The Mass Casualty Commission has announced a further delay in the start of public proceedings, pushing back the start date by a further month, to February 22, 2022, now four months beyond the original start date. That there would be a delay was not, in itself, a surprising development, but the reasoning was unexpected. Many Court matters in Nova Scotia, including in-person appearances and jury trials, had been delayed recently because of the surge in Covid-19 cases with the omicron variant, but the MCC did not offer this as their explanation. Rather, they said that they were continuing to work on Foundational Documents, and are dealing with further new evidence that has been emerging through discussions with the parties. There is a strong public interest in starting the hearings, and the more time taken behind closed doors to review and attempt to reach agreement on ‘what happened’ risks overstepping into contested evidentiary territory, and of turning the proceedings into more of a presentation than a hearing where witness accounts can be tested and challenged.
