Canadian True Crime - École Polytechnique Massacre - Part 2

Episode Date: July 15, 2018

[Part 2 of 2] The conclusion to the 1989 Montreal Massacre story that took place at École Polytechnique, exploring the massacre itself and the aftermath. TIME STAMP: To forward just past the massacre - 26:50 Support my sponsors! Here's where the discount codes are:www.canadiantruecrime.ca/sponsorsPodcast recommendations:Distorsion Podcast Join my patreon to get early, ad-free episodes and more: www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrime   Credits:Narration and music arrangement, writing, additional research: Kristi LeeResearch and writing: Suzanne St JohnAdditional research: Meg ZhangStory consultant: Tracey LindemanVoice of the shooter: Emile Gauthier from Distorsion PodcastAudio production: Erik Krosby All credits and information sources can be found on the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca.Support the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many of you have been asking why I chose not to speak the preferred name of the shooter in these episodes. Many mass shooters commit these acts to gain some sort of fame, notoriety and recognition. By not sensationalising their name, it shifts the focus from the shooter and removing that notoriety as a motivational factor might actually prevent future mass shootings. To find out more, you can visit www.dontnamethem.org. This is Christy and you're listening to Canadian True Crime, Episode 29. The École Polytechnique Massacre, Part 2. Just a quick content warning. This episode launches straight into the massacre and how it unfolded. I know this is highly sensitive to many of you and you may not be up to listening to this

right now. If you would like to skip over to the aftermath, I've put a time stamp in the show notes and on my website that you can fast forward to. On December 6th, 1989, the weather in Montreal was heading towards winter. Although the day wasn't as cold as usual, it was still just below freezing, with freezing rain pelting down. At around 4 o'clock p.m., the shooter left his apartment, dressed in new work boots, jeans, a grey windbreaker with the picture of a skull wearing glasses on it, and his trademark baseball cap. Today's was a white one that had Tracteur Montreal on it. He had a hunting knife at his waist inside the windbreaker,

and his Sturm Ruger Mini 14.223 calibre semi-automatic rifle shoved into a green garbage bag. He walked to the small car he had rented earlier in the day and merged in with traffic in the freezing drizzle. He drove to the yellow building of the École Polytechnique at the top of the hill, paid $5 to the parking attendant and then parked the car in a no parking zone. and then parked the car in a no-parking zone. This would be the last place he would park it before the police found it the next day.

He entered the school through the four sets of steel and glass doors under the sign that read, École Polytechnique de Montréal. It was the last hour of the last school day before the holidays, and the school was a frenzied place of students rushing to classes to take final exams or complete final projects. Others were already in celebration mode and in and around the cafeteria. His rifle was still in the garbage bag at his side. He decided to sit around for a while, choosing a highly visible

spot right next to the door of the registrar's office. Many people saw him sitting there for over half an hour with a scowl on his face, making no eye contact with anyone. On the second floor of the building, room 230 was filled with mechanical engineering students, many of them final year students about to graduate. Two of them were best friends Hélène Colgan and Nathalie Croteau, both 23. Alain's father described her as a studious young woman. She already had three job offers for when she graduated and was thinking she might accept one from a company close to Toronto. She also planned to go on and do her master's. Her best friend Natalie was also in her last year of mechanical engineering.

She and Alain were greatly looking forward to taking a two-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico at the end of the month. They were almost finished for the term, hours away, and then could relax and look forward to their vacation. But first, they were sitting through a final round of oral presentations in class. The shooter was still sitting one floor below, outside the registrar's office. After a while, a female university admin staff member asked him if he needed anything. He didn't reply.

He just stood up and walked off. She didn't think much of it. It was the last day of term, and many students were feeling tired and burnt out. It was now almost 5pm and the place was starting to empty out for the end of the day. The shooter started climbing the steps to the second floor. Back in room 230, the presentations were continuing from the final year mechanical engineering students.

Two other women were sitting, watching and also anticipating job interviews they had coming up. 23-year-old Annie Santonel was a final year mechanical engineering student from La Tsuke, Quebec and was due to interview the next day with a company called Alcan Aluminium. was a final year mechanical engineering student from La Souq, Quebec, and was due to interview the next day with a company called Alcan Aluminium. She lived in a small apartment in Montreal and was close to graduating from university. Her friends considered her a fine student.

Alongside her career goals, she also wanted to marry her childhood sweetheart. Alongside her career goals, she also wanted to marry her childhood sweetheart. 28-year-old Sonia Peltze had an interview lined up for the following week. Sonia was the youngest of eight kids and the head of her class, described as a brain. She was from a small town called Saint-Henriques, Quebec. She'd gone back to school after working for a year, and this day was her last day of classes before her final exams. Both Annie and Sonia had a lot to look forward to. The shooter climbed the 26 steps to the second floor and went through the red steel fire doors.

The second floor was made up of corridors, lounges, and student supply shops. This floor had only one classroom, room 230, where the final year mechanical engineering students were giving final presentations. The room was nestled at the end of a twisting, narrow hallway, behind another set of steel doors. This room was his intended destination, and he walked confidently like he'd been to it before. He paused, took his rifle out from the garbage bag, and let the bag fall to the floor. He walked through the open, doorless classroom into the front of the room, where two students were giving their fourth year presentation on heat transfer.

