The Decibel - Tumbler Ridge shooting highlights B.C.’s mental health deserts

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

A month has passed since the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where eight people were killed by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who then turned the gun on herself. In the weeks since, more information has emerged about the shooter — from a history of troubling posts online, to years of mental health challenges. Her family spoke about how challenging it was to access the care she needed. Andrea Woo is a B.C.-based reporter for The Globe who looked into what locals describe as a mental health desert in the region. She joins the show to talk about how Tumbler Ridge families describe their experiences of trying to access mental health care, and what changes could make a difference. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's been one month since the mass shooting in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. Eight people in the rural mining community were fatally shot by 18-year-old Jesse Van Routzilar, including her mother, her brother, five other children, and an educational assistant. In the week since, we've learned more about the shooter. We learned about troubling posts she had made online, one which referenced a time she set a fire in her home after taking psychedelic mushrooms. We learned she had years of mental health challenges, including forced intervention. Her family spoke of how hard it was to get her the care she needed, and this is a common problem in rural BC.

So today I'm talking to Andrea Wu, a BC-based reporter for the globe. She's here to talk about what Tumblridge families describe as the failures in mental health care in rural BC, and what changes could make a difference. I'm Rachel Levy McLaughlin, in for Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the Diceble from the Globe and Mail. Andrea, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. What did access to mental health care look like in Tumblr Ridge,

BC, before the shooting? Immediately after there was a lot of talk about mental health, and we know generally that access to any sort of health care, really, in rural and remote communities, can be a little bit more challenging than in urban centers. And so I reached out to Northern Health. That's the Health Authority that Tumblr Ridge is in, to ask what supports were available before February 10th.

And the response included a child youth and mental health clinician that was based in Dawson Creek providing alternating in-person and virtual supports in Tumblr Ridge weekly. So that's a community that's about a 90-minute drive away, so alternating virtual in-person care. There was also a clinical counselor and mental health substance use clinician visiting the community once a week. And more intensive mental health services, such as inpatient psychiatric services, were provided elsewhere in the region with specific locations determined by what that patient might need. Okay.

How consistent were those supports that were offered? So that was the official response. and I was very curious what it was like to be a resident there trying to access them. So we spoke to several people in Tumblr, some on the record, many off the record, and they described it as generally inconsistent and challenging to access. For example, we heard that when there's a clinician there only one day a week, that that clinician is spread very thin across numerous families, as well those weekly availabilities.

the residents said were often canceled due to things like weather or road conditions or the clinician being sick or burnout or reasons like that. And I imagine in rural BC weather might be a common problem for getting around. Yeah, apparently the road conditions was a big one according to a couple of the residents there. And I just wanted to read something to you because right before this I texted one of the residents there and I asked, is there a succinct way to describe what it's been like trying to access services, mental health services there? And the response was it's the opposite of succinct. It's a labyrinth of paperwork with long wait times, weeks to book your family doctor,

mountains of paperwork to get referrals to see a specialist. By the time you receive a call to book an appointment to see the specialist, that following appointment can be six to 18 months away, and that's an optimistic wait time. How does that compare to access for mental health care in larger cities like Vancouver? So there is quite a stark difference. There was an article in a recent edition of the BC Medical Journal that highlighted exactly this. It was on regional disparities in medical specialties in rural BC.

And so one of the examples that they had is for psychiatrists. In 2022-23, Vancouver had 43. had 43.1 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, whereas the Northeast, that's the region where Tumblr Ridge is, had 5.3 for every 100,000 people. And then another example that really struck me is pediatricians, so these are specialists who manage the physical and mental health of youth and adolescents. Vancouver had 14.6 for every 100,000 people, and the Northeast region had 1.3. I imagine that would be really frustrating for people, but also what does that mean for the outcomes around mental health.

So the conclusion of that article noted that people living in rural and remote communities in BC often experience worse mental health outcomes than people in major urban centers while dealing with these very unique circumstances such as the limited services and the resource-driven economic instability, Tumblr Ridge, for example, was a mining town, and also less privacy in small town settings. You mentioned you've been speaking with people in Tumblr Ridge who've been trying to access mental health care. Can you just tell me what they've been telling you about their experiences? There was one mother in Tumblr Ridge who had extensive experience navigating mental health services for her children,

including one who actually received psychiatric care alongside Jesse Van Rootsler. That's the shooter in Tumblr Ridge. And I found her story and her experiences to be a pretty eye-opening. look at the situation. So she described to me, for example, when one child's expressed very serious thoughts of self-harm, she brought the child to the local health center in Tumblr Ridge where they were told that child required more intensive care than that health center could provide. So from there, the child was transported to Dawson Creek. That's again about a 90-minute drive away. They spent three days waiting in an emergency department before being transferred to Prince

George for one week of crisis stabilization at an adolescent psychiatric assessment unit. All of this is, you know, while that child is in crisis mode, they put into a wait list for a three-month inpatient program. And eventually, after a one-year wait, the child was admitted to that program, which was in Coquitlam in BC's lower mainland. So about as far as you can get. And Prince George is not close to Tumblr Ridge, right? No, it's not close at all. It's about a four and a half hour drive. And then Coquitlam would be even further all the way down on the lower mainland.

