2. In 1967, then Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau (in)famously said, "There's no place for the state in the ________ of the nation." What is the missing word?

Bedrooms!

Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau speaks with reporters about his Omnibus Bill. Aired on Feb. 21, 1967.

Even if you know very little about Canadian history, I think this quote is so famous that most Canadians could fill in the missing word--even if you know absolutely nothing about the context or why it matters. That’s part of the reason I chose it for our quiz! And let’s face it, context aside—it’s just an iconic turn of phrase.

Understanding the importance of this moment requires a little nuance. On one hand, historians and activists like Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston have argued that homosexuality was never actually decriminalized in Canada. And this, technically speaking, is correct. This argument hinges on the reality that homosexuality was not ever a word in any laws associated with the Criminal Code. Being “gay” was not illegal: having specific kinds of sex that were only associated with gay men were. (For more on this, see Hamish Copley’s fantastic blog on queer history and politics in Canada, The Drummer’s Revenge.) If being gay was not technically illegal, then it is not technically possible to decriminalize it.

The extension, then, is that Trudeau’s proposed amendments to the Code that legally speaking made exemptions for the crimes of buggery and gross indecency. And even these exemptions were, as we used to say when I was younger, weak sauce. The exemptions made it permissible for gay and bisexual men (because, in most cases, it was men being charged with buggery or gross indecency, not women) to have sex in private if both participants were over the age of 21. Relevant context at this point is that the age of consent for most heterosexual sex in Canada at this time was 14. This intentional age setting at 21 reflected homophobic commentary in the House of Commons debates on this bill that “homosexuals are mostly inclined to pervert youngsters”.² Even if you set aside the unequal age of consent, the vast majority of arrests of queer people, both historically and at that time, did not happen after police officers (probably illegally) entered a private domicile where they found two people engaged in a consensual sex act.³

Even after the Omnibus Bill, the Canadian state was not exactly fond of homosexual people. Other crimes that were often applied to queer people at the time, like vagrancy and being found in a bawdy house, remained on the books until 2019. As Hooper et. al point out, there are some acts that are still on the books that have historically been used to target and humiliate queer and trans people: indecent acts, obscenity, and immoral theatrical performance are still illegal.⁴ So, in 2019, when media outlets, the Canadian government, and even the Royal Canadian Mint, lauded the 50-year anniversary of “decriminalizing” homosexuality…. Well, that may have been a little premature.

The flip side, of course, is that according to Equaldex, there are 59 countries worldwide where homosexuality activity is still very definitely illegal, and in 9 of those countries, punishable by death.⁵ And, as pointed out in the Egale Canada documentary Sex, Sin and 69, this governmental shift does predate some of the most significant activist moments in Canadian queer history, such as the 1971 We Demand! protest on Parliament Hill. It’s hard to say with certainty if such moments would have happened anyway—that’s the nature of history, of course. We’ll never be in any timeline but this one.

One of the things I am most interested in as a person who studied history is how things must have felt to the people in the general public at the time a big even was going on. I have to imagine that for queer people watching their black-and-white televisions or hearing it on the radio, having the Justice Minister of Canada, later to be Prime Minister of Canada, speaking openly about queer people in a way that wasn’t plainly derogatory, was still an enormous moment.

Further Learning:

Egale Canada. Sex, Sin, and 69. Directed by Sarah Foley. 2019; Canada, SandBay Entertainment. https://youtu.be/-iL0rQITuZ8?si=ZsEzEgyl9rj0Ehqw

Christopher Dummitt and Christabelle Sethna, eds. No Place for the State: The Origins and Legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill. UBC Press: 2020.

Hamish Copley, « Sodomites in Canada before 1841”. The Drummer’s Revenge. August 19, 2007. https://thedrummersrevenge.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/sodomites-in-canada-before-1841/

Hansard. “Excerpts from the Bill C-150 Debates in the House of Commons.” Xtra. Published May 19, 2009. https://xtramagazine.com/power/excerpts-from-the-bill-c-150-debates-in-the-house-of-commons-36611

Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston. “Anti-69 FAQ.” Published February 19. 2019. https://anti-69.ca/faq/

Equaldex. “Homosexual activity.” Accessed June 23, 2024. https://www.equaldex.com/issue/homosexuality

Gary Kinsman. “Some Critical Reflections on Watching Sex, Sin and 69, the New Film from SandBay and Egale.” RadicalNoise.ca. July 2, 2019. https://radicalnoise.ca/2019/07/02/some-critical-reflections-on-watching-sex-sin-and-69-the-new-film-from-sandbay-and-egale/

Sources/Endnotes:

1. Hamish Copley, « Sodomites in Canada before 1841”. The Drummer’s Revenge. August 19, 2007. https://thedrummersrevenge.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/sodomites-in-canada-before-1841/

2. Hansard. “Excerpts from the Bill C-150 Debates in the House of Commons.” Xtra. Published May 19, 2009. https://xtramagazine.com/power/excerpts-from-the-bill-c-150-debates-in-the-house-of-commons-36611

3. Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston. “Anti-69 FAQ.” Published February 19. 2019. https://anti-69.ca/faq/

4. Ibid.

5. Equaldex. “Homosexual activity.” Accessed June 23, 2024. https://www.equaldex.com/issue/homosexuality