From May to September 1921, four individuals were born that went on to fundamentally change Canada forever.
Farley Mowat arrived on the scene on May 12. One of our greatest authors, his books ushered in the age of environmental stewardship in Canada.
Celia Franca was next on June 25. A gifted dancer, she shaped Canada into a leader in the world of ballet by creating the National Ballet of Canada.
Maurice Richard was born just over a month later on Aug. 4, on his path to become a French-Canadian icon who rewrote the NHL record books.
And on Sept. 14, a man who advocated for others like himself was born in Toronto.
His work led to arguably the most significant moment in the LGBTQ community’s fight for equality in Canadian history.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we are beginning Pride Month by looking at the story of activist Jim Egan!
Canada has a dark history when it comes to equal rights for same-sex couples.
As I addressed in an episode from last year… until 1869, if two men were caught in a sexual relationship, they risked a death sentence.
For decades, same sex relationships could equal jail time
Just coming out meant being ostracized from your community, and the likely loss of employment.
This was the world Jim Egan was born into on September 14, 1921.to James and Josephine Egan.
The couple had found love later in life, got married and by the time of Jim’s arrival, James was 56, Josephine was 41.
They lived in Toronto, his father built piano cabinets, while his mother stayed home.
Only 14 months after Jim Egan was born, his brother, Charles, arrived.
His parents made sure the boys were raised in a loving home.
Jim often took long walks with his father on Saturday afternoons.
His father doted on his eldest and would take him to the same beach he learned to swim in the 1870s to teach him to swim.
Jim said of those early years,
“I have nothing but the happiest memories of my childhood.”
The 1920s and 1930s was not a time when people were accepting of the LGBTQ community.
For decades, Toronto was highly conservative.
Stores were closed on Sundays; church attendance was high and traditional values reigned supreme.
As a 13-year-old, Jim discovered that he was, in his words, different from the other boys.
He was attracted to men and from that moment on he was comfortable with his sexual orientation.
Jim said years later that he never spent so much as ten seconds worrying about the fact he was gay… quote” It was never a problem for me. I thought being gay was absolutely great.” end quote.
Growing up Jim loved reading.
He was often found with his nose in a book, absorbing everything he could from Charles Dickens to detective novels.
The more books he read, the more he tried to see himself in them.
He quickly discovered there were very few stories that had LGBTQ representation.
The only time he found something that remotely approached how he felt was in works of Oscar Wilde.
Wilde was an Irish author, poet, and playwright during the Victorian era.
He was a gay man, and many of his works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray and An Ideal Husband, dealt with having to lead a double life due to the society he lived in.
Wilde was eventually convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labour. Released in 1897, he lived in exile in France until his death on Nov. 30, 1900, from meningitis.
Jim Egan said that Wilde’s works triggered a gay awareness in himself.
He sought to learn more about him but was frustrated by the books that limited the exploration of Wilde’s homosexuality.
Jim said,
“They were all so carefully veiled.”
35 years after his death, society was trying to hide the fact that Wilde was gay.
While Jim Egan was highly intelligent and loved books, he had little interest in school.
The only two classes he enjoyed were science and English and even though he wasn’t scholarly, there were plans for Jim to become a doctor.
That is…. until 1936 when his father died suddenly.
The family’s financial future was put under strain, and it was made even worse by The Great Depression.
With no money for college, or a true passion for school, Jim dropped out and went to work on a farm to help support the family.
For two years he made money and generally enjoyed being in nature and out of the city.
But that idyllic country life was rocked when Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
Nine days later Canada entered the Second World War and four days after that Jim Egan turned 18 years old.
As Jim officially became an adult he was faced with a tough choice.
Join the fight against the Nazis or stay behind.
He chose to enlist with the Canadian Army.
That required him to meet physical requirements, including specific height and chest measurement standards along with other medical standards.
That’s when his hopes of fighting overseas were dashed.
He was rejected because of a corneal scar he received in a car accident a few years earlier.
Forced to stay on the home front, Jim joined the University of Toronto’s zoology department.
After that, he joined Connaught Labs to work in the insulin production department.
The Connaught Medical Research Laboratories was a non-commercial public health entity established by Dr. John G. FitzGerald in 1914 in Toronto.
It expanded significantly when insulin was discovered at the University of Toronto in 1921.
