surrey | Behind the Yellow Tape

Another change in Seasons…

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Pete Cross

As we head into Fall and wind down from summer, it inevitably seems to be a time of imposed reflection. Fall traditionally signals an ending, a time of maturity and incipient decline. This Fall though there are some unusual stirrings in the political winds of Canada and to a certain extent around the world. It could prove to be a welcome breeze, especially for any person involved in policing or involved in the legal system.

Some pundits including Time magazine have called 2024 the “year of elections” . The results in many countries seem to reflect a growing conservatism amongst the democratic countries, a swing away from the socialist progressive agenda. This is fuelled in large part by the realization that there is in fact a defined need for the police, that there is room in a democratic society for enforcement of the existing laws. There is also a desire to remove the politics out of the governmental system and oversight of the legal arms of society. Unlike years past, this time, especially in Canada, the move to a more conservative ideology may be more long lasting.

Now, before those positioned on the far right of the spectrum get too excited, a possible swing to the right is in essence, in Canada, merely a move to the centre. It only seems drastic and is being portrayed as momentous merely because of the fact that the pendulum was so far left for so many years. That being said I do believe that the vast majority of Canadians would like to return to some sort of common sense middle ground. This shifting in sentiment is often hard to discern or measure, often disguised by the fact that they are such small incremental steps. However, it is becoming much clearer that the issue of law and order has once again risen to the top.

I live in Vancouver British Columbia, the wellspring of inanity, where we learn of another grotesque criminal act on a daily basis, for the most part being instigated by the homeless, the mentally disturbed and the drug addicted. The latest was another stabbing, in broad daylight and with no motive. One male stabbed to death, another male knifed and actually had his hand severed from his body. It was perpetrated by an individual who could be the poster child of the wrong headedness of our court system, another too familiar example of where the combination of mental health and criminality collides forcefully and is played out on public streets in broad daylight. All while citizens look on or stop to record it on their phones. This latest suspect male had over 60 encounters with the police, was on probation, and had a history of assault and assault causing bodily harm. His current probation conditions was termed as being “soft”.

The story fomented the usual media hype, the Mayor coming out quickly to assure everyone that this is a “safe city” –when those of us that live amongst the daily visions of unbridled mental illness and drug abuse clearly know better. The Vancouver City Police Chief Adam Palmer when sharing the podium, seemed exasperated and in his statement gave a not so subtle hint that the suspect should not have been out on the streets. The media as usual called for instant solutions to undo the years of policy mistakes, the biggest mistake being the closing of the local psychiatric hospital “Riverview” in 2012.

In the Vancouver and British Columbia political establishment the leaders are clearly taking note of the growing public discontent and it is now looming as the single most important political election issue. Along with this is that in British Columbia there has been a dramatic up-ending of the three political parties in the Province. The Liberal Party (who re-branded themselves the B.C United), they, who were the power brokers for many years in this Province, have simply given up; they have literally withdrawn from the next Provincial election scheduled for November 2024. They have surrendered the proverbial ghost and have freed their candidates to wander away into obscurity or go join the Conservative party. This leaves it a two party race, which is polling now as a neck and neck battle between the governing NDP and the Conservatives.

The upcoming election, if nothing else, will allow the voters to distinguish between two distinct policy groups, the socialists or the conservatives, and should therefore provide a more accurate glimpse of the mood of the people. The Conservatives are predictably running on a platform of law and order and a greater move to private enterprise. They are in essence saying that they want the government to get out of the way. The NDP whose party base are traditionally the victimized and marginalized groups (you pick the group), the unions, and any and all members of the “learned” left. These “progressives” have the added advantage of massive support from the current media establishment, the Indigenous, government workers and the academic institutions. The NDP are remaining true to their ideology and are sticking with policies of all people being part of, by necessity, a fulsome government oversight apparatus. It has been a long time since there has been such a clear choice for the people going to the ballot box and currently it seems be an even battle.

It is always fun at election time to watch all the candidates feel bolstered and sharing their insights on all of the evident problems and the clear solutions that lay ahead. Solutions which they did not see while in power but have now attained a greater vision when in sight of a ballot box. What is equally clear is that it is always someone else’s fault.

When talking about crime and rampant lawless behaviour, the Provincial NDP who have been in power for the last five years in British Columbia (the California of Canada for all you Canadians who live in the east) quickly point to the Federal Liberals as the problem. And to be fair, the Feds are the governing body when it comes to the Criminal Code. The offended Feds in turn point back at the Provinces because they are in charge of Health Care and the current sitting Judiciary. The Provincial leaders then rebound and point the accusing finger downward to the cities as they are responsible for enforcement. Three levels of government, all with no defined action plan in terms of the daily carnage on the streets and apparently unable to find any solutions while in power, now telling everyone they now know the way.

As we in the West look eastward, Alberta has always been Conservative and the Prairies are very similar. Doug Ford in Ontario is now trying to get a Conservative election victory prior to any Federal Election. Newfoundland is the only true vestige left of Federal Liberal supporters.

The Federal NDP and their illustrious shrill leader Jagmeet Singh dramatically announced that he is “ripping up” his prop-up agreement with the Federal Liberals; while at the same time vowing not to be rushed into any confidence vote. It would seem that he has finally realized that the Liberals are circling the drain and he either goes down with them, or finally leaves the safety of the Liberal cocoon for the less than safe seats of his own party. His ratings are below Trudeau but he is hoping his chances will improve with a continuous socialist rhetoric of corporate greed. He is hoping that someone out there actually agrees with him, but his chances of disappearing altogether is growing. The policing fraternity are hoping that the NDP policies disappear with him.

Now Trudeau himself is another story. His actions to date only raise questions for me. As he reads the latest polls and gathers his troops in Nanaimo this week, is he being driven by pure ego? Does he think he can spend his way to a rise in the polls and another minority government? His strategy for a possible re-election is singular. He will continue to try and and will have to make Polievre turn into Trump.

Polievre for his part, will continue to try and avoid any major guffaws and keep his newly coiffed hair and refined look in place. He has to walk a fine line, because he certainly is not going to get any votes from the public service or those that depend on government contracts. The same foes of the BC Conservatives are the same foes for the Federal Conservatives. Let’s face it, what are the chances that members of the CBC vote for him?

Of course there is not a strong enough wind to blow all the usual problems off the headlines and the teleprompters of our television talking heads. In terms of specific policing issues, in the next few months the Surrey RCMP and the Surrey Police Service will continue to dominate the local BC headlines with the snail like place of getting officers on the ground and the equally slow moving RCMP in getting their officers out. The Indigenous will continue to dominate headlines with further demands and true to form, just recently tore up their latest signed agreements for a natural gas pipeline with TC Energy. There is little doubt that the RCMP will once again be manning the barricades in northern B.C.

Back east I have a growing interest in the Bill Majcher case, charged as he is with foreign interference and there are some interesting parallels to the Cameron Ortis case. There is a good chance that CSIS and the RCMP INSET (Integrated National Security Teams) may look bad on this one as they continue to struggle to be a meaningful service amongst the Five Eyes. So we need to keep our own eyes on that one. Their is evidence now coming forward that Majcher was throughout several periods of time , actually working for CSIS.

In a more general sense, the Mounties in Ottawa will continue to find themselves in an environment of increasing public suspicion. They seem to be floundering in terms of leadership and in finding their true reason(s) for being. The larger overall problems have been years in the making and it will be years in the undoing. They will however, continue to do what they still do best. They will apologize somewhere. The most recent was in Nova Scotia where they apologized to the African Nova Scotians for “historic” use of street checks.

There will be the usual public government pronouncements, the Federal government employees will continue to protest having to go back to work 3 days a week and will come up with any inane excuse they can find. Housing prices will stay the same, inflation will continue to hover around 3% and mortgage rates will have little effect on the supplies of housing. The media will continue to pump us full of doomsday proclamations; headlines about droughts, floods, fires, heat, cold, or anything they decide is “record breaking”. Our traditional news sources will continue to be decimated and their managers will continue to replace long time journalists with persons who are quick on the keys to Instagram, and Substack. Ukraine seems to be in military limbo and Israel seems to heading into the same horrendous stalemate in Gaza.

However, life will go on. Get ready, get your thoughts in order and be a little hopeful, as it is never as bad as it seems. Its only an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Photo courtesy of Jeannine St- Amour via Flickr Commons – Some Rights reserved

No longer Dancing with India

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Pete Cross

Can anyone forget our Prime Minister dancing on to the stage at a diplomatic function in India, dressed in full Indian garb, apparently trying to demonstrate both his ability to cut the rug with the locals, while at the same time demonstrating his love for the Indian people and his obvious personal love of the spotlight. Flash forward to the present day, to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India now kicking our Prime Minister hard and squarely in his back end with his pointed juttis. Trudeau was snubbed so like the petulant child he skipped the formal dinner, pouting, and just wanted to get away, only to be stymied by a grounded airplane with a single missing part. He was personally embarrassed and he embarrassed our country.

A short time later, back in the safe confines of Canada, Trudeau decides to publicly out and allege that India was complicit in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijar. Nijar was gunned down outside the Guru Nanak Gurdwara Sikh temple on a mild June evening this past summer in Surrey, British Columbia- shot in his vehicle as he was leaving the area. It was an outrageous allegation, that in and of itself demanded evidence. Trudeau stated, and we must pay attention to the words, that there were “credible allegations” that “agents of the Indian government were involved”. The press began to move in and question, so the government elaborated to a minor degree by way of explanation that they had “shared intelligence among the Five Eyes Partners that helped lead Canada to making these statements.” The pressure for answers began to grow, the government went a little further and said that the information came from “an unspecified member of the intelligence sharing alliance”.

The two masked and unidentified suspect gunmen fled, and were only captured on video, leaving in a grey small sedan. No charges have been forwarded to date although it is still somewhat early in the investigation.

This is not an easy case, because Nijar was not just a plumber, as was his listed occupation. Mr. Nijar has a complicated history, in fact a long history of interactions and clashes with both the government of India who were chasing him as a labelled “terrorist”, and then with the Canadian government as he fled India and took up residency in Canada.

Some deeper historical background is necessary. The Sikhs make up about 2% of the Indian population, and are in fact a religious minority in their home country. In the 1980’s there was an orchestrated Sikh movement in the state of Punjab, to form a separate state of Khalistan. They pushed their agenda with acts of repeated violence and numerous attacks on government agencies. It was ongoing until the armed forces of India eventually made a concentrated effort against the group; running several military style operations which effectively helped to dismantle the group or at the least drive it underground. The central government of India to this very day has strongly opposed the Khalistan movement, as have all the mainstream parties, including those in the Punjab; and all have continued to denounce the violence and the move to separatism.

