The Montreal Massacre, December 6,1989

About 4 pm, December 6, 1989 a lone man carrying a semi-automatic rifle and a knife, walked into the Ecole polytechnique [an engineering school, part of the University of Montreal] and into the classrooms. He separated the men from the women, telling the men to leave and shooting the remaining women before moving on to the next class room, and the next. At the end of the rampage 14 women were dead, 14 were injured. Collectively we were in shock and as the years passed a group of committed people helped to form Canada's gun registry, now under attack by a misguided conservative government. This anniversary day always brings up a lot of mixed emotions, rage that the gun laws seen to be going the way of the dodo although police chiefs across Canada praise it, sadness that women in the world still hold little value, cynicism that much will change, hope that it will. But really what's important to me today is that we remember their names and the vows we made to them to keep on with the struggle. To help create a society, a country, a world that will not tolerate the discrimination and abuse of women.

In Memory of 

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Barbara Marie Klueznick

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne- Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

 Annie Turcotte

Stone Circle on my studio floor