Montreal Massacre

Winnipeg, December 6, 1989

The many vigils that rose up in the aftermath of the Montreal massacre in 1989, when 14 women were slaughtered in the Montreal school because they were women, were formative for me.  In my hometown of Winnipeg, women gathered in the rotunda space of the Manitoba legislature. It was cold.  But the space warmed as we as we crowded in and lit our candles. We repeated the defiant phrase, “I am a feminist”.  At the end of the ceremony in a quiet moment there was a very little voice of a small girl child holding her candle and we heard her little voice say,  “I am a feminist”. It was was incredibly hopeful and sad at the same time.

It was an action by women. It was an act of mourners. It was an act of defiance.

It was the beginning of my own journey of acting and reflecting on community based actions of memory and resistance.