B.C. marking day of mourning for victims of Lapu-Lapu Day festival tragedy
Social Sharing
Events are taking place across British Columbia to remember those who died in the Lapu-Lapu Day festival tragedy in East Vancouver on Saturday evening.
The B.C. government has declared Friday an official day of remembrance and mourning for the victims of the tragedy, which saw 11 people killed and dozens more injured when the driver of an SUV rammed into the crowd at a Filipino street festival.
Community groups, in particular the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, have plans to mark the occasion.
The public can sign a book of condolences in the main lobby of Vancouver City Hall starting Friday through to May 15, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents can also share a message of condolence online.
The public is also welcome to sign a book of condolences at the B.C. Legislature in Victoria.
Matthew Furtado, director of communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, says several Catholic parishes will host memorial masses and prayer vigils to honour those lost in the tragedy.
"In our faith tradition, we really understand the importance of coming together in times of grief, in times of end of life, in times of sickness," Furtado told CBC News. "A memorial mass in the Catholic tradition is not just a time to look behind, but also a time to look ahead, that we believe in eternal life."
Archbishop J. Michael Miller will lead a memorial mass at Holy Rosary Cathedral in downtown Vancouver at 5 p.m. Friday for people directly affected by the tragedy. CBC News will livestream the mass.
St. Mary's Parish in East Vancouver is also holding a candlelight prayer vigil and pilgrimage to the site of the tragedy, starting at 4 p.m. Friday.
Other memorial masses in B.C. include:
Friday
St. Andrew's Cathedral, Victoria, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday
Immaculate Conception Parish, Delta, 9 a.m.
St. Andrew's Parish, Vancouver, 11:30 a.m.
St. Joseph's Parish, Langley, 6:15 p.m.
Monday
St. Francis de Sales Parish, Burnaby, 6 p.m.
Furtado says Archbishop Miller has called for a collection to be taken up this weekend at all Catholic parishes in support of the families and survivors of the tragedy.
Candlelight vigils will also take place at the Chilliwack Central Community Park on Friday at 7 p.m., and Langara College on Sunday at 7 p.m.
A 30-year-old, Adam Kai-Ji Lo, faces eight counts of second-degree murder in connection to the crash, although police have said more charges may come as their investigation continues.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Stepping up to help as fires rage
When Lendyll Soriano got a job working with First Nations during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was warmly embraced by the Indigenous community. Now, he wants to give back. The Filipino immigrant, who co-owns Dream Barbers with two partners, has launched a free haircut initiative for Manitoba wildfire evacuees. 'We already had a couple of people come in (Tuesday),' said Soriano, who owns the Portage Avenue shop with Mark Antonio and Albert Amante. Aviva Tabac photo Kavod Thrift Store volunteer Harriet Zimmer with load of donated items for Manitoba wildfire evacuees. In his day job as communications liaison with the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, Soriano said his Indigenous colleagues have shown him the value of family and helping each other during times of need. 'I wasn't even First Nations, so that's what I appreciated about them,' he said. 'I was learning, and as an immigrant here in Canada, we really didn't have any history of what First Nations history is. So when I started working there five years ago, I really began to understand what First Nations people went through.' Soriano said he has seen firsthand the impact displacement has had on the Indigenous community. 'Some are new to the city, so for us, it's a good way, if grooming is a good way to help out this situation, why not make it a free service for them?' he said. Soriano isn't the only Winnipeg entrepreneur stepping up. Christina Lin became motivated to help after she received a call from a panicked friend in Flin Flon. 'She's an evacuee, and she called me by mistake,' said Lin, a teacher at Modo Yoga, whose two locations in the city — on Donald and Waverley streets — are offering evacuees free admission to any of their classes. 'It inspired me to want to offer more. I brought this to my manager and our owners, and they were like, 'Absolutely. Without question.'' Lin said the studios have removed some barriers, knowing some won't have a yoga mat or a towel to bring with them. 'We know that it's not the first thing on their mind to move their bodies,' she said. 'They're surviving. We just want to let them know, if and when they process it all, if they need somewhere to go and breathe, be in an accessible space, with change rooms for all genders, that it's there for them. You can come be with community, be accepted, be together.' Some are even taking measures into their own hands. After Cranberry Portage was evacuated, resident Barb Bragg spent the past few weeks purchasing more than a dozen water pumps from Winnipeg and delivering them to The Pas, and later, with permission from those fighting the flames, directly to the firefighters in her home community. The 70-year-old retiree made three eight-plus hour trips to hand off the water pumps, even sleeping in her truck at times. 