30 years ago…

30 years ago in 1989, Canadians were stunned to hear that 14 women had been murdered and 14 other people were injured at École Polytechnique in Montreal, QC. Twelve of the fourteen women killed were engineering students. The shooter entered a mechanical engineering class at École Polytechnique where he ordered the men to leave, and then shot all nine women in the classroom, claiming that feminists had ruined his life. He then walked through the school, targeting and shooting women. In a brief twenty minutes he had killed 14 women, injured 14 others—ten women and four men – and then shot himself.

The day’s events, led to Parliament naming December 6 as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women.

Each year on this day, we remember the 14 young women whose lives were violently cut short by this act of gender-based violence: