Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission Releases Final Report

On March 30, the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission released its final report, Turning the Tide Together.

The Mass Casualty Commission was the joint public inquiry created to examine the April 18-19, 2020, mass casualty in Nova Scotia, in which a sole perpetrator killed 22 people throughout rural Nova Scotia, and to provide meaningful recommendations to help make communities safer in the future.

The final report contains 130 recommendations including a call for:

• greater focus on addressing and preventing the root causes of violence in communities, including gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, and family violence

Luke’s Place advocacy director, Pamela Cross, shares her thoughts on the report in her latest blog post, addressing the calls for change as it relates to intimate partner violence:

This report is hard-hitting and doesn’t mince words. It calls for “transformative change,” for prevention and intervention rather than prediction, for an understanding of a “violence continuum” rather than two silos of private and public violence. It says a “whole of society” approach is required to make the changes needed to create safe communities.

Pamela Cross