OTTAWA –
The former director of Nova Scotia’s police watchdog denies telling the RCMP not to release a list of weapons seized from the shooter who killed 22 people in April 2020.
Pat Curran — who led the Major Incident Response Team at the time of the shooting — says he “did not instruct the RCMP” about the five firearms Gabriel Wortman was in possession of when he was killed by police at a gas station on April 19.
This contradicts statements made by the RCMP chief. Chris Leder and retired Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman on Monday before a parliamentary committee investigating alleged political interference in the case.
Leder told the House of Commons Public Safety Committee that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey called him directly on April 22 to request an inventory of the weapons.
The next day, he sent the list to Bergerman, who passed it on to Lucky.
“We have permission for internal release. We are sending it now, you should receive it soon,” said an April 23 email from Bergerman to Lucky, Leder and Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan.
The emails show that Lucky sent the list to the office of then public safety minister Bill Blair with the warning that it should not be shared outside the minister and the prime minister’s office as it was part of an ongoing investigation.
On April 24, the prime minister received a list of firearms and information about where they came from, according to a briefing note released through access to information legislation.
But Leder and Bergerman told the committee they didn’t think Luckey should have shared the information, and cited the Major Incident Response Team’s investigation as the reason.
“That was the agreement and the commitment we made to the SIRT director,” Leder said.
Conservative members of the committee seized on Monday’s testimony as further evidence that Luckey was under pressure from the federal government.
“We have on one side the operatives, the criminal investigators, saying ‘don’t release this information’ and we have a commissioner who took the information and did what he wanted with it, it seems to me,” said Conservative MP Stephen Ellis.
“Under pressure, of course, from politicians. Perhaps Minister Blair.’
Members of the Nova Scotia RCMP said they believe Lucky was under pressure from the federal government to ensure police put the type of weapons into service as the Liberals prepare to announce a new ban on assault rifles.
These allegations relate to a meeting Luckey called on April 28, 2020. Bergerman and Leder, who attended the meeting, described her as angry and said she told them she had promised the minister the information would be released and that she is related to gun control legislation.
Luckey told the committee she had confirmed to Blair that information about the weapons would be released at a press conference later that day. She said she called the meeting because she was frustrated with poor communication from the Nova Scotia RCMP with her office and with the public.
In April 2020, the Major Incident Response Team was called in to investigate the fatal shooting of the RCMP shooter. Leder told the committee that “there is precedence in this investigation.”
But the RCMP seized the five firearms, according to their own records.
“The weapons found in the vehicle driven by the shooter are related to RCMP investigations into mass shootings,” Curran said in an email to The Canadian Press. “I have played no role in these investigations and have given no direction to the RCMP regarding them.”
Leder also testified before the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia shooting this week. He told the inquest Wednesday that Curran told him during the April 23 conversation “that it was good to provide the inventory internally and secondly, get it not directly from SIRT,” but from the RCMP.
“On April 27, 2020, the RCMP provided SIRT with descriptions of the weapons found in the vehicle driven by the shooter,” Curran wrote in an email.
“Until now, SIRT has not had the information to prepare an inventory of these weapons if it wanted to or was asked to do so.”
Days later, on May 1, Justin Trudeau and Blair announced a ban on about 1,500 types of combat weapons.
Details of the firearms Wortman had that weekend and how he obtained them have not been released by the RCMP or the government and only came to light through news reports in November 2020. He did not have a firearms permit and smuggled a number of semi – automatic weapons from Maine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 28, 2022.
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