Polytechnique survivor ‘worried’ about social climate 36 years after antifeminist massacre

While Nathalie Provost says much has changed since a gunman entered her Polytechnique classroom and killed her classmates 36 years ago, she is worried.

While Nathalie Provost says much has changed since an antifeminist gunman entered her Polytechnique classroom and killed her classmates 36 years ago, she worries about worsening social tensions.

On Dec. 6, 1989 Marc Lépine interrupted a lecture for engineering students, made all the men leave the room before proclaiming “I hate feminists” and opening fire on the nine remaining women with a semi-automatic rifle, Provost being among them.

He continued his attack in the halls, killing a total of 14 women and injuring 13 others. Largely considered a misogynistic terrorist act, it was the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history until the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks.

Now a federal MP, elected last April, Provost says she is noticing a breakdown in social cohesion.

“I’m very proud of what the Quebec society, the Canadian society, did around the femicide of Polytechnique, but we live in another period,” she told CTV News.

“And what I realized with many situations across the world, when the social tensions arise, usually women and children are the first to suffer, and that’s a bit what we see.”

At least 15 women have been murdered in 2025, with nine cases linked to intimate partner violence.

Women’s shelters decry being underfunded and say they have to turn women away every day as their resources are stretched thin.

In 2023, an antifeminist blogger who was convicted of fomenting hate against women and praised Lépine was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

Incel communities — “involuntarily celibate” men who typically resent women’s emancipation — have grown in the last decade, leading to violence like the 2018 Toronto attack.

In late October, a 14-year-old girl was stabbed in the face on her way home from school in Montreal by a classmate who her mother said was trying to court her.

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With a rise in masculinist discourse and figures like Andrew Tate and the late Charlie Kirk, Provost is noticing a change in how young men and women relate to each other.

“I was really, really shocked by how the relationship between them can be violent, and that violence come from men, but also from girls, from boys,” she said. “I fear that we lose our capacity to have to express differences together.”

She says many messages from social media influencers and podcasters are sowing division, “and separation is not the better way to live together in society.”

She adds the pandemic exacerbated existing tensions.

“I am afraid that social media, and mostly the overall economic situation, will make it more and more difficult to have those difficult conversations,” said Provost. “I’m very worried, but I’ll try with my kids, with my family, with my friends, even at the parliament.”

Advances in gun control

A long-time advocate for increased gun control in Canada, Provost is glad to have a seat at the table.

The government must buy back all assault-style weapons owned by Canadians by the end of October 2026, after which possession will be prohibited.

More gun-control legislation is on the way with parliament evaluating how to regulate SKS semi-automatic weapons, which are sometimes used by First Nations to hunt. Provost said the issue is “complex” as the government works to strike a balance between the interests of gun owners and public safety.

On Friday, Public Safety Canada published its recommendations to prohibit a slew of semi-automatic rifles and overhaul and simplify its classification system.

“There is a lot of work that is ongoing,” said Provost.

‘Make them alive again’

The MP is also a member of the Order of the White Rose, which announced Monday it is increasing its $50,000 scholarship for women studying at Polytechnique from one yearly recipient to 14. It will also be linked to a leadership program.

“It’s an impressive gesture to bring to life very important dreams,” said Provost. “We realized in the last 10 years that they felt a bit alone to wear such an important memory. It was an honour, but a bit of a burden.”

By increasing the scholarship to 14 members, the school hopes they will forge relationships and encourage each other’s academic and professional development.

Every year, seeing the 14 beams light up the Montreal sky brings a different emotion, but Provost says the scholarships are a way to “to overcome it and face reality and make them alive again.”

This year, she says she’ll take a moment to look back at the last 36 years of her life and give herself the energy to tackle the issues of today.