On April 18 and 19, 2020, a man named Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people in Nova Scotia. He was killed by two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on April 19, 2020, so there was no arrest, no charge and no trial. What is known about the events comes mainly from a joint federal and provincial public inquiry, the Mass Casualty Commission, which delivered its final report on March 30, 2023. The Commission described itself as an inquiry and not a court. Its own description of its limits is plain: it "cannot determine whether individuals are to be found guilty of a criminal offence or whether damages should be awarded."
The Commission refers to him throughout as "the perpetrator". It found that he killed 22 people and that the events spread across several communities in Colchester, Cumberland and Hants counties between the evening of Saturday April 18 and the morning of Sunday April 19, 2020. One of those killed was a police officer. The interim report issued by the Commission in May 2022 described the events as lasting roughly thirteen hours.
The Governments of Canada and Nova Scotia announced in July 2020 that they would establish a joint public inquiry, and they did so by two Orders in Council issued on October 21, 2020. The Commission was led by three commissioners, one of them its chair. A minister of the federal government of the time, announcing the inquiry, said that it "will help determine what happened and will make recommendations to help prevent similar tragic events in the future."
The mandate, as the Commission published it, had three parts. It was to inquire into what happened and make findings on the causes, context and circumstances of the April 2020 mass casualty; on the responses of police, including the RCMP and municipal police forces; and on the steps taken to inform, support and engage those most affected. It was also to examine related issues, among them the role of gender-based and intimate partner violence, the perpetrator's prior interactions and relationship with the police and social services, and communications with the public during and after the event. Its third task was a report setting out lessons learned and recommendations.
Victims and the families of victims were automatically given the opportunity to participate, along with the federal and provincial governments. The Commission's work ran in phases. The first phase, on what happened, included meetings with families in 2021, six community sessions in the fall of 2021, and public proceedings that began on February 22, 2022. By early April 2022, sixty-one individuals and groups had been granted participant status, and a "Share Your Experience" initiative had drawn more than 900 responses. The interim report was submitted on April 28, 2022 and made no findings of fact. The second phase examined how and why the events had happened, through roundtables and witness evidence. Public Safety Canada and its partner agencies were subpoenaed several times in the course of the inquiry, and about 75,000 government records had been disclosed by November 2022.
The Commission's main finding on the origins of the events is stated in a single line: "The mass casualty began with the perpetrator's violent assault of his common law spouse." It added that over 19 years their relationship was "marked by his violence, coercion, and controlling behaviour toward her", and that the violence had been reported to police on at least one occasion, in 2013. Its executive summary says that "the antecedents of the mass casualty ran deep into the perpetrator's history of violence and misconduct."
Those antecedents are the center of the Commission's findings on prevention. The commissioners found "many warning signs of the perpetrator's violence and missed opportunities to intervene" in the years before April 2020. A broader statement in the report records that red flags about his violent and unlawful behavior toward his long-time partner, his family and others were known to a range of people and had been brought to the attention of authorities over several years. The commissioners said that his "pattern and escalation of violence could and should have been addressed," while also holding that no one could have predicted the particular events of April 2020. They described gender-based, intimate partner and family violence as an epidemic that calls for a response from the whole of society.
On December 4, 2020 three people were charged in connection with supplying him: his common-law spouse, her brother and her brother-in-law. Police said that none of the three knew what the items were to be used for. The brother and the brother-in-law were the two who made the purchases, at the request of his spouse.
The three cases ended without a trial. The brother had pleaded guilty to a single charge, and in May 2022 he withdrew that plea; the Crown prosecutor supported his entry into a restorative justice process, saying he had accepted responsibility from the start and cooperated with police. The spouse and the brother-in-law had already chosen restorative justice. On July 26, 2022 the three charges were dismissed after the process, and none of the three has a criminal record. The Commission's report records that the charges against the spouse were referred to restorative justice.