In the room were a total of 69 students and two male professors. Calmly, he stopped a meter away from the front and smiled, as though he were just late for class and felt bad for interrupting. No one really thought anything of it, and no one seemed to see the rifle by his side. He scanned the room. Seeing that he didn't have the attention of the room, he yelled, everyone stop everything. In French, he ordered the women to move to the left side of the room and the men to the right. He had the attention of the students now, but no one moved as he'd asked. Some students chuckled, thinking it was a prank to mark the last day of school before holidays. This angered him.

In reply, he fired two shots into the ceiling, and in an instant the people in that room knew that this wasn't a prank. Laughter turned to fear. The gunman yelled, I want the women. You're all a bunch of feminists and I hate feminists. Quickly, the men started filing out of the room, including two reluctant male professors. Many of them were conflicted. They wanted to stay and help the women, but also didn't want to anger the gunman. They all filed out, leaving behind them nine female students standing together in the corner.

The shooter asked the women whether they knew why they were there. They shook their heads. Quote, He went on to say that women had been taking employment opportunities away from men. 23-year-old Natalie Provo didn't think twice about speaking up. She was also in her final year and planned on going on to do her master's. What he was saying didn't make any sense to her.

She replied that they were not necessarily feminists. They'd never fought against men. They were just there to study engineering, regular students. The gunman replied, You're women. You're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists. Natalie looked him in the eyes and saw they were dark. He was focused on what he was doing

and didn't want to relate to anyone on a human level. He then opened fire on the nine women in the classroom from left to right, indiscriminately spraying 30 bullets. All of the women fell to the floor. Natalie Provo, who dared to speak up to him, was shot several times, with one bullet scraping her forehead and several going into her leg. Before he left the room, he grabbed a pen and wrote the word SHIT down, twice, on one of the students' notepads. Outside, in the corridor, the dozens of men who had been ordered to leave were yelling at everyone else to run. Some had ran for help, others were just waiting there.

They'd heard at least 20 rounds be fired and the terrified screams of the women. The gunman exited room 230 and pointed his gun at all the men waiting outside. They backed up against the wall, clearing a path for him to proceed. He made his way down the main hallway and through the photocopying center, where he shot at two women and one man. They survived. He then turned into another classroom and aimed square at another female student, but luckily for her, his gun malfunctioned. He ducked into the emergency stairway to check out his gun. As he was sitting there, an unsuspecting student ran past him.

The shooter said out loud, Ah shit, I'm out of bullets. The student kept going, not realising until moments later what he had just witnessed. The shooter reloaded his rifle and made his way back to the classroom where the gun had malfunctioned before. He would get that woman. Round two. But when he got there, she'd locked the door. He fired three shots into it in frustration, before realising he still couldn't open it. He gave up and took off towards the foyer, where he fired at a female student on an elevator, knocking her down the last couple of stairs.

She managed to escape to safety via a staircase and recovered. via a staircase and recovered. In the meantime, several of the male engineering students ran back to the original room 230 to find out what had happened. They were horrified to find their nine female classmates lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, covered in blood. Six were dead. 23-year-old best friends Hélène Colgan and Nathalie Croteau, as well as 23-year-old Annie Santino and 28-year-old Sonia Pelzi. Also taken down was

22-year-old Barbara Daniel, who was also in her last year of mechanical engineering and shared an apartment with her brother. Their father was a mechanical engineering professor with the city's other Montreal French Language Engineering School, and Barbara assisted him with teaching. And 22-year-old Anne-Marie Lemay was also taken that day. She was known for always wanting to help others. She initially wanted to go into medicine, but didn't have the grades for it. However, she was just as happy when she got into engineering. She also sang in a rock band and was actively involved with raising funds

for a class trip overseas. Three women would survive, although they were seriously injured. Anne-Marie's best friend, Heidi Rathjen, along with Natalie Provo, the student who dared to speak back to the gunman after he accused them of being feminists, as well as one other female student. They needed immediate medical help. student. They needed immediate medical help. Ambulances were now arriving, but they were told not to go in until the building had been cleared by police. People started gathering outside wondering what was going on in there, unaware of the horror. The gunman had again run out of bullets, but this time he was prepared. Calmly, he changed his magazine, then moved over toward a counter in the foyer,

where he leaned over and found a person hiding underneath. He shot at them twice, but missed both times. He then advanced into the student lounge, rifle at the ready, then moved into an empty corridor. Hearing a door, he investigated and found 25-year-old Maryse Langier trying to barricade herself in the office. She was not a student, but a female employee of the finance department. They wrestled with the door for a few seconds before she pulled it shut and locked it, safe. Unfortunately, there was a window beside the door.

The shooter looked through the window and saw Maryse. He shot her twice. The first shot killed her instantly. Maryse had recently gotten married, and her husband Jeff had come to the building that night to pick her up. He was now waiting outside with the rest of the crowd, hoping that he would get to see her again. The shooter went back to the stairwell and passed a male student, who froze when he saw the man brandishing a rifle. He just chuckled and continued on. In fact, many students who saw him reported that he was smiling, just like he was having a good time. the building just moments before. He now walked into the cafeteria, which was crowded with people socialising, eating and drinking free wine to celebrate the end of term. Several students had already run through the room, telling everyone to run, but again, they suspected it was likely a prank to celebrate the end of term. They didn't have a clue what had been happening in the building,

or what was about to happen. Barbara Klusnik-Vidazhevic was a 31-year-old nursing student who had moved to Canada from Poland with her husband just two years beforehand. They chose Canada because they believed it was the safest place in the world. She and her husband were at the university that day just checking things out, and decided to stop by the cafeteria at the École Polytechnique for dinner. As they were waiting in line for food, the shooter aimed his rifle at Barbara and shot. She fell to the floor while her horrified husband watched.

