Some also took selfies with the Prime Minister.
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The next afternoon, the Dyke March celebrated its 20 anniversary, with an estimated 10,000 spectators in attendance.
A group of marchers, dressed in pastel-coloured robes, each carried signs with the name of an Orlando victim as they worked their way down the route.
The shooting also means security is be higher than normal at this year’s parade.
Canada is exploring gender-neutral options on identity cards, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told local television station CP24 on Sunday at a Toronto gay pride parade. Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mayor John Tory, and all of the major candidates for the Conservative leadership are expected to participate.
“The good part of it is that so many people came together”, said Aydian Dowling, the parade’s worldwide grand marshal, of this year’s parade in the wake of the horrors in Orlando. “It shouldn’t be a big thing that the prime minister is walking in the Pride Parade and from now on, it won’t”.
Black Lives Matter – Toronto organizers are calling on Mathieu Chantelois, Pride’s Executive Director and the Pride Co-Chairs to accept the protesters demands, and formally declare their commitments to creating a Pride more welcoming of Black LGBTIQQ2S people and our allies.
“When we accepted this year’s Honored Group status from Pride Toronto, it was with the clear intention of using this platform to address what is a historical and current culture of anti-Blackness deeply embedded in the Festival”, said Alexandria Williams, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto.
In February, Pride Toronto invited Black Lives Matter to help lead the parade, praising the group for its fierce protests about how police in the city treat black people – specifically, the practice of carding and the shooting death of Andrew Loku. Earlier that week, Saunders had attempted to apologize for the gay bathhouse raids that happened 35 years ago.
For all the spectacle and pageantry of Pride, it seemed Trudeau was the focus for many standing along the parade route and perched on roofs of Yonge St. buildings.
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The protest was staged at College and Yonge Sts.by members of the Black Lives Matter parade group. The sit-in ended peacefully and the parade continued. “It was becoming more of a tourist event that had making-money for people as its focus”, McCaskell said.
