MONTREAL—A flutter of rainbow-coloured Olympic protest is rising up in rebuke of Russia’s anti-gay laws ahead of Friday’s opening ceremonies in Sochi.

Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and St. John’s, among other cities, have decided to fly the iconic gay pride flag at for the duration of the Olympic Games in solidarity with Russia’s gay and lesbian communities.

The Quebec government is also planning to make a statement by flying the pride flag at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, the site of the 1976 summer games.

“I’m confirming that the mast of the Olympic Stadium will be illuminated in rainbow colours (Friday) night in solidarity with the LGBT community,” wrote Quebec Tourism Minister Pascal Bérubé on Twitter Thursday.

Calgary, which hosted the 1988 Winter Games, isn’t planning any show of protest. Neither is Winnipeg, Edmonton or Toronto, where there is an online petition with 3,000 signatures to light up the CN Tower in rainbow colours.

Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Games, has been the most vocal critic of Russian laws against homosexual “propaganda.” The city has dispatched Deputy Mayor Tim Stevenson to Sochi to lobby for greater awareness of gay and lesbian issues, including the mandatory inclusion of a “Pride House” at each Olympics.

Along with Whistler, the mountain co-host for the 2010 Games, Vancouver will fly the pride flag in front of city hall for the duration of the sporting event.

St. John’s city council kicked off the trend with a unanimous decision to raise the pride flag Friday — the same time as the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Olympics.

Montreal will do the same, unfurling its rainbow colours from a 45-degree flagpole directly above the main entrance to city hall.

“As an Olympic city, and as a large, inclusive metropolis, Montreal is concerned about the rights of members of the LGBT community around the world. This gesture is a symbol of the fraternity and solidarity of Montrealers,” Coderre said in a statement Thursday.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson got the jump on both of his counterparts in eastern Canada, though. When he heard the news out of Montreal on Thursday morning, Watson ordered the pride flag raised immediately at city hall.

“It will fly until the end of the Winter Olympics,” said a city spokesman.

In the House of Commons on Thursday, the New Democratic Party caucus was decked out in rainbow-coloured silk scarves and pocket squares. There are no special plans for rainbow flags or other symbols of official discontent on Parliament Hill, although Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird did send his Russian counterpart a letter last December saying that while Canada has assurances its athletes would not be targeted under the law, such liberties should also be extended to Russian citizens and foreign visitors.

While athletes have been told not to worry about watching their words at Olympic news conferences, a former Russian Olympic champion, Svetlana Zhurova, a gold medallist at the 2006 Games in Turin, has said Sochi isn’t the appropriate site for protest against Russian laws, according to Reuters.

“For the spectators, it is more important who wins than whether he or she is homosexual or not,” the 41-year old former Olympic champion said.

A number of Canadian athletes, including Calgary short-track speed skater Anastasia Bucsis and Vancouver slalom skier Mike Janyk, have joined the group Athlete Ally as Olympic ambassadors who will be promoting the so-called Principle 6 campaign, named after the principle of the Olympic charter which says “any form of discrimination . . . is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

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There are some suggestions the campaign could result in six-finger salutes from the podium as athletes puzzle over how to express their political convictions from the alter of amateur sport.

With files from Daniel Dale

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