What an interesting week. Today at lunch with a group of friends at the much maligned Mandarin pig-a-thon Chinese buffet. My fortune cookie was strikingly prophetic. “you’re a born Leader”. It is prophetic because yesterday in a landslide victory I won the election for the Presidency of our Union Local. I can say I am honestly taken aback by the confidence the membership has shown me. And really it scares the hell out of me as expectations are high and the job before us as a union are complex. My Executive experience is not what I would want it to be, I have always been the backroom boy whom people came to for a quiet word or two or conversely one of the more vocal voices from the peanut gallery. I guess after 25 years of careful avoidance of any official role the time has come to put up or shut up. So I guess it is put up since I am incapable of shutting up.

This week our government has finally put to rest the same sex marriage issue in Canada. It is here to stay. The general opinion now is that those left trying to deny this fundamental human right in Canada are just fringe of society nutters. Even our Conservative Government acknowledges that this file is closed. I for one will sleep better at night knowing that there is no sword above my head waiting to take rights away from me or any of my family members. The progress we as a society have made in improving minority rights in our nation, in just the past few years, since Prime Minister Trudeau gave us our charter of rights, which came into force on April 17, 1982 is astounding.

In April of the previous year I joined IATSE we were a small Local then. It was still very much a time when one had to be selective in who knew you were Gay, and who didn’t. I could have been expelled for conduct discreditable to the union, “fag” jokes were part of the light entertainment of the meetings. And of course there was no question of any benefits being extended to my same sex partner for some time to come. In those early days I accepted the fact that there would be discrimination and denial of opportunity and over the years there was, both by my union and by my principle employer. Happily those days are long gone.

Next month as I stand before the membership and take the oath of office for President it will be very clear in my mind how much our Union has progressed, most of the members there, will see an individual who they have chosen to represent there interests, period . Everything else doesn’t matter. And that is how it should be….Bill  ¶ 22:29