As the assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump sparks new and uneasy debate about the climate of political violence in the United States, Canadian politicians are also dealing with heightened levels of risk.
Four sitting US presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Theodore Roosevelt survived being shot while giving a speech in 1912. At the time, he was a former president campaigning to return to the presidency.
Canada has never had a prime minister assassination, and political violence is relatively rare.
However, the security environment for politicians in the country has deteriorated significantly in recent years, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police citing an increase in threats against elected officials.
In response to threats, some MPs were given panic buttons in 2022. In recent months, several female politicians have resigned from their posts citing extreme harassment and intimidation.
Canada has not entirely escaped political violence. Here are some of the most serious acts of violence perpetrated against politicians in the country’s history:
1868: Assassination of Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Magee, the father of Canadian Confederation, was murdered in Ottawa in 1868. Police had arrested Patrick James Whelan, a tailor who sympathized with the Fenians, an Irish radical group that sought to undermine Britain through attacks on the North American colonies. Whelan maintained his innocence, but after a complicated and controversial trial he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
1880: George Brown is shot and killed.
Journalist and politician George Brown is considered the father of federalism because of the key role he played in pushing for national unity in the 1850s and 1860s. He founded Toronto’s leading newspaper, The Globe, which later merged with The Mail and Empire to become The Globe and Mail.
On March 25, 1880, Brown was in his newspaper offices when a disgruntled former employee approached him and, during a scuffle, shot him in the leg. The wound became infected and Brown died on May 9. Brown was a sitting U.S. Senator at the time of his death.
1966: Attempted House bombing
In one disturbing incident, a possible attempt to kill several MPs was thwarted when a bomb detonated too early. In May 1966, Paul Joseph Chartier entered the House of Commons with a bomb made from ten sticks of dynamite. He went to the toilet to light the fuse and then left, presumably to take the bomb back to the House of Commons gallery. However, the bomb detonated too early, killing Chartier himself.
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1970: The murder of Pierre Laporte
The kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte sparked what became known as the October Crisis of 1970, and ultimately led to the first peacetime application of the War Measures Act, implemented by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Laporte, who was then Deputy Premier of Quebec, was kidnapped by the Front de Liberation de Quebec, a Quebec separatist group. Laporte was ultimately murdered by his abductors. British diplomat James Cross, who had been kidnapped a few days before Laporte, was also released unharmed after negotiations.
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1984: Attack on the Quebec National Assembly
On May 8, 1984, an army corporal entered the Quebec National Assembly and opened fire, killing three people and wounding many more. The assailant, Denis Lortie, claimed he wanted to “destroy” the Parti Quebecois government, but was persuaded for five hours by the National Assembly’s chief of security, René Jalbert, to surrender to the police.
Thirty years ago, Denis Lortie entered the Quebec Parliament building and opened fire, killing three people and wounding 13. The shocking footage of the shooting in Parliament was broadcast a year later by CBC’s “The Journal,” with audio in English reproduced.
2012: Attempt to assassinate Pauline Marois
On the night of her election victory in September 2012 and her inauguration as Premier of Quebec, Pauline Marois was targeted by Richard Henry Bain, who had planned to attack Marois and other supporters of the separatist Parti Quebecois party. Bain ended up killing one and wounding another, but leaving Marois herself unharmed.
2014: Attack on the Capitol
The 2014 attack on Parliament Hill began when Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was working ceremonial security at the National War Memorial, a few steps from Parliament. The assailant then ran to Parliament Hill and entered Centre Block, where he wounded a police officer and then exchanged gunfire with other police officers. Both the ruling Conservative Party and the opposition NDP were holding caucus at the time. The assailant was eventually shot and killed by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and House of Commons Clerk Kevin Vickers.
2020: Arrests at Rideau Hall
On July 2, 2020, a Manitoba man stormed through the gates of Rideau Hall and challenged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to an armed standoff. The suspect, Corey Hurren, crashed through the gates of Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor General and Prime Minister, in a pickup truck and then set off on foot with three loaded guns and a knife, engaging in a 90-minute standoff with RCMP officers.
Hurren told officers he was there to arrest Trudeau and was upset about COVID-19 restrictions and recent changes to gun laws. He pleaded guilty to eight charges and was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2021.
More than a year before Hurren’s arrest, Canada’s former top civil servant made headlines when he spoke before a House of Commons committee about the coarsening of political discourse and the threat it poses to people running for public office.
Michael Wernick, who was clerk of the Privy Council of Canada at the time, said there was a “certain innocence” in Canada when it came to political violence.
“I am concerned about the growing incitement to violence as people use words like ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ in public,” Warnick told the committee. “Those words lead to assassination. I am concerned that someone will be shot during an election campaign in this country this year.”
