Non-disclosure Agreements and Compensation Offers for MCC Victims’ Families

Reports from Paul Palango and Jordan Bonaparte this week suggest that victims’ families are being told to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s) regarding sensitive or damaging information, and are being offered substantial settlements from the RCMP. In this video, I discuss what that might mean for the upcoming Mass Casualty Commission (MCC) hearings. The NDA’s (or confidentiality agreements, as the MCC calls them) purportedly relate to information that will not be included in the Foundational Documents, which are supposed to be a summary of what happened, and are being developed now with all parties participating in closed-door sessions. It may make sense to have temporary confidentiality agreements that would be in effect until the hearings start, but that is not what the leaked documents suggest is the case. Compensation for victims’ families may be appropriate, but if it requires the parties to keep information confidential that would otherwise be exposed publicly during the MCC hearings, then the public will be shortchanged. The families are meant to be something of a proxy for the public interest during the hearings, but if their own interests conflict with the public interest when it comes to disclosure of information, this would not be a promising scenario for the MCC Commissioners, or the viewing public.