The final day of Mass Casualty Commission proceedings before a three week break featured some revelations, expressions of regret, and careful answers from Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, who was the second ranking RCMP officer in Nova Scotia at the time of the events of the April 18-19, 2020 mass shooting. These all emerged from cross examination by lawyers for the family participants, though I noticed that in her introduction to the day, Commissioner Fitch did not say the words “cross examination” but rather stated that MCC lawyer Rachel Young would facilitate questions from participants’ counsel. Nothing really turned on that characterization, but it is another subtle example of participants’ lawyers being marginalized by the MCC. All Ms. Young was called upon to do was state the order in which the other lawyers would be speaking, and rough time estimates for them to do so. Michael Scott from Patterson Law was the first lawyer to question C/Sup. Leather. He started by picking up on a comment that C/Sup. Leather made yesterday that he did not want to answer a question without speaking to legal counsel. It seemed yesterday that Ms. Young should have followed up on that statement, but she did not. Today, C/Sup. Leather was prepared to speak further, and it was a significant exchange. Perhaps most striking from C/Sup. Leather’s testimony was his refusal to agree that, if the same circumstances happened today, an emergency alert would be issued. Leather vacillated on his answer, and would only go so far as to say that it would be something for the Critical Incident Commander to consider. I suspect C/Sup. Leather was conscious of the civil case against the RCMP when he gave this answer. If he were to explicitly say that an alert would definitely be issued, that would be used against the RCMP in the class action by the families to show that the RCMP’s response to the mass casualty events fell below the expected standard.