Municipal and Federal: Unique Methods of Policing

Capstone Research Branch

Danielle Creighton

April 7th, 2020

 Introduction

On October 20, 2018, Doug McCallum was elected mayor for the city of Surrey (Surrey-Now

Leader, 2018). The focus of his campaign was to turn the Surrey Royal Canadian Mounted

Police (RCMP) into a municipal police force. Out of all the elections happening at the time, this

was one of the most important ones because it would have a lasting impact. Not to say that the

others were not important because they were, but McCallum’s campaign was the only one who

had an idea that was semi-realistic. For the voters at the time, they would have had to consider if

he would follow through with such a grand plan. After he was elected, on November 5, 2018, the

council motion for there to no longer be RCMP in Surrey happened. It took a long time for it to

officially be decided, but on August 22nd of 2019, “the provincial government announced its

approval Thursday morning in a joint statement with the city (CBC, 2019).” This decision will

have an enormous impact on the city of Surrey, the people who live there, and the RCMP

officers who work in Surrey. It is hard to say if it was the right decision by the mayor and

council to make such a change. This poses the question of, is a local run police force more

efficient than a federal force, or is there a mold when it comes to policing? It is easy to already

answer a part of this question by saying that all police officers should posses’ certain

characteristics such as the ability to think rationally and able to communicate with others. The

part of it about if there is one specific way to police is a debatable topic. There shouldn’t be

anyone way to do anything in life. All people have their ideas of how to do something, and there

are multiple ways to do so correctly. It is like solving a puzzle. There is no specific way required

to start a puzzle, it doesn’t matter which pieces get moved first, it is about creating the final

image. Another question posed with this topic is specifically about the Surrey transition, which

ties into this topic well if the police in Surrey should be run in a specific way. Furthermore, will

1
other cities follow Surrey’s example? How does it impact the city of Surrey and the current

RCMP members working there?

The Makings of a Good Police Officer

To even be able to begin discussing if there should be a one size fits all mold when it comes to

policing, one needs to consider what makes a good police force. The first thing that comes to

mind is having a good sense of community between officers. Co-workers must respect each other

in any job. They need to be conscious of the people around them and be able to rely on one

another. Specific to police, since there are a lot of different dangerous situations that they are put

in, it is a necessity to rely on one another. A good police force has a good relationship with the

community they serve in. One of the most important things for police is to have their community

trust them to protect them, and for people to want to have them. A very specific example of this

would be Surrey transitioning. During the election, his entire campaign was about changing the

police into a municipality, and one of the main reasons he was elected is because people wanted

to be closer to the police so that their ideas could be heard. Policing all comes down to how they

are perceived by the community and how they are respected.

The Surrey Policing Transition

Before investigating the topic, we need to know the timeline for the current transition. There is a

189-page report that detailing the police transition, but it does not address the timeline or the

budget of the project. In Mayor McCallum’s original proposal, he had panned for the new police

force to be running during the spring of 2021, which has been pushed due to various reasons

including the coronavirus, and budgeting errors. The hopes from the recently appointed Chief

Constable, Norm Lipinski, are “to have some boots on the ground by the end of the year

2
(Vancouver Sun, 2021.)” He also has said that the RCMP in Surrey will be operating into 2022

because it would be very difficult to have 800 fully trained members on the ground by the end of

the year. As of this moment, there is no official timeline. There is another major issue regarding

this transition, and that is the budget and finances of the project. In 2019, the full cost of police

services in Surrey was $183.3 million (Surrey Police, 2019). In the official transition plan

created in 2019, the projected cost of the RCMP was $195.2 million, and the cost for Surrey PD

would be $192.5 million. The projected one-time costs for the transition were $13.3 million. As

of right now, the “current cost for the transition is $63.7 million (CTV News, 2020).” This is an

extreme difference from the original budget. There will have to be an increase in taxes for a

period to be able to pay for these new expenses, and this will negatively impact the community.

There are already people who don’t see a point for this transition, therefore they would be angry

paying more on taxes. Some people didn’t care if the transition would happen or not, and now

they will have to pay for it. It’s unfortunate that it was poorly planned because it seems like a

change that has the potential to make a good change. This isn’t something that can just happen

overnight. There needs to be careful planning involved for something as major and expansive as

this, that can’t just be accomplished in a year. The job needs to be done right for it to be

successful. They have only recently decided on the people who would be on the policy council

and even more recently, appointed the chief constable, and its three deputy chief constables.

