Perspectives

Current issues

When looking at the relevance of the speech “Remarks by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to apologise to LGBTQ2 Canadians” today, you should consider looking at the events that followed, and at how the issues mentioned in the speech evolved.

Trudeau mentions the proposal of a new law to have criminal records for homosexual acts erased (ll. 110-112). The Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act was passed by the Canadian Parliament in June 2018, half a year after Trudeau's apology. At the end of 2018, only a few people had applied to have their criminal records erased. This was partly attributed to the fact that many of those who were criminalised for same-sex activity were elderly or deceased. However, others have claimed that the law was not promoted enough, and that the difficult application process is discouraging to those who might want their records erased.

Trudeau also announces that the gove...