19 December, 2011
Like past years, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada held its bi-annual Women’s Conference in the days around National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada on 6 December, the fateful date in 1989 when 14 young women were massacred at École Polytechnique in Montreal in an anti-feminist rage.
Some 350 women attended the CEP’s 9th Women’s Conference in Canada’s national capital, Ottawa, from 4-6 December. The conference, entitled “Imagine,” included workshops on cyberstalking, gun registry, and street-proofing as deterrent for crime and violence against women.
CEP Women
On the morning of the conference’s final day, former Governor General of Canada Michaëlle Jean spoke and told of battered women’s shelters in Quebec and the urgent need to engage young Canadians on the degradation that violence against women brings on societies. Following her address, delegates marched from the Westin Hotel in Ottawa to Parliament Hill, where a mass demonstration was occurring for gun control in Canada and the National Day of Remembrance of the Montreal Massacre.
“The gun control law is a monument erected in the memory of our daughters,” said Suzanne Laplante-Edward, mother of Anne-Marie, who was slain at École Polytechnique by a lone gunman. The CEP’s Western Region Administrative Vice President, Wendy Sol, also spoke at the Parliament Hill manifestation.
In an ICEM letter to delegates at the opening of the CEP’s Women’s Conference, the federation reminded Canadian women that the Montreal Massacre is rightfully marked in global observance of “16 Days Against Gender Violence,” as designated by the Global Campaign for Human Rights. Those 16 days began on 25 November with the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and continued across World Aids Day (1 December), the Montreal Massacre (6 December), and finally International Human Rights Day (10 December).
The ICEM letter read: “With the CEP Women’s Conference occurring within these globally recognized 16 days, please tell your delegates that the ICEM is using this time frame and indeed, the entire new year, to remind all that gender equity will remain a major global priority.”