Mr. Speaker, December 6, 1989 is a date that will remain etched in our collective memory. Seventeen years ago today, an armed man entered Montreal's École polytechnique and took the lives of 14 young women. Quebeckers were shocked and devastated by what happened.
After that incident, December 6 was named the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, a day for remembrance and reflection.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, “Gender-based violence is perhaps the most widespread and socially tolerated of human rights violations”. Such violence affects the lives of millions of women and girls and, as one writer in Livre noir de la condition féminine or The Black Book of Women’s Condition, states, “Women are always the first victims of bullying, insecurity, conjugal violence, prostitution, criminality, unemployment and sexism”.
The Bloc Québécois will continue to work to eliminate all forms of violence against women, because freeing women from violence means a more civilized world.