École Polytechnique massacre
Encyclopedia
The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime
perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique
in Montreal
, Quebec
, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine
, armed with a legally obtained Mini-14
rifle and a hunting knife
, shot twenty-eight people before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism
", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. Overall, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.
Lépine was the child of a French-Canadian
mother and an Algeria
n father, and had been physically abused by his father. His suicide note claimed political motives and blamed feminists for ruining his life. The note included a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine considered to be feminists and apparently wished to kill.
Since the attack, Canadians have debated various interpretations of the events, their significance, and Lépine's motives. Many feminist groups and public officials have characterized the massacre
as an anti-feminist attack that is representative of wider societal violence against women. Consequently, the anniversary of the massacre has since been commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
. Other interpretations emphasize Lépine's abuse as a child and his Algerian father's hatred of women's rights as elements that helped bring Lepine to the massacre. Others suggest that the massacre was simply the isolated act of a madman, unrelated to larger social issues. Still other commentators have blamed violence in the media and increasing poverty, isolation, and alienation in society, particularly in immigrant communities.
The incident led to more stringent gun control
laws in Canada. It also introduced changes in the tactical response of police to shootings, which were later credited with minimizing casualties at the Dawson College shooting
s.
, armed with a semi-automatic rifle
and a hunting knife
. He had purchased the Sturm, Ruger
brand rifle, Mini-14
model, on November 21, 1989 in a Montreal hunting store, telling the clerk that he was going to use it to hunt small game. Lépine was familiar with the layout of the building since he had been in and around the École Polytechnique at least seven times in the weeks leading up to the event.
Lépine sat for a time in the office of the registrar on the second floor. He was seen rummaging through a plastic bag and did not speak to anyone, even when a staff member asked if she could help him. He left the office and was subsequently seen in other parts of the building before entering a second floor mechanical engineering class of about sixty students at about 5:10 p.m. After approaching the student giving a presentation, he asked everyone to stop everything and ordered the women and men to opposite sides of the classroom. No one moved at first, believing it to be a joke until he fired a shot into the ceiling.
Lépine then separated the nine women from the approximately fifty men and ordered the men to leave. Speaking in French, he asked the remaining women whether they knew why they were there, and when one student replied "no," he answered: "I am fighting feminism". One of the students, Nathalie Provost, said, "Look, we are just women studying engineering, not necessarily feminists ready to march on the streets to shout we are against men, just students intent on leading a normal life." Lépine responded that "You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists." He then opened fire on the students from left to right, killing six, and wounding three others, including Provost. Before leaving the room, he wrote the word shit twice on a student project.
Lépine continued into the second floor corridor and wounded three students before entering another room where he twice attempted to shoot a female student. His weapon failed to fire so he entered the emergency staircase where he was seen reloading his gun. He returned to the room he had just left, but the students had locked the door; Lépine failed to unlock it with three shots fired into the door. Moving along the corridor he shot at others, wounding one, before moving towards the financial services office where he shot and killed a woman through the window of the door she had just locked.
He next went down to the first floor cafeteria, in which about a hundred people were gathered. The crowd scattered after he shot a woman standing near the kitchens and wounded another student. Entering an unlocked storage area at the end of the cafeteria, Lépine shot and killed two more women hiding there. He told a male and female student to come out from under a table; they complied and were not shot.
Lépine then walked up an escalator to the third floor where he shot and wounded one female and two male students in the corridor. He entered another classroom and told the three students giving a presentation to "get out," shooting and wounding Maryse Leclair, who was standing on the low platform at the front of the classroom. He fired on students in the front row and then killed two women who were trying to escape the room, while other students dove under their desks. Lépine moved towards some of the female students, wounding three of them and killing another. He changed the magazine in his weapon and moved to the front of the class, shooting in all directions. At this point, the wounded Leclair asked for help and, after unsheathing his hunting knife, Lépine stabbed her three times, killing her. He took off his cap, wrapped his coat around his rifle, exclaimed, "Oh shit," and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, twenty minutes after having begun his attack. About sixty bullets remained in the boxes he carried with him. He had killed fourteen women in total (twelve engineering students, one nursing student and one employee of the university) and injured fourteen other people, including four men.
After briefing reporters outside, Montreal Police
director of public relations Pierre Leclair entered the building and found his daughter Maryse's stabbed body.
