10 YEARS AFTER — Every time Conservative MP DAN ALBAS passes by Const. SAMEARN SON on Parliament Hill, he thinks of Oct. 22, 2014. Albas was in the weekly Conservative national caucus meeting when Michael Zehaf-Bibeau killed Cpl. NATHAN CIRILLO, who was standing guard at the National War Memorial — and then charged onto the Hill and through the front doors of Centre Block. Son, a security officer at the entrance, spotted the shooter's rifle and lunged. He was hit in the leg when the gun discharged . Within minutes, amid gunfire, a standoff and more gunfire, Zehaf-Bibeau lay dead. — Oral history: KEVIN VICKERS, the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms at the time who fired at Zehaf-Bibeau, recently broke his silence about that day with the Ottawa Citizen's ANDREW DUFFY. — Defensive measures: In the CPC caucus room, MPs barricaded the doors with chairs. They used flag poles as spears. Mounties protected then-PM STEPHEN HARPER in a closet. Across the way in Centre Block, a gunshot hole scarred the wooden door into the NDP caucus meeting. Some MPs fled the Hill. Others were forced to wait and wait behind closed doors. It was a destabilizing event for anybody caught in its vicinity. — Lingering adrenaline: Albas says the Centre Block gunfire stuck with MPs. "They had these old light bulbs. Sometimes, they would glow really bright, and then 'Bang!', a big, popping noise," he said. "For a lot of us, and I wasn't the only one, you would see suddenly the adrenaline hit, because you thought that something was horribly wrong." — Remembrance days: Albas and then-Liberal MP RODGER CUZNER walked back to the Hill on Oct. 23, 2014 — jovial colleagues on their way to work. At the time, your Playbook host interviewed them for a Maclean's story. Yesterday, we met at the war memorial to check in. Cuzner, now a senator, acknowledged his memory of Cirillo has fallen victim to time. “As life gets in the way, it sort of drifts out of your consciousness,” he said. Cuzner walks past the memorial every day on the way to the Senate building. "When you're face-on with the monument like this, and you see the current guards on duty, now that's what sort of jars you back," he said. Albas turned back the clock. "Canadians were very aware of the sacrifices" in the war in Afghanistan, he said. "There still are sacrifices that are made by people in uniform, constantly. And it's always the families that have to pick up the pieces after. So I think of [Cirillo's] son." — Times are a-changin': "When I was first elected [in 2000], you could drive your car right up on the Hill, pick a parking spot and walk freely around. Easy access," Cuzner said. The 9/11 terrorist attacks heightened security, and the 2014 shooting layered on a heavier presence. More recently, protests at the foot of the Hill have produced confrontations with elected officials. It's a tricky balance, but Albas says a heavier Ottawa Police presence reminds protesters "not to push it too far." "I remember a security guard telling me how proud he was that people could see and touch our democratic institutions," says Albas. "You should be able to protest in front of Parliament Hill, because that is what that space is for. That tension should exist." — Further reading: As Maclean's built an oral history of the shooting, the magazine's reporters interviewed eyewitnesses: parliamentarians, staffers, construction workers, and other visitors and residents. These were their stories. From CBC News: 10 years later, the bystanders who rushed to a fallen soldier's aid and the tragedy that changed them. From the Globe and Mail: Civilians who came to Nathan Cirillo’s aid should be recognized, MPs say
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