Inquiry hears Nova Scotians grieving the mass shooting are still seeking help

HALIFAX – Two years after a man disguised as a Mountie killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, grieving people are still coming forward to get help from the province’s victim services program, a government official told a public inquiry Tuesday.

Kim Burton, a Justice Department manager, said that in the weeks after the mass shooting on April 18-19, 2020, the department faced challenges getting people to participate in the program, which offers counselling and other support services.

“The challenge remains that there’s a lot of Nova Scotians and a lot of Canadians … that we haven’t reached yet,” Burton said as she took part in a panel discussion with four other service providers.

“It’s humbling to know how many people are still out there.”

Burton said victims of crime typically receive a referral to the program as cases involving them move through the criminal justice system. But in this case, where the gunman was killed by police, the department has had to reach out to the affected communities in northern and central Nova Scotia.

About a month after the tragedy, the department set up so-called navigation sites in four Nova Scotia communities: Portapique, Masstown, Shubenacadie and Wentworth.

“At the time, I remember our client base was unknown,” she said. “We were relying on other agencies or on self-referrals.”

Burton said victim services was contacted by one individual seeking help earlier this week, and she said more are expected to do so in the months ahead.

“There’s community members who have reached out in the last three months and said, ‘I think I’m ready for help now,” Burton said. “It could be their healing process, but some said, ‘I wanted the families and those most impacted to be helped first.”‘

Last month, the inquiry released an interim report saying many of the individuals and families most affected by the tragedy had yet to receive the support they needed.

“For example, a comment card left at a Mass Casualty Commission open house in the fall of 2021 stated: ‘We need a grief and trauma counsellor more than ever,”‘ the report said.

“This theme was reiterated by numerous respondents to our web-based … survey in February and March of 2022. One respondent wrote: ‘It does not feel like anyone understands what we have gone through …. Our community desperately needs additional mental health supports.”‘

The commission has encouraged governmental and non-governmental agencies to move quickly to provide additional mental health, trauma and bereavement supports.

Dana Bowden, the Justice Department’s director of victim services, said the navigation centres were initially set up for two weeks, operating six days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

But the need was so great the centres were kept open until August 2020, when the Shubenacadie and Masstown sites had to close because both were in schools. The other two sites stayed open two days a week until January 2021.

In Portapique, where 13 people were shot to death on the night of April 18, 2020, the department set up a trailer next to the community centre, where counselling was available.

Every member of the panel stressed that the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic a month before the killings had made a chaotic and confusing situation even worse.

Bruce Varner, director and embalmer at the Mattatall-Varner Funeral Home in nearby Truro, N.S., said it was difficult dealing with so many families, and pandemic restrictions made regular funerals impossible.

“There was nothing about this that was normal,” Varner said, adding that handshakes and hugs were not allowed because of physical distancing rules. “That’s a huge part of the healing process.”

Lindsay Denis, a forensic nurse with the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner’s Office, said that with so many autopsies to complete, there was concern that she or some of her colleagues would get COVID-19, making an overwhelming situation even worse.

Denis also remarked on how difficult it was withhold information from grieving family members because of the ongoing RCMP investigation and the strict privacy rules under the provincial Fatalities Investigations Act.

“And there was the senselessness of everything,” Denis said. “That was a common theme among all of the family members. It’s hard when you have nothing to respond with.”