We welcome to this third meeting of 2018 of the equality and human rights committee. We are going to make the usual request of mobile devices switched off, and mobile phones are off the table. We will go straight into agenda item 1 this morning, which is our first evidence session on consideration of the historical sexual offences, pardons and disregard bill. Today marks the start of LGBT history month in the UK. This year sees several important anniversaries in the movement for same-sex equality. 2018 is the 40th anniversary of the murder of Harvey Milk, one of the first high profile openly gay politicians to be elected in a western democracy, and is a member of the San Francisco City Council. His life and work inspired a generation of LGBTI politicians to seek election and begin to turn the tide of hatred and discrimination against LGBTI people. 2018 is also the 30th anniversary of the passage of the local government act of 1988, which contained the controversial section 28 provisions prohibiting local government from promoting homosexuality in schools. The Scottish Parliament led the way in repealing section 28 in one of its very first acts. The work of this committee has also led to the current LGBTI inclusive education working group, which is currently working with Scottish ministers to ensure all forms of LGBTI discrimination and prejudice. Despite that progress, however, to this day the discrimination of the past still casts a long shadow over the lives of many LGBTI people in Scotland. That is why it is so fitting that our main item of business today is a renaugural oral evidence session on the historical sexual offences pardons in Disregards Scotland Bill. The bill seeks to write yet another historical wrong against gay and bisexual men by addressing the legacy of historical convictions for offences that would not be a crime today. We have only one witness in front of us today, and that is Tim Hopkins, who is the director of the equality network. Tim, we are very grateful for your written evidence and we are incredibly grateful for you to come along and speak to us today. I am hoping that you can give us an opening statement on the bill and what you think it will do in areas where we need to tighten up. Thank you very much indeed for inviting me along and thank you for those comments. As you said today is the first day of LGBTI history month and I think that this is making history in fact this bill. I wanted to say two things about the bill. The first one might sound slightly negative but I think that it is important to recognise the limitations of this bill. The limitations of what this Parliament can do to, as the policy memorandum says, lift the burden of these convictions and the history of the discriminatory laws that affected gay and bisexual men. I think that the First Minister got this right when she made her statement of apology in the chamber on the day the bill was introduced. Amongst other things she said, nothing that the Parliament does can erase those injustices but I hope that this apology alongside our new legislation, that is the bill, will provide some comfort to the people who have endured them. I think that that gets the balance exactly right. The discriminatory laws that criminalised gay and bisexual men did not just affect the people who ended up with convictions. Those people were hugely affected, many of them. I'm sure I'm afraid to say that some of them will have taken their own lives as a result of the convictions. Some spent time in prison. Those who are only fined will undoubtedly have been affected in important ways by the conviction. The criminalisation also affected all gay and bisexual men in the 20th century. People lived under the shadow of the fear of being discovered and prosecuted, so people had to live double lives. That criminalisation, although it only applied to men and women weren't criminalised in the same way, had a knock-on effect on all LGBTI people. I know the committee received written evidence from a woman who had been dismissed from the armed services because she was a lesbian. Although she hadn't committed an offence like men in the armed services, nevertheless people who were lesbian or gay or bisexual were routinely dismissed, whether men or women. It's the criminalisation of gay and bisexual men that underpinned that kind of discrimination. All of those effects were huge on the people affected and some of them are continuing. This bill cannot hope to make up for that discrimination and its effects. We have to do what we can do. Having said that, I would say that, as far as we are concerned, the bill is very welcome. It does two things. The first effect of it is declaratory. This is really important. The bill declares in three important ways. The first is section 1 of the bill says very clearly that these convictions were wrongful and discriminatory. It's really important to say that. The legislation of similar effect in the rest of the UK doesn't say that and has been criticised for not saying that. There is a concern that if you pardon somebody, that implies that they must have done something wrong. Section 1 makes up for that by making it clear alongside the First Minister's apology that people didn't do anything wrong. It was the law that was wrong. Secondly, the bill declares to people with these convictions that they have been pardoned. We can perhaps talk about that in more detail a bit later on. That pardon is formal and symbolic. It has no practical effect. However, it gives some comfort to the people who had those convictions that not only have they been declared to be wrong and discriminatory, but the person has formally been pardoned. I think that the declaratory effect of the bill is much wider than that as well because it declares quite clearly and publicly that Scotland now thinks that discrimination should end and wants to treat its LGBTI citizens equally with everybody else. The Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament are determined to take the steps that are possible to make that equality a reality. All of that is about the declaratory effect. The bill also has a practical effect. This is where the disregards come in. If you are going to pardon people, then you have to also make that pardon as far as you can concrete. That is what the disregard does. We can talk about why it is done on the basis of application rather than being automatic. That is an important point. However, the disregard itself is very welcome and its effect is quite wide in that it declares that the conviction cannot be used in any way to disadvantage somebody because it declares that the conviction has to be regarded for all purposes as never having happened. Overall, we very much welcome the bill. We welcome its declaratory effect and also the practical effects. We hope very much that the committee will support it and the Parliament as a whole will support it. It does have very wide support in the country as a whole. A great opening statement that gives us a number of questions that we can go into. You mentioned in your opening statement that section 1 of the bill declares wrongful and discriminatory law. Can you tell us any other difference between the bill before us and the English Act and can you maybe tell us what lessons we could learn from the process of the English Act to allow us to deliberate further? Yes, when the English legislation was introduced, it was very much welcome. In fact, disregards have been available in England and Wales for five years and the pardons legislation came into effect a year ago for the whole of the rest of the UK as well as extending the disregards to Northern Ireland. The legislation has been criticised though. In fact, last year, talking about history again, was the 50th anniversary of the 1967 act in England and Wales that decriminalised sex between men in certain circumstances. There were a series of television programmes in which men who had these convictions were interviewed and a number of them criticised the legislation that was introduced for the rest of the UK. Making altogether three points, one was the point that, well, I'm uncomfortable about being told that I'm pardoned because doesn't that imply that I did something wrong and I'm now generously being given a pardon? That's what a pardon normally means. That's why it was so important to us to say that it must be made clear that men in this situation did nothing wrong. Section 1 of the bill, I think, does that, especially when taken together with the First Minister's Apology, and it will be really important to continue making Section 1 and the Apology very public in order to allay this concern about what the pardon means. The second concern about the English legislation is that the pardon is only provided automatically to men who had died before the legislation came into effect, and it came into effect on 31 January last year for the rest of the UK, or for England and Wales. What that means is that if you were still alive on 31 January last year, you were not pardoned automatically. Even though the pardon is only formal and symbolic, to get the pardon, you have to apply for the disregard. Now we estimate that only about 2% of the men who are still living, or the people who are still living in England and Wales with these convictions, have applied for the disregard. There are a number of reasons for that. Applying for the disregard is a bit complex. It's a three-page application form. You have to give all sorts of details about the original conviction. A lot of men don't want to do that. Perhaps they don't want to be reminded of what happened in the past. If you're not practically running into difficulties regarding the records of your conviction, then why apply for the disregard? As I say, 98% of people with these convictions south of the border have not applied for the disregard, therefore they have not received the pardon, even though it's only formal and symbolic. In fact, any man in this situation who has died in the past 12 months will never receive the pardon. Men who died before 31 January last year received the pardon automatically. Any man who's died in the last 12 months without having applied successfully for the disregard in those 12 months or earlier will never receive the pardon. Any man who's still alive has to apply for the disregard to receive the pardon. Now we can see no good reason for that. Certainly our colleagues in, for example, Stonewall in London were very critical of this aspect of the bill. One of the men in this situation was interviewed on television last summer and said not only was he annoyed about the fact that he hadn't received the pardon, but also he'd realised that the apology that was given in the House of Commons by a junior government minister last year specifically applied only to men who had received the pardon. So while he was happy when he heard about the apology and thought he'd received an apology, when he looked at the wording he discovered that only men who'd received the pardon were receiving the apology, so therefore he hadn't been apologised to either. So I think that is a major flaw with the legislation for the rest of the UK and I'm very pleased that at a very early stage the Scottish government said that they would make sure that this legislation gave the pardon automatically to all men with these convictions. Both people who are still alive and people who are no longer alive. The third problem that has been identified by groups like Stonewall and men in this position down south is the limited list of offences that is in the legislation for the rest of the UK. The legislation for the rest of the UK covers what are broadly certainly in Scots law called homosexual offences. In Scotland that's gross indecentcy and sodomy. In England it's called gross indecentcy and buggery. What's missing in particular from the English legislation is coverage of the offence called impotuning. So impotuning is where a man was prosecuted for chatting up another man. And in fact some of these men were entrapped so that there are men who've been interviewed on television last year describing this happening to them in London being at a gay bar chatting up a number of other men perhaps outside the bar. And then speaking to another man and beginning to chat him up and the man says I'm a police officer and you're nicked for impotuning. And men received fines typically for doing this and obviously a criminal record. Those offences are not covered by the legislation south of the border. This is very controversial and certainly the former MP John Nicholson, obviously a Scots MP who put forward a proposal for a private members bill in the House of Commons to do this job, drafted his bill to include these