Pride Toronto holding town hall meetings on police participation in parade

Black Lives Matter Toronto is warning Pride Toronto to keep its promise to exclude Toronto police from its parade next June as Prideprepares to hostcommunitymeetings Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to gather ideas on how to create a safe and inclusive festival in 2017.

In July, the Pride parade was temporarily blocked by a Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO) protest. The event resumed 30 minutes later after top Pride executives agreed to a list of demands for next year's festival, including a ban on police joining the march.

"We want justice, we want freedom and I believe we will win," said Syrus Ware, a member on the BLMTO steering committee. He wants Pride Toronto to honour the agreement its then executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed after Black Lives Matter halted the parade.

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"These demands are the bare minimum so that we can all feel proud, safe and secure."

The list of demands included more funding for Black Queer youth events, hiring more trans women and indigenous people and banning a police float in future parades.

The next day, Pride Toronto said it never agreed to exclude police from its events, but would have discussions with the force about what its future involvement would look like.

Black Lives Matter interrupts Toronto Pride Parade

8 years ago

Duration 7:35

Activist Alexandria Williams says her group temporarily shut down the parade to challenge 'Pride's anti-blackness'

One month later, Chief Mark Saunders urged Pride Toronto to let police continue to march in its parade.

"We value our relationship with Pride and it is important to us to continue playing an active role in the parade," Saunders wrote in a letter, which was released by police. The letter doesn't mention BLMTO by name, but does make reference to the conflict.

"Despite attempts by some to undermine the relationship between my Service and the LGBTQ communities my Service and I have been grateful for the overwhelmingly positive response from people all over the city, from those inside and outside the LGBTQ communities." Saunders wrote.

Pride Toronto executive director Mathieu Chantelois resigned two weeks later and Ware wants to see the signed demands honoured, including the exclusion of Toronto police.

"That was one of the signs of his ineffective leadership, that Mathieu (Chantelois) was able to turn around 24hours later and say, 'Just joking.We are not honouring the demands,'" Ware said.

If BLMTOcan't secure the commitments at Tuesday's meeting, Ware says it could be time to replace Pride Toronto with another organization.

"We know how to organize and we know how to plan. We could in fact create something new ... if an organization isn't serving us maybe it's time to create something new ... We need an organization that is going to fight for black, queer and trans people and if this organization isn't the one to do that, we are going to have to create something that will."

Pride Toronto would notcomment, sayingthe board co-chairs are declining interviews in advance of the town hall meetings.

There is a town hall meeting scheduled for 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.Tuesday night at the Ada Slaight Hall, which is at 585 Dundas Street East. A roundtable discussion is scheduled for the same location Wednesday, also from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.