Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to speak today in this chamber where democracy is upheld.

I would like to dedicate my opening words to the memory of Nathan Frank Cirillo, who gave his life simply for representing values that Quebeckers and Canadians share, those of democracy, safety, respect and honour. I would like to express my condolences to his family and loved ones, as well as to all those who are committed to defending our ideals of peace, safety and democracy.

I would also like to commend the courage of the men and women who, from the very moment this horrible tragedy began to unfold, took action to protect the individuals and elected officials who were on Parliament Hill and in the adjacent buildings.

More specifically, I would like to recognize the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House for his heroic action. I thank him and I thank everyone who risked his or her life dealing with a killer who was prepared to do anything to take the lives of innocent people and who was specifically targeting people in uniform.

Right now, we still do not have all of the information about the investigation and we still do not know what led two men to attack soldiers and a symbol as powerful as Parliament.

What they did can only be described as madness. A desire to instill fear by bringing such abject violence into the heart of institutions that guarantee freedom, democracy and respect for the law is about as low as you can get. I cannot condemn this senseless attack strongly enough.

While it may be too early today to take stock of the tragic events of October 22 and think about what measures to take, it is not too early to state loud and clear that we believe in peace, liberty and democracy and that we will not give in to threats or terror.

I see that we are all prepared to deal with this situation together, above and beyond our political allegiances. Let us focus on our strengths. Let us focus on democracy.

Jean-François Fortin

Transcript

Routine Proceedings

Discussions (0)