Cloverdale’s MLA disagrees with the RCMP’s assistant commissioner for British Columbia John Brewer.
On Jan, 20, during a press conference, Brewer disagreed that the extortion problem plaguing Surrey was a crisis at all.
“There’s not a crisis,” Brewer said. “A crisis is what’s happening out there with drug overdoses. That’s a crisis. People are dying. This is a threat to public safety, absolutely, and I take it very seriously.”
Elenore Sturko, independent MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, said citizens have been beset with anxiety over the extortion-related shootings.
“I was disturbed to hear almost a combative response from assistant commissioner Brewer when members of the media, I think correctly, characterized what is going on in Surrey as a crisis.”
She said the city has nearly a shooting per day now, if both extortion-related and other crimes are counted.
“If that’s not a crisis, I don’t know what is,” she told the Cloverdale Reporter. “I’m extremely frustrated along with many in the community. People are sharing their frustration with what appears to be a lock of results.”
The day after Brewer’s “not a crisis” remarks, Premier David Eby told reporters Brewer must show “urgency” or step aside.
Sturko agreed with Eby’s remarks but turned the tables on the premier.
“I’m glad Premier Eby understands our concerns and at least appears to share them,” she said. “I’ll issue the challenge back to him: demonstrate urgency or step down. This can’t be expected to take years when shootings are happening almost daily now.”
She said the lack of results, the frustration, the fear, the uncertainty are forcing people to take the law into their own hands or to pay extortionists.
“We’ve had reports of people firing back, people are paying, what does it take for it to be a crisis?” she asked. “People are losing faith in the justice system. People are losing faith in police. They’d rather pay an extortionist than trust the police with their safety.”
She said Brewer’s response was both “unbelievable” and “uncaring” and the residents of Surrey deserve better. She noted 2026 is already shaping up to be worse than 2025.
“We’re only three weeks into the year,” she noted. “There’s been more reports of extortion-related incidents and shootings so far in 2026 than there have been days in the month of January. In 2025, there were more than a hundred incidents reported.”
Sturko heard of residents applying for gun licenses just to defend themselves and their families.
“This is not what we want to see for our community,” she explained. “We don’t want people to feel that they have to take it upon themselves.”
Sturko also stressed that people shooting back and and exchanging gunfire and partaking in vigilantism, is “extraordinarily dangerous” and not something any citizen wants to see in the city. She doesn’t advocate for citizens taking the law to their own hands, but she understands where the sentiment comes from.
“The frustration is building and the trust in our system to keep people safe is at an all-time low.”
She said even though there’s an RCMP task force, and that the SPS is working on the issue, she’s not convinced the coordination between the Mounties and the municipal cops is going as smoothly as it should.
“We were told at the end of November there would be a surge of resources coming to Surrey to help address the situation. I have seen no increase in over-presence in the community.”
Sturko also noted that if some of these crimes are found to be connected overseas—to criminal gangs operating across international borders—then Surrey needs a much stronger federal presence to ensure every avenue of investigation and every resource is accessible to law enforcement agencies.
“It’s frustrating among many in the community when police leaders on both the SPS side and the RCMP side have said these types of investigations are complex and can take years to resolve,” she noted. “But if you and your family feel you’re in the crosshairs—a target of a shooting, a target of violence—hearing that this is going to take years to resolve, or even years to bring under control, that’s not very comforting. It further erodes trust.”
She wondered what the hold up was and why it could potentially take years. She said whatever the delay is, it needs to be identified and resolved. She wondered if more people were needed to pour over evidence? Were more cops needed on the street? Maybe more crown council workers were needed to review reports?
“Please tell us.”
Sturko said Nina Krieger, B.C. Public Safety Minister, must sit down with police and identify “what exactly is taking years?”
She said Surreyites can’t wait years: a woman was shot in her bed in and another person had a bullet lodged in their face last year.
“Is it the attitude of this government, and is it the attitude of those who are leading this crisis that someone has to die before it’s elevated to the crisis level that it really is?” Sturko asked.
“If we’ve already gotten to the point where we allegedly have someone firing back, bullets flying in both directions in a neighborhood, what does it take for that level of seriousness to be placed on the problem?”
Sturko urged anyone affected by extortion related crimes to report it to police. She said after it’s reported, she will meet with citizens over their concerns. She can be reached via elenore.sturko.mla@leg.bc.ca.
According to the latest Surrey Police Service numbers, reported Jan. 19, there have been 34 reported extortions, seven extortion-related shots-fired incidents, and 21 extortion-related victims (16 repeat victims) so far in Surrey in 2026.
—with files from Anna Burns.