Canada’s Carney, opposition leader hold hands during school shooting vigil
School shootings are rare in Canada, and the government has responded to previous mass shootings with strict gun control measures.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s main opposition leader held hands Friday as they paid tribute to the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history at a vigil in a devastated British Columbia town.
Carney and Pierre Poilievre, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, joined hands as an Indigenous leader sang a prayer outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge.
Carney and Poilievre also spoke. The Prime Minister named each of the six people killed at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and said the mother and brother of the shooter who were killed also “deserve to be mourned”.
Authorities said the 18-year-old alleged shooter, identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old stepbrother, Emmett Jacobs, in their home on Tuesday before heading to the nearby Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire, killing five children and an educator before killing herself.
Carney said he sat with people who are “living through something no one should ever have to endure”.
“When you wake up tomorrow, and the world feels impossible, know that millions of Canadians are with you. When the cameras leave and the quiet sets in – know that we will still be here,” Carney said.