Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Do police officers and those working in the detachment receive Indigenous cultural awareness and sensitivity training? For example, Government of the Northwest Territories employees take the Living Well Together modules. Can those modules or other Indigenous cultural awareness and sensitivity training be made mandatory for RCMP officers as well?
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the RCMP are encouraged to complete the Living Well Together training. They are also required to take training called so there's a number of different training opportunities, or rather requirements. One is a Trauma Informed Approach. Another is Cultural Awareness and Humility. Another is United Against Racism. And another is Bias Awareness. And I will say that over the last number of years, the amount of training, particularly related to this subject, has increased. And it's increased to the point where we've added new RCMP officers in the territory because we have so many hours of training that it's taken officers off the job. So there is training. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Has the Department of Justice started working on the plan similar to that I meant to say a pronunciation, not spelling, so I will do it again Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami to improve relationship between Indigenous people and that with the RCMP? And as part of this work, will the Department of Justice be implementing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls final report Calls to Justice? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So here in the Northwest Territories, the Dene Nation and the RCMP have begun working together. They started a pilot project, close to a year ago now I believe, and it's a one year pilot. But that is an effort for some Indigenous leaders, as well as RCMP members, to come together and work together to address some of these issues that the Member is talking about.
The federal government, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Public Safety, have tasked the RCMP to accelerate their reform with a focus on the MMIWG Calls for Justice as well as the TRC's Calls to Action. I've provided policing priorities to the RCMP as well, and they are based on those documents as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. To ensure the safety of Indigenous people and those of police officers, are body cameras worn on police officers? If not, how come? And I know they don't have body camera but can those be made mandatory?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know in Nunavut they started wearing body cameras maybe a year ago, a couple years ago, and they have been testing them out in cold weather to see how they work. It's my understanding that at some point, body cameras will likely roll out for RCMP across the country. And so at that point, you know, then it wouldn't be mandatory.
There are a number of things we have to work out the technical issues, the storage, as in the data storage, and so there's some things that need to be put in place, very expensive things, before we can start doing that. But I expect that at some point in the future that will be happening in the territory. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi. Final supplementary.
Thank you. And I know there are a lot of people that want to know about this, too, as well so can the Minister explain to us what kind of deescalation training do RCMP officers receive? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Without a heads up, no, I can't detail the type of deescalation training that RCMP officers receive but the Commissioner of the RCMP did receive a new mandate letter today from the Minister of Public Safety and in there, there was comments about reviewing that type of deescalation training, to make sure that it is actually appropriate and doing what it is supposed to be doing. But I will provide the Member with a written followup regarding deescalation training. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
