I have never heard about this case before, where a man ( in kkkanada ) was basically imprisoned for life just because of his sexual preference. And check out the fucking idiot cop's statement towards the end of this article. Typical.
Hoping to right a wrong from another era, the federal government will recommend a posthumous pardon to a Calgary man who was the only Canadian to be declared a dangerous sexual offender simply because he was gay.
“Everett Klippert’s case was instrumental in the government’s decision to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults,” said the Prime Minister’s Office in a statement.
The government will also review hundreds of cases of gay men convicted of acts such as “buggery” and other offences prior to the legalization of male homosexual acts in 1969. Lesbian acts were never illegal in Canada.
Born in 1926 in Kindersley, Sask., Klippert grew up in Calgary and was a popular bus driver until 1960 when he was arrested and convicted of 18 counts of gross indecency — all relating to consensual sexual activity with other men.
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After serving three years in prison, Klippert left Calgary and moved to the Northwest Territories.
“Having been discharged from the penitentiary he was aware of the need to refrain from engaging in this behaviour again,” reads the record from his later Supreme Court appeal.
“He stated that some attempt, some contacts had been made with him by ex-friends and for this reason, as well as the feeling of his continued presence bringing shame on his family, he decided to leave Calgary and head north.”
Klippert settled in a small mining town where he worked as a mechanic’s assistant. In 1965, having been previously notified of Klippert’s conviction, RCMP arrested him after he admitted to further consensual acts with men.
He pled guilty to four counts of gross indecency, and was sentenced to three years in prison.
But the Crown, pointing to Klippert’s previous conviction, fought and won a dangerous sexual offender designation. He was sentenced to preventative detention on the grounds that he would not be able to stop himself from reoffending — essentially, a life sentence for being gay.
The Supreme Court upheld his appeal in November 1967. The controversy around the sentence prompted Pierre Trudeau’s government to table legislation decriminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults the following month, along with the prime minister’s famous quote, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
In 1969 the law was passed. Calgary Police Chief Ken McIver reportedly said at the time, “Now that homosexuality is legal everyone in Canada is going to become either gay or lesbian.”
Klippert would not be released from prison until 1971, having served nearly a decade behind bars for nothing more than his sexual preference.
He died of kidney failure in 1996 in Bashaw, Alta., aged 69.
