The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Students Help Save Canada's Queer History?

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

For generations, many 2SLGBTQ+ stories were left out of history books, archives, and classrooms, raising questions about whose experiences are preserved and whose are forgotten. Now, some educators are working to recover that history before more of it is lost. Ian Duncan, a history teacher at Garth Webb Secondary School in Oakville, joins Jeyan to discuss how students are helping uncover, document, and share Canada's queer history. Then, Windsor teacher Chris Rabideau explains how a local project is preserving 2SLGBTQ+ stories from the community, one story at a time, and why documenting these experiences matters for future generations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ontario has art for every learner and TVO wants to bring it to you. No velvet ropes, no glass cases. There's a rich artistic history you won't find in museums and traditional archives waiting to be discovered. From film, visual art and music to beadwork, textiles and street art. These moments, movements and makers have shaped who we are. With your support, a new TVO video series will uncover Ontario's remarkable art stories and preserve them in a living public archive. Visit TVO.com slash TVO Arts to make your donation today.

Your gift is matched up to $100,000. Hi, I'm Nam Kiwanuka, host and producer of Mistreated, a podcast on women's health. There just hasn't been a lot of money put into researching women's health issues. If women are in pain, it's hysteria, it's an emotional issue. And this is what we see consistently, women's health, is not taken seriously. How did we get here?

Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out the video version of the show on the TVO Today YouTube channel. Hope to see you then. A new generation of Canadians can write historical narratives. They can write ones that didn't exist before. That was Oakville teacher Ian Duncan

talking about his history tellers project. Through it, high schoolers don't just learn about Canada's 2S LGBTQ plus past. they explore the archives and research and write about untold stories. We talked to him about how his students are helping to expand our knowledge of Canada's history and what it's like to uncover new records of struggle and celebration. Then, it can be easy to think that queer history was made mostly in big cities like Toronto and Montreal, but the facts tell a different story.

I took a trip to Windsor to meet a local historian who's fighting to uncover and preserve the city's overlooked 2S LGBTQ plus history and the stories that almost disappeared. Welcome to the rundown. At one high school in Oakville, students aren't just learning about Canada's 2S LGBTQ plus history. They're helping to save it and share it. Ian Duncan is a history teacher at Garth Webb Secondary School in Oakville and he joins us in studio. How are you doing, sir? Great.

Thanks for having me. Well, let's talk about it. How would you describe the history tellers project and what it aimed? to uncover. The History Tellers Project empowered grade 10 Canadian history students from my classroom to create short narratives from Canada's often overlooked or unrecognized, 2S LGBTQ plus history. We actually got to partner with the Archwives, which is Canada's 2S LGBTQIA plus Archive and the largest independent archive of its kind in the world. Yeah. And they provided us with really incredible archival photographs to inspire our own research and these amazing.

amazing short stories. So I get this image of, you pretty much had all these photos laid out in a classroom and you had students kind of like going into an art gallery sort of dotting what images with no context at all, what interested them. And I'm curious, what were the themes? Because there were some broad themes in terms of what these photos covered. In the end, it was the students who got to define and sort of create the themes for what would become our digital and physical exhibit.

There was a lot of real interest in joy. You know, students don't just want to learn about the realities of discrimination, oppression and trauma in history, which we did confront, and that's one of the themes, sure. But it's also really great to have seen the students connect with the happiness and the joy and the celebration and the culture and the community. Like, those are the big overarching things that I think came together when they started to really look at, not just the photographs, but the actual history behind the photographs. Every story that they uncovered was really rooted in, wow, this is actually great.

It's positive to learn our history. You had over 100 students involved over two semesters, but you also had a group of editors, which were quite special in terms of shaping the stories as well. What were their roles in this? Oh, we could not do the work without incredible 2S-LGBQIA Plus identifying folks to edit the work. You know, I am an out and proud gay teacher in my classroom, but I can't be the only filter for this kind of landmark work that we're trying to do with telling these often, lost stories. So I started with friends and reached out hundreds of cold emails to incredible folks.

Editors were very enthusiastic. I always say our community supports one another whenever and however we can. So we got to work with Senator Marnie McBean and Senator Reney Cormier. We got to work with Kathleen Wynne, former Premier of Ontario. And we also got to work with artists and curators and music teachers. We got to work with doctors and lawyers and people in communications and business. Writers, Paul Kautja and Melanie Florence, among so many other amazing, inspiring folks

so that the students would see that this community is found in all pathways and that we're achieving and succeeding in all pathways. I think that's sort of like really important to them understanding the world that they're about to join. When you and I were talking about this project, You had said that it started because you realized that you, yourself, had gaps sort of in queer history itself.

