Mr. Speaker, it is with profound sadness that I stand in my place today to remember, with my colleagues, the tragic loss of 14 young women. These 14 brave and innocent women had much to live for, much to experience, much potential to realize and so much to give.
Twenty years ago this Sunday they were taken from us, wantonly, wickedly and tragically, and 20 years ago our country watched with horror and utter disbelief. How could it happen in Canada? Why were they the targets? What did they do to deserve this?
Each and every day, daughters are born and in that moment they become the repository of their parents' hopes and dreams. On that day, 20 years ago, I wept for the victims and, along with thousands of others, wept for their parents.
Many of us in the House have daughters of our own. As a mother of three daughters, I could not bear then, or now, to think of how one would have survived something happening to any one of them.
When they are young, we want to give our daughters the world. We watch them grow into vibrant young women and into confident adults. We see in them the qualities of mind, character and spirit that will make for a better world. As they grow older, we want to believe they will be spared the injustices, the hurts, the struggles, the inequities that we had to face when we were their age.
However, tragically, women are still targets, targets of violence, targets of discrimination and targets of abuse. Each year we reflect on the lives of these women who were brutally murdered only because of their gender.
On December 6, we remember the women lost at École Polytechnique. We must also remember the hundreds of missing or murdered aboriginal women and girls in our country. We must also remember the tens of thousands of women who were victims of domestic violence and those who have been targets of random acts of violence. When will the cycles of discrimination stop? When the cycles of violence stop?
As members of Parliament, we have a duty and a responsibility not only to remember but to be vigilant. We must stand up to the discrimination and the violence and do all that we can to stop it. We all want our daughters to be safe and, on December 6, let us remember and move forward to protect our present and future generations.
Let December 6, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada, be a day on which we reflect on the enormous obligation we have to and for this generation of girls and women and those generations that will follow.