It's the best one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I talked about ground search and rescue in the Northwest Territories. Can the Department of Justice indicate when they're going to provide an action plan to start implementing the recommendations provided in the review of ground search and rescue services that they commissioned themselves? Can we get a timeline and a costing -- a cost of plan so we could get these recommendations in place and improve ground search and rescue in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A couple years ago, a few years ago, the federal government offered us some money to undertake a review of search and rescue in the Northwest Territories, and so we did that, and the report came back with a number of recommendations. The responses -- the government's responses to those recommendations have been tabled in this House as part of a response to a written question that the Member made. And so what that written response says is that the government is not adopting those recommendations, so there will be no action plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, that's concerning, and it's concerning to volunteers who are working in ground search and rescue, and it's more concerning to people who might get lost and need ground search and rescue.
Mr. Speaker, at the very least, can we improve -- can we ensure there's consistent recording of data? Because there's not. This data's lost year on year. We don't have a central repository. Can we at least start to implement some of these things that are low cost options like a central repository for search and rescue data. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I believe that would be sort of a difficult task. The RCMP records some statistics about search and rescue. They provide incident command services during search and rescues, but there is no central body beyond that that records this data. So the cost that a community or individuals might spend on a search and rescue, that's not covered. You know, there might be individuals out there supporting efforts that don't let anyone know that they're supporting efforts, and so we can't necessarily record that information either. So because this involves so many different groups and we don't have a coordinated system, I can't make that commitment, but I'm happy to look further into it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the Premier does because this is life and death stuff, Mr. Speaker. Can we -- can the Minister -- the Premier establish regions at least to organize ground search and rescue efforts with part-time staff responsible for their administration? These meetings could be done via Zoom. They don't have to be expensive things where we fly everyone in, but can we start to see some of those changes where we could get administrative regions in place so we can ensure there's more than just one team in Yellowknife doing work and we have teams in every region of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there is more than just one team doing work in the Northwest Territories. Throughout the Northwest Territories, there's dedicated groups of volunteer who might not be part of a structured incorporated group that go out and do this work on a quite regular basis, depending on the circumstances. But that group is -- you know, we don't have a coordinating body, as I said and right now the report itself suggested that the EMO, the emergency management organization, take over these functions. The EMO does not have that capacity at this time. And we'll be responding to recommendations from the afteraction review when it comes to how to organize themselves and what they need to focus on. And so at this time, I can't commit to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
