People Are Bringing Guns, Knives, and Drugs to Parliament Hill in Canada

An integrated police force stationed on Parliament Hill in Ottawa confiscated more weapons and drugs, including random baggies of cocaine, in a recent six-and-a-half-month period than in all of 2013 and 2014.

The Parliamentary Protective Service, created last summer following the fatal October 2014 shooting on Parliament Hill, is comprised of members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and security officers who guard the House and Senate.

Between June 2015 and the first two weeks of 2016, the force recorded 21 incidents of security breaches, such as drugs and weapons possession, according to information obtained by the CBC through an Access to Information Request.

The findings revealed a 9-mm Luger pistol and ammo was found at the visitor center in the Centre Block last September; cops discarded the weapon. Four knives and some dog repellant were also confiscated on Canada Day—there were no weapons seizures reported in the previous two years, aside from the fatal shooting.

But the biggest spike has been in drugs found on the grounds. A handful of people have been busted smoking weed near the Supreme Court building or elsewhere and in some parking lot called the "Pit," the CBC reports. On two occasions, people ditched bags of cocaine in the Centre Block (why not just burn a bunch of money?).

Politicians are also getting mailed free drugs, including diethyltryptamine oxalate, a hallucinogen that was sent to a Conservative MP, and weed sent by Vancouver activist Dana Larsen to several Liberal constituency offices.

Larsen told the media in January that he was going to send a gram to each of the 184 Liberal MPs, but the Parliamentary Protective Service only reported four seizures.

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