Good afternoon.

As of Monday morning, police in Surrey were investigating 46 extortion cases so far this year, while the B.C. Extortion Task Force said there were 32 active files in the Lower Mainland.

That amounts to about one case per day of a crime that has frequently involved gunfire and always involves threats.

On Monday, police said they’d arrested another three men after bullets were fired at a home. All are foreign nationals.

The mounting violence has pitted the efforts by police to ensure the general public remains calm but vigilant, secure in the knowledge that law enforcement is doing its work, against increasingly strident calls by politicians for more profile and more resources for what many are describing as a crisis.

Last month, the head of British Columbia’s anti-extortion task force, was forced to apologize for having “impacted public confidence” by refusing to categorize the shootings and threats as a crisis at a news conference.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Brewer said he did not mean to call into question the force’s commitment to a task force established in September to combat the problem. He said he had been trying to reassure the public.

Hours before Brewer’s clarification, Premier David Eby called his refusal to call it a crisis “puzzling” and said if Brewer wasn’t feeling the urgency of the situation, he should step aside.

This week, mayors of some cities across Canada hard-hit by the extortion crisis aimed at South Asian business owners will be in Ottawa and are expected to ask for more help and a declaration of a national emergency.

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke has said the city needs 150 additional police officers to help grapple with the explosion of this kind of criminal activity.

The federal government has pledged funding for up to 20 additional RCMP officers for Surrey, which Ms. Locke said was an appreciated first step.

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree has said Peel Region in Ontario, which includes Brampton, will get up to $1-million to bolster local police work.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said the situation is urgent and risks spreading beyond the already hard-hit cities of Brampton, Surrey, Edmonton and Winnipeg.

“We need to be agile and nimble and we don’t want to just catch the person who shoots at a house. We want to get the people higher up,” said Brown, whose city was the first to report the new trend in extortion criminal activity in 2023.

Last week, Surrey city council approved a motion calling on the federal government to declare a national emergency. Brown said he will bring a similar motion to his council this week.

Surrey Police Service Chief Norm Lipinski said he’s concerned the crime wave is far from breaking. Some shootings are being carried out by highly organized international gangs while others are believed to be carried out by smaller, local copycat groups.

Lipinski agreed Surrey needs extra help from both the provincial and federal government.

“This is a crisis. We feel it here. I need investigators,” said the Chief. “People are scared.”

Beyond resources to tackle extortion cases, Eby called on the federal government to expedite Bill C-12, which includes measures tightening up the immigration system and restricting access to asylum.

The Canada Border Services Agency said last September that 15 foreigners facing extortion charges had applied for refugee status in Canada.

“What we’re seeing in Surrey is it’s a terror attack in slow motion,” Eby said at a meeting of premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney last week.

“You would never dream of giving refugee status to someone who participated in a terror attack. But that’s exactly what’s happening under our current system. That loophole has to be closed.”

Many investigators across Canada point to Edmonton and its police department’s Project Gaslight, formed to respond to the extortion threats, as offering a way forward.

Deputy Chief Nicole Chapdelaine, who heads Edmonton’s Investigations Bureau, said improvements are needed in terms of how intelligence on these sophisticated crime groups, some of which are based in India, is shared among different police agencies.

That’s because investigators are often using different provincial or municipal intelligence databases and have to call up each other to share crucial information on their suspects. She endorsed a call made by experts last year for Ottawa to create a national targeting centre for organized crime akin to that for identifying and disrupting terrorists.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.