offences of impotuning. But unfortunately the UK government having initially said prior to the election last year that they would support his bill then decided when it came down to it that they wouldn't support the bill and instead supported some amendments to a bill of their own in the House of Lords which excluded this particular offence. Now under pressure the UK government did agree to amend their legislation to include an order making power to add other offences to the list of offences but that power has not yet been used so this is still a live issue for the rest of the UK. I'm very glad to say that against a background of this being quite controversial and public down south that the Scottish government thought about this quite carefully and have included these offences both explicitly in the list of offences in section 2 but also in the definition of sexual activity between men. So sexual activity between men is explicitly defined in section 2-4 to include the way it's written is conduct intended to introduce or procure such activity. That is there to make sure that the legislation covers cases where a man was prosecuted simply for chatting up another man. As I say the word that's usually used for this is impotuning. So those are the three main concerns that have been raised with the legislation for the rest of the UK and I'm glad to say that the Scottish government has listened to those concerns and has I think corrected them effectively in this bill. Thanks very much Tim. We've got Stormwall UK coming up to see us next week at committee as well so we'll interrogate some of that differences further as well. Thank you so much. I'm going to move on to committee members and Mary Fee, your first up Mary. Thank you and good morning Tim and thanks very much for that very helpful, omnen statement. There's a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. The first one is for individuals who apply for a disregard what support do you think they and their families will need because it won't just affect the individuals that will affect their wider family. I don't know if the disregard process will be the same here as it is in England but you said it's a three page application in England. There may be some individuals that will need help so do you think something should be put in place to ensure that there's support there for individuals and their families? Yes very much so. I think the first issue is one of publicity. It's going to be really important to publicise the provisions of this bill when it becomes an act to ensure that the maximum number of people in this circumstance know about it. Obviously the majority of them are going to be in their 50s and older. They are not necessarily linked in with networks like our own so the more publicity the better. We mentioned in our written evidence that we think it's really important that support is provided by the Scottish Government. The disregards are going to be effectively implemented by the Scottish Government. You apply to the Scottish Government so they'll be in office somewhere within the Scottish Government with staff whose job it is to deal with them. It's going to be really important that it is as accessible as possible and that support is provided for example like communication support to people who need it and support to fill in the form and advice about exactly what the form is asking about. The Law Society of Scotland in their written evidence suggests that it would be good if legal aid was available for advice that somebody might need from a lawyer to make that application and I would certainly agree with that. You're quite right, it's important that all those forms of support and advice are available to people to make disregard applications. The cost of this is not going to be great because the number of disregard applications is going to be very small. In regard to legal aid, do you think that regardless of someone's circumstances they should automatically be given legal aid to progress at disregard? I'm not an expert on the way legal aid works so with regard to the element of means testing I wouldn't like to say now that there should be no means testing if there is for legal aid for other purposes. One of the Scottish Government documents that accompanies the bill says that legal aid would be available for the appeal if somebody needs to make an appeal to the sheriff court but I agree with the Law Society that it would be helpful if legal aid was available for those that needed at least for legal advice in terms of making the initial application. I agree that obviously the Scottish Government will be processing this regard so there will be someone there to give support to help to fill in the form but there may be individuals and family members who need emotional support. Do you think that there should be some provision in the bill to ensure that, whether it's third sector organisations are given the necessary funding to provide that emotional support? That's a very good point. I'm not sure whether it needs to be in the bill. The main organisation that provides front-line support to older LGBT people in Scotland is LGBT health and wellbeing, they have a helpline and they provide direct support to people. I'm sure that they would want to make their helpline and other support available. They run a couple of groups for older LGBT people. I'm sure that they would want to extend that support to people in this situation and to their families. I wouldn't really want to speak on their behalf in terms of whether they feel that the resources they have to run that helpline and to give that support are sufficient. I'm sure that they would always welcome more resources. As I said, the numbers are small but I think that it's important that that help is available to the people who need it. The other issue that I wanted to ask you about was attitudes towards people within the LGBT community. It is very depressing to see the recent reports and the stuff that's come out from Stonewall, the level of discrimination that people from the LGBT community still face. I'd be interested in your view on what impact this bill will have on that. Do you think that this bill will make that worse or it will make it better? I think that it will make it better. I wouldn't say that it's going to make a huge difference but I do think that every step that the Government and this Parliament have made over the past 18 years, 19 years almost, has helped, I think, to move forward public attitudes towards LGBT people. We see in the Scottish social attitudes survey and the British social attitudes survey before that that there's been a steady improvement in attitudes since the low point of the late 1980s but that improvement has particularly accelerated in Scotland since 2000. I'm absolutely sure that that is in part as a result of the legislative steps that have been taken starting with the repeal of section 28 and moving on to the introduction of civil partnership and gender recognition, all of the other steps that have been taken up to and including equal marriage. I'm quite sure that this legislation and the publicity around it as well will be another factor that moves us in the right direction. A lot of changing public attitudes is around leadership and demonstration of the fact that discrimination is now considered to be unacceptable. That's what this bill says. This bill says that discrimination is unacceptable now. Just final, when you talk about publicity, you said in your answer to the question that the convener put to you that section 1 in the apology should continue to be made public. How would you like to see that being done? Obviously there are various things that the Government can do, for example around the press work that it will do when the bill becomes an act. It will be really important for the Government to publicise the system through their websites and so on. We will obviously do and I'm sure our colleagues in other LGBTI organisations will publicise it as widely as we can. I think that the message from the Government that this is being done because the convictions are wrongful and discriminatory needs to be repeated at every possible opportunity through Government press and media work at the stages of this bill as it goes through. I want to ask you about the small number of respondents that have said that they would prefer the disregard, like the pardon, to be automatic. We know for legal reasons and crimes that will still be crimes that were crimes then. That wouldn't be possible. We also heard last week about the difficulties that are going through everyone's records to find out. Some were committed under breach of the peace and different difficulties that that raises. Do you also think that maybe there are men that want that aspect of their past kept in the past and they don't want it brought up again? Can you maybe comment on those two things? Yes. First of all, in the survey that we conducted, which was a survey of all LGBT people generally, about what we knew was going to be in the bill in early autumn last year, so we didn't know everything about the bill at that stage. It was 45 people out of 630 who commented on the bill said that they made the point that the disregard should be automatic. Out of all of those 630 people, I should say, only four said that they had convictions that they thought the bill should cover. Of those four, only two said that they thought it was likely that they would apply for the disregard. 4 out of 630 is rather less than 1 per cent. I think that's not surprising because, as we've said elsewhere in our evidence, we think that the number of people who will qualify for the pardon who are still alive will be in a small number of hundreds. That's less than 1 per cent of the number of gay and bisexual men in Scotland. It's not surprising that the number who contacted us, who have these convictions, was so small. Of those four, two raised the point of the disregard being automatic, if possible. It's certainly an issue of importance to people. As we said in our written evidence, we've thought about this very hard. It's something that we've been talking to the Scottish Government about since 2014. We can't see any way that the disregard can be made automatic. It would be a huge task costing millions and millions of pounds and, in fact, taking many, many years to do. I don't think that it would be 100 per cent successful anyway to identify all of the convictions. As you said, there will be men who simply want to put all of this behind them. They've done their best to put it behind them for decades and they want to keep it in the past. It's not necessarily the case that everybody would welcome being contacted proactively by the Government to be told that their conviction had now been disregarded. Taking into account all of that, we think that the bill does get it right in terms of having to apply for the disregard. In fact, looking at what's happening in other countries, Germany, for example, has been introducing legislation on these lines. Again, they do it via an application system. It's not in place yet, but the bill specifies that it will be via an application system. In fact, they require an application even for the pardon. It's very welcome that the pardon is automatic, as I've already said. The system in England and Wales for the disregard has been in place for five years, and it seems to work pretty well from the point of application onwards, although the number of applications has been small. We haven't had negative feedback, and I'm sure some of the UK will talk to you about this as well, about the way the system works. We also had a bit about the way that having this conviction on your PVG disclosure has affected people now that want to work with what we would class as vulnerable groups. Do you think that there should be something on the face of the bill that automatically just wipes everything from PVG disclosures? The way that I interpret the bill is that it does do that. It's not exactly spelled out, but it specifies that if you successfully apply for the disregard, then your conviction is disregarded for all purposes. You are treated for all purposes, as if your conviction never happened. Now, making that real is about updating the conviction records wherever they're held, and the details are going to be in regulations. I think this is an issue for the detail of those regulations, which will be introduced under the negative procedure, so it's going to be really important that the Scottish Government consults on them before introducing them and gets them right. The regulations can, under the bill, cover any kinds of records held anywhere, and the regulations specify how those records are to be updated. Certainly, the