Thank you. That's part of the point I was making before, and I think it has been reflected by Tom and Dale.
It is impossible for a human being in a uniform with a badge, a gun and most importantly an oath of office, and with brains and a heart and arms to wrap themselves around the vast diversity of human issues that we are being asked to go to on a 24-7, 365 basis in small, medium and large communities across this great country. We have done too much of that for too long. It has created an unimaginable amount of stress and strain on our front-line officers. They suffer when they cannot save people and they suffer when they're accused of not doing enough, or the right things or even the wrong things. We've put them in a position of frustration and sometimes failure, and we need to do better for our front-line officers. We need to do better for the communities that rely on them. They must be integrated into a wider set of service delivery opportunities that are available for community members on a 24-7, 365 basis.
A question was asked earlier by MP Fergus that I'll quickly refer to. At the point of contact where the majority of the community calls the police are our communications centres. We have a 911 dispatch centre, but we should have a 911 system, a 311 system, a 211 system, a 411 system and a 511 system, so that right at that point we can properly assess the need for the call and the right services to go, where the police will always be an option. Quite often they will be dispatched in support of the social service worker or the mental health worker, but the immediate contact will be at the right resources and not just the police resource.
We have done a fantastic job in this country and our front-line officers deserve praise and recognition, not condemnation. They need our support, not the defunding and the detasking. The integration is what we actually need here.