RCMP say they have a handle on internal communication troubles that plagued them during N.S. mass shootings

Mounties say they’ve worked out a way to track each other in the field — an issue that gave them trouble during the mass shootings of April 2020 that left 22 Nova Scotians dead.

The mass shooting inquiry heard that Emergency Response Team members searching for Gabriel Wortman — the Dartmouth denturist who carried out the killings — could not track each other during the manhunt.

That left them operating “blind,” without the technological advances they had been accustomed to using, according to Cpl. Trent Milton, an ERT member who testified at the inquiry.

The public inquiry into the killings heard Emergency Response Team members had a GPS-locating system called Team Awareness Kit (TAK) enabled on their phones before the shootings, but in April 2020 the encryption keys on the devices had expired and had been sent to Ottawa to be rekeyed.

The lack of GPS data available meant Emergency Response Team members were unable to determine or remain aware of the locations and movements of their colleagues.

Rolled out in March

Nova Scotia RCMP rolled out a system known as Blue Force Tracking to all its frontline members across the province in March 2023.

“(Blue Force Tracking) is a software-based tool that provides enhanced situational awareness, including real-time geolocation of RCMP officers during normal operational duties, as well as critical incidents. RCMP officers in the field can view real-time geolocation of other on-duty RCMP officers and supervisors, and critical incident commanders and senior leaders can also see the same information at a command or operational centre,” Robin Percival, who speaks for the Mounties nationally, said in a recent email.

Before the mass shootings in Nova Scotia, “the RCMP was concept testing” the system, Percival said.

“In April 2020 there was a gap between this concept testing phase and the pilot phase (using existing RCMP-issued mobile devices) which meant that the RCMP Emergency Response Teams in Nova Scotia did not have continuous use of TAK between February and April 2020.”

RCMP emergency response teams across Canada have been using it since the year after the mass shootings in Nova Scotia.

Training completed next month

“All RCMP regular members across Canada now have access to (Blue Force Tracking), and training is ongoing and expected to be completed by December 2023. Some RCMP divisions continue to use a similar but equally effective version of TAK as a situational awareness tool. Work continues on aligning these divisional programs with the national BFT implementation.”

Nova Scotia Mounties wanted to be first in line for the system that allows them to find each other in the dark, even before the national rollout.

“The division was granted 250 associated software licences to facilitate the immediate use of TAK in advance of the national BFT rollout,” Percival said.

“At the time the division had 32 licences deployed within their critical incident package (Emergency Response Team, Police Dog Services, etc.). Training was provided to all the above-noted members on the use of TAK/BFT.”

The rollout to the remainder of the division began in April and was completed this past June, she said.

Frontline officers must use tracking 

“During that time, divisional policy was published, mandating that all frontline RCMP members use BFT while on shift. BFT is currently deployed to all frontline RCMP officers in the province and on all supervisor workstations. As of Nov. 17, 2023, 972 ‘H’ Division members have been onboarded to BFT.”

The RCMP’s “end-state BFT program has now been configured and made available without any software licensing restrictions. BFT will now be one of the RCMP’s regular suite of situational awareness tools going forward.”

The RCMP also experienced radio problems during the killings that started in Portapique on the night of April 18, 2020.

Radio experts spoke at length during the public inquiry about the need to develop the “muscle memory” to control the devices properly.

Mounties have since ramped up training to avoid issues identified by the public inquiry into the mass murders, including radio system “bonging” out with heavy usage, radio traffic and channel capacity issues, difficulties patching or transferring information from one channel to another, and the limitation of use in rural areas.

‘Only a user’

At first, Nova Scotia Mounties didn’t want to talk about radio troubles.

“With regard to your question about the radio system, the system is managed and maintained by Nova Scotia Public Safety and Field Communications, so please reach out to them,” Cpl. Chris Marshall, who speaks for the Nova Scotia RCMP, said in an email earlier this month responding to questions about whether the problems identified by the Mass Casualty Commission had been fixed.

“The RCMP is only a user of the radio system.”

But the province wasn’t wearing that one on its own.

“At the Mass Casualty Commission, our staff explained that these particular issues during the mass casualty event were not caused by system capacity issues but issues around proper training and usage,” Geoff Tobin, who speaks for Service Nova Scotia, said in an email.

“Our staff presented to the RCMP on May 10, 2023 to explain the (Trunk Mobile Radio) system and how our staff could help during a major incident. We work with RCMP trainers to help them ensure their staff have the information they need. We are always happy to support the RCMP with their use of our service.”

