2SLGBTQIA+ History and Identities in Canada

There’s this famous quote by Pierre Elliott Trudeau : “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”. And so in textbooks, in history books and history classrooms, we’ve been taught that this was the moment, this was the moment where gay rights arrived. And that’s a problem. There are many different reasons why this is a problem. The 1969 omnibus bill was this major piece of legislation, landmark legislation, that was introduced by the Trudeau government in 1968. And this bill changed a whole bunch of Criminal Code offences that dealt with morality. Regarding homosexuality, the omnibus bill changed two laws that were historically used to criminalize queer people. The 1st is buggery, the 2nd is gross indecency.

Those two laws were not repealed, so they weren’t taken out of the Criminal Code. Instead, a reform was added, an exception that allowed two people, 21 years of age or older, to commit those crimes under a specific set of circumstances. So they had to be only two people, 21 years of age or older, and they had to be within this strict definition of private. In other words, they had to be “in the bedrooms of the nation.” And if they were caught anywhere else, anywhere else, beyond the bedroom, they could still be arrested and charged under these offences. So walking down the streets of Toronto or any other city or town holding hands or kissing, that would qualify as an act of gross indecency. And indeed through the 70s and 80s, many men were charged with those offences because of doing acts like that in so-called “public” spaces.

So it wasn’t groundbreaking itself. The cultural changes of the 1960s, that was what was groundbreaking. We don’t get gay rights from the top. Gay rights have always been fought for from the ground level up. And so in the 1960s, way before the omnibus bill was introduced, there were gay, lesbian and trans activists who were advocating for change. And so to say that 1969, this moment that was produced by the Trudeau government, was the beginning of gay rights produces this myth that we now owe all of our thanks to the federal government. The law was just trying to catch the government up.

– Mr. Speaker, today we acknowledge an often overlooked part of Canada’s history. Today, we finally talk about Canada’s role in the systemic oppression, criminalization and violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit communities. And it is my hope that in talking about these injustices, in vowing to never repeat them, and acting to right these wrongs, we can begin to heal. And Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that earlier today in this House we tabled the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act. This will mean the Canadians previously convicted of consensual sexual activity with same-sex partners will have their criminal records permanently destroyed. –

Bill C-66 was a piece of legislation designed to expunge the criminal records, to erase the criminal records of people who had been historically convicted under these sexual offences. But the way they brought the bill into place was heavily flawed for many different reasons. For one, it only covered those two offences that were reformed in 1969, buggery and gross indecency. It didn’t include all of these other provisions of the Criminal Code that were historically used to criminalize queer people. So all of those people who were arrested under those other laws, they didn’t qualify for an expungement. They couldn’t have their records destroyed.

Historians and other queer activists were paying attention, and we noticed these various flaws with the bill and we tried to intervene. We appeared before the Senate Committee who was studying the bill and we proposed a series of changes that would have strengthened the bill and actually made it useful. However, the committee declined to take our advice. The bill was adopted as is, no changes were made. And so that’s why we were left with this piece of legislation that has really done nothing to bring action to the Prime Minister’s apology.

– 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. –

The words of the apology were incredibly powerful and it affected all of us. All of us who are watching were captivated by this. So it was a great apology. But when an apology is only words, it becomes something that’s just politics. And we need to see that followed up with concrete action. And so, it would have been much more helpful had the government matched the quality of their words with the actions that they proposed to follow up with.