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Scene: Rainbow Flag-Raising at City Hall

By Hamutal Dotan

WHERE: Nathan Phillips Square
WHEN: 12–1 p.m. today
WHAT: Every year, the rainbow flag gets raised at City Hall, to mark the opening of the Pride festival. Today, unlike previous years, our mayor was not on hand to take part in the ceremonies himself. Instead he sent the ever-affable Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston), who told the booing crowd that if they didn’t want to hear her speak on behalf of the mayor they “ha[d] the right to leave.”
So, there was that. But there were also people dressed up as kiwi fruits and friendly aliens, and for the first time ever a class of preschool kids, each clutching a mini rainbow flag of their own. There were more councillors in attendance than ever before—a show of force in the face of criticism that City Hall isn’t as welcoming of the queer community as it once was. And there was, to balance Nunziata’s abrasiveness, the calming leadership of Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale), who reminded the assembled crowd that this could still be a celebration.
Photos by Ryan Walker except where noted.

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  • rich1299

    Wong-Tam is showing herself to be an excellent councilor even if she is a rookie. This would have been an ideal event for Ford to attend to start medning fences with the city's LGBTQ population, all he would have had to do is read the proclamation and say a few nice words but apparently that was way too much for him to manage. Mind you it seems since Ford was elected he hasn't had much to say to the public at all, at one point even sending his Mom out to talk to the media for him, what a joke of a mayor Ford is, if he had attended the flag raising today those protestsing his absence wouldn't have been the story.

    I hate how Ford's refusal to acknowledge the LGBTQ popualtion of this city has emboldened the anti-gay crowd to write nasty letters in many paper's online comments sections attacking LGBTQ Torontonians, at least the Star filters out the ones that advocate violence against LGBTQ Torontonians, mind you I've been told the Sun has also started filtering out comments that advocate violence but in the past they and the NP would print commnets from anti-LGBTQ readers saying such things as Hitler had it right on homosexuals and one from a guy who said  all he needed was a machine gun and plenty of ammo when he attends the Pride parade. There have been many such comments adovcating violence in the NP and Sun. I'm usually all for free speech but I'm glad the Star filters out the violent comments and perhaps the Sun too this year, the above violent comments were from the Sun's stories on Pride last year. There has still been plenty of nastiness this year too though.

    I wouldn't be surprised if turning citizens against one another is a deliberate ploy of Ford's to avoid the attention being on his failings as mayor, something he learned from Harper it seems. For example he promised to get Toronto's spending under control but besides token cuts to councilor's expenses he's been spending our tax money like a drunken sailor, on burying the Eglinton LRT the entire route and building an un-needed subway to a low density suburb that LRTs could serve just as well for the forseebale future at at a fraction of the cost, not to mention the massive increase in the TTC's operating budget for many decades to come because of Ford's meddling in public transit. Plus the costs of cancelling the contracts already signed for TC as well as cancelling the VRT, and now he wants to spend our tax money to remove bike lanes. When is he going to get around to getting spending under control? all he's done so far is spend spend spend! And you just know its going to be the low income and minorities of this city that will bear the brunt of Ford's cuts even though he promised no cuts at all during the election campaign.

  • EDMUNDOCONNOR

    To the Zeblon3ians, I say: Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

    I just filled out the TPL's survey as part of the Core Services Review, where it tried to get me to 'rank' services. Except that every service was essential. So I refused to play, ranking every service 1st, and leaving some very choice words for Ford and fighting words for the Library Board. Stop the Philistines!

  • http://www.facebook.com/Neesha04 JoAnn Nevermann

    the past action of Mayor Ford has made it abundandly clear thst he is homophobic, thus his ability to lead a large diverse city is questionable. I had the opportunity to discuss the question of “Jewish aprtheid” and the were appalled by the decision of the city to use it as pretense to threaten the funding of Pride – the Jewish LGBT communirty had a large float in the Pride March.
    Some of the public fihgures are suggesting Pride is a celebration. Yes it is a celebration of how far we have come, but it is also politacal. THere are thousands of injustices which are imposed of LGBT people, which need to be exposed and dealt with. and these are the  difficult ones to deal with, like housing, income, concealed oppression, hiring restriction and the list goes on.
    In order to focus on these points or others we have to be political. Being political t will most likely not apeal to politician which will threaten to withhold funding to keep PRIDE statement in line.
    To retain the independence of statement and action we have to decline any contribution from the federal/ provincial/municipal governments
    We have to go back to our roots and protest the injustices which the general
    public has imposed upon us.