While the killer usually is, or has been in a domestic relationship with the victim, this is not always the case. The perpetrator(s) may, in fact, be female, or have a female accomplice, but make no mistake – the crime is about gender-based violence against women.

Canadians like to think of our country as superior to places like Afghanistan, where women are forbidden from showing their faces in public – and now, from speaking in public, even to another woman. They are barred from most jobs and education beyond Grade 6.

The reality is that a Canadian university education does not protect a woman from being victimized by a man intent on hurting and/or controlling her, even to the point of killing her.

Canadian victims have included a 36-year-old Ottawa mother, stabbed to death in front of two of her children. The accused killer was in a relationship with a family member of the victim.

A London, Ont. teenager, only 17, was killed in July. She had been stabbed by her former boyfriend. According to police, he had previously assaulted her.

And then there was a Harrow, Ont. woman, murdered along with her two children. The killer, police say, was the woman’s husband, the children’s father.

And there was a 62-year- old woman, killed only hours after contacting social services agencies for help in leaving her abusive boyfriend.

The list goes on. According to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, 137 women and girls have been killed by violence in Canada this year – and the year is not over yet.

A Dec. 2 news release from the office of Quebec Liberal MNA Brigitte B. Garceau, Official Opposition critic for the Status of Women, states there have already been 23 cases of femicide in Quebec this year.

We are nearing the 35th anniversary of the most egregious example of femicide this country has known. On Dec. 6, 1989, a shooter armed with a semi- automatic weapon entered École Polytechnique in Montreal, to kill feminists. He murdered 14 young women and injured 14 more (10 women and four men), most of them engineering students. He had a list of prominent Quebec women he also had wanted to kill. His reason? He blamed “feminists” for ruining his life.

By all descriptions, the killer was somewhat of a loser, and had been unsuccessful in his own efforts to study engineering. His victims, on the other hand, were people whose potential was tremendous. The loss of the 14 – 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 – is still felt by their families and friends. Who knows what great things they would have accomplished?

In 1991, Canada declared Dec. 6 a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women – White Ribbon Day.

It is a day to not only remember the women who have lost their lives to gender-based violence, but a day to remember that every one of the victims had male relatives – brothers, fathers and sons – as well as friends and co-workers, who thought the world of them.

The only way to stop gender- based violence against women is for men to stand beside women, and for both to work together against inequality and misogyny.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger from intimate partner violence, call 911. In Quebec, call 1-800-363-9010 or visit sosviolenceconjugale.ca/en to chat live with a support worker. The organization’s services are bilingual and available 24/7.