Editor’s note: This article contains graphic content that could be triggering.
On Dec. 6, 1986, an armed man entered the mechanical engineering classroom at Montreal Ecole Polytechnique. He separated the women from the men and opened fire while screaming, “You are all feminists.”
Fourteen young women were murdered and 13 others were wounded. He then turned the gun on himself and blamed feminists for ruining his life in a suicide note.
The 14 women who lost their lives that day were Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte.
Those women were honoured at a vigil in front of the B.C. Legislature in Victoria Thursday (Dec. 4) to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre and the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
Nora Keegan, a third-year mechanical engineering student at the University of Victoria and chair of the Conference on Diversity in Engineering, spoke to the public about her personal experience of sexual harassment.
“Someone in the class sat next to me and, in the middle of the lecture, put his hands in his pants and started touching himself with his head fully turned, staring at me the entire time. I can still remember the sounds of him groaning and how I felt frozen with fear. At the moment, I remember not wanting to cause a disruption. So I kept my head down, tried to block it out, and kept taking notes. I only thought of it as something odd.”
She said she did not attend the class again that semester and taught herself by watching online videos. She insisted that everyone, especially men and those in positions of power, must step forward and take action to ensure that we are actively making our communities a more welcoming and safe space.
“I call on everyone to work towards a future where gender equity is not only tolerated, but celebrated. And where everyone feels safe to exist.”
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey, who was raised in Montreal, shared the memories she has of the incident.
Having lived at the Plateau Mont-Royal, which is near Polytechnique Montreal, she remembers hearing so many sirens and wondering what happened.
“That night, we all got into the grounds at Polytechnique…It was about minus 35 degrees. And we stayed up most of the night. Just holding each other and weeping as we started to understand that this was femicide.”
She said that it is important to continue to talk about the event and understand its place in Canadian history.
“We have to continue to take action against this horrific misogyny that continues to thrive in our culture,” Bailey said.
Esquimalt First Nations Elder Mary Ann Thomas told the several dozen on hand about her experiences at residential schools when she was young. She emphasized that forgiveness is the way forward.
“We have to love one another, help one another and forgive one another,” she said.
The event concluded after observing a silence to honour those who lost their lives at the incident.