Canada became a favourite country for the Sikhs and now is the largest Sikh diaspora outside of the Punjab. The cries for a separate state of Khlistan simply moved or were imported to the ever welcoming Canadian mosaic. Over the last number of years, both sides of the Khalistan argument have frequently taken to the streets in Canada in variously sized protests, with the people siding with the separatists posting signs such as “Kill India” and labelling Indian diplomats as “Killers”. Canada’s short history in terms of the Sikh’s is replete with extremism; do we need to remind people of June 1982 when Air India flight 182, was bombed out of the sky killing 329 people– and the fingers of that investigation pointed directly to Sikh extremists inside the borders of British Columbia. So when we consider that one man’s terrorist is the next man’s freedom fighter, it is not difficult to imagine Mr. Nijar as possibly not being a completely innocent victim in all of this. It is equally important to note that the Sikhs in Surrey and in Vancouver British Columbia, are a prominent and active vocal political group–and massive supporters of the Federal Liberals and the Liberal and NDP Provincial governments.

In 1998, Mr. Nijar had arrived at Pearson airport in Toronto, under the name “Ravi Sharma”, and applied for Canadian citizenship and in doing so told a long sordid story of torture and threats to his life, his brother and his father. He was turned down as the Immigration authorities simply did not believe his story. Eleven days later he applied for Canadian citizenship, as he now claimed to be married to a B.C. woman. She had been also sponsored to Canada, but by a different husband. So again, Mr. Nijar was denied Canadian citizenship and he appealed. In 2001 that appeal was denied. However, in the ensuing years and at the time of his death, Mr. Nijar identified himself as a Canadian citizen and was married with two children, and supporting himself as a plumber in Surrey British Columbia. He remained politically active and in 2018 he was elected President of the Guru Nanak temple, which is a Federally registered charity, and has over the years had some questions raised in terms of their financing. In 2019 Nijar would be charged criminally with assault, but the charges were later dropped.

Meanwhile over this span of years, the Indian authorities had issued a warrant through Interpol for Nijar’s arrest in 2014 and alleged, that he was the “mastermind/active member of the Khalistan Tiger Force”–a terrorist group. He was implicated in the bombing of a cinema in 2007 as part of their evidence. India’s National Investigation Agency announced a reward for his arrest in the amount of the equivalent of $16,000 Cdn.

So this raises a couple of serious questions. Why was Nijar never arrested under the warrant, although he was clearly in plain and public view? Canada has an extradition treaty with India, so that is not the excuse. The Indian government has in fact been complaining for years of Canada being a refuge for Sikh extremists; despite this, no effort appears to have been made to arrest Nijar. Was Nijar in fact a Canadian citizen? If he wasn’t, that too would have made him libel for extradition proceedings under the Immigration Act.

One must be clear though that nothing allows or would allow a government sanctioned killing in Canada; regardless of the long-standing political and economic ties to India. As the American ambassador said of course, if those allegations “prove to be true”. Or as Melanie Joly said that the Indian government “may have been involved”.

But we need to look at Trudeau’s decision to out the “ties” to the Indian government in terms of Nijar’s murder. As a former member of the CSIS precursor, Security Service, and as a former homicide investigator, at no level, and under no set of circumstances, could this Trudeau move ever be sanctioned. It was irresponsible and will have secondary economic ramifications in the billions of dollars. Politically now India has expelled a number of Canadian diplomats and the relations between the two countries is at its lowest. It would seem that the only motivation behind the pronouncement by Trudeau was to swivel the klieg lights onto our brilliant freedom fighting Prime Minister and away from the negative tone of his trip.

From a homicide viewpoint, how could this have helped? If your true goal is to bring some justice to this matter, and capture the persons responsible how was this supposed to play out? Do you think that by advising the possible suspects that the Canadian government may be on to them would do anything other than alert them to either run or be more cautious, or if the Indian government was involved, to destroy any linking evidence.

From a CSIS perspective, it is always considered a final step in any diplomatic kerfuffle, whether it be a diplomatic spying case, or a case such as this, linked to some criminal behaviour, that you expel any persons. You never tip your hand, until you can do nothing else. That is just the nature of this murkish spy and political investigation world. To kick a diplomat out of the country was always considered an admission of desperation on the part of the investigative group, simply a last ditch effort to demonstrate your effectiveness, to send a message. And almost always, one had to anticipate that the offended country would then do the same, tit for tat, expel a Canadian diplomat in retaliation, with nothing ever really accomplished by it. Furthermore, if there was some diplomat of India involved in the case that was captured by human or signal intelligence, it is better to leave them in place, to know and control the identity of the devil, rather than expel him or her and start over again.

So as far as can be determined, Trudeau has one possible out. Reveal your evidence. Lay criminal charges– as did Britain in the Sergei Skirpal case in 2018, when Skirpal and his daughter had been poisoned by the Russians. Charges were layed, and people were expelled, and the offending country was called out with the presented evidence. If you can not do that, then this could only be labelled as blatant and disarming level of incompetence which may have interfered with a criminal investigation.

We as Canadians need to understand that if you going to open the doors to the immigrants of the world, they will come with their customs, their religions, and their beliefs. We have offered safe harbour to many groups that are escaping the violence and corruption of their homelands, but it has always been well known that planted among them will be the extremists. The Canadian government seems to have naively looked the other way. Meanwhile one can only assume that the Five Eyes community are not looking the other way, but are now rolling their eyes heavenward.

Photo courtesy of Jorge Lascar via Flickr Commons — Some Rights Reserved

Fall Reflections…

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Pete Cross

“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves” – Virginia Woolf

Writers and poets have spent many words in trying to capture the essence of the coming of Autumn. As nature changes to reflect the shortening of sunlight and what Keats called “the season of mist and and mellow fruitfulness”, for me it is a time to pause, a lull in time when we all re-adjust and prepare for a return to the comfortable routines. It is a favourite time for many, these days of changing colours, when the sky seems bluer, the clearer air markedly cooler. In nature, it is also a time of decay, a coming to the natural end of life. So it seems as good as time as any to reflect on the good and the not so good which have come out of these last few months. They are subjective, in no particular order, and of no particular importance.

One of my over-riding thoughts is about our news, the constant stream, less and less from traditional media, as the digression to a reliance on social media seems to be accelerating at an alarming rate. Thus, the reliability of that watered down news should be of the utmost concern. This is not new, this trend has been going for several years and it is indeed worrisome, especially for anyone who historically has valued the role of the 5th Estate. The news now is in snippets, pieces of video, pieces of conversation, mixed in with fully partisan and fragmented opinions. Press releases are being issued, and then regurgitated through the media in tiny sound bites to a public, which has clearly become disenchanted, and that disinterest is palatable. Every story is purposely planned to begin with “unprecedented”, “historic” and “never seen before”. It is like television and radio have been swallowed up by the National Enquirer. This summer as we took in the sunshine and communed with nature, our phones were constantly being pinged and alerted; bombarded by the news of “soaring inflation”, “unprecedented wildfires”, and the “historic cost of housing”. Youtube video and Instagram posts are now spliced into to be part of the actual coverage, and often polarized opinion is dangerously assumed to be fact. This trend is only disturbing if one values a functioning democracy, and therefore the need for an informed populace. One wonders whether we, the consumers, who seem addicted to instant scrolling gratification are also the problem or have we just been trained?

As one reflects on the political waves of the last few months, there does seem to be a swinging of the left/ right pendulum. Has the leftist arc of the pendulum reached its pinnacle, and is it now moving back? For sure, the Federal Liberals are coming to realize that things are not quite as rosy for their fatuous leader as they originally thought. So, in recent days they have been frantically swinging their arms in a desperate effort to fan the flames of fear, the fear over those evil right wingers marching over the horizon to destroy all the good they have created.

Pierre Polivere, the Conservative opposition, has executed a dapper change in his haberdashery from Clark Kent to Superman, and is finally feeding with some effect on the overt stupidity of recent Liberal pronouncements. His biggest concern may be that he is peaking a little too soon, as the election is still a couple of years away.

That said it does seem like we are adopting the American version of an election in which the campaigning starts at least two years in advance. This will mean that we will be very sick and very tired of hearing from any of the politicians with their dumbed down commercials filled with statements of progress and diversity, of being “there for you”, “going forward” and “working together”. For her part Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has cut some of her television cable to account for the rough financial times, will continue to stand behind Justin, and nod with vigour at every statement he makes. The flame proof Bill Blair having survived being tied to Commissioner Brenda Lucki, will try and remain hidden in his new job as Minister of National Defence. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly will continue to have her minions prepare for the unforgivable possibility of a Republican being elected in the United States; as she also “revamps” her department to make it a nice place to work. The Governor General will continue to distribute her valuable wisdom and insights to anyone who will invite her to an exotic locale, and will arrive with her twenty plus entourage in tow, but sadly will only be able to offer and provide box lunches on any future flights.

Locally, the domestic theatre of the absurd politics in Surrey continues, and Mayor Brenda Locke keeps on with her obfuscation and attempt to prolong any transition to the Surrey Police Service. Brenda it would seem simply does not want to admit defeat. Meanwhile, it is costing the Surrey taxpayers $8 million a month currently for the present state of policing, but Ms. Locke will continue to tell everyone she is concerned about future policing costs. She continues to blame the Provincial government and it would seem that most of the most recent delay is because most government workers decided to take the summer off. Apparently losing $8 million a month and getting a functioning police force in place is not enough reason to postpone anyone’s holidays.

And do you remember the campaign by the Surrey Mounties and the Mountie union, the National Police Federation, where they detailed how they were the better persons for the job, and that future staffing was not an issue? This while recently we have been watching the current Commissioner Duheme touring the rural areas of Saskatchewan, and hearing story after story from his own members on the lack of staffing and the inability to do the job. The irony is overwhelming. Duheme is even saying now that there is “a recruitment crisis” and the Mounties are now at a “cross roads” in terms of their survival in their present form. So who was lying, the present Mounties in charge in Surrey or the current Commissioner?

The Federal Mounties it seems, still have not figured it out why no one is applying for their department. They now believe that to increase recruitment, the solution will be to further lower the standards. The head of the RCMP in Saskatchewan is Rhonda Blackmore. Ms Blackmore and the brass heading the Saskatchewan RCMP have now created the Saskatchewan RCMP Indigenous Recruiting Unit; who among other things recently sponsored a three day event to recruit indigenous candidates, give them tours of Regina, and were there to “help them fill out the application forms.”

Meanwhile the Feds in RCMP Ottawa, the dreamland capital, are debating reducing the time away from the use of marihuana, before working as a police officer, down to 24 hours– from the current 28 days. By putting scientific evidence aside, there belief is that would then be able to attract those daily doobie smoking future recruits who also have an interest in crime fighting.

