Activists are calling on the executive director of Pride Toronto to resign after an “undemocratic” and chaotic annual general meeting Tuesday shut down debate on the organization’s controversial decision to allow the Toronto Police Service to participate in next year’s Pride parade.

Pride’s decision to reverse a two-year ban on police involvement came in the face of criticism from activists and Pride Toronto members, who say police should not be formally represented at the event while Black, Indigenous, trans and other marginalized communities continue to be subject to police violence.

For the first time in the organization’s history, reporters were denied entrance to Tuesday’s meeting. Pride members sought a point of order on Tuesday night to add the policing issue to the agenda, but the meeting was subsequently shut down, said scholar and activist Punam Khosla.

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“This was pressed and pressed and pressed from the floor. The chair basically tried to shut all the people who were questioning up,” Khosla said. “At the point they were unable to do that, they adjourned the meeting.”

Pride Toronto did not respond to the Star’s request for comment. In a recently published opinion piece in Now Magazine, executive director Olivia Nuamah defended her organization’s move to include Toronto police in the 2019 parade.

“The Toronto Police Service, along with the many agencies that impact all communities of colour, must work together to realize change,” Nuamah wrote.

“This is why we invited them to apply to take part in next year’s parade — we are seeking to start a new relationship, with real and positive outcomes, through doing the actual work it will take to make the change we all seek.”

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But some Pride members expressed disappointment in the organization’s handling of the issue on Tuesday.

“I’m just a general member and I haven’t really decided honestly about police at Pride. That’s one of the reasons I came tonight, I wanted to hear both sides,” said Lynette Dubois.

“Instead of answering us, they delayed everything and when we made a point of order they shut the meeting down. That’s not a meeting,” she said.

“They’ve lost the confidence of a large group of the membership from what I’m seeing tonight.”

Beverly Bain, a black queer activist and professor at the University of Toronto, said the group’s membership has already voted twice against formal police inclusion in the parade.

“This particular board and executive can no longer be trusted to represent queers,” Bain said.

“It’s absolutely clear that this meeting tonight was a complete total failure and disaster on the part of Pride Toronto. It is a major defeat for them,” added Gary Kinsman, a Laurentian University sociology professor and founding member of Pride Toronto’s forerunner, the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee. That committee, he noted, was founded in 1981 with the express aim of protesting police brutality.

“What Pride Toronto is now is nothing like how Pride started,” Kinsman said.

The federal Department of Public Safety recently pledged $450,000 to Pride Toronto to undertake Canada-wide research on policing of marginalized communities.

But some members expressed concern over accepting funding from a body whose mandate includes policing and corrections.

“Pride Toronto started with zero dollars and it can continue with zero dollars,” said Brian De Matos.

“It is more important for the community to be safe than to be funded.”