Peter Stockland declares that we will not be changed by fear.

By Peter Stockland October 23, 2014

1 minute read

Toronto Liberal MP John McKay was, at that moment, the admirable embodiment of the honest politicians who lead us.

“That is an excellent question,” he said. “I have absolutely no idea what the answer is.”

We were standing at the corner of Metcalfe and Albert streets in Ottawa, a few hundred metres south from where a gunman was shot dead in the Hall of Honour of Canada’s Parliament and a few blocks west of the War Memorial, where Hamilton-based soldier Nathan Cirillo had just been murdered by that same gunman.

The question put to McKay was the obvious ambient mystery of the day: how on earth, after killing Cirillo in broad daylight, could that gunman have made his way onto Parliament Hill carrying a loaded long gun, then gotten past Parliamentary security into the building itself?

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