A “comprehensive review and legal analysis” affirms Surrey Connect Councillor Rob Stutt wasn’t in a conflict of interest when he voted on Nov. 14, 2022 to end the transition to the Surrey Police Service and retain the Surrey RCMP without disclosing his son was employed by the Surrey RCMP and his daughter was assigned to the RCMP after being seconded from the City of Surrey.
Stutt said April 25 he’s “absolutely” thankful to put the matter in his rear-view mirror. “I’m very thankful that this second review was undertaken,” he told the Now-Leader. “I appreciate the difficult situation that the ethics commissioner was in.”
“I’ve always felt I’ve acted in the best interests of the people of Surrey,” Stutt said. “I wouldn’t have undertaken this journey if I thought I was in any conflict.”
The Surrey Police Union in 2023 filed a complaint with Surrey ethics commissioner Peter Johnson against Stutt, maintaining he should have either recused himself or been disqualified from voting on the matter then and in future votes.
On June 7, before a closed council meeting was held on June 15 in which Surrey council decided on a 6-3 vote to retain the RCMP as the city’s police of jurisdiction, Johnson delivered his findings on the Code of Conduct complaint to council, and a summary of that report was made public on June 20.
The commissioner found Stutt, in accordance with B.C. law, did not have a pecuniary interest in the matter because, unlike in Ontario, “In British Columbia, the courts have held that a pecuniary interest in a matter cannot be inferred from the existence of a family relationship alone.”
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However, the commissioner also noted that “other forms of a personal interest in a matter can give rise to a conflict of interest, where a reasonably well-informed person would conclude that the interest might influence the exercise of the Council member’s duties.
“For that reason, members of Council must not participate in Council decisions that affect the members of their immediate families in ways that go beyond the interests those family members have in common with other members of the community, in circumstances where a reasonably well-informed person would conclude that there is a potential for bias,” Johnson added.
In the case of Stutt’s daughter, the commissioner found the councillor voting on Nov. 14 did not have the potential to affect her employment “in a substantial enough way that would give rise to a concern about improper influence or bias.” However, in the case of his son, serving as a Surrey Mountie at the time of the Nov. 14 vote, “given the fact that a decision to continue with the police transition would have resulted in the elimination of a substantial number of policing positions within the Surrey RCMP Detachment, there was a personal interest in the matter under consideration that a reasonably well-informed person would have concluded might influence a member of Council in Councillor Stutt’s position.”
In the end, the ethics commissioner didn’t make any specific recommendations to council concerning the complaint as to what measures it should take. He noted that given Stutt’s son is no longer a Surrey Mountie, “that potential source of a conflict of interest in relation to future decisions of Council concerning the police transition would appear to have been eliminated.”
On April 24, 2024 the City of Surrey issued a bulletin revealing that a subsequent review by Dominion GovLaw LLP concluded “there was no conflict and Councillor Stutt acted within his public mandate and duty as an elected official of the City.”
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said the third-party review “was sought as the Surrey Ethics Commissioner’s report recognized the difficulty in arriving at the earlier conclusion that Councillor Stutt was in a ‘perceived’ conflict of interest, going so far as to state that ‘others may well disagree with me.’”
Council authorized public disclosure, out of a closed council meeting on Monday, April 22, of the GovLaw LLP’s report by managing partner Troy DeSouza.
“This opinion agrees with the Report’s conclusion that there was no pecuniary interest on Councillor Stutt voting on the motion of November 14th, 2022 determining whether to transition police services from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service (the “Motion”). This opinion further concludes that there was no other personal interest that gave a rise to a conflict of interest. As such, I have concluded that Councillor Stutt was not in a conflict of interest when he voted on the Motion,” DeSouza determined.
Locke said she’s “pleased” with the finding.
“Councillor Stutt’s commitment to ethical conduct throughout this process serves as a testament to his dedication to serving our community’s best interests,” she stated in a press release. “Integrity will always prevail, and this reaffirms Council’s commitment to upholding ethical standards and serving our community with honesty and transparency. As your mayor, I have worked hard to deliver on my promise of accountability in our government, and you can count on that same dedication from our team as we move forward.”