Since the Halifax Pride Parade on June 20, news outlets have reported that a group of pro-Palestine protesters demonstrated during the event.
While some call this a hijacking of a day meant to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, others see it as standing in solidarity with people who, like many in the queer community, are faced with the full brunt of someone else’s hatred.
Even Premier Tim Houston is reported as not having attended the parade due to a tip from the RCMP. Guillaume Tremblay, a spokesperson for the RCMP, told CityNews that the advice provided was based on “current international events and local disruptions such as protests.”
One such protest caused Toronto’s Pride Parade to come to a halt on June 30, ending early due to a demonstration by pro-Palestinian protesters near the end of the parade. Organizers later cited public safety concerns as their reason for cancelling the remainder of the event.
The stance taken by Halifax Pride? While they did not respond to a request for comment before publication, a post on their website from July 5 indicates they stand in solidarity with pro-Palestine protesters and their cause.
“Halifax Pride has recently reaffirmed our commitment to solidarity with the Palestinian Liberation movement condemning the genocide of Palestinian people and ongoing military occupation of their land,” reads the statement from the website weeks before the Pride Parade. “There is no 2SLGBTQIA+ liberation without liberation for all.”
Pinkwashing at Pride
Alexina St. Pierre-Farrow, the chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students Nova Scotia, was one of the organizers of the protest, which she said was primarily made up of students. She told The Coast that it was her first Pride event in Halifax.
“As a member of the queer community, I feel it’s important for me to be there and represent my community in a way that is celebratory, but also meaningful,” she said.
St. Pierre-Farrow said the protest started near where the corporations began, though admitted they gained the most attention near the end of the parade when they regrouped and stood in front of the military.
“All of us were very against the military being there,” said St. Pierre-Farrow. “So we decided to block them and they eventually turned around.”
She says many of the protesters, including herself, were against corporations taking part in Pride as they consider it pinkwashing—covering up their potential ethical issues by performatively participating in queer events. They felt similarly about the military.
“A lot of the genocide is being pinkwashed,” she explained. “There’s an effort to portray it as somehow pro-queer liberation, which quite frankly, is bullshit.”
One of the sponsors for the event, TD Bank, was listed on the BDS Coalition’s ‘Boycott List of Shame’ as having shares in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer.
Halifax Pride was transparent about funding from TD Bank, with their July 5 statement acknowledging that nine per cent of their budget had come from their sponsorship.
“While this agreement has already happened, we can commit to transparency around where this money was spent this fiscal year and how it impacted our overall budget, as well as committing to investing in examining creative funding options for next Pride through active community dialogue,” reads part of the statement from Halifax Pride.
However, for future Pride events, Halifax Pride says they will be “engaging in open, accountable and creative ways with funding options that are not named on the Canadian BDS list,” and will commit to a performer review process to ensure they “align with our mandate and our statements pertaining to anti-racism, local and global Indigenous sovereignty, and Palestinian Liberation.”
While tents bearing the TD logo were still present at the parade, St. Pierre-Farrow said she hadn’t seen their float, assuming they may have backed off from the event.
“What we were most directly protesting was the involvement of these corporations that are also funding genocide, appearing in the Pride Parade as if they have our best intentions at heart, which they don’t,” she said. “Most of us are against corporations being involved in Pride at all.”
‘Most people were very supportive’
When asked how their message resonated with parade-goers, St. Pierre-Farrow said it was mostly positive.
“Most people were very supportive,” she explained. “It’s worth noting there [was] a very small, very vocal group of people yelling at us and telling us to go home. These people, there were only about five of them, but some of the reporting that was done on this made it look like a much larger group, but it was quite a small minority.”
She also stated that, in her opinion, those who countered their protest were “white or at least white-passing,” and as an Indigenous person who has been a part of queer communities for most of her life, she said she found their reaction to be coming from a place of privilege.
“It gave the impression that these were white queer people who still have a lot of privilege, and who feel threatened when they see queer people of colour say, ‘Hey, we still want Pride to be revolutionary.’”
And while it may seem like queer pride and Palestinian liberation may not be inherently connected, St. Pierre-Farrow explained that Pride itself started as a protest.
“Pride began as a protest, and for people to be against the idea of any kind of protest at Pride are missing the point of Pride entirely,” she said. “And I do think we need to have peaceful celebrations, but I would question the ethics of having a purely peaceful celebration when we’re living in a global genocide.”
She added that most of the rights we have today come from protests, whether it be a women’s right to vote, rights for students, and even queer rights.
“Pride belongs to us. It belongs to queer people. It doesn’t belong to corporations, even if there are queer people who work there. It belongs to us. It doesn’t belong to capitalism or the military.”
