26 Oct As the fog of fear lifts…
Now that the fog of fear and bombast is lifting, here is what we are left with: a single, mentally ill Canadian man approached a ceremonial guard at the National War Memorial Wednesday and shot him dead. The killer then drove and ran the very short distance to Parliament Hill, where rushed past security and was shot dead in a brief gunfight.
The death of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a 24-year old army reservist from Hamilton, ON, is particularly sad, as he was a single father. Moreover, any violent disruption of Parliament constitutes an affront to democracy to be resisted with firm resolve.
But then, the 500+ victims of homicides that occur every year in Canada each have their own unique, poignant circumstances. And it is the openness of Parliament, as much as Parliament itself, that we must preserve and protect. As Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers was quoted as telling a young RCMP aspirant:
These grounds belong to all Canadians. I want to see people playing Frisbee on the lawn outside, but ensure everyone inside is secure. It has to be safe, but the people must always feel welcome. This is their Parliament.
In response to the acts of a single, deranged individual, police closed down Parliament, much of downtown Ottawa, and MPs’ offices from coast to coast. A Toronto ceremony to bestow honorary citizenship on Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai was cancelled, as was an Ottawa Senators hockey game. Provincial legislatures remained open, but restricted citizen access. The Nova Scotia Legislature barred visitors for the rest of the week. The responses ranged from necessary through excessive caution to overreaction.
Canada’s parliamentary press corps adopted a tone of exaggerated gravity and portentousness. Political reporters eagerly appropriated freighted police terms like “shooter,” “perp,” “lock-down,” and “take-down” (much as crime reporters adopt loaded terms like “grow-op” and “trafficked.”) Right wing commentators like Andrew Coyne served as enforcers of moral panic, hectoring any dissenters who had the effrontery to counsel calm and perspective.
The real danger is what we will do now. In Nova Scotia, Premier Stephen McNeil appointed his deputy minister, David Darrow, to head up a committee that will engage a “security expert” to advise on possible measures to make sure government employees “feel safe and secure,” despite scant evidence of any new threat to their safety or security.
Darrow is a personal friend, and a calm, rational civil servant, but the mission he has been charged with is almost certain to lead to bad decisions. “Security experts” can be counted upon to recommend greater security measures in a legislature that already has too many.
Security measures famously operate as a ratchet. They are easy to put in place, difficult to roll back, even when they prove costly, ineffective, and unnecessarily restrictive of important liberties.
Far more ominous is Prime Minister Harper’s promise to “redouble our efforts and those of our national security agencies to take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats.” Most took this as a signal Harper will use Wednesday’s terrible events as a pretext to increase Canada’s already excessive surveillance of innocent citizens; introduce preventative detention of those suspected, but not yet charged, with crimes; and restrict freedom of speech online.
Justin Trudeau, by contrast, offered a statesman-like response to the shooting, eloquently invoking Canada’s values.
Losing ourselves to fear and speculation is the intention of those who commit these heinous acts. They mean to shake us. We will remain resolved. They want us to forget ourselves. Instead, we should remember.
We should remember who we are. We are a proud democracy, a welcoming and peaceful nation, and a country of open arms and open hearts. We are a nation of fairness, justice and the rule of law.
His brief statement is worth reading in whole; it displays a rare degree of eloquence and levelheadedness in the face of crisis, and casts doubt on claims he is not ready to be prime minister.
Scott Reid sums up the danger of parliamentary group-think in this excellent Ottawa Citizen column:
The nation’s security apparatus exists to save lives and protect Canadians. But every inch of new ground acquired is taken at the expense of individual liberty. If such trade-offs can be defended as necessary to protect our wider freedoms, then so be it. If not, then they should be rejected. But that evaluation cannot be made properly without political leaders who are strong enough to risk being called weak.
In Canada we arrest people for what they do, not what they might do. And certainly not for who they are. It is the presence of political disagreement that guarantees such core principles are defended. Unlike so many similar times in our past, it appears that we’ll soon witness a bracing example of such disagreement. Thank goodness for that.
Finally, in case you missed it, this over-the-top rant from British comedian Russell Brand aptly skewers the jingoism of the Prime Minister and so much of the media.
Liberty and openness in Canada are certain to come under attack in the days and weeks ahead. Canadians who treasure those values should gear up to protect them.