Canadian Labour Congress: Media Availability

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 28, 2017) - Larry Rousseau, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress, will be available to comment on today's apology for a decades-long purge campaign that saw the government-sanctioned and systematic persecution of LGBTQ2SI workers.

Rousseau worked for the federal government for more than 25 years, and is the first openly gay executive officer to serve at the Canadian Labour Congress. Although not openly gay in the 1980s when he first joined the public service, Rousseau witnessed the persecution first-hand.

Canada's unions have long pushed for this apology, and will be looking for specifics on a process of redress that must:

• Cover all of these affected, including families of those directly affected, and those who are no longer alive;
  
  
• Acknowledge that the legacy of sustained, state-sanctioned discrimination means that the fear has not completely diminished for those working now;
  
  
• Ensure the expunging of convictions for those convicted before and after 1969;
  
  
• Offer a process to deal with records kept on individuals, as well the crucial release of documents relating to the organization of the government-sanctioned Purge campaigns.