Feds mark 33rd anniversary of Polytechnique shooting amid contention over gun control legislation

MPs are marking the 33rd anniversary of the École Polytechnique de Montreal shooting that left 14 women dead, while debate over the Liberal government’s gun control legislation — including which specific firearms should be restricted — is ongoing.

On this day in 1989, a gunman entered the engineering school and separated the women and men before opening fire on the female students, killing 14. More than three decades later, MPs are debating how to end gun violence in Canada, with the Liberals touting their Bill C-21 as the way to do it, while Opposition MPs are criticizing the proposed legislation.

Women and Gender Equality Minister Marci Ien started the day by addressing MPs in the House and marking the anniversary, saying the “horrific act of violence changed our country forever.” She also took the opportunity to list the government’s freeze on the sale, purchase, and transfer of handguns within Canada — a provision of bill C-21 that is already in effect — as another tool to fight against gender-based violence.

MPs from every party — including Bloc Québecois MP Andréanne Larouche, NDP MP Leah Gazan and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May — also made statements in the House on what is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other party leaders also issued statements to mark the day.

“For 33 years, we have held them in our thoughts,” Trudeau wrote. He later attended the yearly vigil in Montreal with Quebec Premier François Legault, where 14 beams of light were projected into the sky above Mount Royal.

“Geneviève Bergeron. Maryse Laganière. Hélène Colgan. Maryse Leclair. Nathalie Croteau. Anne-Marie Lemay. Barbara Daigneault. Sonia Pelletier. Anne-Marie Edward. Michèle Richard. Maud Haviernick. Annie St-Arneault. Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz. Annie Turcotte. We will never forget them,” Trudeau also wrote, naming the 14 women who were killed in the shooting 33 years ago.

Meanwhile the Liberal government’s highly contested Bill C-21 is currently at consideration with the House Public Safety and National Security Committee, where members discussed the act clause by clause Tuesday afternoon.

The legislation has been criticized by Opposition MPs and gun rights groups for unfairly punishing lawful gun owners and hunters, while not doing enough to address gang violence in major cities and gun smuggling at the border.

Some gun rights advocates have also expressed concern an amendment to the bill, tabled after second reading once C-21 had moved on to committee, would include guns used for hunting in the list of prohibited firearms.

While the Liberals have touted the bill as the critical to ending gun violence in Canada, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told Mike Le Couteur on CTV’s Power Play Monday his government is “keeping an open door” to work with committee to possibly pare down the list of prohibited guns.

With still a ways to go, Bloc Québecois MP Kristina Michaud said she’s disappointed “that industry doesn’t seem to have been consulted by the government” on the amendment, and at not being able to add more meetings to dig into the amendment and hear from more witnesses on the issue.

The committee later ran out of time before members could have all their questions answered, and decided to get back into the clause-by-clause discussion at its next meeting.

Polytechnique shooting survivor Nathalie Provost, who is also a spokesperson for the gun control advocacy group PolySeSouvient, told CTV’s Power Play she believes advocating for stricter gun control keeps the memory of the tragedy’s victims alive, and she’s concerned about how politicized the issue has become.

She said hunting is an activity that is “rooted in Canada,” and she’s not looking for hunting rifles to be outlawed, but rather to see an end to assault-style weapons. Provost said the Liberal government needs to be more clear in its list of firearms that would be prohibited under C-21.

As the debate continues to play out among Parliamentarians, outside of Ottawa, NHL goaltender Carey Price issued a statement on his Instagram acknowledging the anniversary of the École Polytechnique shooting and disputing an earlier claim he did not know about the tragedy in the first place.

Price had posted a photo of himself hunting with a caption calling out Trudeau for being unjust with the proposed gun control legislation, and stating he supports the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR). The CCFR is a gun rights organization that had also recently been criticized for using the promotion code “poly” on its website, a move many called disrespectful of the École Polytechnique tragedy.

A spokesperson for the NHL later initially said Price was unaware of the shooting, which led to further criticism of the hockey player, who lived in Montreal for more than 15 years.

“While I have no control over the timing of the amendment to Bill C-21 I stand by the opinions I’ve shared, I acknowledge that amplifying any conversation around guns this week may have upset some of those impacted most by the events here in 1989 and to them I apologize,” Price wrote.

The CCFR, for its part, wrote on its website the promo code was “in no way a reference to the tragedy at École Polytechnique.”

Ien addressed the story in her commemoration speech for the École Polytechnique victims.

“At a time when the gun lobby is using the memory of this horrendous anniversary to promote its own agenda, we must stand firm to defend the memories and legacies of those gone too soon,” she told MPs in the House Tuesday. “There is so much to be done and we must all be part of the solution.”