In Montreal this evening fourteen light beams will rise from the top of Mount Royal, one by one into the sky. One for every woman murdered in the École Polytechnique Massacre 30-years-ago. Murdered just for being women, by a man who hated feminists.
They were so young, they were so full of hope in the future.
Only to have their dreams of being engineers, so long reserved for men, brutally extinguished in a few murderous minutes. And then have their legacy defiled by Stephen Harper and his bestial Cons. Who like the Scheer Cons cared more about god and guns, than they cared about women and girls. And didn't give a damn about the effects of gun violence.
The bastards. I remember how angry I used to be to see the gun lobby treat the murdered women as The Enemy for making them look bad. I remember how they insisted that the massacre was the work of a madman not a misogynist. And how some of them threatened to kill me for refusing to believe that cowardly lie. So I can't tell you how relieved I am to see that after thirty years, attitudes are finally changing. At last, 30 years later, the reluctance of officialdom to call what happened what it was has been made right. A new sign has just gone up in the Place-du-6-décembre-1989, a memorial park at the base of the U of M campus, on the corner of Decelles Street and Queen Mary Road.
The old sign said only that there had been a tragedy.
The new sign states that 14 women were murdered in an anti-feminist attack at École Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989. It condemns all forms of violence against women. And that the legacy of the Montreal Massacre is finally being rescued. It also makes me happy to know that we now have a prime minister who supports women's rights, and is proud to call himself a feminist.
Who is working to curb gun violence. And who will be on Mount Royal tonight when those fourteen beams of light rise into the sky.
So after so many years I can at last feel sure that the legacy of those murdered women will live on. Always remember their names. Geneviève Bergeron, 21 - Hélène Colgan, 23 - Nathalie Croteau, 23 - Barbara Daigneault, 22 - Anne-Marie Edward, 21 - Maud Haviernick, 29 - Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, 31 - Maryse Laganière, 25 - Maryse Leclair, 23 - Anne-Marie Lemay, 22 - Sonia Pelletier, 23 - Michèle Richard, 21 - Anne St-Arneault, 23 - Annie Turcotte, 21 Always honour their memory...
And keep their precious legacy alive. By demanding an end to the violence against women and girls. And fighting forever for a more equal world...
Anyone who has studied Andrew Scheer, and his strongly held religious views, knows that if he had his way, there would be no abortion rights in Canada. He is that kind of religious fanatic, more American than Canadian. But he is very careful to keep his extremist views under wraps, until he has a majority government and enough anti-choice MPs to severely restrict the rights of women. So I was surprised to see that on his first full day of campaigning, he collided head-on with the abortion issue, when the Liberals released this shocking video.
In one of my last posts I revealed that Andrew Scheer has been quietly parachuting anti-choice candidates into ridings all over Canada. And said that the Cons should now be known as the Religious Party of Canada. The party that says one thing in English Canada and something completely different in Quebec. And now it seems that the Con Messiah is starting to lose his marbles.
Believe it or not, Andrew Scheer is now trying to pose as a tough guy, in a desperate attempt to make Justin Trudeau look weak. Even though Trudeau makes Scheer look like a yappy Con chihuahua. The one they call Weak Andy, who would embarrass us on the world stage, by talking big, carrying a small stick. And looking and sounding ridiculous.
I've always suspected that the toxic Trudeau haters who swarm all over this country like foul smelling roaches, despise Trudeau for more than just his policies. And that many who claim they hate him for buying a pipeline or whatever, really hate him for standing up so strongly for the rights of women like no prime minister ever has before him. So I'm glad to see Susan Delacourt write about the misogynistic elephant in the room.
Ever since he became Con leader I have been warning that Andrew Scheer is a political leader unlike any this country has ever known. Warning that he is a scary religious fanatic who does not believe in a woman's right to control her own body, and that his anti-choice views are so extreme they are more American than Canadian. A few days ago I revealed how he reacted when the pioneering abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada.
In my last post I wrote that I would try to stay away from the fake scandal as it sinks slowly into the swamp of history. But one thing about that shabby feeding frenzy still bothers me. And that's the way the Cons and the other toxic Trudeau haters tried to portray him as a "fake feminist." In a crass attempt to smear him, and damage the cause of women's rights that he has championed since he came to office. So I'm glad to see someone demolish that fake news argument.
Toxic masculinity is one of the greatest curses of humanity. It turns boys into beasts and bullies. It demeans women, and kills them in horrifying numbers. It drives men to murder each other all over our bloody planet, in one senseless war after the other. It was largely responsible for Donald Trump's victory, and it's what the ghastly Andrew Scheer is trying to use against Justin Trudeau. And since I hate bullies of any kind with a passion. I really like this video.