Closing remaining gaps 

Tobin pointed out that the province announced in October that it is spending $47.3 million on a program aimed at improving telecommunications infrastructure and communications networks.

The first phase is supposed to improve cell coverage in the short term using existing infrastructure.

The second phase — aimed at closing remaining gaps in coverage with new infrastructure — will involve spending $3.3 million to build four new trunked mobile radio towers to expand radio coverage for first responders in West Bay Road/Marble Mountain and Pleasant Bay in Inverness County; Framboise, Richmond County; and Greenfield, Queens County.

“The province has just announced four new cell towers, which will ultimately improve both cell coverage and TMR coverage overall,” Tobin said.

Three of the new towers will be built by the end of 2024, and the tower in Pleasant Bay is slated for construction in mid-2025, said RCMP Cpl. Guillame Tremblay.

Training ‘overhauled’ and increased

In a written statement, Tremblay elaborated on how training for officers using trunked mobile radios — the system known as TMR2 run by Bell Aliant — has changed in the province for Mounties in the years since the mass murders.

“In addition to radio training that was already in place prior to April 2020, including mandatory online and in-class training for members, the RCMP in Nova Scotia incorporated TMR2 radio training into mandatory annual training for all members, conducts quarterly TMR2 radio training sessions and introduced virtual training sessions via MS Teams to enable easier access,” said Tremblay, who speaks for the RCMP in Halifax.

“In 2023, H Division overhauled the online training module, incorporating interactive videos and knowledge-based testing, further enhancing the online training experience. The new training module is expected to go live in January 2024. The Nova Scotia RCMP has also incorporated radio use in other training for members, including training whereby members must position their hard body armour to ensure proper body coverage and that it does not interfere with any equipment, including portable radio.”

Some topics covered in the training include the “emergency request-to-talk function, effective use of shared talk groups and the design of the system, which prohibits members from transmitting while the talk group is in use — all topics mentioned in the Mass Casualty Commission proceedings,” Tremblay said.

‘Multi-agency operations’

“Additionally, the RCMP in Nova Scotia has increased training focused on interoperability. This includes implementing monthly testing of the system with all municipal police agencies, ensuring the RCMP’s Operational Communications Centre can monitor multi-agency operations involving the RCMP; quarterly TMR2 radio testing with Department of Natural Resources and Renewables air services; weekly TMR2 radio testing with all municipal police services; and weekly interoperability testing with Halifax District RCMP,” he said.

“We are continuing to work with Service Nova Scotia on strengthening training and the system overall in the province.”

Jack Rozdilsky, an expert in disaster and emergency management who teaches at York University, was pleased Wednesday to hear the RCMP has figured out a way for its officers to track each other in the field.

“That kind of seemed like low-hanging fruit,” Rozdilsky said.

‘Step in the right direction’

More radio training is also important, he said.

“Of all of the duties a law enforcement officer would have going on simultaneously, communication is one of the key operational principles in any type of response,” Rozdilsky said.

“So enhanced and increased training is a step in the right direction.”

While improving internal communication gets his approval, there’s still the issue of communicating with the public and integrating the Alert Ready System, which the Mounties failed to employ over Wortman’s 13-hour killing spree to warn folks that a murderer was on the loose dressed up like a cop and driving a realistic-looking patrol car.

“In eastern portions of Canada, more alerts are coming out,” Rozdilsky said.

“We’re still in a learning phase as to what is the appropriate amount and types of crises to use this system for. . . . A question we can ask now is where do we find the sweet spot?”

For Michael Boudreau, a criminology professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, it’s important that the RCMP continuously update their training.

‘Stick to it’

“The RCMP has a long history of not following up on key recommendations that would ultimately protect the public and their frontline officers,” Boudreau said Wednesday, pointing out that Mounties in Moncton weren’t armed with carbines when they responded to Justin Bourque’s deadly shooting rampage on June 4, 2014, even though six internal RCMP reports — all done after the 2005 murder of four Mounties in Mayerthorpe, Alta. — recommended police be armed with carbines.

That leaves Canadians having to trust that the RCMP will keep their training up on radios and GPS-locating tech, he said.

“We have to go on faith that they’ll continue to stick to it,” Boudreau said.

“What happens two years from now? We’ve seen other examples where they were supposed to have done something, didn’t do it, or did it haphazardly, and it cost lives.”

It’s also key that Mounties keep up with rapidly evolving technology, he said.

“As technology changes, they need to be updating it and then retraining officers,” Boudreau said.

“If not, we could be talking about the same thing in a year from now — they were using antiquated technology, or the officers didn’t know how to use it properly.”