On the 28th Anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre

In response to statement from the Minister of Status of Women

Elizabeth May

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues. Today remains a day of tragedy, a day of immense sadness, for today marks the 28th anniversary of a terrible tragedy in this country.

It is almost unbelievable that it has been 28 years. I remember it so clearly. It still feels like it just happened, because the shock of it was so great that someone would enter a school where young women and young men were studying engineering and target and kill the women because they were feminists, because they were engineering students who were also women. I agree and share all the sentiments of the Minister of Status of Women, of our colleagues in the Conservatives, the New Democrats, and Bloc Québécois.

We are here together as members of Parliament, all with the same goal and the same desire to end violence against women. What can we do to stop violence against women? That is what we need to ask ourselves.

We ask ourselves the question and we come up with programs. My friend from Nanaimo—Ladysmith used many of the statistics I had in mind. We know the numbers.

My dear friend from Repentigny has put forward the deep pain of everyone in Quebec who remember this day. We know this day is sacred in the memory of those 14 women. However, it stands for more. All of us must be watchful and take on the duty of being aware when we see misogyny.

We wish we could put ourselves back in a time capsule and find that young man who, with his hatred and resentment against women students, shot and killed 14 women. We wonder what we would have done if we had been in that classroom. It is a horrific event that left its survivors scarred.

I want to think of them for a moment, the young men who were removed from the room and who to this day wish they had not been.

We stand together as Canadians against violence of all kinds. We stand against violence against women. We are keenly aware that more indigenous sisters, mothers, aunties, and daughters are at risk every day.

Together, as a House of Commons, we say “Never again.”