09/11/2026
Today, the City of Côte Saint-Luc joins Canada and the world in remembering the terrible events of September 11, 2001. We pause to honour the victims and to reaffirm that we will never forget.
On that morning, members of the terror group al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airliners full of civilians and turned them into weapons against other civilians on the ground. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were flown into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon building in the Washington, D.C. area. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was headed for another target in Washington, D.C. Its passengers and crew, having learned the fate of the other flights, fought back against the hijackers, who then crashed the plane before it could reach its target. All 44 people aboard died in the crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but no one on the ground was killed or injured.
Al-Qaeda is a jihadist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s that sought to attack Western and allied targets through mass-casualty terrorism, and which planned and carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In all, 2,977 people were murdered that day including the following 24 Canadian citizens:
• Michael Arczynski, 45
• Garnet (Ace) Bailey, 53
• David Barkway, 34
• Ken Basnicki, 48
• Joseph Collison, 50
• Cynthia Connolly, 40
• Arron Dack, 39
• Christine Egan, 55
• Michael Egan, 51
• Albert Elmarry, 30
• Meredith Ewart, 29
• Peter Feidelberg, 34
• Alexander Filipov, 70
• Ralph Gerhardt, 34
• Stuart Lee, 30
• Mark Ludvigsen, 32
• Bernard Mascarenhas, 54
• Colin McArthur, 52
• Michael Pelletier, 36
• Donald Robson, 52
• Ruffino (Roy) Santos, 37
• Vladimir Tomasevic, 36
• Chantal Vincelli, 38
• Debbie Williams, 35
We remember these 24 Canadians, all 2,977 victims, and the brave firefighters, police and first responders who ran toward the danger while others fled. We honour the passengers and crew of Flight 93, whose courage saved untold lives.
The events of September 11 reminded us that we are not immune. In the years since 2001, jihadist terrorism has struck city after city across Europe and North America: the Madrid commuter-train bombings (2004); the 7/7 London transit bombings (2005); the Boston Marathon bombing (2013); the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks in Paris (January 2015); the coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, cafés, and the Stade de France in Paris (November 2015); the San Bernardino shooting in California (2015); the Brussels airport and metro bombings (2016); the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando (2016); the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice (2016); the Christmas-market truck attack in Berlin (2016); the su***de bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (2017); the truck attack on a bike path in New York City (2017); the van attack on Barcelona's La Rambla (2017); the shooting rampage in central Vienna (2020); and the knife attack at a city festival in Solingen, Germany (2024) — among others.
Here at home, Canadian police and intelligence services have disrupted plots on our own soil, including the Toronto 18 conspiracy (2006) and the al-Qaeda-backed plot to derail a VIA Rail passenger train (2013). Canada has not been spared: in October 2014, within days of each other, an ISIS-inspired attacker ran down two soldiers in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, and another gunman killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before storming Parliament Hill in Ottawa. We owe our police and security services, and all who stand guard against terrorism, our deep gratitude.