There are some issues between the RCMP and the communities that they operate in that can be

solved by creating a local police department. There are many examples of issues of

communication within the RCMP that can be solved by having a local department.

Federal and Municipal

3
To take a closer look into this topic, we need to understand what municipal and federal policing

are. A municipal police force is run by municipal police boards. These forces are generally

funded solely from the city’s budget. The BC Provincial Police Act, states that municipalities

with populations 5,000 and over must provide their law enforcement by contracting with an

existing police department and contracting with the provincial government for RCMP police

services. At this moment there are twelve municipalities in British Colombia and have eleven

municipal police departments (Government of BC site, 2021). Within a year there will be

thirteen municipalities in BC due to Surrey transitioning if this transition does happen. Federal

police provide their services to the federal government and serve all the provinces. The Royal

Canadian Mounted Police is Canada’s set policy, they are the ones who were set here first and

are subject to change depending on the community needs. There are of course many similarities

to the two types but there are also a lot of differences. The differences aren’t necessarily bad,

they are just different. The final most important thing when it comes to a good police force is the

level of training. They need to be properly trained to be able to keep others safe, especially since

they carry a gun and other weaponry. Besides, police need to be good, to simply put it. They just

want to make a good change and to help others in a kind manner, as well as upholding the law.

The Similarities

 To begin, one of the first similarities they share is that they closely work together. There are

many times when it’s required for the two to have to work together. If the RCMP had to do

surveillance on a target, and they are ready to arrest the person and it’s within a different area,

the local police might be requested to help. They could direct traffic if necessary, or they could

help apprehend the person if there weren’t enough members. When interviewing a current

4
Corporal in the RCMP who is on the High-Risk Target Team, she said that in a file in January,

her team assisted in capturing a fugitive wanted Canada-wide for warrants on weapons and

kidnapping charges in Surrey. She said that “The HRTT conducted surveillance in Vancouver

that led to the arrest of the subject.” Before the man was arrested, he had evaded the police for 9

months after cutting off his electric monitoring bracelet while on bail in Surrey and killed a

person in Winnipeg. There were a lot of people involved in working this case including both

RCMP and VPD that required a lot of cooperation from all parties involved. Also, it is required

for municipal police to have a contract with the provincial government to use RCMP services.

For example, to access the database that contains fingerprints of people that have been arrested,

and different blood types. It would be impossible for local police to do their jobs if they didn’t

have access to this type of information. They wouldn’t be able to identify anyone and wouldn’t

be able to check people that have been arrested for warrants. There would be no way for a new

force to create their database of information because they wouldn’t have the resources to obtain

millions of people’s fingerprints, hence contracting with the government to gain permission to

use such resources. Both must work with each other which would bring similarities between the

two on how things are run. This is only a shortlist of similarities, there are many more.

The Differences

 One of the most major differences between these two types of policing is the rate at which

things are accomplished. With a local force, decisions can be made at a significantly faster rate.

For example, if a local police department were working on creating a new initiative such as an

anti-bullying campaign, they would need approval from the board members, and that is most

likely it. In contrast, the RCMP has a much longer turnaround for approval on these types of

5
projects. Since the RCMP national headquarters is in Ottawa, and all-important decisions and

commands come from there or must be approved there, it can take time for things to be approved

or action to be taken. Another difference is the relationship with the community. Police need to

have a good relationship with the people in the community, and to at least be on good terms with

people in the area, especially now with the current climate in the world. Unfortunately, there are

police officers who abuse their power and take advantage of other people. It is the people like

this that have created a bad image for police all over the world and it undermines all the good

work that they do. It is much easier for people in the community to form a connection with a

local force because they can immediately act and act on issues specific to that community. There

can be something to the RCMP that makes it seem intimidating to people, the sheer size of it. It

is just such a big entity that it can make it hard for them to be able to act immediately since it can

take a long time for requests to be processed. This isn’t necessarily their fault, it is almost

unavoidable when trying to accommodate many people and to try to make everyone happy,

unfortunately, it is at the expense of time. Police need to have a good relationship with their

community. One of the last key differences between municipal and federal policing is the

resources that each has. Since the RCMP is very large, having nearly “19,000 officers (Statista,

2019),” and are the federal police, they have significantly more resources than a local force. For

a local force, one of their resources is the RCMP. In the previous section, I showed my research

on how a local force gets formed. One of the main requirements for this is to have a contract with

the provincial government for RCMP services. A municipality wouldn’t be able to operate

without working with the RCMP. That is the most major difference, how one must rely on the

other to operate whereas the other is the one being relied on.

