Liberals’ Ottawa Pride boycott sparks further division, concerns over conditional solidarity
The Liberal Party’s decision to withdraw from official Capital Pride events in Ottawa last weekend following a statement by its executive in solidarity with Palestinians and accusing Israel of genocide will continue to ripple “within and beyond,” say LGBTQ+ community members who feel excluded by the party’s decision and hurt by an appearance of conditionality in its solidarity.
Ottawa’s Capital Pride parade marched down Elgin Street on Aug. 25 without incident or disruption despite a week of controversy and several big-name sponsors, school boards, hospitals, and both the federal and provincial Liberal parties withdrawing their participation over its statement in solidarity with Palestinians and condemning Israel’s war in Gaza.
Roughly 5,000 residents attended and marched in the parade alongside more than 100 organizations and floats despite withdrawals by other groups like the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and the Public Service Pride Network.
The list of withdrawals snowballed into the double digits just as the Capital Pride festivities were beginning, following Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s condemnation of the executive committee’s Aug. 6 statement expressing solidarity with Palestinians, accusing Israel of “pink washing” and genocide, and committing to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
While the official parade route was shortened by nearly half after Capital Pride learned that Ottawa Police Services would only provide 16 officers this year rather than the 33 it provided in 2023, the event continued as scheduled and without the disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that blocked the Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto Pride parades earlier this summer.
Additionally, marching alongside the “Queers for Palestine” contingent—the largest of the parade segments featuring white and black keffiyehs, watermelon insignias, and signs reading “Stonewall was an Intifada”—were unofficial contingents of those organizations which had officially withdrawn.
Fae Johnstone, an Ottawa-based trans advocate, told The Hill Times that the decision by the federal and provincial Liberals to withdraw would provide cover to far-right politicians to further a false narrative that the Queer movement is “radicalized and out of touch.”
“I also think it says a lot about the Liberals and the public service that they would pull out of the parade without consulting their Queer and trans members,” Johnstone said while marching alongside union members from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Alex Silas, PSAC’s regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region, called the decision by the Liberals and other organizations to withdraw from the parade—including the Public Service Pride Network—“an overreaction.”
“Pride is about solidarity with the 2SLGBTQ+ community. It’s about celebrating love and inclusivity. So to have pulled out, I think, was a misguided and hypocritical thing to do,” Silas told The Hill Times. “The thing about solidarity is you don’t get to pick and choose when you’re an ally.”
Silas said his expectations for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.) marching in the parade hadn’t been very high previously, and he wondered whether the Liberals’ decision not to participate would provide cover for the Conservatives to remain mostly absent in the future.
“I think every political party should see it as its duty to represent their full community, so I don’t think it’s acceptable for the Conservatives to not participate in Pride, but I also don’t think it’s acceptable for the Liberals to pick and choose when pride is vanilla enough for them,” Silas said.
Johnstone said she had also received texts and phone calls from traditional party supporters and Liberal staffers who were “disappointed and honestly hurt” by the decision.
Johnstone declined to share the messages she had received, but said staffers have reached out to her and others to make it known that the decision was “not unanimous.”
Speaking with The Hill Times on a not-for-attribution basis to share their opinions freely, former and current Liberals staffers and volunteers confirmed that the response to the party’s withdrawal was decidedly mixed.
In a letter shared with The Hill Times, which had been signed by more than 100 of those staffers and volunteers before it was delivered to the party’s national board of directors, the decision was described as “extremely distressing,” and unrepresentative of the party’s 2SLGBTQI+ members due to a “complete lack of consultation.”
“Pride is a place where 2SLGBTQI+ people feel welcomed and protected. It is not a tool for the [Liberal Party] to use for performative allyship until it gets difficult,” the letter reads.
The former cabinet staffer who shared a copy of the letter said that following the party’s decision to withdraw from Capital Pride, when he receives a call looking for donations or advice from former colleagues, “that call is going to start with a conversation about this” from now on.
“There might be some calls that I just don’t pick up any more,” the former staffer said, adding that “the bottom line, for me, is that hate groups and far-right politicians are coming for all of us: Jews, Muslims, Queer people, women, and immigrants.”
Speaking as both a Liberal and a member of the Queer community, they said there is a responsibility to support any group targeted by hate—whether antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, or transphobia—but the decision to withdraw from Capital Pride demonstrated that the party has allowed itself to become distracted from that responsibility.
“Pride is a protest against hate, and it’s always been a protest, and this year, we’re protesting the people who have chosen not to show up for us.”
Johnstone said the Liberals’ decision to withdraw will cause “ripples within and beyond the party that will become extremely significant,” adding that the public service, school boards, and corporations who withdrew will find “a whole lot of very disgruntled, very hurt employees—including Queer, trans, Muslim, and Palestinian employees who are stunned by a unilateral decision that’s been made without input, discussion, or dialogue.”
Johnstone said that even those who did not feel strongly about Capital Pride’s statement, or who strongly disagreed had been “rubbed the wrong way” by how the decision was made rather than by the decision itself.
