Mayor John Tory says that he is ‘hopeful’ that the city’s annual Pride Parade could be rescheduled for another date once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided and the city is safely able to return to some level of normalcy.

On Tuesday afternoon Tory announced that he would cancel all permits for major events and festivals through June 30, including the annual Pride parade that had been scheduled for June 28.

Speaking with CP24 on Wednesday morning, Tory said that he made the decision out of a desire to be “straightforward and honest” about the months ahead but is still holding out hope that the annual pride parade can be saved in some fashion.

He also noted that Pride Toronto has told him that Pride Month will still go ahead with a number of events and activities.

“I will give them (Pride Toronto) all the support I can give them if they want to move the parade to another date because it is a fun and important event,” he said. “There is no reason that can’t happen; it is just a matter of them deciding what is best, us accommodating that once they have made that decision and of course this crisis needs to be over.”

On Tuesday the province announced that schools would remain closed through at least the end of April with Premier Doug Ford warning that he would extend the order “even further” if need be.

Tory’s decision to cancel permits for major events, however, suggests that life is unlikely to return to normal for some time after that.

In addition to Pride, the order will affect the Hot Docs Festival, Canadian Music Week, the Toronto Jazz Festival, North by Northeast and others.

“We were just being straightforward yesterday in saying what is the likelihood even if we emerge out of this that we will want to have a million people in the streets in closer quarters celebrating Pride which I love. It is my favourite event I do all year but it just doesn’t makes sense to say that in a very short period of time we will be having huge gatherings of people again when we have a battle to win here,” Tory said.