The Quebec and Montreal governments declared three days of mourning. A joint funeral for nine of the women was held at Notre-Dame Basilica
on December 11, 1989, which was attended by Governor General Jeanne Sauvé
, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
, Quebec premier Robert Bourassa
, and Montreal mayor Jean Doré
, along with thousands of other mourners.
case to compel the police to release the suicide letter. A year after the attacks, Lépine's three-page statement was leaked to journalist
and feminist Francine Pelletier
. It contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine apparently wished to kill because he considered them feminists. The list included Pelletier herself, as well as a union leader, a politician, a TV personality, and six police officers who had come to Lépine's attention as they were on a volleyball team together. The letter (without the list of women) was subsequently published in the newspaper La Presse, where Pelletier was a columnist at the time. Lépine wrote that he considered himself rational and that he blamed feminists for ruining his life. He outlined his reasons for the attack including his anger towards feminists for seeking social changes that "retain the advantages of being women [...] while trying to grab those of the men." He also mentioned Denis Lortie
, a Canadian Forces
corporal who killed three government employees and wounded thirteen others in an armed attack on the National Assembly of Quebec
on May 7, 1984. The text of the original letter in French is available, as well as an English translation.
(college) program in pure sciences in 1982 but switched to a three-year vocational program in electronics technology after his first year. He abandoned this program in his final semester without explanation. Lépine applied to the École Polytechnique in 1986 and in 1989 but lacked two CEGEP courses required for admission. He completed one of them in the winter of 1989.
The gender of Marc Lépine's victims as well as his oral statements during the massacre and suicide note quickly led to the event being seen as an antifeminist
attack and as an example of the wider issue of violence against women. Feminist scholars consider Lépine's actions to spring from a widespread societal misogyny
, including toleration of violence against women. Scholars have categorized it as a "pseudo-community" type of "pseudo-commando" murder-suicide, in which the perpetrator targets a specific group, often in a public place, and intends to die in "a blaze of glory". Criminologists regard the massacre as an example of a hate or bias crime
against women, as the victims were selected solely because of their membership of the category of women, and those targeted were interchangeable with others from the same group. Lépine's mother later wondered if the attack was not directed at her, as some would have considered her a feminist since she was a single, working mother. Others, including television journalist Barbara Frum
, pleaded that the massacre not be seen as an antifeminist attack or violence against women, and questioned why people insisted on "diminishing" the tragedy by "suggesting that it was an act against just one group?"
As predicted by Marc Lépine in his suicide letter, some saw the event as the isolated act of a madman. A psychiatrist interviewed Lépine's family and friends and examined his writings as part of the police investigation. He noted that Marc Lépine defined suicide
as his primary motivation, and that he chose a specific suicide method: killing one’s self after killing others (multiple homicide/suicide strategy) is considered a sign of a serious personality disorder
. Other psychiatrists emphasized the traumatic events of his childhood, suggesting that the blows he had received may have caused brain damage
, or that Lépine was psychotic, having lost touch with reality as he tried to erase the memories of a brutal (yet largely absent) father while unconsciously identifying with a violent masculinity
that dominated women. A different theory was that Lépine's childhood experiences of abuse
led him to feel victimized as he faced losses and rejections in his later life. His mother wondered if Lépine might have suffered from attachment disorder
, due to the abuse and sense of abandonment he had experienced in his childhood.
Others expressed a broader analysis, framing Lépine's actions as the result of societal changes that had led to increased poverty, powerlessness, individual isolation, and polarization between men and women. Noting Lépine's interest in violent action films, some suggested that violence in the media and in society may have influenced his actions. Following the shootings at Dawson College
on September 13, 2006, Globe and Mail
columnist Jan Wong
controversially suggested
that Marc Lépine may have felt alienated from Quebec society as he was the child of an immigrant.
The injured and witnesses among university staff and students suffered a variety of physical, social, existential, financial, and psychological consequences, including post-traumatic stress disorder
. A number of students committed suicide. In the suicide letters of at least two of them, the anguish they suffered following the massacre was cited as the reason for killing themselves. Nine years after the event, survivors reported still being affected by their experiences, though with time some of the effects had lessened.
in 2006 in which one woman was killed by a shooter. In that incident, coordination amongst emergency response agencies and prompt intervention was credited with minimizing the loss of life.
. The gun registry in particular has been a controversial and partisan issue, with critics charging that it was a political move by the Liberal
government of Jean Chrétien
that has been expensive and impractical to enforce. During 2009 and 2010 survivors of the massacre and their families publicly opposed a bill, supported by Stephen Harper
's Conservative
government, aimed at ending the long-gun registry; Rathjen described it as "a slap in the face for the victims and families". The bill was narrowly defeated in September 2010.