Tell me the story there because it was a speech that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was making that kind of got this all kind of started. Yeah, the government apologized for a history of 2S-LGBQIA plus discrimination and the LGBT purge in November 2017. And I watched it live at work. Sitting at my desk, it was after school. And I'm listening to the speech and honestly, realized. I don't know any of this history. And that was, there was a real deep conversation there for myself to think about why don't I know this history. And it's not just blaming systems of my education from the 90s and early 2000s, like when I was in high school and university, I wasn't taught our history.

But also, why haven't I looked it up? You know, like we live in the age now with AI, but before with Google and the internet, there were resources and the archive has existed all along. So how come I've never, as someone who loves history and is always learning new history? why did I never look for my own? I had to sort of deal with some internalized homophobia probably on that and jump in. And I haven't stopped since it's been nine years of learning. Before that, I'm going to ask for a little bit of a history lesson here then. For people who aren't familiar, what is the purge?

The purge is a period of Canada's history between 1950 and 1992 whereby the Canadian government actively sought to remove gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals from Canadian Civil Service and the military for fears of security. and compromised integrity of these government operations. It ends really in 92 with the incredible history of Michelle Douglas and others who challenged a government's decision and brought about an end to that purge.

We're still looking at the commemorations of that history, even just now and this summer. You talk about sort of what's available at our fingertips in terms of what we can look at, but I also want to sort of have a look at the curriculum as well. When you look at the curriculum today, what are the gaps when it comes to its limitations on queer history, trans history? I think if you don't know queer and trans history, then you don't see it in the curriculum. There is one mention currently in the revised 26th, Grade 10 Canadian History curriculum in Ontario,

and it is a mention of the Canadian government's decision to legalize same-sex marriage in 2005. The Civil Marriage Act is the only specific mention. Our curriculum, though, offers us opportunities as educators to look at much broader, bigger themes and ideas around social, political, and economic context of Canada, communities that have worked together and also worked in conflict with one another to make change, or even individuals and groups who've brought about a unique Canadian heritage and identity, one that now I think we all agree is pretty inclusive of the 2SLGQ Plus community. So that's where I find my way into the curriculum. And that's where I see us reflected. But if you don't know it already, you don't see how to apply it and see how to get it to fit. All right. I think it's a good time that we take a look at some of the archival photos that you used for the history tellers project.

Tell me what we're looking at here. This is a photo that was titled Breaking Barriers in 1972. What are we looking at? Yeah. The three students who worked on this story actually are queer identifying people. Most of the students were not. The history behind this is really the work of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto, or Chat, C-H-A-T. One of their first presidents is George H-Slop, who went on to be the unofficial gay mayor of Toronto and maybe even one of the first out people to run for political office in Canadian history.

His legacy in Toronto and beyond is quite extensive. But Chat and what they were trying to accomplish at first was about in this panel discussion, with many members of a proud queer community at the time, and this is 1972, so this is going a long way back. They held this panel around myths and realities of being gay and lesbian at that time. The students really responded to that. That's why they called it breaking barriers.

It was sort of like breaking down what things are and actually allowed us to have a great conversation, just us in a small group, about what their myths and realities are today. So connecting past and present and understanding that maybe some of those things haven't changed as much as we might think or hope. I was going to say, you said, you know,

1972 does feel like a long time ago and maybe I'm just being sensitive my age. It also doesn't feel like that was that long ago either. Yeah. In some cases, you know, we're looking at a queer history that is only really starting to be uncovered from that period before they, and I will air quote this,

we talk about criminalization, recriminalization and decriminalization of homosexuality that came in the government's work of 1969. Really, any of the groups afterwards, that's when we start to see more out and proud demonstrations of queerness, I think, but there is queer history from millennia of human history that I study and teach. All right, let's look at a second photo.

