In Portapique, if a stranger threatened to kill your spouse, you’d probably call the Mounties - but what if it was a neighbour who made the threats ?

Would The-Gabriel-Wortman-Rampage had ended peacefully in 2002, not long after a beach bonfire party, if only Nova Scotians weren’t so - damn - neighbourly ?

That’s a question I very much hope a Public Inquiry will ask - and a question I very much hope Nova Scotians - all of us - truthfully struggle to answer.

And its not a question that Nova Scotia’s professional media (will-report-for-money) will ever ask : because “suck up to your paying customers if you want to continue to be paid” is the only professional journalistic ethic that ever really existed.


This is why that I, like George Orwell, put more faith in the pamphleteers....

PS : And before we start pointing our fingers at Gabriel’s family, remember - to their credit - when Gabe threatened their lives with his gun collection, they DID call the Mounties.

What the Mounties did next will be the subject of a Public Inquiry - but at least they did call the cops...