Once again at war

Three years after the Human Rights Commission hearings,Montreal's queer community is ready to pick another fight

by JACQUIE CHARLTON

Political activists in Montreal's gay and lesbian community recognize that the community has come a long way from the era of police brutality that stretched into the early 1990s. And yet they're engaged in the most severe war of words with the Quebec government since the Parti Québécois took office in 1994.

The police brutality incident that pushed the community over the edge occurred in July of 1990. A zealous band of Montreal cops crashed a party at the Sex Garage club, arrested patrons at gunpoint, beat several people up and, during breaks in the action, made sneering limp-wrist gestures and caressed their batons.

What followed the next day was even more bizarre: police attacked people who had gathered outside a downtown police station to protest the raid. And, as with the raid the night before, TV cameras caught it all.

The Sex Garage incident convinced Montreal gays and lesbians that something had to be done. In 1993, after much wrangling and a highly publicized threat to out government officials, a series of hearings was held before the Quebec Human Rights Commission on the conditions of gay and lesbian life in Quebec. In June of 1994, the Commission issued 41 recommendations ranging from the recognition of hate crimes in the Quebec criminal code to less sweeping but still highly significant matters like an end to the Surêté du Québec's policy of wearing rubber gloves when arresting gays and lesbians.

Three years later, gay groups are wondering whether anyone in the government really gave a damn. Though members of the Comité sur la violence contre les gais et lesbiennes say they're pleased with the turnaround in police attitudes ("They're leaving us alone and beating up on the skins and squeegee boys instead," said one Comité member), the group has just issued a report-card rating the Quebec government's action on fulfilling the 41 recommendations, and finds it seriously wanting. The government scored an abysmal 12.5 out of 100, earning zeroes on all but 13 of the recommendations.

To protest this poor track record, the Comité has lodged a complaint against the PQ government with the Quebec Human Rights Commission alleging discrimination against gays and lesbians.

According to Michael Hendricks of the Comité, "At one time the PQ's Projet de société had room for all of us. All the gay groups openly supported the PQ. It won't be the case in the future."

The Comité was counting on gays and lesbians within the PQ to push the government into action. But according to Douglas Buckley Couvrette, also of the Comité, "a highly placed civil servant of a very important closeted minister" relayed the news to him that the PQ simply is not interested in gay and lesbian issues.

Here, the sticky subject of outing comes up. Buckley Couvrette's gay rights group Dire Enfin La Violence recently saw its Quebec government funding cut, and in protest issued a statement which some saw as a thinly veiled threat to out high-ranking closeted gay and lesbian government officials. Coincidentally or not, the day after Dire Enfin's statement was issued, the government sent the organization a $20,000 cheque.

Unlike the blatant outing threats of 1993, Hendricks and Buckley Couvrette are coy about the implications of their letter this time around. "Some people perceived it as a message," acknowledges Buckley Couvrette. "There are tons of gays and lesbians in powerful positions that could pull levers. Our call was to them."