BY GERRY CHIDIAC
Lessons in Learning
It was very healing for Canadians to see our politicians on all levels of government and across party lines come together in Tumbler Ridge to offer comfort to grieving parents and a grieving community after a senseless school shooting. This is the type of leadership we needed at this moment, and hopefully it sets the tone moving forward. We have had enough of the politics of anger, selfishness, and violence. It is time to come together as a country, and it is time to show what real leadership looks like in a world were barbarity and suffering are normalized.
The shooting that took place in Tumbler Ridge on February 10 evoked very strong emotions in Canadians, primarily horror, sadness, fear, and anger. These can be very difficult emotions to process, but they must be dealt with honestly if we are to ensure that such tragic incidents do not happen in the future.
Admittedly, I was overcome by two emotions. The first was anger. I live in the same federal constituency as Tumbler Ridge. My Member of Parliament, Bob Zimmer, keeps his door shut to those of us who advocate to alleviate human suffering, yet he is an outspoken defender of the gun lobby in Canada. My first reaction was to blame Zimmer for this catastrophe.
My second reaction was concern for my own students. Rather than direct their feelings toward policy makers who may or may not have made this incident more likely to happen, many people focused on the gender of the young person who killed others and then turned a gun on herself, Jesse Van Rootselaar. In an effort to gain perspective, I watched several of these commentaries, and I found their obsession quite disturbing.
People whose sex assigned at birth does not match their gender, like Jesse, are statistically far more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate violence. I knew that the wonderful and kind teachers and students I work with in the gender nonconforming community needed my support and advocacy. I talked to all of my students about the importance of being kind to one another, and I reached out to our Gay-Straight Alliance to let them know that I was also there for them.
In our time of crisis, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney showed real leadership in reaching across party lines to travel together with other politicians to the remote community of Tumbler Ridge. In the healing service, we heard representatives from all aspects of Canada: Indigenous leaders, church ministers, ceremonial heads of state, and leaders from all levels of government. They spoke about the sadness of the loss that had taken place, the people who had done the right thing in this moment of crisis, and the need for coming together; not one cruel word was spoken about Jesse Van Rootselar.
How do we move forward from this incident? The truth is, it was easier to access guns than the mental health services that Jesse so desperately needed. Bob Zimmer shares a constituency office a few blocks from my home with fellow Conservative MP Todd Doherty. Doherty has been one of Canada’s most outspoken advocates for mental health. Perhaps the two men can work together to create a more compassionate path for Canada.
In Parliament on February 10, Pierre Poilievre stated, “No parent should ever bury their own child.” Do Poilievre, Carney and the other leaders realize how many parents are burying their own children due to policies that they are supporting? This is happening across the country, in Indigenous communities, in the Congo, Sudan, Palestine, and even in Israel, where growing numbers of young soldiers are taking their own lives.
Hopefully, the coming together we saw in Tumbler Ridge will be a new beginning for Canada. We’ve seen enough anger and cruelty in our domestic and international affairs. It all leads to the horror we saw in Tumbler Ridge.
Gerry Chidiac is an award-winning high school teacher specializing in languages, genocide studies and work with at-risk students. Check out his website here. Find him on Facebook. Or on Twitter @GerryChidiac
3 thoughts on “Reflections on Tumbler Ridge”
Questions certainly need to be asked about what caused the Tumbler Ridge killings and why the killer had access to guns, but this tragedy has little to do with the death and suicide of young people in other parts of the world. In the Congo and Sudan, the cause appears to be constant, vicious warfare, hardly the case in Tumbler Ridge.
In the Israel Defense Forces, the increase in suicide is due to the need for Israel to defend itself against aggression from Gaza. Israeli soldiers want to protect themselves and their comrades from enemies who ignore the rules of war while doing their best to avoid injury to non-combatants from whom the terrorists, who frequently do not wear uniforms, do not distinguish themselves, and who, though protected as non-combatants, in most cases support the genocidal goals of Hamas and eagerly collaborate. They have to operate in a depressing environment in which much of the infrastructure has been destroyed. Until recently, when the last hostages were released, they also had to be concerned that their actions would injure hostages. This is an extraordinarily stressful environment in which to operate, due not to Israeli policies but to Hamas and its allies.
Young people in Gaza and in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority have to deal with corrupt, authoritarian governments, and in the case of Gaza, with the warfare and destruction caused by Hamas. Gay and trans people receive no support. On the contrary, the PA, and even more so, Hamas, actively persecute them. Hundreds of gay and trans Arabs from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza have found refuge in Israel but many more have not. In this case the pressures that cause young people to kill themselves are indeed the result of government policy.
Bill, I’ve been sitting on your reply for a day now. I find it really disturbing. I expressed concern for Israeli soldiers dying out of compassion for ALL humanity. I don’t take sides because of politics, I take sides on PRINCIPLE. I VALUE ALL HUMAN LIFE. Why don’t you?
I’ve written about abuses by Canadian mining companies in the DRC many times. Our government CHOOSES not to regulate them. We are complicit. https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/canadian-mining-firm-human-rights-violations-drc/