Thanks, Matt.
I’d be surprised if you do. Marc Lepine murdered those women because they were women, and women taking what he saw as his place as a man in taking places in the engineering program. He isolated the women because they were women and then he executed them. This was about prejudice and hatred of women. To deny the very reason for their deaths is to take away the reason for their deaths.
The other reason for the interspersal of the statistics, which you may not be aware of being from Orlando as I note from your location, is that in Canada this day is marked as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Flags fly at half mast at our national Parliament and all federal buildings. In my province, the flag was at half mast at our legislature. Vigils and ceremonies are held across the country, many connected to shelters that provide safety to women and children fleeing violent situations. See a report from CBC here about the ceremonies. The CBC also flew its flags at half mast today.
As a day in Canada that serves two purposes, the statistics that matt_mcl included are entirely appropriate.
Being mindful of, and negative towards, violence against women is propaganda now? These people were killed because of prejudice: prejudice against women. Which is not to say other sorts of prejudice are better or worse, but this kind deserves attention, too.
This event is symbolic to many of us. Perhaps this thread isn’t the best place to make a political statement of your own.
Ludovic: While I agree that the fact that the victims were women has nothing to do with how tragic their deaths were, I also strongly agree with Helen’s Eidolon that this thread isn’t the place to make such an argument.
Pas ici; pas aujourd’hui.
Yes, it’s propaganda: using overblown phrasing, emotions, and tenuous connections to provide support for your side, and I dislike it whether or not the cause is good.
I did not know that that day was also a day to remember anti-female violence in Canada: it seems like more of the same to me, though. While having a day like that in itself is not bad, given the statistics, drawing a parallel between that and a massacre smacks of cheap politics.
Given that the two facts could have been decoupled and remained fairly uncontroversial (I mean, I’d still bristle at specifically remembering anti-female violence, as it makes males more likely to be jailed in disputed circumstances, but I don’t disagree with the prevalence of violence in one direction,) I shall bow out now and pretend that they had been.
Thanks, matt_mcl. We remember why.
Ludovic, we could have a day for mourning the dead once a year, without bothering to note that the specific dead who originally promted the event had died during military combat, and we could honor the dead without flying any flags or buying any poppies or spending any time pondering war and what it means, but we don’t do that, we have Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day and Armistice Day and Remembrance Day and so forth.
Every time I see a Quebec license plate “I remember …” I never think about roses and lilies. I remember this. 
Why do my comments so often close down a thread? (Harumph!)