When MP Bob Zimmer walked the halls of the House of Commons Thursday, he passed a bullet hole lodged into a column, right by the room where he'd spent 10 hours in lockdown with Conservative caucus members just the day before.
Less than 20 feet away, a gunfight left Michael Zehaf Bibeau dead mere minutes after the gunman killed a Canadian soldier at the National War Memorial before making his way to Parliament Hill.
"There's still chips of limestone where the bullets had been shot," said the Prince George-Peace River representative, adding two holes pierced the doors leading to the Opposition room, where the NDP caucus had gathered. "When you see the actual holes through wood ... it was really close."
Not long before, Zimmer and the Conservative caucus had finished singing O Canada - common for the national Wednesday morning meetings - when Zimmer heard a loud "whump."
It was only a matter of seconds before multiple blasts echoed through the halls - as many as 50 shots were fired.
"Once we heard the popping sound after, we knew that gunfire had erupted. We all got into safe positions away from the doors and some of us were covering the doors," said Zimmer, adding former police officers were among the couple hundred senators and parliamentarians in the room, directing other caucus members.
"We didn't know what was going on outside. However many there were, if they were going to try and get in, we were going to try to prevent them."
Zimmer was the first to report, just after 10 a.m. through Twitter, the "lone gunman is deceased. We are OK." He and others had just been briefed by Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, one of the guards credited with killing the 32-year-old attacker, who was carrying a 30-30, lever-action Winchester rifle.
"That's why I tweeted what I did," Zimmer said. "I wanted to let people know that we were safe, but not give away too much information." At that point, rumours were swirling of other shooting locations and it was still unclear whether more gunmen were loose in Ottawa's downtown.
Though Blackberry, phone lines and email soon became clogged at Centre Block, Zimmer managed to call his family. He said he wasn't concerned by the level of security at Parliament, saying it's a tradeoff so that the public has access.
"We want that freedom for taxpayers to come in and see what they're paying for," he said. "We want to preserve that as much as possible so it's not a locked-down building and only we can walk through the doors."
Zimmer said it was symbolic for Parliament to gather the day after Zehaf Bibeau killed 24-year-old Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and terrorized Canada's democratic centre.
But Zimmer said Zehaf Bibeau's actions Wednesday would change how Canada approaches security and extremism.
"We've seen other parts of the world affected by this and now it's at home in Canada and we have to address some of those extreme elements and take them on."
To do that, Zimmer is calling on "peaceful Muslim people" to help.
"What are they going to do to somehow curb the extremist elements in their groups?" he said. "I think that's an answer that needs to come from within."
While it's true that Zehaf Bibeau was a Muslim, police are still parsing through information for the troubled man's motivations. Early reports suggest he was a man who struggled with drug addiction. Quebec court records show a man by Bibeau's name had a lengthy criminal record with several convictions and brushes with the law in the early and mid-2000s
In the days before the shooting, Zehaf Bibeau lived at an Ottawa homeless shelter and those who knew him suggest he was angry about failing to get a passport.
"I think the passport figured prominently in his motives," RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson told a news conference Thursday.
Zimmer suggested Canada would ramp up its security measures, referencing the RCMP's watch list of 90 potential high-risk travellers. Zimmer couldn't speak to any details or actions that may have been taken after Wednesday's rampage.
"I think that's going to definitely escalate because now it's not just a foreign issue; people that are born and raised in Canada, becoming radicalized," said Zimmer, who disagrees with concerns being raised that rounding up the 90 would infringe on their rights. Zehaf Bibeau was not on the RCMP's watch list.
"When 90 - and there's likely more - can affect the security and freedom of 30 plus million, to me the answer's obvious. We need to maintain freedoms but all the while we need to address terrorists and do what we have to do."
