More orgs, sponsors following Liberal party lead in ditching Capital Pride
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OTTAWA — With just days before Ottawa’s annual Pride parade, organizers face more bad news after sponsors and an important government partner dropped support.
The City of Ottawa is the latest organization to withdraw from Capital Pride, continuing the fallout from anti-Israel remarks made earlier this month by organizers.
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This comes days after the Liberal Party of Canada pulled out of the parade, one in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau often marches.
While the Ontario Liberal Party also opted out, the NDP and Green Party say they’ll march on Sunday.
The stance also robbed Capital Pride of two major sponsors on Thursday, Loblaws and Giant Tiger.
In a statement, Loblaws cited safety concerns for pulling their sponsorship, while Giant Tiger blamed the organizer’s lack of inclusivity.
“Recent decisions made by the event organizers have raised concerns that the celebrations are not keeping with the spirit of inclusivity and allyship that we strive for,” the retailer chain said in a statement.
Other organizations pulling support include the Bank of Canada, the Public Service Pride Network, the University of Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism, the city’s French and English Catholic school boards, Ottawa’s English public school board and all of Ottawa’s hospitals.
Capital Pride declared solidarity with Palestinians earlier this month, characterizing accusations of anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Gaza as anti-Palestinian racism.
Invitations for comment by the Toronto Sun to Capital Pride went unacknowledged.
Artur Wilczynski, a retired Jewish public servant and member of Ottawa’s LGBT community, told the Toronto Sun he was incensed at Capital Pride’s statement.
“As someone who for over 30 years worked on LGBTQ2+ rights and lived anti-Semitism in Canada, it was quite shocking,” he said.
Among Capital Pride’s allegations is that Israel is “pink-washing” the conflict by painting themselves as a haven for LGBT people in the Middle East, an assertion Wilczynski finds especially offensive.
“The fact that it’s boiled down to accusations that the only reason (Israel is accepting of LGBT) is to ‘own’ the Palestinians, or try to diminish Palestinians, is absolutely repulsive to me,” said Wilczynski, who after coming out in the 1980s spent decades watching the evolution of LGBT acceptance within Canada’s Jewish community and in Israel.
“It smacks of conspiracy theories that the only reason Jews do anything is that they have an ulterior motive.”
Wilczynski, who has attended Pride events for three decades, said Capital Pride’s stance makes the festival unsafe for Jews and their allies.
“Capital Pride decided to take a stand on an issue where, over the past 10 months, Jews in Canada and Ottawa have been subject to unprecedented rises in anti-Semitic hate crime,” he said.
“For us, it’s not only the physical threat, it’s also the mental harm that we see where none of these concerns we’ve expressed are acknowledged, and in fact they’re doubled-down on,” Wilczynski said. “I find that reprehensible.”
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