Public Safety Minister Bill Blair speaks with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki at the Standing a committee on Public Safety and National Security, in Ottawa on Oct. 31.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Federal minister Bill Blair has told a parliamentary committee that he was the only political official in Canada legally capable of giving direction to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki at the time of the Nova Scotia mass shooting.
The former public safety minister outlined Ottawa’s relationship to policing Monday as he again denied any inappropriate political interference into the police probe of Canada’s deadliest mass shooting. He was testifying to the House of Commons public safety committee.
During one exchange, Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud asked Mr. Blair whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his office gave direction to Commissioner Lucki after the Nova Scotia massacre in April, 2020. “Do you think it may have come from the Prime Minister’s Office?” she asked.
“No I absolutely believe that that is not true,” replied Mr. Blair. Citing the RCMP Act, he explained that “there is only person in the government of Canada who has any authority to provide direction to the RCMP and that is minister of public safety – a role that I held at the time, and in that role I did not, at any time, give direction.”
Mr. Blair, now the Emergency Preparedness Minister, first testified to the parliamentary committee in the summer. Then, as now, he denies that he or his office shaped the RCMP’s operational response to the Nova Scotia massacre.
On April 18 and 19, 2020, a gunman killed 22 people during a 13-hour rampage. In the aftermath, authorities were under pressure to account for how such a mass killing could have been allowed to happen.
A public inquiry is now looking into all facets of the police response. In June, the Mass Casualty Commission started releasing records from Nova Scotia Mounties who felt Commissioner Lucki had fallen under the sway of Ottawa officials to release sensitive information. In their allegations, these Mounties recalled impressions of a tense April 28, 2020, conference call in which Commissioner Lucki said officers in Nova Scotia failed to live up to plans to publicly disclose details about the gunman’s weapons.
Last week, the public inquiry released the actual tape of the conference call. Commissioner Lucki can be heard telling her officers she had to repeatedly apologize to both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Blair for Mountie miscommunications in the days after the mass shooting.
“To hear what the minister and the Prime Minister had to say about the RCMP’s inability to communicate, I will never forget it,” Commissioner Lucki is heard saying on the tape. She alludes to pending gun-control measures from the Liberal government.
“Does anybody realize what’s going on in the world of handguns and guns right now? The fact that they’re in the middle of trying to get a legislation going, the fact that that legislation is supposed to actually help police.”
The release of the tape spurred the committee of MPs to summon Mr. Blair and Commissioner Lucki back to give more detailed testimony.
On Monday, Commissioner Lucki again told the MPs that she was never under any inappropriate political direction. She said there are clearly demarcated rules governing how RCMP commissioners can talk to the government about Mountie operations.
“The line is not thin on this. The line is very thick,” she told the committee. “Requesting information [and] me providing information about the biggest mass casualty in Canadian history is not interference.”
She said, “It’s part of my responsibility as commissioner to make sure there is no surprise environment for both the minster and the prime minister. The prime minster and the minister should get information before the media does.”
During her testimony, Commissioner Lucki said she never got any inappropriate direction from Mr. Blair, Mr. Trudeau or their offices. She added that if any political official tried to give her inappropriate requests, she would have rebuffed them by saying, “Sorry I cannot provide you the information, I cannot do that, you’re crossing the line.”
“I have the courage of conviction to do that,” she added.
Commissioner Lucki agreed with assessments that the RCMP Act may not explain clearly enough how the commissioner and the public safety minister interact. “The fact that I’ve had to testify about this three or four times means that we need some clarity here,” she said, adding that, “I don’t wish this on any other commissioner.”
With a report from Marieke Walsh in Ottawa