On January 17 2017, Pride Toronto’s annual general meeting voted to exclude uniformed police officers and police floats from future Toronto Pride parades. LGBTory Canada disagrees with this decision in the strongest terms (see our previous statement here) and calls on Toronto City Council to reject the Pride Toronto annual grant request for the 2017 Pride Parade when it comes before city council later this spring.
Pride was started as, and should continue to be, a celebration of diversity and inclusion. Its existence has paralled the remarkable transformation of Toronto over the past several decades into one of the most tolerant, safe, inclusive and welcoming cities in the world. We are all minorities here. We are all welcome and we all belong here.
Pride 2017 will be a less inclusive and tolerant celebration of Toronto’s diversity, however, as the Pride Toronto Board has allowed tactics of bullying and intimidation – which have no place in Toronto civic life – to decide who is “parade-worthy” and who is not. This decision is the antithesis of what Toronto has become. Instead of an opportunity to build bridges of understanding and heal wounds, Pride 2017 will reinforce and entrench divisions between Torontonians.
For this reason, unless Pride 2017 once again becomes a truly welcoming and inclusive event, LGBTory calls on City Council not to provide taxpayer funding to an event that promotes division and exclusion in our society. The tactics of bullying and intimidation cannot be allowed to shape the civic agenda, or to influence who is “permitted” to participate in our communally-owned civic space.
LGBTory is a network of LGBT Canadians from all walks of life and diverse identities, but who share the fundamental principles of individual liberty, personal responsibility, reward for hard work, a free-market economy and democratic government. We aim to provide a forum for the sharing of ideas, advance the conservative philosophy, and stand up for the democratic rights of all minorities.
