MSVU remembers 14 women killed at École Polytechnique

A sombre service was held on Tuesday at Mount Saint Vincent University to mark the 33rd anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre.

A sombre service was held on Tuesday at Mount Saint Vincent University to mark the 33rd anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre.

It was one of many being held across Canada to remember the lives lost on Dec. 6, 1989, when a gunman motivated by a hatred for women killed 14 female students at the Montreal engineering school.

White roses were laid at a commemorative plaque on that campus, while in Halifax the names of those who lost their lives rang out in a classroom at MSVU.

Students, faculty and community members gathered at the Mount to reflect on the tragedy.

Tegan Zimmerman, the chair of MSVU’s Alexa McDonough Institute (AMI), says they paired the commemorative ceremony with a group discussion to draw attention to the issues women continue to face.

“It’s clear to me that we haven’t learned our lessons from the past that violence is still happening,” she says. “It’s happening on an everyday basis in our province, in our country and across the globe.”

Guest speakers from the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia say the pandemic has escalated domestic violence cases, adding the “stay the blazes home” messaging was quite difficult for those Nova Scotians living in unsafe environments.

“During the pandemic, we really saw an increase in the demand for our services because women and their families were forced to isolate with their abusers,” provincial co-ordinator Ann de Ste Croix says.