#halifax examiner

It has been about five weeks since the Nova Scotia massacre, five long weeks during which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have cowered inside a cone of silence.

Compare its approach to how police forces around the world have typically handled similar events. From Paris to Toronto to just about Anywhere USA, the police are quick to inform the public about what has transpired and about key information about the perpetrator or perpetrators. Little, if anything, is hidden.

So what’s the problem here?

From the outset the RCMP right up to Commissioner Brenda Lucki seems determined to stall for time and control the narrative of this story. They have forced the media to go to court to find out what was in the applications for search warrants executed after the shootings. The law states that such information should be readily available to the public.

[...]

In my long experience of writing about the RCMP, now into its fourth decade, I’ve become accustomed to the typical response I receive after something is published. Some are praiseworthy, many are castigating, including current and former members of the RCMP.

What I’ve learned and described is that RCMP culture is cult-like. There is an almost mindless commitment to the force. “There is no such thing as an ex-Mountie,” I once wrote, because even retired Mounties seem compelled to protect the image of the force.

[...]

The caller, who could best be described as a Deep Throat whistleblower, was obviously nervous. I will call him “he” from now on because there are more hes than shes in the law enforcement world.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this,” he said. “But I felt I have to do something.”

He said he was calling me to encourage the media to keep asking questions: “Don’t give up.”

When I told him that I and others who are pursuing the story have a thousand questions about what went wrong, from the indecision at Portapique Beach Road, the apparent communications debacle where not only the RCMP brass was not alerted to the seriousness of the situation but also the public.

I asked him why the premier of Nova Scotia and the province’s Attorney General were reluctant to call a public inquiry.

“Is it because Premier McNeil has relatives in policing, that the Attorney General is an ex-RCMP and that there are ex-RCMP in the police services branch?”

“That’s not it,” he said. “It’s about the money.”

So I switched to events.

“Why was Heidi Stevenson alone in her car?”

“I know what happened to Heidi,” he said. “It was just bad luck. But, you’re right, she shouldn’t have been there.”

But that wasn’t why he called.

“All that stuff will eventually come out,” he said.

The real issue, he said, was what the police are hiding about their previous knowledge about the gunman.

“Make requests about Wortman and what the police knew about him.”

“RCMP or Halifax?”

“Just keep asking questions and filing access requests.”

I tried to push him. I pointed out that while the COVID-19 epidemic has hampered the news gathering abilities of the major media, there was a lot of good work being done by an array of organizations from the on-line Halifax Examiner to Canadian Press and even the notorious Frank Magazine. To date the various entities have reported on everything from the gunman’s quirks, threats to others, illegal guns, replica Mountie cars, possible cigarette smuggling and even the murder of someone in the United States, among other things. The man killed 22 people, including a police officer in cold blood, so he doesn’t have a reputation to besmirch. In the absence of the RCMP’s official story about him, speculation becomes rampant.

“It seemed to me from the outset that he may have killed other people in the past,” I said.

The whistleblower just hmmmed.

“There’s something they are hiding that will blow the lid right off this thing,” the whistleblower reiterated. “I can’t tell you what it is. I shouldn’t even be telling you this. Just keep pushing.”

When I ran all this by Maclean’s writer Stephen Maher, he immediately added another possibility. “Maybe he was a CI.”

A confidential informant? With a licence to kill?

It’s a crazy idea but in the absence of facts from the RCMP people will talk.

A huge THANK YOU top those of you who attended my reading last night and many many thanks to those of you who bought a copy of my books, Spit & Polish or Recycled Virgin. If you haven’t yet, they are available everywhere upon request. You could also request your library to stock them, which is both good for you (free access) and me (occasionally authors get paid for library use). In any case,…

We should always be skeptical when we hear police are using force in self-defence, or when, after the fact, we hear that police were injured as a justification for their own use of force.

Council candidates on a Living Wage ordinance…leaving more questions than answers.

Halifax journalist/blogger Tim Bousquet has re-opened up a particularly interesting debate during this municipal election by asking candidates for council their opinion on a living wage ordinance.

On his Halifax Examiner site, Tim is dedicating a page to a couple of questions, one of which is, “Will you support a living wage ordinance?”* Tim provides some background where he argues his position…