People First Surrey

Getting ready for the Public Transit Advocacy Network Surrey Chapter Launch!!!

Transit advocacy group in Surrey. FRI, JUL 19TH 2019, 8 PM Rusty's Neighbourhood Pub: 17770 56 Ave, Surrey, BC V3S 1K4

Mr. Sunny Prabhakar of the Public Transit Advocacy Network on The Jill Bennett Show.

Getting ready for the Public Transit Advocacy Network Surrey Chapter Launch!!!

Transit advocacy group in Surrey. FRI, JUL 19TH 2019, 8 PM Rusty's Neighbourhood Pub: 17770 56 Ave, Surrey, BC V3S 1K4

Finally Mayor McCallum has released his plan for Surrey policing. We are still studying the report but so far, pretty much the expected! Looks like the staff was instructed to create a report around the 10% increase soundbite mayor was throwing around. Still more costly than today, less officers, no concrete explanation on how this will address crime in Surrey! Then add on the city staff to manage it, a police board that mayor and council can influence and so on. In Surrey’...s context, even with all the BC Police act and other laws, people with influence in the city hall is going to extend their influence to the police board and probably to police investigations. The just out report also mention that mayor will be the chair of police board and there will be other councilors etc. selected to the board. In short, Surrey police board could very much reflect a Surrey city committee. It is time for the people in Surrey to write an alternate report with RCMP option and send to the provincial government. Let’s ask the provincial government for the opportunity for public to vote on the options. What if Surrey continue with RCMP and invest the additional amounts spend on ‘Surrey police’ to crime prevention programs, schools etc.? May be we need an objective comparison between McCallum’s plan and an RCMP option. Then, let the taxpayers choose. PEOPLE FIRST is willing to initiate and co-ordinate a panel to create such a report. We request those individuals and organizations willing and have the knowledge on such matters to contact us directly at [email protected]. We are looking for a team to write this report and those who can provide input. PEOPLE FIRST cannot do this ourselves. If we get a good panel, we can create the report in a few months and send it to the Provincial governments and present it to Surrey public. The public safety minister has already announced he will be asking specific questions on McCallum’s report anyway. A report directly from public will result in better overall outcomes for Surrey public. PEOPLE FIRST has brought out the waste of taxpayer funds by McCallum & team to generate public support for his Surrey Police plan. PEOPLE FIRST has raised Freedom Of Information requests in the past with city and province to release the current report. Our objective was to bring this report to Surrey public when McCallum denied public access to it. We are very happy to be part of bringing this report to public. McCallum finally realized the report is going to come out anyway and decided to release it for political reasons.

May be the Surrey city council should admit that their promises about 'transparency' was a joke! Surrey city council will not publish the surrey police transition report ! Surrey city council will not explain how this change will reduce crime in Surrey!... Surrey city council will not disclose how much this change will cost the taxpayers ! Even though they know it by now. BUT, at least council should publish how much of our taxpayer money being spend on marketing the proposed Surrey police force. Looks like this is going the same route that Surrey LRT took !

Delegation to Surrey city council meeting this month about Anniedale Tynehead NCP and a development application. It is one of the last remaining green canopy area there. A very environmentally sensitive area. Development permit is being approved even without a hydrology study, ignoring all the calls from the people who care for the environment! We definitely agree that people need services there. It is a shame that a city is collecting more or less the same property taxes whe...ther city provide services or not. People live there have been paying property taxes for decades. It is a shame that councils so far did not take steps to bring services there. But can we not get them city services without the loss of canopy and trees? What exactly is this SMART development current council promised? We don’t see any difference between this council and the previous one? In the previous one all the councilors voted to clear out the trees. In this one, it is one less (Steven Pettigrew is the exception so far). But the effect is the same! We appealed to have a full review of the Anniedale Tynehead NCP. Let’s figure out how to bring services there without the loss of trees and environment. We don’t have a Planet B! We have enough resources in this world to meet everyone’s needs, just don’t have enough to meet everyone’s greed!

