Ottawa commits $3 million for national volunteer search and rescue

The federal government has earmarked $3 million over three years for the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada to help standardize training and continue administering a national insurance program.

Eleanor Olszewski, the federal minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience, announced the new funding agreement in Yellowknife on Thursday.

The minister, who was in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk earlier this week, said being in the communities reminded her of the importance of search and rescue, utilizing local knowledge and “the incredibly difficult challenges that people face in the North.”

“We all know, when someone is lost, when they’re in danger, absolutely every second matters,” said Olszewski.

“Our responsibility – and it’s something we share across all levels of government – is to make sure that that first responders, that search and rescue personnel, that you have the support that you need when you answer that call.”

The Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada represents nearly 10,000 search and rescue volunteers and 300 teams across the country, including in the NWT.

Bill Peck, director of the NWT chapter of the organization, described volunteers as “the people who answer the call when someone is missing, lost, injured, or in distress.”

“Our ability to respond safely and effectively depends on much more than simply being available when an emergency happens, it depends on strong systems being in place before the call ever comes,” he said.

Peck said the new contribution agreement with the federal government will help the organization administer a national insurance program that provides coverage for things like injury and death of searchers.

The funding will also help provide peer mental health support for searchers, contribute to the development and maintenance of national ground search and rescue standards, and the delivery of search and rescue prevention programs.

“The Northwest Territories and other northern and remote regions face realities that are very different from many parts of the country,” said Peck.

“We’ve got vast distances, isolated communities, challenging environments, and limited local resources. As a search manager myself, I know how a strong local volunteer capacity will always be essential, and connecting that capacity to national standards, training tools, relationships, and support makes the overall system so much stronger, and our ability to carry out our response much much more effective.”

How RCMP uses search and rescue services

The funding announcement comes as a search is underway in the NWT’s Beaufort Delta for Jovan Sandhu who was last seen at the ferry crossing in Tsiigehtchic on August 7.

On Wednesday, RCMP announced the search for the 27-year-old was shifting its focus to a recovery operation, with the help of local search and rescue volunteers and community members.

Speaking after Thursday’s press conference, NWT RCMP chief superintendent Dyson Smith explained that RCMP engages search and rescue services on a case-by-case basis.

“Sometimes it’s right on the onset, based on the information that we have, and it could be a delayed response, not as an intentional way of trying to delay any kind of search efforts, but we want to make sure that before we engage external invest or external partners, that we have done everything we can to either locate the person or determine where they went missing,” said Smith.

He said that usually when police receive a call about a missing or overdue person, RCMP will first dispatch officers locally to determine if additional resources are required.

To explain the process, Smith used the example of an overdue hunter whose cabin or hunting location is known.

“It usually begins by taking a look to see if there’s just maybe a mechanical problem, an injury, or we’ve had cases where people have just had really good hunting days and decide to stay extra time,” said Smith.

“Barring that, that’s when it will be elevated, and the decision will then be to engage a search manager who is with the RCMP, and then that search manager has extensive training on on what tools and resources may be required for the scope of what we’re looking at.”