Here is a reflective thought. How about they try and attract future police by making the RCMP a viable and expert policing organization once again? It will take longer, it is definitely not an overnight solution, but it will work.

Unfortunately, over the last few weeks and months we continue see the baleagured and beseiged Mounties being thrown to the wolves. The most recent slap in the face was the 123 page report commissioned by the B.C. Public Safety Ministry which stated that Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, a group of over 440 officers with a budget of over $90 million “is neither effective in suppressing gang violence and organized crime nor is it providing the Province with an adequate return on investment”. They described it’s governance as a “tangle of organizations…” that its “funding is unstable”…and that there is a “lack of continuity”…and “high rates of turnover”. The RCMP response to this damning indictment on September 8 for this report that was issued on April 16th, was that they had not yet received a copy of the report. Can anyone imagine a private company or even a government department getting this kind of review and no one being held accountable? The head of CFSEU, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Manny Mann is saying nothing, so one can only hope that he is busy preparing his retirement papers.

Further to the RCMP in Saskatchewan, in the past few months it was also announced that they will be holding two inquiries. The first is the inquiry into the eleven individuals stabbed to death on the James Smith Cree Nation. There is little doubt that it will be comparable to the inquiry in Nova Scotia over the Portapique mass murders in terms of the eventual criticism and the conclusions that will be reached.

It was also in Saskatchewan that the Province is now forming a 70 person Marshall service to deal with property crime at the cost of $20 million, to supplant the lack of attention to rural property crime from the RCMP. It has not been a good time in Saskatchewan lately and it looks like they will be front and centre in the next few months.

So as we have reflected, have we learned? Not really. There seems to be a lot of sameness and it seems that the culprits of the past few months, will be the culprits of the next few months. The problems of the past are ongoing and will continue, the solutions proposed in the past, likely will be the solutions proposed for the future.

I wish I could offer more solace, but at least we took the time to reflect and take a deep breath.

Personally, I am looking forward to the Fall, but mainly because I love baseball– and there is nothing like October baseball.

Start taking down the tents…

Posted on November 27, 2021 by Pete Cross

For some time now, there has been a large tent set up at 134th and 104th Ave– Surrey City hall.

The tempest under the tent is about the nascent Surrey Police Service and it brings to mind the three rings of Barnum & Bailey. Jugglers, hire wire acts, trumpeting elephants, and clown cars all featured as part of what makes up Surrey civic politics.

This show under the big top has been going on for awhile now, it was 2018 when Mayor McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition were voted in, under two main election promises; cancel the contract with the RCMP and secondly the further extension of the skytrain. At the end of this month, the new SPS is to actually begin patrols, in coalition with the RCMP, as this plodding along transition carries on. Many are predicting disharmony, resentment, and at the very best an awkward moment or two.

The transition process has met with infighting, personal barbs and innuendo, even allegations of assault and intimidation have been echoing off the walls of the city council chambers. In the last few weeks it seems to have reached a crescendo of inanity and misinformation. Those of us who once policed this burgeoning municipality of five police districts were often want to say in those days “only in Surrey!” This disparate community has always seemed willing to defy the expected norms of a civil society.

A multi-cultural community of distinct areas, a diverse populace of haves and have-nots, abject poverty and street level violence versus one acre mansions of multi-million dollar homes. Whites, south east Asians, blacks, all forming up in their distinct neighbourhoods of Cloverdale, Newton, Whalley, South Surrey, and Fleetwood.

It should not be assumed that they are living in harmony. In the nineties we patrolled the high schools which were even then being inundated by racist fights between south east asians and caucasians, each group not allowed to enter into the school property of the other. This is to say that there is nothing singular or cohesive about Surrey and there never has been an honest discussion of the many problems which afflict it.

It is a unique area to police and it is where an eye for an eye tooth for a tooth mentality is visceral. Often police officers having worked in Surrey have seen it as a badge of courage having once survived the posting and then moved on. And they almost always move on.

So who are the people in this three ring circus, all vying to drive the clown car?

On the one side is the irascible Mayor McCallum, a curmudgeon, smug, wily, and of long standing. Mr. McCallum has never liked the RCMP, and vice versa. The animosity has always been well known but never publicly stated. This uncomfortable relationship is now coming to a head as the exasperation builds on the part of the Mounties who are about to be booted out and those seeing themselves as pioneering a new police model for the city. Ironically, the people sweeping the place with a clean broom are actually hiring a bunch of ex-Mounties to lead and aid in the takeover.

On the other side is a group of disgruntled and pushed from power politicians, a new union head for the RCMP, and the media who doesn’t like McCallum who continually refuses to be party to their reporting.

Neither side ever reach a point where the real issues could be debated. Both sides continually throwing up illogic and misstatement as their campaigns wage war, and it has reached the stage of the whole exercise being a bad punch line.

The current opposition to the quickly advancing police service is made up primarily of three groups; the National Police Federation with self-appointed constant spokesperson Brian Sauve; the Keep the RCMP in Surrey group and those behind the highly publicized petition entitled “Surrey Police Vote”.

These groups in turn have the political support of the likes of Linda Annis, Brenda Locke, and Jack Hundial. All three of these politicians have a particular political axe to grind. Annis, was the sole politician who survived the purge of the once in control Surrey First group started by Diane Watts. Her antipathy to McCallum has reached a very personal level.

Brenda Locke is also a long standing Liberal, once a Provincial Cabinet Minister and MLA , she too now thwarted by a largely Provincial NDP stronghold in Surrey. Also ironically she, along with Jack Hundial got elected on the coattails and under the banner of Mayor McCallum and the Safe Surrey Coalition who proclaimed the need for a separate police service. Clearly, since then there was a falling out with the mayor and she and Mr Hundial left the civic party and became independents.

Jack Hundial was a police officer with Surrey for 25 years. When McCallum announced the people he had picked for the tripartite transition team, Mr. Hundial found himself left out, out in the cold despite his Surrey policing background. Since that time he has been an outspoken critic of the motion to form a city force even though he, Locke, Annis, and Steven Pettigrew had all originally voted for it.

Knowing Mr. Hundial personally, I was somewhat taken aback at this reversal and his current support of the RCMP after having had many conversations with him about the dysfunctions of the Federal Force which had nursed him and now provides him with a pension. Politics clearly does make strange bedfellows.

All the parties explain their reversal in support because of the “secrecy” they allege about the transition, and the hidden costs they believe are forthcoming. They extoll the fact that the Fed’s subsidize the Mounties to the tune of 10% each year– therefore in theory they are correct, they are likely always going to be a cheaper alternative. The transition costs they allege are skyrocketing and is a harbinger of dangerous over-spending to come.

The current transition costs are estimated to be at $63 million, going up since 2019 when they were estimated to be $45 million. What the councillors don’t often say is that is the estimate is spread over the next five years. Surrey’s current overall budget to offer some perspective, is $1.2 billion with its 600,000 residents., and this year Surrey will be borrowing about $150 million to meet those expenses. The councillors often rant about the costs of transitioning all these officers, but usually do not mention that the vehicles, equipment and station buildings are already owned by the City of Surrey.

The NPF has been quite vocal and has been spending the union dues of their RCMP members to fight against the transition. They often pretend it is an issue of defending their members. They bought and paid for ads, lawn signs, and polls to firm up their position. They continually quote that “84 % “ of Surrey residents have a “favourable impression” of the RCMP and that “76%” say the transition should be “halted”.

The Surrey Safe Coalition headed by MaCallum show their own polling and say that their polls indicate people that only 6% of the Surrey residents prefer keeping the RCMP and their “cardboard cutouts”.

How does one get such disparate polling results. Its all in the questions you ask. Neither poll from either side should be seen as anything more than political posturing.

The NPF has clearly got a reason to fight the situation. They do not want to lose the largest RCMP detachment in Canada and they are clearly worried about these thoughts of policing independent from the Federal force as a possible trend. (Alberta has recently talked about getting rid of the RCMP—and there is a great deal of conjecture that if Surrey falls, there will be renewed consideration for a Lower Mainland Regional Police service –or some version of it). It should also be noted that the new SPS will also be unionized under CUPE. For them, this is a union fight.

So this assembled group of dissenters then added a couple more tactics to their arsenal by introducing a petition to call for a referendum in Surrey utilizing the Referendum Act which flows from Elections B.C. Those that follow this kind of thing would shake their head a bit at this, as it is a momentous task to force a referendum; wherein one is required to obtain 10% of voter support in all the ridings throughout B.C.

Do the people of Castlegar, or Radium, concern themselves with the Surrey police issue? Highly unlikely one would think.

The petition went ahead in any event, entitled the Surrey Police Vote, and it was primarily fronted by the Keep the Police in Surrey group. (Interestingly, this group bragged about raising $10,000.00 for their cause but would not comment how much money came from the NPF)

Somewhere in the process, once they realized that this could never be pulled off Province wide, the group concerned itself with only going after Surrey residents on their petition.

They enlisted Darlene Bennett to head the Committee and Eileen Mohan to be a spokesperson. Both of whom will be remembered as being victims of violence themselves. Darlene’s husband Paul was killed mistakenly in his driveway (still unsolved) and Eileen’s son was killed in the infamous Surrey 6 file. Both horrendous cases, both generating unspoken grief.

However the arguments for retaining the RCMP by these two women although emotional, lacked specifics and quite frankly make little sense. Definitely nothing that could contribute to the debate. Being a victim of crime unfortunately does not necessarily translate into knowing about policing issues. However this group felt that by exploiting their personal agonies it would draw out the petition signers. Quite frankly it was manipulative and crass.

Nevertheless, the petitioners, in a November 15 press conference, publicly proclaimed that they “did it” and held up a sign saying they had raised 42,000 signatures, representing about 13% of the population.

When asked why they think this would succeed, as clearly it did not meet the referendum guidelines, they prevaricate, and dubiously argue that they are asking that the Provincial government to take into consideration the results regardless of it not meeting the current criteria. They are asking that the Provincial government in effect reconsider and change their rules.

During the search for signatories the rhetoric and nonsense escalated. The group argued that they were being harassed by Bylaw enforcement and that they were being victimized by he slow turnaround at Elections B.C. Paul Daynes of Keep the RCMP in Surrey called McCallum a “little tinpot fascist dictator”. McCallum in turn banned seven members of the Keep the RCMP in Surrey group from the city council meetings.

Then there was “Toe Gate” on September 4^th. In the normally placid South Surrey enclave of the well off, McCallum confronted some petitioners who were using the Save On Foods parking lot as a place to rally the troops. A verbal argument ensued between one of the petition organizers, Ivan Scott, who was sitting in his car, and McCallum who was standing outside it. After going back and forth and Scott demanding McCallum resign, Scott drove off, and McCallum argued turned the car in such a way as to hit him in the hip and drive over his toe. McCallum contacted the police and made allegations of assault.

