It's hard to believe that it's been 23 years since their lives ended so suddenly and so brutally.
Their faces still stare out at us, so young and full of hope.
If they had lived some of them might have kids in university today. And some of their daughters might be studying to be engineers, striding confidently down a road that their mothers helped pave.
For let's never forget that they were pioneers, proud young women making a place for other women, in a male dominated profession. And that's why Marc Lepine killed them.
But although their dreams died with them, they left us a precious legacy. Not just the long gun registry, but a vision of a less violent society. Until the Cons destroyed it, for the sole purpose of dividing Canadians and winning their precious majority.
For what else could explain the sight of Stephen Harper, who once supported the gun registry until he didn't, professing to be shocked by the recommendations of some kooky committee of gun goombahs?
A “very concerned” Prime Minister Stephen Harper slammed a door on recommendations from the hand-picked Canadian firearms advisory committee that urged gun laws be relaxed, suggesting he will shake up the committee’s membership.
When the Cons picked those goombahs.
Its dozen members include a man who argued that more guns in the hands of students would have helped in the recent Virginia Tech massacre, in which 32 people were killed, and another shooting aficionado who described a weapon used in last September's Dawson College killings in Montreal as "fun."
Vic Toews and Candice Bergen attended their meetings. And Harper was only too happy to pander to those deranged gun cultists. Until he didn't need them. The silly suckers, the goofy goombahs, the shameless leader who would play politics with the lives of others.
Oh well. Their day will come. And in the meantime nothing anybody says, the Cons, Justin Trudeau, or whoever, will ever change my mind. I believe in a kinder, gentler society, with the fewer guns the better. I want to live in peaceful Canada not gun crazy Amerika.
So I support a gun registry, as well as ANY other gun control measures designed to make this country safer. So fewer lives can be ended by violence, so suddenly and so easily.
Like the lives of all those young women were ended, on a snowy day in Montreal, by a man with hatred in his heart, and a gun in his hand...
And what more can I say eh? Except that on this day of sadness there was some mighty consolation.
Quebec is moving forward on plans to create its own version of the former federal long-gun registry.
"If we can see any glimmer of hope … in this dark tragedy, it is that it has paved the way for a profound reflection on violence, particularly against women, and the ways that we can circumscribe or even eradicate it," provincial Minister of Public Security Stéphane Bergeron said in a statement released Thursday.
How about that legacy? Bruised and battered but still defiant. The Cons tried to destroy it, but Quebecers wouldn't let them.
And how about those rallies all over Canada, where people lit candles to remember the victims of that cruel massacre, and denounce violence against women?
That's their precious legacy too. And isn't it BEAUTIFUL?
Yup. Screw those women-hating Cons, and the gun worshipping cult. We will not forget.
And the struggle continues...
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Dancing the graves today, eh Simon? Every year less and less people care about your little Quebec problem......but hey hang-on to those dancing shoes I am sure you will need them again next year!
ReplyDeleteThe LGR is dead, high time to accept the facts.
hi anonymous....actually it's your ghastly Cons who are dancing on the graves of those dead women. And it's a disgusting spectacle even by Con standards. But don't worry the gun registry lives, and you don't think the police really destroyed the data do you? I bet you there are more copies going around than the latest Bieber video. Trust me, we know where your guns are, and when we want them we'll take them.And of course you are all going off to concentration camps for dummies, to learn how to fill out a simple form. We are the World Government, who read your thoughts, and that is The Plan...
DeleteSometimes Simon you really are a trip. God, you ought to be the poster boy for your "movement"....no really you ought. The plus side is while you sit behind your computer typing, I get to go to work and fuck over people like you. Sometimes, when I deny them services I feel bad. Then I think of you and it makes it so much easier, people have lost so much thanks too you.
Deletehi anonymous... You want me to be a poster boy? Nah, I did a naked calendar with a rugby team once, and it caused a scandal. I told them it was too large to cover with a rugby ball #!@#!!
DeleteBut thanks anyway...
P.S. try not to be a bully, it's not cool, and it makes you look pathetic...
