What to know
- Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage when the Civil Marriage Act came into force on July 20, 2005.
- Marriage equality in Canada was years in the making, with pioneering Queer couples marrying and challenging the law in Ontario as early as 2001.
- The landmark Halpern v. Canada ruling in 2003 made Ontario the first jurisdiction in North America to legalize same-sex marriage.
- Advocates say the anniversary is a reminder that marriage equality was won through years of grassroots organizing, strategic litigation and the courage of couples who challenged Canada’s legal definition of marriage.
Twenty-one years ago this week, Canada became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognize same-sex marriage — but the fight for marriage equality had already been won in courtrooms, churches and communities across the country.
On July 20, 2005, marriage equality was codified into Canadian law, making marriages between two men and those between two women legal across the country. Canada’s Civil Marriage Act made the country one of the first in the world to legalize marriage between people of the same gender, changing the legal definition of civil marriage from “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others” to “the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.”
While Canada was the first place outside of Europe to legalize Queer marriage, across the Atlantic such legislation had been passed in some places years earlier.
The Netherlands was the first country to allow Gay and Lesbian couples to marry, legalizing same-sex marriage on April 1, 2001, with Belgium following suit, passing legislation that permitted full marriage equality in June of 2003.
Two years later, on July 3, 2005, Spain became the third country to recognize same-sex marriage.
Queer marriage before marriage equality
That same year, just weeks later, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first outside of Europe to allow Queer couples to marry. But the history of 2SLGBTQIA+ marriage in Canada predates 2005. Years before Parliament passed the Civil Marriage Act, Queer couples in Ontario had challenged Canada’s definition of marriage in the courts, setting off a legal battle that transformed the country’s understanding of equality.
While the federal Civil Marriage Act came into force 21 years ago, pioneering Queer couples in Ontario were already challenging Canada’s definition of marriage in the courts as far back as 2001.
Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo, one of Canada’s longest-serving 2SLGBTQIA+ rights advocates, says the fight for marriage equality didn’t begin in Parliament; it began with ordinary people willing to challenge an unjust system. In 2001, while serving as minister of what is now Roncesvalles United Church in Toronto, DiNovo officiated the marriage of Paula Barrero and Blanca Mejias, two women who became the first same-sex couple in Canada to receive a government-issued marriage certificate after a clerical oversight failed to recognize both applicants were women.
The ceremony sparked national headlines, government backlash and ultimately became a pivotal chapter in Canada’s marriage equality movement.
“The government of Ontario threatened to take away my licence. There were lots of threats, lots of hate. Our poor little congregation was completely under siege,” DiNovo told Queer & Now in an interview.
DiNovo explained that rather than invalidating the marriage, the legal battle that followed helped pave the way for the landmark Halpern v. Canada ruling in 2003, which found excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The marriage held,” she said. “It was never disputed after that.”
However, these weren’t the first same-sex marriages performed in Canada. That happened earlier that year, on January 14, when Reverend Brent Hawkes performed weddings between two Ontario men, Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell, and two women, Elaine Vautour and Anne Vautour.
These marriages, as well as Barrero and Mejias’, were performed utilizing an ancient Christian tradition known as the reading of the banns, bypassing the need for a marriage licence.
While provincial officials initially refused to recognize the first two weddings as official marriages, the couples, supported by 2SLGBTQIA+ rights advocates, launched a legal challenge that became a pivotal moment in Canada’s fight for marriage equality.
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The 2003 Halpern v. Canada decision saw the Ontario Court of Appeal rule that restricting civil marriage to heterosexual couples violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The decision took effect immediately, and on June 10, 2003, Ontario became the first place in North America to legalize same-sex marriage, leading to the marriages of many Queer couples that year.
Following the Halpern ruling, the province recognized the January 2001 marriages of Bourassa and Varnell, and Elaine and Anne Vautour, giving legal effect to ceremonies that had taken place more than two years earlier.
The 2001 marriages were commemorated at this year’s Toronto Pride Parade, where 25 couples were married, or invited to renew their vows, as a way to commemorate the 25th anniversary.
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Just weeks after the June 10 ruling in Ontario, on July 8, British Columbia followed Ontario’s lead, and other jurisdictions across the country gradually followed suit over the next two years, before Parliament passed the Civil Marriage Act in 2005, extending marriage equality across Canada.
For many advocates, the anniversary is a reminder that the historic legislation was the culmination of years of grassroots organizing, strategic litigation, and couples willing to challenge decades of legal precedent.
By the time Parliament passed the Civil Marriage Act, thousands of same-sex couples had already married in parts of Canada, making the legislation as much a recognition of an emerging reality as a new legal right.
Looking back, DiNovo says it’s important that Canadians remember who helped shape that history.
She notes that the country’s first legally recognized same-sex marriage involved two women of colour, officiated by a Queer woman, a story she believes is too often overlooked.
“When you get to be a Queer dinosaur like me, you kind of start to see history being rewritten while you still live,” she shared.
“The history of the Queer movement is not all white boys.”
For DiNovo, the anniversary is about more than celebrating a legal victory.
While she describes marriage equality as a landmark human rights achievement, she argues that queer relationships never depended on state recognition to be valid.
“It was a big step forward in terms of the state recognizing the validity of being Queer, but it didn’t open up marriage for Queers. That was done when the first Queers walked the face of the Earth,” she continued, explaining that long before 2001, in fact for thousands of years before, 2SLGBTQIA+ people have been marrying each other in non-legal ceremonies, committing to sharing their lives and love with each other.
“This is just the state acknowledging finally what has always been going on in all of human history,” she said.