The RCMP somewhat surprisingly, within a week then swore out a search warrant for CTV video footage of the interview of McCallum, under the auspices of a possible public mischief charge, clearly implying they did not believe McCallum. Having worked in Surrey for many years, public mischief is not usually a first step, so there is good reason to believe that this too is politically motivated. As a result, the Provincial government has had to hire a Special Prosecutor to look into it. We are still awaiting that judgement and the Keep the Police Surrey movement needless to say is hoping to see McCallum led off in handcuffs. It seems unlikely.

Where is Commissioner Lucki in all this? Should we assume she is under some sort of gag order from the Liberals?

However, the comment about the “cardboard cutout” mounties stirred the harnessed wrath of Assistant Commissioner Brian Edwards, head of the Surrey RCMP, who called the remark a “deliberate attempt to undermine public safety”. That the tweet was “disrespectful” by “ending public confidence in policing at the current time”. Really?

The coalition group responded “in spite of the efforts of a bitter minority surely the indignation that he has voiced today equally applies to these groups organized efforts to de-stabilize and de-moralize our city’s incoming police force”.

And where is the Provincial NDP government in all this? Well they are busy reviewing the overall structure of the police in B.C., by examining the structure of the Police Act to: “examine systemic racism and modernize laws in alignment with UNDRIP (the U.N declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)”.

To sum the issues up which are facing Surrey residents is in fact quite easy. Do the citizens of Surrey wish to have a more accountable police department? If so, how much are they willing to pay for it? There is no doubt among the current officers of Surrey detachment that the RCMP, in its many and varied forms is suffering—at every level.

Would or should the cost savings mean more to Surrey residents than being subservient to Ottawa and susceptible to the vagaries of Federal policies–which seem more intent on gender identification than the property crime rates in Whalley?

No need to worry about the officers in Surrey. They will be just fine, they will move on to other details, other detachments and other policing challenges; and Ottawa might finally get the message of growing discontent and the need to reform.

The citizens of Surrey clearly voiced their opinion once before and decided to elect McCallum and his platform.

It is clearly time to undo the tent pegs and bring down the circus tent.

Time to move on.

Photo courtesy of Steve Parker via Flickr Creative Commons – Some rights Reserved

Going Gently into the Homicide Night…

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Pete Cross

On the now widely circulated dash cam footage, on a clear sunny day near the Vancouver International Airport, a black Honda Pilot flies through an intersection, a witness recording the chase excitedly exclaiming that there was a shot fired. A few seconds later, the police car slowly drifts up into the camera angle, to the same intersection, slowly coasting to a stop. A fitting metaphor to the ponderous decline of the abilities of new age policing. The gentler, kinder, softer police up against a rash of gang related homicides which are now plaguing the lower mainland of British Columbia.

As maddening as it was to watch a police officer give up on a pursuit of these brazen suspects, who had a few seconds before, emptied a clip into Karman Grewal— no apparent inner rage on the part of the officer at having been shot at— it was even more frustrating to watch the spin of the executives of the police brass as they scramble to make the old failed attempts at gang intervention and containment look new.

One should disregard the ridiculous often asinine media commentary of the last number of days with their simplistic pronouncements and their exclamations of how the police need to do more. The police executive are 21^st century conditioned now though, to always respond to the media inanities, no matter how futile the exercise, while at the same time only capable of trotting out the usual 20^th century bromides.

Spokesperson for the responding Integrated Homicide Team Sgt Frank Jang, in a presser at the Airport, implores those misunderstood gangsters to “Please don’t kill one another”. In feigned disbelief he laments and states the obvious, that these incorrigibles “are putting us all in jeopardy”.

Other police responses are equally predictable. “More visible police presence” exclaims the new CFSEU head, Assistant Commissioner Manny Mann, who explains that there are “more gangs than there were 11 years ago” . Don’t fret he says, they are going to counter with ”intelligence led policing”.

Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, now head of Federal, Investigative Services and Organized Crime (FISOC) assures the public that the police are “working around the clock” to solve the 10 shootings since April.

Solicitor General Mike Farnsworth had a meeting with all the LMD police executives wherein they “share their collected and unified strategies”. Assuring all that will listen, that there was an “intelligence led enforcement under way” and that they were engaged in “proactive enforcement”. This is followed by the obligatory “your safety is our number one priority”. The subsequent police press release from this meeting signed by all the Chiefs assured us that they will “not waver in our relentless pursuit to prevent, suppress and investigate”. (They should have sent that memo to the police officer in Richmond— at least the part about the relentless pursuit.)

Over the last number of years as policing transitioned to social work, there was the singular solution to this mess. Sociological bandages all coming from a friendlier, more understanding and diverse police departments, all playing on the theme of prevention. The need to stop these kids from entering the gangs in the first place was the stated belief.

“Stop Now and Plan” (SNAP), “Multi-Agency School Support Team” (MAAST-Calgary), “Wraparound”, then “High Fidelity Wraparound” which was “a complex, multi-faceted intervention strategy aimed at youth crime and gang prevention”. “Youth at Risk Development” (YARD- Calgary) “Positive Attention to Youth Gangs” (PAYG), “Regina Anti-Gang Services Project” (RAGS). And in Abbotsford in 2013 the “In it Together” campaign.

The latest academic treatise which has been making the rounds; the Irving Spergel Comprehensive Gang Prevention Model (Dr. Spergel is from the University of Chicago).

None of the above programs could ever be proven to be effective, so they proffer up anecdotal evidence of a young person turning the corner. It should be considered irrelevant to the gang homicide discussion. No program ever admits defeat however, but if they do it is almost always blamed on a lack of funding or “limited police capacity”. By the way Sgt Jang is now asking parents to report on their kids which is probably not in the spirit of the afore mentioned programs.

Other most recent solutions include the Vancouver City Police have putting out a poster with several persons they describe as being at “risk”, people you shouldn’t be around. Presumably these are aimed at people who already hang around the chain wearing Mercedes driving bad guys, directing them to run the other way and maybe call CrimeStoppers and see if you can get a reward for their efforts. One has to also wonder the criteria for selection for this recent imitation of a wild west “Wanted” poster, but you can be rest assured that the individuals chosen will see this as a medal and not a blemish on their budding Scarface careers.

The Delta PD, for their part have recently introduced an “interdiction” team, rather than a target team. When in doubt, change the name.

The National Police Federation in one of the silliest statements during this time, is urging the new Surrey Police Force to stop recruiting from the other departments as it is hurting in their gang fight. (This is the same NPF who has argued for the last number of months that no one is leaving the RCMP to go to this new outfit)

In 2014 CFSEU was bragging about how their hard work had led to a reduction in gang homicide. So in 2021 should we conclude that they haven’t been working as hard? Of course not, there are a lot of hard working, albeit frustrated officers running from pillar to post, trying to patch a case together despite all the significant hurdles.

If one wants to seriously counter some of the gang violence and I am not sure they do, then you must look at and dissect the issues that are impairing the police at this time.

There are three parts to every homicide, gang related or not. There is the finding and arrest of the suspect; putting the case together to get charge approval; and, finally leading it through the Courts.

Unfortunately, while policing has been strapping on body cams to defend against all arrests being racist, these three stages have developed significant barriers to combatting gang related violence. These hurdles have been growing for a number of years in size and scope and this sorry state of affairs has been brought about by senior police managers, the Crown and the Judicial court system.

Almost all gang related homicides are solved on two fronts. Simply put, by uniform officers working in the patrol cars— and by informants. “Intelligence led policing” would be in a very distant third place. Any significant gang arrests over the years, have been brought about by attentive policing on the street level and by gangsters turning on themselves.

So to significantly combat the gangs, more uniform officers are needed and they need to be fully supported. They need to be engaged in pro-active checks, confident in their grounds and support of their supervisors and managers. They need to once again gain control “of the streets” to the point where the gangsters are fearful of being checked with a gun in the car or breaching their probation and parole curfews. This has to be accompanied by a strong physical presence.The managers like to talk about “boots on the ground” however nowhere has there been a re-structuring of the organizations to insure the uniform officer contingent is the most valued, the best staffed, and where one goes to earn those promotions.

The need for informants. This blog has written previously about the need for “rats” so there is no need to go into it deeper at this time. But the use of informants has to be both condoned and emphasized a practise which has fallen into disrepair in this social worker age. It needs to be re-instated. Funds have to be made available for agents, rewards, and re-location. Most importantly the reporting process for this has to be heavily redacted and stream lined. The RCMP is the biggest offender in this regard and have literally through bureaucratic oversight killed (pardon the pun) the use of paid informants.

Once the culprits are arrested, you are only part way there. To state it the most simply, Crown needs to come back to the charge approval of “beyond a reasonable doubt”and away from beyond absolute doubt which they seem to have adopted in the last number of years.

This goes hand and glove with the need to address the problems of “disclosure”. In layman’s terms, disclosure is the need for full and frank exposure of all relevant investigative material to the courts and the defence. The police and the Crown have been erring on the side of caution over the last number of years interpreting relevant to mean “all” investigative material and this in combination of digital record keeping have seen files grow in size from a couple of hundred pages to averaging over five thousand pages. It has even morphed into the warrant applications where at one time they were a few pages long to now look they were written by Tolstoy. All of it is time consuming, manpower heavy, and the vast majority of the information produced of no probative value. Cases have become so heavy in terms of disclosure that they have become mired in a state of suspension, never going forward in a timely way and running headlong into the Jordan decision, which requires timely Court proceedings.

Finally there is a BC Court system, a court system, which has still failed to recognize that the Hells Angels are a criminal organization.

Lets face it, B.C. is Canada’s version of California, a society highly tolerant of criminal and predatory behaviour. The billion dollar drug industry and all the violence that comes with it is virtually ignored in this part of the country and this is simply the payback.

Drugs are the root of the gang wars, control of the turf paramount to their money and stature. The B.C. Government continues to turn a blind eye, whether it be drugs, the laundering of monies or the street crime on the downtown Eastside. It’s the three pillar approach the social workers and the welfare infrastructure exclaims and points to as the solution. If any of this is to change the Judges need to be governed by the protection of the public not the welfare of the suspect. In this new age of “defunding the police” this may be the most difficult wall to climb.

As those inside the system know, the amount of change that is needed is indeed staggering, requiring all levels of government to come together and make real court tested changes. There is a need for strong and formidable police leadership. Advancement of one’s career in policing is now attached to the ability to appease, to talk the talk of diversity and inclusion not the usurping of criminal behaviour. The police executives seem content to absorb themselves in the spin to the public, promoted by keeping the public satisfied, even if it means lying to them.

