Mr. Speaker, the man standing next to Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was his best and closest friend, fellow reservist Corporal Branden Stevenson, son of my constituents Jim Stevenson and his wife Kelly-Ann.
Nathan and Branden attended school together. They joined the reserves together, and together they volunteered to perform the tremendous ceremonial honour of standing guard at our cenotaph.
The shooter fired at Branden and missed. He then fired two shots at Nathan and shot him in the back. Branden chased the coward briefly before returning to his friend, where he tried, along with several bystanders, to revive the wounded reservist. Witnesses say he never wavered when it came to giving help. “Put pressure here. He's been shot twice”, he said, as he instructed those helping Nathan, showing both courage and professionalism in the face of crisis and emergency.
Branden Stevenson returned to his post standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today. I ask my colleagues in the House to recognize and pay tribute to a brave young man who has suffered a terrible emotional trauma and a great loss in seeing his best friend murdered at his side.