High-ranking Mountie insists Lucki pressed him about releasing gun details after N.S. shooting
Chief Supt. Darren Campbell said he told Lucki that releasing the information could harm the investigation
High-ranking Mountie insists commissioner interfered in N.S. mass shooting probe
RCMP Chief Supt. Darren Campbell told a House of Commons committee Tuesday that he recalls Lucki saying during an April 28, 2020 call that she was "sad and disappointed" that Campbell had not released details about the gunman's weapons at a news conference.
Campbell told MPs that the commissioner also said she had "promised" the offices of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Public Safety minister Bill Blair that those details would be released.
Campbell said he tried to tell Lucki that releasing that information could hurt the ongoing investigation, which involved agencies in the United States.
"The commissioner told my colleagues and I that we didn't understand, that this was tied to pending legislation that would make officers and the public safer," Campbell said.
"The commissioner made me feel as if I was stupid."
When asked how much of the call with Lucki had been about releasing the gun information, Campbell said the entire 20 minutes he heard of the meeting before walking out had been about the firearms.
Blair and Lucki have denied repeatedly that Blair interfered in the investigation. Blair also told the committee he never asked Lucki to promise him the gun information would be released.
Campbell said that while he knew Lucki likely was under pressure regarding how to share information from all kinds of sources, including the public, media, government and the RCMP, he has no first-hand knowledge of who was asking Lucki about the guns.
'I could not and would not break that oath'
Campbell said that while it was never his intention to enter into a "political disagreement or discussion" about what happened in the April 28 meeting with Lucki, there was a principle at stake.
"The principle was the oath that I swore to uphold as a young recruit over three decades ago," he said. "I could not and would not break that oath."
The details about the guns became public through a briefing note given to the prime minister, which surfaced through an access to information request. Despite a request from the Nova Scotia Mounties that the firearm information be shared only internally to the RCMP, emails show Lucki sent those details to the offices of the Public Safety minister and the national security adviser to the prime minister.
When asked how the public could be sure the investigation into the massacre was not affected by this information being shared, Campbell said that's a difficult question to answer because their work "very well" may have been compromised.
Campbell said it's obvious that the Public Safety minister's office was interested in the firearms and conversations between Blair and Lucki might have taken place, but "the direction was fairly clear that it could not be shared."
MPs
on a Commons standing committee have heard that RCMP Commissioner
Brenda Lucki shared information about the firearms with the offices of
the Public Safety minister and the national security adviser to the
prime minister. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
When asked whether the commissioner offered a rebuttal to Campbell's argument that releasing the firearms information might hurt the investigation, Campbell said it seemed to him that Lucki felt the release of the information was "more important."
The 13-hour rampage by a gunman took 22 lives and is now the subject of a public inquiry.
Lia Scanlan, former communications director for the Nova Scotia RCMP, appeared alongside Campbell before the committee. She said she does not remember the exact words Lucki used in the April 28 call but believes Campbell's account is accurate.
"I would never dispute Darren Campbell's notes and at the end of the day, whether we're saying promise, pressure, influence — they all lead to the same end result," Scanlan said.
Scanlan wrote a letter to the commissioner more than a year after the shootings, echoing Campbell's concerns and telling Lucki the meeting was "appalling, inappropriate, unprofessional and extremely belittling."
On Tuesday, Scanlan recalled her feeling of "disgust" over the call with Lucki and told MPs she "understood exactly what was being said."
When asked for her thoughts on whether new legislation should be brought in to strengthen the RCMP's independence and prevent political interference, Scanlan agreed that should take place.
RCMP
Chief Supt. Darren Campbell speaks with Director Strategic
Communications Unit Lia Scanlan as they wait to appear before the
Commons committee on August 16, 2022 in Ottawa. The committee is looking
into allegations of political interference in the 2020 Nova Scotia mass
murder investigation. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)
While keeping political partners like federal ministers and the prime minister informed of ongoing investigations is important, she said, it's "very different" from interfering in or influencing a case.
