TORONTO -- The RCMP is facing scrutiny about why an emergency alert was not triggered during the rampage in Nova Scotia that took the lives of at least 22 people and the province’s deputy premier says it is a question on the minds of many Nova Scotians.
The murderous rampage began Saturday night in Portapique, Nova Scotia and the rogue gunman was on the loose for several hours before being shot and killed by police at a gas station in Enfield.
RCMP tweeted late Saturday night that they were responding to a firearms complaint in the community, north of Halifax, and told people to avoid the area and stay in their homes.
An emergency alert was never sent out and many are questioning why the province didn't use its emergency alert system to blast out a warning that the attacker was still on the loose.
“That is a question, obviously that constituents are asking, people in Nova Scotia are asking, they’re looking at the timeline. That is a question that will be for the RCMP to answer but it certainly is a question that is on the minds of a lot of us,” said Nova Scotia Deputy Premier Karen Casey in an interview with Power Play’s Evan Solomon on Thursday.
Nova Scotia RCMP Chief Superintendent Chris Leather said at a news conference Wednesday that Nova Scotia Provincial Emergency Management officials contacted the RCMP to offer the use of the public emergency alerting system at 10:15 a.m. Casey confirmed that technicians were ready to issue the warning once given the go-ahead by RCMP.
“We had our EMO staff on standby, they had come in, they were ready to take any information and direction that they had from the RCMP. That is the group that has to come and ask us to active the alert with EMO. We were ready to do that, I can’t explain why the delay in them getting that information or even preparing that information but I do know that it’s a question that a lot of people have,” said Casey.
“I can’t give you an exact time when they were there but I know that they would have been ready and were ready and I think, if I could say, that we would have expected, they would have expected to hear something if there was information that needed to go out as an alert, they were ready to put that out, the technicians were there, that request did not come.”
Casey says she and the premier learned that the suspect was using a fake RCMP vehicle and was dressed in a real RCMP uniform between 8 and 10 a.m. Sunday.
She says she recognizes that the RCMP were in an ‘unprecedented situation’ but that the safety of Nova Scotia’s citizens is a top priority.
“We definitely will do whatever we can as a government to make sure that citizens in this province are safe and as I said earlier we will be working with the RCMP as they debrief to look at how we could respond both as a government, at the direction of the RCMP, heaven forbid, a similar situation, but our government will do whatever we can to make sure that our citizens are safe.”
Larry Harrison, Nova Scotia Conservative MLA, also spoke to Power Play and says he can't image what the families of the victims are going through.
“When I go to bed at night, what I’m thinking about, 22 individuals, who had a life, who had hopes and dreams and had that life taken away from them and then I go to the family and to the friends who were in a loving relationship with all those people, what they must be going through, is just, I can’t even imagine,” said Harrison.
A virtual vigil is being held on Friday and Casey says the event is to celebrate the contributions the victims made to the community and that our ‘communities are much stronger because of the contribution.’
(With files from CTVNews.ca, CTV News Atlantic & The Canadian Press)
