What is Canada doing to aid queer rights around the world?

Queer diplomacy globally has made tremendous strides from the first mass demonstration outside of the United Nations in New York in 1984 to raise awareness of global LGBTQ+ rights. Canada has come a long way in terms of including LGBTQ2S+ rights as part of broader human rights advocacy, particularly over the past nine years that the Liberals have been in power, but there remains more that they could—and should—be doing.

Doug Janoff, now a foreign service officer with Global Affairs Canada (GAC), was in that crowd in 1984 as an activist, before moving into the role of a diplomat. He has since served in postings such as Canada’s permanent mission to the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., where he was conducting human rights negotiations.

“It’s not just symbolic, but it really says a lot about how this movement has been mainstreamed into international diplomatic processes,” Janoff says.

Janoff’s PhD thesis became the subject of his 2022 book, Queer Diplomacy: Homophobia, International Relations and LGBT Human Rights, which looks at how LGBTQ+ activists, diplomats and international organizations interact in order to promote and push forward queer and trans rights, or how some diplomats will try to suppress or subvert those rights. 

“This process of promoting LGBTQ+ rights as a human right in international fora is obviously going to create conflict, because it’s not a right that is universally recognized,” Janoff says. 

Western countries espouse a universal concept of human rights that reflects the Universal Declaration, and while there are other countries that argue that human rights are culturally specific, and that specific cultures and societies have the right to frame their human rights according to their own norms.

“You get this battle between the cultural relativists and the universalists, and that creates these conflicts,” he says. “It’s an ongoing battle, and it’s not just Western versus Eastern, or Northern versus Southern, because there are all kinds of nuances.”

Into this fray is the work Canada is doing to advance LGBTQ+ rights, largely in multilateral fora such as the UN, or the Commonwealth or the OAS, but also more quietly, behind the scenes. That can include supporting local groups on the ground in ways that won’t expose them to their repressive governments, all of it to varying degrees of success. One of the problems with multilateral engagement is that there are no enforcement mechanisms for countries who say that they believe in these rights, but do nothing about protecting them.

“There are a lot of these peer-review mechanisms where one country is observing another country and writing a report about it, and you check back five years later, and these problems are still existing,” Janoff says.

One of the places where civil society has had a role to play in fostering queer diplomacy is pushing governments, particularly in countries like Canada, to do more.

Doug Kerr, executive director of Dignity Network Canada, a group of civil society organizations across Canada concerned with queer and trans rights, recounts how the organization was in large part inspired by speakers from Uganda when Toronto hosted World Pride in 2014.

“We had some of the leadership of the Ugandan queer community on the stage, and they were asked what can we do?” Kerr says. “They were pretty blunt—they were like, ‘Your government has a foreign policy, and you’re not really doing anything. We have support from the Norwegians and the Swedes, and the Americans are supporting us, but Canada is nowhere.’ They were like, ‘Do something, Canadians. They’re your government.’”

As Dignity Network came into being after 2014, until they incorporated as a non-profit in 2020—with support from the Netherlands’ embassy as part of their own queer diplomacy initiative—they formed a partnership with 70 organizations across Canada, many of whom have members aboard, along with a global advisory board. They use that platform to push the government to do more.

In many cases, the current government has been receptive, and has been doing some of the necessary work of advocacy and engaging queer and trans groups on the ground in various countries, but has further to go. For example, Kerr cites that only about 0.1 percent of current foreign aid funding goes to LGBTQ+ organizations, while the organization would like to see it pushed to at least 0.3 percent.

“Basic human rights are under threat all over the world, and there are places around the world where it’s getting worse,” Kerr says. “Canada, in terms of its foreign policy and diplomacy, is in all the right spaces. They have done the hard work, but it could be better.” 

Artur Wilczynski, a former public servant, spent much of his career in diplomatic and security spaces as an out gay man in departments where there is still a hesitance to be out. Wilczynski served as Canada’s ambassador to Norway from 2014 to 2018, being posted with his husband. In part, this was easier than in most other countries because Norway is open and welcoming, but the same can’t be said for every posting for a queer diplomat.

“In Norway, there were no issues being queer, but there are obstacles about getting accreditation, and spouses are always worried about accreditation,” Wilczynski says. “In some countries, it’s profoundly problematic.”

Prior to his posting to Norway, Wilczynski was the director general for security within GAC, and was responsible for the safety of diplomats.

“I had to advise people that their choice of posting was not optimal for their own well-being, and it’s a challenging conversation to have, to balance the personal desire to go to country X with my partner, when that country won’t necessarily grant a visa,” Wilczynski says. “When you’re there, the likelihood of intimidation or harassment, either official or unofficial, is not insignificant, and the risk is not only yours personally, but we have a duty of care as an organization to manage that.” 

Wilczynski says that during his time as director general, there were instances where the Canadian government had to repatriate same-sex couples who were posted to countries where they were subjected to harassment, and it was unsafe for them. Even if a diplomat is covered by the Vienna Convention, Wilczynski says that harassment could expose their partners, or any contacts or friends that they might make locally if they’re known. In other cases, there may be issues where if a diplomat and their spouse were travelling to a third country, their spouse may not be granted diplomatic status. 

Nevertheless, even in a welcoming country like Norway, being an out diplomat is seen as exceptional.

