UWindsor marks 35th anniversary of Montreal Polytechnique massacre

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The University of Windsor honoured 14 women killed at École Polytechnique in Montreal 35 years ago with a solemn ceremony on Friday.

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Reflecting on “the ongoing fight against gender-based violence,” the school’s Daily News said, the campus community gathered at the Memorial of Hope, a permanent reminder of the massacre located between Dillon and Essex halls.

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On Dec. 6, 1989, a gunman entered a mechanical engineering class at École Polytechnique, ordered men out of the room, and opened fire on the women who remained. He went on to murder and wound more women in the school’s hallways, as well as wounding some men, before fatally shooting himself.

Fourteen women were killed: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, and Annie Turcotte.

At 5:10 p.m. on Friday, the time the first gunshots were fired, 14 beams of light shone above Mount Royal in Montreal. They were to be lit one at a time as the names of the victims were read out.

Dec. 6 is Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, also known informally as White Ribbon Day.

The anti-feminist rampage at the post-secondary engineering school remained the largest mass murder in Canada until the April 18 and 19, 2020 shooting spree murders of 22 people in Nova Scotia.

The University of Windsor’s Memorial of Hope is made of 14 concrete pillars, each containing a metal rose. It was completed in the summer of 2004.

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