A recent Statistics Canada study, released on February 28th, states that based on 2004 figures (the last year for which figures are available) lesbians, gay men and bisexuals experience higher rates of robbery and violence, including physical and sexual assault, than do our heterosexual counterparts. The study did not include any figures for transsexuals.
Much has been made of comments 17 years ago by now-Parliamentary Secretary Tom Lukiwski, wherein he made derogatory comments on video about gay men while attending a Conservative gathering preparing for the 1991 Saskatchewan election.
I am not one to easily ignore anti-gay slurs hurled by government officials or others in public office but, in this case I am willing to take Lukiwski at his word that he is profoundly sorry, even mortified he ever made such comments and that he no longer holds those opinions.
When various members of the Conservative-Alliance-Reform Party have opened their mouths in the past and promptly put their foot in it with similar remarks, I spoke out. When various religious types made comments against equal marriage or homosexuality in general, I spoke out -- sometimes a bit too strongly, I admit. We all say things we later regret and those of us who are, or were at the time, in the public realm often have such comments come back to haunt us. The trick here is to own up to the mistake in judgment, clarify, or retract it.
Lukiwski has retracted his comments. He gave a five-minute address in the House of Commons last month addressing his own, in his words, “stupidity, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity” 17 years ago.
In my view the comments were pretty bad, but they were also uttered by a far less experienced and far less thoughtful individual than he now apparently is. Lukiwski can’t seek protection by claiming he was young and foolish, given he was 39 or 40 years old at the time, nor has he, to his credit.
The Lukiwski of today fully recognizes the damage such comments can create and, further, understands that the damage cannot be undone. He has fully owned up to that reality and that speaks to the man’s integrity.
We all are our reputations. Lukiwski, by all accounts, is a capable and solid individual with an illustrious career behind him who made foolish and importune comments many years ago that have re-surfaced. Who amongst us is the same individual now that we were in 1991? People evolve, they mature, they change. The man has offered what seems to me to be a heartfelt and sincere apology for the comments. Calls for his resignation as Parliamentary Secretary by both the Liberals and the NDP smack of political opportunism, quite honestly.
Not to diminish comments about “faggots with dirt on their fingernails [who] transmit diseases” -- pretty disgusting stuff -- but the time to have created a stink about it was back in 1991 when the comments, and the attitude that prompted the comments, were made and held. Clearly, Lukiwski no longer holds such views and I am willing to allow for the possibility he is not the same ignoramus who made the comments back then. What he does from here on in will be the proof in the pudding.
Speaking of rights and the battle against discrimination and discriminatory words and actions, Delwin Vriend (who made history with the 1998 Supreme Court victory against the Province of Alberta and the Alberta Human Rights Commission for not including ‘sexual orientation’ in provincial human rights legislation) has made some poignant observations on this, the 10th anniversary of his victory.
Here we are ten years later and the provincial Conservative government still has not specifically included ‘sexual orientation’ in our human rights legislation; it is merely ‘read in.’ That is simply not good enough.
As one of the several individuals in this province who was at the forefront of that fight and remembers it well, it is offensive the Tories have remained intransigent on this issue. Ralph Klein (remember him? He used to be Premier of this province a while back) even threatened to use the Notwithstanding Clause if his government was “forced” to include sexual orientation as a protected ground of discrimination, just as he threatened to do on the issue of equal marriage. Does anyone see a pattern there?
Even after “seeing the light”, receiving what he thought were some pretty over-the-top emails railing against homosexuals and homosexuality - and which he claims made him suddenly realize just how much lesbians and gay men were reviled - he and his government still did nothing.
Apparently, allowing our protection to be ‘read in’ into the Act (at the time known as the Individual Rights Protection Act or IRPA) was deemed sufficient, thus still keeping us as a community in a second-class category.
At the time of the Vriend case we heard much from the usual sources about Canada’s “activist judiciary” and about how Supreme Court justices go about “re-writing” existing laws and ignoring what the drafters of those laws intended in favour of granting “special rights.” So the argument went, if legislators wanted to protect a “behaviour” (i.e. being gay, lesbian or bisexual) then they would have included it as a protected ground of discrimination in the original legislation. That they did not, again so the argument went, was their democratic right and judges should not be going around messing with the will of the people/legislators. A specious argument at best.
The Supreme Court of Canada, in this case, did not “rewrite the laws.” They addressed an area that was lacking in law, as is their mandate, and ordered the Government of Alberta to address the issue, which is how it is supposed to work.
The Supreme Court upheld the original Court of Queen’s Bench decision in favour of Vriend; a decision the Government chose to appeal, to their shame. The case dragged on through all levels of the judicial system for something like eight years. Vriend became a cause célèbre and drained emotionally and probably financially while the Conservative government, with its access to virtually unlimited funds (i.e. our tax dollars), continued to try and block not just him but all of us to equal protections. The Supreme Court decision in favour of Vriend put an end to that.
However, there is more than one way to skin a cat and here we are ten years later and the Conservative Government, first under Ralph Klein and now under Ed Stelmach, chose to merely let the status quo pretty much continue, content to have the protection merely “read in.” Vriend won, but in theory only. In practice, not much changed at the legislative level.
Vriend now lives in Paris with his partner, after a sojourn in San Francisco. In my dealings with Delwin Vriend as host of Speak Sebastian, a GLBTQ radio show I produced and hosted for 14 years on CJSW FM, and as an activist involved in the fight for sexual orientation inclusion through the Calgary Lesbian And Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG), I came to know an intelligent, sensitive and essentially rather introverted young man. On principle, he was willing to stay the course and fight in the public sphere for not only his but all our rights. At the same time he must have suffered the terrors that being such a high-profile and easily recognizable figure can inflict on someone who is basically shy and, initially, a bit naive.
The guy couldn’t even go out for a few beer without being cornered by people who insisted on talking about his case; everyone wanted a piece of Delwin. That is not an easy way to live when all you want to do is just live your life and gain a little bit of joy out of doing so. Being an icon is tough on the psyche. I hope living in Paris in relative anonymity has given Delwin that peace.
When Delwin emerged from the Supreme Court and was met by a deluge of media on the broad front steps of that venerable building he uttered the words “Nah, nah...I won!” At the time, I thought the words should be emblazoned on t-shirts. Mainstream media, however, roundly criticized him for making such a childish, dismissive, and flippant remark. What-everrrrrrrr...
Given what he’d gone through for years, the real possibility the Supreme Court justices may not have found in his favour, the cost of the repeated appeals, the personal toll it took on him and his family, the daily slog of dealing with legal briefs, submissions, media demands, etc., I rather thought he showed remarkable restraint in that comment.
So, yes, we have all made comments in our pasts that perhaps, in hindsight or even at the time of utterance, did not reflect well on us. The difference between Delwin Vriend’s remarks and Tom Lukiwski’s is that Vriend’s comments harmed nobody and did not expose anyone to further discrimination and therefore he has nothing to apologize for. Lukiwski’s did and he has now repeatedly apologized for having ever said those words.
In the case of Vriend, we now need to move on and complete the work he laid the foundations for. In the case of Lukiwski, we just need to move on.
