When public organizations want to minimize news coverage, they often release information on a Friday before the weekend.

But the Surrey RCMP's Friday disclosures about criminal activity in B.C.'s second-largest city haven't escaped the notice of mayoral candidate Barinder Rasode.

The numbers show that total crime is up 21 percent over the first nine months of this year over the same period last year.

Property crime in Surrey has risen 27 percent through the end of September compared to the first nine months of 2013.

In a news release this morning, Rasode said the statistics support what the community has been saying all year.

"The numbers don't lie and it's time for Linda Hepner and Surrey First to stop denying the facts and take some responsibility," Rasode said in her news release.

She also claimed that when her other opponent Doug McCallum was mayor, "crime shot up and Surrey was the auto theft capital of North America".

"His only concrete action was to muzzle the police," Rasode charged. "And now Surrey First is denying that crime is on the rise and ignoring the community's cry for help."

In a televised debate last week on Shaw TV, McCallum accused Rasode and Hepner of bringing forward crime-fighting policies before the election but not during their last six years on council.

Hepner, on the other hand, claimed that McCallum's approach was "proven to be a failure", noting there were only 496 officers in Surrey when he left office in 2005.

Hepner also accused Rasode of misleading the public by saying she had previously called for more officers when Rasode was a member of the Surrey First caucus.

Rasode dismissed this and claimed that Surrey officials had cancelled a teen skate at the Newton Arena because of safety concerns two weeks before hockey mom Julie Paskall was killed outside the building.