. "The death of those young women would not be in vain, we promised", Canadian feminist Judy Rebick
recalled. "We would turn our mourning into organizing to put an end to male violence against women."
In response to the killings a House of Commons Sub-Committee on the Status of Women was created. It released a report "The War against Women" in June 1991, which was not endorsed by the full standing committee. However, following its recommendations, the federal government established the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women in August 1991. The panel issued a final report, "Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence – Achieving Equality", in June 1993. The panel proposed a two-pronged "National Action Plan" consisting of an "Equality Action Plan" and a "Zero Tolerance Policy" designed to increase women’s equality and reduce violence against women through government policy. Critics of the panel said that the plan failed to provide a workable timeline and strategy for implementation and that with over four hundred recommendations, the final report failed to make an impact.
The feminist movement is periodically criticized for appropriating the massacre as a symbol of male violence against women. For example, Charles Rackoff
, a University of Toronto
computer science
professor, compared those organizing vigils marking the event to the Ku Klux Klan
. "The point is to use the death of these people as an excuse to promote the feminist/extreme left-wing agenda", he wrote, adding that it is "no more justified" than the KKK using the "murder of a white person by a black person as an excuse to promote their agenda."
Less provocative critiques argue that Lépine was a "lone gunman" who does not represent men, and that violence against women is neither condoned nor encouraged officially or unofficially in western culture. In this perspective, feminist memorializing is considered socially divisive on the basis of gender and therefore harmful by bestowing guilt on all men, irrespective of individual propensity to violence against women. Masculinist and anti-feminist commentators suggest that feminism has provoked violence against women, and without condoning the shootings, view the massacre as an extreme expression of men's frustrations. A few regard Lépine as hero of men's rights, and glorify his actions.
Male survivors of the massacre have been subjected to criticism for not intervening to stop Lépine. In an interview immediately after the event, a reporter asked one of the men why they "abandoned" the women when it was clear that Lépine's targets were women. René Jalbert
, the sergeant-at-arms who persuaded Denis Lortie to surrender during his 1984 attack, said that someone should have intervened at least to distract Lépine, but acknowledged that "ordinary citizens cannot be expected to react heroically in the midst of terror." Newspaper columnist Mark Steyn
suggested that male inaction during the massacre illustrated a "culture of passivity" prevalent among men in Canada, which enabled Lépine’s shooting spree: "Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate—an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history."
Male students and staff expressed feelings of remorse for not having attempted to prevent the shootings, but Nathalie Provost, one of the survivors, said that she felt that nothing could have been done to prevent the tragedy, and that her fellow students should not feel guilty.
, intended as a call to action against discrimination against women. A White Ribbon Campaign was launched in 1991 by a group of men in London, Ontario
, in wake of the massacre, for the purpose of raising awareness about the prevalence of male violence against women, with the ribbon symbolizing "the idea of men giving up their arms." Commemorative demonstrations are held each year on December 6 across the country in memory of the slain women and numerous memorials have been assembled. In commemoration of the event, December 6 is a day off every year in Polytechnique.
The Place du 6-Décembre-1989 in the Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough of Montreal was created as a memorial to the victims of the massacre. Located at the corner of Decelles Avenue and Queen Mary Road, a short distance from the university, it includes the art installation Nef pour quatorze reines (Nave
for Fourteen Queens) by Rose-Marie Goulet. It is the site of annual commemorations on December 6.
A memorial erected in Vancouver sparked controversy because it was dedicated to "all women murdered by men", which critics say implies all men are potential murderers. As a result, women involved in the project received death threats and the Vancouver Park Board subsequently banned any future memorials that might "antagonize" other groups.
The event has also been commemorated through references in television, theatre, and popular music. A play about the shootings by Adam Kelly
called The Anorak was named as one of the best plays of 2004 by the Montreal Gazette. A movie entitled Polytechnique
, directed by Denis Villeneuve
was released in 2009, and sparked controversy over the desirability of reliving the tragedy in a commercial film.
Additionally, several songs have been written about the events in different musical genres, including "Montreal Massacre" by the death metal band Macabre
, "This Memory" by the folk duo the Wyrd Sisters
, and "14 (for December 6)" by spoken-word artist Evalyn Parry
.
In 2008, Marc Lépine's mother Monique published Aftermath, a memoir of her own journey through the grief and pain of the incident. She had stayed silent until 2006, when she decided to speak out for the first time in the wake of that year's Dawson College shooting
.
