This content was created by Xtra’s branded content team alongside BMO, separate from Xtra’s editorial staff.
Some of the earliest Pride events in Canada were nothing like the multi-day festivals and blocks-long parades we see today. Several were simple affairs with only a few handfuls of people, sometimes covering their faces, who wanted to be seen and heard.
The evolution of Pride is more than what we see along parade routes or attending festival events. Today, organizers are focused on ensuring inclusivity, so the widening 2SLGBTQ+ community feels represented and welcome at Pride.
It is all about helping to shape Pride so it continues to reflect the diversity that exists in the queer community—and for new generations.
The birth of Pride
The roots of Pride in Canada date back to Aug. 1, 1971, a little over two years after homosexuality was decriminalized with the passing of Bill C-150 by the House of Commons. About 300 people attended the first Gay Day Picnic at Hanlan’s Point as part of a fundraiser to send community members to Ottawa to mark the anniversary of the bill. The event, which is said to have included a tablecloth with “Canada the True, North, and Gay” on it, was considered the first pride event in the country.
Throughout the 1970s, Pride Weeks and Pride events would be held sporadically in Toronto and other Canadian cities, such as Winnipeg’s first Gay Pride Week in October of 1973, Vancouver’s Pride events in the summer of 1973, and Montreal’s first Gay and Lesbian Pride Week in June 1979.
It was in Vancouver that the first Pride march specific to a letter in the acronym occurred. On May 16, 1981, more than 200 women took part in Canada’s first Lesbian Pride March, which was part of the fifth Binational Lesbian Conference in the city. A couple months later on Oct. 17, 1981, Toronto’s first lesbian Pride march—Dykes in the Streets—was held. It was in 1996 the Pride Toronto held its first official Duke March, which attracted 5,000 participants. By 1998, participation had more than doubled to 12,000.
The year 1981 was also notable for the start of two modern Pride festivals. In Toronto, the current annual celebration dates to June 28 of that year, when around 2,000 people marked Lesbian and Gay Pride Day. Just over a month later, on Aug. 1, more than 1,500 attended its first official Pride Parade in Vancouver.
As the 1980s continued, Pride extended to several other Canadian cities. Edmonton held its first march on June 24, 1980, with 40 people taking part under a theme of Pride through Unity; Manitoba held is first Pride march on Aug. 2, 1987, with about 250 participants; and Halifax on July 1, 1988, with around 75 people marching. In all three marches, some participants wore bags over their heads in fear of being identified or for safety amid concerns of violence.
Amplifying inclusivity
As Pride festivals grew in the 2000s, so did their representation of more members of the 2SLGBTQ+ acronym and their allies. In Toronto, for example, the city’s official proclamation of Pride Week in 2001 included, for the first time, the mention of bisexuals, transsexuals and transgendered persons.
That same year the grand marshal of the Toronto Pride Parade was transexual videographer and performance artist Mirha-Soleil Ross. Ross was the founder of Counting Past 2 Trans Arts Festival, which was the first of its kind in North America and was held for several years in Toronto starting in 1997.
It was during the second half of the 2000s that trans representation in Toronto Pride increased. The 2008 festival included performances by trans artists from across North America and saw Enza “Supermodel” Anderson, a trans woman who was a local media personality and ran for mayor of the city, named the Pride Parade grand marshal.
On June 26, 2009, the first Trans March took place in the city, when a march along Church Street from Bloor to Wellesley streets saw the participants push through a barrier to join the main Pride Parade.
Today, marches and events are held in several cities during Pride, like the Vancouver Trans Pride March and Fierté Montreal’s Trans March.
July 2025 marked the first official Indigenous Pride event in the country. The celebration was held at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario for two-spirited people. The term two-spirited was coined 35 years earlier at the Third Annual Intertribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg in 1990. In fact, the following year, Pride Toronto named “Two-Spirited People of the First Nations” as the grand marshals of its parade.
Several Canadian Pride celebrations now include Indigenous events and representation, such as Hotlatch Pride featuring queer Indigenous artists at Vancouver Pride in 2024, and the Indigi-Queer Gayla held during several Edmonton Pride festivals.
More and more, today’s Pride festivals are focused on celebrating the diversity that exists within the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Schedules feature programming created by and for Latinx, Black, Pinoy, South Asian, Asian and other communities and their allies. There are also family-focused, sober-oriented, and bisexual- or asexual-specific events along with others.
And it doesn’t end there. As Canada’s Pride festivals continue to evolve, they strive to hear from more of their diverse communities so they can better reflect the experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ people.
“This is your space to be heard,” Pride Vancouver notes on its website. “Whether you have feedback on this year’s events, ideas for the future of Pride, or reflections on how we can better serve our communities.”
SOURCES: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca, pridetoronto.com, arquives.ca, edmontonpridefest.com, vancouverpride.ca, fiertemontreal.com
Why you can trust Xtra