A “Special Meeting” or a “Coup d’etat”

Posted on by Pete Cross
Julius Caesar being stabbed by multiple Roman senators in a chaotic and violent scene

Julius Caesar was stabbed twenty-three times on the Ides of March in 44 BC, by a group of Roman Senators who felt that a pre-emptive strike was necessary in defence of the Roman Republic, asserting that Caesar’s lifelong political authority threatened their political authority. Flash forward to 2026 and replace the theatre of Pompey in Rome with the Police Board in Surrey and you have a broad analogy of the recent firing of police Chief Norm Lepinsky. The Caesar assassination was carried out by a group of Senators, such as Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Replace them with Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke playing Brutus, and maybe Councillor and former RCMP officer Rob Stutt as Longinus.

That being said, I will admit that it is a bit of stretch to compare the multi-pensioned Lepinski to Caesar, but it is quite clear that the “constructive dismissal” of him, where he was given two days to either resign or be fired was clearly a stab in the back orchestrated by a city council and the Police Board. Despite what the Mayor says, the orchestration of the firing seems to draw a straight line and point to Locke herself. It would also seem that the only plausible motive was clear political revenge and for the record no other explanation has been offered. It will be a costly move for the citizens of Surrey as one must remember that being terminated “without cause” means that by definition it was therefore unrelated to any serious misconduct. It is a requirement under those circumstances that the Board provide at least 3-12 months notice for this termination; which also was not done. The firing of course was conducted in a “special session” and therefore away from public eyes and also just happened when the Chair of the Board Harley Chappell was unable to attend. Chappell was clearly blind sided and was not happy. He went public with his feelings, then resigned, only to be followed by a second councillor James Carwana, who was also upset about the process that led to the firing.

This is indeed a depressing police story and it is both a reflection of the sad state of police management in this country, especially in the RCMP, as well as an exposure of the level of politicization that has become part of policing and has now firmly taken root. Before going further, I will apologize to those readers outside B.C. who may have not been following along with the political/police shenanigans that has been ongoing for years now in Surrey. To catch you up the Surrey Detachment was the largest RCMP Canadian detachment in Canada and it is in the process of being removed and replaced by a municipal police force, the Surrey Police Services. The bumpy and frustrated transition is in its third year now. ( I have written previous blogs of the ongoing tumult within Surrey and the events leading up to this latest development)

In short, it has become a political and logistical mess. The transition battle which has been heartily fought by the local RCMP Senior management and the current Mayor Brenda Locke as they teamed up to fight the removal of the RCMP. The RCMP officers who have been prominent in the fight I have been told by sources, included; now Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald who is the current Commander for E Division, the former head of Surrey Detachment Brian Edwards (more about him to follow), and the likes of former A/Commissioner Manny Mann and Chief Superintendent Sean Gill who was then also of Surrey detachment. I am told that from the beginning this group were the cheerleaders for Mayor Locke and her Surrey Connect Party in the last Surrey municipal election. In that campaign Locke ran on a promise to reverse the decision to switch to a municipal detachment. Keep these names in mind because if we stick to the analogy these individuals would be playing the Senators roles in the Roman times. During that election, Locke was running against Doug McCallum, which is also important to remember as we tell this story.

Locke was elected in October 2022 with 27% of the vote, 1% greater than Doug McCallum who remains her arch nemesis and is also running in the next election. A month later in November 2022, Surrey City Council voted 5-4 to stop the Municipal force in its tracks, even though the transition had already started in 2018 and the transition process had already cost over $100 million in “sunk” costs.

