Rosemary:

The Prime Minister of Canada with his daily briefing, daily update on his government’s approach to fighting the pandemic. I’ll bring in the cbc’s David Cochrane. a couple of points I would make, David, from listening to the Prime Minister. There is no one, not any party that is asking for all MPs to return tomorrow. So, that just in case people got that impression. and there is nothing that would require all 338 M.P.s to come to ottawa tomorrow. They could continue to do their parliamentary work in their ridings if they chose not to come. But further to that, as they were speaking, the n. D.p. Made clear that no matter what happens tomorrow there will only be three of the M.P.s here tomorrow. I don’t want people to go away with the impression that they will suddenly, if there is no deal, be 338 M.P.s in the house of commons. That’s the image that he left with people and that is the wrong impression.

Reporter:

They are saying that conservatives are not taking a responsible approach wanting a minimum of three in-person sitings a week. So they can have question period as much as they want during this pandemic, wanting to hold the government to account for the actions it’s take or not taking. The greens wanting to go completely virtual and the liberals and the n. D.p. Having an agreement to do one day in-person and then two days virtual. No. There is no requirement for all 338 to come back and nobody necessarily wants that. Absent an agreement, it is possible that an undetermined number of MPs could come back to parliament and insist on taking their seat. There was some unpredictability even when there was an agreement tos pa it a several weeks ago. Scott reid showed up to protest what was being done. So negotiations are continuing with public pronouncements being made by political leaders t. Conservatives essentially saying trudeau is not taking the accountable approach and if he can take questions from reporters every day and ministers can hold press conferences every day sitting next to Dr. Tam and Dr. Njoo, why can’t they go down the hall into the house of commons and give some answers to the dully-elected members of the house of commons. There is no consensus on this. The bulk of the parties, which is the majority of the MPs, think that the conservatives are asking for too much. and the conservatives saying the government giving too little.

Rosemary:

Ok. Thank you for your help with your coverage. I appreciate that. and we’ll have an update on whether they’ll return in some way by the end of the day. Let’s go to our breaking news in Nova Scotia. Because the Prime Minister also talked about that. Saying that thanks people in the area and police for following instructions saying that the suspect in an active shooter investigation is in custody. We’re told there are multiple victims. Shaina luck is live in great village, not far from where the events unfolded. What can you tell us?

Reporter:

The shooter has been identified by the RCMP as 51-year-old – excuse me – his last name is and it has been such a – gunman wortman – it’s scaped me fromm. It began last night in Portapique, probably about 10 – excuse me – it’s about 10 minutes up the road from where I’m standing. I’m standing in great village right now. Portapique is not too far away. It began last night around 11:30. With some kind of violent incident causing multiple victims. We don’t know yet whether those victims are dead or whether they’re injured. We don’t know how many of them, whether multiple victims means two or more. We do know that probably about an hour ago, maybe a little more than that, was apprehended by the RCMP on highway 102. He was heading toward halifax in dartmouth. I can tell you a little bit more about now. We know that he is a denturist. The RCMP at one point said he might have access to a replica or some car that looked like an RCMP car or RCMP uniform but they were very clear he does not work for the RCMP. We know that he is a denturist. We know that he owns multiple properties around Nova Scotia. Including several properties in Portapique. gunman has a business in dartmouth, a denturist business. So, we can tell you that, you know, he is – we’ve been speaking over the phone with people in the community who tell us that he was fairly well known within Portapique. Some people are saying that he was well-liked. So this is certainly an unfolding incident and we expect to get more from the RCMP this afternoon.

Rosemary:

Do we have a time for that yet? any sense when that might happen?

Reporter:

No, we don’t know yet. The RCMP has been giving us information all morning. They’ve been using Twitter to get that out there and there is a press conference coming but no timeline on that as of yet.

Rosemary:

I appreciate the new detheys you found out about the suspect, gunman and a gentleman earlier said he heard fires and propane blowing, maybe propane attached to the homes. But didn’t really have a sense of how things were unfolding. I just want to reiterate that point, though, about the RCMP vehicle and potentially uniform. Because at one point the suspect did change cars. Can you just tell people what we know about that car?

Reporter:

We know that the RCMP used Twitter, as I’ve been saying, they’ve been using that a lot. The suspect was traveling in an RCMP – what looked like an RCMP vehicle and what looked like an RCMP uniform. We don’t know too much about how he got those items or where exactly they came from, whether they were legitimate items or not. But he was traveling in an RCMP vehicle and then shortly after that, the RCMP told us that he had switched to a silver s. U.v. Chevy tracker. We believe that’s how it played out.

Rosemary:

Thank you very much for your reporting. We’ll keep coming to you through the day for more details. We’ll end now our special coverage of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but we’ll continue to track the breaking news out of Nova Scotia. The suspect now in custody. I’m rosemary Barton. Michael serapio picks up our coverage on CBC news network. Thank you for watching. ? [please stand by]