Canada’s largest city, Toronto Ontario, has long been known to be the site of one of the biggest, if not- the- biggest, gay pride parades and parties in North America
Often attracting up to a million people into the city centre, especially on parade day, this year promises to be even bigger, perhaps even double in size and numbers.
This year it’s a 10-day event having been awarded the “World Pride” destination after lobbying five years ago. It’s the first time “world pride” has been held in North America.
It’s now expected to attract vast crowds LGBT members (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transsexual) from countries around the world, with especially large numbers of Americans.
The now massive Toronto event began in limited fashion in the 1970’s with “Gay Days” picnics in the city parks.
In 1981 following a city police raid on “gay” establishments, a large demonstration was held in downtown in the area known as the gay village. From a base in the city and surrounding region, this brought the LGBT community greater cohesion
By 1984 a major street in the “village” was closed for a gay pride event, and as momentum built, in 1991 the city officially declared Pride Day with tens of thousands of participants.
From there the event has continued to build annually and is expected this year with the World Pride designation, to create thousands of jobs and inject 200-300 million into the local economy.
The World Pride celebrations start at 7 p.m. ET Friday at Nathan Phillips Square, with the opening ceremonies featuring performances by Melissa Etheridge, Deborah Cox, and Steve Grand.
The forecast is calling for perfect weather conditions for the next seven days, with sunshine and highs of around 25 degrees days, and 14-18 degrees overnight
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