Toronto police have been asked by several community groups to withdraw their request to join the city’s annual gay pride parade slated for June 22-24.
Canada’s biggest and most diverse city, Toronto, Ontario, is home to the country’s largest annual gay pride parade.
Uniformed police in the 2016 Gay Pride parade. Last year was the first time since 2000 that police did not take part. Organisers have asked them to withdraw the request participate this year. Photo-Mark Blinich-CP
There have been decades of animosity between the law, represented by police, and the gay community. Indeed, the Toronto Pride Parade grew out of a protest over a police raid of a gay bathhouse in 1981.
Tensions in the last few decades had eased as acceptance of gays in society began to grow. In recent years, police, some of whom are gay, marched in the parade, with uniforms, along with a police float symbolising a slightly better relationship with the gay community.
However in 2016, the group Black Lives Matter, held the parade hostage halfway through by staging a sit in forcing the parade organisers to agree to a long list of demands in order to get the parade moving again.
Among those demands was the removal of police from the parade.
In a highly controversial move, Black Lives Matter Toronto, which had been invited in 2016 as honoured guests in the parade, instead staged a sit-in and held up the parade for about 30 minutes before organisers agreed to their long list of demands. This included excluding police. Photo- Mark Blinch- SP
Following an internal debate among organisers about police participation, the Toronto police did not participate in the 2017 parade, but had asked to join this year.
However, tension has risen again with the arrest of a serial killer who had preyed on gay men.
Police have charged Bruce McArthur has been charged with six counts of first degree murder.;
Members of the gay community now blame police for the delay in detecting McArthur saying the police did not take action when rumours began about a serial killer.
Police Chief Mark Saunders said police might have arrested the alleged killer sooner if people in the community had come forward earlier with vital information.
Letter to Toronto Police signed by several community groups, including the executive director of Pride Toronto
The gay community response is that information given was not taken seriously. In the letter requesting police withdraw their request to participate, the signatories say, that they “recognise steps have been taken to work in collaboration and consultation, to understand what we need to feel safe. This will not be accomplished in one day. The relationship cannot be mended through a parade”.
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