"Words need to be carefully examined, and if it's vague we should be more specific so that we're never in this situation again," Scanlan said.
A number of other people appeared ahead of Scanlan and Campbell at the committee on Tuesday, including deputy minister of justice François Daigle and Owen Rees, the acting assistant deputy attorney general.
Daigle was asked why four key pages of Campbell's notes about the April 28 call initially were held back from the commission to be reviewed for legal privilege, among 35 pages from other senior Mounties.
Daigle said that while there's nothing necessarily privileged about a call with the RCMP commissioner, the team of justice lawyers would have flagged any pages for review if there was a reference "to cabinet meeting, reference to a Treasury Board submission, or a reference to legal advice," among other things, he said.
Twenty-two
people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet,
Dawn Gulenchyn, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulenchyn, Sean McLeod, Alanna
Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi
Stevenson, Heather O'Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from top: Kristen
Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg
Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck.
(CBC)
Daigle said the justice minister's office had "no involvement whatsoever" in deciding which documents to hold back for review, or in gathering thousands of documents for disclosure to the commission.
Two other RCMP staff members were also summoned to the committee: Alison Whelan, the chief strategic policy and external relations officer, and Jolene Bradley, director general of the National Communications Services.
Rick Perkins, a Conservative MP from Nova Scotia, suggested the committee hold a future meeting to hear from others on the topic of political interference, including more RCMP communications staff in Nova Scotia and Ottawa and Blair's own chief of staff.
Fellow Conservative MP Stephen Ellis represents the N.S. riding where much of the mass shooting took place. He said he supported Perkins' suggestion, adding it's important to have the full picture.
"Somebody's not telling the truth. And that is very, very disappointing to me and I think it's very disappointing to Canadians," Ellis said.
Perkins' request did not pass a committee vote. Instead, the committee passed a Liberal MP's motion to adjourn the debate for now and hold an in-camera meeting about the matter in September.
With files from The Canadian Press
From: Ministerial Correspondence Unit - Justice Canada <mcu@justice.gc.ca>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2022 05:04:19 +0000
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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2022 05:04:05 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Methinks Seamus Gorman enjoyed showig the
world his nasty arse today N'esy Pas Nicky Baby Dorrington and Franny
Boy Campbell?
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---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2022 02:03:58 -0300
Subject: Methinks Seamus Gorman enjoyed showig the world his nasty
arse today N'esy Pas Nicky Baby Dorrington and Franny Boy Campbell?
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Former Supreme Court judge scolds federal lawyer over advice in N.S. shooting inquiry
Justice department lawyer says issue is 'misunderstanding' of advice
Thomas Cromwell, the director of legal counsel for the public inquiry into the April 2020 massacre, wrote to Department of Justice lawyer Lori Ward two weeks ago about Chief Supt. Chris Leather's testimony last month.
"Some aspects of his testimony have given rise to some serious concerns that I want to raise with you," wrote Cromwell, who sat on the Supreme Court of Canada from 2008 to 2016.
The Aug. 5 letter was disclosed by the Mass Casualty Commission this week. It is leading the inquiry into the mass shooting when 22 people, including a pregnant woman, were killed by a gunman as he drove a mock police car across the province.
Leather, who was the head of criminal operations in Nova Scotia at the time of the shootings, has testified he received a call from RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on the evening of April 22, 2020, shortly after the killings. He said Lucki asked him to send her details about the guns used by the shooter, and he did send her a list for internal purposes only.
But Leather's call and email correspondence with Lucki didn't come up in a July 6 interview with inquiry lawyers. Leather testified on July 28 that lawyers with the federal Department of Justice, including Ward, told him to not "proactively disclose" his conversation and emails with Lucki.
"I knew from my notes and emails I had prepared and submitted that it was obviously relevant to what would become the infamous phone call of April 28 [2020] and was troubled by that and wanted their advice and was advised to take a reactive posture," Leather said.
When he testified last month, Leather told the commission he had also sought "independent legal counsel" after the discussion with the justice department lawyers.