The BC government has no problem, in this time of Covid, of directing police resources and breaching the Charter rights, to check for people going camping. A rather laughable effort to stem virus transmission, but have shown no interest in a concerted effort against the gangsters who have been recently opening fire on outside dining spots.

The officers of IHIT and other homicide agencies are spinning their wheels, albeit making a lot of money doing it, as overtime is driving file costs in the neighbourhood of half a million dollars per file. There are 400 officers in CFSEU, 100 plus officers in IHIT, now being out gunned by teenage hoodie wearing gangsters with under nourished intelligence. It’s frustrating to them and it’s frustrating to the general public. Prof Gordon of Simon Fraser University, never one to dodge the cameras, when asked when the gangster war will ease said, “probably when they run out of targets”.

Unfortunately, he’s probably right.

Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons by Mika ___ Some Rights Reserved

The Pay Raise Gamble

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Pete Cross

Police officers and their managers have always had a comfy, cocoon like existence —somewhat removed from the economic up and down and cycles of the “real” world. Profit, loss and the measurement of productivity is an anathema to the world of policing.

They have often been able to “social distance” itself from the the pettiness and give and take of pesty budget concerns. “Cutbacks” during the last few decades, and especially in the RCMP has never really been in the policing lexicon.

To be sure there were years where in the “police universe” the Mounties received the short end of the stick, falling behind some of the bigger municipalities, at least for short periods of time. In the end, the Mounties were almost always dragged up the wage ladder by the other unionized forces across Canada.

There was a time when the Federal government “froze” the wages of government workers, but that time is lost to the institutional memory of this group of officers. But for the most part, time was always on their side and the Mounties were able to live off the others. Their “universe” was a close orbit, made up of only other police agencies. When given to complain, the RCMP officers were only forced to an easy comparison. Any higher wage was justified by pointing to those other cops on the other side of the street. If they got a raise, you got a raise.

Quite naturally, there was no comparison to the economic worlds around them—those who were paying the freight. To be fair, the lack of caring or understanding of the general population mood is a characteristic of all government. Mounties policing in small towns were unfazed and unconcerned about the local budgets in terms of wages and salaries, their vision solely focused on the universal wage for police that was being determined in Ottawa. There was a constant and repetitious cry for new officers whenever a a detachment commander appeared before city counsel and never would it be couched in terms of concern for an overall budget.

This all may be about to change.

Bankruptcy is now facing various governments on all three levels. The blame for these financial circumstances which have been thrust upon them, points directly at the “fight” against the “virus”.

Albeit, these same governments have cheered on the Federal government and their daily largesse. Every level of politician during this time had only one concern when pressed and that was to keep the electorate consoled. Only the truly brave offered up any question as to the need to be fiscally responsible.

So as the CERB cheques and business loans were shotgunned out to those in need, the deficit balloon rose to unrecognizable levels. The fiscal hammer above the political heads across the country got raised up further every day. And as gravity tells us, that hammer will eventually come down. The economic light will be shining very brightly on the unbridled spending in the next few months, and the glow from the economic fallout may be lasting for many years.

Even before the “virus”, this blogger wrote several months ago, about the revelation that the Ontario government and various Ontario municipalities were trying to come to grips with budget shortfall issues and in particular with the growth of police budgets. The “ratcheting” of police and fire budgets was finally reaching levels where they began to get noticed.

Defending the spending, fell to the age old axiom of the need for “public safety”. This tired and repetitious explication is now being seriously questioned for the first time in many years.

A number of police departments have three year Constable pay levels which have breached that psychological barrier of $100,000 and Police and fire services continue to grow at levels beyond the reach of the general population where salaries have stagnated for the last number of years. Police and fire budgets as a portion of municipal and provincial budgets is now the elephant in the hearing room.

Tremors of anxiety are beginning to vibrate through the policing world as the word “cutback” is seeping in, gradually, but now discussed as an imaginable option.

This nervousness and angst finally touched down in the lotus land capital of Vancouver. This is happening in a city where government decidedly leans to the left and spends money on the services of the downtown Eastside like drunken sailors on shore leave. Although, it should not be totally surprising or unexpected when this is the same government which views whale-watching and the dispensing of cannabis edibles as suitable economic replacements for lumber or the building of gas pipelines.

That aside, the City of Vancouver now finds itself facing a $152 million shortfall (Surrey is facing a $42 million shortfall as a comparison). The loss of jobs and shuttered businesses drying up revenues. Many argue that the full economic destruction has yet to be felt in this City of the Dispossessed.

The other cognizant point which needs to be included in this discussion– the City of Vancouver has a legally dictated obligation to balance the budget.

Canada’s third largest city has an overall budget of $1.6 billion. The Vancouver City Police now make up 21% of that overall budget with an annual expenditure of $340.4 million. And the greatest portion of the Vancouver city police budget is for salaries.

To meet this $150 million shortfall the City of Vancouver has already proposed a very substantial increase of 8.2% in property taxes.

During this time they had also written to the Vancouver City police board to ask that they come up with proposals for possible budget cuts. That was on April 14, 2020. OnApril 27^th, the Police Board responded but didn’t offer any spending cuts. So City counsel imposed a 1% pay cut in the police budget, which amounted to a $3.5 million cut out of the $340 million pie for the remainder of 2020.

They also directed, maybe more significantly, that the Vancouver Police Board in their pursuit of collective agreements with all of the three involved unions at the Police Department— that there will be a stipulated 0% increase in 2020.

Now, it would seem to most observers’ and probably the taxpayers of Vancouver that the proposed cuts and their proportion to the overall budget are in fact quite reasonable under these financial circumstances. But predictably, Chief Adam Palmer felt that the cuts were disastrous and went to the media with his complaint.

What did he offer up as his major concern?

Well “public safety” of course.

“Public safety”according to Chief Palmer was now once again in jeopardy due in part to the increase in “anti Asian racism complaints” that the Vancouver City Police were needing to now handle in the age of the virus.

Well, it least it shows some politically correct astute thinking on behalf of the Chief, but no one is going to believe that the few cases or a rise in commercial break-ins which have emerged have pushed this City department to the precipice.

He also argued that City counsel did this without further conferences with him; he did not mention that he had been given opportunities to get involved in the cutbacks— but maybe being in that police cocoon may have thwarted his belief that someone would dare to cut his employees. (It should be pointed out that the Fire Department, which is always aware of its political surroundings, voluntarily made their own cutbacks.)

The Vancouver City Police union predictably also chimed in. They said that with the cutbacks and the disintegrating morale, many officers may choose to leave for the upcoming new police force in Surrey. The fact that Vancouver City could lose a number of officers to the proposed new Force is a bit of a red herring, as it is already being planned in the VPD that even outside of any budget complaints– they are going to lose a number of officers to Surrey.

Some sources tell me that the management of the VPD are planning on the possibility that they could lose up to 200 officers to the new agency.

The ripple effect of this Surrey agency is also going to impact dramatically with the Cities of West Vancouver, Delta, and New Westminster PD’s, but that is for another blog.

So where does this place the new union of the RCMP as they start building their case with Treasury Board for a 17% pay increase nationally. They are normally not encumbered by any sense of fiscal fallout, but along comes the damned Corona virus. The monkey wrench has now clearly been thrown into the cozy often egocentric policing world.

It is one thing for the Federal government to feel that the Mounties need or should get a pay raise. Clearly the Liberal government is in a spending mood, so maybe Mr Trudeau will extend his daily giveaways. A 17% increase seems like a stretch at the best of times but under these depression/recession times it may be a little much to swallow all in one gulp for any government.

But the biggest flaw in this large increase is not the willingness of the Federal government, it is that almost all of the raise would be simply pushed on to the municipalities and Provinces. At most the Feds would only have to pay 30% of that raise for those involved in contract policing. The rest, up to 90% in the case of Burnaby, or Coquitlam, has to be paid by the municipalities. As the municipal agencies are already crying to the Federal government for further financial support because of the virus burden, they would be incensed to have another huge expenditure thrust on them.

So this leaves the Feds in a rather difficult and untenable position. Nor is it an easy one for the new leadership of the Mountie union. Now no longer needing to prostrate themselves before Treasury Board, but now facing some extraordinary budget considerations.

In terms of the policing structure in the Lower Mainland, and in the rural Provincial contracts, managers may be looking over the precipice of a significant re-structuring of the policing dynamics throughout this country. It’s possible that the virus will also be the catalyst that will re-awaken talks of Provincial forces, a Federal government RCMP/FBI, and regional police forces.

It could also mean– dare it be said, “cutbacks”.

For the younger RCMP officers, just like their Vancouver counterparts, their future may be the new Surrey PD, the same group recently lampooned by the Mountie union.

The next 12 months will be telling. The Mounties will build their case, no doubt continually underlining their current standing in the police universe and equally predictable, will be arguing “public safety”; striving for that instant 17% increase.

But, if you were gambling on the bet of a substantial RCMP raise, an odds maker may be telling you to now to “take the under”.

Photo Courtesy of Eric Flexyourhead via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved

The NPF- Plunging into Surrey politics

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Pete Cross

Now that we all have been satiated, assured by Toyota, Ikea, and the Muffler shop, and of course the beloved Bonny Henry, that they are all here for us during these trying times, maybe it is time to talk about something else as we head or get driven to a utopian “new normal”.

Recently, Brian Sauve the President and leader of the newly formed National Police Federation, which represents those in the red scarlet, managed to divert the news briefly and our attention with his pro-active coming out stance in arguing for the retention of the RCMP in Surrey.

In the last number of days in fact Mr. Sauve has been doing the full rock and roll circuit; visiting the CBC, the Province newspaper, CTV news, and running three full page ads in Surrey’s local newspaper extolling both the virtues of the RCMP and stating as the gospel truth –that the citizens of Surrey want to retain the RCMP.

So naturally interest was piqued. Puzzling somewhat, that at this late juncture, Mr. Sauve who barely has his feet wet in his new role has apparently decided, one would assume along with his senior managers to jump with both feet into the Surrey and Provincial political arena.

It should be said that Police unions have the right to be political, but this particular set of circumstances in Surrey seems curious on a few levels. Police enjoy discretionary powers in this country and are formally required to be non-political, so a union representing those police are in a rather unique position requiring balance and forethought.

Clearly the NPF and its 20,000 strong membership are concerned about losing Canada’s biggest RCMP detachment to another union. Nobody wants to lose 850 members (about 4% of their union) before they even get started. But, according to the NPF web site there is a deeper reason for their stance: “This is about your national labour relations agency standing up for the exceptional work of all our members across Canada and internationally.”

Does the RCMP and the NPF feel chastened? Is it possible that they have missed the broader issues or more accurately the issues which have been raised by Surrey and have chosen to ignore the specifics, and just feel insulted?

