Hundreds in Washington, New York and Canada rallied Wednesday night in the frigid cold proclaiming "I am Charlie" in solidarity with those killed in a deadly attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Some 200 to 300 French and American protesters gathered in the nation's capital in front of the Newseum, a museum dedicated to news, waving signs and French flags emblazoned with the now ubiquitous rallying cry "Je suis Charlie."

A gunman who stormed Canada's parliament last month had staked out the neo-Gothic building prior to the attack, local media said Thursday.

The daily Ottawa Citizen and broadcaster CTV cited anonymous sources saying security cameras captured Michael Zehaf-Bibeau taking a public tour of parliament on October 4.

Thousands of mourners lined the streets of the Canadian city of Hamilton Tuesday for the funeral of a soldier killed last week in an attack in the center of the nation's capital.

To the tune of wailing bagpipes and a solitary drum beat, hundreds of soldiers, veterans and police officers walked alongside the flag-draped casket of Corporal Nathan Cirillo to a cathedral in Hamilton, his hometown in Ontario.

The shooter who rampaged through Canada's parliament took a video of himself just before the attack and was inspired by ideological and political motives, police said Sunday, contradicting the claims of his estranged mother.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who was shot dead by police in the parliament in Ottawa after killing a soldier Wednesday, was mentally ill and wanted to die, his mother wrote in a lengthy separate statement to the public.

A former Ottawa x-ray technologist was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for conspiring to facilitate terrorism, officials said.

Misbahuddin Ahmed, 30, was convicted in July, but was acquitted of a more serious charge of bomb-making for terrorist purposes.

Australia stepped up security around Parliament House on Thursday and Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressed solidarity with Ottawa after a gunman attempted to storm Canada's legislature.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the government would boost  security measures around Canberra's parliament buildings on top of a recent tightening of measures imposed after Australia last month raised its terror alert level from "medium" to "high".

Gunfire echoed through the Gothic halls of the Canadian parliament Wednesday as police swarmed in to tackle a gunman who had shot a soldier outside before storming the building.

Initial reports at the scene suggested that one attacker had been shot by police inside the building while up to two more were feared to be at large, as officers sealed off the area.

Canada was faced with the specter of Islamist violence on Tuesday after an attack by a suspected jihadist killed a soldier, a day before Ottawa deployed warplanes to bomb Islamic State militants.

The assailant was fatally shot by police on Monday after he ran over two soldiers with his car in a Quebec parking lot -- a scenario which had been depicted only last month in IS propaganda.

The alleged ringleader of a Canadian terror cell entered a guilty plea Wednesday to possessing an explosive device, and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Hiva Alizadeh was one of three men arrested in police raids and charged in 2010 in what was described in court as a plot to attack Canadian military and other targets.

The Philippine government said Saturday it was investigating a Filipina diplomat charged in Canada for alleged human trafficking involving the exploitation of her nanny.

"The (foreign affairs) department takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct of its employees. The department is conducting an inquiry into the matter," its spokesman Charles Jose said in a statement to news agencies.