Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you very much for inviting me to be here today.
I'd like to start by giving you a bit of background.
I'm a veteran. I'm also a survivor of Canada's LGBT purge.
The LGBT purge is described by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as one of “the longest-running and largest-scale violation[s] of the human rights of any workforce in Canadian history”. I would also add, “And hardly anyone knows about it.”
We estimate that between the 1950s and the 1990s, about 9,000 people—2SLGBTQ people in the Canadian military, the RCMP and the federal public service—saw their careers stymied or terminated because their sexual orientation or gender identity was considered a threat to the country they had chosen to serve. During the Cold War and well beyond, this discriminatory process was often justified on the grounds of national security risk, given their—our, my—purported character weakness and susceptibility to blackmail by foreign agents, despite lack of any evidence that such coercion had ever occurred.
The shattered lives and careers caused by the purge resulted in psychological trauma, material hardships, financial ruin, self-harm and suicide. I understand a lot about this shameful period in Canadian history, because I was purged from the military in 1989.
I joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1986. I was so honoured and proud to serve. I wanted to be a police officer within the military, and I did just that, graduating at the top of my class within the military police branch. I had my sworn badge and also my commission as a young second lieutenant, but one day I was posted to the special investigations unit, the very unit within the military police where I was posted on my first posting because I had graduated at the top of the class, and they wanted this as an honour. This unit was devoted to conducting the most serious criminal investigations, including sabotage, subversion, espionage and allegations of homosexuality.
Shortly after I joined this special investigation unit, my boss called me into his office. He told me we were going for an investigative trip up to Ottawa from CFB Toronto. I followed him in an undercover K-car. I was dressed in civilian clothes. Just as we got out to the Toronto airport, he pulled into a hotel along the airport strip, and I was interrogated there about my sexual orientation for the next two days. This was just the start of my interrogation about my sexual orientation.
Later, I was flown by the police to Ottawa to be polygraphed about my sexual orientation. While I was seated, strapped to the polygraph chair, I admitted that I had fallen in love with a woman. I later found out that the questions they intended to ask me had I proceeded with that included this very offensive opening question: “Had I ever licked the private parts of another woman?” I'm so grateful today that they didn't ask me that question. My experience left me humiliated and shamed. Others experienced similar questions, deeply sexualized in their nature.
I was also forced to come out to my family. I was given 24 hours to do so or the police would be sent to do it for me. Ultimately, despite graduating at the top of every military course I ever took, I was fired.
These experiences have had a lifelong effect on me and the thousands of others who went through them. On my release records are these words: “not advantageously employable due to homosexuality”. I sued the military for this treatment, and in 1992 it was my legal challenge that formally ended the policy of discrimination against 2SLGBTQI people serving their country in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Well, I served for only about three years, but I am now a veteran, and it's been my life's work for 30 years to try, along with many others, to bring some justice to these forgotten survivors and veterans. A class action lawsuit in 2018 led to a settlement for more than 700 people who were found and located and could get some justice. Even justice delayed sometimes is still justice.
Today I work full time to pursue reconciliation and memorialization efforts arising from this period of history. I work closely with and see the impact, particularly on women who are purge survivors. They are veterans, and they are hurting. In fact, most of the people we see have very unique and special needs as veterans.
The trust was shattered by their employer and their country. Many experienced sexualized violence. We also know that many who are part of the purge class action were also part of the military sexual trauma class action lawsuit.
Think about the shame and the deep traumatization at the hands of the government. We owe these special veterans a duty of care, and that goes beyond legal settlements. The establishment of the Office of Women and LGBTQ2 Veterans at Veterans Affairs has been a really good start.
We need some help in finding these veterans. Sometimes the shame drove them back into the closet. We know people took their own lives. We know the shame was so deep that many just have never surfaced again, but we want to try to find them because we think we can help them. Needs that cannot be met by other social service agencies—because they simply don't know what happened—can be met by organizations that are tailored, including this Office of Women and LGBTQ2 Veterans.
Education is a huge part of this. We can't have someone calling in for the first time to finally reach out and get some help from VAC and then be told it's impossible to imagine a story like that would ever happen in Canada. Then they get rejected again, and that's the last we ever see of these people.
Transwomen veterans are especially vulnerable. We have to be there for them. They can't be ignored, and we must—as we do with all veterans—honour, support and respect them. We're seeing an aging group of survivors. Some are angry. They are just so unsure of whom they can trust.
We're also seeing rising levels of addiction, senior squalor, homelessness, and precarious home lives. This, of course, is recognizable as the impact of trauma, pain and the betrayal of the government.
I'm here to talk, hopefully, about the elimination of hurdles and barriers to enable these veterans to access the services they need, because we owe them nothing less. I would be happy to speak further with you about these incredible Canadian women and all purge survivors, and about how the committee might address their needs.
My final words will be to these incredible survivors, women who have served their country so heroically, and to my colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel Cathy Potts, who has also joined me here today.
Mr. Chair, thank you.