Black Lives Matter Protest: BLM Toronto Ousts Police From Toronto Pride Parade

A list of demands from Black Lives Matter Toronto was adopted by members of Pride Toronto at the group's annual general meeting Tuesday night, including the exclusion of police participation at all Pride marches, parades and community spaces.

The meeting was called to elect five new board members and discuss finances, but the resolution to adopt BLM Toronto's demands was added after a group of protesters interrupted the proceedings and insisted the list of demands be considered first, the Toronto Sun reported.

Black Lives Matter protesters marching in last July's Pride Parade sat down at a major intersection on the parade route, stopping the festivities, which were attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Rodney Diverlus, a BLM Toronto co-founder, then read aloud a list of demands, demands that were ultimately adopted at Tuesday's meeting.

In addition to removing police floats from Pride festivities, the demands included increased funding and support for black queer youth, full funding and self-determination for festival community spaces, the reinstatement of a South Asian stage, increased representation in Pride Toronto hiring, and more deaf and ASL interpreters.

Toronto Mayor John Tory released a statement Wednesday praising the police. “Police have had a presence in the pride parade for more than a decade and continue to make meaningful efforts to build bridges with the LGBTQ2S [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgendered, intersexual, queer, questioning, 2-spirited] community. Also, we rely on our police service to keep pride safe every year and obviously they must continue to do so,” the statement said.

Pride Toronto co-chair Aaron GlynWilliams told the CBC pride had already started down the path outlined in BLM Toronto's demands.

"What happened tonight was a vote that simply reaffirmed the commitment and the path that the organization was on," GlynWilliams said.

A four-page statement on the Pride Toronto website addressed the organization's history with the black community.

"Pride Toronto knew that for many years, the black queer community has had to fight for their rightful place in the pride festival — fight for space, fight for recognition and fight for support," the statement said. "For this lack of understanding, effort to address historic wrongs, repetition of past mistakes, we are sorry."

Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said he was unclear about what was adopted Tuesday, but he told local cable station CP24 that Toronto police will continue to reach out to the LGBTQ community.

"We have good relationships. We’ve made progress. We still have work to do. But we are going build relationships, we are going to create new relationships. We will choose inclusion over division. It is a shame people don’t agree with that,” he said.