WE REMEMBER
Polytechnique victims remembered in sombre Mount Royal ceremony
The 14 victims of the Polytechnique massacre are remembered in a sombre ceremony on Mount Royal on Wednesday evening. ‘They were coldly killed by a man because they were women,’ Mayor Valérie Plante said. ‘We won’t forget them.’
On Dec. 6, 1989, 14 women were killed at École Polytechnique de Montréal simply because they were women.
On Wednesday evening, a short, sombre ceremony was held in their memory.
Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik, Maryse Laganière.
As each name was read out, a beam of light rose from the lookout at Mount Royal.
Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte.
Fourteen women, 14 beams of light.
There were tears in the crowd as the names were read and white flowers were placed in front of a picture of the women.
For Dominique Anglade, the deputy premier of Quebec and the minister of Economy, Science and Innovation, the event had a particular significance. It was one year after the shooting that she decided to study engineering at Polytechnique.
“You can’t go through Polytechnique as a student and not be completely touched by what happened in 1989,” she said. “This is extremely moving, and I think we have to honour them, and I think there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said it’s important to remember why the women were killed.
“They were coldly killed by a man because they were women. We need to keep that in mind. We need to remember that. We need to honour their memory, and it’s a good way to tell their families that we won’t forget them,” Plante said.
There are still challenges facing women, she said.
“There is still a lot to be done, but here tonight, it is an important way to say that we’re against violence against women and girls,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. We never want to see that ever happen again, and we need to support everybody else in other countries as well, other provinces, so it never happens again.”
She said there’s also work to be done to ensure that women feel safe in Montreal.
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau said she remembers when she heard about the shooting.
“I was 14 and I remember when I heard the news feeling very confused, thinking ‘wait, this happened to so many women because they’re women?’ ” Grégoire Trudeau said. “I remember feeling the deep inequality and injustice.”
Grégoire Trudeau said it’s important for women who have been the victims of violence and sexual assault to come forward, and that everyone can play a role in working toward gender equality.
“There’s so much that we can do as individuals in our own daily lives, the language that we hold, the words that we use when we describe the other gender. How do we talk about women, and mothers, and sisters and friends in our own family unit, around the kitchen table? How do we talk about women and girls in our schools, in the schoolyard,” she said.
Audrey Labrie, who currently studies engineering at Polytechnique, was a volunteer at the event.
She said she was there “to remember the victims, because it was a tragic event that we don’t want to see repeated in the future, in Montreal, in Quebec, in Canada or anywhere else in the world, and as well to support the families.”