She didn't survive. The shooter suddenly had the attention of the large room and it turned to pandemonium. He continued to walk across it as screaming people ran towards exits to get away from whatever was happening. He fired again, wounding a student while walking towards a storage area.

21-year-old Geneviève Bergerot was there, working on a computer project. Her sister Catherine described her as like sunshine. Geneviève was a second-year scholarship student in civil engineering that was also a talented musician who sang in a professional choir and played the clarinet. When she graduated, she didn't know if she was going to become an engineer or go into music. That fateful day, she had just gone down to the cafeteria with her friend,

Anne-Marie Edward, also 21. Anne-Marie was studying chemical engineering and loved outdoor sports like skiing, diving and riding. She was always surrounded by friends and had just been named to the university ski team. Geneviève and Anne-Marie were caught up in a rush of people trying to escape the gunman by hiding in the cafeteria's small kitchen. The door slammed shut, but the girls didn't make it inside. Their survival instincts kicked in and they made a run for it, and then hid in a storage area for

cover. But the gunman had already seen them. He calmly walked over to their hiding place and saw them holding each other tightly. He raised his rifle. Geneviève and Anne-Marie died in each other's arms. The gunman then looked around and saw a male and female cowering under a table, thinking they'd concealed themselves. He told them to get out, but didn't shoot at them. He wandered around the cafeteria and surrounding area for a couple of minutes before heading up to the third floor.

There were a group of students congregating in the hallway. He shot at them and wounded two males and one female. He then turned down a corridor and came across room 311. He just stood there and looked through the glass window before entering. There were 26 students and two professors inside, and he saw three students giving a presentation. The students thought they had heard shots moments before, but couldn't be sure, so they shrugged it off and continued their presentations.

One of the presenters was 23-year-old Maryse LeClair, the cousin of Dominique LeClair, who had befriended the shooter when they were working together at the hospital cafeteria. Maryse was the eldest of four girls and was in fourth year metallurgical engineering. She was one of the top students in the school and only had a year to go before graduation. She was described as brilliant and a woman of character. Maryse was wearing a red sweater. By now the police had started arriving, but there was really no precedent for what was happening inside,

no protocol to follow for a shooter. They covered the exits and established a perimeter around the building, but they didn't know where the gunman was and didn't want to go in for fear of endangering the students inside, so they waited outside. By now, several wounded students had started exiting the building and were being ushered into the ambulances. More were called.

One of the police who arrived was Lieutenant Pierre Leclerc, Director of Communications for the City Police. He was the father of Maryse Leclerc, who he knew was at the university that day, but he was focused on his job at hand and rationally thought the chances of her being involved were low. Maryse was currently scribbling on the blackboard, with her back in the direct line of sight of the gunman. He entered room 311 and yelled,

Get out! Get out! Like the first room he'd entered, the students didn't really know how to take this. They didn't know how to react, so they just sat there. It was happening again. This time he wasted no time. He immediately aimed his rifle at Maryse Leclerc and shot her in the stomach. She fell to the floor, bleeding. He then turned around and started firing off rounds at the students sitting in the front row. People began panicking, diving behind desks. Two women started running towards the door at the front of the room,

but he cut them off with another round, fatally wounding them. They were 21-year-old Michelle Richard and 29-year-old Maure Avnirnik, who were metallurgical engineering students presenting a paper together. Maure already had a degree in environmental design, but she returned back to university to pursue her dream of becoming an engineer. She was one of three sisters, was living with her long-term boyfriend in Laval, and was said to have had an energetic personality. Her co-presenter that day, Michelle, was known as Mimi by her family and was in second year metallurgical engineering. She was the oldest of two girls raised by a proud single mother. Michelle was about to get married and had just reconciled with her estranged father,

hoping he would come to her wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding would never happen. Seconds later, the lives of Michelle and Maud were both snuffed out by the gunman. And a week after the first anniversary of the massacre, Michelle's father, likely full of regrets, died by suicide. A couple of other students ran towards the door at the back of the room to safety. The shooter then walked calmly down the aisle, firing off his rifle at students who had tried to conceal themselves behind desks. He hit four students.

One of them was 20-year-old Annie Tsurkot, who was in her first year of metallurgical engineering and lived with her brother in a small apartment near the university. She was a gifted student and was there on a scholarship. She loved tinkering with cars and baking with her mother and was described as gentle and athletic. Annie's dream was to learn how to improve the environment, but she too died from her injuries that day.

