Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I am a little bit uncomfortable with the way that she interpreted what happened on the day of the attack on Parliament Hill. I was there, and I am very proud that an unarmed security officer wrestled with the gunman. However, the inference that I took from that was that it was the good work of the Senate and House of Commons security, as opposed to the RCMP. I do not think that that is a fair statement.
I think that the idea that there are two separate levels of security within one building is an absurd position. I was one of the MPs who were mistakenly put out on the front of the House of Commons on the grounds, perhaps because we had a jurisdictional dispute between two groups within one building.
We need to address these issues. We were not ready that day. That is understood. We could have been at a great deal more risk. I certainly feel a great deal of comfort seeing the RCMP out at the front. I am not afraid that people are armed out at the front, because the protection of everybody who uses our public space has to be maintained. I am very proud of the work that the RCMP is doing out at the front in terms of allowing people to come up to demonstrate and allowing people to use that public space, but also making it safe.
The question that we have before us is not the internal versus the external, but how we ensure that in a new climate of security, we are maintaining the traditional rights of parliamentarians to access Parliament and do their job. That is the question here.
My concern is that, more and more, Parliament is being used as a backdrop for official visits. This is nothing against official leaders coming. Sometimes it is a great honour to have them, but if we are always seeing these photo ops that used to be done at Rideau Hall and we are being told that we have to wait to vote or wait to do our work because of dignitaries, that is a problem.
I would just like to ask my hon. colleague to be a little bit more careful about how she portrays what happened that day, because all of us who were there remember the great risk that people put themselves at to keep us safe.