Surrey city Councillor Rob Stutt has issued a statement concerning the ethics complaint that was lodged against him by the Surrey Police Union.
The union alleged he was in a conflict of interest for voting on Nov. 14 to end the transition to the Surrey Police Service and retain the Surrey RCMP without disclosing both that his son was employed by the Surrey RCMP and that his daughter was assigned to the RCMP after being seconded from the City of Surrey.
The union maintained he should have either recused himself or been disqualified from voting on the matter then and in future votes.
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On June 7, before a closed council meeting was held on June 15 in which Surrey council on a 6-3 vote to retain the RCMP as the city’s police of jurisdiction, Surrey Ethics Commissioner Peter Johnson delivered his findings on the Code of Conduct complaint to council and a summary of that report was made public on June 20.
The commissioner found Stutt, in accordance with B.C. law, did not have a pecuniary interest in the matter because, unlike in Ontario, “In British Columbia, the courts have held that a pecuniary interest in a matter cannot be inferred from the existence of a family relationship alone.”
However, the commissioner also noted that “other forms of a personal interest in a mater can give rise to a conflict of interest, where a reasonably well-informed person would conclude that the interest might influence the exercise of the Council member’s duties.
“For that reason, members of Council must not participate in Council decisions that affect the members of their immediate families in ways that go beyond the interests those family members have in common with other members of the community, in circumstances where a reasonably well-informed person would conclude that there is a potential for bias,” Johnson added.
In the case of Stutt’s daughter, the commissioner found the councillor voting on Nov. 14 did not have the potential to affect her employment “in a substantial enough was that would give rise to a concern about improper influence or bias.” However, in the case of his son, serving as a Surrey Mountie at the time of the Nov. 14 vote, “given the fact that a decision to continue with the police transition would have resulted in the elimination of a substantial number of policing positions within the Surrey RCMP Detachment, there was a personal interest in the matter under consideration that a reasonably well-informed person would have concluded might influence a member of Council in Councillor Stutt’s position.”
In the end, the ethics commissioner didn’t make any specific recommendations to council concerning the complaint as to what measures it should take. He noted that given Stutt’s son is no longer a Surrey Mountie, “that potential source of a conflict of interest in relation to future decisions of Council concerning the police transition would appear to have been eliminated.”
Stutt echoed this in his statement, that the commissioner concluded that the perceived conflict of interest “was removed with the transfer of my son out of the Surrey detachment months ago.
“My son was actively seeking a transfer from Surrey Detachment, which is documented by the RCMP, well before the 2022 civic election. I believed this would alleviate any perception of conflict,” Stutt said, adding he “never tried to hide” his children’s career paths. “Let me be clear when I say, it is their career path, and has no relevance on my moral compass,” Stutt said. “I remain committed to the public safety of the citizens of Surrey. That was the sole reason for my vote then and on June 15, a vote that was made within my moral and ethical boundaries.
“Regardless, it is notable that the Commissioner also found that I acted at all times in good faith and with a view to fulfilling the promise I made to voters during the election about the policing transition and opted to make no recommendations for further action,” Stutt added. “As we are all painfully aware, the vote in question back in December did not accomplish anything. It led to the Ministry reviewing the plan to remain with the RCMP and confirming the choice is the responsibility of Surrey Council.”
On Nov. 14 council, on a 5-4 vote, with one of the five votes in favour cast by Stutt, decided to maintain the Surrey RCMP as the city’s police of jurisdiction instead of moving forward with the Surrey Police Service, and instructed city staff to prepare a plan for Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth’s approval to that end, as well as issue a letter on council’s behalf to the Surrey Police Board “to pause all new hiring and expenditures pending further Council direction.”
Then, on Dec. 9, council decided in a 6-3 vote to approve a “draft report” on retaining the Surrey RCMP and submitted it to Farnworth for consideration, with Surrey First Coun. Mike Bose voting in favour of this along with Surrey Connect’s majority comprised of Locke and councillors Harry Bains, Pardeep Kooner, Rob Stutt, Gordon Hepner while Safe Surrey Coalition councillors Doug Elford, Mandeep Nagra and Surrey First Coun. Linda Annis voted in opposition.
Had Stutt not voted on Nov. 14, the Dec. 9 vote would not have come before council, nor would the June 15 in-camera vote have happened, as the Nov. 14 vote would have failed on a 4-4 tie.
The Surrey Police Union issued a statement after the summary of the commissioner’s report was released, noting that the “critical” Nov. 14 vote “changed the trajectory of the last seven months” and that Stutt “should be removed immediately” from his position as chairman of the Surrey Public Safety Committee.
“Our goal was to make the process as transparent and fair as possible. The vote on policing in Surrey is critical and should be clear of any bias to focus on the only issue that matters, safety in Surrey,” Rick Stewart, president of the SPU, stated in the press release.
“Surrey residents deserve an apology for his disrespect to his office and compromised integrity at City Hall,” he added.
Meantime, former Surrey mayor Bob Bose came to Stutt’s defence, suggesting he was “caught in the horns of a dilemma.”
“He was fully aware of the financial implications of the transfer,” Bose said. “Knowing that, he had to make the choice to recuse himself or act on his understanding of the financial implications of the transfer. He would then have been in derelict of his responsibilities. If you know a building is unsafe, but you’ve got a conflict of interest because you work for another company, and you fail to say something, you’re culpable. He had no choice, is the point I’m making, given his understanding, but to vote.”
“It seems to me his duty as an elected person very much outweighed any personal considerations of conflict,” Bose said. “Knowing policing inside out, and knowing the catastrophic financial impact the transition to a municipal police force would have on Surrey taxpayers, he had no other choice. The costs, he understood would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, have now been confirmed. To have recused himself from the vote would have been to betray his commitment to the voters who elected him.”
Whatever the case, Bose doesn’t believe Stutt’s situation will come into play for Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth.
“If he uses it, it will be an abuse. I mean, I don’t know what Farnworth is going to do. Farnworth has been aggressive, I mean it’s pretty clear the province wants to get rid of the RCMP,” Bose said. “For the time being, the RCMP are delivering first-class service at a cost that is far less than the alternative.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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