Ontario watchdog to review new information from Nova Scotia mass shooting inquiry

Ontario’s police watchdog agency has been called in by its Nova Scotia counterpart to review new information unearthed by the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in the Maritime province.

Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) confirmed today that Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit recently determined the inquiry had yielded new information about two RCMP officers who shot at a firehall as they were searching for a shooting suspect disguised as a Mountie.

The Nova Scotia team issued a statement saying the Ontario agency has agreed to conduct another independent review to determine if the new information would have had any impact SIRT’s decision in March 2021 to clear the officers of wrongdoing.

The federal-provincial inquiry heard the suspect, who was later shot dead by other officers, was not at the Onslow, N.S., firehall on April 19, 2020 when the two Mounties fired toward a fellow officer and a civilian who they said looked like the killer.

In its six-page report on the incident, the Serious Incident Response Team said the “totality of the evidence” prompted the officers to believe it was the killer they saw from a distance of 88 metres that morning.

The team decided that the two officers discharged their weapons “to prevent further deaths or serious injuries,” saying they had reasonable grounds to believe the person in their rifle sights was the mass murderer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2023.