Canadians like to pretend as if mass shootings are a uniquely American innovation. But that’s hardly the only half-truth or full lie they routinely believe about mass shootings. While less frequent, Canada’s first mass-casualty school shooting preceded Columbine by a decade.

This week, there was another such shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. The shooter’s mother and brother were the first victims, followed by a trip to a local school where five students aged 12 and 13 were among the next to die. Besides the fatalities, another 25 people were wounded.

Canadian police described the incident this way:

“Gun person”

Madness. Sheer madness.

And the more we cater to the narrative, the more this will happen. pic.twitter.com/sn4e2O4Odn

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 11, 2026

The deceased ‘gunperson’, he said. Even autocorrect assumed I had mistyped that, automatically replacing it with ‘unperson’. There’s a good reason for that — what that cop tried to say requires that he tortures the English language.

The cognitive dissonance of Canadian news outlets was no better.

Van Rootselaer was 18 years old at the time of the shooting.

RCMP said they “identified the suspect as they chose to be identified in public and social media,” explaining that Van Rootselaer was born biologically male.

She was a resident of Tumbler Ridge. — CTV

Even in a major Canadian news outlet, immediately after saying hewas born male, they couldn’t help but affirm a serial killer’s gender identity.

Lest anyone assume we are drawing a direct causal relationship between the gender identity and the crime, Post Millennial provided some additional background information that seems worthy of consideration.

He had more red flags than a Beijing parade.

Van Rootselaar appeared to be active on Reddit, with one post from October 2023 bearing the title “I went crazy and burnt my house down my second time trying shrooms but still have a desire to try alternatives” in the subreddit “RationalPsychonaut.”

In the post, user “jesseboy347” said that he had gotten “out of the psyche ward like a month ago” and has been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and OCD. The post stated that on the second time trying psychedelic mushrooms, he “had a complete break from reality and did a lot of irrational things.”

In another post in a subreddit dedicated to the drug DMT, he said that he was on the SSRI Sertraline 280mg, and on “rare” occasions took the antipsychotic drug Risperidone 2mg for sleep. He also said he smoked “a decent bit of weed” and “had a complete mental break on 3G of Panaeolus cyanescens shroomies.” During the “shroomies” incident, he said he had been on 50mg of the SSRI Fluxotine “and Quetiapine unsure of dosage.”
[…] In April 2023, Van Rootselaar, then 15, expressed on Reddit feeling suicidal while awaiting cross-sex hormones. “I am noticing heavy changes in my appearance every month, by the time I’m actually able to visit. I may have severe damage from Testosterone changing my body. This is extremely stressful, the wait alone makes me want to die. The uncertainty not knowing how the HRT will even effect me, not knowing if I’ll ever be me,” he wrote.

“But add onto it, the slow degradation of my body in front of my very eyes, awaiting this appointment. It really hurts, I am genuinely considering taking my own life. Is there any way, literally any way possible I can speed up this process? I’ve heard that a general practitioner in BC can technically prescribe HRT to a trans patient, but I don’t know.” — PostMillenial

A columnist cited locals posting not-yet public information relating to the killer murdering his mother and brother before moving to the school. Even before his role in the killing was known, the post indicated the boy we now know to be the killer had a long history of antisocial behavior.

Here is part of that post:

Here’s what I can say so far: the victim they’ve identified does have a 17 yr old son, and a Facebook profile with the same last name as the alleged mother lists she/they pronouns; and (disturbingly) I happened to be in a private Facebook group with the alleged victim—she expressed concerns about this child, who would be the alleged shooter, 10 years ago (when the son was 7) for taking pleasure from hurting siblings.

As an unlikely plot twist, Matt Walsh spotted one of his Reddit posts three years ago and cited it as a red flag for consumption of, well, see for yourself:

I conclude with an observation for the rest of us to chew on.

Q: What made Greek Philosophy the culturally transformative powerhouse from which so many other intellectual disciplines owe either their existence or at least their major features?

A: Its founders insisted on clarity of language in discussing what is and what is not.

If we aren’t free to speak with unflinching honestly about the complex cocktail of inputs that precede someone like this take such a violent action — and anyone torturing language to avoid uttering the Unsayable Thing — then we aren’t free to ask the probing questions we will need to find a solution.

It’s true of science.
It’s true of philosophy.
And it’s most certainly true of complex social and political problems like the one we have before us.