That's about a 13-hour drive away. Can you tell us what we've learned about the shooters struggles with mental health and her attempts to access care in Tumblr Ridge? So both the shooters family members and police have said that she had extensive mental health issues. her grandparents told us that she had high-functioning autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, deep depression, and ADHD. The grandparents said that they had tried for years to get her help and nothing seemed to be working. My colleague Nathan Banderclip, speaking to the grandparents, heard that antidepressants produced little result and other treatment attempts came with very serious side effects, including electroconvulsive therapy, which involves passing electrical currents through the brain.

The shooter received six treatments of ECT and each induced a seizure, the family told Nathan. And the final treatment produced a seizure that was so severe that it required a medically induced coma to recover from. Some of our colleagues at the Globe found a Reddit account that they believe belonged to the shooter. And there's one post I'd like to talk about is from April 2023. She's talking about living in rural BC and was distressed about the delays in receiving hormone replacement therapy or HRT. and the impact that was having on her. She wrote, quote, it really hurts.

I'm genuinely considering taking my own life. Is there any way, literally any way possible, I can speed up this process, unquote. Andrea, what does a post like that tell us about what the shooter was going through? So police said that Jesse was born a biological male and began transitioning about six years ago. This post was from April. 20, 23, so she would have been about 15 at the time. There is a lot of research that has shown that

lack of access to gender affirming care for trans people can increase the risk of serious mental illness, including anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. And there was one study, for example, from 2022, that said access to gender affirming care, like the hormone replacement therapy that she had mentioned in that post, is linked to a, you know, 60% lower risk of depression and a 73% lower risk of suicidality. So clearly, as we've been learning, there were a lot of struggles around mental health, but I think it's also important to note that mental health issues on their own don't necessarily lead to violence. What do we know about what else was going on with a shooter and her family?

So that is an excellent point, and I'm really glad that you raised it, because while mental health was certainly a factor in Jesse's life, It wasn't the only factor. And I spoke to Johnny Morris, who's the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association's BC Division, who said very much what you're just saying now, that he was cautioning against drawing a line, a direct line from mental illness to violence because that can not only fuel stigma, but it can obscure very complex and real contributing factors to violence, such as social isolation or family dynamics or childhood exposure to violence.

So in Jesse's case, we know that police had been called to the family home on numerous occasions with some of those calls related to mental health, not all. We know that firearms had also been seized from the family home before. And Jesse's mother, Jennifer Strang, was a single mother of five who had posted online about the challenges of raising her kids before. So there were clearly a lot of things going on, and it didn't seem to be an easy life for any of them. We'll be right back. Andrea, what insights do we have into why accessing mental health care is such a problem in rural BC? So one big reason is because a lot of specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other clinicians are more concentrated in urban centers like Vancouver.

So that leaves rural areas with fewer specialists per capita, which can lead to longer wait times and more limited services for residents there. Some small towns are also just too small to support full-time psychiatrists, and it can be challenging to get specialists to relocate there. Has an increased in virtual care made a difference at all? So Johnny Morris, that's the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association's BC Division. He was a little bit reluctant to call a place like Tumblr Ridge at Mental Health Desert because he said that virtual options have improved access, or at least, move the needle a bit in recent years to specialist access in rural and remote communities. But again, not everyone is comfortable with virtual options. Some people prefer to be in person.

And in a place like Tumblr, which made the news years ago because their internet was out because a beaver chewed through power lines, virtual care options can also be precarious. Oh, wow. Yeah, if you can't get internet, then, yeah, a virtual appointment just wouldn't be an option. Okay, so rural towns, it's often hard to get a psychiatrist. Virtual appointments might be difficult. It might be hard to get nurses and doctors to come there. What about in schools? Are there supports offered in schools for students? Yes. In British Columbia, a student can be assessed by a school psychologist for what's called a designation, which can open the door to funding for more supports. But the wait list to be assessed by a school psychologist can be so long that some children who,

clearly have higher needs, that teachers can see have higher needs, just don't get the chance to be formally assessed. So the Tumblr mom that I had spoken of earlier, another child was on a very long wait list for an assessment. And ultimately, the mom went to a pediatrician and got documentation about what that kid needed. And the school district accepted that documentation and gave her child what's called a category H designation. So that's for children who require intensive behavior intervention or are living with a serious mental illness. So that triggered supplemental provincial funding for up to one hour a day with an education assistant. But because that funding flows to school districts and not to the individual student, her child was only allocated 15 minutes

of one on one support per day. So the mother tried to go through the the school and ended up getting sort of only 15 minutes of one-on-one support for her kid. What did she end up doing after that? So that mom pulled her kids out of public school and ended up homeschooling them, in part because the children were not receiving the supports they needed in school. But by homeschooling, she discovered that it was actually much easier to access supports that way. And so her kids are doing quite well and they've been able to get the assessments and the diagnoses and the specialist access that they need faster this way. So since the shooting,

the province sent mental health resources to Tumblr Ridge like a children's psychiatrist, mental health clinicians, support dogs, victims, services workers. What does that look like in the town? Can you tell me about this deployment of mental health resources? So in the days right after the shooting, the province, as you mentioned, sent all of these mental health supports there. Parents have described that there have been weekly meetings with parent groups and counselors, just trying to reach out to residents as much as possible and try to maintain a presence there. It's really important that they're doing this. We know how important it is to access supports as soon as possible after a tragedy like this. I have heard some accounts where in recent days it's become a little bit more challenging to find those supports.

