School shootings and stabbings in Canada

A 15-year-old student accused of stabbing two staff members at a Halifax-area high school will stand trial for attempted murder next March.


The two victims — both employees of Charles P. Allen High School, in Bedford, N.S. — were taken to hospital with serious wounds on March 20 but have since recovered.

A spokeswoman for the school authority confirmed the suspect was in the school office with a vice-principal and the school’s secretary at the time of the stabbings.

Police confirmed that the accused was treated in hospital for stab wounds, but they said it was unclear how he received those injuries.

A 24-year-old former student has been charged in the stabbings Wednesday in a University of Waterloo, Ont., classroom in what police believe was a hate-motivated incident targeting a gender-studies class.

Mark Crowell, chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, told a media briefing Thursday the "planned and targeted attack" was a "senseless act of hate."

It is fair to say that school violence has now become more of an issue in Canada than it was before. One study indicated that 46% of Canada's 16- and 17-year-old children were the victims of harassment, verbal aggression, threats, and physical assault at school.

“The current situation in schools approaches a veritable perfect storm, a conflation of factors impacting the daily work school administrators engage in to promote a safe and healthy environment for all,” a report detailing the survey results states. “Some administrators have indicated that almost 90 per cent of their days are spent dealing with issues related to student behaviours, crisis intervention, or student well-being. At the same time, administrators note that at times, parental support in dealing with serious behavioural issues has led to harassment from parents and/or community members, with 40 per cent of respondents indicating a lack of support when dealing with confrontational interactions with parents and workplace harassment.”

There has been a rash of violent incidents in and in the immediate vicinity of a number of Toronto schools in recent months, including several shootings and stabbings.

Some of the more alarming incidents include the fatal shooting of a teen outside Woburn Collegiate Institute in October, a drive-by shooting in the parking lot of Weston Collegiate Institute in February that left a Grade 10 student with critical injuries and the stabbing of a youth outside Sandalwood Heights Secondary School in Brampton just three weeks ago.

The RCMP is full of ‘self-admitted’ monsters whose crimes will reduce you to tears. The officers themselves are charged with a litany of offences. You look to the police for protection. But, in Canada girls and women have not been able to trust the RCMP to protect them.

New Living Translation
As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.

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