A three-person independent review panel is to analyze the mass shooting that claimed 22 lives in April.
Federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair and Nova Scotia’s Justice Minister Mark Furey announced the joint independent review on Thursday.
But the independent review is not a public inquiry, which is what the victims’ families are looking for.
“We want a full public inquiry with full transparency,” Darcy Dobson, Heather O'Brien's daughter, said Wednesday. “I think the people who were lost in those two days, people who were injured, our communities, everyone deserves that.”
O'Brien was one of 22 people who were killed by a gunman who drove a replica police cruiser during the rampage that started in Portapique on April 18 and ended more than 13 hours later in Enfield.
Unlike a public inquiry, the panel of an independent review does not have the authority to compel testimony under oath or subpoena evidence.
“We felt that the review process itself provided the most timely opportunity in setting up a panel and the most timely opportunity for the earliest responses,” Furey said at a news conference Thursday when asked why an independent review was selected rather than a public inquiry.
“We see the review process and the strength of the panel and the discretion of the panel and its expertise to administer this review in a way that gets the answers that families and Nova Scotians want.”
Furey explained it took more than three months to call for an independent review as the government had to weigh all possible options and it took time to identify panel members "with that specific background and experience."
Michael MacDonald, who served as Nova Scotia’s chief justice for 15 years, will chair the panel, rounded out by Anne McLellan, a former member of Parliament, and former Fredericton police chief Leanne Fitch.
They will assess areas related to the gunman; the RCMP’s response and information provided to the victims’ families and the public after the incident, as well as any other issues found during the review.
The panel will look at contributing and contextual factors, including the involvement of gender-based and intimate partner violence; the gunman’s access to firearms; and police interactions with or about the gunman prior to the event.
It will analyze the RCMP’s response, including decision-making and supervision; communication with the public, such as using Twitter to release information and no emergency alert being sent; communication between and among the RCMP, municipal police forces and other agencies; and police policies, procedures and training for gender-based and intimate partner violence, disposal of police vehicles and other items and active shooting incidents.
It will also review the information and support that was provided to families of the victims, affected citizens, police personnel and the public after the incident.
The review “must not compromise any police investigation being conducted in relation to the events of April 18-19,” the independent review terms of reference states.
Assistant commissioner Lee Bergerman, Nova Scotia RCMP’s commanding officer, said the police force “supports the independent review and will co-operate fully.”
Under the RCMP Act, Blair said he has the authority to direct the commissioner of the RCMP, president of the Canadian Border Services Agency and other implicated ministries, organizations and departments to co-operate with the review panel and has already given those instructions.
“I will also assure you and Nova Scotians that the RCMP is also very very keen that all of the facts of these circumstances are made known and as well, also keen there are lessons that can be learned in order to improve the quality of the response and ensure that such a tragedy never happens again,” Blair said.
The panel, slated to start the review at the end of August, is required to provide an interim report on their findings to the ministers by Feb. 28, 2021, and a final report by Aug. 31, 2021. Both reports are to be made public. The panel may also release additional information not included in the reports if they choose to.
Similar to a public inquiry, recommendations made by the panel are not binding, but both ministers said they will “fully consider” the recommendations put forward.
"We believe the review process and the work the panel will do will start us on that course to rebuild trust, not only with the families but those communities that are most impacted and Canadians in general who have expressed their own concerns," Furey said.
In an emailed statement, sent on behalf of the families of shooting victims by the lawyers representing them in a proposed class action against the Nova Scotia RCMP, the families expressed their disappointment in the independent review.
"Most disappointingly, ministers Furey and Blair have hidden behind their contrived notion of a 'trauma-free' process to exclude the full participation of the families under the guise of protecting them from further trauma," the statement says.
"This is not how the families wish to be treated. Minister Furey has spoken with the families, so he must know that they want to participate, not to be protected by an incomplete process," it reads.
"The families want a full and transparent public inquiry. Why will minister Furey not give them this?"
Read the terms of reference for the review
Terms of reference for Nova... by Chronicle Herald on Scribd
