The head of the committee overseeing how governments and the RCMP are responding to the Nova Scotia mass shooting inquiry says the public will play a key role in ensuring the inquiry’s recommendations do not gather dust.
Linda Lee Oland, chair of the independent Progress Monitoring Committee, told a news conference today that the 16-member group does not have a “stick” to force the Mounties and government officials to do the right thing.
Instead, the retired Nova Scotia judge says the committee’s annual reports will provide a yardstick for the public to measure how much progress has been made.
Oland says the committee, appointed by the federal and Nova Scotia governments, recently met for the first time, holding two days of discussions that were sometimes emotional.
In all, the federal-provincial public inquiry issued 130 recommendations, mostly aimed at improving public safety, reforming the national police force and addressing the root causes of gender-based violence.
The inquiry’s 3,000-page report concluded the RCMP were ill-equipped to deal with a lone gunman who was disguised as a Mountie and driving a replica police car when he fatally shot 22 people during a 13-hour rampage April 18-19, 2020.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2023.