The shooter then climbed on top of a desk where he reloaded his gun. He then started making his way around the room, walking on the desks looking for females and firing indiscriminately. He paused for a second when he heard a faint female voice coming from the platform at the front of the room. female voice coming from the platform at the front of the room. It was Maryse LeClaire, who was nursing the shotgun wound in her stomach and pleading for someone to help her. He reached to his belt and grabbed the other weapon he'd brought, his six-inch hunting knife, and walked up to the platform. He then stabbed her in the heart once, twice, three times until she lay silent. He wiped the knife clean, then went over to the instructor's desk and placed it on the desk,

along with his remaining ammunition and his baseball cap. He took off his windbreaker and wrapped it around the barrel of his rifle. He then uttered his last words, Oh shit. He turned the gun on himself, hitting the end against his forehead and pulled the trigger. The École Polytechnique massacre was over. Fourteen women were dead

and another ten women and four men were injured. and another 10 women and four men were injured. It took the police 20 minutes before they felt confident to go into the building, in action during precious moments that would be heavily criticized in the years to come. Lieutenant Pierre Leclerc, the police director of communications, went in, moving from floor to floor to assess the situation. He got to room 311 and saw a woman in a familiar red sweater lying on her back. He had just seen it at the last family dinner. Quote, I saw my daughter on the ground. I recognized her right away. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to react. It was her.

Another officer said that he saw people with blood on their faces and people crying and yelling. Several members of the press gained access to the building soon after the police. A Montreal Gazette photographer by the name of Ellen McGuinness persuaded some students to boost him up onto an external building windowsill to take pictures of the cafeteria inside. The photograph that he took showed the body of a woman slumped back in a chair, and behind her was a policeman taking a holiday decoration sign down off the wall. This picture was printed on the front page of the Montreal Gazette, and many other newspapers around Canada picked it up too. The photographer won several awards for it.

Other papers declined to publish it, saying that it was insensitive and sensational. The woman in the photograph was Barbara Kluznik-Widarzewicz, the Polish immigrant having dinner with her husband that night. He saw the photograph of his wife's body printed in the paper. Ten years after the massacre, he said he wished people wouldn't publish it, saying, Later on that night, all of the bodies of the 14 women were taken to the same room, now set up as a sort of makeshift morgue. Each woman was covered up until she could be identified. By now, the massacre had made big

headlines and there was a crowd of people gathered outside, including countless friends and relatives desperate to find out if their loved ones were still alive. As each woman was identified, her family was located and asked to confirm. Suzanne LaPlante Edward, mother of chemical engineering student Anne-Marie Edward, remembers going to her daughter's body and kissing her on her forehead, saying, we're going to have to do something about this.

The gun situation in particular was on her mind. The coroner who managed the makeshift morgue that night, Dr. Paul G. Zion, would later suffer post-traumatic shock from all that he witnessed. And the next day, as the bodies were transported to the real morgue, the worker who received them was so traumatised that he quit work that day and never worked in the field again. Monique Lepin, the shooter's mother, turned on the TV while she was eating dinner and was terrified by what she saw on the news reports. She didn't know that her son was at the centre of it all. The next day, she was picked up by two police officers and asked to identify her son's body.

She said she was in such a state of shock that she had trouble concentrating. Because there were so many journalists parked outside her house, she felt that she couldn't return there, so she went to stay at her church pastor's house. She described feeling overwhelming guilt and shame.

The night after the massacre, a vigil was held that was attended by hundreds of women, many of them angry about the way they had been targeted. In the days that followed, feminist groups got together to organize rally marches to protest what had happened. It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No.

But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, everyone. Today, we're talking passion projects that turn into careers, a topic that obviously resonates quite a bit with me. In collaboration with the Ontario Cannabis Store

and ACAST Creative, I want to introduce you to someone who took his passion for cannabis, turned it into a career and is now an industry trailblazer. This is Nico Soziak. He's the Chief Financial Officer of Canara Biotech, a prominent producer based in Montreal. Nico, I know that you've had a passion for cannabis for quite a few years, but you seem a lot younger than what I was expecting. I have to know how and when you got into the cannabis business. Yeah, absolutely. I look younger, but I'm aging by the day. But no, I'm 35 years old. I got into cannabis about five years ago, started with Canara. But you were a consumer before that.

Yeah, I've been a consumer. I had friends in the legacy side of the business and watched what they did. I tried the different strains and genetics, watched how they grew, really found a passion for cannabis and the products. But my professional career is an accountant. So while I had a passion for cannabis, I was also a straight A student. Wow. And then Canada decided to legalize cannabis. And that was when I was like, okay, this is kind of my calling. I have to try to figure out how do I can get into the industry. And Canara

had just became a public company. I joined them in April, 2019 and built the finance department here at Canara and worked with the founder. And at one point I was given the keys to that. And now I'm here today. Wow, that's such a cool story. So how do you feel about being called a trailblazer in the legal market now? It's an honor. I've looked up to many trailblazers in this industry today that come from the legacy side

that went to legal. You know, I'm happy to be part of that. Actually, I wanted to ask you about the legacy market. How did you incorporate it into operations on the legal side? I don't pretend that the cannabis market just got created in 2017, right? For me, legacy means that everyone that's been working, all the businesses that have been in the industry pre-legalization. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel in terms of thinking I know what consumers want. There's been an industry that's been built for many, many, many years. So it's all the ideas and creations that were pre-legalization, figuring out how do we evolve that into the legal side with all the regulatory frameworks. What would you say is the best part of working in the legal market?

