Former Public Safety Minister Bill Blair is denying accusations that the government pressured RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki to release information relating to the investigation of the Nova Scotia mass shooting to justify the Trudeau government’s gun control legislation.
“At no point did I direct the RCMP in any operational matter, including public communications,” Blair testified at the House of Commons public safety committee on Monday. “I did not ask them to release any specific information, nor did I receive a promise for them to do so.”
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who also appeared before the committee, blamed “conference-call misunderstandings” on the allegations that she had interfered in the Nova Scotia mass shooting investigation.
Lucki denied all accusations that she asked local police to make the details of the weapons used by Gabriel Wortman public. Lucki also denied that pressure came from then-Public Safety Minister Bill Blair or PM 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.”
The allegations were first uncovered in handwritten notes by RCMP Senior Mountie Darren Campbell in a report published by the mass casualty inquiry last month. Campbell specifically detailed pressure Lucki had allegedly put on investigators to release sensitive details.
The notes, which were backed up by testimony by RCMP Communications Director Lia Scanlan, described a telephone meeting after a conference call on April 28 where Lucki chastised officials for not releasing information on the shooter’s firearms, claiming she’d “promised” Blair and Trudeau that the information would be made public.
Lucki testified that she “may have” used the word “promise” during conversations with the Trudeau government about releasing the information.
Lucki says she had already told Blair that information in a confidential April 23 memo that contained a list of firearms seized from Wortman’s residence would be released to the public on April 28, blaming the scandal on miscommunications during the teleconference.
“When my communications team told me (the list of seized firearms) would be included (in the April 28 press conference,) I relayed this information back to Minister Blair’s chief of staff and the deputy minister of public safety,” Lucki said.
In June 2020 the RCMP confirmed that all five weapons used by the shooter were illegally sourced and were illegal prior to the Trudeau government’s gun ban. The list of Wortman’s arsenal would be made public in November 2020 as a result of an access to information request made by the National Post.
Lucki testified that she considered the matter closed after being told that releasing the information would jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
“Had I known my words and my approach had such an effect, I would have definitely made things right sooner,” she said.