records on which disclosures are based, which are Police Scotland records, the Government has already been very explicit that those will be covered by the removal process once you get a disregard. The regulations will cover those. In terms of records that might already have been generated from the police records and, therefore, there might be a danger that they would continue to show up in disclosure and PVG checks, that's going to be something that needs to be considered under the regulation procedure to make sure that all of those are caught by the regulations. However, there is a general provision in the bill that says that you are to be treated as if the conviction had never happened, so you would always have the right, if something went wrong, to say, well, hang on, this is wrong, I must in law be treated as if the conviction had never happened, so you need to put this right. Tim, would you be able to expand on what those records are and where else they might be kept? There will be records relating to the conviction, certainly at Police Scotland in the Procurator Fiscal Service, because they would have dealt with the original prosecution and in the Scottish Court Service. My understanding is that when you apply for a disclosure, it is Police Scotland to process it and they would rely on their own records. The Government says in one of their accompanying documents to the bill that the police records in Scotland would be held on something called the criminal history system, but for reasons that they don't really explain, I'm not quite sure what they are, they say that some of the records may also be held on the UK police national computer system or rather the English police national computer system, and they do acknowledge that therefore they may need to be a process put in place to deal with those records as well. I do not know where other records might be held apart from those three places, but basically it's clear that the regulations need to be wide enough that they cover anywhere that records might be drawn in to that disclosure process. Of course the regulation making power continues, so if in the future somebody applies for the disregard and for some reason records don't disappear in the way they're supposed to, then the regulations can always be updated to put that right. The disregard will remove information from official records, but not historic records. What's your view on that? Yes, the word remove should be in quotes. The disregard system is based very very closely on the system for England and Wales, the legislation is almost identical. England and Wales use the word delete in their legislation, again that should be in quotes, because as I think it's section 10, 3 or 4 of the bill says, the definition of remove in the regulations that specify how it's to be done can mean annotating the records to make it absolutely clear that the information is not to be revealed. And the reason for that, as I understand it, well there are two reasons given by the government, one of them is that some of the records may be in a form that can't be simply deleted. For example there are microfiche and you therefore can't delete that particular entry. But the other reason, which I think is a valid one, is that you don't want to completely delete all of the historical records. We don't want to be in a situation where future historians can't look back at records and write a book about the level of discrimination there was against men who had sexual relations with other men. And they should be able to look potentially at individual cases so that in their book they can describe individual examples. But that information needs to be available to historians to be able to do that without causing any detriment to the men in this situation who are still alive. So it's going to be important to get that balance right. And again I think the regulations are key here because when the records are annotated and the rules are introduced about what that annotation says should happen to the records, we need to be absolutely clear that the record, although it will still be there, cannot be used in any way that causes detriment to the person who is still alive but will still be available for future historians. Now the bill actually excludes records held at national records of Scotland, that's in section 16. I'm not sure that that exclusion in the bill strictly needs to be there given that the removal process will be set out in regulations. I think that that could probably have been included in the regulations. I don't necessarily have a concern that national records of Scotland records are excluded so long as the records at NRS are of a form that cannot be accessed by say a journalist or a member of the public now to find out that one of these convictions happened for our living person. So that's an important point I think that the Scottish Government is going to need to address so that we can all have confidence that the removal process, including the way that records at national records of Scotland are kept and accessible ensures that people who are alive with these convictions can't in future, once if they have the disregard, be subject to any detriment. That's a really helpful explanation because my initial view was that if a conviction is to be disregarded it should be removed from every record but if you look at it from the angle of rewriting history and I accept your point that's very helpful. I should probably start from the outset of declaring an interest as the founder and co-covener of the cross-party group on LGBTI issues of which the quality network is the secretariat and Tim is obviously the director of that organisation. If the convener would indulge me to place on record my public thanks to Tim and the quality network for their support in the cross-party group over the last 18 months specifically in updating us on the progress of this specific bill. I have a couple of quite diverse questions. Perhaps those should have been addressed to the bill team but I appreciate that Tim's got a lot of knowledge on the subject. Is it your understanding that the Scottish bill will retrospectively pardon all men who were convicted of age of consent convictions in Scotland? So long as what they were convicted of is no longer an offence so obviously prior to 1980 there was no age of consent. Sex between men was a crime in all circumstances. Between 1980 and 1994 the age of consent was 21 and between 94 and 2001 it was 18 when for everybody else including women who had sex with women it was 16. So if you were convicted of an age of consent offence with a person over 16 then generally speaking yes you will receive the pardon. The exception is that if you are convicted of an offence with a person who is aged 16 or 17 and you are in a position of trust then you will not be pardoned because that remains a crime. So the general age of consent now is 16 for everybody regardless of gender mix but it's 18 if the person who is being charged is in a position of trust over in some sense the other person. Thank you for that response and that is a very pertinent point to people like myself who were around during that period of which there was basically it was illegal even for myself at that time so there is a small group of people who fall into that anomaly so I appreciate that answer. On another you touched on your opening statement around some submissions we've had from serving or ex-serving members of from Agis forces. I wondered if you had any understanding as to whether given that those convictions if you like or disciplinary measures are pertaining to the forces, whether those individuals would be covered under the England and Wales Act or would be able to take advantage of the Scottish Bill, whether or not their residents in Scotland presumably the convictions were not registered in Scottish courts in that respect and your understanding of how that would affect their ability to ensure that any decorations of discharge or court marshalling for example would not be required on current applications. Yes, this is a slightly complex point. First of all it was a crime for a man in the armed forces to engage in sexual activity with another man and that would normally be prosecuted I think in a court marshal under the armed forces legislation. The armed forces legislation extends to the whole of the UK but it's based on English law so for example you would have been prosecuted for buggery not for sodomy because it's the English law that underpins the armed forces legislation. Pardons and disregards for those convictions are covered by the legislation that's already been passed at Westminster so that means that even if it happened in Scotland this is the case so if you are as I understand it if you are convicted of sexual activity with another man say on an armed forces base in Scotland under the armed forces legislation then you receive your pardon and your disregard on application under the legislation for the rest of the UK. Once you've received the disregard you should then according to the legislation for the rest of the UK be treated as if the conviction had never happened. That means that if you were dismissed from the armed services which was standard practice purely as a result of the conviction then you should not suffer any detriment in any circumstances because of that dismissal and that would include in applications for jobs now. Unfortunately the situation is a bit more complicated because in practice men who were dismissed from the armed forces it could be argued that they were dismissed not just on the basis of such a conviction but because they said they were gay.  So setting aside the conviction would not set aside in any sense the dismissal. Plus the person who submitted written evidence to the committee is a woman and women were dismissed from the armed forces for exactly the same reason even though they weren't subject to court martial because it wasn't a criminal offence. So she was dismissed because she was interviewed in what sounds like a horrendous way and that wasn't unusual and she said that she was a lesbian and then she was automatically dismissed and that is affecting her now because you are asked in applications for certain posts and she mentions security or security vetting at least involved in posts here at the Scottish Parliament. You are asked if you have been a member of the armed forces and if you were dismissed so then the whole story comes out. This bill will not help with that so it will not help directly where somebody has been dismissed from the armed forces because of their sexual orientation neither does the legislation that applies to court marshals that was passed at Westminster. So other steps need to be taken there. The first thing to say is that in theory at least my view is that if you apply for a job somewhere and they ask were you dismissed from the armed forces and you say yes and they ask for the circumstances if they treat you less favourably because you say I was dismissed from the armed forces in 1991 because I said I was a lesbian. If your prospective employer treats you less favourably because of that so it doesn't give you the job for example I think that they are probably breaching the equality act because they are discriminating against you. It may be on grounds of dismissal from the armed forces but I think that's indirect discrimination because you were dismissed because you were a lesbian if it's not direct discrimination I think is indirect discrimination certainly. So I think that no employer should be discriminating against somebody because of this record because of the equality act. But I think that there are practical steps that can be taken by employers including the Scottish Parliament to put this right. And the person who submitted written evidence suggested that for example the Scottish Parliament rather than asking whether you've been dismissed from the armed forces could specifically annotate that question with something that says if you were dismissed on the basis of your sexual orientation you don't have to answer this question. So this legislation doesn't deal with it. It's a reserved issue so it's not something that the Scottish Parliament can deal with. The rest of the UK legislation at Westminster that gives pardons and disriars doesn't deal with it directly and probably doesn't help very much and certainly doesn't help women in this circumstance. But as I say I think it's already the case that the equality act applies and should protect you from discrimination because of this history. Thank you Tim, that's a very comprehensive and helpful answer. I think it's on my part flagged up a group of people who will not benefit in any sense from either