The daughter of a Canadian professor who was killed in the Virginia Tech shootings says she is going push to change the state's gun laws.

Francine Dulong has flown to Blacksburg, Va., to mourn her mother, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak. Nowak was teaching a French class at Norris Hall, the building where 30 students and teachers were killed before the shooter turned the gun on himself.

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, shown with her husband Jerzy Nowak in this undated photo, was described by her daughter as passionate about teaching. Couture-Nowak was among 33 people shot dead on a Virginia campus.
(Nova Scotia Agicultural College/Canadian Press)

Dulong said she has come to Virginia to be with family and to find answers.  She said she wants to talk to students and hear stories about her mother's teaching.

But she also wants to know the details of the final moments of her mother's life.

"I think it honestly is closure because this wasn't a car accident and it wasn't a plane crash. It was a very tragic event," Dulong told CBC News. "This is an institution of education which is pretty much the complete opposite of what happened on Monday. I think for me it really is about closure."

Francine Dulong travelled from B.C. to Blacksburg, Va., to mourn her mother, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak.
(CBC)

Dulong described her mother as passionate about teaching, the French language and gardening.

"Every time I look at a flower now, I'll think of her. She was ecstatic to move to Virginia because we were crossing two growing zones and she could grow delphiniums." 

Dulong also said she wants changes to Virginia's gun laws, with background checks that might have prevented someone like 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui from ever owning a gun.

"I'm very strongly in support of a view that my mother held. My mother was very much against gun violence and I think that I want to create a registry if possible or start to push for some changes in Virginia."

Dulong first heard about the shootings in Virginia before writing an exam at UBC in Vancouver.

"I was about halfway through my exam, and my mother still hadn't gotten a hold of anybody. I started getting that feeling, yes. But it was the last thing we expected to hear."

Dulong said she didn't learn until 6 p.m. that day that her mother was among the 33 dead at Virginia Tech.

She said she welcomes the intense media coverage of the shooting.

"I really want to know. Every time I get a puzzle piece, I break down. And then I assimilate it, and then I put it in the big puzzle."