Emails Reveal NS RCMP Concerns About Conflict of Interest in Hiring of Spouses

Sandra McCulloch, a lawyer with Patterson Law, representing many of the families of victims and others, addresses the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia on April 18/19, 2020, in Truro, N.S. on Sept. 20, 2022. The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan

The inquiry investigating the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting has released emails detailing conflict of interest concerns raised about two members assigned last year to an RCMP team providing information to the inquiry.

The emails focus on the husbands of Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, the commanding officer in Nova Scotia at the time, and Halifax RCMP Chief Supt. Janis Gray.

In May 2021 after the two men were named to the inquiry liaison team, National Police Federation president Brian Sauvé recommended to RCMP officials that they reconsider the move due to public interest and scrutiny surrounding the public inquiry.

A few days later, Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan said in an email that he had requested an immediate review of the conflict of interest concerns by the RCMP’s professional ethics office.

Supt. Kerry Petryshun, an officer responsible for assessing the concerns, wrote in an email on June 4, 2021 that Bergerman “ought to have known” that hiring her husband, a retired RCMP officer, on a contract was prohibited and would be viewed as a conflict of interest.

In July 2021 the two men were removed from the RCMP’s inquiry team.