Quebec Mourns 14 Victims of Mass Slaying
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and thousands of others at Notre Dame cathedral today mourned the 14 young women killed by a gunman at the University of Montreal last week.
“We have the tools in our hand to build a better world, a world of peace,” said Alain Perreault, president of the students’ association at the university’s engineering school.
He spoke of the victims’ dreams and hopes and urged, “Let’s achieve these great things . . . of hope, of understanding.”
Schools and universities throughout Quebec province observed a minute of silence as the joint funeral Mass for nine of the victims started. Families of five of the victims of Canada’s worst mass murder chose private services.
Nearly 4,000 dignitaries including Mulroney and his wife, Mila, students from the engineering school and families of the victims filled the cathedral in Montreal’s historic center.
A gunman identified by police as Marc Lepine, 25, killed the women in a rampage through three of the engineering school’s six floors on Wednesday before turning his semiautomatic assault rifle on himself.
Despite temperatures below freezing, several thousand people listened quietly outside the cathedral to the 80-minute service broadcast on loudspeakers.
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