LONDON, ONT. -- Putting an end to gender-based violence is a year-round responsibility, and not just a single-day act of recognition, according to the organizers of Ritual of Remembrance at My Sister’s Place.
About 60 women and men gathered at the women’s centre Friday for a solemn ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the day gunman Marc Lépine shot and killed 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal.
Selena Horrell, of The Circle of Women’s Collective, said that day was a moment when Canada took a “collective gasp” and had to come to terms with violence against women.
“And I think since then, certainly this being the 30th anniversary, certainly in an age where we need to have conversations around consent, reproductive rights… these are not new issues,” she said. “And yet at that moment things crystalized.”
She said part of the reason they gather every year at My Sister’s Place is to grieve together.
A candle was lit, and a red rose placed in a vase for each of the victims of the mass-shooting. The ceremony also included native drums, and a group-sing of “Song for Survival,” a women spirit song.
Some of those taking part shed tears for loved ones who have been lost to gender-based violence.
Horrell said the best way to honour the victims of violence is to continue the work to end it.
“This is work that has to happen every day,” she said. “At every single individual’s most intimate level this work needs to happen. It needs to happen when we’re growing our children. It needs to happen in our interactions on the street. It needs to happen when we hear somebody speaking out about violence that they’ve experienced, and believing them and supporting them.”
In addition to the victims of the Montreal Massacre, the ceremony acknowledged Western University engineering student Linda Shaw, who was murdered along Highway 401 in 1990, and Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
