True Patriot Love

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome everybody. I'm sitting down today with Aaron Dale, Canadian Armed Forces

00:00:10.840 veteran and current Toronto Police Service member, here to talk about some amazing stuff that he's

00:00:16.720 working on. Thank you very much for being here, Aaron. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited

00:00:20.420 to be here and chat with you for a bit. It's been a while since I last saw you. Yeah, it has. It has

00:00:25.040 been a bit. So just so folks are aware of kind of your background and where you come from and

00:00:29.940 how you got here. Can you just give a quick top line on your CAF service and how you got into TPS?

00:00:36.820 Yeah, so I started in I live in the suburbs outside of Toronto and I went through school and then I

00:00:43.680 went to college for policing and then university for criminology. And then I applied to several

00:00:51.460 different organizations. At that time, I was doing the military reserves and my dream was to be a

00:00:58.320 police officer all the time. And I thought that I needed more experience to be a police officer.

00:01:02.700 So I joined the army when I was 19 years old to experience it. And I kind of fell in love with

00:01:09.000 the military. But after school, I kind of shot resumes out everywhere. And the nuclear security was

00:01:16.800 actually the first people to hire me at Ontario Power Generations. So I stopped doing military and I

00:01:24.480 kind of put the pursuit of a career in policing on hold and I went into nuclear security. I was on a

00:01:31.820 emergency response team and I eventually attacked other nuclear power plants to test their security

00:01:38.500 and then completed by going into their management as a security advisor. And I just wasn't overly

00:01:46.460 satisfied or fulfilled. And I kind of wanted a bit more. And then I was still doing the reserves and I

00:01:53.520 was a sergeant in the Ontario regiment, a reserve unit outside Toronto. And I decided I wanted to try

00:02:00.420 a selection because I've always dreamt of being a special operations, an operator. And I went on

00:02:07.580 selection and I was successful. And I quit the job at the nuclear plant. And my parents weren't the

00:02:13.480 proudest of me because of that. I was making a very stable, good paycheck. And ever since my career,

00:02:20.740 I've kind of made less money than I was making at that nuclear plant, which is another funny thing.

00:02:25.360 But I followed the dream. I went on course. I was successful. I did a lot of deployments in Central

00:02:32.040 America and eventually had some challenges at home and went, had a child and ended up going into

00:02:42.360 transferring my career into the city of Toronto for Toronto police. And I started in 2018.

00:02:49.980 And then I thought I was going to be maybe on the ETF team or a SWAT guy. And my career

00:02:57.420 took a complete left turn that I never anticipated. And within about five weeks of my job, actually

00:03:05.360 getting my badge, late 2018, I started running into military veteran that was suicidal and homeless.

00:03:12.980 And he's on a lot of drugs. And it was kind of a weird story because I had a coach officer. And this

00:03:21.380 guy went into the bar and picked a fight with everybody in the bar and got super beat up. And then

00:03:27.020 he went into his second bar, picked a fight with everybody in the bar and got super beat up. And then he

00:03:32.240 went into a third place and picked a fight again and got beat up a third time. And then that person

00:03:36.860 called 911, but all the bars called 911. And everybody just sent cop cars down to this area.

00:03:43.860 And I was as brand new as brand new can be. And I was kind of excited. And we all got down there and

00:03:51.260 I was just kind of hanging out. Nothing, the problem was gone. Everything was done. And

00:03:58.820 they kind of like looked at me as the new guy in the recruit with a couple of weeks on the job. And

00:04:04.960 the person that called 911 was the military was a military veteran. And he said he got robbed. But

00:04:13.360 what really happened is he just picked a fight with everybody and got beat up. And they didn't really

00:04:19.320 believe him because of what everybody else said, but they had to take a statement. So they said,

00:04:24.360 Dale, recruit, rookie, you're going to take the statement. So I remember being outside the ambulance

00:04:31.540 and giving myself that I love me speech to make sure I do a good statement and remember how to do

00:04:39.260 my P's and Q's and make sure everything's good to go. And I do it properly. And I get in there and

00:04:46.120 right away I key in on a military tattoo. And I'm like, oh, you're in the military. And I'm like,

00:04:50.940 sweet, we're best friends all of a sudden. And then he tried to fight me. And I was like,

00:04:56.580 yeah, it's like, great. This is like, what was what was the tattoo? It was just on the web of his

00:05:02.060 hand, one of the military units. Okay. So right away, he's got he's on a gurney. He's got tubes all

00:05:10.340 over his body. He's strapped up, he's bloody. And then he starts swearing at me and yelling his unit

00:05:17.200 name at the top of his lungs and tell me that he's going to fight me. And then I was like, man,

00:05:22.220 this is crazy. Like, I've been here for five weeks, and I'm going to beat up some army guy

00:05:26.620 that's strapped to a hospital bed. So then I roll up my sleeve and I show my tattoos from the military.