the England and Wales legislation or the Scottish legislation. And again declaring an interest to have a number of friends who this affected very closely and very dearly still to this day. Do you think that there's any opportunity though, I appreciate what you're saying around guidance to employers etc but that's obviously not statutory in any manner. Is there any room for manoeuvre either in a devolved or reserved setting that there could be further enhancements to legislation this or otherwise to make it easier for those who were dismissed in the arms forces for being gay to in effect wipe their slate clean too because it seems like a missed opportunity perhaps? I mean certainly I think that's a possibility. I think it would be a reserved matter but it would be potentially possible to pass legislation at Westminster which would direct the armed forces to amend their records to annotate their records to issue letters to people who were dismissed on this basis to make it clear that to apologise basically and make it clear that they would not be dismissed now that the policy has changed something that they could show. That legislation could make it clear that people shouldn't suffer any detriment on this basis. Another practical step that could be taken is, and of course this is always a big hurdle for people to get over, but of course if somebody came to us who said that they had run into practical difficulties because they had been dismissed from the armed forces say in the 1990s on this basis and it was affecting their prospects to find jobs, then we would say a possible way forward is to consider taking it. That's a big, big hurdle for people to get over. Thank you very much and just one final question if I may, I'll keep it brief. It's on a very separate issue. My understanding is that the disregard process can only be done by the individual who was convicted. I do have a concern or a query that for those who are already deceased there's no opportunity for living relatives, family members, partners etc to apply for the disregard on behalf of the deceased person. I wonder if that means that those records, whilst those people will have been pardoned in the grand scheme of things, those records will still exist and those convictions will still exist which may affect their future posterity. Is that something that should have been addressed in either of the bills or is that something that you think is practically impossible to implement at a slight stage? I think in all cases the convictions still exist so the bill doesn't erase the convictions from history. What the disregard does is it says that for all practical purposes the convictions are to be treated as never having happened. I think it's a very important question. I think whether the practical recompense that the bill provides potentially to anybody who has received the automatic symbolic pardon, whether that should be extended to people who are no longer living, depends on whether you think that practically it would have an effect on people who are no longer living. Given that the purpose, the stated purpose of the disregard is primarily at least to deal with the issue of disclosures and certainly the people who have contacted us and there are only three in total who have contacted us to say that they want to apply for the disregard and only two of those have given us details, it's clear that the reason they want the disregard is exactly because of the disclosure problem. Clearly that in itself is not a problem for people who are no longer living. So I think the answer to the question depends on exactly what practical recompense the bill is giving to people who apply. In Germany the legislation is rather different. You have to apply and you get two things at least through applying if your application is successful. One is you get a certificate of pardon stroke disregard and the other is that you get financial compensation and Germany is the only country in the world so far as I know that is offering to provide people with financial compensation. Applications there are open to families of people who are no longer living who had these convictions. My understanding is that they won't necessarily personally receive the financial compensation in that case but they will receive the certificate. Obviously the question of financial compensation is a different one but I think what that illustrates is whether it makes sense to open the practical recompense that has to be done by application to relatives of those who are no longer living depends on what that practical recompense does and what its purpose is. If the purpose is focused on disclosures and is focused on the person not suffering detriment for example when they apply for a job and those things are all covered in this legislation then it may not be necessary to open it to families of people who are no longer living. I think that it is probably not necessary but if it were to be extended to go further for example to provide some kind of certification as in Germany then I think that there would be a case for opening it up to the families of those who are no longer alive. I have a quick supplementary. It is just to take you back to the armed forces section of your response that you gave us. I was wondering if it had that impact on someone if it is on the records as a dishonourable discharge or dismissed from the armed forces. The effect that that has on pension rights, your honours and your medals, your ability to wear your uniform and maybe some disability to participate in veterans organisations. If you come across anything where that has been the issue? I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that. I do not know what the effects are on those things. I will add just one more point related to this. You mentioned dishonourable discharge which is what is called I think of the United States. A woman who was discharged from one of the United States armed forces many decades ago has just won the right to have her dishonourable discharge converted into an honourable discharge. She was going through the court process but, in fact, she received this before it came to court. That is the kind of practical step that I think the armed forces could take in this country but, as I say, I think that that is a reserved matter. That is a very brief follow-up to the question that Jamie Greene asked you about family members applying for a disregard. You mentioned in your opening remarks that there are some individuals who have taken their own lives because of the conviction. Do you think that family members applying for a disregard should be different in those circumstances? I think again it would depend on exactly what the disregard provides. If the disregard is focused on issues like disclosure and not suffering detriment and applying for jobs then I can't see that it would make very much different. Obviously we don't know of any cases where this has happened but I think it's very likely that it did happen and that's obviously a dreadful situation for the families in those circumstances. Given what the bill does provide through the disregard at the moment I think my answer would probably be no, I can't see a direct reason why people should be treated differently. I have to say that I've hung on your every word. This has been a fascinating evidence session and I could listen to you all afternoon. I'd like to explore a couple of issues. Firstly, around the financial compensation I wasn't aware that Germany provided that to what sort of magnitude is that compensation issued. I ask that because we understand from briefings prior to this meeting that we aren't talking about a huge number of men here. If anything is to go by in terms of the English experience we're probably talking 50 to 100 men tops in Scotland which to my mind wouldn't break the bank in terms of offering Scottish Government funded compensation. First what is the sort of level of compensation in Germany and would that be welcome in Scotland? First of all the legislation in Germany, as I understand it, is not yet in effect. It was passed by the Bundestag which is the lower house last June. It was a government bill. I don't know what's happened in the upper house although certainly the upper house had indicated they would pass it but of course there were elections in the autumn in Germany and that may have held the process up. It was said in the German media at the time last summer that it would take five years to put the process fully into place. So in answer to your question the level of compensation is a flat rate of 3,000 euros to everybody who successfully applies who has one of these convictions taking into account that it doesn't cover convictions for things that are still crimes. And then 1,500 euros on top for every year spent in prison. Now looking at the sentencing of these offences in Germany it's clear that it was harsher than here and in fact the average sentence apparently if people convicted under paragraph 175 which was their equivalent of what we call the homosexual offences was two years in prison whereas the average here even in the 1950s was months in prison. So the German government has apparently set aside 30 million euros which is an average of 6,000 euros per person that's on the basis of 3,000 euros flat fee plus an average of two years in prison is another 3,000 euros for each of 5,000 people who they expect to may successfully apply through this process. That's a model we should adopt here in Scotland. The first thing to say is that of the four men who responded to our survey where we invited people to say what in addition they felt was needed on top of what the bill was already offering last autumn none of them raised the question of compensation. I think eight people in total out of the 736 people who responded to the survey did suggest compensation but none of those eight included the four men who had convictions. They raised other issues but not the issue of compensation. So we base our policy on what we hope is a consensus amongst LGBTI people. We do a lot of consultation which is why we do these surveys. So the reason we haven't proactively been calling for compensation is in part that the large majority of people didn't raise it as an issue. Having said that, I don't want to speak on behalf of the, as you say, it might be a total of one to 200 men living with these convictions. Really it's up to them and I hope the committee will have the opportunity to speak to or at least take evidence from some men in this situation. That's really interesting. I'm really struck by the fact that there's probably just an element of human decency in this that a lot of these men who have corresponded with you on this issue didn't think about money because they just want justice to be done for them. But actually compensation might still be the right thing to do and they just don't want, you know, they've not thought about money and don't want to be seen as just looking for an easy pay out. But it's the right thing to do because it also strikes me that notwithstanding the time spent in prison and great to hear that Germany are recognising that financially there's very significant impact on careers as well as a result of this and lost earnings and lost promotion and lost many, many things. Some of which might be quite easy for individuals to evidence with some legal support. And I just wonder if we should, as a committee, actively consider this because I think that the community represent, the men that have come forward already to talk to you about it aren't necessarily looking for this, but it might still be the right thing to do. How do you feel about that? I think one very important point is that whatever the level of compensation, it's actually compensation in quotes because it is not going to make up for the damage. I agree that there will be men who can probably point to the effect on their careers and may very well be able to quantify that. And it's likely to be tens of thousands of pounds or more in terms of lost earnings. The amount in Germany, I should have said that the German legislation has been criticised by LGBT organisations in Germany on the basis that the compensation is not enough. Obviously 1,500 euros to compensate for having to spend a year in prison is not compensation in the normal sense of the word. It is a symbolic payment. So I think any practical level of compensation, and even in Germany, which is the only country that has so far moved to introduce this, is going to be symbolic. But then concrete symbols are important, and as I say, it is really the voices of those who are in this situation that need to be heard. One final point. We estimate that the number of men still living with these