I just partnered in a research project with Dr. Nick Carleton at the University of Regina. We looked at publicly available data. From 2011 to 2014 we had over 245,000 charges laid in this country for assaulting a police officer. Our police officers, our members, are being assaulted every day in this country by these offenders we're talking about.
In April of this year, in my home service in Vancouver, we had an offender try to light a police officer on fire by pouring a flammable fluid on the officer while the officer was in the process of trying to arrest this individual. That's just one example. You've alluded to others. There are many other examples of police officers getting stabbed and seriously assaulted. All of those fortunately did not become those kinds of tragedies like what happened to Constable Pierzchala.
It's happening every day. We're not paying enough attention to it, and we ought to, because we're also experiencing a massive recruiting and retention challenge in our sector right now. In part, it's because of that. Why would somebody want to come into a regime where they're exposing themselves to this kind of risk every day but then are not being supported by heads of institutions, by elected officials, in some cases by other statutory bodies in place that are tasked with investigating these incidents when they happen. It's a real challenge.