Carney, other leaders to mourn victims at site of Canada mass shooting
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Students embrace next to a makeshift memorial for the victims after a mass shooting took place at a school, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada.
PHOTO: REUTERS
OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and opposition leaders will attend a vigil on Feb 13 in the remote British Columbia town of Tumbler Ridge, where nine people died in one of the country’s worst mass shootings
Mr Carney, a Liberal, will be joined by Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre and Mr Yves-Francois Blanchet, the head of the third-largest party, the Bloc Quebecois, as they set aside their differences to mourn the eight victims of the Feb 10 shooting.
Governor General Mary Simon, the personal representative of King Charles, Canada’s head of state, will also be at the vigil, which will begin at 6.15pm local time.
Police say 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who had suffered mental health problems
Van Rootselaar, who police say was born a male but began identifying as a woman six years ago, then died by suicide.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Feb 11 they had at one point seized guns from the house where Van Rootselaar was living but returned them after the owner, who they did not identify, successfully appealed the decision.
The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a pro-gun lobby group, questioned why weapons had been returned to a house where a person with mental illness was living.
“The firearms were seized out of that home for good reason, if you look down the list of the warning signs... the perpetrator should not have had access to firearms,” the group’s chief executive officer Rod Giltaca told CTV News.
“So my question for the RCMP is – how did they get guns in their proximity?“
The mass shooting was one of the worst in Canadian history. The deadliest took place in April 2020 when a 51-year-old man killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, before the police shot him dead.
Few townspeople wanted to speak to media on Feb 12 and British Columbia police said families and friends of the victims had requested privacy.
The police named the school victims as Abel Mwansa, 12; Ezekiel Schofield, 13; Kylie Smith, 12; Zoey Benoit, 12; Ticaria Lampert, 12; as well as teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39.
Lampert’s mother Sarah, speaking to reporters on Feb 12, described her daughter as a “blazing light in the darkness... (who) just wanted to bring sunshine to everyone and everything she ever touched.” REUTERS
