At least 11 people are dead and dozens injured after a driver ploughed into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver on the eve of Canada’s election, in an attack that the prime minister, Mark Carney, said left the country “shocked, devastated and heartbroken”.
Vancouver’s police chief described the carnage as “the darkest day” in the city’s history and told reporters it was “impossible to overstate how many lives have been impacted for ever” by the lone driver.
“There are many unanswered questions about this horrific crime, the motive of the person who did it, and whether anything could have been done to prevent it,” said the interim chief constable, Steve Rai. “There are many things we still don’t know. We are working hard to get all of the answers.”
Rai said officials felt confident the incident was not an act of terrorism and there were no known prior threats to the Filipino community. A 30-year-old man who had been driving a black Audi SUV was arrested. The suspect had a “significant history of interactions with police and police and healthcare professionals related to mental health”, Rai said.
Rai said the man, who is from Vancouver, was not currently being identified, as charges had not yet been laid against him. The names, ages and genders of the victims are also yet to be released.
The Lapu Lapu festival, held on a balmy spring day, drew nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were families with young children. The celebration is named after Datu Lapu-Lapu, an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines, who orchestrated the defeat of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in battle in 1521.
Saturday’s festival was the second annual event for the city and organisers advertised a street parade, artisans, cultural activities, a basketball tournament and local food vendors. .
Carney, the Liberal party prime minister and former Bank of England governor who is favourite to win Monday’s election, paused campaigning to address the country on Sunday morning.
“Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” said a visibly emotional Carney. “I know that I join all Canadians in mourning with you. I know that Canadians are united with you.” Carney referenced “Bayanihan”, the Filipino value of community serving those in need. “This spirit upon which we must draw in this incredibly difficult time. We will comfort the grieving. We will care for each other. We will unite in common purpose.”
Carney said he had been briefed by national security officials who believed the attacker acted alone and that there was no active threat to the public.
“Last night was extremely difficult and the community will feel this for a long time,” RJ Aquino, the chair of the festival organiser Filipino BC, told reporters, asking the media to respect the privacy of those affected. “We know that there’s a lot of questions floating about and we don’t have all the answers, but we want to tell everybody that we’re grieving.”
Vancouver had more than 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage in 2021, representing 5.9% of the city’s total population, according to Statistics Canada.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Filipino president, said he was “completely shattered” by the incident and that his government conveyed the “deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the strong and thriving Filipino community in Canada”.
King Charles said he and his wife were “profoundly saddened” by the attack and “send our deepest possible sympathy at a most agonising time for so many in Canada”.
The incident occurred shortly after 8pm local time (1300 BST), said Rai. The event was wrapping up, but many festivalgoers were in the area when the driver in the SUV approached. Aphoto posted to Xhalf an hour before showed a busy street with young people looking at the wares of food truck vendors.
“It is hard to make sense of something so senseless, and I know there are questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented,” said Rai.
Footage posted online showed a black luxury SUV with a damaged front hood parked on a street littered with debris as first-aiders tended to people lying on the ground.
One witness told CTV News he saw a vehicle driving erratically in the area of the festival just before the crowd was hit. The Vancouver Sun said thousands of people were in the area.
“I didn’t get to see the driver, all I heard was an engine rev,” said Yoseb Vardeh, a food truck operator, in an interview with Postmedia. “I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road and there’s just bodies everywhere. He went through the whole block, he went straight down the middle.”
Kris Pangilinan, a Toronto-based journalist attending the festival, told CBC News [the driver] just slammed the pedal down and rammed into hundreds of people. It was like seeing a bowling ball hit – all the bowling pins and all the pins flying up in the air.”
“It was like a war zone … There were bodies all over the ground,” he said.
Festival attenders held the suspect until police could arrive. Police said the man was known to them “in certain circumstances”.
Video circulating on social media showed a young man in a hoodie with his back against a chain-link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him. “I’m sorry,” the man said, holding his hand to his head.
Police set up a 24-hour assistance centre to help anyone who had been unable to contact relatives or friends who were at the festival.
Harjit Sajjan, a former defence minister who previously worked as a police officer in Vancouver, told CTV News the aftermath was the “the largest crime scene that I’ve seen. I’ve been to many crime scenes in that neighbourhood before … This is unfathomable.”
The Vancouver mayor, Ken Sim, said: “Our thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time.
The incident cast a pall over the final day of the federal election campaigning. Canadians go to the polls on Monday in a vote heavily influenced by the spectre of Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada and a trade war he has launched against his country’s northern neighbour.
The New Democratic party (NDP) leader, Jagmeet Singh, had attended the festival to meet voters. He left about an hour before the incident.
“Having been at the Lapu Lapu festival, this is a festival with kids there and families there,” Singh said. “I don’t have the words to describe the pain that I’m feeling now at the lives that were lost … We don’t know the motives, we don’t know any of the details. But, ultimately, this is something that targeted the Filipino community and the Filipino community right now is reeling.”
The NDP cancelled four other events in the province schedule for Sunday. Carney’s campaign said a large rally in British Columbia had been cancelled.
“All Canadians are united in solidarity with the Filipino community,” the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, said while visiting a Filipino church in Ontario. “All Canadians are united with you in mourning the loss of these treasured lives and in binding our country together to support the surviving loved ones.”
The Tory leader called the SUV ramming attack a “senseless act of violence”.
“I know that today will be a day of prayer and reflection for the Filipino community and for all Canadians and I want you to know that all our country is with you today as you mourn this terrible loss,” he said.