Transition to Municipal Police Force

[Booter]

There are lots of meetings where Surrey is coming up almost being invoked by all parties to find ways to TRY and cooperate to avoid anything resembling that transition. That will be its legacy.

 

[dapaterson]

Hidden camera footage of Surrey municipal government and police:

 

[RangerRay]

Maybe another lesson here is “have a referendum“!

What a shitshow.

 

[lenaitch]

Maybe another lesson here is “have a referendum“!

What a shitshow.

One problem with referendums - on any topic - is they ask a simple question to an often complex issue. They are like unscientific surveys. I imagine if one had been asked in the beginning, a lot of responses might have been along the lines of 'sure, why not', without any understanding of the issues involved. Additionally, their results can't be etched in stone. The might bind the current government or council, at least politically, but not a subsequent one.

 

[RangerRay]

That is a very good point. But I still think it would have been more legitimate and settled had the matter won a clear majority in a referendum. As it was, a small number of voters elected someone who promised a new service as part of a larger suite of promises, and a new mayor elected by a small number of voters mostly because the incumbent was a jackass. Both mayors embarked on huge changes to policing with little to no consultation for “reasons”. That’s before the Province got involved…

 

[Ostrozac]

That’s before the Province got involved…

The province holds all the cards. Municipalities don’t have any status under the constitution — except for what’s delegated to them by the province — so as long as municipalities do what they are supposed to do, like plow the streets, collect the garbage, and do the work that the provinces can’t be bothered to do (but are crucial to the actual taxpayer) it all works fine. But when provinces and municipalities square off, and can’t get along, then the uncomfortable cracks in the system start to appear.

Like that while provinces own the problems, premiers tend to care more about problems in places that vote for them. And that the level of government that most closely interacts with the average citizen on day to day basis — municipal — is also the weakest and least empowered.