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Asked if Surrey would be better off with a municipal force, Oppal said: “I don’t have a crystal ball to say they will be better off. I don’t know.”

Nor did he provide specifics on costs for the new agency except to say it would likely be more expensive than what the city pays for the Surrey RCMP.

But given that the RCMP is unionizing and seeking better wages in its first collective agreement, “the gap is going to narrow.”

Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

Several Surrey residents told Oppal that most want to keep the RCMP, despite what McCallum has said. And Annie Kapps said she was disturbed that McCallum and the councillors in his party did not attend the Board of Trade event.

“They are not here and it is a slap in the face to the citizens of Surrey,” she said.

McCallum spokesman Oliver Lum said the mayor would not be commenting on Oppal’s remarks. And he said McCallum was busy addressing the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police on Wednesday morning.

Former Surrey councillor Judy Higginbotham asked Oppal about whether a regional police force encompassing all of Metro Vancouver would make more sense.

“Regional policing always stuck in my mind as a very sensible thing when you get into gang violence, when you get into homicides, when police come to a screeching halt on 120th and Delta Police are on one side and RCMP on the other,” she said.

Oppal noted that he recommended regionalizing police both in his 1994 report on policing in B.C. and again after the inquiry into the failed investigation of serial killer Willie Pickton.

“Regional policing has been on many people’s radar,” Oppal said. “This is a political issue that the province and the municipalities will eventually have to come to grips with.”

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