During the war Connaught’s research capacities grew quickly to accommodate the military demands of protection against tetanus, typhus, and other bacterial infections.
Meanwhile, the labs continued to be at the forefront of insulin research and production, and Jim Egan was right there but after a few years he realized his longing to do his part in the war efforts had not diminished.
In 1943, knowing he couldn’t join the Canadian Armed Forces, he joined the merchant navy.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t see action.
During the war, Jim served in the Mediterranean, Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines.
His ships were chased by submarines and dive-bombed by German and Japanese planes.
Of the over12,000 men and women who served in Canada’s Merchant Navy 13 percent never made it home.
But this time in the navy wasn’t just about surviving the high seas during battle, it also helped Jim be introduced to what he called, the gay underworld.
He was able to experience gay culture, and it allowed him to experience how things were different in other parts of the world compared to Canada at the time.
The Second World War officially ended for Canada on August 15, 1945, but Jim Egan stayed on with the Merchant Navy for two more years. He was discharged in 1947, and he returned to Toronto where he worked various jobs and became acquainted with the spots where he could meet men.
One night when he was at the Park Plaza Hotel having a drink and looking for company when he saw his brother Charlie was there too.
Through their childhood, the brothers had not been close, and Jim was surprised to see him.
Soon he discovered his brother was also gay and the two formed a strong bond.
Meeting men in Toronto was far from safe, so the brothers looked out for each other.
Police often searched for gay men in popular hangouts by sending in young officers to entrap and arrest them.
Most received a $100 fine.
But what was worse was that the police ensured the names and addresses of those arrested were published in reports ensuring they were outed.
This way was almost a certainty they would lose friends and their employment.
For Jim, his brother, and other gay men, finding love came at a huge risk.
One night in the spring of 1948, Jim was at the Savarin Hotel, a popular place in the gay community.
A friend came over to Jim and introduced him to a man named Jack Nesbit. In his book, Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence, Jim Egan wrote,
“I was smitten with Jack.”
Jim may have been smitten, but nothing happened and the two went on with their lives. Two weeks later, they met again at the King Cole Room at the Park Plaza Hotel at Bloor and Avenue Road.
The watering spot was in the basement of the hotel, and it would become popular with University of Toronto students for its 10-cent draft beer in the 1950s.Jack was sitting with some friends, and Jim was sitting close by.
At one point during the night Jack drummed up the courage to walk over to Jim and say
“I’ve been asking all these guys if they wanted to go steady with me, and none of them will. How about you? Would you like to go steady with me?”
Initially shocked by Jack’s boldness, Jim only agreed to a date.
The next night, they had their first date.
It was a simple long walk together. By Aug. 23, 1948, they made a commitment to each other.
It would last a lifetime.
Jack had realized he was gay at an early age and felt comfortable in his own skin.
With his support Jim felt more at ease as well.
He decided to tell his mother who said that if he was happy, that all that mattered to her.
Jim wrote… quote,
“When I brought Jack home for the first time, she took to him like another son, and they had a wonderful relationship for as long as she lived.” end quote.
Jack’s parents were also accepting and welcomed Jim into the family and treated him like a second son.
Jack’s mother said, quote.
“You know, now I can die happy because Jack’s found someone who can look after him.” end quote.
This welcoming environment was the exception, not the rule.
The end of the Second World War, brought an increase in articles meant to inflame the public, not bring about understanding for the gay community.
Papers such as Justice Weekly freely spoke of quote “disgusting sex orgies” and the quote “limp wrist club.”
Jack worked for the Provincial Audit Office at Queen’s Park and could in no way reveal himself to be gay and risk losing his job.
In contrast, Jim was now self-employed, having established various biological supply businesses in the city which gave him a degree of security other gay men did not have.
Beginning in 1949, Jim started writing letters to magazines after they printed articles about homosexuality that misrepresented the community.
They included Time, Esquire and Ladies’ Home Journal.
None published his letters.
In May 1950 the Globe and Mail and a tabloid called Flash published his letters.
While he believed the editors only printed his letters to cause controversy, this exposure inspired him to become an activist and put everything he could towards LGBTQ rights and fair representation.
In December 1950, writing under his grandfather’s name of Leo Engle, he wrote an article for Sir! magazine titled “I Am a Homosexual,” Jim said,
“I simply let the press know that there was at least one person out there who was not going to sit by and let them get away with what I considered to be gross inaccuracies and libels.”
