It was an active shooter situation that would become the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. And somebody, somewhere, did not issue an emergency alert.

By the time the Mounties investigating last weekend’s mass shooting in Nova Scotia were prompted by the province to use a widespread mobile and television emergency alert system, more than 20 people had died. The shooter would be killed by police before such an alert went out.

Now, the families of victims and members of the public are asking whether an earlier universal warning could have saved lives. Emergency communications experts have suggested that stronger protocols for such an alert system would result in faster communications.

“In a perfect world, if all things were working together, (an emergency alert) would naturally go out to save lives,” said Terry Flynn, an expert in risk communications at McMaster University.

“Someone in the RCMP was uncertain what to do.”

Nick Beaton, husband of shooting victim Kristen Beaton, told reporters he believes his wife could be alive today if an alert had been issued. He had been communicating with her via text shortly before her death.

Sunday morning, after the Nova Scotia RCMP tweeted that there was an active shooter in a rural area, an alert was, in fact, sent via email. But it wasn’t sent to all Nova Scotians.

That email, issued by the U.S. consulate in Halifax, warned American citizens in the area registered with the consulate to stay inside and lock their doors.

“It is our protocol — when emergencies occur — to alert U.S. citizens in the area to the situation,” said spokesperson Marcia Seitz-Ehler.

The consulate drew information about the shooter from Twitter — specifically the Nova Scotia RCMP account where updates about the rampage were posted Saturday night and Sunday morning — until the killer was shot dead by police.

The Mounties have been roundly criticized for relying on Twitter to get the message out.

Just one week before the shooting, the province had used the emergency alert system to warn residents about COVID-19, sending a message to mobile phones and televisions about the threat of the virus and the need to stay home.

At a news conference Wednesday, RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather said police received a 911 call about a firearms incident in Portapique, N.S., at 10:26 p.m. Saturday. They soon determined there had been a homicide, but did not realize the suspect had left the area they were searching until 8:02 the next morning, he said.

He said the Emergency Management Office contacted the RCMP at 10:15 a.m. to ask about sending an emergency message, and police were crafting such a message when the suspect was killed about an hour and a half later.

“The original call to the RCMP was to one of our members here at HQ and then there were a series of phone calls that had to be made to find the officer in charge,” Leather said. “So a lot of the delay was based on communications between the (Emergency Management Office) and the various officers and then a discussion about what the message would be, how it would be constructed, and what it would say.”

As those conversations were happening, the suspect was shot and killed by RCMP officers at a gas station in Enfield, making the alert unnecessary.

Public Safety Canada confirmed to the Star that it does not have a national protocol for when to release emergency alerts — those questions are determined by local and provincial authorities. In this case, since the RCMP was operating as contract policing for the province, it was Nova Scotia that was responsible for making the call.

Flynn said the “unprecedented” nature of the mass shooting likely contributed to the delay in sending out an alert.

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In Canada, the system used to disseminate emergency alerts is owned by Pelmorex, the same company that operates the Weather Network.

It makes sense, Flynn said, because most of the time an alert is issued, it’s related to weather. And meteorologists have reliable metrics and criteria to follow, advising when alerts should be issued, how far they extend and what they should say.

In the case of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, things weren’t so clear.

“This was so abhorrent and deviant that it’s hard for us to process that information,” he said. “You can imagine trying to lead that response with the movement that’s happening.”

It made sense to Flynn that the American consulate would have a readily-available protocol for issuing alerts about active shooters, since gun violence is more common in the U.S. than it is in Canada.

“We’ve never experienced this before, we don’t have a playbook,” Flynn said. “The key for us now is how can we analyze the decision making again in order to make sure no one else has to go through this.”

There are several issues the RCMP should re-evaluate with respect to emergency alerts in the aftermath of this tragedy, Flynn said.

One is defining specific criteria for when an emergency alert is issued, and another is determining who has the authority to send such an alert.

“We have this system now where it has to be the Emergency Management Office in each of the provinces (that receives the alert) and then it goes out,” Flynn said. “There is an unnecessary check in the system that can delay the release of this information.”

Public Safety Canada, which oversees the RCMP with respect to emergency alerts, did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

With files from The Canadian Press

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