Mr. Speaker, tomorrow will mark 35 years since the murder of 14 women in an engineering class at Polytechnique Montréal simply because they were women. I wish I could say this misogynistic violence was an outlier, yet this year alone, 168 women and girls across the country have already been killed in femicides.
In the face of this gender-based violence epidemic, the frontline work being done by organizations, including those in my community like Women’s Crisis Services, the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region, the Coalition of Muslim Women and YW Kitchener-Waterloo, is all the more important. I offer my sincere thanks to them.
For those in Waterloo region looking to come together on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women to remember the victims of the Polytechnique massacre and all those we have lost since, CFUW Kitchener-Waterloo will be hosting a vigil at 5:30 tomorrow night at St. Columba Anglican Church. I hope to see them there.