‘Serious commitment’ toward N.S. mass shooting recommendations, says committee

HALIFAX — The committee monitoring how governments and the RCMP are responding to the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia has released its first annual progress report, but it does not include any assessment of the police force’s actions.

Myra Freeman, chairwoman of the independent progress monitoring committee, told a news conference Friday she is encouraged by the “serious commitment” of the federal and Nova Scotia governments to address the inquiry’s 130 recommendations.

But she said an assessment the RCMP’s progress will have to wait, adding that a meeting with the national police force is scheduled for next month.

“They’ve not been formally assessed,” she said. “But let me assure you that the work they are doing is comprehensive. We are having regular updates at the committee meetings.”

Freeman went on to praise the Mounties for their decision to establish a online “progress hub” that is supposed to track their response to the federal-provincial inquiry, known formally as the Mass Casualty Commission.

“Their goal is to be transparent for the public to understand,” Freeman said. “They are strongly committed to ensuring that change is made.”

During the public inquiry’s hearings in Nova Scotia, the commission heard that the killer’s 13-hour rampage started in Portapique, N.S., on the night of April 18, 2020. Disguised as a Mountie and driving a car that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser, Gabriel Wortman fatally shot 13 people on the first night, and the next day he killed another nine people, including a pregnant woman and an RCMP officer.

The inquiry’s seven-volume report went so far as to suggest Ottawa should rethink the RCMP’s central role in Canadian policing.

The inquiry offered withering criticism of the Mounties’ response to the shootings. Its final report, released in March 2023, found the RCMP missed warning signs about the killer, including reports of domestic violence, his possession of illegal firearms, and his repeated run-ins with the law.

Among other things, it also found the Mounties were poorly organized and failed to promptly send alerts to the public until it was too late for some victims.

The three commissioners who led the investigation were told the RCMP has a history of ignoring reports that call for change. That’s why the commissioners called for creation of the progress committee, saying there had to be a mechanism to ensure the inquiry’s recommendations are implemented.

The 29-page report released Friday focuses on three areas: gender-based violence; access to firearms; and the reform of Nova Scotia’s independent police oversight agency, the Serious Incident Response Team. It covers 24 of the commission’s recommendations.

Freeman said the non-binding recommendations from the inquiry “continue to be a high public safety priority,” but she said there is much work to be done.

The monitoring committee was established in 2023 by the provincial and federal governments, but Freeman wasn’t appointed to the role of chairwoman until May 2024.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 29, 2024.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press