12.06.2012 08:06 AM

Fourteen reasons

…we should never give up on eliminating violence against women:

  • Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
  • Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
  • Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
  • Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
  • Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
  • Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
  • Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department
  • Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
  • Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
  • Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
  • Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
  • Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
  • Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
  • Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

 

32 Comments

  1. Bruce A says:

    Adding insult to injury, on top of a horrific tragedy, the Cons want to loosen guns laws. It defies any reasonable person’s logic, not to mention community standards. Common sense isn’t a common trait in a Neo-Cons thinking and they sure don’t believe in community.

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1298363–rcmp-concerned-as-conservatives-consider-loosening-firearms-restrictions

    • GFMD says:

      But pandering is one of their traits. And since it appears Canada abandoned sensible policy when we got rid of the registry, what will the CPC give NEXT time to anti-gun control clowns?

      • Chris says:

        They will somehow tie this all back to the gun registry so they can continue to campaign against a law that they overturned.

      • Windsurfer says:

        You mean like JamesHalifax with his “talking points?” He who should go start his own Web Site “Happiness in Canada is a warm gun.”

        Did you see the almost dust-up in the House of Commons yesterday? When political frustration turns into physical frustration, you know things are percolating just below. Van Loan almost got slugged by Mulcair.

        Keep saying to yourself “only 3 more years of this scourge” then get busy organizing.

        As for guns, wow, assault rifles in our streets !

        • Ted H says:

          Regarding the H of C dust-up, the Germans have a word for Van Loan,
          it is backpfeifengesicht, a face that cries out for a fist in it.

          • Windsurfer says:

            Van Loan.

            Back in the pre-election mode sometime in maybe February, 2011, he was described on one discussion board as the modern incarnation of Jacky Gleason.

            I thought about it and said, yes, he does bear a certain verisimilitude to that comparison.

            Both his jocularism as well as corpulence, not to mention tragi-sympathetic demeanour.

            Or something like that. But the fine burghers of northern York Region keep electing the buffoon, so one must conclude that he reflects his supporters.

            ¡ Avanti populi !

          • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

            I disliked Peter “Which way to the buffet?” Van Loan when he was a Progressive Conservative……I dislike the man even more now…..

    • Bluegreenblogger says:

      The CPC knows that ‘The gift that keeps on giving’ namely, the Long Gun Registry will not be useful by the time we get to the next election. They have all these lovely connections to those nice folks over at the ‘Gun Lobby’ (God, who would have thought that Canada would have our very own equivalent to the NRA?). Is there some way they can keep those rural folks riled up about guns? It is a bit of a stretch to think that single issue people will hang around after thay got what they wanted, but it gave the CPC a majority once, so it’s worth a shot, right? I am guessing that the faux controversy about Trudeaus comments breathed some hope and life into them, but they will come back to reality when they see the reaction to that story, and the many others that are bound to follow.

    • steve says:

      I maintian Harper wants to create US style crime. It is the only way to justify his right wing extremism. Allowing assault rifles in Canada is pure madness, insanity.

    • smelter rat says:

      Right. And no more discussion on abortion either…..oops. I wouldn’t trust the Reformacon clown brigade to tell me the sunrises in the east.

    • Conky says:

      Les and Steve: Uh, you guys know that assault rifles are prohibited in this country, right?

  2. JamesHalifax says:

    Those are the same 14 reasons we should enact laws that actually work, as opposed to laws that simply make one feel good, but costs Billions of dollars that could have been used to actually prevent violence against everyone.

    Please note, even with the gun registry, nut cases and cowards were still attacking women.

    • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

      I’ll take the word of the families of the victims(who fought for, and were against, any changes to bill C-68) over a Con hack anyday……

      • JamesHalifax says:

        Yes,

        because the families of those victims are clearly thinking rationally…..no emotional attachment at all.

        that’s the problem…..people who don’t think rationally, support irrational policy.

    • Bluegreenblogger says:

      Uh.. and even with the advent of Umbrellas, aome people still get wet in the rain.
      I do not think you are really so stupid that you think there is any absolute solution to people being killed by guns. I doubt that you are stupid enough to believe any purpose was actually served by removing the regsitry once the costs had been incurred. You may even be smart enough to realise it was bad public policy to kill the registry, even if it was good politics to promise to remove it. The only scandal about the registry was that, as is usual with Government IT projects, it cost over a billion to create, rather than the few millions it was supposed to. There was a lot of hot air about targetting honest law abiding farmers, but any obective viewer would look askance at the rhetoric on both sides of the issue. It was an aid to policing, and that is the sum of it. It was an incremental step, which is the best one can hope for in law enforcement. That is all besides the point though, the registry is now gone, and the issue is dead, much to the Conservatives chagrin.

      • JamesHalifax says:

        And with the inception of the gun registry….people were still getting shot….usually by folks who were never legally allowed to own firearms, and by people who have a complete and utter disregard for others’. Just look at Toronto on any given weekend….especially the BBQ season, apparently.

        As for getting rid of the registry after costs have been incurred……use an economic template. If you start a business and it costs 100 times what you expected….are you still going to operate it even though it doesn’t do what you expected it to do? Of course not. You close up, and try something that may actually work. You can’t recover sunk costs, but you can certainly reduce future losses.

        As for the “Hot Air” you refer to, it is exactly that attitude firearms owners are concerned with. Too many people who know nothing about firearms consider themselves experts on the subject, and tend to make bad laws, or come up with bad ideas. Sure, they may sound good….and capitalizing on a tragedy is just an added bonus, but as we have seen, the registry was useless and didn’t do what it was advertised to do.

        Why throw good money after bad. Use available funding to do something that actually works to keep illegal guns off the streets.

