This weekend in Toronto, Canada, the LGBTQ+ celebrated its 38th annual Pride Parade on Saturday. According to City News, there were more than 120 groups who showed up in the rain to parade around the city in support of equality for all.

They estimate around a million people were gathered around the parade site. The Toronto Pride Parade is the largest Pride parade hosted in Canada. Some important names in Ontario and Canadian politics were no-shows. The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was in Quebec for a Quebec holiday called Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.

The soon to be Premier, Doug Ford, didn't show up in protest against the exclusion of the uniformed police officers and stated that he will not join until uniformed police are allowed to join once again.

Lights, camera, umbrella at Pride Parade

Many people were out on Bloor and Yonge St. in Toronto where the Pride Parade was held. Unfortunately, it was a little rainy but that didn't stop the masses from coming out and celebrating life, love, beauty, and equality. The parade was a beautiful mesh of color and love that flooded the streets. Even though there was rain it didn't stop anyone from showing off the floats and costumes that they designed and worked on all year. On the City News website, they have a video that shows all the beauty that the parade had to offer this year and how many people stuck around after the parade was finished.

The Executive Director of Pride, Olivia Nuamah, commented that part of the reason why so many people showed up was probably that this is one of the few functions that they are able to meet other people in the LGBTQ+ community in their daily lives. A few people commented on a video that they love attending the Pride Parade for all the love that is shown on the streets during the parade.

Police in uniforms were not permitted to march

Unfortunately, the LGBTQ+ community told uniformed officers that they weren't allowed to join in the activities of the parade. This is the second year that they have been excluded. However, the police may not have been marching, but they were on duty in the vicinity. City News reported that the tension between the LGBTQ+ community and the police started in 2016 when the Black Lives Matter community abruptly halted the parade and demanded several items to be addressed before they would join in and allow the parade to continue and one of them was excluding all police activity.

I was reading the Globe and Mail this week and I learned something odd about the LGBTQ+ community. I didn't know that at one time it was illegal for a man to be with another man. One gentleman was even given a life sentence because of how often the police caught him doing this.

The LGBTQ+ community did accuse the Toronto police of not taking the disappearances of men in the community seriously for many years. What has helped in their relationship with the Toronto police was the charging of Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old landscaper, with eight counts of first-degree murder under his belt.

There was a section of the parade that was in tribute to men that allegedly lost their lives to the accused, Bruce McArthur.

This part of the parade is now called the "Until We're Safe" march. All the members wore black in tribute to all those who have lost their lives and feel unsafe in their lives because of prejudiced people.
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