Front Burner - After backlash, a public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

On April 18-19, a gunman went on a shooting rampage across central Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. Since then, families of the victims have been pushing for a public inquiry. That's because there are still questions about the RCMP's response to the shooting. After initially opting for a review into the tragedy, which drew much criticism, provincial and federal governments have now committed to a joint public inquiry. This comes in the same week as the release of some previously redacted court documents that could reveal more about the case. Today on Front Burner, CBC Nova Scotia's Brett Ruskin on these recent developments.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Josh Bloch. On April 18th and 19th of this year, 22 people were killed in a horrific shooting spree that began in the small community of Portapique, Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia RCMP say they have identified an active shooter.

It all started with multiple firearm calls at a Portapique house down this country road. We're trying to get more details out of police, but what they have given us is a photo and a suspect description. This is the man they're now seeking, Gabriel Wartman. The rampage went on for 13 hours, ending at a gas station in Enfield, 150 kilometers away, where the gunman was shot dead by police. There's been a lot of questions about the RCMP's response to what happened, and the force's handling of past complaints about the shooter. For months, families have been calling for more answers. The federal and provincial government initially promised a joint independent review into what

happened, but after widespread criticism, a full public inquiry will now take place. This comes at a time when we could be learning more about the shooter from newly unredacted court documents. Today, we're joined again by CBC Nova Scotia's Brett Ruskin on these latest developments. This is FrontBurner. Hello, Brett. Hi, Josh. Brett, for the family of the victims killed by Gabriel Wartman over three months ago, what are the most important questions that remain unanswered?

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of questions that they want answered. I mean the question on everyone's mind is really why did this happen? That's a question that likely will never be answered but I guess the questions around this as to how people responded to it, how the police responded to it, what the communication was like both before the shooting and after the shooting, those are kind of firmer questions that you can really dig into. And that's really what the families are hoping to get more in-depth information out of. And so the families, as far as we've heard so far, they want to know what the police

knew about this shooter before he began opening fire on strangers and on neighbors and on people that he knew on April 18th and 19th. They want to know what the overall response was by RCMP to get a better picture as to what officers were doing where and when. And finally, just more details about the general communication. Communication between RCMP and other police forces in the province, and generally communication between the RCMP and the public. I would have not let my wife leave the dooryard if I had that broadcast come across that he was on the loose. This is what I can't get over. Why wasn't there a phone alert?

We've had it, you know, tested and everything else. I've heard it before. Keep in mind the RCMP knew hours before they made it public that there was a gunman on the loose who looked like an RCMP officer who was, you know, dressed in an RCMP uniform, who was driving a vehicle that looked identical to an RCMP vehicle. And they did not disclose that, certainly not right away. And it was not disclosed anywhere beyond the confines of Twitter. They didn't use the public alert system to notify the public of this threat. Darren Campbell with the Nova Scotia RCMP was asked today about people who are upset about the lack of a warning or an alert going out. They have every right to ask those questions. They have every right to be angry. Public trust, as I said, is so important and it's not something that you, it's gained easily. It takes a lot of work, and it's lost very easily.

So last week, the provincial and federal governments announced this joint independent review to look at some of these questions, to look at the causes, context and circumstances that that led to the mass shooting in April. But there was this huge backlash from families of the victims, and the federal government now says it will move ahead with a full public inquiry. How are the families reacting to this latest news? How are the families reacting to this latest news? Yeah, so I don't think it can be understated the immediate uproar that happened when the review was announced. Because for months, the families and supporters of the families have been calling for a public inquiry. They have unanimously been very clear.

And so when this review was announced, family members certainly weren't happy, made their voices heard, made their voices heard online and then in person at protests. Public open inquiry! Marchers in Bridgewater Monday vowed to keep pressing until the victims' families got the public inquiry they wanted. In Halifax and Bridgewater and other places in the province.

We have compiled 22 reasons why a public inquiry is necessary. Number one, because 22 people, including a pregnant woman, were murdered in less than 24 hours and each of these murders was preventable. It is paternalistic of government to decide what information the families can handle. They want the truth. We all want the truth. It's too late to protect those families and our province from the realities of that terrible weekend. It's not too late to protect those families and our province from the realities of that terrible weekend. It's not too late to make sure it never happens again. And eventually, this is kind of one of the few examples that we can point to in so many different policies and aspects of government and public life, and aspects of government and public life, that the government said,

hey, listen, we are going to listen to you. And very quickly, from Friday's announcement to, I suppose, Tuesday afternoon, made the decision to scrap the review and launch this inquiry. And Premier Stephen McNeill joins us now live to talk about all this. Sir, thanks for being with us tonight. What is going on here? live to talk about all this, sir. Thanks for being with us tonight. What is going on here? Well, what you're seeing now, I think, is what the families of Nova Scotians wanted, was both levels of government at a table with an inquiry that gives that inquiry the ability to call all affected witnesses they require, all agencies going forward. And that's something that family members that we've heard from so far are certainly happy