convictions is in the small number of hundreds by which it could be as low as 1 to 200. The Government estimate that they might approve 15 applications for disregard in the first five years. That's one-tenth of the number in England and Wales. That means that most people will not be applying for the disregard, and so I think there is a question there about giving compensation only to those who apply for the disregard. And if somebody is not applying for the disregard for a number of reasons, for example, because they emotionally, for example, really don't want to handle that hassle and to reopen the whole question, they're not going to get the compensation because there's no way of compensating them. So there is a question of fairness there that needs to be thought about. It's an interesting proposition. I think also it might actually generate more interest in application for the disregard as well, but yeah, I think that's something for this committee to consider. I have one final question if I may convene, and that's whether there's a potential wrinkle around this for those men who are convicted of a crime that's no longer illegal in other jurisdictions, so overseas in other countries. And whilst it would be impossible to have annotation or removal or redaction from criminal records that are held overseas, we can still disregard it for the purposes of the way we're doing for everybody else here, but is this something you've considered and how might we reflect that in the regulations underpinning the bill? No, we haven't considered that to be honest. It's a very interesting question. I don't know whether, when you apply for an enhanced disclosure, the police don't just include conviction records, they can also include any other material that they think is germane to the application. Whether in practice convictions in other countries ever get reflected through enhanced disclosures, I don't know. Potentially they might if the police are aware of them, so I certainly agree there's potential to address that. I think that there's another way of addressing it, which is that when it comes to applying for jobs and so on, then I think again the provisions of the Equality Act would apply, and if you were disadvantaged because of conviction in another country for something that is no longer a crime there and wouldn't be a crime here, but essentially is based on your sexual orientation, then potentially that would be unlawful under the Equality Act. In that case, applying for a job and they ask you criminal records, disclose any information here, people just out of honesty might feel obliged to put an offence they picked up in France in the 1960s or something and not know that they didn't have to and perhaps we need to reflect that in guidance and the publicity around the passing of this act, would you agree? Yes, I mean it's unlawful for a prospective employer to ask people about convictions that are spent, except in the context of enhanced disclosures which are only lawful to apply for for certain jobs, and it's good practice on job application forms to specifically say, have you any past convictions, do not mention any convictions that are spent. Those rules only apply to convictions within the UK, but when you make that statement then at least it's a pointer that old convictions in another country don't need to be mentioned. Any other questions from our panel members? Any final comments, Tim? Have we missed anything? We've covered quite a wide range of material. I'll just check whether there was... I've mentioned the situation in Germany, perhaps it's also worth mentioning there are a number of other countries that are currently putting through legislation along these lines including Canada, New Zealand, at least one Australian state. So this is something that if we didn't do it, I think Scotland would be falling well behind, but I think it's something that shows alongside those kind of countries that Scotland is a country that is no longer willing to accept discrimination against LGBTI people. So as I say, I hope very much that the committee will support the bill. Good place to finish on our deliberations this morning, Tim. We're very grateful for you coming along this morning and we'll continue with our deliberations in the next few weeks, but thank you so much.  Yes, I'll certainly do that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I'm going to suspend committee to go into private and have a five minute comfort break.


In our last video, we explored compelling links, connecting the countless neolithic ruins which litter much of the world, long claimed as the work of separate, stone age groups who, due to the claimed era of construction, supposedly never made contact. Flint-wielding ancestors, attributed with inexplicable trilithons many tons in weight, incredibly precise alignments, and an impressive, intimate knowledge of some of the most complex of solar orbits known to man. We deposited that, regardless of the claimed isolation of these separate groups, the similarity found among many neolithic buildings is unarguable evidence, suggesting that neolithic man either didn't create these structures or they were not the primitive nomad they have long been claimed as, but were instead a world-going, world-dominating superpower who built the same enigmatic barrows and hinges the world over, the Harhoog. These mystifying neolithic structures are conveniently rarely explored, this may be due to their existence being a difficult task to explain. Claimed as that of tombs, it is the sheer number of them, however, which makes their existence a baffling thing to explain. As mentioned previously, many of the building types dating from the Neolithic Age turn up on more than one continent, yet the Harhoog, and its once-enormous collection of over 600 individual so-called tombs are unique in their shape and style. Currently claimed as having belonged to the ancient settlements of the Funnel Beaker culture, who lived around 3000 BC, and although, as mentioned, there were once approximately 600 of them, the Harhoog have been getting actively destroyed since their rediscovery in the modern age, with over half of them now having been destroyed to date. The megalithic tombs are built with large, rough stone slabs, each arranged into different random patterns. Ernst Sprakhoff, who created the six-category classification for Neolithic dolmens, classified them as extended dolmens. The other five types are simple dolmen, great dolmen, assaged grave, longbarrow, and cysts. Discovered in 1925 during excavations of earth, for the construction of the Hindenburg dam, they were regardless, largely ignored, and have been little investigated since, with a brief archaeological inspection having took place in 1936. The Nurhag, a stone structure with a similar enigmatic, yet unique and once-in-equally numerous ruin, is a stone age dwelling we have previously covered. Found on the island of Sardinia, they are the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, yet rather differently to the lack of attention given to the mysterious Harhugs, the Nurhag have come to be the symbol of Sardinia, and indeed its distinctive culture. And dwarfing the 60 Harhugs, more than 7,000 Nurhags have been found to date, though archaeologists believe that originally there were more than 10,000. And this could quite possibly be the case with the Harhugs as well, for in reality, no one can say for sure who built them. Why they built them, or perhaps most importantly, when in human history this took place. Although little is known regarding the Harhugs, they are undoubtedly an incredible collection of stone age relics, ones which we find highly compelling.


I'm Lisa Savage. Welcome to another episode of Pathways to Progress. I'm here with Victoria Pelletier and Roberto Rodriguez. They are counselors. Victoria represents the second district and Roberto is a counselor at large. And we're going to talk about the issues of the day here in the city of Portland. And we're taking questions from our studio audience today too, so that's a new development for us. So how have you guys been? So the last two meetings have been in person, which has been really cool. And I think that was the first time that I felt like a counselor was really in the chair with my name plate and the microphone. And I was like, OK, this feels different than being on Zoom. But it was really cool. And it was good to see people actually come in and watch the meetings, give public comment. And so yeah, it's been pretty cool. Great. Yeah. We've had three of them already, actually. The last one was super quick. Our last meeting was less than an hour, so you probably forgot about it.  I think that there's a lot that Zoom takes away from the working relationship, particularly with counselors. So I was looking forward to being in person and just seeing if anything changed. We did make one really cool change to our rules. Remember I talked about that it used to be that when counselors spoke, you have to stand up. But clearly, during Zoom, that never happens. So now that we came back, our new rules are so that we don't have to stand up when you speak. So I can speak while I'm sitting down, which, as I said before, will not have any impact on either what I'm saying, my intelligence, or the value of my words. So I'm glad that that change was made. I think you told Victoria before you said, oh, when we used to meet in person in the school board, we fooled around a lot more than we did on Zoom. So was there any goofing off? Or is everybody pretty focused here in budget season? Well, I feel like I call myself the counselor of poorly timed jokes. So I'm always just like, every time there's a time where it feels like I should make a little joke, I think I do. And I had a couple that landed. I think probably the thing that made people laugh the most was I brought so many snacks in. And I was just prepared. I brought a red bullet in case it started getting tired. I brought some seltzer water in. I brought some talkies in. I brought sour patch kids in. And I put them in my little drawer. So occasionally, people will see me slip in there and have a little snack. So I think people were just surprised with the amount of food I actually brought in for the meetings. Well, sometimes they go until 1 in the morning. Yeah, have to be prepared. I don't want to get too over anything. I saw you were out with the nurses. I was. The main med nurses, they've got their union, but now they're negotiating their first contract. And they're asking for support. So how was that, besides cold and rainy? Oh my gosh, I know. It was great. I mean, they did a 7 AM slot. And then they did a 7 PM slot. And I went to the 7 PM time. It was absolutely packed. I mean, there were a ton of people there. It was really cool, actually, to see people from different cities, too. I saw someone had a sign that I think she was from Soco or Scarborough and was like, we stand with you. So that was really cool. It was great to be with them and really rally and advocate. That's my world, I think, in terms of protesting and advocating and action. And so I was really proud of them. It was nice to just be able to be with them as the counselor of that district as well. And stand with them proudly and really advocate for a fair and equitable contract that I hope is coming. It's been, I think, eight months that they've been going back and forth. But I was really glad that they are doing informational pickets, and I'm sure that they'll continue to do so. I think it's great for our community as a whole, too, in Portland, to show our support. And so that was really, I was glad I was there with them. But I think this picket that you went to was focused on the issue of nurse-patient ratio. Yes. Which is something that nurses' unions are always saying, we're trying to keep you safe. This is not about us. We're telling you we can't safely care for that many patients. Yeah, and it's strange because I always, it's interesting having conversations with them as well because I think that there's this notion or narrative that like the nurses are good. Like they're the backbone of this society and we need them and we can't live without them and all of this is true. But then it's like we're not gonna staff them well, we're not gonna pay them equitably, we're not gonna give them a living wage, we're not gonna listen to their demands. And so whenever I think about like, okay, this is what the nurses are dealing with, so what does that say for our educators and what does that say for our service industry workers? What does that say for all of these groups of individuals that we can't live without but aren't really advocating for in terms of just general things that you