Surrey Mayor and police board chair Doug McCallum says he hopes to have an announcement on the city’s new police chief before the end of the year.
On Aug. 13, the Surrey Police Board launched a two-week nationwide search, with applications being accepted until Aug. 28.
READ ALSO: Surrey Police Board launches nationwide search for chief, Aug. 15, 2020
“We had a lot of applications,” said McCallum. “They came in from all across Canada. Certainly the board, and certainly I, was actually quite pleased with the calibre of candidates.”
Now, McCallum said a selection committee has been set up to process the applications to develop a short list.
He said he expects that shortlist to be sent to the police board, “probably at our next board meeting,” which is Tuesday, Sept. 15.
From there, McCallum said it will be time to interview the candidates.
READ ALSO: Surrey Police Board approves creation of municipal force at first-ever meeting, Aug. 6, 2020
“I’m looking forward to the interview process,” he said. “The board has indicated it’s going to take time to go through the applicants and do an extensive interview process to be sure that we can come up with a suitable candidate for our police service.”
As for the timeline, McCallum said he expects to see an announcement on who the police chief will be “before the end of the year.”
He said he’s “pleased we’re moving along fairly quickly.”
Meantime, the National Police Service released findings from an internal survey on Aug. 21 that “confirms (recruitment is) a major problem for the proposed Surrey Police Service” and other detachments in the Lower Mainland.
In the “exclusive RCMP survey of Members currently serving in Surrey,” it states that “less than 14% of current RCMP Members would apply to work with the SPS.”
“This exclusive survey shows that only about one in eight RCMP Members would apply to work at the proposed SPS if Mayor Doug McCallum’s plan moves forward,” said Brian Sauvé, National Police Federation president.
“Surrey’s plan is relying on nearly 500 Surrey RCMP Members out of more than 800 moving over to SPS but this survey shows only 103 indicate they would apply — and none of these Members have yet had access to information on how this might negatively impact their pension or seniority.”
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