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.
[to top of second column] |
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)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|