Questions still remain 1½ weeks after ousting of Surrey Police Chief Lipinski

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke and Surrey Police Service Chief Const. Norm Lipinski last year. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10109155A

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Nearly two weeks after the ousting of Surrey Police Chief Norm Lipinski, the city is still not saying how much taxpayers are on the hook for for his severance.

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“From the beginning, the Surrey police transition has been a big boondoggle for taxpayers,” said Carson Binda, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It’s gone significantly over-budget, and there’s been political interference from all levels of government. I think that’s leaving taxpayers with really big bills to pick up.”

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When asked by Postmedia News about details of Lipinski’s severance amount, the City of Surrey refused to comment.

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“The Surrey police board is a separate entity from the city and is responsible for employment matters involving Surrey Police Service personnel,” it said in a statement.

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The police board didn’t respond to Postmedia questions as of Wednesday afternoon.

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Lipinski’s ouster was determined by the board during a closed meeting on May 29, and the now-former chief was out the following Monday. A source close to the situation told Postmedia that Lipinski was given the option to resign or be terminated without cause by June 4.

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But police board members announced Lipinski “left” his position, and later told Postmedia he was terminated without cause. When asked last week what his severance package would look like, board director Hanne Madsen said it was under negotiation and would be made public at a later time when the board would release its financial statement.

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Binda says that’s not good enough.

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“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of secrecy and dodged accountability when it comes to the Surrey police transition. So, I think this latest boondoggle is just a continuation of that pattern of secrecy, we’ve seen from the beginning,” he said. “Taxpayers deserve answers, and we deserve answers now. There’s no reason for government to kick this down the line and prevent us from having that transparency right off the bat.”

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Following the decision of the board, its chair, Harley Chappell, resigned in protest, saying he wasn’t present at the closed meeting and wasn’t informed about the motion to terminate Lipinski. Just days later, another board director, James Carwana, also resigned. Carwana didn’t release a public statement and couldn’t be reached for comment, but a source told Postmedia he was the sole vote against terminating Lipinski.

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Since the controversial news, many have been calling for an investigation into the decision of the board. On Wednesday, former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum joined that call.

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The former mayor wants an independent police probe into the firing of Lipinski and the subsequent resignations of Chappell and Carwana.

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However, McCallum says it should be an agency other than the RCMP, given interim board chair and city councillor Rob Stutt’s history as a Mountie.

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“The people at the centre of this have spent four years fighting to keep the RCMP in Surrey,” McCallum said in a news release. “You cannot ask the same force to investigate the very people who championed it. 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.”