An update our Freedom Of Information(FOI) Requests! We submitted two set of FOIs. One with city of Surrey and other with the province. Province’s FOI came back saying they have not received the report from city yet. They also encourage us to submit another request at a later date when city has submitted it to province.... The city of Surrey has declined our FOIs. Here is the quote from the reply here The records are exempted from disclosure pursuant to Section 12(1) and Section 12(3) (Cabinet and local public body confidences), Section 13(1) (Policy advice and recommendations), Section 17(1) (Disclosure harmful to the financial or economic interests of a public body) and Section 16(1)(b) (Disclosure harmful to intergovernmental relations or negotiations) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act). The referenced legislation can be viewed at the following link: http://www.bclaws.ca//bclaws/document/ID/freeside/96165_00. We already took it to next level by requesting the Provincial privacy commissioner review of this conclusion and overrule this denial. In spite of this conclusion, the mayor is promising to publish it. Isn’t these two contradict? Well we understand it is circumventing city processes for political purposes! Either way, we are committed to bring that details of police transition and costs to people of Surrey. If the Mayor is not publishing it in due course, we can definitely put another request with province and get it and will publish it. We were expecting that the Mayor will share some details of Police Transition Costs from his State of the City Address today. Disappointed! Nothing new information in the address. Just a report on all their activities!

Surrey mayor says there will be public consultation on move to municipal police force!!! What a change in a month! From this..... https://globalnews.ca/news/5025752/surrey-police-2/ To these.. https://www.surreynowleader.com//surrey-mayor-insists-pub/ https://globalnews.ca//surrey-mayor-public-consultation-m/ As you know, we have initiated freedom of information request for the Surrey police transition report not only with the city of Surrey but also with the province. Both are due by end of this month, unless they ask for extension, which so far, they did not. Our objective as the newspaper said was to ‘force city council’s hand to reveal details contained in its police transitioning report’. Now that is getting closer to reality. https://www.surreynowleader.com//people-first-trying-to-f/ PEOPLE FIRST has always stood for what is right. Be it for the skytrain instead of LRT, terminal for Surrey in the Vancouver-Seattle high speed train or enabling choice of people of Surrey in their policing model. We stood for what is right in spite of the odds. So far, a good track record of success! We are happy with the change we are bringing to Surrey! We are paying back for the people voted for us, supported us. Now the catch: McCallum’s consultation is ask questions like, ‘What in your neighbourhood would you want the police to be addressing to keep your community safe?’. Not like "Do you want RCMP or Surrey police force" or How much more are you willing to pay? Well.. that is a topic for another day!

PEOPLE FIRST submitted a couple of freedom of information (FOI) requests to the City of Surrey for copies of the ‘Police Transitioning Report’ and supporting information related to it. People of Surrey have a right a right to know the costs of policing transition and impacts to safety in the City. A few days back, premier John Horgan mentioned the existence of such a report by the City. The current Mayor has been asked, during and after the campaign, to comment on these cos...ts of the policing transition but he has always deflected the question. He still refuses to disclose the costs and actual policing that impact the safety of people in this city. Initially, PEOPLE FIRST expects the council to resist these FOI requests; however, the Freedom of Information and Protection Act has mention that the public interest is paramount to the law. We, therefore, plan to work with the Privacy Commissioner of the Province of British Columbia if need be. This will eventually force the Mayor and Council to disclose these reports to the Surrey's taxpayers, enabling their right to choose. Currently the city of Surrey has a maximum of 30 business days to respond to our requests even though they can do so a lot sooner. PEOPLE FIRST is happy that many of the campaign topics in our 16 point municipal election platform are being adopted and implemented by others. We mention three important ones. 1) Including Surrey to the Vancouver Seattle high speed rail route : PEOPLE FIRST is the only political party to raise this. Recently Premier John Horgan took up this issue and went a step further by announcing his support for the high speed line terminating in Surrey. Initially three of the four options proposed for this route were all terminating in Downtown Vancouver and did not even include a stop in Surrey even though it was passing through Surrey. 2) Skytrain instead of LRT : PEOPLE FIRST was the first team to take up this issue, later on adopted by Council who have also taken steps to make the reversal. 3) PEOPLE FIRST advocated for a mobile app which would provide a holistic approach to transportation options from a point A to point B, including all Translink and non-Translink transportation options like car share, bike share, etc. Translink has recently announced a plan to do just that.

