In 2000, Canada passed the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act—a landmark law that formally recognized same-sex couples under federal statutes, a quiet but powerful shift that changed how queer relationships were seen and protected. In this episode, we meet writer and performer Steen Starr, whose art and activism captured the spirit of the time, and former MP Libby Davies, who was in Parliament when the Act was passed. Together, they reflect on the debates that shaped this milestone and the freedoms that came from it.

Listen to the episode:

Angela Misri 0:00
In 2000, Canadian law formally recognized a reality that many people had been living with for years, same sex couples in long term relationships. Parliament passed the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act, amending 68 different federal statutes to extend protections and responsibilities to common law partners and including same sex couples for the first time.

Angela Misri 0:30
Welcome to Canadian Time Machine, a podcast that explores key milestones in our country’s history. I’m Angela Misri.

Angela Misri 0:37
The Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act wasn’t just a technical change. It affected everyday life, from pensions and hospital visits to tax and family benefits. It shaped families finances and the way relationships were recognized before we get into the legal and political debates that made this law possible, let’s hear from someone whose humour, art and perspective gives a window into how these things played out in her community.

Steen Starr 1:11
My name is Steen Starr. I live in Toronto. I’m an out lesbian. I have been for quite a few years now. I’m also a parent. I’m a writer, filmmaker, theater person, a landlord and self employed fundraising consultant.

Angela Misri 1:31
In the 1990s and 2000s, Steen was touring across Canada and the United States with a show called…

Steen Starr 1:37
Dr. Constance Cumming Wants To Help You Get Laid. It was a comedy show by as I described it, the world’s most arousing lesbian.

Angela Misri 1:46
Dr Constance Cumming started as a character that Steen would do at parties for fun, and she got such rave reviews that she turned Dr Constance into a more formal act.

Steen Starr 1:56
Dr. Constance is very, very, very clear about herself. She has extremely poor advice, misdirected advice, about how to have sex, how to find partners, where to have sex, and she’s very flamboyant. Yeah, she’s pretty funny. Actually, she’s been, she’s been back in the closet for a number of years.

Angela Misri 2:19
Steen actually brought Dr Constance back out of the closet, just for this episode.

Steen Starr 2:26
Well, well, I don’t know. It’s been years. Let’s see… one nice the one thing that many of you will think that lesbian sex is like lesbian humor, it does not exist. But I will assure you that having sex is one of the chief benefits of being lesbian, second only to learning how to farm organically, something like that…

Angela Misri 2:52
Writing and performing became a way for Steen to find her voice, share her perspective and engage with the world on her own terms.

Steen Starr 3:00
I read Agatha Christie a lot when I was young, so I began writing a murder mystery when I was very young. When I set out to write that, I sort of clearly thought that I need to write this from a male perspective, because that’s how things are written. That’s how you write a story. Maybe that’s why I didn’t finish it, to be honest. I really, really started writing after I came out. That was what I felt like, I have a voice now. I have something to talk about. I have an identity, I guess, and a politic around that.

Angela Misri 3:27
In the years leading up to the Modernization of the Benefits and Obligations Act, Steen was also a columnist for Xtra, a publication about LGBTQ2S news and culture.

Steen Starr 3:37
I was writing a column in Xtra about being a gay parent, and I used my column often as a place to speak out. So sometimes things would happen in my life, either related to being a parent or just related to being queer, where maybe I did get some backlash, and then I would write about it. I was a pretty feisty, out lesbian, pretty positive sexual perspectives in the world. So the women’s bathhouse was happening. I had gone to most of those, so that was a very active kind of community and friends for me.

Angela Misri 4:09
Bathhouses have roots that date back to ancient Greece and Rome, but they became quintessential to queer Canadian history around the 1970s. In cities like Toronto and Montreal, bathhouses hosted sex positive parties where queer people could exist, party, and love each other openly and without fear of judgment or harm. Police began raiding bathhouses in 1981. They used old “bawdy house” laws against queer spaces to invade their events and harass, violate and sometimes arrest their guests. In 2000, a queer and trans women’s bathhouse event at Toronto’s Pleasure Palace was raided, traumatizing the guests and sparking a class action lawsuit that eventually led to police reform.

Steen Starr 4:53
It happened to be the only one I was not at, because I was in San Francisco performing my Dr. Constance show. So there you go. You know, baked right into our civic structures was the homophobia that led the desire to go in and traumatize all those women. So, you know, a little less of that would have been good.

Angela Misri 5:12
Steen isn’t married and isn’t planning on getting married, but she’s always been committed to fighting for visibility.

Steen Starr 5:19
I think I was very happy and very inspired, maybe, by being on the sidelines in a way, even though I was fighting for visibility and for rights and be........

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