Madam Speaker, it is an honour to join in rising to commemorate the 14 victims of this horrific act of femicide at École Polytechnique 34 years ago: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte.
I was five years old when these women were murdered simply for being women. Coming from a suburb of Montreal, I grew up in the shadow of this hate. Thirty-four years later, let us forget neither the women killed nor the fact that femicide not only continues to this day but also has worsened. In Canada today, a woman or girl is killed by violence every two days, every 48 hours, and that number is rising. Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than any other women in Canada. Let us also recognize that the perpetrators of gender-based violence are, more often than not, men.
As the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth rightfully pointed out earlier, this is not a women's issue. As men, we have a critical role to play in ending gender-based violence. If we are going to root out misogyny and patriarchy, we must stand up, call it out and lift up the voices of women, girls and non-binary folks, such as my incredible colleagues who spoke this afternoon, including the minister, the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, the member for Shefford and the member for London—Fanshawe.
I am proud to represent a community that has at least acknowledged and declared that intimate partner violence is an epidemic, but as other colleagues have called out, we need far more action, and this includes providing more sustainable funding for organizations, such as those in my community, that are working every day on the ground to end gender-based violence. This violence leads to not only physical and emotional harm to women and their kids, but also increased risk to their mental health, of social isolation, and of housing and financial strains.
This action also must include following all 231 calls to justice from the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and, as the member for Winnipeg Centre has championed in this place, creating the national red dress alert system, which would immediately raise alarms for indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people who are missing, because commemorating the lives of the 14 women who never had the opportunity to live out their days means committing to work together to ensure this never happens again.
