Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday paid tribute to the victims killed in Tuesday’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., and urged survivors and the community reeling from tragedy to persevere during a community vigil with federal and provincial leaders.
“I know that nothing I can say will bring your children home,” he told a crowd of hundreds as family members of the victims stood behind him. “I know that no words from me, or anyone, can fill the silence in your homes tonight. I won’t pretend otherwise.
“But I and the leaders of all the federal parties wanted you to hear — not from Ottawa, not through a screen — but standing together here in your town, we wanted you to hear that Canadians are with you. We will always be with you.”
Carney travelled to the small northeastern mining town along with Gov. Gen. Mary Simon and the leaders of the federal opposition parties to mark one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.Eight people were killed, including five children and an educator at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, whose names Carney read out and shared stories about. He offered prayers for Jennifer and Emmett Jacobs, the mother and stepbrother of the shooter who were also killed, as well as the two young victims still recovering at BC Children’s Hospital.
The prime minister later tied the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge to the 1989 mass shooting at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, and noted that one of the women wounded that day, Nathalie Provost, went on to become an advocate and engineer and is now an MP in the House of Commons.
“I share her story not because healing is simple. It’s not,” he said. “Not because there is a timeline for your grief — there isn’t.
“But Nathalie Provost is proof — living, breathing proof — that it is possible to endure the unendurable. That the horror of what happened doesn’t have to be the end of what’s to come.”
Premier vows ‘safe place’ for school
B.C. Premier David Eby spoke in detail about the frightening events of Tuesday’s shooting at the high school, sharing the story of a teacher who made the decision to lock his son, who was in the washroom, outside of his classroom during a lockdown.
Eby praised the bravery of that teacher and his son, as well as the students in that class for taking care of two younger kids who had been pulled into the room.
“I hope I’m never called on to do what they had to do,” he said. “But having spent a couple days here now in Tumbler Ridge, I can tell you that what they did is is emblematic of this town.
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