Canadian Forces and Pride - The Article That Wasn't

In the course of writing the article on the state of gays and lesbians in today's Canadian Forces, several lines of enquiry went out, being as I wasn't sure just what information would turn up where. Given that the decision by Hamilton Pride to ban the CF from their Pride parade was the flashpoint for everything that followed, I tried to follow up on that, to little avail. In the end, the interview with Dr. Irwin became the dominant focus, though lines of enquiry in that interview also didn't make it into the final piece (some of which I'll post here later), but I had a wealth of other material that hasn't yet seen print. I've taken all the information I had, and put up this rough piece in case anyone is interested in what might have been.

While the Canadian Forces lifted the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly and allowing their partners to live on-base since 1992, Hamilton decided this year to ban them from their Pride festivities.

Emily Groom, Hamilton Pride’s co-chair, told the Canadian Press that the organisation had the right not to affiliate itself with institutions that “perhaps may raise human rights concerns,” speaking specifically to countries where the Canadian Forces are posted, like Haiti and Afghanistan.

Hamilton Pride also raised the First Nations standoff in Caledonia, and were apparently taken back when the Hamilton Spectator pointed out that it was the OPP and not the CF that were at Caledonia, but reiterated their point about the perceived violations in Haiti and Afghanistan.

Hamilton Pride, who did not respond to interview requests by both phone and email, previously told media that the decision was made at a private board meeting in April, and that it was a temporary decision.

The basis of the ban, however, came from a complaint raised by a new Canadian who claimed that she feared the military because of persecution by Canadian soldiers in her homeland. The CF denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

The CF did have a contingent of recruiters in the Toronto Pride Parade weeks later, without any of the same fanfare raised by Hamilton.

According to Toronto Pride Executive Director, Fatima Amarshi, the Forces participation was of their own accord, not upon the invitation of Toronto Pride.

“We have a process where it’s an online application, and I don’t believe they actually talked to us or contacted anyone directly,” Amarshi says. “They would have filled out that form, and from that point the Parade Committee would have been liaising with them, but they didn’t formally come to organisation in any particular way—I didn’t get a letter from them or anything.”

She also notes that they filed their application by May 23^rd—long before the Hamilton Pride decision was made public.

Amarshi also says that Toronto Pride does not make any particular statements, which contrasts the position that Hamilton Pride took in their refusal.

“Our position is that anybody who wishes to enter the parade who wishes making a positive and supportive statement of our community can go ahead and do so,” Amarshi says. “Our job is not to have an opinion on the military, for or against it—it’s the community’s right to voice whatever their opinions are, and certainly our community has a lot of different opinions on them, and I’m sure that they made their opinions heard very loudly, but we don’t take a particular view one way or the other.”

The role of the parade is not so much to make a single statement, but to allow others to do so.

“We are the platform by which all of the other groups are able to present their views,” Amarshi notes. “The fact that you have the military entering into a Pride parade, wanting to acknowledge its gay and lesbian soldiers and wanting to have a different relationship with the queer community is a fairly significant change. We’re happy that they’re doing that, and those in our community who have negative opinions of the military are just as free to be in the military to voice those opinions.”

But a Pride parade can still be a political statement, according to Joanne Law, Chair of Ottawa’s Capital Pride.

“I think the way our parade goes down Wellington Street is very prominent, with the Supreme Court of Canada and Parliament Hill, where we have had our rights,” Law says. “Is it a political statement? Yes and no. Is it a march? No. Is it a parade of diversity? Yes. It can be very overlapping with each other, but we are still a political action group.”

In terms of a complaint process, both Toronto and Ottawa have a similar philosophy when it comes to complaints that would banish one group from their respective parades.

“To my knowledge—we have twenty-one different committees and then there’s the staff and the board, so to my knowledge, I certainly haven’t heard any complaints, or nothing’s been brought forward to me,” says Toronto’s Amarshi. “It would really depend on the nature of the complaint, and then our board would make a decision. It would have to be a very significant complaint, unless it’s a matter of hate speech or it’s a matter of basically homophobic or hateful stance towards our community, we’d be very reluctant to tell them that they could not be in the parade.”

The sentiment is echoed by Ottawa’s committee.

“The policy for us, if I got a phone call in, it would right away go to the coordinator who deals with that particular issue,” says Marion Steele, Capital Pride’s chair of sponsorship and marketing. “In this instance it would go to the parade coordinator, and the parade coordinator would speak to it at his or her committee, then it would come to the Operations Committee, whose decision, whatever that may be, would come to the board. The board does have the power to overturn an Operations decision—it’s never happened because if that many people are saying this is what we think is the best way to go, then that’s what we would do. But we’ve never had a complaint of anybody being afraid—we’ve had lots of complaints, but most complaints we would deal at the board level, but for something like this it would go to the Operations Committee.”

In terms of barring any groups from the parade, Steele has had one of note. “We’ve only declined politely one group, and that was the Pit Bull Association,” she says. “We just felt that maybe it would be an issue, with a lot of children, and we could see things happening that we didn’t want to happen, so we thanked them, but we didn’t think this was the best venue for them.