Enter the other player in this story; former RCMP officer Rob Stutt who ran for City Council under the Locke banner and joined her in the fight to retain the RCMP. In the 5-4 vote, he cast the deciding vote for the return of the RCMP. There was a problem though. Mr. Stutt’s wife and son worked for the RCMP in Surrey (his daughter at the time of this writing now also works for the Surrey RCMP). Clearly a conflict of interest, but one apparently that former officer Rob Stutt did not see. So a complaint was filed at the time by the Surrey Police union over Stutt’s clear conflict of interest; and in the end the Ethics Commissioner confirmed that he had in fact contravened Section 21 of the City’s code of conduct. The punishment was that in the future Mr. Stutt needed to be “mindful of conflict of interest” (by the way the Surrey Ethics Commissioner was selected by a Committee of Council which included Mayor Locke). Ironically, Rob Stutt in his election platform had listed as his “Key Projects” that he was involved with: “No. 1 retaining the RCMP”, No. 2 Ethics and Integrity and No. 3 Accountable Development”. (In terms of full disclosure, I worked with Rob in the Surrey Serious Crime Section for a number of years and I find it difficult to believe he did not understand the concept of a conflict of interest –then again I am having trouble recognizing this former cop now turned politician).

After this vote, the provincial government reassessed, but in the end once again sided with the formation of the Municipal force, and ordered the City to go along, promising them further monies to wash away the bad taste in the mouth of grumpy Brenda and her council. Over the next couple of years, Locke and her disciples felt that it would be better to continue the fight then give in, so there were constant eruptions between Ms. Locke and the SPS. There were police budget cuts, complaints of Lepinski not being overly concerned about asian extortion police shootings in the south east asian community (Locke calling for a national inquiry); complaints of how Lepinski was allocating police resources, and ordering Lepinski to move faster with the takeover of the Cloverdale area of Surrey. At the street operatoinal level the discontentment and bad feelings began to grow, often boiling over between the Mounties and the new SPS. On the other side of the fence, other sources tell me that some of the hires by the new agency, borne out of desperation to fill the numbers are lacking both in experience and professionalism. People are saying that a lot of their hires were based on connections and friendships driven by “double dipping”and less on investigative capability leaving widening gaps in operational abilities. For his part Lepinski, the politician seems to have over promised the speed and capabilities of the transition.

But the saga does not stop there. Ms. Locke seemed to remain fixated on the need for political control of the police department.

Mayor Locke then appointed the previously reported on Brian Edwards of the Surrey RCMP to a new position in the city of Surrey; one she created, to head the new Public Safety Department. This meant that the SPS and Chief Lepinski and the Fire Chief would now report to Edwards, a person who actively campaigned with the RCMP to get rid of the Surrey Police Service. The first shot in the planned coup seems to have begun.

Despite all this, on November 29, 2024, the SPS became the official police of jurisdiction for the City of Surrey.

Two years later in March 2026, a shake up of the Police Board occurs and the Provincial government in “consultation with the Mayor” Brenda Locke announces some board members being replaced with new members. Locke no longer would be the Chair of the police board, but one of the few members retained for the new Board was Rob Stutt.

A month and a half later, on May 11, 2026 the Mayor issues a statement that she was against Lepinski removing resources from the eight member gang unit to the Cloverdale area of Surrey, saying that disagreed strongly with her police Chief.

May 29, 2026 the Police Board now being chaired by Rob Stutt due to the temporary absence of Police Board Chair Chappell, calls for a “special meeting” to be held in camera, in other words behind closed doors and not to be observed by the public.

On June 1st Lepinski returns from vacation and is fired as a result of that meeting, or asked to resign within two days. Mayor Locke in a scene out of Goodfellas where an alibi is needed, says that she was “out of town” and stressed how the decision that was made was made by an “independent police board” that she “didn’t even know for sure” that he had been fired. Unfortunately for the Board the drama that unfolded drew the ire of the general public, became a topic on local radio, and various interests began to chime in, most of whom smelled something fishy about the whole process.

Mayor Locke by the way is headed to an election of October 2026. The afore mentioned Doug McCallum has once again entered the Mayoral race and on June 10th, in a press conference asserts the obvious– that “political pressure drove the decision” to remove Lepinski. He files a formal complaint with the Provincial government. He asserts that the Police Act was violated, and points the finger directly at Rob Stutt. Premier Eby and his government now say that they weren’t involved but that the “Board followed the legal procedures” and they didn’t really want to get involved anymore; despite being directly involved in all of it since the very beginning.

The city and the Police Board needed to do damage control.

