Justin Trudeau assures that the commissioner of the RCMP still has his confidence
The Commissioner of the RCMP, Brenda Lucki
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assures that the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) still has his confidence. But in the same breath, he left it to Brenda Lucki to respond to allegations that she put undue pressure on the Nova Scotia RCMP to release details of the shooting that left 22 dead. in April 2020.
A report released Tuesday by the Public Inquiry Commission into the tragedy included handwritten notes from an RCMP superintendent of a Nova Scotia Chiefs of Staff meeting 10 days after the killings . According to the memo, Ms. Lucki expressed disappointment that the types of weapons used by the killer have not yet been made public.
According to the memo, the commissioner allegedly said during the meeting that she had promised the federal Department of Public Safety and the Prime Minister's Office that the RCMP would release information about the weapons used by the shooter, as this information was related. to the pending gun control bill in Ottawa.
Bill Blair, who was Minister of Public Safety at the time, said Wednesday that Ms. Lucki would not had made no such promise.
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Other documents released by the public inquiry cite an RCMP communications director who alleges that Mr. Trudeau and Minister Blair's office weighed in on what the RCMP could and could not say during press briefings after the killings.
Mr. Trudeau said Thursday that no undue executive influence or pressure has been brought to bear on the RCMP in Nova Scotia.
In a written statement released Tuesday evening, Lucki said she did not interfere with the Nova Scotia investigation, but regretted the way she handled the incident. meeting of April 28, 2020. She also explains that this meeting concerned in particular the flow of information on the investigation to the RCMP Headquarters and the communication of information to the public.
I regret the way I approached the meeting and am sorry for the impact it had on those present, she wrote. My need for information should have taken more into consideration the seriousness of the circumstances they were experiencing.
Brenda Lucki can still count on the trust of the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Reporters asked Mr. Trudeau, who was in Kigali, Rwanda, on Thursday to attend the Commonwealth summit this week, if he thought Ms. Lucki's attitude at the meeting was appropriate. The commissioner spoke about it in her statement, he said. We continue to support the Commissioner, to trust her.
The Prime Minister underlined that only the police determine what information to disclose publicly, and when during the course of the ;investigation. I will point out, however, that when the worst mass shooting in Canadian history occurred, we had a lot of questions, he added.
Canadians had a lot of questions, and I received regular briefings on what we knew, what we didn't know. And these responses continue to be released even as the public inquiry is ongoing so the families can really find out what happened, and we will continue to take responsible action.
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Wednesday, in the Commons, the Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino, had also assured that Mrs. Lucki retained his confidence.