'To (just) be evacuated seems wimpy, in a way, at least for me,' she joked over the phone from Gimli, where she's currently staying, Tuesday afternoon. 'I want to help, I want to do what I can.' A mandatory evacuation order remains for Cranberry Portage, as a 4,921-hectare wildfire south of the community remains out of control. Bragg said she isn't alone in her efforts — others have passed along hose and sprinkler systems. She dropped off the last shipment Monday. Her focus now is on putting together a newsletter to keep her neighbours informed on the status of the wildfires, some of whom, she said, are struggling to cope with the loss of their homes. 'These friends of mine, who've been friends for 50 years, are saying, 'We just found out our house is gone, 'We just found out our house is gone,' 'Mine went, too,' 'Has anybody heard about this one?' … it's the heartbreak of that.' 'If grooming is a good way to help out this situation, why not make it a free service for them?'–Lendyll Soriano Winnipeg's Jewish and Mennonite communities are also doing their parts to make life easier for evacuees. B'nai Brith Canada's Winnipeg chapter is accepting donations of toiletries, diapers, infant formula and other essentials at its Kavod Thrift Store. 'The response has been unbelievable,' said Aviva Tabac, community engagement manager for B'nai Brith Canada. 'It's overwhelming. It's a real feel-good moment.' The donations have included 1,500 toothbrushes given from a local orthodontist. 'Now we want to see if we can get the same number of tubes of toothpaste donated,' Tabac said. Items given to Kavod are checked and sorted before being delivered to groups that are distributing them to evacuees. The executive director of Mennonite Disaster Service said there was an 'overwhelming, fabulous' response to a call for volunteers to help at the Leila Avenue sports centre, where evacuees are registered. The organization has provided between 20-25 volunteers per day at the centre in three shifts, including from midnight to 7 a.m. 'Clearly, people were anxious to help,' said Ross Penner. Wednesdays Sent weekly from the heart of Turtle Island, an exploration of Indigenous voices, perspectives and experiences. Volunteers provide evacuees with essential items and help set up cots for overnight stays. The stream of evacuees at the site has slowed in recent days, Penner said. 'But that can always change if a number of buses suddenly show up.' For more information about donating to Kavod, call 204-487-9623. To volunteer with Mennonite Disaster Service, call 204-261-1274. — with files from Malak Abas and John Longhurst Scott BilleckReporter Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade's worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024. Read more about Scott. Every piece of reporting Scott produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
2 days ago
- CBC
Here's how many people paid full price for the N.S. school lunch program
Packing lunches is the bane of Katie Armstrong's morning. So the Nova Scotia mother was "very excited" when she heard the provincial government was launching a lunch program at elementary schools across the province — including the school her son, Henry, attends. The program is a pay-what-you-can-model and started rolling it out to schools last fall. To make food affordable and accessible to all, the program never placed expectations on families to pay for meals. Armstrong opted to pay full price for her son's lunches, hoping to offset the cost of the program for other children. "I believe the very first time I did it, I paid the full six dollars," she said in an interview with CBC News. Henry tried but did not enjoy some of the meals like fish cakes and black bean tacos. He was disappointed by the pizza, which he described as "really wet" toppings toasted on top of bread. "When I saw the response from Henry and from others and that it wasn't really working for us, I reduced it to the four dollar amount." Armstrong isn't alone. Through surveys and declining payment amounts, some parents are sending a message they want changes as the lunch program enters its second year this fall. 2% paying full price Using the freedom of information act, CBC News asked the province how many school meals were paid in full for each two-week order cycle. At the beginning, about four per cent of meals received full payment of $6.50 each. A further 33 per cent of meals received partial payment. By late April, the meals with full payment dropped to two per cent, and partial payments dropped to 10 per cent. No one chose to make an extra donation to the program above and beyond the $6.50. Food variety and quality questions Armstrong believes in the importance of a school lunch for all children, regardless of ability to pay. But she and her son felt a little disappointed in the program, and hope the menu will be tweaked next year. Henry Armstrong, 7, liked the program "medium" well. "I kind of liked it, but not really that much," he said. "I liked the red sauce pasta, and some of the sides they had because they were all vegetables and fruit." Armstrong still packs lunches often, and hopes for some new options in the menu. "If a child doesn't like the majority of them, even if they try it and they still don't like it, there's not really any room for trying new things after