As schools process Tumbler Ridge shooting, officials say safety protocols need ongoing attention

school day refuge protocols, threat assessments and how schools groom for wild interloper emergencies are under a renewed spotlight as Canada grapples with Tuesday’s devastating mass shooting in the northeastern B.C. Community of Tumbler Ridge.

Nine people, including the suspect, were killed and 27 more injured in one of the deadliest school shootings in Canadian history. Police said they found the suspect dead inside the high school from "a self-inflicted injury."

In jurisdictions across Canada, most ministries of education have mandated emergency training and drills schools must undertake "at least twice a year, if not more, in order to ensure that there is a degree of preparedness on the part of staff and students," said Alan Campbell, president of the Canadian School Boards Association and a school trustee in Manitoba.

In addition to provincial and territorial safe schools legislation and regulations, there are often further school-based emergency response and preparedness requirements that vary across the country, he said.

Boards help individual schools put safety plans and training into operation and track their compliance, which is reported to provincial regulators.

Schools turn to provincial or territorial guidance for their plans, training and professional development on school safety, emergency response and active-shooter preparedness, Campbell said. They may also incorporate resources from other sources, including local police, the RCMP and private contractors.

Campbell, who grew up in rural Manitoba and still lives in a small residential community north of Winnipeg, said that in general, schools in rural, remote or northern areas may face challenges accessing the same resources as their metropolitan peers.

For instance, some might struggle to access resources or professional development sessions "to ensure that lockdown drills and training is happening in the same way that it would happen in an urban school community," he said.

Tumbler Ridge student, mother describe school lockdown during mass shooting

In Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday, police were on scene within minutes of a report of an active shooter at the high school, the RCMP said.

Campbell noted, however, that emergency response in other rural or remote communities can sometimes be delayed, which might mean limited access to emergency medical care or police forces stretched thin.

"A common conversation in all of rural Canada in 2026 is the fact that there are far less RCMP detachments in rural Canadian communities than there were even five years ago or 10 years ago," he said.

"You have, just by default, longer wait times, longer response times by virtue of the fact that you no longer have that local RCMP officer in a local detachment."

Schools in smaller or isolated communities can indeed face unique challenges in emergency planning, said Balan Moorthy, superintendent of B.C. School District 78, which covers schools in the eastern Fraser Valley and has endured extreme flooding in 2021 and again this past December.

However, he thinks strong school district-level support and collaboration with community partners can help administrators and educators in remote areas develop tailored plans and protocols. That can also mean schools providing links to mental health support and counselling after an emergency.

"Sometimes there are events that happen in communities that are very isolated, so we work very closely with the principal of that community around decision-making should there be any tragic events or violent intruder events, threats or weather-dependent emergencies," said Moorthy.

"You can make individual decisions partly because we are smaller and we are a little more rural ... [You can] treat each of those situations, and sometimes even individual schools, a little bit independently, based on what's happening in their particular region."

Moorthy told all staff about the Tumbler Ridge shooting late Tuesday night, then started Wednesday by reaching out to colleagues he knew in Tumbler Ridge and sending a note to families across his district.

Having spent more than two decades as a school administrator, Moorthy understands how lockdown drills or updating staff training on emergency protocols might slip down an admin's priority list given the reality of what principals and vice-principals juggle daily.

"We can never train enough. We can never review our protocols and procedures enough. And sadly, it's events like [Tuesday's shooting] that amplify it even more," he said.

Moorthy expects school officials across Canada will be paying more attention to staff training on violent threat assessments, reflect on their responses to violent intruders and re-examine lockdown, hold-and-secure and other general emergency policies and procedures in the weeks to come.

Campbell pointed to a late November incident, in which police detained a registered sex offender after he entered a Winnipeg school washroom and accosted an elementary student, a case that had already reignited conversations across Manitoba about school safety and access protocols.

The tragic events in Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday reiterate the importance of continued attention to public school safety nationwide, he said.

"As school boards and with our provincial and territorial partners [with whom] we co-govern public education across this country, it needs to be more of a proactive conversation as opposed to reactive."

Senior Digital Writer

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