In a tearful speech Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a historic apology to LGBT community in the House of Commons on November 28.
Saying sorry for decades of “state-sponsored, systematic oppression and rejection” he said to a packed and emotional chamber: “It is our collective shame that you were so mistreated. And it is our collective shame that this apology took so long – many who suffered are no longer alive to hear these words. And for that, we are truly sorry.”
This is the second apology coming from 46-year-old leader. Last week he apologized to the Indigenous population subjected to abuse and harassment in residential schools run by Christin missionaries who wanted to ’take the wildness away from the native children to fit them into the society.’ (The full speech)
“The treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools is a dark and shameful chapter in our country’s history. By acknowledging the past and educating Canadians about the experiences of Indigenous children in these schools, we can ensure that this history is never forgotten,” he said.
During the Cold War, hundreds of gay men and women were fired from government jobs and the military and faced a cruel fate just because they were different. Speaking to a packed and emotional chamber, Trudeau expressed shame, sorrow and deep regret to the civil servants, military members and criminalised Canadians who endured discrimination and injustice based on their sexual orientation.
Trudeau has also proposed a bill in parliament that would allow the courts to expunge the records of people criminalized for their sexuality. “It is with shame and sorrow and deep regret for the things we have done that I stand here today and say: We were wrong. We apologize. I am sorry. We are sorry,” he said in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Pausing to wipe his tears several times, he said that Canadians were monitored for anything that could be construed as homosexual behaviour, with community groups, bars, parks, and even people’s homes constantly under watch. He said when the government felt that enough evidence had accumulated, some suspects were taken to secret locations in the dark of night to be interrogated.
Many points to the Cold War as the reason for the discrimination against LGBT individuals, with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and the military fearing gay and lesbian members could be open to blackmail by the Soviet Union
Many pointed to the Cold War as the reason for the discrimination against LGBT individuals, with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and the military fearing gay and lesbian members could be open to blackmail by the Soviet Union. “They were convinced that people could be blackmailed into selling secrets… that was the official party line adopted from McCarthyism in the States,” Barry Deeprose, a prominent LGBT activist, told CBC in 2005.
An RCMP unit was in charge of rooting out homosexual public servants, including diplomat John Wendell Holmes, who admitted his homosexuality and was quietly removed from public service in 1960 after being grilled by the Mounties.
By the 1960s, the RCMP had a database of 9,000 “expected” lesbians and gay men working across the federal government. In 1969, the House of Commons voted 149-55 to pass an omnibus bill that decriminalized homosexuality and allowed abortions under certain conditions. “The view we take here is that there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” Pierre Trudeau, then Canada’s acting justice minister and the father of the present prime minister, said in 1967 when he first introduced the bill. “I think what’s done in private between two consenting adults doesn’t concern the Criminal Code [of Canada],” he said.
In August 1992, the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled that the failure to include sexual orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act was discriminatory. The ban on LGBT individuals in the military was lifted in November that year.
The Trudeau government has earmarked more than $100 million to compensate members of the military and other federal agencies whose careers were sidelined or ended due to their sexual orientation, according to The Canadian Press.
Money will be paid out as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement to employees who were investigated, sanctioned and sometimes fired as part of the so-called gay purge.
Recently Canada granted asylum to 31 gay and bisexual Chechen men and women, following a violent crackdown on LGTB people in the Russian republic. They are being brought to Canada as part of a collaboration between human rights groups and the federal government.
