Montreal requests independent investigation into Pride parade cancellation; festival launches internal probe

An independent investigation into the last-minute cancellation of the Montreal Pride parade Sunday will take place, at the request of Mayor Valerie Plante who met with festival organizers on Monday.

A probe will aim to shed more light on what led to the abrupt cancellation of the event.

“We need to have the answers on why this happened, what happened,” said Jean-Sébastien Boudreault, lawyer and former Vice-President of Pride Montreal.

For its part, Pride Montreal, the organization that runs the city’s annual celebration of 2SLGBTQ+ communities, is conducting an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the cancellation.

“Legally, Pride is funded by not only the government, the federal, the provincial, the municipal, but also by private corporations and private sponsors. They all have contracts saying that you need to put on a certain amount of events, so those people also need to have answers,” Boudreault said. “But the community itself was robbed from its yearly event, and we will have to wait until 2023 to all come back together again and celebrate who we are, so we all deserve answers.”

Mayor Plante tweeting Tuesday morning: “Very satisfied with my meeting with Pride Montreal, which accepted that an independent investigation shed light on the cancellation of the parade and make recommendations to ensure the success of future editions. The Board of Directors assures its full and entire collaboration.”

Très satisfaite de ma rencontre avec @FierteMTLPride, qui a accepté qu’une enquête indépendante fasse la lumière sur l’annulation du défilé et émette des recommandations pour assurer le succès des prochaines éditions.

Le CA assure sa pleine et entière collaboration. #polmtl

— Valérie Plante (@Val_Plante) August 9, 2022

“The reason for a pride to happen is the parade,” said Boudreault. “The parade is the core event of pride, and that’s probably the last event that should be cancelled.”

The decision to cancel the signature event came hours before it was to begin Sunday. The festival’s executive director, Simon Gamache, cited security concerns stemming from a lack of volunteers to ensure the event could go ahead safely. Later, he told LaPresse that they forgot to hire about 100 people.

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Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said Sunday she was not informed of the labour issue before organizers announced the cancellation.

“Imagine you put out a post on Facebook on any kind of social media stating to the community, ‘We’re missing 80 people to help us along the route of the parade. Otherwise, the parade will be canceled,’ You would have had probably a thousand people coming forward,” said Boudreault.

The weeklong festival, which included concerts and other events and ended Sunday, received $600,000 from the City of Montreal.

This year’s festival also received more than $1.1 million from the Quebec government, and the provincial Tourism Department said in an emailed statement that it learned of the parade’s cancellation through media reports Sunday morning. It declined to comment on whether the poor organization of this year’s parade would affect future funding.

“It’s important to mention that although the event was cancelled, the majority of the other activities on the Montreal Pride Festival schedule took place,” the statement said. The department said it has asked to meet with the parade’s organizers to address the situation.

“We worked so hard to get funding for that festival. We worked so hard to have people believe in Montreal Pride, believe in the importance of pride, investing in Pride,” said Boudreault. “I hope that this event will not take money away from Pride.”

Meanwhile, one of the festival’s major sponsors, Loto-Quebec, said the surprise cancellation will not affect its support of the Montreal Pride Festival next year. “Loto-Quebec has been supporting Montreal Pride for several years,” Renaud Dugas, a spokesperson with the organization, said in an emailed statement Monday.

“Last week, several activities took place on the Loto-Quebec stage and at the Casino de Montreal, to everyone’s delight.”

TD Bank Group, the festival’s official presenter, said it supported the decision to cancel the event and would “continue celebrating 2SLGBTQ+ communities.” The bank, however, declined to comment on if it would fund the event in the future.

“TD provides unwavering support to 2SLGBTQ+ communities, and Pride Montreal is a long-standing and trusted partner that we work with in this regard,” TD spokesperson Caroline Phemius said in an emailed statement Monday.

The Societe de transport de Montreal, the city’s transit authority, said on Monday it was “disappointed with the turn of events.”

“We are partners with Pride Montreal and the parade since 2016,” said Amelie Regis, a transit authority spokesperson. “This is an important event for us.”

Pride Montreal initially wrote on Twitter Sunday that the decision to cancel the parade was made with the support of city police. The organization clarified later Sunday that police were not involved in the decision.

Montreal police said in a statement Sunday they were ready to supervise the parade, “and we will be there for every edition.”

The Mayor’s office said an investigation will take place in the next months, with the person leading it to be named in the coming days.

“The goal is to shed light and restore the trust and accompany this very important partner through the process to ensure the success of it,” said a statement from the Mayor’s office. “The process could study, for example, the governance of the organization, the financing, and communication process.”

Many are calling for accountability from Pride Montreal, who declined interviews for Tuesday, saying, “The Montréal Pride team will wait for the results of the investigation to comment on the situation.”

“Right now people are thirsty for Pride,” said Boudreault. “So people would just need to rebuild to make sure that we make it a great Pride for 2023 and people will come and people will forgive and people will forget.”

—With files from Virginie Ann and Stephane Blais, The Canadian Press