Chief Supt. Chris Leather testifies at the Mass Casualty Commission on July 28, 2022. (CBC)
Questions around whether Lucki was under political pressure to release the specifics of the gunman's firearms have swirled for weeks, ever since Chief Supt. Darren Campbell's notes from the April 28, 2020, call were released as part of the inquiry.
Campbell wrote the commissioner was "sad and disappointed" and "had promised the minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister's Office that the RCMP, [we] would release this information."
On May 4, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a ban on some 1,500 makes and models of firearms, including two of the guns used in the Nova Scotia mass shooting. At that time, police had not released the information about the guns used in the attacks.
The allegations have resulted in parliamentary hearings to address allegations of potential political interference, including a hearing in Ottawa on Tuesday.
If Leather's testimony is accurate, Cromwell said it's concerning that federal lawyers would have given this advice when their clients have the "obligation" to help the commission achieve their mandate in the public interest.
Former
Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell is now the director of legal
counsel for the Mass Casualty Commission leading the public inquiry into
the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia. (Philippe Landreville/Supreme Court of Canada Collection)
"While I understand that this sort of advice is standard for witnesses in civil litigation … or at trial, it is in my view not appropriate to give this advice to a senior officer of the RCMP participating in this commission of inquiry," Cromwell said.
He also asked for Ward's assurance that this sort of advice "has not and will not be given to other witnesses" appearing for interviews or testimony before the commission.
"Rather, I would hope and expect that witnesses would be encouraged to share the relevant information that they have," Cromwell wrote.
In the Ottawa hearing Tuesday, MPs asked Campbell about his conversations with justice lawyers. He said he did not get the same advice as Leather about how to testify.
Cromwell also asked Ward whether other "clearly relevant material" has been held back by justice lawyers because it was not specifically requested, and noted that when it comes to documents the commission's general subpoena remains in effect.
In an email to Cromwell a few days later on Aug. 9, 2022, Ward said Leather's testimony about the advice he'd been given by justice lawyers "can only be the result of a misunderstanding."
"Counsel did not provide such advice," Ward said.
Ward said Leather's emails showing that he sent the firearms details to the assistant RCMP commissioner, who then sent them to Lucki, were disclosed to the commission on May 19, 2021. She also said notes of the April 28, 2020, meeting had been disclosed by that point and the meeting's context was already out in public — so there would have been no "logical reason" to advise Leather not to speak freely on the issue.
The only time they advised Leather to refrain from offering information was when he said the April 28 meeting with Lucki was also brought up in an internal workplace assessment in Nova Scotia, Ward wrote.
François Daigle, deputy minister of Justice and deputy Attorney General of Canada, echoed Ward's position before the House of Commons committee Tuesday.
Daigle said since the justice lawyers had not heard anything about the internal review until Leather brought it up, their advice was "don't raise it if they don't raise it."
François
Daigle, deputy minister of Justice and deputy Attorney General of
Canada, appears before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and
National Security at the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday. (CBC)
Justice lawyers also didn't learn of Leather's call with Lucki on April 22 until he testified to that publicly, Daigle said, so for Leather to suggest the justice department told him not to bring up a meeting they didn't know about "doesn't make sense."
"My conclusion is that he misunderstood the advice. Our advice was only specifically with respect to the … report because we didn't know anything about it," Daigle said.
Ward wrote that it's "significant" to note that when it came to senior officer's interviews, the commission counsel had reminded them to tell the RCMP officers they should focus on "answering the questions posed" because time was short.
For this reason, Ward said justice lawyers would have shared that advice with Leather "with the caveat that he should feel free to share whatever additional information he believed to be relevant."
But Leather's recollection of the advice also alarmed Bruce Pitt-Payne of British Columbia, a retired RCMP officer.
