Public Safety Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I would first like to clarify that I was never upset. That's not in my nature. I was frustrated with the flow of communication. The fact that we were getting requests daily from the media asking us when such information would be released, when the information about the weapons was going to be released, when more background on the perpetrator was going to be released, the information about the incident at the fire hall, the replica police car.... There was an insatiable appetite for information from the media, from Canadians, and from Nova Scotians, who had a right to know what was going on, and it was so important.

I felt that when we didn't give that information proactively.... I know exactly what happens in those cases. The media looks to other sources of information, and those sources are not always the best source of information. The best source of information is the police. We need to be proactive and strategic in our communications, just as we were, as you saw, in the James Smith Cree Nation. There were regular media briefs for people, so there were no questions floating out amongst the media asking what about this and what about that....

Why did it not happen in Saskatchewan? Because there was regular information. We just didn't have that ability in Nova Scotia with the onset of the pandemic.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

As I recall, when the minister was here in July, he said there wasn't necessarily a connection between the announcement of the regulation on May 1 and the events in Portapique a few days earlier. He said that the fact that it happened at virtually the same time was a coincidence and that he had been working on this regulation to ban certain weapons since 2018.

If I understood him correctly today, he confirmed that he had intended to have the weapons used during the shooting included in the announced regulation. Do you think that's a positive approach? Do you think the government should be more proactive and not wait until a specific weapon is used in a shooting to ban it?

Personally, I feel that we should be more proactive. I don't know what you think about that.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Well, I believe that any time that we can keep Canadians safe in getting guns off the street, whatever weapons those are, that's a positive for Canadians, keeping Canadians safe, especially weapons that are designed to kill....

The legislation that happened on May 5, I didn't even know that it was coming out. I had no idea. I didn't connect that to the conversation here. Mine was more of a general conversation to my staff to say, you know what, if you haven't heard on the news, every second media event besides the events in Nova Scotia is about the pending gun legislation, so let's keep this in context and let's have the big picture when we're talking about the media event.

I think, going back to your original question, it's always important to get guns that kill people off the streets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Madame Michaud.

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes, please.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Lucki, for appearing.

Just for clarity here, on the word “request”, when it's referenced twice in the transcript, you're stating clearly that it wasn't a request from the minister's office to include stuff, but a request if things would be included.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay. There's a further quote in the transcript that has Lia Scanlan, followed by Dan Brien, the RCMP media relations director. They both made reference to the Deputy Commissioner Brennan.

Dan Brien in particular stated:

...we got the message from Lia’s team member that the Deputy Commissioner wanted the handguns uh, included uh in terms of uh, number and type and we then changed the answer knowing that we were just literally minutes away from having the um, text of that loaded up for posting.

Just for some clarity, you were in on the call, because you did interrupt a little bit further down. With regard to the deputy commissioner's reference to wanting the number and the type included, who ultimately, during the course of this investigation, makes that call about the appropriateness of information being released?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

First, there's a command triangle. The command triangle would go through any request if you were looking at, as in our case, wanting to be more proactive in getting the information out. If in fact it would compromise the integrity of an investigation, the command triangle would say, we can provide the number of weapons, and we can provide the general type. We can't get into makes and models and where they were found. But we can generally talk about this.

That's great, and that's exactly what happened. Nobody was asking for specific information. We were asking for the number of weapons because 22 people had been killed by weapons. So of course everybody wanted to know generally what type of weapons were being used, and that would go through the command triangle. I wouldn't make that information....

We also had a rule for anybody doing media that only the information released first by the RCMP would be talked about publicly.

That would be why for a request like, “Are you going to be talking about the victims or are you releasing names?”, they couldn't talk about the names until we released the names, even if they were out in the media. They couldn't talk about the weapons unless we talked about the weapons.

There was always a back and forth when we were talking about media, and I know the deputy and I were really trying to get the Nova Scotia comms team in a good position to be more proactive and more strategic.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

Further on—and you made reference to this in your statement—you're quoted as saying, “Does anybody realize what’s going on in the world of handguns and guns right now?” and “The fact that they're in the middle of trying to get a legislation going.”

I was writing notes as you were speaking, and you said that it was important for the team to understand the context. Can you clarify what you meant there? Why did you feel it was important, in the midst of this conversation, that they understand that the government of the day had an OIC coming up fairly soon?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

It wasn't really specifically about an OIC. It was about—

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

It was about legislation in general?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes. Legislation in general was looming. It was talked about every day in the media and in a media event I did with the minister. So obviously it was important. It was coming out.

It was more about providing context to people as to how this information possibly would or could be linked into legislation. Sometimes we talk about why we do things and why they're important.

In my mind—and I testified about this on previous occasions—we can't be naive about what's going on around us. Of course, people are interested in this. They might be interested in the legislation. They might be interested in the weapons that killed people in Nova Scotia. Everybody wanted information on that, and I always had to defer and say, “I'm sorry. I can't release that at this time.” There were lots of times.

But I don't understand—and the deputy and I were pushing—why we couldn't go with the numbers of weapons and the general types.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

We've already covered a little bit, too, about the statute that governs your organization, specifically subsection 5(1) that provides for your appointment under the direction of the minister to have control and management of the force. In the previous round, I mentioned that there are a couple of provincial police acts and ones abroad that have a lot more specificity in the division of powers, specifying how the minister may not give directions, like when it comes to enforcement of the law and ongoing investigations.

I think our act is quite vague compared with those other examples. Would you agree with that, and given the vagueness of subsection 5(1), how do you understand where that line is when other jurisdictions have taken the time to clearly put that dividing line down?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

The line is so obvious. The line is not thin on this; the line is very thick. Asking for information is not providing direction. Requesting information or my providing information about the biggest mass casualty in Canadian history is not interference. It's part of my responsibility, as commissioner, to make sure there's no environment of surprise for either the minister or the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and the minister should get information before the media does.

I get requests from across the country from members of Parliament. They get questions from their constituents. I get letters all the time asking for information. We reply to those and give the information when we can. That's part and parcel of the relationship between government officials. Our detachment commanders do it with the mayors. Our commanding officers do it with the premiers. This happens weekly, daily in some cases.

There is no line for me. But, obviously, the fact that I've had to testify on this three or four times means we need some clarity here. Having to respond to this again is not something I would wish on any other commissioner going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

That ends round one of questions.

We will go to the second round. We will have to abbreviate this second round, with one slot for each party as per usual.

We'll start with Mr. Lloyd for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

What we all want is clarity here.

In the minister's testimony just previous to your coming here, he said it was your idea to release the information about the guns, that it came from you. Is that the truth?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Well, that was part of it. In that particular example, as I explained, I got a request regarding whether the guns were going to be included. I had also asked about the guns in previous conversations with my communications team.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

But you independently decided that it would be helpful for the information about the guns to be released.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We talked about various chunks of information. We talked about when the victims' names were going to be released, information on the different crime scenes, a chronology, information about the replica police car. We talked about being proactive. Every time we did a media release, our communications folks would do a scan of what was out there, and that would tell us what we should do next.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

The minister said you told deputy minister Robert Stewart and his chief of staff Zita Astravas that you wanted to release the information about the guns. Is that the truth? That's what the minister just said before this committee.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

First, the question I got from the minister's office was whether the guns were to be released. The details of what was going to be released to the media in that media event were not discussed at all with Nova Scotia.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

So are you saying it was not your idea to release information about the guns?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No, it was actually the idea of the people on the ground.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

It was the Nova Scotia RCMP that decided the guns needed to be released?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

What happened, as I explained before, was that there were multiple types of information. When we could release information, it would be released.