On June 17th, 2026 the Board held a meeting that was open to the public and things predictably got heated. The police board aimed to try and stymie the backlash and passed a”Directive” which aimed to curtail any comments coming from the SPS and its executives. It directed from that point forward the SPS could not publicly criticize, have personal opinions, engage in speculative commentary or undermine the role of the Board. The directive passed, led by the new Board chair Perm Jawanda who when asked about the firing of Lepinski stated that he was replaced because of “where they were headed they needed a different leader”. Also in the meeting a former Board member stood up and accused Stutt and the new Board of improper behaviour and said that they should all resign. They called her out of order and adjourned the meeting.

The whole embarassment is captured on video.

I have reached out to Rob Stutt for comment, however his email is no longer valid. It is likely that he is unable to comment at this time, as I am sure the lawyers for the City are trying to get a Non-disclosure agreement in front of Lepinski and avoid the risk of being involved in a wrongful dismissal suit.

The new chair of the police board, Perm Jawanda for her part has said that “I don’t see the political influence”. Much like Rob Stutt not seeing the conflict of interest. All involved have to be assuming that most of us are stupid, and that the voters of Surrey will forget before October 2026.

As the saga plays out in the press the Board promises that a quick replacement will be found. One of the front runners, I am told, and believe it or not, now seems to be none other than Dwayne McDonald of the RCMP. So Mr. Edwards and Mr. McDonald could be reunited once again. If that happens, the coup would then be complete and Locke will have her faithful servants standing with her prior to the election. I am being told that the current group of Deputies in the SPS are not interested in the Chief’s job after watching all the political machinations with Locke and crew over the last couple of years. I was also told that Deputy Howard Chow of the Vancouver City Police was a candidate but is also not interested.

The fact that this lunacy was and continues to be demonstrated in what was the RCMP’s largest municipal detachment in Canada makes this historically sad. As a former long standing member of the RCMP I am embarrassed by the lack of ethics or principles on the part of the senior Mounties. However I was not a fan of the choice of Lepinski either. Admittedly, in the end I was in favour of the transition, because I thought the SPS were needed in that fast growing city, and they needed to get away from the Ottawa controlled bureaucracy of the RCMP. However, my confidence has been shaken by some of the personnel hired for the Surrey Police Service who were often political and friend choices, sometimes based on desperation and not based on a track record. Now with the firing of the Chief in this underhanded fashion and if Locke and her crew get their way, it seems that the Surrey Police Service, possibly led by the double dipping Mounties who once hated them, are now destined for a very rocky road in the coming years. Despite the directive to silence any discontent, the members on both sides are going to continue to talk, albeit under their breath. It could get very uncomfortable.

At the very least, even though there are central privacy issues in the firing, the citizens of Surrey have a right to know what happened, what and who promoted the firing of Lepinski, and how much it is going to cost in the end. And they should be told before the next municipal election. These problems are not the fault of the uniform officers on either side of the debate, the problem originates and has been exacerbated by short sighted regional politics, a lack of ethics and integrity and unprincipled senior police management. And, like a lot of coups, we can only hope that it may be short lived.

the Surrey Policing Circus

Posted on by Pete Cross

So by now you have heard the latest policing news consuming the Lower Mainland of B.C. The question: who is going to police the City of Surrey? After four years of transitioning to a new police service, the Surrey city council have decided that this would be a good time to go backwards. Re-trench, undo all the previous political decisions, fire the 390 officers that they already hired, and try to find more Mounties to go back to being policed by the men and women in Scarlet.

The “decision” was pushed to the NDP Government in Victoria to come up with a “decision”.

So now the “decision” was in.

British Columbia Minister Farnworth announced that they would recommend carrying on with the original transition to the newly formed Surrey Police Service; that in essence the Mounties are not in a position to properly re-take policing in Surrey or resume becoming what the government calls the “police of jurisdiction”. Also Mr. Farnworth and the NDP, in other words, the taxpayers of British Columbia, are willing to help defray the costs of the annual increase in costs, estimated at $30 million annually, for at least the next five years during the transition to the SPS.