Bruce
Pitt-Payne, a former RCMP officer, says he has filed a complaint about
justice department lawyers' conduct in the N.S. mass shooting inquiry. (CBC)
He said this is a prime example of conflict of interest "rearing its ugly head," and shows that justice department lawyers should not be representing parties with varying interests like Leather, Lucki, federal ministers and the prime minister.
"All could be in conflict here because of this setup," Pitt-Payne said.
Instead, Pitt-Payne said separate justice lawyers with separate privilege should be assigned to each of those parties. He said decisions are currently being made "that aren't necessarily in the interest of the investigation."
Pitt-Payne has filed an official complaint about Ward's conduct with the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society, citing her advice to Leather and alleged conflict of interest.
Given the scale of the inquiry to investigate one of the worst massacres in Canadian history, Pitt-Payne said it would be a shame if the commission wasn't able to meet their objectives through "unethical legal games."
"My fear is that something might be covered up in order to protect one of the [justice department's] entities, which will probably be higher up the food chain than the Chris Leathers and the Darren Campbells," Pitt-Payne said.
"That, I think, should be everybody's concern when you have such an important commission going on."
35 pages of notes held back by justice lawyers
The commission has also released emails between Cromwell and Ward on why the four crucial pages of Campbell's notes on the April 28, 2020, meeting with Lucki were initially missing when the Department of Justice originally sent them to the commission, without explanation.
On June 22, Cromwell asked why the justice department did not tell the commission about those key pages, and also asked for whether any other materials were currently being held back and being checked for "privilege."
Ward agreed in a June 24 email that they had not explained they would be holding back pages of Campbell's notes and they "should have done so." She said at that point, of the 35 pages of senior officers' notes initially held back to check for privilege, only three pages remained under review from Chief Supt. Janis Gray who oversaw the Halifax RCMP district and is now retired.
It appears that as of Tuesday, all of Gray's notes have been posted online by the commission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Canadian Press
Estate of N.S. mass shooter in limbo as lawsuits continue
Portapique property bought by province to ensure no development
More than two years after he went on a deadly rampage killing 22 people, the estate of Gabriel Wortman remains tied up in litigation and under the control of the public trustee.
An inventory filed in December 2020 valued the estate at more than $2.1 million. That included $120,000 that the province paid to purchase 200 Portapique Beach Rd., the former location of Wortman's cottage and other buildings where the rampage began.
A spokesperson for the province said the purchase was made to ensure there would be no future development on the property.
Since that inventory, the gunman's Dartmouth property, which was both his home and the location of his denturist practice, has been sold to a Dartmouth-based company, PA Developments.
The public trustee completed the sale in March of last year. Property records list the sale price at just over $1.5 million.
A
Dartmouth, N.S.-based company named PA Developments bought the former
location of Gabriel Wortman's denturist business for just over $1.5
million last year. (Eric Woolliscroft/CBC)
In addition to property, the inventory of the estate lists more than $880,000 in other financial holdings, including bank accounts and credit cards.
The vast majority of that money, $705,000, is cash RCMP recovered when they searched the Portapique properties. The money had been buried on the property and survived the fires that destroyed the buildings. The cash was turned over to the Public Trustee in June 2021.
Getting an accurate financial picture of the estate was complicated by the fact Wortman used deceptive financial practices.
During
a search of Gabriel Wortman's Portapique cottage, the RCMP discovered
this metal ammunition container hidden below ground under the deck,
containing cash. The money was in bundles of $100 bills adding up to
$705,000. (Mass Casualty Commission)
In his hand-written will, he named his long-time partner, Lisa Banfield, as both his sole beneficiary and the executor of his estate. Banfield relinquished her role as executor, which is why the public trustee is administering the estate.
However, she did not give up her claim to the estate itself. She has filed a civil lawsuit against the estate, to try to secure a share of the money.
But Banfield is not alone. The families of some of the murder victims have launched a lawsuit against the estate.
