Tag Archives: Parliament

A Canadian Reacts to Americans’ Reactions to the Parliament Shootings

First off, I would like to apologize to all of you for not getting more into the spirit of things this All Hallow’s Eve. For some CWR content that fits in with the general theme of spookiness and scariness I’d like to direct you to this Fame Day I wrote about a fun little webcomic and this Writers’ Roundtable where we discussed costumes [both features from last year, and returning eventually, I promise]. Enjoy ’em and come on back, because I’m going to be talking a little about Canada and our neighbour south of the 49th Parallel.

Specifically, I’m going to be covering the tragic and truly frightening [that’s all you get, and it wasn’t even on purpose; this is serious] event that occurred last Wednesday. As every Canadian likely knows by now a gunman shot and killed a soldier on ceremonial guard duty before proceeding into one of the parliament buildings to continue his attack. It was a sobering reminder that such events can happen on our soil and are not relegated to countries across the ocean.

What concerned me most about what happened has nothing to do with whether or not this was an act of large-scale terrorism [which I don’t think it is] or an indication that we have so much to learn when it comes to discussing mental illness [it can be, and we do]. The reason this has been on my mind over a week after the incident took place is the following illustration:

Clicking the image itself will take you to its place in the imgur gallery where you can read the comments posted.

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Jian Ghomeshi vs. The Women: 4 Reasons Why Liking Q Isn’t a Good Enough Reason to Defend Him

There’s been a lot of big news Canada over the last week. On Wednesday, a mentally ill man shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a soldier who was guarding the National War Memorial, before storming the Parliament building. The shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was then shot by 58-year-old Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, preventing any more casualties.

According to CBC’s sources, Vickers “dove to the floor around the pillar [where Bibeau was shooting from], turning on his back as he landed and simultaneously firing his weapon upwards at Bibeau”. Pretty impressive for an almost-60-year-old.

Yet the story of Cirillo’s death and Vicker’s heroism was quickly pushed aside when the news about Jian Ghomeshi hit.

When John and I first heard that Ghomeshi was going on leave we didn’t think much of it, and both said, “Well, we know he isn’t going to get fired. People love Q.”

Famous last words eh?

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