The former police chief of Surrey, B.C., has requested a judicial review of his firing, alleging Mayor Brenda Locke was a driving force behind the decision. Norm Lipinski was ousted by the Surrey Police Board back in June, prompting the chair to resign in protest. In a petition filed Monday in B.C. Supreme Court, Lipinski said he was provided no notice or opportunity to address the board prior to his termination, arguing the process was unlawful under the province’s Police Act and should be quashed. In an affidavit, Lipinski also noted the mayor had been “firmly opposed” to the city’s transition away from the RCMP to the new Surrey Police Service he led. He said Locke “seemed to be working, privately and publicly” to either undermine him or see him fired. Chief called ‘exceptional’ in performance reviews The board’s reasons for firing Lipinski were never publicly disclosed. A termination letter included in the former chief’s affidavit cites “challenges in meeting the strategic objectives and priorities set by the board” and a “misalignment with board-approved priorities” as factors. “I had never previously received any notice of these apparent concerns,” Lipinski said in the filings. The affidavit also includes several performance reviews the former chief received, one of which commends him for performing “exceptionally well” during the “critical time” of the city’s transition from the RCMP to a municipal police departments. Others describe him as performing at an “exceptional level.” He received a three-year contract extension the fall before his firing. “In the absence of any cogent, objective basis for my termination, I can only conclude that it was done for political or other extraneous reasons,” his affidavit reads, citing the “stated intention” from Mayor Brenda Lock that he be removed. The B.C. government appointed five members to the Surrey Police Board in the weeks before Lipinski’s firing, decided in consultation with Locke. That included Rob Stutt, who campaigned alongside Locke on a platform “based on reversing the transition from the RCMP to the SPS,” according to the affidavit. No comment from the mayor Locke’s Surrey Connect party issued a brief statement Tuesday noting that neither she nor the city are named as parties in the judicial review application. “Mayor Brenda Locke and the City of Surrey have no say in decisions related to staffing at the Surrey Police Service,” the statement reads. “Only the Surrey Police Board, which is independent of the mayor and the city, can make decisions related to staffing.” The party directed any further questions to the board. The allegations prompted calls for Locke to withdraw from the Oct. 17 election, including from mayoral challenger Doug McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition. Candidate Cheney Cloke, a former vice-chair of the Surrey Police Board, accused the mayor of “political interference” leading to “the corruption” of the board. “She did it in the third year of an extortion crisis, with families in this city getting threats at their doors, and she took out the man who built the police service that protects them,” Cloke said in a statement. “That is petty, vindictive politics played with the safety of more than 700,000 people, and then she lied to Surrey about it.” Surrey First mayoral candidate Linda Annis weighed in as well, accusing Locke of wasting taxpayers’ money in her efforts to stall or stop the policing transition. “She cost us time and money on a transition that should have been completed four years ago,” Annis said in a statement. “We’re in year eight, when the entire Second World War took just six years to win.” Both Cloke and Annis told CTV News they would like to see Lipinski returned to his role at the SPS. None of the allegations in Lipinski’s application have been tested in court. With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Shannon Paterson
