HALIFAX — At the centre of the political firestorm erupting over the RCMP’s response to the worst mass shooting in Canadian history is a phrase used by police to justify withholding case information.
In the weeks after a gunman killed 22 people during a 13-hour rampage on April 18-19, 2020, Nova Scotia RCMP officers insisted that disclosure of key facts — including details about the weapons used — could “jeopardize the integrity” of their investigation.
But what does that phrase really mean? And were the Mounties’ reasons for keeping those details from the public valid?
Internal RCMP documents released Tuesday show that on April 28, 2020, the head of the RCMP, Commissioner Brenda Lucki, told a meeting of senior officers she was disappointed that details about the firearms had not been released at previous news conferences in Halifax.
According to notes taken by Supt. Darren Campbell, Lucki said she had promised the Prime Minister’s Office that the Mounties would release the descriptions, adding that the information would be “tied to pending gun control legislation that would make officers and public safer.”
In response, Campbell wrote that he told Lucki that disclosure of those details could “jeopardize ongoing efforts” to determine how the killer illegally obtained two rifles and two pistols.
When Campbell’s notes were made public Tuesday in a report prepared for the public inquiry investigating the tragedy, the opposition federal Conservatives and New Democrats accused the governing Liberals of interfering in a police investigation for political gain.
Lucki issued a statement Tuesday saying, “I would never take actions or decisions that could jeopardize an investigation.” As well, the Liberals have denied the allegation, saying Lucki wasn’t told to do anything.
Lost in the partisan bickering was any discussion over the public’s right to know about the firearms in question.
There can be little doubt that most Mounties, like Campbell, were opposed to saying anything about the weapons. They believed the information, if released to the public, could tip off those involved in illegally supplying guns to the killer.
“It is reasonable to believe the (RCMP) had an ongoing investigation into the source of the weapons,” said a retired Mountie who asked not to be named to protect his relationship with the RCMP. “It may have involved U.S. partners, which would have made them less inclined to provide any information that could threaten the investigation.”
In November 2020, seven months after the shootings, the National Post obtained a list of the killer’s guns, which was included in a briefing note prepared for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and obtained through the Access to Information Act.
Three firearms were illegally obtained from the United States: a .40-calibre Glock 23 semi-automatic pistol, a 9-mm Ruger P89 semi-automatic pistol and a 5.56-mm Colt Law Enforcement semi-automatic carbine. A Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle came from a gun shop in Winnipeg, but investigators determined it, too, was acquired illegally.
A.J. Somerset, author of the 2015 book, “Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun,” said the release of those details was unlikely to hobble the RCMP’s investigation.
“When the shooter is identified, then anybody who had any information about how those guns were obtained would immediately want to avoid talking to police,” Somerset sad in an interview.
“I don’t see how the identification of the weapons actually leads to that person becoming aware of something they weren’t already aware of.”
Somerset said the real problem is that law enforcement agencies in Canada have grown accustomed to using the jeopardized-investigation argument as a crutch.
“In Canada, the police don’t release information,” he said. “We’re kind of used to that, compared with the United States, where within an hour of a mass shooting, we know everything about what weapons were used.”
Somerset said a former Toronto cop once told him that as a police officer he believed the public had no right to know what police investigations uncover until there is a trial.
“In Canada, there’s a cultural difference around the idea of who the police are working for,” the author said. “Police in Canada, in general, don’t view themselves as accountable to the public …. We saw this in (the Nova Scotia mass shooting case). Warnings weren’t sent out to the public and the police appeared to be acting in their own interest.”
The public inquiry investigating the murders, known as the Mass Casualty Commission, has heard that police knew about an active shooter on the night of April 18, 2020, but no public warnings stating that fact were distributed until the next day — 10 hours after the killing started.
On Aug. 12, 2020, RCMP Sgt. Angela Hawryluk told a court hearing that search warrants used by the Mounties had to remain heavily redacted to ensure the investigation into the mass murder was not compromised.
Search warrants are supposed to be made public after they have been executed, with some exceptions. But in this case, the Crown produced redacted versions that were challenged in court by several media outlets, including The Canadian Press.
Those documents also contained information about the firearms and much of what the RCMP had learned during their investigation.
At one point, Hawryluk told the court, “I had no intention of any of the (search warrants) being revealed to the public.”
That kind of hardline approach stands in contrast to the way things used to be in Canada, said Blake Brown, a history professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
On Dec. 6, 1989, soon after a man fatally shot 14 women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, the public was told about the gun he used: another Ruger Mini-14.
“But at some point, police stopped doing that,” said Brown, author of “Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada.”
“I don’t understand why that information can’t be released faster by police. One of the themes of the Mass Casualty Commission has been highlighting the tendency of the RCMP to hand out very little information and to treat the public like they don’t need to know much.”
Both Lucki and Campbell are expected to testify before the inquiry later this summer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2022.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
