EDMONTON—After a leaked email Wednesday showed the Edmonton Pride Festival had been abruptly cancelled this year, a flurry of rallies, parties and at least one vigil have cropped up online, as people work to fill the void left by the long-running annual festival that drew crowds in the tens of thousands to the Whyte Ave. area every summer.

But the events reflect the divide in the community that led to the festival’s cancellation, pitting those who say Pride is a protest that needs to do more to push for the rights of marginalized groups versus those who see it as a celebration first.

The Stonewall 50th Anniversary Rally falls firmly in the former camp.

Adebayo Katiiti with RaricaNow, a group representing LGBTQ refugees, said the June 28 event at the Alberta legislature — organized with Shades of Colour and other community members — will address issues like transphobia, racism, and the treatment of sex workers.

“Pride is for Black people, Pride is for the community, not capitalism … Pride is for the kids in (gay-straight alliances) who are literally now struggling to find safety,” Katiiti said.

“We’re not going to celebrate police in Pride. We’re not going to celebrate banks in Pride. Pride started with nothing, it’s a protest. We don’t need money to organize that.”

The event had more than 3,400 people marked “going” or “interested” on Facebook by Friday afternoon.

RaricaNow and Shades of Colour brought a list of seven demands to the Pride Festival Society last month, including a vigil to “honour the lives of LGBTIQ2S+ activists and community members that were lost due to systemic oppression, including transphobia, racism, classism, capitalism, etc.,” to be part of this year’s now-cancelled festival.

Three of their demands involved money, including $20,000 for each of their organizations to create “well-funded QTIBPOC specific spaces at Pride.”

The festival society invited representatives from the two groups to its April 4 board meeting to voice their concerns and be present for a vote on the demands. The groups brought at least 20 more people with them for support, however, and when they refused to leave, police were called.

On Monday, the festival board decided it was cancelling this year’s festival “in light of the current political and social environment.” Board members have declined to speak on the record due to security concerns.

Katiiti, who is from Uganda, said people of colour are having their voices silenced by the festival society and other prominent LGBTQ organizations in Edmonton, who he feels are unwilling to acknowledge and be accountable for the struggles faced by marginalized people.

“It’s causing so much pain to people who are marginalized — to Black people, to people of colour, LGBTQ refugees. Their voices are being turned down,” he said.

“My friends have been stoned to death (in Uganda). And Pride is celebrating? Is there anything to celebrate, really?”

The Stonewall riots, a series of demonstrations by the LGBTQ community after police raided New York City’s Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, were a landmark for LGBTQ rights movements in North America.

Stonewall was also going to be the theme of this year’s Pride festival.

But Edmonton’s LGBTQ community is divided over the demands put forward by RaricaNow and Shades of Colour.

One of the biggest events to crop up on Facebook for June 8 — initially slated as the day of the Pride parade — is Pride March 2019, organized by event production and management company Pure Pride Entertainment Inc.

Dale Albert, a producer with Pure Pride who served on the festival board for several years, said he was shocked to learn this year’s event was cancelled. He characterized the activist groups’ demands as “ransom” and “bullying.”

He was specifically opposed to the financial requests, saying the festival society operates on a shoestring budget.

“Quite frankly, I think it needs to be ignored. It’s like a baby throwing a tantrum, and I think it’s very immature and irresponsible,” Albert said.

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In his 18 years of working with the festival, he said that as a disabled person, he feels the society has always been inclusive.

Albert said the festival has dealt with many conflicts and protests over the years and always pulled through, including some complaining the community was “selling out” by bringing in TD Bank as a sponsor.

By Friday afternoon, his event had close to 2,200 people “going” or “interested.”

Another of the hastily created Facebook events gaining traction is called Pride in the Park Revamped, planned for End of Steel Park on June 8. By Friday afternoon, it had more than 2,400 responding as “going” or “interested.”

Its organizer, Jacqueline Jones, said she already has a small group of volunteers meeting to start planning this weekend.

Albert said nothing has been planned for his event and a location has not been chosen, but he is willing to work with the city or merge with other events.

“There’s a lot of people feeling very desperate. I’ve had hundreds of people come forward saying, ‘I’ll help. What do you need me to do?’ So just hold tight and we’ll figure something out,” he said.

If his Pride March catches on, Albert said he would not do anything to address the concerns of Shades of Colour and RaricaNow. “They’ve always been included, so there’s nothing that needs to be changed,” he said.

Katiiti said some LGBTQ groups in the city are privileged enough that they can’t see what others are going through.

RaricaNow and Shades of Colour are working with other arts and community groups like Nextfest, Evolution Wonderlounge, Black Arts Matter, and the Alberta Public Interest Research Group to organize smaller events around the Stonewall anniversary rally.

Katiiti said some of those events could include talks by members of the LGBTQ community who are sex workers, nonbinary, transgender or disabled, as well as movie screenings about LGBTQ rights activist Marsha P. Johnson and challenges faced by LGBTQ communities in other countries.

Amid the tension and anger circulating over the festival cancellation, Katiiti is hopeful that an understanding can be reached.

“We need to work together,” he said. “We need to calm down and listen and know what is going to take our community forward when everybody feels safe, when everybody feels included, when everybody’s voice matters, when our stories matter, when our pain is listened to.”

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