It’s been 36 years, but Kim Dolan remembers exactly where she was when news started to break about the tragic Dec. 6, 1989 shooting at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal that claimed the lives of 14 women in one of the deadliest and most notorious acts of femicide in Canadian history.
Now executive director at the YWCA Peterborough Haliburton, Dolan said she was working as a shelter coordinator and frontline counsellor in Peterborough at the time.
“I was still fairly new to working at the YWCA – it was a gut-wrenching and, frankly, frightening time,” Dolan said.
“That day really served as a catalyst for people’s concerns about violence against women. It shone a light on what was happening,” she added. “Usually, this sort of thing happens behind closed doors and women carry a lot of shame, guilt or sense of responsibility for what happened. This incident brought the issue into the public eye and forced everyone to start talking and thinking about it more.”
It was confirmed after the shooting that the perpetrator, 25-year-old Marc Lepine, had deliberately targeted females – separating them from male students and saying he was fighting feminism before opening fire. In the years since, Dec. 6 has been recognized as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada.
The YWCA is partnering with the Haliburton Highlands chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) for a community vigil Dec. 6, remembering those lost during the incident, dubbed the ‘Montreal massacre,’ and all other acts of femicide since.
The event is being held at the Haliburton Sculpture Forest, with people gathering in the parking lot at the Haliburton Highlands Museum at 10:30 a.m and walking over. The vigil will begin at 10:45 a.m. It’s the second time a vigil is being held in Haliburton, after last year’s inaugural observance.
The morning will feature a reading of the names of the 14 women that died, a moment of silence and a song of remembrance. Attendees will be invited to tie ribbons on a tree, serving as a symbol of hope and solidarity.
Dolan said the vigil is an opportunity for the community to stand together, united against the threat of gender-based violence.
“Since 1989, one would think we might have seen a significant shift backwards in terms of violence and the damage it causes women physically, emotionally and spiritually, but that violence continues to grow,” Dolan said. “Last year in Canada, 187 women and girls were murdered by someone close to them, 62 of those in Ontario.”
More than 160 municipalities across the province have declared gender-based violence an epidemic – described as a sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease or issue above what is normally expected. Despite calls for the provincial government to do the same, Dolan said there’s been no official declaration.
She said there was a recommendation from a recent province-backed committee looking at violence against women to declare gender-based violence endemic – meaning something is consistently present in a particular geographic area or population.
The YWCA operates the Haliburton Emergency Rural Safe Space (HERS) in the County and its manager, Nycole Duncan, admitted the facility – which provides accommodation to women and children escaping domestic violence – is always busy.
“Sadly, there’s not a shortage of occupancy,” Duncan said. The space has been open since 2005, providing shelter to hundreds of County-based women since.
Duncan confirmed she will be at this week’s vigil, along with other HERS staff members. She believes these type of partnerships are key when it comes to flipping the script on violence against women.
“Working together and developing even greater partnerships within the community is what creates the opportunity for change that we all want to see and have worked for in Haliburton County to achieve,” Duncan said.