that or finding the things they like," she said. Armstrong said Henry told her sometimes the food was cold and seemed to have been sitting in the package for a while. She feels this detracts from "an amazing program, in theory" which can provide for all children. "I think that's where the bigger issue lies," she said. "I want to make sure that the food is food that kids will want to eat and be happy to eat." 3 different food delivery methods Aimee Gasparetto is the executive director of Nourish Nova Scotia, a charity that works to ensure young people have access to healthy food. It doesn't deliver the lunch program, but is co-operating with the government on its development. Gasparetto thinks parents' concerns about quality and variety are valid, and some menu changes will come in the next year. But she says the concerns need to be considered within the huge scale of the program. "It's going to take time to really adjust both the menu, the quality of the food and really make sure that the program over time is being adapted to the unique needs of different students in different regions," she said in a recent interview. Gasparetto said although the menu is the same across the province, schools have three different ways of getting the food depending what facilities they have. Some schools make the food in their own kitchens with their own staff, and some have catering companies coming into the school to make the food. Others get food delivered from an off-site producer. Though the province is trying for consistency, she said it can be a challenge. But she's also been hearing from school staff who used to see kids going without food, and are now able to change that. "This program is fundamentally about easing financial and time pressures on families and also ensuring that every child at school has the opportunity to eat nutritious food in order to socialize, learn better and connect into the school environment in a much better way," she said. Surveyed parents felt nutrition fine, variety lacking Through freedom of information laws, CBC obtained 19,563 responses to a province-wide survey of opinions on the school food program conducted earlier this year. Not all respondents answered every question in the survey. 4,011 people were "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with food quality. 5,113 people were "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with meal variety. 9,161 people were "neutral," "satisfied," or "very satisfied" with nutritional value. 6,205 people said financial situation was a main factor in their payment. Thousands of families also said their children were trying new foods, eating lunch more regularly, eating more nutritious food at lunch, and feeling more included at school. All public elementary schools in Nova Scotia are participating, and the program will expand to junior high schools in the fall. "We've got a year of data. That data is being worked on to incorporate feedback and really make program improvements," Gasparetto said. "We need a couple of years under our belt to really consider all of the impacts of this program." Combating child poverty By comparison, Prince Edward Island also has a pay-what-you-can school lunch program. Last year, P.E.I.'s government released numbers which showed about 13 per cent of meals were fully paid for, and there was partial payment on 18 per cent of meals. In Gasparetto's view, cost recovery isn't the most important thing; rather, the program is about building a "more equitable system." Research released late last year showed Nova Scotia has the highest child poverty rate in Atlantic Canada, with Feed Nova Scotia reporting a nearly 70 per cent jump in families going to food banks since 2021. "One of the things that school lunch programs have shown to demonstrate is it can really work to address some of those food insecurity issues," Gasparetto said. CBC News requested an interview with provincial Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Brendan Maguire. The department declined the request but shared a statement. "While payments have fluctuated, program participation has remained consistent — and what matters most is that no student is sitting in class hungry," it read. The department has previously told CBC News the program is offered to about 75,000 students and sees about 50 per cent participation. The statement went on to say the province is looking at "new menu options, quality assurance tools, sustainable packaging and other actions" to respond to feedback on the program. The province paid $18.8 million for the 2024-25 school year. The 2025-26 budget increased that to $61.2 million to account for the rollout to more schools. The federal government has committed $12.4 million as part of its goal for a national school food program. 'We definitely won't give up' Katie Armstrong plans to keep ordering meals her kids will eat. She has two younger children who will enter elementary school soon. "I 100 per cent think the program needs to stay," she said. "I think that this is the first year it's in play, and there's always room for change and improvement. "We definitely won't give up," she said.
CBC
3 days ago
- CBC
Bridge's demise was obvious, but province was slow to admit demolition plan
The William Mitton Covered Bridge in Riverview was demolished in February 2025, but documents CBC News obtained show the province had decided its fate long before.
