B.C. anti-extortion chief sorry for disputing ‘crisis’

The Mountie heading up a taskforce charged with curbing extortion-related violence issued a mea culpa after saying the situation was not a crisis.

The head of British Columbia’s anti-extortion task force has apologized for having “impacted public confidence” after being told by Premier David Eby to step aside unless he demonstrated a sense of urgency tackling a wave of blackmail-related shootings that has swept the Lower Mainland.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Brewer said Wednesday that he did not mean to call into question the force’s commitment to the task when he repeatedly challenged using the term “crisis” to characterize the shootings a day earlier.

He said he had been trying to reassure the public in an update on the task force’s work, and he did not intend to put focus on whether he regarded the situation as a crisis.

Brewer’s performance at the news conference prompted Eby to say Wednesday that Brewer needed to clarify his “puzzling” remarks or step aside.

He said it was possible to misspeak, but Brewer’s comments “cut at public confidence in the head of the task force’s work and he needs to either clarify and if he doesn’t feel the urgency then he needs to step aside.”

“It’s hard to think of a situation, where you are unable to do business, you don’t feel comfortable in your own home, you are facing gun shots, and where residents in homes are shooting back at people, who are shooting at their home, as anything other than a crisis,” Eby said at an unrelated news conference in Prince George, B.C.

Eby said the task force was set up four months ago because of the “urgent and serious” situation.

“Frankly, until his comments yesterday, I thought that Mr. Brewer had really demonstrated that sense of urgency,” said Eby.

A spokesperson for Eby’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Brewer’s apology.

Brewer said in his apology, issued about two hours after Eby’s admonishment, that the task force’s commitment to the extortion threats and violence “has not wavered.”

“Our efforts have never been limited because of a term. Extortions remain one of our highest priorities,” he said.

Brewer had said in Tuesday’s four-month update since the establishment of the BC Extortion Task Force that it was “actively hunting” suspects in 32 files across the Lower Mainland.

There have been at least four shootings in the past week that police have linked to extortion, with gunfire hitting businesses and homes. Similar attacks have been going on for months, with the apparent extortionists often sharing videos of the attacks taking place on social media.

The violence took a twist over the weekend, with police in the Metro Vancouver city of Surrey saying an investigation was underway into residents of one home who were believed to have returned fire on Saturday.

Brewer said shootings and threats of violence create “fear and uncertainty within the community,” but he said people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.

“There’s no need for anybody to take the law in their hands or engage in overt acts of self-defence here. You are going to endanger yourself and you’re going to endanger your neighbours,” he said Tuesday. “Let the police do their job.”

Data released by the task force showed that seven people had been charged, while nine people had been removed from Canada from among 111 investigations into the admissibility of foreign nationals.

The violence has mainly targeted members of the South Asian community, and has been centred around Surrey.

Brenda Locke, the mayor of Surrey, is urging Ottawa to “take immediate action and implement a full-scale national initiative” against extortion violence.

Locke said in a statement Wednesday that her city had seen 34 cases of reported extortion in the last three weeks, and residents were in “constant fear.”

She said in a letter to federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree that Ottawa should appoint a “national extortion commissioner” to create a co-ordinated, countrywide approach to such crimes.

Police are “working hard” on the cases, Locke said, but a more co-ordinated national front against extortion violence was needed, and a commissioner would address that issue.

“This role should have the authority to examine the obvious gaps in our criminal, immigration, and citizenship systems and lead a national response that actually stops these crimes from happening,” she said, adding current laws were “too weak.”

“This is unlike anything Surrey has faced before,” Locke says.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2026

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press