Knowing that your product is clean, knowing what you're consuming, we're ensuring quality, we're ensuring the price. I think we're ahead of other industries. Okay, so final question. What gets you excited to go to work every day? This is my dream. This is my passion. I get excited. Work doesn't feel like work for me. When you're creating things that you dream about, I give the idea to the team. The team is able to execute different innovations. That's what really gets me excited. Thanks for listening to this Trailblazers story,

brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAST Creative. If you like the trail Nico Soziak is blazing, you will love what's happening in legal cannabis. Visit ocs.ca slash trailblazers to learn more. The province of Quebec went into official mourning for five days, culminating in a public funeral on December 11, 1989. The joint funeral was held at Montreal's Basilica de Notre Dame in honor of nine of the women who were Catholic and to officially recognize the horror that had been brought to the city only five days beforehand. The bodies of the women were displayed in pearl caskets,

and thousands of grieving Canadians braved the winter to pay their respects. Nathalie Provo, the brave woman who dared to speak up to the gunman, watched the ceremony on TV from her hospital bed, where she was recovering from surgery on her leg. She communicated to the media by phone, saying that what had happened should not deter women from doing what they want to do. Quote, I ask every girl who wants to be an engineer to keep this idea in their mind.alie didn't identify as a feminist at the time, but later on she came to realise that she was one without even knowing it.

Incidentally, Quebec took Nathalie's words to heart. Five years after the massacre, enrolment by women at the École Polytechnique rose by 7%. They did the opposite of what the shooter wanted. The shooter's funeral was held at a crematorium in Boucherville, not far from where the massacre happened. It was attended only by his mother, Monique, and a few of her church friends, as well as his sister, sister Nadia and her boyfriend. After the funeral, Monique fled to Switzerland to stay with friends and get away from everything that was going on.

When she returned a few weeks later, she found two garbage bags in her closet that her son had left there in the days before the massacre. She didn't know. The garbage bags contained movies, bedding, a beta video player, and a bunch of old school report cards. All mundane items, except for one thing. A short letter that he hand wrote. It said, I am sorry mom, this is inevitable. But this wasn't the only message he left behind. Three documents were found in his pockets. He left two letters for his friends, saying that the clues to why he perpetrated the

massacre could be found in his apartment. He then gave them instructions that resembled a scavenger hunt. One friend snuck in to follow the instructions, but in the end, all they led to was hardware, computer games, and an order to give the fridge to the landlord in lieu of unpaid rent. No answers. The third document was a suicide note, followed by a list of 19 women that formed the rest of the shooter's hit list. Publicly, the police refused to release the contents of this note to the public, but someone in the police force leaked the list of 19 women to La Presse, the Montreal French-language

daily newspaper, who published the list, along with photos of each woman on it. newspaper, who published the list, along with photos of each woman on it. Included was a politician, Quebec's first female firefighter, and the six police officers the shooter had told his classmates about, incredulous that they would dare to be on the force when they weren't as strong as men. Another woman on the list was Monique Simard, a prominent union leader at the time. She said, Monique said she didn't feel particularly afraid at the time, although she did hire a bodyguard after she received anonymous threats from a still unidentified person, threatening to finish the job the shooter had started.

Also on the list was Francine Pelletier, journalist and founder of the 1980s feminist newspaper La Vie en Rose. Quote, newspaper, La Vie en Rose. Quote, it broke my heart. It didn't change who I was, but many of his victims probably weren't even feminists and I felt they died in my name. She would later say that the massacre ended the glory days of feminism. Quote, I was one hell of a disillusioned little feminist on 6th December 1989. It had all been too easy. What we realised after the massacre was that there had been a quiet and growing resentment from many men towards feminists, and for us, a huge price to pay for all that we had achieved. In any event, Francine needed to know what was in that suicide note. She had a right to know.

The police still refused to release it, saying they felt it would inspire copycat crimes. So Francine applied to the Freedom of Information Act, but wasn't successful there either. Ever resourceful, she set out to find it another way and make it public. The public deserved to know what it said. In the time after the massacre, many women were angered by the way the media reported on the story. Mainstream media actively tried to downplay the role that being a woman played in the massacre. In the 1995 documentary called Reframing the Montreal Massacre, filmmaker Mo Bradley examines how the media referred

to the 14 women as daughters, as if being strong, independent adult women pursuing an education in engineering wasn't enough. They had to somehow still be tied to their parents and far less of a perceived threat. Other high-profile media outlets actively denied that the massacre had anything to do with women. The day after the tragedy, Canadian radio and TV journalist Barbara Frum went on her CB News show The Journal, aggressively suggesting that the massacre wasn't about the women at all,

but an attack against humanity. Quote, Why do we diminish it by suggesting that it was an act against just one group? If it was 14 men, would we be having vigils? Isn't violence the monstrosity here? This statement angered many women because it literally was an act against one group, women. They felt like they'd been attacked all over again. Even the funeral for the women was turned into a media circus.

