IMAGINE Surrey and its mayoral candidate Mike Starchuk on Thursday released a comprehensive law-and-order plan for “faster, smarter, and more sustained action to protect and seek justice for victims, dismantle transnational extortion networks and seize their assets, while ensuring this type of violence has no place in our communities.”
They want BC’s specialized provincial extortion task force, Ottawa’s terrorist-entity designation of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, and the new federal commitment to a national FINTRAC strategy to “be deployed immediately and at scale.”
Imagine Surrey’s plan includes weekly public emergency briefings to provide residents with “timely facts, safety guidance, and accountability metrics.” It also calls for “dedicated SPS helicopter patrols and strategic CCTV expansion” that would entail “tactical, data-driven use of traffic cameras to deter, monitor, and apprehend extortion networks in real time.”
The party also wants a “fully resourced” Extortion Task Force with the federal government committing to “a specific, expert-verified number of additional RCMP and SPS officers for the Surrey / BC Extortion Task Force.” It said that Surrey also needs specialized intelligence officers that can coordinate with RCMP and CSIS as part of this commitment.
Imagine Surrey wants what it calls “Shield and Signal — Victim-First Reporting and Rapid Protection Program.” It says it will “launch a multilingual, evidence-preserving digital portal; fund a portion, with the province, of $3,000–$5,000 security micro-grants to vulnerable businesses and residents; establish a 48-hour protection standard; deploy real-time analytics to pre-empt extortion sprees; and deliver full, sustained municipal support to the Extortion Community Advisory Group.”
The party will also introduce a “Transnational Extortion Disruption Program (TEDP)” which will have an integrated FINTRAC–RCMP–CBSA enforcement cell on the ground in Surrey “to map money flows, fast-track production orders, and freeze criminal assets within hours — not weeks.”
It also intends to establish an “Extortion-Focused Prosecution Track and Intelligence Court” to “move complex, multi-accused extortion files faster — combining criminal-organization and terrorist-entity legal tools to ensure the full force of the law lands swiftly.”
Starchuck said: “Extortion is a financial crime with violence attached. Reinforce a FINTRAC–RCMP–CBSA cell on the ground in Surrey, map the money, and freeze it within hours – that’s how you break the cycle of WhatsApp threats, arsons, and shootings.”