6
 Advantages to Each

Alike, to the similarities and differences between a federal police force and a municipal one,

some advantages and disadvantages edge each one out in certain aspects. Although some of these

points are like the differences in the last section, there is more to be said about it. From the

perspective of a civilian, a local force can take any sort of action, much quicker than the RCMP

can. The RCMP is responsible for national issues and is sent out to handle them at a moment's

notice. When there were extremely bad forest fires in Kelowna during the summer of 2018,

RCMP members from all detachments in British Columbia were sent to help evacuate people and

relieve the Kelowna emergency response forces. During these fires, a lot of RCMP were away

from their detachments, therefore there were fewer officers available to deal with issues in their

respective work areas. In contrast, municipal forces aren’t responsible for dealing with

nationwide events, they only work within their community. It is one of the appeals of a local

force, the quick communication and response that they have to various circumstances. One of the

advantages federal policing has over municipal police is the number of people and resources they

have. There are roughly “19,000 active officers (Statista, 2019),” in the RCMP throughout

Canada. There is a lot of strength in numbers and having a lot of members at each detachment

generally results in things getting done faster. Since we have considered a few of the advantages

to each type, we also need to compare the disadvantages to each.

The Slight Downfalls

When comparing the advantages and disadvantages between any two things, the advantage of

one is the disadvantage of the other. In this instance, the same thing applies. In the previous

section, it mentions that having many people working in the RCMP is one of their major

7
advantages. On the opposite end, one of the disadvantages to a municipal force is having fewer

people. It is different for any local force because the number of officers employed is based on

what city or town it is located in. It is safe to assume that cities such as Surrey and Vancouver

would need a larger amount of people employed due to the size of these cities. A municipal force

has themselves to rely on. Yes, they do work with other police like the federal kind, but it is not

like they can always rely on them since they have their things to do. Having to rely on help from

other organizations, especially when a new force is trying to get on its feet, has the potential to

cause major inconveniences for both parties and could hurt their connection in the long run. A

disadvantage that the RCMP has, that is one of its advantages, is the number of people there is.

There is such a hierarchy set that makes it where almost any decision must go through a chain,

and only then can be put into motion. There is also more room when there are more people for

mistakes to happen. For example, an officer who starts making errors in their work, or being

bought out by criminals to let them off. Corrupt cops may seem like something that only happens

in the movies, but it is something that happens in the real world. There recently has been an

instance where a constable was arrested for “theft, breach of trust, and possession of a controlled

substance (Vancouver Sun, 2021).” It isn’t that common of an occurrence within the RCMP for

something of this magnitude to happen, but it does still happen. This isn’t to say there are tons of

corrupt officers, it's just that with a lot of people, there is more room for the bad to slip in

between the cracks. There is a lot to consider when it comes to which policing is all in all better.

Conclusion

8
The questions posed at the beginning of this paper were, is there a one size fits all mold when it

comes to policing? Is it beneficial to the city of Surrey to transition from a federal police force to

a municipal one? The reason for linking these two questions together is because they are both

asking the same question. There are certain circumstances where having a federal police force is

more beneficial to specific communities than a municipal one, and the same can be said vice

versa. It all comes down to what each specific community and/or city needs. The main reason

Surrey is doing this transition is that the mayor and council felt that there was not as open of a

communication line between them and the RCMP as there needed to be, which is a very valid

reason for passing this proposal and putting it into motion. Though there is still a lot of things to

be done before Surrey’s new force can be running, and a lot more money to spend, it is a change

that benefits the city. The plan was a bit haphazard and has costed much more money than

intended, this is a change that would have happened sooner or later. The transition should have

been done over a significantly longer period so that the budget increase would have been more

gradual, it wouldn’t have mattered when this change would happen. There is a time and place for

everything. For the city of Surrey, it seems that at this moment in time, it is more beneficial for

them to have a municipal police force. And this isn’t to say that the RCMP isn’t good, because

they are fantastic and do amazing work for this nation, there is just a lot happening in Surrey that

requires more specific attention. This still doesn’t mean that municipal forces are better than

federal ones, they are on par with each other. There is no mold when it comes to finding the

‘right’ way to police. Each upholds the same laws and is essentially doing the same work. Both

have different appeals and slight downfalls in certain situations, and ultimately balance each

other out. There would be a complete change of opinion if they had different laws, if this

happened, one could easily choose which one is better based on their values and morals, but

9
thankfully this is not the case. In conclusion, there is no mold when it comes to policing. It is not

something that is one size fits all, there are circumstances where one fits better than the other, but

that is no reason to say that one is official better.