need to really be successful at work. And so I think if anything as a counselor, again, of that district, it's really my responsibility to be there with them and to advocate with them as much as I can. So we'll see what happens. So true, and that's a great segue to what I was gonna ask you about, Roberto. So you were at the city finance committee meeting last night and there was kind of a bombshell dropped, not to use too strong of a phrase. And we haven't seen it in the paper today. What's going on with that? Yeah, I'm a little bit surprised that we've not seen it picked up in the press herald, but last night at the city finance committee, which was the second joint finance committee with the school department, they were reviewing the school budget as it's been approved by the school board. And the job of the city finance committee is to refer it to the full council so that the full council can review it, ultimately approve it, and have it be on the ballot for the June referendum. But at the meeting last night, through the discussion, some concerns came up about the total tax impact in the city when combined the proposed budget from the city manager and the school board. And it was a really interesting conversation. I think that there was some really good points made, but ultimately the decision was made to decrease the school budget by a million dollars in order to lower the overall tax increase that the combined budgets would have. And I think what was stroke me most as problematic about it is I think what we've been hearing from the commission, that because these two budgets are happening in different timelines, the municipal and the school one, the city council ends up having to make decisions about the school budget without really having a holistic view of what the entire financial situation looks like. And the school department has taken weeks, if not months, you know, going through that budget with a fine comb, right? Like trying to make sure that all the details are, that they have answers to all the questions and all the details are clear. And then the council with, in my opinion, ill informed is able to make a decision that has an immediate impact on our schools. Now we were just talking about labor and wages and the importance of paying people, you know, proper wages. You know, the vast majority of the school budget, something like 82% of it is wages and benefits. So to say that we're spending too much money on schools is literally to say that we're not paying our educators enough. Like that's not a difficult connection to make. And that to me is a ridiculous statement to make. I'm disappointed that the finance committee took that vote. The budget will be up to the full council to review. In order to send it back to the school board, they need a super majority, so we need six votes. I'm looking forward to talking to my colleagues and seeing if those six votes are there. I hope they're not, I don't think they are. But I feel really comfortable approving the budget the way that it was approved by the school board. A million dollars is a chunk of change. What's the total school budget? Right now, I think the proposed one is just over 130 mil. Forgot the exact amount. Well, good luck whipping the votes on the council. So this was not a line item kind of thing where they went through the school budget saying, oh, you don't need that and you don't need this. They just said knock a million dollars off that you decide where those cuts would come. Yep, the city council doesn't have, they're not able to really go line item by line item. They really only have a say on the bottom line, on the total impact. So again, they're looking at just the numbers, not necessarily programmatic impact or labor impacts, things like that. They can ask these questions, we can be informed about it, but at the end of the day, that's not the council's job. Which again, is why I'm fully in support of the commission's recommendation to have the school board have full autonomy over their school budget and be able to send it directly through the referendum to voters and not have the council be put in this position that again, puts us in a, makes us make decisions being ill-informed. So maybe the charter commission will fix that, huh? Although I don't think that was one of the things the charter commission took up, but... Yeah, I don't think it's structural change that would be interesting. Yeah, I think they did vote on, or at least in their proposal on the school board having fiscal autonomy, which is good. So at least that's a step, I guess, in the right direction of us not having to do this, maybe this time next year and the year after. But yeah, I don't know, I agree with Roberto and I think it's challenging when we're having conversations around really pushing and financing equity. And I'm always saying like, you have to go all in, like every dollar counts. And if we wanna keep going and you wanna keep the momentum forward, then you need to keep that money in place and like picking and choosing and taking away from it, I think is really gonna be doing a disservice to the students as we are trying to put forth a full momentum of just equity. I mean, we talk about that in Portland, that's part of our comprehensive plan, that's a huge part of what the school board is trying to do. So I think it's disappointing of seeing that a million dollars, even though I think people can say like, oh, well, it's not that much and here's why we're doing it. You really need to invest and it's all about investing. And I look forward to having the conversation on Monday at our meeting to see where that goes. But I'm hoping that we can really invest forward in the city and in the students as well. Well, hopefully the people that watch the show will call their city counselors and let them know that they support this progressive policy to keep the money in there to keep funding equity. I don't know if you see the main educator, it's the paper that educators get from the MEA. There's a whole spread on Portland School's equity program, the goals, how much progress has been made and which still needs to be done. So it's kind of an interesting time to be slashing the budget, isn't it? Well, we have an exciting development today and that is that we have a studio audience in here with us at the Portland Media Center and we have selected some questions. They have generated some questions and we have those questions and we're going to answer some of those questions. Counselors are. So this is a new development for us on Pathways to Progress and if it works out well. I hope we continue it. Thanks to everybody for helping make this happen. I'm going to read the first question but most people are going to come up and ask their question. This question is from Hilary Randall. Hilary is a West End mom who works in the Oldport, so one of your constituents.  The new proposal from the Charter Commission that will strengthen the role of the mayor. What are your thoughts? Great question and I think we're all excited to talk about it. I know that I am. I know the Charter has been doing incredible, difficult, laborious work so I look forward to them wrapping it up and setting it to us and while we can't change anything I think we'll be able to have a conversation at the council level of what we're sending forth to voters and I'm still, and I said this when I was campaigning that I'm still in support and interested in what it would look like to have a strong mayor model. I'm always interested in creative ideas and I hear like it's never been done. What if this, what if the, I think if we are trying to talk about really making sure that we are living in a fully democratic city and we're talking about an appointed position versus an elected position I think a strong mayor and a strong elected mayor is a really interesting path that we can take and I know that there were some amendments put forward. I wasn't able to catch the last charter meeting so it will be interesting to see if anything has changed but I'm not against it again. I think that we can always try things and I feel like right now especially where Portland is of like not a giant city yet, still a large town that's like stepping into its own that this is a great opportunity for us to see what works for us as a government level. How can we make local government more equitable? How can we hear from more voices? How can we make sure that every single person is represented in leadership here? And that's a huge thing for me personally. That's why I ran was to make sure that we are reflective across the board of everybody. So if we're talking about an elected strong mayor versus an appointed city manager, I think it's a great thing for us to try and to really rally behind and I encourage everybody as I will to, to read into it and to ask questions while we still can. But yeah, I look forward to it and I think I trust the council or the charter's work and I look forward to having more of those conversations. Great. Roberta, what are your thoughts on a strong mayor? So to be honest with you, I don't necessarily have really strong opinions about it, but I will say to pick up on what Tori was just saying, the reason that we have this proposal, the reason that we have a charter commission and the reason that this conversation has been taken has been taking place for so long is because people are just dissatisfied with the way that local government is representing them. They feel like whatever is in place right now is just not functioning for them. This is why we see people like, you know, talk about changing the mayor's position, changing the city manager's position because what they've experienced is a government that doesn't represent their values and their concerns. So whether this proposal advances or not, I think that we need to recognize that there's a whole bunch of people in our city that are dissatisfied with the way that their concerns are being addressed by local government. So if this is the way that the commission thinks is best for us to address it, then I like Tori, I want to value the work that they put forward. And I think that's a proposal that's worth our voters examining and hopefully supporting. Right, so you guys have your goals clear. You're not sure if the strong mayor would get you there, but you're in favor of trying it to see. Yeah, absolutely. If that will move in that direction. Absolutely. All right, we are going to take a question now from Baba Lee and he's going to come up, I think, and say his question right here at the microphone. We really appreciate your taking the time to do this, Baba. He is the founder of Ethics, Empower the Immigrant Children and Students, and also a parent of students in the South Portland School. So welcome, Baba, and please let us know your question. Thank you. So thank you, both of you, and also thank you for your service to your community. I think this is really very encouraging. My question is not related to really what you've done last night or the policies that you're running, but it's more in a broader spectrum about fight against racism or anti-racism and equity in our society. So you probably are very familiar with the tokenism, and which is a terminology that's, you know, talked about practice that's make an appearance of sexual or gender or racial equity appeared by electing somebody who is a person of color. So what are your thoughts about this as a person who are elected recently and also with your own job in your workplace, how does it manifest to have you witnessed or have you lived it in your experience? Thank you. That's a great question. Absolutely. I was like, do you want to go or should I go? I have a lot of thoughts, but I want to open, I want to give you a chance to go first. Okay, thank you for your question very much. Have I ever experienced tokenism is a hard yes.  