LETTER: Politics and policing go hand in hand \u2013 in Surrey and beyond<\/p>\n
Published 9:00 am Friday, July 10, 2026<\/p>\n
Editor,<\/p>\n
As quoted by Tom Zytaruk in one of two articles on page A3 in the June 25, 2026, edition of the Peace Arch News, Surrey Police Union president Ryan Buhrig said that \u201cOur members want politics out of policing.\u201d<\/a> Ironic in that the statement itself is a political one.<\/p>\n Policing and politics have gone hand in hand for thousands of years. The two words even come from the same root, the Greek word \u2018polis\u2019 that means city or city-state and originally referred to the management, organization, and well-being of a city and its people. Etymology aside, policing and politics have never been separated.<\/p>\n The role of the police in today\u2019s society is to maintain public order, ensure public safety, and uphold the law. Politicians are responsible for translating public needs into actionable laws, public policies, and budgets. Clearly the two areas overlap. Police are given the power to maintain public order by politicians who write the laws the police enforce. Police get their budgets from politicians who in turn ensure that the money is being used wisely. And surely public safety and public policy cannot be separated.<\/p>\n When crime rates rise, citizens generally don\u2019t think first of going to the police to express their displeasure. They go to their politicians. If they\u2019re not satisfied with the response, it is the politicians who lose their jobs.<\/p>\n Politicians are also the ones who take the heat when taxes go up to pay for policing. Considering this it seems like a prudent political move for the City to have, as Buhrig is reported to have said, cut the police budget by $47 million especially when actual SPS spending in 2024 and 2025 was roughly $65 million below budgeted amounts <\/a>(as reported by Tom Zytaruk in his second article). If they\u2019re not going to use the money, shouldn\u2019t it be budgeted elsewhere?<\/p>\n As representatives of the people who voted them into office, politicians have an obligation to oversee police services so the public good may be met. If there is proof that they are interfering with the way the police are doing their job, then that proof should be brought forward so the public, and if necessary the courts, can judge the matter for themselves.<\/p>\n A police board should be receptive to hearing both from the police who protect our city and the politicians who represent us. Leaving our political representatives out of the mix can only lead to trouble.<\/p>\n Alphonse Williams, Surrey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LETTER: Politics and policing go hand in hand \u2013 in Surrey and beyond Published 9:00 am Friday, July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-798352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}