– West Edmonton Mall, opened in stages starting in 1981, attracts more than 30 million visitors a year, twice as many as Disneyland.

– The Edmonton landmark is Alberta’s biggest tourist attraction.

– Once the biggest mall in the world, WEM has dropped to 17th based on gross leasable area on a list compiled by Wikipedia.

– However, it is still the largest mall in North America and has several world records, including largest indoor lake and amusement park.

– Edmonton-based owner Triple Five Corp. says the facility, which has more than 800 stores and services, employs almost 24,000 people.

– The company, owned by the Ghermezian family, also has the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. and other shopping centres in its portfolio.

– In 2012-13, WEM and Edmonton police held four lockdown drills to practise security procedures in the wake of several public North American shootings.

– Mall officials said at the time they had installed emergency-notification software that sends alerts to tenants’ cellphones and email accounts.

– The mall’s public address system would also be used during an emergency, and a seminar was held for tenants to inform them of procedures.