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique de Montréal
The École Polytechnique de Montréal is an engineering school/faculty affiliated with the University of Montreal in Montreal, Canada. It ranks first in Canada for the scope of its engineering research. It is occasionally referred to as Montreal Polytechnic, although in Quebec English its French...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine
Marc Lépine
Marc Lépine was a 25-year-old man from Montreal, Canada who murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in the "École Polytechnique massacre", also known as the "Montreal Massacre".Lépine...
, armed with a legally obtained Mini-14
Mini-14
The Mini-14, Mini Thirty, and Mini-6.8 are small, lightweight semi-automatic carbines manufactured by the U.S. firearms company Sturm, Ruger. The Mini-14 non-target versions can fire both the .223 Remington cartridge and the similar military 5.56x45mm cartridge. The target model Mini-14 rifles are...
rifle and a hunting knife
Hunting knife
A hunting knife is a knife used during hunting for preparing the game to be used as food: skinning the animal and cutting up the meat. It is different from the Hunting dagger which was traditionally used to kill wild game....
, shot twenty-eight people before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. Overall, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.
Lépine was the child of a French-Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...
mother and an Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
n father, and had been physically abused by his father. His suicide note claimed political motives and blamed feminists for ruining his life. The note included a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine considered to be feminists and apparently wished to kill.
Since the attack, Canadians have debated various interpretations of the events, their significance, and Lépine's motives. Many feminist groups and public officials have characterized the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
as an anti-feminist attack that is representative of wider societal violence against women. Consequently, the anniversary of the massacre has since been commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is a day commemorated in Canada each December 6, the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre, in which 14 women were singled out for their gender and murdered...
. Other interpretations emphasize Lépine's abuse as a child and his Algerian father's hatred of women's rights as elements that helped bring Lepine to the massacre. Others suggest that the massacre was simply the isolated act of a madman, unrelated to larger social issues. Still other commentators have blamed violence in the media and increasing poverty, isolation, and alienation in society, particularly in immigrant communities.
The incident led to more stringent gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
laws in Canada. It also introduced changes in the tactical response of police to shootings, which were later credited with minimizing casualties at the Dawson College shooting
Dawson College shooting
The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the...
s.
Massacre
Sometime after 4 p.m. on December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine arrived at the building housing the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de MontréalUniversité de Montréal
The Université de Montréal is a public francophone research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal...
, armed with a semi-automatic rifle
Semi-automatic rifle
A semi-automatic rifle is a type of rifle that fires a single bullet each time the trigger is pulled, automatically ejects the spent cartridge, chambers a fresh cartridge from its magazine, and is immediately ready to fire another shot...
and a hunting knife
Hunting knife
A hunting knife is a knife used during hunting for preparing the game to be used as food: skinning the animal and cutting up the meat. It is different from the Hunting dagger which was traditionally used to kill wild game....
. He had purchased the Sturm, Ruger
Sturm, Ruger
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Incorporated is a Southport, Connecticut-based firearm manufacturing company, better known by the shortened name Ruger. Sturm, Ruger produces bolt-action, semi-automatic, full-automatic, and single-shot rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic pistols, and single- and double-action...
brand rifle, Mini-14
Mini-14
The Mini-14, Mini Thirty, and Mini-6.8 are small, lightweight semi-automatic carbines manufactured by the U.S. firearms company Sturm, Ruger. The Mini-14 non-target versions can fire both the .223 Remington cartridge and the similar military 5.56x45mm cartridge. The target model Mini-14 rifles are...
model, on November 21, 1989 in a Montreal hunting store, telling the clerk that he was going to use it to hunt small game. Lépine was familiar with the layout of the building since he had been in and around the École Polytechnique at least seven times in the weeks leading up to the event.
Lépine then separated the nine women from the approximately fifty men and ordered the men to leave. Speaking in French, he asked the remaining women whether they knew why they were there, and when one student replied "no," he answered: "I am fighting feminism". One of the students, Nathalie Provost, said, "Look, we are just women studying engineering, not necessarily feminists ready to march on the streets to shout we are against men, just students intent on leading a normal life." Lépine responded that "You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists." He then opened fire on the students from left to right, killing six, and wounding three others, including Provost. Before leaving the room, he wrote the word shit twice on a student project.
Lépine continued into the second floor corridor and wounded three students before entering another room where he twice attempted to shoot a female student. His weapon failed to fire so he entered the emergency staircase where he was seen reloading his gun. He returned to the room he had just left, but the students had locked the door; Lépine failed to unlock it with three shots fired into the door. Moving along the corridor he shot at others, wounding one, before moving towards the financial services office where he shot and killed a woman through the window of the door she had just locked.
