Does an apology make the pain go away? Short answer: No.
But an apology combined with solid plans to fund reparations for those harmed by discriminatory government actions, does go a long way to healing some very deep wounds.
This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke for the Canadian government and other political leaders when he apologized to LGBTQ folks for decades of criminalizing gay people and denying them basic human rights.
Our own former MP, Svend Robinson, played an instrumental role in not only making sure that an apology was crafted, but also that the historical record is to be corrected and current and future generations will have an opportunity to learn the real story.
Robinson said: “There has to be funding (for reparations) – and this has been agreed – for research and for awareness, because most Canadians have no idea that this happened. They remember Pierre Trudeau almost 50 years ago saying, ‘The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation,’ but they have no idea that for 30 years after that people were being discriminated against, persecuted, in some cases taking their own lives, criminalized.”
It is sometimes hard for those who grew up in the last 30 years to grasp that homosexuality was illegal, and gay men and lesbians were jailed for simply loving someone, that “coming out” often meant losing one’s children and that gay folk had to hide in fake marriages to keep their jobs.
But it would be foolish to think everything is wrapped up in a pretty rainbow flag now that an apology has been made.
Statistics Canada data released this week for 2016 show a 29 per cent increase in hate crimes. A large portion of that increase was for crimes targeting LGBTQ people. And those crimes were more violent than hate crimes against other groups.
Progress is often accompanied by backlashes. Robinson’s own history as the first MP to come out as gay is sad proof of that. However, love combined with persistence and a deep sense of fighting for what is fair and just is a powerful antidote to hate.
Thank you, Svend, for never abandoning the fight no matter what the cost.
