True North Strong and Free: Celebrating Pride in Canada

The World’s first Pride parade was held in June of 1969, following a police raid on a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, in New York City. This demonstration marked the beginning of a turning point for the LGBTQ+ community and Gay Rights Movement. Today, this monumental time in North American history is honoured by many cities and communities marking June as Pride Month, and/or holding pride celebrations throughout the Summer.

While protections, rights, and acceptance for members still varies greatly across the world, in Canada, members of the LGBTQ+ community are protected by the Canada Human Rights Act which considers sexual orientation as one of eleven grounds for discrimination. Further, the Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits actions that discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In Canada, Pride festivals take place every year in hundreds of cities from coast to coast, and are supported by Fierté Canada Pride and the Federal government. In recent years, Canada Pride has launched an initiative to host a major National Pride event every four years, with the inaugural Canada Pride taking place in Montreal in 2017, and the next to take place in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2022 (postponed from 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Canada Pride is modeled after World Pride, an international Pride event of a similar structure which began in 2000. In 2014, the city of Toronto was host to the first World Pride event to take place in North America. It’s no surprise that Canada ranks as #1 on the Gay travel index.

The city of Toronto hosts a massive schedule of Pride events every year during the month of June. This year, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, many Pride events will take place virtually, and most in-person events will be live-streamed. While there may be some limitations on events, the virtualization of events may allow people to participate in Toronto Pride from anywhere in the world.

Pride @ the University of Toronto

Pride @ Glendon

As June comes to an end, there are more pride events on the horizon across Ontario. Sudbury Pride, with its aptly sloganed “Queerantine 2.0” celebrations, is slated for the week of July 12th to 18th, while Capital Pride 2021 in Ottawa is counting down to its August 22nd launch.

Sudbury Pride

Capital Pride

University of Ottawa Pride Centre

Learn More about LGBTQ+ Rights and Statistics in Canada.