Jewish Federation, Liberal Party host unofficial Pride events
Despite the withdrawal, Ottawa-area Liberals hosted their own unofficial Pride event at the Laugh Factory in the ByWard Market on Aug. 25 once the parade had concluded.
A volunteer with the Ottawa Centre riding association who attended the event and spoke with The Hill Times on background said that while many of the attendees had participated in the parade alongside other organizations or attended as individuals, it had been important to provide a venue for those who did not feel comfortable doing so.
Also in attendance alongside Liberal MPs Yasir Naqvi (Ottawa Centre, Ont.) and Mona Fortier (Ottawa–Vanier, Ont.) were Ottawa city councillor Tim Tierney, and Bruce Fanjoy, the Liberal candidate challenging Poilievre for the Carleton riding in the next election.
However, there were no political speeches, with Fortier and Yasir keeping the mood light, the volunteer said, but noted a mixed reaction to the party’s decision.
While the mood was generally positive at the event, the volunteer said the reaction to the party’s “collective decision” was decidedly mixed.
The Jewish Federation of Ottawa (JFO) had a far more well-attended event on Aug. 28, with 200 attendees—plus many more who had been turned away due to capacity restrictions—including German Ambassadors Tjorven Bellmann and Matthias Lüttenberg; Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed; Artur Wilczynski, the University of Ottawa’s special adviser on antisemitism; and Ottawa city councillor Stéphanie Plante.
Temple Israel Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg, who attended the event at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre, told The Hill Times it was a “joyful affair,” and a chance for his community to “proudly celebrate our Judaism and our connection to the LGBTQ community.”
Mikelberg said that the Jewish community has always prided itself on its connection to the Queer community, and that Capital Pride’s statement had been especially hurtful in that context.
Mikelberg said it was “categorically untrue” that he and others had withdrawn over Capital Pride’s solidarity with Palestinians, adding that he personally looks forward to a day where there is a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“We pulled our support because the statement was inherently antisemitic and exclusionary to the Jewish community,” Mikelberg said. “It was completely contrary to the values of love, community, and inclusion that Pride supposedly adheres to.”
Mikelberg said that he had been in conversation with Capital Pride’s leadership since their statement was released to push them to “live their values and recognize their mission,” but ultimately, “they didn’t listen.”
“They felt that they needed to go in this direction, but there are consequences,” Mikelberg said. “And the consequences meant they didn’t live up to their values, and the Jewish community felt pushed apart rather than building neighbours up.”
Liberals’ decision ‘mischaracterized’ by critics, media: strategist Andrew Perez
Liberal strategists Andrew Perez and Dan Pujdak, who supported the decision groups made to withdraw from official events, told The Hill Times they don’t believe the majority of people will view the party’s decision as anything other than explicit disagreement with Capital Pride’s statement.
“This was a standalone decision responding to a standalone decision from a specific Pride board,” said Pujdak, who attended the JFO event instead of the parade this year.
Perez said the Liberals’ statement had been clear, and “left no doubt it has nothing to do with the government’s commitment to the LGBTQ community.”
“I think it’s pretty transparent the party made the difficult decision to pull out, given Capital Pride’s actions, which really have disenfranchised the Jewish community, and made them feel unsafe,” Perez explained, adding that he feels there has been a “mischaracterization” of both Capital Pride’s statement and the response to it.
Perez said that while critics and the media had attributed the withdrawal as a response to a “pro-Palestinian” statement of solidarity, that framing was misleading.
“They didn’t pull their support because of Pride’s allyship with the Palestinian cause, which is certainly noble,” Perez said. “They pulled their support for what I think is more accurately an anti-Israel statement, which creates an atmosphere that is not inclusive and leaves Canadian Jews feeling excluded, and that stokes the forces of antisemitism in this country.”
Perez also challenged those who dismissed the Jewish community feeling unsafe, pointing to the rise in hate crimes targeting that community.
This past March, Toronto Police said that 56 per cent of reported hate crimes in 2024 have targeted Jewish people in that city. On Aug. 21 and 22, hundreds of Canadian synagogues, hospitals, and other institutions were targeted with bomb threats.
Additionally, Perez said that with the inclusion of Capital Pride’s commitment to the BDS campaign and referring to the ongoing war as a genocide—both positions which the government rejects—“their withdrawal makes sense.”
“I think when an organization like Capital Pride wades into foreign policy and—I will say—takes a divisive position that does brush many Canadian Jews the wrong way, I think they’re exercising outside of their mandate,” Perez said, adding that as a member of the Queer community, he was “quite angry” over the “complete diversion from what Capital Pride should be focusing on.”
“Pride is a protest, but it’s also a celebration,” Perez said. “Pride is a time to come together and pledge solidarity on Queer issues in our own backyard, and instead, we have this diversion around a foreign conflict that, despite this solidarity argument, in my view, is not what Capital Pride is and should be.”
sbenson@hilltimes.com
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