Polytechnique and femicide victims commemorated in Montreal

Montrealers comemmorate the 34th anniversary of the antifeminist shooting at École Polytechnique de Montreal. On December 6th, 1989, 14 women were killed. Ten women and four men were injured. 

The shooter, Marc Lépine, ordered the women to one side of the classroom and told the men to leave. Before shooting all nine women in the classroom, Lépine claimed he was “fighting feminism”. Of the nine women that were shot, six were killed. For the next 20 minutes, Lépine walked through Polytechnique, killing 8 more women before ending his own life.  

This massacre has been identified as an anti-feminist attack, highlighting violence against women in Canada. 

Violence against women is an issue that prevails today. During 2020-2021 there was a 14% increase in femicide. 173 women were killed in 2021 in Canada. During the pandemic, there was an increase in violence against women in Quebec. A study conducted by the Université de Sherbrooke has found a link between COVID-19 lockdowns and a spike in cases of domestic violence. 

Data that was retrieved from online questionnaires was filled out by more than 3,500 women in relationships between November 2020 and October 2021. The study concluded that 22.5 per cent of women in relationships experienced some type of domestic violence in October 2021. Montreal was the most affected region for domestic violence during this time. 

In 2022, at least 13 women and six children were killed in Quebec as a result of intimate partner violence.

Activists at the demonstration highlighted how Indigenous women face heightened rates of violence in Canada. Between 1980 to 2014, 16 per cent of the victims of femicides were Indigenous women.