Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Canadian news media has gone a bit bonkers on this story. "Attack on Canada" - really?

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

It's a symbolic attack on "Canada" surely. Inside the parliament buildings. How much more symbolic could it be?

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

He could have used a stick with a nail in it like they use to club seals?

Anyway, you are right. I just forgot that mawkishly sentimental rhetoric trumps reality even in supposedly factual news reporting.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Yes, but this is Canada. 60% of Canadians in a poll last week said they will not travel abroad this next year because they fear Ebola:blink:

Canada is huge in size, but in its thinking is tiny, weeny and parochial....this is not necessarily a bad thing... It's why they see themselves as such a community, and 'Canadians help Canadians' and all that other good rhetoric.

Canada, as a nation, has been attacked and they are, quite rightly, cross and hurting.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

I like your use of 'cross' in that post. :thumbup:

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Downtown Halifax is reported as having certain parts on lockdown this morning after sightings of a gunman wandering around - wth!

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Nothing confirmed as yet, maybe a false alarm as people get panicked. No gun seen just an item wrapped in a blanket, or maybe a brolly

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/nova...town-1.2810019

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Since that was a government operation, why would they?

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

They do. Stop watching Sun News and the other Ford Nation crap you look at, and look at some real news. Imams, Islamic community leaders, ordinary Muslims, were all over the TV and radio last night and this morning condemning the events. Yesterday's attack had about as much to do with mainstream Islam as the Branch Davidians at Waco had to do with mainstream Christianity.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

It may be individuals attacking (it may not.... lets wait and see), but when the victims are seemingly random individuals who are targeted on Canadian soil solely because they wear a Canadian services uniform, I find it hard to rationalize it as anything other than an attack on Canada.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

An attack on the military and/or the government would be a much better (and factual) description.

Pereonally I didn't feel attacked at all, did you?

Anyway, that phrase was just an example of the media wanking frenzy I saw on the telly yesterday.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Alan have you forgotten the fuss over Lee Rigby? It's normal, the news is their business.

The news showed RCMP at Ottawa War Memorial with a man they'd wrestled to the ground and handcuffed, maybe everyone's just a bit on edge. Yesterday's baddie just decided to do it, picked up a gun and left for Parliament Hill but what if it had been a well planned attack by maybe 5 or 6 with automatic weapons and bombs to blow the doors of the caucus rooms? Maybe simultaneous attacks to divert responders and secondary explosives to cause maximum damage? We can try to address the oversight of suspects but I doubt CSIS knows who all the radicals are and no-one wants our civil liberties suspended. If it was an offence to speak out against the government Novo'd already be in prison. We already put people going into Revenue Canada through a metal detector like at the airport - I can't see having to have sandbagged bunkers in front of City Hall, it just isn't like us.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

I did, it was an outrageous act. Both of them.

A couple of years from now that could have been my kid as a cadet standing on guard at a cenotaph....

I guess Ive been drinking the coolaid for too long.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

What if? Now this is just a thought, but what if there was a news black out on terrorist events, threats, actions ect???

My thoughts are that one of the 90 or so who got stopped from leaving Canada to fight or visit Nana gunslinger in Siria may look at the news and think wow!! I can fight for Islam here and save the air fare !!!

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Id rather have a truly free press.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

I didn't at all. In the same way I don't feel responsible for bombing middle eastern countries.

This kind of thing was inevitable given the kind of nutter they are dealing with. You should be angry with the government because they definitely knew attacks of this nature were imminent and it looks like they did nothing.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Canada will not be intimidated....but please don't wear your military uniforms in public...:unsure:

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One of the most frustrating factors in this is that the "intelligence" services obviously had no clue this was in the works. Even after the cops being run down last week, they lowered the terrorist threat.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

They knew. They just did nothing.

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Cops?

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They have arrested someone

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Was it a gun?

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I think youll find they actually raised it... it was just worded weirdly.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

apparently they arrested someone and then found the gun on a bus
Halifax police arrest man, recover firearm from bus | Toronto Star

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

We dont know how much they knew though, and as a society we need to be carefull about at what point we start to arrest people based on suspicion rather than proof.

But both the shooter and the driver were prevented from leaving Canada recently, so clearly they were on the radar.

Im curious how someone with a gun was able to enter the parliament buildings without some sort of confrontation... Some failings in the system to be looked at for sure.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Ok good that they found him, only 87 more to come out of the wood work

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Yeah. Maybe now there will be some more high profile reporting on the Canadians that have joined isis as there are quite a few of them out there.

