How and When the MCC Will Address Questions of Motive

As we listened to the Mass Casualty Commission lawyers present their version of key early events through audio/visual PowerPoint presentations, and read through what they call Foundational Documents, something has been missing. The question of motive, or any evidence that might reveal potential motives, has not been interwoven with Commission lawyers’ attempts at factual narratives. This is notable. In a way, not having this element of the individual scenarios included can detract from the overall narrative of the mass casualty, and make it seem like we are only getting part of the story. From media reporting, we know that in many of the fatalities, there was some connection between the killer and his victims that seems to align with theories on possible motives he may have had. The Commission has made a deliberate choice to separate “What Happened?” from why any of it may have happened. This separation serves a legitimate purpose, in the sense that it allows us for a time to focus on the police response, somewhat in isolation. If we do not yet know too much about the perpetrator involved, it gives us better imaginative access to what we think a reasonable police response should have been, both for individual officers and collectively as a force. So, in terms of the police response, questions of motive are less relevant. In another sense, however, motive is very important, and a discussion of the motives of the mass casualty perpetrator can serve as a reminder of the other policing issue Commission must address, one that people who have only been following the MCC since the commencement of proceedings may not know is as important that being police intelligence. It seems as thought the agency at the center of this discussion will be the Criminal Intelligence Service. This is a special policing entity in Nova Scotia that is tasked with fighting organized crime, and managing the exchange of information among police agencies. It is made up of officers from the RCMP, as well as municipal forces throughout Nova Scotia. (There is also a Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada, which seems likely to be closely related as an entity, though that is not obvious from publicly available information.)