Fourteen female Waterloo Engineering students lit white candles and stood shoulder to shoulder today in honour of the 14 young women who were murdered because of their gender at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal three decades ago.
The solemn, poignant ceremony in Engineering 7 on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women was held to both remember the massacre and remind people that, despite progress, necessary work continues on the underlying issues.
Mechatronics engineering student Julia Reinstein, right, shields her lit candle as she walks back to join her peers at a ceremony to remember victims of the mass shooting at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal three decades ago tdoay.
"Many of the students with us today weren't even born then," Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice chancellor of the University of Waterloo, told about 200 people in attendance. "It doesn't mean they shouldn't know what happened. That's why it has to be passed on from one generation to the next one."
Pearl Sullivan, dean of Waterloo Engineering, recalled hearing about the massacre in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989 while she was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia.
"No doubt those murdered women had the same aspirations as our students here," she said.
Each of the 14 young women from Waterloo Engineering stood in for one of the massacre victims - 13 of whom were engineering students - lighting candles and forming a line as the names and photographs of those killed were displayed on a screeen behind them.
One of the students, Ellen McGee, was sitting in a Grade 10 history class in Oakville when she first learned about the mass shooting, which took place 10 years before she was born.
Waterloo women will 'change the world'
“I think it was the first time I realized that the world was a bigger place and people could discriminate against you because of your gender,” said McGee, a second-year systems design engineering student and president of the Waterloo Engineering Society (EngSoc) 'B'.
Catherine Fife, the MPP for Waterloo, credited the current generation of students with helping the country persist and make needed changes in the aftermath of the massacre.
"Here at the University of Waterloo, women and girls are breaking glass ceilings every single day," she said. "They are taking up space, they are speaking up and, most importantly, they are getting an education - and they will change the world with that education."
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