Before same-sex marriage, before gay and lesbian couples could adopt children, and before benefits were extended to same-sex partners, mothers were losing their children on the basis of their sexuality. Women who divorced their husbands and then went on to have relationships with other women risked having their children removed from their custody. Women who were lesbians were often found to be ‘unfit’ mothers.

Rage and grief. Agony and anger. COVID-19 has exposed deep racial and class inequalities embedded in Canada, and now, the brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, followed by the death of 29-year-old Afro-Indigenous woman Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto, has uncorked long-simmering anger about Black people being treated as disposable.