Lépine then walked up an escalator to the third floor where he shot and wounded one female and two male students in the corridor. He entered another classroom and told the three students giving a presentation to "get out," shooting and wounding Maryse Leclair, who was standing on the low platform at the front of the classroom. He fired on students in the front row and then killed two women who were trying to escape the room, while other students dove under their desks. Lépine moved towards some of the female students, wounding three of them and killing another. He changed the magazine in his weapon and moved to the front of the class, shooting in all directions. At this point, the wounded Leclair asked for help and, after unsheathing his hunting knife, Lépine stabbed her three times, killing her. He took off his cap, wrapped his coat around his rifle, exclaimed, "Oh shit," and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, twenty minutes after having begun his attack. About sixty bullets remained in the boxes he carried with him. He had killed fourteen women in total (twelve engineering students, one nursing student and one employee of the university) and injured fourteen other people, including four men.
After briefing reporters outside, Montreal Police
Service de police de la Ville de Montréal
The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal is the police force for the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. With about 4,400 officers and 1,600 civilian staff, it is the second largest municipal police agency in Canada after the Toronto Police Service and second largest in the province behind the...
director of public relations Pierre Leclair entered the building and found his daughter Maryse's stabbed body.
The Quebec and Montreal governments declared three days of mourning. A joint funeral for nine of the women was held at Notre-Dame Basilica
Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal)
Notre-Dame Basilica is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street...
on December 11, 1989, which was attended by Governor General Jeanne Sauvé
Jeanne Sauvé
Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé was a Canadian journalist, politician, and stateswoman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 23rd since Canadian Confederation....
, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
, Quebec premier Robert Bourassa
Robert Bourassa
Jean-Robert Bourassa, was a politician in Quebec, Canada. He served as the 22nd Premier of Quebec in two different mandates, first from May 12, 1970, to November 25, 1976, and then from December 12, 1985, to January 11, 1994, serving a total of just under 15 years as Provincial Premier.-Early...
, and Montreal mayor Jean Doré
Jean Doré
Jean Doré is a Canadian politician and former mayor of the City of Montreal, Quebec.-Background:Jean Doré studied law at the Université de Montréal, where he was president of the student union from 1967 to 1968. He received a Master's Degree of Political Science from McGill University...
, along with thousands of other mourners.
Suicide letter
Marc Lépine's inside jacket pocket contained a suicide letter and two letters to friends, all dated the day of the massacre. Some details from the suicide letter were revealed by the police two days after the event, but the full text was not disclosed. The media brought an unsuccessful access to informationAccess to Information Act
Access to Information Act or Information Act is a Canadian act providing the right of access to information under the control of a government institution...
case to compel the police to release the suicide letter. A year after the attacks, Lépine's three-page statement was leaked to journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and feminist Francine Pelletier
Francine Pelletier (journalist)
Francine Pelletier is a journalist based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is the founder of a feminist newspaper, La Vie en Rose, and has written for La Presse, Le Devoir, and the Montreal Gazette...
. It contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine apparently wished to kill because he considered them feminists. The list included Pelletier herself, as well as a union leader, a politician, a TV personality, and six police officers who had come to Lépine's attention as they were on a volleyball team together. The letter (without the list of women) was subsequently published in the newspaper La Presse, where Pelletier was a columnist at the time. Lépine wrote that he considered himself rational and that he blamed feminists for ruining his life. He outlined his reasons for the attack including his anger towards feminists for seeking social changes that "retain the advantages of being women [...] while trying to grab those of the men." He also mentioned Denis Lortie
Denis Lortie
Denis Lortie is a former Canadian army corporal. In 1984, he stormed into the National Assembly of Quebec building and killed three Quebec government employees....
, a Canadian Forces
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
corporal who killed three government employees and wounded thirteen others in an armed attack on the National Assembly of Quebec
National Assembly of Quebec
The National Assembly of Quebec is the legislative body of the Province of Quebec. The Lieutenant Governor and the National Assembly compose the Parliament of Quebec, which operates in a fashion similar to those of other British-style parliamentary systems.The National Assembly was formerly the...
on May 7, 1984. The text of the original letter in French is available, as well as an English translation.
