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Thwarted school attacks should lead to a national conversation, says N.S. mayor
A Nova Scotia mayor says it’s time for a national conversation about children, mental health and the influence of the internet after alleged school shooting plots were foiled in his town and in Manitoba, just weeks after the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., school shooter killed eight people.
“I feel like we’re losing that connection of community and kids in the day of the internet, where sometimes the internet is the parent. And so, if there’s anything that comes out of this and the incidents of 2026 I hope it is a willingness to have a very serious conversation about that,” said Bridgewater, N.S., Mayor David Mitchell.
Mitchell, who said residents are “shocked, concerned and alarmed,” was planning to reach out Thursday to the mayor of Rivers, Man., the site of a concurrent alleged plot.
Two teens, who had allegedly been discussing potential attacks on their schools, were arrested earlier this week. A 15-year-old girl at Park View Education Centre in Bridgewater was allegedly in contact online with a 14-year-old boy at Rivers Collegiate in Rivers, Man.
The plot’s timing, “a short time after Tumbler Ridge, changes our reaction to it in a way,” Mitchell said.
On Feb. 10, an 18-year-old with a history of mental health issues killed two family members at home and six more at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
“Before Tumbler Ridge, we may (have said), ‘Were they actually going to do it?’ And now, we don’t have the luxury of that thought process anymore. To me, that is a heartbreaking state that our country is in that has to be our state of mind now,” Mitchell said.
“In the past, we’ve been a little naive as a society and thought, ‘Oh, you know, kids.’ Or maybe just dismissed things when we should have taken them a little bit more seriously. And I think those days are gone now.”
Both mayors praised police for intervening.
Riverdale Municipality Mayor Heather Lamb, whose community of 2,100 people includes Rivers, Man., said Thursday that Rivers residents are “still processing” and dealing with the shock.
“(It’s) the world that we live in,” Lamb said. “It’s very different now. There’s a lot of hate and emotions that people don’t know how to deal with. I’ve always kind of thought the internet somehow makes it worse. But then now the internet was a blessing to us that they could solve a problem before it really happened.”
Bridgewater’s mayor stressed it’s important now to let the justice system determine whether the two teens were really going to carry out their planned attacks.
“Only the two students know if they were actually going to follow through, and I think that’s what we really need to know,” Mitchell said. “That’s what our community wants to know and I’m sure in Manitoba they’re thinking the same thing. They want to know: were you going to really do this and why?”
A decade or two back, kids who brought up school attacks with their friends would have been told “we don’t want any part of that; don’t do that,” he said.
“Now, it’s if you don’t agree with me, I will find someone online who will agree with me, support me, fuel it and you will always be able to find someone to agree with you online if you look hard enough.”
Police said they don’t believe the planned attacks were imminent.
The Rivers teen “was actively discussing and planning to harm other students at the Rivers Collegiate,” Cpl. Melanie Roussel, who speaks for the Manitoba RCMP, said Thursday.
In Nova Scotia, “Police located detailed handwritten plans, imitation weapons, roughly made imitation pipe bomb and assault rifle, electronic devices including cell phone and laptop and clothing with hate symbols and concerning comments,” Bridgewater Police said in a press release.
The 15-year-old girl has been charged with conspiracy to murder and uttering death threats, said the force, noting “hate crime and other possible offences are currently under investigation.”
The 14-year-old boy has been charged with uttering threats, though Manitoba Mounties say additional charges are possible as their investigation continues.
Criminologist Tracy Vaillancourt, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Youth Mental Health and Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa, said in psychology, the teens’ behaviour is called seeding.
“You put little hints out and hope that people are going to pick up those hints,” she said.
“Sometimes the seeding is so that it does get thwarted and you do get attention and intervention. So, it’s like a cry for help.”
But each case should be treated as if it’s really going to happen, said Vaillancourt, who stressed the plots are an internet phenomenon.
“A lot of times people have nobody in their life. They don’t belong to a group and the need to belong is such a fundamental human motivator that they find people who have similar ideology, or maybe sometimes they come into these groups without holding that ideology but wanting to belong to a group. We always do that — we adapt to the group’s norms. And the group norms here are nefarious and problematic. So, it doesn’t surprise me that we see this from Nova Scotia to Manitoba.”
After Tumbler Ridge, tech-giant OpenAI disclosed that the shooter’s ChatGPT account had been disabled in June due to “violent activity,” but did not alert law enforcement.
“It was missed with Tumbler Ridge – a huge miss,” Vaillancourt said, noting the shooter in that case had a troubling online presence, access to guns and a history with police.
“Tumbler Ridge was a huge mistake.”
She likes the message that the arrests this week in Manitoba and Nova Scotia send.
“It was clear. It was swift. It’s what we need,” Vaillancourt said. “A lot of times, people think they can get away with really problematic behaviour, especially now there’s so much to monitor and there’s so much incivility. I’m glad it happened. I do think that this is going to be the best turn of events for these kids.”
School shooters have common motivators, she said.
“In about a third of the cases, there is a bully,” Vaillancourt said. “There’s a real interest in guns, violence and prior school shootings. So, they become a little bit obsessed, and become experts in this type of violence.”
But a lot of people who talk about school shootings online don’t carry them out, she said.
“It’s almost like a bravado; it’s almost like a need to belong,” Vaillancourt said. “You shit talk, then you’re part of this disenfranchised group. But at least you’re part of the group, and that happens a lot.”
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