Following a Conservative party call for the resignation of former public safety minister Bill Blair and the RCMP commissioner, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claims his administration didn’t interfere with a police probe into the horrific shooting in Nova Scotia.
The Opposition push for a resignation comes one day after Thursday’s release of recordings of a heated conference call between RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki and senior staff in Nova Scotia.
At that meeting on April 28, 2020, Lucki acknowledged she recognized the police agency couldn’t disclose specific information regarding the probe into how a shooter killed 22 people following a 13-hour rampage earlier that month.
However, she told officers in Halifax that she felt frustrated when she learned the speaking notes used for an RCMP news conference earlier that day did not include basic information about the killer’s weapons in the April 18-19, 2020, rampage.
She can be heard saying her desire to publicly share these basic facts was in response to a request she received from a minister’s office, though she did not specify which minister or the exact nature of the request.
The Liberal administration is accused by the Conservatives of meddling with the police inquiry in order to forward their proposed gun control legislation. The Conservatives have seized on these remarks.
But Trudeau said to reporters on Friday that Canadians in general and the victims’ families wanted to know what guns were used, so “we wanted to make sure those families got as many answers as could, swiftly.”
The RCMP, according to Trudeau, only disclosed that the weapons used were semi-automatic handguns and rifles.
“We acknowledged and accepted the fact that the RCMP and the local police are the ones who decide what is released and when at every stage. They decide how to strike a compromise between the public’s desire for answers and the requirement to preserve the objectivity of inquiries, the speaker said.
“As we observed in this instance, the police decided to disclose further details months later.
A statement demanding Blair and Lucki’s immediate resignation was read to reporters on Friday by Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho.
Dancho said the recordings released by the public inquiry into the shootings show Blair and Lucki misled Canadians and “lied” to a parliamentary committee looking into the matter.
She claimed that the tape proved that the RCMP was asked by the minister’s office to provide sensitive material about the current investigation, and that the minister was informed that this would happen.
“We have a situation here where the minister is directing the RCMP to interfere in an investigation and that they were advised doing so would jeopardize that investigation,” said Dancho.
Therefore, it is obvious that the commissioner was under political pressure to get involved in the probe.
During the public inquiry’s sessions, Lucki stated that she did not equate responding to queries from the minister’s office with following the minister’s instructions.
The Canadian Press initially released this article on October 21, 2022.
After the tape from the Nova Scotia shooting inquiry was released, the Tories called for resignations.
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