Mr. Sauve seems to be conflating a local political issue with the reputation of the entire RCMP throughout Canada. He does not seem to understand that this a big city issue where the RCMP is being questioned and has been for a number of years, on its effectiveness vis a vis another more locally controlled city department. This should not be viewed as a personal affront to the membership of the RCMP. Surrey is primarily seeking a change in structure, to no longer report to the three headed monster of Ottawa; to convert to an agency which may be more fitting to a municipal sized police force.

Mr. Sauve, more than most, should be aware of the issues within the RCMP which have been plaguing them for the last number of years, yet he feels the need to argue that they are the best solution under these circumstances? His argument if stretched out is that a unionized RCMP would be better than an independent municipal, also unionized force.

Three of the four main players of the NPF: President Sauve, Vice-President Dennis Miller and VP Michelle Boutin all were part of the SRR program. There they would have argued for and defended members against the arbitrary and pernicious management of the RCMP.

The fourth VP, Pete Merrifield evven stands out a bit from the others. If there was anyone who may be a little jaundiced with the RCMP and maybe even hold a tinge of bitterness towards them it should be Merrifield. Pete Merrifield during a 7 year stint, sued the Force for harassment after he had become involved with the Conservative Party of Ontario.

In February 2017 a Superior Court ruled in Mr. Merrifield’s favour awarding him $141,000 for the “unrelenting harassment” he suffered and an additional $825,000 to cover his legal expenses. This was no small victory, but unfortunately for him it was short lived.

The Appellate Court rejected the lower court. In fact they went even further stating that Merrifield had not been “completely truthful” with his superiors and had given them reason to “mistrust” him.

Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Mr. Merrifield’s appeal to the highest court.

All four of these individuals in the last number of years, clearly reached a point in their beliefs that the massive problems within the RCMP and its system could not be corrected without independent representation. A union was desperately needed they would have argued.

Is it not fanciful that this same group of individuals is now arguing that this same flawed RCMP management is now better than another agency regardless of its makeup?

Is it possible that after a lifelong career in the RCMP these individuals who were “members” of the RCMP can not separate their apparent comfort and loyalty to the RCMP from their new roles as advocates for their membership.

However, my biggest concern in that this new union group has gone a step further than a policy decision to defend the RCMP in Surrey; but in order to defend it vigorously they went and paid for a slanted “survey” –to argue and prove their point and have been holding it up as their evidence throughout their media campaign.

The survey was conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights .

If one was conducting a survey to determine the wishes of the general population with regard to police force of choice, wouldn’t the obvious and clear question that should be posited would be: Do you prefer retaining the RCMP over forming a new police agency?

But clearly the NPF requisitioned this survey because they wanted to make sure it backed up their political argument. A straightforward and clear question may have resulted in statistics that may have not fit in as easily with the political argument that they wished to launch.

So they made sure that the question was couched in terms that would prove more favourable.

The survey asked whether in these times of the virus and municipal funds taking a beating, whether the taxpayers of Surrey should be spending additional monies on a separate police agency. The weighted survey question, which was randomly sent out to 803 people asked:

“With the CoVid virus causing a major disruption” is now the time to “replace the Mounties?”

This was after the city of Surrey revealed that due to the virus and the shutdown, Surrey counsel would be running a $42million budget shortfall.

This style and question format linked the budget deficit and the fear of the coronavirus to convince the polled that this was not the “time” for a change. They then took the favourable responses, translated, and interpreted these results to say that 77% support keeping the RCMP and 82% support a referendum.

The clearly planted headline in the Surrey Now-Leader said: “New Poll Indicates 83 per cent of Surreyites say now not the time to replace the RCMP.” And they argued that 90% of the respondents agree that it is time to take a “step back and evaluate its spending plans to ensure that they are focused on the most urgent priorities”.

This is spin, and spin which has been done in such a fashion as to be disingenuous if not duplitcious.

So what should we take from all this? The NPF in its infancy as a union —elections only recently conducted for detachment representatives this month —has decided to enter the political arena, to fight the duly elected and mandated government. This despite that the political mandate of the Mayor in Surrey was very clear during the last election and was totally tied the wanting of a new police force.

Sauve is now publicly saying that the Mayor should have another new referendum on the same issue and vigorously points to the “new survey” as evidence of the wishes of the Surrey residents, bought and paid for by the RCMP union membership.

The illustrious Surrey councillor Linda Annis has been coaxing the NPF in promoting both the survey and the need for a referendum. Annis is that Surrey counsellor who has long been in a political fight with MacCallum and who has been pushed from her corridor of power since the last election.

Annis, despite being always commenting or extolling the virtues of the RCMP in her fight with MacCallum has this blogger’s vote as probably the most ill-informed politician in this debate. Her arguments for the retention of the RCMP border on ludicrous in her effort to get back to power. For example, when asked why it wasn’t possible that some members of the Surrey RCMP may choose to go to the new agency, she felt that was not possible— because when they became police officers —they choose the RCMP. Who could argue with that logic? Apparently she had never heard of officers changing agencies.

On a recent talk show on CKNW, emboldened by the interviewer Sauve argued that the Mounties were doing “a great job”, “despite the fact that Surrey has under-funded the RCMP for years”. He repeated a few times that the RCMP was doing a “wonderful job” in Surrey and pointed to the evidence that the crime rate has been falling in Surrey for the last fourteen years. This is a trend throughout Canada and not just Surrey but why quibble with details.

He was asked about the need for more officers on the street to fight the gang violence. He pointed to the amazing job the RCMP Youth group was doing in fighting the gang problem.

He grasped further by saying that if the community wanted more cops on the street, then maybe they should be discussing increasing funding to the RCMP. So Mr Sauve, had up to this time, structured his argument to retain the RCMP with the need to save money. But if the voters were not satisfied then one of his solutions was to spend more money on the RCMP if they wanted more officers on the street.

This back and forth countering logic is a little disconcerting and shows a very shallow understanding of the issues in Surrey.

So we end up back at the question. Is the NPF loyalty to the RCMP pushing this drive? Is their argument that no one is better than the Mounties in any circumstance? This despite having been dealing with the vagaries of the RCMP management for years; sexual harassment, claims in the hundreds of millions of dollars, still this group feels that their unionized environment within the RCMP will be better then the unionized environment in a new fresh Municipal Force.

As their primary function is to represent their membership, do they realize that a lot of Mounties currently in Surrey may switch to a new agency and it may be in their best interest to do so.

Maybe this is an overreaction. Maybe some officers feel better that the NPF is defending them as the Force has been going through many years of criticism. But they are late to the game, since its possible that the newly approved Surrey Police Force could be in effect as early as April 2021, less than a year away.

As a new union, the early days are crucial, as they try to build a credible and strong representative group. They have many diverse issues in front of them, all of which will demand their utmost attention. Their membership will become increasingly more demanding as the union begins to form and get involved in the various facets of police personnel administration. This will be nothing like the SRR program. They will need to exude the utmost professionalism because now there will be exposure and accountability.

This is not the time to get into a fight with a duly elected and mandated government and now is not the time to demand something which is outside their purview or control. Now, was not the time to put up a slanted survey, or to gather behind the likes of Linda Annis.

In the future, any political arguments will need to become a little more sophisticated. The NPF will need to be smarter. This is new world for everyone. The new RCMP membership is now paying for you —and they are watching.

Photo courtesy of Ewe Neon via Flickr Commons — Some rights reserved

In Need of Love…

Posted on August 3, 2019 by Pete Cross

Policing like most trends in society has often been described as being on a constant invisible pendulum, not necessarily evolutionary, but constantly moving to or away from its central role and the perception of that role in the eyes of the public.

In the 1950’s the cop was perceived as stern but benign face, but mostly fair. A neighbourhood icon, someone familiar with each and everyone, the good people and the troubled. Quiet justice was enforced, discreet sometimes to a fault. The cop was part of a Norman Rockwell painting, an emblem of a white middle class, protecting values of the then well-defined church and state.

The 1960’s brought on Woodstock, kids were dropping in or dropping out. An amalgam of life currents where below the surface, there was a brewing discontent, aimed at a war in Viet Nam, or more loosely, anything representing the establishment. Woodstock was the age of Aquarius, set in an unlikely location, a coming together on a bucolic dairy farm in up state New York.

But, it was also the year of Charles Manson and his followers. A vicious and random massacre of nine innocents– Aquarius now blending with Helter Skelter. The peace symbol tilted and perverted into a Nazi symbol.

Joan Didion in her book ‘ The White Album’ detailed this era when drugs were mixing with the Black Panthers; where a communal sense of well being was being curiously mixed with a sense of paranoia and detachment.

The pendulum had moved decidedly to the left. Cops began growing into the enemy. A thousand young Americans were dying every month in 1968 in Viet Nam generating protest after protest on streets and on campuses throughout the United States. During a political convention in Chicago violence erupted, cops now featured on the television screens of America beating on people mercilessly with their night sticks. The violence was now coming directly to the people through their television sets, aimed at the contented middle class as they ate their t.v. dinners on their couches and loungers.

The police represented “the man”, stalwart defenders of the establishment, tools of the rich, now being repeatedly termed racist, amid accusations of brutality. The disquieted older generation still sided with the cops for the most part, but in this Nixonian age public opinion would eventually swing to the young.

J Edgar Hoover continued building the FBI into a monolith, his iron-gripped tenure lasting until 1972. But, even this agency fell into distrust when it was learned that its agents were also gathering information on sometimes legitimate dissenters.

Policing on every front was now becoming suspect in its intent and motivations.

Extolling the virtues of remaining some distance from the bad influences of the U.S., Canada, with its hybrid French/English policing efforts began to grow in size and scope, but Canadian policing management and Canadian policies kept one eye trained to the goings on south of the border.

The RCMP now formed the nucleus of policing in Canada. It was a para-military organization from the outset where discipline and adherence to the orders of one’s superiors was sacrosanct, untouchable, never challenged, never questioned.

Gradually the influences of the neighbours to the south began to seep into the mindset of Canadians and thus policing managers. SWAT became ERT, Homicide cops became Serious Crime or Major Crime Units.

It was confusing too many, even those inside Canadian police groups, who tried to keep up with this somewhat copycatted version of policing during this growth process. Dissemination was followed by integration. Integration followed by de-centralization.

The RCMP was further confounded by trying to be all things to all people–mixed mandates, Provincial, Municipal and Federal responsibilities all overlapping in some governmental policy rubik’s cube.

Cops in Canada during the 1970’s were perceived as gentler, more open to argument or differing views than their American counter parts. They initially believed that the problems of the Chicago south side, or the Bronx could not be applied to the suburbs of Mississauga or Burnaby.

