As pressure mounts on the federal and Nova Scotia governments to call an inquiry into one of the worst mass killings in Canadian history, the country's leading scholar on inquiries says Ottawa and the province should do the right thing and work together on a joint inquest.
"I think that would really be the course to take," said Ed Ratushny, a professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa's law school.
"We are now 40 days past this tragic event, we aren't able to heal properly because ... the amount of information being kept from us is deplorable," said Darcy Dobson, whose mother Heather O'Brien was killed April 19 as she drove along a highway in Debert, N.S. Last week, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey, a former RCMP officer, confirmed the province has authority to conduct a public inquiry -- but he, too, stressed that it makes more sense for Ottawa to do the job.
"This is a matter of both federal and provincial responsibility, and the province is working with the federal government to take action and move this forward together. We believe this joint approach will yield the best results."In 1993, Justice Horace Krever started a four-year joint inquiry that investigated how thousands of Canadians received transfusions of blood and blood products infected with HIV and hepatitis C.
"When governments call a public inquiry and they have broad terms of reference, they leave themselves very exposed to criticism," Ratushny said in a recent interview. "Governments in general, and this provincial government in particular, are reluctant to establish public inquiries," said Archie Kaiser, one of the law professors at Dalhousie who has called for a public inquiry.
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