Why are bullet holes from the 2014 Parliament Hill attack a permanent feature of Centre Block?

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Ten years ago, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was peppered with gunfire after he stormed Parliament Hill with a lever-action Winchester rifle.

The self-described jihadist, a petty criminal and crack addict, had already shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in the back as he stood sentry at the National War Memorial.

Zehaf-Bibeau was shot 31 times, according to a post-mortem exam, and suffered two fatal wounds – one to the back of his neck, and another to his chest.

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They were among 56 shots fired inside Centre Block on Oct. 22, 2014 by House of Commons security officers, RCMP officers, and House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers as they confronted and killed Zehaf-Bibeau, who fired his weapon three times inside Parliament.

It was one of the most dramatic and chaotic days in Ottawa history, and represented the most serious security breach of Parliament Hill in half a century. The incident spawned six official reviews, which revealed a raft of security problems involving resources, planning, communications, training and intelligence. One OPP report called the entire approach to security on the Hill “highly inadequate.”

Not least among the security problems was the fact that Centre Block’s front doors were unlocked and lightly guarded.

As a result, a new visitor’s welcome centre is being built in front of Centre Block to control access to the building, and the three security services that once policed the Hill have been united into a single unit, the Parliamentary Protective Service, under the leadership of the RCMP.

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More recently, the federal government confronted another legacy of that day’s terror attack: the bullet holes and ricochet marks that pockmark Centre Block.

The government had to decide whether to repair damage from the gunfire as part of the ongoing rehabilitation of Centre Block, or to leave the impact sites as an acknowledgement of Parliament’s historic scar tissue.

Michèle LaRose, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the department consulted with administrators of both the House of Commons and Senate. A decision has been made, she said, to repair the damage done by bullets to wooden doors and frames, but to leave untouched the impact sites in Confederation Hall (also known as the rotunda) and the Hall of Honour.

There are impact sites high on the southeast wall of the rotunda, and low on the northwest wall. In the Hall of Honour, which connects the rotunda to the Library of Parliament, there’s a ricochet site on a pillar, another on the east side of the hallway, and bullet impact sites on the west wall.

“The approach that has been implemented,” LaRose said, “balances the need to preserve heritage fabric while leaving an imprint to pay homage to this important historical event.”

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University of Montreal professor emeritus Christina Cameron, an international expert in heritage conservation, applauded the government’s decision to retain the bullet damage in Centre Block’s walls and pillars.

“There will be lots of people who will say, ‘Just get rid of that. We don’t want to see that. It’s a reminder of something negative,’” Cameron said. “But history isn’t only about the positive.”

Retaining the damage of the bullet holes, she said, also offers an opportunity to engage in discussion about current issues: political violence, the rule of law, and the threats posed to democracy.

The federal government’s $4.5 billion rehabilitation of Centre Block is the largest heritage conservation project in Canadian history. As it unfolds, it must continually define what forms part of Parliament’s essential heritage fabric, and what can be changed to make the building safer, more accessible and sustainable.

“Achieving the balance between conservation and renewal is one of the project’s greatest challenges,” a Public Services and Procurement Canada background document notes.

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The question of what should be protected is a fiercely-debated topic within the field of heritage conservation.

For years, the dominant school of thought held that heritage buildings should be restored to their original, “ideal” form, but most conservationists have come to embrace the “narrative” of a building – an idea that allows for its layers, built up over years of social change and historical events, to be preserved.

Patricia Kell, executive director of National Trust for Canada, a charity that helps to save and renew historic places, said Parliament’s bullet holes are part of the nation’s history. Removing them, she argued, would add an extra, unnecessary layer of intervention to Centre Block’s rehabilitation.

“The bullet holes speak to important events that happened in that place,” she said. “The bullet holes bear witness to that experience. By leaving the damage, you remember that event, and you remember what you learned from that.”

But not everyone agrees. Green Party leader Elizabeth May said discussions about the bullet holes should take a backseat to discussions about a public inquiry into the security failings of Oct. 22, 2014.

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“I am still shocked that we never had a public inquiry,” she said. “I can’t imagine any other country in the world that wouldn’t have had a public inquiry into such a horrific event in a modern democracy.”

Among other things, May wants to understand how the RCMP, then responsible for security outside Parliament, allowed the gunman to run onto the Hill, hijack a minister’s car, and drive unchallenged to the Peace Tower.

It continues to anger her, she said, that the RCMP was later put in charge of all Parliament Hill security in violation of parliamentary tradition.

“I find our erasure of history around this – but preserving bullet holes – to be paying attention to the wrong things,” she said. “I feel like it’s never too late to do the right thing: There should have been an inquiry and there still should be.”

Preserving a place that commemorates a violent, painful or divisive chapter in a nation’s history is often a fraught process.

Christina Cameron co-authored a 2020 study for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre that warned the memorialization of such sites can create disharmony, even violence, if their history is manipulated by special interest groups or political parties. It recommended that a truth commission be established to hear from all stakeholders and build a shared understanding of the past before a site is memorialized.

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“The need to remember often competes with the equally strong pressure to forget,” notes the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a network of sites around the world, one of which commemorates Canada’s residential school system.

Located on the site of a former residential school in Sault Ste. Marie, the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre at Algoma University provides guided tours, talks, and exhibitions to more than 20,000 visitors a year.

Many Indigenous communities in Canada are now discussing what to do with their own still-standing residential schools, and how to memorialize the at least 4,100 children who died in them. A survivor-led steering committee is also working toward the establishment of a Residential Schools National Monument on the west side of Parliament Hill.

In Ottawa, the events of Oct. 22, 2014 are now marked by Centre Block’s bullet holes, and a memorial plaque in honour of Cpl. Cirillo, just east of the National War Memorial.

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