I'm one of the youngest ones on the council. And, you know, I think that tokenism is really tied into racism of people saying, we want you to be this way. And it's difficult because, you know, being black and black individuality, we're not a monolith, so we don't think the same. We're not speaking the same. I don't have the same ideals. And so it gets challenging trying to break out of the role that people want for me. So people want me to be a certain way. And that was really challenging. And I think my first couple months on the council, especially when we're talking about, like me advocating really hard for hazard pay and just kind of like moving towards really trying to make sure people are getting a living wage. People were like, she's radical. She's out of control. Like, who are you? What are you doing? And this is not what I thought you were gonna do. And so it makes it hard because I'm going based off of my own lived experience as a black individual, as a young person, as a woman. And all of those things are wrapped up into how people think I should act all the time. And even in workspaces, which I know you asked about as well, prior to where I am now, I've been in predominantly white workspaces. And so like my last job, I was the only black woman there. I think I was the first black woman they've ever hired. So that was a lot of pressure as well because I'm setting the tone now and I'm setting the framework for anyone additional that they hire that's black and young and a woman. And that's a lot. That's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of unfair pressure that people put on people of color on the council, black people on the council. We are held to a standard that is higher than our white counterparts because how I react and how I speak, people will think that I'm yelling or people will think that I'm being angry and I'm really just being passionate. So it's really hard to exist in a world where people want you to be a certain way based on the narrative that they've created for you. That's a false narrative. So the only thing that I can do again is be myself and obviously know my truth and know who I am. I have to let a lot of things go. But I work in racial equity and something I'm really good at is having these types of conversations and really educating people around why what they said or do is harmful and can be tokenism. So yeah, I could talk about this all day. So I'm just gonna stop there. Thanks. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think Tori hit and like so many of the really important points. One of the things that she said that I think is where I was, where my mind immediately went. So much of what happens when tokenism takes place when people wanna quote unquote, take advantage of your identity is that it's based on these stereotypes and say so often miss on what it is that they're trying to give you value for and what they're trying to tokenize. And so you get, like you said, we're not a monolith, right? Like I'm a Latino man, but I am not an immigrant because I'm Puerto Rican, right? So all of a sudden, people don't know what to do with that. They're like, wait, we were trying to tokenize you as a Latino but you don't have an immigrant experience.  We're trying to like, you know, make it seem like we're equitable here. So it gets really muddy when that happens. So I've had these experiences both in my political life, certainly in my professional career and in my personal life. And I think that it's just unavoidable. To be honest with you, I think I've learned to navigate that somewhat smoothly. And so to kind of, you know, like Tori said, understand that I am, I do have an opportunity to set an example and to maybe correct some wrongs and write some stereotypes. So I try to take advantage of that and have those conversations whenever possible. And again, the more that we get tokenized, the more opportunities we have to like push back on it. Yeah. Well, I think it's really courageous and hard work that you're doing. So I admire you for being willing to do it. And I'm sure there are days when you go, but I don't want to do, I don't feel like doing this, but you know, you've really made a commitment and your integrity is impressive. Thank you. We have a question from Pedro Vasquez now. Pedro is on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the school department in South Portland. And he's also chair of the Human Rights Commission in South Portland. So he's going to come up and ask his own question. Thank you, Pedro. Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. First of all, a lot of admiration for the work that you do in our community. And so I express my gratitude for what I know is very tough work. And Lisa, thank you for inviting me here today. I'm just so pleased to have been invited and have this opportunity. Oh, thanks for being with us. Thank you. I wonder if you could speak to the, which in my view is a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding in our communities. When I see the looming deadlines for our asylum-seeking and refugee friends who are currently living in hotels, as some of you may know, there's a hotel operator who has said they're not renewing the contract. And so we're looking at families and unhoused individuals being back on the streets very, very soon. And in my estimation, I think the state is really not doing enough to address the humanitarian crisis. And so I wonder if you could speak to that. Well, Peter, thank you for the question.  So thank you for everything that you do every day in South Portland. And I know a lot about the work that you do and just really good to know you and to be a partner in it with you. You know, we had a Health and Human Services Committee meeting a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was last week. And we talked about the urgency of this issue, right? And we also talked about how, not just unfair, but unrealistic it is to expect Portland as a sole municipality to deal with it, that it really is not just a regional, but a state problem, or not a problem, an issue that the state needs to address. And so I agree with you. I think it's an emergency. I think, you know, we talked about, I talked about during that meeting, I served in the Floyd Army National Guard. And I think that I was activated for circumstances that, in my opinion, were not the reason that I joined the Guard. And today, if I were still on the Guard and I got the phone call to be activated to go help my community, because there were a bunch of on-house folks that needed emergency help, I'd be more than happy to put on my uniform and do that. And I'll say that on the back, so if I received phone calls after 9-11 to put my uniform and my unit got deployed to Iraq. And I was not happy to do that. I actually did not do that. So if there's a way to use our resources to help our local community and declaring a state of emergency is the way to do it, I'm 100% behind that. I think the other thing I want to add to it, like I said before, Portland cannot handle this alone. South Portland certainly cannot handle this alone. The hotels cannot handle it alone. So we really need to have media attention to this because no one's talking about the urgency of this problem right now, the way that they should. We need to have all of us, like Tori's going to tell you in a minute that we need to go, I mean, I'm going to let her say it, but how aggressive we need to be about it. And I agree with you. Like I think it's all hands on decks. And again, no one is bringing up the sense of urgency that is needed right now. Yeah, I think Roberto said it all. I don't have a ton to add. I think that what I was going to say, which I'm ready to go and protest in Augusta at any time, because I do think that this is when protesting is actually really effective, is when you're not being listened to. And I think it would be a really powerful statement to have the leaders of Portland and South Portland showing up together and saying, we need help. Because at the end of the day, you're absolutely right. This isn't something that Portland or South Portland or Southern Maine should really be shouldering on their own. It's just not possible. It's not sustainable. So when we talk about Maine and the framework of Maine, of like, the thing I think that's always talked about in Maine is like, manors are helping each other. We're always helping. We're always going to try and band together to really provide support to one another. And so we at this time, it is a huge emergency. It's, I think it's May 31st or May 30th when the hotels are no longer going to be hosting. And then I'm not sure what's going to happen or what we're going to do, but this is all that we talk about in HHS. And it's terrifying because we want to make sure that we can provide support to everybody. We want to make sure that we can provide housing. And if Portland is left and South Portland is left without state support, then I'm not really sure what we're going to do. We are already stretched to our limit. And so again, I think we're writing letters. We're calling. I know that our Health and Human Services team is meeting with the state weekly and saying here are our numbers and this is not getting any better. If anything, this is getting worse for us. And so I'm ready to go protesting at any time with some signs. And again, that's a great way to get media attention because we're not, no one is talking about it. And by the time we start talking about it, it will be too late.  Yeah, just let me know. Thank you so much. Thank you, Pedro, for your question. And I'll join you. And I think Lisa said she's done. She's done too, so. I think our next questioner will too. Hi. We're going to take, we have time for one more question. We're going to hear from Pat Tog. Pat is a Westin resident. So one of your constituents and a retired journalist. She used to do a radio show for a long time and she has a question for you. Do you need the card or you've got it? Yeah, this might be a little short for this. Anyway, I'm very reassured knowing that we have two such energetic progressive voices on the city council. I'm happy to know that. My question has to deal with climate change. You know, almost daily we hear reports from scientists who say it's so much worse than we ever thought. Now the national government clearly has a responsibility and they're not doing enough. But if you had carte blanche, what would each of you do in Portland to make Portland more responsive to the dangers posed by climate change? Great question. Also hi, Westin resident. Nice to meet you. So I am excited to be on the Sustainability and Transportation Committee with Roberto and also with Andrew. And you know, I think we're a mighty team of three and with Troy as well leading us. It's been a really great experience and we have a lot of really good conversations around what we're doing to mitigate climate. And the thing that I'm the most excited on, which I was just chatting actually with Andrew about and I think it's in the works is hopefully weaving in a climate impact or climate equity assessment into the city ordinances. So that means anytime anybody wants to develop in Portland, they're gonna have to go based on the climate impact assessment. The climate impact assessment will be looked at by the planning board. So anytime the planning board approves anything, they will already know that that assessment has been done. And I think that is a really impactful first step towards Portland being so development friendly, especially on the waterfront, but saying are you taking into consideration these impacts and these impacts? What is this gonna look like in 10 years and 20 years? And I think if we can do that, we are taking a great step towards saying we wanna make sure that we are abiding by our comprehensive plan where sustainability is the second thing on the plan. And we're gonna go forward and make sure that anybody wants to develop in Portland that they have to go based on this impact. And I think the fact that it's already being talked about is really exciting and I'm hopeful that's something that our committee can take on. So that's something at least that's in the works that I think will have a really big impact. And then other than that, it's just a ton of education, a ton of education with our schools, a ton of education with young people. I'm so impressed and always amazed by just the young activists that are in Portland and beyond that are really taking this and running with it. So I look forward to having more conversations around that and amplifying and advocating and making sure that it's a full community effort as much as we can through the sustainability department and funding. We need funding for that department too. Thank you. Thank you for that. I hate to say we're out of time. Roberto, you've got 30 seconds. So real quick, part of that question talked about the need to have national action. Recently in one of our meetings, we saw how having a tax as close to the point of extraction for any of these fossil fuels is the most effective way to have long-term impact on the effects of climate change.  So that's what I would want to do. Just educate people to the core that that's what needs to happen. Wonderful. Well, thanks for being with us. Thanks for taking time to do this. It's really wonderful having this conversation. I always learned so much and it's great to see you both. Thank you for being with us. If you like this show, let Portland Media Center know. We'd love to have you in our studio audience next time and be well. Thank you.


