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Canadian lawmakers to hold first caucus since deadly attack

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[October 29, 2014]  By Randall Palmer and Richard Valdmanis
 
 OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian lawmakers on Wednesday were due to hold their first caucuses since a gunman charged into Parliament after shooting dead a soldier, in an attack that raised questions about the nation's relaxed approach to security.

Members of Parliament are set to return to the meeting rooms on Parliament Hill where some hid a week ago during a gun battle between security officers and an attacker described as a recent convert to Islam who struggled with drug addiction.

The Oct. 22 attack and an incident two days earlier when a man hit two soldiers with his car outside Montreal, killing one, came during a week when Canada's military sent additional warplanes to take part in air strikes against Islamic State fighters in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other Canadian officials have vowed that their policy decisions will not be affected by the attacks at home.

In the Center Block of Parliament, bullet holes could be seen Tuesday in doors near the room where Harper was meeting with fellow conservatives during last week's attack.

 

 

They may go unrepaired, left to serve as grim reminders of the incident, said Rick Dykstra, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Canadian heritage.

"I actually think it should remain and be part of an understanding, especially when people and visitors and young people come through the building to see it, that they understand that this is something that happened," Dykstra told reporters on Tuesday. "It's something that we faced, both as individuals, as parties, but as a country."

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the 32-year-old Canadian-Libyan citizen who carried out the Oct. 22 attack and 25-year-old Martin Rouleau, who hit a pair of soldiers with his car two days earlier, appear to have acted independently of one another, according to police.

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Officials described both men as homegrown radicals, but warned that attacks such as theirs, carried out with minimal planning, posed a "serious" threat to the nation's security. Zehaf-Bibeau and Rouleau were shot dead by security officers.

In Hamilton, Ontario, an industrial city just west of Toronto, thousands of people turned out on Tuesday for the funeral of the victim of the Ottawa attack, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, 24, who police say Zehaf-Bibeau shot dead while he was standing a ceremonial and unarmed watch at the nation's war memorial in the capital.

Another funeral is scheduled in Longueuil, Quebec, on Saturday for Patrice Vincent, a 53-year-old Warrant Officer who died in Rouleau's attack outside Montreal on Oct. 20.

(Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Alan Crosby)

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