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Unwrapping the story of the donair

Morning File, Tuesday, June 14, 2022

June 14, 2022 By Philip Moscovitch 6 Comments

News 1. “Involuntary compliance” In high school, I had a teacher whose approach to finding volunteers was to look at a group of us and say, “I need four volunteers. You, you, you, and you — you are the volunteers.” I thought about him this morning as I read Zane Woodford’s story on Halifax staff […]

Filed Under: Featured, Morning File Tagged With: Acropolis, Bryan Green, CBC Podcasts, Cst Chad Morrison, Dr. Laurette Geldenhuys, Encampments, euphemism, food, Greece, Halifax donair, homelessness, Jordi Morgan, Kristen Baglee, language, Lindsay Wickstrom, Maggie MacDonald, Mass Casualty Commission, Max Chauvin, Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil, NSHA, official food of Halifax, Oia, Omar Mouallem, Parthenon, Pathology, Portapique, PRICED OUT, RCMP Operations Communications Centre (OCC), Richard Butts, Santorini, selfies, Syros, Temple of Olympian Zeus, The Secret Life of Canada, Tourism, Unhoused people, Windows 7

‘We really don’t need any more police officers; we really don’t need any more money’

Morning File, Friday, June 10, 2022

June 10, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 3 Comments

News 1. When the hammer drops If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. I’ve been thinking a lot about that aphorism — attributed both to psychologist Abraham Maslow and philosopher Abraham Kaplan, but it’s probably as old as hammers and nails — as I watch the Mass Casualty Commission. It’s just […]

Filed Under: Featured, Morning File, Policing Tagged With: armoured police vehicle, COVID-19, defund the police, Department of Health and Wellness, El Jones, Halifax Regional Police, Lisa Banfield, Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), mass killing, mass shooting, Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), Northern Pulp, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Health, Patricia MacPhee, Policing, Portapique, RCMP, Staff-Sergeant Addie MacCallum

27 minutes: the RCMP’s communications division hesitated when the public most needed to be warned about the mass murderer

June 9, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 3 Comments

Twenty-seven minutes. That’s how much time passed during which a written tweet sat on a computer screen before someone pressed “tweet” to make it public. The prepared tweet read: “#Colchester: [perpetrator’s name] may be driving what appears to be an RCMP vehicle & may be wearing an RCMP uniform. There’s 1 difference btwn his car […]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Aaron Patton, Adam Merchant, Alert Ready, Chief Dave MacNeil, Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, Cst. Heidi Stevenson, Debert, Emergency Alert Team (ERT), Enfield, gun violence, Hunter Road, Immediate Action Rapid Deployment (IARD), Jeff West, Lia Scanlan, mass killing, mass shooting, massacre, murder spree, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), Onslow Fire Hall, Policing, Portapique, rampage, RCMP, RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather, RCMP twitter alert, Shubenacadie, SIRT, Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday, Staff Sgt. Al Carroll, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill, Staff Sgt. Bruce Briers, Staff-Sergeant Addie MacCallum, Stuart Beselt, Wentworth

Missed communications among Communications personnel led to failure to alert public to the killer’s fake police car

June 7, 2022 By Jennifer Henderson 1 Comment

Two years ago last April, health care workers Heather O’Brien and Kristen Beaton were killed in their cars on the Plains Road near Debert by a gunman posing as a police officer driving a look-a-like RCMP cruiser. Their murders took place just before 10am on Sunday April 19. According to a document released today by […]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Alert Ready, Chris Leather, Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, Critical Incident Commander Jeff West, Debert, Emergency Management Office (EMO), Glenn Mason, Heather O'Brien, Inspector Dustine Rodier, Jennifer Henderson, Kristen Beaton, Lia Scanlan, Lillian Campbell, Lisa Banfield, Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), Portapique, RCMP, Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday, Staff-Sergeant Addie MacCallum, Tom Bagley, Wentworth

How the mass murderer leisurely drove through the main streets of Truro without being stopped by police

June 6, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 4 Comments

Through the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, there was a series of miscommunications and mixed messages between the RCMP and the Truro Police Service such that the killer was able to slowly drive right through the centre of Truro without being noticed or confronted by Truro police. As the killer wasn’t stopped in Truro, […]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Chief David MacNeil, Cst. Chad Morris, Cst. Heidi Stevenson, Donnalee Williston, Gina Goulet, Joey Webber, Mass Casualty Commission, Portapique, RCMP, Sgt. Richard Hickox, Staff Sergeant Brian Rehill, Tim Bousquet, Truro Police Service

Cpl. Rodney Peterson is “not tactically sound” and “puts us at risk” says fellow cop Nick Dorrington

Morning File, Monday, May 30, 2022

May 30, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 1 Comment

News 1. Bodies not discovered for 18 hours   “The bodies of five victims on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020 — Joy and Peter Bond, Aaron and Emily Tuck, and Jolene Oliver — were not discovered by the RCMP until 4:45pm on Sunday, April 19, more than 18 hours after they were shot […]

