An opportunity for healing
Fifty years after his father said the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada’s harassment and criminalization of gays and lesbians. On Tuesday, Trudeau delivered a formal apology to Canada’s LGBTQ2 community for decades of statesanctioned discrimination.
“This is the devastating story of people who were branded criminals by the government — people who lost their livelihoods, and in some cases, their lives,” Trudeau said.
He described how the federal government harmed lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirited people, a term used to describe Indigenous Peoples who identify as part of the community.
That included the criminalization of homosexual sexual activity, raids on bathhouses, public humiliation and efforts to banish LGBTQ people from the military and the public service, until as recently as 1992.
“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,” he said. “I am sorry. We are sorry.” For people who were thrown out of the military, the RCMP and the public service because of their sexual orientation and those who were convicted as criminals for consensual same-sex activities, the apology was a long time coming. As Trudeau’s speech made clear, his father’s declaration decades ago did not keep the state out of Canada’s bedrooms.
In 1967, a man named Everett Klippert had been declared a dangerous sexual offender, who was subject to indefinite imprisonment. His offence was gay sex. He was the last person criminally convicted for homosexuality.
That year, then-justice minister Pierre Trudeau introduced an omnibus justice bill that included a provision to decriminalize homosexuality.
“There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” Trudeau said, rephrasing a line by the Globe and Mail’s Martin O’Malley, who had written: “The state has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.”
The elder Trudeau’s words became one of his most famous comments and seem unobjectionable to most modern ears, but they were controversial among social conservatives at the time. And, unfortunately, those words did not seep into places where they needed to be heard.
The Cold War was raging, and even though homosexuality became legal, government officials believed that gay people could be subject to coercion by communist-bloc agents who discovered their orientation. So those officials went on a hunt.
Members of the military were interrogated, followed and subjected to polygraph tests. Psychological tests were concocted to “uncover” sexual orientation. Government agents conducted stings.
People who had done nothing wrong were kicked out of the Armed Forces, RCMP and federal public service.
As Gen. Jonathan Vance, chief of the defence staff, said Tuesday: “You showed us honour and dedication, and we showed you the door.”
While nothing can make up for ruined lives and missed opportunities, the prime minister is taking steps to correct what can be corrected.
He introduced a bill to allow those convicted of consensual sex with same-sex partners to have their criminal records expunged. A fund of $110 million will compensate members of the military and other federal agencies whose careers were sidelined or ended due to their sexual orientation. The government will pay legal fees of those who sued it, and $15 million will go to a national monument and possible archival projects.
The prime minister’s words will not banish prejudice from Canada, and the work that Pierre Trudeau began to uproot institutionalized discrimination has taken far too long. Nevertheless, his son’s words of compassion and healing are an important step in the unfinished journey.