Talk:Surrey Police Service

Article vision

There seems to be some dissonance between editors about the vision of this article. I think the dispute about whether this police agency will actually claim power is the dominant fact. Therefore the dispute should be at the top of the article, before the jump. I'd appreciate it if editors would stop altering my edits and burying the police dispute further down the article. Jozsefs (talk) 10:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there should be some mention of the dispute in the lede - but I think it could be clearer. Perhaps something to the effect of:

Prior to the Service's establishment, Surrey relied on the RCMP for police services under contract - the largest city in Canada to do so. The transition process has been delayed by an ongoing dispute between the City of Surrey, which is attempting to revert back to RCMP policing, and the provincial government, which has argued doing so would de-stabilize policing provincewide and exacerbate RCMP staffing shortages. Although the RCMP continues to have jurisdiction over police services in Surrey during the transition, Surrey is required by provincial law to maintain a municipal police force as of 2023.

My phraseology is not perfect but I think the lede should make clear mention of the fact that the RCMP previously policed Surrey, for the sake of international or otherwise uninformed readers; the key motivations of the province and municipality in the dispute; the current status of policing in Surrey; and what the future (most likely) holds. I think the current version of the lede satisfies some of these points, but I think it is more vague than it has to be. I've made a slight copy edit to the current lede but I think it should be otherwise left as-is until a consensus can be reached.

ReactionEquipment (talk) 09:53, 13 January 2024 (UTC)