Canada's capital Ottawa was shaken on Wednesday by the fatal shooting of a soldier and an attack on the parliament building. The gunman in the parliament building was shot dead.
Mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States, and compared with Washington's Capitol Hill, security at government buildings in Ottawa is relatively low key.
But Wednesday's shooting was not the first attack on a Canadian government building or political figure. Here's a look at some of the most serious incidents:
- Sept 4, 2012: A gunman shot dead one person inside the Montreal theatre where the newly elected premier of Quebec was giving a victory speech. A suspect shouted "the English are waking up" in French as the police took him away. Police said at the time that there was no evidence he had accomplices.
- April 7, 1989: Charles Yacoub, 36, hijacked a bus and forced the driver to pull up onto Parliament Hill, where he fired several shots. He held passengers hostage during an hours-long standoff but eventually surrendered. There were no injuries. He claimed he was acting on behalf of a group called the Liberation Front for Christian Lebanon, but Canadian officials later said the group did not exist.
- Oct 14, 1988: Robert Crawford, upset about his ex-wife's remarriage, opened fire at Alberta's provincial legislature, hoping to be killed in a gunfight. Instead he was wounded and taken into custody. One officer was wounded, and it later became clear that many but not all of Crawford's bullets had been blanks.
- May 8, 1984: Former Canadian armed forces corporal Denis Lortie went on a shooting spree at Quebec's provincial legislature, vowing to destroy the government. He killed three people and wounded 13 others before a parliamentary guard convinced him to surrender.
- Oct 5, 1970: British Trade Commissioner James Cross was kidnapped by the Front de Liberation du Quebec, a separatist group. Cross was eventually freed, but not before the same group kidnapped and murdered Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. Then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau ordered soldiers in full battle dress into the streets of Ottawa and Quebec's two biggest cities, invoking Canada's War Measures Act.
