11 die in car-ramming attack during Canada’s Vancouver street festival

as Canada's PM says the country is heartbroken

Eleven people were killed and dozens others injured on Saturday, April 26, 2025, when a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver.

Vancouver’s interim police chief, Steve Rai, addressed reporters on Sunday, saying that there are now 11 confirmed deaths from the car-ramming attack.

He said the death toll expected to rise in the coming days.

Rai added that dozens more are injured, with some sustaining serious injuries.

Victims have been transported by ambulance to nine hospitals across metro Vancouver.

The victims are both male and female and “young people” are among them, Rai said.

The Lapu Lapu Day festival where hundreds of attendees were gathered was scheduled to end at 8pm PT.

But there were still hundreds out on the street at the time.

Rai did not identify the suspect publicly since charges have not been filed.

However, said that he “does have a significant history of interactions with police and healthcare professionals related to mental health”.

“For terrorism, there should be some political, religious ideology behind it.

There are no indicators that this individual had that,” he said, adding that the suspect is a “Vancouver resident”.

He also said that police had consulted with city and festival organizers and determined that a heavy police presence was not needed at the festival.

Police will now work with city officials to “review all of the circumstances surrounding the planning of this event”.

“This is the darkest day in our city’s history,” the interim chief constable Steve Rai told reporters Sunday morning.

He added that more fatalities were possible in the coming days.

“It’s hard to make sense of something so senseless.”

The Guardiian reports that the festival, held on a balmy spring day, drew nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were families with young children.

Lapu Lapu Day is named after chief Lapulapu, an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines.

According to media reports, he was said to have led his men to defeat the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in battle in 1521.

Saturday’s festival was the second annual event for the city.

Also, organisers advertised a street parade, artisans, cultural activities, a giant basketball tournament and local food vendors.

The six-time Grammy-winning musical group Black Eyed Peas headlined a concert event.

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.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, paused general election campaigning to address the country on Sunday morning.

“Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” said a visibly emotional Carney.

Carney referenced “Bayanihan,” the Filipino value of community serving those in need.

“I know that I join all Canadians in mourning with you. I know that Canadians are united with you.”

He continued: “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,” he added.

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.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Filipino president, said he was “completely shattered” by the incident.

He also said his government conveyed the “deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the strong and thriving Filipino community in Canada”.

The incident happened shortly after 8pm local time.

A photo posted to X half an hour before showed a busy street with young people looking at the wares of rows of food truck vendors.

Footage posted online showed a black SUV with a damaged bonnet 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 had been 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,” Vardeh added.

Kris Pangilinan, a Toronto-based journalist attending the festival, told an online news agency that 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 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.

Reports say they were 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, Canada’s former defence minister who previously worked as a police officer in Vancouver, spoke about the incident.

He said the aftermath of the incident was the “the largest crime scene he had ever seen.

In his words, “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 happened shortly before Canadians go to the polls on Monday.

This comes after a frenetic election race where candidates have wooed voters on issues including rising living costs and tackling Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Carney is favoured to win after promising voters he would stand up to Washington’s sweeping import levies.

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 announced 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.

King Charles said he and his wife were “profoundly saddened” by the attack.

They also sent their deepest possible sympathy at a most agonising time for so many in Canada.

Vancouver had more than 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage in 2021, representing 5.9% of the city’s total population.

This is according to Statistics Canada, the agency that conducts the national census.

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