More than a quarter of a century after the NDP's Svend Robinson came out as Canada's first openly gay Member of Parliament, LGBTQ Canadians are asking why they aren't better represented in the House of Commons -- and whether they will be after the Oct. 19 vote.
NDP incumbent Randall Garrison, who hopes for re-election in B.C.'s Esquimalt--Saanich--Sooke riding, is one of at least a dozen openly gay candidates hoping to win a seat.
Garrison says that, before dissolution, six of 308 MPs –about two per cent -- were openly gay or bisexual, and none were transgender. Five were New Democrats and one was a Liberal.
Garrison says he can't predict whether that number to go up. He does think the NDP will field about 10 LBGTQ candidates -- the same number as last time -- but fewer than in 2004 when the NDP had 13.
At least seven are nominated so far, including incumbents Craig Scott (Toronto-Danforth), Dany Morin (Chicoutimi-Le Fjord) and Philip Toone (Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine). Libby Davies, the other LGBTQ incumbent from the NDP, retired.
The Liberal Party is fielding at least three LGBTQ candidates, including their only openly gay incumbent, Scott Brison, who is running for re-election in Nova Scotia's Kings-Hants.
In addition to Brison, former Canada AM host Seamus O'Regan is vying for St. John's South-Mount Pearl under the Liberal banner and Rob Oliphant will attempt to win back the Toronto riding Don Valley West, which he lost in 2011.
The Conservative party, meanwhile, has at least one LGBTQ candidate. Julian Di Battista is running in Toronto Centre, where the last Tory who tried got only nine per cent of the votes.
The Green Party, which is only about two-thirds of the way through its nominations process, is running at least one gay MP, Cyrille Giraud, in the Montreal riding of Laurier-Ste-Marie.
Add it all up and that means there will be at least at least a dozen LGBTQ candidates among the 1,352 expected to vie for the four national parties for the next Parliament's 338 seats.
So why aren't there more openly LGBTQ candidates?
Liberal Scott Brison says it may have to do with the Conservative party's perceived lack of openness to LGBTQ candidates.
After all, the Conservatives had a majority of seats at dissolution but not a single LGBTQ MP. At Pride parades across the country this summer, the Liberal, Green and NDP leaders were marching, but Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was missing.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau attend Montreal Pride, on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015. (Graham Hughes/CP)
"I was the first openly gay cabinet member," Brison says, referring to his stint as Minister of Public Works under Paul Martin from 2004 to 2006. "I'm surprised there haven't been more."
Although Brison says he has "great sympathy" for politicians who didn't come out decades ago when homophobia was more common, the barriers to being openly gay have dropped dramatically since he came out in 2002 when he was a Progressive Conservative MP.
"I'm positive the fact that there hasn't been another openly gay cabinet minister or Member of Parliament in the Conservative party or caucus since then speaks volumes," Brison says, "to how hospitable the party is to gay politicians who are honest and open about their lives."
Brison has long had concerns about whether the Tories are welcoming to LGBTQ. He was still mostly closeted when he won the riding of Kings-Hants as a Progressive Conservative in 1997. When a tabloid magazine outed him during that campaign, his veteran campaign manager told him it didn't "make his job any easier." Still, he got elected and re-elected.
Brison opted to cross the floor to the Liberal Party soon after the PCs merged with the Canadian Alliance in 2003, in part out of fear about the socially conservative positions the new party was taking.
The Canadian Alliance had attempted months earlier to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage by introducing a motion in the House of Commons to reaffirm the marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It narrowly failed, paving the way for same-sex marriage.
Former Liberal Leader Paul Martin walks with MP Scott Brison in Ottawa, on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003. (CP/Fred Chartrand)
Gary Mitchell, on the other hand, doesn't think the Conservative party is to blame for the low numbers of openly LGBTQ MPs.
Mitchell was openly gay when he ran the Tories in Vancouver Centre in 2004, and says the big challenge he faced was not from the party but from LGBTQ community itself. Not only was he heckled at an all-candidates meeting, but one man on the campaign trail gave him a "heil Hitler" salute, he says.
Mitchell says that many people in the party, including James Moore, were supportive of same-sex marriage at the time, and he saw running as an opportunity to push the party to be more socially progressive.
Mitchell was wary of Stephen Harper because he came from the more "right-wing" Canadian Alliance side, he says, but with a decade of hindsight "it's clear the party got the best leader."
Besides, he adds, the same-sex marriage issue is now "settled."
Mitchell says he can't explain why there are no openly LGBTQ Conservative MPs, but he suspects some current ministers are LGBTQ.
"I actually think it would be in their best interest if they did come out," he says. "I don't think they'd lose the core of the party and I think they would actually improve the brand."
Di Battista, the Conservative's flag-bearer in Toronto, wouldn't do an interview, but offered a statement that said the Conservatives are a "big tent party, reflective of Canada's diversity and welcome to all views."
"Our nominations are fair and open, and any candidate willing to work hard to earn our Party's nomination can do so," he said.
"In Canada, basic human rights are protected by law," the statement goes on. "Our position on these matters is clear and supported by the vast majority of Canadians."
Julian Di Battista, Conservative candidate for Toronto Centre, is seen in this campaign photo posted to Facebook.
The NDP's Garrison says that the problem is at the party level, although he doesn't single out the Conservatives.
"I think that comes from a fear in all the parties that somehow this might be a disadvantage in an election," he says.
"Voters don't actually behave that way in Canada."
Garrison says his first campaign dealt with homophobic flyers put out by a third-party advertiser and he continues to face homophobic hate mail and defaced signs; he just doesn't think it has hurt him much.
Perhaps adding to his theory that most voters don't vote based on sexuality is a 2012 Environics survey found that two-thirds of Canadians agreed that gays and lesbians should be permitted to run for public office, 27 per cent held "no strong opinion" and only six per cent disapproved.
Garrison says the party has been more successful at recruiting and electing LGBTQ MPs not just because the NDP were quicker to stand-up for equal rights than their rivals, but also because of the NDP's decades-old affirmative action policies.
The NDP has reserved seats reserved on their federal executive body for the LBGT community since the 1980s. On top of that, nomination meetings can only be run after candidates from certain under-represented groups are have been sought, he says.
"What that means is if there's only straight white guys for a nomination, it can't be held unless they can demonstrate that they have (tried to recruit) women, visible minorities, people with disabilities or from the LGBTQ communities," he explains.
Susan Gapka, a transgender woman who ran for the NDP nomination in Toronto Centre, says the NDP's affirmative action policies helped her run for the nomination, although she lost to writer, activist and fellow woman Linda McCuaig.
"If I was going to lose to another candidate I'd be honored to lose to someone like Linda McQuaig," she says.
Gapka says she didn't face any "direct discrimination" when seeking the nomination but notes -- like Garrison -- "a perception of who can get elected and who can't."
Susan Gapka, who sought the NDP nomination in Toronto Centre, is photographed at Capital Pride 2015 in Ottawa.
Gapka says she isn't sure what it will take for Canada to elect its first openly transgender MP, but suggests that a proportional representation system of government where people vote directly for a party instead of just local representative might help assuage some of the fears parties have about electability.
Gapka says she is disappointed that she didn't win the nomination, but that transgender people are becoming better understood.
"I was hoping I could be the one to make the breakthrough in a major political party," she says, "but the road is being paved so that will probably occur in the next generation -- if not sooner."