00:05:32.380 And then I yelled at him and told him off kind of aggressively. And right away, he just stopped

00:05:37.960 and I stopped. And then we just started talking. And I was like, hey, listen, like when I got out of

00:05:43.860 the army, I, I need to get this, this, this, this and this help. Otherwise, and I'm still getting

00:05:49.780 this, this, this and this help. You need to do the same. And we need to make sure that your life

00:05:56.180 gets all solved. Because right now, the way your life is, is working right now, the terrorist I told

00:06:02.380 him the terrorists are winning and your life needs to change. And we brought out we cried, we hugged each

00:06:09.380 other in the ambulance, like it was super surreal. And then I left with my coach. And my coach was

00:06:15.840 just like, all right, whatever, Dale, like you're in there forever. And we drove back to the police

00:06:21.240 station. And it's like three o'clock in the morning. And a staff sergeant that I really highly value and

00:06:28.660 really like he he's been through the gamut on his career. And I just yell, hey, staff, what do we do for

00:06:36.980 military veterans in Toronto here? And he's like, Dale, it's three o'clock in the morning,

00:06:41.360 send me an email, then he just walked away. And so I did, I sent an email and the email got forwarded

00:06:50.840 to a unit commander. And then my shift was over just a little bit after the unit commander and

00:06:57.580 everybody showed up for work that morning. So I was working a night shift. And then just as I was

00:07:02.320 leaving, leaving, they're like, Dale, unit commander wants to go and talk to you. And I was

00:07:05.740 like, okay. And then I just walked off like a 12 hour shift and into his office. And he's like,

00:07:12.860 hey, I got your email. I was like, okay. And I started this journey about the military veterans

00:07:20.240 wellness program, which essentially, we wanted to create something to help military veterans in

00:07:25.620 Toronto. And that was about the very end of 2018. And I've been kind of living that wave

00:07:32.380 for the last almost six years, seven years now. It's now we're in 2026. So I've been doing that

00:07:42.700 almost full time this for the last so many years. And it's been a complete passion project that I never

00:07:49.160 expected. And I never thought I could bring value to people in that way. So it's been a very

00:07:55.960 unique, but fun, rewarding career. And I think it's kind of given me a lot of purpose back. So I think

00:08:02.420 I lost a lot of purpose in the military and this helped me get it back. So yeah, that's, I guess,

00:08:09.360 a quick journey of how I ended up into policing and not only into policing, but into developing this

00:08:14.940 program. Man, that is a, that is such a wild story. And I had forgotten about your NSO time as well.

00:08:23.540 And the policing dream and the university degree in criminology, we had a very similar background

00:08:29.940 moving it. Like I completely sort of memory hold all that, but holy cow, that's serious or similar to

00:08:36.920 how our experiences were almost the exact same timeframe as well. So how quickly in, so you mentioned

00:08:43.620 in 2018, how quickly did it start spooling up and gathering momentum to pull you off of your uniform

00:08:49.080 policing role to like, they knew they had something here.

00:08:53.480 So I think they knew they had an idea that was plausible. I was still a five week guy, so they didn't

00:09:00.940 really know if I was capable of doing anything. I think another guy, Jeremy Burns, he helped kind of

00:09:06.980 establish this over the years as well. And after that meeting with my unit commander, he gave me

00:09:14.680 permission to start developing this idea of how Toronto police can help veterans. And I worked on

00:09:22.920 the program for probably about a year. So all of 2019 between radio calls and after hours. And I had

00:09:31.180 a progressive meeting with every chain of command, you can imagine just like inching my way up to the chief.

00:09:39.420 And everybody ripped apart my idea and change it around. And I had this idea that was like this big, and now

00:09:46.900 they shrunk it to like a more manageable thing. And I had the idea, cops could do anything and everything. And I had a

00:09:53.780 lot of people narrow that down and say, Okay, we want cops to do this and this, but not all of that.

00:09:58.580 Because I didn't have that much experience with the military, or sorry, excuse me, that much

00:10:04.440 experience with how Toronto police operates, because I was such a neat person. But I like to talk about

00:10:10.160 diversity a little bit too, because I don't really look like a stereotypical diverse person. I mean,

00:10:16.340 much like you for Toronto. But the interesting thing is, I come with a very unique lived experience. And I

00:10:26.660 have was the ability to see a unique problem and provide a unique solution. And that's the heart of

00:10:33.080 diversity right there. So because of my background, because of my life challenges, and because of what

00:10:40.020 I now do today, that all helped build this and create this program that fulfill the gap that not

00:10:46.520 everybody saw or knew how to solve. So the beauty diversity can come in many ways. And that was

00:10:54.680 obvious when I started explaining the true problem. And the biggest issue I had was military veterans, 1.00

00:11:02.920 that were my friends that were some of the toughest dudes I've ever seen men and women, they end up

00:11:09.320 homeless, they end up trying to kill themselves, they do kill themselves. And they suffer in silence,

00:11:16.760 because it's, there's some culture nuances. It's very easy to, it's very good and easy. And it's very

00:11:26.120 proud to be the helper in the military. But it's very, very hard to raise your hand and say, I need help

00:11:32.120 now. And navigating that culture. And at the idea, you can say whatever you want to say, but the

00:11:38.840 military is designed for war and for essentially doing bad stuff to bad people. And as a police

00:11:45.480 officer, you need to make sure that you can deescalate that person and talk to that person and connect

00:11:50.920 with that person because we owe it to you. You fought for Canada overseas, and we need to fight for

00:11:56.520 you back in Canada. And we need to be safe as cops when we do that, because military has a high capacity

00:12:02.520 for violence. And then we need to get you back on your feet. Because when you're in the military,

00:12:08.520 you're doing some amazing, amazing things. And it's important that we that you do those things

00:12:14.280 throughout your whole life. And people don't see the military career as the end, they see it as a

00:12:20.840 gateway to something bigger and better. And, and that's important for us to recognize,

00:12:25.960 because there's no career in service, such as fire corrections, paramedic, policing, military,

00:12:34.040 a career of service, you don't get out of those careers scar free, everybody's going to carry some

00:12:38.760 scars with them. And we need to help those people that are trying to help us, they're trying to give

00:12:44.360 a career to helping us. So that year, I ended up getting in front of the chief. And so we're in front of

00:12:52.760 the chief in 2020. And I got there way too early, like, almost an hour and a half early. And I'm

00:13:02.920 like, Okay, we're here, we have a good presentation. And we're gonna make sure all the AV works, and

00:13:08.840 it'll be perfect. And I had an hour presentation, which in hindsight, I probably could have done a

00:13:15.480 tighter, smaller, simpler one, but we had a lot of lived experiences. And it was our first real pitch.

00:13:21.560 And so we get in there. And for the first 20 minutes of the presentation, nothing works like

00:13:27.960 no AV, you know, nothing. And my chief is just like playing on his phone while he's not playing

00:13:32.440 on his phone, he's doing some work emails, the deputy chiefs doing some work emails, then she looks up

00:13:37.240 every once in a while and be like, Don't worry about it, it's okay. And I'm like, just sweating,

00:13:42.440 and freaking out. And ready to smash my head against the wall, so I'm super embarrassed.

00:13:47.880 And finally, at work, then it's like, Okay, now let's do this hour presentation in 20 minutes.

00:13:53.160 And we just started hammering through it. And we got our deputy chief to start crying.

00:13:59.480 We got the chief very involved. I could tell we went way too long. And then the chief is like,

00:14:06.280 looked up. And he's like, All right, that's great, guys. Good job. Keep up the good work.

00:14:10.440 And then he was gone. And I was like, Whoa, what did that mean? And then the deputy stood up and

00:14:15.400 she's like, Don't move. And then she was gone. And then two minutes later, they ran back in and

00:14:21.400 they're like, Aaron, you started community partnerships and engagement unit on Monday,

00:14:26.360 I transferred you over there. And we made a position for you. And I was like, Whoa. And

00:14:31.320 then they and then she was gone. I was like, Okay, I guess that works. And then we got a bunch of

00:14:37.240 congratulations from the other people in the room. And, and then I was transferred off the road

00:14:43.960 and into a position to build this. And then we had to try to like, really figure out what this was

00:14:51.560 going to be. And what we decided is going to be is basically a training program and a referral system.

00:14:59.160 So the training program is what can I do to teach a cop about the military so that they can deescalate

00:15:07.800 safely understand the problem and know how to help. And then how do we get every frontline police

00:15:13.560 officer to have the ability to take that veteran that suicidal homeless and directly put them into

00:15:19.480 the social supports that essentially helped save my life. So Veterans Affairs Canada, the Royal

00:15:24.840 Canadian Legion, and the Department of National Defenses OSIS program operational stress injury social

00:15:31.160 support. So when those three programs really work together, they're probably going to be the best

00:15:36.760 social services in the world. It's not popular or common thing to say, because sometimes those

00:15:43.080 organizations are in the news very negatively. And sometimes they, sometimes they make veterans

00:15:50.040 pretty upset. And I have to navigate that. And I have to teach our police officers how to navigate that

00:15:57.960 because everybody's had a problem with those three social services, including myself, but they've also

00:16:02.440 helped save my life. So I got to teach that. I got to teach police officers how to do that.

00:16:10.520 So I couldn't do this by myself. So me and Jeremy Burns were kind of the two creators and

00:16:17.800 we bounced back and forth. We did our presentations together, but the two of us both had military

00:16:23.640 experience, but we couldn't do this by ourself. We needed a community policing model. So it's an interesting

00:16:31.640 idea. But you can't just arrest your way out of problems. So if I gave you the problem of suicide

00:16:39.880 for veterans or homelessness for veterans, it doesn't matter how many handcuffs I put on people,

00:16:45.720 it's not going to solve that problem. So what I needed to do was have a community policing approach.

00:16:52.840 And the whole idea there is you tie the entire community together to solve a social issue and the

00:16:58.760 police act as leaders to solve that social issue. So we had to make our partnerships.

00:17:07.000 So the funny thing about partnerships and policing, there's about ballpark 9,000 employees of Toronto

00:17:16.360 police and all those 9,000 employees has a friend and those friends have friends. And all the people

00:17:23.400 that I worked with in the military are friends of friends. And every cop across Canada, you can reach

00:17:29.800 out and you can get friends of friends. So we were able to stretch our network and create a pretty

00:17:39.320 incredible team and get the right people at the table based on who we know and who we could inspire

00:17:46.200 to get behind this idea of supporting military veterans and preventing suicide homelessness.

00:17:52.120 So we built it to, we were with the Ontario government, the Canadian government, Veterans Affairs,

00:17:58.840 the Legion, Department of National Defense, the defense scientists in the Department of National

00:18:04.040 Defense, private psychological organizations, several universities, several hospitals, different doctors,

00:18:11.080 different world renowned negotiators and forensic psychiatrists. And then we went a little bit beyond

00:18:19.560 that and actually got entertainers and podcasters and we got advertising firms and Ted Talks and

00:18:33.800 Jocko Willink's organization. We got Five Finger Death Punch and their organization, the David Lynch

00:18:40.520 Foundation, the Canadian military. And we brought all these people on board and onto our team to

00:18:46.120 to help. And we did that over the course of the next two years to create a training program. And the

00:18:55.560 training program is tricky because cops are difficult to teach. And I got told it has to be online learning

00:19:03.880 because of COVID. And it can't be longer than an hour because that's too much training time for a cop.

00:19:11.080 So sorry to interrupt. So, so all this is happening in 2020 while everyone's locked down and everything's

00:19:16.440 happening. Exactly. And a lot of this is probably happening remotely. And it's, uh, and you were a uniform

00:19:21.960 officer for like a couple months before this all spooled into, uh, about a year and then. Okay. Okay.

00:19:27.880 Yeah. Okay. Uh, sorry to interrupt. I'm just trying to paint a picture here because 2020 was a lot different

00:19:33.000 for a lot of people. So I, it's, that's pretty remarkable. You're able to do all this stuff in, uh, during that time.

00:19:38.840 Cause it's, it's sort of indicative of like Toronto police and the emergency services were some of the

00:19:45.480 only people that were actually working during this, during this time. So you guys were really moving.

00:19:49.960 Yeah. I was going to the office and staying at home and on the road, I was bouncing around in all

00:19:55.480 three locations. Um, that was kind of a weird time where it was all hands on deck and, uh, and yeah,

00:20:02.200 it was very challenging. The, um, I was very like, keep in mind, I was a very brand new rookie cop. Um,

00:20:11.000 but my limited experience was we used to have 10 real criminal arrests for every one mental health

00:20:19.400 problem. And then with COVID it seemed to just like flip. And now we have 10 mental health apprehensions

00:20:27.880 where we take a person in the hospital versus maybe two criminal arrests and, uh, the whole world

00:20:35.160 got stressed out and the whole world started having challenges and, uh, and yeah, everything transitioned

00:20:43.240 to working from an office, uh, to working at home and trying to connect and build and, uh,

00:20:52.520 and that was one portion was the training program. The other portion was the referral system.

00:20:57.640 So, um, it's, you navigate a lot of things when you, you're the police and you're trying to tell

00:21:05.560 somebody about somebody. So, um, what we had to navigate and build was, uh, was verbal consent

00:21:15.560 through person in crisis legislation that the person in crisis can tell us verbally that they consent

00:21:23.080 to the federal government calling them. And that's how our referral system works. So it's a one page

00:21:29.960 piece of paper. It only works for a police officer and a military veteran in crisis. They can give us

00:21:36.600 verbal consent. We send that information to the Legion Veterans Affairs and the Department of National

00:21:42.680 Defense. Then they reach out and contact the veteran within 72 hours. And, uh, that took about

00:21:48.840 a year to build and it was a weekly meeting with the Toronto police lawyers and the federal government's

00:21:55.240 lawyers in this, uh, information studies, information sharing studies. Um, every piece of information

00:22:03.000 and word was heavily debated. Um, it couldn't be a medical file. It had to be a referral file.

00:22:10.280 And it also had to be stored appropriately. It had to be, couldn't be used for nefarious policing purposes.

00:22:18.120 And, uh, it had to do a huge audit at the federal government level. And then eventually we changed

00:22:24.760 federal policy and we made it work. Uh, but that took a year too. So by the end of about two, one and a half

00:22:33.560 to two years of work, we built a training program and a referral system and got them approved and

00:22:41.480 validated. So, uh, the same goes to the training program though. No, I couldn't just write

00:22:48.040 a, make a stat up on the training program. I had to have my partners agree with that stat.

00:22:53.080 So veterans affairs had to say, we agree with that stat because we referenced how that stat was created

00:23:00.360 and we approved with that scientific method and we approved with how good the quality work is.

00:23:06.040 But if I just shot from the hip on some stats, they would just say, no, that's not a validated

00:23:11.640 stat. So it's very unique to build something with all those players and all those stakeholders,

00:23:18.520 because everybody needs to be in partnership because at the end of the day, no one's getting,

00:23:23.320 I'm not paying anybody to do this. This is all us leading change because it's the right thing to do

00:23:31.240 and influencing everybody to be a part of this. Cause it's the right thing to do. We're not giving

00:23:35.960 salaries or pay to help people work with us and build this with us. So the leadership was very unique

00:23:42.680 and, uh, not something I was used to, I'd say. So at this point we have a completed training program

00:23:50.120 and we have a referral system and, uh, cops actually liked the training program. Um, we launched,

00:23:57.320 did a soft launch in Toronto and then six months later did the main launch. And, uh, that was in mid

00:24:04.040 2022, I believe. But, uh, and then it became, uh, mainstream across Toronto police and police officers

00:24:11.800 had the training to interact with a military veteran. They also had the training to understand what the

00:24:17.240 military is all about because realistically, a lot of people know what the military is like because of

00:24:21.880 movies. Um, I wanted to train the police officers to understand things like what is PTSD and what is

00:24:31.400 survivor's guilt and what is comorbidity disorders and what are the, uh, negative behavioral patterns

00:24:39.960 that a veteran will go through. But the purpose of all that though, isn't for them to be a doctor

00:24:45.160 and it's not for them to be a psychologist. It's for de-escalation. So this is what's going on

00:24:51.720 in their head. This is why they're experiencing that. This is how they're acting and this is what

00:24:58.200 they look like. And these are your safety concerns. So it's almost like four or five sentences per topic,

00:25:02.920 which was very good because it was scripted very, very well for police officers. So one of the, like,

00:25:10.280 one of the checks was when all the doctors tried to write something super complicated,

00:25:14.680 I would push back and say, why is this important? And how does that relate to de-escalation? And why

00:25:19.080 does, why are we, why does that cop need these sentences? And, um, it's very important and good

00:25:26.680 to have your training be reflective of your population. And then we talked about the crisis.

00:25:33.480 And these are the crisis that a police officer is going to encounter a military veteran.

00:25:37.400 Then this is what a military veteran looks like. This is how to pick out a military veteran. And then

00:25:44.440 the interesting thing is de-escalation. So the way crisis negotiators and the de-escalation

00:25:51.640 framework works, it's all about an empathetic connection. So it's about how can I better provide

00:25:56.360 you empathy? So we can connect you like me, and then I can have increased rapport, increase my

00:26:03.880 influence on you. And then my influence could be like, drop the knife. And then how do I get

00:26:08.600 behavioral change out of you? So how can I influence behavioral change? So maybe you go to therapy and

00:26:15.000 stop doing whatever it is you're doing. So to give a person empathy, you need to know something about them

00:26:22.840 and you need to know something about the person you're talking to. You can only say that must be

00:26:28.840 so hard. So often at some point, you actually need to be able to carry a little bit of a conversation

00:26:34.200 about what life was like for you in the military and have an idea what they're talking about. So you

00:26:39.000 can put yourself in their shoes. And that's what cultural competency training is all about. So the

00:26:43.720 first half is all cultural competency training to understand the person, what happened to them,

00:26:49.400 the crisis and then to deescalate. So it's very hard for a cop to say, I know what it was like to

00:26:55.720 get shot at in Iraq or blown up in Afghanistan, and have this happening at home and that happening

00:27:01.560 here and then to lose a person and to have this happen. The cops are not going to understand that

00:27:07.400 unless they have shared lived experiences were in the military before or they have some sort of training

00:27:12.440 and that's what the training covers. So we took that and the referral form and we started training

00:27:20.280 police officers how to do this and police officers started really, really liking the training. And then

00:27:28.520 we had a weird, a very weird thing happen. It's very difficult to train a cop about their mental health.

00:27:37.480 And it's very difficult to train a cop about their own mental struggles. But the closest population to

00:27:45.960 a military veteran is going to be a cop. And the cops were starting to learn a lot about themselves

00:27:52.760 while they were learning about the military. And then we started actually referring cops

00:27:57.640 that had military experience to all these three social services. And internally, we started really

00:28:03.160 helping people out just by psychoeducation and by connecting them to resources they didn't think

00:28:09.160 they had or deserved. And, and then I stepped away from the project a little bit and went back on the

00:28:17.480 road. And then I went into an investigative position. So I had to do my like six months of learning how to be

00:28:24.520 an investigator. And they gave me a lot of cases like theft of gas station and very simple stuff just to like

00:28:34.680 cut my teeth on to learn how to do it all. And I had fun. It was interesting.

00:28:42.120 Then I changed divisions from the south west corner of the city to the northeast corner of the city. So I had a

00:28:47.480 completely another area. I moved as well. So I was closer to home now. And I was doing response calls

00:28:55.320 for a while in another area. And then I went back and started tackling the project full time again.

00:29:03.240 While I was doing both those positions, everything was very part time. And it became full time again.

00:29:10.200 The we were kind of blessed by our chain of command to, to have this be a full time program in a full

00:29:17.320 time position. So now I'm the military veteran liaison for all military veteran issues in Toronto

00:29:24.600 out of a unit called the community partnership and engagement unit. So now we have a complete

00:29:30.120 position for military veterans. And that's what I create what I and Jeremy created and what I'm

00:29:35.960 working at now. And that was kind of interesting because I know military veterans across Canada,

00:29:44.360 much like yourself and much like military do they understand the national and international world.

00:29:49.720 And I also had a lot of friends from the United States, from Australia, from Great Britain,

00:29:57.160 and the Five Eyes community. And I'm realizing that military veterans are struggling everywhere,

00:30:03.560 not even not just in Toronto. And that's when I decided to basically go on a sales campaign across

00:30:10.040 Canada and try to share the veteran program across Canada. The yes, I had to there's about 215 police

00:30:19.400 services in Canada. And there's no real mechanism to force police officers to do anything. So you can't,

00:30:28.600 you can put something in the criminal code, or you can put it in the police services act, but

00:30:33.240 you can't force a cop to do anything. And there's a lot of rules around that. So every police service

00:30:39.800 kind of can do what they want, as long as they're following the police services act and the criminal

00:30:44.680 code. So I had to sell it. And I essentially cold called 215 chiefs of police and send them my pitch and had

00:30:55.960 meetings and had well over 100 meetings and some multiple meetings with same services. And fast forward,

00:31:08.200 we got about 81 police services that are involved in the program, but it's the majority of the larger

00:31:16.600 police services. So it accounts for about 79% of cops in Canada. Some police services in Canada have one

00:31:25.240 person, but, but those 81 account for about 79% of all cops. And the RCMP, OPP, Toronto police,

00:31:34.760 and it's been nice because Toronto police, they actually waived all the fees. So the training's

00:31:42.440 available on the Canadian police knowledge network, which is like an online database for Canada

00:31:47.080 and Toronto police waived all the fees. So the training is accessible for everybody. Other

00:31:51.880 police services really liked the training too. The RCMP and the OPP, they use their own systems,

00:31:57.880 but they just transferred the files onto their systems. And the referral form I made actually

00:32:03.880 works for everybody. So when you click that submit by email button, it goes directly to the police

00:32:08.840 only email inboxes of all three services. And, and then we wrapped it all up into a package that shows

00:32:17.320 you all the source data, how we got all our results, our endorsement letters, our communications,

00:32:24.520 our advertising, our key messaging, and wrote it all up and gave it to every police service on a silver

00:32:31.720 platter essentially. So they could easily just copy and paste it into their service. And it was a bit

00:32:39.240 of a wake up call before this happened, because we got a call close to Christmas with a veteran that

00:32:45.400 tried to commit. It was a wake up call that people are suffering all over the country, not just in

00:32:55.560 Toronto. I've kind of started to secure myself as like the veteran guy.

00:33:01.560 And now I've even had veterans specifically contact me and telling me. And honestly, some women 0.85

00:33:11.000 actually are have the biggest issues. We actually negotiated on a rooftop with in Toronto with one

00:33:19.960 woman that had some incredibly awful stories. And you kind of learn the stigmas and the bias that you 1.00

00:33:28.920 actually have in some regards, the one guy that I know has probably the most PTSD I've ever seen.

00:33:37.240 And he's never been in a gunfight. He's just transported dead bodies for way too long.

00:33:44.200 And so he's been there and around it in a unique way. But you really learn how much people are

00:33:55.080 suffering and how much they need a handout, especially because it's hard to ask for help.

00:34:00.520 The military teaches you to push through the pain. I mean, when I was on selection, if a person raised

00:34:05.800 their hand and said, I need help, we would help. But if that happens too often, they might not belong

00:34:11.400 there. And that's a little bit in the culture. But a cop needs to understand that that culture does

00:34:17.800 exist in policing too. And you need to influence them to have behavioral change. And that's what

00:34:24.680 negotiations is all about. And then we started branching out internationally, which I did not expect

00:34:31.800 at all. So Australia, I'm working with them right now about adapting the entire program for all of

00:34:40.040 Australia. I deployed to Ukraine and built it for the Ukrainians as part of the international peace

00:34:47.720 keeping and peace support operations program that the government of Canada puts on. That was an

00:34:54.360 interesting experience. I was there for about three months and working with the Ukrainians.

00:34:58.440 The RCMP sent me to Interpol. And I presented the program to all 196 member countries for Interpol.

00:35:08.520 And now they're hosting our entire training on Interpol's Global Learning Academy. But myself and the

00:35:15.720 team just harmonized it to make it work for every country, not just Canada. And every country now can

00:35:21.480 see how Canada supports their veterans, and maybe they can do theirs as well.

00:35:25.480 It's interesting because there's been some pretty intense massacres around the world. And usually

00:35:35.080 there's military veterans involved in some capacity, whether it be through planning, training, a coup,

00:35:44.840 usually a person that has a pretty good idea of the military is involved in some way or another,

00:35:49.640 which is scary when you think about it. And then the United States. So the United States,

00:35:56.200 we built it through the International Association of Chiefs of Police. And to build that we partnered

00:36:01.400 with the FBI and the US Veterans Affairs because we wanted to be able to tell every police service

00:36:06.680 in the United States what to do if you come across a military veteran. And we're continuing to foster these

00:36:12.840 relationships and continuing to help them adapt the program for their for their home culture. And

00:36:22.120 on top of that, my regular day is supporting veterans in Toronto, expanding the program, making

00:36:28.040 sure there's more uptake and helping the international community and the national community support military

00:36:36.280 veterans because they need our help. And that's kind of been my very quick last several years.

00:36:45.640 That is a there's a there's so much to unpack there. I feel like we should probably do more stuff

00:36:51.880 as follow up later on, just because I have so much respect for you

00:36:55.960 and the military veterans wellness program, not project. I think I called it project on a previous

00:37:01.960 podcast like an absolute goon. But I've I wanted to give you a shout out and a couple of my prior

00:37:07.000 appearances just because people really, I think, need to know how hard you've worked and your

00:37:12.440 colleagues and implementing this not just within Toronto or Ontario, but across Canada internationally.

00:37:18.040 Like this is this has been a very much sort of grassroots organic growth from those involved.

00:37:25.800 And I'm super glad you touched on the PTSD stuff. And I had Gary Clement on last week.

00:37:32.520 And he has talked at length about this with the number of threats and things that he's received

00:37:38.120 personally and his family and just trying to navigate all of that, the OSI level, like just this the

00:37:45.240 absolute way it can it can completely encompass and take over your entire life and your everything

00:37:51.400 suffers and all those around you are feeling it as well. So this is this is something that is so

00:37:56.360 cool and important and timely. And I'm just I'm it was so interesting meeting you a few years ago at

00:38:03.160 that football game and then hearing you talk about it, just the enthusiasm you had and like you just

00:38:07.720 displayed right now, your ability to explain, you know what I mean, how important it is and how it got

00:38:12.520 off the ground and the other folks involved. What has been so you mentioned Australia. So I have some

00:38:20.280 family that lives in Australia. And I know that within Australian culture, at least in parts of

00:38:24.440 Australia, there are a lot of barriers to respecting law enforcement, we'll call it I'm definitely not

00:38:31.480 an expert in this area. But I've been explained that there was a brief period in which I was considering a

00:38:36.520 move there to a couple different fields. But I was warned, basically, the locals and the nationals 1.00

00:38:42.760 don't really love policing there. Are you like, what are the hurdles or the what are some of the

00:38:51.400 obstacles that the forces are facing that you've maybe been able to help them with or build into the

00:38:56.520 program? Has anyone identified something specifically, whether it's Australia or someone else? And how did

00:39:00.360 you kind of overcome that? I'm good. Naturally, it's hard because no one really knows how many

00:39:08.280 veterans are in their community. Military veterans don't walk around with a sign around their neck

00:39:13.400 saying they're a military veteran, like just looking at you and looking at me right now. No one would

00:39:17.720 know we're a military veteran unless we told them. Those that have been a military veteran might key in on

00:39:25.160 something like a tattoo or like a piece of clothing brand or a pair of boots or shoes. But there's no

00:39:33.320 sign around their neck. So people don't know how much of the problem exists in their community. And

00:39:42.280 it's very hard to get homeless stats for military veterans because you're asking the person to self

00:39:47.800 identify not only that they're homeless, but also they're in the military. And they've shown that

00:39:55.160 that you can take any homeless stat and multiply it by three or four times to actually get a true

00:40:00.680 representation. So decision makers have a hard time understanding the extent of the problem in their

00:40:08.520 community unless you really do a deep dive on it. And Canada's doing some, but you can find more

00:40:17.880 evidence in the United States and other areas about the military veteran population.

00:40:22.600 I always get asked about the costs of the program and it's beautiful because the costs are free.

00:40:31.480 It's an hour of training time per cop. And usually that's pretty acceptable.

00:40:36.600 The other thing is more de-escalation training is beneficial and good. When it comes to the Australian

00:40:46.120 world, a military veteran in crisis interacts with a cop every four hours. And Australia did a deep dive

00:40:56.680 into a veteran suicide. It was a Royal Commission. They also have a lot less police services than we do.

00:41:05.880 And there's pros and cons to that. And sometimes it's just capacity. Like everybody likes the idea, but

00:41:13.160 to make the actual, everything happens. Sometimes it's literally that there's just not enough cops

00:41:18.600 in that police service or that community to build it properly or to give it the time and the attention

00:41:24.280 it desires. So there's lots of challenges and we try to make the program as easy as possible. So a police

00:41:31.240 service can just easily implement it. But I mean, so far we've shared our training with over 150 agencies.

00:41:41.880 Just in the Ontario aspect, we have about 22,000 course completions, not including the RCMP and the OPP

00:41:52.040 and some of the other agencies that have their systems on their own. And, uh, yeah, it's just, um,

00:42:00.120 it's sales. And the funny thing about sales is I know nothing about sales, but, um, my partners do.

00:42:06.920 So, uh, Five Finger Death Punch's media team is called Media Twist. And, uh, they have the kind

00:42:15.480 of organization where if you're on the phone talking about a dishwasher, you're going to start

00:42:20.040 getting a dishwasher ad. And basically they explained to me how to do that. So they adapted their system of

00:42:27.000 selling concert tickets to selling public safety. And, uh, that's been one of the real things that

00:42:33.720 have helped this project, uh, expand is cause we, we touched, we interacted with private industry and

00:42:41.400 learned from private industry. And we talked about not selling concerts or, or shoes. We talked about

00:42:47.480 selling public safety. So, uh, we learned a lot. Yeah, that's a, I guess I didn't really think of that.

00:42:55.080 It is, it really is, it does become a sales role where you're sitting down with the municipalities

00:42:59.240 and the agencies, and then, um, basically getting them to bite on that hook and then using the, the

00:43:05.080 training to validate, uh, you know what I mean? The concept. So, um, this is, it's, it's just so cool,

00:43:12.840 man. It's so impressive what you've been able to do and, uh, spool it up in a relatively short period

00:43:18.200 of time. I think it speaks a lot to. I told, uh, I told my first boss

00:43:25.080 when I was in this position in 2020 and I said to him like, yeah, yeah, give me like six months.

00:43:32.600 I'll, uh, I'll bang it out and I'll get it done in six months. Then we'll move on and I'll go be like

00:43:37.400 a homicide investigator or something. And my boss like looked at me and he's like, you don't realize

00:43:42.520 it, but this is like a six plus year project, not a six month project. And, uh, honestly,

00:43:50.040 I had such a wake up call. Sorry to cut you off. No, no, no, it's exactly true, man. Like,

00:43:55.560 like I was saying that it speaks to the integrity and the discipline that you have to see something

00:43:59.880 through that you want and hope to come to fruition in a matter of months or weeks, but because of just

00:44:05.560 the bureaucracy and the nature of the beast and how many years are involved in the turning of this

00:44:09.480 machine, it's so much of a bigger sandwich to bite. You know what I mean? One at a time.

00:44:15.160 How do you need an elephant one bite at a time? Right. So yeah, man, it's, uh, it's, it's super

00:44:20.280 cool, dude. I've been, I've been pumping your tires for a couple of years now on a few different shows.

00:44:25.000 And, uh, I'm just, I'm super glad that you were able to take the time and walk people through this.

00:44:30.360 And I absolutely probably have more follow-up for you in the future, but, uh, especially timely now,

00:44:36.360 given that TPS is not necessarily receiving the best publicity right now, but it shouldn't take away

00:44:43.400 at all from the things that you do and the folks like you and the vast majority of police officers,

00:44:48.840 not just in Toronto, but everywhere that are doing the right things all the time. And I don't want

00:44:53.240 the, uh, the toxic headlines to take away from that. So, man, I, like, I super appreciate you

00:45:00.680 coming on and everything that you do. And, uh, it's been too long since I've hung out with you and

00:45:04.920 in RL we'll say, but, uh, I think, I think we probably will again relatively soon. And, um,

00:45:12.120 where can people find more about this? Like, let's say this lands on someone's desk and they want to,

00:45:17.400 I don't know, dive into social media, website, whatever, like, how can they find you? How can

00:45:20.920 they get involved? Yeah. So we have a social media account, military veteran wellness, and, uh, we have

00:45:26.040 a website on the Toronto police, um, account, and then, um, you can put my contact, uh, info at the bottom,

00:45:32.840 and I'd be happy to collaborate and share our lessons learned and learn from you guys. But,

00:45:37.320 uh, but yeah, like policing is a very hard job and, uh, I've worked the military. I've worked,

00:45:46.600 the NSO NRF kind of stuff, which is nuclear security officers. And, uh, policing is a very,

00:45:52.920 very hard job. They face a ton of scrutiny, which is a good thing though, because you have a lot of

00:45:58.760 power as a cop and you need to ensure that there's public accountability and, uh, any serious

00:46:06.200 allegation needs to be ripped apart and you got to do a deep dive on it because nobody likes a corrupt

00:46:13.320 cop, especially corrupt cops. Um, I honestly hope there's a fair trial, but at the end of the day,

00:46:20.440 like with, if you don't, if you're not doing the job and upholding the values of the career

00:46:26.200 and the profession, then you don't need to belong in the profession. And, uh, what I try to do with

00:46:31.400 this program is essentially have police officers make a huge social change without trying to arrest

00:46:39.240 our way out of a problem because I, I didn't want to see military veterans end up with handcuffs on their

00:46:45.640 risks. I mean, sometimes they do need that. And sometimes you need to protect the victim. And

00:46:50.680 sometimes you need to get a person to help through the courts. Sometimes you gotta get a person help

00:46:55.960 through the hospital system, but to really make true social change, it's not through handcuffs, it's

00:47:02.200 through partnerships and collaboration. And, and it's, you gotta listen, you gotta understand, and

00:47:09.000 you gotta build something together and you can't force it. And you gotta, you gotta lead. And that's

00:47:14.440 kind of what I've been trying to do. I don't think you've been trying to do it,

00:47:17.880 man. I think you're a natural leader. I think it came across the first few minutes that I met you,

00:47:22.440 hearing you again, talk about this program with so much pride and, um, it's just super cool, man.

00:47:28.680 And all the stuff you just said at the end there, I couldn't have said it better myself.

00:47:31.640 Uh, policing I've been advocating for many years is as hard, if not harder than anything I've done or

00:47:38.680 many folks do in the military. It's not about comparing, but it's just the day in day out grind

00:47:43.240 of first responding. Um, you know what I mean? You only meet people on the worst day of their life,

00:47:48.200 almost typically. So it's like every interaction is, can be skewed somewhat negatively, depending

00:47:52.840 on that person's perception or their, their mental health status at that time. So, man,

00:47:57.560 I can't thank you enough again for being here and what you're doing. And to be honest, uh, amazing.

00:48:04.440 All I need with one little funny story, if you got a second, um, I actually hated policing when I

00:48:10.040 started, I thought it was like the worst career decision ever. And, uh, I thought I could help

00:48:17.320 people, but it was way harder than I could have expected. And, uh, I remember I went to a, uh,

00:48:25.320 I went to the scenario and, uh, the girl, we thought this girl was going to kill herself. She's 0.92

00:48:30.600 a young, like 18 year old girl. So we threw cuffs on her, dragged her to the hospital and had her sit 0.97

00:48:35.720 with a doctor and I was brand new. And I was like trying to build some rapport and, uh, trying to

00:48:42.840 like smooth things over. And I was like carrying a conversation and this girl made so much fun of me. 1.00

00:48:50.040 Like I thought I was like just the biggest nerd ever. And she teased me so bad. And I was like,

00:48:56.920 oh man, like this girl's so mean to me right now. And, uh, she's like, just wait, I'm going to talk to

00:49:04.040 the doctor and I'm going to say this, this, this, and this, the doctor is going to make you drive me

00:49:08.280 home. And then that'll be the end of it. And that's exactly what happened. She went in there

00:49:13.160 and told the doctor a big story. Doctor came out and said, yeah, take her home. And that was it.

00:49:19.320 We drove her home and she kept making fun of me the whole way home. And, uh, fast forward like

00:49:27.240 10 months and, uh, I'm bombing around in our division and a buddy calls me. He's like,

00:49:33.080 Aaron, let's go to the new burger place in our division. And I'm like, perfect. Where is it?

00:49:38.040 And he's like here and here. And I'm like, okay, but I'm like 20 minutes away. Just grab me whatever

00:49:42.440 you're having. So I get there and I'm like, oh yeah, they order for Aaron. And, uh, out comes this

00:49:49.960 burger with so many mushrooms on it. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I cannot eat this burger.

00:49:56.360 So I get super flustered and embarrassed. And I'm like, yeah, I can't eat this burger. This is

00:50:01.480 disgusting. And, uh, I'm like, I'm sorry. You're just, we're going to have to make me another burger.

00:50:06.360 I just, I can't even look at that thing. Like I hate mushrooms. And, uh, so, uh, this girl,

00:50:15.080 gorgeous girl at the till, she apologizes to me. And I'm like, why are you apologizing to me? And she's 0.99

00:50:21.400 like, I was that girl that, uh, you arrested and dragged to the hospital. And if you didn't do that,

00:50:27.800 I would have killed myself and not be here right now. So I should be apologizing for you and say,

00:50:34.360 thank you. And I took my burger paid and I went to my cop car and I just like cried for like 20 minutes.

00:50:42.120 And then I was like, okay, policing is pretty, pretty cool and pretty amazing, but in a very unique way.

00:50:51.320 Man. That's the, I think the perfect way to end this off. Uh, thank you for telling that story.

00:50:56.440 Um, I love it, man. That's, that's so cool. Thanks again for being here and all that you do. And,

00:51:02.920 uh, people should go check it out, leave some comments or questions and, uh,

00:51:07.320 any of the viewers, but yeah, dude. Amazing. Thanks so much.

00:51:10.840 Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Cheers, buddy.

Toronto Police Help Veterans - Inspiring Support w⧸ Aaron Dale

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