Marc Lépine entered the École Polytechnique engineering school, separated men and women in a classroom, and declared he was fighting feminism before shooting the women. He killed 14 female students and staff and wounded 14 others before taking his own life. The massacre became a watershed in Canadian public life, spurring gun-control legislation and an annual national day of remembrance for gender-based violence.
On the afternoon of December 6, 1989, 25-year-old Marc Lépine walked into a mechanical engineering classroom at Montreal's École Polytechnique carrying a semi-automatic rifle. He ordered the men to leave and the women to stay, then opened fire, shouting that he was fighting feminism. He continued his rampage through the corridors and cafeteria for nearly twenty minutes before shooting himself, having killed 14 women and wounded 14 others.
A three-page suicide letter found on his body blamed feminists for ruining his life and included a list of prominent Canadian women he considered targets. The attack, one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history, shocked a country unaccustomed to such gun violence and forced a national reckoning with misogyny.
The massacre directly led to Canada's 1995 Firearms Act, tightening gun ownership rules, and to the creation of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, observed every December 6. Survivors and victims' families became lifelong advocates for gun control; the white ribbon, now used internationally to oppose gender violence, traces its origins to the aftermath of this attack.
Key people: Marc Lépine