Rural Manitoba businesses fear supporting Pride because of backlash, alliance says

The Manitoba Pride Alliance says it's disheartened by some food truck operators' decision towithdraw from this year's Pride festivities in thePembina Valley, but adds businesses backing out from such events because they fear backlash isn't rare.

Three food trucks thatwere planned to show up to Pride events in Altonathis weekend withdrew after one of them received online threats its business would be vandalized, Pembina Valley Pride organizers told CBC News earlier this week.

Jenn Rands, advocacy vice-president for Pride Winnipeg and the alliance's chair, said the situation highlightssome of the challenges grassroots organizers face when they're looking for support from local businesses particularly in rural communities in southern Manitoba.

"It's tough for them to gain support, whether that's from community members or from local municipal government or even right down to getting support from local small business," Rands said.

"On top of that, you know, they get threatsand letters that are full of transphobic and homophobic language. And it's just a real struggle."

The alliance was established earlier this yearto benefit small Pride organizations that may need help on the administrative or advocacy front, as well as with arranging security.

Rands said the amount of hate toward the 2SLGBTQ+ community across Canada has increased over the last two years, and that many of the alliance's members have beefed up safety measures.

"These are not unique challenges to just Pride Month," she said."This is something that members of the 2SLGBTQ+ deal with on a day-to-day basis in their lives."

Organization sees jump in anonymous donations

Steinbach Pride, which is currently preparing for its big Pride march on June 23, says that while it hasn't seen a situation like what's happened in Pembina Valley this year, a lot of businesses choose not to support their events or do so anonymously because they fear boycotts.

"Every single year, we see this kind of thing," said president Christopher Plett."We've even in the past received businesses that were interested in allowing us to hold our meetings [there], and they asked that we just not tell anybody."

Plett said he's noticed an increase in the number of businesses asking to donate anonymously this year, but said that could just mean more peopleare willing to chip in, even if it's not publicly.

"That's not something you'd be sort of excited about, is people not being all openly proud about supporting yourPride organization. But we also have to understand the community and the environment that we operate in," he said.

"Steinbachis a large town, [but] if you are one of the maybe one of the two businesses in town doing a certain type of work, thenfor you to lose numbers, that can be significant."

Northern Manitoba organizers cancelevents, callfor more volunteers

Meanwhile, another organization in rural Manitoba says it's shifting its focus away from running big events this year because it doesn't have enough volunteers.

Thompson-based Pride North of 55 announced earlier this month it won't hold any public gatherings this Pride Month. Vice-chair Caleb Bielak said attendance rates are high, but there areonly a few volunteers who actually help run the events.

"Burnout has been an ongoing issue since as long as I've been a part of the organization," they said. "Alot of us are also working full-time jobs. Some of us have children. And so we decided this year that we were no longer going to put ourselves, our mental health at risk."

Bielak said they hope putting events on hold this year will mean more people step up in the future.

"Sometimes,people get a little bit afraid if they're not in the community,and they might think that they don't have a right to be part of our organization," they said. "But one thing we need more than anything is allies."