A woman visits a memorial after a shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in February. A criminal complaint filed against an accused co-conspirator in the U.S. last week included allegations gathered by police about where the killer got their weapons.Jennfier Gauthier/Reuters
Justice officials recently released some important information about the Tumbler Ridge massacre, including allegations gathered by police about where the killer got their weapons. Unfortunately, this did not come from the officials in Canada.
The shooting left eight Canadians dead, including six children. Canadians should be kept fully up to date about the investigation – by the federal government, or the provincial government, or the RCMP. Instead, these details came from the United States. While it’s good that the information is now public, how it emerged is part of a troubling trend of secrecy in Canada.
This is a problem that goes beyond the police. Too often in Canada, the default assumption among officials is that the public has no right to know. For years JOBFlocks has been exposing this kneejerk reticence in a project dubbed Secret Canada.
FBI complaint provides details on Tumbler Ridge shooter’s guns
Because of the importance of law enforcement and the justice system – which are crucial both to public safety and to the public’s perception of safety – secrecy from them has a particularly corrosive effect.
In 2020, during the mass shooting that began in Portapique, Nova Scotia, the RCMP did not alert the public for 12 hours that the killer was disguised as a police officer. The Mass Casualty Commission, which examined the incident, found that “the RCMP public communication, sent by Twitter during the evening of April 18, seriously understated the threat presented by the perpetrator and the associated risks to the public.”
More recently, Mounties in Saskatchewan went beyond controlling what they reveal and tried to encourage the media to hold back as well. The police there warned journalists that the act of journalism – specifically, talking to witnesses and publishing what they say – can be dangerous. The police helpfully offered to advise media on how to do their jobs.
This tendency toward secrecy is not unique to the RCMP. In the wake of a synagogue shooting in the eastern Ontario community of Belleville, local police did not reveal that the gunman did not have a firearm licence.
It’s good that a source close to the investigation was willing to share that information with JOBFlocks. Every extra detail about the shooting helps give Canadians a fuller understanding of what happened. But it’s bad that the information was, officially, deemed secret.
Elija Rain, acting commanding officer, B.C. RCMP, W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI Seattle field office, and Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney, announce the arrest of a suspect on a charge of conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country, in Seattle.David Ryder/Reuters
While reasonable people can disagree on which investigative details can be released without jeopardizing an investigation, two aspects of these recent shootings are worth remembering.
First, in both cases the killer is dead. While there could be prosecutions of accomplices, and the U.S. information about Tumbler Ridge was released in relation to a person in that country being charged, the central perpetrator is beyond the reach of justice. Their prosecution cannot be put into danger.
Second, the very fact that the Tumbler Ridge information was released by U.S. officials and not Canadian ones highlights that there are differing views on what must be kept secret. That two different institutions came to two different conclusions shows that the Canadian instinct towards secrecy is not inherently correct – or required.
Accused accomplice in Tumbler Ridge shooting denied pretrial release
According to a criminal complaint filed against an accused co-conspirator, Canadians now know a number of allegations related to the Tumbler Ridge shooting. The person charged in the U.S. reported that Jesse Van Rootselaar claimed to have stolen firearms from the family gun safe, convinced someone to buy ammunition for them and possessed a device that U.S. police believed would convert a rifle into a machine gun.
Why does this matter? At the most basic, it may reveal gaps in Canada’s gun-safety regime. But it also helps paint a picture of how an unspeakable tragedy was able to unfold.
There remain many unanswered questions in Tumbler Ridge. Were warning signs missed? Did people deliberately, or inadvertently, help make the crime happen? And beyond this particular tragedy, are there broader vulnerabilities that need to be addressed? Canadians don’t know the answers, and officials in this country seem just fine with that.
The principle of “need to know” is common in security and intelligence jobs. This limits information to those who require it. But officials must remember that the public is not party to any such policy. The public has a default right to know – that’s fundamental to a free and open society.