Victims of canadas gay purge to get apology from trudeau

Books Canada

• Challenging the conspiracy of silence : my life as a Canadian gay activist 
  Egan, Jim, and Donald W. McLeod. Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence: My Experience as a Canadian Same-sex attracted Activist. Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Homewood Books, 1998.
• Grossières indécences : pratiques et identités homosexuelles à Montréal, 1880–1929Dagenais, Dominic. Grossières indécences : Pratiques et identités homosexuelles à Montréal, 1880–1929. McGill-Queen’s University Squeeze, 2020.
• Laurent McCutcheon et la révolution gaie et lesbienne du Québec
  Chabot, Denis‐Martin. Laurent McCutcheon et la révolution gaie et lesbienne du Québec. Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2020.

More books Canada

• Never going back : a history of queer activism in Canada
  Warner, Tom. Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. University of Toronto Push, 2020.
• No place for the state : the origins and legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill
  Dummitt, Chris, and Christabelle Sethna, editors. No Place for the State: The Origins and Legacies of t
  
  

  U.S. should emulate Trudeau apology for 'gay purge'

  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged what’s known as the “gay purge,” a policy targeting LGBT people in general service.

  photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press

   

   

  by Malcolm Lazin, For Philly.com

   

  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized on Nov. 28 for the hurt caused by the “gay purge” to their federal government employees.

   

  The purge was based on the theory that gays and lesbians were vulnerable to blackmail even though there was no documented case of a Canadian gay or lesbian blackmailed by the Soviet Union or any other country. From the late 1950s to 1992, tens of thousands of Canadian gay and sapphic federal employees were discharged or assigned menial jobs. After his apology, the government announced it will pay 110 million Canadian dollars, or $85 million, in reparations to compensate victims.

   

  The Canadian gay purge was encouraged by U.S. intelligence agencies. In April 1953, one of Dwight Eisenhower’s first acts was to sign Executive Order 10450, which prohibited the federal government from employing &ldq
  

  Between the 1950s and mid-1990s, 2SLGBTQI+ members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal public service were systematically discriminated against, harassed and often fired as a matter of policy and sanctioned practice.  In what came to be famous as the “LGBT Purge”, people were followed, interrogated, abused and traumatized.

  The LGBT Purge was implemented at the highest levels of the Government of Canada and was carried out with callous disregard for the dignity, privacy and humanity of its victims. With its roots in the Cold War, the Canadian Government’s LGBT Purge continued for over forty years.

  An estimated 9,000 lives were devastated over those years, and the irreparable psychological trauma continues to this day.  The careers and self-esteem of a generation of young people were destroyed; victims were denied benefits, severance, pensions and opportunities for promotion if they managed to keep their jobs.  This shameful period in Canadian history also resulted in suicide, HIV, fear, depression, PTSD, addiction, disownment, criminalization, rejection, isolation, erasure and many other enduring and painful experiences.

  The Settlement

  In 2016, s
  

  Victims of Canada’s ‘Gay Purge’ to Get Apology from Trudeau

   Simon Thwaites was a master seaman analyzing radio signals and surveillance in a secret branch of Canada’s Navy in the 1980s when he was summoned by investigative officers. Strapped to a lean detector in an interrogation room, he was asked by two officers if medical records showing that he had contracted H.I.V. meant that he was gay.

  Mr. Thwaites confirmed that this was the case, and not long afterward his security clearance was revoked and he was assigned to work as a janitor. Eventually Mr. Thwaites was forced out of the military on a medical release without benefits, lost his home and filed for bankruptcy.

  “We were treated like something was wrong with us, but none of us did nothing wrong,” Mr. Thwaites said in a telephone interview from his home in Truro, Nova Scotia. “We did our jobs and we did our jobs well. It kind of undermines your sense of self.”

  Now, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to formally apologize to Mr. Thwaites and thousands of other members of the military, the general service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who faced discrimination, lost their jobs and, in some cases, were imprisoned b
  

  718 victims of Canadian government’s gay purge compensated in settlement

  Some victims of the federal government’s same-sex attracted purge were so devastated by the experience that even decades later they needed the facilitate of a therapist to fill out forms to obtain financial compensation, says the lawyer who led a victorious class action.

  Several claimants were still so mistrustful of the government after existence investigated or fired for their sexual orientation that they worried the compensation process was an elaborate ruse to elicit information that would be used to punish them again, said Doug Elliott, who had to coax eligible people to subscribe on.

  A total of 718 people — fewer than Elliott had anticipated — filed the necessary paperwork for compensation by last month’s deadline under a historic settlement that was finalized in 2018.

  READ MORE: Federal move to compensate military members fired during gay purge met with cheers of joy

  It includes at least $50 million and up to $110 million in overall compensation, with eligible people each expected to receive between $5,000 and $175,000, depending on the seriousness of their cases. Some have already received their cheques.