Commission should have ‘exhausted all options’ before subpoenaing members, RCMP union says

Brian Sauve, president of the National Police Federation (NPF), says he believes more work could have been done over the past eight months.

The union representing RCMP members says it doesn’t feel the Mass Casualty Commission explored every avenue possible before subpoenaing first-responding RCMP members to testify as part of the inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting.

Brian Sauve, president of the National Police Federation (NPF), says he believes more work could have been done by the Mass Casualty Commission over the past eight months and time is not on their side.

“The Commission is coming up on some deadlines and they want to get some detailed interim report by May or June of this year,” said Sauve, “but do they have resources at their disposal to do other investigational steps before going to the subpoena approach?

“I think they do. However, it remains to be seen how that will be applied.”

The Mass Casualty Commission has adopted a trauma-informed mandate as part of its probe into the April 2020 mass shooting at left 22 people dead in rural areas of Nova Scotia, including one RCMP member.

Lawyers representing the NPF have said RCMP officers risk being re-traumatized on the witness stand, but Sauve feels their position has been taken out of context..

“It’s not that we don’t want our members to give evidence,” Brian Sauve, president of the National Police Federation, told Global News from Montreal.

“But the commission itself has established that they will follow a trauma-informed approach. We’re reminding the commission they should be exhausting any and all other avenues before making the decision to issue subpoenas.”