B.C. Sues OpenAI. Now Release B.C.’s Own Tumbler Ridge File.

Attorney General Niki Sharma says British Columbia has filed a lawsuit in California against OpenAI over the February mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, seeking accountability and recovery of public costs after eight people were killed. Sharma says the province alleges OpenAI failed to notify police about the shooter’s interactions with ChatGPT and says B.C. has asked for those conversations.

That is a serious claim. It is also a civil lawsuit, and allegations against OpenAI have not been proven in court. The government should pursue the evidence wherever it leads. If an artificial-intelligence company had information that could have mattered to public safety, British Columbians are entitled to know how that system worked, who saw what, and why police were not warned.

But the province cannot use a California lawsuit as a curtain around B.C.’s own files. Tumbler Ridge was not only a technology story. OpenAI’s own motions in related private lawsuits argue the case implicates British Columbia institutions, law and public policy, including local law enforcement, mental-health treatment, firearms regulation and schools. That argument is made by a defendant trying to move or dismiss claims, not by an independent investigator. Still, it points directly at the records Victoria should be prepared to release.

Survivors, families, school staff, students and the public deserve more than a press conference about a foreign courtroom. They deserve a provincial chronology: what B.C. agencies knew before the attack; what school, policing and health-system contacts existed; when risk signals were received; what decisions were made; what warnings were missed; what recommendations have been implemented; and what remains hidden behind redactions.

Sharma is right that laws and safety frameworks have not kept pace with artificial intelligence. She is also right that companies cannot be left to regulate themselves. The same standard should apply to government. A lawsuit can seek damages. It cannot replace a public accounting of provincial systems responsible for student safety, community safety, records, emergency response and after-action reform.

Premier David Eby’s government should publish a Tumbler Ridge accountability file with privacy-protected records, a clear timeline, and a recommendation tracker that shows what has changed since February. If information must be withheld, the province should explain the legal reason precisely, not bury the public interest under broad secrecy.

Accountability is not a slogan aimed only at Silicon Valley. It has to start at home, in Victoria, with the files British Columbians already paid to create.