Carry the torch, Class of 1989

This weekend marks the 20^th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the murder of 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique, an affiliate of l’Université de Montréal in Montreal on December 6, 1989.

The women were killed by a 25-year old man who left behind a suicide note blaming "feminists" for “ruining his life.” The killer shot 27 people, 23 females and four males, in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history. He targeted women, and young men who had helped their female friends, before turning his gun on himself.

The killer’s name was Marc Lepine, a handle he took as a teenager. His name at birth was Gamil Gharbi, but he changed it legally to distance himself from an abusive father. His upbringing was violent. He had failed at most everything he had tried, including gaining acceptance to study at Polytechnique. He left behind a “hit list” of prominent women he wanted to kill, including TV journalist Francine Pelletier.

He began his rampage by entering a classroom and ordering the male Engineering students, about 50 of them, to leave while he focused on the women, nine female students. He shot them, then moved on, firing at more women. One of the dead, Maryse Leclair, was found by her police officer dad. She’d been stabbed as well as shot.

It’s impossible to understate the horror of Lepine's actions. I was working nights at the Ottawa Citizen as the tragedy unfolded. I recall being shocked by the photos that came across the wire and news desk. One such image, taken by a Montreal Gazette photographer, showed a murdered girl slumped in a cafeteria chair. The photo became a symbol of the events and their stark horror.

In the days that followed, I recall thinking that the dead girls had much in common with my peers. They were young, most in their early 20s, studious, ambitious and hoping to make a go of it in a profession that didn’t always welcome women.

Coverage of the story became full of rancour and often divided along gender lines. Journalists argued - and still do - about whether or not Lepine’s actions reflected sexism in Canadian society. I still recall conversations with friends, other ambitious women in their early 20s, where we expressed our astonishment that so many were denying what was patently obvious to us: Lepine’s rampage was a gender-based hate crime.

I didn’t then and still don’t understand the irrational vitriol of those who argued otherwise – especially those who deny altogether the existence of male violence.

The point was underscored, to me anyway, just six months later when a female worker for the Ottawa Rape Crisis reported that she’d received death threats after organizing a protest outside the Ottawa courthouse against a controversial rape sentence. She received threats at work and at her home, including phone calls from a man who identified himself as Marc Lepine. I reported on the story at the time for the Ottawa Citizen.

In the 20 years since the massacre, I’ve reported on other cases of violence against women, including horrific domestic murders. The media never lacks source material for such stories - whether it’s a local domestic homicide or a national story of a serial killer or international examples of war crimes (like the use of systemic rape as a military tactic) against girls and women.

And every time I write – or read - about such a case, I think of that great line by Jane Galvin Lewis: “You don’t have to be anti-man, to be pro-woman.”

And I wonder why so many good men remain silent and don’t speak out against the reality of violence committed by men against women.

And I wonder why our legal system remains particularly unsophisticated in its approach to family violence, by failing to distinguish between non-lethal violence, which is committed in equal numbers by women and men, and lethal violence, which is more rare, but mostly committed by males.

On a global scale, why aren’t there more leaders like Stephen Lewis, who said, 'After 50 years of passivity and paralysis, it’s time to have an agency through which women can assert their rights?'

Of course, there are many men working to make the world safer, and thank heavens, because nothing will change without them. They are men like Pierre Leclair, who dedicated his life to serving the citizens of Montreal, and discovered his murdered daughter Maryse (while he was on the job). My heart goes out to him and all the loved ones of those injured and killed 20 years ago.

The women who died won’t be forgotten.

And women like me – Class of 1989 – shoulder a particular responsibility to ensure that they are remembered. We’ve enjoyed the freedom to chase our dreams, and to live every minute to the fullest while doing so. I wonder what each of those 14 women who died that day would have achieved had they lived to enjoy the same opportunities that so many of us take for granted.

Canada suffered an unspeakable loss on December 6, 1989. We must never let that be in vain and keep working to create a society that understands the true cost of prejudice and won't tolerate its existence.

In memory of : Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte who died Dec. 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.