Winnipeg (Manitoba)/Vancouver, Jan. 23 (Reuters): The gunman suspected of killing four people and injuring several others in Canada's worst school violence in a decade first shot his two brothers at home before opening fire at the remote community high school, a family friend and the town's acting mayor said yesterday.

Police said a suspect was arrested after the shooting in La Loche, Saskatchewan, an impoverished community about 600km north of the city of Saskatoon.

The town's acting mayor, Kevin Janvier, said his 23-year-old daughter Marie, a teacher, was shot to death. He also said police told him that the gunman first shot two of his siblings at home and then made his way to the school.

Officials have not given a motivation for the shooting or named the suspect or victims.

Shootings are rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the US. In the country's worst school shooting, 14 college students were killed at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.