Lisa
Banfield, the partner of the gunman who carried out the Nova Scotia
mass shooting of April 2020, spoke in front of the Mass Casualty
Commission on July 15. She is seeking a share of his estate. (CBC)
After starting the court action, that lawsuit was subsequently amended to name Banfield, her brother and her brother-in-law as respondents. The trio were added to the lawsuit after they were charged with supplying ammunition to the gunman. The charges against all three were sent to restorative justice and formally withdrawn last month.
As for the estate, a statement from the provincial Justice Department said it remains in limbo because of the lawsuits.
"Until the claims are settled," the statement reads in part, "any debts or payments related to the estate can not move forward."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucki's political 'promise' would have compromised mass casualty investigation, committee told
RCMP Chief Supt.
Darren Campbell testifies in front of the Mass Casualty Commission
investigating the April 2020 killings of 22 Nova Scotians at the public
inquiry in Halifax on July 25. - Kelly Clark / The Canadian PressThe RCMP commissioner in April 2020 gave priority to a “promise” to the Liberal government to disclose information about the weapons used during the Nova Scotia mass murder rampage at the expense of the integrity of the RCMP investigation, a House of Commons committee heard Tuesday.
“The commissioner made me feel as if I was stupid and I didn’t understand the importance of why this information was to go out, the information specific to the firearms that was related to the legislation,” said Darren Campbell, chief superintendent and criminal operations officer of the New Brunswick RCMP.
At the time, gunman Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people in several Nova Scotia locations on April 18 and 19, 2020, Campbell was an RCMP superintendent and support services officer for all of Nova Scotia who took on the role of communicating information to the public at subsequent news conferences.
RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki, who will testify before the public inquiry in Halifax on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, took part in a conference call on April 28, 2020, after one of those RCMP news briefings.
“She didn’t seem to appreciate or recognize the importance of maintaining the integrity of the investigation,” Campbell said.
Campbell, a 32-year RCMP veteran, told the Commons standing committee on public safety and national security that he explained during the conference call about how the disclosure could compromise the investigation.
“It was on the heels of that explanation where I was provided information that this (disclosure) was very important because this was about legislation that was going to make officers and the public safer,” Campbell said.
“In my opinion, I would say that the commissioner felt that the release of the (firearm) information was more important.”
Allegations of political interference directed at the RCMP with respect to the mass murder investigation became public with the release of Campbell’s notes from that April 28 meeting with Lucki and others that took place immediately after a news briefing that lasted more than two hours.
“I did not specifically know why the meeting had been called but once the call commenced, the purpose of the call became very clear,” Campbell said. “The commissioner expressed in no uncertain terms her disappointment that I did not release specific information in my news conference related to the firearms used by the gunman.”
Campbell said that on several occasions during the call the commissioner said she felt disrespected, that she was “sad and disappointed” that he had not released the firearms information and that she had been previously advised that Campbell would release that information.
“The commissioner also said that she had promised the minister (then public safety minister Bill Blair) and the Prime Minister’s Office that information about the firearms would be included in the press briefing.”
Campbell said he told the commissioner that a premature release of that information could have a negative impact on the investigation.
“I left that meeting feeling deflated and to borrow the commissioner’s words, sad and disappointed.”
Information about the firearms used was not released until November 2020, after an access-to-information request directed to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Commissioners Leanne Fitch, J. Michael MacDonald and Kim Stanton listen
to testimony from RCMP Chief Supt. Darren Campbell at the public inquiry
in Halifax on July 25. - Kelly Clark / The Canadian Press
“It was never my intention to enter into a public disagreement or discussion as to what took place in that meeting, nor was my response to the meeting based on any personal issues with the commissioner or any other individuals, nor was it based on politics. At the heart of the issue was a matter of principle and sound investigative best practices related to protecting the ongoing investigation, which at the time was in its early stages.”
Lia Scanlan, the civilian director of the RCMP strategic communications unit at the time of the mass murders and a participant in the April 28, 2020, conference call with the commissioner, told the committee that Lucki, as a police officer, would understand what it means to compromise the integrity of an investigation, especially one of that magnitude.