that this announcement was finally made, but there is that undertone of frustration that it took so long to get to this point. For them, I would say I'm sorry if the process created more anguish for you, but that is in no way what our government wanted to do, or quite frankly anyone involved in this process at all levels of government. I can tell you through this entire process, our focus has been in trying to get the answers that we continue to hear from families about what happened. Well, and what exactly is the difference between an independent review panel versus this full public inquiry? Yeah, because they sound the same, right? They sound like some kind of a general official assessment as to what happened in a specific case. But they're quite different legally. So

basically, an inquiry versus a review. An inquiry can subpoena witnesses, can say, hey, we think you know something about this thing we're looking into. We demand that you appear before us. The review can't do that, doesn't have that power to force people to come and talk to them. An inquiry as well can force people to testify once they bring them in to interview them, to basically put them on the witness stand, can force them to testify under oath. I mean, those are just a few of the differences between an inquiry and a review. Certainly, an inquiry has more teeth to get at the truth compared to a review. And it sounds like there were real questions about how transparent a review would be as opposed to an inquiry.

I mean, how much access the family would have to the testimony, to the information that this investigation would be digging up? Oh, yeah. I mean, in this particular review, this isn't the case for all reviews, but in this particular case, the terms of reference, as outlined by the provincial and federal governments, dictated that all the information, all the evidence that the review would hear, these kind of panel of three experts that were handpicked, everything they would hear could remain confidential and would most likely remain entirely confidential.

The only thing that we would hear about, the public, the media, the families, would be an interim report followed by a final report. So two reports and the raw data would not be shared publicly. That was in the terms of reference and that was in there, according to the government, to try to protect the families from being re-victimized. The families came back at that and said, hey, listen, you are causing us harm, victimized, the families came back at that and said, hey, listen, you are causing us harm, guaranteed harm, by opting for this review as opposed to an inquiry by, to a certain degree, hiding the full extent of the truth from the public. You have shown not only a lack of compassion, but a failure to understand the basic principles of restorative approaches

and trauma-informed care cited as central to the review process. So just a week ago, we have the government defending its decision to strike this independent review panel. You mentioned, you know, there's protests, there's petitions, but tell me more about what accounts for this very sudden change, of course, within just a week, and now announcing that they will go with the full public inquiry. Yeah, so this was really kind of remarkable to see kind of a house of cards come crumbling down. So again, federal government and provincial government

have a joint news conference. They say we're going with a review. Today, the Minister of Justice of Nova Scotia, Bill Blair, the public safety minister in Ottawa, announcing that this will be a review by three panellists. We've heard the calls for answers. We have an opportunity for an earlier approach, earlier resolutions, and a greater opportunity to make change much quicker than we could through the

inquiry process. We have heard from you. They didn't specify who they heard from, but we want a review. There was, you know, social media discussion online over the weekend, and then there was the protest on Monday. That is, you know, I don't want to say typical, but you could kind of expect that from a group of people who aren't happy with something. But then on Tuesday, we saw a group of liberal MPs who are from Nova Scotia, represent Nova Scotia ridings, who broke rank with their own party. Keep in mind, it was the federal government that had announced this review. And you had federal liberal MPs suddenly on Tuesday, taking to social media, doing interviews on radio and on TV saying,

we don't agree with our own party's decision. we are joining this public discussion and this public outcry for a public inquiry. So, I mean, I've never seen something like that to have Liberal MPs in Nova Scotia to say, no, we don't agree with our own party. So that was step one. One of them was Sean Fraser, representative of Central Nova. So he spoke, he took to social media. And then in the hours that followed that, we had the first official crack in the armor, basically, as mixing metaphors. But the provincial government put out a news release saying,

if the federal government changes its mind, we would like to change our mind as well. Basically opening the door saying, if the federal government agrees to a public inquiry, we would agree to a public inquiry as well. And then a few hours after that, the federal government put out its own release saying, yes, public inquiry is coming into the shooting. Look, the people I know who've lost loved ones are the kindest, most honest, reasonable people you could ever meet. The fact that they are marching in the streets when they are not the type of people who try to stick it to the government, if this is one small thing that we can do as parliamentarians

with our time in office, is to give them closure. I'm going to do it. My colleagues are going to do it. Our government's going to do it. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen So this week, there's been some new information about the man behind the mass shooting, Gabriel

Wartman. CBC News and other media outlets were able to get access to these court records, which could shed some light on who the shooter was. These are testimonies given to police by witnesses who say they knew the shooter. I should note that these are allegations from court documents, so they haven't actually been tested in court. But one that jumped out to me was that Gabriel Wartman, who is a dentist, was alleged to have trafficked drugs and firearms from the U.S. Can you just tell me a little bit more about that?

Yeah, of course. So let's we'll talk about the drugs and weapons. And we should just reiterate, this is documents that CBC News and other news outlets had been able to obtain and see. And these are the notes, basically, from when police called up witnesses or knocked on people's doors and asked, hey, did you know this shoot? What did you know about him? This is what people are telling police. So as you said, in no way proven in court, this is other people's opinions, that police then used that information to obtain search warrants to continue their investigation. Now, as for the guns and the drugs that were, according to people that knew the shooter, they said to police that he had smuggled guns,

smuggled certainly guns from the United States, as well as drugs from the United States and from New Brunswick, 10,000 Dilaudid pills, 10,000 OxyContin pills, uh, into Nova Scotia. This is, uh, people who were speaking to police who said, yes, he was distributing this, uh, these illegally obtained medications, uh, throughout the community. So now to counter that, the police did say, you know, early on in the various news conferences that they organized, that they found no evidence that the shooter was profiting off of any illegal activity. Is there any indication that he was involved in illegal activity that would earn income on the side of his dentures businesses?

