We will provide a safe place for you to go to school
In the mountain town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, the building where nine people were killed in a February mass shooting will be torn down and rebuilt elsewhere — a decision reached not by decree, but by listening. Survivors, families, and community members spoke with one voice: they could not return to that place. Governments at both the provincial and federal level have pledged to fund the new school, understanding that healing sometimes requires not restoration, but renewal.
- Nine people were killed and dozens wounded when an eighteen-year-old former student opened fire at Tumbler Ridge secondary school in February — one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history.
- The school has sat closed ever since, with students attending makeshift classes in portable units on the same grounds, suspended in a painful in-between.
- When the school board consulted survivors, families, and community members, the response was overwhelming and unambiguous: no one could walk back through those doors.
- Premier David Eby, who had promised at a community vigil that students would never be forced to return, confirmed Thursday that demolition will begin this summer.
- A new school will be constructed in a different part of town, with both provincial and federal governments committed to funding its rapid completion as an act of collective healing.
The brick building where nine people died in February will not stand much longer. Tumbler Ridge secondary school, in a remote corner of British Columbia, is to be demolished, and a new one will rise in a different part of the mountain town. The decision followed consultations in which the school board asked survivors, families, and community members what should come next. The answer was unanimous: they could not go back.
In February, eighteen-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a former student, opened fire at the school. Six people died inside. Two more — his sibling and his mother — were found dead at a nearby residence. Dozens were wounded. The shooter died from a self-inflicted injury. The attack left the country shaken.
In the days that followed, Premier David Eby stood at a community vigil and made a promise: the young people of Tumbler Ridge would not have to return to that building. On Thursday, he confirmed he was keeping it. The school board had heard "overwhelmingly" that students, educators, and staff wanted a new location. There was no ambiguity.
Demolition will begin over the summer. The replacement school will be built elsewhere in town — what Eby described as "a safe, comfortable and healing place to return to school." The federal government, whose prime minister visited Tumbler Ridge alongside Eby and the local mayor, has also pledged funding. The new building will be more than a structure. It will be a statement that what happened there does not have to define what comes next.
The low-slung brick building where nine people died in February will not stand much longer. Tumbler Ridge secondary school, in a remote corner of British Columbia, is being demolished. A new one will rise elsewhere in the mountain town. The decision came after the school board sat down with survivors, their families, and community members to ask what came next. The answer was unanimous: they could not return to that place.
On a February school day, Jesse Van Rootselaar, eighteen years old and a former student, opened fire. Six people died inside the building. Two more—his sibling and his mother—were found dead at a residence connected to him. Dozens were wounded. The shooter died from a self-inflicted injury. It was one of Canada's deadliest mass shootings, and it left the country reeling.
Days after the attack, British Columbia Premier David Eby stood at a community vigil and made a promise. The young people of Tumbler Ridge would not have to walk back into that building. "We will provide a safe place for you to go to school," he said, with political leaders from across the country standing beside him. Now he was making good on it. "We want to make sure we're doing things right by the survivors, by the families, by the people of Tumbler Ridge," Eby told reporters on Thursday. The school board had heard "overwhelmingly" that students, educators, and staff wanted to move to a new location. There was no ambiguity in that message.
The school has been closed since the shooting, though some students have been attending classes in portable classrooms set up on the grounds—a temporary measure, a holding pattern. Demolition will begin over the summer. Construction of the replacement will happen in a different part of town, in what Eby called "a safe, comfortable and healing place to return to school." The province is committed to building it as quickly as possible, he said. The federal government has also pledged support. When the prime minister visited Tumbler Ridge alongside Eby and the mayor, he committed to helping fund the project. That commitment has been confirmed.
Eby spoke of the community's "heroism," "courage," and "resilience" in the months since the shooting. Those words carry weight in a place where the ordinary rhythms of school life were shattered in an instant. The new building will be more than a structure. It will be a statement that what happened there does not define what comes next. The kids of Tumbler Ridge will have somewhere new to learn, to grow, to heal. The old place will be gone.
Citações Notáveis
We want to make sure we're doing things right by the survivors, by the families, by the people of Tumbler Ridge.— Premier David Eby
The students, the educators, the staff and others wanted to move to a new location.— Premier David Eby, describing community feedback
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why demolish the building rather than renovate it, or keep it as a memorial?
Because the survivors and families said they couldn't go back there. That's the core of it. You can't ask traumatized students to walk those same hallways every day.
Did anyone argue for keeping it?
Not in the meetings that mattered. The school board heard overwhelming support for relocation. When you ask people who lived through something like that what they need, you listen.
What happens to the site once it's torn down?
The source doesn't say. That's an open question for the community to decide later.
How long will the new school take to build?
Eby said they're committed to building it "as quickly as possible," but he didn't give a timeline. Both the province and federal government are funding it, which should help move things along.
Are students still in those portable classrooms?
Yes, for now. That's been the temporary solution since the school closed. The new building will be a real return to something normal—or as close as they can get.
What did Eby mean by calling them heroic?
He was acknowledging that a community shattered by violence is still functioning, still showing up, still moving forward. That takes something.