Marc Lépine
Marc Lépine was born Gamil Gharbi to a French-Canadian mother and an Algerian father. His father, a mutual funds salesman, was contemptuous of women, and was physically and verbally abusive to his wife and son, discouraging tenderness between mother and child. When Gamil was seven his parents separated; his father ceased contact with his children soon after. His mother returned to nursing to support the family, and due to her schedule the children lived with other families during the week. At 14, he changed his name to "Marc Lépine", citing his hatred of his father as the reason for taking his mother's surname. Lépine attempted to join the Canadian Army during the winter of 1980–1981, but according to his suicide letter was rejected because he was "anti-social." The brief biography of Marc Lépine that police released the day after the killings described him as intelligent but troubled. He disliked feminists, career women and women in traditionally male occupations, such as the police force. He began a pre-university CEGEPCégep
CEGEP is an acronym for , which is literally translated as "College of General and Vocational Education" but commonly called "General and Vocational College" in circles not influenced by Quebec English. It refers to the public post-secondary education collegiate institutions exclusive to the...
(college) program in pure sciences in 1982 but switched to a three-year vocational program in electronics technology after his first year. He abandoned this program in his final semester without explanation. Lépine applied to the École Polytechnique in 1986 and in 1989 but lacked two CEGEP courses required for admission. He completed one of them in the winter of 1989.
Search for a rationale
The massacre profoundly shocked Canadians. Government and criminal justice officials feared that extensive public discussion about the massacre would cause pain to the families and lead to antifeminist violence. As a result, a public inquiry was not held, and Marc Lépine's suicide letter was not officially released. In addition, though an extensive police investigation into Marc Lépine and the killings took place, the resulting report was not made public, though a copy was used by the coroner as a source in her investigation. The media, academics, women's organizations, and family members of the victims protested the lack of a public inquiry and paucity of information released.Antifeminism
Antifeminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. Modern antifeminists say that the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men.-History:...
attack and as an example of the wider issue of violence against women. Feminist scholars consider Lépine's actions to spring from a widespread societal misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, including toleration of violence against women. Scholars have categorized it as a "pseudo-community" type of "pseudo-commando" murder-suicide, in which the perpetrator targets a specific group, often in a public place, and intends to die in "a blaze of glory". Criminologists regard the massacre as an example of a hate or bias crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
against women, as the victims were selected solely because of their membership of the category of women, and those targeted were interchangeable with others from the same group. Lépine's mother later wondered if the attack was not directed at her, as some would have considered her a feminist since she was a single, working mother. Others, including television journalist Barbara Frum
Barbara Frum
Barbara Frum, OC was a Canadian radio and television journalist, acclaimed for her interviews for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.-Personal life:...
, pleaded that the massacre not be seen as an antifeminist attack or violence against women, and questioned why people insisted on "diminishing" the tragedy by "suggesting that it was an act against just one group?"
As predicted by Marc Lépine in his suicide letter, some saw the event as the isolated act of a madman. A psychiatrist interviewed Lépine's family and friends and examined his writings as part of the police investigation. He noted that Marc Lépine defined suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
as his primary motivation, and that he chose a specific suicide method: killing one’s self after killing others (multiple homicide/suicide strategy) is considered a sign of a serious personality disorder
Personality disorder
Personality disorders, formerly referred to as character disorders, are a class of personality types and behaviors. Personality disorders are noted on Axis II of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-IV-TR of the American Psychiatric Association.Personality disorders are...
. Other psychiatrists emphasized the traumatic events of his childhood, suggesting that the blows he had received may have caused brain damage
Brain damage
"Brain damage" or "brain injury" is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors...
, or that Lépine was psychotic, having lost touch with reality as he tried to erase the memories of a brutal (yet largely absent) father while unconsciously identifying with a violent masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
that dominated women. A different theory was that Lépine's childhood experiences of abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
led him to feel victimized as he faced losses and rejections in his later life. His mother wondered if Lépine might have suffered from attachment disorder
Attachment disorder
Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to describe disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from a failure to form normal attachments to primary care giving figures in early childhood, resulting in problematic social expectations and behaviors...
, due to the abuse and sense of abandonment he had experienced in his childhood.
