Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church (Peace River, AB) attacked with Molotov cocktails

Late on Saturday 03 July 2021, around 11 p.m., a monitored fire alarm sounded at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church on 99 Street in Peace River, a town in northwestern Alberta. Unknown suspects had thrown Molotov cocktails through the building's windows, igniting a fire inside. A church employee alerted by the alarm reached the scene and extinguished the small blaze before emergency crews arrived.

According to Global News, the building sustained only minor damage, consisting of fire damage and a broken window, and no one was injured. The Peace Regional RCMP and the Peace River Fire Department jointly examined the scene and determined the fire to be arson. Investigators reported that no suspects had been identified and appealed to the public for information related to the incident.

The attack came during a summer 2021 wave of fires and vandalism against churches across Canada, many of them Catholic and several on or near Indigenous land. The wave followed announcements of suspected unmarked graves at former residential schools run largely by the Catholic Church. Comparable incidents occurred in the same period at St. Jean Baptiste Church in Morinville, Alberta, and at the Sacred Heart Mission Church in Penticton, British Columbia.

This is a domestic Canadian arson, not foreign state sabotage or organized terrorism. It belongs to a broader 2021 wave of attacks on churches that coincided with the residential-schools graves announcements, a context that points toward a retaliatory or symbolic motive. However, in this case no suspect was identified and police stated no charges, so any motive remains unestablished and should not be assumed. Indigenous leaders widely condemned such church fires as criminal acts rather than acts of solidarity. Damage here was limited and no one was hurt.