As Mo Bradley points out in her film, it was presided over almost exclusively by men, a cardinal, the prime minister, the president of the Montreal University Student Association, prime photo opportunities for high-profile males. The relevance of the massacre was forgotten. Women were only represented by silent caskets. only represented by silent caskets. Canadian journalist Shelley Page was a 24-year-old rookie journalist sent to the funeral to report. One sentence she wrote in her article would later come back to haunt her. Quote, they stood crying before the coffins of strangers, offering roses and tiger lilies to young women they never knew. In a 2014 article for the Ottawa Citizen, Shelley reflected on this, saying, quote,

I turned the dead engineering students into sleeping beauties who received flowers from potential suitors. I should have referred to the buildings they wouldn't design, the machines they wouldn't create, and the products never imagined. She went on to say that they weren't killed for being daughters or girlfriends, but because they were capable women in a male-dominated field, and she wished that her reporting wasn't so restrained and cautious. strained and cautious. The media coverage turned to focus on the gunman himself, describing him as a madman with mental health issues. The mad killer. It really had nothing to do with women. They just happened to be in the way. The shooter was crazy. Other media outlets blamed violence in the media and the way our society has changed, creating lonely and isolated people who then act out. One publication quoted a psychologist as saying that the shooter was

The next part of the public narrative came after the media got hold of details of the shooter's childhood, his father's abuse, and his mother's perceived abandonment. They tried to find any reason they could to excuse what he'd done, facts to make him more sympathetic, anything than the obvious, that he had committed hate-fuelled violence against women that he perceived as a direct threat. The media went so far as to take photos of the front of the building he lived in and interviewed his neighbours who never even knew him. Everyone knew his name but there was very little coverage of the victims or who they were as individuals. there was very little coverage of the victims or who they were as individuals.

And the death toll after this tragedy didn't stop at 14 women. The after-effects of the massacre ricocheted through the lives of the people close to it. A male engineering student called Sarto Bley was there at the time of the massacre and couldn't shake his guilt at not having done anything to try and stop it, even though it's highly unlikely that a civilian would have been able to do anything. He had successfully graduated from the engineering program and was gainfully employed at a construction firm in Montreal, but on August 20, 1990, nearly nine months after the massacre, Sartor decided to take his own life. He left a suicide note saying that he'd never recovered from having to pass through blood-spattered hallways where bodies were lying. Quote, I could not accept that as a man I had been

there and hadn't done anything about it. Sartor Blay was the only child of his parents, but this isn't where the tragedy ends. Eleven months later, his mother and father couldn't cope with the loss of their only son and also died by suicide together. suicide together. Journalist Francine Peltzier, one of the 19 women on the shooter's hit list, was still working away to try and get access to the suicide note. And then, almost a year to the day after the massacre, she received a copy of it by mail. There were no markings. It had been leaked by someone in the police department. She didn't read it straight away. Quote, I was frightened of what horrors I might find. She waited several hours.

In putting this episode together, I wanted to include a reading of this letter by someone with a local accent, so I turned to fellow podcaster Emile, who hosts the French-Canadian podcast called Distorsion, which I'll preview at the end of this episode. Emile agreed to voice the letter, but somewhat reluctantly, because his personal feelings are very much the opposite of the words he'll be speaking. Please keep this in mind as you hear the following. Forgive the mistakes. I had 15 minutes to write this. Would you note that if I commit suicide today, December 6th, 1989, it is not for economic reasons. For I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs, but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists,

who have always ruined my life, to their maker. For seven years, life has brought me no joy in being totally blasé. I have decided to put an end to those viragos. I tried in my youth to enter the forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortzi in a raid. A man called Denis Lortzi committed a rampage attack in the Canadian parliament in 1984, just over five years before this one. The forces refused me because I was antisocial. I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans.

In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way, for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks, despite my theory of not handing in work the lack of studying before exams. Even if the mad killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudit that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government? Being rather backward-looking by

nature, except for science, the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women, for example, cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc., etc., while seizing for themselves those of men. Thus, it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games remove the men-woman distinction, there will be women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic, they do not neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can.

Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the front line during the world wars. How can you explain that since women were not authorized to go to the front line? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves, who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed? A real justification for war. Sorry for this too brief letter. After signing off his name, he then titles what he calls an annex, which is a list of the names of the 19 women he identified as feminists. He then ends on one final note.

The die has been cast. Francine Peltier took the letter to her publisher at La Presse, who published it the next day. To her, the suicide note was the smoking gun that proved it was not only an attack against women, but also a political move. Quote, If he wanted to target women, he would have gone to a nursing school. He was targeting women who had the audacity to want to do a man's job. Unfortunately, many mainstream commentators just wrote off what he said, continuing to believe that the massacre was just the work of a madman. On December 5, 1990, a year after the attack, a commemorative plaque was unveiled

on an exterior wall of the École Polytechnique, listing the names of the victims. This unveiling became part of a first anniversary memorial ceremony. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women, a now defunct feminist activist organisation, put in an official request to the government that December 6 be declared a National Day of Remembrance on violence against women, but it was rejected. The following year, they were more successful. On December 6, 1991, two years after the massacre, the Parliament of Canada established the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against

Women, a day to commemorate the 14 female engineering students who were gunned down in an act of gender-based violence. That same year the White Ribbon campaign was also founded by a handful of men including the late Jack Layton, a respected Canadian politician. They decided they had a responsibility to urge other men to speak out about violence against women. Wearing a white ribbon would demonstrate the stance. But these wins were just small battles. A war was still raging.