Others expressed a broader analysis, framing Lépine's actions as the result of societal changes that had led to increased poverty, powerlessness, individual isolation, and polarization between men and women. Noting Lépine's interest in violent action films, some suggested that violence in the media and in society may have influenced his actions. Following the shootings at Dawson College
Dawson College
Dawson College was the first English CEGEP and is located in Westmount, just west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dawson College is located near the heart of downtown Montreal in a former nunnery on 4.85 hectares of green space...
on September 13, 2006, Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
columnist Jan Wong
Jan Wong
Jan Wong is a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry. Wong worked for The Globe and Mail, serving as Beijing correspondent from 1988 to 1994, when she returned to write from Canada....
controversially suggested
Jan Wong controversy
On September 16, 2006, three days after the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada’s nationally distributed newspaper of record, The Globe & Mail, published a front-page article titled, “Get under the desk,” by Jan Wong. In the article, Ms...
that Marc Lépine may have felt alienated from Quebec society as he was the child of an immigrant.
Impact
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumaticstress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,...
. A number of students committed suicide. In the suicide letters of at least two of them, the anguish they suffered following the massacre was cited as the reason for killing themselves. Nine years after the event, survivors reported still being affected by their experiences, though with time some of the effects had lessened.
Police response
Police response to the shootings was heavily criticized for the amount of time it gave Lépine to carry out the massacre. The first police officers to arrive at the scene established a perimeter around the building and waited before entering the building. During this period, several women were killed. Subsequent changes to emergency response protocols led to praise of emergency responders' handling of the Dawson College shootingDawson College shooting
The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the...
in 2006 in which one woman was killed by a shooter. In that incident, coordination amongst emergency response agencies and prompt intervention was credited with minimizing the loss of life.
Gun control
The massacre was a major spur for the Canadian gun control movement. One of the survivors, Heidi Rathjen, who was in one of the classrooms Lépine did not enter during the shooting, organized the Coalition for Gun Control with Wendy Cukier. Suzanne Laplante-Edward and Jim Edward, the parents of one of the victims, were also deeply involved. Their activities, along with others, led to the passage of Bill C-68, or the Firearms Act, in 1995, ushering in stricter gun control regulations. These new regulations included requirements on the training of gun owners, screening of firearm applicants, rules concerning gun and ammunition storage and the registration of all firearmsCanadian gun registry
The Canadian Firearms Registry is part of the Firearms Act and is managed by the Canadian Firearms Program of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police . It requires the registration of all guns in Canada. It was introduced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and implemented by...
. The gun registry in particular has been a controversial and partisan issue, with critics charging that it was a political move by the Liberal
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
government of Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
that has been expensive and impractical to enforce. During 2009 and 2010 survivors of the massacre and their families publicly opposed a bill, supported by Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
's Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
government, aimed at ending the long-gun registry; Rathjen described it as "a slap in the face for the victims and families". The bill was narrowly defeated in September 2010.
Violence against women
The massacre galvanized the Canadian women's movement, who see it as a symbol of violence against womenViolence against women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women...
. "The death of those young women would not be in vain, we promised", Canadian feminist Judy Rebick
Judy Rebick
Judy Rebick , arrived in Toronto at age 9, and is a Canadian journalist, political activist, and feminist.-Career:...
recalled. "We would turn our mourning into organizing to put an end to male violence against women."
In response to the killings a House of Commons Sub-Committee on the Status of Women was created. It released a report "The War against Women" in June 1991, which was not endorsed by the full standing committee. However, following its recommendations, the federal government established the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women in August 1991. The panel issued a final report, "Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence – Achieving Equality", in June 1993. The panel proposed a two-pronged "National Action Plan" consisting of an "Equality Action Plan" and a "Zero Tolerance Policy" designed to increase women’s equality and reduce violence against women through government policy. Critics of the panel said that the plan failed to provide a workable timeline and strategy for implementation and that with over four hundred recommendations, the final report failed to make an impact.
Controversy
Charles Rackoff
Charles Weill Rackoff is an American cryptologist. Born and raised in New York City, Rackoff attended MIT as both an undergraduate and graduate student, and earned a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 1974. He spent a year as a postdoctoral scholar at INRIA in France.He currently works at the...
, a University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
professor, compared those organizing vigils marking the event to the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
. "The point is to use the death of these people as an excuse to promote the feminist/extreme left-wing agenda", he wrote, adding that it is "no more justified" than the KKK using the "murder of a white person by a black person as an excuse to promote their agenda."
Less provocative critiques argue that Lépine was a "lone gunman" who does not represent men, and that violence against women is neither condoned nor encouraged officially or unofficially in western culture. In this perspective, feminist memorializing is considered socially divisive on the basis of gender and therefore harmful by bestowing guilt on all men, irrespective of individual propensity to violence against women. Masculinist and anti-feminist commentators suggest that feminism has provoked violence against women, and without condoning the shootings, view the massacre as an extreme expression of men's frustrations. A few regard Lépine as hero of men's rights, and glorify his actions.