10
 References

Affairs, M. (2020, May 01). Municipalities in B.C. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/local-governments/facts-

framework/systems/municipalities

Bird, B. (2013). A Basic Writing Course Design to Promote Writer Identity: Three Analyses of

Student Papers. Journal of Basic Writing, 32(1), 62-96. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/43443933

Bolan, K. (2021, February 25). Surrey police Chief NORM Lipinski working to Finalize details

of takeover FROM RCMP. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://vancouversun.com/news/surrey-police-chief-norm-lipinski-working-to-finalize-

details-of-takeover-from-rcmp

Bolan, K. (2021, January 31). Surrey RCMP OFFICER arrested in Anticorruption probe.

Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/surrey-mountie-

arrested-in-anti-corruption-probe

B.C. government APPROVES Surrey's plan to create its own police force | CBC News. (2019,

August 23). Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-

columbia/bc-police-surrey-force-oppal-1.5256293

C., C., V., & Griffiths, C. T., PhD. (2019, May). Surrey Policing Transition Plan. Retrieved April

4, 2021, from

11
 https://www.surreypolice.ca/sites/surreypolice/files/media/documents/SurreyPolicingTrans

itionReport.pdf

Collins, L. (2018, October 21). THE victory: Doug McCallum IS Surrey's mayor once again -

Surrey Now. Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://www.surreynowleader.com/municipal-

election/breaking-doug-mccallum-is-surreys-mayor-once-again/

Harkin, D. (2015). SIMMEL, THE POLICE FORM AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC

POLICING. The British Journal of Criminology, 55(4), 730-746. Retrieved March 11, 2021,

from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43819548

Jung, A. (2020, February 27). Surrey police transition Costs, timeline still unknown. Retrieved

April 02, 2021, from https://bc.ctvnews.ca/surrey-police-transition-costs-timeline-still-

unknown-1.4829184

Larson, R. (1982). The "Research Paper" in the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing. College

English, 44(8), 811-816. doi:10.2307/377337

Petric, B. (2002). Students' Attitudes Towards Writing and the Development of Academic Writing

Skills. The Writing Center Journal, 22(2), 9-27. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/43442147

Pfaffinger, K. (2006). Research Paper Baby Steps. The English Journal, 95(4), 75-77.

doi:10.2307/30047093

Police act. (1996). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96367_01

12
Reisig, M. (2010). Community and Problem‐Oriented Policing. Crime and Justice, 39(1), 1-53.

doi:10.1086/652384

Reiss, A. (1992). Police Organization in the Twentieth Century. Crime and Justice, 15, 51-97.

Retrieved March 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1147617

Services, P. (2021, March 05). Municipal policing. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/criminal-justice/policing-in-bc/the-structure-

of-police-services-in-bc/municipal

Sivakumar, S., & Lukose, L. (2017). HOW TO READ, ASSESS AND WRITE A RESEARCH

ARTICLE. Journal of the Indian Law Institute, 59(2), 123-152. doi:10.2307/26826597

Stenius, K., Mäkelä, K., Miovský, M., & Gabrhelík, R. (2017). How to Write Publishable Qualitative

Research. In Stenius K., Miovský M., Babor T., Pates R., O’Reilly J., & Candon P.

(Eds.), Publishing Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (pp. 155-172). London:

Ubiquity Press. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3t5qxw.14

Treverton, G., Wollman, M., Wilke, E., & Lai, D. (2011). Policing Today. In Moving Toward the

Future of Policing (pp. 15-42). RAND Corporation. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg1102.10

Varrella, P., & 9, M. (2021, March 09). Number of Royal Canadian Mounted police officers in

Canada, by Province 2019. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/436207/number-of-royal-canadian-mounted-police-

officers-in-canada/#:~:text=Similarly%2C%20the%20RCMP%20provides%20policing

13
%20for%20many%20municipalities,personnel%20in%20police%20service%20in

%20Canada%20in%202018.

14