From December 1953 to February 1954, he wrote a series in Justice Weekly about gay rights and the portrayal of gay men and lesbians in the media.
His letters and articles were being published with increased frequency, so Jim turned his attention to creating a gay rights organization in Toronto.
Several friends discouraged him from doing so, but he believed that acceptance could be attained through visibility.
Despite his efforts, due to a lack of support from the gay community, the organization never got off the ground.
He said later,
“It was probably too early for that.”
Jim and Jack moved outside of the city to operate a farm while also running a pet and garden supply store.
From 1955 to 1963 they focused on their life together and businesses and Jim’s activism took a back seat. But then in early1963, the couple moved back to Toronto, and they agreed to be interviewed, under pseudonyms.
The article would be published in Macleans and written by Sidney Katz.
It was titled The Homosexual Next Door.
Prior to sitting down with Katz, many friends once again tried to discourage Jim from doing it, but once again, he firmly believed in the importance of visibility.
The result was a piece that positively and accurately portrayed a gay couple.
Something that was rare in Canadian media.
Jim described the two-part series as fair and objective, he said, quote.
“Considering that they were written by someone like Katz, who was not gay, the articles were refreshingly non-judgemental for the time and very informative.” end quote.
Soon after, Pierre Berton asked the couple to appear on his show to talk about their life together.
The Pierre Berton Show was a TV show hosted by famed journalist Pierre Berton.
It ran from 1962 to 1973, as Berton regularly interviewed important artists, actors, and other public figures, including Malcolm X in 1965, Lenny Bruce in 1966, and with Bruce Lee in 1971.
In 1964, he asked Jim and Jack to participate along with several American homosexuals but then in February the segment was dropped from the schedule.”
While Jim was making progress in his crusade for LGBTQ rights and equality, Jack was less interested. In early 1964, Jack shared he couldn’t deal with the growing attention.
Jim said,
“Activism was very important to me. I couldn’t just walk away from it.”
He had seen some progress, but it came at a great personal cost because the couple broke up.
Meanwhile, the fight for rights continued. Jim Egan and others in the community saw how some publications slowly moved away from condemning articles and towards understanding the LGBTQ2S+ community.
As small progress was being made, Jim also realized that all of this work to change the world would feel empty without being able to grow old with the man he loved.
As Oscar Wilde said quote
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.” end quote.
So that’s what Jim Egan did, he kept love in his heart… and I guess fortune does favor the bold.
Because in May 1964 Jim and Jack ran into each by complete coincidence.
The former lovers walked into the Parkside Tavern at 530 Yonge Street that night not knowing that soon after Jack would be inviting Jim back to his apartment.
The couple had a long talk, and Jim professed his love for Jack. He even offered to abandon activism and to leave the city. The conversation was successful, and the couple reunited In June 1964, they left Toronto for good with three chihuahuas, ready to begin their new life in British Columbia.
For the next twenty years, Jim kept his promise and stayed away from LGBTQ2S+activism as they settled into a quiet life together in their new home.
Finding a more welcoming environment in Merville, a community on Vancouver Island, Jim and Jack began to live openly.
Jim returned to activism as he fought for the environment and better water quality in the area.
In 1981, he ran for the regional director position of Electoral Area B of the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona.
He won his election and became the first openly gay man living in an openly gay relationship to be elected to public office in Canada.
He held the role until 1993.
Although he had promised to leave LGBTQ2S+ activism behind 20 years earlier, things had changed.
In 1985, Jack and Jim formed a local chapter of the Island Gay Society.
The couple held drop-in meetings, and Jim also became a member of the North Island AIDS Coalition.
But these were just the first few steps for the couple, soon they would help change Canadian history.
When Jim retired in 1986, he began to collect his Canadian Pension.
Jim and Jack had been together since 1948, apart from the brief break in 1964, so he applied for Jack to receive spousal benefits under the Old Age Security Act.
The couple met all the requirements for the benefit.
They had spent decades together and even wore wedding bands to signify their bond.
Jim said,
“Here Jack and I have worked and paid income tax all our lives. We’ve contributed to the pot for 39 years when I made the application. And we were told we were not entitled to any of the benefits which we paid into all our lives.”
Nonetheless, Health and Welfare Canada denied their claim based on them being a same-sex couple.
