Homosexual Survey Hits Rough Waters

The homosexual survey funded by the federal Departments of Justice, Health, Status of Women and Canadian Heritage at a cost of $400,000 to the taxpayer was proceeding along smoothly until last October. By that time, the 40,000 surveys distributed to homosexual clubs, bath houses and Gay Pride Day parades by the Ottawa-based homosexual lobby group, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE), had resulted in approximately 8,000 forms being completed and returned to the researchers, Stephen Samis and Sandra Goundry, for compilation and analysis.

It was at that time, however, that EGALE sailed into rough waters. The researchers, Samis and Goundry, refused to release the surveys, or the information they had so far compiled, to EGALE.

Definitely miffed, EGALE brought a court action in the Supreme Court of BC against the researchers to require them to hand over the data, or at the very least, present the data to a neutral third party selected by EGALE to produce a final version of the survey database. It is highly significant that in this controversy, the Department of Justice clearly indicated its support of EGALE, sending it a letter stating that the ultimate authority for the research project was with EGALE. Naturally, the Department of Justice wanted EGALE to have control of the data, which was mainly designed to reveal "the need for a hate law to protect homosexuals" and to serve as propaganda to back a proposed amendment to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code. (See Reality, January/February 1999, "Hate Crimes Become an Obscenity," p 7")

Madame Justice Satanow of the BC Supreme Court, however, had quite a different idea about the survey. She concluded that the data belonged to the researchers, that EGALE's case was weak, and that its pleadings were "tortured at best, inconsistent, at worst." The researchers, according to the court, were permitted to retain the data and not share it with EGALE.

While EGALE was fighting the researchers in the courts, it was also involved in some internal skirmishes. EGALE's vice president, Lawrence Aronvitch, is the lover of Samis, one of the researchers. He was shut out of communication and then ousted from the executive on the grounds that he was in a conflict of interest with EGALE. The vice-president, for his part, claims he was "bullied" by the Board. He then successfully ran for re-election to EGALE's board in November and then resigned from the Board.

Meanwhile, the researchers are now looking for funding to analyse the data and complete the project. In this regard, the federal government has flatly refused to financially support the researchers. Obviously, it believes it can't control the data to the same extent it could when EGALE was supposedly in charge and therefore, it wouldn't serve its purposes..

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