Canadian Beauty! Is the standoff in the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire about homophobia or rather a neighbors’ squabble spun out of control?

Roger Thibault and Theo Wouters insist they’ve been targeted because they’re gay. Now, alleged homophobe Robert Walker finally breaks his silence by MATTHEW HAYS

Since their lives came under the media spotlight over a year ago, Pointe Claire residents Théo Wouters and Roger Thibault have become causes celebre within Montreal’s gay and lesbian community. Having been in a relationship for more than a quarter century, they’re seen as glowing examples of stability, role models for gay youth looking to develop long-term relationships. Last summer they inspired a rally, to which thousands of gays, lesbians and their supporters marched to the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire to support them in their struggle. Both Justice Minister Allan Rock and openly-gay MP Svend Robinson have taken a specific interest in their case.

They’re even stars of an unrelated advertising campaign by Montreal optician Georges Laoun. The ad graces the back page of Fugues, the city’s French-language gay monthly. The two are modelling glass frames, the photo caption reading simply, "Roger and Théo." Theirs are now household names, and their celebrity came to a peak last month when they became the first same-sex couple united under the Quebec government’s new civil-union legislation. Their case came to light after they’d lodged a series of complaints to public security, the police and the Quebec Human Rights Commission, and then began taking their beefs to the media. And the press loved the story. According to Wouters and Thibault, the couple were being victimized by mean, angry, homophobic neighbours.

Two weeks ago, the couple appeared to gain an important ruling in their favour, when the Quebec Human Rights Commission recommended that Robert Walker, Wouters and Thibault’s immediately adjacent neighbour, pay them $30,000 and that their other neighbour, Greg Inglis, pay them $6,000. Those thinking this decision will finally bring the long, disturbing and ongoing case of alleged homophobia in Pointe Claire to an end would be wrong. The Human Rights Commission’s decision was not a binding order but rather a recommendation; if Walker and Inglis decline to pay up (which they have both opted to do), the case will then automatically go to a tribunal, where the Commission will hear the case in its entirety and rule on it then.

The tribunal is but one of a gaggle of legal rituals linked to the case which are now unravelling. Walker faces criminal charges of assault and harassment brought against him by police after repeated complaints from Wouters and Thibault. The case is slated for October; apparently in anticipation of a long and complicated trial, Quebec Superior Court has scheduled more than a week for the case to be heard. Inglis is currently suing Wouters, Thibault and the TVA network for defamation of character after a report that aired in March of last year. (The judge in that case ordered Wouters and Thibault to shut down their Web site last week and effectively muzzled them, ordering them not to discuss the case with the media). And Montreal police are looking into complaints by Inglis that Wouters and Thibault have been harassing him. MUC Det.

Alain Dupont confirms he’s currently investigating the case to see if there’s enough evidence to go to trial. Walker must also face charges of indecent exposure, brought against them by Wouters and Thibault. The plight of Wouters and Thibault looks like a simple, straightforward case of a discrimination and bigoted behaviour—the kind media types love. Victims, prejudice, misdeeds in a conservative suburb—it’s a scenario out of the Oscar-winning movie American Beauty. More than a few Pointe Claire residents have summoned the film title. "I hope this doesn’t end up like American Beauty," Bob Louette said to me during an interview in January. He lives right across the street from Wouters and Thibault and the Walker household. And he’s convinced things could end badly. For over a year now, only one side of this story was being recounted in the media. Both Inglis and Walker, who Thibault and Wouters argued were making their lives hell, refused to be interviewed. (Inglis continues to refuse, now citing the ongoing court proceedings as a reason not to speak to the press.)