Great post Simon, and I see you've attracted the usual standard peabrain paranoid Connie's with it, too. The morons who actually think the guv'mint is a 'comin to take away their guns and steal their property while they're at it, including their meat puppet collections of toques and flannel shirts. Harper didn't even wear a ribbon in the House to commemorate the remembrance of this ghastly gun nut tragedy, all he did was pretend he didn't agree with the recommendations to loosen gun control even further by the 'advisory committee' of gun loons the COBS handpicked themselves.
ReplyDeletehi Wazz...yes unfortunately whenever anyone disagrees with the Gun Cult they go ballistic. I don't even bother to debate them, they are too fanatical to listen to reason.
DeleteBut yes I noticed that while the opposition were wearing white ribbons Harper and his gang were not. Canada's Cons, where decency goes to die...
You're entitled to your belief.. and rather than attack you and tell you I disagree, at least, I would ask that you consider the possibility that there may be people dead today because money that could have been used for early intervention with children, that could have been used for helping the mentally ill - was, instead, used to fund the registry.
ReplyDeleteMarc Lepine was, after all, a human being, who didn't come out of the womb as a killer. He was abused by a father who exhibited great hatred for women. As he became a young adult, he had difficulty holding jobs, was socially dysfunctional, and probably suffered mental illness.. and, lest we forget, at the end of the day, he killed himself.
I'm not asking you to agree with my point of view, only to think about it. Under the gun registry, as was the case in Dawson College, Lepine still would have been able to take that weapon into l'ecole Polytechnique and murdered those women.. and as he ultimately killed himself, any gun laws created would have been meaningless to him.
Just something to think about.. if you're really interested in assuring this doesn't happen again. But - if you're only interested in supporting your own preconceptions, well, that's fine too I guess.
Oh he is. Simon hears only Simon's voice.
Deletehi Robert...in the course of writing about this issue I listened to all arguments, and I have suggested many compromises. And yes it is a complex issue, and mental illness is a huge problem that needs more attention. I know that because I am intimately familiar with the problems first responders face in that regard. And I understand why they feel safer when they know if there is a gun in the place they are going to. So that's the main reason I support the registry. But as I said in my post, it's also because I want to see fewer guns in the cities where most Canadians now live. I don't ask anyone to change their views anymore, I just ask them to respect mine...
DeleteHaving lived and worked in Nunavut and a few small fly-in reserves in my time, I can't help but wonder just how many decent houses could have been built with this money that was squandered on this registry that cost so much and accomplished so little.
ReplyDeleteWay Way got a point there. If Quebec is so hard-up for cash, than why are they tossing even more good money after bad?
Deletehi Way Way Up...I realize that guns are needed in the North and in rural areas, but why blame the gun registry for the lack of housing, which I agree is a national disgrace? The gun registry didn't have to be so expensive, it was badly organized and sabotaged by the gun lobby, but I still think it's a good idea. I respect the opinions of ordinary Canadians, but I see the horror of gun violence all the time, and I hate it...
DeleteI'm not suggesting a direct link between the gun registry and housing but rather saying of course that that money would have been much better spent on building up strong communities.
DeleteCanadians would be so much better off once government clues in to the notion that so-called "government money" isn't "government money". Governments don't have money. It's actually MY money, and your money and other hard-working people's money. I don't know about you but if government (of ANY political stripe) is going to waste my money then I have a HUGE problem with that, as should every hard-working Canadian, IMHO.
Yes, that's right Simon. Just you go right on demonising the most scruplously law-abiding members of Canadian society. Just keep on pointing the finger of blame at the "deranged gun cultists" every time a criminal takes a life. But who will you have to blame when there are no longer any legal gun owners and your "kinder, gentler society" is still nowhere in sight? Maybe you will have to start ranting about the softball or culinary "cultists" for not going along with your plans for their knives and bats...
ReplyDeleteAnd one other thing: How exactly was the registry "sabotaged" by the gun lobby? Firearms owners complained about it, but they certainly complied.
ReplyDelete