Today I pause and reflect. It is December 6. It is the 26th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre – when 14 women were killed in an engineering school in Montreal, Canada.

I was a first year student at the University of Victoria at the time (December 1989). I was studying physics. It could have happened at my school too. It could have been me.

And so, every year, on December 6th, I pause and reflect. It is especially poignant given the number of mass shootings that happen at schools in the US every year – so many that it is no longer considered news, we are desensitized to it. It wasn’t even talked about at the Big Ideas Fest conference I attended these last few days. Here, it is the elephant in the room.

I will not repeat the name of the shooter here. He doesn’t deserve it. I will, however, share the names of the victims. They are the ones that should be remembered:

• Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
• Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
• Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
• Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department
• Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
• Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
• Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
• Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student<

~ Wikipedia