It is #PrideMonth and this is the story of LGBTQ rights activist Jim Egan, who brought forward a landmark Supreme Court case!
Jim Egan was born in Toronto on Sept. 14, 1921. Egan realized he was gay at a young age & in 1948, he met his partner John Nesbit.
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Since he was self-employed, Egan knew he could speak out without losing his job. Starting in 1949, he began writing hundreds of letters, articles & op-ed pieces to newspapers and magazines advocating for equal rights for the LGBTQ community.
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His letters and articles appeared across Canada, first under a pseudonym and then under his real name by the 1960s.
In 1964, he appeared in a Maclean's article that was a positive portrayal of homosexuality that was rare in mainstream media at the time.
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His partner Nesbit asked him to give up his activism, but Egan refused and the couple broke up.
Soon after, Egan moved to B.C. The couple reunited on Vancouver Island in the mid-1960s.
In 1986, Egan retired and began collecting Canada Pension Plan benefits.
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He applied for spousal benefits for Nesbit in 1987 but this was denied. Egan took the matter to court. He lost at the Federal Court in 1991 & the Federal Court of Appeal in 1993
He reached the Supreme Court in 1994, which ruled against Egan & the issue of spousal benefits
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The court did rule that sexual orientation should be included as a prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This was a massive victory for the LGBTQ community.
Egan died in 2000, Nesbit died three months later
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Farley Mowat was one of Canada's most successful and beloved authors.
His books have sold more than 17 million copies in 52 languages, but he was also a decorated Second World War veteran and an Arctic researcher.
This is his story.
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Farley Mowat was born on May 12, 1921 in Belleville, Ontario. His great-great-uncle was Ontario Premier Sir Oliver Mowat, the longest-serving premier in Ontario's history. His father Angus fought at Vimy Ridge and was an influential librarian in Ontario and Saskatchewan.
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His childhood was spent in Richmond Hill and briefly in Windsor. In the 1930s, the family moved to Saskatoon where Mowat wrote columns about birds for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. He also wrote a nature newsletter called Nature Lore during this time.
The story of David Thompson is well known in Canada, but the story of his wife of 58 years, Charlotte Small, is not.
Yet she was integral to his success as a surveyor and explorer.
This is her story.
Charlotte Small was born on Sept. 1, 1785 to Patrick Small and a Cree woman who is unnamed in records. Her father left when she was young to go back east.
This was common for country marriages. The fur trader husband often abandoned his Indigenous wife and children.
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On June 10, 1799, she married David Thompson.
Together, the two had 13 children.
Throughout Thompson's journeys across present-day Western Canada, Charlotte was with him. She raised five of their children during this time.
She was far from just tagging along.
Alberta Separation is once again in the news, but it is far from a new thing.
Separation talk dates back decades, rising and falling with political trends.
Let's learn more about Western Separation Movements!
I'm not including Quebec separatist movements in this thread. That will be one of its own.
In our first election in 1867, the Anti-Confederation Movement out of Nova Scotia won 18 seats. They called for Nova Scotia seceding from Canada.
By 1870, the movement had failed.
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From 1867 to 1870, a store owner in Thomas Spence tried to create an independent republic in the Portage La Prairie area called New Caledonia, and later the Republic of Manitobah. This failed but Spence later served on the council of Louis Riel.
For 15 years from 1965 until his death in 1980, the man the world knew as Colonel Sanders lived in a modest home at 1337 Melton Drive in the Lakeview area of Mississauga.
He became a fixture of the community and gave his money to charity to help Canadians.
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By the mid-1960s, Colonel Harland Sanders was famous around North America as the image of Kentucky Fried Chicken. With franchises rapidly growing, and Sanders in his early-70s, he sold the company for $2 million in 1964 in a deal that did not include Canadian operations.
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Now a salaried brand ambassador for KFC, Sanders decided to move to Mississauga in 1965 to oversee his Canadian franchises. As a company ambassador, he travelled 320,000 km a year on the company's behalf, while also filming commercials.
Throughout the federal election campaign, I am looking at elections from Canada's past.
Today, it is the 1993 election!
One of the most significant elections in Canadian history, it completely changed the political landscape of the country forever.
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After the 1988 election, the Progressive Conservatives and their leader Brian Mulroney turned their attention to the Meech Lake Accord. The purpose was to persuade Quebec to symbolically endorse the 1982 constitutional amendments. This failed to pass in 1990.
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The Charlottetown Accord, a package of amendments to the Constitution of Canada, failed through a public referendum in October 1992.
The Progressive Conservatives had also introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1991, which was deeply unpopular.
Throughout the federal election campaign, I am looking at elections from Canada's past.
Today, it is the 1988 election!
This election was fought on the issue of free trade with the USA. It was also the first election for the Reform Party.
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Both John Turner and Brian Mulroney continued to lead their respective parties, the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives.
Turner had stayed on as leader and spent the previous four years rebuilding the body after the historic collapse in the 1984 election.
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Turner had survived a leadership vote in 1986.
Going into the election, the Progressive Conservatives wanted to establish free trade with the United States. This was a reverse of the 1911 election when the Liberals wanted free trade and the Conservatives opposed it.