Canada PM pledges tougher security laws after Ottawa attack

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged to boost security forces’ surveillance and detention powers on Thursday, a day after a gunman killed a soldier and raced through Parliament Hill before being shot dead. Addressing the House of Commons just metres from the spot where the gunman, a reported convert to Islam, was shot dead on Wednesday, Harper said lawmakers would expedite new powers to counter the threat of radicals. Harper pledged to speed up a plan already underway to bolster Canadian laws and police powers in the areas of “surveillance, detention and arrest.” Harper said the attack, which followed an incident on Monday in which a convert to Islam ran over two Canadian soldiers with his car, killing one, would strengthen Canada’s response to “terrorist organisations.”

Can you ever explain something like this? … We are sorry.

Susan Bibeau, mother of shooting suspect

Police were investigating a man named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau as the possible suspect. U.S. officials said they had been advised he was a convert to Islam. His mother issued an apology on Thursday. The attacks in Ottawa and Quebec took place as the Canadian government prepared to boost the powers of its spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Public Safety Minister Stephen Blaney said last week the new legislation would let the agency track and investigate potential terrorists when they travel abroad and ultimately prosecute them.

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