This is called Zami as the camera clicked. Tell me about this. This is, we're seeing four people who are smiling. What's the story behind here? Yeah, you're actually meeting Doug, Derek, Silmadel, and Debbie, the founding members of Zami. Zami is actually a West Indian-Jamaican term for. lesbian and women who work together. So really beautiful naming history there too. It was so important

that our project found the intersections. And I think our community is still dealing with and really trying to break down the barriers of being more than one thing. Much of the work of queer liberators of our past really focused on just that. And I think today we're really being pushed to look for more. And that's what the students felt as well. In learning the history of Zami, they learned about its founding at 101 Dusen Street as part of the Dusen Street Collective and Project, and the importance of finding safe spaces for all of us, not just for some of us in our history. Now, they got to partner with the incredible Dr. Anthony B. Campbell,

Andrew B. Campbell, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. And Dr. Campbell was very generous and met with the students online to review the photograph and even got to see the exhibit last fall in person and was absolutely struck by the power of seeing this picture and its story in context with the exhibit. He just kept saying, I know these people. That's his world.

All right. The third photo here, fighting for LGBTQ plus immigration rights, particularly around the conversation around immigration and sentiments right now, an important story. But we're going back to the Immigration Act in 1952 and sort of amendments made there. Tell us what we're looking at. Yeah, in 1952, the government basically banned the immigration of anybody identifying in the queer community. And that led to eventually groups like this, one, organizing in BC to make change to those efforts. Those changes finally came in 1978.

So this is actually decades of work to try to bring about an end on that ban. It wasn't until 1993 that the government of Canada lifted the ban on LGBT identity being, classified justification for refugee status in Canada as well. So when we think about who's coming to Canada now as well, and we look at the longer and larger history of immigration, I always situate that story in there. All right. Our final photo here,

gay and Asian, Asian and gay. This photo is cut off at the top a little bit, but it does say gay Asians of Toronto. What's the story behind here? Well, the gay Asians of Toronto actually led the Pride Parade in 1972. This is Alan Lee,

who was able to bring and speak to and open the Pride Parade because it was at the time marching through the Grange in Toronto and right next to Chinatown. They really confronted a Chinese community who was not necessarily welcoming of queer people, but sitting again in those intersections of being both Asian and gay in Toronto or being part of two communities and how do you walk through that proudly. That speech, it really resonated with the students, two of whom actually identify with Asian identities as well. So they were, really empowered to write that story and to find another editor here it's Paul Seguil who used to be one of the directors of Toronto's 519 Community Center and Paul was

again really generous with the students but sits in those identities as well so it was a really nice connection between the history but also people who might be inspired themselves in learning it as you mentioned majority of the students didn't identify with the community and I'm curious how did they react with with the project overall I think most of the students are really curious. They genuinely want to know more, especially when they think that something's been hidden from them. I mean, I get excited by it too, but it's sort of like the East Drag Hunt of history, right?

Where you go and find the things that are there but haven't been looked at or haven't been found before. So the nice thing about the project was that many of the students really were just excited to be learning something that they felt no one had ever seen or known about before. And the sort of removal of some of these archival photographs from like, I think, common knowledge or even and they don't have a digital footprint on the internet means that they felt like they were the first one seeing them in a long time. We did get some pushback. Some students were not necessarily as comfortable.

And we talked about that and worked through that throughout the learning journey of the project. But we were able to conquer it through our relationship, the classroom relationship between myself and themselves and the fact that we teach all histories in my classroom. What do you mean by that? We're making sure that not just in one part of the course, but throughout the course,

students are seeing 2SLG-G-TQ plus history tied to every period of history that we study, every theme. But they're also seeing Muslim Canadian history, black Canadian history, South Asian and Asian Canadian history, the history of people with abilities and disabilities, the history of women. You know, when we teach a really inclusive and open history in the way that my classroom is trying to right now, all students have seen themselves. And so they don't really push back when they see something that's uncomfortable to them or not like them, because they go, well, we've learned about so many people who are unlike us already, let's continue that.

I think it's nice when students see themselves in the history that we're learning, but it's equally important for them to learn about others through the history that we study. Well, to follow that, how can learning about underrepresented communities build not only students' compassion, but also civic awareness? Because as we mentioned, pride is protest, and we've seen some of the photos are of protests and making change. but how does that help build those? I think the students that I work with are genuinely being better prepared

for the world they're about to encounter. Not just in the greater Toronto area and a little bit beyond, but anywhere across the country, anywhere around the world, they need to see that we are going to be everywhere. And people who are like them and unlike them are going to be everywhere,

but we can create bonds of humanity, of shared joy, celebration, and even protest with those. other identities and groups as well. I mean, that's where we can become allies to one another. So really, I think not just in accessing their empathy, but accessing their allyship is the thing that's really allowing us to make change in these young people's sort of education and growing patterns. I have one more photo. Earlier this year, you were awarded the Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching, the country's most prestigious honor in the field of history.

