Anti-incel protest held in Montreal after deadly shooting

Activists held a protest in Montreal against incel ideology following this week's deadly shooting in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood.

A protest was held Thursday in Montreal to denounce “incel” ideology following Monday’s shooting that left three people dead.

Incel, or “involuntarily celibate” ideology, revolves around the perceived injustice some men feel from being rejected by women.

A doctoral student at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) who studied the phenomenon says incels, who are mainly heterosexual men, often identify women’s emancipation as being responsible for their failure to find a romantic relationship.

It’s one of the many themes raised in the manifesto of the gunman from Monday’s deadly shooting in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood. The alleged shooter has been identified as 25-year-old Seth Hatfield from Lethbridge, Alta.

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Thursday’s protest was organized by a group called Pour Elles Montreal and their supporters to also denounce femicides and other forms of gender-based violence. It was held at the memorial for the 1989 Polytechnique massacre during which a gunman motivated by a hatred for feminism killed 14 women.

Montreal-based human rights activist Celeste Trianon told CTV News before the protest got underway that the incel ideology is concerning to the protest organizers and that it needs to be called out.

“It prevents [men] from having people around them, it prevents them from having community, and it causes them to do senseless stuff,” Trianon said.

A CTV News review of the gunman’s manifesto, which was found in a hotel room near the scene of the shooting, shows that it repeatedly makes reference to the state of the Western world and espouses predominantly anti-women rhetoric.

The gunman suggests ways to restrict women by, for example, taking them out of the workforce by replacing them with robots. CTV News has made the editorial decision not to quote directly from, nor publish or link to the manifesto.

The document, which is more than 100 pages long, ends with a call for violence against several other targets, including major real estate brokerages, private equity firms, supporters of Zionism, health insurance CEOs, pick-up artists, plastic surgeons and those profiting from mass immigration.

Women and men who spoke at Thursday’s protest denounced systemic forms of violence and accused politicians of turning a blind eye to the problem.

Trianon said organizers chose to gather at the Polytechnique memorial because they believe Monday’s shooting serves as a reminder that violence fuelled by hatred of women remains a threat.

“(Monday’s shooting) could have been another Polytechnique,” Trianon said. “It was pure luck that no women were killed.”

With files from CTV News’ Matt Grillo and Rachel Aiello, and The Canadian Press