2021 Canadian church burnings

2021 Canadian church fires
Charred remains of Sacred Heart Mission, Penticton
Location	British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, and Nova Scotia, Canada
Date	Began June 2021
Target	Christian church buildings
Attack type	Arson, vandalism
Deaths	0
Injured	0
Perpetrators	Unknown
Motive	Most cases unknown, mental illness (Surrey), others suspected to be in response to the discovery of probable Canadian Indian residential school gravesites[1][2]
Convictions	2[1][3]

A series of church arsons and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 damaged or destroyed Christian churches in Canada. Coincident with fires, vandalism and other destructive events damaged churches in Canada, primarily in British Columbia.

Canadian government officials, church members, and Canadian First Nations leaders have speculated that the fires and other acts of vandalism have been reactions to the reported discovery of unmarked graves at Canadian Indian residential school sites in May 2021. In July 2021, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for an end to the fires. As of 2024^[update], no conclusive motive for any of the majority of the arsons has been formally identified by government investigators. A fire at a Coptic Orthodox church was determined to be the result of mental illness and unrelated to the residential schools, resulting in a conviction. One other fire resulted in another conviction.^[1]

A report by CBC News in 2024 identified at least 24 arsons at Christian churches in Canada between May 2021 and December 2023. Of the arsons, nine resulted in arrests, with law enforcement not identifying a motive in incidents resulting in criminal charges. The investigation identified that the church arsons began following the announcement of potential unmarked gravesites at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.^[1] It cited community leaders and an Indigenous history research that identified a relationship between the arsons and anger regarding the gravesites; it quoted one law enforcement official as saying that suspected motivations appeared "as varied as the people themselves", who came "from all walks of civil life, many different backgrounds".^[4]