Couple of international students dropped by yesterday. They study in private colleges here in Canada. But unlike their public college counterparts, who has similar fees, credentials and curriculum, they are not given same visa rules. They cannot bring spouses with them, get stay back programs that the public college students are given. Many of these students are married and have children back in their home countries. These families are now separated because these rules. Sound...ed pretty reasonable ask. Wrote up a letter and took them to local Member of Parliament from Cloverdale, John Aldag. Met with him. Luckily, he is part of the immigration focus group in Ottawa. John was very helpful and assured he will bring it up for discussion with his counterparts. He also promised he will get back about some specific visa issues. Thanks the Phoenix Richmond team for introducing them and helping them!

This is in response to today’s shooting in Surrey, Mayor McCallum’s response to it and RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr’s statement: PEOPLE FIRST appreciate Safe Surrey team’s quick action on Skytrain adoption, the strong message it delivers and alliances they are securing. The move to a municipal force was also part of their platform. So we understand the move towards it. However PEOPLE FIRST always questioned the hasty moves towards a municipal force. It’s r...ational, effectiveness and of course the cost. About the mayor’s statement of blaming RCMP for the shooting - We urge the city council to refrain from statements that undermine the morale of our police force and undermine public’s trust in them. Safe Surrey very smartly channeled the anger of people due to crime towards RCMP and used it for their election advantage. However there is no reason to continue it after the elections and playing politics when lives are lost. On the day on swearing in, which was just a few days before, the Mayor and most city Councillors reiterated the great service by RCMP and thanked them. Now, a few days after that, Mayor is pointing fingers at RCMP immediately after a crime is reported. We request the council to work with RCMP and identify ways to combat crime issues as long as RCMP is the policing force in this city. Whether the council like it or not, a municipal force is years away. Turning their back on RCMP does not help anybody. It is an irresponsible position to take for a council. We also request the council to focus on working out the costs of transition from RCMP to Municipal force and share that with public. Does the council simply planning to point fingers at RCMP for any and all crimes in Surrey for next four years as the transition to municipal force happen? https://www.surreynowleader.com//man-dead-after-early-mor/ https://www.surreynowleader.com//bc-rcmps-commanding-offi/

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Thank you to all those voted for us!! We believe 1700+ mayoral votes and 32000+ councillor votes for five council candidates c...ombined is good numbers for a first timer party trying clean politics. We consider it as encouragement and support for our ideology and coming up with innovative solutions for Surrey's issues. We thank a great number of our volunteers, most of them with young families. Running a campaign with absolutely no paid volunteers or even a full time campaign manager is not an easy job. We were still able to organizing many open houses, debates etc. So a big thank you to all our volunteers who helped us. Website to open houses to campaign signs to flyers and what not. A big big Thank you from the bottom of our heart!! Our donors, a big thank you to all of you as well! Value of democracy can only be realized by experiencing or observing the absence of it. So we thank all those who voted yesterday. We pride ourselves in our team, Rajesh Jayaprakash, Maria Foster, Yanni Yu, Paul Rusan, Murali Krishnan, Thampy Rajan. Great work and results we can be proud of! We also like to extend our thanks to all the media team members who included us in their coverage. Many a times they had the choice of ignoring a start-up party, but most of them did not. Our thanks to them. Congratulations to Doug and his team and Linda Annis. We will be cheering for them to lead Surrey to new heights as per the mandate of Surrey voters! We also want to put a word of appreciation for all the candidates. It is no easy job to run in an election. While we may or may not agree on the positions and policies, we always keep great respect for the individuals who put their names forward to serve the people and campaigned on whatever they believe. Our salute to you all!