As pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupt celebrations elsewhere in North America, organizers say they’re prepared for any eventuality at the Montreal Pride parade on Aug. 11.
This LGBTQ2+ Pride season has become a summer of discontent, as pro-Palestinian protesters at celebrations across North America question sponsorship ties to companies connected with the war in Gaza.
On June 2, protesters blocked Philadelphia’s Pride parade, chanting and holding a banner that read “no pride in genocide.” In Boston, three protesters were arrested during the city’s June 8 Pride parade. Demonstrators also disrupted New York City’s parade on June 30, the same day protesters forced Pride Toronto to terminate its parade mid-route.
The largest LGBTQ2+ Pride gathering in the francophone world, Fierté Montréal begins Thursday and says it is prepared for any eventuality at its annual parade on Aug. 11.
“Organizing Pride is not like organizing a Santa Claus parade or a music festival,” says Fierté Montréal executive director Simon Gamache. “There are 188 registered contingents in our parade this year and while they are historically marginalized communities, we have to take care how we order the parade, because sometimes this group doesn’t like this other group. It is an extremely complex puzzle. Whatever your cultural, religious or political affiliation is, we have to respect the dignity of our people, of everybody in the parade.”
“Our organizing team believes that corporate Pride is antithetical to the fight for queer liberation,” Trans March Montréal stated, adding that it denounces “any suggestion that capitalism can be compatible with an equitable and just society.”
“Any Pride organization openly welcoming banks, conservative parties and war profiteers should be boycotted and shamed,” the statement continued. “Pride cannot be a parade for capitalists and warmongers to pretend to care about queer people while exploiting them.”
TD Bank is listed on the Victoria Pride Society’s website as one of its “most impactful partners.” The Times Colonist reported that pro-Palestinian protesters said they “had specifically chosen to stop the TD Bank float because of the bank’s association with Israel-based Elbit Systems and weapons manufacturer General Dynamics, two companies that protesters accuse of being complicit in the war in Gaza.”
While Fierté Montréal collaborated with Trans March Montréal organizers last year, talks this year fell apart.
“The trans march is important, but they decided they didn’t want to be with us for many different reasons, and that’s fine,” Gamache says. “The LGBTQ2+ ecosystem is very complex. We don’t have to agree with each other on everything, but I think we should all respect the diversity of perspectives and tactics.”
Trans March Montréal co-organizer Celeste Trianon dismisses the thought of a rapprochement with Fierté Montréal happening any time soon.
“Pride fundamentally was a protest that began with the Stonewall riots,” Trianon says. “It isn’t good enough for Fierté Montréal to just pay lip service.”
Asked whether she will participate in any possible pro-Palestinian protest during Fierté Montréal’s parade, Trianon replied: “I’m actually not part of any organizing for any events on Aug. 11. I don’t know what’s going to happen that day, but I anticipate something will happen.”
Gamache won’t reveal Fierté Montréal’s strategy, but says the organization began drafting an action plan in the spring. He says Fierté Montréal is also talking with pro-Palestinian activists whom, he adds, have said they currently have no intention of stopping the parade.
“The core of our action plan is to ensure the security of everybody present — whether marching or standing along the parade route,” Gamache says. “We have hired 219 people (to secure the parade route); there will also be 150 volunteers and the police. It will be safe.”
“There will always be a place for dissent at Pride,” Deir says. “I remember when Pervers/Cité was against the corporatization of Divers/Cité, that didn’t stop some of their members from participating in Pride, joining contingents to express and publicize their views on whatever issues they were dealing with at the time.
“But if you spout hatred and antisemitism, that’s a no-go and you need to be removed. And if your demonstration forces the cancellation of Pride, then you’re hurting the very people you should be engaging with.”
Deir also believes Fierté Montréal must move its main site from the Olympic Park esplanade to the downtown Quartier des spectacles, where this year for the first time Fierté Montréal has a stage on the Esplanade Tranquille until Aug. 4.
That’s an about-face from 2012, when Divers/Cité was forced to move out of the Village to the Jacques-Cartier Pier in the Old Port, a move that killed the queer arts festival in May 2015. Divers/Cité had to relocate its major stage on Berri St. because the new bus terminal opened in December 2011.
“What other venue except the Place des Festivals (in the Quartier des spectacles) can accommodate us?” asks Gamache.
Deir likes Fierté Montréal’s parade route from the historic former downtown West Village (which was centred on Stanley St. until 1984) to the current Village in the east end, but says the parade alone does not provide enough visibility — which is a primary goal of Pride.
“The irony is police raided our bars and nightclubs in the old West Village when former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau wanted to ‘clean up’ downtown for the 1976 Olympics,” Deir says. “Now we’re stuck in that hellhole at the Olympic Park!”
Because Montreal’s Pride festivities have generated tens of millions of dollars in economic spinoffs over the past 30 years, Deir believes Fierté Montréal has earned a place at Place des Festivals.
“Pride is all about visibility,” Deir says. “Do whatever it takes to bring the entire festival back downtown. Change your dates if you have to. If the Fierté Montréal festival continues at the Olympic Park, the festival will die a slow death.”
