivities that surround this issue.”
Hundial said the reasoning was not clear to him or Locke.
“One thing in government, everything we do is politically sensitive,” he said.
Locke also consulted with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and made a freedom of information request to the city to try and get the information out.
The full survey results — more than 600 pages — were eventually released online on Dec. 23.
Locke said she found the process hugely concerning.
“As an elected official, I have a fiduciary duty to do the best work I can with the information I’m provided, and when I have to go out and dig this hard to get information that is really only comments by the public, I think that’s problematic,” she said. “I think that it begs the question since this was withheld for over six months, I wonder what other information has been withheld. That’s a worry to me.”
Hundial said the way the full report was released, including the timing and method, was “deceitful” and “disingenuous.”
“It shouldn’t happen like this, not in government. This is their information, the public deserves to see their information,” he said. “That should be quite concerning for a lot of people — it’s certainly concerning for me.”
Safe Surrey Coalition Coun. Doug Elford said on Friday he hadn’t read the full report and didn’t think it would make a difference at this point in the decision-making process.
“My mind has been made up for a long, long time on this and, to me, I think this is maybe a last, desperate attempt to convince somebody — I’m not sure who — that we should turn the bus around,” Elford said. “The bus has left the station and it’s well along the way and believe me, we’re going to have our force.”
Elford said he saw no issues with transparency or access to information with regard to how long it took for the full data set to be released.
City hall is closed until Jan. 2 and in response to an interview request on Monday, city spokesperson Oliver Lum said the mayor would not be commenting.
McCallum did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Three other Safe Surrey councillors did not respond to messages, while Mandeep Nagra said he had not attended to city business over the holidays and did not read the report.
