A senior RCMP officer has testified that lawyers from the federal Justice Department advised him not to disclose a call he received from Commissioner Brenda Lucki asking him to send her details of the firearms used in the mass shooting in Nova Scotia.
Leather’s statement about the call with Lucki, and about a series of emails that followed, didn’t come up in a July 6 interview he gave to commission lawyers.
“The advice I received was not to proactively disclose the conversation [with Lucki] and the emails leading up to the meeting on April 28, [2020],'' Leather testified, after his request to have his solicitor-client privilege waived was granted.
‘Misunderstanding’
Lori Ward, counsel for the Justice Department and the RCMP and one of the two lawyers who met with Leather, said there was a “misunderstanding” in regards to the advice they gave the chief superintendent.“Shortly before his interview with commission counsel, [Leather] had raised a document of which we had no knowledge in the context of our discussions about the meeting with Commissioner Lucki,” Ward said.
“From his description of the document, we thought it was potentially relevant but possibly privileged, and based on assurance of confidentiality, given to those who are involved in the making of the document. As such, we told Chief Superintendent Leather we would obtain that document and review it and disclose it if it was relevant.”
“We’ve now reviewed it, and it will be disclosed imminently,“ she added. ”At no time did we advise Chief Superintendent Leather not to speak about it if it came up, and not to speak the truth.”
Commission chair Michael MacDonald said to Ward that he thought the issue “was proactive versus reactive,” not about whether to tell the truth or not.
Leather said the essence of the meeting with the two federal lawyers was to seek their advice on whether to proactively disclose the conversation he had with Lucki during his interview with the MCC lawyers.
He confirmed to Scott that he was concerned about how to address the issue if it surfaced in case he was seen to be “improperly holding back relevant information” critical to the investigation.
Political Interference Allegations
Leather also told the inquiry on July 28 that he believes political interference was behind Lucki’s determination to have the firearms details made public to further the federal government’s gun control legislation.“That’s my impression,” he said, during cross-examination by lawyer Tom MacDonald, who represents the families of two victims killed in the mass shootings.
In his notes, Campbell detailed his concerns that disclosing the weapon details to the public could “jeopardize” the investigation being carried out by the RCMP and U.S. law enforcement, which he reiterated during the public inquiry.