But then the downtown skids of Vancouver began to grow and expand; the Mafia took root in Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton. The Hells Angels were no longer restricted to Northern California and were not just a disenfranchised bunch of rogues.

Heroin, cocaine, and poverty began to drive the crime rates. The police both inside and outside management felt that they needed to become more like their American counterparts– more street cop, crime fighters, disciplined, and brothers in arms; the blue wall was being built brick by brick.

Crime rates, including homicides began to reach its zenith from the years 1968-1983.

It was into this generation that most of us, newly retired or about to retire baby boomers grew up and thrived. Solving the case was your reason for being, sometimes by any means; burning barns in Quebec to combat the FLQ a glaring example. You needed to be tough, you needed to exude combativeness, you always needed to get your man. It was during this time that Pierre Trudeau said “Just watch me” in instituting the War Measures Act and bringing in the army to the streets of Montreal. Even the politicians of the time had developed an edge.

Internally police officers gravitated to alcohol and cigarettes which were proscribed to combat the fear or what was witnessed on the street; a way to dull the observations of man’s inhumanity to man.

And you always respected the uniform, the symbol of what you stood for, some battles won, some lost, but it was us against them. You were proud to be standing in blue.

Then the pendulum began to swing left, just like in the U.S. Criticisms of the police and their policies began to emerge. The barn burning turned into the MacDonald Commission, which would eventually strip Security Service from the Mounties and lead to the formation of CSIS.

Problems were identified as originating with policing not being representative of the very population over which they held sway. Policing was portrayed as neanderthal, incapable of adapting to the new realities.

It was gradual, as the old guard kicked up a fuss over the hiring of females in the early 1970’s, but the theory being that women would bring a more humane and understanding attitude to the hardened police departments managed to hold sway. There was a loosening of physical height and weight restrictions to try and be realistic in terms of the physical differences between man and woman, or the different ethnicities. The Bill of Rights in the United States became the Charter of Rights in Canada. Some still saw it as a general slide into policing oblivion.

The pendulum continued to swing to the outward reaches of the left. Representation became inclusion in all its forms. Natural recruiting programs, since they were still failing, were replaced by affirmative action hiring, promotional incentives dangled in front of all who had the cultural genetics to claim to be one of the dis-enfranchised.

Police wanted to be one with the public. Not distant enforcers, but caring, understanding and educated in the cultural differences, and therefore as the theory went, trusted by these groups to the point that they were better able to deal with crime.

A subtle switch to crime prevention, crime enforcement now in the background to a myriad of social worker styled programs –community outreach, school liaison, bike patrols, and victim services.

The police now wanted to be loved. They are being ordered and taught to be more sensitive. They wanted to be seen as persons who suffered from the same problems as the general public, no longer the immovable rock of authority, but able to cry and empathize. We are people too and we need a hug from time to time.

If everybody grew to love the police, the job of policing would be better served–again, in theory anyways.

And more dramatically in terms of its effect, the Mounties decided that it was ok to be political in their ongoing battle to be sympathetic to all causes, whether it be gender, ethnic or life-style based.

Recently Surrey Detachment hung the Gay Pride flag at the detachment. It was met with some opposition, and even the City of Surrey declined to enter into this political fray in case of appearing to one-sided. The local Mounties did not see a problem.

In a recent circulating video a red serged Mountie, also in Surrey, became another one of the “dancing cops”; this Mountie lip syncing to Queen–mincing and strutting at the Gay Pride festival to the applause of those attending.

Many are beginning to feel brave enough to voice concerns over this latest evidence of the pendulum going too far. They point out that Section 37 (d) of the RCMP Code of Conduct states that the Mounties are to “avoid any actual, apparent or potential conflict of interest” and according to the deportment guidelines, Section 7.1 of the Code of Conduct ‘Objectives’ states that “members behave in a manner that is not likely to discredit the Force”.

Does this most recent caricature of a gay Mountie cross the line? it all depends on where you think the pendulum is right now.

Does the striving and quest for acceptance and love by all supersede the need to be neutral? Does it allow for such obvious pandering? The local RCMP justify it by saying “the RCMP lead by example in promoting diversity and inclusion”.

Management does seem to have lost the ability to see that this was a political supportive statement of a specific political group and its mandate, being still blinded and forever loyal to the government led need for “inclusion”.

Under this obvious strategy the obvious question that never seems to be asked is, does it work?

Did years of marching in the Pride parade in Toronto, aid or hinder the gay community criticism or aid in the investigation of the Bruce McArther killings? The Toronto Police , despite their loving efforts, were even disinvited to the parade this year. (Of course, the Toronto Police Chief vowed to work harder to understand why they have been disenfranchised. )

So the pendulum slows slightly in its grind to the left, but police management seems unable to change track, unable to move away from this politicization of their agency.

The overall effects of the politics of inclusion will probably be unknown or even measured in the coming years, as government rarely looks at things that don’t work; but cracks are beginning to show. Surrey RCMP faced protestors in the raising of the Pride flag and one could argue that the attempt to switch from the local RCMP detachment to a civilian Force is the result of people tiring of the current political model of the RCMP, that they just want safer streets.

In somewhat menacing fashion, right wing political populism is growing around the world, reflective of a changing mood, whether it be to immigration or justice.

There is evidence of growing crime rates after being at all time lows.

Some may argue that all this political pandering works, but only when political culture remains calm, when the public is economically content. That too may be changing. One only needs to look once again to south of the border.

The middle class is in jeopardy, being gradually forced to two ends of the wealth spectrum. Economics or more specifically, economic power, may be a better measure of the need and demand for policing change. Poverty breeds unrest. Unrest breeds violence and a call for stricter policing.

In Canada, the latest ‘Breaking News’ and the fodder for all amateur sleuths and commentary is the ongoing search for two Port Alberni teenage alleged “killers”. The focus on the police intensifies with each passing day.

What does the public want? Do they want empathy over their public safety being threatened? Do they worry about policing models of inclusion?

No, they want the two caught.

All the dancing in the world is not going to change that.

The pendulum seems to swing back in times of trouble, when the policing role gets stripped down to its barest essentials. The key is to let it return to some middle ground without going too far to the very dangerous right.

The public don’t want to love you, they want to respect you.

Photo courtesy of CTV and Global News – Some Rights Reserved

The Politics of “First Responders”

Posted on December 9, 2018December 9, 2018 by Pete Cross

In March 2017, there was a blog on this site which posed the question as to whether it was time to cut back on Fire Services, who despite a diminishing need for their services, were in fact expanding in terms of manpower, equipment, and general presence.

The self-justifications for the fire services expansion all hinged on their incursion into medical calls, fanned by the publicity burning opioid crisis. It was the continuing perpetuation of the somewhat mythical life saver dynamic, they being the foremost and therefore indispensable “first responders” that made up the Group of Three.

What stirred this pot which highlighted the decreasing need, was the review in Ontario of the Fraser Research Report, which reviewed Fire Services in Ontario for the period of 1997-2012. It discovered that during this time period in Ontario the number of firefighters increased by 36.3% while fires (including autos) had decreased in the same period by 41.4%. In British Columbia in this same time period the number of firefighters had increased by 43.8%.

The hourly wages for firefighters followed suit, in Ontario, their wages went up 47.8% in this same time period, whereas price levels only increased by 34.6%.

All of this growth in both wages and infrastructure, while at the same time there has been a phenomenal decline in the need for “fire” services. There are some estimates that say as little as 5% of the fire department calls now relate to actual fires.

Clearly, this should call for most persons aware of ever dwindling municipal budgets and ever increasing tax levels, that maybe one could do away with some of the equipment, halls and personnel involved in firefighting. Although Ontario did cut back some of their services, most areas including British Columbia seem oblivious to the seemingly obvious.

So how is it that governments, municipal counsels, and the governing bodies seem to have missed this obvious decline in the need for fire services? In searching for explanations one finds a masterful blend of self-promotion, coupled with an outright expansion of their roles outside of their intended mandate, which this blog covered previously.

Now it would seem that we need to add another component, a political component.

But we need to review how we got this new level.

With subtle flourish even the modern day lexicon has been transformed. No longer, police, fire and ambulance. Now, all are “first responders”. Their’s is the only one group who has a vested interest as being on par with the others, both in terms of how they are viewed, how they are paid, and the significance of the role they play.

To their credit the firefighters early on figured out that they needed to expand their roles, they need to aggressively move into other mandates, areas where they were not before. In terms of mandate, of course the only place for them to go was to cross-over into the ambulance and police services.

They even made the subtle name change from Fire Department, to Fire and Rescue Services as they jumped headlong into car accidents and medical calls and they have been remarkably successful. They point out in somewhat boastful tones that they estimate 70% of their calls are now medical, as they “rescue” opioid overdoses, or respond to heart attacks. This is true, even though they do not and can not provide the same level of service as the paramedics.

Even their “rescue” capabilities, has become more specialized, now under the umbrella of “Technical rescue”. ‘Auto extraction’, marine, or bridge rescue components are now separate tranches, in an attempt to be more expansive and all inclusive. They have also become, through little debate, the Hazardous Material experts.

Why? Their very employment and infrastructure survival depends on a sleight of hand, the general public needs to believe that they are the “first responders” of record. They need to convince you that they are the white hats, always there, always the first on scene. They are the life savers which we can not do without.

In B.C. there was a recent budget increase for paramedics of $31million.

The firefighters had the audacity to actually complain that it had cut into their calls for service. They justified their complaint saying that they were often first and more capable of getting to a scene “quicker”. The argument of getting there first by the way, is a constantly repeated theme. The obvious counter argument would be if there were more paramedics on the road, people more qualified, than their ability to get there first becomes moot.

The fire departments are unflagging in their efforts. Vancouver Fire Department and “Rescue Services” prior to the municipal elections were asking for an additional 21 fire personnel. They justify this of course on the need to respond to 6200 opioid calls.

All of the above has been obvious for quite some time but what caught one’s eye during these same elections in the Lower Mainland was a somewhat new twist. It would appear that the firefighters are now honing their political voice, enhancing their political efforts, and are now becoming an active political force, a true definition of a self-interest group.

No more was this more obvious than in the City of Burnaby, who have now elected an independent mayor, a former firefighter, Mike Hurley in an upset victory over Derek Corrigan.

Burnaby is an interesting case study.

All 281 firefighters in Burnaby belong to the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 323.

If one visits their website, they make no mistake as to what they believe: “When it comes to Political Action, we support those that support us” – May 17, 2014.

It is equally clear from their website that the building block from which any political action will flow is the charities. Golf tournaments, city fairs, parades, and charitable balls dominate their photos and exclamations of fealty to the community.

In recent years the Burnaby firefighters came into the news on a couple of occasions, one when Burnaby firefighter Nick Elmes and a couple of others formed the Florian Knights, who met with and were sanctioned to wear their “colours” by the Hells Angels. They used to ride to work showing their “colours” before management stepped in.