Jim was not going to allow that.
In 1988, he launched a claim stating that he and Jack were being discriminated against because they were a same-sex couple in the Trial Division of the Federal Court.
He argued that Health and Welfare Canada’s denial violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In 1991, the Federal Court dismissed the case on the basis that Jim and Jack’s relationship was not a quote, “spousal one”.
When Jim and Jack appealed the case in 1993, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled against them.
The next step was to take their claim to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada.
Jim Egan said,
“We didn’t start this thing in order to get the spousal benefits. We have adequate money to live on.”
The case even reached the House of Commons where it became a bitter political debate.
Liberal MP Roseanne Skoke stated that homosexuality was unnatural and immoral, adding that it quote,
“was undermining the inherent right of our Canadian families and must not and should not be condoned.”
In response, Jim Egan said that he and Jack had lived together for 50 years and hadn’t broken up one heterosexual family yet.
Meanwhile their legal battle continued.
In May 1995, the Supreme Court dismissed their case.
Jack Nesbit was so nervous awaiting the call of their lawyers that he suffered three angina attacks from the stress.
He said,
“I get this pain in my chest, and I have to take a nitro-glycerine pill and rest until it goes away.”
When the call came in, both men were disappointed at the 5-4 decision ruled against them.
Jack said,
“My gut feeling was we would win. Even our lawyer was confident we would win. So, it wasn’t just a disappointment, it was a total surprise. I think when the media leave, we’ll both have a good cry.”
Jim summed it up by stating that the court ruled the couple had been discriminated against, but that the discrimination had been justified under
But…there was more to the story than the dismissal.
The Supreme Court also ruled unanimously to include sexual orientation as a prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Quote
“The appellants brought an action in the Federal Court seeking a declaration that the definition contravenes section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the ground that it discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and a declaration that the definition should be extended to include “partners in same-sex relationships otherwise akin to a conjugal relationship”. End quote
While Jack and Jim lost the battle, they won the war.
Svend Robinson, the only openly gay man in Parliament, phoned the couple and told them it was a black cloud with a silver lining.
Jim said,
“The day will come, there is no doubt about it, when Canadians who happen to be homosexual will be on a level playing field with the rest of Canada. What we did was open the door.”
Following their landmark case, Jack and Jim were made the grand marshals of the 1995 Toronto Pride Parade.
And their case was their final act for LGBTQ legal rights.
They wanted to spend their remaining years together on their Vancouver Island property, devoting time to their large garden and their three small dogs.
Jim said of his work decades earlier,
“To be a gay activist, especially in the old days, you had to have something in your nature. That is, be a troublemaker, somebody who wants to shake up the status quo, who is prepared to face criticism if necessary.”
Jim Egan died on March 9, 2000.
John Fisher with Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere said,
“Jim Egan certainly led the struggle for equality in the area of old-age benefits before the Supreme Court, but he was also a pioneer for gay equality rights generally.”
Three months later, his lifelong partner, Jack Nesbitt, passed away.
The couple had spent 52 years together.
If only they could have seen what their love set in motion.
On Jan. 14, 2001, two same sex couples, Kevin Bourass and Joe Varnell, and Anne and Elaine Vautour, were married at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto by pastor Brent Hawkes.
Hawkes had been issuing banns of marriage or a public announcement of an impending marriage, since December 2000.
Banns are accepted as a legal way to perform a marriage without a licence issued by the city.
Since these banns required certification by the provincial registrar, his actions created a legal vacuum.
In Canada, the only way to resolve this is through the courts.
On July 12, 2002, the Ontario Superior Court, using the legal precedent set by Jim Egan and Jack Nesbit, ruled that marriage rights must be extended to same-sex couples.
It gave Ontario two years to make the necessary adjustments.
A year later, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in a unanimous decision that the exclusion of same-sex couples was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and ordered the province to begin issuing licences immediately.
Soon after, the first legal same-sex marriage in Canadian history was performed between Michael Leshner and Michael Stark.
Over the next two years, seven of Canada’s nine provinces, and one territory, legalized same-sex marriage.
Then on July 20, 2005, the Civil Marriage Act received Royal Assent.
It legalized same-sex marriage across Canada.
Making Canada only the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, behind the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
And none of that would have been possible had two men not met r in a Toronto club in the 1940s and then spent the rest of their lives together.