Correspondingly, he also added that if the council under the guidance of uncomprehending Brenda Locke continues on her stated path of going back to the RCMP, or “reverse transitioning”, then there would be no monies forthcoming from the government. This would include the $72 million estimate that would need to be paid out to to get rid of the already hired SPS employees.

If the new money was not enough to convince Ms. Locke the government felt it necessary to add that if they choose to go back, then there would still be a number of conditions that they outlined that needed to be met. Those conditions on first viewing seem to place the Mounties in a very difficult position, especially the one where they are not allowed to steal from other detachments to reach the Surrey manpower goals.

It was a long awaited decision, one of the hardest decisions Minister Farnworth, the Attorney General for British Columbia says that he had ever undertaken, in trying to decide on who should patrol the streets of Surrey. He probably should have said the hardest “recommendation” he had to put forward, but maybe we shouldn’t pay attention to the semantics. One certainly should not be paying attention to either former Mayor McCallum, or the current Mayor Brenda Locke. Former Mayor McCallum just seems like an old crotchety senior citizen of South Surrey ranting over the picket fence. After the decision he was interviewed and spoke at great length how he never sees the Mounties at his grand kids soccer games. One would assume in his mind conclusively proving that the RCMP are not good members of the community.

Mayor Locke for her part accuses everyone of playing politics– except herself of course. She like McCallum seems at times unhinged, and we would also say with complete confidence, completely disconnected to the real conditions in the Surrey RCMP and in the RCMP in general. It may not be her fault because this blogger believes she has been continually misled by the information coming out of the RCMP.

It is sometimes forgotten that originally Ms. Locke was on the side of McCallum and ran with him. She then she had a falling out with the mayor, and overnight became revolutionized, and is now re-born as an ardent supporter of going back to the RCMP. One should not under estimate the fact that for Ms Locke this fight is personal. In fact she may be motivated solely by conquering McCallum–she is bitter, and the thought of McCallum winning the overall argument does not sit well, and may in fact be playing the biggest part in clouding her judgement.

In following the media, and the social media around this decision, seems to demonstrate that there a bit of fact checking needed.

There has been a lot of comment about the NDP, not wanting to offend too many voters and the nine parliamentary seats in the Surrey area, that what Farnworth and the NDP did in “recommending” was to effectively”kick the can down the street”. This is true, it was a recommendation not a decision; but that is the result of the sometimes vague language of the Police Act. In particular Section 2 which states that the Minister responsibilities include only that he “establish priorities, goals and objectives and goals for policing and law enforcement in British Columbia”. He can recommend, set out conditions, but not dictate, which is what they did.

Ms. Locke says the government has been disrespectful in that the Police Act states “categorically” that the choice of police is under the purview of the municipality”. Not quite true either. The Act says that the municipality of over 5,000 people must “provide police and law enforcement in accordance with this Act” (Section 3). Again the Act language is somewhat vague on this, but then again Ms. Locke has developed a recent habit of misleading statements.

There are large portions of the report redacted, which for the life of me on reading all that was provided does raise the question as to what possibly could be so sensitive that the public is not allowed to see it —especially in the context of this narrative. I have been told that Ms. Locke points to this redaction as a government cover-up, but the fact of the matter is that all the redactions were done or requested by the RCMP.

You will remember that all the parties; the RCMP, the Surrey City Council and the Surrey Police Service all provided reports/information for the Provincial government to consider. They had to be asked twice, because the first time they didn’t answer all the questions. In fact back in December they called the City report as having “contained inconsistencies, lacked supporting data and evidence”.

The City report now provided estimates to re-take policing in the city that they would only have to re-up 161 members (I am not convinced of that number and neither was the government) and that they were going to do this by three methods: recruiting back from the SPS; getting more officers from Depot (which would negate other detachment needs);,and by pulling members from other regions of BC (page 24). They even suggested that they could transfer members into the Surrey detachment for 6 months and if that still was not sufficient could resort to calling members in on overtime to fill shifts.

The government saw this as problematic. How could an agency that is 1525 (hard/soft vacancies) officers short in the Province begin to take further members from other locations they asked? Remember that this government just gave an additional $230 million to try and support the rural areas of the Province because of a lack of staffing. The government also quoted the 2019 Public Safety Canada report which stated: “demand for officers…outstrips the RCMP’s capacity to recruit and train” and “that under staffing is effecting the health and welfare of their members”.

They go on to say that Federal policing has been eroded to meet those contract demands and stated the stats that since 2010 show that contract officers increased by 17% while Federal officers decreased by 30%. They concluded by saying that they had significant concerns regarding sustainability of the program and regular member production levels.

What the most interesting take-away from all of this, it is that the RCMP has finally had to reveal its staffing inadequacy that has been in existence for probably 25 years. Every Mountie that has worked in the lower mainland for the last few decades has heard the term “do more with less” so much so that it became a standing joke at every annual assessment of spending priorities. Now the shortages have become acute, exacerbated by demographics, covid, a lack of recruitment, and a complete lack of foresight by the upper management of the RCMP and the governments of the day. The difference now is they have had to come clean with the staffing shortage numbers. They have had to show how they were going to cover off these shortages and when examined, in essence, they were going to resort to their time held tradition of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Now the government has called them on it.

The 20th century centralized structure of the RCMP is now making people even question the “sustainability of contract policing”. This was most recently stated by the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, that was completed by this same BC Provincial government and released last year. It called for the re-establishment of a Provincial force, to get rid of the Mounties all together.

People need to understand and accept that the RCMP is not a stable organization right now. This is not about individual officers this is about an organization.

The RCMP is being buffeted by the winds of needed change. The inquiry at Portapique, just the most recent to say what has been said by other inquiries and other reports that came before it. The City of Surrey is a large municipality that is growing at 1,000 to 1500 people per month. It clearly needs its own dedicated police force with local control, that can act and re-act in a timely fashion. Ms. Locke, for whatever reason, is ignoring the obvious.

As a former long-standing RCMP officer it saddens me that the organization has proven that it can not adapt to big city policing, but it is what it is. There is also the theory that Ottawa once when pressed, will admit that it is really wanting to be a Federal level only Force. This is a difficult country to be all things to all people, to be a single police entity for all forms of investigational need, a massive undertaking in any circumstance. Currently the RCMP is failing miserably on the Federal side as well, and a re-structuring from the contract Provinces would go a long way in boosting up the Federal side. Whether true or not, only time will tell.

There is a long history of RCMP ineptitude in Ottawa, most of it born out of government bloat and bureaucratic aggrandizement. This is a police service which became too enamoured with themselves, enamoured with promotion and empire building, and to survive has traded in political favours, all to the detriment of the basic organizational and contractual needs. This is an Ottawa problem not a problem of individual police officers.

It is indeed ironic, that while all this mayhem and political grand-standing is going on and circling the RCMP’s largest detachment in Canada– the acting RCMP Commissioner is in England, presenting a horse and a ceremonial sword to King Charles. They just don’t get it. Similar to Trudeau in New York to talk about women’s rights and pose with Hollywood celebrity Hugh Jackman “Wolverine”, all while Ottawa is under a massive general strike.

So my advice to Ms. Locke, swallow your political pride, you are in essence surrounded on all sides, there is no way out for the RCMP; they are trapped in a system, one that will simply not allow them to fulfill their present mandate. Now not only the Surrey taxpayers are going to pay the price for these politicians, now everyone in the Province will be paying for these shenanigans. As long as this goes on there is further indirect damage being done in terms of operational policing. Morale is at an all time low on both sides, there is continuing in-fighting between the SPS members and the RCMP, some of it quite personal, continuity in files is being damaged, and the image of Surrey and its council is being tarnished with every appearance at a podium. While they decide who has the authority to go ahead, the decision is now stuck, resting somewhere in the ether, nestled between vague pages of the Police Act. The government report now estimates, even if they decide to carry on with the Surrey Police Service, another three years will be needed. A total of seven years for a transition?

Meanwhile, Brenda and Doug are politically arm-wrestling to see who will eventually be allowed to drive the clown car.

Photo Courtesy of David Blackwell vis Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved