1. SURREY’S POLICING TRANSITION, as in 2022, once again tops our list of stories with legs this past year.
In journalism lingo, a story that’s not a simple one-off but rather continues to develop, often with twists and turns, is known as a story with “legs.”
The year opened with Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke warning Surrey residents to expect a property tax increase of 55 per cent if Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth gave the green light to forge ahead with the transition from the Surrey RCMP to the Surrey Police Service. After what felt like an eternity waiting for Farnworth to render a decision, in May he brought forth the provincial government’s “recommendation” that Surrey should continue to ramp up with the SPS to replace the RCMP.
This did not still well with Locke and her majority on council and led to much grumbling and sniping back and forth over a “redacted” provincial government report concerning how Farnworth had arrived at his “recommendation,” welling up into Locke accusing him of misogyny against her.
Meantime, it was revealed the cost of carrying both the Surrey RCMP and the SPS – the “monthly burn rate,” as Surrey manager of finance Kam Grewal put it, is “approximately $8 million per month” for Surrey taxpayers.
On July 19, Farnworth imposed a “final decision” on the city to forge ahead with the SPS. Again, Locke wasn’t having it. In October Farnworth introduced legislation to provide “clarity and finality,” amending the Police Act to force Surrey into compliance.
Again, Locke did not concede defeat, sticking to her guns that the SPS represents too costly a venture for Surrey taxpayers compared to her favoured RCMP. In November, after many months of sabre-rattling rhetoric between Locke and Farnworth, the City of Surrey filed in B.C. Supreme Court a challenge to the “constitutionality” of Farnworth’s “final decision” and amended legislation aimed at bringing council to heel. This has yet to be dealt with by the courts.
Locke all but declared political war on the NDP government, calling the SPS the “NDP police service” and taking the firm position that any tax increases related to the policing decision will be the NDP’s fault, not council’s. Also in November, Farnworth temporarily suspended the Surrey Police Board – of which Locke was chairwoman – and appointed retired Abbotsford police chief Mike Serr as its replacement administrator.
On Nov. 30 Serr delivered a 2024 provisional budget for the SPS, for council’s review and in mid-December the City of Surrey launched a $500,000 public relations campaign, with electronic billboards, to warn Surreyites about what Locke insists are the financial perils associated with continuing this “NDP police transition.”
And that’s the latest, at least by press time, on our number-one rapidly developing but never-ending story in 2023.
Stay tuned.
2. Our number two story with legs in 2023 is DENSIFICATION, an aptly compact term that embraces land development, public transit, infrastructure and other items on which pressure has been brought to bear as a result of the ever-top-of-mind housing crisis.
Certainly no stranger to growing pains, it seems like everywhere you drove in Surrey, every corner you turned, you encountered road construction. The city’s skyline is seeing dramatic vertical growth as politicians and bureaucrats look to densify neighbourhoods, particularly along rapid transit corridors, to accommodate a flood of new residents coming to this city from other countries and provinces following those relatively torpid years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In May, city council declared Surrey’s school facility infrastructure situation, serving some 78,000 students, to be in a state of crisis while Health Minister Adrian Dix warned Surrey will need dramatically more and better long-term care services to meet the needs of our aging population as the number of residents over 80 years old is expected to increase by 230 per cent over the next couple of decades.
Surrey processed roughly 5,100 housing units in 2023 and takes in roughly 11,000 new residents annually. B.C.’s Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon in November introduced ambitious legislation that will densify Surrey’s housing stock by permitting three, four or six housing units on every single family lot depending on its size and proximity to public transit.
Meantime, TransLink is facing a shortfall of 20 per cent or more in fare revenues and without a new funding model it will face an annual revenue shortfall of $600 million per year starting in 2026. TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn told a Surrey Board of Trade luncheon in December that it’s anticipated one million more people will be living in this region by 2050.
3. TAXATION. Definitely a growth industry. As already mentioned, 2023 opened with Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke warning already taxation-weary residents to brace for a 55 per cent hike in property taxes if the Surrey Police Service replaces the Surrey RCMP – a fight that’s still being fought.
In February, council presented a smaller yet still massive 17.5 per cent property tax increase. Locke’s first budget as mayor came into the cross-hairs of council rivals from the Surrey First slate and Safe Surrey Coalition, the latter which held a majority on council and was itself slammed in 2022 for delivering residential property tax increases of up to 32 per cent for some, and 18 per cent in 2021 with some business owners also being hit in 2021 with property tax hikes from 17 per cent to 86 per cent.
In the wake of public backlash, which saw furious residents blast council over the proposed 17.5 per cent increase, the finance committee rejected the budget and voted to limit the tax hike to 12.5 per cent. In April, council approved a 12.5 per cent tax hike predicated on the Surrey RCMP remaining as the city’s police of jurisdiction.
This was finalized on April 17. Carrying on, the soul-withering prospect of even higher taxation continues to hang above Surrey taxpayers’ heads like a Damocles sword, most recently expressed in December by the City of Surrey’s $500,000 PR campaign against the Surrey Police Service – aka “NDP police transition” – featuring electronic billboard displays that, under the heading “NDP police transition WILL COST YOU MORE,” claim it will cost $464 million more over the next 10 years, and forecasts a MASSIVE DOUBLE-DIGIT tax increase meaning LESS $ for schools, health and transit.
The city filed a challenge to the ‘constitutionality’ of the provincial government’s decision to replace the Surrey RCMP with the Surrey Police Service in B.C. Supreme Court in November.
“Should the courts make the decision to stay on track with the transition the public are going to be absolutely hit with enormous taxes and these are going to be taxes imposed on them by the NDP and so we need to make sure the public know the cost,” Locke said.
4. PROTEST. Arguably the weirdest protest Surrey has ever seen made a comeback in January when protesters returned to a cul-de-sac in Guildford after a two-year hiatus, again carrying signs and claiming a resident journalist was a spy for the Chinese government.
The first go-around, at the height of the pandemic, saw protesters marching up and down the road in the 9700-block of 149 Street in blue bubble suits. This first round of protesting began on Sept. 14, 2020 and dragged on for 77 days. Things then went dormant until the second round began on Jan. 20, 2023, just in time for Chinese New Year. Then, in a strange twist to this strangest of stories, on Jan. 27 the protest leader staged a presser in the cul-de-sac to recant the Chinese spy story and apologize to the target of the protest, his family and neighbours.
SOGI 123 gender identity and sexual identity learning resources in public schools was once again in the headlines in March when a large crowd of protesters and counter-protesters clashed over the issue at Scott Road and 72 Avenue. Round two came not long into the school year, in September, when both sides – about 1,500, all told – squared off during an anti-SOGI demonstation outside Education Minister Rachna Singh’s constituency office in Surrey on Sept. 20. In November a petition was filed with Elections BC to have the Surrey-Green Timbers NDP MLA recalled and Elections BC gave it the green light on Nov. 24. The petitioners have until Jan. 29 to collect the signatures of more than 40 per cent of eligible voters in that riding to be successful.
Looking back to May, Surrey Mounties issued a press release stating they were looking for three suspects related to an assault during a protest in March that involved “quite a few” people, but they refused to say what the protest in the 8500-block of 132 Street was about. “Our role is not to speak about what the protest is about,” Cpl. Vanessa Munn said. “Our role is to maintain public safety during the protests.”
In September hundreds of Surrey residents rallied with health-care workers at Surrey’s Civic Plaza in protest of the state of neglect health care has fallen into in this region over many years.
Following the June 18 assassination of Guru Nanak Gurdwara president Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, in the Sikh temple’s parking lot in Newton, large crowds of Sikhs gathered there in the wake of his death. In August hundreds of Sikhs participated in a “justice walk” in Newton, calling for an arrest in the case and in September a diplomatic clash erupted between Canada and India after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed there is “credible” intelligence linking Indian government agents to the murder.
The Indian government issued a statement calling the allegations “absurd.” In September and again in October thousands of local Sikhs weighed in on non-binding referendums on whether the state of Punjab in India should become an independent nation called Khalistan.
In other international news come home to Surrey, the city’s council chambers were cleared by Mayor Brenda Locke on Nov. 20 and Dec. 18 following a disruption by frustrated protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
During the latest incident, after council departed from the chambers the protesters remained, holding up signs and chanting “Brenda, Brenda you can’t hide” and “ceasefire on the agenda now,” “Your silence is violence,” and “Palestine will never die,” among other slogans. Protesters took turns making speeches as police officers quietly stood by.
After roughly an hour had passed, the protesters departed, council returned and the meeting resumed with a considerably thinned-out audience.
5. GETTING BY. Surrey residents, as other Canadians, are struggling to get by under the burden of inflation, tax hikes, the increasing cost of groceries, rent, mortgages and pretty much everything else. Food banks saw a massive spike in demand in Surrey in 2023 and all of this was aggravated by an on-again off-again port strike that dragged on for weeks during the summer, seriously hindering the supply chain.
On the one side of the strike that shut down West Coast ports was the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada. ILWU Local 502 represents more than 3,000 employees along the Fraser River, down to Roberts Bank, and has been representing longshoremen on the river since 1944. ILWU Canada has 12 locals and is the bargaining agent for more than 7,200 employees in B.C. Its longshore division loads, unloads and checks cargo on and off freight ships, and stores goods on the docks and in warehouses.
On the other side, the BC Maritime Employers Association represents 49 waterfront companies that collectively move roughly 60 million tonnes of goods worth $53 billion around the world each year.
The Surrey Board of Trade lobbied the federal government for back-to-work legislation. This city is especially reliant on the ports considering it has the greatest number of manufacturers in British Columbia.