Surrey Police Service spokesperson Lindsey Houghton. The NorKam grad is a Staff Sargent with the SPS/via Surrey Police on YouTube
The Surrey Police Service says it doesn’t anticipate push back as it makes its way into Kamloops toward the end of March to try to bolster its ranks.
The SPS has set aside two days at the Coast Hotel in Kamloops for folks who might be interested in joining BC’s newest police force.
“We’re looking for new recruits. We’re looking for experienced officers who may be looking to either join fresh…get into policing, kind of like I did,” said Staff Sergeant Lindsey Houghton, spokesperson for the SPS.
“I grew up in Kamloops, and as a hometown Kamloopsian many years ago, I was looking for a career that could give me opportunity that offered some excitement… sort of a lifelong career within a career in policing, you can do many, many different jobs,” he added.
Planning a two-day blitz in Kamloops — a Wednesday and Thursday — the Surrey Police Service makes no secret of the fact that while it has interest in prospective law enforcement officers, the Kamloops RCMP detachment is also being viewed as a fertile area for recruiting.
“Every police agency is looking for police officers, and we don’t grow on trees,” noted Houghton. “For a frontline officer who’s coming to work on our front lines, we’re offering a $10,000 signing bonus, which is a fairly significant chunk of money.”
“Our contract and our collective agreement is very similar to Vancouver’s and all of the others,” added Houghton. “Anyone who’s experienced in policing will be very familiar with some of the sort of extended benefits and holiday structure.”
SPS in charge of Surrey policing after tumultuous adolescence
The Surrey Police Service officially took over operational control in the Lower Mainland municipality on November 29th, 2025.
It came after some four years of integration with the existing Surrey RCMP force, but also in the aftermath of a long and drawn-out fight among varying groups.
The contentious creation of the SPS would ultimately divide the political landscape in Surrey into two separate camps: Those who backed a transition to the new municipal police force and those who wanted to remain with the existing RCMP service.
The transition itself dates back to Doug McCallum’s election as Mayor in 2018, when he campaigned and won on a platform of — among other things — removing the RCMP and developing the city’s own municipal force.
Now-ex Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum emerges from the Surrey Court House after being found not guilty, after claiming his foot was run over by a member of the Save Surrey Coalition during the dispute over the RCMP transition, which was later deemed to be a false claim, leading to the charge/via Darrel Dyck, The Canadian Press
Swing forward a few years — with a significant dose of intrigue mixed in, which saw McCallum’s popularity begin to wane — and a new faction began to emerge which campaigned on a mandate to strip McCallum of his hold on power and maintain the status-quo — namely RCMP as the local police force.
Led by former BC Liberal MLA Brenda Locke, the pro-RCMP banner would win the day in the October 2022 election.
From there, Locke and her affiliated council members would move to try to reverse the RCMP transition.
Requiring Provincial approval for the disbanding of the now-staffed Surrey Police Service to move forward, then-Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth sits on the decision for several weeks, before ultimately deciding that the policing ‘toothpaste was out of the tube,’ and orders Surrey to continue on with the transition.
The decision was not embraced by the mayor and her supporters, which kept the dispute lingering on through the courts, as well as the courtroom of public opinion.
After weeks of back-and-forth, the province and the municipal leadership in Surrey would ultimately find agreement last summer in a deal which saw everyone in BC become a party to the transition.
Victoria would commit a quarter-billion dollars of provincial taxpayer money to keep the Surrey Police Service — at this point with a few hundred employees and officers on the streets and behind desks — along-side the RCMP.
With that agreement in-place, full-scale recruitment began in earnest in November of last year.
Hundreds more officers needed
Surrey Police Service Chief Norm Lipinski running through drills/via surreypolice.ca
Hiring for the SPS did continue, even amid the political turmoil surrounding the transition.
However, without secured funding and a political backer controlling the purse strings, Chief Norm Lepinski and the SPS Board kept hiring minimal.
Now, with the political stalemate over, the push is on to try to get officers into the mix as quickly as possible to allow for the RCMP to make a vapor-like disappearance from the policing landscape when its capacity as a ‘mentor force’ comes to an end.
There is a loose timeline of wrapping up the transition by the end of next year, though expectations are the transition will most likely continue into 2027.
Transition funding allows for the Mounties to stick around to 2029 in Surrey if needed.
Once the RCMP leaves the municipal force behind, its presence will still be felt in Surrey, as it remains the provincial force, and will continue to coordinate with the SPS on higher-level and multi-jurisdictional cases.
The RCMP’s provincial headquarters are also based in Surrey.
But while the divestment from the municipal force in Surrey continues on, Houghton says the hiring process needs to continue.
“Right now, we’re sitting just under 500 sworn police officers. In the next two to three years, we need to hire another 300 more officers,” said Houghton.
Staff Sergeant Lindsey Houghton, who grew up in Kamloops, is the lead spokesperson for the Surrey Police Service, which is set to go on a recruiting blitz in Kamloops later this month/via S/Sgt Lindsey Houghton
“That needs to be a mix of new officers and experienced officers, whether that’s you have one or two years on the job, or you have 20, we need to build — just like every other police department — a sustainable, long term policing model that has a really good mix of new, intermediate, mid-career officers, as well as some other officers who can come in — perhaps like myself — nearish the end of their careers and provide some mentorship and training for some of the new recruits and some of the new officers, so we can pass that knowledge on to the next generation,” he added.
Part of meeting that demand is putting money on the front lines.
“For a frontline officer who’s coming to work on our front lines, we’re offering a $10,000 signing bonus, which is a fairly significant chunk of money,” said Houghton. “That’s for officers who come and go right to our front lines.”
Starting salaries for front-line SPS officers is currently set at just under $85,400 per year.
That rises to nearly double that as officers move through the system and gain experience.
Beyond financial incentives, Houghton says the appeal may well be there for those who are in the RCMP or other policing ranks to return back home to the Lower Mainland.
“Policing is often described as a calling, and people are very passionate about it,” said Houghton. “This is an opportunity for them to come back home, potentially be closer to family and friends and get back to the community that they may have grown up in.”
Editor’s Note: Radio NL does have a request in to speak with the head of the Kamloops RCMP detachment, Superintendent Jeff Pelley, to discuss any concerns he may have over the direct recruitment effort by the SPS in the city.
