In Montreal on December 6th, 1989, 14 women were murdered in a mass shooting targeting women, at l’École Polytechnique. The 25-year-old perpetrator began his misogynistic violence in an Engineering classroom, and after telling the men to leave he singled out and shot the women and continued through the school, before shooting himself. This attack, known as the Montreal Massacre, was the deadliest mass shooting in Canada until attacks in Nova Scotia in 2020.
The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women was established in 1991 by the Canadian Parliament in response to the murder of these 14 women in the Montreal Massacre. On December 6th we observe this day to remember and honour the many lives lost and to commit ourselves to ending gender-based violence.
On December 11th, 1989, the Advisory Council, together with other women’s groups across the Island, organized a vigil to mourn those 14 young women. In the first few years, the vigils were organized by the UPEI Women’s Centre and held on campus, outside the Engineering building, as twelve of the murdered women were engineering students. In 1991, the same year the Purple Ribbon Campaign Against Gender-Based Violence began, the PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women began to host the Montreal Massacre Memorial Service in Memorial Hall at the Confederation Centre of the Arts.
Council members and the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women at the Memorial Service in 2012.
In recent years the UPEI School of Sustainable Design Engineering has re-initiated a vigil on campus to commemorate the young female students’ lives lost in the Montreal Massacre. We are glad that UPEI, like many campuses across Canada, acknowledges their role in remembrance and student safety.
In later years, the PEIACSW Memorial Service expanded to include PEI women murdered by men who knew them. Since 2014, we also have ensured that a candle is lit during our December 6th Memorial Service for Victims of Violence that acknowledges the particular violence against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirited, and remembers them. We also began to include Indigenous ceremony and symbols as critical components of the service. An Indigenous Opening and land acknowledgments have become standard, and we strive to keep them meaningful and respectful of our ongoing commitments as Treaty People on Mi’kmaki.
We all have a part to play in ending femicide, the murder of women and girls because of their gender, and gender-based violence. We must also work to use an intersectional framework to eliminate the additional barriers that racialized women, disabled women and gender diverse individuals face in both likelihood of facing violence, and in accessing adequate support.
Link: P.E.I. memorial for murdered women held in Charlottetown in 2015 | CBC News
Eliza Knockwood offers Indigenous ceremony at the Memorial Service in 2014.
Photo of candle-lighting from 2024 Memorial Service.
Now, the PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women has been holding the Montreal Massacre Memorial Candle-Lighting Service every December 6 (or the nearest weekday) for the past 34 years and counting. Our venue has been in Charlottetown at Memorial Hall at the Confederation Centre of the Arts for over 20 years.
This year, our Memorial Service will be Friday, December 5th, from 12:00-1:00pm in our regular venue, Memorial Hall. All are welcome to attend.
The Honourable Dr Wassim Salamoun, OPEI, Lieutenant Governor of PEI, and her Honour, Marie Salamoun-Dunne, lighting a candle at our Memorial Service in 2024.
Photo: People gathered in Charlottetown on Dec. 6 in remembrance of the 14 women murdered in the Montreal Massacre of 1989 and each of the 10 Island women killed since that year. Photo by Vivian Ulinwa /The Guardian.
