Massive Pride parade to take over downtown Toronto today
Posted June 23, 2019 4:00 am.
Toronto’s colourful Pride parade will take over the city’s downtown core today.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Toronto Mayor John Tory are among those expected to attend the annual celebration of all things LGBTQ.
Premier Doug Ford has said he won’t participate in the march because uniformed police officers were excluded from the event for a third year in a row.
Uniformed officers were first banned from the parade in 2017 over concerns of racial profiling.
They were banned again in 2018 over criticism the force had not taken the disappearances of several men missing from the city’s gay village seriously.
Serial killer Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty earlier this year to murdering eight men with ties to the gay village.
Leadership of Pride Toronto had initially invited officers to apply to march in this year’s parade, but the membership voted to bar police once again.
The Canadian Press
