Prince George -Peace River MP Reflects on Attack on Parliament Hill
Prince George, B.C.- “The father in me kicked in, you do what you can to protect your kids, and you do what you can to protect the colleagues and friends around you.” That’s how Prince George – Peace River MP Bob Zimmer describes the tense moments when members of the Conservative Caucus barricaded the doors while outside there was the thunder from gunfire during yesterday’s attack on Parliament Hill.
Zimmer says the scene at the House of Commons today is different, but the events of yesterday’s terrorist attack are clearly visible “I just walked down the hallway where there’re bullet holes in doors and bullet holes in columns and broken pieces of limestone, there are chips right there.”
He says the Opposition caucus meeting room door shows significant damage “There’s a hole that’s almost all the way through their doors. There’s one that went completely through the door and halfway through the sound door, and a similar shot went our way, so the shots came real close.”
He says he is just so thankful that people like Kevin Vickers (the Sergeant at Arms who is credited with shooting the suspect) stepped up “He captained the Security ship yesterday he really stepped up and put his own life on the line for us, which you can’t say enough about.”
He says everyone was saddened to learn of the news Corporal Nathan Cirillo had been gunned down at the National War Memorial “ Here’s a young guy standing guard for Canadian fallen soldiers, and this scumbag shoots him while he’s (Cirillo) paying respect to that is just beyond disgusting. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Nathan Cirillo , and I think all Canadians honour his service and we all mourn with his family.”
Moving forward, Zimmer says security will be tightened at Parliament Hill, “I think we will give them (security) a little more latitude to make it more difficult for bad guys to get in, that’s something that’s going to be developed in the near future.”
The day after the attack, security has already been ramped up, and Zimmer says he feels completely safe “It’s just being more aware, without being afraid, because I think if terrorists make us afraid then they’ve done some damage.”
Comments
Like much of the downtown, I spent most of the day in lockdown yesterday. My workplace is about five or six blocks from where everything went down and I found out about it as I was leaving a meeting. It was pretty much confusion after that, as nobody really knew what was going on. News reports were conflicting, information coming in was sporadic, people were scrambling to get in touch with family members spread across the downtown, friends and family who worked at parliament, etc. It was just an odd day and when you could get a glimpse out of a window, the streets had an eerie appearance of silence to them. My son’s school was also locked down and it’s a little bizarre to have your five your old ask you the name of the bad man that stopped him from being able to have afternoon recess. I didn’t know his name.
I’ve been trying to process the events of yesterday and trying to figure out what our response should be. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that the RCMP, the Ottawa police and the many others who responded could have done a better job. Things were locked down very quickly, and there was a very significant presence in the downtown core almost immediately. For those of you that haven’t been there, the War Memorial is very close to Parliament. By the time the 911 calls in and were being processed, the shooter probably would have been entering the grounds of Parliament. It’s that close. I think they are still trying to figure out how he got into Parliament, but it sounds like he was engaging people as he was entering, so I imagine the whole scene was chaotic. There was a major exchange of gunfire inside of Parliament and I think the incident was over fairly quickly after that all started. I’m not sure what the total duration of time was from the first shooting to when the shooter was killed, but I’m guessing it was under 10 minutes? All of this to say that I’m not sure what we could do, short of becoming a police state, to ensure that events like these never happen. This was a Canadian citizen who undertook these attacks, by all accounts there was no warning, he wasn’t one of the home bred extremists being investigated and the authorities ended it as quickly as possible.
I’m sure there will be massive reviews of what happened, as there should be. I’m sure there will be all sorts of recommendations. I’ve been hearing people call for a complete lockdown of Parliament Hill, significantly increased monitoring of personal communications, more extensive military action overseas, etc. My question is whether any of these would have stopped what happened yesterday?
I’ve come to love this city. I’ve come to love the fact that visitors from around the world can stroll on Parliament Hill and be immersed in the freedom that we have here. I’ve come to love the fact that people with views I completely disagree with, can protest and share their perspectives on Parliament Hill. I’ve come to love the free access to memorials and other symbols of what our country means to us. Driving home last night, I was stuck wondering what my grandfather would have thought about the various “solutions” being thrown out there.
I’ve come to believe that we shouldn’t address this threat by becoming more like the people who threaten us. We shouldn’t restrict freedoms in order to solidify them. We shouldn’t breed fear in order to quash it. No, I think we need to be even more vigilant in defending our freedoms and advancing our way of life. I think that would be the more fitting way to honour Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent.
Let more good competent people carry handguns, like the Sergeant at Arms.
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