Filed Under: Featured, Morning File Tagged With: Aaron Tuck, Bryan Gibson, Cpl. Rodney Peterson, Cst. Nick Dorrington, Cst. Pierre Bourdages, Emergency Response Team, Emily Tuck, Halifax Regional Police, Jaimie Peerless, Jolene Oliver, Joy Bond, Kentville, Lillian Campbell, Lisa Banfield, Mass Casualty Commission, Matthew Byard, MCC Lead Investigator Will Crews, Peter Bond, Portapique, RCMP, Sgt. Andy O'Brien, Staff Sgt. Al Carroll, Stephen Kimber, Tim Bousquet

The Mass Casualty Commission and the Catch-22 of witness ‘accommodation’

Allowing two RCMP officers to testify in pre-recorded sessions without the direct involvement of lawyers for the families undermines the credibility of the commission. And that's unfortunate for all of us.

May 29, 2022 By Stephen Kimber 2 Comments

I have not watched every minute of every witnesses’ testimony at the Mass Casualty Commission. As I have with the commission’s 18-and-counting foundational documents and 1,400 itemized source materials, I’ve sampled, closely watching the testimony of witnesses I expected to offer important information, dipping in and out of others as time allowed. Among my many […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Adam Rogers, Cpl. Rodney Peterson, Cst. Ian Fahie, Joshua Bryson, mass shooting, National Police Federation, Nick Beaton, Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), Portapique, RCMP, Sandra McCulloch, Sgt. Andy O'Brien, Staff Sgt. Al Carroll, Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill, Staff Sgt. Bruce Briers, trauma-informed

Bodies of five murder victims weren’t discovered by the RCMP for more than 18 hours after they were killed

May 29, 2022 By Tim Bousquet Leave a Comment

The bodies of five victims on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020 — Joy and Peter Bond, Aaron and Emily Tuck, and Jolene Oliver — were not discovered by the RCMP until 4:45pm on Sunday, April 19, more than 18 hours after they were shot by the killer. Why the delay? “It did not […]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: blueberry field road, crime scene, Cst. Nick Dorrington, Cst. Trent Lafferty, Dawn Dorrington, Debert, Debra Thibeault, Enfield, fake RCMP car, gun violence, Hunter Road, mass killing, mass shooting, massacre, murder spree, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), Onslow Fire Hall, Policing, Portapique, rampage, RCMP, Shubenacadie, Staff Sgt. Al Carroll, Wentworth

How RCMP commanders’ bumbling response to Portapique allowed the killer to continue his murder spree

Morning File, Friday, May 27, 2022

May 27, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 4 Comments

News 1. Bumbling response to Portapique Yesterday, retired RCMP Staff Sergeant Al Carroll testified via Zoom at the Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), the public inquiry into the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020. Through his questioning of Carroll, MCC lawyer Roger Burrill aptly laid out how a series of cascading policing errors built upon each […]

Filed Under: Featured, Morning File Tagged With: Al Carroll, Atlantic Gold, Cape Breton, Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), Destination Cape Breton Association (DCBA), economy, Ivany Report, Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), mass shooting, Moose River, Nicholas Taleb, Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change (NSECC), Other People's Money, Portapique, RCMP, resilient, Terry Smith, The Black Swan, Touquoy gold mine, Tourism, Tourism Nova Scotia, Tracy Barron, waste rock, waterfalls, Yarmouth ferry

The RCMP didn’t tell the public about the mass murderer’s fake police car because they didn’t want to create a ‘frantic panic’

April 27, 2022 By Tim Bousquet 5 Comments

Ever since the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, one unanswered question has been: Why did the RCMP wait so long to notify the public about the killer’s fake police car? An answer comes via RCMP Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday, who was interviewed by the Mass Casualty Commission (MCC) on November 3, 2021. According to […]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Lisa Banfield, Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), Portapique, RCMP, RCMP Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday, Tim Bousquet

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PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

A young white woman with dark hair and a purple shirt lies on a large rock at dusk, looking up at the sky and playing her banjolele.

Episode 85 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Logan Robins (writer/director/composer) and Katherine Norris (star/composer) of the Unnatural Disaster Theatre Company are on the show this week ahead of their provincial tour of HIPPOPOSTUMOUS, Robins’ musical exploration of invasive species, colonization, environmentalism, and history. Hear how Pablo Escobar’s personal hippos have invaded and are ruining a section of Colombia, why Robins was intrigued to make a show about it, and all the places you can catch it this July. Plus Norris cracks out the banjolele to perform one of the show’s songs. And the new jam from Beauts!

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

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Recent posts

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  • Stuck on stick: clinging to the manual in an automatic world June 29, 2022
  • Halifax council votes to plan for Centennial Pool replacement, support universal basic income, and more June 28, 2022
  • Group wants heritage designation for house of Nova Scotia’s first Black doctor June 28, 2022

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