Turning the Tide Together: Final Report of the Mass Casualty Commission. Volume 2: What Happened

By The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty

Volume 2 sets out the Commission’s main findings in the narrative of what happened leading up to, during, and in the aftermath of the mass casualty of April 18 and 19, 2020. As distressing as it is to recall the violent attack that ended the lives of 22 people (one of whom was expecting a child) and injured others, our mandate requires us to provide a detailed account of these events. We have striven to include enough detail to give readers a clear, hour-by-hour account of the perpetrator’s actions as well as the response of community members and those who had a formal duty to respond. Formal responsibility rests with first and secondary police responders, emergency services personnel (including firefighters and paramedics), and other service providers (for example, tow truck operators and medical examiners). Whenever possible, we include first-voice perspectives from those who experienced the mass casualty as witnesses, community members, service providers, and as responders and overseers of the response. Witnesses and people around the perpetrator have only so much information, however, and analysis of evidence can only take us so far. Some of the perpetrator’s actions – in particular, the motivation for his violent rampage – are unknown at this time and likely will remain so forever. …

Halifax, NS: Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2023. 379p.