By Michael Reeve

École Polytechnique Massacre

Shoe memorial to honour victims of violence against women Saturday

Dec 5, 2025 | 4:21 PM

KAMLOOPS — On Saturday (Dec 6), shoes will be spread throughout Heritage House in honour of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

The day, December 6, the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre when 14 women were killed for no reason other than the fact they were women attending the school. The Kamloops and District Labour council will be putting on the shoe memorial event from 11:00 to 2:00 p.m.

“At noon, we are going to have a short ceremony just to have some special guests from victim services and a few other organizations that support victims,” said Lois Rugg, president of the Kamloops and District Labour Council. “(We’ll) just have a moment to remember some of the people we have lost both locally and across Canada.”

Anybody is able to attend the gathering and is welcome to bring their own shoes to contribute to the memorial. Rows of shoes are displayed to represent lives lost, adorned with names, helping to serve as a visible reminder of the ongoing crisis of violence.

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“It hasn’t stopped,” said Rugg. “Domestic violence, intimate partner violence, all of those things… it hasn’t gone away. I don’t think the stats have changed, probably gotten worse. I think there is a little more education and knowledge about those things going on but we need to do more to see what we can do to prevent it. But the stats are really awful, and it won’t be good until we get to zero and we are a long ways from that.”