May 28, 2021
We are encouraged by the progress being made in Nova Scotia and in Canada on COVID-19 vaccinations, and we hope this will lead to easing of public health restrictions for our communities in the months ahead. In the meantime, we are following our COVID-19 Protocols and continuing our work in ways that ensure the health and safety of everyone taking part.
Consistent with our health and safety commitment, we used a webcast approach to release our Participation Decision on May 13. We encourage you to watch the video of the webcast and read the full Participation Decision document, which are available on our website. The decision names other individuals and groups who applied for and have been granted the opportunity for appropriate participation in coming proceedings. Following the decision, Commission team members have been engaging with Participants to discuss next steps.
As a public commission, our job is to examine the April 2020 mass casualty in Nova Scotia to better understand what happened and provide meaningful recommendations to help protect Canadians in future. Public inquiries, like ours, are expected to go beneath the surface and examine the broader context in which the mass casualty occurred. Our independence is essential to carry out our work.
In addition to early and ongoing engagement with those most affected, the Commission team has been advancing planning and working on our investigations, document review, community outreach, research and policy work. To help you understand this work to date and what to expect next, an overview of the inquiry process is available on our website. In the coming weeks we will share more information on how interested community members and groups can take part over the summer, leading up to our hearings which we anticipate holding this fall.
As always, please reach out at info@masscasualtycommission.ca if you have any questions or comments. We have also introduced a toll-free phone number to assist people in contacting the Commission: 1 833-635-2501. We encourage you to use and share the resources on our website, which include regularly updated FAQs about our work, and support services who can help you if you need it.
Thank you and please stay safe.
Respectfully,
The Mass Casualty Commission
Hon. J. Michael MacDonald, Chair
Leanne J. Fitch (Ret. Police Chief, M.O.M.)
Dr. Kim Stanton