Madam Speaker, on December 6, we commemorated the Polytechnique massacre, as we do every year.
As I do every year, I thought about the young girl I was when my father came home from work and told me what he saw when he was on the École Polytechnique campus that evening. I asked him why 14 women were killed. He told me that it was because they were women.
As happens every year, 14 beams of light lit up the sky over the greater Montreal area. Rather than gathering on the Mont-Royal belvedere in Outremont, we participated in an online ceremony. The Prime Minister and his wife attended, and I am sure many other members of the House did too.
I wanted to pay tribute to the 14 women who died and the many who survived. I am thinking in particular of Nathalie Provost, who was wounded during this femicide and who has since dedicated her life to the fight against firearms. I want loudly and clearly reaffirm in the House our government's determination to advance this cause, which is also our own.