LGBTQ history in Canada
[1] After an intervention by the Jesuits in Quebec City, the drummer's sentence was commuted on the condition that he accept the position of New France's first permanent executioner.
[1] As only the drummer was placed on trial, the widespread consensus of many historians is that his sexual partner may have been a First Nations man who was not subject to French religious law.
"[4] Although same-sex activity between men was also punishable by death penalty in British North America, political figures proved to be as reluctant to enforce this as officials in New France had been.
The "fruit machine" was employed in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s during a campaign to eliminate all homosexuals from the civil service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the military.
Although funding for the "fruit machine" project was cut off in the late 1960s, the investigations continued, and the RCMP collected files on over 9,000 "suspected" homosexuals.
The four were evicted from the Brunswick House, a working-class beer hall on Bloor Street, and subsequently arrested, and three were later tried in Ontario Court for obstruction of justice.
The 1977 Mystique and Truxx bathhouse raids occurred in Montreal, which led within a few months[16] to Quebec becoming the first jurisdiction (larger than a city or county) in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the public and private sectors.
In 1984, Pink Triangle Services becomes the first registered gay charity,[20] later becoming inclusive of all people in the queer community re-branding as PTS a centre for the celebration of sexual and gender diversity.
[12] In 1990, Yukon government employees became the second public sector workers in Canada whose same-sex partners were eligible for spousal benefits, including a dental plan.
The ruling had a wide impact since section 15 applies to all laws, including human rights acts that prohibit discrimination by all employers, landlords, service providers and governments.
In 1996, sexual orientation was added to the Canadian Human Rights Act, an anti-discrimination law that applies to federally regulated activities throughout Canada.
In June 1999, a 216–55 vote in the House of Commons supported preserving the legal definition of "marriage" as the union of a man and a woman.
In 2003, the British Columbia Court of Appeal made a unanimous decision that limiting the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples violated equality rights.
The ruling was not effective immediately, but allowed a two-year transition period for Ottawa to legally recognize same-sex marriage.
In December 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada replied to the federal government's draft legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage nationwide.
On July 20, 2005, C-38 received royal assent from Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, acting in her role as deputy governor general.
In February 2011, the House of Commons passed at third reading NDP MP Bill Siksay's Bill C-389, to amend the federal Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination under Canadian federal anti-discrimination laws, at third reading, but it died on the order paper in the Senate when Parliament was dissolved.
By virtue of her office, Wynne is the highest ranking elected openly LGBT official in the history of North America.
On February 28, 2016, CBC News reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intended to recommend that a pardon under the authority of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy be granted posthumously to Everett George Klippert, the last person in Canada to be imprisoned for homosexuality.
Lawyer and LGBT activist Doug Elliott commented, "It's great that the young Trudeau is finishing the work that his father started.
"[26] On June 19, 2017 Bill C-16, after having passed the legislative process in the House of Commons and the Senate, became law upon receiving Royal Assent which put it into immediate force.
[27][28][29] On November 28, 2017 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered an apology to the LGBT community in the House of Commons seeking to acknowledge and right many wrongs- to begin the healing process.
Trudeau's broad apology for "state-sponsored, systemic oppression and rejection" included acknowledgement of the suppression of "two-spirit Indigenous values and beliefs" and "abusing the power of the law, and making criminals of citizens".
This began the process in which records from those targeted during the Purge (from the 1950s through the 1990s) would be expunged as well as reparations paid to civil servants and military personnel who lost their livelihood from this Cold War–era policy affecting the LGBT community.
