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- Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Just less than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis, before the record was broken during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta. Although many gay bathhouses had previously been raided in Canada and other smaller raids followed, Operation Soap is considered a special turning point in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Canada; the raids and their aftermath are today widely considered to be the Canadian equivalent of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. Mass protests and rallies were held denouncing the incident. These evolved into Toronto's current Pride Week, which is now one of the world's largest gay pride festivals and celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2015. Most charges connected to the incident were eventually dropped or discharged, although some bathhouse owners were fined 40000$. Canada's "bawdy-house" law, under which the charges in this raid were laid, remained in effect until it was repealed in 2019, but was only rarely applied against gay establishments after the trials connected to the 1981 raids ended. At the time it was widely believed that the raids were approved by Attorney General of Ontario Roy McMurtry and the provincial government. In a 2007 interview, however, McMurtry said that this was not the case: "The irony of the whole thing was that I had expressed my concern to the chief of police; that it really looked like we were dissolving into a police state. The whole thing looked terrible. Without a doubt, that was one of my most frustrating experiences." McMurtry subsequently served as Chief Justice of Ontario and wrote the 2003 decision of Ontario's Court of Appeal in favour of same-sex marriage. In 2016, the play RAID: Operation Soap, written by Raymond Helkio and starring performance artist Keith Cole and actor Johnny Salib premiered to a sold-out audience at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre in commemoration of 35 years since the raids. The same year, Toronto Police chief Mark Saunders expressed regrets on behalf of the Toronto Police Service for the raids. Journalist Matthew Hays has criticized the media's frequent labelling of the Toronto raids as being Canada's Stonewall; according to Hays, that distinction should be extended to the in Montreal, which led within just a few months to Quebec becoming the first government in Canada to pass a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (en)
- 肥皂行动（英語：Operation Soap）是加拿大大多伦多地区警察局针对同性恋浴室的一次逮捕行动。行动发生于1981年2月5日，超过300人被捕，为加拿大自十月危机以来逮捕人数最多的一次行动。肥皂行动在加拿大LGBT历史上占有重要地位，被认为是加拿大的石墙骚乱。肥皂行动引起了大规模的抗议，这些抗议最终演变成了骄傲周同志骄傲游行活动。 (zh)
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- 肥皂行动（英語：Operation Soap）是加拿大大多伦多地区警察局针对同性恋浴室的一次逮捕行动。行动发生于1981年2月5日，超过300人被捕，为加拿大自十月危机以来逮捕人数最多的一次行动。肥皂行动在加拿大LGBT历史上占有重要地位，被认为是加拿大的石墙骚乱。肥皂行动引起了大规模的抗议，这些抗议最终演变成了骄傲周同志骄傲游行活动。 (zh)
- Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Just less than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis, before the record was broken during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta. (en)
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