As well as adding ample fuel to the fire on the ongoing dialogue of feminism and misogynist violence in Canada, the massacre also inspired serious conversations on gun control and national firearms laws. The Coalition for Gun Control was co-founded by Heidi Rathjen, a student at École Polytechnique who survived the massacre. Also closely connected was Jim Edward and Suzanne LaPlante Edward, the parents of Anne-Marie Edward, one of the engineering students who was taken down. Suzanne was the mother who said goodbye to her daughter while promising they were going to do something about what had happened. The Coalition for Gun Control was instrumental in

leading to the passage of the Federal Firearms Act in 1995, a law that regulated firearms possession, means of transportation and defences. The main feature of this act was a long gun registry, which was a centralised database that linked firearms with their licensed owners. Gun owners who failed to register their weapons were subject to fines and up to six months in jail. Quebec saw the registry as an important tool for police officers investigating crimes, and over time saw a decrease in the number of gun-related crimes. Suzanne LaPlante-Edward said, Meanwhile, the shooter's sister, Nadia, was struggling.

When the massacre happened, she had been accepted into a philosophy course, which she was looking forward to starting. But after the massacre, she found she couldn't cope. She felt guilty about not reconciling with her brother after their strained relationship. Plunging into a deep despair, she became addicted to heroin and cocaine, eventually turning to survival sex work to support her addiction. On March 1, 1996, seven years after the massacre, Nadia overdosed on cocaine and was taken to the Notre Dame Hospital. She had severely damaged her cerebral cortex.

Monique Lepine rushed to her daughter's side. After 12 hours, Monique gave her approval to unplug Nadia's life support. She was buried next to her brother. Nadia Garbi was 28 years old, yet another casualty in the fallout from the massacre. Criticism of police action after the massacre brought about many changes to emergency response and tactical protocols in the years that followed.

Jacques Ducheneau, former head of the Organised Crime Section of the Montreal Urban Community Police, said that after the massacre, they knew there were glitches in the system and looked for ways to improve. Quote, we decided that police should swarm similar situations and act as human shields for civilians and we brought in the first psychologists to help officers cope. They taught us how to detect signs of stress and look out for those who were struggling. We learned from this tragedy. It was a wake-up call for all of us. This change in protocol meant

they were much better prepared to deal with yet another shooting at an educational facility in Montreal, the Dawson College shooting in 2006. An angry 25-year-old man planned to take his pent-up hostility on students, but this time, the police entered the school as soon as they could and identified and isolated him. They kept him pinned in the cafeteria, giving many students a chance to get out of the building. Eventually, they shot him in the arm, and then he took his own life. He managed to kill a female student named Anastasia D'Souza and wound 19 others. But it could have been far worse had it not been for the swift tactical response of the police, based on their learnings from the École Polytechnique massacre.

of the police, based on their learnings from the École Polytechnique massacre. In 2008, after years of remaining silent, Monique Le Pen published a book called Aftermath, where she wrote about her experiences as a single mother with two kids, and why she made the choices she did. She said that her ex-husband never contacted her, even after he found out that their son was the shooter. She also wrote about losing her two children, both by their own hand. She described an integral part of her son's personality, recounting how for him, everything was either black or white. could ever love him. He was narcissistic, antisocial and extremely sensitive to rejection.

Whenever he experienced setbacks, he took refuge in violent, extravagant daydreams that compensated for his feelings of incompetence. Monique then reflected on the massacre itself. Quote, over the years I have struggled to understand what could have led him to commit She went on to say that the memory of her son, the Echo Polytechnique killer, continued to torture her. Quote, no matter how much I strive for it, I was unable to attain inner peace or shake off my guilt. I had let my daughter die of an overdose. My son had committed a monstrous criminal act. He had violated one of my most fundamental beliefs, Monique Lepine went on to be somewhat of a public speaker. She says she can't explain her son's actions, but speaks in the hope that her story of pain and forgiveness will help other people acknowledge their own pain.

Back to the gun control situation, and the gun registry was now in jeopardy. The Federal Conservative Party wanted it destroyed. In their campaign for the 2011 federal election, they promised to abolish the register, saying it was too expensive to maintain, had little impact on crime, and serves to criminalize law-abiding hunters and farmers. They won the election in 2011, and in 2012 the gun registry was abolished, shattering the members of the Coalition for Gun Control who had tried so hard to keep it. But the group didn't give up and came back with a vengeance, first lobbying to block the federal government from destroying Quebec's data and asking for a Quebec-only long gun

registry. and asking for a Quebec-only long gun registry. But the coalition came across credible opposition and the brother of massacre victim Alain Colgan. Claude Colgan spoke out to the media, saying, It's not a firearm that killed Alain and the others. It was the shooter. He's the only one responsible. A firearms registry is a monument to the victims of the Polytechnique.

That is the only reason to create it. He went on to say that criminals will always find a way to get their hands on guns. The lobbying for a Quebec long gun registry continued, and in January of 2018 it came into effect. Quebec now has a long gun registry again. Heidi Rathjen, massacre survivor, pointed out to critics that the gun registry was just part of a comprehensive effort to decrease gun violence. Quote, it's not by eliminating a measure that we do better, it's by looking at what could have been done to prevent the access to firearms for certain individuals that we're going to move forward and reduce the chances of these events happening again. Several major memorials have been installed to commemorate the 14 trailblazing women who lost their lives that day. In 1998, an installation called Marker of Change by artist Beth Elber was installed in a park in Victoria, British Columbia.