Then there was Bryan Kirk, a 36 year firefighter who decided to retire after being confronted on his support of “Camp Cloud” which was the campsite put up by Indigenous protestors at the site of the Trans Mountain pipeline in Burnaby. The camp was eventually taken down, via court injunction by the Burnaby RCMP, but Kirk supported the protestors and went on record saying “I’m more inclined to put out the Olympic torch then put out a First Nation ceremonial fire”. (Newly elected Hurley is also on record, aligning with Kirk, saying that he supports no pipeline.)

As one watched the celebrations at the Hurley election campaign, which was held at the Firefighters Public House in Burnaby, where a smiling Hurley was surrounded by Firefighters in similar styled t-shirts as they celebrated one of their own being elected. One could guess that a serious look at the monies being spent on the firefighters in a time when municipal budgets are under crises will not occur in Burnaby, at least while under the faithful guidance of Mr. Hurley.

This was not the only example.

In Langley the Langley Township Fire Department IAFF Local 4550 were out endorsing certain candidates.

In Surrey, the Surrey Firefighters endorsed Tom Gill for mayor (who lost to McCallum). Already on counsel in Surrey was the former firefighter Mike Starchuk, who was a firefighter for 32 years, and still headed up one of their Charitable foundations.

In 2014 Surrey First party raised $1.7 million in support of Linda Hepner– one of the biggest donors, if not the biggest were the Surrey Firefighters who donated $32, 564. 01.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that other “first responders” have become active in politics. Former police officers have taken roles as counsellors on various cities and townships, and one ex-RCMP member is now mayor of Pitt Meadows.

But this firefighter involvement seems different. It seems more organized, more overt, with an exposed agenda. A concerted effort to get their candidate elected.

Many will argue that they are members of the public, they too therefore have a right to get involved in the politics of the day. That is true and there are special interest groups who put forward candidates, and organize to support those candidates. But this seems somehow different.

One needs to ask, do fire, police and medical personnel hold a special role in our society? Clearly their mandates enter into our lives in different ways than other members of the general public. Are they in a position of undue influence? Do they have access to the media which is not available on a regular basis to the members of the general public? Should or could it be perceived that there is a political component to the service provided by “first responders”? Police are held back from overt political support by a pressing need to be neutral in terms of the laws and its applications. Should medical and fire service be bound by any kind of neutrality?

It is the slippery slope of mixing politics with your role, especially one that is specifically mandated to serve the public. One should be equally alarmed at the Chiefs of Police supporting a particular party, or ambulance attendants supporting a particular pro-union politician.

One can not help but feel that the firefighter new found interest in municipal politics is also being influenced by the need to get a friendly face on the inside. One who will not question the need for greater and greater expansion, who will not look at the statistics, one who will not worry about unneeded financial expenditures. Is there a faint taint on the Burnaby election?

Maybe we need to go back to “police, fire or ambulance?” which is the first question still asked by 911 operators. Maybe the three services should be examined as separate entities, both in terms of budget and mandate, not as a single group of “first responders”. Taxpayers need to pay attention.

But hey, it’s the Xmas season, and the firefighters are busy setting up the Bright Nights Xmas Train in Stanley Park, where a portion of the proceeds goes to the BC Professional Fire Fighters Burn Fund. The media will be fawning over the children and the sponsoring firefighters on every news channel and after all who could argue with the cause. It’s brilliant and not just because of the 3,000 lights.

It used to be beefcake calendars, it’s much more subtle now, but the impression remains the same.

Photo Courtesy of Pete at Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved

Surrey Election 2018- is it the beginning of the end of the RCMP as we know it?

Posted on October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 by Pete Cross

On October 20th, the electorate of Surrey said that they are fed up with the RCMP. With the number of shootings seemingly unstoppable, followed by the usual explanations formulated by practised media spin units, saying it was a “targeted” homicide, and the “public has nothing to fear”, it seems to have reached a breaking point. Yellow police line tape seems to stretch for miles and dominate the weekend news in Surrey. There are the innocents who have died in Newton, businesses and people who don’t even bother to report crime anymore in Whalley and Guildford, and they seem to have finally reached the end. It has been a long time coming.

In the past, the 10% discount for the RCMP seems to have silenced the critics who complained of less officers on the street, a growing and expansive police budget, and increases in property crime and drive by shootings. Maybe this is no longer true.

The RCMP has been part of the City of Surrey since 1951 when fifteen constables began patrolling the town which became a city in 1993. It has been growing at remarkable speeds ever since, with a population now exceeding over 500,00 and the detachment in seeming lockstep, has grown to over eight hundred officers. It is the flagship detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, their largest detachment in Canada, and that flagship is now sinking under its own weight.

Now, a party led by the irascible, tempestuous and often incomprehensible Doug MacCallum has re-swept into power at the age of 73; running on a singular party theme of safety in the streets.

His newly founded party is a one issue group, calling itself the Safe Surrey Coalition. Counsellors who have swept into office with him, including ex-RCMP police officer Jack Hundial, also have identified themselves as singular in their focus, and that focus is to get rid of the RCMP. In their view and clearly in the view of the electorate the RCMP has failed the people of Surrey.

MacCallum is a colourful character, never an admirer of the RCMP, who was last in power in 2005. MacCallum was removed from power originally in 2005 by Diane Watts, and then followed by her appointed successor Linda Hepner. Both were clear fans of the RCMP, buying into the agenda of the RCMP and sprinkling every press conference with plaudits and statements of the excellent job the RCMP was doing.

But the scepticism has been brewing under the surface for years. Many police officers have openly expressed the opinion that the RCMP can not keep up with the times, including this writer; that it is governed and directed by the highly political Ottawa, an Ottawa and Federal Liberal government which has long since lost the confidence of the public, at least in terms of policing.

A police force which seems to be embroiled in internal unrest, whether it be sexual harassment, or poor wages. Wrapping themselves in the flags of diversity and inclusion, seemingly oblivious and unable to relate to the citizens of Surrey where the bullets continued to richochet around the community police stations.

This is an RCMP which seems to have grown into and become an ineffective agency. Ridiculously low solve rates, officers constantly complaining about low wages and poor working conditions, insufficient manpower, and a parade of weak leadership at the top of the detachment have been fuelling this slide.

A top management level interested in keeping Ottawa happy, interested in career advancement and promotion while expanding a bloated and inefficient plainclothes sections, all the while seemingly oblivious to countering the day in and day out criminal activity for which Surrey has always been infamous.

Their only response to the crime, to the death of innocents was that they needed more officers. From Bill Fordy to Dwayne McDonald, always the same, they need more. During Hepner’s time as mayor she claimed to have added 134 officers, but it was never enough.

It was a tried and true chant while at the same time there were several re-organizations of the detachment, each seeming to add further and further layers to the detachment bureaucracy, and a clear bloating of the numbers of officers in specialized sections to the obvious detriment of officers on the “road”.

No one questioned the inside shenanigans at the detachment. At the time of the last municipal election a few days ago, McDonald was again scheduled to request further officers. (It should be pointed out that from 2014-2017 Mr. McDonald was the officer in charge of IHIT, which grew from 48 officers to 110 individuals and a collapsing solvency rate hovering around 20% )

In the last number of years, you would hear words like “progressive”, “community first”, “engaging our youth”; innocuous silly platitudes, all designed to fudge over detailed analysis of what was going on both inside and outside the detachment.

Over the years the RCMP has hidden behind those detachment walls, never allowing outside examination of management to any degree. Annual Performance Plans have been tailored to speak in generalities, no deep dives into the statistics, little of substance or real meaning. An annual exercise in bureaucratic concealment, far from the eyes of the public.

So the citizens of Surrey are now going to begin an exercise to exorcise themselves from the red tunic, and for many that served in this community over the past number of years, it will indeed be sad. But it is inevitable.

The RCMP management of the last twenty years have been oblivious, unable to speak the truth either for political reasons or because they were “going along to get along”. Somewhere the vision was blinded, lost to political expediency, somewhere there has been the disappearance of the goals to “uphold the law and provide quality service” (RCMP Mission Statement.) They focused on the writing of the Mission statement and selling it, as opposed to the actual performing of the Mission statement.

They began to develop “strategic media units” to create the spin. Honesty became blurred.

None of this is to say that any upcoming Municipal police force will be a bed of roses. It will be more expensive for sure and political control will be local. Not Ottawa, but political none the less.

Most officers currently policing Surrey will likely switch over to any new agency, grown tired of the RCMP, no longer concerned about being a member of a National police force and not overly concerned with the history of boots and breeches. They are the millenials after all — careers, work life balance and wages are their new loyalties.

There is good work being done at the Surrey RCMP. There are good people working long and difficult hours. There are good investigations which have been successful and most of these people would likely join and be part of any new Municipal agency, lost to the RCMP for good.

The singular and most obvious problem was that the operational policing structure, the traditional pyramid where the solid base was the uniform on the street was turned upside down. It became a top heavy bureaucracy infatuated with promotion and specialization, forgetting that everything starts on the streets. They lost sight of the fact that policing principles, its basics, has not changed for decades. It is a government agency which should never have lost track of what was important, where the expertise and productivity actually come from, those formative years in policing.

Seniority, supervision, and continuity took a back seat to what was perceived and sold as being more sophisticated. Everyone became an expert. This combined with demographic issues has led to the average service of the RCMP on the road in General Duty in Surrey to be 1.8 years. (This according to sources, as the RCMP will not admit to the public that this is the case).

If MacCallum succeeds in removing the RCMP then the RCMP nationally will be affected. It would be an admission that they are incapable of city policing, an admission which would be a loss of face.

For the people of Surrey who are demanding change, their only hope is that it is successful and the Mounties get the proverbial boot.

To date the Mounties have not re-acted to the election. Maybe, they don’t care. Maybe, they want it to come about as it may lead them toward a possible goal of an FBI style RCMP. Maybe, there will be a domino effect and regional policing will once again come to the fore. Further time will tell.

To the officers that came and went from Surrey Detachment, part of their policing heritage will be altered, and as the “white shirts” toddle off to their better than average pensions, they should at least consider apologizing for their inability to adapt, for being caught up in playing the government political game, for not taking principled stands and for being dishonest in terms of accountability.

Like the battered and bruised boxer answering the bell after 8 rounds; the RCMP question is whether they can make it to the final round, still answering the bell, arms up trying to avoid head shots, muttering about being cheaper, in an effort to keep from being knocked out. As Roberto Duran said when fighting Sugar Ray Leonard and famously declared “no mas”; there indeed may be “no more” fight left in the RCMP.

Photo Courtesy of Douglas Miller via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved