Kent Laidlaw

If it was not for Kent, Dr. Laidlaw & Associates would not exist. I met Kent at a trauma conference. We were both speakers and gravitated toward each other all day. It did not take long before we started to date and shortly after, we married. 

 

Kent was born in Hamilton, Ontario. He started his career as a police officer in 1961 with Burlington Police and ended his career in 1993 as District Commander with the Halton Regional Police Service. Kent was passionate about policing and cared especially for victims of crime. He helped to establish the first victim services unit and the first peer support team for first responders. He was also instrumental in establishing the Children’s Safety Village. Upon his retirement, Kent worked for OCCOPS and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. He then established his own business, Canuckcare, which served primarily victims of crime. He worked extensively with victim service providers across the province and travelled the world presenting on various topics such as caring for caregivers and death notification. His death notification training/program was provided throughout the world and was eventually adopted by MADD Canada. He spent some time in Bosnia debriefing victims of war atrocities. Kent developed various training programs and provided trainings/consultation to multiple first responder groups in the GTHA and in northern Ontario.

 

Despite all of this, he found the time to pursue me and, once we married and I moved to Burlington where he was living at the time, he was instrumental in establishing Dr. Laidlaw  & Associates. He continued to debrief and consult with various first responder groups until shortly before his death in October of 2023.

Kent was an avid fisherman (primarily catch and release). He cheered for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Blue Jays and was a season-seat ticket holder and fan of the Hamilton Tiger Cats (Argos suck). One of Kent’s last happy moments, just days before he died, was meeting his favourite TiCat player, Simoni Lawrence. Kent had a great sense of humour and was a compassionate and loyal friend.

 

If you are at the office, you will see signs of him all over as I still cannot believe he is gone. I miss him every day and will never forget him.