OTTAWA, November 20, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will formally apologize November 28 in the House of Commons on behalf of the Canadian government for alleged past discrimination against “homosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirited individuals.”
Trudeau tweeted on Sunday:
On November 28, the Government will offer a formal apology to LGBTQ2 Canadians in the House – for the persecution & injustices they have suffered, and to advance together on the path to equality & inclusion.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 19, 2017
Trudeau is expected to apologize to those individuals fired from the civil services or discharged from the military, according to Toronto Globe and Mail reporter John Ibbitson.
It’s anticipated the prime minister will also apologize to individuals the government convicted under former laws banning homosexual activity, and that he will pardon those convicted and expunge their criminal records.
But how much the Liberals will pay these individuals to compensate for this alleged discrimination hasn’t been settled, Toronto lawyer Douglas Elliott told Ibbitson.
Elliott launched a class action lawsuit in March against the federal government on behalf of LGBTQI individuals sacked from the civil service or kicked out of the military as part of what the lawsuit’s statement of claim alleged was an “LGBT purge” that began in the 1950s.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Todd Ross, Martine Roy and Alida Satalic, all of whom were in the Canadian Armed Forces, and all of whom allege they were interrogated about their sexual orientation. All left or were discharged from the forces after admitting they were same-sex attracted.
A hearing to certify the lawsuit, that is, to determine there is a cause of action and an identifiable class, has been scheduled for February 2019 in Montreal, according to online records.
But it appears the parties have reached an agreement, as Elliott told Ibbitson the settlement will include financial compensation for an as-yet-undetermined number of people who allegedly lost jobs or were forced out of the military because of their homosexuality, and that the compensation is capped at a total amount, which Elliott did not reveal.
“There will also be a fund to memorialize victims of the purge,” Ibbitson wrote.
A government apology for its alleged discrimination of homosexual persons is one of several recommendations in the Just Society report of June 2016, which the Liberals vowed to implement, Ibbitson reported.
Elliott was chief writer of the report, which was produced by homosexual activist organization Egale.
The authors write the report was triggered by Ibbitson’s February 2016 investigative report on Everett Klippert, a Saskatchewan man convicted of gross indecency and designated a dangerous sex offender in the ’60s. Klippert spent a total of 10 years in jail before he was released in 1971.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau as part of the omnibus legislation that also legalized abortion.
“The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation,” the elder Trudeau said at the time.
The Egale Just Society report recommended removing laws against anal sex from the Criminal Code.
The Liberals have done so in Bill C-39, tabled in March 2017. The bill includes a repeal of Section 159, which bans anal sex outside marriage for those under 18 years of age.
The effect of the legislation will be to lower the age of consent for anal sex to 16 years of age, the Criminal Code age of consent for sexual activity.
The Just Society report recommends scrubbing the “bawdy house” laws.
It also recommends “Memorializing LGBTIQ2S Injustice.”
That includes “Working with provincial governments to ensure queer inclusion, as appropriate, at all levels of the K-12 educational curriculum,” and training police, prosecutors and judges on “LGBTIQ2S+ issues and culture generally.”
Gwen Landolt of REAL Women has criticized the prime minister in the past for failing to distinguish between justified and unjustified discrimination.
There was “a law prohibiting homosexuality from 1892, when the Criminal Code came into effect, but that was the time speaking,” when people were generally opposed to homosexuality, Landolt told LifeSiteNews in an earlier interview. “They didn’t want it, that’s why Oscar Wilde was prosecuted.”
And because homosexuality was illegal, homosexual persons in the military or civil service were particularly vulnerable to blackmail, and thus a security risk, she said.
“We don’t think people should be jailed for homosexuality,” she said, but she contends that homosexual acts must be private, between two consenting adults of legal age — 18 and over.
She also warned that removing anal sex from the Criminal Code could lead to group anal sex, and will leave young male adolescents unprotected and vulnerable.
Despite court rulings that the ban on anal sex was unconstitutional, no previous government, Liberal or Conservative, had made any move to lower the age for anal sex to age 16, she told LifeSiteNews, because the need to protect teenage boys, not to mention girls, trumped any so-called need for equality.