BURST
Surrey Police Chief Norm Lipinski has until Thursday at 4 p.m. to resign or be terminated without cause from his position, Postmedia has learned.
Lipinski was placed on leave following a meeting on Monday morning with the Surrey police board. He turned in his badge and left police headquarters, according to a source who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak on the matter.
Deputy Chief Todd Matsumoto has been appointed acting chief.
Members of the police board were not available to comment and it is not clear why Lipinski is being forced out. Postmedia was also unable to confirm how much money Lipinski could receive as compensation if he resigns or is terminated.
Lipinski has been the first chief of the new municipal force since 2020.
Surrey Police also wouldn’t comment, stating that was up to the police board as the employer of the chief.
“It’s not for SPS to comment on,” Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton said.
The former chief has over 45 years of experience in policing. Prior to joining the SPS, Lipinski served in several senior roles, including as a deputy chief of the Delta Police Service, as a deputy chief of the Edmonton Police Service, and as an assistant commissioner of the RCMP.
SPS was started by former mayor Doug McCallum and opposed by current Mayor Brenda Locke.
Locke ran and won on a campaign to stop the policing transition away from the RCMP to a municipal force. However, the city was forced to continue the transition by the province. Locke took the province to court, but ultimately lost the case after the courts dismissed her petition for a judicial review in 2024.
Locke and the force have been at odds on numerous occasions. Most recently, Locke said Lipinski and the police board need to “take a hard look” at all of the violence happening in Surrey, adding that shootings have only increased in the last year.
She also criticized the force for suspending its gang crime unit and called for a review of the decision.
The Surrey Police Service became the police of jurisdiction in November 2024 as part of a phased transition that continues. To date, SPS has control over every town centre in the city except for Guildford.
When the province asked SPS to speed up the transition and move into Cloverdale by April 1 instead of what the force initially planned, by July, Lipinski asked the province for an extension. The request was denied and SPS, which is still filling officer poisitions, had to take over all of Cloverdale by April, which it did in part by re-assigning officers, such as the gang unit ones.
With files from Kim Bolan and Harold Munro