Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As per my Member's statement, I know I get very emotional. Whenever I talk about the missing and murdered Indigenous women, I remember the stories. I see their faces. It's never going to leave me. As mentioned in my Member's statement, I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Status of Women what the federal delay in development of a national action plan to address the calls for justice outlined in the MMIWG final report means for the NWT in terms of development of our own action plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to be fair to the federal government and acknowledge that the work has been happening, but there are times like this through the COVID-19 where events have not been able to take attention to or have been slowed. Of course, the pandemic we've been facing is a priority for all governments, and face-to-face meetings have not been available or planned after recent government transitions since the report was tabled last year. We would all like to see our work advanced together so we can have the benefit of discussions and experiences from across the country. Having a national action plan provides the opportunity for more collaboration and leadership. This does not, however, prevent us from continuing our own work in the Northwest Territories and advance the calls for justice. We have been working internally on identifying further actions we require, and we'll continue to implement them and engage with Indigenous governments, communities, and others as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I hear what the Minister says, and I disagree. With COVID, how many deaths have we had with COVID? We've had way more deaths with Indigenous women and girls, and it hasn't been taken as seriously. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to developing an NWT action plan to address these calls for justice without waiting for this federal action plan?
In my Minister's statement, I mentioned that the Northwest Territories has been a leader in responding to the report, and I can commit to moving actions forward. My hesitation in suggesting that the Northwest Territories develop a wholly standalone plan is that we do not align in many cases with the expectations of Indigenous governments, communities, and particularly Indigenous women and girls. This requires collaboration. Much of that is occurring, and the discussion is happening throughout the development of this national action plan. I believe the inquiry recommended a national action plan because it recognized that the scope of the issues identified require Canadian society and all of Canada to be engaged. With that said, we've already undertaken actions in response to the inquiry's report. In our initial response, doing our part, we've identified things we're doing now, things we can do right away, and others we can continue to work on doing.
In addition, an interdepartmental working group was set up to coordinate the Government of the Northwest Territories response for calls for justice, and this working ground includes representatives from two departments, like I mentioned. They are also tasked with doing an in-depth review and analyze the calls for justice. I appreciate that the Member does not want us to let the calls for justice found in the report to sit on the shelf and collect dust. We all need to continue our focus on making this change, but I don't think we need a separate standalone action plan to work on making that change.
The Minister has mentioned collaboration with Aboriginal organizations and women's organizations within the Northwest Territories to get this work done. Can the Minister explain to me if they have a working group now with the Aboriginal groups, and who are they collaborating with outside the government right now on this plan?
Currently, the interdepartmental working group I referred to includes the Department of Health and Social Services, Justice, Housing, and we are working at looking at Education, Culture and Employment, Indigenous Affairs. There are a number of departments working together. The focus is to start to look at doing our part because we realize that a lot of our departments are doing initiatives and programs around the report.
Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Sorry, Mr. Speaker. My question was: who outside the government have we been collaborating with? I guess I'm not going to get an answer to that because I want to ask if the Minister can tell us if we can expect some type of plan presented in this House and we can begin to implement these justices to the 231 calls for justice? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Member wants to hold this government accountable for taking meaningful action with this. Urgency is required. I will commit to providing more regular reports to the Member, and offer the same to the committee. I agree that we need to continue to focus on this work and make sure we're moving forwards with some actions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
