Mr. Speaker, December 6, 1989, is etched into our collective memory as the date of one of the most tragic events in Canada's history. Twenty-two years ago today, 14 young women at École Polytechnique who all had dreams of bright futures lost their lives in one of the darkest acts of misogyny we have ever seen.
We all swore that we would do what was necessary to ensure that this would never happen again. That is why we created the firearms registry at the time, to act as an additional measure to help prevent crime. Twenty-two years later, the Conservative government is adding to the tragedy. It plans on destroying the registry and the data it contains as part of a purely ideological and sectarian plan.
Our duty to remember the 14 victims and their families demands that we maintain this registry. Today, we must not only remember these women, but we must also fight to preserve what came out of that tragic event and we must keep fighting to better protect the rights of our sisters and daughters in the future.