Cardus president appears on special report about Ottawa tragedy

Cardus president Michael Van Pelt was a guest on YES TV's special "Pray for Ottawa" segment last night, which also featured Stockwell Day, author Raheel Raza, and others.

Said Van Pelt:

When you try to get out of the horror of today, and then you listen to the prime minister, you kind of see that underneath—the seething anger under that very measured and stately tone that he was presenting today—I think what's going to happen is Canadians [...] are going to be dealing with two questions, and questions that are hard to articulate immediately.
The first question is: What kind of social dynamic got us to this place? How do we construct societies in a way that either prevent or encourage what happened today? And we have to be careful with that, that we don't generalize and make assumptions about that... but it's going to be a question that resides in our minds. [...]
The second question that will be asked is: What happens to the nature of the institution? Our parliament is such a great institution. Next year, 2015, we celebrate [the 800th anniversary of] the Magna Carta—that long history of developing a parliament that gives honour to you and me, allowing us to be who we are.
When you have shots right in the hall of honour, very subtly but powerfully the nature of the institution loses a sense of security. [...] We need to build a confidence around this that's much deeper and understand what it is that's so powerful about this institution called parliament that we want to hold on to.

The program, hosted by Lorna Dueck, is available to view online here.