But now Walker has broken his media silence. After several phone conversations and a meeting with his wife, Norah, she and Robert Walker agreed to sit down and talk with me. Describing himself as intensely press-shy, Walker insisted no photographer be brought along and even asked me to turn off my tape recorder, opting instead that I take notes. An odd request, from someone who insists the media has gotten virtually every element of this story wrong from the get-go. "This situation has absolutely nothing to do with homophobia," Walker tells me. He then begins to go over the events of the past two years. I’ve heard many of these tales before, having interviewed Wouters fairly extensively on the subject of the rift on their otherwise quiet Pointe Claire street. Now I’m getting a decidedly different perspective. Both Robert and Norah Walker state that they’ve never, ever had any issue with gay people whatsoever.

For them, this made the irony of the label all the stronger. Without a doubt, Walker became one of Canada’s most notorious homophobes, though the Walkers fairly point out that all of the charges have been alleged, none of them ever proven. Walker even tells me tales of the film business years ago, having worked for the Canadian Film Development Corporation (Telefilm’s forerunner), rubbing shoulders with gay pioneer filmmaker Allan Moyle (The Rubber Gun). "I’m the most liberal guy going," insists Walker. "Whatever anyone’s lifestyle, it doesn’t matter. I always knew Roger and Théo were gay, ever since we moved in in ’84. Never bothered me." Walker describes the first nasty exchange occurring between he, Thibault and Mr. Walker in May of 2000.

Walker was working in the yard, and Wouters approached him. Walker expected that Wouters was going to ask about his wife’s health, seeing as Norah Walker had just gone through the first of a number of operations for cancer and was going through chemotherapy. Instead, Walker says Wouters complained about a number of things he was doing wrong, asking Walker to tie his dog up on the other side of his yard, move his composter and take down three flower boxes from the fence (a part of the fence, Walker says, which doesn’t even border Wouters and Thibault’s property). Walker says he was so dumbfounded by the conversation, he barely knew what to say. But he says he was aware that Wouters and Thibault had had multiple complaints about various other neighbours and their conduct, including complaints about kids playing street hockey.

According to the Walkers, the neighbourhood was going through a major demographic shift, from old retirees to young couples with budding families. Walker acknowledges that he said something to the effect of, "Perhaps this isn’t your kind of neighbourhood any more." In Wouters’ version of this event, the meeting ended on a far nastier note, with Walker screaming at them. "He was very hostile," Wouters told me. "He said we didn’t belong in Pointe Claire, but rather the dirty gay Village. He was well aware of what he was doing." Several months after this exchange, in July of 2000, Robert Walker received a letter from the Quebec Human Rights Commission which, he says, left him "dumbfounded." In it, the Commission asked Walker to respond to a series of charges of harassment made by Wouters and Thibault. The long list of complaints struck the Walkers as eerie. "This was my first understanding that there was a problem," says Robert Walker.

"They had kept a log of our comings and goings since 1997," adds Norah Walker. "They had taken the license plate numbers down on the cars of people who’d visited us." Robert: "Up to that point, I really thought we’d been good neighbours. Not best friends, but always friendly." Since that turning point, and after a meeting between Wouters and Inglis which apparently also turned nasty at around the same time, things have grown steadily worse for the residents of Parkdale Ave. Others on the street argue the feud has made life there decidedly less carefree and enjoyable than it used to be. "The mood has definitely changed," says Louette, who backs up Walker in his claims. "Walker is not a homophobe, not at all," says Louette. "He’s a scapegoat. This has gotten ridiculously out of control. Many of us feel sorry for Walker." Louette says much of the interaction between neighbours along the street is completely absurd. After police advised residents that they should take photos of their neighbours’ misdeeds so as to have actual evidence of them, a plethora of cameras were set up, with Wouters, Thibault and other residents all clicking cameras at the drop of a hat. At one point, several angry residents joined in, with a group of Pointe Claire citizens all angrily shooting their cameras at each other. In January, Louette got in on the absurdity himself. Armed with a video camera, he took footage of an agitated Thibault, pacing back and forth on his lawn for about eight minutes, cell phone in hand, apparently awaiting Walker’s arrival.

