Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says he will not apologize to Queers for Palestine – Ottawa, after the group blocked the route for Sunday’s Capital Pride Parade in downtown Ottawa.
“I don’t think we want to have a situation where anybody can just block a parade, especially Capital Pride, put a bunch of demands on the table, and the parade doesn’t move forward unless people give in to those demands. I don’t think that’s acceptable,” Sutcliffe said Monday morning at Ottawa City Hall.
“I don’t think that’s a proper way to advocate or discuss the issues that are important to those people, I certainly was not in a position to say, yes, I’ll do whatever they ask.”
Ottawa’s annual Pride parade was cancelled shortly after it began Sunday afternoon, when protesters blocked the route on Wellington Street outside Parliament Hill.
In a brief statement on its Instagram account, Capital Pride announced at 2:40 p.m. the “Capital Pride Parade is cancelled.”
Emily Quaile, a representative with the group Queers for Palestine – Ottawa (Q4P), said it halted the marquee event of Capital Pride “with the permission” of the grand marshal and issued a list of demands.
“We were there because we are the queer community, not something outside, and we were there, in our full rights and our glory and our joy,” Quaile said Monday.
“Then we were told that, after 20 minutes, automatically the parade would be dispersed, I challenged that as an arbitrary number they wanted to stick to that. When it became clear that the mayor would not budge, despite being aware that the parade would then be cancelled if we didn’t move.”
Protesters issued a list of demands to Capital Pride and asked for an apology from Sutcliffe after he, along with several organizations and groups, boycotted the Pride parade last year because of Capital Pride’s pro-Palestinian statement.
“We still don’t have our demands met,” Quaile said. “We have a mayor who is saying that he’s an ally and that he attends the Pride parade every year, but he didn’t come last year. He organized a political protest called a ‘boycott.’ He then is still pretending that he is an ally to us and that’s not how allies work.”
Queers for Palestine – Ottawa said their demands included Capital Pride being “transparent to the community about the commitments they have made and about their pro-Palestine values.”
Sutcliffe ultimately standing by his decision to not attend last year’s event and called the protest inappropriate.“
“Last year, the City of Ottawa made a decision, and I made a personal decision not to participate in the Pride parade,” Sutcliffe says.
“I participated in a bunch of other events during Pride Week to demonstrate my solidarity with the two LGBTQ2+ community. I am always going to be, and I have always been a supporter of the community.”
Quaile says the cancellation of the event because of their protest was unplanned.
“I was confused and at that point, nothing to do about it. We were already leaving, so I guess it’s their call to do what they will with the parades that we had already agreed to leave,” Quaile said.
The Capital Pride Parade began at 1 p.m. Sunday at Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue. The parade was scheduled to travel north on Elgin Street to Wellington Street and then west on Wellington Street past Parliament Hill to Kent Street.
Organizers said at 2:14 p.m. that the Pride parade was “temporarily delayed,” before announcing at 2:40 p.m. that the “Capital Pride Parade is cancelled.”
Organizers said 175 groups and more than 6,000 people registered to participate in the Capital Pride Parade.
Several groups were participating in the Pride Parade, including Ottawa councillors, OC Transpo, the National Arts Centre and school boards.
With files from CTV’s Josh Pringle and Natalie van Rooy
