RED DEER ADVOCATE Saturday, Dec. 6, 2014 A5
Woman recounts confronting killer BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
1989 MONTREAL MASSACRE
MONTREAL — Nathalie Provost will never forget confronting gunman Marc Lepine just before he shot her four times during an armed assault that left 14 women dead at Montreal’s Ecole polytechnique. Provost was an engineering student on Dec. 6, 1989, when Lepine went on a 20-minute shooting rampage that eventually sparked a national gun-control debate that continues until this day. “It (the massacre) is now intimately woven into the fabric of my life in a number of ways,” Provost told The Canadian Press just days ahead of Saturday’s 25th anniversary of the tragedy. The 23-year-old came face-to-face with Lepine and his 223-calibre Sturm-Ruger rifle in a classroom and she says nothing would have convinced him to change his plan to kill feminists - people he blamed for ruining his life. “He told us he was there because we were feminists and I just replied that we were not feminists, that we were just studying in an engineering school and that he would be able to come and study with us and then he shot (opened fire),” she recalled. Provost survived being hit with bullets in the forehead, both legs and a foot. Asked how the horrific events of 25 years ago have changed her life, Provost said she believes they’ve made her more sensitive and more in touch with her own vulnerability. “I realized when I was very young that I was not invincible, that I could die quite quickly,” she said of the chilling events. “I remember when I saw the eyes of one of my classmates. She closed her eyes and I knew she was dead. I remember this image. It’s clear in my memory.” Lepine took his own life after a 20-minute barrage of bullets that also wounded 13 other people - nine women and four men. While the date of Dec. 6 brings back painful memories, Provost also recalls “marvellous” ones. One of her children started to walk on Dec. 6 and she learned she was pregnant with her third child on the 10th anniversary of Polytechnique. “For me it was a victory of life,” she said. Yet it took her years to come to terms with what had happened before she could move on. “The first five years were the longest, maybe, and I was still fighting inside myself with everything around: what happened with feminism, with violence, with the fact that it happened to me,” she said. “After five years I was ready to have my kids and that was a new world that opened to me and Polytechnique faded away a little bit - (but) it never disappears.” Even today, the sound of a pot cover crashing to the floor brings back memories of the shootings. “It upsets me because the noise awakens in me a memory of the firearm of Marc Lepine — and I become very upset and aggressive,” she said. The tragedy also took a toll on relatives of victims. Jim Edward, whose sister Anne-Marie was killed, said it took 10 years to overcome his grief.
CASASC
CENTRAL ALBERTA SEXUAL ASSAULT SUPPORT CENTRE
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The Central Alberta Sexual Assault Support Centre is looking for enthusiastic and caring people to volunteer. Applicants must be I8 years of age and be able to provide a clean criminal record check. Please send resume or email to Michele Kercher at mkercher@casasc.ca
“Eight years of therapy and then being able to forgive the killer and the 10th year - it was a big step in moving on in my grieving process,” Edward said in
an interview at his Montreal home. “I became a Christian in my 10th year, so maybe that had something to do with it.”
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File photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS
A victim is wheeled away from the University of Montreal after gunman Marc Lepine opened fire at the school in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989. It’s the 25th anniversary of the shooting spree that claimed the lives of 14 women.
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The Red Deer Central Lions Club Serving the Community for 75 Years
The Red Deer Central Lions Club recently made a large donation of 50 thousand dollars to the Red Deer City Soccer Association towards the cost of a new 108’ x 210’ state-of-the-art indoor artificial turf - the largest in Alberta.
Also remember to attend the next Lions Bingo at the Red Deer Bingo Centre on Saturday, December 13th at 12 noon and support the Red Deer Central Lions Club. 100 percent of our proceeds go back to the Community. 52583L6
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Seen above on the right is Lions President Gerry Leinweber making the $50,000 cheque presentation to Soccer Association President Paul Morigeau. The new turf, now known as Lions Field #1, is located in the Agricentre at Red Deer’s Westerner Park. Some 4,000 Red Deer players will have use of this field.