Hon. Vernon White: Honourable senators, I wanted to speak for a few minutes about National Police Week, which we’re in the middle of this week. During National Police Week, we often speak of policing by way of remembrance. We should remember those who have lost and often given their lives in the defence of others and themselves, and that is part of what we talk about during this period. There are other things we should speak to as well.

We have police officers working right now across the country who are willing to lose everything they have to defend the lives of those they serve. They are in big cities, small towns, rural and isolated communities. They are working in Toronto or Grise Fiord, with similar training from their communities’ similar demands.

All too often, the public sees a police officer in a certain light — typically the light that the public is holding — but there are many other things at play: shift work, work-life balance or imbalance, long shifts, violence committed by some against the police and other members of the community, physical relocations — I could go on.

Just as an example, the former minister of public safety Bill Blair stated that policing is not a career but, rather, 10 careers, three years at a time. In fact, looking at the five people in this room who served in multiple police agencies across the country, there have been more than 40 physical relocations in almost every province and all three territories.

For generations, men and women of our nation’s law enforcement community have dedicated their lives to protecting us in those big cities, small towns and isolated communities. It is easy for us to judge when the police are wrong. Like the rest of us, there will be times when they are wrong. It is fair to do so. But it is also fair that we look at the police for what they do right. While we must hold the police to account for their actions, we must as well recognize that living in this country with the policing models we have in place, we live in one of the safest places in the world — something we should celebrate.

This year, Police Week is celebrating the connections between the police and the public. Those connections are seen in their work every day, obviously, but as well in the thousands and thousands of hours, days and weeks that the police in Canada — both civilian and sworn — spend engaged with their communities as volunteers.

So for this week, I, for one, want to thank the civilian and sworn police employees across Canada for their service. Thank you.