“My takeaway from that conversation was that the risks seemed irrelevant,” Scanlan said of the April 28, 2020, conference call.
Scanlan later sent a scathing letter to Lucki that is available on the commission website, expressing her disappointment with the commissioner for what Scanlan characterized as a criticism of the work of the local RCMP.
“As I stated, it was a feeling of disgust, I was embarrassed to be part of it, I was embarrassed to be listening to it,” Scanlan said of Lucki tying the release of the firearms information to pending gun legislation.
RCMP Chief Supt. Darren Campbell is questioned by lawyer Robert Pineo at
the Mass Casualty Commission public inquiry in Halifax on July 26. -
Kelly Clark / The Canadian Press
“Message received, I understood exactly what was being said.”
Questioned by Raquel Dancho, vice-chair of the committee and the Conservative MP for Kildonan-St. Paul in Manitoba, Campbell said he later became aware of an April 23, 2020, email from the Serious Incident Response Team advising Lucki and other top RCMP brass of permission to release the weapons information internally.
“Within half an hour, the commissioner released that information outside of the RCMP, she sent it to the minister of public safety (Bill Blair) and also the national security adviser to the prime minister,” Dancho said, asking Campbell if that was appropriate.
“I don’t believe that it was appropriate at that time,” Campbell said. “From my understanding, it was fairly clear that it could not be shared outside the RCMP.”
Campbell confirmed that his notes had stated Lucki had promised the minister and the Prime Minister’s Office that the firearms information would be released.
“She did say ‘promise,’ yes,” Campbell said.
Campbell said he did not have direct conversations with anyone from government on the issue and that he had not heard the minister or the Prime Minister’s Office direct anyone.
“However, the evidence is clear that there was interest by the minister’s office with respect to specific information about those firearms,” Campbell said.
Testifying before the committee on July 25, Lucki said she did not pressure detectives to make public details of weapons used by the killer and she denied any pressure coming from Blair or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I did not interfere in the investigation around this tragedy,” Lucki said.
“Specifically, I was not directed to publicly release information about weapons used by the perpetrator to help advance pending gun control legislation.”
Lucki blamed conference-call misunderstandings for allegations she’d pressured investigators to release the sensitive information.
In his testimony before the House committee, Blair also denied pressuring the RCMP for information.
“At no point did I direct the RCMP in any operational matter, including public communications,” Blair said.
“I did not ask them to release any specific information, nor did I receive a promise for them to do so.”
The two-hour committee meeting began with Francois Daigle, deputy minister of the federal justice department, saying that the department and its lawyers “were not involved or consulted on whether to disclose firearms information at the April 28, 2020, press conference, nor were we involved in the teleconference with the RCMP commissioner that followed that day.”
Daigle said the department has already disclosed more than 75,000 documents to the Mass Casualty Commission, beginning in February 2021.
The standard procedure is to review documents for legally privileged information, he said, a process managed by the lawyers and paralegals in the department.
“In early 2022, we reviewed the hand-written notes of four senior RCMP officers.”
Of the 2,400 pages of hand-written notes, 35 pages were flagged as containing potentially privileged content.
“Unfortunately, we did not alert the commission to the fact that we had not produced the additional 35 pages,” Daigle said. “We exchanged letters and spoke to commission counsel and the oversight was acknowledged and understood.”
Four of those pages were Campbell’s notes pertaining to the April 28, 2020, conference call.
“After our review, all of those pages have been produced without redactions,” and provided to the commission on May 30, 2021, Daigle said.
After some partisan squabbling, the committee agreed without a vote
to accept a motion from Conservative MP Dane Lloyd from Sturgeon
River-Parkland in Alberta that the committee agree to hold a meeting to
discuss future steps on the issue of political interference allegations
between Sept. 19, when Parliament reconvenes, and Sept. 30.
https://www.saltwire.com/author/francis-campbell-8011/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2UXEQ0sn8M&ab_channel=LittleGreyCells
RCMP & POLITICAL INTERFERENCE
23
Trust that they know I did
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