LIVE SOON: Did the RCMP cover up details of a massacre?
Author Paul Palango joins Jen Gerson to discuss his latest book on the 2020 Nova Scotia massacre.
Hello, friends. We’re splitting On The Line’s releases into audio and video. Videos are now in the late afternoon/evenings, and you can check ‘em out in all our usual places. (Audio options can all be found here, as ever.)
In this episode of On The Line, Jen Gerson speaks with veteran journalist and author Paul Palango about the 2020 Nova Scotia massacre — the worst mass shooting in Canadian history.
Palango, author of 22 Murders and the new follow-up Anatomy of a Cover-Up, lays out allegations that go far beyond RCMP missteps. He argues that Gabriel Wortman may have been a confidential informant — or even an agent — and that the RCMP went to disturbing lengths to suppress key facts, mislead the public, and cover for systemic failures.
This is a hard and deeply complicated conversation about institutional trust, accountability, and the power of journalism in the face of silence.
Join the queue now! Video goes live on YouTube in 30 minutes, at 7:00 Eastern and 5:00 Mountain.
You can also watch this episode of On The Line, and all our podcast releases, on our Twitter feeds: Matt’s is here. The Line’s is here. Jen is here.
On The Line wouldn’t be possible without our sponsors.
This episode of On The Line is brought to you by Airbnb.
Everyone agrees that Canada needs to take real action to tackle the housing crisis, but only a few people argue that short-term rentals like Airbnb are part of that solution. Countless experts have argued that short term rental regulation is nothing more than a distraction, with the Harvard Business Review recently saying that “Put simply, restricting Airbnb is not going to be an effective tool for solving the housing-affordability problems.” This makes sense when you consider two key statistics: Canada needs 5.8 million homes to reach affordability by 2030, and Airbnb’s account for only 0.6% of Canada’s overall housing stock. The closer you look the clearer it gets that Canada needs bold action that addresses the entire housing market, not just 0.6% of it. Learn more at Airbnb.ca/closerlook.
And:
This episode of On The Line is also brought to you by the Métis Nation of Ontario.
It's Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, 1849. Before court cases and commissions, before Canada was Canada, Métis communities in the Upper Great Lakes wrote petitions. Métis men signed their names beneath a statement to the Crown. They wrote to protect their rights, and their identity. They wrote because they would not be ignored. They were hunters, trappers, fishermen, voyageurs, and War of 1812 veterans. Like their cousins in Red River, who’d petition and resist inthe decades that followed, the Métis in the Upper Great Lakes knew how to use the tools of diplomacy.
To the West, in Batoche, St. Albert, and the Red River, Métis leaders like Louis Riel also wrote to be heard. They too signed their names with pride and called on governments to honour promises. This was how the Métis asserted themselves, again and again, from the Upper Great Lakes to the Rockies.
The Métis built Canada’s first economy, and willand never stop reminding the Crown of its promises.Learn more at OntarioMétisFacts.com.
We love you, sponsors!
And we love you, our viewers. Be sure to follow us on all of our platforms, including our new ones — those will also be used for video broadcasting just as soon as we can jump through all the hurdles.
The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work, have already subscribed, and still worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today.
The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Please follow us on social media! Facebook x 2: On The Line Podcast here, and The Line Podcast here. Instagram. Also: TikTok. BlueSky. LinkedIn. Matt’s Twitter. The Line’s Twitter.Jen’s Twitter. Contact us by email: lineeditor@protonmail.com.
That was a fantastic interview with Paul Palango. Thank you for giving him and the Portapique story the platform they deserve. Nice to see not all media have lost their instincts (your crime-reporting background shows, Jen). I read 22 Murders, visited Portapique recently, and am now halfway through Anatomy of a Cover-up. I agree with others here: Palango should get the Order of Canada.
Followed Paul's reporting on this going back to the early days right after the massacre. That and the inquiries that came after firmly cemented the idea, for me anyways, that reform of the RCMP was needed. Although I don't know enough to say one way or the other whether Paul's reporting is accurate, in broad strokes it seems plausible, while it can have a sheer of conspiracy around it.
But in a sense, that is likely enough to get people to realize that the RCMP is in need of some type of reform, probably in line with what Trudeau released in one of his last days in office, "A New Policing Vision for Canada: Modernizing the RCMP," which I think most informed observers would recognize as not only being the right path forward for RCMP reform, but has also just the latest in a series of white papers and other documents that call for it.
For those that might bristle at credit for something Trudeau has done, you can see the same or similar criticisms laid out by Liberal and Conservative governments when it comes to this issue.
It's an interesting problem, where it is one of the few policy challenges in Canada that has a somewhat bipartisan agreement on what the solution is, but for whatever reason has failed to materialize into anything. I hope that reporting like Paul's can help keep the discussion in the public debate.