It’s a light third week at the Mass Casualty Commission’s public inquiry in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Lawyers are set to continue arguments as to whether the police officers on the ground in Portapique should be called to testify in person and, critically, be cross-examined.
Lawyers for the family spent most of last week telling commissioners they needed the chance to speak to those officers to get the full story.
Lawyers for the RCMP and police union say the officers have already given testimony, which is true, they were interviewed by commissioners, and forcing them to recount the events of the night would retraumatize them.
They say that would be a violation of the inquiry’s “trauma-informed approach” mandate.
Only two days of public proceedings this week
On Monday, the commission will continue to hear arguments for why each of the officers there that night should be called.
Commissioners are set to make a decision Wednesday on which of those individual officers, if any, will appear before the public inquiry.
After rendering that decision, commission counsel is scheduled to present another foundational document.
It will focus on the actions of the gunman overnight in Debert.
After that, the inquiry will take a two-week break, reconvening on March 28.
A gunman killed 22 people on April 18-19, 2020, across northern Nova Scotia, from Portapique to Shubenacadie, before he was killed by police in Enfield.
