The first progress report has been released by the independent committee overseeing how governments and the RCMP are responding to the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia that claimed 22 lives. Family, friends and supporters of the victims of the mass killings in rural Nova Scotia in 2020 gather following the release of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry's final report in Truro, N.S., on Thursday, March 30, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
HALIFAX – An independent committee released today its first report on how governments and the RCMP are responding to the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, but it does not offer an assessment of the progress made so far.
The report from the Progress Monitoring Committee includes a thorough accounting of the actions taken by the federal and Nova Scotia governments and the Mounties, but chairwoman Linda Lee Oland declined to say whether the committee was satisfied with those measures.
Oland says that over the past seven months, the 16-member committee has developed a rating system to track progress or lack thereof, but she says that system won’t be used until after the committee meets with government and RCMP officials in June.
Oland says there has been “momentum” when it comes to the changes called for by the federal-provincial inquiry, but she would not go further than that.
The inquiry, known as the Mass Casualty Commission, submitted a final report last year that included 130 non-binding recommendations to improve public safety, half of which focus on policing.
The progress committee’s report includes a long list of actions taken by the RCMP, but that content mirrors what the police force had to say in March when it released its own progress report in Nova Scotia.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2024.
