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Pierre Poilievre was with the prime minister and other MPs in the Conservative caucus room when Michael Zehaf-Bibeau stormed into the Centre Block a year ago. They heard the first shot — Poilievre described it as a “crunching” sound — and assumed someone had dropped a load of folding tables.
“Then maybe four seconds later it was just, Bang! Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We all knew these were gunshots.”
The MPs headed for the south exit, but were turned back by security and headed toward the north door.
“The shots were clearly just on the other side of the door. Security said, ‘No, don’t go out that way.’
“So we stood there. That was the moment of greatest terror. You could hear the sounds coming from the Hall of Honour, which is just on the other side of the door. And we were all looking at the door.
“It was just assumed — my imagination led me to believe — that there were 12 or 15 terrorists charging into the Precinct shooting everyone in sight and that any moment the door would kick open. When a terrorist goes to Parliament Hill, he’s looking for the prime minister and his cabinet.
“After several seconds of waiting, we just decided that we were going to take matter into our own hands in our own desperate way. Someone yelled out, ‘Grab some chairs’ and we piled them up 10 feet high at every door entrance. Then some junior staffer from the prime minister’s office said, ‘Take these flagpoles.’ They have very sharp maple leafs at the top. He handed me one. There was about seven or eight of us who had these flagpoles. We just put our backs to the wall and waited for someone to try to break in and we hoped that, by some miracle, we’d get them before they got us.
“I genuinely believed there were gunmen coming into that room,” Poilievre said. “There was nowhere to hide … not a staircase you could go down or a wall you could hide behind. There was nothing that could stop a bullet.”
When Hill security guards later banged on the door, it took some convincing to get the MPs to open up. The prime minister was whisked away and the MPs were given back their BlackBerries — Poilievre’s first phone call was to his mother.
“I’ll be honest, in the months that followed, I was on an extra high level of alert,” he said. “I had … I had a lot of dreams. I had this need to constantly close my window drapes. I don’t think the drapes would stop a bad guy, but it was something I had to do.”
The weekend after the shooting, Poilievre was getting ready for his regular Saturday morning workout and saw a photo of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in workout gear.
“I thought, Oh my god. Here’s this young guy — just like me — who liked to go to the gym — just like me — he had his whole future ahead of him — just like me — and he’s no longer with us. I felt a real personal connection with him,” Poilievre said.
“I don’t talk about it a whole lot anymore. I’m not a very emotional guy, but it is an emotional recollection.”
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
“Then maybe four seconds later it was just, Bang! Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We all knew these were gunshots.”
The MPs headed for the south exit, but were turned back by security and headed toward the north door.
“The shots were clearly just on the other side of the door. Security said, ‘No, don’t go out that way.’
“So we stood there. That was the moment of greatest terror. You could hear the sounds coming from the Hall of Honour, which is just on the other side of the door. And we were all looking at the door.
“It was just assumed — my imagination led me to believe — that there were 12 or 15 terrorists charging into the Precinct shooting everyone in sight and that any moment the door would kick open. When a terrorist goes to Parliament Hill, he’s looking for the prime minister and his cabinet.
“After several seconds of waiting, we just decided that we were going to take matter into our own hands in our own desperate way. Someone yelled out, ‘Grab some chairs’ and we piled them up 10 feet high at every door entrance. Then some junior staffer from the prime minister’s office said, ‘Take these flagpoles.’ They have very sharp maple leafs at the top. He handed me one. There was about seven or eight of us who had these flagpoles. We just put our backs to the wall and waited for someone to try to break in and we hoped that, by some miracle, we’d get them before they got us.
“I genuinely believed there were gunmen coming into that room,” Poilievre said. “There was nowhere to hide … not a staircase you could go down or a wall you could hide behind. There was nothing that could stop a bullet.”
When Hill security guards later banged on the door, it took some convincing to get the MPs to open up. The prime minister was whisked away and the MPs were given back their BlackBerries — Poilievre’s first phone call was to his mother.
“I’ll be honest, in the months that followed, I was on an extra high level of alert,” he said. “I had … I had a lot of dreams. I had this need to constantly close my window drapes. I don’t think the drapes would stop a bad guy, but it was something I had to do.”
The weekend after the shooting, Poilievre was getting ready for his regular Saturday morning workout and saw a photo of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in workout gear.
“I thought, Oh my god. Here’s this young guy — just like me — who liked to go to the gym — just like me — he had his whole future ahead of him — just like me — and he’s no longer with us. I felt a real personal connection with him,” Poilievre said.
“I don’t talk about it a whole lot anymore. I’m not a very emotional guy, but it is an emotional recollection.”
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