The memorial consisted of a 90-metre circle of 14 granite benches, each one representing one of the women, with her name inscribed on the top. It wasn't without controversy though. The inscription read, In memory and in grief for all women murdered by men. Ironically, several women involved in this project received death threats, indicating the attitudes towards violence against women hadn't really changed. In 1999, another memorial was unveiled close to the École Polytechnique in Montreal on the 10th anniversary of the massacre. The families of the victims were in attendance. anniversary of the massacre. The families of the victims were in attendance. Translated,

the name of the memorial is Nave for 14 Queens and was designed by artist Rosemarie Goulet. It's 14 metal blocks in succession to create a pathway. Each block is linked to a band of black granite, each one with the name of one of the women that take form in the negative spaces of the letters as a symbol of absence. In 2014, a $30,000 national scholarship was established for female engineering graduate students called the Order of the White Rose. Also in 2014, on the 25th anniversary of the massacre, 14 bright searchlights were installed on the summit of Mont-Royal, a popular park in the middle of Montreal. At the exact time when the attack started, all the light beams turned toward the sky. Each year on December 6th, these and other memorials are the sites of ceremonies to commemorate the tragedy and the lives lost, and various groups including educational

institutions around Canada also remember what happened through the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. The massacre has also been commemorated through references in TV, and plays and songs have been written about it, as well as a feature film, 2009's Polytechnique, directed by Deneville Neuve. Speaking to the media, survivor Nathalie Provo, now a senior manager in the Quebec government, has said it's important to commemorate what happened.

She said the events are part of our history, and we have to understand where we're coming from to make things better. Quote, so it's important that we still think about them and try to improve our world. But are we done? How far have we come in ending, or even decreasing, violence against women? Current statistics show that approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner.

And half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. And let's not forget Canada's long history of violence towards Indigenous women. Today, large numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women is still a problem, with little priority given to investigation of these cases. The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women also includes Indigenous women, trans women, and all women who have been injured or murdered because of gender-based violence,

like Vancouver's downtown Eastside women who march every December to protest against atrocities like those perpetrated by Robert Pickton. In 2016, high-profile Toronto radio host Jian Gomeshi went to court charged with multiple counts of sexual violence against women, which he argued were consensual. Several victims, some of them well-known media identities themselves, testified, but their credibility was attacked both on the stand and by the judge himself. Gian Gomeshi ended up being acquitted on all counts, a verdict that angered and shocked many, with commentators speaking out on the fact that the courts go too easy on men accused of sexual violence. And then there was the Toronto van attack, which occurred just months ago on April 23,

2018. A 25-year-old man rented a van and sped along the sidewalks of a busy Toronto business district in the middle of the day, on a mission to kill women by ramming them with his vehicle. He managed to kill 10 people, many of them women, and injured another 16 in what was and is the deadliest vehicle ramming attack in Canadian history. His social media manifesto gave credit to the misogynistic incel movement, where men declare themselves as being involuntarily celibate because they aren't receiving sexual attention from women. Without even a thought to looking internally and questioning why, many men jump on this perceived slight as a legitimate reason to lash out at women,

as evidenced by the Toronto van attack. So, have we really made any strides in the war to end violence against women? In 2007, the late feminist writer Andrea Dworkin spoke about the École Polytechnique massacre. She said that it is incumbent upon each of us to be the woman that the shooter wanted to kill. Quote, to kill. Quote, we must live with this honor, this courage. We must drive out fear. We must hold on. We must create. We must resist. Thanks for listening. If you wanted to look into this case further, I wanted to recommend the following two resources.

Watch the 2009 movie called Polytechnique. It's shot in black and white, and it's one of those sort of dark and broody experiences, but it really took my breath away. And I also wanted to recommend the book Rampage by Lee Meller. He's a Toronto criminologist who does quite a bit of analysis of the case alongside his telling of the story. Also, he's the host of the Murder Was The Case podcast,

which I've recommended before. Again, a huge thank you to the people who helped me out with this episode. Suzanne St. John of the In God They Trusted podcast for her research and writing, and Meg Zhang for additional research. Huge thanks again to journalist Tracy Lindeman for her insider perspective and honest opinions. And thanks to Ali Vivaro for helping me out last minute with some extra word pronunciations. And a huge thank you to Emile from the Distorsion podcast for reading out the suicide letter and for helping me to pronounce the names of the women. Here's a preview of his podcast,

in French of course, because it's a Canadian French language podcast. If you don't understand en français, bien sûr, parce que c'est un podcast en français canadien. Si vous ne comprenez pas le français, détendez-vous pour quelques secondes et écoutez son voix puissante. Distorsion est un podcast sur des histoires étranges de l'ère numérique produit en français depuis Montréal. Nous discutons de true crime, de conspiration, de dark web

et d'autres mystères. Pour plus de détails, rendez-vous au distorsionPodcast.com. And thank you to Christy and Canadian True Crime for the collaboration. Now, if the ads were boring you, for just $2 a month, you can get access to an exclusive podcast feed that lets you download an early ad-free version of each of my episodes. Just visit patreon.com slash canadian true crime to sign up.

A huge thank you to these patrons for your support. Laura R, Emma B, Liz S, Emma T and Seneca G. This episode of Canadian True Crime was written by me with help from Suzanne St John, Meg Zhang, Tracy Lindeman, Emile from the Distorsion podcast, and Ali Vavaro. Audio production was by Eric Crosby. The Canadian True Crime theme song was written specifically for me by We Talk of Dreams.

I'll be back with another Canadian true crime story. See you then. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. We'll see you next time.