Nova Scotia RCMP Supt. Darren Campbell and Lia Scanlan, former communications director for the Nova Scotia RCMP, testify at a parliamentary hearing to address allegations of potential political interference in the Nova Scotia mass shooting investigation.
Two of the people behind an accusation of political interference in the investigation of the April 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia will be before a House of Commons committee Tuesday.
RCMP Chief Supt. Darren Campbell and Lia Scanlan, a strategic communications director, have each accused Commissioner Brenda Lucki of saying she faced pressure from the federal government to ensure information about the gunman’s weapons was released at a news conference.
Campbell’s handwritten notes, taken about a phone call with Lucki, Scanlan and others hours after the news conference on April 28, 2020, say that Lucki mentioned she’d made a promise to the minister, and that the weapons information was connected to upcoming gun legislation.
Bill Blair, then public safety minister, was accused of applying that pressure, but he and Lucki have repeatedly denied that Blair interfered in the investigation.
The 13-hour rampage by a gunman took 22 lives and is now the subject of a public inquiry.
Scanlan wrote a letter to the commissioner more than a year after the shootings, echoing Campbell’s concerns and telling Lucki the meeting was “appalling, inappropriate, unprofessional and extremely belittling.”
A number of other people will appear ahead of Scanlan and Campbell at the committee on Tuesday, including deputy minister of justice François Daigle and Owen Rees, the acting assistant deputy attorney general.
Two other RCMP staff members are also set to speak: Alison Whelan, the chief strategic policy and external relations officer, and Jolene Bradley, director general of the National Communications Services.
