OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other lawmakers paid their respects Thursday to a soldier gunned down the previous day in Ottawa, while security officials said the gunman who carried out a shooting rampage at the Canadian Parliament and a nearby war memorial had applied for a passport and wanted to go to Syria.
A few hundred people joined lawmakers from all parties Thursday at the National War Memorial to lay flowers before breaking into a spontaneous rendition of the national anthem.
"We will be vigilant, but we will not run scared," Harper later told his colleagues in the House of Commons as Parliament resumed normal operations after a moment of silence for the dead soldier. "We will be prudent, but we will not panic. And as for the business of government, well, here we are, in our seats, in our chamber in the very heart of our democracy."
In a rare display in the usually combative chamber, Harper walked across the floor and embraced opposition leaders Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau.
"We are opponents, but we are never enemies," Harper said. "We are all Canadians."
Police on Wellington Street blocked public access to the football-field size front grounds of Parliament, where people regularly take part in mass yoga classes and throw flying discs.
Armed members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police guarded the main door to Parliament's Peace Tower, the same entrance Michael Zehaf-Bibeau walked through with a rifle Wednesday after he shot Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the war memorial around the corner.
Cirillo, 24, from Hamilton, Ontario, later died of his injuries. Zehaf-Bibeau was killed in the Hall of Honor by parliamentary security officials as lawmakers took shelter in adjoining meeting rooms.
Lawmakers credited the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, with killing the gunman and gave him a standing ovation as he entered the chamber Thursday. The former Mountie said in a statement that he was "very touched" by the attention but that he has the close support of a remarkable security team.
Security officials confirmed that Vickers was one of the people who opened fire on Zehaf-Bibeau but said the exchange was still under investigation.
Later Thursday, Bob Paulson, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, described Zehaf-Bibeau at a news briefing as a 32-year-old Canadian whose father was from Libya. He was born in Montreal, had lived in Calgary and Vancouver, and had been in Ottawa since at least Oct. 2 to deal with a passport application, Paulson said.
In recent weeks, he had been living at a homeless shelter and had talked about wanting to go to Syria. Paulson said Zehaf-Bibeau may have lashed out in frustration over delays in obtaining a passport.
"I think the passport figured prominently in his motives. I'm not inside his head, but I think it was central to what was driving him," Paulson said.
Paulson said the passport application "was not rejected. His passport was not revoked. He was waiting to get it, and there was an investigation going on to determine to see whether he would get a passport."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been contacted to conduct background checks on Zehaf-Bibeau, who had a history of arrests for drugs, violence and other infractions.
Authorities are now investigating how the gunman obtained the rifle used in the shootings, which he should been prohibited from possessing because of his criminal record.
According to some accounts, Zehaf-Bibeau may have held extremist beliefs, and investigators had uncorroborated information suggesting that he had associations with an individual who was known to security officials, Paulson said. But Zehaf-Bibeau was not one of the 93 "high-risk travelers" that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are currently investigating.
Security Camera Footage
After fatally shooting Cirillo at Ottawa's war memorial shortly before 10 a.m. Wednesday, Zehaf-Bibeau got into a car that he had purchased the previous day and drove the short distance to Parliament Hill, according to a timeline presented at Thursday's news conference.
Security camera footage captured Zehaf-Bibeau as he parked his car in front of the Elgin entrance and started running toward the East Block, where vehicles belonging to members of Parliament were parked. He seized one of the vehicles, which he used to drive to Center Block, the building where lawmakers were holding caucus meetings, the footage showed.
Police vehicles on site chased him and were seconds behind Zehaf-Bibeau when he ran through the main doors, Paulson said. Inside the building, there was an exchange of fire between the gunman and House of Commons security and police officers. Zehaf-Bibeau was pronounced dead at the scene.
Zehaf-Bibeau's mother, Susan Bibeau, offered a tearful apology Thursday.
"Can you ever explain something like this?" she said. "We are sorry."
"If I'm crying, it's for the people," she said. "Not for my son."
The attack left parts of the city on lockdown for hours Wednesday, but all city services returned to normal Thursday.
Addressing the House of Commons just yards from where the gunman was shot dead, Harper pledged to expedite a plan to give the country's security forces greater powers in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest.
Unity is Canada's "ultimate weapon," Harper said.
The Ottawa shooting was the second fatal attack on a member of the Canadian armed forces this week. A man described as a radicalized Muslim ran over two Canadian soldiers with his car Monday, killing one of them, before being shot dead by police in Quebec.
The attacks raised fears that the country was facing a terrorist assault after Canada announced this month that it was joining the United States in the battle against Islamic State militants, who have taken over large parts of Iraq and Syria.
But Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau said Thursday that Zehaf-Bibeau acted alone and there appeared to be no connection between Wednesday's attack and the one that took place in Quebec earlier this week.
"There's no more threat to public safety," Bordeleau said.
Nonetheless, security has been heightened at military bases and government buildings nationwide. Canadian soldiers in the Ottawa area were ordered not to wear their uniforms in public, unless on duty, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
Responding to a question about when the security perimeter around Parliament Hill will be removed, Ottawa Police Constable Marc Soucy said that "police presence has been increased in that area and we're just being more vigilant, looking at anything suspicious and dealing with it."
Information for this article was contributed by Theophilos Argitis, Greg Quinn, Andrew Mayeda and Liezel Hill of Bloomberg News; by W.J. Hennigan and Alexandra Zavis of the Los Angeles Times; and by Jennifer Peltz, Rob Gillies and Raphael Satter of The Associated Press.
A Section on 10/24/2014