ANALYSIS: How a dismal start nearly undermined the Nova Scotia shooting inquiry
Global News
After public pressure and pleas from victims' families, the inquiry into the Nova Scotia shooting spree decided RCMP officers and the gunman's spouse will be called to testify.
Now we’re getting somewhere. After two weeks of mostly tangential testimony, presentations and arguments, the public inquiry tasked with investigating the Nova Scotia shooting spree has decided it will call RCMP officers and the gunman’s common-law spouse to testify.
Public hearings, which began on Feb. 22, are meant to help explain the shootings and inform the inquiry’s recommendations aimed at preventing similar tragedies in the future.
But until last Wednesday, when lead commissioner and former Nova Scotia chief justice Michael MacDonald hit the metaphorical reset button, it wasn’t clear that anyone who actually witnessed the events of April 18-19, 2020, would be called upon to testify in person.
“This is the trauma that we live every day,” said Ryan Farrington in a video post added to Facebook last Monday.
Farrington’s parents Frank and Dawn Gulenchyn were murdered by the gunman in Portapique. Their home was also set on fire by the gunman and completely destroyed.
“I’m begging you, please, call the witnesses that need to be called. Let’s work together, let’s get these answers,” he said. “Because I don’t know what else to do anymore.”
The long-awaited public hearings into the shooting spree started with a roundtable discussion about life in rural Nova Scotia that touched on the quaintness of giving casseroles to neighbours and directions based on landmarks instead of street names. There was no mention of gun culture or the prevalence of domestic violence in the region.
The inquiry’s version of what happened in Portapique, where Gabriel Wortman assaulted his spouse before killing 13 neighbours and then moving on to kill nine more people across the province the following day, was then offered to the public in the form of several “foundational documents” and a series of presentations.