Group wants inquiry into mass murder to remain fully public
A coalition of groups devoted to eliminating genderbased violence across Canada is urging Ottawa and Nova Scotia to refrain from using a restorative justice approach for a promised inquiry into the mass killing that claimed 22 lives in the Maritime province.
In a letter addressed to the prime minister, Nova Scotia’s premier and several cabinet ministers, the group insists such an approach would undermine the need for an independent, fully transparent public inquiry.
“We were shocked to see media reports that the launch of an inquiry into the April 2020 massacre in Nova Scotia was being held up by an attempt to graft a ‘restorative approach’ onto the traditional federalprovincial public inquiry,” says the letter, signed by more than two dozen groups.
Restorative justice is a process that focuses on addressing the harm caused by crime by offering those involved — victims, offenders and public officials — the opportunity to meet and discuss healing and reparation outside the regular criminal justice system.
The letter says the group, which includes Women’s Shelters Canada and the National Association of Women and the Law, is opposed to using the restorative justice process in this case because hearings are typically held in private and there is no mechanism to compel witnesses to testify.
“The public outcry for an inquiry was not a demand to have discrete groups of affected individuals participate in a series of private meetings,” the letter says.
“The families and individuals who lost loved ones as a result of this massacre, the women and children who are subjected to misogynistic violence every day in Canada, and the Canadian public traumatized by ...(the) mass killing are entitled to the full and public justice of an inquiry that ensures public accessibility ... public accountability and transparency.”
On another front, the letter points out that Nova Scotia has imposed a moratorium on the restorative justice model to deal with offences involving domestic or sexual violence.
Last week, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey said the provincial and federal governments were ironing out details of how the inquiry would work, but he said there were delays because of “technicalities and legalities.”