Clarity that the Surrey Police Service will oversee policing in B.C.’s second-largest city by November came earlier this month, ending six years of uncertainty that started after residents elected former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum in 2018.
Statistics Canada data shows overall property crime in Surrey fell to 4,468 incidents in the first three months of 2024, down 12.9 per cent from 5,128 cases in the same three months last year. Reported shoplifting offences in Surrey increased more than 27.3 per cent in the first three months of this year, to 886 incidents from 680 in the same period last year.
She said the amount of warehousing and distribution space in Campbell Heights will increase because Metro Vancouver needs industrial land and Campbell Heights is ideally situated near the U.S. border and major regional roads. S&R Sawmills principal and president Jeff Dahl told BIV that his 60-year-old family business that employs about 300 people on a 120-acre site on the Fraser River has seen soaring tax increases in recent years.Dahl sent BIV data for his taxes on a 7.66-acre parcel of land, which has a sawmill. His other land includes two more sawmills and a whole-log chipping mill.
“It’s scary to think about them not being around,” Dahl said of Teal Jones. “That’s first for the jobs and then, obviously, for sawmilling and the B.C. economy as a whole. We’re just a few kilometers from them and we face lots of the same challenges.”Dahl said he plans to meet with provincial government officials to suggest ways to make logs more accessible and less expensive, such as lowering stumpage fees.
Dahl said that he is committed to his business, and to his staff, and that he has no plan to shut down his mills or to sell his land. “That would be an awesome thing to have, where people could go and get their cheese directly from the farm,” she said. “Having production on the ALR makes full sense to me.”
“Literally billions of cans flow into B.C. by truck, so if you want to ease congestion, build manufacturing here, build those jobs here,” he said. The SBOT and Western Community College have partnered to create the centre, which will initially be in a 2,300-square-foot space that will include a second SBOT office.