First responders are extraordinary people, and in this portfolio I have a unique set of opportunities to watch them in action. They are truly remarkable. We call upon them to keep all the rest of us safe, whether they are police officers, firefighters, paramedics, or all of those others who are prepared to put themselves in harm's way to do their jobs and work for the safety and security of Canadians.
Those extraordinary people deserve to know that when they run into difficulty, their country has their back. That's why, in our platform last year and in my mandate letter, the Prime Minister laid out a series of things that need to be done to bolster the nation's support for first responders.
I won't go into the detail now, but one of those is the establishment of a public safety officer compensation benefit. When a first responder is, sadly, killed or seriously injured in the line of duty, this would be a benefit that would provide to his or her family an immediate measure of support.
You've referred to another dimension of what the Prime Minister has asked us to do, and that is the creation of a coherent, comprehensive national strategy to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder or OSI, operational stress injuries, among first responders. We have held a series of consultations about what needs to go into that kind of a strategy, drawing on a great many sources of opinion and advice, but most especially first responders themselves on to how they see a national strategy and what needs to be in it.
The work this committee did a few weeks ago in studying the question will be very helpful in the development of that strategy.
What we need to do is to ensure that we have the proper research available and ongoing to fully understand PTSD and OSI in all of its dimensions and implications. We need to assure—