PM APOLOGIZES FOR ‘GAY PURGE’

Canada ‘failed’ LGBTQ people

The Calgary man whose imprisonment for homosexual acts led to human rights reform would applaud Ottawa’s apology and redress for its abuses of LGBTQ people, a relative said Tuesday.

At first, Donald Klippert said a blanket apology to the community for the federal government’s legal actions and purging against LGBTQ people seemed insufficient.

But upon hearing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government would also table legislation that would lead to a posthumous pardon for his uncle, Everett Klippert, the Calgary man said he was “thrilled.”

“And I think Everett would be quite happy to know he wasn’t a dangerous offender, which was given to him under false pretences,” Klippert said.

On Tuesday, Trudeau issued the apology for decades of Ottawa’s policies, practises and legislation that discriminated against LGBTQ people, while also confirming $100 million would be paid to victims who launched a class-action suit.

After being arrested in Calgary, Klippert, a bus driver, was first imprisoned in 1960 for gross indecency for having sex with males and was jailed again in 1965 on similar charges in the Northwest Territories, while also being declared a dangerous sexual offender.

For the second conviction, his nephew said he had been set up by authorities on bogus accusations of arson in Pine Lake, N.W.T., which led to the man admitting to having gay sex.

In all, Klippert spent nearly a decade in prison, but his case led to the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969 under the government of Trudeau’s father and, ultimately, to Tuesday’s announcement.

“He wasn’t Rosa Parks, he didn’t deliberately do something to get an unjust law changed,” Klippert said of his uncle, who died in 1996.

For the wider community, he said the apology “is a good start.”

Calgary human rights advocate Rebecca Sullivan agreed, saying Trudeau’s words are essential but that much remains undone.

“When government discriminates, society follows suit, so we need the government to take the lead,” said Sullivan, a board member of Calgary Outlink and women’s studies professor at the University of Calgary.

“But this isn’t the end of an era, we see this as a new beginning — we sure as heck haven’t ended discrimination but the apology gives us hope.”

From the negative treatment of homosexuals in the military, to legal cases such as Klippert’s, to a slow response to the AIDS crisis, Sullivan said the government has much to atone for.

And she said Klippert’s first conviction puts Calgary on a unique historical map.

“Calgary does have an important place in this history but it’s not one to celebrate,” Sullivan said.

When government discriminates, society follows suit, so we need the government to take the lead.