Surrey mayor Doug McCallum under fire after second caucus departure

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Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum’s approach to creating a new police force for B.C.'s second-largest city has cost him another member of the coalition of councillors he ran with in last fall’s municipal election.

Brenda Locke, a former provincial cabinet minister, says she will no longer be a member of the Safe Surrey Coalition, but rather sit as an independent. The coalition won seven of eight council seats in last fall’s municipal election.

In announcing her exit on Thursday, Ms. Locke denounced the lack of public consultation on the specifics of the plan to end more than six decades of the RCMP policing Surrey and replace them with a newly created municipal force.

With help from parties including the Vancouver Police Department, the city prepared the plan and submitted it to the province for consideration before it was released to the public.

Ms. Locke accused Mr. McCallum of a “my way or the highway approach to governing” that has led to council becoming “dysfunctional.”

“That’s clearly not beneficial for the citizens,” wrote Ms. Locke, a former BC Liberal minister of state for mental health and addiction services.

“Now, far too many decisions are made in the mayor’s office, behind closed doors,” she said in a statement.

In an interview, she said there has been no “effective” consultation with the public on policing reform.

“I have said from the beginning that transparency will be our friend on this, that if we are going to go down this road, we need to bring the public with us, and this should be all very much an open dialogue. That never happened.”

Ms. Locke said councillors were generally shut out of the process of developing the policing strategy. Although the city launched public consultation sessions, they began before the report was released.

“I am concerned that we are trying to rush this process,” she said. “I would rather it be done right rather than be done fast.”

Ms. Locke is the second member of the coalition to exit in recent weeks after Steven Pettigrew recently said he was also leaving for reasons that include the lack of consultation on policing policy.

Both councillors as well as Mr. McCallum ran on a plan to create a new police force.

Ms. Locke also took issue with Mr. McCallum’s criticism of her concerns about future police staffing levels at Sophie’s place, an operation that helps victims of abuse. In a statement, the mayor accused her of “fearmongering.”

Ms. Locke said she continues to support the development, transit and policing priorities she ran on with Mr. McCallum and the Safe Surrey Coalition.

She said she was planning to run as an independent last fall but joined the coalition after being approached by Mr. McCallum because she generally agreed with his policies on issues such as transit and policing.

Of the coalition, she said members do not caucus and will have to regroup to run in the next municipal election. “This was not an ongoing party per se. It isn’t a formed society. We didn’t sign for anything.”

She said Mr. McCallum is springing surprises on council. As an example, she cited his recent public musing about building a “wandering canal” in south Surrey agricultural lands. He raised the idea during a speech and said he had asked the municipal engineering department to look at the idea.

Ms. Locke said she learned about the proposal on social media. “It’s very challenging to be a part of his team,” she said.

She said she did not know if other councillors felt the same way she did. The Globe and Mail reached out to all councillors. Two – Allison Patton and Laurie Guerra – said they were sticking with the coalition.

In response, Mr. McCallum said in a statement on Thursday that Ms. Locke ran on the issues that the coalition campaigned on and will have to answer to voters she has abandoned.