The GNWT is reviewing how it supports search and rescue after a Yellowknife MLA asked the territorial government to take greater responsibility.
In the legislature last week, Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart put questions to municipal affairs minister Vince McKay about a report on the subject published in 2022.
That report, commissioned by the territorial government, made 12 recommendations to improve search and rescue operations in the NWT, the chief of which was for the territory’s emergency management office to include search and rescue in its mandate.
The authors of the report noted the GNWT is collectively responsible for all search and rescue operations – also known as SAR – on the ground and on inland waterways, except incidents involving aircraft and in national parks.
The GNWT delegates incident command for missing persons cases to RCMP through its territorial policing contract.
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“At present, no GNWT department is mandated the responsibility of training and equipping SAR teams, tracking existing SAR resources, providing centralized communications and coordination across SAR teams, implementing preventative initiatives, or setting common standards for SAR in the territory,” the report stated.
“This leaves a gap in responsibility at the territorial level and has resulted in an underdeveloped system of volunteer SAR teams who lack the resources required to be fully effective and safe.”
In the legislature, McKay said the Department of Justice is in the process of reviewing the report.
He pointed to funding announced by the federal government in August to support the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada in the development of a standardized training program.
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“This is something that we’ll continue to work at, and at some point, hopefully find a path forward that supports local, established ground search and rescue teams,” said McKay.
Testart asked if this meant McKay would consider creating a mandate for search and rescue under the umbrella of emergency management within the territorial government.
McKay said conversations about this are being had.
“I definitely have spoken to my department recently about it,” said McKay.
“This is an opportunity for us to review this and see if we have a path forward to support locally established search and rescue organizations.”
The conversation took place a day after a 70-year-old woman was found deceased in Yellowknife following a search coordinated by the RCMP that spanned two days.
