Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank both Chief Rempel and Chief Blake for being with us today. Your testimony and knowledge and experience are very helpful as we pursue some answers to this question about policing as an essential service.
The mandate letters for the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Minister of Indigenous Services both refer to co-developing a legislative framework to recognize first nations policing as an essential service. In our last panel—I'm not sure if you were both observing the first hour panel—we had officials from four different federal departments on the panel. If I recall, I believe it was Ms. Blaney who asked the question about defining essential services. I'm not sure we actually got an answer to that question from the department officials. We have this mandate that talks about policing as an essential service. I'm not sure anybody is telling us or defining for us what that is in the jurisdictional quagmire we seem to find in the federal departments.
I'm going to start with Chief Blake, and then, Chief Rempel, ask if you'd be prepared to answer the same question.
Would you, in your terms, take a moment and define for me, in your experience at the level of work that you both do, what defining police service as an essential service would mean as a difference in the communities you serve?