Wouters defends his partner’s action, saying Thibault had been startled by Walker’s appearance moments earlier and that’s why he’s pacing back and forth. The videotape is evidence that has been submitted in Inglis’s civil suit against the couple. The media, argues Louette and the Walkers, have fanned the flames of the situation. Though well-meaning, they argue, the intense attention to their street has meant tempers have flared continually over the past year. As well, they argue the press has run with Wouters’ and Thibault’s version of events, never stopping, even momentarily, to question their validity. Over the past six months, the police have been called at least once a week to Parkdale Ave.; sometimes, they arrive on the scene after a complaint as many as three times in a given week. To some, the calls Wouters and Thibault make are for frivolous reasons. Wouters and Thibault point out that their house and car have been vandalized and feel genuinely threatened. (Their house and car were egged last year and their car was damaged after it was stoned.

The Walkers insist they have absolutely no idea who was behind the vandalism.) A number of the charges the neighbours have made against each other do sound like the kind of minor understandings that, if not handled delicately, can lead to very bad neighbourly relations. The Walkers complained of moth balls that Wouters and Thibault placed under the hedge that stands between their property; Wouters and Thibault complained to the police that Walker intentionally mowed over some of their flowers; Both sides accuse the other of incessant staring, claiming that whenever they step out of the house and into their respective back yard, the other neighbour comes out, just so that their presence is felt. Which does prompt the question: is this homophobia or a simple case of a nasty neighbour tit-for-tat gone terribly wrong? Walker points out that he’s not the only one Thibault and Wouters have labelled homophobic. "Anyone who disagrees with or has an opinion that is different than that of Mr. Thibault and Mr. Wouters is automatically labelled a homophobe by them," he says. When former Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie (who now sits in Montreal city council) insisted last May’s parade to support the couple remain in a park and not wind by the couple’s home, Wouters and Thibault accused him of homophobia; When Quebec Human Rights Commission mediator Marcelle Arcand didn’t see eye to eye with Wouters and Thibault, they accused her of homophobia.

When MUC police were not quick enough to arrest Walker for breaking his restraining order (he is currently under order to stay at least 20 feet away from their property line and 50 feet away from them when off his property), they too were labelled homophobic. And Walker’s lawyer, Salvatore Mascia, is now considering his own lawsuit against Thibault and Wouters, after they alleged he has made a career out of defending homophobes. ("I have defended gay clients in the past," Mascia says. "I have close friends who are gay.") Certainly, some of Thibault and Wouters’ tactics have been questionable. Their Web site (www.roger-theo.com, currently out of commission due to court order) often had posted bits and pieces of bizarre gossip about their neighbours. Wouters has referred to the Walkers as "such trailer trash." And Wouters acknowledges he got into his car one day and followed Inglis to work. ("I needed to know where he worked so my lawyers could serve him with a subpoena," Wouters has told me since, defending his actions.)

As well, while Wouters and Thibault did emerge victorious in the recent recommendations by the Human Rights Commission, mediator Marcelle Arcand asked to be removed from the case. In a damning memo, she said she feared working on the case any longer, citing the extreme language used by Thibault in a written report and the "danger" he presented. If the couple do have a smoking gun, it involves Inglis, not Walker. When police arrived to investigate a complaint in September of 2000, Inglis reportedly turned to an officer and said, "I have two children and I don’t want homosexuals in my neighborhood." The comments were recorded in a police report, a copy of which was obtained by the Mirror. Still, Walker says he has no knowledge of homophobia on the part of Inglis—he only knows about his own feelings. "I’m not homophobic," he repeats. Oddly enough, all parties interviewed for this story are actually intensely eager for their day in court. No kidding—they’re looking forward to it. "I trust in the court system," says Robert Walker. "I’m looking forward to the truth being laid bare." "This was a great story," adds Norah Walker. "Too bad none of it is true." Wouters is equally eager to see the case over and done with. "Can you imagine that some would suggest we would make this up?" Wouters asks rhetorically. "Why on earth would we do that?"

Matthew Hays is associate editor of the Montreal Mirror. His articles have also appeared in The Advocate, The Globe and Mail and The New York Times.