NORTH BATTLEFORD - The Battlefords Interval House and Catholic Family Services of the Battlefords came together Friday to remember the 14 women who lost their lives on Dec. 6, 1989, in the Montreal Massacre in this tragic gender-based killing that occurred at the Ecole Polytechnique.
Dec. 6 marks the National Day of Remembrance and Action to End Violence Against Women, which was established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada.
To commemorate the day, The Battlefords Interval House and Catholic Family Services of the Battlefords held a memorial and a presentation at the Discovery Co-op Mall in North Battleford, lighting a candle for each of the 14 victims, beside a vase displaying 14 white roses.
With the lighting of each candle, the name of one of the women who died was read aloud, followed by a moment of silence.
"It's to bring awareness of violence against women, and to pursue an end to violence against women," Debbie Kovalsky, executive director of Battlefords Interval House, said.
She noted the mission statement at Interval House is also to work towards ending violence against women.
"That's what our goal has always been to try to bring awareness and offer support to women who experience violence, to work towards the end of violence," Kovalsky said.
While the Montreal Massacre happened 35 years ago, it is recognized each year in Canada to draw attention to this atrocity, remember the victims, and raise awareness that the problem of gender-based violence still exists everywhere.
"The violence against women has never ended," said Kovalsky, "That's why it's so important that the government made this a national event, because [the issue] has never ended, it has ever gotten any better. We need to continue to work at it, so awareness and talking about it can help to bring it to the forefront of people's thoughts. So if you know somebody experiencing violence, you can reach out and help that person."
Battlefords Interval House provides temporary safe housing to single women and women with families in the community in crisis, escaping abusive situations.
"We help them heal, recover, help them to identify what happened to them in their life, and take steps towards [finding] a healthy future, rather than re-living the same trauma over, because that becomes part of the cycle," Kovalsky said. "We want to break that cycle."
Statistics Canada reported that there were 732 victims of interpersonal violence for every 100,000 population in 2022.
For the Stats Canada snapshot for a day on April 18, 2018, a total of 3,565 women, 3,137 accompanying children, and eight men were staying in supportive residential facilities for issues of abuse.
Laurie Lastowsky, a counsellor with Catholic Family Services of the Battlefords, said that helping women escape abuse is a cause that's "near and dear to both of our hearts," speaking of the partnership between Interval House and Catholic Family Services of the Battlefords for the Dec. 6 memorial.
"We see a lot of clients at Catholic Family Services who are in violent situations who are trying to get out of them, who are recovering from violence," she said.
People in the Battlefords area who are victims of violence can seek support by contacting the Catholic Family Services of the Battlefords.
"A counsellor can be a safe place where they can talk about what they are going through," Lastowsky said. "It's not a place where we give advice or tell them what to do, but we just listen and give them a place where they are believed, they are supported, they are validated. We can help them sort things out about what they want to do, and how they can maybe move towards living a better life."
