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Arguing that the “policing institution is an instrument of state violence and oppression,” Black Lives Matter has set out to make Vancouver the third Canadian city to exclude police from its annual pride parade.

In response, an ad-hoc coalition of some of the city’s most seasoned LGBT activists have begun organizing to stop them.

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“Absolutely no banning of the police in Vancouver Pride,” said Metis trans activist Sandy-Leo Laframboise, a 46-year veteran of LGBT organizing.

“Banning the police from the pride parade will undermine our commitment to diversity and inclusion and all the work we’ve done,” said Sandy-Leo. “They want to remove an entity that we’ve been working with for over 40 years.”

Sandy-Leo is one of four who launched “Our Pride Includes Our Police,” a petition resisting a request by Black Lives Matter to remove uniformed police from the Vancouver Pride Parade.

The petition’s co-creators are sex worker rights advocate Velvet Steele; Kevin Dale McKeown, the city’s first openly gay columnist and Gordon Hardy, who co-founded the Vancouver Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s.