British Columbia Premier David Eby has warned the head of a police anti-extortion task force to step aside if he cannot demonstrate “a sense of urgency” in the fight against blackmailers who have been shooting up homes and businesses in the Lower Mainland.
Eby’s remarks about RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Brewer came a day after Brewer repeatedly declined to characterize the wave of extortion-related shootings as a crisis.
The premier said Wednesday at an unrelated news conference that Brewer needed to clarify himself.
“Frankly, until his comments yesterday, I thought that Mr. Brewer had really demonstrated that sense of urgency,” said Eby, speaking from Prince George, B.C.
He said it was possible to misspeak, but Brewer’s comments “cut at public confidence in the head of the task force’s work and he needs to either clarify and if he doesn’t feel the urgency then he needs to step aside.”
A spokesperson for the task force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brewer had said Tuesday in a four-month update since the establishment of the BC Extortion Task Force that it was “actively hunting” suspects in 32 files across the Lower Mainland.
But he would not describe the situation a crisis after being pressed to do so at a news conference.
There have been at least four shootings in the past week that police have linked to extortion, with gunfire hitting businesses and homes. Similar attacks have been going on for months, with the apparent extortionists often sharing videos of the attacks taking place on social media.
The violence took a twist over the weekend, with police in the Metro Vancouver city of Surrey saying an investigation was underway into residents of one home who were believed to have returned fire on Saturday.
Brewer said shootings and threats of violence create “fear and uncertainty within the community,” but he said people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.
“There’s no need for anybody to take the law in their hands or engage in overt acts of self-defence here. You are going to endanger yourself and you’re going to endanger your neighbours,” he said. “Let the police do their job.”
Data released by the task force on Wednesday showed that seven people had been charged, while nine people had been removed from Canada from among 111 investigations into the admissibility of foreign nationals.
The wave of violence has mainly targeted members of the South Asian community, and has been centred around Surrey.
“This is an urgent and serious situation for the people of Surrey, for people south of the Fraser (River), and the head of the task force needs to reflect that urgency in the work,” said Eby.
Brenda Locke, the mayor of Surrey, is meanwhile urging Ottawa to “take immediate action and implement a full-scale national initiative” against extortion violence in Canada amid the shootings linked to attempted blackmail in her city.
Brenda Locke says in a statement Wednesday that her city had seen 34 cases of reported extortion in the last three weeks, and residents are in “constant fear.”
Locke says in a letter to federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree that Ottawa should appoint a “national extortion commissioner” to create a co-ordinated, countrywide approach to such crimes.
Locke says police are “working hard” on the cases, but a more co-ordinated national front against extortion violence is needed, and a commissioner would address that issue.
“This role should have the authority to examine the obvious gaps in our criminal, immigration, and citizenship systems and lead a national response that actually stops these crimes from happening,” she says, adding that she thinks current laws are “too weak.”
“This is unlike anything Surrey has faced before,” Locke says.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2026.
Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press