The Commission's findings on the RCMP response are among the most detailed parts of the report. It identified "gaps and errors in the critical incident response and failures in public communications." It found that the critical incident command structure "lacked a dedicated information analyst," that there was "a flawed decision-making process, particularly the failure to consider alternative scenarios," and that "the absence of a trained scene commander had a significant adverse impact." It found that the RCMP "had not prepared for how best to notify community members" of an active threat, that command and communications staff "were not aware that Alert Ready was a mechanism by which information could be shared directly with the public," and that withholding information "deprived community members of the opportunity to evaluate risks to their safety."
On the night itself, the Commission found that the quiet overnight hours gave the command an opportunity to take stock and analyze the information, and that "this opportunity was lost." Its statement on public communications was direct: "there were failures in the communications with the public during and in the aftermath of the mass casualty." The report calls for an independent federal review of the RCMP and sets out 130 recommendations in all.
The final report, Turning the Tide Together, was released in Truro on March 30, 2023, in seven volumes of more than 3,000 pages. The head of the RCMP, then in an interim role, on the day of the release, said that he had not yet reviewed the recommendations, that the events were "unprecedented circumstances," and that the force was "fully committed to rebuilding the trust and confidence of Nova Scotians." The Prime Minister said that "there's no question there need to be changes and there will be." The minister responsible for the RCMP pledged stronger oversight, accountability and transparency, and the minister who had been responsible for public safety when the events occurred, and who had appointed the commissioners, called much of the report "very, very important".
By the end of August 2023 the lawyer for more than fourteen families said that the RCMP had not given a substantive response or a sincere apology. The RCMP commissioner had written to families that summer, committing to engage with them before the next update.
The two governments created an independent Progress Monitoring Committee in 2023, with members appointed on September 1, 2023, to follow how Canada, Nova Scotia and the RCMP respond to the Commission's 130 recommendations. Its third and final annual report, covering September 2025 to August 2026 and released on August 31, 2026, assessed progress on 90 unique recommendations and found that progress was uneven, and that further work is needed on gender-based violence.
A criminal trial was never possible, because the person responsible died on April 19, 2020. The two governments chose a joint public inquiry, whose commissioners were appointed under federal and provincial authority. A public inquiry of this kind gathers evidence, calls witnesses, subpoenas documents and makes recommendations, but it does not decide guilt. The Commission was not adversarial, and it could not require governments to adopt what it recommended; the decision rested with the governments and other organizations. In its executive summary the Commission wrote: "Our role as Commissioners was not to determine guilt or assign blame. Our choice was to blame or to learn, and we chose to learn."
The Commission's findings are not court findings, and no court has tried any allegation against him. The three people charged over the supply of items to him were never convicted: their charges were dismissed after restorative justice. The Commission itself found that the events could not have been predicted in their detail, and the commissioners wrote that red flags "could and should have been addressed". The federal government committed to study the Commission's recommendations; the recommendations themselves, among them an independent federal review of the RCMP and a changed model of police training, are not commitments.
2013: Violence toward his common-law spouse is reported to police on at least one occasion (Commission).
April 18 to 19, 2020: 22 people are killed in Nova Scotia; he is killed by two RCMP members on April 19, 2020.
July 2020: The governments of Canada and Nova Scotia announce a joint public inquiry.
October 21, 2020: Orders in Council establish the Mass Casualty Commission and appoint three commissioners.
December 4, 2020: Three people are charged in connection with supplying him.
February 22, 2022: Public proceedings of the Commission begin.
April 28, 2022: The Commission submits its interim report, with no findings of fact.
May 2022: The brother of his spouse withdraws his guilty plea and enters restorative justice.
July 26, 2022: The three charges are dismissed after restorative justice.
March 30, 2023: The final report, with 130 recommendations, is released in Truro.
August 31, 2023: A lawyer for more than fourteen families says the RCMP has not yet given a sincere apology.
September 1, 2023: The Progress Monitoring Committee's members are appointed.
August 31, 2026: The Progress Monitoring Committee releases its third and final annual report.