While Wilczynski and his husband attracted a lot of media attention, they used that as a platform to build on, such as organizing Pride events at the Canadian residence in Oslo in order to create a safe space within the diplomatic environment.

“It was quite powerful,” Wilczynski says. “We had the Oslo men’s chorus, and we had a flag-raising, where it was me, one of the leaders of the opposition, the state secretary to the prime minister and the minister of health, and we walked in like in the Olympic games, carrying the Pride flag while the Oslo men’s choir was singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ It sounds kitschy—and it was—but it had a real effect because it created a safe space.”

Wilczynski says that he and his husband held the Pride festivities at the Canadian residence every year, and it became a symbol of diplomats supporting the LGBTQ+ community, whether it was with bringing in guest speakers from other countries, or talking about the intersection between queer and Indigenous rights, where Wilczynski brought Canadian artist Jeremy Dutcher to Oslo not only to perform, but to lead a session where we and members of the Sami community in Norway spoke about what it means to be Indigenous and queer, which was not often spoken about in the Norwegian context at the time.

“I didn’t need to convince Norway to change legislation, but [we] created an environment where countries that didn’t have legislation that was supportive of the community would participate and it was a way to help demonstrate Canada’s commitment,” Wilczynski says.

Even though the kinds of queer advocacy that Wilczynski was engaging with in Norway included diplomats from countries that were not as open regarding to queer and trans rights, it was nevertheless surprising when he noted that nobody from GAC ever asked him about how to address queer and trans issues in those countries whose diplomats he had been engaging with.

At a time where human rights are turning a corner, and a rollback of those rights is starting to happen globally, Canada needs to find the right ways to engage, particularly when our own record at home is starting to tarnish.

Wilczynski makes the point that sometimes, the pressure is for diplomats to try and “hit home runs” when a more incremental approach is necessary in order to mitigate the serious risk of harm to queer and trans communities in certain parts of the world.

“Whether it’s diplomacy or politics, we’re impatient,” Wilczynski says. “Our rationale for doing things is often framed through a lens of how it’ll be perceived by domestic constituencies, and from a diplomatic point of view, that’s not always helpful in achieving what is in the best interest of some of our partners.”

Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, a board member with Dignity Network Canada and chair of its government relations group, and a former employee of GAC, says that countries like Canada need to be engaged in a lot more introspection at the current moment.

“I would ask those who hold the power around this, is this the time to be quiet, considering what is actually happening, considering the rollback on human rights across the world, and how that is being led by Western countries both through their own democracies, but also in terms of non-state actors funding things in the Global South?” Owusu-Akyeeah says. “With my own home country, Ghana, which has passed its anti-LGBTQ+ bill, we suspect it is connected to family values, social conservative think tanks in the United States.”

That introspection also needs to lean toward the areas where the current economic crises make policymakers treat equality rights as a “nice-to-have,” rather than an essential part of the work in solving those economic crises because they are connected.

There is also the growing problem of how the influence of Russia in pushing anti-LGBTQ+ narratives is being met by largely American evangelical groups, who are pushing these same narratives in places like East Africa.

Owusu-Akyeeah points out that Russia has the advantage of saying that they didn’t colonize those countries, so they are more likely to be believed because of the suspicion around Western countries, though the evangelical groups will push a narrative about opposing the foreign “imposition” of queer rights.

And while the linkage between anti-democracy and anti-human rights is there, Western countries like Canada need to also take some of the responsibility for those rights being allowed to roll back. In particular, the state-level anti-trans legislation in the United States has given a green light to legislation in other countries, including Canada.

“The level of that level of effort, advocacy and politics that looks to reverse rights, especially for LGBTQ+ people, is extremely profitable, and not just profitable in the United States, but where they’re looking for other markets like what happens in the Global South,” Owusu-Akyeeah says. “That’s where the introspection comes in about how maybe Western countries are the ones that have all of the solutions. Maybe they’re also part of the problem.”

Owusu-Akyeeah says that many of the “big names” in anti-trans thought leadership are Canadian, and that they work with British counterparts who advocate for women’s rights organizations in the Global South to repeal inclusive sex education, and to defund human rights defenders.

“These are things that Western countries need to have a conversation with amongst ourselves,” Owusu-Akyeeah adds.

Both Kerr and Wilczynski point to one of Canada’s biggest problems being around the lack of coordination of its efforts, both within GAC, but also across other departments. One of the ways that this could be is through the appointment of a special envoy, as has been floated before, including from employment minister Randy Boissonnault, but the government has been slow to act on that recommendation, which Dignity Network has been advocating for since 2021.

Owusu-Akyeeah says that while the position may be necessary, it may already be too late given the upcoming federal election.

“I’m concerned about the timing to get that established so that you can get a Conservative government to buy into this,” Owusu-Akyeeah says. “How do you establish the terms of reference, select the person at a time where it could be strong? It’s something I want, but I wish this had been approved two or three budgets ago.”

In the time the federal government has until the next election, Owusu-Akyeeah suggests they extend longer-term funding to certain programs like the ACTIF Fund, which supports queer and trans rights groups globally, so that it’s for more than a year at a time, or even made permanent. 

Wilczynski adds that there is a need to consolidate progress made in the engagement Canada has made in its diplomatic efforts on the ground in other countries.

“Making progress that is so thin and tenuous that it is precarious and susceptible to backsliding doesn’t do anything more than expose people to the risk after they took a chance on being out,” Wilczynski says.