Pride Parade

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was front-and-centre at the Toronto Pride parade-the first prime minister to appear at the event while in office, but he seemed to downplay the significance of the gesture, noting he attended the parade before he was prime minister. In his words, “It shouldn’t be a big thing that a prime minister’s walking a Pride parade, and from now on it won’t.”

However, the 36th annual parade was stalled briefly, when activists from the Black Lives Matter movement staged a sit-in along the parade route. The group says it demanded, and won, a ban on police floats and a commitment from Pride organizers to hire more black, indigenous and transgender workers.
The head of Toronto’s police union criticized the ban on police floats, tweeting “shame on Pride organizers.” The sit-in ended peacefully and the parade continued after a meeting between the two groups.