What's everyone take down here back with another video today? I'm going to be continuing my mini series where I share some of my top and favorite video games on different consoles for the series. I'm only going to be mentioning and talking about video games that I've owned and played because it's unfair for me to talk about a top video game that I've never played and never experienced. So it's only going to be games that I've played and today is going to be all about the PlayStation three. Let's get right into it. OK, so for me, I just want to mention I never got my PlayStation three until I want to say 2011, 2012. So on this list here, there is a lot of games that I've played over the years of me having the PlayStation three. So up first is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. This is, in my opinion, my favorite Call of Duty ever made. It was amazing. My favorite thing about it was there was no zombies because within Call of Duty, I hate the zombie modes. I just don't like them. I never gravitate towards them. Some of my friends enjoy them. I do not.  And Modern Warfare 2, there was no zombies. I loved that the maps were, in my opinion, larger because I used to always use snipers. So I can't remember the names of the maps on it. But there was one that had trenches. That used to be my favorite one. I could go and snipe in it. I know there was one at a construction site. I used to enjoy that one as well. And it was always a lot of fun. But this Call of Duty game, in my opinion, is my favorite Call of Duty game of all time. I remember some of the old ones back on the PlayStation 2. Finest Hour and some of the original ones. I enjoyed them as well. But Modern Warfare 2 has to be my favorite Call of Duty. Next up is another Call of Duty that I want to mention. And that is World at War. That is also one of my favorite Call of Duties. This one here, I think it was the first time that the campaign mode was co-op. It was couch co-op. I don't think you could play that with friends online at the time. But it was couch co-op and that used to be always fun. Me and my dad used to love Call of Duty games, war games in general. And the fact that we could play co-op to do the campaign was a lot of fun. Now with World at War, amazing game all around, in my opinion. But this, I believe, was the first game that Zombies was introduced. And even though I wasn't great at it and I've never liked zombie games within Call of Duty, because this was the first one, it was, I think, only one place. Unless there was DLC that I didn't even know about. I enjoyed the Zombies mode for it because it was pretty simple, pretty basic. I never got too far in it, but it was it was better than a lot of the newer ones.  I just don't like anything about Zombies in the new current Call of Duty. But this one here, I really enjoyed. Next up for me is Fallout 3. This is the first Fallout video game that I've owned. Honestly, it was a lot of fun. I don't think I got too far in it. And sadly, I did end up selling it years ago and I ended up selling my copy of the game. I really wish I would have kept it just because of how iconic it was for me and being the first Fallout video game. I fell in love with the series immediately. I played Fallout 3, Fallout 4. I didn't get the new one because it's more online. It's not really story driven, and I like the story aspect of it. The reason why I enjoy the Fallout game is because I love apocalyptic worlds, video games, zombie games, stuff like that, where it's at pretty much the world's end. For some reason, I always gravitate towards those type of games and Fallout is all of that and more. But there's so much about this game that was so interesting. The story was phenomenal. I love the story. I don't think I ended up completing it, but I just had a blast with this game because every time you played it, you could find something new that you didn't know something before you could find a new location or you can find a new weapon or something like that. It was always a lot of fun for me. Next up is South Park Stick of Truth. This game for me was very iconic as a fan of South Park since I was a kid. I grew up with South Park. I love that kind of humor and the video game is amazing. It has everything that you think South Park is about and then some. All the humor is there and I love that the developers of the game and the writers of the show actually came together. It's not just South Park, the creators of the show, putting all the creative stuff for the video game onto the developers. It was an equal part. The writers of the show actually wrote the story for the video game, which I thought was amazing. And then the developers of the game just developed the game based on what they wanted and what they drew. So it was all in all amazing throughout the game. There's so many references to small things that happened throughout the years on the show. I think this South Park has been on the show for has been out for like over 20 years now. And you see so many references to something that was only in one episode. And I remember that episode and you see it in the video game. So that's why I really enjoyed this video game. It reminded me so much of my childhood. Definitely spent a lot of hours playing it and actually beat the game. So much fun. And I even got the next version of it, the next game that came out fractured but whole on the PS4 because I love this game so much. And I actually went out on the PS4 because it included the stick of truth. And I went and played it on the PS4 and beat it as well. So I didn't only play it on the PS3, I beat it on the PS4 as well.  I had to play it again. Next up for me is Fight Night Champions. I still have this game in my collection. It honestly is a lot of fun. It is basically your simple boxing game. And the first time playing it, I think it shows a heavyweight. And I just sucked. I was losing almost every fight whenever I was doing career mode. And then I did the next one and I was pretty much undefeated for my whole career. I don't think I actually got defeated at all. I think I was 30 and 0, but I kind of left it at that. Whenever I got my PS4, I never went back and played it. Some of these one of these days, I'm actually going to go back and play it because I really want to. And there's some trophies that I missed on it. But that game for me, somebody that loves fighting games. I honestly love that game.  And that's why you've got UFC 2 and UFC 3 because I love that style of game where you're basically just fighting and moving up and advancing in your career, winning championships and doing stuff like that was so much fun. And the last one for me is the Uncharted Collection. So I actually got this for the PS4. I still have it and I've yet to play it. But it is just that the Uncharted Collection, the first three Uncharted video games. But back on the PlayStation 3, I actually had the first two Uncharted video games. They were a lot of fun. I remember playing both of them. I didn't beat the second one. I only beat the first one, but I got pretty far in the second one. And then whenever I got my PlayStation 4, it actually came with the Uncharted Collection, which is the first three video games, which I have yet to play on the PlayStation 4. I really wanted someday just to get all of those trophies and just enjoy the whole series because I never got to play the third one. I actually wanted to go and play the third one on its own. But if I'm going to go back to the series and play it, I want to play starting at the first one and go from the first one, the second one, and then play the third one, which I just, since I have so many games right now, I never even think of having any time to go and do that. But someday I will. That's why I keep it and I'm never getting rid of it. I want to keep it in my collection until I'm going to play it because I know I'm going to. And honestly, this was one of those exclusives to PlayStation only that I'm glad I actually have and I kept. And I'm definitely going to get a chance to play it again. But these, in my opinion, are the top PlayStation 3 video games that I've owned and played. Like I said at the beginning of this video, I didn't want to list anything that I never owned and played because it's extremely hard to talk about something if you've never experienced it. That's why this list only includes the games that I remember playing whenever I was playing on the PlayStation 3. So comment down below if there's any that I missed, ones that have never actually got a chance to play that you think should be on the top PS3 games list. I want to hear what you guys think because I still have my PlayStation 3 and if there's any that spiked my interest, I might end up finding them on eBay or something like that and buying them to give them a try. So if there's anything that you guys would recommend, at least me to try, comment down below. But I am going to leave this video here. Hope you guys did enjoy. I'll see you guys in the next video. Please take care. Peace.