I recently came across a picture of Richmond taken in 1969, looking north along No. 3 Road outside Richmond Square Mall, and the scene — once as familiar to me as my own name — took me back across the decades and made me catch my breath.
I grew up in Richmond; it’s entirely possible that I’m in the picture somewhere. I watched my first movies at the Famous Players theatre whose sign is at left in the shot, went shopping at Richmond Square beside it and at the Bay store just visible in the background. It’s a Richmond that doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for decades, but while there is a certain amount of nostalgia involved in looking at it, I don’t want to go back there.
The “good old days” when things appear to have been simpler and easier only seem that way because the rough edges have been sanded away by time, and we tend only to remember the “good” parts. We lived near the Sexsmith bus loop, well within biking distance, but our parents told us to stay away from it with vague warnings about “strange” men who hung around it and did “bad” things.
The boys at my elementary school had a huge playing field to themselves, as girls were relegated to a cement strip with hopscotch grids painted on it, and in later years were funneled into typing and home ec as electives (I rebelled and took woodwork; the only girl in my high school who did so). Children with what we would now call special needs were labelled difficult or backward (or worse), and by and large did not appear in the public school system, where the strap was still allowed as a form of punishment.
And what about the wider world? It was not until 1964 that married women in Canada were allowed to open a bank account without obtaining their husband’s signature; the same year that married women were allowed to be jury members. Banks were legally allowed to deny bank loans or mortgages to women, unless a man (her husband or father, usually) co-signed with her, until the early 1970s.
Until 1969, sexual acts between two consenting adults of the same sex were an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada, and it wasn’t until the following year that the Canadian Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Prior to 1983, rape was considered an offence outside of marriage under Canadian law, meaning that a husband could not be charged with raping his wife. In 1982, when NDP MP Margaret Mitchell raised the issue of violence against women and demanded that the federal government take action to stop domestic violence, she was laughed at by (mostly male) MPs in the House of Commons.
Although the first birth control pills went on the market in 1960, they were illegal in Canada until 1969 if prescribed for birth control, although doctors were able to prescribe it for “therapeutic” reasons. When it was finally legalized, it was only for married women; unmarried women could not legally get access to birth control pills in Canada until 1972.
Until the 1970s, it was possible for companies to have and enforce policies that meant women who got married could be fired. Until 1978, the Canada Labour Code allowed employers to lay off or fire women who became pregnant, and it wasn’t until 1984 that the CLC was amended to allow redress for victims of sexual harassment. And I haven’t even touched on legal racial discrimination, which allowed stores to display signs saying “No Indians”, among many other indignities.
Those who pine for these long-ago days might want to do a little research and soul-searching, and ask themselves why they think we should turn the clock back. And it’s worth remembering that the period we’re living through right now will, in a matter of years, be the “good old days” for someone else. We need to do the best we can to make those days good now, for everyone, lest history find us wanting.