**This Wasn’t “Somewhere Else.” It Was One of Ours.**

A tiny B.C. town. A school library. Kids who should’ve been worrying about math tests... not gunshots.

Tumbler Ridge

If you blink while driving through Tumbler Ridge, you might miss it.

Two thousand-ish people.
Mountains. Trees. Pickup trucks.
The kind of place where doors stay unlocked and everybody waves.

Not exactly the setting you picture when you hear the words mass shooting.

That’s supposed to be an American headline.

Not ours.

And yet here we are.

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What happened (plain English)

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an 18-year-old suspect…

• killed two family members at home
• went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School
• opened fire inside the school
• then died by suicide

An educator and five kids… kids… were killed inside the school, most found in the library.

Twelve and thirteen years old.

Grade-seven problems.

Locker combinations.

First crushes.

That’s who we’re talking about.

Not statistics.

Children.

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This is what people forget about small towns

In a big city, tragedy is numbers.

In a place like Tumbler Ridge?

It’s names.

It’s…

“that was my neighbour’s daughter”
“my cousin’s kid”
“my buddy’s wife taught there”

Everybody knows somebody.

Which means everybody hurts.

There’s no emotional distance.

Just a ripple that hits every house on the block.

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And for those of us here in B.C. …

I live on Vancouver Island.

Different side of the province.

Hours away.

But it doesn’t feel far.

Because this isn’t Toronto.
It isn’t New York.
It isn’t “over there.”

It’s British Columbia.

It’s home.

Same mountains.
Same small towns.
Same kind of school our own grandkids walk into every morning.

That’s why this one crawls under your skin.

You don’t read it.

You picture it.

And you don’t like what you see.

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Candlelight, not politics

Last night people gathered with candles.

Not to argue.

Not to score points.

Just to stand together and grieve.

That’s the part that still feels Canadian to me.

When something breaks, we don’t yell first.

We show up first.

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My take (no spin)

I’m not going to turn this into a gun debate or a culture war rant.

Not today.

Today is for…

• the families
• the teachers
• the kids who have to walk back into that building someday
• and a town that will never feel quite the same again

Sometimes the only honest thing to say is…

This is awful.
It shouldn’t happen here.
And my heart hurts for them.

Full stop.

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The Gut Punch…

When tragedy hits a small town, it doesn’t make headlines.
It makes empty chairs.

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The Recap…

A tiny B.C. town most Canadians have never heard of just lost children in one of the worst school shootings in our history.

Not the U.S.
Not “somewhere else.”

Ours.

This one hurts close to home.