LGBTory Canada marched in Ottawa’s Capital Pride Parade on August 27, along with two Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MPs, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PCPO) Patrick Brown, and a number of other LGBT conservatives and allies. As has now become routine, activists from Black Lives Matter briefly disrupted the parade and presented organizers with a list of demands. The incident has been reported uncritically in the press and the underlying nature of the protest has gone largely unnoticed: BLM’s Pride protests are pushing a hard-left, anti-capitalist Marxist agenda.

This is how he CBC reported on the protest, and it’s typical of the coverage the event received:

The protesters provided a list of 20 demands, some which echoed similar demands by Black Lives Matter protesters in Toronto, including not allowing officers to march in uniform, have weapons or Pride-themed vehicles in the parade.

They also requested a bag check area for participants to leave their belongings, accessible childcare spaces and free transportation after Pride events.

One item the group wants reinstated is the terms of reference for the Ottawa Police Service’s GLBT liaison committee, along with a commitment to implement suggestions from the committee and incorporate LGBT members in police governing bodies.

Sounds fair enough – black people have a troubled relationship with the police in many cities, although one struggles to find a connection between black oppression and free bag check areas. Take a look, though, at some of the demands made in Ottawa:

Demand #9: “Prohibit companies who own or sell land from participating in Capital Pride events.”

Demand #11: “Prohibit banks from participating in the Capital Pride Parade”

Demand #20: “No logos printed on the design of the pride flag”

The rest are an assortment of anti-police sentiments and identity politics shibboleths, but it is the anti-capitalist theme that has gone mostly under the radar. As conservatives, we believe that a strong free-market economy offers the best opportunities to all people, gay or straight, black or white. Everyone who has a chance to participate in a capitalist economy benefits, and conservatives believe in removing barriers to that participation rather than dismantling the system altogether.

That is why it is so disturbing to us to see extreme leftists co-opting the LGBT community and purporting to speak on our behalf to push their Marxist agendas, and why we are concerned that civil authorities and Pride organizers cave in so easily to these protests. It’s why we march in Pride parades – to counter the accepted wisdom that the LGBT community as a monolithic whole leans left politically.

Extreme-left activist groups target Pride parades for a reason – they know that many in the LGBT political movement are consumed by identity politics and will acquiesce when these demands are made. Governments are reluctant to criticize for fear of being labelled homophobic or racist. The press accepts all this without investigation or analysis.

Just in case you’re skeptical about the Marxist undertones of the BLM protest in Ottawa, here’s one more sight from the Capital Pride parade that we saw as we marched past the BLM protesters just before they broke through a police cordon to block the street – a hammer & sickle flag flying over it all. I haven’t seen one media outlet report on this, and that is a problem.

Eric Lorenzen

Hastings County, Ontario