It’s interesting how Surrey continues to poach from the RCMP to fill the top positions of its fledgling made-in-our-city Surrey Police Service, which is set to replace the Surrey RCMP.
As we noted in our last editorial, this new Surrey police force is so far quite top-heavy with senior members who reside in communities other than Surrey, a condition which flies in the face of Mayor Doug McCallum’s election campaign pitch that we need a police force whose ranks live in this city.
So far, its top three cops hail from outside Surrey’s borders, as do two members of the police board and its executive director.
Moreover, the RCMP, which according to McCallum needs to be replaced, is the pool from which the Surrey Police Service’s senior brass, to date, have been fished.
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They are Chief Constable and Yaletown resident Norm Lipinski, Deputy Chief Constable and Maple Ridge resident Jennifer Hyland, and now Deputy Chief Constable Mike LeSage, whose last job was with the CFSEU in B.C., lives in Coquitlam.
Veteran senior RCMP officers, all.
One more deputy chief constable has yet to be hired. Will he or she also be an outsider, and a former RCMP officer?
While we don’t know if any officers from the Surrey RCMP detachment – Canada’s largest – have applied for any of these jobs, we do know that none of the new police service’s senior crew have been hired from that particular pool.
At least not so far.
Which seems kind of strange, considering RCMP expertise is clearly a prized check-mark on any candidate’s CV, and Mounties in Surrey already have a fine grasp of the ins and outs of policing this particular city.
– Now-Leader
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