This is a photo of you with the right Honorable Mary Simon. What does it mean to be recognized for this work. I'm very proud of being a great history teacher and working towards, you know, being worthy of the title of excellence, an excellent teacher all the time. This work is something, of course, that I'm particularly attached to because of my own identity as a gay person. It's really nice to be acknowledged for doing work for our community. And that is, that's the thing that I think touched me most in having this recognition. I'd like to think that most of my history teaching is is award worthy, but I think this project in particular, it took, I think, 20 years of growth and learning to teach,

honing of my practice and my craft, engaging with my own historianship to get to this place now. You also mentioned to me that it also gave it credibility. What did you mean by that? I think it says that the historical institutions of the nation, including that of the Office of the Governor General, are recognizing. that we are a part of the broader narrative of Canada, past, present, and future.

That sort of is a nice reminder to all of those who attended and anyone who sees the recognition that we can't be left out of that story. And I don't think we will be. What did your students teach you personally through this process? To be brave. Actually, to be even braver. I think, you know, in classrooms, we talk about making sure students feel safe. Secondarily, I think our staff also need to feel safe in the classroom, but brave enough to try to do something different to stick my neck out and to say that my history is just as worthy of study.

Those are our big picture lessons. But they also taught me that this generation is ready for far more than I think a lot of outsiders would give them credit. There's a lot of, I think, anti-teen sentiment that I hear in my day-to-day. People are surprised that I love working with young people. especially teenagers the way that I do, but I see such potential. And I saw how much integrity they brought to the project. That said to me that the kids are all right, that we are on to something really big here in Canada.

If anyone who wants to learn more about the history tellers project, where can they find it? It's currently on display at the Oakville Museum, actually. So if you make a trip out to Oakville, you can go and see the physical exhibit. But you can also find the full digital exhibit, including the audio guides and editors' names and very rich, you know, zoom in on those photographs kind of capacity online. The Arquive's website is hosting it as one of their digital exhibitions. They're giving it a lot of attention right now for Pride Month, too, which is great. Ian, thank you so much.

I really appreciate this. Also, I think your students are very lucky to have a teacher like you. I wish I had a teacher like you as my grade 10 history teacher. Thank you so much for the work that you do. I'm humbled. Thank you so much. For much of Canada's history, 2S-LGBQ-plus stories didn't even appear as a footnote. As a result, many were lost and forgotten. I went to Windsor to find out how a local high school teacher is working to change them.

One story at a time. Windsor, Ontario is best known as Canada's automotive capital and its southernmost city. It's located just across from Detroit, Michigan. People here often associate it with its historic distilleries, its rum-running lore, its cross-border culture, and its vibrant waterfront. But beyond those images lies a rich queer history, filled with firsts, trailblazers, and stories that shape the lives of LGBTQ people here in Canada. We're going to meet up with someone who's made it their mission to keep those stories from fading away.

Walter Cassidy is what you would call a history buff. Born in Windsor, raised in Essex County, Cassidy, a local high school teacher, has become a key voice in documenting queer history in the area. And over the years, he's created online and in-person tours of important LGBTQ plus sites. Walter, what's so special about this neighborhood? Well, this is the sandwich town. This is the first community, the first settler area in the Windsor area. and it goes all the way back to the late 1700s, the first community and we're at like the first courthouse. Something pretty iconic happened here. Yes. So in 1842, two soldiers from Fort Malden,

which is in Amesburg just down that way, were caught having some fun. And they were arrested and put on trial for it. And at that point, the for engaging in in gay sex was a capital offense. And so they were put on trial to be hanged. Luckily, these two soldiers got their sentence commuted. It actually in the newspaper even said the day they were going to be hung. And the governor general got involved

and his secretary wrote a letter to commune their sentence to life imprisonment. So instead of being hung, they were sent to the Kingston pen. Leaving a darker chapter in Canada's behind, we moved toward a place that once stood as a beacon of celebration and pride. The West Side House operated as an unofficial lesbian bar before transforming into the disco known as JPs. Its doors closed in 1988 and the building was later torn down, leaving only an empty lot where so much life once flourished.

This one is actually one of the most important spaces for the longest time. It was one of the first openly gay spaces. And this was an internationally known gay bar that people went from hundreds and hundreds of miles to come and visit for one reason only. What was that? There's a term called the Windsor Ballet. What does that mean? So the Windsor Ballet, it all started with a bar downtown called Tracy Star, which was,

it was a burlesque house, and it actually had a drag queen who was the MC. and they would strip. And they stripped fully naked. And they got arrested. And they took it to court and won. And then Windsor became the first place in Canada that allowed full nudity. Us queers like to use codes. And there was a phrase called the Windsor Ballet.