Male survivors of the massacre have been subjected to criticism for not intervening to stop Lépine. In an interview immediately after the event, a reporter asked one of the men why they "abandoned" the women when it was clear that Lépine's targets were women. René Jalbert
René Marc Jalbert
René Marc Jalbert, C.V., C.D. was a Canadian soldier and sergeant-at-arms of the National Assembly of Quebec, known for his role in ending Denis Lortie's killing spree in the Parliament Building on May 8, 1984....
, the sergeant-at-arms who persuaded Denis Lortie to surrender during his 1984 attack, said that someone should have intervened at least to distract Lépine, but acknowledged that "ordinary citizens cannot be expected to react heroically in the midst of terror." Newspaper columnist Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn is a Canadian-born writer, conservative-leaning political commentator, and cultural critic. He has written five books, including America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller...
suggested that male inaction during the massacre illustrated a "culture of passivity" prevalent among men in Canada, which enabled Lépine’s shooting spree: "Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate—an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history."
Male students and staff expressed feelings of remorse for not having attempted to prevent the shootings, but Nathalie Provost, one of the survivors, said that she felt that nothing could have been done to prevent the tragedy, and that her fellow students should not feel guilty.
Victims
- 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
Commemoration
Since 1991, the anniversary of the massacre has been designated the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against WomenNational Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is a day commemorated in Canada each December 6, the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre, in which 14 women were singled out for their gender and murdered...
, intended as a call to action against discrimination against women. A White Ribbon Campaign was launched in 1991 by a group of men in London, Ontario
London, Ontario
London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...
, in wake of the massacre, for the purpose of raising awareness about the prevalence of male violence against women, with the ribbon symbolizing "the idea of men giving up their arms." Commemorative demonstrations are held each year on December 6 across the country in memory of the slain women and numerous memorials have been assembled. In commemoration of the event, December 6 is a day off every year in Polytechnique.
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
for Fourteen Queens) by Rose-Marie Goulet. It is the site of annual commemorations on December 6.
A memorial erected in Vancouver sparked controversy because it was dedicated to "all women murdered by men", which critics say implies all men are potential murderers. As a result, women involved in the project received death threats and the Vancouver Park Board subsequently banned any future memorials that might "antagonize" other groups.
The event has also been commemorated through references in television, theatre, and popular music. A play about the shootings by Adam Kelly
Adam Kelly
Adam Kelly is a Canadian actor, writer, producer and teacher.-Background:Born in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal, Kelly grew up in Pierrefonds....
called The Anorak was named as one of the best plays of 2004 by the Montreal Gazette. A movie entitled Polytechnique
Polytechnique (film)
Polytechnique is a 2009 Canadian film from Quebec written by Jacques Davidts and Denis Villeneuve and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Set in Montreal, Quebec and based on the École Polytechnique massacre , the film documents the events of December 6, 1989 through the eyes of two students who witness...
, directed by Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve is a Canadian film director and writer. In his early career he won Radio-Canada's youth film competition "La Course Europe-Asie" in 1990-91. He is a three-time winner of the Genie Award for Best Director, for Maelström in 2001, Polytechnique in 2010 and Incendies in 2011...
was released in 2009, and sparked controversy over the desirability of reliving the tragedy in a commercial film.
Additionally, several songs have been written about the events in different musical genres, including "Montreal Massacre" by the death metal band Macabre
Macabre (band)
Macabre is an extreme metal band from Illinois. They were formed in 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, and have never had a line-up change. They blend thrash metal, death metal, and grindcore to form their own unique style dubbed murder metal...
, "This Memory" by the folk duo the Wyrd Sisters
Wyrd Sisters (band)
The Wyrd Sisters are a Canadian folk music group.The band was formed in 1990 in Winnipeg, Manitoba by founding members Kim Baryluk, Nancy Reinhold and Kim Segal. The band chose the name "the Wyrd Sisters" to represent and reclaim the ancient pre-Christian triple goddess, also known as Weird, Wurd,...
, and "14 (for December 6)" by spoken-word artist Evalyn Parry
Evalyn Parry
Evalyn Parry is a Canadian Quaker singer/songwriter and actress/playwright who grew up in Toronto, Ontario in the Kensington Market Neighborhood...
.
In 2008, Marc Lépine's mother Monique published Aftermath, a memoir of her own journey through the grief and pain of the incident. She had stayed silent until 2006, when she decided to speak out for the first time in the wake of that year's Dawson College shooting
Dawson College shooting
The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the...
.