Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 6, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE C1 TORONTO — Perhaps the third time will be the charm for repeat Scotia- bank Giller Prize finalist Miriam Toews. Toews, a two-time Giller runner-up, is in the running for this fall’s $100,000 honour with Fight Night,’ published by Knopf Canada, about three generations of women living under one roof in Toronto. The Manitoba-bred literary lumi- nary was shortlisted for the Giller on Tuesday alongside four up-and-coming writers. The winner will be named at a televised ceremony on Nov. 8. The nominees include two sophomore novelists who boast credentials outside fiction: Ottawa-raised, London-based playwright Jordan Tannahill earned a nod for The Listeners, published by HarperCollins Canada, about a mother obsessed with a sound no one else can hear, while Egyptian-Canadian author and journalist Omar El Akkad was rec- ognized for his story of two children caught in the global refugee crisis in What Strange Paradise, from McClel- land & Stewart. Also in the running is law- yer-cum-author Cheluchi Onyemeluk- we-Onuobia, who divides her time be- tween Halifax and Lagos, Nigeria, with her debut from Dundurn Press, The Son of the House. It traces the inter- secting stories of two Nigerian women divided by class and social inequality. Rounding out the short list is An- gélique Lalonde, who is of Métis and Québécois heritage and lives in north- western British Columbia. Her first collection of short stories, Glorious Frazzled Beings, explores the plac- es we call home and is published by House of Anansi Press. Toews, a native of Steinbach, Man., was shortlisted for the Giller in 2004 for A Complicated Kindness, and again in 2014 for All My Puny Sorrows. Her latest, Fight Night, is also one of five books nominated for this year’s Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The Giller finalists were culled from a long list of a dozen writers. Among those who didn’t make the cut were Kim Thúy, Katherena Vermette and Casey Plett. Sitting on this year’s prize jury are Canadian authors Zalika Reid-Benta, Megan Gail Coles and Joshua White- head, as well as Malaysian novelist Tash Aw and U.S. author Joshua Ferris. The Giller awards $100,000 annual- ly to the author of the best Canadian novel, graphic novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists. The Giller was established by Jack Rabinovitch in 1994 in memory of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller. Last year’s winner was Souvankham Thammavongsa for How to Pronounce Knife. — The Canadian Press T HE Canadian Museum for Human Rights announced Tuesday an advisory council for a major project surrounding the LGBT Purge, a period in Canadian history marked by systemic dis- crimination against members of the LGBTTQ+ community working in the federal government and Canadi- an Armed Forces. Throughout the Purge, which started in the 1950s and began to end in the 1980s, thousands of Canadians lost their jobs or faced harassment and in- terrogation due to their sexual identity, which federal agencies viewed as a threat. Subject to ridicule, professional disgrace and psychological trauma, with their identities labelled as “abnor- mal or deviant,” a great many suffered financial ruin and self-harm, in some cases, dying by suicide. “People don’t know it happened,” says Michelle Douglas, the executive director of the LGBT Purge Fund, a non-profit corporation created in the wake of a historic $145-million class-action suit filed against the feder- al government in 2018. When Douglas was 23 years old, she was a lieutenant in the Canadian Armed Forces. By all accounts, she was the exact type of recruit — am- bitious, capable, strong-willed — any federal organization was looking for. But then, an abrupt end. In 1989, it became known that Douglas was in a relationship with a woman, and the young officer was swept away by the military police to a hotel in Toronto, interrogated for two days, and shuttled to Ottawa, where she said federal col- leagues forced her to take a polygraph, or lie detector, test. While hooked up to the machine, facing mounting pressure, Douglas ad- mitted to being a lesbian. “And that led to me being dismissed,” she recalled this week. Her release documents rea- soned that she was “not advantageously employable due to homosexuality.” Douglas was not alone, and today is one of thousands of survivors of the LGBT Purge. Despite its recency, most Canadi- ans don’t know the Purge occurred, Douglas said, which is why she was heartened the fund established a rela- tionship with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in 2017. The relationship began on a posi- tive note, with the national museum looking to highlight and interrogate the injustices that occurred within orga- nizations as embroiled with Canadian identity as the Armed Forces, mounted police and federal public service. That mutually respectful relation- ship was marred last summer by allegations levied against the museum, which opened in 2014. Former and current employees alleged that on some school tours between 2015 and 2017, LGBTTQ+ content was censored and excluded, an accommodation made for certain groups that the museum later acknowledged in an apology was contradictory to its mission statement. Other allegations of racism and dis- crimination followed, including com- plaints of sexual harassment, bullying and abuse. An external investigation in August 2020 concluded the federal institution suffered from a culture burdened by “pervasive and systemic” racism, which for years had gone unad- dressed by senior management. The investigation, conducted by Win- nipeg lawyer Laurelle Harris through interviews with more than 25 former and current (at the time) employees, found experiences of sexism, hetero- sexism, homophobia and transphobia, plus pay disparities and promotion politics which Indigenous, Black, and employees of colour felt favoured white candidates over themselves. Forty-four recommendations were made to repair the organization’s relationship with the public and its em- ployees, including that the next CEO be a member of a BIPOC (Black, Indige- nous, People of Colour) community and that the board be more representative of marginalized groups. BRINGING ‘PURGE’ TO LIGHT Exhibit on persecution of LGBTTQ+ Canadians back on track after reckoning at CMHR BEN WALDMAN DAVID KAWAI / THE CANADIAN PRESS Michelle Douglas, who was questioned about her sexuality during her tenure with the Canadian military, appeared before the judge in the LGBT Purge class action lawsuit at the Federal Court of Canada in Ottawa. WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Protesters march down Portage Avenue in 1974 demanding that sexual orientation be included in Human Rights Act. The LGBT Purge was a period in Canadian history marked by systemic discrimination against members of the LGBTTQ+ community working in the federal government and Canadian Armed Forces. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Protesters rally for gay rights at the Manitoba legislature in 1984. Throughout the LGBT Purge, which started in the 1950s and began to wane in the 1980s, thousands of Canadians lost their jobs or faced harassment and interrogation due to their sexual identity. ● CONTINUED ON C6 CAROL LOEWEN PHOTO Winnipeg author Miriam Toews has been shortlisted for the prestigious Giller prize for a third time, this time for Fight Night. Manitoba-born Toews on Giller shortlist ADINA BRESGE ARTS ● LIFE ARTS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021 CONNECT WITH THE BEST ARTS AND LIFE COVERAGE IN MANITOBA SECTION C▼ C_01_Oct-06-21_FP_01.indd 1 2021-10-05 6:35 PM ;