EDMONTON - December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) is honouring victims and standing against all forms of gender-based violence.
“Today, we remember the massacre at l'École Polytechnique, when a man targeted female engineering students in the name of ‘fighting feminism,’” said Susan Slade, AUPE vice-president and chair of the union’s Women’s Committee.
“Together, AUPE members continue the labour movement’s proud tradition of fighting for women’s rights both in and outside the workplace.
“Unfortunately, Alberta’s UCP government is cutting the Ministry of Status of Women by 7.6 per cent this year, and will cut it by 33 per cent by 2023.
“We fear cuts made to this and other Ministries like Community and Social Services will harm the services that assist Albertans experiencing gender-based violence.
“Prairie women face the highest rates of intimate partner violence in Canada, and the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women is a crisis and a genocide. Now is the time for our governments to invest in services that help women.”
Women make up approximately three quarters of AUPE’s 96,000 members.
The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women was established in 1991 to mark the anniversary of the 1989 l'École Polytechnique massacre.
On this day of remembrance, we honour the memory of the women murdered 30 years ago at l'École Polytechnique. Their names are: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte.
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For more information, please contact:
Alexander Delorme, AUPE communications officer: 780-264-9274