        As for the registry…….for once I agree with Justin Trudeau. It was an abject failure, and good riddance. If the folks in toronto don’t like it….too damn bad. If they hate guns that much….tell them not to buy one.

  3. Rob H. says:

    Uhm..

    How’d that gun registry work for the Dawson College shooting? The Mayorthorpe shooting?

    The ignorance of the Liberal and Conservative Base is staggering.. knee jerking to either “tougher gun laws” or, in fairness, “tough on crime laws” is no answer to growing violence against women or, better yet, for violence against people generally. Early intervention efforts for youth, greater mental health spending are much more likely to reduce violence.. but it doesn’t pose as simplistic a solution.

    Three children were allegedly murdered by their mother this past week.. no gun as far as we know, no male perpetrator.. just a tragic example of what is probably a failure of the family law system and, I’m guessing, the mental health system.. but go ahead, Cons, push for manditory minimum sentences, and Libs, toughen the gun laws.. and ask how that would have helped three dead children…

  4. Rob H. says:

    BTW.. as much as many conservatives bemoan Justin Trudeau’s alleged “flip flop” on the gun registry, of late, his willingness to at least verbalize a willingness to reconsider past opinions has got this long time conservative seriously thinking about placing a vote for a party who hasn’t received one from me since John Turner.

    • Paul says:

      The big question here is can we believe him? The Liberals are known liars who will say just about anything to get elected (“We will repeal the GST,” anyone?)

      Honestly though, as a fiscal conservative and social liberal I would actually consider voting Liberal if I could be certain that they would a) maintain the status quo on gun control, b) raise the TFSA limit up to $10K like the Cons have promised, and c) not mess with Capital Gains and/or the Dividend Tax Credit.

      I don’t even own a gun or have a PAL right now, but my future plans include living in a rural area and yes, enjoying the shooting sports. I will also want to have firearms around to deal with vermin (of the four-legged kind, but in the (admittedly unlikely) event that the two-legged variety comes a-knockin’ I don’t really put much stock in 911 being of much help in northern BC or Ontario.)

      • GFMD says:

        The gun registry would not have stopped you from doing any of this. You would have had to fill out a sheet of paper.

        • JamesHalifax says:

          Actually, the “sheet of paper” is more like a ream of paperwork and documentation, background checks, psychological profiles..etc..etc..

          You can’t just go out and buy a gun unless you’ve been cleared to do so by the Police. And it is a LOT of work.

          Lastly, the sheet of paper to which you refer, can also be used by future governments to track you down and confiscate what you legally purchased. That’s the point which causes the most concern.

          If there were guarantees that future governments would NOT confiscate firearms, it would never have been an issue, and I would have had no problem with registration…..even though the very idea was bad to begin with.

        • Jib Halyard says:

          The problem is, the long-gun registry was not established in good faith. Law-abiding gun owners — including those not necessarily opposed to registration in principle — saw it correctly as the first step towards a total ban. I do not object to registering my car because I am pretty sure the people who want me to do so aren’t trying to ban automobiles. That was not the case with the long-gun registry.

      • Michael Bussiere says:

        Buddy, watch the Chretien tv bio again. Even Mr. No-recession, No-deficit Harper admitted Chretien never actually promised to repeal the GST.

      • bluegreenblogger says:

        Excuse me Mr. Selective memory. It was Sheila Copps who promised to repeal the GST, NOT the Liberal Party, and she had enough integrity to resign over it. When was the last time you saw ANY Conservative Minister held accountable for their words, and deeds? I mean any single one? A couple were booted for not obeying, or for being liabilities, but you would have better luck arguing that they were hoofed for showing integrity, not for accountability reasons. (Except Oda). We have had a very sorry trail of denials, obfuscation, but zero accountability for 7 years now. It is very sad what used to be a Party (the PC’s) that respected the law, that supported the institution of Parliament, including accountability has morphed into a gang of thugs and scoff-laws.

  5. Kevin says:

    Unfortunately, it is not just “14” that are involved here. There were numerous others injured that day… and their suffering loved ones… and the men who were forced to leave the classroom. That day took its toll on SO MANY people. I remember them all in my prayers today…

  6. Patrick says:

    I don’t think isolating violence serves anyone. Screaming about violence against women or any particular group doesn’t get to the root cause of violence in general. Domestic, gang, mass murder, street fights are all the same thing with a different tagline. And as long as violence is revered as a means of politics and we keep building monuments to our failures as human beings then violence will trickle down to the individual and been seen as a viable method of dealing with a percieved problem or anxiety.
    With politicians reviving the glories of two hundred year old wars for political gain and desperate to join in with every fail imperialist assault on foreign lands we are a long way from solving the problem of violence.

  7. Max says:

    Ummm…who was it that held the gun that was used to kill the 14 university students? Anybody remember his name or his story?

    • JamesHalifax says:

      Max,

      He was a recalcitrant failed Muslim who changed his name to Marc Lepine……as everyone knows.

      I don’t know who was more deserving of condemnation that day. The obvious nut-case who wielded the gun, or the scores of men who blindly filed out of the classrooms leaving the women to their fate.

      Never would have happened 50 years ago. Then, we would have been talking about the men who gave their lives in defence of these women, as opposed to the women left to die by men of the “progressive” generation.

      • Jason King says:

        “Never would have happened 50 years ago. Then, we would have been talking about the men who gave their lives in defence of these women, as opposed to the women left to die by men of the “progressive” generation.”

        Pure speculation and nonsense James. Save that for the FD forums

  8. Eddie says:

    Warren, as a frequent reader of your site, thanks for mentioning the victims’ names so they are not forgotten or thought of as statistics for political use. I have little patience for all this political bashing. Remember the victims name, not that creep who killed them.

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