Seventeen minutes of amateur video shot by one of the mayor’s closest allies during Pride festivities has set the stage for an intense battle over publically funded events in Toronto.

In the short-term, Councillor Doug Ford suggested the city may withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars in Pride funding already promised to organizers.

In the long-term, the footage, which shows dyke parade participants carrying anti-Israeli apartheid signage, could have drastic implications for every entity that receives city grants, from Caribana to the Toronto International Film Festival.

“We shouldn’t be funding any political messaging at all,” said Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti. “I think that we have to re-evaluate and reconsider everything we do with taxpayer’s dollars, which yes,” also applies to the arts community.

Mammoliti has the support of Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, who wants the city to create a policy that will prevent public dollars being spent on a political message.

Holyday said art grant recipients — which are paid out of the same city fund as Pride — will also need to be scrutinized, but he isn’t sure the same rule should apply to them.

“I do think it extends to all communities, but I’d need to think a little bit more about that,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to say just because a movie is controversial or delivers a political message that it doesn’t deserve our funding.”

On Saturday, Mammoliti — who describes himself as the mayor’s quarterback and is a member of the powerful executive committee — stood on the sidelines of the Dyke Parade documenting what he says are violations of the agreement between Pride organizers and the city.

Earlier this year, Mammoliti demanded a written guarantee from festival organizers that the controversial group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid be banned from participating in Pride events.

QuAIA voluntarily agreed to stay away and in May, council approved funding on the condition that organizers ensure all participants adhere to the city’s anti-discrimination policy.

Mammoliti believes what he saw on Saturday constitutes proof that that promise was broken. The 17-minutes of tape, which Mammoliti plans to edit down, shows about 30 parade marchers expressing pro-Palestinian opinions. Some carry a “Free Palestine” banner. Others call for a boycott of Israeli products. Others chant “End the occupation.” Some are not marching in the parade, but are standing at the sidelines.

Even this, argues Mammoliti, should have been a problem for organizers.

“At the dyke march, it was clear to me that nobody cared about what was happening from the organization standpoint and I have some issues with that,” he said.

But Councillor Shelley Carroll points out that none of these violate the city’s discrimination policy. In April, City Manager Joe Pennachetti found that even QuAIA doesn’t violate the current policy, which prevents the discrimination against people — by age, race, gender, sexual orientation, material status and disability, among others — not a governmental policy.

Mammoliti said he will be sharing his footage with the mayor and his colleagues in the coming days. From there, he would put forward a motion at executive committee to withhold the nearly $130,000 in grant money already committed to Pride organizers. Mammoliti will also look at whether Pride officials should be made to reimburse the city $200,000 worth of in-kind service donations, such as policing and street cleaning.

About a quarter of the festival’s budget, $130,000, comes from the City of Toronto. Pride co-chair Francisco Alvarez said the organization would be bankrupt without the contribution.

On Monday morning, Councillor Ford told Global News “nothing’s ruled out; keep everything on the table” regarding whether funding could be revoked.

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If that were to happen, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, council’s only openly gay member, said the city would absolutely open itself to legal action.

Ford adversary Councillor Shelley Carroll called Mammoliti’s position “dangerous.”

“It’s the broader implications that we have to look at here. What is a political message. Are we part of a nation that honours freedom of speech or not?” she said. “What precedent does it set? Where does your responsibility as a cultural event organizer begin and end? There have to be some parameters.”

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