The Prime Minister has committed to looking into what he can do to help get the search for Jordan Naterer, a man from this province missing in BC, back up and running.

Naterer never returned from a hiking trip over the Thanksgiving weekend. The search was called off by the Vancouver Police Department, but his parents are calling for the search to be resumed after new evidence was found.

Last night, Justin Trudeau fielded questions from MUN faculty, staff, and students in a virtual town hall.

Justin Dearing, who heads the Sustainability and Climate Action Office at MUN, asked Trudeau if there is any way he can encourage additional support in the search.

Trudeau says the search hits close to home. He can’t hear the story without thinking of his little brother, who was lost in an avalanche in BC almost 25 years years ago, and how he felt when the search was called off.

Trudeau has committed to looking into the situation. He says he has limited leverage over a local search but will look at the situation to see if he can nudge things along because he knows the heartbreak Jordan’s family is going through.

Meanwhile, the provincial government is supporting a family’s plea to resume the search.

The search was called off this week but that was before the discovery of Jordan’s hat and glasses case in an area which his parents say had not been searched extensively.

Justice Minister Steve Crocker says his officials have reached out to their counterparts in BC to back the family’s call for the search to resume.

He said as a parent himself he can appreciate what the Naterer family is going through, adding the government will do whatever it can to support them.

Crocker has offered BC officials whatever assistance they need to make that happen.

Meanwhile, a petition supporting the reactivation of the search has garnered over 30,000 names.