Mark Slapinski - Mark Slapinski Talks About BC Mass Shooting

00:00:00.000 Well, let's talk to Canadian journalist Mark Slupinski now who joins me from Canada.

00:00:05.100 Good evening, Mark.

00:00:06.800 It is unusual, it is more unusual to see these instances happen in Canada than here in America.

00:00:14.640 But what are the locals saying there tonight?

00:00:17.360 What are Canadians saying about this?

00:00:19.100 Is anybody factoring in the fact that yet again this is a teenager who identified as the opposite sex to which they were born?

00:00:27.720 Thanks for having me.

00:00:28.740 So I think people are shocked about this.

00:00:32.280 These things typically don't happen in Canada.

00:00:34.800 As you mentioned earlier, this is generally an American problem, although this does happen sometimes, as you saw right here.

00:00:42.600 I think at this stage, people are just upset at what happened.

00:00:45.720 They're still trying to collect their thoughts and their feelings.

00:00:49.760 It has been mentioned online that the person was a male that identified as a female, and some people have brought that up.

00:00:56.080 But it's still an act of investigation.

00:00:57.560 We're still not really sure what led to this happening, whether or not there was some mental health bullying problems.

00:01:04.120 There's a lot we don't know right now.

00:01:06.140 And do we know much about the area, Mark, where this happened?

00:01:13.100 It looks like a very nice neighbourhood from what I'm looking at.

00:01:15.760 What's the kind of socioeconomic kind of demographic in that area?

00:01:19.140 Well, from my understanding, that's in British Columbia, which is in the western part of Canada.

00:01:25.900 It's less densely populated in that part of Canada.

00:01:29.320 It's in the northeast part of the province, so closer to Alberta, if your viewers know where that is.

00:01:35.100 And a small town, 2,400 people, not very many people.

00:01:38.180 And I don't know the socioeconomic, I mean, based on what you said, I think it's a very upper-middle-class neighbourhood.

00:01:45.540 But that's what I know about it.

00:01:47.440 And how careful is Canada in terms of gun access for teens?

00:01:55.520 Like, how common is it for teens to get a hold of a gun illegally?

00:02:00.560 It's extremely uncommon.

00:02:02.040 Usually when someone gets a gun illegally, it's either through a gang, which I don't think happened in this case,

00:02:08.100 or through the person's parents, which I think may have been the case.

00:02:12.420 We're not sure yet, but that's what it looks like in this case,

00:02:15.200 where the person's, either their parents or the relatives had guns, and that's where they came from.

00:02:22.040 Yeah, well, very sad for all the families involved.

00:02:25.320 That community is going to take a very long time to get over that.

00:02:27.760 Mark Slopinski, Canadian journalist, thank you so much for joining me.

00:02:31.900 Thank you.

Mark Slapinski - February 12, 2026