Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum says he is calling for an immediate, independent police investigation into the circumstances around the firing of Surrey Police Chief Norm Lipinski, as well as the subsequent resignations of two Surrey Police Board (SPB) directors.
Lipinski was abruptly removed from his post on June 1. A day later, the SPB confirmed the chief’s departure but did not provide a reason.
Board chair Harley Chappell, Chief of the Semiahmoo First Nation, stepped down days later, making a public statement, saying the board’s actions violated B.C.’s Police Act. Chappell said at the time that Lipinski was removed at a meeting that he did not attend.
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“If the law was broken, it does not matter who broke it or what office they hold,” McCallum said in a release Wednesday.
“Charges must be laid. No one in this city is above the Police Act, not a board member, not a councillor, and not the Mayor. The people of Surrey need to know that the rules and laws that protect their police service still mean something.“
“When the person who chaired that board tells the city the Police Act was violated and that political pressure drove the decision, you do not hold a press conference and move on. You call the police.”
McCallum says the investigation needs to be led by an independent police service.
“This investigation cannot go to the RCMP,” he said, pointing out the new head of the police board, Surrey City Coun. Rob Stutt, is a former RCMP member.
“The people at the centre of this have spent four years fighting to keep the RCMP in Surrey. You cannot ask the same force to investigate the very people who championed it.”
McCallum, who is running for office again this fall, says Surrey deserves investigators with no stake in the outcome.
“That means an independent, major police service from outside this city, answerable to no one in Surrey politics.”
James Carwana, an independent director of the SPB, resigned days after Lipinski was let go. Carwana was reportedly the only director to vote against the chief’s firing.