Author­i­ties in Cana­da have locked down Par­lia­ment Hill, the heart of the coun­try’s nation­al cap­i­tal, Ottawa, after a yet-to-be-pub­licly-iden­ti­fied assailant fatal­ly shot a sol­dier guard­ing Canada’s War Memo­r­i­al, then entered Cen­tre Block and began fir­ing at peo­ple there before being killed by secu­ri­ty. Fit­ting­ly, the man who took the gun­man down was said to be Par­lia­men­t’s sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers.

Canada’s Nation­al War Memo­r­i­al, as seen from the Peace Tow­er. (The Memo­r­i­al is cir­cled). The gun­man began his attacks at the Memo­r­i­al, fatal­ly shoot­ing a Cana­di­an sol­dier before pro­ceed­ing to Cen­tre Block. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Cen­tre Block, for those unfa­mil­iar with Ottawa, is the most famous build­ing in the Cana­di­an cap­i­tal. It is the equiv­a­lent of the domed Leg­isla­tive Build­ing here in Wash­ing­ton or the U.S. Capi­tol build­ing in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. It con­tains the cham­bers of the Cana­di­an House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate. Its most promi­nent fea­ture is the Peace Tow­er, which is almost one hun­dred meters tall.

The image above depicts Cen­tre Block, the most dis­tinc­tive build­ing on Par­lia­ment Hill, where Canada’s law­mak­ers con­duct busi­ness. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Alarm­ing­ly, at the time of the attack, Canada’s polit­i­cal lead­ers were inside Cen­tre Block for cau­cus meet­ings. For­tu­nate­ly, none of them were harmed. Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er was tak­en away by the author­i­ties to a secure loca­tion imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the inci­dent. He was lat­er tele­phoned by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who offered any sup­port and resources that the Unit­ed States could provide.

The White House released a read­out of the call, which said:

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma spoke by phone with Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er to express the Amer­i­can people’s sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cana­da in the wake of attacks on Cana­di­an Forces in Que­bec on Octo­ber 20 and in Ottawa on Octo­ber 22. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma con­demned these out­ra­geous attacks, and reaf­firmed the close friend­ship and alliance between our peo­ple.  The Pres­i­dent offered any assis­tance Cana­da need­ed in respond­ing to these attacks. Prime Min­is­ter Harp­er thanked the Pres­i­dent and the two lead­ers dis­cussed the assault and agreed to con­tin­ue coor­di­na­tion between our gov­ern­ments mov­ing forward.

Speak­ing to MSNBC, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Char­lie Angus said that had the gun­man entered Cen­tre Block an hour lat­er, it is like­ly that the cau­cus meet­ings would have con­clud­ed, and that MPs would have been out in the halls speak­ing to the press.

It is not yet clear how the gun­man man­aged to get into Cen­tre Block. From hav­ing vis­it­ed Par­lia­ment Hill in July, I can attest that entrances and exits to the build­ing are mon­i­tored and guard­ed. All vis­i­tors are swept by secu­ri­ty pri­or to enter­ing Cen­tre Block for guid­ed tours, or to go up the Peace Tower.

A num­ber of build­ings in Ottawa remain on lock­down. Cen­tre Block, East Block, and West Block are all closed to the pub­lic right now. West Block was actu­al­ly already closed; it’s been under­go­ing ren­o­va­tions for months. The near­by U.S. Embassy, which is very close to Par­lia­ment Hill, was also sealed off.

West Block, on Par­lia­ment Hill, is shown under­go­ing ren­o­va­tions in July of 2014. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Ottawa is a charm­ing city and a fair­ly safe place. I’ve described it to friends as a cross between the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Lon­don. Ottawa is actu­al­ly home to more peo­ple than San Fran­cis­co, but it does­n’t feel like a large city at all. Part­ly that’s because it is much more spread out than cities of com­pa­ra­ble size.

By after­noon, all of Canada’s major par­ties had issued state­ments in response to the shoot­ings. Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper’s office said he would speak to the nation in a tele­vised address this evening.

• Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty statement
• Lib­er­al Par­ty statement
• New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty statement

We extend our con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the sol­dier who was killing and our sym­pa­thies to those wound­ed in the attack. Hope­ful­ly they’ll all recover.