We have nothing in terms of him being involved. I mean, recent media articles paint him as some sort of underworld organized crime figure. Nothing has been uncovered whatsoever that would suggest that. Right. So how does that square with what is now these new revelations we're discovering in these court documents? Well, I mean, there's one thing of having people saying, oh, yeah, I have a good idea. I think that he's a drug smuggler versus, again, the police requiring the evidence to prove it. So they could both be right in this case. Tell me more about what stood out to you from these newly unredacted court documents.

Well, I mean, there was a couple of new things we knew, kind of 85% perhaps of these documents, and this was an additional 5% or 10%. We still don't have them in its entirety, but in that small percentage that we did kind of have the black Sharpie peeled away from, essentially, we saw things like allegations and kind of repeated allegations that the shooter in both his downtown Dartmouth business, as well as his cottage and shed or garage in Portapique, had false walls and secret compartments in different hidden areas where he was hiding weapons, where he had storage in some areas that were not, you know, easily visible. And I mean, this is a, at least in the downtown Dartmouth business

example, he was running a denture clinic. So people would be going in and out to get their dentures fitted and things like that. And he would have, according to these documents, get their dentures fitted and things like that. And he would have, according to these documents, false walls. There could be something hidden behind the wall so that no one would, even if they were searching the area, wouldn't immediately find it.

There are so many questions that families still have about what led to this mass shooting. I have to say that watching the rallies that were pushing for a public inquiry, it was clear that there's so much frustration about not having concrete answers and a lot of theories that continue to swirl around. What kind of impact does this tragedy continue to have for these families, but also for the community as a whole? In Portapique, I was up there a week or two ago, there is still just a huge memorial with flowers and with pictures of, again, the 22 loved ones.

One of them being a woman who was pregnant with her unborn child. loved ones, one of them being a woman who was pregnant with her unborn child. Kristen, she was wonderful. She was amazing in every way. And I said it multiple times, she loved Dax more than life itself. It was just unreal to see. All I know is my wife isn't coming home and I'm not having my unborn baby. And Dax will grow up the rest of his life without a mom. born baby and dax will grow up the rest of his life without a mom that's all i know the 22 victims the 22 families um whose you know lives were torn apart people um it seems like not that you would be guaranteed to know one of the victims but it seems like everyone has some kind of a tangential connection to this tragedy. I mean, there were nurses, there were school teachers. And a friend, a Mountie, and a mother, friends, colleagues, and family. They represented the best of us. Their loved ones

mattered. They loved, they had dreams, and they contributed to this province. People that you would see one day, and then they're just this void. They're not there as part of this community that we all took for granted the next day. The sense of loss is still certainly being felt by people, but from a less emotional standpoint, there was a manhunt underway recently in the Bridgewater area where a man had assaulted a police officer and was on the loose for a number of days. And the RCMP in the province put out emergency alert notifications to tell people to watch out for this individual and to contact police if they should see him. and me included, are thinking that, you know, this is an example of the types of notifications that could have been put out for the Portapique tragedy. You know, had there been protocols in

place, I mean, we don't even know what the protocols were, which is why this inquiry will be so key to finding out kind of what the chain of communication was between the officers on the ground and the decision makers who may have been kind of at the keyboard, computer, to send out that notification or not. So, I mean, it certainly will be, you know, instrumental, this inquiry will be, to finding out exactly what happened over those two days and over the investigation that followed.

Some family members have expressed that they're not in a rush, that they would rather have this done thoroughly and properly than get answers quickly. Yeah, I mean, and I don't blame them. I mean, if you're going to get the truth, I think that you would want the whole truth. And I think that's a sentiment that we've heard from family members in the last couple of days. Let's not rush it to have this review and find out some details. Let's be thorough and find out all the details we can. Regardless of the timeline, regardless of any of it,

I want the truth, regardless of how long it takes. So that if anything like this were ever to happen again, that, you know, something's learned. Something needs to be learned from it. And I think it's never been a timeline issue for me. I just want answers. And I don't care how long it takes as long as I get the truth. Well, we will be continuing to watch it closely. Thank you so much for your insight into this.

Thank you. One more thing before you go. On Wednesday, the families of the Nova Scotia shooting victims, along with their supporters, took a celebratory march around downtown Halifax. They were responding to the news that the federal and provincial governments will now move forward with a public inquiry instead of a joint independent review. Nick Beaton, whose pregnant wife Kristen Beat Beaton, was one of the 22 victims, said that the credit for this did not belong to any politician.

This was not because of the government, right from Lenore's end, right to the top of Bill Blair. This was because of the families, our determination, our drive, and the Nova Scotians, the Blue Nosers. All you guys that helped out. That's it for today. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening to Frontburner.