Gonna take a breather from news today and just report on what I saw at Pride this Sunday. Papa’s still a touch hungover, so I hope you’ll forgive.
The parade was a lot of fun, even if the spectators did get rained on a bit before it started. But hey, what would the Pride Parade be without thousands of wet onlookers? Unsurprisingly, the Fire Department continued its tradition of starting the watersports.
Speaking of public servants, a few of the floats carried banners sshowing support for the CUPE workers currently on strike, and who later blockaded cleaning crews from picking the mess left after the parade. Spectators did not seem very pleased by these banners, and some even booed.
The award for “Wrongest Float in the Parade” goes to Zipperz/Cell Block:
It wouldn’t be the Pride Parade without politicians shamelessly trying to put their faces in front of a cause they know little about in order to grab some media attention. These four people were the entire Progressive Conservative Party contingent. I’m told that the parade group was small because everyone was recovering from the previous night’s PC convention that crowned Human Rights Tribunal opponent Tim Hudak as the new PC Leader, but I don’t think they get much sympathy from the thousands of gays who had managed to recover from Aqua and the Beef Ball in order to make the parade.
Speaking of politicians, it was nice to see that Grand Marshall El-Farouk Khaki had such a large contingent with him. Why, there were more people there than had voted for him in the federal election last year!
This may be a good time to address the controversy brewing between several Jewish groups, Pride, and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. All marchers were respectful and peaceful, and managed to be on their best behaviour:
In fact, since the QAIA group was followed immediately by the Just For Laughs group, I’m tempted to believe that the whole controversy was an elaborate Just For Laughs Gag — and about as funny as one, really.
Finally, I leave it to the readers to decide: who had the hottest dancers on their float this year: Pink Triangle Press, or TD Canada Trust?
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