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Saturday evening, a 30-year-old male driver rammed a black SUV through a crowd at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Filipino street festival. The results catastrophic; 11 people died and dozens remain in the hospital.

º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøknows this kind of pain. In 2018, a van tore down Yonge Street, killing 10 and injuring 15 more.

But in Vancouver — a city that prides itself on multiculturalism, on its cheerful seawall greetings and the mosaic of street celebrations that stretch from spring to fall honouring among others Greek culture, South Asian and Italian heritage. We like each other — a walk along Vancouver’s famous False Creek seawall is a meet and greet filled with strangers smiling and saying good morning to each other.

The events of Saturday evening will scar Vancouver. As the shock wears off and turns into grief, we will collectively think of the aunties, sisters, brothers, cousins, grandmothers, mothers, fathers, nieces and nephews affected by the abhorrent events and our hearts will bleed.

Flowers and candles will continue to pay homage to the victims at the scene of the crime. And more and more tears will be shed. And the next time a similar tragedy strikes a city (and it will), we will cry again, empathizing with their pain.

But grief alone isn’t enough.

It turns out that the driver responsible for Saturday’s tragedy had a of interactions with the police in connection with mental health issues. This raises questions: why wasn’t there more help provided to this individual?

The reported in 2024 that more than half of people aged 18 to 24 in Canada who had early signs of a mental illness said cost was an obstacle to getting mental health services.

In B.C., approximately 10.9 per cent of the population reporting poor-to-fair mental health say that they have experienced stigma or discrimination — another barrier to getting support.

In the first 10 beds of British Columbia’sÌýÌýprogram came online at South Fraser pretrial Centre, which will, without consent, intake patients with overlapping mental health and substance use disorders or brain injuries to ensure they are helped.

Ten, though, is a very small number. Almost residents of B.C. experience some form of mental illness each year.

The driver responsible for Saturday’s tragedy has been charged with multiple counts of murder and for the rest of his life will have to face the reality of his actions for the rest of his life. The Filipino community affected by the heinous act will also have to live with what happened. Grief will soften over time but the memory will always be there.

Far too often, journalists and writers, like myself, write words like these, analyzing and trying to make sense of what is senseless. Truth be told, we live in an imperfect world and no words can change what has happened or bring back those who have been killed.

What we can do, though, for our own healing and for all who have experienced and will experience similar events, is to continue to say good morning on the seawall — to smile and make connections that break down barriers and to advocate for a system that doesn’t abandon people. This builds compassionate, accepting communities that don’t stigmatize and when that happens, we survive.