Current and former employees of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg say its management would sometimes ask staff not to show any gay content on tours at the request of certain guests, including religious school groups.
The employees say the practice was common for at least two years and in one case a staff member from the LGBT community was asked to physically block a same-sex marriage display from a passing group.
Late Thursday, after this story was originally published, museum CEO John Young said he would not be seeking reappointment when his term ends in August. He made the announcement to staff in an internal email that was obtained by CBC News.
The email addressed this story and said the idea the museum has been intentionally hiding LGBT content is painful.
“While this is not the museum’s policy, clearly there have been instances that are at odds with our ‘come and see approach.’ That is a failure on our part, and as the head of the museum, accountability for these shortcomings at the museum lie on my shoulders, and I acknowledge the consequences that follow from that.”
Gabriela Agüero, a former program developer and tour guide, had gone public to CBC News with allegations of censorship. She said she was told by her superiors at times to not show the same-sex display.
“When I complained about it, [management said], ‘Well, that’s what we request and we have to honour the requests from the schools because they pay us for those tours,'” said Agüero.
“It was horrendous because then I had to go sit with my gay friends on staff and tell them I did that. It was a horrific sense of guilt and very painful.”
The museum confirmed that from January 2015 until the middle of 2017, schools and classes could make a request for content to be excluded. That included stories about diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
“We no longer adapt any of our education programs at the request of schools,” said CMHR spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry.
Gabriela Agüero, a former program developer and museum tour guide, said staff sometimes wouldn’t comply with a request made in a morning meeting to not talk about same-sex marriage and would verbally mention it during a visit. (Lyza Sale/CBC)
Agüero worked at the national museum in Winnipeg from September 2017 until June 2019.
A current employee says LGBT tour guides were among staff who were asked to not speak about gay content.
The staffer said the organization stopped requesting employees shield homosexual content following an internal uproar after a staff member from the LGBT community was asked to physically block an alcove in the Canadian Journeys exhibit that has photos of same-sex couples displayed in the shape of a cake and items from two same-sex weddings.
“The staff member was outraged. And there was a lot of outrage within the team,” said the current employee, who CBC has agreed not to identify because the staffer fears losing their job for speaking out.
“There [was] a lot of upset that they would ask somebody to do that and especially … somebody [who] did identify that way as an LGBT person.”
WATCH | A current CMHR employee speaks out about frustrating workplace culture:
Current and former employees of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights are speaking out about a workplace culture they say is homophobic and racist. 1:00
The staff member said the practice was done with groups of all ages, including high school students from Hutterite colonies. “It was definitely an erasure thing rather than a worry about young children.”
The employee said that after the museum stopped allowing requests for gay content to be hidden, school staff members started standing in front of the alcove to block it from students.
The staffer said it’s not just school groups that would request certain content be omitted from a tour.
“These special visitors could be diplomats, they could be donors.
“There have been people in our communications department that have said things like … ‘all groups are special, some groups are just a bit more special and there are some things that shouldn’t be put on paper. So we have to meet in person to discuss what guides can say to these special visitors.’ “
Agüero said sometimes staff wouldn’t comply with a request made in a morning meeting to not talk about same-sex marriage and would verbally mention it to visitors.
Photos of same-sex couples in the shape of a cake are shown at a display inside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. (Teghan Beaudette/CBC)
“We would sometimes cheat and say there is other people who have a different sexuality and love other people in different ways and we would point at [the same-sex wedding display]. That was breaking the rules.”
Former employee Liam Green started working at the museum in 2016 and left in 2018. The programming assistant said it was well-known internally that adjustments would be made on certain tours to exclude gay content.
“Unfortunately I wasn’t surprised because it was in line with everything else that I saw that the museum was doing, which was trying to make money,” he said in a phone interview from Victoria.
“It felt very disingenuous. It felt unfortunately like just their way of operating.”
The Canadian Journeys exhibit, which has a same-sex marriage display, is seen from above in the days before the museum opened in 2014. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)
Museum CEO John Young declined to be interviewed for this story.
Fitzhenry said the museum has hired Winnipeg lawyer Laurelle Harris, who has expertise in women’s and Black studies and mediation, to lead a review of complaints of racism and other forms of discrimination at the museum.
Numerous allegations about racism and homophobia at the museum have surfaced online in recent weeks from former employees who have gone public on social media.
The museum has become a popular spot for people to rally over the years. Above, people attend a rally in response to the killing of George Floyd. (Austin Grabish/CBC)
Harris started Tuesday and will report directly to the CMHR’s board of trustees and will provide an initial report by the end of July, including recommendations on how to move forward, Fitzhenry said.
The external review will be used to create an action plan and the museum is committed to a transparent process that will include updates posted online, she said.
“In keeping with its mandate and mission, this museum must be a role model that reflects the highest standards of diversity and inclusion, both internally and externally.”
She provided CBC News with a long list of museum content related to the rights of people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said in a statement he’s been informed about apparent cases of self-censorship of LGBTQ realities at the museum.
He said the federal government expects national museums to be held to the highest standards of inclusiveness, social awareness and respect.
“An institution like the Canadian Museum for Human Rights should not be perceived as condoning homophobia or engaging in self-censorship. Its role is to expose the realities of those whose voices have been silenced, not to silence them even more.”
WATCH | CMHR employees say they were told to censor gay content for certain guests:
Current and former employees of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg say its management would sometimes ask staff not to show any gay content on tours at the request of certain guests, including religious school groups. 2:19
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
WINNIPEG – A backbencher with Manitoba’s NDP government has been removed from caucus over his link to convicted sex offender Peter Nygard.
Caucus chair Mike Moyes says it learned early Monday that a business partner of Mark Wasyliw is acting as Nygard’s criminal defence lawyer.
Moyes says Wasyliw was notified of the decision.
“Wasyliw’s failure to demonstrate good judgment does not align with our caucus principles of mutual respect and trust,” Moyes said in a statement.
“As such MLA Wasyliw can no longer continue his role in our caucus.”
Nygard, who founded a fashion empire in Winnipeg, was sentenced earlier this month to 11 years in prison for sexually assaulting four women at his company’s headquarters in Toronto.
The 83-year-old continues to face charges in Manitoba, Quebec and the United States.
Moyes declined to say whether Wasyliw would be sitting as an Independent.
The legislature member for Fort Garry was first elected in 2019. Before the NDP formed government in 2023, Wasyliw served as the party’s finance critic.
He previously came under fire from the Opposition Progressive Conservatives for continuing to work as a lawyer while serving in the legislature.
At the time, Wasyliw told the Winnipeg Free Press that he was disappointed he wasn’t named to cabinet and planned to continue working as a defence lawyer.
Premier Wab Kinew objected to Wasyliw’s decision, saying elected officials should focus on serving the public.
There were possible signs of tension between Wasyliw and Kinew last fall. Wasyliw didn’t shake hands with the new premier after being sworn into office. Other caucus members shook Kinew’s hand, hugged or offered a fist bump.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