If going to the Windsor Ballet meant to go to the strip clubs. Cassidy hopes whatever's built here will acknowledge the joy this place once held. He believes places like this matter because so many were taught to forget them. The memories people have told me, I've talked to so many people who met the love of their lives here. The first Miss Gay Windsor was done here. Like there was so much celebration. Our elders don't see those stories as valuable because they were told to hide them. They were told not to be open about it.

And so there's so much stuff that is. gone. Our next stop takes us to the story of John Damien and his fight for human rights. City Hall's right there and this space is actually where the first protests happened for gay rights in Windsor's history. I think 20 to 30 people. They had signs and with City Hall right there it was just making a statement and it was part of a national protest in support of John Damien. Who's John Damien? So John Damon was a Windsor Right. He actually got trained to Detroit and became a horse jockey and got a pretty good name for himself. He ended up actually

doing different jobs, but then his last job when he was a steward. And in horse racing, that was one of the evaluators of the race. And there were three in Ontario and he was one of them. And then he got an STD and went to his doctor, which would have been connected to the racing commission. He told his doctor how he got the STD and his doctor told his boss that he was gay and he got fired. So his doctor outed him? He outed him. Absolutely. According to Cassidy, Damien's boss was concerned that Damien's race evaluations would be biased by his sexual attraction to certain jockeys, and that being gay would leave him vulnerable to blackmail.

At the time, sexual orientation wasn't included in the Human Rights Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act didn't exist. So he took the Ontario government to court. The court case lasted his whole life. Unfortunately, he died in 86 months after our sexual orientation was put into the Human Rights Code. And newspapers all over the province said John Damien finally got his wish. Our final stop challenges what we think we know about the history of bathhouses. When Canadians think of bathhouse raids, they might think of Operation Soap on February 5, 1981.

The Toronto Star photographed the aftermath when police carried out a series of large-scale raids on four gay bathhouses, arresting hundreds and sparking widespread outrage. But Canada's first happened here in 1964 at a small establishment, once known as a small establishment, once known, Edna's steam bath. There was this law that was normally used for sex workers called the Body House. And if you had any type of sex acts that had money exchange and so on, you could be charged for that. And this is the first example where they used it against gay men. What's really interesting too is you know, you paid to get in, but there wasn't that concept of sex workers.

There was a lot of people who just hung out here, right? Yes, there was an aspect of sexuality and so on, but for the most part, it was a place to hang out, to be yourself. And later on the years, I understand it, was a much older clientele. For a lot of people, when I think of bathhouses, you know, there's sort of a negative connotation. Talk to me a little bit about the need for places like that. Well, and that's the big thing that people don't understand, because, you know, we have these laws that, especially in parks and where people would meet. and get arrested and they're saying, you know, what they're doing, if they do it in the privacy, no big deal, they're doing it public.

But realize that you still lost your jobs, right? So if you went to a hotel with someone, someone could call the police on you and you can get arrested. If you actually went to your home, if you were in that situation that you owned a home, on your own, right, you're lucky in that way. But if you didn't, you couldn't be with someone, in a private home environment because you could get kicked out of your house and so on. So these spaces, people knew about it, but it was just hidden.

Cassidy wants these hidden histories acknowledged and respected, something that has never happened in this city. The biggest problem for me is there's no actual recognition of this history. In this community, there's not one marker that says we were here. People were put to death, right? Were put on trial for death. In the AIDS period, people were actually literally dying on the streets because even their bodies couldn't even be put into funeral homes. And all of those examples, the resistance and the resilience may change.

And it's really important to know those histories. So to know that pain, but to know how it overcame to say, okay, the stuff that's happening right now, Horrible, bad, nasty. But we've gone through it before, and we actually have good techniques to actually counter it, especially in this country. I'm Jay-Anne. Thanks for watching The Run Down.

We'd love to know what you think of the show. So send your suggestions and feedback along to rundown at tbO.org, or you can always leave us a comment on our YouTube page. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. If you're enjoying this series, please consider supporting TVO with a donation to make more insightful and thought-provoking podcast possible.

TVO is a registered charity and you will receive a tax receipt for your gift. Visit TVO.org slash give TVO to make your donation today.