Anyone who’s
read these essays knows I’m opinionated, but there are some topics I shy away
from. I try not to preach my religion to you, and I stay away from political
topics. This isn’t to say I don’t have opinions in those areas—I just keep them
to myself.
Instead, I try
to write about the personal values I have—y’all know by now I believe that
people need to accept responsibility for their lives, and their actions. I
believe in self-reliance, and I believe we all have a duty to help those less
fortunate.
I suppose my
beliefs were forged in my childhood. I can still recall the time my mother got
this horrified look on her face, when, as a teenager, I proclaimed some
circumstance or other to be “not fair”. “Who the hell ever told you that life
was fair? It’s not fair, not for anyone.” And then she added, that if it was, my
father wouldn’t have died so young.
She didn’t
often mention him—even then I knew that to be caused by her great, unrelenting
grief. My mother was only forty-three when she was widowed, and in the few years
she had left on this earth—she passed away at 56—she never even looked at
another man.
Growing up
without having a dad, and with a mother who took responsibility for everything
that needed doing, surely shaped me. But there was one other incident in my
relative youth that shaped my outlook in life, and I want to share that with
you.
You may think
of Canada as being a peaceful, even polite nation, untouched by terrorism; but
we went through an act of ‘domestic terrorism’ before that phrase was ever
coined. It took place in 1970, when I was sixteen years old. Referred to now as
the “October Crisis”, it began with the kidnapping of two government
officials—British Trade Commissioner James Cross, and the Quebec provincial
Minister of Labor, Pierre Laporte—by a group that called itself le Front de
libération du Québec(Quebec Liberation Front), the FLQ.
The
government’s response to these acts of terror was swift; Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act, giving police
sweeping powers of detainment without writ, and the deployment of Canadian
Forces who only ever served as support to the civil authorities. During this
period, police detained 467 people, all but 62 of whom were released without
being charged. In the end, Mr. Cross was released, Mr. Laporte was murdered, the
perpetrators were eventually arrested and convicted, and the FLQ disbanded,
never to terrorize again.
The other
response to this act that seems remarkable in today’s world was that not a great
deal of “media attention” was focused on those perpetrators—they weren’t
featured, spotlighted, or made into media stars.
I mention all
of this, because of an incident you may have heard about that took place in our
nation’s capital a couple of weeks ago. A person, “radicalized” to the cause of
ISIS, after having shot and killed a young solider standing as guard at the
National War Monument, proceeded to enter the Center Block of our Parliament
building in Ottawa, in an obvious attack directed toward the Canadian
government. While Caucus was locked down, for the protection of the government
ministers including our Prime Minister, and the security team advanced, Kevin
Vickers, a 58 year old former RCMP officer, and our current Sergeant-at-arms,
left his office, gun hand, ran toward where the suspect was hiding behind
a column, and without hesitation, held his pistol in a two-handed grip,
leapt, turned in mid air, and opened fire on the criminal, even as he himself
hit the hard marble-over-concrete floor on his back.
He was joined
at that point by the bulk of the security force and they also opened fire. Mr.
Vickers then returned to his office, reloaded, and went back to the “field” as
no one, at that point, knew for certain if the attacker had help or
not.
When it was
deemed the gunman had indeed acted alone, Mr. Vickers entered the caucus
room—gun still in hand—went to the microphone, and announced, “I have engaged
the suspect, and he is deceased”.
The next
day—the very next day—parliament re-opened, and it was back to business
as usual.
Mr. Vickers
received a standing ovation from the members of Parliament and the Prime
Minister as he performed his ceremonial duty of bringing one of the symbols of
power into the chamber. In true Canadian fashion, he nodded his thanks and
appeared embarrassed by all the attention. Later, he said the true heroes were
the rest of the security force. And then he, too, got back to work—business as
usual.
Immediate
action, spotlight on the victims and the heroes and not the villains, and
then back to work.
That’s how you
deal with domestic terrorism. I was very proud, on that day in particular, to be
Canadian.
Love,
Morgan
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