It was snowing in Montreal this evening, just as it was on the day they were murdered. So the fourteen light beams shimmered as they rose from Mount Royal, one by one into the sky. One for every woman murdered in the École Polytechnique Massacre 29-years-ago. Murdered just for being women, by a man who hated them.
I see that the FBI has started investigating Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The FBI has begun contacting people as part of an additional background investigation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, including a second woman who alleges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her. And one can only hope that Kavanaugh is in better shape than he was at last Thursday's Senate hearing. When he stunned the world with his Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde impersonation.
Last Wednesday Justin Trudeau was answering a question about abortion, which ended with him declaring that his government would always defend a woman's right to choose. When the Con MP Ted Falk shouted out "it's not a right!" And caused a commotion in the Commons. Now Andrew Scheer has finally addressed the controversy, saying he has spoken to Falk. But he was clearly not comfortable discussing the question of abortion with him.
Ever since the Con media ganged up to go after Justin Trudeau and his budget like a pack of rabid rats, I've been wondering what could have triggered such a frenzied orgy of naked bias. For it was frenzied, it was deeply disturbing, I had never seen anything like it. It was like the old white men of the parliamentary press gang had been overcome by some strange musky fever. And were now humming sympathetically, or rutting prematurely, channelling the toxic Trudeau hate of the religious fanatic Andrew Scheer...
And doing all they could to make him Prime Minister. So I really needed to know what was this madness? And from what dark or idiot place was it coming from?
Of all the good things that Justin Trudeau has done since he liberated us from Stephen Harper's monstrous regime, the one thing I like the most is his support for women's rights. For there is no bigger or better or more pressing issue than finally assuring the equality of women. And I can never forget how the very first thing Harper did when he came to power was order that the words "women's rights" be deleted from thousands of government documents.
For it was at that very moment that I realized that he was weird and evil. And that we were now dealing with a group of hardline Republican-style ideologues like this country had never seen before, and I have been fighting them ever since. So I'm really happy to see that in the Trudeau government's new budget the equality of women is front and centre.
It's been almost two weeks since Andrew Scheer came rushing out to denounce Justin Trudeau for imposing un-Godly restrictions on the government's summer job program. But since then Scheer has been strangely silent about the issue, and has dropped it like a hot or hellish potato. Which is weird, considering he's a religious fanatic who would love the government to pay kids to put up posters like these all over the place.
Ever since Justin Trudeau came to power, the Con media in this country has found any excuse to attack him like a pack of rabid zombies. But now they may have found the foulest excuse yet. Now they're accusing the son of the man who brought in our Charter of Rights of violating that charter.
Yesterday, I wrote about a Globe article where Andrew Scheer claimed that him and his Cons were more tolerant than the Liberals. And I wondered whether Scheer was losing his mind, and why the Globe would print such nonsense. So I'm happy to see the Globe is now trying to make up for that. And for Scheer and his Rebel acolyte Hamish Marshall it couldn't be more devastating.
In Montreal this evening, fourteen rays of light will rise into the sky, one after the other, from the summit of Mount Royal. So all Montrealers can see them, and remember the fourteen young women who were murdered twenty eight years ago today at the École Polytechnique. Murdered by a man who hated women.
From the moment he was named Con leader, Andrew Scheer has been building an inner circle of religious fanatics like this country has never seen before. Almost half the members of his so-called "shadow government" are social conservatives who are strongly anti-abortion. And his choice of a candidate to replace Rona Ambrose tells you all you need to know about him.
It's hard to believe, it's so bizarre it boggles the mind. It's like Andrew Scheer is getting his marching orders straight from Donald Trump or his Godzilla. For it has only been a couple of weeks since him and his Cons tried to sabotage the NAFTA talks by taking the Khadr case to the U.S. And stabbing Canada in the back. But despite the way they were criticized for their treasonous behaviour, Scheer is at it AGAIN!!!
The night Andrew Scheer was elected Con leader I remember thinking how little I knew about him, and wondering why the media had failed so miserably to let us know who he really was. I knew he was a professional politician, I knew he had been a lousy Speaker who always tilted in the same rightward direction like the leaning Tower of Pisa. I also knew he was a hardcore social conservative, a man with a visceral hatred of gay people, and liberated women. But one thing I could never figure out was why he was making freedom of speech his biggest or fiercest issue.
