Pride Toronto no longer expected to cut programming thanks to emergency federal funding

With Pride festivities across Canada facing soaring police and insurance costs, the federal government Monday announced $1.5 million in emergency funding.

Thestar.com
June 6, 2023
Ben Mussett

Organizers of Toronto’s Pride festivities say they likely won’t slash programming after the federal government announced $1.5 million in emergency funding to help Pride festivals across Canada deal with a surge in security and insurance costs.

“We’re in a way better place than we were yesterday,” said Sherwin Modeste, executive director of Pride Toronto, the organization that oversees the annual parades and events. However, he said the group remains in a “very, very tight” spot due to a dramatic rise in costs he believes is driven by recent hostility towards the LGBTQ2S+ community, including an increase in hate crimes in Toronto.

The money announced Monday by the federal ministry of women, gender equality and youth can be used for expenses such as vehicle and crowd control, barricades, fees for paid-duty police or private security.

Fierte Canada Pride (FCP), a national association made up of 65 Canadian Pride organizations, will distribute the funding. However, groups who aren’t affiliated with FCP are also eligible to receive it.

According to Modeste, Canada’s major Pride festivals -- Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal -- are expected to share about $750,000, or half, of the funding announced on Monday. Modeste added the federal government had previously committed roughly $90,000 to Pride Toronto this year, in addition to about $260,000 from the City of Toronto.

Pride Toronto hopes to receive a confirmation on additional funding from the provincial ministry of citizenship and multiculturalism in the coming days. “There are still a few pieces (of programming) that are on hold,” Modeste said. The Star reached out to the province but didn’t hear back before publication.

The announcement came less than two weeks after Modeste told the Star it was considering significant, last-minute cuts to programming due to a massive and unforeseen rise in expenses.

This month’s Pride parade is scheduled for Sunday, June 25. The entire month of festivities is estimated to cost more than $4 million.

According to Pride Toronto, policing costs jumped to $182,000 this year from $62,000 in 2022, while general liability insurance prices surged to over $270,000 from about $67,000 last year.

A police spokesperson said the rise in security costs was a result of a “substantial increase in the event footprint,” as well as a recent wage increase for police officers, not heightened security concerns.

But Modeste pushed back against that explanation, saying the organization’s footprint has not increased that dramatically. “It is just not making sense,” he told the Star, adding that he hopes to sit down with the police, so they can walk through the specific costs.

Last month, a Toronto police report revealed that members of Toronto’s LGBTQ2S+ community had seen the sharpest rise in reported hate crimes last year, tripling from 13 reported instances in 2020 to 39 in 2022. According to the police’s Annual Hate Crime Statistical Report, LGBTQ2S+ people were also the most frequently victimized by physical assaults last year.

“Now more than ever, as allies, as leaders, as parents, as friends, and as Canadians, we need to wake up to the reality that 2SLGBTQI+ people are facing today,” said Marci Ien, the federal minister for women, gender equality and youth, in a press release on Monday.

In recent weeks, far right media figures and some Republican officials in the United States have encouraged their supporters to boycott American brands like Bud Light and Target for featuring a trans influencer in an ad campaign and selling Pride-themed products.

The anti-LGBTQ2S+ backlash recently reached Ontario’s schools. Following angry parent-led protests at a school board meeting that led to a call to the police in April, the York Catholic District School Board voted late last month against flying the Pride flag in June, widely recognized as a month to celebrate the LGBTQ2S+ community and its achievements.

A few days before, vandals tore down and proceeded to rip up the trademark rainbow flag outside a church in Lincoln, Ont. Local police are investigating the incident as “hate-based.”

Julie DeMarchi, FCP’s president, said it’s hard to say what’s behind the renewed animus towards LGBTQ2S+ people in Canada, though she sees a link to rhetoric coming from the United States.

“It’s really difficult to understand because we’ve come such a long way over the last 20 plus years to create spaces where folks can identify who they are and celebrate that,” she said. “It’s just really disheartening.”