Although the province has said that supports will stay there for as long as needed, though they haven't provided exact details on what exactly that might look like. You say they've sort of died down a little bit. Can you tell me a bit more? So this is anecdotally through residence in Tumblr Ridge. So the mom that I had referenced earlier, she said that in the early days, these counseling meetings, the parent groups, they were advertised very prominently, that there were a lot of people showing up. It was held in the community center in Tumblr Ridge, whereas in recent days, we're now about a month after the shooting. It's been more difficult to find the services. And not a lot of people seem to be showing up at these meetings now.

And she thinks it's not because they're not needed or wanted, but because they're just not sort of advertised as prominently now. And in a message, she texted me recently. She said, I've been trying to be the squeaky wheel now regarding how hard it is to find the help that's supposedly available here, not just for myself, but for others that I hear are having similar experiences. BC's chief coroner announced last week that they're going to conduct an inquest into the deaths in Tumblr Ridge. How could that impact support for mental health?

So a coroner's inquest is a formal court proceeding that seeks to determine the facts around certain deaths and make recommendations on how similar deaths can be prevented in the future. So it'll look at everything from the shooter's access to guns to her interactions with online platforms like chat GPT has been a big piece of it, any sort of systemic or procedural issues. And notably, the chief coroner, Dr. Jatinderbidwan, he said a key area of examination will be how individuals in crisis are identified and supported. And this includes access to mental health supports and services in rural and remote communities in BC and include things like crisis intervention and wraparound supports and how mental health and the public safety system work together.

There was a report from 2023 from the Mass Casualty Commission following the mass shooting in Porta Pic, Nova Scotia in 2020. Is there anything from that situation that could apply in Tumblridge? Absolutely. And this was actually something that Johnny Morris had mentioned as well. That's the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association's BC Division. And so that shooting, horrific, 22 people were killed, I believe, in that one. And there was a public inquiry held to understand what happened and to make recommendations and how to make community safer.

And part of that final report noted that traumatic loss experienced in an incident like this can result in complicated grief and a range of post-traumatic stress injuries. So that can include PTSD, anxiety, depression, difficulties. sleeping and physical health challenges that can persist for years. So that report said that the timeline of trauma, grief, and recovery varies widely among individuals. And some people might not want to seek help right now, but they will need it at some point. And so communities affected by mass casualty events like this often need long-term mental

health, grief, and bereavement supports. What has the BC government said it's going to do to fix this issue of mental health care access? The BC government got a lot of questions about mental health after the shooting, understandably. And they highlighted a lot of work that has either been happening or will be happening. So this includes increasing its network of foundry locations. So this is a province-wide network of free physical and mental health services for young people.

Increasing this network to 35 locations in coming years. all across the province with sites in rural communities such as Fort St. John, which is about a two-hour drive from Tumblr Ridge. The government also plans to hire more specialists for its early psychosis intervention program. And there is a new acute care tower at the University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George, which is expected to be completed in 2013. and that will increase mental health and substance use beds to 83 from 40. And then there's also the Dawson Creek Hospital, which is going to be replaced. And I believe that's going to open next year.

That will add three more inpatient psychiatric beds, which will bring the total to 18. Okay. So it seems like a few changes are in the works at the moment. But what kind of changes could make a difference here? What are people calling for? So the provincial teachers union, the BC Teachers Federation, has called for more school psychologists and counselors, including that there be one counselor for every school. That was actually a campaign promised by the BCNDP government leading up to the 2024 election. And I circled back to them, and they said it continues to be a promise that they work toward.

The BC Teachers Federation also recently ratified its latest contract, which has some improvements in the number of counselors and school psychologists that there will be. And the Canadian Mental Health Association has long called for more robust, upstream community-based supports so that people can get help before they are in crisis. after the provincial budget was announced in February, the association put out a news release that's noted the budget commits $131 million to involuntary treatment, which is the most expensive form of mental health care possible for people in acute crisis. And they called it a missed opportunity to expand community-based supports. I just want to read this quote from Johnny Morris again. he said when people across the province are struggling to afford housing, food, and basic necessities, paying out of pocket for mental health and substance use care is simply beyond reach. Without growing public investment, people will delay or forego care until they reach crisis

at far greater human and financial cost. Andrea, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. That was Andrea Wu, a staff reporter for the Globe and Mail. That's it for today. I'm Rachel Levy McLaughlin. The Decibel is hosted by Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White,

Mikhail Stein, and me. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.