Fact Check: Solicitor General contradicts his own Ministry’s report
Yesterday, the Solicitor General told reporters in Victoria that a costing scenario that requires 900 sworn Surrey Police Service officers in a report from his Ministry was false.
Surrey, BC – Yesterday, the Solicitor General told reporters in Victoria that a costing scenario that requires 900 sworn Surrey Police Service officers in a report from his Ministry was false.
The report titled “Costing and Financial Analysis of the Surrey Police Service Delivery Model (Surrey Police Service versus RCMP)” clearly states the following:
- Page 10: “Should the City choose to retain SPS, in order to provide adequate policing services to the City, a police service of 900 sworn officers would be required based on authorized strength as provided by the Ministry.”
- Page 10: “900 sworn officers were determined to be the required authorized strength to support Surrey under SPS as provided by the Ministry.”
In Victoria on Wednesday, the Solicitor General stated the following:
- “To suggest this is the model and that is the basis for cost, is simply, completely, utterly false.” (CTV News Vancouver, April 24, 2024).
“How can the Solicitor General say that a scenario developed in a report commissioned by his Ministry, supported by numbers provided by his Ministry, are somehow being fabricated by the City?” asked Mayor Brenda Locke. “The truth is, the NDP sat on this report for a year, didn’t release it until they were forced to as a result of the City’s legal action, and now the Solicitor General wants taxpayers to believe that the assumptions in his own report are false.”
The City of Surrey has never been provided a plan for the transition. The report was developed for the Solicitor General in April 2023 and not released to the public until it was disclosed to the City yesterday as part of upcoming legal proceedings against the Province.
“At the end of the day, these questions could have been answered if the Solicitor General and the Premier had simply developed a transparent and publicly available transition plan,” added Mayor Locke. “It’s been five years, and we still don’t even have access to very basic facts about their plans. And when a sliver of truth gets exposed, their defense is that their own reports aren’t even true.”
Read the full report here.