Denials of interference falling flat

Resignations may be in order for Lucki, Blair

The denials have worn so thin, they’re unbelievable.

So flimsy, in fact, that resignations may be in order.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair won’t admit it, but damning evidence is mounting that the federal Liberal government and Canada’s top Mountie interfered – for political reasons – with the police investigation following the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in April 2020.

If you haven’t followed the story, here’s the crux of it: In the days following the country’s worst mass shooting, Ottawa and Lucki allegedly pressured local Mounties to release details about the killer’s weapons to boost support for pending federal gun legislation.

If true, Lucki and Blair, and maybe others, should resign.

It all comes down to what happened during a crucial telephone meeting between Lucki and senior Nova Scotia RCMP officers on April 28, 2020.

On June 28, as detailed in a Saltwire Network story, the Mass Casualty Commission made public a letter written in April 2021 by Lia Scanlan, at the time of the shootings civilian director of strategic communications for Nova Scotia RCMP’S H Division, to Lucki.

In it, Scanlan blasted Lucki for what the commissioner had said on that emotional group phone call a week after the massacre.

Just two hours before an earlier press conference that day (April 28, 2020), national RCMP headquarters had pushed provincial investigators to release details about the killer’s weapons, Scanlan wrote. She refused, for operational reasons and because victims’ families had been promised they’d see new information prior to public disclosure, which had not happened.

Then later, on the group call, Lucki appallingly blasted local Mounties, saying that by not following her explicit directions to identify the weapons, they “let down” victims’ children, Scanlan wrote.

Think about that for a moment.

Lucki allegedly tried to use newly orphaned children as a cudgel to make local Mounties feel guilty. Guilty about what? That they hadn’t gone along with revealing details about weapons used in the mass shooting, which hurt the Liberals’ gun control efforts. Pathetic.

“Eventually, you informed us of the pressures and conversation with Minister Blair, which we clearly understood was related to the upcoming passing of the gun legislation … and there it was,” Scanlan wrote. “I remember a feeling of disgust as I realized this was the catalyst for the conversation and perhaps a justification for what you were saying about us.”

Scanlan’s letter is important because it entirely corroborates what Supt. Darren Campbell, who’d also been on the April 28, 2020 call, told the inquiry last week.

According to Campbell’s handwritten notes from the meeting, Lucki said “she had promised the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister’s Office that the RCMP, (we) would release this information” about the killer’s firearms.

Campbell said Lucki went on at length about how upset she was, telling him, when he tried to explain why they withheld information, that “we (the Nova Scotia RCMP) didn’t understand, that this was tied to pending gun control legislation that would make officers and public safer by or through this legislation.”

So, that’s now two people on that call specifically saying Lucki linked what she wanted from local Mounties to Ottawa’s looming gun legislation.

We need to hear directly from others who participated: Lee Bergerman, then Nova Scotia RCMP commander, as well as her then second-incommand, Chief Supt. Chris Leather.

Meeting notes by Bergerman, now retired, and Leather were made public June 28. But they offer little detail.

Both should be directly asked what they recall Lucki saying about the federal Liberals’ gun control bill.

There’s a fish market smell wafting over the whole affair.

The most incriminating portions of Campbell’s notes were only handed over by the federal Justice Department earlier this month.

They weren’t part of Ottawa’s initial disclosure of relevant documents back in February.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for some victims’ families says he only learned of the Scanlan April 2021 letter recently.

Lucki, Blair and his office continue to deny they interfered with the RCMP investigation.

Here’s the thing when dealing with politicians and the like – you’ve got to examine, very carefully, exactly what they’re saying.

Blair says he didn’t interfere or direct others to do so. OK, let’s take that at face value.

So, I put this question to Blair’s office last week: Did the topic of Liberal gun control legislation come up at all between Blair and Lucki in the days following the massacre?

I’m still waiting for a direct answer.

Because, if it did, perhaps the juxtaposition of talking around the same time about gun control policy and what details about the killer’s weapons should be released by the Nova Scotia Mounties made it obvious to Lucki what was expected, politically.

According to Campbell and now Scanlan, Lucki’s message to them was crystal clear.