Andrew Wilkinson showed he won’t let the facts or the positions his party has already committed to stop him from trying to play politics.

When asked today by Mike Smyth about what he would do on the transition to a new municipal Surrey police force, Wilkinson said:

“I’m not close enough to the issue to have thoughtful things to say about it.”

He should have stopped there. He didn’t...

“It’s going to have to be re-evaluated because there are huge disagreements in Surrey about this [...] There needs to be a new lens on this because right now nobody trusts decision-making in Surrey on this issue.” (Sep 23, CKNW)

BC’s Police Act lays out very clearly that a municipality with more than 5,000 people is responsible for decisions about how to provide law enforcement in their community. (Police Act section 3, sub 2)

BC Liberal MLAs have repeatedly shown they understand the fact that this decision is up to the municipality:

Rich Coleman:

“We all know that the city of Surrey unanimously decided, as a council, that they wanted to change their police force about a year and a half ago. We now know that the government has done the right thing here” (Feb 13, 2020 Hansard)

Stephanie Cadieux and Tracy Redies:

“We don’t want to comment on the merits of a municipal force over the RCMP or vice versa. We do want to say thank you to the men and women in uniform that keep us safe and contribute so much to our community. We respect that this is by statute, a municipal decision to move forward.” (July 6, 2020 Facebook)

Andrew Wilkinson and his BC Liberals can’t have it both ways. His Surrey MLAs say one thing, he says another.

The people of Surrey deserve better than this dishonesty from Andrew Wilkinson.