‘Gay purge’ victims list to be expanded

Settlement to go back to 1955, include others

OTTAWA • 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 case-by-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.

A former air force member who was investigated in the late 1950s and forced out in the early ’60s represents one of the earliest cases in the legal action, Elliott said.

“I really didn’t expect there was going to be anyone around who was going to put their hand up from that earlier period and say that they had been purged. But a few elderly people did come forward.”

The settlement, still subject to Federal Court approval, includes at least $50 million and up to $110 million in total compensation, with eligible individuals each expected to receive between $5,000 and $175,000.

The first phase of a program to notify potential members of the class action is underway.

Hundreds of people have already joined, and Elliott has a “working estimate” of up to 2,000 participants. “I expect that it will probably exceed a thousand. But how far north of that it will go is very difficult to predict.”

Elliott said one theory holds that gay people don’t like to admit they were in the military and military members don’t like to acknowledge they’re gay, something called the “double-closet phenomenon.”