‘Gay purge’ settlement expands back to 1955

The federal government has agreed to expand the scope of a landmark deal to financially compensate members of the military and other agencies who were investigated and sometimes fired because of their sexual orientation.

A revised version of the class-action settlement over the so-called “gay purge” explicitly includes people whose careers suffered as early as 1955 — seven years prior to a previously agreed date.

In addition, the settlement creates an “exceptions committee” that will look caseby-case at those who might otherwise fall through the cracks. They could include people affected before 1955, individuals who worked for agencies not listed in the settlement, or those who were targeted even though they were not gay or lesbian.

An agreement in principle in the court action was drafted last November, just days before the government delivered a sweeping apology for decades of discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.

However, a number of people seeking redress fell outside the parameters of the original agreement, including some who were singled out by superiors because they were perceived as gay, or because they vocally stuck up for colleagues, said Doug Elliott, a lawyer behind the class action.

“Those people were really victims of the purge, too and we felt if there were such people that they ought to be included, because even though they were not gay, they were suffering because of this anti-gay policy,” Elliott said in an interview.