Nova Scotia mass shooting inquiry: Advice given to witness worries former judge

A former Supreme Court of Canada judge working with the inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting says he’s worried the federal Justice Department has been discouraging witnesses from being forthcoming with relevant evidence.

In an Aug. 5 letter to the department, released late Monday by the inquiry, commission counsel director Thomas Cromwell cites advice the department gave Nova Scotia RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather before he testified before the commission of inquiry on July 28.

Cromwell said he was “deeply concerned” by Leather’s claim that he was advised “to be simply reactive rather than forthcoming,” an approach that Cromwell said “will hamper the commission in fulfilling its mandate.”

The former judge asked for assurances from the department that this sort of advice has not and will not be given to other witnesses.

“Rather, I would hope and expect that witnesses would be encouraged to share the relevant information that they have,” Cromwell said.

On July 28, Leather testified that in an earlier interview with commission lawyers, he didn’t say anything about emails or phone calls related to an April 28, 2020, meeting he attended with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki because Justice Department lawyers had suggested he take “a reactive posture.”

Leather said he was advised not to proactively disclose previous conversations or correspondence with Lucki.

The April 28 teleconference, led by Lucki, focused on the effectiveness of the Nova Scotia RCMP’s news conferences in the days after a man disguised as a Mountie fatally shot 22 people in northern and central Nova

Scotia on April 18-19, 2020.

Meeting notes taken by another Nova Scotia Mountie, Supt. Darren Campbell, claim that Lucki said she had promised then-public safety minister Bill Blair that the RCMP would release details about the killer’s weapons to lend weight to the Liberal government’s pending gun control legislation.

That bombshell assertion has prompted allegations of political interference in a police investigation, an allegation that is being investigated by a parliamentary committee in Ottawa. Lucki and Blair have denied the allegations, saying political pressure was not applied.

In response to Cromwell’s letter, the Justice Department’s general counsel, Lori Ward, said department lawyers did not discourage Leather from being forthcoming. Ward’s letter, dated Aug. 9, 2022, says that Leather’s comments about what he was told “can only be the result of a misunderstanding.”