Shooting victims’ families want to ensure inquiry recommendations followed

Families of victims of Nova Scotia's mass shooting are calling for an oversight committee to ensure the recommendations coming out of the public inquiry won't be ignored.

Families of victims of Nova Scotia’s mass shooting called Wednesday for an oversight committee to ensure the recommendations coming out of the public inquiry into the tragedy won’t be ignored.

In his final submissions to the inquiry, Tom Macdonald, the lawyer for the brother of victim Sean McLeod, said the committee should include a small group that tracks whether the inquiry’s recommendations are followed.

Macdonald said it should include representatives of the provincial and federal governments and the RCMP as well as an advocate for families. It would be led by a single “implementation czar” who would hold the federal and Nova Scotia governments to account.

The lawyer said the murders of McLeod and his wife Alanna Jenkins in West Wentworth, N.S., on the second day of the rampage, along with the 20 other people — including a pregnant woman — killed on April 18-19, 2020, should prompt lasting reforms.

“Two years from now you may have totally different leadership at the RCMP, a different minister of public safety, maybe a different government, and these (recommendations) are too important to be left to the ups and downs of change,” said Macdonald.

He said there was “voluminous” evidence of the policing shortfalls, including confusion over which staff sergeant was overseeing the initial response, poor knowledge of local geography and an “unacceptable delay” in warning the public of an active shooter driving a replica police vehicle.

Jane Lenehan, who represents the family of Gina Goulet, said the Mounties’ image of reliability in Nova Scotia was gone, despite the bravery of some individual officers during the mass shooting.

“The vision and mystique of the red serge, that comforting and reassuring belief in the RCMP, has been shattered,” she said.