Pride 2017 grant survives its first test at city hall

The economic development committee doesn’t want to withhold funding for the festival. But council will have the final say at its May 24 meeting.

Thestar.com
May 8, 2017
By David Rider

Pride Toronto’s 2017 grant from the city of Toronto survived a first test at city hall amid calls to defund the huge annual celebration of gay rights.

Economic development committee members voted unanimously Monday to approve cultural organization grants including $260,000 for Pride after hearing arguments for and against the annual funding. City council will have final say at its May 24 meeting.

The Toronto Police Association is urging councillors to defund the event unless Pride organizers drop a controversial request, stemming from a Black Lives Matter protest, that officers who march in the July parade not wear police uniforms, carry weapons or use police vehicles.

Olivia Nuamah, Pride executive director, told reporters after the vote: “Some members of our community don’t find it celebratory, they find it threatening,” to have armed, uniformed police march in the huge annual festival.

“They are made to feel vulnerable by the presence of these things, so we’ve chosen to sit down with police and review that.”

Officers are welcome to wear police T-shirts and ball caps, Nuamah said. When asked what Pride will do if an officer turns up to march in uniform, she said: “You know what, Pride won’t do anything. That’s up to police (hired to keep the peace at the event) to decide.”

Mike McCormack, head of the police association, was not persuaded by Pride’s assurances his members are not banned from the event or by Mayor John Tory and Police Chief Mark Saunders that discussions are ongoing to try to find agreement on police participation in next year’s festival.

“The mayor, chief and organizers of Pride are ignoring the progress made by our members over the last 25 years and moving backwards with allowing this exclusion,” wrote McCormack, whose gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members earlier against city money flowing to an event they feel is excluding them.

“Most of the city can see the hypocrisy in continuing with city funding. Our members certainly do,” he wrote in an email to the Star.

Pride grew out of gay community protests against 1981 police raids that saw hundreds of men dragged out of bathhouses, arrested and humiliated. In recent years, relations improved to the point that many officers, gay and straight, were cheered as they marched in uniforms often adorned with rainbow flags.

During last year’s Pride Parade, Black Lives Matter Toronto held a sit-in, stopping the procession for about a half-hour. The group, which has clashed with police and city hall over issues including carding, says police presence could discourage marginalized communities from participating in the parade.

Pride in January agreed to a list of Black Lives Matter demands including banning police floats from the parade.

Councillors on the economic development committee heard from city staff that the Pride request to officers does not qualify as discrimination that could, under city policy, jeopardize the annual grant.

Pride “is good fun,” said Norm Kelly, a veteran councillor, but the Pride request is “perceived as a step backwards” in relations between police, the public and Pride.

Kristyn Wong-Tam, Toronto’s only openly gay councillor, countered: “Pride Toronto is a sexual liberation movement, it is political,” and “It’s rather important for us to recognize that this is a festival that emerged out of a protest movement.”

Bryn Hendricks made a presentation arguing he and many other gay Torontonians support officers’ right to march in uniform, urging the city to make Pride pay the full cost of uniformed officers who will keep the parade safe.

John Campbell, the most vocal council critic of Pride’s stance, had to be at another meeting but didn’t rule out raising objections to the grant when council meets May 24.

“It’s not about what I feel,” the Etobicoke representative said in an interview. “It’s about how the police feel and are we going to allow them to suffer some disrespect?”