Families of Nova Scotia mass shooting victims find optimism and disappointment in commission report

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The erosion of Harry Bond’s trust in the RCMP began nearly three years ago, the morning after his parents, Joy and Peter, died in their home in Portapique, N.S.

The trust had weathered away to nothing this week as he sat in a packed hotel ballroom in Truro and heard the commissioners who led a public inquiry highlight the many failures of the Mounties in preventing and responding to the massacre that claimed the lives of his parents and 20 others in April, 2020.

Like many relatives of the deceased, he had low expectations for the presentation of the final report of the Mass Casualty Commission and was pleasantly surprised that it highlighted the failings of police. But he said it felt more like a “review” rather than the toothsome public inquiry he and other victims’ family members had fought so hard for.

Mr. Bond’s parents were killed in the first 20 minutes of Gabriel Wortman’s 13-hour rampage, which started on the evening of April 18, 2020. Mr. Bond, who lives about 2½-hours away from Portapique, only learned through his brother’s friend “there was something going on” in the community around 8 a.m. on April 19, about 10 hours after his parents were murdered.

He called his mother immediately and had a sinking feeling as the phone rang and rang with no answer: His mother religiously turned off her cell when she went to sleep so the sound of ringing signalled something was amiss.

He spent all day and night trying to get a hold of the RCMP but “nobody would tell us nothing,” he said. Fed up, he drove to Portapique the next morning to get answers and finally received confirmation his parents were killed in their home two nights earlier.

“That’s unacceptable,” Mr. Bond said. “You shouldn’t have to do that.”

During the inquiry, commissioners heard of other family members of victims driving to crime scenes to get information when they struck out with the RCMP. “There, some of them encountered rudeness and threats of violence, including, in some instances, having guns pointed at them,” the commissioners wrote in their report.

It was another week before police gave Mr. Bond the keys to his parents’ house and he was horrified to encounter the bloody disarray in their home. Their bodies had been removed, but the scene was grisly. “It’s hard to picture something like that,” he said. “I mean, you picture it from what you seen on TV, in horror movies and stuff like that, but it’s a scene I wish I didn’t see.”

One of the commission’s recommendations was that a family liaison officer should offer updates, guidance and other assistance to victims’ families in cases like this, including cleaning of the crime scene.

Mr. Bond says as traumatic as it was, witnessing it himself alerted him to stark contrasts between what he observed and what was in notes from the RCMP investigation – for instance, how the police sketch artist had wrongly depicted where his parents’ dead bodies were found.

“If you can’t get a sketch right, how can you get the investigation right?” he asked.

After his own experience in 2020, speaking with the family members of other victims in the last three years, and listening to the commissioners deliver a summary of their report Thursday, he said he wasn’t sure if the RCMP as a whole could be reformed or if there was even a way to imagine a functional and reliable police service in rural Nova Scotia.

“I have no idea. But what we have right now definitely isn’t working,” he said.

Scott McLeod, the brother of Sean McLeod, who was killed alongside his partner Alanna Jenkins on the second day of Mr. Wortman’s killing rampage, expressed optimism about the report’s recommendations.

He applauded the establishment of an implementation committee in the wake of the commission, which will have seats for family members or survivors of the tragedy.

“If we can get to the positive side of this and move things forward, you know that these people didn’t lose their lives for nothing,” he said.

Michael Scott, a lawyer representing the majority of the victims’ families, was disappointed in parts of the inquiry process but echoed Mr. Bond’s feelings that it was refreshing to see the RCMP shortcomings highlighted.

“There may be some closure for the community or for the public,” he said, adding that for his clients, “tomorrow is going to be the same as today. And I don’t think they ever thought otherwise.”

Robert McCabe, a local resident, whose mother lives next to the Onslow firehall, which RCMP riddled with bullets during their pursuit of the gunman, commended the recommendations of the report but like others, pointed out they aren’t mandated.

“People want to have hope, but they don’t have much confidence. At the end of the day, their expectations are quite low,” he said, referring to the inquiry report that followed the 2014 Moncton mass shooting, little of which was implemented by the RCMP.

“It’s really sad because I know there’s people who would’ve come today, but they didn’t because they said, ‘Oh nothing’s going to change from that.’”