The commission of inquiry investigating the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia says we won’t hear witness testimony until next year.
The Mass Casualty Commission released a statement on Wednesday announcing it’s pushing the hearings to January because more time is needed to prepare.
The commission says witnesses have been coming forward to give more insight into the 13-hour rampage that began on April 18th, 2020.
More than 100 community members spoke with the commission during the recent open houses held in Debert, Truro, Millbrook, and Wentworth.
“Our team is in the process of drafting a series of Foundational Documents,” the statements says. “This work is complex and includes reviewing and analyzing thousands of documents and other information. As is often the case with public inquiries, disclosure of thousands of documents and materials is a time-consuming and ongoing process.”
The first phase of the inquiry will aim to determine what happened during the mass killing.
The tragedy began in Portapique where the lone gunman disguised as a police officer killed 13 people and set fire to several homes.
He continued to evade police the next day, taking the lives of nine more people before he was killed at a gas station in Enfield.
The hearings were originally set to take place in Halifax on October 26th. They’ll now happen in late January.
The Commission says it remains on track to complete its interim report in May 2022 and its final report by November 2022.
