N.S. shooting inquiry: Witness allegedly told to only be ‘reactive’ in testimony – National
A former Supreme Courtroom of Canada choose working with the inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass taking pictures says he’s anxious the federal Justice Division has been discouraging witnesses from being forthcoming with related proof.
In an Aug. 5 letter to the division, launched late Monday by the inquiry, fee counsel director Thomas Cromwell cites recommendation the division gave Nova Scotia RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather-based earlier than he testified earlier than the fee of inquiry on July 28.
Cromwell mentioned he was “deeply involved” by Leather-based’s declare that he was suggested “to be merely reactive somewhat than forthcoming,” an strategy that Cromwell mentioned “will hamper the fee in fulfilling its mandate.”
The previous choose requested for assurances from the division that this kind of recommendation has not and won’t be given to different witnesses.
“Slightly, I’d hope and anticipate that witnesses can be inspired to share the related info that they’ve,” Cromwell mentioned.
On July 28, Leather-based testified that in an earlier interview with fee legal professionals, he didn’t say something about emails or cellphone calls associated to an April 28, 2020, assembly he attended with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki as a result of Justice Division legal professionals had prompt he take “a reactive posture.”
Leather-based mentioned he was suggested to not proactively disclose earlier conversations or correspondence with Lucki.
The April 28 teleconference, led by Lucki, targeted on the effectiveness of the Nova Scotia RCMP’s information conferences within the days after a person disguised as a Mountie fatally shot 22 folks in northern and central Nova Scotia on April 18-19, 2020.
Assembly notes taken by one other Nova Scotia Mountie, Supt. Darren Campbell, declare that Lucki mentioned she had promised then-public security minister Invoice Blair that the RCMP would launch particulars concerning the killer’s weapons to lend weight to the Liberal authorities’s pending gun management laws.
That bombshell assertion has prompted allegations of political interference in a police investigation, an allegation that’s being investigated by a parliamentary committee in Ottawa.
In response to Cromwell’s letter, the Justice Division’s basic counsel, Lori Ward, mentioned division legal professionals didn’t discourage Leather-based from being forthcoming. Ward’s letter, dated Aug. 9, 2022, says that Leather-based’s feedback about what he was advised “can solely be the results of a misunderstanding.”
“Counsel didn’t present such recommendation,” Ward mentioned.
Nonetheless, Ward’s letter confirms that at one level Leather-based was advised to not say something about an unrelated office evaluation in 2021 as a result of it may not be related or could possibly be privileged info.
“We prompt that he not elevate the evaluation,” Ward mentioned within the letter. “Nonetheless, we said that ought to he be requested a query that will require him to debate it, to reply honestly.”
On one other entrance, the Justice Division has admitted it ought to have alerted the fee when it withheld 35 pages of notes from seven senior officers, together with 4 pages from Campbell’s notes, when it disclosed two packages of paperwork containing 2,400 pages on Feb. 11, 2022 and March 2, 2022.
“We acknowledge that the fee was not suggested that these pages have been being reviewed for privilege,” the division mentioned in a letter to the fee dated June 24, 2022. “(Division of Justice) counsel ought to have completed so.”
As of June 24, all however three of these deleted pages had been submitted to the inquiry.
The letter goes on to say that the division will not be conscious of another paperwork which have been withheld.
