“I’m not someone who likes to talk so much about myself or my personal life either,” she confides from the outset in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Sitting at a table in the Parliament library a few steps from the House of Commons, the minister recognizes that this is far from being an interview like any other. She says she feels “a mixture of discomfort and, at the same time, gratitude.”
Why then did you agree to speak publicly about this parental leave? “What I am experiencing is part of a continuity of political decisions and fierce struggles of people who preceded me,” she said. I have a responsibility to continue the fight.”
“The joy” of welcoming a baby soon
Pascale St-Onge is smiling as she describes “the joy” of soon welcoming a baby into her life, “an incredible experience that many humans live and that some take for granted.” However, for members of the LGBTQ community, it is “a little more complex, […] a way of the cross sometimes.”
Her wife’s pregnancy is going “super well,” she says. The delivery is expected “around mid-to-late November.”
The timingwhich was not planned, she assures, is therefore almost ideal, given that it will be shortly before the holiday break.
The minister plans, initially, to leave Ottawa to be closer to the place of delivery and to work virtually from the beginning of November. In particular, she will be able to attend debates in the Commons and vote remotely, as well as participate in cabinet meetings and those of ministerial committees, in addition to making decisions as a minister.
“When I give birth, I will definitely, for a few weeks, greatly reduce my public presence, but still continue to vote until the House rises.”
— Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage
His team had imposed a condition on the interview: that his wife not be identified. The minister will explain that she wants to protect her privacy and spare those she loves from suffering “those things”.
These things are the hateful comments, missives and emails she receives from people “who try to silence us, to tell us that in Canada this should not be a topic of conversation”. She cannot help but observe the increase in homophobic violence in the country.
Pascale St-Onge was a union leader for a long time before making the leap into politics and being elected a few months later, in September 2021, in the constituency of Brome-Missisquoi, in Estrie.
The fight to help people in her community who feel abandoned is fundamentally part, she says, of her political commitment under the banner of a party which wants “to see our society progress, to be more respectful of differences”.
“The country is there”
Her hands sometimes trembling slightly, it is impossible not to sense that she feels the weight of a fight bigger than herself, of gains made by activists “who have suffered a lot, some have been imprisoned”.
“What I experience, I owe to others,” she sums up
Tracing this historical canvas, she recounts that in 1969 the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the father of the current Prime Minister, decriminalized homosexuality in the country. Two years earlier, after presenting his bill and while he was Minister of Justice, he told journalists that “the State has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.”
She recounts the purges in the army, the RCMP and the public service. “People have lost their jobs because they were homosexual,” she is indignant. In passing, she mentions that suicide rates are higher in her community.
In 2005, under the government of Paul Martin, gay marriage became legal. “And I got married this summer,” says the minister.
Since Justin Trudeau came to power, conversion therapy is now banned, gender identity is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the ban on gay men donating blood has been removed.
Showing that politics is never far away, she points out in passing that “the majority of these choices, if not all of these choices” were made while the Liberal Party of Canada was in power.
Conversely, she does not hesitate to accuse the Conservative Party of Canada currently led by Pierre Poilievre of being made up of the “most retrograde faction” in Canada, “very focused on religious values (…), and who wants to see the country move backwards on certain social progress,” including the right to abortion.
“Scandalous claims”
Called to react, Mr. Poilievre’s office denounced these “scandalous assertions” which “reveal the deep despair” of the Liberals who “lie to divert attention from the misery they have inflicted” on Canadians.
“Progress means accepting that the opinions of people – and parties – can change,” insisted one of its spokespersons, Marion Ringuette.
She pointed to Mr. Poilievre’s very first speech as Conservative leader where he declared that in Canada “it doesn’t matter who you love.”
A few months later, he said he wanted to make Canada “the freest country in the world”, a freedom that applies to “all, including gays and lesbians”.
This is without taking into account that during the 2005 vote on gay marriage, a quarter of Liberals voted against, underlined Ms. Ringuette. Note, however, that this was the case for 97% of Conservatives, including Mr. Poilievre who has since changed his mind.
In addition to Ms. St-Onge, Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is made up of another minister from the 2SLGBTQI+ community, Albertan Randy Boissonnault.
Several current deputies also come from this community. According to a review of The Hill Timesthere are in particular the New Democrats Blake Desjarlais and Randall Garrison, the Liberals Rob Oliphant and Seamus O’Regan, and the Conservative Eric Duncan.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman is the only other elected official who is openly lesbian.
In March 1987, former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps was the first MP in the country’s history to give birth while in office.