A Globe and Mail freedom-of-information request for the mayor’s calendar from Oct. 16 to May 10 shows Brenda Locke’s lopsided calendar
In the first six months after she was elected, the mayor of Surrey, B.C., met with senior RCMP officials more than a dozen times as she and her party voted in favour of, then proceeded with, a plan to reinstate the RCMP as the city’s police force. But Brenda Locke declined meetings with anyone from the Surrey Police Service, the municipal force the city had been transitioning to over the previous four years, except to go over police board agendas just prior to meetings.
A Dec. 2 meeting with both officers also included city manager Vince Lalonde and Councillor Ron Stutt. Last week, Mr. Stutt was found to be in a conflict of interest by the city’s ethics commissioner because in November he voted to reinstate the RCMP while his son was still working as a Mountie in Surrey.Ms. Locke did not respond to questions about her lopsided calendar.
The Globe has previously reported that the union representing the RCMP, the National Police Federation, has spent more than $1-million in political advertising in B.C. and Alberta as it works to maintain support for the RCMP in jurisdictions that have been contemplating transitions to regional forces.
For its part, Ms. Locke’s Surrey Connect party raised $290,000 in direct contributions from individuals.Although a disclosure with Elections BC doesn’t specify which jurisdiction the federation spent the money in, Surrey is the only municipality where bringing back the RCMP is currently an issue. “The Surrey Police Board issued a request to meet with the new Mayor and council shortly after the election and the only individual to respond was Councillor Linda Annis,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Her unwillingness to speak with the police force she was trying to terminate extended even to small-scale social interactions.
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