On December 6th, 1989, twenty years ago

At the École polytechnique in Montreal, a man murdered 12 women because they were women. He said that he wanted to “send the feminists to their Maker” because they had “always ruined his life”.

In 1991, because of the shock wave that this event sent throughout Canada and the world, December 6 was designated as National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women and the monument entitled “Nef pour 14 reines” which was set in place on the Place du 6 décembre immortalized the event.

Monuments were also raised in Toronto in 1990, in Moncton in 1996 and in Vancouver in 1997.

After six years of unrelenting efforts led by Heidi Rathjen with the support of the Polytechnique students’ association, Wendy Cukier and a petition bearing half a million signatures, Bill C-68 (Firearms Act) was enacted into law.

Furthermore, the laws of certain provinces were amended in order to allow the termination of a lease for spousal abuse.

But since then, what was done to end violence against women?

Enforcement of C-68 is now all but forgotten.

A Statistics Canada report of October 2008 on spousal abuse showed that 8 out of 10 victims are women.

According to Amnesty International’s 2008 report entitled “Assez de vies volées” (enough lives wasted), a young women belonging to a First Nation runs 5 times more risk of dying as a consequence of violence than other Canadian women. The same report underlines that the attitude of police officers towards female sex-trade workers deters them from filing complaints on the assaults to which they are subjected.

It must be remembered that it was suggested that brothels be opened in Vancouver for the Olympic Games. Since the trafficking of women is among the effects of globalization, what are we to think? The mere fact that someone had this idea reveals a lot on the importance of human dignity.

Status of Women Canada, the agency responsible to promote “equality and full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada”, showcases on its website the projects supported by the federal government in 2009. However, SWC’s $13 million budget was cut by $5 million in September 2007, the number of SWC offices went from 16 to 4 and the concept of “equality” was dropped, leaving only “participation”. Furthermore, the Court Challenges Program that enabled the most disadvantaged persons (including women) to exercise their rights was cancelled.

In light of these few examples, can we consider that progress was made?

Is it acceptable that the Government of Canada refused to criminalize hate propaganda against women?

Is it not time that equality in law became equality in fact for all the women of the world?

Colleen, Dianna, Linda and Huguette – CEIU NVP’s for Women