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He walked thru the front doors holding the gun, he was shot, but he was wearing a bullet vest, then was shot dead via the head by the sgt at arms

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

:(

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

+1 on each point

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I agree- but the person in charge of security has been hailed as a hero for shooting the man dead so this glaring oversight appears to have been quietly brushed under the carpet.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

CTV last night was doing a run down on security at Parliament, and based on what CTV was saying, there are several agencies who provide the security there depending where on the grounds one is.

Senate side was shown as having a separate security then the other side, the outside up to the street was shown as RCMP and then the streets Ottawa Police.

If this is true, maybe it's too many agencies trying to protect 1 place and it would be better if just 1 agency say the RCMP provides security for the entire grounds so everyone can work together better.

But not even the best security can prevent everything, I mean people are still jumping over the White House fence, luckily this time the dogs got him before he got close to the building.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

Inside the Parliament buildings, there's the House of Commons Police, the Senate Police, and the Sergeant-at-Arms' security force. The rest of the Parliament Hill area, outside the buildings themselves, is the responsibility of the RCMP. Beyond the immediate area of Parliament Hill, the Ottawa City Police have jurisdiction. On the river the OPP and SQ share responsibility, and on the other side it's the Gatineau police and SQ.

Who let the shooter in? He's not the Sergeant-at-Arms' responsibility until he's actually inside the building. He's not the RCMP's responsibility until he's actually on the lawn or the driveway in front of the building. The Ottawa police ceased being responsible as soon as he crossed the invisible line that marks the RCMP's Parliament Hill territory.

Every time there's some sort of incursion into Parliament (like a few years ago when the environmental protesters hung banners from the roof) there's a load of bluster about providing a unified command structure. But every time push comes to shove, the Commons and Senate don't want to get rid of their own police services and give carte blanche to the RCMP.

on edit: should have read jsmth's reply first. I heard this on CBC; it seems CTV were on the same story :)

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Seems the shooter was distance from his family, his mother met with him last week for the first time in 5 years.

He appears to have been homeless as well as CBC is reporting he was staying in a downtown shelter.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Here's the statement released by the parents - Michael Zehaf-Bibeau parents' statement: 'We are so sorry' - Politics - CBC News

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

Communication is the most difficult thing to organize in any fast time incident. Magnify that tenfold when you have different agencies, with different responsibilities, all working on different radio channels and it's invariably a f*** up that leads to tons of incredulous speculation after the fact as to "how could this have happened".

Every Chief Constable in the land will now be going to media proclaiming how ready they are for any such similar incident, but I would put money on the fact that they are not even vaguely ready. I can tell you that Calgary Police (who's Chief was on the TV yesterday declaring oh-so-politically-correctly how Calgary were ready) are not ready.

Everyone bumbles along, is crucified with the hindsight later on, and makes a couple of changes to the Procedures Manual after the horse has bolted.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

So CBC news are saying he (the crazed gun man) was miffed that the Canada passport folks wanted to ask him a few questions regarding his application for a passport. (Prob Like to know more about his recent Islamic brainwashing and planned vacation in Syria) He did not have his passport removed.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

I have been somewhat amused, in my own cynical little way, to listen to assorted Government spokespeople wriggle when asked about today's news-agenda question: where did Zehaf-Bibeau get his gun? Just think, if the serial number information had been recorded in some central list somewhere, like - oh, I don't know, a long-gun registry - then that information would be easily to hand, no? A blustery Senator was quite splendid in his obfuscation of this issue on the news last night. Can't remember who he was, but he was ridiculous.

But, on the broader issue, it seems everyone may have been a bit hasty calling this one an ISIS-inspired terrorist incident. Sure, the guy had been watching some questionable content on line, but this has more of the hallmarks of an unstable individual with a personal grudge, rather than a dedicated jihadist. Not that that makes it any less tragic, of course.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

He probably stole the rifle and ammunition or bought it on the street. The dope cycle has a vibrant stolen property component so someone living on the street or who has addicts as friends will know who has one. Mental illness was probably a factor but I consider this primarily a politically and religously motivated act based on his choice of targets and his recent history. He wasn't on the list of suspect jihadis though, so CSIS might be re-thinking their criteria for that.

Re: Ottawa shootings
 

well yes, but where/who from? Who was the licensed owner? What is the history of ownership of the rifle? A registry would be a good starting point in tracing the movement of the weapon into the hands of the shooter.

But of course, as we have heard many times from anti-gun-registry folks, criminals don't use long guns. Except when they do.